Psychology Research Digest
Emotion - Vol 25, 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.
Committing to emotion regulation: Factors impacting the choice to implement a reappraisal after its generation.
Cognitive reappraisal, changing the way one thinks about an emotional event, is one of the most effective and extensively studied emotion regulation strategies. Previous research has dissociated the generation of reappraisals (i.e., generating candidate alternative meanings of the event) from the implementation of reappraisals (i.e., selecting and elaborating on one reappraisal), finding that while generation slightly changes positive feelings, implementation yields the most substantial changes in positive emotion. Because they are two discrete processes, people might not always choose to implement a reappraisal they generated, and it is unclear what factors might influence implementation choice. We addressed this question in three preregistered studies. In Studies 1 (N = 52) and 2 (N = 58), we examined whether people’s choices to implement a generated reappraisal are influenced by (a) their positive emotion after generation and/or (b) the plausibility of that reappraisal (the degree to which a reappraisal reflects what might be actually happening and/or could potentially happen). The results suggest that people monitor their positive emotion when choosing to implement a positive reappraisal, while monitoring plausibility when choosing to implement a negative reappraisal. In Study 3 (N = 134), we found that people primarily monitored their positive emotion (vs. plausibility) both when given a motive to feel better and a motive to understand the stressor. Taken together, we propose that positive emotion after reappraisal generation and reappraisal plausibility are indices of making progress toward the goal of regulation. Our results suggest that these indices influence people’s choice to further implement the reappraisal. Our findings further our understanding of reappraisal generation and reappraisal implementation and reveal how and why people might choose to continue to regulate their emotions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Mon, 02 Dec 2024 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>The many faces of mimicry depend on the social context.
One of the richest and most powerful tools in social communication is the face. Facial expressions are a prominent way to convey high-dimensional, dynamic information, such as emotion, motivation, and intentions. Previous research has linked mimicry of facial expressions to positive human interaction (e.g., mutual agreement). In this study, we investigated in a real-world setting whether the mimicry pattern of multiple affective facial expressions depends on the interpersonal attitudinal agreement between interlocutors. We analyzed video clips of Democratic or Republican American politicians being interviewed by either a political ally or an opponent (Ntotal = 150 videos). The interviews showed either agreement between two Republicans or two Democrats, or disagreement between members of each affiliation. Using image processing tools, we extracted the intensity of the facial action units for each timepoint. In contrast to the prevalent notion that positive social interaction, such as agreement, fosters mimicry, we found mimicry of all facial expressions in both agreement and disagreement. Moreover, the pattern of the facial expressions mimicry depended on the agreement condition such that an artificial classifier could successfully discriminate between the agreement conditions. Our results suggest that not only positive interpersonal communication is characterized by mimicry but also negative one. This implies that in real-life interactions, mimicry may be a tool to understand others and thus successfully communicate, regardless of the positivity of the social interaction. Whereas the existence of mimicry may be indispensable for social communication, the specific pattern of facial expressions mimicry depends on the social context. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Mon, 18 Nov 2024 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>Mindfulness training fosters a positive outlook during acute stress: A randomized controlled trial.
The tendency to maintain a positive outlook during adversity associates with better health. Interventions that help people cope with stress by maintaining a positive perspective have potential to improve health. Mindfulness interventions show promise for enhancing positive affect in daily life, and developing acceptance toward momentary experiences may help people notice more positive experiences under stress. In a sample of 153 healthy stressed adults (Mage = 32 years; 67% female; 53% White, 22% Black, 22% Asian, 4% other race; 5% Hispanic; collected in 2015–2016), we tested whether mindfulness training, and acceptance training in particular, boosts awareness of positive experiences during acute stress. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three matched 15-lesson remote interventions: (1) Monitor + Accept, standard mindfulness instruction in both monitoring and acceptance; (2) Monitor Only, dismantled mindfulness instruction in monitoring only; or (3) Coping control. After the intervention, positive (and negative) experiences during acute stress challenge (using a modified Trier Social Stress Test) were assessed using a new checklist measure. As predicted, Monitor + Accept participants reported noticing significantly more positive experiences during acute stress than Monitor Only (d = .61) and control (d = .58) participants, whereas the number of negative experiences noticed did not differ by condition. Across conditions, positive experiences during acute stress correlated with daily life positive emotions at postintervention (r = .21). Results suggest that mindfulness training, and acceptance training in particular, can broaden awareness to include more positive affective experiences. This work has important implications for understanding coping and affect dynamics following mindfulness interventions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Thu, 21 Nov 2024 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>Facing emotional vocalizations and instrumental sounds: Sighted and blind individuals spontaneously and selectively activate facial muscles in response to emotional stimuli.
