Poster Location and Abstracts
*Information for presenters: Please take note of your poster location number; when you arrive to set up your poster, find the board with the appropriate number. The poster session will be held in the Heritage II room of the Marriott. You can set up your poster as early as 5 pm on Wednesday, Jan. 24th, and you must take down your poster immediately after the poster session, at 9 pm. Posters must be no larger than 40” x 60”.
Poster Location 1:
Do Dysphoric Individuals Mobilize Less Effort? On the Joint Influence of Dysphoria and Task Difficulty on Effort Mobilization
& , University of Geneva, Switzerland
Research in the framework of motivational intensity theory (Brehm & Self, 1989) and the mood-behavior-model (Gendolla, 2000) has shown the influence of momentary mood states on effort mobilization (e. g. Gendolla & Krüsken, 2002). Based on theoretical predictions derived from those models two studies tested the joint influence of naturally occurring dysphoria and task difficulty on effort mobilization in a 2 (dysphoria) x 2 (task difficulty) design. Dysphoric and nondysphoric undergraduates were asked to perform a cognitive task—a concentration task in Study 1 and a memory task in Study 2—which was either easy or difficult to perform. Effort mobilization was assessed as the reactivity of the cardiovascular system—especially systolic blood pressure—during performance of the cognitive task compared to baseline values. Results of both studies confirmed the predicted interaction pattern: In the easy task conditions, dysphoric individuals had higher systolic reactivity than nondysphoric participants, whereas in the difficult task conditions nondysphoric students had higher systolic reactivity. These findings are discussed with regard to the influence of negative affectivity on task demand appraisal and effort mobilization.
Poster Location 2:
Love against Power: An fMRI study on motive-dependent approach and avoidance motivation
, , , , , , , , , ; Universität Osnabrück, Universität Bremen
Numerous studies have investigated neural correlates of approach/avoidance motivation and related emotions. However, little research has investigated whether the structure of neural circuits supporting motivation/emotion differs with respect to the motive involved such as affiliation or power. For example, meeting a good old friend after a long time may be accompanied by a neural pattern different from the pattern activated when demonstrating one’s status at a conference, although either of the two emotions is associated with approach motivation/positive emotions. In the present study eight participants were exposed to blocks of schematic drawings referring to situations of intimacy versus rejection (affiliation context) and dominance versus powerlessness (power context). We found significant activations in right somatosensory cortex for intimacy and activations in left amygdala for rejection. Dominance was associated with an activation of left lateral prefrontal cortex, whereas powerlessness was associated with an activation of left posterior cingulate. The data are congruent with the hypothesis that neural activation not only depends on approach vs. avoidance tendencies (or valence of the stimulus) but on the motive aroused by the stimulus.
Poster Location 3:
When do they and when do we all look the same to me? Understanding heterogeneity and homogeneity effects
, ,, & ; Arizona State University
People often find it easy to remember specific individuals from their in-group and difficult to remember specific individuals from ethnic out-groups - the ubiquitous out-group homogeneity effect. Yet, recent research (Ackerman et al., 2006) demonstrates that these findings may fail to emerge, and may even be reversed when individuals view angry members of out-groups stereotypically associated with physical threat (e.g., Black male faces). Here, we present two recognition memory studies designed to test the functional specificity of the out-group heterogeneity effect. In Study 1, as anticipated, we found that people failed to remember angry members of out-groups heuristically associated with non-physical threat (e.g., Asians) as well as they did members of their in-group. In Study 2, we found that emotional cues signaling a lack of physical threat-smiling faces-led to homogeneity in both in-group and out-group (Black) targets. Further, the presence of smiling faces depressed memory even for neutrally-expressive faces from these groups. These results help clarify the specificity of out-group homogeneity and heterogeneity biases, as well as reveal the utility of a functional approach to emotion for predicting and interpreting basic person perception processes.
Poster Location 4:
A social comparison perspective on the social induction of affect
, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, & , University of Cologne
Perceiving affective responses of other people is likely to have affective consequences for the observer. Most research has found concordant affect, an affective shift into the direction of the person perceived. However, discordant affect can also result. A social comparison framework is presented to integrate these findings. It is assumed that the perceiver’s affective response is influenced by social comparison processes and selective changes in the accessibility of self-knowledge. If the perceiver searches for similarities between self and the target, concordant affect is likely to result. If dissimilarities are searched for, then discordant affect will occur. This logic implies that the self plays a crucial role in the induction of affect. Therefore in Study 1 self-activation is directly manipulated.
Results demonstrate that an affective change after being exposed to affective expressions of others can only be found if the self was activated before. If comparison processes are relevant for the social induction of affect, enhancing the tendency to compare should result in an increased affective change in the observer. This is shown in Study 2. Participants who were procedurally primed to rely more strongly on comparison processes showed a larger affective change than control participants. In Study 3 participants were procedurally primed to search for similarities or dissimilarities. Participants were then exposed to affective facial expressions of others. Participants primed on similarity searching showed concordant affect, whereas participants primed on dissimilarity searching showed discordant affect. Results will be discussed in relation to previous models for the social induction of affect.
Poster Location 5:
A Social Psychological Model of the Emotional Antecedents of Pro-environmental Behavior
& , The University of Queensland
Based on social psychological theories of issue ownership and social identification, we present a model of the emotional antecedents of pro-environmental behavior. In particular, we seek to resolve a divergence that has emerged in the literature between empirical findings in the fields of environmental psychology and environmental management concerning the role of emotion as a determining factor in pro-environmental behavior. This is that, while research in environmental psychology (Vining, 1992; Vining & Ebreo, 2002) has found that emotions play a critical role in driving individuals and organizations to take on pro-environmental behaviors; empirical findings from the environmental management literature (e.g., Andersson & Bateman, 2000; Egri & Herman, 2000) suggest that emotionality is unimportant as a driver of pro-environmental behaviors in organizations.
