Psychology Research Digest
Emotion - Vol 26, Iss 2
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.
Do unto others: People use similar strategies to regulate their own emotions and the emotions of others.
Do people use similar strategies to regulate their own emotions (i.e., intrapersonal or self-oriented emotion regulation) and to regulate the emotions of others (i.e., interpersonal or other-oriented emotion regulation)? By answering this question, we try to shed light on why people regulate the emotions of others the way they do. We reasoned that because people imagine themselves as the target when deciding how to regulate others’ emotions (Ball et al., 2013), they would use similar emotion regulation strategies to regulate their own and targets’ emotions (Hypothesis 1). People are more likely to imagine a target is similar to them, the better their relationship is with the target (e.g., Murray et al., 2002). Thus, we expected people who have better relationships with the target to use more similar emotion regulation strategies to regulate their own and the target’s emotions (Hypothesis 2). To test these ideas, we ran a cross-cultural study (Study 1, Nparticipants = 3,960, 19 countries), a survey study on close relationships during wartime (Study 2, Nparticipants = 530) and an ecological momentary assessment study on close relationships in daily life (Study 3, Nparticipants = 136). Across all studies, we found that people used similar emotion regulation strategies to regulate their own emotions and the emotions of others. In Studies 2 and 3, we further found that people do so to a greater extent when they felt their relationship with the target was better. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Mon, 22 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>Extrinsic emotion regulation motives in dyads of friends.
Due to the central role friendships play in young adulthood, it is crucial to understand factors that help foster high-quality bonds. The present study examined associations between extrinsic emotion regulation motives and relationship quality in friendship dyads. A sample of 105 young adult dyads (N = 210; Mage = 19.5 years, SDage = 1.2 years) completed a survey assessing their motives for engaging in extrinsic emotion regulation with each other and the constructive and destructive behaviors in their friendship. Actor–partner interdependence models indicated motivation to help a friend regulate for prohedonic, relationship maintenance, or emotional similarity reasons predicted more constructive behaviors, whereas contrahedonic motives predicted more destructive behaviors. These effects held from the perspective of the regulator but not the target of the regulation, highlighting the value of dyadic approaches for future work. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Mon, 16 Jun 2025 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>Preparation enhances the effectiveness of positive emotion regulation.
The present research provides a new perspective on how preparation influences cognitive reappraisal to enhance positive emotions. Across two experiments, we examined whether the impact of preparation on positive emotion regulation (ER) is driven by the specific reappraisal tactic employed (self-focused reappraisal vs. situation-focused reappraisal) or by the overarching regulatory goal of enhancing positive emotions. In Experiment 1, 45 participants engaged in self-focused reappraisal, whereas in Experiment 2, 42 participants engaged in situation-focused reappraisal. An adapted ER task assessed emotional experiences under varying conditions, manipulating cues to either allow prior preparation (proactive ER) or occur without specific preparation (reactive ER). Results showed that reactive ER was consistently less effective than proactive ER in upregulating positive emotions, irrespective of the tactic employed. These findings support a goal-driven account over a tactic-driven account, highlighting the pivotal role of regulatory goals established during preparation. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Mon, 15 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>Trait emotion differentiation is associated with more instrumental emotion regulation motives when people feel negative in daily life.
Emotion differentiation—the ability to precisely label emotions—reflects a nuanced understanding of one’s emotional experiences. Researchers posit that this nuance may be associated with knowing how one can use their emotions. As a result, we hypothesize emotion differentiation may be linked with holding instrumental emotion regulation motives, which involve regulating emotions to attain their benefits beyond solely feeling better or worse. In this research, we tested whether trait emotion differentiation was associated with instrumental emotion regulation motives in daily life, (a) in general and (b) at times when people felt strong emotion. To test these links, we used two experience sampling data sets collected in 2020 in Australia (Study 1, N = 173; 50.3% White), and in 2016 in Belgium (Study 2, N = 104; 100% European). Contrary to our hypotheses, there was no direct association between trait emotion differentiation and instrumental motive use. However, as hypothesized, in both studies, trait emotion differentiation moderated the relationship between emotion intensity and instrumental motives, though only in the case of negative—not positive—emotion. This interaction was such that those higher in trait emotion differentiation endorsed fewer instrumental motives when emotion was less intense, but more instrumental motives when emotion was more intense. This pattern suggests that people high in trait emotion differentiation may endorse instrumental motives flexibly, by regulating their emotions instrumentally when they are more intense, but not when they are less intense. Our findings support the idea that trait negative emotion differentiation may help individuals channel their intense emotions in useful ways. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Mon, 29 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>In the grip of pain: Elevated momentary pain is associated with lower momentary emotional granularity in individuals with chronic pain.
