Lost Luggage: A Field Study of Emotion-Antecedent Appraisal

One hundred twelve airline passengers reporting their luggage lost to the baggage retrieval service in a major international airport were interviewed after their interaction with an airline agent. Participants were asked to rate their emotional state before and after the interaction with the agent and to provide information on how they had appraised the situation. The data are interpreted with respect to (1) type and intensity of the emotions felt in this situation, (2) appraisal theory predictions of emotion elicitation and differentiation, and (3) emotional change in the course of the interaction following reappraisal of the situatio

Lifetime Exposure to Adverse Events and Reinforcement Sensitivity in Obsessive-Compulsive Prone Individuals

A diathesis-stress perspective of obsessive-compulsive symptoms (OCS) predicts that exposure to adverse events and personality dispositions jointly influence OCS. Gray and McNaughton's (2000) model of personality posits that, faced with challenging circumstances, individuals with a high sensitivity to punishment (SP) will be more prone to OCS because they cannot avoid the downward spiral into anxiety. The current study investigates OCS severity in relation to lifetime exposure to adverse events (AE), SP, and sensitivity to reward (SR) in 122 nonclinical adults. The results indicate that OCS severity is predicted by AE, SP and SR. Interestingly, the impact of adverse experiences is moderated by SR and not SP. These findings suggest that: (1) exposure to adverse events and SP are independent OCS risk factors, and (2) exposure to adverse events is more critical for reward dependent people. This is discussed in light of responsibility and ‘not just right experiences' in OCS, along with the role of impulsivity in the obsessive-compulsive disorder spectru

Lifetime Exposure to Adverse Events and Reinforcement Sensitivity in Obsessive–Compulsive Prone Individuals

A diathesis-stress perspective of obsessive compulsive symptoms (OCS) predicts that exposure to adverse events and personality dispositions jointly influence OCS. Gray and McNaughton's (2000) model of personality posits that, faced with challenging circumstances, individuals with a high sensitivity to punishment (SP) will be more prone to OCS because they cannot avoid the downward spiral into anxiety. The current study investigates OCS severity in relation to lifetime exposure to adverse events (AE), SP, and sensitivity to reward (SR) in 122 nonclinical adults. The results indicate that OCS severity is predicted by AE, SP and SR. Interestingly, the impact of adverse experiences is moderated by SR and not SR These findings suggest that: (1) exposure to adverse events and SP are independent OCS risk factors, and (2) exposure to adverse events is more critical for reward dependent people. This is discussed in light of responsibility and 'not just right experiences' in OCS, along with the role of impulsivity in the obsessive-compulsive disorder spectrum

Trauma exposure interacts with impulsivity in predicting emotion regulation and depressive mood.

BACKGROUND: Traumatic exposure may modulate the expression of impulsive behavioral dispositions and change the implementation of emotion regulation strategies associated with depressive mood. Past studies resulted in only limited comprehension of these relationships, especially because they failed to consider impulsivity as a multifactorial construct. OBJECTIVE: Based on Whiteside and Lynam's multidimensional model that identifies four distinct dispositional facets of impulsive-like behaviors, namely urgency, (lack of) premeditation, (lack of) perseverance, and sensation seeking (UPPS), the current study used a sample of community volunteers to investigate whether an interaction exists between impulsivity facets and lifetime trauma exposure in predicting cognitive emotion regulation and depressive mood. METHODS: Ninety-three adults completed questionnaires measuring lifetime trauma exposure, impulsivity, cognitive emotion regulation, and depressive mood. RESULTS: Results showed that trauma-exposed participants with a strong disposition toward urgency (predisposition to act rashly in intense emotional contexts) tended to use fewer appropriate cognitive emotion regulation strategies than other individuals. Unexpectedly, participants lacking in perseverance (predisposition to have difficulties concentrating on demanding tasks) used more appropriate emotion regulation strategies if they had experienced traumatic events during their life than if they had not. Emotion regulation mediated the path between these two impulsivity facets and depressive mood. CONCLUSIONS: Together, these findings suggest that impulsivity has a differential impact on emotion regulation and depressive mood depending on lifetime exposure to environmental factors, especially traumatic events

Children's ability to control the facial expression of laughter and smiling: Knowledge and behaviour

