Psychology Research Digest
Emotion - Vol 26, Iss 7
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.
Fluid and crystallized cognitive abilities differentially predict successful regulation of positive versus negative emotion.
Emotion regulation (ER) is thought to rely on cognitive resources, with prior work identifying positive associations between both fluid and crystallized cognitive ability and successful ER. While emotional well-being tends to improve with age throughout adulthood, it is less clear whether ER improves, particularly in contexts involving unavoidable negative stimuli. In the present study, age-diverse community participants (N = 286, age 25–85) completed the National Institutes of Health Toolbox Cognitive Battery to assess their fluid and crystallized cognitive ability. They completed an ER task involving prohedonic regulation with instructions to regulate using any strategy while viewing film clips eliciting target emotions varying by valence and arousal: disgust, sadness, amusement, and contentment. ER success was assessed both through self-reports of experience of the target emotion and automated coding of facial expression of the target emotion. We examined associations among age, cognitive performance, and ER success. Individuals who scored higher on crystallized cognition showed greater ER success regardless of emotion type, and this effect was robust across both success indices (emotional experience and expression). Age was associated with reduced ability to decrease negative emotional experience, while fluid cognition was associated with heightened ability to decrease negative emotional experience. Both age and fluid cognition were unassociated with the ability to increase positive emotional experience. Findings suggest that older individuals and those with limited fluid cognitive resources may experience ER difficulties specifically when encountering negative situations. Findings also provide additional evidence supporting the potential role of crystallized cognitive ability or life experience in successfully regulating emotions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Mon, 06 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>Integrating emotion beliefs and emotion regulation into the pathway from emotional awareness to affective distress.
People develop distinct relationships with their emotions based on the varied ways they experience, view, and regulate their emotions. In turn, this may affect individuals’ mental health outcomes. Several constructs concerning these emotion processes, such as emotional awareness, emotion beliefs, and emotion regulation, can offer insights to understand these relations. However, despite their intuitive connections, these three types of constructs have been studied in relative isolation. The present study recruited a large online sample (N = 684) across two time points. Structural equation modeling investigated the predictive associations from emotional awareness (Time 1) to affective distress (Time 2) as serially mediated by emotion beliefs (Time 1) and emotion regulation (Time 2). Results showed that the connections from factors of emotional awareness at Time 1 to affective distress at Time 2 were partially mediated by factors of emotion beliefs and emotion regulation use. Specifically, voluntary attention and involuntary attention indirectly predicted affective distress through emotion beliefs about the controllability and usefulness of negative emotions, and the emotion regulation strategy of cognitive reappraisal and emotion acceptance. These results are the first to integrate these constructs in a single explanatory model and suggest that interventions targeting emotional awareness and emotion beliefs can have downstream effects that improve emotion regulation strategies and foster better psychological well-being. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>Examining distinctions between polyregulation and single-strategy emotion regulation.
Polyregulation refers to the simultaneous or sequential use of emotion regulation (ER) approaches. Although research has documented that polyregulation is common, more research is needed to clarify when it occurs and how it relates to ER processes. A total of 179 adults reported on a recent event 5×/day for 14 days between 2022 and 2023. For each event, participants reported on momentary contextual factors, including positive affect and negative affect, social context (presence of others), and event appraisals (pleasantness, importance), along with whether they engaged in ER. When ER was reported, participants indicated whether they used single-strategy ER or various types of polyregulation and their perceived ER effort, difficulty, and success. Polyregulation was common (53%) and endorsed more frequently than single-strategy ER (47%), though the magnitude of this effect was small (p = .046, Wilcoxon effect size r = .16). Single-strategy ER use was more frequent than any one type of polyregulation approach. The likelihood of polyregulation was higher when individuals felt more negative affect, perceived events as more important, and were with others (vs. alone). Positive affect and pleasantness were not robust predictors of polyregulation. Compared to single-strategy ER, polyregulation was associated with greater ER effort and difficulty, but not success. The polyregulation approach “redo” (i.e., switching strategies after the first way did not work) was, however, associated with less ER success compared to other forms of ER, including single-strategy ER. Altogether, polyregulation was frequent in daily life and varied based on contextual factors. Engaging in polyregulation may be more demanding than using a single strategy. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Mon, 18 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>The why behind the how: The association between motive and strategy use in interpersonal emotion regulation.
