Psychology Research Digest
Emotion - Vol 26, Iss 4
Emotion publishes significant contributions to the study of emotion from a wide range of theoretical traditions and research domains. Emotion includes articles that advance knowledge and theory about all aspects of emotional processes, including reports of substantial empirical studies, scholarly reviews, and major theoretical articles.
Forgiveness updates interpersonal memories to be less negative.
Forgiveness is crucial for restoring social bonds, yet how it shapes impressions of poor treatment remains unclear. Building on memory updating research, we propose forgiveness can change the memory of a negative experience by incorporating information considered during the forgiveness process. On Day 1 of neuroimaging, participants (N = 23, data collected 2022–2023) observed which stimuli two other participants (or “targets”) chose for them to view, believing the targets selected from neutral and negative images (encoding phase). Most chosen images were highly negative, indicating the target had treated the participant poorly. Participants then learned each target’s reasoning, with one being apologetic and the other nonchalant. While still undergoing neuroimaging, participants rated the negative images again while instructed to either “forgive the target” or simply “view the selections again” for the apologetic and nonchalant targets, respectively (experimental manipulation phase). On Day 2 of neuroimaging, participants rerated the images (reconsideration phase). Forgiveness reduced the negativity ratings of the images, an effect that persisted into Day 2. Two brain regions demonstrated that information considered while forgiving was incorporated into the memory of a forgiven act: the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, associated with mentalizing, and the posterior hippocampus, linked to episodic memory. These findings suggest at least one way forgiveness works is by understanding the transgressor, updating related details, and consolidating them into memory. Instead of “forgive and forget,” forgiveness may involve a “forgive and update” process, revising memories to aid reconciliation. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Thu, 08 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>How emotions influence mental visualization through the motivation to forget.
This study investigated how emotional events—specifically experiences of sadness (vs. happiness)—influence individuals’ mental visualization processes, with a focus on how they alter perceived color chroma in visual imagery. Drawing on emotion regulation theory, we propose that people are more motivated to forget sad experiences than happy ones, and this tendency influences how such events are mentally visualized. Specifically, individuals tend to mentally represent sad events with lower color chroma (i.e., reduced vividness, intensity, or saturation) compared to happy events. Results from three experiments involving 939 participants support our theorization (data collected in 2018–2023). Experiment 1 extends prior research by showing that participants mentally represent sad experiences in lower color chroma than happy experiences. This suggests that the color–emotion association exists not only in stimuli-based processing but also in mental visualization. Experiment 2 identifies the mediating role of the motivation to forget the emotional experience in the causal relationship between emotions and color chroma representation. Experiment 3 further indicates that the effect of emotions on color chroma is mitigated when individuals are explicitly prompted to forget emotional experiences. This research demonstrates the role of motivational processes in shaping mental visualization and provides a novel and verifiable explanation for the association between color chroma and emotions documented in the emotion literature (Pazda et al., 2024). (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Mon, 17 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>Suppressing versus expressing anger influences person perceptions of warmth and competence.
Expressive suppression is often considered a maladaptive emotion regulation strategy given its negative effects on psychological and physiological outcomes. However, expressive suppression may help fulfill impression management goals, offsetting some intrapersonal costs. The present research considers this question by examining impressions of others who suppress versus express anger across a large range of situations. Across seven studies conducted between the spring of 2023 and the spring of 2024, participants (n = 2,613; 47.88% women; 67.39% White; 10.07% Black; 8.30% Asian; 7.77% bi/multiracial; 5.32% Hispanic/Latine; 0.77% other; 0.34% Native American or American Indian) read vignettes about people responding angrily or suppressing anger in response to public confrontations. Overall, results revealed that targets who suppressed (vs. expressed) anger were perceived as warmer and more competent. Further, mediation analyses demonstrated that participants were more likely to ascribe more sophisticated minds to targets who suppressed (vs. expressed) anger, which was, in turn, related to warmth and competence perceptions (Study 3). Taken together, participants had more positive regard for anger suppressors than anger expressors, and these effects were generally not qualified by context or by target race or gender. These results suggest that apparently personally maladaptive suppression strategies might trade off against the interpersonal benefits of suppressing situationally inappropriate emotions such as anger. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Mon, 17 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>Speaking about flexibility: Age differences in the variability and situational sensitivity of emotion regulation strategies.