To resolve this question, we draw on Pratt and Dutton’s (2000) theory of issue ownership to explain why some issues are strongly owned and acted upon in organizations, and others are not. Moreover, based on van Vugt (2001), we argue that social identification mediates the relationship between an individual’s emotional reaction and their level of issue ownership. We argue therefore that more intense emotional reactions to environmental issues result in stronger issue ownership, and therefore increased displays of pro-environmental behavior. Our resulting conceptual model and set of five testable propositions emphasize the importance of issue ownership and identification in explicating the emotional antecedents of pro-environmental behaviors in organizations.
Poster Location 6:
Body awareness training and coherence among emotion response systems
, , , , University of California, Berkeley
A central tenet of many emotion theories is that emotions involve coordinated changes across multiple response systems. According to the functionalist perspective, this integration of response systems helps prepare the organism to respond optimally to situations of personal relevance. While there is evidence for robust temporal coherence between facial behavior and subjective emotional experience (Bonanno & Keltner, 2004; Mauss et al., 2005), researchers have yet to establish a reliable temporal relationship between physiology and subjective experience. Therefore, we hypothesized that the strength of coherence between physiology and subjective experience may vary as a function of individual differences. Specifically, we propose that people who engage in activities involving body-awareness training will have greater coherence between physiology and subjective experience.
Participants were either: (a) experienced Vipassana (body-awareness) meditators, (b) experienced dancers (modern or ballet), or (c) demographically matched controls. Participants viewed a six-minute film that elicited a sequence of contentment, amusement, and disgust. While watching the film, participants' cardiovascular physiology and subjective emotional experience were monitored on a second-by-second basis. Lag correlations were used to determine the coherence across emotion systems. Results indicated higher coherence between cardiovascular physiology and subjective emotional experience for meditators compared to the dancers and controls. These findings suggest two possibilities: (a) body-awareness meditation training produces greater coherence among physiology and subjective experience; or (b) those who seek out this training have greater intrinsic coherence. In either case, the implications of this individual difference factor for emotion theories and for our emotional lives is worthy of further study.
Poster Location 7:
& , University of Kansas
In 7 studies (N = 1,122 undergraduates), measures of collective happiness, hope, fear, jealousy, contempt, and disgust were constructed and validated. Each scale assesses the amount of collective emotion felt by participants concerning a focal ingroup. Four of the scales tap a single dimension, with adequate internal consistency (from .81 to .93). The contempt and disgust measures consist of subscales that tap participants’ perception of an outgroup’s emotion towards the ingroup, along with subscales that tap participants’ feelings toward an outgroup. Each measure (treating the subscales as separate measures) contains 5 items that are rated on an 8-point Likert-type scale. All of the scales have content, convergent, and divergent validity. The scales provide researchers with a means of assessing the extent to which specific collective emotions are experienced.
In the final study, salient group membership was manipulated: National (American), Gender, and Student identity groups. The collective emotion measures were administered in addition to measures of collective self-esteem, whole group accountability, collective guilt assignment and acceptance, and the Marlowe-Crowne social desirability scale. The collective measures of fear, jealousy, contempt of other groups toward the ingroup, and disgust by other groups toward the ingroup differed significantly by salient group membership. Regression analyses revealed that identification with the group was a significant predictor of collective happiness, fear, contempt, and hope. Assignment of guilt to another group was a significant predictor of the degree of disgust and jealousy directed toward it. Other results support the validity of the constructed measures.
Poster Location 8:
Influence of person-focused, process-focused and no attributional feedback on children’s prosocial behavior
, , , , and ; Department of Psychology, Virginia Tech
Research demonstrates that children who receive person-focused feedback about achievement (e.g., praise for intelligence) more often become discouraged and perform worse when facing more difficult tasks, whereas children who receive process-focused feedback (e.g., praise for effort) more often persist and perform better when facing more difficult tasks. Attributional feedback may operate differently for prosocial behavior than for achievement. Indeed, early research examining how types of attributional feedback influence children’s prosocial behavior showed no detrimental effects of person-focused feedback (Eisenberg et al., 1987; Grusec & Redler, 1980).
We investigated influences of parent-given and experimenter-given feedback on children’s prosocial behavior in a 2-year longitudinal study. In Year 1, parents of 42 pre-Kindergarten and 30 3rd grade children (53% girls) rated their likely responses to their child’s prosocial and lack of prosocial behavior. In Year 2, children’s prosocial behavior was observed before and after experimenter-given person-focused, process-focused, or no attributional feedback. For both age groups, parents’ report of no feedback for children’s prosocial behavior in Year 1 predicted children’s greater prosocial behavior throughout the session in Year 2. For older children, parents’ report of no feedback for children’s lack of prosocial behavior in Year 1 predicted greater prosocial behavior following experimenter feedback in Year 2. For older children, prosocial behavior decreased following experimenter-given process-focused feedback, remained stable following person-focused feedback, and increased following no feedback. Results corroborate domain-specific effects of person-focused feedback, suggest the importance of absence of adult feedback for children’s prosocial behavior, and highlight developmental processes in responses to attributional feedback.
Poster Location 9:
, The University of Chicago; Mark Reid, University of Oregon; & Jean Twenge, San Diego State University
Sociality and the need to belong lie at the core of human motivations. Indeed, social needs are so entrenched in our genetic and historic disposition that social rejection and the absence of close bonds leads to a constellation of serious health and psychological consequences, many of which ironically hinder reconnecting with others (Cacioppo, Hawkley, & Berntson, 2003; Buckley, Winkel & Leary, 2004). The current study sought to establish whether rejection also causes failure in emotion regulation. To induce social exclusion, we administered false personality feedback. Participants were told that they would likely be alone in later life, accident prone, or were given no feedback (cf. Twenge, Baumeister, Tice, Stucke, 2001). Subsequently, participants were asked to keep their facial expressions neutral while watching a video of a funny stand-up comedy routine. We predicted that socially excluded participants would be more likely to smile and laugh in response to the funny video compared to both control groups. In line with our hypothesis, participants who were led to believe that they would experience future isolation were less able to control their emotions compared to those in the control groups. Additionally, emotion regulation grew increasingly more difficult for rejected individuals as time progressed. The implications of these findings and a cognitive resources account are discussed.
