A Novel Smartphone-Based Intervention Aimed at Increasing Future Orientation via the Future Self: a Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial of a Prototype Application.

We developed and tested a smartphone-based intervention, FutureU, that aims to stimulate future-oriented thinking and behavior by strengthening the degree to which people identify with their future self. In order to examine the potential of this intervention prototype and opportunities for further optimization, we evaluated 1) the immediate and long-term efficacy of the intervention, and 2) intervention effects after each of three intervention modules. To this end, we conducted a randomized controlled pilot study among first-year university students (N = 176). Results showed a decrease in goal commitment immediately after the intervention. At 3-months follow-up, trends showed an increase in future orientation and in self-efficacy. During the intervention, there was a positive effect on vividness of the future self after the first module. Although there is scope for improvement, the findings highlight the potential of the intervention to increase people's future-oriented thinking and behavior.

Existential threat and responses to emotional displays of ingroup and outgroup members.

The present research investigates how emotional displays shape reactions to ingroup and outgroup members when people are reminded of death. We hypothesized that under mortality salience, emotions that signal social distance promote worldview defense (i.e., increased ingroup favoritism and outgroup derogation), whereas emotions that signal affiliation promote affiliation need (i.e., reduced ingroup favoritism and outgroup derogation). In three studies, participants viewed emotional displays of ingroup and/or outgroup members after a mortality salience or control manipulation. Results revealed that under mortality salience, anger increased ingroup favoritism and outgroup derogation (Study 1), enhanced perceived overlap with the ingroup (Study 3), and increased positive facial behavior to ingroup displays-measured via the Facial Action Coding System (Studies 1 and 2) and electromyography of the zygomaticus major muscle (Study 3). In contrast, happiness decreased ingroup favoritism and outgroup derogation (Study 2), and increased positive facial behavior towards outgroup members (Study 3). The findings suggest that, in times of threat, emotional displays can determine whether people move away from unfamiliar others or try to form as many friendly relations as possible.

Dominance, reward, and affiliation smiles modulate the meaning of uncooperative or untrustworthy behaviour.

We investigated the effects of different types of smiles on the perception of uncooperative or untrustworthy behaviour. In five studies, participants assigned to one group played an economic game with a representative of another group. In an initial round, the representative acted uncooperatively by favouring their group and then displayed a dominance, reward, or affiliation smile. Participants rated the motives of the representative and played a second round of the game with a different member of the same outgroup. Following uncooperative or untrustworthy behaviour, affiliation smiles communicated less positivity and superiority, and a greater desire to both repair the relationship between groups and change the uncooperative decision than reward or dominance smiles. Perceptions of a desire to repair the relationship and to change the decision were associated with trust and cooperation in a subsequent round of the game. Together, these findings show that smiles that are subtly different in their morphology can convey different messages and highlight the importance of these expressions in influencing the perceptions of others' intentions.

Social identity salience shapes group-based emotions through group-based appraisals.

Group-based emotions have been conceptualised as being rooted in perceivers' social identity. Consistent with this idea, previous research has shown that social identity salience affects group-based emotions, but no research to date has directly examined the role of group-based appraisals in comparison with individual appraisals. In the present studies, we measured group-based appraisals through a thought-listing procedure. In Experiment 1, we explicitly reminded people of their group identity, which led to the predicted change in group-based anger. This effect was mediated by group-based appraisals. In Experiment 2, participants either discussed a group-relevant scenario in small groups or a related topic irrelevant to the group. The group-relevant condition not only led to stronger indignation but the perceived presence of group-based appraisals was also related to participants' reports of indignation. These results provide further evidence for the importance of group-based appraisals as components of group-based emotions.

An epidemic context elicits more prosocial decision-making in an intergroup social dilemma.

Societal challenges such as the COVID-19 pandemic have the quality of a social dilemma, in that they compel people to choose between acting in their own interests or the interests of a larger collective. Empirical evidence shows that the choices people make in a social dilemma are influenced by how this decision is framed. In four studies, we examined how context of an epidemic influences resource allocation decisions in a nested social dilemma task, where participants share resources between themselves, their subgroup, and a larger collective. Participants consistently allocated more resources to the collective in the context of the Ebola epidemic than in the context of a neighborhood improvement project, and these choices were strongly associated with prescriptive social norms. Together, the findings provide an experimental demonstration that the context of a quickly spreading disease encourages people to act more prosocially.

Stimulating a future-oriented mindset and goal attainment through a smartphone-based intervention: Study protocol for a randomized controlled trial.

