Affective science最新文献

Peer relationships take on increasing importance during adolescence, and there has been considerable debate about the effects of social media use on adolescent emotional health. Little work has examined individual differences in brain function that might impact these associations. In this study, we examined the reward positivity (RewP) to social and monetary reward as a moderator of the relation between social media use and concurrent momentary affect in adolescents. Participants were 145 adolescents aged 14–17 (M = 15.23; SD = 1.08; 64.1% female; 71.7% White) at varying risk for depression (47 high-risk based on maternal depression history, 50 low-risk, 48 currently depressed). Measures of social media use, positive affect (PA), and negative affect (NA) were obtained through ecological momentary assessment. In a laboratory session, adolescents completed a computerized peer feedback task and a monetary reward task to elicit the RewP to social and monetary reward feedback. Multilevel models indicated that social media use and a smaller RewP to monetary rewards were associated with lower PA. However, social (but not monetary) reward responsiveness moderated the effect of social media use on momentary PA, such that social media use was associated with lower PA for adolescents with a relatively blunted RewP to peer acceptance, but not for those with an enhanced social RewP. Exploratory analyses indicated that this moderation effect was specific to female adolescents. The results highlight neural reactivity to social reward as a potential factor contributing to variability in the effect of social media use on affective health.

The biopsychosocial model of challenge and threat emphasizes how individuals appraise stress. Close relationship theories emphasize the interpersonal context, communication, and outcomes that arise from stress. We integrate these approaches by examining the individual variability surrounding appraisals of sufficient (more challenge, less threat) or insufficient (more threat, less challenge) resources to cope with demands and examining how these appraisals are associated with couples’ behavior and feelings toward each other. Across three studies, 459 romantic couples (N = 918), and various potentially stressful in-lab conversations (extra-dyadic problem, dislikes about each other, dependability, and relationship conflict), we found evidence that stress appraisals indicative of more challenge and less threat were associated with more approach- and less avoidance-oriented behaviors within interactions. These approach- and avoidance-oriented behaviors were associated with greater feelings of relationship security and well-being after the conversation. However, whose (actors or partners) appraisals and behaviors were associated with security and well-being varied across the three studies. This work provides theoretical and empirical evidence for an interpersonal emphasis on intraindividual stress appraisal processes through a dyadic and close relationships lens. Our integrative theoretical framework breaks away from the idea that stress is inherently “bad” or “maladaptive” to show that appraising stress as more manageable (more challenge, less threat) is associated with more relationship behaviors that approach incentives and less that avoid threats and enhance feelings of relationship security and well-being.

Higher resting heart rate variability (HRV)—an index of more flexible response to environmental stressors, including noxious stimuli—has been linked to reduced perception of experimentally induced pain. However, as stress responses are adapted to one’s chronic environments, we propose that chronic exposure to threats captured by one’s subjective socioeconomic status (SSS) may shape different adaptations that produce distinct pain responses linked to higher resting HRV. Specifically, lower SSS individuals with more threat exposures may prioritize threat detection by upregulating sensitivity to stressors, such as acute pain. Therefore, higher HRV would predict greater perceived acute pain among lower SSS individuals. In contrast, higher SSS individuals with less threat exposures may instead prioritize affective regulation by downregulating sensitivity to stressors, producing lower pain perception with higher HRV. We examined this stress response moderation by SSS in 164 healthy young adults exposed to experimental pain via the cold pressor test (CPT). Resting HRV, indexed by the root-mean-square of successive differences in heart rate, and self-reported SSS were measured at rest. Pain perception indexed by self-reported pain and pain tolerance indexed by hand-immersion time during the CPT were assessed. Results revealed that among higher SSS individuals, higher resting HRV predicted lower pain reports and subsequently greater pain tolerance during the CPT. Conversely, among lower SSS individuals, higher resting HRV predicted higher pain reports and subsequently lower pain tolerance. These findings provide preliminary evidence that environmental stress exposures linked to one’s SSS may shape unique biological adaptations that predict distinct pain responses.

A key limitation of studying emotion regulation behavior is that there is currently no way to describe individual differences in use across a range of tactics, which could lead to investigations of intraindividual changes over time or interindividual differences as a function of personality, age, culture, or psychopathology diagnosis. We, therefore, introduce emotion regulation convoys. This research tool provides a snapshot of the hierarchy of emotion regulation tactics an individual favors across everyday life situations and how effective they are at regulating moods. We present data from a 3-month measurement burst study of emotion regulation behavior in everyday life in a sample (N = 236) of younger (18–39), middle-aged (40–59), and older adults (60–87), focusing on how individuals’ convoys may vary in how much they include tactics that involve upregulating-positivity, downregulating-negativity, upregulating-negativity, as well as acceptance, and how these may be differentially effective. Among the most frequently used tactics (top tactics), older adults used a lower proportion of negativity-downregulating tactics than younger adults (p < .001), and younger adults’ mood was more negatively affected by these tactics than middle-aged and older adults. Overall, using positivity-upregulating as a top tactic also predicted better mood post-regulation. Older adults’ emotion regulation convoys may be made up of more effective tactics; in general, they reported more positive mood post-regulation than the other age groups. Convoys help us see emotion regulation as a hierarchical configuration of potentially effective behaviors, allowing us to test for between-group differences and within-person changes more precisely.