Poster Location 10:
, Department of Psychology, Brock University
A great deal of research concerning emotion regulation (ER) has focused on strategies that are employed to enhance or control emotions. In contrast, relatively little research has investigated the goals that lie behind ER. The present study investigated whether the goals that motivate emotional control are related to relationship quality, over and above the specific strategies employed to down-regulate negative emotions. Ninety-one mother-young adult child (52 daughters and 40 sons; mean age 20 years) dyads reported on their perceptions about two aspects of their relationship (conflict and support), as well as the extent to which they (a) employed two ER strategies (cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression) and (b) pursued two types of ER goals (self- vs. other-oriented) when controlling anger toward the other member of the dyad.
Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that ER goals were the primary predictors of mother reports of conflict and support. However, both ER strategies (particularly suppression) and ER goals were significant predictors of young adult children’s reports of conflict and support. Results are discussed in terms of the mechanisms by which ER goals may influence relationship quality, and their relationship to ER strategies. In addition, questions are raised about whether the negative correlates of suppression (e.g., increased heart rate) would still be observed if this strategy was being enacted to address empathic, other-oriented goals (e.g., to spare the partner’s feelings), given research suggesting that feelings of sympathy result in heart rate deceleration and less skin conductance (physiological correlates opposite to those associated with suppression).
Poster Location 11:
& , The University of Texas at Austin
People are often responsible for evaluating someone else’s efforts (e.g., employers evaluating employee’s job performance, professors providing feedback on a student’s term paper, etc.) and this feedback may be crucial in helping improve performance in the future. After all, people are unlikely to improve their performance if they are unaware of its weaknesses. Evaluators generally know this but may find that giving feedback can be psychologically difficult. The reason? Many recipients of criticism do not take it particularly well; their distress is written all over their face.
This study is aimed at understanding how facial expressions of negative emotion by a feedback recipient affect the type, quality and quantity of feedback that he/she receives for poor performance. Participants watched a female confederate deliver a low quality speech and were then asked to provide face to face feedback (open ended and ratings) to the confederate about her performance. In one condition, the confederate expressed anger during this feedback session and in the other condition she expressed anxiety.
Results indicate that emotion expression on the part of the feedback receiver does influence the quality of feedback given but that the pattern of effects depends on the gender of the feedback provider (emotion condition x gender interaction). Female participants provided the most positive feedback to the confederate when in the anger condition while male participants provided the most positive feedback to the confederate when in the anxious condition. Differential emotion socialization between the two genders may provide insight into these differences.
Poster Location 12:
Activation of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex predicts psychological well-being and emotion regulation: A source localization study.
, , , , , , & ; University of Wisconsin - Madison
The ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) has been implicated in the down-regulation of negative affect during an instructed emotion regulation paradigm (e.g., Ochsner et al., 2002; Urry et al., 2006). We sought to examine the role of vmPFC in uninstructed emotion regulation, as well as its moderation by individual differences in psychological well-being. High density EEG, eyeblink startle magnitude, and corrugator EMG were collected as participants viewed unpleasant, neutral, and pleasant images. Data were analyzed with a tomographic source localization method that computes the cortical three-dimensional distribution of current density for standard frequency bands (LORETA-Key). Voxel-wise correlations indicated that individuals with greater psychological well-being showed increased activation of the vmPFC during the pre-picture epoch. Furthermore, activation of the vmPFC during unpleasant pictures predicted decreased reactivity to and increased recovery from unpleasant pictures, as indexed by psychophysiological measures (e.g., emotion-modulated startle, facial EMG). In sum, individuals with higher psychological well-being may be better prepared to, and ultimately more successful at, regulating their affect; and the vmPFC may be one neural region that mediates this relationship.
Poster Location 13:
“Neither Here Nor There: The Cognitive Nature of Emotion”
, Dept. of Philosophy, University of Memphis
The appearance of Paul Griffith’s widely read book, What Emotions Really Are, caused a sudden increase of philosophical interest in the psychological theory of “basic emotions” or “affect programs.” However, philosophers have arguably rushed into applications of affect program (AP) theory without a satisfactory understanding of the nature of affect programs or their place in our mental economy. As a remedy, I offer an analysis of current AP theory and the cognitive status of affect programs in particular. The result is not only an improved understanding of affect programs, but also the rudiments of a novel theory of “cognition” itself, which theory in turn suggests a tantalizing possibility: Latent in AP theory are the means to construct a solution to what Griffiths ironically helped reinvigorate, the tireless debate about what emotions really are—a solution loaded with import for all academic areas of emotion inquiry.
Poster Location 14:
Emotional Distress Caused by Social Exclusion is Differentially Experienced as a Function of Emotional Intensity and Reappraisal
&, The University of Mississippi
Individuals’ appraisals (or evaluations of the meaning) of events determine the kind of emotion experienced. However, emotionally-intense individuals focus on and over-generalize the meaning of emotional events more so than emotionally-mild individuals do. Therefore, emotionally-intense individuals’ reappraisal (or reevaluations) of threatening events (e. g., social exclusion) should be more effective at moderating the emotional impact of these events than emotionally-mild individuals’ reappraisal of these events.