Building on prominent theories of emotional aging (Carstensen, 2006; Charles & Luong, 2013), this study investigated age differences in the variability and situational sensitivity of emotion regulation strategies. We hypothesized that, older, as compared to younger, adults would demonstrate greater temporal variability in their use of emotion regulation strategies and adapt them more flexibly to the perceived controllability of daily stressors. Over 28 days, younger adults (n = 133, Mage = 24.95 years, SD = 2.79, 49% female) and older adults (n = 119, Mage = 69.50 years, SD = 3.50, 61% female) reported their use of cognitive reappraisal and situation modification strategies in relation to their most stressful situation each day. They also rated the perceived controllability of these situations. Analyses revealed multidirectional age differences in the variability of strategy use: Older adults showed greater temporal variability in situation modification but less variability in cognitive reappraisal, compared to younger adults. Additionally, there were significant age differences in how situation modification strategies were adapted to the perceived controllability of stressors. The within-person correlation between stressor controllability and situation modification use was stronger in older adults than in younger adults. In contrast, no such age differences were found for cognitive reappraisal strategies. These effects remained robust even after controlling for various person- and stressor-related characteristics. Overall, our results suggest that age differences in the ability to flexibly adjust emotion regulation strategies to specific situations might depend on the strategy used. Further research should examine additional situational characteristics and emotion regulation strategies. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Thu, 04 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>What can I say to help you? Language associated with successful extrinsic emotion regulation.
When individuals regulate another person’s emotions during a supportive conversation, they can help the person’s emotions improve and nurture social connection. However, little is known about what specifically regulators say when regulating a target’s emotions effectively. In the present research, we examined associations between regulators’ language and targets’ perceptions of emotion improvement, responsiveness, and trust in 114 naturalistic conversations between strangers. We used automated text analysis to assess five language categories in regulators’ transcripts: self-referential words, target-referential words, cognitive processing words, positive words, and negative words. We also manually coded seven tactics (e.g., self-disclosure, paraphrasing) to more closely examine how regulators used language during these conversations. Results showed that when regulators referred more to themselves, targets reported significantly greater emotional improvement and trust in the regulator. When regulators referred more to the target, targets reported significantly greater perceptions of regulator responsiveness and trust in the regulator. These two language categories reflected different sets of tactics: self-referential words significantly related to greater self-disclosure and less information provision, whereas target-referential words significantly related to greater paraphrasing and questioning, and less self-disclosure and emotional expression. Cognitive processing words and emotional words did not significantly predict target outcomes. These findings suggest that regulators’ use of self-referential or target-referential language may play a role in emotional and relational outcomes for targets. Future work may therefore benefit from integrating fine-grained features such as language and tactics into theoretical models of extrinsic emotion regulation strategies. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Mon, 08 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>Emotion regulation and felt security in different-gender romantic relationship interactions: Two dyadic, observational studies.
Statelike felt security can change during romantic relationship conflict when the attachment relationship is threatened. According to theorizing, this change should be associated with the romantic partners’ emotion regulation. The current research leverages two observational studies involving romantic couples (conducted in 2017 and 2018–2019) to test this underexplored aspect of attachment theory. We hypothesized that higher observer-rated actor and partner balanced emotion regulation during conflict would be associated with increases in pre- to postconflict felt security, whereas higher observer-rated actor and partner hyper-emotion and/or hypo-emotion regulation would be associated with decreases in pre- to postconflict felt security. We also examined whether these hypothesized effects would “spill over” to impact levels of felt security after a positive discussion that followed the conflict discussion. Our findings reveal an association between higher observer-rated actor and partner hyper-emotion regulation and lower postconflict felt security while controlling for preconflict felt security levels. Only the actor effect was replicated across both studies, however. No evidence for spillover effects was found. The effects for observed hypo- and balanced emotion regulation were mixed across the two studies. Future research should aim to identify the mechanisms underlying the association between hyper-emotion regulation and felt security change and determine the ways in which hypo-emotion and balanced emotion regulation might be more reliably associated with felt security change. Therapists might benefit by focusing on the use of hyper-emotion regulation during conflict while encouraging positive partner discussions. We propose that a positive discussion may be a means to recover and disrupt a continued cycle of low felt security. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Mon, 08 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>Looking beyond the means and into momentary context: Associations between momentary affect and emotion regulation strategy use in major depressive disorder.