Facial mimicry of visually observed emotional facial actions is a robust phenomenon. Here, we examined whether such facial mimicry extends to auditory emotional stimuli. We also examined if participants’ facial responses differ to sounds that are more strongly associated with congruent facial movements, such as vocal emotional expressions (e.g., laughter, screams), or less associated with movements, such as nonvocal emotional sounds (e.g., happy, scary instrumental sounds). Furthermore, to assess whether facial mimicry of sounds reflects visual–motor or auditory–motor associations, we compared individuals that vary on lifetime visual experience (sighted vs. blind). To measure spontaneous facial responding, we used facial electromyography to record the activity of the corrugator supercilii (frowning) and the zygomaticus major (smiling) muscles. During measurement, participants freely listened to the two types of emotional sounds. Both types of sounds were rated similarly on valence and arousal. Notably, only vocal, but not instrumental, sounds elicited robust congruent and selective facial responses. The facial responses were observed in both sighted and blind participants. However, the muscles’ responses of blind participants showed less differentiation between emotion categories of human vocalizations. Furthermore, the groups differed in the shape of the time courses of the zygomatic activity to human vocalizations. Overall, the study shows that emotion-congruent facial responses occur to nonvisual stimuli and are more robust to human vocalizations than instrumental sounds. Furthermore, the amount of lifetime visual experience matters little for the occurrence of cross-channel facial mimicry, but it shapes response differentiation. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Mon, 16 Dec 2024 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>The dance of smiles: Comparing smile synchrony in nondistressed and therapy-seeking couples.
Dyadic affective processes are key determinants of romantic relationship quality. One such process termed emotional synchrony (i.e., the coupling of partners’ emotions) has attracted growing attention in recent years. The present study focused on synchrony in partners’ smiles, a nonverbal signal with significant social functions. Specifically, smile synchrony in the interactions of nondistressed couples was compared to smile synchrony in therapy-seeking couples. The former were predicted to show higher levels of smile synchrony. Data from the interactions of 61 (30 nondistressed and 31 treatment-seeking) couples were collected during a laboratory session while they engaged in four 6-min interactions during which they discussed positive or negative aspects of their relationship. FaceReader software was used to continuously code each partner’s smile. Compared to treatment-seeking couples, nondistressed couples exhibited higher levels of smile synchrony, and such synchrony occurred in shorter time intervals. These results suggest that smile synchrony may be used as a behavioral signature of relationship quality. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Mon, 16 Dec 2024 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>Mixed signals: Romantic jealousy and ambivalence in relationships.
Ambivalence (i.e., “mixed feelings”) is a common and consequential experience in romantic relationships, but not much is known about which aspects of relationships are likely to elicit it. We investigated whether romantic jealousy (experienced by the individual and perceived in one’s partner) is associated with stronger ambivalence toward the partner. Four studies (N = 1,466; participants from the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands) employing cross-sectional, daily diary, longitudinal, and experimental methodologies showed that experiencing romantic jealousy and perceiving one’s partner as romantically jealous are positively associated with ambivalence toward the partner. Participants experiencing higher jealousy reported simultaneously higher perceived partner mate value but also lower trust toward their partner, which in turn increased feelings of ambivalence. Furthermore, participants who perceived their partner to be more jealous saw them as simultaneously highly committed to the relationship but also untrusting, in turn increasing feelings of ambivalence. These findings contribute to the literature on ambivalence in romantic relationships by highlighting an important relationship dynamic that increases ambivalent feelings. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Mon, 16 Dec 2024 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>What goals do people have for who they want to be emotionally? Exploring long-term emotional goals.