To investigate this, emotionally-intense and emotionally-mild participants engaged in a get-to-know session, after which they were led to believe they were perceived as poor potential friends by their fellow participants. Following this social exclusion event, participants reappraised the event by writing why the get-to-know session was either a valid or an invalid method for determining their potential as a friend or assigned to a control condition. After engaging in another get-to-know session and receiving the same social exclusion feedback, participants’ completed measures of emotional distress.
Results indicated that emotionally-intense individuals experienced more emotional distress in the valid- and control- reappraisal conditions than in the invalid-reappraisal condition; however, emotionally-mild individuals experienced comparable levels of emotional distress across conditions. That is, emotionally-intense individuals experienced more emotional distress than emotionally mild individuals when the event was evaluated as self-relevant or not reevaluated. However, emotionally-intense individuals’ distress was attenuated by evaluating the event as irrelevant; whereas, emotionally-mild individuals’ distress was comparable to their distress in comparison reappraisal conditions. These results have implications for both cognitive mechanisms that influence emotional intensity and emotion management mechanisms related to emotional intensity.
Poster Location 15:
The Psychophysiology of Elevation: Vagal Withdrawal and Tenderness
, University of Virginia , University of California, Berkeley & , University of Virginia
Elevation, an emotion triggered by the good deeds of others (Haidt, 2003), is associated with interpersonal warmth (Silvers & Haidt, 2006). Despite being subjectively pleasant (Algoe & Haidt, 2006) it is often marked by crying-related somatic activity (e.g., tears, “lump” in throat) which is (a) physiologically stressful (Gross, Fredrickson, & Levenson, 1994) and (b) thought to signal psychological distress (Darwin, 1872/1998). Given the affiliation-promoting properties of stress/distress, we explored the possibility that this apparent stress component underlies elevation’s affiliative properties.
We conducted two within-participant video induction studies to test whether elevation is associated with suppression of activity in the vagus nerve, a response believed to reflect active coping/stress regulation. In study 1 (N = 45), elevation, but not amusement or sociomoral disgust, was associated with suppression of respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA; an index of vagal activity). In study 2 (N = 51), RSA suppression was observed across four different positive social-affiliative videos. Interestingly, the magnitude of RSA suppression was greater for males than for females. In addition, the degree to which male, but not female, participants exhibited RSA suppression was associated with self-reported tenderness such that higher levels of tenderness were associated with greater RSA suppression.
These findings suggest that the interpersonal warmth and affiliation that characterize many other-oriented positive emotions such as elevation may arise as a result of the engagement of stress-regulatory mechanisms such as vagal withdrawal.
Poster Location 16:
Thin Slices of Child and Family Temperament
, , , , , &
Author affiliations:University of California, Berkeley (Oveis, Gruber, Keltner, Stamper)
University of Michigan (Liu)
University of British Columbia (Boyce).
We investigate the claim that thin slices of positive behavior serve as reliable indicators of positive temperament in children and their families. Two kinds of positive emotional displays—smiles and warm touches—were assessed in photographs of children in two different contexts (classroom, home) as well as in their parents in the home. We present four types of data from this investigation that address claims about the relationship between thin slices of emotion-relevant behavior and childhood temperament. First, measures of children’s smiling and touch with family members were correlated across contexts. Second, consistent with claims that emotions become differentiated throughout development, positive and negative affective displays demonstrated greater statistical independence in adults than in their children. Third, consistent with literature on parent-child personality associations, adults’ affective displays within the family were significantly associated with their children’s. Finally, thin slices of children’s positive behavioral displays correlated with parent temperament ratings of Surgency/Extraversion. Taken together, these results demonstrate the utility of thin slices of behavior, such as the smile and touch, as more general markers of positive individual and family temperament.
Poster Location 17:
Disclosing Emotions to Friends: Effects on Cardiovascular Reactivity to Subsequent Stress
,, &; Ohio University
Sharing emotions following highly arousing events is typical of supportive social relationships. Studies have identified autonomic and health correlates of emotion expression and suppression, with suppression related to heightened autonomic arousal as well as poorer health. The goal of this study was to assess the psychophysiological consequences of affording or precluding opportunities to engage in emotion sharing following an emotionally arousing experience.
Thirty-nine women viewed, alone, fear and disgust-eliciting film clips. They were then (a) afforded an opportunity to discuss with a friend their thoughts and feelings regarding the film, or (b) were told to refrain from discussing the film with their friend, but had to interact with her nonetheless. The women then performed a 5-minute serial subtraction task without the friend present, while heart rate (HR), stroke volume (SV), pre-ejection period (PEP), and total peripheral resistance (TPR) were assessed. Results revealed that, after controlling for baseline values, individuals who had the opportunity to emotionally disclose displayed significantly lower HR (p = .03), and lengthened PEP (p = .01), during the subtraction task relative to individuals who were precluded the opportunity for emotional disclosure. Additionally, among individuals who emotionally disclosed, only HR was elevated above baseline during the subtraction task (p < .01), whereas among individuals without disclosure opportunities, HR, SV, and PEP change was significant (p’s < .01), with no compensating decline in TPR (p > .05). These results suggest that precluding emotional disclosure opportunities can result in a suboptimal cardiovascular profile during subsequent, novel stress.
Poster Location 18:
Emotion Regulation and Reactivity in Frontotemporal Lobar Degeneration and Alzheimer’s Disease
,, & ; University of California, Berkeley
Frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD) and Alzheimer’s disease (AD) are two neurodegenerative diseases with profoundly different symptom profiles. AD patients suffer from significant cognitive deficits, most notably in their memory and visuospatial abilities, while changes in personality and emotional functioning are usually mild or absent. In contrast, FTLD patients often exhibit behavioral disinhibition and other signs of emotional dysregulation, while many of their cognitive capabilities are relatively spared.
