Threat sensitivity in emotion dynamics: Negativity effects and sex differences.

Evolutionary theorizing has given rise to the idea that responding to any particular threat may be more mandatory than responding to any particular reward. The present three experiments (total N = 375) sought to provide support for this perspective in an emotion dynamics task in which participants continuously rated their affective state in response to appetitive (reward-related) versus aversive (threat-related) images. Even when equating images for arousal and extremity, several negativity effects (e.g., steeper reactivity slopes in response to aversive images) were found. These negativity effects can serve as an experimental model of threat sensitivity, which should predispose some individuals, more than others, to symptoms related to fear and anxiety. This point was made with respect to sex differences, given that women (relative to men) are diagnosed with anxiety disorders at higher rates. Sex differences were pronounced and extensions of this work, both basic and applied, are proposed.

Evaluation experts: Relations between ability emotional intelligence and attitude strength indicators.

New efforts to understand the processes involved in ability-related emotional intelligence (ability EI) could reinvigorate this area of scholarship and research. It is proposed that participants with higher levels of ability EI are evaluation experts, which should be evident in the attitude domain. Study 1 (n = 148) probed for affective, cognitive, and behavioral reactions to a diverse set of attitude objects. In addition, attitude certainty ratings were collected. Higher levels of ability EI, but not self-reports of EI, were linked to attitudes that were more extreme, certain, and structurally integrated. In Study 2 (n = 602), participant employees completed standard personality and job satisfaction assessments. Higher levels of ability EI were predictive of greater polarization (as assessed in extremity-related terms) in both domains. The individual differences assessed by ability EI, these results suggest, also tend to support attitudes and opinions with stronger features. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Open-hearted: Preferences for openness in the agreeableness domain.

OBJECTIVE: Open objects encourage interactivity and closed objects discourage it. Repeated experiences with open and closed objects are thought to give rise to spatial concepts that can be used to represent a variety of entities such as societies, others, and the self. The present investigation pursues the idea that preferring that which is open to that which is closed is more compatible with an agreeable mode of interacting with others. METHOD: Three studies (total N = 901) asked participants whether they preferred "open" or "closed" as spatial concepts. Such preferences were linked to variations in agreeableness, peer perceptions, and daily measures of pro-social functioning. RESULTS: Open-preferring, relative to closed-preferring, individuals scored higher in agreeableness (Study 1) and were rated by peers as interpersonally warmer (Study 2). Open preferences varied within and across persons in a daily diary protocol and, in both cases, higher levels of open preference were linked to higher levels of pro-social feeling (Study 3). CONCLUSION: The findings point to a fundamental component of spatial orientation that plays a significant role in encouraging (open) or discouraging (closed) warm, interactive relations with others.

Heads of Worry, Hearts of Joy: Daily Diary Investigations of Self-Location and Well-Being.

When people are asked to locate the self, they frequently choose the head and heart regions of the body. These bodily regions, in turn, are linked to an extensive set of metaphors, including those that conceptualize the heart as the locus of authenticity, love, and passion. Based on such considerations as well as frameworks within the self and well-being literatures, four samples of participants in three studies (total N = 527) were asked whether, on particular days, they perceived themselves to be located in their head regions of their bodies or their heart regions. When the self was perceived to be in the heart to a greater extent, participants reported higher levels of affective and eudaimonic well-being, as mediated by processes related to reward perception (Study 1), savoring (Study 2), and social activity (Study 3). In terms of daily experiences, the heart-located self is a happier self.

A brief nonattachment intervention based on the three marks of existence: development, rationale, and initial evidence.

BACKGROUND: The practices described in Buddhist philosophy are essentially a suite of non-theistic cognitive and behavioral interventions designed to induce nonattachment (N-A), which can be defined in terms of the absence of a need for one's personal reality to be other than it is. Although meditative practices have received attention in multiple literatures, the cognitive analogs to these behaviorally-oriented practices have not. DESIGN: Two experiments involving undergraduate participants (total N = 239; M age = 19.04) investigated whether the provision of wisdom related to the Three Marks of Existence (i.e., some degree of suffering is inevitable, there is impermanence, and many events are not in our control) could result in (1) higher nonattachment attitudes, (2) lower threat appraisals, (3) lower stressor reactivity, and (4) shorter emotion reaction durations. RESULTS: With moderate to large effect sizes, the Three Marks trainings (relative to placebo or control conditions) resulted in (1) higher nonattachment attitudes, (2) lower threat appraisals, (3) no differences in negative emotional intensity, but 4) shorter emotion durations. CONCLUSIONS: These results provide preliminary evidence that enduring cognitive trainings such as the Three Marks can be an effective tool to increase acceptance-related attitudes while attenuating negative reactivity.