Emotional granularity (EG), or emotion differentiation, reflects the ability to distinguish between same-valenced emotional states in a nuanced way. While traditionally considered a stable trait, recent research shows that EG can fluctuate within individuals, influenced by situational factors such as stress. Building on this work, the present study investigated how momentary pain as a specific stressor relates to momentary EG in the daily lives of individuals with chronic pain. We hypothesized that individuals would exhibit lower levels of momentary EG when they experience higher than usual pain. We also hypothesized that higher scores in the three domains of executive functions (EFs)—namely, working memory, inhibition, and shifting—would buffer the negative within-person association between pain intensity and momentary EG. Between April 2022 and March 2024, 218 individuals with chronic pain (aged 14–83 years, 70% female) completed an online EF assessment and a 14-day ambulatory assessment (five prompts daily) with repeated pain and emotion ratings. Generalized linear mixed models revealed that more intense momentary pain was contemporaneously associated with lower momentary EG and predicted a decrease in momentary EG from one occasion to the next (both momentary negative and positive EG). However, these findings remained robust only for momentary positive EG when controlling for momentary mean scores of emotions. Moreover, EFs did not moderate the association between momentary pain and momentary EG. The findings suggest that pain may disrupt the ability to differentiate one’s emotions, providing novel insights into maladaptive emotional processes due to pain for individuals with chronic pain. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Mon, 01 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>Cultural shaping of emotion differentiation: Socially engaging and disengaging emotions.
There is a growing consensus that emotion differentiation—the ability to discern specific emotions—is healthy. To assess this ability, studies so far have exclusively relied on the dimension of emotion pleasantness by lumping together various types of emotions that fall within the same valence category. However, this approach neglects the possibility that individuals may represent certain types of emotions in a more differentiated fashion, if these emotions are functionally adaptive and therefore are more frequently experienced in their cultural environments. Here, we propose social orientation as another dimension to analyze emotion differentiation and test a hypothesis that the ability to differentiate socially engaging (vs. disengaging) emotions is reinforced more and is associated with better health in interdependent (vs. independent) cultural contexts. In a longitudinal daily diary study conducted in the United States and Korea between 2019 and 2020, we assessed the extent to which participants differentiated engaging or disengaging emotions based on 2 weeks of daily affective reports. For both positive and negative emotions, Koreans differentiated engaging emotions more than European Americans did. Conversely, European Americans differentiated disengaging emotions more than Koreans did. Moreover, for both cultural groups, the extent to which they differentiated emotions that are valued more in their respective culture—engaging for Koreans and disengaging for European Americans—predicted better health 2 months later, indirectly via reducing their tendency to ruminate over time. These results suggest that culture shapes how we represent emotions, and doing so in a culturally preferred way has a potential to bring health benefits. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Thu, 26 Jun 2025 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>Tapping into feelings: An experience sampling study examining the dynamics of smartphone-based emotion regulation and negative affect.
This study examines digital emotion regulation as a dynamic process, involving both processes of media selection and media effects. Using a large intensive-longitudinal data set with more than 50,000 experience sampling data points gathered from over 1,000 adults, we investigated cross-lagged associations between negative affect and two smartphone-based strategies for regulating negative emotions, namely emotion expression and avoidance. Results indicate that individuals are more likely to engage in both smartphone-based expression and avoidance following negative affect (i.e., media selection). However, we observed no meaningful effect of smartphone-based emotion regulation on subsequent negative affect (i.e., media effects). Additionally, we explored the person-specificity of these associations, showing that media selection effects vary meaningfully across individuals, while media effect associations do not. Finally, using passively sensed behavioral smartphone data, we found that smartphone-based emotion expression partially explained the association between negative affect and mobile communication. Similarly, smartphone-based avoidance partially explained the association between negative affect and social media use. Overall, these findings suggest that while individuals may turn to smartphone-based strategies such as negative emotion expression and avoidance in response to negative emotional states, clear evidence of their short-term effectiveness in reducing negative affect is still lacking. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Mon, 29 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>College student depressive symptoms linked to feeling worse during social media use and engaging in social media in more emotionally negative ways: An experimental approach.