People with major depressive disorder (MDD) experience difficulties in emotion regulation (ER). Most ER research has examined overall strategy use using global self-reports in MDD, but this approach does not capture people’s ER strategy use in daily life in the context of continuously changing ER demands, such as momentary affect. Taking a naturalistic approach, we investigated whether the associations between the use of six ER strategies (social sharing, acceptance, savoring, reappraisal, expressive suppression, and distraction) and momentary affect differed by MDD status. Data collection took place between 2017 and 2019. Adults with MDD and a healthy control group (N = 135) completed 2 weeks of experience sampling (five surveys a day), in which they reported on their momentary negative affect, positive affect (PA), and the extent to which they used the six ER strategies. Analyses were conducted using multilevel modeling. Both momentary negative affect and PA were associated with use of most ER strategies. MDD status did not moderate the association between negative affect and any strategy but significantly moderated the association between PA and two strategies. Specifically, PA was positively associated with the use of reappraisal and distraction for those with MDD only (associations were nonsignificant for healthy controls). Findings suggest that ER difficulties in MDD may be partially attributed to overusing certain strategies or ineffectiveness in using certain strategies during ER episodes. It is important for future research to clarify the directionality of these findings. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Thu, 08 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>Personalizing reappraisal: Leveraging prior beliefs to enhance emotion regulation outcomes.
Enthusiasm for personalized psychological interventions far outstrips our understanding of how to best tailor these interventions to individuals. The first step in bridging this gap is to identify individual characteristics that predict intervention outcomes. Across three studies (N = 444; between 2023 and 2024), we address this issue by examining the role of prior beliefs in reappraisal, an emotion regulation strategy common to many types of psychological interventions. In Studies 1 and 2, we instructed participants to reappraise negative stimuli in a way that was consistent with different beliefs. We found that more belief-congruent (vs. less belief-congruent) reappraisals were more believable and more effective for regulating emotions. In Study 3, we asked participants to rank sets of standardized reappraisals. We found substantial heterogeneity in which reappraisals were preferred and this heterogeneity was partially explained by people’s prior beliefs. This work suggests that, in the context of U.S.-based participants, beliefs may be leveraged to systematically personalize reappraisal interventions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Thu, 08 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>Reciprocal longitudinal associations of loneliness and perceived stress: A random intercept cross-lagged panel model.
The long-term mental and physical health impacts attributed to loneliness may result from its longitudinal association with stress. Yet, the directionality of this association remains unclear. The present study examined the bidirectional association between loneliness and perceived stress across four monthly time points. Participants (N = 1,921, Mage = 48.59, 84% women) completed measures of loneliness and perceived stress between June and September 2021. Data were analyzed using a random intercept cross-lagged panel model, which separately estimated between- and within-person effects over time. Supporting hypotheses, increases in loneliness and perceived stress, relative to expected scores, were each prospectively associated with respective increases in perceived stress and loneliness at the within-person level. In other words, loneliness and perceived stress were reciprocally related over time, even when accounting for their strong, traitlike association. Findings have key implications for methodological approaches to the study of loneliness and stress and inform mechanistic understandings of this association. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Mon, 24 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>Fear and loathing in the laboratory: An experimental comparison of pavlovian fear and disgust learning.