Interpersonal emotion regulation is a central means through which people seek and provide emotional support. Understanding people’s motives for engaging in interpersonal emotion regulation—and how these motives relate to the strategies they report receiving from and providing to others—can reveal the potential alignment or mismatch in why certain regulation strategies are deployed. In two daily life studies (Ntotal = 402), we captured interpersonal emotion regulation from the perspective of the person soliciting emotion regulation from others (i.e., intrinsic regulation) and providing emotion regulation to others (i.e., extrinsic regulation). In doing so, we explored whether people’s regulation motives (i.e., to feel better, get work done, build relationships, and seek or provide perspective) predicted their perception of the regulation strategy (i.e., reappraisal, valuing, distraction, and suppression) they received from and provided to others in everyday social interactions. We found motives people held for turning to others to regulate their own emotions were largely not associated with strategies they reported receiving. However, motives people held for regulating others’ emotions were associated with strategies they themselves provided. For instance, people reported making others feel valued and cared for more when holding a motive of wanting others to feel better, recommended suppressing emotions less when holding a motive to build social bonds, and encouraged reappraisal more when holding a motive to provide advice and perspective. Overall, our research highlights a potential gap between the emotional support people want from others and the emotional support they feel they receive, pointing to an avenue of intervention to improve relational and individual well-being. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Thu, 04 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>A critical test of emotion regulation strategy effectiveness in daily life: Individual differences and situational contexts.
Emotion regulation is considered central to hedonic well-being, with substantial evidence linking emotion regulation strategies to indicators of physical and mental health. Research has typically emphasized the general short-term effectiveness of specific strategies, assuming that some reliably regulate affect more successfully than others. However, this approach has critical limitations. To evaluate its validity, we conducted a coordinated data analysis of 12 ambulatory assessment data sets (N = 1,511 participants; N = 161,513 measurement occasions) examining strategy effectiveness in daily life. Acceptance, reappraisal, and social sharing were, on average, associated with more favorable subsequent affect, whereas rumination, suppression, and, to a lesser extent, distraction were not. Yet there was substantial between-person variability in the effectiveness of every strategy, indicating that strategies considered effective on average were ineffective or even counterproductive for a meaningful subset of individuals. Most strikingly, approximately 75%–80% of the variance in effectiveness was explained by the intensity of the affective state individuals were attempting to regulate, suggesting that observed effectiveness largely reflects situational difficulty rather than intrinsic properties of strategies. A complementary analysis of a novel measure of negative affect pile-up further revealed a shift from greater reliance on putatively adaptive strategies during brief spikes in negative affect to greater reliance on putatively maladaptive strategies as elevated negative affect persisted. Together, these findings challenge the prevailing focus on short-term, strategy-level effectiveness in everyday life and highlight the need for emotion regulation assessments that better capture person–strategy–situation fit and the temporal dynamics of emotional episodes. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Thu, 04 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>Depressive symptoms and emotion regulation processes: Strategy selection and effectiveness.
Depressive symptoms are typically associated with less successful emotion regulation (ER) in daily life but not when instructed to use specific ER strategies in controlled settings. Less is known about how depressive symptoms are associated with ER in standardized contexts when regulators can select their own strategy. Such contexts may be associated with less impairment in ER, as they control for qualitative differences in everyday life. The present study examines depressive symptoms, ER strategy use, and ER success in an age-diverse community sample (N = 124; age 25–83; data collected in 2018). Participants viewed emotional clips under prohedonic ER instructions (i.e., feel more positive and less negative) with no strategy provided. They rated their emotions and use of six ER strategies (savoring, distraction, positive reappraisal, detached reappraisal, bodily awareness, expressive suppression) after each clip. Depressive symptoms were only associated with lower use of savoring and bodily awareness and not associated with ER success (indexed by emotion experience). Use of bodily awareness predicted lower ER success among those higher in depressive symptoms, but no other effects of strategy use varied by depressive symptoms. Generally, use of savoring and positive reappraisal was associated with higher ER success, whereas distraction, detached reappraisal, and expressive suppression were associated with lower ER success. Findings suggest that in a controlled setting, depressive symptoms did not strongly predict selection (i.e., use) or effectiveness (i.e., success) of ER strategies, with the exceptions of less savoring as well as less use and effectiveness of bodily awareness. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>Adult age differences in the response to and regulation of recent versus long-term regrets.
