Non-fear emotions in changes in posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms during treatment.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is not only associated with fear but also with other emotions. The present study aimed to examine if changes in shame, guilt, anger, and disgust predicted changes in PTSD symptoms during treatment, while also testing if PTSD symptoms, in turn, predicted changes in these emotions. METHODS: Participants (N = 155) with childhood-related PTSD received a maximum of 12 sessions of eye movement desensitization and reprocessing or imagery rescripting. The data was analyzed using Granger causality models across 12 treatment sessions and 6 assessment sessions (up until one year after the start of treatment). Differences between the two treatments were explored. RESULTS: Across treatment sessions, shame, and disgust showed a reciprocal relationship with PTSD symptoms, while changes in guilt preceded PTSD symptoms. Across assessments, anger was reciprocally related to PTSD, suggesting that anger might play a more important role in the longer term. LIMITATIONS: The individual emotion items were not yet validated, and the CAPS was not administered at all assessments. CONCLUSIONS: These findings partly differ from earlier studies that suggested a unidirectional relationship in which changes in emotions preceded changes in PTSD symptoms during treatment. This is in line with the idea that non-fear emotions do play an important role in the treatment of PTSD and constitute an important focus of treatment and further research.

Expressions of moral disgust reflect both disgust and anger.

ABSTRACTPeople often appear to conflate anger and disgust, seemingly using expressions of both emotions interchangeably in response to moral violations. Yet, anger and moral disgust differ in their antecedents and consequences. These empirical observations are associated with two broad theoretical perspectives: one describes expressions of moral disgust as metaphors for anger, whereas the other describes moral disgust as functionally distinct from anger. Both accounts have received empirical support from separate and seemingly inconsistent literatures. The present study seeks to resolve this inconsistency by focusing on the different ways moral emotions have been measured. We formalise three theoretical models of moral emotions: one in which expressions of disgust are purely associated with anger (but not physiological disgust), one in which disgust and anger are fully separated and have distinct functions, and an integrative model that accommodates both metaphorical use in language and distinctive function. We test these models on responses to moral violations (four studies; N = 1608). Our results suggest that moral disgust has distinct functions, but that expressions of moral disgust are sometimes used to convey moralistic anger. These findings have implications for the theoretical status and measurement of moral emotions.

Interpersonal responses to facial expressions of disgust, anger, and happiness in individuals with varying levels of social anxiety.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Facial expression recognition has been studied extensively, including in relation to social anxiety. Nonetheless, a limited number of studies examined recognition of disgust expressions. Results suggest that disgust is perceived as more threatening than anger, and thus may invite more extreme responses. However, few studies have examined responses to facial expressions. These studies have focused on approach-avoidance responses. Our primary aim was to examine to what extent anger and disgust expressions might invite interpersonal responses in terms of quarrelsomeness-agreeableness and dominance-submissiveness. As social anxiety has been previously associated with a heightened sensitivity to anger and disgust expressions, as well as with alterations in quarrelsomeness-agreeableness and dominance-submissiveness, our secondary aim was to examine whether social anxiety would moderate these responses. METHODS: Participants were 55 women and 43 men who completed social anxiety measures, including the Brief Fear of Negative Evaluation scale, and two tasks that involved "targets" expressing anger, disgust, or happiness at 0%, 50%, or 100%. Participants first indicated how quarrelsome or agreeable and how dominant or submissive they would be towards each target, and then how much they would avoid or approach each target. RESULTS: While 100% disgust and anger expressions invited similar levels of quarrelsomeness and avoidance, 50% disgust invited more quarrelsomeness and stronger avoidance than 50% anger. While these patterns were not meaningfully moderated by social anxiety, individuals with higher BFNE scores showed a relatively strong approach of happy faces. LIMITATIONS: Actual interpersonal behaviour in response to facial expressions was not assessed. CONCLUSIONS: Findings support the relevance of disgust as an interpersonal signal and suggest that, especially at mild intensity, disgust may have a stronger impact than anger on people's quarrelsomeness and avoidance responses. Findings provided no support for the view that people with social anxiety would be particularly responsive to disgust (or anger) expressions.