Research suggests that disgust may be more resistant to extinction than fear, with implications for anxiety disorder treatment. Theory suggests that disgust and fear are driven by distinct cognitive learning mechanisms, yet limited research has directly compared them experimentally as most prior work has examined either fear or disgust in isolation, often using different types of unconditioned stimuli (US). In the present online investigation (collected spring 2025), n = 332 participants (i.e., majority White and female undergraduates) were randomly assigned to one of four differential conditioning paradigms, each defined by the emotion and sensory modality of the US: (a) disgust-auditory (DA), (b) fear-auditory (FA), (c) disgust-images, or (d) fear-images. Participants rated the conditioned stimuli (CSs) using a standard US expectancy scale to assess expectancy learning and using discrete emotion ratings (fear and disgust) and valence ratings (pleasantness) to assess evaluative learning. During acquisition, the DA condition showed the strongest learning when measured via discrete emotion ratings, while the FA condition showed the strongest and fastest expectancy learning. DA was also the most resistant to extinction across both evaluative measures. No group differences emerged for reinstatement based on evaluative indices; however, FA produced the strongest reinstatement in US expectancy, while DA showed the weakest. Overall, results support the idea of differences in learning mechanism, suggesting that disgust learning is driven primarily by evaluative cognition, whereas fear learning is driven by expectancy cognition. Disgust’s relative resistance to extinction may be a mechanism explaining poorer treatment outcomes for disorders characterized by heightened disgust. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Mon, 24 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>Eye gaze discomfort: Associations with autistic traits, alexithymia, face recognition, and emotion recognition.
Varying levels of traits associated with autism can be observed in the general population. One key feature associated with autism is reduced eye contact with others. Eye contact is often described as uncomfortable by autistic individuals, yet little is still known about how reduced eye contact impacts social cognition, and to what extent eye contact difficulties are specific to autism. For example, difficulties in recognizing emotions in facial expressions have been reported in autism, but it has not been established whether they are associated with reduced eye contact. Here, using a large sample of participants tested online, drawn from the general public and varying along different symptom scales, we examined self-reported eye contact discomfort as a mediating factor in reduced emotion recognition ability associated with autistic traits, while controlling for alexithymia, prosopagnosia, general sensory perception, and gender. Results showed that self-reported eye gaze discomfort was predicted by levels of autistic traits as well as by levels of alexithymic traits. Along with eye gaze discomfort, coping strategies were reported and differed in those with high autistic traits and high alexithymic traits. Furthermore, levels of autistic traits and levels of prosopagnosic traits both predicted slower emotion recognition. However, eye gaze discomfort was not a significant predictor of emotion recognition, resulting in an inconclusive mediating effect. This study was part of the novel trend of research studies conducted online, providing effective and potentially more inclusive data collection. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Mon, 15 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>Conflict interactions and negative and positive affect in parent–adolescent dyads’ daily lives.
The effect of parent–adolescent conflict on emotional well-being has been well-documented. However, daily processes related to conflict and positive and negative affect have been overlooked. We tested the mutual effects between parent–adolescent conflict and affect in daily life. Parent–adolescent dyads (N = 171) completed daily diaries between 14 and 21 days to rate their positive and negative affect and conflict interactions between October 2021 and August 2023. The participants were mostly from families with high socioeconomic status, most of the parents were biological mothers, and over half of the parents were Caucasian. Adolescents were between 13 and 17 years (M = 14.37, SD = 1.28). We tested the daily associations between negative/positive affect and conflict interactions in one dynamic structural equation model. Contrary to our expectations, greater adolescent negative affect on a day was associated with lower parent-reported conflict next day. Further, both within- and between-family level correlations between adolescent and parent negative and positive affect were significant. Greater parent and adolescent conflict was related to lower positive and greater negative affect for parents and adolescents. Thus, while both same-day and mean-level associations over time indicate that conflicts are linked to poorer affective well-being, and parents may have made efforts to improve their affect the following day in an attempt to compensate for the conflicts experienced the day before. Further, this effort was appeared to be driven by the adolescents’ rather than the parents’ emotional experiences. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Mon, 05 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>A multilevel factor structure of emotion beliefs: Evidence for situational relevance and emotion structure beliefs.