Past research on age-related differences in regrets and their regulation has failed to separate the effects of age versus recency (i.e., time since the regret originated). To address this gap, we collected data from N = 90 U.S. adults (Mage = 49.81, SDage = 18.71, 63% women) who reported their most severe recent and long-time regrets. Present- and future-oriented regret regulation strategies were assessed with respect to decision avoidance, decision alteration, and affect-based strategies. In addition, we accounted for demographic, socioemotional, health, personality, and cognitive covariates, including perceived control and future time perspective. For recent regrets, older age was associated with reporting fewer, more omission-based, and fewer interpersonal regrets. Reliance on affect-based strategies (present-oriented) and decision alteration (future-oriented) was less common with age. For long-term regrets, older age was associated with reporting regrets that were more distant, less controllable, more omission-based, and less likely to be downregulated. Regarding covariates, older adults’ lesser perceived control over long-term regrets was associated with age differences in omission-based regrets, and their more limited future time perspective was associated with age differences in interpersonal regrets. Several of the observed age effects, particularly those linked to long-term regrets, were associated with age differences in cognition and affect, whereas many effects concerning recent regrets were not associated with covariates. Overall, findings illustrate the necessity to distinguish between recent and long-term regrets when examining age-related differences. Given the limited diversity of the sample, the findings may not readily generalize to less well-educated or non-White populations. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Thu, 07 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>Bidirectional benefits: Interbrain synchronization and role-specific neural signatures in interpersonal emotion regulation.
Interpersonal emotion regulation (IER) is crucial for social coordination and inherently bidirectional, yet research has predominantly focused on how regulators affect targets, often neglecting the regulator’s own experience and the dyadic neural dynamics supporting mutual benefits. This study (N = 68, average age: M = 20.61 ± 1.56, 100% female, collected in 2024 in China) investigated the behavioral and neural mechanisms of bidirectional benefits in IER, examining strategy-dependent (cognitive reappraisal, distraction) and role-specific (regulator, target) neural dynamics using functional near-infrared spectroscopy hyperscanning. Behaviorally, cognitive reappraisal induced greater valence improvement for both roles compared to distraction. At the single-brain level, prefrontal regions (frontopolar, left orbitofrontal cortex) and the right Broca area showed distinct activation patterns contingent on strategy and role; regulators exhibited stronger activation during cognitive reappraisal, while targets displayed pronounced right-lateralized activation (right orbitofrontal cortex, right Broca area) during distraction, supporting differing cognitive demands. Critically, multivariate pattern analysis of interbrain synchronization revealed that distributed patterns of neural coordination successfully decoded both the IER strategy employed and, notably, regulatory success for both regulators and targets. The regulator’s frontopolar synchronization emerged as pivotal in these predictive interbrain synchronization patterns. These findings demonstrate that successful IER relies on a combination of role-dependent neural specialization and dyad-specific, strategy-aligned interbrain coordination, advancing our understanding of IER as a dynamic, multibrain process facilitating mutual emotional alignment. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Thu, 07 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>Mapping emotional components in daily parent–child interactions: A multilevel psychological network approach.
Daily parent–child interactions are emotionally rich and offer valuable insights into emotional processing and parenting functioning. To examine how key emotional components interact within and across individuals in everyday contexts, we combined an experience sampling method with a multilevel psychological network approach, grounded in several prominent emotion and parenting theories. The emotional components we examined were (a) parents’ own emotions, (b) their perceptions of their children’s emotions, and (c) their use of self- and child-focused reappraisal and rumination strategies. Data were collected from 121 U.S. parents (Mage = 43.18 years, SD = 8.54) over 28 days, preceded by a presurvey. Three psychological networks emerged, each offering distinct yet complementary insights. The within-person temporal network uncovered reciprocal spillover effects between self- and child-focused emotion regulation, with parents’ own emotions driving fluctuations in both. The contemporaneous network revealed that parents regulated emotions using congruent self- and child-focused strategies within a single interaction. The between-person network revealed that emotional patterns differed between mothers and fathers and were related to dispositional emotional reactivity. For this work, we adopted an integrative approach to unpacking parental emotional processing by incorporating both self-focused and child-focused emotion systems. Our findings underscore the importance of helping parents navigate parallel emotional processes to support both their own well-being and their children’s emotional development. However, because all measures relied on parents’ self-reports, including reports of children’s emotions, the findings may not fully capture children’s emotional experiences. Future studies incorporating children’s perspectives would provide a more comprehensive understanding of these processes. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Thu, 07 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>Parents’ emotion control beliefs: Links with responses to children’s negative emotions, child well-being, and parent–child relationship quality.