At the intersection of anger, chronic pain, and the brain: A mini-review.

Chronic pain remains one of the most persistent healthcare challenges in the world. To advance pain treatment, experts have recently introduced research-driven subtypes of chronic pain based on proposed underlying mechanisms. Nociplastic pain (e.g., nonspecific chronic low back or fibromyalgia) is one such subtype which may involve a greater etiologic role for brain plasticity, painful emotions induced by life stress and trauma, and unhealthy emotion regulation. In particular, correlational and behavioral data link anger and the ways anger is regulated with the presence and severity of nociplastic pain. Functional neuroimaging studies also suggest nociplastic pain and healthy anger regulation demonstrate inverse patterns of activity in the medial prefrontal cortex and amygdala; thus, improving anger regulation could normalize activity in these regions. In this Mini-Review, we summarize these findings and propose a unified, biobehavioral model called the Anger, Brain, and Nociplastic Pain (AB-NP) Model, which can be tested in future research and may advance pain care by informing new treatments that address anger, anger regulation, and brain plasticity for nociplastic pain.

Associations of agression and use of caffeine, alcohol and nicotine in healthy and aggressive individuals.

BACKGROUND: Caffeine, alcohol, and nicotine are the three most commonly used psychoactive substances in the world. Given the known propensity of these substances to influence behavior, the relationship between these substances and aggressive and impulsive behaviors, in particular is of interest. METHODS: 1062 adult individuals participated in this study including those with Intermittent Explosive Disorder (IED) and non-aggressive healthy (HC) and psychiatric (PC) controls. Data regarding current and life use of caffeine, alcohol, and nicotine were recorded as were responses on measures of aggression, anger, and impulsivity. RESULTS: Dimensional measures of aggression, anger, and impulsiveness were variably but significantly related to the consumption of these commonly used psychoactive substances. These findings were generally mirrored when using the categorical construct of IED. Finally, these findings were not due to comorbidity with other psychiatric disorders. CONCLUSIONS: These data confirm a link between these externalizing behaviors and these three legal and commonly consumed psychoactive substances in clinically relevant individuals.

Analysis of facial expressions in response to basic taste stimuli using artificial intelligence to predict perceived hedonic ratings.

Taste stimuli can induce a variety of physiological reactions depending on the quality and/or hedonics (overall pleasure) of tastants, for which objective methods have long been desired. In this study, we used artificial intelligence (AI) technology to analyze facial expressions with the aim of assessing its utility as an objective method for the evaluation of food and beverage hedonics compared with conventional subjective (perceived) evaluation methods. The face of each participant (10 females; age range, 21-22 years) was photographed using a smartphone camera a few seconds after drinking 10 different solutions containing five basic tastes with different hedonic tones. Each image was then uploaded to an AI application to achieve outcomes for eight emotions (surprise, happiness, fear, neutral, disgust, sadness, anger, and embarrassment), with scores ranging from 0 to 100. For perceived evaluations, each participant also rated the hedonics of each solution from -10 (extremely unpleasant) to +10 (extremely pleasant). Based on these, we then conducted a multiple linear regression analysis to obtain a formula to predict perceived hedonic ratings. The applicability of the formula was examined by combining the emotion scores with another 11 taste solutions obtained from another 12 participants of both genders (age range, 22-59 years). The predicted hedonic ratings showed good correlation and concordance with the perceived ratings. To our knowledge, this is the first study to demonstrate a model that enables the prediction of hedonic ratings based on emotional facial expressions to food and beverage stimuli.

Difference and Disdain as Indicators of the Public Stigma of Mental Illness.

