Affective science最新文献

Cognitive reappraisal is one of the most commonly used and effective emotion regulation strategies. This is partly because reappraisal targets a key characteristic of emotion – namely, what an emotion is about (i.e., intentionality). It is commonly assumed that whereas emotions have intentionality because they are about something, mood states do not have intentionality because they are typically not about anything in particular. Given that reappraisal targets intentionality, and mood states theoretically lack intentionality, we hypothesized that reappraisal would be less effective in regulating moods than in regulating emotions. We tested this hypothesis in two studies, one in which we assessed naturally occurring experiences and regulation in daily life (Study 1, N = 184), and another in which we manipulated experiences and regulation in a controlled experiment (Study 2, N = 65). In both studies, we compared the effects of cognitive reappraisal with those of distraction, which is another effective emotion regulation strategy that does not target intentionality. As expected, cognitive reappraisal, but not distraction, was more effective in regulating emotions than moods. These findings suggest that the regulation of emotions may differ from the regulation of moods and that strategies that may be effective in regulating one type of affective state may be less effective in regulating another.

Does upward social mobility shape how individuals navigate emotion-laden experiences? The current study examined this question in the context of academic achievement in a sample of first-generation college students. As the first in their families to attend university, this is a group that finds themselves in university environments that encourage open expression of individual achievement, but who typically come from sociocultural backgrounds where there is wariness of the social distancing that can be created by open expression of individual achievement. Qualitative methodology, which allows for in-depth exploration that can generate novel insights and advance theory, was used to study how first-generation college students at the graduate level (N = 32) navigate the emotions that come with academic achievements across academic and family contexts. Thematic analysis of the participant qualitative interview corpus revealed two novel findings. First, participants expressed feelings of both pride and gratitude that included appreciation for those who helped them reach their achievements. Second, participants engaged in capitalization regulation—a term that we introduce to describe the thoughtful consideration of how and with whom to share good news with across one’s different social contexts so as to not evoke negative social consequences. These findings contribute to the field’s growing understanding of emotion and social class in an important context, first-generation college students, in which these factors are salient. Implications for understanding the complex emotional experiences associated with upward social mobility are discussed.

Caregivers play a central role in children’s emotion regulation development. Caregiver assistance with children’s deployment of specific emotion regulation strategies has gained attention in the literature as a key component of emotion socialization. Many studies have examined caregiver support for child emotion regulation strategies using global caregiver self-report measures, but few have leveraged ecological momentary assessment methods to learn about these momentary co-regulatory behaviors in daily life. Furthermore, the degree to which global and momentary reports correspond with each other remains unknown. Discrepancies between global versus momentary reports have important implications for research design and interpretation. The present study evaluated the degree to which caregiver reports of assistance with child emotion regulation strategies collected using ecological momentary assessment aligned with global, retrospective reports. Analyses focused on four emotion regulation strategies: acceptance, distraction, cognitive reappraisal, and expressive suppression. A USA sample of 174 primary caregivers with children ages 1–5.5 years completed online check-ins up to three times per day for seven days. Caregivers reported their child’s emotion and the emotion regulation strategies they helped their child use. Before they began the week of check-ins, caregivers completed a global measure of assistance with child emotion regulation strategies. Correlation and regression analyses showed evidence of correspondence between global and momentary reports for acceptance and expressive suppression, but not for distraction or cognitive reappraisal. The results caution against assuming global measures of caregiver assistance with child emotion regulations strategies uniformly reflect implementation in the context of daily parent–child interaction.

Emotion differentiation—distinctively labeling emotions—is theorized to guide adolescents in regulating emotions amid changing daily life situations. Momentary fluctuations in emotion differentiation are expected to introduce variability in using emotion regulation strategies, leading to sequential emotion intensity changes. Using five experience sampling datasets (N = 750, aged 11–25, 59.17% female, 25,834 observations) that repeatedly assess emotion differentiation and emotion regulation variability, we examined their interaction and impact on emotion intensity. Surprisingly, moments of heightened emotion differentiation were followed by more stable use of regulation strategies (lower variability), while moments of higher emotion regulation variability were followed by less emotion differentiation. Both heightened differentiation and regulation variability preceded contra-hedonic outcomes, such as increased negative emotions and decreased positive emotions. These findings were robust across different types of emotion regulation variability (intensity or switching) and valences of emotions (positive or negative). In the short term, emotion differentiation predicts reduced regulation variability and may bring unpleasant changes in emotion intensity.