The goals that people have for their emotions are crucial for whether emotion regulation is pursued, as well as the regulation strategies people select. However, emotional goals may extend beyond the emotions people want to feel to include long-term goals for how people want to be emotionally in the future. In two studies, we qualitatively explored people’s long-term emotional goals (i.e., desired emotional self; Study 1, n = 157, October 2023) and then quantitatively confirmed the association between well-being and current emotional attributes, desired emotional self, intention to work toward long-term goals, and belief in goal malleability (Study 2, n = 244, November 2023). Study 1 used qualitative coding to identify 13 long-term emotional goals, including hedonic goals (e.g., experience more pleasure, experience less negative affect) as well as goals to allow emotions, better understand emotions, have more emotional confidence, reduce emotion-driven behavior, increase regulation, increase cognitive control, and several goals related to interpersonal functioning (e.g., increase emotional connections, empathy, expressiveness, emotional boundaries). In Study 2, we confirmed the desirability of the long-term emotional goals, and we found that for many of the goals, greater discrepancies between desired and current emotional selves were associated with decreased well-being. In Study 2, we also explored self-reported attention to short-term versus long-term emotional goals. We found that greater emphasis on long-term emotional goals in emotional situations was associated with enhanced well-being. Exploratory analyses examined gender differences and the role of belief in goal malleability in intention to pursue long-term emotional change. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Mon, 16 Dec 2024 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>Neuroticism’s link to threat sensitivity: Evidence from a dynamic affect reactivity task.
The personality trait of neuroticism has been theoretically linked to threat sensitivity, but this perspective of neuroticism has resulted in mixed findings, arguably because mood states, rather than emotional reactions, have been examined. The present studies (total N = 519) administered a task capable of assessing emotional reactions—to appetitive versus aversive images—in a nearly continuous manner, parsing threat sensitivity in terms of emotional onsets, peak amplitudes, and prototypicality in responding. In the context of this tight temporal focus, higher levels of neuroticism tended to be associated with faster emotional onsets when aversive images were involved. In addition, neuroticism by valence interactions occurred with respect to peak amplitudes and prototypic patterning, with negativity effects for these parameters being amplified at higher, relative to lower, levels of neuroticism. These results link the neuroticism and emotion dynamics literatures while providing novel support for perspectives that emphasize neuroticism’s link to threat sensitivity, in the present context defined in terms of faster, stronger, and more prototypical reactions to acute aversive events. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Mon, 16 Dec 2024 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>Shifting evaluative construal: Common and distinct neural components of moral, pragmatic, and hedonic evaluations.
People generate evaluations of different attitude objects based on their goals and aspects of the social context. Prior research suggests that people can shift between at least three types of evaluations to judge whether something is good or bad: pragmatic (how costly or beneficial it is), moral (whether it is aligned with moral norms), and hedonic (whether it feels good; Van Bavel et al., 2012). The current research examined the neurocognitive computations underlying these types of evaluations to understand how people construct affective judgments. Specifically, we examined whether different types of evaluations stem from a common neural evaluation system that incorporates different information in response to changing evaluation goals (moral, pragmatic, or hedonic), or distinct evaluation systems with different neurofunctional architectures. We found support for a hybrid evaluation system in which people rely on a set of brain regions to construct all three forms of evaluation but recruit additional distinct regions for each type of evaluation. The three types of evaluations all relied on common neural activity in affective structures such as the amygdala, the insula, and the hippocampus. However, moral evaluations involved greater neural activation in the orbitofrontal and cingulate cortex compared to pragmatic evaluations, and temporoparietal regions compared to hedonic evaluations. These results suggest that people use a hybrid system that includes common evaluation components as well as distinct ones to generate moral judgments. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Mon, 16 Dec 2024 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>Does the Brief Implicit Association Test measure semantic or affective valence representations?