ABSTRACT: Viewing a stigmatized group as different from everyone else is believed to be a contentless stigma that leads to disdain. This study tests whether three emotions-intergroup anxiety, anger, and empathy-mediate the path between difference and disdain. Six hundred thirty-eight research participants from MTurk provided valid responses to an online survey via Qualtrics. The survey used standardized measures of difference, disdain, intergroup anxiety, anger, and empathy. The hypothesized path model was tested using structural equation modeling (SEM). Fit indicators from SEM and corresponding betas supported a two-mediator model. Specifically, difference was found to be significantly associated with disdain. The path between the two was positively mediated by anger and negatively mediated by empathy. Difference and disdain may become important constructs in predicting and assessing stigma change. Perspective-taking that enhances empathy may prove especially useful for decreasing difference and disdain perceptions about people with mental illness.

Morality is relative: Anger, disgust, and aggression as contingent responses to sibling versus acquaintance harm.

Angry reactions to moral violations should be heightened when wrongs befall oneself in comparison with when wrongs befall acquaintances, as prior research by Molho, Tybur, Güler, Balliet, and Hofmann (2017) demonstrates, because aggressive confrontation is inherently risky and therefore only incentivized by natural selection to curtail significant fitness costs. Here, in 3 preregistered studies, we extend this sociofunctional perspective to cases of wrongs inflicted on siblings. We observed equivalently heightened anger in response to transgressions against either oneself or one's sibling relative to transgressions against acquaintances across studies, whereas transgressions against acquaintances evoked greater disgust and/or fear (both associated with social avoidance) in 2 of the 3 studies. Studies 2 and 3, which incorporated measures of tendencies to confront the transgressor, confirmed that the elevated anger elicited by self or sibling harm partially mediated heightened inclinations toward direct aggression. Finally, in Study 3 we compared tendencies to experience anger and to directly aggress on behalf of siblings and close friends. Despite reporting greater affiliative closeness for friends than for siblings, harm to friends failed to evoke heightened anger relative to acquaintance harm, and participants were inclined to directly aggress against those who had harmed their sibling to a significantly greater extent than when the harm befell their friend. These overall results broadly replicate Molho et al.'s (2017) findings and theoretically extend the sociofunctionalist account of moral emotions to kinship. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

The influence of racial discrimination on smoking among young black men: A prospective analysis.

Racial discrimination is a documented risk factor for smoking among Black men; mechanisms of effect and protective processes remain to be investigated. This study examined the mediating effect of anger/hostility on the association between racial discrimination and smoking and the influence of protective social ties in buffering the effects of racial discrimination. Hypotheses were tested using longitudinal data from a study of 505 Black men ages 19-22. Data collected for the study occurred at three timepoints, each 12 months apart. Racial discrimination is associated with increases in cigarette smoking between baseline and follow-up. Anger/hostility partially mediated this association. Moderational analyses indicated that discrimination had little or no impact on men's smoking in the presence of protective social ties. Study findings suggest that supportive networks make crucial contributions to the reduction of cigarette smoking and feelings of anger within this population. Intervention developers should consider targeting relationship dynamics with supportive networks to understand coping mechanisms and to reduce substance use among young black men.

Stress and Illness: A Role for Specific Emotions.

Research on stress and disease has often afforded an important role to emotion, typically conceptualized in broad categories (e.g., negative emotions), viewed as playing a causal role (e.g., anger contributing to pathophysiology of cardiovascular disease), and measured using self-report inventories. In this article, I argue for the value of evaluating specific emotions, considering bidirectional causal influences, and assessing actual emotional responding when considering the role that emotions play in the stress-disease relationship. In terms of specificity, specific emotions (e.g., anger, sadness, and embarrassment) can be linked with particular health outcomes (e.g., cardiovascular disease and musculoskeletal disease). In terms of bidirectionality, the influences of emotions on disease as well as the influences of disease on emotional functioning can be considered. In terms of assessing actual emotional responding, emotions can be studied in vivo under controlled conditions that allow behavioral, physiological, and subjective responses to be measured during different kinds of emotional functioning (e.g., responding to emotional stimuli, interacting with relationship partners, and downregulating emotional responses). With these considerations in mind, I review early theories and empirical studies in psychosomatic medicine that considered the role of specific emotions and emotion-related behaviors. Studies from our laboratory are presented that illustrate a) differences in patterns of autonomic nervous system responding associated with specific emotions, b) relationships between specific emotions and particular health outcomes in the context of social relationships, c) age as a moderator of the relationship between specific emotions and well-being, d) bidirectional influences (emotions influencing disease and disease influencing emotional functioning), and e) impact of changes in emotional functioning in individuals with neurodegenerative diseases on the health of familial caregivers.