Emotional granularity is the ability to experience one’s emotional experiences in a nuanced and specific manner. According to the theory of constructed emotion, between-person differences in emotional granularity are a function of how efficiently individuals categorize affect-related input by means of emotion concepts. We propose that executive functions support the effective coordination of the emotion categorization process, thereby facilitating emotional granularity. In the present study, we empirically examined the associations between three domains of executive functions (i.e., working memory, inhibition, and shifting) and emotional granularity for both negative and positive emotions (negative and positive emotional granularity) in two samples (participants with and without chronic pain). We hypothesized that all three executive function domains would be positively associated with both negative and positive emotional granularity. Participants (N = 153 individuals without chronic pain, N = 218 individuals with chronic pain) completed an online assessment of executive functions and a 14-day ambulatory assessment of 15 negative and 12 positive emotions (with five prompts per day). Contrary to our expectations, neither the six manifest executive function task scores nor a latent common executive function factor measured by the task scores were significantly positively associated with the negative and positive emotional granularity indices in either sample and in analyses that combined both samples. Our findings suggest that executive functions may play a lesser role for emotional granularity than previously assumed. We discuss alternative operationalizations of executive functions and emotional granularity that might reveal stronger associations between these constructs.

Stressor reactivity, the association between the experience of stressors and same-day changes in affect (Almeida et al., 2023), has been examined extensively. Much less research has examined the complementary process: the extent to which affect may influence the perception of stressors. We examined whether affect in daily life was related to the likelihood that individuals report stressors, and whether internalizing symptoms (depressive and anxious symptoms) were associated with these links. Participants (N = 609) were recruited from an undergraduate participant pool and reported daily on their positive and negative affect, and the types of stressors they experienced, in a 14-day daily diary design. We used multilevel survival analysis (MSA) to estimate the likelihood of reporting recurring stressors from mean levels of positive and negative affect, the previous day’s positive and negative affect, internalizing symptoms (depressive and anxious symptoms), and interactions between previous day’s affect and internalizing symptoms. Previous day’s affect was not associated with the risk of reporting stressors. Greater negative affect at the between-person level was associated with a greater risk of all types of stressors we examined, whereas lower between-person positive affect was only associated with the risk of reporting work/school and any stressors. Depressive and anxious symptoms were related in different ways to the likelihood of reporting stressors. This study demonstrates the utility of daily diary methods in combination with MSA to examine directional associations from affect to stressors and their temporal links.

Individual-based relative deprivation—feeling unfairly economically disadvantaged compared to others—fosters psychological ill-being and poorer physical health. However, research has overlooked the possibility that relative deprivation also undermines emotional well-being, which is distinct from ill-being and uniquely contributes to physical health. Using nine annual waves of a nationwide longitudinal panel sample of adults (N = 58,741–66,221), the current research utilized random intercept cross-lagged panel models to assess the between- and within-person longitudinal associations between individual-based relative deprivation and three key indicators of emotional well-being: gratitude, meaning in life, and belonging. Results indicated that individual-based relative deprivation longitudinally predicted lower gratitude, meaning in life, and belonging. Moreover, lower belonging (but not gratitude or meaning in life) mediated the longitudinal associations between greater individual-based relative deprivation and poorer physical health. These results suggest that individual-based relative deprivation undermines emotional well-being, which partially explains why relative deprivation correlates with poorer physical health.

Previous research has used real-time methods like ecological momentary assessment (EMA) to examine affective forecasting (predictions made regarding experience of affect and how this influences decision making, level of functioning, etc.), but has not specifically examined predictors of what determines how strongly daily forecasts of a day are associated with negative emotion experienced later in the day. The aim of this study was to examine how experience of distress tolerance would moderate daily-level affective forecasting effects. Our hypothesis stated that having poorer distress tolerance would mean that worse predictions of how good a day would be, would be more strongly associated with negative emotion later in the day. Analyses in a large sample of undergraduates (N = 411 drawn from a sample total sample of N = 675) supported this hypothesis. Future research should look to further explore distress tolerance as a moderator of affective forecasting, specifically within larger community samples.