Valence, the representation of a stimulus as positive or negative, is fundamental to conceptualizing attitudes and their empirical research. Valence has two potential representations: semantic and affective. The current line of studies investigates the degree to which the congruency effect of the Brief Implicit Association Test (BIAT), often used as an indirect evaluation measure, reflects affective or semantic aspects of valence. In three preregistered experiments (N = 1,056, with 352 participants each), we examined how the congruency effect of the BIAT reflects these aspects. In all three experiments, we used a repeated exposure manipulation, which typically causes a habituation effect on affective but not on semantic aspects of valence, to differentiate between the two types. In the first experiment, repeated exposure occurred before the BIAT, while in the second and third experiments, it was performed in the context of the BIAT task. We utilized three dependent variables: feelings-focused self-reports (measuring participants’ reports about their feelings), knowledge-focused self-reports (measuring semantic evaluations), and the BIAT congruence effect. Supported by Bayesian analysis, we found consistent evidence that the repeated exposure manipulation influenced feelings-focused self-reports but did not affect knowledge-focused self-reports or the BIAT. The results suggest that the BIAT effect is sensitive to semantic (and not affective) representations of valence. Implications for attitude theory and measurement are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Mon, 16 Dec 2024 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>The need for a unified language framework in extrinsic interpersonal emotion regulation research.
With increasing research interest in extrinsic interpersonal emotion regulation, this article aims to address the critical need for a unified language framework to strengthen and support these research efforts. Despite increasing interest and research in this area, the lack of consistent terminology poses significant challenges to conceptual clarity and scientific progress. By examining the current landscape, the authors identify the proliferation of varied terms across disciplines, which threatens to hamper effective communication and collaboration and, thus, progress. This article first argues for the necessity of a unified terminology and then proposes a possible methodological approach to achieve this. A Delphi study that provides a frame for the collaborative effort of subject matter experts is outlined. Establishing such unified language framework is expected to enhance research quality, foster innovation, and facilitate knowledge accumulation in the field. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Thu, 19 Dec 2024 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>Social rejection amplifies the value of choice.
Social rejection has been routinely associated with negative physical and mental health outcomes. However, less is known about how social rejection impacts cognitive processes, including our decision-making abilities. This is critical to understand, given how ubiquitous experiences of rejection have become in the current era of social media. In this preregistered study, we hypothesized that social rejection would amplify the value of choice. Participants made choices about whether to participate in a lottery themselves or defer the choice to a computer across a series of interactions with purported anonymous peers who provided varying degrees of positive (e.g., likes) and negative (e.g., dislikes) feedback to simulate experiences of rejection and acceptance. Subjective experiences of affect and the likelihood of future social engagement with peers were measured. Following experiences of rejection, results revealed that participants were more likely to want to choose for themselves rather than defer the choice to the computer. However, negative affect modulated this pattern, such that when participants reported feeling worse during the task after rejection, they were more likely to defer choice to the computer. Further, negative affect significantly predicted participant’s willingness to engage in future social behavior with their partners and individual differences in social symptoms (e.g., social anxiety and the need to belong) were significantly related to choice behavior. Taken together, our findings suggest that experience of social rejection can negatively impact our affective states, perceptions of others, and the degree to which we value choice. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Thu, 19 Dec 2024 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>Impact of parity and salivary hormonal levels on motivation toward infant emotions.
Infant faces have been shown to be particularly motivating stimuli for women. No studies, however, have compared mothers and nonmothers in whether parity modulates approach motivation toward emotional infant faces. We studied 54 Finnish first-time mothers and 42 nonmothers in a pay-per-view key-press task where the participants were shown 20 infant faces with smiling and crying expressions. Participants were able to adjust the time each face was visible. In addition, salivary testosterone, estradiol, and cortisol levels were measured and their impact on motivation toward infants analyzed. When controlling for the hormonal levels, happy infant faces were viewed longer than crying faces and there was no difference in mean viewing times between mothers and nonmothers. An interaction between parity and emotion emerged: Mothers were more motivated to view happy faces and less motivated to view crying infant faces than nonmothers. Testosterone had a significant effect on viewing times: The higher the testosterone levels were, the shorter amount of time infant faces were viewed. This indicates that testosterone is inversely associated with approach motivation to emotional infant stimuli. This study is the first to compare mothers and nonmothers in a task measuring motivational responses to infant stimuli and indicates that the difference between the approach motivation caused by happy and distressed infant emotions might be more heightened in new mothers. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Thu, 19 Dec 2024 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>Angry or neutral, it does not matter to me: Implicit processing of facial emotions is not related to peer victimization experiences.