Anger rumination mediates differences between fibromyalgia patients and healthy controls on mental health and quality of life.

The present study examined differences between fibromyalgia patients and healthy controls on anger rumination, mental health and quality of life and tested anger rumination as a mediator of patient-control differences in mental health and quality of life. Participants were a propensity score-matched sample of 58 fibromyalgia patients and 58 healthy controls. Participants completed measures of anger rumination, depression and anxiety and quality of life. Patients were higher than controls on all anger rumination scales and depression and anxiety and lower on quality of life. All anger rumination scales were related to poorer mental health and quality of life. Patient-control differences on mental health and quality of life were mediated by anger rumination. In multiple mediator models, the only subscale with unique mediating effects was anger memories. Anger rumination has potent associations with mental health and quality of life, and differences between patients and controls on mental health and quality of life are partially mediated by differences in anger rumination. Addressing tendencies to ruminate on anger experiences in the care of fibromyalgia patients may offer an important avenue to improved health and quality of life. © 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Is anger, but not sadness, associated with chronic inflammation and illness in older adulthood?

The discrete emotion theory of affective aging postulates that anger, but not sadness, becomes increasingly maladaptive during older adulthood in predicting health-relevant physiological processes and chronic disease (Kunzmann & Wrosch, 2018). However, it is largely unknown whether different negative emotions have distinct functional consequences in the development of older adults' physical disease. To start examining this possibility, we investigated whether older adults' daily experiences of anger and sadness were differentially associated with two biomarkers of chronic low-grade inflammation (interleukin-6 [IL-6] and C-reactive protein [CRP]) and the number of chronic illnesses (e.g., heart disease, cancer, etc.). In addition, we examined whether such divergent associations would become paramount in advanced, as compared with early, old age. A community-dwelling study of 226 older adults (age 59 to 93; M = 74.99, SD = 7.70) assessed participants' anger and sadness over 1 week, inflammatory processes, number of chronic illnesses, and relevant covariates. Regression analysis showed that anger predicted higher levels of IL-6 and chronic illness in advanced, but not in early, old age. The age effect of anger on chronic illness was mediated by increased IL-6 levels. Sadness exerted a reversed, but nonsignificant, association with IL-6 and chronic illness, independent of age. No emotion or age effects were obtained for CRP. The study's findings inform theories of health, emotion, and life span development by pointing to the age-related importance of discrete negative emotions in predicting a major physiological pathway to physical health across older adulthood. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Relationships among stress, emotional intelligence, cognitive intelligence, and cytokines.

The brain has multiple functions, and its structures are very closely related to one another. Thus, the brain areas associated with stress, emotion, and intelligence are closely connected. The purpose of this study was to investigate the multiple associations between stress and emotional intelligence (EI), between EI and intelligence quotient (IQ), between cytokines and stress, and between cytokines and IQ. We measured the stress, EI, cognitive intelligence using IQ, and cytokine levels of 70 healthy subjects. We also analyzed the association of cytokines with IQ according to hemispheric dominance using the brain preference indicator (BPI). We found significant negative correlations between stress and the components of EI, such as emotional awareness and expression, emotional thinking, and emotional regulation. High levels of anger, which is a component of stress, were significantly related to poor emotional regulation. Additionally, emotional application was positively correlated with full-scale IQ scores and scores on the vocabulary, picture arrangement, and block design subtests of the IQ test. High IL-10 levels were significantly associated with low stress levels only in the right-brain-dominant group. High IL-10 and IFN-gamma levels have been associated with high scores of arithmetic intelligence. TNF-alpha and IL-6 were negatively associated with vocabulary scores and full-scale IQ, but IL-10 and IFN-gamma were positively associated with scores on the arithmetic subtest in left-brain-dominant subjects. On the other hand, IL-10 showed positive correlations with scores for vocabulary and for vocabulary and arithmetic in right-brain-dominant subjects. Furthermore, we found significant linear regression models which can show integrative associations and contribution on emotional and cognitive intelligence. Thus, we demonstrated that cytokines, stress, and emotional and cognitive intelligence are closely connected one another related to brain structure and functions. Also, the pro-inflammatory cytokines TNF-alpha and IL-6 had negative effects, whereas the anti-inflammatory cytokines (e.g., IL-10 and IFN-gamma) showed beneficial effects, on stress levels, and multiple dimensions of emotional and cognitive intelligence. Additionally, these relationships among cytokines, stress, and emotional and cognitive intelligence differed depending on right and left hemispheric dominance.