Researchers typically examine one or two emotion beliefs, without considering how the beliefs may map onto a latent set of emotion beliefs. Examining the factor structure of emotion beliefs may offer a parsimonious and helpful way to conceptualize emotion beliefs and advance empirical work on the topic. We used multilevel exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses to test the factor structure of emotion beliefs in two samples (Sample 1: N = 179 community adults; Sample 2: N = 234 undergraduate students) who each completed 1 or 2 weeks of ecological momentary assessment, repeatedly reporting on eight emotion beliefs: justified, fit the situation, helpful, enduring (duration), complex, warranted expression, controllable, and having a clear source. In each sample, we found consistent evidence for a two-factor structure at the within- and between-person level, except the controllability item. The first factor reflected situational relevance beliefs, or the degree to which emotions were evaluated as appropriate for the situation (i.e., justified, fit, helpful, and had clear causes). The second factor reflected emotion structure beliefs, or what people believed about the properties of their emotion experiences (i.e., long-lasting and complex). In the multigroup confirmatory factor analyses including both samples, emotion controllability cross-loading onto both factors (in opposite directions). We present support for convergent and discriminant validity of the two factors. Elucidating the factor structure of emotion beliefs is a critical step forward in the study of emotion beliefs. Future research is needed to examine how these situational relevance and emotion structure beliefs relate to emotion processes and psychological well-being. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Thu, 08 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>Mood induction in older adults in Alzheimer’s disease: Emotional reactivity using film clips.
The study of emotions is complex due to the diverse methodologies used. One effective mood induction procedure is the use of film clips. Early Alzheimer’s disease (AD) involves behavioral and emotional changes affecting mood and relationships, yet little research explores emotional experiences in its early stages. This study examined emotional reactivity in older adults with AD using film clips to elicit pleasant and unpleasant affective states, based on dimensional and discrete emotion models. The data were collected between 2022 and 2024. The sample included older adults with mild AD (n = 42) and healthy older adults (n = 56). We assessed valence, arousal, and discrete emotions (amusement, tenderness, anger, fear, sadness, disgust) in response to five emotional targets, an AD-related clip, and two neutral stimuli for baseline and recovery. The AD group found the amusement clip less pleasant than the healthy controls group. Arousal was similar across groups. Emotional reactivity was generally attenuated in the AD group, with the presence of mixed emotions and difficulties in emotional recovery, showing higher levels of sadness and disgust. In the AD-related clip, the AD group also experienced less sadness and tenderness than the healthy controls. Our findings suggest early deterioration in emotional processing. The sample was ethnically homogeneous, consisting entirely of Spanish-origin participants; future studies should thus include more diverse populations. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Thu, 08 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>Trial-by-trial learning signatures in self-reported affect that require introspection and are orthogonal to social choice.
Do people learn to predict their feelings over time, and do such learning signatures manifest in behavior? Feeling ratings track with what we do. Understanding their properties may thus elucidate behavior. Inspired by reinforcement learning, differences between expected and experienced feelings—affective prediction errors—have recently entered the toolkit of behavioral prediction. But the extent of the analogy between affective prediction errors and conventional prediction errors about outcomes in the environment is unknown. Across reanalyses of existing data (N = 4,607) and four preregistered experiments (N = 1,806; U.S. online samples), we probe affective prediction errors to document and dissect a core analogy: Learning reflected in decreasing (affective) prediction errors over time. We found that decreases in affective prediction errors depended on introspection, as prior experience with a task absent affective reports did not yield the same decreases (Experiment 1). A task manipulation forcing participants to alter their choices showed increased affective prediction errors, ruling out simple response alignment (i.e., to report feeling “as predicted”; Experiment 2). Decreases in affective prediction errors transferred across structurally similar tasks (i.e., stealing vs. giving money; Experiment 3) and affective measures (i.e., from pride or guilt to valence; Experiment 4). Although affective prediction errors often tracked with social choice behavior overall, their absolute decrease over time did not. In sum, we present evidence for convergence (i.e., learning and transfer) and divergence (i.e., introspection dependence and predictive epiphenomenality) between affective prediction errors and conventional prediction errors. Implications for affective measures as a proxy for subjective value are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Mon, 08 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>High spatial frequency signals drive emotion-related perceptual decision making under emotion-guided attention.