Feeling up or feeling down: Verticality preferences in personality, pathology, and well-being.

Theories of mental functioning have suggested its metaphoric basis. Drawing from theories of this type as well as from recent extensions of such theories to the personality processing realm, participants in three studies (total N = 452) were asked to indicate their relative preferences for the spatial concepts of up versus down, given that verticality metaphors are frequently used to conceptualize states related to emotion and well-being. Up-preferring individuals were more extraverted and approach-motivated (Study 1), whereas down-preferring individuals were more depressed (Studies 1 and 2). Higher levels of vertical preference were also predictive of affective well-being in a daily diary protocol (Study 3) and these relationships operated in both between-person and within-person terms. Metaphors, which liken the intangible to the tangible, may play a significant role in shaping experience and verticality metaphors, in particular, appear to provide insights into the processes that that support happiness versus its absence.

Emotional Intelligence as Evaluative Activity: Theory, Findings, and Future Directions.

The question of whether ability-related emotional intelligence (ability EI) predicts important life outcomes has attracted considerably more attention than the question of what ability EI consists of. In the present paper, the authors draw from the attitude and emotion literatures to suggest that the evaluation dimension of meaning is likely key in understanding how ability EI operates. Measures of ability EI predict the extent to which individuals can accurately evaluate words and measures of the latter type act as emotional intelligence measures. Extending this analysis, the paper reviews recent sources of data linking ability EI to attitudinal processes, such as those involved in attitude-behavior relationships and affective bipolarity. Individuals with high EI appear to experience their affect in more bipolar terms and they display evidence of greater decisiveness in their evaluations. Pursuing links of the present type will allow researchers to generate new predictions concerning the ability EI construct.

Second-to-Second Affective Responses to Images Correspond With Affective Reactivity, Variability, and Instability in Daily Life.

Two distinct literatures have evolved to study within-person changes in affect over time. One literature has examined affect dynamics with millisecond-level resolution under controlled laboratory conditions, and the second literature has captured affective dynamics across much longer timescales (e.g., hours or days) within the relatively uncontrolled but more ecologically valid conditions of daily life. Despite the importance of linking these literatures, very little research has been done so far. In the laboratory, peak affect intensities and reaction durations were quantified using a paradigm that captures second-to-second changes in subjective affect elicited by provocative images. In two studies, analyses attempted to link these micro-dynamic indexes to fluctuations in daily affect ratings collected via daily protocols up to 4 weeks later. Although peak intensity and reaction duration scores from the laboratory did not consistently relate to daily scores pertaining to affect variability or instability, the total magnitude of changes in affect following images did display relationships of this type. In addition, higher peaks in the laboratory predicted larger intensity reactions to salient daily events. Together, the studies provide insights into the mechanisms through which correspondences and noncorrespondences between laboratory reactivity indices and daily affect dynamic measures can be expected.

Affectively effective: Work-related emotional intelligence as a predictor of organizational citizenship.

Introduction: Efforts to link ability-related emotional intelligence to organizational behavior have resulted in modest findings. Methods: The present three studies examine whether a work-contextualized form of emotional intelligence (W-EI) may have greater predictive value, particularly in the organizational citizenship domain. Because W-EI should benefit social relationships within the workplace, positive associations between W-EI and organizational citizenship behavior were hypothesized. Results: This hypothesis was supported in three studies (total N = 462) involving samples of part-time student employees (Study 1), postdoctoral researchers (Study 2), and full-time employees (Study 3). All studies also provided evidence for incremental validity, such as with respect to the Big 5 personality traits, and Study 3 highlighted processes related to workplace engagement (in the form of higher levels of interpersonal job satisfaction and lower levels of burnout). Discussion: The results demonstrate the importance of W-EI in understanding employee variations in organizational citizenship.

A psychological flexibility perspective on well-being: Emotional reactivity, adaptive choices, and daily experiences.

According to psychological flexibility theory, fully experiencing one's emotions, even when they involve negative reactions, can enhance psychological well-being. In pursuit of this possibility, procedures capable of disentangling reaction intensities from reaction durations, in response to affective images, were developed and variations of this paradigm were applied in understanding variations in happiness and adaptive behavior. Consistent with psychological flexibility theory, three studies showed that more intense emotional reactions, irrespective of valence, were associated with higher levels of well-being. Two additional studies showed that happy individuals, relative to less happy individuals, exhibited more functional approach/avoidance behavior in behavior-focused tasks. Together, the results are consistent with the idea that adaptive emotion generation systems are those that flexibly adapt emotion output to concurrent emotion-related stimulation. The program of research adds to our understanding of the relationship between emotion reactivity and well-being while highlighting specific processes through which emotion and well-being interact. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Mindfulness and Voluntary Work Behavior: Further Support for an Affect Mediation Model.