Disgust and the sacred: Do people react to violations of the sacred with the same emotion they react to something putrid?

Disgust has been hypothesized to be uniquely linked to violations of a distinct moral domain (called divinity, purity, or sacred) aimed at preserving one's body from contamination with pathogens and preserving one's soul from violations of what is sacred. Here we examined whether the same emotion-core disgust-occurs when witnessing both types of violation, and we proposed a specific method for doing so. In two studies (N = 160; 240), American and Indian participants indicated their emotional reaction to (stories depicting) sacred or nonsacred violations, each either with or without pathogens. Both Americans and Indians felt "grossed out" (a term for core disgust) by events with pathogens (whether violations of the sacred or not). They felt disgusted and angered, but not grossed out, by violations of the sacred. For both Americans and Indians, grossed out was never the modal emotion when a sacred violation did not involve pathogens. Results were inconsistent with a focus on any single emotion: sacred violations were associated with several different negative emotions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Many moral buttons or just one? Evidence from emotional facial expressions.

We investigated whether moral violations involving harm selectively elicit anger, whereas purity violations selectively elicit disgust, as predicted by the Moral Foundations Theory (MFT). We analysed participants' spontaneous facial expressions as they listened to scenarios depicting moral violations of harm and purity. As predicted by MFT, anger reactions were elicited more frequently by harmful than by impure actions. However, violations of purity elicited more smiling reactions and expressions of anger than of disgust. This effect was found both in a classic set of scenarios and in a new set in which the different kinds of violations were matched on weirdness. Overall, these findings are at odds with predictions derived from MFT and provide support for "monist" accounts that posit harm at the basis of all moral violations. However, we found that smiles were differentially linked to purity violations, which leaves open the possibility of distinct moral modules.

Perceptual learning and recognition confusion reveal the underlying relationships among the six basic emotions.

The six basic emotions (disgust, anger, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise) have long been considered discrete categories that serve as the primary units of the emotion system. Yet recent evidence indicated underlying connections among them. Here we tested the underlying relationships among the six basic emotions using a perceptual learning procedure. This technique has the potential of causally changing participants' emotion detection ability. We found that training on detecting a facial expression improved the performance not only on the trained expression but also on other expressions. Such a transfer effect was consistently demonstrated between disgust and anger detection as well as between fear and surprise detection in two experiments (Experiment 1A, n = 70; Experiment 1B, n = 42). Notably, training on any of the six emotions could improve happiness detection, while sadness detection could only be improved by training on sadness itself, suggesting the uniqueness of happiness and sadness. In an emotion recognition test using a large sample of Chinese participants (n = 1748), the confusion between disgust and anger as well as between fear and surprise was further confirmed. Taken together, our study demonstrates that the "basic" emotions share some common psychological components, which might be the more basic units of the emotion system.

No experimental evidence for emotion-specific gaze cueing in a threat context.