The aim of this study was to examine whether prolonged victimization relates to differential processing of emotions. Based on the social information processing theory, it was hypothesized that prolonged victimization would modulate emotion processing, such that victimization relates to a heightened attentional focus toward negative facial expressions and increased amygdala activation in response to negative facial expressions. We targeted a unique sample of 83 children (Mage = 10.6, 49.4% girls) whose victimization history in the past 2 years was available. An Emotional Dot-Probe Task and an Emotion Processing fMRI Task were administered to the participants. Findings included that victimization did not relate significantly to a heightened attentional focus on happy, angry, or fearful expressions. Viewing facial expressions resulted in the activation of the posterior medial frontal cortex, bilateral insula, bilateral fusiform face area, and the right amygdala and hippocampus, which was not related to victimization, nor was victimization related to activation in the amygdala or the social brain regions (medial prefrontal cortex, temporoparietal junction, precuneus, posterior superior temporal sulcus) when viewing specific emotional (happy, angry, afraid, sad) expressions. Together, these results do not provide evidence that implicit emotion processing without social context relates to victimization. Future research should replicate these results and further examine emotion processing in relation to severe victimization experiences and support systems, such as friendships or parenting, on emotion processing. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Thu, 19 Dec 2024 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>The best possible self task has direct effects on expectancies and mood, and an indirect effect on anxiety symptom severity.
The Best Possible Self task (BPS) is one of the best studied positive psychology interventions, and robustly improves optimism (expectancies) and mood. However, few studies have examined whether the task primarily affects expectancies, which then improve mood, or whether it primarily improves mood, which then affects expectancies. From 2023 to 2024, we conducted a well-powered, preregistered randomized controlled trial, with 240 unselected students at a private university in Istanbul. Mediation analyses showed that, at posttest, the BPS had large direct effects on positive expectancies, negative expectancies, and positive mood; and a small indirect effect on negative mood via negative expectancies. At 1-week follow-up (N = 202), the BPS had a small-to-medium effect on positive expectancies, which mediated a similar-sized effect on anxious symptom severity. These results indicate that the BPS affects both expectancies and mood, but its effects on expectancies are longer lasting, and can lead to improvements in anxiety symptoms. More research is needed into the mechanisms of the BPS’s effects in other populations, and especially into its possible benefits for people with anxiety. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Mon, 30 Dec 2024 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>Early childhood behavioral inhibition predicts altered social and emotional functioning in early adulthood: An ecological momentary assessment study.
Early childhood behavioral inhibition (BI), the tendency to display inhibited behavior in the face of novelty, has been associated with a number of negative outcomes in later childhood and early adolescence. However, few studies have examined young adult outcomes of BI, and none have used intensive assessment methods like ecological momentary assessment to capture both inter- and intraindividual patterns of social and emotional functioning. In the present study, BI at age 3 (2004–2007) was assessed through both behavioral observation in the laboratory and parent-report questionnaire. At age 18 (2019–2023), 330 participants completed an ecological momentary assessment study that involved surveying participants’ current emotions and recent (past hour) social experiences 5 times daily for 14 days. Age 3 BI was correlated with lower average positive affect and the tendency to appraise social interactions as less positive at age 18. Additionally, while BI was not correlated with average negative affect nor with frequency of social interaction, it was associated with a tendency to report heightened anxiety following less positive, more negative, and more nervous/uncomfortable social interactions. Results suggest that young adults who were behaviorally inhibited as children tend to experience lower levels of positive emotion in general and more anxiety specifically in the context of uncomfortable and less pleasant social interactions. Further, while they appear to engage in social interactions with equal frequency, they tend to find social interactions less rewarding. Our sample is relatively homogeneous with respect to race and ethnicity, limiting generalization to more diverse samples. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Mon, 30 Dec 2024 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>Bistability and affect shift dynamics in the prediction of psychological well-being.