This study explored emotion regulation in 32 FTLD patients, 15 AD patients, and 27 neurologically normal controls. Participants were shown two disgust-eliciting films, both chosen to be thematically simple. For the first film, participants were only told to watch the film. For the second film, they were told to hide any emotional reactions they might have. Participants’ emotional behavior was quantified from video recordings by trained coders.
Results indicated that all three groups showed similar levels of emotional expression in response to the first film, indicating comparability in their reactivity to the film. However, for the second film AD patients were significantly more successful than FTLD patients in suppressing their emotional behavior (normal controls fell in between). These results provide evidence of preservation of some aspects of emotional reactivity and emotion regulation in the early stages of AD. In FTLD, however, despite preservation of simple emotional reactivity, there is a decline in emotional regulation. Deficits in ability to regulate emotion in FTLD likely result from neural loss in frontal and anterior temporal brain regions that are thought to be associated with emotion regulatory processes.
Poster Location 19:
Effects of Appetitive Attitudes Towards Affective Pictures on Asymmetrical Frontal Cortical Activity
& , Texas A&M University
Previous studies measuring EEG alpha power over the prefrontal cortex have found that greater left than right frontal cortical activity (inverse of alpha) relates to approach motivation. Although much research has found asymmetrical frontal activity to relate to affective traits and states, experiments examining asymmetrical frontal activity in response to affective pictures have produced inconsistent results (Harmon-Jones et al., 2006).
Inconsistencies in past research may have occurred because the pictorial stimuli may not have been personally relevant and not have evoked approach motivational tendencies. We predicted that individual differences in appetitive attitudes toward stimuli would relate to increased left frontal activity toward the stimuli, within the first second of picture viewing. By examining the first sec of picture viewing, the present research would extend past research that had only examined activity over the first 3 sec of picture viewing. In the current study, participants were asked to indicate their appetitive attitudes of liking for dessert and the time since they had last eaten, then shown a series of attractive dessert pictures or neutral pictures while EEG activity was recorded.
Results indicated that the interaction of appetitive attitudes and picture type predicted greater left than right frontal activity within the first second of picture presentation. These results suggest that individual differences in approach-related attitudes potentiate the effects of pictures of desirable objects on asymmetrical frontal cortical activity.
Poster Location 20:
Act with Your Heart, not with Your Head: Affective Processing Improves Complex Decision-Making
, , & ; Cornell University
The current study examined the notion that the black box of unconscious deliberation may conceal affective processing. Dijksterhuis, Bos, Nordgren, and van Baaren (2006) demonstrated that unconscious deliberation can improve accuracy in complex decision-making; however, their deliberation without attention hypothesis is markedly vague with regard to mechanism. We hypothesized that affective processing would produce the same beneficial results as unconscious processing for complex decisions. Undergraduate students at Cornell University completed a modified version of the choice task from Study 1 of Dijksterhuis et al. (2006) while focusing either on their memory for 4 hypothetical cars (cognitive condition) or their feelings for the choice options (affective condition).
Results indicated that affective processing yielded significantly increased accuracy for complex decisions, while using a cognitive strategy led to marginally improved performance for simple decisions. By contrasting affective versus cognitive strategies, the current study conceptually replicated the findings of Dijksterhuis et al. (2006) and offers one specific mechanism for the purported superiority of unconscious, deliberative processing in complex decision tasks. Implications and proposed follow-up studies are discussed.
Poster Location 21:
The effects of unilateral hand contractions on contra-lateral hemispheric activity and aggression
& , Texas A&M University
The present research extends past research on anger, motivation, and asymmetrical frontal cortical activity by manipulating frontal asymmetry prior to an anger-inducing event and examining its effect on aggression. Participants were randomly assigned to increase left frontal activation, increase right frontal activation, or neither, by squeezing a ball in the contra-lateral hand or between both hands. They then received insulting feedback from another ostensible participant. To measure aggression, participants played a reaction time game in which they were able to deliver a blast of white noise ranging from 60dB to 100dB for up to 10 sec to the other participant, if they were fastest to respond when an image appeared on the screen. Results indicated a significant effect of hand contraction on hemispheric activity over the motor strip. Further analyses were conducted on only those participants who evidenced the predicted asymmetry in the motor strip during the hand contractions, compared to baseline. Results indicated that participants who contracted their right hand evidenced greater left than right lateral frontal activation, while those who contracted their left hand evidenced greater right than left lateral frontal activation. Also, right-hand contraction participants gave significantly louder and longer noise blasts to the other participant than left-hand contraction participants. The results suggest manipulated increases in relative left frontal activation can increase behavioral aggression.
Poster Location 22:
Felt Emotions Change Body Movements During Walking
& ; Department of Movement Science, University of Michigan, & , Department of Psychology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Although emotion is expressed through multiple physiological channels, little is know about how emotion affects body movements. The purpose of this study was to quantify the effects of specific, felt emotions on body movements during walking. Video and motion capture data were acquired from 17 undergraduates while they walked after recalling an experience from their own lives in which they felt angry, sad, content, joy or no emotion at all. To determine whether the walkers’ felt emotions were recognizable in their body movements, randomized videos of the walkers (with blurred faces) were shown to 30 other undergraduates. After viewing each video, observers selected one of 10 emotions that they thought the walker experienced during the trial.
A mixed effects regression model was used to determine the random effects of walker and observer and the fixed effects of view, emotion, walker gender, observer gender, and video sequence on emotion recognition. Joint angle data from the recognized trials served as input to a principal components analysis using a Varimax rotation. Self-report data indicated that the walkers felt the target emotions at moderate or greater intensity in all trials. Mean recognition rates for sad, anger, joy, content and neutral trials were 43%, 22%, 20%, 19% and 25%, respectively. The first 7 principal components accounted for 76% of the kinematic variability. Rotated loadings for the principal components were significantly different among the emotions (p<0.001). Emotions produced characteristic kinematic changes; e.g., sad gait was associated with increased neck flexion, trunk flexion, and shoulder elevation.
