Motivation and Emotion最新文献

Emotional stimuli and events are better and more easily remembered than neutral ones. However, this advantage appears to come at a cost, namely a decreased accuracy for peripheral, emotion-irrelevant details. There is some evidence, particularly in the visual modality, that this trade-off also applies to emotional expressions, leading to a difficulty in identifying an unfamiliar individual’s identity when presented with an expression different from the one encountered at encoding. On the other hand, past research also suggests that identity recognition memory benefits from exposure to different encoding exemplars, although whether this is also the case for emotional expressions, particularly voices, remains unknown. Here, we directly addressed these questions by conducting a series of voice and face identity memory online studies, using a within-subject old/new recognition test in separate unimodal modules. In the Main Study, half of the identities were encoded with four presentations of one single expression (angry, fearful, happy, or sad; Uni condition) and the other half with one presentation of each emotion (Multi condition); all identities, intermixed with an equal number of new ones, were presented with a neutral expression in a subsequent recognition test. Participants (N = 547, 481 female) were randomly assigned to one of four groups in which a different Uni single emotion was used. Results, using linear mixed models on response choice and drift-diffusion-model parameters, revealed that high-arousal expressions interfered with emotion-independent identity recognition accuracy, but that such deficit could be compensated by presenting the same individual with various expressions (i.e., high exemplar variability). These findings were confirmed by a significant correlation between memory performance and stimulus arousal, across modalities and emotions, and by two follow-up studies (Study 1: N = 172, 150 female; Study 2: N = 174, 154 female), which extended the original observations and ruled out some potential confounding effects. Taken together, the findings reported here expand and refine our current knowledge of the influence of emotion on memory, and highlight the importance of, and interaction between, exemplar variability and emotional arousal in identity recognition memory.

False information may be published with the intention of misleading the public, and such fake news is often difficult to detect. Ideological fake news may pose a particular challenge, as people may be less able to detect false information that supports their prior beliefs. The difficulty of detecting fake news with an ideological slant may be compounded if people are motivated to defend their beliefs. Building on the mindset theory of action phases, we investigated motivational states as moderators of people’s ability to detect fake news. We tested two competing predictions to study the cognitive and motivational processes implicated in fake news detection. Both predictions concern an ideological belief bias, where people tend to accept information that agrees with their partisan identities and to reject information that disagrees with them. First, motivated reasoning accounts posit that deliberation should reinforce the ideological belief bias because reasoning primarily serves to defend and rationalize one’s own position. An opposing view, based on dual-process theory, assumes that deliberation attenuates the ideological belief bias by facilitating an unbiased assessment of new information. An online experiment (N = 497) tested these competing accounts. Participants were induced with deliberative/implemental/control mindsets prior to rating the veracity of (true/fake) news headlines. Some headlines favored a Republican view; others leaned toward a Democrat perspective. Based on self-reported political preference (Democrat vs. Republican), headlines were categorized as congruent or incongruent with participants’ political views. Consistent with an ideological belief bias, participants accepted more congruent than incongruent news, and they were more likely to fail to detect favorable fake news. In the main analysis, mindsets did not moderate the ideological belief bias, but showed interesting relationships with cognitive reflection and dishonest behavior. Further exploration using signal-detection theory suggested that the deliberative mindset might be associated with increased skepticism, thereby promoting fake news detection.

Abstract

Interpersonal emotion regulation involves having emotions changed in a social context. While some research has used the term to refer to instances where others are used to alter one’s own emotions (intrinsic), other research refers to goal-directed actions aimed at modifying others’ emotional responses (extrinsic). We argue that the self-other distinction should be applied not only to the target (who has their emotion regulated) but also to the means (whether the agent uses themselves or others to achieve the regulation). Based on this, we propose interpersonal emotion regulation can take place when an agent changes a target’s emotions by affecting a third party’s emotion who will shift the emotion of the target in turn (direct other-based interpersonal ER) or by impacting a third party’s emotion (indirect other-based interpersonal ER). We discuss these processes and the conditions that lead to their emergence reconciling findings from different fields and suggesting new research venues.

Abstract

Chronic boredom is associated with many negative psychological outcomes, including undermining perceived meaning in life. Meanwhile, emerging research suggests that spontaneous self-affirmation, that is, an inclination to self-affirm, is linked to greater well-being and buffers against psychological threats. We investigated the relationship between spontaneous self-affirmation, perceptions of meaning in life, and boredom proneness with four correlational studies. Study 1a (N = 166) demonstrated that people inclined to self-affirm experience greater perceptions of meaning in life. Study 1b (N = 170) confirmed that spontaneous self-affirmation is associated with lower levels of boredom proneness. Study 2a (N = 214) and Study 2b (N = 105) provided evidence for our central hypothesis, showing that spontaneous self-affirmation predicts lower levels of boredom proneness via greater perceptions of meaning in life. These findings confirm that elevating meaning in life through psychological resources, like spontaneous self-affirmation, may limit boredom. Our work extends the emerging well-being benefits of spontaneous self-affirmation, by demonstrating associations with higher meaning in life and lower boredom proneness.