How affective experiences, such as feelings, emotions, and moods, fluctuate over time is relevant for understanding and predicting psychological well-being. Here, we present a novel approach to investigate affect dynamics grounded on the concept of multistability, a common behavior of complex systems, characterized by abrupt shifts between two or more stable states. We analyze self-report measures in two ecological momentary assessment studies from Spain (N = 65) and Germany (N = 56). Participants were asked to rate how they feel on a single bipolar visual analogue scale ranging from very bad to very good, 6 times a day over the course of 29 days in the Spanish study and 5 times a day during 21 days in the German study. We observe bistable behavior in 61.5% of the Spanish and 46% of the German sample. Further, we introduce a range of metrics to quantify the frequency and magnitude of shifts between positive and negative affect and identify the positive to negative affect shift ratio as a robust predictor of psychological well-being. Our results suggest that affective bistability is a prevalent feature of affect dynamics and highlight the potential of positive to negative affect shift ratio as a valuable tool for predicting psychological well-being both in research and clinical settings. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Mon, 30 Dec 2024 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>“Sticky” thinking disrupts decision making for individuals with a tendency toward worry and depression.
Depressed individuals are commonly known to suffer from low mood. Less attention is paid to their decision-making deficiencies, consisting of indecisiveness and biased judgments. Many theories attempt to explain these impairments by focusing on reduced sensitivity to reward and punishment or biased information processing. Beyond these accounts, the present study explores another scenario, namely, whether the occurrence of sticky thinking—the occurrence of thoughts that are difficult to disengage from—could be a cause for the disruption of the decision-making process in individuals with depression. To test this hypothesis, we utilized the drift-diffusion model to investigate the influence of sticky thinking on the accumulation of evidence during a task commonly used to measure spontaneous thinking—the Sustained Attention to Response Task. Results showed that the more vulnerable group—specifically those with higher levels of repetitive negative thinking and depressive symptoms, including rumination—performed less accurately than the less vulnerable group. The more vulnerable group also showed a lower speed of evidence accumulation as evidenced by a decrease in the drift rate according to the drift-diffusion model. Moreover, the more vulnerable group exhibited prolonged nondecision time when more sticky thoughts occurred. At the neural level, we found that stronger alpha-band power marked more sticky thinking. We also demonstrated that the lower drift rate in the more vulnerable group, compared to the less vulnerable group, was exclusive to moments when the alpha-band power was higher than average. In summary, the study supported the idea that sticky thinking could explain the decision-making impairment among individuals who are more vulnerable to depression and worry. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Mon, 30 Dec 2024 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>A functionalist perspective of young children’s anger and sadness.
Functional emotion theory defines anger as appraisal that a goal is blocked and readiness to act to overcome the obstacle—to approach, and sadness as appraisal that a goal is lost and readiness to relinquish effort—to withdraw. We test relations between these emotions and actions in young children during a blocked reward task, specifically associations in (a) anger and approach toward the goal, (b) sadness and withdrawal from the goal, and (c) greater association of anger and approach with greater age. We observed 153 children (Mage = 45.03 months, range 29.7–60.3 months, 49% girls; 94.8% White; collected June 2017–December 2019) during a 6-min Locked Box task. Children were told to unlock the box to retrieve their selected toy but given the wrong key. Fluctuations in anger, sadness, approach, and withdrawal intensity were coded from video records. Results supported most hypotheses. Within-person, increased anger intensity was associated with increased approach, and increased sadness intensity was associated with increased withdrawal. Contrary to hypotheses, there was no evidence of age differences in the anger–approach association. The models also revealed presence of withdrawal-related anger, approach-related sadness, and age differences in approach- and withdrawal-related sadness. Finally, sadness enhanced approach-related anger while anger dampened withdrawal-related sadness but these effects waned as task time elapsed. This study provides evidence of the functional nature of young children’s anger and sadness and demonstrates that investigation of temporal dynamics reveals new information about how emotions contribute to behavior. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Mon, 30 Dec 2024 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>Cultural variation in the smiles we trust: The effects of reputation and ideal affect on resource sharing.