Despite significant interest in how social media use (SMU) is associated with college student depression, little consensus has been drawn in this area. We argue that a critical step forward is examining how college student depressive symptoms are associated with (a) the emotions students experience while engaged in SMU and (b) how individuals choose to engage in weekly SMU in ways known to impact their emotions. Data were collected in 2022. College students (N = 382) engaged in four SMU types (order randomized) for 3 min in real time during a controlled experiment. They rated their negative affect and positive affect before and after each SMU type. They also completed measures assessing weekly engagement in each SMU type and depressive symptoms. We examined how depressive symptoms were associated with (a) affect change during each SMU type during the experiment (i.e., experimental approach) and (b) with how people engaged in weekly SMU in ways known to influence their emotions experimentally (i.e., person-based survey approach). Depressive symptoms were associated with students feeling worse (more negative affect or less positive affect) during real-time engagement in all four SMU types. Depressive symptoms were also associated with greater weekly engagement in SMU types that were the ones that increased that person’s negative affect and decreased their positive affect. By considering multiple types of SMU and taking a person-based approach, our findings help clarify complicated associations between SMU and depression. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Mon, 23 Jun 2025 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>Cardiac responses to daily threats and challenges during wakefulness and sleep.
This research examines cardiovascular response to everyday threats and challenges during wakefulness and sleep. Approximately 11,000 people, who comprised a diverse sample ethnically but not socioeconomically, completed three weekly morning and evening surveys in which they indicated whether they expected and experienced threats and challenges that day. Participants also provided measures of blood pressure on morning surveys and provided measures of average heart rate during the day and resting heart rate when asleep via their WHOOP biometric capture device. Enrollment began in April 2024, and data collection ceased in July 2024. Results indicated that both threat and challenge were associated with higher blood pressure and higher average heart rate during the day. In contrast, when people were asleep, threat was associated with higher resting heart rate but challenge was associated with lower resting heart rate. These results suggest that the body achieves more restorative sleep in preparation for perceived challenges but not for perceived threats, raising the possibility that the greater stress associated with threats disrupts the body’s capacity for restorative sleep. The generalizability of these results to members of economically marginalized groups remains an open question. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Mon, 02 Jun 2025 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>Power, emotion appropriateness norms, and regulation of anger and sadness.
Social power (control over valued resources and outcomes) has pervasive effects on how people think, feel, and behave. One important domain likely to be influenced by power is emotion regulation (how people manage their emotions). Extending a small literature on power and emotion regulation, the present research (data collected between 2017 and 2019) examined whether experimentally manipulated power roles (e.g., being a boss vs. an employee) influence the regulation of anger and sadness, and whether emotion appropriateness norms (concerns about the appropriateness of emotions in particular contexts) might explain these effects. Using a within-subjects design, an exploratory study (Study 1, N = 207) asked participants to imagine themselves in three different power roles (i.e., high, equal, and low power) in scenarios that elicited either anger or sadness. They were then asked how they would regulate (via suppression, acceptance, and reappraisal) their emotions. Across anger and sadness scenarios, participants reported more suppression, less acceptance, and more reappraisal when imagining themselves in the high- and low-power roles compared to the equal-power role. Preregistered Study 2 (N = 447) replicated Study 1s effects and indicated that emotion appropriateness norms partially statistically mediated the effects of power role. Last, preregistered Study 3 (N = 291) replicated Studies 1 and 2. Overall, the findings suggest that unequal compared to equal power roles lead to more regulation (both suppression and reappraisal) and less acceptance of anger and sadness, and that emotion appropriateness norms partially explain these effects. This research provides novel insights into how and why power affects regulation of negative emotions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Mon, 02 Jun 2025 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>Do empathic people respond differently to emotional voices?