Ideomotor theories admit that anticipated action-effects are the basis of the action selection and initiation, but there is no common understanding of the role of anticipated affective outcomes in motor organization. This study provides substantial information that shows that anticipated affective action-effects (positive/negative) combined with the direction in which a movement is performed (rightward/leftward) significantly impact its organization. Sixty-four right-handed subjects performed right and left pointing movements on a graphic tablet to trigger the appearance of a positive or negative visual outcome. Results indicate a compatibility effect between the direction of the movement and the valence of the action-effect that facilitates cognitive processes involved in movement organization. Pointing movements were faster triggered and executed when the movement was directed to the right combined with a positive outcome and when the movement was directed to the left with a negative one. Such findings are consistent with Casasanto’s body-specificity hypothesis, which stipulates an association of the dominant hand side with positive features, and with ideomotor theory where perception and action share a common representation. This experiment confirms that voluntary movements’ organization is built through an action representation, including affective predictions.

Research shows that significant well-being disparities emerge between individuals who experience major negative events and those who undergo major positive events. However, such differences may vary among individuals. Drawing from the theory of the need for cognitive closure (NFC), we theorize and test whether NFC, which captures seizing and freezing on salient information to reach a fast conclusion, intensifies the differences in affective well-being between those who experience negative or positive events. Across three studies (total N = 2,399), we provide converging evidence that supports our theoretical claim. We first found that participants with high (vs. low) NFC show a greater affective well-being gap between those who recalled their past negative and positive major events (Study 1). We also discovered consistent patterns when participants were provided with negative or positive major event scenarios (Study 2). Lastly, we further substantiated our findings by utilizing a longitudinal study of the 20th presidential election in South Korea (Study 3). Over a 6-week period, the well-being gaps between the supporters of the election winner and the runner-up were more pronounced among individuals with higher NFC. Overall, our findings have implications for identifying a novel psychological trait that influences the affective well-being gaps following significant events in one’s life.

Abstract

Feeling well at school is crucial for both young people’s healthy self-development and their intrinsic learning motivation. Both concepts, subjective well-being and intrinsic motivation, are central to self-determination theory, but their reciprocal relationship is not studied very well. We hypothesized that the concepts affect each other directly: Students who are intrinsically motivated feel well at school due to positive emotions and the strive for understanding the learning content, which is an intrinsic motivation immanent. Beyond, students who feel well at school are intrinsically motivated, because subjective well-being represents an intrinsic value of the learning situation. This hypothesis is tested using a sample of 773 secondary school students (mean age: 12.7 years, SD = 1.8), who were answering questionnaires at the beginning (T1), at mid (T2) and at the end (T3) of a school year. The data were analyzed using a cross-lagged panel model. The results gave evidence on cross-lagged effects and an indirect effect from subjective well-being to intrinsic motivation to subjective well-being.

Abstract

Previous studies demonstrated that boredom leads to increased self-administration of painful electric stimulation, a proxy for non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI). However, in these experimental studies, participants had no behavioral alternatives besides electric stimulation to break the monotony. A first aim in the current experimental study was to examine whether boredom still leads to self-administering aversive stimuli when positive behavioral alternatives are present. This boredom effect was furthermore compared to an anger induction. The second aim was to examine whether history of NSSI and negative urgency (i.e., the tendency to engage in impulsive action in response to negative emotions) positively moderate the link between boredom and self-administered aversive stimuli. In a between-subjects design using college students (N = 129), participants were randomly assigned to one of three emotion induction writing tasks (i.e., boredom, anger, neutral), during which frequency of self-administered positive (chirping birds) and aversive (screaming pig) sounds was measured. The latter was used as a proxy for NSSI behavior. Results showed that boredom led to increased selection of aversive sounds compared to the neutral and anger conditions, despite the presence of a positive alternative (i.e., positive sounds). No difference in frequency of selecting the aversive sounds was observed between the anger and neutral condition. Neither history of NSSI nor negative urgency moderated the effect of condition on self-administered aversive stimuli. The current results tentatively support a causal and specific link between boredom and NSSI, and warrant further examination of the role of boredom in maladaptive behaviors such as NSSI.

Blunted motivation is a core symptom of Major Depressive Disorder (MDD). Although the empirical picture is mixed, cognitive processes that can be collectively referred to as reward processing have been found to be consistently muted in MDD; most notably, reward sensitivity and reinforcement learning. Works on the modulation of response vigor in individuals with MDD have examined various types of reward, but recent research has shown that in the general population, response vigor is not modulated by type of reward on tasks that are highly similar to those used in these experiments. The present study implemented a form of non-reward related reinforcement which has repeatedly been shown to modulate response vigor in the general population. It investigated whether modulation of response vigor by this type of reinforcement would be effective in individuals with MDD. Clinically depressed individuals (N = 121; 76 post-exclusion) engaged in a task in which their responses led to predictable and immediate sensorimotor effects, or no such effects. Response vigor increased when responses led to sensorimotor effects, which was comparable to the increase found in the general population. These findings support the utility of isolating the computations leading to different reinforcement types and suggest that motivational deficits in MDD may be specific to the type of reward (i.e., hedonically or otherwise explicitly desired stimuli). These results contribute to the literature by suggesting that the reinforcement from sensorimotor predictability stems from processes devolved to motor control, whereas reinforcement from rewards may depend on more general-purpose processes.