Touching the base: heart-warming ads from the 2016 U.S. election moved viewers to partisan tears.

Some political ads used in the 2016 U.S. election evoked feelings colloquially known as being moved to tears. We conceptualise this phenomenon as a positive social emotion that appraises and motivates communal relations, is accompanied by physical sensations (including lachrymation, piloerection, chest warmth), and often labelled metaphorically. We surveyed U.S. voters in the fortnight before the 2016 U.S. election. Selected ads evoked the emotion completely and reliably, but in a partisan fashion: Clinton voters were moved to tears by three selected Clinton ads, and Trump voters were moved to tears by two Trump ads. Viewers were much less moved by ads of the candidate they did not support. Being moved to tears predicted intention to vote for the candidate depicted. We conclude that some contemporary political advertising is able to move its audience to tears, and thereby motivates support.

Social vs. non-social measures of learning potential for predicting community functioning across phase of illness in schizophrenia.

Studies demonstrate that dynamic assessment (i.e., learning potential) improves the prediction of response to rehabilitation over static measures in individuals with schizophrenia. Learning potential is most commonly assessed using neuropsychological tests under a test-train-test paradigm to examine change in performance. Novel learning potential approaches using social cognitive tasks may have added value, particularly for the prediction of social functioning, but this area is unexplored. The present study is the first to investigate whether patients with schizophrenia demonstrate social cognitive learning potential across phase of illness. This study included 43 participants at clinical high risk (CHR), 63 first-episode, and 36 chronic schizophrenia patients. Assessment of learning potential involved test-train-test versions of the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (non-social cognitive learning potential) and the Facial Emotion Identification Test (social cognitive learning potential). Non-social and social cognition pre-training scores (static scores) uniquely predicted concurrent community functioning in patients with schizophrenia, but not in CHR participants. Learning potential showed no incremental explanation of variance beyond static scores. First-episode patients showed larger non-social cognitive learning potential than CHR participants and were similar to chronic patients; chronic patients and CHR participants were similar. Group differences across phase of illness were not observed for social cognitive learning potential. Subsequent research could explore whether non-social and social cognitive learning potential relate differentially to non-social versus social types of training and rehabilitation.

Communal sharing/identity fusion does not require reflection on episodic memory of shared experience or trauma - and usually generates kindness.

Identity fusion is remarkably similar to the extensively validated construct of communal sharing, proposed in 1991. Both posit that notions of oneness/unity/equivalence with others underpin altruism. However, we argue that oneness/equivalence instantiates an evolved, innate relational form, marked and constituted by cultural practices making participants' bodies substantially the same. It is intuitive from earliest development, often encompasses persons whom one has never met, and results mostly in caring.

Episodic Memory for Dynamic Social Interaction Across Phase of Illness in Schizophrenia.

Although a number of studies examined recollection and familiarity memory in schizophrenia, most of studies have focused on nonsocial episodic memory. Little is known about how schizophrenia patients remember social information in everyday life and whether social episodic memory changes over the course of illness. This study aims to examine episodic memory for dynamic social interaction with multimodal social stimuli in schizophrenia across phase of illness. Within each phase of illness, probands and demographically matched controls participated: 51 probands at clinical high risk (CHR) for psychosis and 36 controls, 80 first-episode schizophrenia patients and 49 controls, and 50 chronic schizophrenia patients and 39 controls. The participants completed the Social Remember-Know Paradigm that assessed overall social episodic memory, social recollection and familiarity memory, and social context memory, in addition to social cognitive measures and measures on community functioning. Probands showed impairment for recollection but not in familiarity memory and this pattern was similar across phase of illness. In contrast, impaired social context memory was observed in the first-episode and chronic schizophrenia samples, but not in CHR samples. Social context memory was associated with community functioning only in the chronic sample. These findings suggest that an impaired recollection could be a vulnerability marker for schizophrenia whereas impaired social context memory could be a disease-related marker. Further, a pattern of impaired recollection with intact familiarity memory for social stimuli suggests that schizophrenia patients may have a different pattern of impaired episodic memory for social vs nonsocial stimuli.

Empathic Concern Is Part of a More General Communal Emotion.