Past research on the use of motivational voice (or motivational prosody) has found that the way we modulate acoustic cues when we speak can have profound effects on others. However, it is unclear whether the effects also hold for other forms of social communication, such as emotional tone of voice, and what role empathy plays. Across three experiments (two preregistered), we found very large effects indicating that listening to an angry vs. happy voice reduced positive affect in participants, lowered their self-esteem, and eroded their intention to disclose information. These effects were mediated by perceived effort to interact with the speaker, feelings of discomfort, and norm violation, which were higher for an angry voice than for a happy one. Importantly, the effects were, as predicted, stronger for participants scoring high in cognitive empathy and especially affective resonance: More empathic people reported even lower positive affect, self-esteem, and intention to disclose information after listening to the angry vs. happy sounding speaker. This suggests that empathic people are more strongly affected by the tone of voice, even if emotions are only conveyed through vocal tone, without face-to-face interaction. Our findings help to advance related research areas and have important implications for clinical and organizational settings. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Thu, 12 Jun 2025 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>The inadequacy of normative ratings for building stimulus sets in affective science.
When investigating the brain, bodily, or behavioral correlates of emotional experience, researchers often present participants with stimuli that are assumed to reliably and exclusively evoke an instance of one, and only one, emotion category across participants (e.g., a fear stimulus, a joy stimulus, and so on). These assumptions are driven by a typological view. Here, we tested the extent to which they are met. Across three studies (total N = 453), participants reported their experiences as they viewed silent video clips or static images that were curated from published studies and from online search engines. Two different response formats were used. Overall, the proportion of stimulus-evoked emotion experiences that met even lenient benchmarks for validity and reliability for labeling a stimulus as pertaining to a single emotion category label was exceedingly low. Furthermore, participants frequently used more than one label for a given instance. The findings suggest that typological assumptions, and the nomothetic approach they align with, rely on assumptions that are rarely, if ever, met in stimulus-evoked paradigms. Correspondingly, the use of group-averaged normative ratings masks tremendous variation that is potentially meaningful. An overreliance on these norms may lead to conclusions that emotions are organized as discrete categories, yet these theory-laden conclusions may have limited generalizability regarding the emotional experiences of individual people during these tasks. Rather, emotional experiences evoked by visual stimuli are multifaceted (i.e., involve multiple labels per instance) and vary tremendously across individuals. Future work may benefit from multifaceted measurement of emotion and idiographic, data-driven modeling approaches. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Thu, 26 Jun 2025 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>Transactional dynamics between parental responsiveness and child emotion dysregulation: A longitudinal study from infancy to early school age.
Bidirectional influences between parenting and children’s emotion regulation are well established, but developmental shifts in these dynamics and differences between mother– and father–child relationships are far from understood. We examined such bidirectional dynamics from infancy to early school age in 102 U.S. Midwestern community families (51 girls), using an autoregressive latent trajectory model that enabled us to distinguish within-dyad co-regulatory processes from traitlike stability across dyads. Parental responsiveness and child emotion (dys)regulation were coded from observed parent–child interactions at seven time points from 7 months to 6.5 years. Results demonstrated significant parent-to-child effects during toddlerhood in both mother– and father–child dyads, with higher parental responsiveness predicting better subsequent emotion regulation in children. However, child-to-parent effects were observed only in father–child dyads, such that children with poorer emotion regulation elicited more, and those with better emotion regulation elicited less paternal responsiveness at the later time point. These findings suggest fathers may adjust caregiving more flexibly, balancing recognition of children’s emotional needs and of their growing autonomy, whereas maternal responsiveness may be less influenced by fluctuations in child emotion (dys)regulation. No significant bidirectional associations were observed in infancy or early school age. Findings suggest that bidirectional dynamics are developmentally fluid in early parent–child relationships and that, surprisingly, fathers may be more adept at calibrating their responsiveness based on children’s regulatory needs. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Thu, 18 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>Disrupted physiological coregulation in youth at clinical high risk for psychosis: Insights from a dyadic interaction study.