BACKGROUND: Short-term mindsets interfere with the consideration of future consequences and therefore predict negative behaviors. We developed a smartphone-based intervention aiming to increase a future-oriented mindset and personal goal attainment by strengthening future self-identification and stimulating episodic future thinking. The aims of the study are 1) to examine users' experiences with the application and their treatment adherence, 2) to examine the effectiveness of the intervention, and 3) to explore which intervention modules generate the strongest changes in key outcomes. METHODS: First-year university students (N = 166) will be randomly assigned to two conditions: 1) the smartphone-based intervention, or 2) a goal-setting control group. The intervention consists of three week-long modules. Data will be collected at the start of the intervention, at weekly intervals during the intervention, immediately after the intervention, and at 3-month follow-up (and at parallel time points for the control group). We will assess users' experiences, application usage data, primary intervention outcomes (e.g., self-defeating behavior, future orientation, future self-identification), and secondary intervention outcomes (e.g., psychosocial wellbeing, self-efficacy). DISCUSSION: The study will provide information about users' experiences with the application, the intervention's general effectiveness, and which intervention modules show most promise. This information will be used to further develop the application and optimize this novel intervention. TRIAL REGISTRATION: The trial is registered in the Netherlands Trial Register (number: NL9671) on 16 August 2021.

Interaction with the future self in virtual reality reduces self-defeating behavior in a sample of convicted offenders.

In this study, we test an intervention in which convicted offenders interacted with an age-progressed avatar representing their future selves in virtual reality. During the interaction, they reflected on their current lifestyle, alternating between the perspective of their present self and that of their future self. We hypothesized that this embodied experience would increase their ability to imagine themselves in the future and reduce their engagement in self-defeating behavior, as measured with a self-report survey. In line with expectations, results indicated that the interaction increased vividness of the future self compared to baseline and reduced self-defeating behavior, including alcohol use and overspending, one week later. In addition, increases in vividness were associated with a reduction in self-defeating behavior over and above other concepts relating to the future self, including connectedness, similarity, and valence. The results are based on a small sample and should therefore be considered as indicative of the possibilities of our virtual reality paradigm as an intervention tool to reduce self-defeating behavior.

The Roles of Social Value Orientation and Anticipated Emotions in Intergroup Resource Allocation Decisions.

How individuals divide resources between themselves and another person is influenced both by their social value orientation (SVO) and the emotions they expect to feel when dividing resources (anticipated emotions). Research has also shown that individuals favor members of their own group (ingroup) over individuals from other groups (outgroup) when allocating resources. The Malaysian multi-ethnic population is a highly relevant context to study the combined effects of intergroup relations and SVO on anticipated emotions and resource allocation. The current studies recruited Malaysian participants to examine whether anticipated emotions and allocation behavior are influenced by the ethnic identity of the person receiving the allocation. Participants completed an SVO measure and rated how they would feel if they were to share resources equally or unequally. They then made allocations between themselves and an ingroup or outgroup member in an economic game. There was no evidence of ingroup favoritism in anticipated emotions and allocation behavior. This may have been due to impression management, social desirability concerns, and/or the use of a population with socially liberal attitudes. The results nevertheless provide support for the notion that anticipated emotions play a key role in resource allocation decisions.

"Worth a thousand words": absolute and relative decoding of nonlinguistic affect vocalizations.

The authors compared the accuracy of emotion decoding for nonlinguistic affect vocalizations, speech-embedded vocal prosody, and facial cues representing 9 different emotions. Participants (N = 121) decoded 80 stimuli from 1 of the 3 channels. Accuracy scores for nonlinguistic affect vocalizations and facial expressions were generally equivalent, and both were higher than scores for speech-embedded prosody. In particular, affect vocalizations showed superior decoding over the speech stimuli for anger, contempt, disgust, fear, joy, and sadness. Further, specific emotions that were decoded relatively poorly through speech-embedded prosody were more accurately identified through affect vocalizations, suggesting that emotions that are difficult to communicate in running speech can still be expressed vocally through other means. Affect vocalizations also showed superior decoding over faces for anger, contempt, disgust, fear, sadness, and surprise. Facial expressions showed superior decoding scores over both types of vocal stimuli for joy, pride, embarrassment, and "neutral" portrayals. Results are discussed in terms of the social functions served by various forms of nonverbal emotion cues and the communicative advantages of expressing emotions through particular channels.

Intergroup emotional exchange: Ingroup guilt and outgroup anger increase resource allocation in trust games.

Intergroup exchanges are an integral part of social life but are compromised when one group pursues its interests at another group's expense. The present research investigates whether expressing emotion can mitigate the negative consequences of such actions. We examine how emotions communicated by either an ingroup or outgroup member following an ingroup member's breach of trust affect other ingroup members' feelings of guilt and pride, and subsequent allocation of resources. In both studies, groups of participants played a two-round trust game with another group. In round one, they observed a member of their own group failing to reciprocate a trusting move by the outgroup. In Study 1 (N = 85), an outgroup member then communicated anger or disappointment, whereas in Study 2 (N = 164), an ingroup member then communicated happiness or guilt. Comparisons with no-emotion control conditions revealed that expressions of outgroup anger and ingroup guilt increased participants' allocations to an outgroup member in round two. The effect of an outgroup member's anger expression was mediated by participants' diminished feelings of pride about the ingroup action, whereas the effect of an ingroup member's guilt expression was mediated by participants' own feelings of guilt. Taken together, these findings support a social appraisal approach and highlight the roles that pride and guilt can play in shaping intergroup resource allocations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

The social power of regret: the effect of social appraisal and anticipated emotions on fair and unfair allocations in resource dilemmas.