When playing single-shot behavioral economic games like the Trust and Dictator Games, European Americans and East Asians invested in and gave more to targets whose smiles matched their culture’s ideal affect (the affective states they value; Blevins et al., 2024; Park et al., 2017), suggesting that smiles signal something about targets’ traits. But what happens when participants are given direct information about targets’ traits; do targets’ smiles still matter for resource sharing? To answer this question, we conducted four studies from 2019 to 2022 in which 429 European Americans and 413 Taiwanese played single-shot Trust Games with open, toothy “excited” smiling targets, closed “calm” smiling targets, and nonsmiling “neutral” targets that varied in their reputations for being trustworthy, competent, and emotionally stable. When targets’ reputations were ambiguous (e.g., “50% of previous players said they were trustworthy”), European American and Taiwanese participants invested more in targets whose smiles matched their culture’s ideal affect. However, when targets’ reputations were clearly good (e.g., “80% of previous players said they were trustworthy”) or bad (e.g., “20% of previous players said they were trustworthy”), European Americans invested equally in all targets, suggesting that reputational information about targets’ traits mattered more than targets’ smiles. The pattern for Taiwanese, however, differed: Taiwanese invested equally in calm and neutral targets when targets’ reputations were clear, but regardless of their reputations, Taiwanese invested in excited targets the least. We discuss the implications of these findings for understanding cultural differences in the meaning of an excited smile in the context of resource sharing. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Mon, 30 Dec 2024 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>Cognitive–emotional impairments in euthymic bipolar disorder—New insights into emotion regulation and cognitive control deficits.
Bipolar disorder (BD) is assumed to be a disorder of emotion regulation (ER), with the most prominent endophenotype being deficient cognitive control (CC). However, the nature of ER and CC deficits and specifically their association in BD has not been adequately examined. Therefore, the present study examines different aspects of ER and CC within n = 32 euthymic patients with BD and n = 32 healthy controls (HCs). Besides self-reported habitual use of ER strategies, we also assessed spontaneous use and success of reappraisal and rumination following different mood inductions (MIs; amusement, sadness) and the ability to use reappraisal when instructed to do so. General and valence-specific CC performance was assessed by a working memory manipulation task. BD patients reported increased habitual use of maladaptive ER strategies alongside decreased use of adaptive strategies in response to negative affect. Regarding positive affect, heightened use of dampening was reported. By contrast, no group differences emerged with respect to spontaneous strategy use following MI. However, when instructed to downregulate amusement using reappraisal, patients reported heightened positive affect reactivity compared to HCs following the MI. Furthermore, patients showed overall but no valence-specific CC deficits. ER deficits in the BD group were partly mediated by reduced CC. Our findings confirm that patients show deviations in their habitual ER strategy use and fail to down-regulate positive emotions when required to do so, indicating both performance and competence deficits. This appears to be partly influenced by impaired CC. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Mon, 30 Dec 2024 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>Affect dynamics and depressive symptomatology: Revisiting the inertia–instability paradox.
The inertia–instability paradox poses an intriguing question in depression research: How can the affective experiences of depressed individuals demonstrate both resistance to change and fluctuation? Prior studies examining this paradox have faced limitations, including small sample sizes, analytic approaches prone to biased parameter estimates, and inconsistent results. Using data from 842 adults (Mage = 54.31, SD = 13.25, age range: 18–88; 58.2% female) collected over 56 consecutive days, we applied dynamic structural equation modeling to quantify individualized indices of mean levels, variability, instability, and inertia of negative affect. When adjusting for shared variances among affect dynamic measures, depressive symptoms were uniquely associated with both higher mean levels and inertia of negative affect. However, neither variability nor instability demonstrated unique links to depressive symptoms after accounting for the mean and inertia. Findings indicate that greater predictability in day-to-day negative affect is an important dynamic feature of depression. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Thu, 05 Dec 2024 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.
- Rumi, The Essential Rumi (13th century)
Reach Out