We examined the utility of a gaze cueing paradigm to examine sensitivity to differences among negatively valenced expressions. Participants judged target stimuli (dangerous or safe), the location of which was cued by the gaze direction of a central face. Dawel et al. reported that gaze cueing effects (faster response times on valid vs. invalid trials) were larger when the central face displayed fear than when it displayed happiness. Our aim was to determine whether this effect was specific to fear, to all threat-related expressions (fear, anger), or to all negatively valenced expressions (fear, anger, sadness, disgust) with the aim of using this protocol to study the development of implicit discrimination of negatively valenced expressions. Across five experiments in which we varied the number of models (1 vs. 4), the number of expressions (2 vs. 5), and the country of residence of participants (Canada vs. Australia) we found no evidence that the magnitude of gaze cueing effects is modulated by expression. We discuss our failure to replicate in the context of the broader literature.

Cognitive-behavioral group therapy for intermittent explosive disorder: description and preliminary analysis

Objectives: To evaluate the efficacy of a group therapy based on cognitive-behavioral techniques customized for intermittent explosive disorder (IED). The current report presents the preliminary results of a clinical trial comparing pre- and post-intervention scores in different anger dimensions. Methods: The studied sample consisted of 84 treatment-seeking subjects. The mean (standard deviation) age was 43.0 (11.9) years, and 78% were male. The therapeutic group program consisted of 15 weekly sessions plus three maintenance sessions. The sessions lasted approximately 90 minutes each. Results: No differences were found in demographic profile and pre-treatment status between subjects who completed treatment (n=59) and dropouts (n=25). Comparison of State-Trait Anger Expression Scale (STAXI) scores pre- and post-treatment showed statistically significant changes in all anger scales and subscales of the questionnaire. Conclusion: This preliminary report is a significant addition to currently scarce clinical data. Our findings provide further evidence that structured cognitive-behavioral group therapy, with a focus on anger management and cognitive coping, may be a promising approach to the treatment of IED.

Immediate and delayed neuroendocrine responses to social exclusion in males and females.

Social exclusion is a complex phenomenon, with wide-ranging immediate and delayed effects on well-being, hormone levels, brain activation and motivational behavior. Building upon previous work, the current fMRI study investigated affective, endocrine and neural responses to social exclusion in a more naturalistic Cyberball task in 40 males and 40 females. As expected, social exclusion elicited well-documented affective and neural responses, i.e., increased anger and distress, as well as increased exclusion-related activation of the anterior insula, the posterior-medial frontal cortex and the orbitofrontal cortex. Cortisol and testosterone decreased over the course of the experiment, whereas progesterone showed no changes. Hormone levels were not correlated with subjective affect, but they were related to exclusion-induced neural responses. Exclusion-related activation in frontal areas was associated with decreases in cortisol and increases in testosterone until recovery. Given that results were largely independent of sex, the current findings have important implications regarding between-sex vs. within-sex variations and the conceptualization of state vs. trait neuroendocrine functions in social neuroscience.

Affective and cognitive validation of thoughts: An appraisal perspective on anger, disgust, surprise, and awe.

Anger, disgust, surprise, and awe are multifaceted emotions. Both anger and disgust are associated with feeling unpleasant as well as experiencing a sense of confidence, whereas surprise and awe tend to be more pleasant emotions that are associated with doubt. Most prior work has examined how appraisals (confidence, pleasantness) lead people to experience different emotions or to experience different levels of intensity within the same emotion. Instead, the current research focused on the consequences (rather the antecedents) of appraisals of emotion, and it focuses specifically on the consequences for thought usage rather than the consequences for generating many or few thoughts. We show that when these four emotions are induced following thought generation, thoughts can be used either more or less with each emotion depending on whether the pleasantness/unpleasantness or confidence/doubt appraisal is made salient. In five experiments, it was predicted and found that anger and disgust following thought generation led to more thought use than surprise and awe when a confidence appraisal for the emotion was encouraged, but led to less thought use than surprise and awe when a pleasantness appraisal was made salient. The current studies are the first to reveal that different appraisals can lead to different (even opposite) outcomes on thought usage within the same experimental design. (PsycINFO Database Record