Seeing someone in need may evoke a particular kind of closeness that has been conceptualized as sympathy or empathic concern (which is distinct from other empathy constructs). In other contexts, when people suddenly feel close to others, or observe others suddenly feeling closer to each other, this sudden closeness tends to evoke an emotion often labeled in vernacular English as being moved, touched, or heart-warming feelings. Recent theory and empirical work indicates that this is a distinct emotion; the construct is named kama muta. Is empathic concern for people in need simply an expression of the much broader tendency to respond with kama muta to all kinds of situations that afford closeness, such as reunions, kindness, and expressions of love? Across 16 studies sampling 2918 participants, we explored whether empathic concern is associated with kama muta. Meta-analyzing the association between ratings of state being moved and trait empathic concern revealed an effect size of, r(3631) = 0.35 [95% CI: 0.29, 0.41]. In addition, trait empathic concern was also associated with self-reports of the three sensations that have been shown to be reliably indicative of kama muta: weeping, chills, and bodily feelings of warmth. We conclude that empathic concern might actually be a part of the kama muta construct.

Enhancing tolerability of a measure of social perception in schizophrenia: comparison of short and long Norwegian versions of the Relationships Across Domains test.

INTRODUCTION: Relationship perception focuses on social interactions, is reduced in schizophrenia and is related to daily functioning. It can be assessed with the Relationships Across Domains (RAD) test, built on Relational Models Theory which states that people use four relational models to interpret social interaction. RAD is time consuming, low on tolerability and only used in English-speaking countries. We evaluated the psychometric properties of a translated, abbreviated Norwegian version. METHODS: Sixty-two schizophrenia participants and 56 healthy controls underwent assessments of social and non-social cognition. The schizophrenia group completed functional and clinical measures. RAD's internal consistency was investigated with Cronbach's alphas, group differences with logistic regressions and associations between study variables with Pearson's correlations. RESULTS: RAD was reduced from 25 (Cronbach's alpha = .809) to 12 vignettes (Cronbach's alpha = .815). Schizophrenia participants had significant impairments, with larger effect sizes for the full version. Associations of RAD with study variables were similar for the two versions: smaller for clinical measures and larger for functional and cognitive measures. Results were comparable to results for the English version. CONCLUSIONS: The length of the Norwegian RAD was reduced while retaining its psychometric properties, which were similar to the English version. This suggests the test's cross-cultural utility.

Being moved is a positive emotion, and emotions should not be equated with their vernacular labels.

As evidence for the second process of the Embracing factor, the target article characterizes being moved as a mixed emotion linked to sadness through metonymy. We question these characterizations and argue that emotions should not be equated with their vernacular labels.

Longitudinal stability of social cognition in schizophrenia: A 5-year follow-up of social perception and emotion processing.

BACKGROUND: Individuals with schizophrenia exhibit marked and disproportional impairment in social cognition, which is associated with their level of community functioning. However, it is unclear whether social cognitive impairment is stable over time, or if impairment worsens as a function of illness chronicity. Moreover, little is known about the longitudinal associations between social cognition and community functioning. METHOD: Forty-one outpatients with schizophrenia completed tests of emotion processing (Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test, MSCEIT) and social perception (Relationships Across Domains, RAD) at baseline and approximately five years later. Stability of performance was assessed using paired t-tests and correlations. Longitudinal associations between social cognition and community functioning (Role Functioning Scale, RFS) were assessed using cross-lagged panel correlation analysis. RESULTS: Performance on the two social cognition tasks were stable over follow-up. There were no significant mean differences between assessment points [p's≥0.20, Cohen'sd's≤|0.20|], and baseline performance was highly correlated with performance at follow-up [ρ's≥0.70, ICC≥0.83, p's<0.001]. The contemporaneous association between social cognition and community functioning was moderately large at follow-up [ρ=0.49, p=0.002]. However, baseline social cognition did not show a significant longitudinal influence on follow-up community functioning [z=0.31, p=0.76]. CONCLUSIONS: These data support trait-like stability of selected areas of social cognition in schizophrenia. Cross-lagged correlations did not reveal a significant unidirectional influence of baseline social cognition on community functioning five years later. However, consistent with the larger literature, a moderately large cross-sectional association between social cognition and community functioning was observed. Based on stability and cross-sectional associations, these results suggest that social cognition might have short-term implications for functional outcome rather than long-term consequences.

Social cognition in schizophrenia, Part 1: performance across phase of illness.