Poster Location 23:
Dominant and Submissive Laughter in a Hierarchical Setting: The Effects of Trait- and State-based Power
, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; & , , & , University of California, Berkeley
The present study investigated the social functions of distinct types of laughter, and their relationship to status-based and experimentally-manipulated power. In groups of four (2 high status, 2 low status), 48 fraternity brothers participated in a teasing task in which each participant was placed in a high-power role (as teaser) and a low-power role (as target of the tease). We identified each instance of laughter in the interactions and coded 13 acoustic characteristics of each laugh as well as its conversational context following Scherer’s (1986) work on the vocal communication of emotion.
Based on these characteristics, we distinguished between two types of laughter in the interactions: dominant and submissive. Compared to submissive laughs, dominant laughs were more often voiced, more vocally intense, and higher in pitch, pitch range, and pitch modulation. The use of dominant and submissive laughter mapped onto status and state-induced power. While there were no base rate differences in total laughter by status, high status participants were more likely to laugh dominantly, while low status participants were more likely to laugh submissively. Experimentally-induced power interacted with status such that status similarity facilitated the use of dominant and submissive laughter when being teased, but not when teasing. Results support the proposal that laughter is a heterogeneous behavior that is a vehicle for the communication of emotions and intentions, and provide evidence in support of the approach and inhibition model of power.
Poster Location 24:
Manipulations Under the Microscope: Emotion Manipulations in the Laboratory
, , , , & , University of Illinois at Chicago
Operationally defining emotion in terms of laboratory manipulations has historically represented a weak link in the study of emotion. Potential confounding of manipulated emotion with incidental characteristics of emotion manipulations (such as cognitive priming or physical demands) leaves all studies involving manipulated emotion open to criticism, and renders it difficult to compare results of different manipulations intended to induce the same emotion. The current study uses an innovative control group design developed by Stemmler and colleagues (2001) to isolate and examine potential confounds in two types of emotion manipulations (“situational” inductions where participants are placed in an apparently spontaneous situation in the lab [such as being asked to give a self-revealing speech] vs. “elten” inductions where participants read valenced self-statements) across two affective states (happiness and anxiety). Dependent variables included self-report, psychophysiological measures, and several judgment and decision tasks.
Results revealed few effects of the incidental characteristics of the chosen manipulations. Significant findings with respect to the judgment tasks suggest that incidental characteristics may partly account for emotion effects on judgment, although task order effects complicated interpretation of these results. Additionally, whereas self-statements tended to activate non-targeted negative emotions of hostility and depression, the situational manipulation influenced only the targeted emotion of anxiety. Our data therefore suggest that manipulations intended to produce the same emotion may vary significantly in their effects, indicating that caution should be exercised when aggregating results of various emotion manipulations found in the literature.
Poster Location 25:
Imitation of emotion: how meaning can lead to aversion
, University of Groningen; , Tilburg University; & , University of Groningen
Can imitation lead to less liking? Previous research suggests that this is not very likely. In most studies imitating a target lead to more liking of that target by the participant. However these studies often look at the imitating of neutral behavior, like touching the face or wiggling a foot, while behavior in real life is rarely neutral. More often than not behavior has meaning: facial expressions are the ultimate example of this. An angry expression can mean for example that somebody is dissatisfied with someone, for instance the person that he or she is looking at. When such an angry expression is imitated would this still lead to more liking? The dissatisfaction or even hostility that is conveyed by an angry expression is a negative message for the perceiver. We think this would be amplified by imitation and as such have a negative effect on liking. In the same line of reasoning we expect a positive message to be amplified as well, which should lead to more liking of the target. In two experimental studies we show this exact pattern. Participants who imitated a happy person liked this person more. And more importantly participants who imitated an angry person liked this person less. So indeed, imitating does not always lead to more liking. The meaning of the behavior and the message it is sending can be of great importance to the effects of imitating someone. Imitating behavior with a negative message can have negative consequences.
Poster Location 26:
Exploring the Emotional Brain: Effects of Individual Differences in Implicit Motivation on Neural Responses to Facial Expressions of Emotion
, , , , , & , University of Michigan
Evidence from affective neuroscience reveals a network of core emotional and motivational brain structures dedicated to the analysis of a stimulus for emotional content and the preparation of motivated action toward or away from the stimulus (LeDoux, 2002; Rolls, 1999). Research indicates that implicit power motivation (the need to have impact on others) and implicit affiliation motivation (the need to have close, harmonious relationships with others) predict both the reinforcement value of angry and surprised faces and attention toward or away from these facial expressions (Schultheiss & Hale, 2006; Schultheiss et al., 2005).
The present study was designed to assess whether neural responses to angry facial expressions vary as a function of individual differences in implicit power and affiliation motives. Using an fMRI block design, 24 participants viewed angry facial expressions and control stimuli (neutral faces, gray squares) under passive viewing and oddball task conditions. In response to angry versus neutral faces, both individual differences in power and affiliation motives predicted greater neural activation in brain areas associated with affective processes, including the amygdala, OFC, and insula. However, these motives showed differential responses in areas of the brain associated with reward.
Affiliation-motivated individuals showed decreased activation in the nucleus accumbens and ventral striatum in response to angry faces whereas power-motivated individuals showed greater activation in these areas. These data suggest that angry facial expressions, as signals of threat and/or dominance, are emotionally salient for both power-motivated and affiliation-motivated individuals, but differ in terms of their reward salience for these groups.