We investigated how another person's emotions about resource allocation decisions influence observers' resource allocations by influencing the emotions that observers anticipate feeling if they were to act in the same way. Participants were exposed to an exemplar who made a fair or unfair division in an economic game and expressed pride or regret about this decision. Participants then made their own resource allocation decisions. Exemplar regret about acting fairly decreased the incidence of fair behavior (Studies 1A and 1B). Likewise, exemplar regret about acting unfairly increased the incidence of fair behavior (Study 2). The effect of others' emotions on observers' behavior was mediated by the observers' anticipated emotions. We discuss our findings in light of the view that social appraisal and anticipated emotions are important tools for social learning and may contribute to the formation and maintenance of social norms about greed and fairness.

Beautiful friendship: Social sharing of emotions improves subjective feelings and activates the neural reward circuitry.

Humans have a strong tendency to affiliate with other people, especially in emotional situations. Here, we suggest that a critical mechanism underlying this tendency is that socially sharing emotional experiences is in itself perceived as hedonically positive and thereby contributes to the regulation of individual emotions. We investigated the effect of social sharing of emotions on subjective feelings and neural activity by having pairs of friends view emotional (negative and positive) and neutral pictures either alone or with the friend. While the two friends remained physically separated throughout the experiment-with one undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging and the other performing the task in an adjacent room-they were made aware on a trial-by-trial basis whether they were seeing pictures simultaneously with their friend (shared) or alone (unshared). Ratings of subjective feelings were improved significantly when participants viewed emotional pictures together than alone, an effect that was accompanied by activity increase in ventral striatum and medial orbitofrontal cortex, two important components of the reward circuitry. Because these effects occurred without any communication or interaction between the friends, they point to an important proximate explanation for the basic human motivation to affiliate with others, particularly in emotional situations.

Regulating emotion in the context of interpersonal decisions: the role of anticipated pride and regret.

Recent theories about the relation between emotion and behavior hold that social behavior is influenced not only by the experience of emotion, but also by the anticipation of emotion. We argue that anticipating future emotional states is an emotion regulation strategy when it leads to a change in behavior. In the current studies we examined how construal of a fair or an unfair situation in terms of positive or negative anticipated emotions influences the fairness of subsequent behavior. We used the Ultimatum Bargaining Game - an experimental game in which participants divide a resource between themselves and another person - as a social situation that offers the opportunity to engage in fair and unfair behavior. In Study 1 we used an autobiographical recall task to manipulate anticipated emotions. Although the task did not influence anticipated emotions directly, results showed that anticipated pride about fair behavior increased levels of fairness, whereas anticipated pride about unfair behavior decreased levels of fairness. Similarly, anticipated regret about fair behavior decreased levels of fairness, whereas anticipated regret about unfair behavior increased levels of fairness. In Study 2 we replicated this pattern of findings, and found that participants who thought about their anticipated emotions (pride or regret) in relation to unfair behavior behaved more fairly. We discuss these findings in relation to theories of emotion regulation and economic decision-making.

Moving faces, looking places: validation of the Amsterdam Dynamic Facial Expression Set (ADFES).

We report two studies validating a new standardized set of filmed emotion expressions, the Amsterdam Dynamic Facial Expression Set (ADFES). The ADFES is distinct from existing datasets in that it includes a face-forward version and two different head-turning versions (faces turning toward and away from viewers), North-European as well as Mediterranean models (male and female), and nine discrete emotions (joy, anger, fear, sadness, surprise, disgust, contempt, pride, and embarrassment). Study 1 showed that the ADFES received excellent recognition scores. Recognition was affected by social categorization of the model: displays of North-European models were better recognized by Dutch participants, suggesting an ingroup advantage. Head-turning did not affect recognition accuracy. Study 2 showed that participants more strongly perceived themselves to be the cause of the other's emotion when the model's face turned toward the respondents. The ADFES provides new avenues for research on emotion expression and is available for researchers upon request.

Convergent and divergent responses to emotional displays of ingroup and outgroup.

In the present research, we test the assumption that emotional mimicry and contagion are moderated by group membership. We report two studies using facial electromyography (EMG; Study 1), Facial Action Coding System (FACS; Study 2), and self-reported emotions (Study 2) as dependent measures. As predicted, both studies show that ingroup anger and fear displays were mimicked to a greater extent than outgroup displays of these emotions. The self-report data in Study 2 further showed specific divergent reactions to outgroup anger and fear displays. Outgroup anger evoked fear, and outgroup fear evoked aversion. Interestingly, mimicry increased liking for ingroup models but not for outgroup models. The findings are discussed in terms of the social functions of emotions in group contexts. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved).