Between- and within-domain relations of students' academic emotions.

The authors investigated between- and within-domain relations of academic emotions, including students' enjoyment, pride, anxiety, anger, and boredom experienced in mathematics, physics, German, and English classes (N = 542; Grades 8 and 11). Corroborating assumptions of domain specificity, the between-domains relations of these emotions were weak and inconsistent. However, there was more domain specificity of academic emotions in Grade 11 students compared with Grade 8 students, suggesting that between-domains differentiation increased as a function of grade level. Concerning within-domain relations, emotional experiences of enjoyment and pride, anxiety, and anger and boredom were clearly differentiated. The strength of within-domain relations of academic emotions differed considerably across the 4 academic domains. However, for each of the 4 domains, within-domain relations were similar for the 2 grade levels. Methodological and educational implications as well as directions for future research are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Age differences in dynamical emotion-cognition linkages.

The ability to maintain the separation between positive emotion and negative emotion in times of stress has been construed as a resilience mechanism. Emotional resiliency is particularly relevant in old age given concomitant declines in cognitive performance. In the present study, the authors examined the dynamical linkages among positive emotion, negative emotion, and cognition as individuals performed a complex cognitive task. Comparisons were made between younger (n = 63) and older (n = 52) age groups. Older adults manifested significant unidirectional coupling from negative emotion to cognitive performance; younger adults manifested significant unidirectional coupling from negative emotion to positive emotion and from cognitive performance to both positive and negative emotions. Implications for age differences in emotion regulatory strategies are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reported emotions and conventions of emotionality among college students.

In Study 1, 53 college students were asked to appraise their affective experiences in terms of typically and atypically experienced emotions. Results reveal a strong trend toward the delineation of positive affects as typical and negative affects as atypical. Studies 2 and 3, with 101 college students, examined forms of response set that might have contributed to the findings of Study 1, with a particular focus on the effects to conventions of feelings. The results of both studies suggest that the designation of positive affects as typical and negative affects as atypical might have stemmed from widely shared beliefs about the emotions. To further examine the nature of these biases, Study 4 assessed preferences and acceptance in viewing the emotions among 82 college students. Findings indicate strong preferences for positive emotions and view with disapproval the negative emotions. It is argued that the acceptable emotional range appears to be narrow, strongly favoring positive affective experiences. (31 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Toddlers' context-varying emotions, maternal responses to emotions, and internalizing behaviors.

Relations of toddlers' observed negative affect in high- and low-threat contexts to maternal perceptions of their toddlers' internalizing problems and to mothers' responses to emotions (RTE) for fear and sadness were examined. Child-driven, parent-driven, and reciprocal transactional models across 1 year were directly compared. Two-year-old toddlers (N = 106) participated in lab-based activities to elicit distress, and their negative affect was coded. Mothers completed measures of their child's internalizing behaviors and their responses to their toddler's fear and sadness at ages 2 and 3. At age 2, only negative affect in low-threat contexts was associated with greater internalizing problems. Mothers' punishing and minimizing RTE at age 2 predicted an increase in internalizing problems across 1 year. Age 2 internalizing problems predicted an increase in mother's use of supportive RTE over time. Results highlight the importance of considering the context of toddlers' negative affective displays and supported a reciprocal conceptualization of toddlers' internalizing behaviors and mothers' RTE. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Negative emotions, pain, and functioning.

We used linear structural equations (path model analysis) to examine associations among negative emotions, pain, and functioning in a large sample (N = 511) of veterans with chronic pain. We postulated and tested a model where pain and functioning affect negative emotions and where negative emotions affect pain and functioning. The findings confirm a strong relationship between negative emotions, pain, and functioning in our sample, particularly as the variable Pain Interference affects Depression. In a significant but weaker relationship, we also found that Anxiety has a direct effect on patients' perception of their Disability. Specifically, the data support a model where increased Pain Interference, Pain Severity, Depression and Anxiety all lead to increased Disability. Findings that Pain Interference and Depression appear to play a major role in the relationships between pain and negative emotions support the need for experimental studies to understand the causal impact of these variables on patient functioning. In the meantime, the findings suggest that Pain Interference, Depression, and Anxiety, in addition to Pain Severity, should all be targets of chronic pain treatment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Evolution, emotions, and emotional disorders.

Emotions research is now routinely grounded in evolution, but explicit evolutionary analyses of emotions remain rare. This article considers the implications of natural selection for several classic questions about emotions and emotional disorders. Emotions are special modes of operation shaped by natural selection. They adjust multiple response parameters in ways that have increased fitness in adaptively challenging situations that recurred over the course of evolution. They are valenced because selection shapes special processes for situations that have influenced fitness in the past. In situations that decrease fitness, negative emotions are useful and positive emotions are harmful. Selection has partially differentiated subtypes of emotions from generic precursor states to deal with specialized situations. This has resulted in untidy emotions that blur into each other on dozens of dimensions, rendering the quest for simple categorically distinct emotions futile. Selection has shaped flexible mechanisms that control the expression of emotions on the basis of an individual's appraisal of the meaning of events for his or her ability to reach personal goals. The prevalence of emotional disorders can be attributed to several evolutionary factors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Agreement among judges of personality: Interpersonal relations, similarity, and acquaintanceship.

Personality judgments of 184 targets were provided by the self, college acquaintances, hometown acquaintances, parents, and strangers. Study 1 found that knowing the target in the same context enhanced but was not necessary for interjudge agreement and that acquaintances who had never met agreed with each other as well as those who had met. Study 2 found that personality judgments by acquaintances manifested much better interjudge and self–other agreement than did judgments by strangers. Acquaintances were not more similar to their targets than were strangers, and their accuracy derived more from their distinctive judgment of the target than from assumed similarity. These results rule out overlap, communication, and assumed similarity as necessary bases of interjudge agreement and thereby support the simpler hypothesis that interjudge agreement stems from mutual accuracy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Understanding the relations among gender, disinhibition, and disruptive behavior in adolescents.

This study examined whether disinhibition shows similar relations with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and conduct disorder (CD) symptomatology among male and female adolescents. The mixed-incentive or punishment condition of Newman's go/no-go task was administered to 172 adolescents. As expected, ADHD symptoms in boys and girls were predictive of disinhibition (i.e., commission errors) in the mixed-incentive but not punishment condition. Also consistent with expectations, CD symptoms in boys were predictive of disinhibition in the mixed-incentive but not punishment condition. In contrast, CD symptoms in girls were not predictive of disinhibition in either condition. These findings are discussed in terms of implications for understanding sex differences in the etiology of ADHD and CD. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Basic emotions: Can conflicting criteria converge?

Discusses some of the key points raised by P. Ekman (see record 1992-41830-001), C. E. Izard (see record 1992-41836-001), and J. Panksepp (see record 1992-41839-001) in their critiques of A. Ortony and T. J. Turner's (see record 1990-27526-001) suggestion that there are and probably can be no objective and generally acceptable criteria for what is to count as a basic emotion. A number of studies are discussed that are relevant to the authors' contention that a more promising approach to understanding the huge diversity among emotions is to think in terms of emotions being assemblages of basic components rather than combinations of other basic emotions. The authors stress that their position does not deny that emotions are based on "hardwired" biological systems. On the other hand, the existence of such systems does not mean that some emotions (such as those that appear on lists of basic emotions) have a special status. Finally, the authors note that Ekman, Izard, and Panksepp, in adopting different starting points for their research, arrive at rather different conclusions as to what basic emotions are and which emotions are basic. It is concluded that converging resolutions of these questions are improbable. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Similarity relations among synesthetic stimuli and their attributes.

Four experiments examined the similarity relations that exist among bimodal attributes that correspond synesthetically (e.g., white color and high pitch) and among stimuli formed by combining these attributes either congruently (e.g., white/high, black/low) or incongruently (e.g., white/low, black/high). Previous research suggests two hypotheses: (a) Synesthetic stimuli are compared as wholes on the basis of their overall similarity, and (b) nonidentical congruent stimuli are more dissimilar than nonidentical incongruent stimuli. Similarity among either individual attributes (Experiments 1 and 4) or bimodal stimuli (Experiments 2 and 3) was measured by either ratings or response latencies; similarity judgments were scaled with an individual differences scaling procedure (SINDSCAL). Stimulus comparisons were fit well by a Euclidean but not a city-block metric, supporting the overall similarity hypothesis. However, there was little evidence that subjects perceived congruity/incongruity among stimulus wholes, even though subjects were sensitive to correspondence/noncorrespondence among attributes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Parent-child relations and father identification among adolescent boys.

50 items from the California Psychological Inventory were administered to high school boys and their parents. Extent of identification with the father was determined and the highest and lowest boys with regard to father identification were given an incomplete stories test. Analysis of the data revealed a significant relationship between high father identification and perception of the father as a highly rewarding affectionate person. Strong identification of the father was associated with perceptions of relationships with parents as highly rewarding and warm. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The relations among identity development, self-consciousness, and self-focusing during middle and late adolescence.

Two studies were completed to investigate the association between identity status and self-consciousness in adolescence. In Study I, subjects (n?=?445 males and n?=?425 females) were administered the Extended Objective Measure of Ego Identity Status and the Imaginary Audience Scale. Results for ideological identity confirmed that being identity-achieved (compared with being diffused, foreclosed, or moratorium) was associated with greater willingness to reveal one's abiding self and transient self to others (i.e., greater willingness to be less self-conscious). In Study 2 (n?=?80 males and n?=?80 females), diffused, foreclosed, moratorium, and identity-achieved subjects in late adolescence completed a self-focus questionnaire and engaged in a laboratory study that required the subjects to estimate the likelihood of being the focus of others' attention. Among other findings, identity-achieved subjects were least self-focused and diffused subjects were most self-focused. Study 3 demonstrated empirical evidence for the conceptual association between cognitive and emotional components of self-focusing and self-consciousness for high school and college-age youths. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A developmental sequence in the comprehension of emotions: Intensity, multiple emotions, and valence.

In individual interviews, 80 children from ages 4 to 8 yrs predicted which of 5 emotions they would feel, and how intensely, to 15 affect-laden situations. The results indicate that responses involve 3 dimensions of emotion cognition (intensity, multiplicity, and valence) that emerge in a developmental sequence. Four-year-olds predict experiencing 1 emotion of varying intensity to a situation (Level A). They also predict experiencing multiple emotions, but at maximum intensity and the same valence (Level B). By age 6, children predict experiencing multiple emotions of varying intensity but the same valence (Level C). Children around age 8 predict multiple emotions of varying intensity and opposite valence (Level D). The number of emotions experienced at one time and accuracy also increased with development. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Achievement goals and achievement emotions: Testing a model of their joint relations with academic performance.

The authors propose a theoretical model linking achievement goals and achievement emotions to academic performance. This model was tested in a prospective study with undergraduates (N = 213), using exam-specific assessments of both goals and emotions as predictors of exam performance in an introductory-level psychology course. The findings were consistent with the authors' hypotheses and supported all aspects of the proposed model. In multiple regression analysis, achievement goals (mastery, performance approach, and performance avoidance) were shown to predict discrete achievement emotions (enjoyment, boredom, anger, hope, pride, anxiety, hopelessness, and shame), achievement emotions were shown to predict performance attainment, and 7 of the 8 focal emotions were documented as mediators of the relations between achievement goals and performance attainment. All of these findings were shown to be robust when controlling for gender, social desirability, positive and negative trait affectivity, and scholastic ability. The results are discussed with regard to the underdeveloped literature on discrete achievement emotions and the need to integrate conceptual and applied work on achievement goals and achievement emotions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Phenomenology, behaviors, and goals differentiate discrete emotions.

Prior research has typically attempted to distinguish one emotion from another by identifying distinctive expressions, physiology, and subjective qualities. Recent theories claim emotions can also be differentiated by distinctive action tendencies, actions, and motivational goals. To test hypotheses from both older and more recent theories, 100 Ss were asked to recall experiences of particular negative emotions and answer questions concerning what they felt, thought, felt like doing, actually did, and wanted. Results support hypotheses specifying characteristic responses for fear, sadness, distress, frustration, disgust, dislike, anger, regret, guilt, and shame. The findings indicate that discrete emotions have distinctive goals and action tendencies, as well as thoughts and feelings. In addition, they provide empirical support for hypothesized emotion states that have received insufficient attention from researchers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Consistency, specificity, and correlates of negative emotions.

Four studies with college student participants examined the consistency, specificity, and correlates of sadness, fear, and anger. Study 1 measured emotions with daily diaries, and Study 2 examined the relationship between trait emotions and state emotions. Studies 1 and 2 indicated that specific negative emotions are temporally stable, are positively correlated, and provide information above and beyond that provided by other negative emotions. Study 3 found that negative emotions are differentially associated with different facets of cognitive style, as measured by questionnaires that examined dysfunctional attitudes and attributions concerning negative events. Study 4 indicated that negative emotions are differentially associated with different facets of response style, as measured by the degree to which individuals described their thoughts, feelings, and actions in response to hypothetical events. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Longitudinal relations among parental emotional expressivity, children's regulation, and quality of socioemotional functioning.

The role of regulation as a mediator of the relations between maternal emotional expressivity and children's adjustment and social competence was examined when children (N=208) were 4.5 to just 8 years old (Time 1, T1) and 2 years later (Time 2, T2). At T2, as at T1, regulation mediated the relation between positive maternal emotional expressivity and children's functioning. When T1 relations and the stability of variables over time were controlled for in a structural equation model, T2 relations generally were nonsignificant, although parents' dominant negative expressivity predicted high regulation. In contrast, in regressions, the findings for parent positive expressivity, but not negative expressivity, held at T2 when T1 variables were controlled. Thus, relations for negative expressivity, but not positive expressivity, changed with age. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Aesthetic emotions and reality.

Comments that K. S. Walter's (see record 1990-09071-001) response to N. H. Frijda's (see record 1988-28577-001) article on laws and emotions brings up an important issue: The mystery that emotions can be evoked by imaginary events. Frijda thinks the solution is to be found in part in the complexities of the concept and the conception of "reality" and "unreality." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A "change-of-standard" perspective on the relations among context, judgment, and memory.

Conducted 3 studies that tested a "change-of-standard" perspective on the relations among context, judgment, and recall. Each study consisted of 2 or 3 sessions held a few days apart. All Ss read about the sentencing decisions of 1 or 2 target trial judges and of 6 nontarget trial judges who consistently gave either higher or lower sentences than the target judge(s). Each study varied both the standard that was available when Ss initially judged the sentencing decisions of a target judge and the standard available when subjects subsequently recalled those decisions. To accomplish this, we varied the context of judgment, the timing of judgment, and the overall category norm for trial judges' sentencing decisions that was available at recall. We found that although Ss had been exposed to the same target information and had initially judged it in the same way, their recall of the information was different depending on whether and how a change-of-standard had occurred between judgment and recall. Unique predictions of the change-of-standard perspective were confirmed that could not be accounted for in terms of other types of context effects on judgment and memory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Examining relations among attachment, religiosity, and new age spirituality using the Adult Attachment Interview.

This study was the first to examine relations between attachment and religion-spirituality in adults using a developmentally validated attachment assessment, the Adult Attachment Interview. Security of attachment was expected to be linked to a religiosity-spirituality that is socially based on the parental relationships and reflects extrapolation of attachment experiences with sensitive parents to perceived relationships with a loving God. Insecurity of attachment was expected to be related to religiosity- spirituality via emotional compensation for states of insecurity. Participants (N = 84; 40% men; mean age = 29 years) were drawn from religious-spiritual groups. Religiousness-spirituality was assessed with questionnaires. Results generally supported the hypotheses ( ps = .05). Estimates of parental loving were linked to socially based religiosity, loving God images, and gradual religious changes occurring at early ages and in life contexts indicating a positive influence of close relationships. Estimates of parental rejection and role reversal were related to New Age spirituality and sudden-intense religious changes occurring in life contexts of turmoil. Current attachment state of mind was generally unrelated to traditional religiosity, but current preoccupation, unresolved- disorganized, and cannot classify states were associated with New Age spirituality. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)