How we detect and perceive threats and other emotional objects has long been a central theme in affective science research. Recent studies have emphasized that top-down, emotion-guided attention impacts perceptual decision making of emotional stimuli. While the influential low road hypothesis proposes spatial frequency (SF) being an important factor in threat detection, a crucial outstanding question is how emotional information—carried in different SF signals—is processed in perceptual decision making under emotion-guided attention. Over a series of five experiments, we measured participants’ (N = 219) emotion-related decision making, examining the interaction of top-down (attention) and bottom-up (emotion expression, and SF) factors. Results showed there was significantly better performance in detecting high (H)SF compared to low (L)SF fearful targets under emotion-guided attention; this pattern also emerged for happy target detection. However, in a gender-identification task, better performance for HSF fearful stimuli was not observed. Drift diffusion modeling revealed that emotion-guided attention enhanced the evidence accumulation for HSF compared to LSF information. These results support the notion that while the fast low road may be responsible for allowing threat to capture our attention in a bottom-up manner, detailed information beyond the low road may be more efficient in driving top-down-guided identification of the threatening or emotional object. Findings from this series of experiments indicate the potentially context-dependent functions of bottom-up and top-down factors in threat detection and perception as well as emotion perception in general. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Thu, 20 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>Normative or not? Emotional processes in identity-motivated collective action.
In this research, we investigated the links between different forms of ingroup identity and extrinsic emotion regulation while acting collectively. Specifically, we propose that nonprosocial managing others’ emotions explains the link between collective narcissism and nonnormative collective action. Conversely, prosocial managing others’ emotions explains the link between secure ingroup identification and normative collective action. Across a representative sample of adult Poles in 2021 (Study 1; N₁ = 495), a convenience sample gathered during and shortly after an actual Polish manifestation in 2022 (Study 2; N₂ = 360), and a sample of the U.S. residents supporting or opposing Donald Trump’s conviction in 2023 (Study 3; N₃ = 395), we found that nonprosocial and prosocial managing emotions of others were significant mediators in explored relationships. To ensure the generalizability of our findings, we approached three various identities and two nationalities. Noteworthy, the sample in Study 2 was relatively extreme and differed from other contexts, still confirming our main hypotheses. Based on the literature and current research, we discuss the importance of building bridges between the emotion regulation and collective action literature. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Mon, 15 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>When do two wrongs make a right? Schadenfreude and the legitimization of illegal attacks against corrupt national institutions.
This research investigated the role of schadenfreude—feelings of joy at a target’s misfortunes—in people’s legitimization of illegal attacks against corrupt institutions with formal authority. Five experiments (Experiment 1 conducted in 2018, the others in 2024–2025; Experiments 2–5 preregistered) in the United Kingdom and Italy (N total = 1,676) employed realistic scenarios involving cyberattacks and violent intimidation from criminal groups. Across studies, exposure to institutional corruption increased support for illegal retaliation, and schadenfreude consistently mediated this effect. In Experiments 2 and 5, heightened anger and disgust at the institution’s corrupt behavior and, in Experiment 3, reduced anger and disgust toward the illegal attacks themselves did not disrupt the link between schadenfreude and legitimization. Experiments 4 and 5 employed experimental approaches to mediation. Experiment 4 employed a manipulation-of-mediation-as-a-moderator design by altering the attackers’ group affiliation. Results provided experimental support for the hypothesized mediational role of schadenfreude, indicating that attacks perpetrated by a disliked outgroup are less likely to evoke schadenfreude and, in turn, legitimacy. Experiment 5 adopted a causal chain approach and manipulated the satisfaction elicited by the attacks. More satisfying attacks (vs. baseline) elicited stronger legitimization, even when controlling for general appraisals of deservingness. Collectively, the findings highlight the importance of positive moral affect elicited by the misfortunes befalling a target as a psychological mechanism underpinning support for illegal system-disrupting actions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Thu, 08 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>