Poster Location 27:
Emotional Influences on Generative Reasoning: Depressed Mood and Stereotype Threat
, , , & , Cardiff University, Warsaw School of Social Psychology
We present a first step towards an integrative view of emotional influences on generative reasoning, which is defined as the generation of more comprehensive mental representations, concepts, or mental models out of initial piecemeal information. The paradigm we use is a transitive reasoning task, by which participants generate ordered sequences A > B > C > D out of pairwise piecemeal information, such as A>B, B>C, etc.
Research so far is inconclusive about the cognitive sources of reasoning deficits in various emotional states. To elucidate this issue, we first propose and discuss two task components within this paradigm that seem to be fundamental, i.e., memory maintenance, and the process of online-integration (Sedek and von Hecker, 2004; von Hecker et al, 2005). We then present three studies, comparing subclinical depression, stereotype threat, and old age, each against control student samples. Across these studies, we find that subclinical depression is associated with a genuine deficit in online-integration, whilst memory maintenance appears fully preserved, whereas stereotype threat is associated with a mixture of online-integration and maintenance deficits. Performance deficits in old age, in comparison, appear entirely due to maintenance problems.
We propose that the impact of different emotional states on generative reasoning amounts to creating specific patterns concerning the interplay between maintenance and processing components in working memory.
Poster Location 28:
Affect in the workplace: Dynamic dimensionality and rotational invariance through experience sampling and multi-way analysis
, Department of Psychology, University of Illinois
Affective processes in the workplace have seen increasing attention in the last decade. Dynamic conceptual approaches, such as Affective Events Theory (Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996) and self-regulatory approaches to motivation (e.g., Kanfer & Heggestad, 1997) have placed attention on “hot” processes driven by affect that directly influence workplace behaviors. These processes have been investigated with increasingly sophisticated experience sampling methods (ESM). These methods produce multimodal data (participants x measures x occasions), which are often analyzed with hierarchical linear models (HLM). HLM treats the occasions as nested within subjects. When they can be treated as crossed over subjects, more information can be extracted than can be done in HLM, using multi-way analysis.
The current research re-analyzes a portion of Miner (2001)’s ESM array with two multimode factor analytic techniques. The Tucker3 model can be used to extract standard measures-based factors, but also participant factors and time factors, akin to R-, S-, and P-technique factors, simultaneously (Tucker, 1966). Harshman’s (1970) PARAFAC procedure can be used to extract rotationally-invariant factor axes by applying the principle of parallel proportional profiles (Cattell, 1944). The current paper is pedagogical in presenting multimode techniques to a broad audience and presents some substantive findings on the structure of affect in the workplace.
Poster Location 29:
The Hidden Value of Valentine’s: How impressing your partner can improve your mood
, , & , University of British Columbia
Engaging in positive self-presentation, or putting one’s best face forward, may have beneficial consequences for mood that are typically overlooked. Recent research in our lab has shown that people typically underestimate how good they would feel in social situations that demand positive self-presentation. In the present study, self-presentation was directly manipulated to examine whether situations that carry high self-presentational demands can actually make one feel better than situations with little or no self-presentational demands. Participants who were asked to engage in self-presentation with their romantic partners during a five-minute conversation subsequently felt happier than couples in the control condition who were not instructed to self-present. Forecasters, however, did not predict that they would feel any better interacting with their romantic partner in the self-presentation than the control condition. Indeed, the majority of forecasters indicated that they would prefer to be in the control condition over the self-presentation condition. Thus, the present research demonstrates that there are benefits to engaging in self-presentation that are frequently overlooked. This failure to recognize the benefits of self-presentation may underlie forecasting errors regarding the emotional consequences of many common social interactions.
Poster Location 30:
The influence of achievement goals on causal attribution, affective reaction, and expectancy following success and failure
, Department of Psychology, Doshisha University, Kyoto, Japan
The purpose of this study was to investigate how different achievement goals were related to causal attributions, affective reactions, and expectancy following success or failure in a presentation task. Participants were 86 (52 female and 34 male) Japanese undergraduate students. Dual scaling (Nishisato, 1980) was used for illustrating the associations of the variables under mastery (approach and avoidance) and performance (approach and avoidance) goals. It was found that high mastery-approach goals were related with high expectancy both in success and failure, and low negative affect in failure. High performance-approach goals were found to be related with high luck attribution and anger in failure, and high performance-avoidance goals with high ability attribution and negative affects in failure. Expected relationship between mastery-approach and avoidance goals and effort attribution were not shown in the present results.
Poster Location 31:
Relationship between Personality and Type of Regret
, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea
We examined the relationship between regret and Big Five among Korean college students. We asked participants to write their inaction regrets and action regrets in the last 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, 5 year, and 10 year. The temporal pattern of action / inaction was not found. However, extraversion was negatively related to the frequency of inaction regrets ( r = -.31, p < .005). In other words, extroverted people did not regret inaction as much as introverted people. On the other hand, neuroticism was positively (r = .29, p < .01) and conscientiousness ( r = -.26, p < .05) was negatively related to the frequency of action errors. Regression analysis confirms this pattern as well. These findings are consistent with the reported characteristics of big five traits.
Poster Location 32:
Emotional Communication in Close Relationships
& , University of California, Berkeley
The demand-withdraw interaction pattern, a common, destructive pattern in intimate relationships, takes the following form: one partner tries to discuss problems, blames their partner, or demands change, while the other partner tries to avoid or withdraw from the discussion. These behaviors are experienced by partners as highly unpleasant and are associated with relationship dissatisfaction and instability. Although research with heterosexual couples suggested that wives typically demand and husbands typically withdraw, our work with same-sex couples suggests that these behaviors are more closely linked with power in the relationship rather than biological sex. The demand-withdraw pattern may also be associated with couples’ attempts to regulate their level of physiological arousal.