Interpersonal difficulties have long been implicated in psychopathology. However, we know quite little about how social (dis-)connection unfolds at the physiological level in real time in clinical populations, including among youth at clinical high risk for psychosis (CHR). The present laboratory-based dyadic interaction study examined physiological coregulation in 70 dyads across 137 participants (32 CHR youth–caregiver dyads; 38 healthy youth–caregiver dyads) and linked coregulation with clinical symptoms—concurrently and prospectively. This study was based in a midsized Midwestern city and recruited from the broader community and from mental health clinics. Data were collected from 2018 to 2022. Dyads engaged in 10-min neutral, conflict, and pleasant conversations while their autonomic physiology was continuously monitored. In conflict and neutral conversations, CHR youth exhibited contrarian physiological coregulation (i.e., slowing heart rate in response to caregiver’s escalating heart rate and vice versa). Contrarian coregulation was associated with elevated risk for psychosis, was linked to greater baseline psychosis symptomatology, and prospectively predicted increases in symptoms 1 year later. These findings document alterations in physiological coregulation between CHR individuals and their caregivers, highlight their relevance for clinical symptomatology, suggest novel avenues for relationship-focused treatments, and contribute to a biologically grounded science of social connection. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Mon, 01 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>Green-eyed monster or green-eyed mirage? A new procedure for telling when begrudging others’ success is or is not envy.
Begrudging others’ success is a hallmark of envy. Understandably, this has made envy researchers keen to discover the variables that prompt people to begrudge successful others. However, not all negative reactions toward successful individuals stem from envy; for instance, one need not invoke the green-eyed monster to explain our desire to see immoral villains fail. While seemingly uncontroversial, this point poses a challenge to a large and growing body of research that has linked envy with (un)deservingness, finding that undeserved success prompts more ill will than deserved success: Are these negative feelings truly driven by envy or by some other emotion? To help resolve this issue, we introduce the third-party criterion—a novel method for ruling out false elicitors of envy. This criterion specifies that if a variable makes potential enviers and third parties (not in a position to experience envy) both begrudge someone’s success to similar extents, that variable is unlikely to moderate envy specifically. We report eight studies (four in the main text and four in the Supplemental Materials, N = 1,507) involving participants recruited from online participant pools between 2022 and 2025 in which we use this procedure to probe variables purported to increase feelings of envy. Ultimately, we find that while some well-established variables do not pass the third-party criterion (e.g., deservingness), others do (e.g., audience valuation). Identifying the precise factors that elicit each emotion is a fundamental goal in emotion research. The third-party criterion offers a simple, widely applicable tool for helping meet that goal. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Mon, 01 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>Emotional balance, health, and resilience at the start of COVID-19 pandemic.
Self-organizing systems can shift between stability and flexibility in response to perturbation, a potential adaptive mechanism for understanding biopsychosocial resilience. Inverse power law (IPL) structure, a frequency distribution that describes fractal patterns commonly produced by self-organization, produces measurements of stability and flexibility. This study applies these measures to emotional resilience at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Ratings of frequency over the past week (1–5 Likert scale) across 12 emotions (six positive and six negative) were gathered in mid-April 2020 as part of a survey of adults’ (N = 4,094) pandemic experiences and health in the United States. The distributions of everyone’s emotion ratings were tested for IPL fit, resulting in a mean R² = .75. A steeper IPL shape parameter, reflecting greater emotional stability, was associated with better mental (anxiety, depression, and stress) and physical (fatigue, headache, and diarrhea) health overall. However, when total scores for positive and negative emotion were controlled, the reverse effect was found. Finally, a significant interaction effect was found between a measure of COVID-19 impact and IPL shape on each of the six health outcomes, suggesting that greater emotional flexibility may provide buffering against large-scale and unexpected challenges. Altogether, these results suggest that emotional stability may be most beneficial against illness when life is relatively stable, while emotional flexibility may be more adaptive when life is unstable. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Thu, 11 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>Nostalgia and the positive valence system.
