Emotion最新文献

Racial discrimination has severe adverse mental and physical health consequences for Black Americans. As such, it is critical to understand how best to help protect the health of Black Americans in the face of this stressor. The emotional burden of chronic stress represents a key pathway through which stress damages health; thus, the ability to manage this emotional burden using emotion regulation may represent a core protective factor. Racial discrimination targets individuals' identities, which may have important implications for which regulation strategies will be most helpful. We predicted that successfully using strategies that are more likely to validate individuals' experiences (e.g., emotional acceptance) may be particularly helpful. Other strategies that are less likely to validate individuals' experiences may be less helpful (e.g., cognitive reappraisal). In a sample of Black individuals (N = 504, data from 2018), the link between discrimination and multiple indices of worse health was consistently buffered for people who reported more successful use of emotional acceptance, but not for those who reported more successful use of reappraisal or suppression. These patterns were replicated in a follow-up time point predicting mental health 2 years later (N = 251). These findings underscore the crucial role of context for emotion regulation, suggesting that emotional acceptance may be a uniquely useful approach that protects the health of Black Americans by validating justified emotions in the context of racial discrimination. This work underscores a useful pathway for culturally competent psychosocial interventions for reducing anxiety, depression, and stress-related chronic illness in Black Americans. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

The widely used painkiller acetaminophen (also known as paracetamol) has been found to blunt various emotional states and evaluations, possibly through the same mechanisms by which it dulls the affective component of physical pain. However, there are limited investigations into the behavioral consequences of blunting emotions pharmacologically. Previous work has demonstrated that acetaminophen lessens risk perception and increases risk-taking in tasks with low-stakes incentives, though no studies have tested its effects in fear-inducing contexts that require evaluating safety risk. As fear promotes behaviors that keep us safe, dampening fear could alter how people respond to threatening situations. To test this possibility, 260 participants were given either 1,000 mg of acetaminophen or placebo capsules prior to a frightening virtual reality plank walk at extreme heights. Compared to the placebo group, those on acetaminophen took less time to step onto the plank, walked across it faster, and had lower heart rates. These findings suggest that acetaminophen may reduce protective behaviors associated with the fear response, raising potential safety concerns for everyday users. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Honesty is highly valued in our close relationships, yet much of our understanding of honesty in interpersonal contexts has focused on the effects of sharing threatening information. In the current work, we examine how honesty may promote benefits in positive contexts, particularly during expressions of gratitude between romantic partners. Specifically, we examined whether expressed, perceived, and accurate perceptions of honesty about gratitude strengthen personal and relationship well-being. Romantic couples (N_couples = 214, N_individuals = 418) participated in a 14-day daily experience study (Study 1a) and a background survey, in-person lab interaction, and 3-month follow-up survey (Study 1b). Couples reported on their expressed and perceived honesty about a gratitude event, well-being, and felt appreciation. Results indicated that expressed honesty predicted intrapersonal benefits, with those who were more honest in their gratitude expressions experiencing greater personal and relationship well-being in the moment and across daily life. Perceived honesty predicted both intra- and interpersonal benefits. Those who perceived a partner to be honest about gratitude experienced greater personal well-being, relationship satisfaction, and felt gratitude in the moment, across daily life, and over time; additionally, their partners experienced greater relationship well-being in the moment and across daily life. Accurate perceptions of honest gratitude expressions did not predict any outcomes. Results could not be explained by baseline relationship satisfaction, expresser authenticity, or (perceived) gratitude intensity. Collectively, these results indicate that perceiving greater honesty about gratitude-regardless of a partner's actual honesty or accuracy in perceiving that honesty-is most consequential to couple well-being and feelings of being appreciated. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

This research aimed to validate a newly developed tool for the assessment of emotions. The "Nonverbal Emotion Assessment Tool" (NEAT) is based on schematic facial expressions of emotions and serves to capture both quantitative and qualitative dimensions of common emotions. Study 1 (N = 126) was conducted with primary school children (6-11 years), who matched the emotions represented in vignettes to the emotional facial expressions of the NEAT. Although the children's recognition rates varied across emotions, they were overall moderately accurate. Older children did not perform substantially better than younger children. Study 2 validated the NEAT scales with adult participants from Germany (N = 102), Bulgaria (N = 116), and Malaysia (N = 132). Cross-country intraclass correlations revealed cultural differences in emotion perception, yet the construct validity was high. Comparisons of the two European samples with the Southeast Asian sample yielded a lower level of agreement across countries than the comparison of the two European samples, suggesting more similarities between the German and Bulgarian samples and stronger differences between the European and the Malaysian sample. Together, these findings provide evidence that the NEAT is a useful and valid tool for the assessment of emotions in child and adult samples from different areas of the world. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