Mindfulness, defined in terms of greater attention and awareness concerning present experience, seems to have a number of psychological benefits, but very little of this research has focused on possible benefits within the workplace. Even so, mindfulness appears to buffer against stress and negative affect, which often predispose employees to deviant behaviors. Conversely, mindful employees may be more engaged with their jobs, which could support organizational citizenship. Two studies (total N = 418) pursued these ideas. In Study 1, part-time employees who were higher in dispositional mindfulness were less prone to job negative affect, which in turn predicted lower levels of workplace deviance. In Study 2, more mindful full-time employees were more engaged, and less stressed, and these variables mediated a portion of the relationship between mindfulness and organizational citizenship. Collectively, the two studies link mindfulness to both traditional forms of voluntary work behavior while highlighting mediational pathways.

Aligning the self and reaping the benefits: Ego effectiveness in romantic relationships.

OBJECTIVE: There are components of self that recognize effective courses of action and there are components of self that enact behaviors. The objective of the research was to examine alignment between these different components of self. METHOD: The present research assessed degrees of alignment between these two components of self, in the romantic relationship domain, using scenarios involving the self and a hypothetical romantic partner, with alignment defined in terms of the extent to which self-likelihood ratings for different courses of action (what one "would do") correlated with the person's own effectiveness ratings (what one "should do"). RESULTS: In Study 1 (n = 183), this dimension of ego effectiveness positively predicted partner support and negatively predicted partner aggression, whether reported on by selves or peers. In Study 2 (n = 212), both participants and partners reported greater satisfaction in their relationships with participants scoring higher in ego effectiveness. CONCLUSIONS: The discussion focuses both on the assessment-related implications of the work and its relevance to understanding variations in relationship functioning.

The momentary and the macro in action control: A motor control analysis of impulse control difficulties.

According to cybernetic models of self-regulation, the success of one's overt behaviors may very well depend on how well one controls one's behaviors in more momentary terms. The present research applies such perspectives to the analysis of individual differences in impulse control difficulties, which are thought to constitute losses of control in responses to stressors or distress, representing a form of emotional impulsivity. In three studies (total N = 349), undergraduate participants were asked to perform motor control tasks involving stationary or moving targets, which permitted the computation of a tremor instability index that represented the extent to which movements were noisy or unpredictable (less controlled) from moment to moment. Study 1 found that individuals with higher levels of impulse control difficulties exhibited higher levels of tremor, Study 2 replicated this pattern, and Study 3 showed that the tremor instability index predicted similar contingencies in daily life. The findings, in total, identify a micromomentary signature of macrolevel tendencies toward emotional impulsivity. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Ego effectiveness: A novel individual difference approach to health behavior and coping.

Taking care of one's health can require trading current feelings for longer-term considerations of health and well-being. The present research (total N = 366) sought to assess ego operations of this type in terms of the extent to which the self would be capable of responding to health-challenging situations in ways deemed to be effective. Ego effective individuals engaged in a greater frequency of health-protective behaviors as well as a lesser frequency of risky behaviors, both with respect to a peer protocol (Study 1) and a daily life protocol (Study 2). Findings are informative concerning multiple self-regulation perspectives on health.

From ability to behavior: A scenario-based assessment of health competence predicts daily health behaviors.

Recent findings have suggested that we can gain new insights into health decision-making and behavior through the use of a scenario-based approach to health competence (HC). The present research sought to investigate whether and how such individual differences would matter in the conduct of daily life, within two daily diary studies (N = 260). In Study 1, participants receiving higher HC scores were more active in dealing with daily stressors or problems; by contrast, low-HC individuals were more prone to impulsive and antisocial behaviors. Based on these promising results, the Study 2 protocol was a more extensive one. Participants who received higher HC scores thought about their health more often and engaged in diverse healthy behaviors more frequently. Conversely, low-HC individuals were prone to risky and unhealthy daily behaviors. In total, the findings provide key evidence in favor of a new approach to HC and its behavioral manifestations.

Attention to emotion and reliance on feelings in decision-making: Variations on a pleasure principle.