To test this, heterosexual, gay, and lesbian couples (N = 65) engaged in a 15-min conflict conversation during which multiple physiological measures were collected. Demand and withdraw behaviors were coded by independent observers. Results revealed that for same-sex and mixed-sex couples: (a) there were equal levels of demand/withdraw behavior; (b) greater manifestation of the demand-withdraw pattern was associated with greater differences in the level of physiological arousal between partners. Examining this pattern more closely, demand behaviors were associated with increased physiological arousal while withdraw behaviors were associated with decreased arousal regardless of the sex of the partner. This suggests that the demand-withdraw pattern may be associated with regulation of the emotional climate of the interaction in ways that provide the benefits of lowered physiological arousal for the withdrawing partner.
Poster Location 33:
Is all Positive Affect the Same? Differentiating Two Positive Affect Induction Procedures
, , , & , University of Illinois at Chicago
The emotions literature has revealed that, relative to the negative emotions, positive emotions are more difficult to induce in a laboratory setting. This observation may perhaps result from induction procedures tapping only the pleasantness (valence) aspect of positive affect (PA), whereas traditional dimensional models of emotion also posit conceptual differences between low and high arousal dimensions of positive emotions.
Using a within-subjects design, the current study assessed emotional response to two affect induction procedures, each aspiring to elicit theoretically distinct manifestations of PA: Excitement (positive valence and low arousal) and Contentment (positive valence and low arousal). We then examined changes in PA and negative affect (NA; using the PANAS; Watson, Clark and Tellegen, 1988), as well as change in four specific affective states as measured by the extended PANAS (Joviality, Sadness, Serenity and Fear; Watson and Clark, 1994) in 52 college students (mean age = 18.81, 58.5% female). Each participant experienced both emotion manipulations, counterbalanced to control for possible order effects.
Across all analyses, results revealed no effect of gender or order. A series of repeated measures ANOVAs revealed that, as anticipated, the Excitement manipulation induced higher PA and Joviality, and lowered Sadness, relative to the Contentment manipulation. However, the two manipulations did not differ in NA, Fear, and Serenity. These data suggest that the two specific affect manipulations can be differentiated only via the PA axis of the emotion circumplex. Implications for future research will be discussed.
Poster Location 34:
Emotion, Cognition, and Proper Function: How Much (or How Little) Do Lesioning and Masking Reveal About Emotions?
, Department of Philosophy, Clemson University
Emotional noncognitivism, or the view that cognition is inessential to most or all paradigm emotions, has become increasingly popular in emotion theory. Part of what has traditionally motivated the argument is that emotions are sudden, typically automatic, and often at odds with our declared beliefs. However, this has provided only limited support for noncognitivism because, as cognitive theorists have noted, cognitions are often sudden, automatic, and can be at odds with our declared beliefs. The crucial evidence used against cognitivism is recent empirical work by neuroscientists and psychologists according to which emotional responses can be initiated without awareness of object of emotion and with only crude, low level information processing. Many theorists have used these findings, which are based on lesioning and masking, to argue that emotions, or at least the “basic” emotions upon which other emotions are based, are noncognitive because emotional responses can be elicited without the involvement of the parts of the brain that are associated with cognition.
This poster reviews and assesses this empirical research in light of theories of proper function in the biological and psychological sciences. Consideration of proper function in the identification of psychological systems suggests that these recent empirical findings, being based on radically artificial conditions, are not relevant to the issue of what emotions are and thus do not underwrite noncognitivism. Moreover, this same consideration lends support to the idea that paradigm emotions, including the purported noncognitive basic emotions, are in fact cognitive.
Poster Location 35:
Arousal is not the intensity of affect
, , , , & , Boston College
Valence (pleasure and displeasure) and activation are the two major dimensions that anchor various approaches to understanding affective phenomena. There are two assumptions regarding the relationship between valence and activation: (a) each represent orthogonal attributes of affective experience and (b) activation determines the intensity of pleasure and of arousal. We examine the viability of each hypothesis in three studies. Study 1 re-analyzes cross-sectional ratings of affective experience from 8 data sets. Study 2 re-analyzes affective responses to stimuli from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS). Study 3 re-analyzes idiographic reports of affective experience collected using a computerized experience-sampling procedure where participants recorded their experience over a month’s time. In each study, we examined the magnitude of the relation between ratings of arousal and the intensity of pleasure and displeasure. Data from all three studies provide evidence for the relative independence between the two dimensions. Arousal ratings were not empirically interchangeable with the intensity of pleasure and displeasure. Implications for the conceptualization and measurement of affect are discussed.
Poster Location 36:
Investigating the Use of Emotion Regulation Strategies in Older Mother-Adult Daughter Helping Relationships
, & , Brock University
The present study investigated the use of three emotion regulation (ER) strategies (reappraisal, suppression, proactive coping) in older mother-adult daughter helping relationships, and their links to relationship satisfaction. Research has consistently suggested that reappraisal and proactive coping may be more adaptive strategies than suppression.
Based on this literature and the tenets of Socioemotional Selectivity Theory (which suggests that people become more skilled at managing emotions as they age [Lockenhoff & Carstensen, 2004]), we expected that (a) mothers would be more likely than daughters to use proactive coping and reappraisal and (b) proactive coping and reappraisal would be positively, and suppression negatively, related to relationship satisfaction. Forty-seven older mothers (M age=76.36 years SD=6.68) and their adult daughters (M age=49.31 years SD=7.16) completed questionnaires assessing their use of ER strategies and relationship satisfaction.
Contrary to the first prediction, daughters used more proactive coping than mothers, and no age differences were observed in the use of suppression or reappraisal. In terms of the second hypothesis, proactive coping was the strongest predictor of both general and helping relationship satisfaction. Surprisingly, proactive coping was negatively correlated with both dependent measures. Generation, reappraisal and suppression were marginally significant predictors of relationship satisfaction.