Social cognitive impairments are consistently reported in schizophrenia and are associated with functional outcome. We currently know very little about whether these impairments are stable over the course of illness. In the current study, 3 different aspects of social cognition were assessed (emotion processing, Theory of Mind [ToM], and social relationship perception) at 3 distinct developmental phases of illness: prodromal, first episode, and chronic. In this cross-sectional study, participants included 50 individuals with the prodromal risk syndrome for psychosis and 34 demographically comparable controls, 81 first-episode schizophrenia patients and 46 demographically comparable controls, and 53 chronic schizophrenia patients and 47 demographically comparable controls. Outcome measures included total and subtest scores on 3 specialized measures of social cognition: (1) emotion processing assessed with the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test, (2) ToM assessed with The Awareness of Social Inference Test, and (3) social relationship perception assessed the Relationships Across Domains Test. Social cognitive performance was impaired across all domains of social cognition and in all clinical samples. Group differences in performance were comparable across phase of illness, with no evidence of progression or improvement. Age had no significant effect on performance for either the clinical or the comparison groups. The findings suggest that social cognition in these 3 domains fits a stable pattern that has outcome and treatment implications. An accompanying article prospectively examines the longitudinal stability of social cognition and prediction of functional outcome in the first-episode sample.

Development of a measure of relationship perception in schizophrenia.

Relationships Across Domains (RAD) is a new measure of competence in relationship perception that may be used to assess clinically stable persons with schizophrenia and healthy persons. The structure and content of the RAD are grounded in relational models theory, a well-validated theory of social relations. The 75-item RAD contains 25 vignettes and can be administered in approximately 35 min. The RAD requires participants to implicitly identify the relational model of a dyad described in a brief vignette and infer how the members of the dyad are likely to behave in three other social contexts. The RAD demonstrated good internal consistency in schizophrenia outpatients and healthy participants matched to the outpatients in age and education. The schizophrenia outpatients performed more poorly on the RAD than two healthy comparison groups, supporting the ability of the RAD to discriminate between clinical and non-clinical populations. The schizophrenia patients' performance on the RAD was moderately related to reading ability and several domains of community functioning.

Emotional intelligence in schizophrenia.

BACKGROUND: Deficits in emotion perception have been extensively documented in schizophrenia and are associated with poor psychosocial functioning. However, little is known about other aspects of emotion processing that are critical for adaptive functioning. The current study assessed schizophrenia patients' performance on a theoretically-based, well-validated, multidimensional measure of emotional intelligence, the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (Mayer, J.D., Salovey, P., Caruso, D.R., 2002. Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT): User's Manual. Multi-Health Systems, Inc., Toronto, Ontario). METHODS: 50 schizophrenia outpatients and 39 non-psychiatric controls completed the MSCEIT, a performance measure comprised of subtests that assess four components (branches) of emotional intelligence: Identifying, Using, Understanding, and Managing Emotions. Among patients, associations between MSCEIT scores and measures of clinical symptoms as well as functional outcome were evaluated. RESULTS: The MSCEIT demonstrated good psychometric properties in both groups. Schizophrenia patients performed significantly worse than controls on the total MSCEIT score, and on three of the four subtests: Identifying, Understanding, and Managing Emotions. Among patients, lower MSCEIT scores significantly correlated with higher negative and disorganized symptoms, as well as worse community functioning. CONCLUSIONS: The MSCEIT is a useful tool for investigating emotion processing in schizophrenia. Individuals with schizophrenia demonstrate deficits across multiple domains of emotion processing. These deficits have significant links with clinical symptoms of schizophrenia and with how patients function in their daily lives. Further research is required to understand the links between emotional intelligence, clinical symptoms, and functional outcome in schizophrenia.

Aberrant social relations in the personality disorders.

Research on the interpersonal aspects of personality disorders (PDs) has generally sought to describe them in terms of behavioural dispositions, often mapping these dispositions onto the interpersonal circumplex. The present study, in contrast, tested a theory that accounts for PDs as systematic disturbances in relationships between people. Self-reports of 57 participants experiencing significant interpersonal difficulties showed many predicted associations between PD symptoms and aberrant enactment of four elementary forms of social relationships (Fiske, 1991). Symptoms were associated with aberrant motivations for, and cognitive implementations of, these 'relational models', and with difficulties conducting them. These associations were comparable in strength to, but largely independent of, those obtained with a circumplex measure. Aberrations of authority- and equality-based relationships were central to many PDs, but not captured well by the circumplex. A relational analysis affords a fruitful and largely unexplored perspective on PDs.