Individuals are thought to differ in the extent to which they attend to and value their feelings, as captured by the construct of attention to emotion. The well-being correlates of attention to emotion have been extensively studied, but the decision-making correlates have not been. A three study program of research (total N = 328) sought to examine relationships between stimulus-specific feelings and decisions concerning those stimuli in the context of high levels of within-subject power. Evidence for the pleasure principle was robust, in that individuals placed a virtual self closer to stimuli that they found more pleasant (Study 1) and they wished to re-view such stimuli more frequently (Studies 2 & 3). These relationships, however, were more pronounced at higher levels of attention to emotion. The findings affirm the importance of feelings in decision-making while highlighting ways in which individual differences in attention to emotion operate.

Dynamic negativity effects in emotional responding: Onsets, peaks, and influences from repetition.

Emotional responses to aversive stimuli may be more mandatory than emotional responses to appetitive stimuli, and extant theorizing suggests that negative reactions may be more peaked at maximum intensity. Parameters of this type were investigated within two experiments (total N = 198) in which emotional images were presented and re-presented as participants indicated their moment-to-moment feeling changes in response to both appetitive and aversive images. Negative emotional reactions were more detectable, with more definitive onsets and peaks, and peak amplitudes were systematically higher in the context of aversive stimuli. Furthermore, stimulus repetition enhanced negative emotional responding in terms of both faster onset times and more pronounced peak amplitudes. Although behavioral activation and behavioral inhibition motivation modulated the emotional onset and peak reactivity metrics, such individual differences did not interact with the repetition effects that were observed. These results highlight several dynamic negativity effects that distinguish positive versus negative emotional reactivity processes. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Leveraging individual differences to understand grounded procedures.

We applaud the goals and execution of the target article, but note that individual differences do not receive much attention. This is a shortcoming because individual differences can play a vital role in theory testing. In our commentary, we describe programs of research of this type and also apply similar thinking to the mechanisms proposed in the target article.

The Revised Animal Preference Test: An Implicit Probe of Tendencies Toward Psychopathy.

At least some forms of interpersonal violence could follow from a vision of the self as a fierce, dominant creature. This should be particularly true when psychopathic (more proactive, less reactive) tendencies are involved. Possible relations of this type were examined in two studies (total N = 278) in which college student samples were presented with a new, structured version of an old projective test typically used in psychotherapy contexts. Participants were presented with predator-prey animal pairs (e.g., lion-zebra) that were not explicitly labeled as such. For each pair, the person was asked to choose the animal that they would more prefer to be. Participants who desired to be predator animals more often, on this Revised Animal Preference Test (RAPT), tended toward psychopathy to a greater extent. In Study 1, such relations were manifest in terms of correlations with psychopathic traits and with an interpersonal style marked by hostile dominance. Further analyses, though, revealed that predator self-identifications were more strongly related to primary psychopathy than secondary psychopathy. Study 2 replicated the interpersonal style correlates of the RAPT. In addition, photographs were taken of the participants in the second study and these photographs were rated for apparent hostility and dominance. As hypothesized, participants who wanted to be predator animals to a greater extent also appeared more hostile and dominant in their nonverbal behaviors. These studies suggest that projective preferences can be assessed in a reliable manner through the use of standardizing procedures. Furthermore, the studies point to some of the motivational factors that may contribute to psychopathy and interpersonal violence.

At what cost? How planned collisions with pedestrians may save lives.

Pedestrian avoidance algorithms often tacitly assume that the maneuver which minimizes collisions will also be the safest maneuver. This work shows that this is not always the case when considering pedestrian fatalities. Given the unavoidable uncertainty in vehicle motion, environmental parameters, and pedestrian behavior, emergency avoidance maneuvers often involve some chance of a collision. Maneuvers that aim to keep the vehicle as far away from the pedestrian as possible will theoretically minimize collisions; but if this strategy is followed and a collision occurs nonetheless, it will often be at a higher speed than would occur with alternative strategies. This is a result of the tires' friction ellipse which enforces a constraint between steering versus braking; for collision avoidance, braking must be reduced if pedestrian clearance is to be maximized. This work shows that in some common pedestrian collision situations, the net effect of this increase in vehicle speed for pure avoidance offsets the benefits of reducing collisions. Pedestrians, if hit, would be hit at higher speeds leading to a net reduction in pedestrian survivability for collision-minimizing maneuvers. First, this trend is demonstrated and explained using a simplified point-mass model of a vehicle, which is then verified with a higher-fidelity vehicle model as well as experimental maneuvers with an instrumented vehicle. While real accidents involve dozens of important parameters, this research provides a general framework for an under-recognized effect under certain common conditions. The implication of this finding suggests that future research in pedestrian avoidance should consider fatality minimization as an alternative objective to collision minimization.