People hold strong beliefs about emotions. One particularly important belief is whether emotions should be controlled or emotion control beliefs. We examine these beliefs in parents, specifically, the role these beliefs play in their children’s well-being and the parent–child relationship. We propose that parents with stronger emotion control beliefs respond less supportively and more disapprovingly to their children’s negative emotions, which in turn could predict worse child well-being and lower parent–child relationship quality. In Study 1 (Nparent = 272), we found that parents’ emotion control beliefs were cross-sectionally linked with worse child well-being. This relationship was accounted for by parents providing less supportive and more disapproving responses to their children’s emotions. In Study 2 (preregistered analyses; Nparent = 272, Nadolescent = 275), we found that parents’ emotion control beliefs were cross-sectionally, but not longitudinally (18 months later), linked with some, but not all, measures of parent- and adolescent-reported worse child well-being and lower parent–child relationship quality. In Study 3 (Nparent = 139), we found that parents’ emotion control beliefs longitudinally (4 months later) predicted worse child well-being and lower parent–child relationship quality. These links were accounted for by parents providing less supportive and more disapproving responses to their children’s emotions. Moreover, these links were relatively generalizable across parents’ and children’s gender and age (Studies 1–3) as well as parents’ ethnicity (Study 3). Together, these findings suggest that parents’ emotion control beliefs may influence how they respond to their children’s emotions—often for the worse—subsequently shaping the child’s well-being and the quality of the parent–child relationship. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Thu, 14 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>Attachment, oxytocin, and maternal recollections: Further evidence for the salience hypothesis.
Childhood memories featuring primary caregivers are the basis of attachment working models. Oxytocin plays a critical role in attachment bonding and social memory possibly by enhancing the emotional salience of social cues. Consistent with the salience hypothesis, prior work (in males) indicates that oxytocin administration positively biases recollections of maternal care and closeness for less anxious/more secure individuals but negatively biases such recollections for more anxiously attached individuals. We aimed to conceptually replicate and extend this work by probing oxytocin’s effects on the emotional quality of attachment memories, and sampling males and females. Between 2013 and 2016, we recruited 77 participants and administered 24 international unit intranasal oxytocin/placebo (within-subject). Participants were presented with attachment-related cue words and, in response, recalled childhood memories of their mothers. We analyzed the emotionality of these memories using human raters and, in exploratory analyses, natural language processing software (Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count and Valence Aware Dictionary and Sentiment Reasoner). Replicating previous findings, human rater results revealed significant attachment anxiety by oxytocin interactions for negative emotionality (p = .031) and positive emotionality (p = .034), with more anxious participants reporting more negative and less positive emotional content following oxytocin (vs. placebo). The natural language processing analyses also showed significant attachment anxiety by oxytocin interactions for negative but not positive emotionality. Finally, we found no effect of attachment avoidance on emotionality, however, more avoidant individuals were less likely to emotionally self-disclose (p < .001), an effect that was potentiated by oxytocin (p = .05). This study supports the social–emotional salience hypothesis of oxytocin. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Mon, 18 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>Thank you, whatever you are: Gratitude for nonhuman entities through anthropomorphism.
We propose that anthropomorphism plays a central role in producing gratitude for nonhuman entities from humans. Colloquially called personification, anthropomorphism occurs when humans attribute agency to nonhumans, enabling the latter to act upon the environment and humans alike. Humans then attribute any subsequently received benefits to a perceived intentionality of nonhumans, finding them well-intentioned and appreciable. Our five studies (N = 2019) support this hypothesis. First, we establish that individuals’ trait anthropomorphism correlates with their experienced gratitude in recent encounters with both natural and artificial nonhumans (Study 1). Examining causality, we report that anthropomorphizing computers (Study 2), forests (Study 3), artificial intelligence (Study 4), and oceanic currents (Study 5) in experiments evokes gratitude for these nonhuman entities by eliciting a perception of them as responsive benefactors. Receiving increased imagined (Study 5) or actual (Study 4) benefits in the studies further strengthens the effect. In turn, the thankful feeling enhances humans’ trust for anthropomorphized nonhumans (artificial intelligence; Study 4) and the former’s urges to protect the latter (nature; Studies 3 and 5). Overall, since the generation of gratitude for nonhumans rests on assigning human characteristics to them, the present research implies a mechanism to evoke gratitude from humans for other humans as well. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Thu, 14 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>Disgust reactions to a remembered trauma analogue are similarly persistent to fear reactions.