How do we truly assess the emotions of others? While numerous theories have highlighted the central role of facial expressions in evaluating emotions, some studies have challenged the ability to gauge others' feelings based solely on their faces (Aviezer et al., 2012). These studies suggest that we preferentially use bodies rather than faces to assess others' affective states. The aim of the present work is to replicate and extend these findings. A series of five experiments replicated the results obtained by Aviezer et al. (2012; Experiment 1) and extended them to other tasks (i.e., affective priming, affective misattribution procedure, feeling, and action tendencies). The results show that stimuli presenting only bodies, rather than faces, consistently produce these classic effects found in the literature. Overall, these findings highlight that faces do not seem to be discriminative in detecting emotions, nor do they elicit affective reactions when affective stimuli are extreme. These results thus support the idea that context is predominant in the detection of emotions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Emotional facial expressions can indicate behavioral intentions to others. Observing a threatening emotional expression (e.g., angry face) could prompt avoidance. However, the literature reports mixed findings, with emotional expressions such as anger or fear being associated with both approach and avoidance. In this study (N = 152 participants; 93.9% women, 4.7% men, 1.4% other; M_age = 19.57, SD_age = 3.25), we investigated how facial characteristics (i.e., gaze direction) and individual traits (i.e., Big Five and schizotypal personality traits) modulate behavioral responses to the perception of approaching emotional facial expressions (angry, fearful, sad, and neutral faces). We assessed motor responses using force plates to investigate spontaneous postural adjustments. Results show that angry and fearful faces elicit defensive responses characterized by backward body sway (i.e., avoidance). Although facial features further qualified those defensive reactions with averted gazes in fear stimuli eliciting a relative approach, we did not find conclusive evidence for the role of personality in these responses. Results are discussed in light of sociofunctional and appraisal models of emotion perception. The present study underlines the relevance of studying postural sway to assess adaptive avoidance of threatening social stimulus. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Political polarization is increasingly recognized as a critical threat to individual and collective well-being. Prevailing frameworks suggest that political engagement diminishes well-being by evoking negative emotions, which act as chronic stressors. However, the relationship between politics and emotion has largely been investigated by relying on static snapshots of emotional reactions to political events, overlooking how well-being is impacted by the temporal dynamics of political engagement and associated emotional responses. Across two longitudinal experience-sampling studies that include long-form "diary" responses (N = 259, 1,788 observations), we examine how political engagement shapes daily affective experiences. Contrary to the prevailing notion that engaging with politics leads to sustained negative moods, we find that political engagement is characterized by heightened affective instability-that is, frequent and large fluctuations in affective states-which, in turn, predicts lower well-being (i.e., greater anxiety). Politically polarizing events are particularly destabilizing when they are highly salient and when individuals spontaneously engage with these events. Strong partisans on both ends of the political spectrum also show the greatest fluctuations in daily affect, characteristic of an unstable emotional life. By observing that political engagement is intimately tied to increased affective instability, this research reveals an overlooked emotional cost of political involvement. These findings open new avenues for understanding and mitigating the emotional and mental health consequences of political engagement in an era of deepening divides. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Negative emotional stimuli are associated with increased recognition accuracy but decreased memory for the associative context, an effect coined as "tunnel memory" (Steinmetz & Kensinger, 2013). Recently, Stewardson et al. (2023) found that social cues enhance both recognition and associative memory and weaken the effects of negative emotion on memory, suggesting potentially distinct mechanisms underlying how adaptively relevant information is processed and retained when social cues are present. In this study (conducted in 2023-2024), we sought to replicate these findings and use eye tracking to explore attention as a mechanism underlying this divergence. As predicted, both negative images and social cues enhanced recognition memory, with differential effects on associative memory (diminishing for negative, enhancing for social). Negative pictures with few social cues were associated with a "tunneling" of both memory and attention, that is, better recognition but poorer associative memory alongside more frequent, longer fixations on the picture and reduced picture-object saccades. By contrast, social cues led to a partial tunneling of attention-that is, more frequent but shorter fixations and fewer linking saccades-and yet enhanced both picture recognition and associative memory. Perhaps most striking, negative emotion's effects on memory and attention were significantly attenuated when social cues were present. These findings suggest that differences in how negative versus neutral content is processed and retained depend on the social context. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Child maltreatment has been linked to numerous psychopathology outcomes throughout life, with emotion regulation proposed as a transdiagnostic mechanism. However, it remains relatively unknown how childhood abuse and neglect may differentially predict the development of emotion regulation during later years vulnerable to psychopathology. We examined the impact of early abuse and neglect experiences on the developmental trajectories of emotion regulation throughout adolescence and into young adulthood. The sample consisted of 167 adolescents who completed questionnaires assessing emotion regulation difficulties and emotion regulation strategies (cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression) approximately annually across six time points, from ages 14 to 20 (2014-2021). Information on maltreatment experienced from ages 1 to 13 was collected at 18-19 years. Conditional growth curve models examining the effects of both abuse and neglect from ages 1 to 13 on the initial levels and growth rates of emotion regulation difficulties and strategies from ages 14 to 20. Abuse predicted developmental changes in emotion regulation difficulties, such that greater childhood abuse was associated with larger increases in emotion regulation difficulties from ages 14 to 20. Neglect predicted the initial levels of emotion regulation difficulties such that greater childhood neglect was associated with greater difficulties in emotion regulation at age 14. The findings suggest developmental consequences of childhood abuse and neglect evidenced by impaired development of emotion regulation abilities throughout adolescence and into young adulthood, whereas emotion regulation strategy is relatively unaffected by childhood abuse and neglect. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).