A total of 64 children, aged 7 and 10, watched a clown performing three sketches rated as very funny by the children. Two experimental conditions were created by asking half of the participants to suppress their laughter. Facial expressions were videotaped and analysed with FACS. For both ages, the results show a significant shorter duration (but not a lower frequency) of episodes of laughter and Duchenne smiles, and greater frequency of facial control movements in the suppression compared to the free expression group. The detailed results on individual facial action units used to control amusement expressions suggest hypotheses on the nature of the underlying processes. The participants' explicit knowledge of their control strategies was assessed through standardised interviews. Although behavioural control strategies were reported equally frequently by the two age groups, 10-year-olds verbalised more mental control strategies than 7-year-olds. This theoretically expected difference was not related to the actual ability to control facial expression. This result challenges the commonly held assumption that explicit knowledge of control strategies results in a greater ability to execute such control in ongoing social interactions

Lost Luggage: A Field Study of Emotion-Antecedent Appraisal

One hundred twelve airline passengers reporting their luggage lost to the baggage retrieval service in a major international airport were interviewed after their interaction with an airline agent. Participants were asked to rate their emotional state before and after the interaction with the agent and to provide information on how they had appraised the situation. The data are interpreted with respect to (1) type and intensity of the emotions felt in this situation, (2) appraisal theory predictions of emotion elicitation and differentiation, and (3) emotional change in the course of the interaction following reappraisal of the situation

Criteria for Emotion Recognition from Verbal and Nonverbal Expression: Studying Baggage Loss in the Airport

The issue of emotion recognition in real-life settings, lacking a clear criterion of the nature of the underlying emotion, is raised. After reporting their luggage lost, 110 airline passengers were asked to rate their emotional state (subjective feeling criterion). The agents who had processed the claims were asked to rate the passengers’ emotional state (objective behavior criterion) as well as their own feelings. An excerpt of the videotaped interaction for 40 passengers was rated for emotional state by judges on the basis of (a) verbal and nonverbal cues or (b) nonverbal cues only. As predicted, the data show that judges’ inferences in both exposure conditions correlate more strongly with the objective behavior (agent ratings) than the subjective feeling criterion (self-ratings). Using the Facial Action Coding System (FACS), objectively coded “felt” (but not false) smiles correlated positively with a good humor scale in both criteria and judges’ ratings

Mirroring and embodiment in the recognition of musical emotions.

Music as a means of art therapy has been used for a long time, but the mechanisms of its emotional impact on a person are still not fully understood. Therefore, the question of the mechanisms of the communication of emotions in music is of key importance not only for musicology, but also for music therapy

Mirroring and embodiment in the recognition of musical emotions.

Music as a means of art therapy has been used for a long time, but the mechanisms of its emotional impact on a person are still not fully understood. Therefore, the question of the mechanisms of the communication of emotions in music is of key importance not only for musicology, but also for music therapy

Biais attentionnels et troubles émotionnels: De l’évaluation au changement clinique.

De nombreux modèles cognitifs de l’anxiété font l’hypothèse que des biais sélectifs d’allocation de l’attention contribuent à l’installation et au maintien des troubles émotionnels. Afin de tester cette hypothèse, des procédures de réentrainement attentionnel ont récemment été développées. Cet article vise trois objectifs : (a) présenter les raisons sous-tendant le développement de telles interventions ; (b) décrire les tâches informatisées les plus couramment utilisées en vue d’évaluer et modifier ces biais d’attention sélective ; et (c) discuter l’efficacité ainsi que l’efficience de ce type de procédure, et ce dans une perpsective transdiagnostique. A un niveau fondamental, les données empiriques résumées dans cet article suggèrent qu’augmenter la capacité à désengager le focus attentionnel de stimuli aversifs réduit la vulnérabilité émotionnelle en situation de stress. En outre, cette modification des biais d’attention entraine progressivement toute une série d’autres conséquences cliniquement significatives. En conclusion, le réentrainement attentionnel peut être considéré comme une intervention psychologique, tant validée empiriquement que fondée théoriquement. Ceci suggère qu’une approche scientifique fondée sur les modèles cognitifs du traitement de l’information émotionnelle peut conduire au développement d’interventions psychologiques efficientes. Nous espérons que cet article contribuera à la dissémination de cette procédure innovante et efficace auprès de la communauté académique et clinique francophone