People experience disgust during and following traumatic events, and like fear reactions—which have been the focus of posttraumatic stress disorder research—disgust reactions predict posttraumatic stress symptoms. Interestingly, emerging research suggests disgust reactions to traumatic events may persist more (i.e., linger longer) than fear reactions. Yet, this idea has not been explored experimentally. Here, we investigate whether feelings of disgust and fear in relation to a remembered trauma analogue persist differently over time. Across three experiments, participants viewed a trauma analogue (i.e., negative images) that elicited both disgust and fear. In Experiment 1 (n = 111), we aimed to elicit maximal (i.e., highly intense) ratings of disgust and fear at encoding, and in Experiment 2 (n = 112), we modified our trauma analogue to match the intensity of disgust and fear reactions more closely at encoding. In these experiments, participants rated their feelings of disgust and fear to the trauma analogue at encoding and at 24-hr delay (i.e., upon remembering the trauma analogue). In Experiment 3 (n = 118), we replicated our second experiment using a 1-week delay. Disgust and fear faded similarly when the intensity of emotional reactions was maximized at encoding, but when these emotional reactions were matched at an initial moderately intense level, disgust persisted more than fear over 24 hr and 1 week. Our findings suggest that disgust reactions to traumatic events are similarly—if not more—persistent over time than fear reactions, highlighting disgust as a trauma-relevant emotion. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Thu, 30 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>Emotional tone distorts remembered durations of naturalistic activities.
Plans for upcoming activities are likely to be affected by the remembered durations for the to-be-planned activities. Such duration estimates in turn might be influenced by the emotional experiences associated with each activity. In the current work, we aimed to characterize how emotions can affect duration judgments. Participants (N = 204, data collection 2023–2024) completed 10 different real-world activities that varied in duration and made judgments of each activity’s valence and arousal. Three days later, participants completed an online follow-up survey where they estimated how long each activity lasted and how they remember feeling about each activity (again in terms of valence and arousal). Generally, our results indicated that both low and high levels (relative to moderate levels) of arousal or valence prolonged remembered duration judgments. Also, remembered emotional judgments tended to be more important for duration estimates than emotions experienced during the activities themselves. Individual differences in self-report measures of self-control affect duration estimates indirectly: Higher levels of self-control appeared to mute emotional effects on duration estimates. We interpret our results in line with known attentional effects of emotions on memory and effects of memory accuracy on duration judgments. Our results also suggest that emotions reconstructed during retrieval are generally more important for temporal memories than the initially encoded emotional experiences. Generalizability of conclusions is limited by the range of activities, evaluated durations, the delay between encoding and retrieval, and our use of a student population. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>Asymmetry in updating of emotion inferences from faces and situations.
Our inferences about others’ emotions often unfold over time as the information accessible to perceivers changes. Yet little is known about these dynamic aspects of emotion inference, including how flexible inferences are with different types of new information. In an integrated analysis of five studies (Ntotal = 925), we examined how people update their inferences of emotions with sequentially unfolding face and situation cues. Using a set of diverse social situations and their portrayals by professional actors, we found robust evidence for an asymmetry in how inferences were updated. People were more likely to update their inference of what emotions someone is feeling and how intensely they are experiencing those emotions when first viewing faces compared to descriptions of situations. This suggests that emotion inferences drawn from faces are more malleable compared to those drawn from social situations, and future work is warranted to understand whether this inflexibility tracks with people’s beliefs and behaviors. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Thu, 21 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>Examining daily affect variability by individual differences among a diverse community sample.
Variability in daily emotional experiences may be important for both mental and physical health and may be influenced by individual differences such as age, gender, race, and ethnicity. Research on individual differences in affect variability is limited, and what is available does not encompass diverse, multilayered identities. Therefore, the present study aims to provide more inclusive evidence of the role of individual differences in affect variability. We assessed momentary positive and negative affect in a diverse community sample of adults. A sample of 300 adults (age 18–80; 50% women; 19% Hispanic, 15% Black) completed 2 days of ecological momentary assessment sampling randomly within 45-min blocks during waking hours. Using individual standard deviation for positive affect (PA) and negative affect (NA) variability, independent samples t tests were conducted to assess individual differences in PA and NA variability. General linear models were used to assess interaction effects between individual differences in PA and NA variability. Correlation analyses demonstrate that older age was correlated with lower PA and NA variability. Independent sample t tests demonstrate that being female was associated with greater PA variability, and identifying as White was associated with lower PA and NA variability. Two-way and three-way interactions between age, gender, and race/ethnicity showed no significant association with PA or NA variability. Although the observed effects were not uniform across all demographics, together they highlight the relevance of individual differences in affect dynamics and underscore the value of incorporating them into research on affect variability. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>Affective intensity of enacted stigma events and emotion regulation strategy use among sexual and gender minorities.