According to the regulatory model of nostalgia, nostalgia activates the positive valence system to countermand negative emotionality. However, no research has systematically examined whether nostalgia influences the diverse manifestations of the positive valence system. We addressed this issue in two preregistered studies (ΣN = 543). Participants completed trait nostalgia scales and the Positive Valence System Scale, comprising the following seven constructs: reward valuation, reward expectancy, effort valuation, action selection, reward anticipation, initial reward responsiveness, and reward satiation. In both studies, trait nostalgia was positively associated with all positive valence system constructs. When nostalgia was experimentally induced (Study 2), it increased reward valuation, action selection, and initial responsiveness. The results clarify nostalgia’s impact on the positive valence system and the implications of the regulatory model. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Mon, 15 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>From vastness to unity: Awe strengthens identity fusion.
Awe is theorized to serve a social function, enabling individuals to integrate into collaborative groups and engage in collective action. Across five studies (N = 1,124), we examined awe’s role in promoting identity fusion—an apex form of group connection. Two cross-sectional studies (1a and 1b) revealed that dispositional awe predicted stronger identity fusion. Three subsequent experiments (Studies 2–5) demonstrated that awe experiences strengthened identity fusion, with analyses revealing that the small-self sense of “vastness vis-à-vis the self” provided a significant indirect pathway linking awe (vs. controls) to increased fusion. These effects replicated across varying awe manipulations (emotion recall and virtual reality), target groups (country, university, local community, and nature), and cultural contexts (Australian and American samples). Our findings suggest that awe primes a readiness to fuse with groups, creating an openness to deeper collective bonds. Importantly, rather than diminishing personal agency, awe appears to foster an interdependent alignment where personal and collective goals converge, motivating individuals to direct their capabilities toward shared goals through mutual strengthening between self and group. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Mon, 22 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>Smile and the world smiles (and trusts) with you: Happiness mimicry shapes first impressions.
Numerous studies have shown that the processes underlying trait judgments can be influenced by concurrent affect processing. The present project explores the role of emotional mimicry in trait attribution. Across three experiments, we asked participants to assess social characteristics of faces expressing happiness, sadness, and anger. In Experiments 1 and 3, we used facial electromyography to predict participants’ inferences about trustworthiness, confidence, and attractiveness (Experiment 1) or their behaviorally assessed trust by asking participants to share virtual points in a “trust/investment game” (Experiment 3). In Experiment 2, we tested the causal relationship between facial activity and trait judgments. Participants were asked to assess trustworthiness while performing facial movements that either enhanced or inhibited muscle activity during mimicry of given emotional expressions. The results indicate that mimicry of happiness not only predicts but is causally linked to perceptions of trustworthiness—the stronger the imitation, the more positive the assessments. The results of Experiments 1 and 3 show that increased sadness mimicry is associated with lower trust ratings, although the results of Experiment 2 do not support a causal relationship. Additionally, we confirmed previous observations that people are more likely to mimic affiliative displays (i.e., happiness and sadness) than antagonistic ones (i.e., anger), with happiness being the most likely to be mimicked. In summary, these studies provide evidence that facial mimicry modulates social trait inferences and underscores the functional role of mimicry in social interactions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Mon, 29 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>The link between need frustration and empathic accuracy in romantic relationships.
The frustration of relational needs is a common source of conflict in romantic relationships. Empathic accuracy (EA) defined as the ability to accurately perceive and understand a partner’s thoughts and feelings plays a key role in resolving these conflicts. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that need frustration and EA are associated both within individuals and between romantic partners during actual conflict interactions. Data were analyzed from a lab-based conflict interaction study conducted in 2014, which included a video-mediated recall task. Results from two cross-sectional actor–partner interdependence models revealed that women’s EA was positively associated with their male partner’s need frustration at the start of the conflict, but this association was no longer present by the end. Additionally, women’s EA was marginally negatively associated with their own need frustration at both the start and end of the conflict interaction. These findings highlight the complex and dynamic nature of the relationship of need frustration and EA during couples’ actual conflict interactions. Further research is needed to explore the underlying mechanisms driving these associations over time. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Mon, 02 Jun 2025 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>The good life is a process, not a state of being. It is a direction, not a destination.
- Carl Rogers, On Becoming a Person (1961)
Reach Out