The emotion regulation choice framework (Sheppes, 2020) proposes that the affective intensity of a stressor (i.e., how distressing a stressor is) influences the selection of emotion regulation strategies. The present study aimed to test this hypothesis in the context of enacted stigma to determine whether more distressing enacted stigma experiences differentially predict the use of different emotion regulation strategies. We also aimed to determine if enacted stigma experiences that are more distressing have larger and longer term effects on affect and to examine daily factors that may increase the affective intensity of an enacted stigma event. We used data from an ecological momentary assessment study of enacted stigma from a sample of 109 older adult sexual and gender minorities, a group that is largely underrepresented in research on enacted stigma. More distressing enacted stigma events were associated with more pronounced rumination and coping self-efficacy above and beyond the effect of simply experiencing any enacted stigma. More distressing enacted stigma events also had stronger and longer lasting associations with negative affect than less distressing events. Higher stressor burden and lower coping self-efficacy also prospectively predicted higher affective intensity for subsequent enacted stigma events. The present study demonstrated partial support for the emotion regulation choice framework in the context of enacted stigma. This highlights the role of elevated stressor burden and coping self-efficacy in influencing emotional reactions to enacted stigma events and regulation of emotions following these experiences. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>Revisiting nostalgia for current and ex-romantic partners: Affective profiles and the moderating effect of relationship duration.
Nostalgia is a self-relevant, socially grounded emotion marked by a sentimental longing for the past. Compared to the well-documented benefits known about general personal nostalgia, most nostalgia studies in both emotion and relationship science rely heavily on Western samples, and nostalgic effects of former partners are mixed. With an Asian sample, the present research had two main aims: (a) Experimentally replicate the nostalgic effects of current and ex-partners on current relationship quality, and (b) examine the moderating role of relationship duration. Results revealed both ex- and romantic nostalgia increased relationship satisfaction, and, more interestingly, romantic nostalgia decreased relationship commitment in shorter relationships. Furthermore, exploratory analyses highlighted distinct affective patterns within romantic nostalgia. Implications and contributions are further discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Mon, 13 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>Ideal affect outside the head: Popular song lyrics emphasize low-arousal positive affect in Japan and high-arousal positive affect in the United States.
According to affect valuation theory (Tsai et al., 2006), culture shapes the emotions people ideally want to feel. In middle-class European-American settings, people usually report that they would ideally like to feel high-arousal positive (HAP) emotions (enthusiastic, excited, and elated). In Asian American and East-Asian settings, people are more likely to report ideally wanting to feel low-arousal positive (LAP) emotions (calm, relaxed, and peaceful). We tested whether popular song lyrics in the United States and Japan reflect these values. We collected the lyrics of the 100 most popular songs from each year between 1968 and 2015 from the United States and Japan (N = 7,464). A natural language processing tool called Contextualized Construct Representation (Chen et al., 2024) estimated HAP and LAP content in each song. Lyrics were higher on ideal than actual positive emotions. U.S. American popular songs scored higher on ideal and actual HAP, and Japanese popular songs scored higher on ideal and actual LAP. Longitudinal analyses showed that both HAP and LAP increased slightly over time in Japan, while HAP declined slightly in the United States. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Thu, 14 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>Enhanced autonomic fear conditioning at age 3 in successful adult criminal offenders.
There is a dearth of data on “successful” criminal offenders who escape detection and no research on emotion processes characterizing this group. This study examines whether autonomic fear conditioning at age 3 years is associated with adult successful and unsuccessful (caught) criminal offending. Participants (N = 940) were drawn from a birth cohort on the island of Mauritius. Autonomic fear conditioning was assessed at age 3, with skin conductance recorded to reinforced (CS+) and unreinforced (CS−) auditory stimuli. Self-report criminal offending was assessed at age 39. Offenders were divided into successful and unsuccessful groups based on detection/conviction at ages 23 and 39 and compared with noncriminal controls. There was a significant Group × Conditional Stimulus interaction (p = .019). A breakdown of this interaction indicated that successful criminals showed significantly greater responding to the CS+ than both unsuccessful criminals (p = .003) and controls (p < .001), with no group differences on CS−, indicating superior conditioning in successful criminals. Three sensitivity analyses confirmed these findings. We hypothesize that enhanced fear conditioning in successful offenders results in an enhanced ability to detect environmental cues associated with punishment, resulting in escape from law enforcement agencies. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Thu, 07 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>