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Emotion Differentiation Moderates Aggressive Tendencies in Angry People: A Daily Diary Analysis
Abstract
Anger is commonly associated with aggression. Inefficient anger-coping strategies increase negative affect and deplete the regulatory resources needed to control aggressive impulses. Factors linked with better emotion regulation may then weaken the relationship between anger and aggression. The current work explored one factor associated with emotion regulation-differentiating one's emotions into discrete categories-that may buffer angry people from aggression. Three diary studies (N = 628) tested the hypothesis that emotion differentiation would weaken the relationship between anger and aggression. In Study 1, participants high in emotion differentiation reported less daily aggressive tendencies when angry, compared to low differentiators. In Study 2, compared to low differentiators, high differentiators reported less frequent provocation in daily life and less daily aggression in response to being provoked and feeling intense anger. Study 3 showed that high daily emotional control mediated the interactive effect of emotion differentiation and anger on aggression. These results highlight the importance of considering how angry people differentiate their emotions in predicting their aggressive responses to anger.
... Negative emotion differentiation also buffered the association between provocation and aggressive responses among a sample of angry people. High negative emotion differentiation predicted a weaker association between feeling of angry and being provoked and daily aggressive responses (Pond et al., 2012). Based on these findings, it is possible that negative emotion differentiation serves as a protective factor that buffers the influence of stressors and hurt feelings on unfavorable outcomes. ...
... Each day, participants were asked to rate their current affect using the five negative adjectives (distressed, sad, irritated, angry, and anxious) from the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule scale (Mackinnon et al., 1999) on a scale ranging from 1 (not at all) to 5 (extremely). Following pre-established procedures (Barrett et al., 2001;Pond et al., 2012), negative emotion differentiation was calculated by taking the average intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) for all items across all assessment points. Negative emotion differentiation reflects how much someone differentiates between negative emotions that belong to different emotion categories. ...
... Negative emotion differentiation moderated the association between stressors and verbal aggression such that more stressors and higher negative emotion differentiation predicted a higher rate of daily verbal aggression. This finding was contradictive to the hypothesized relation and the literature (Pond et al., 2012;Starr et al., 2017). Verbal aggression is not a socially desirable action, but some individuals may use verbal aggression to vent negative emotions derived from stress. ...
The current study adopted a daily diary design to examine associations of daily stressors and hurt feelings to three unfavorable daily outcomes, including verbal aggression, physical aggression, and somatic symptoms and the moderation of rejection sensitivity and negative emotion regulation on the relations between these daily variables. A total of 248 college students participated in the daily diary study in which they responded to the assessment on a daily basis for 7 consecutive days. The results indicated that daily stressors predicted daily verbal aggression; daily stressors, daily hurt feelings, and rejection sensitivity predicted somatic symptoms. Negative emotion regulation moderated the association between stressors and verbal aggression such that more stressors and high negative emotion regulation predicted more frequent daily verbal aggression. Rejection sensitivity moderated the association of hurt feelings to verbal and physical aggression. Perception of hurt feelings and high rejection sensitivity predicted more verbal aggression but less physical aggression. Rejection sensitivity also moderated the association of stressors to somatic symptoms such that more stressors and high rejection sensitivity predicted more somatic symptoms. The findings collectively highlight the importance of supporting individuals with high rejection sensitivity to encode social cues in a healthy way. It is imperative to provide emotion regulation skills to cope with negative emotions derived from social interactions.
... This tendency is thought to inhibit one's ability to regulate emotions and adapt to stress (Barrett et al., 2001) because the experience of discrete emotions provides information regarding appropriate coping behaviors Clore, 1983, 2003). Indeed, the inability to differentiate between different affective experiences, especially negative ones (Barrett et al., 2001;Kashdan et al., 2015), has been linked to various behavioral and health impairments and clinical disorders (Kashdan et al., 2010;Demiralp et al., 2012;Pond et al., 2012;Selby et al., 2013;Zaki et al., 2013). ...
... Most investigations of UA involving intensive longitudinal assessments have relied on indirect average inter-item correlations (e.g., Zaki et al., 2013;Erbas et al., 2018;Kalokerinos et al., 2019) or intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs; e.g., Pond et al., 2012) to evaluate the degree to which responses to items corresponding to different emotions from self-report questionnaires are consistently rated similarly in generating an index of UA. ICCs subsume inter-item correlations, so we focus on those as our point of comparison. ...
... The current example uses an EMA approach to examine the relationship between undifferentiated negative affect (UNA) and impulsivity/substance use among individuals with disorders often tied to emotion dysregulation. Past studies have found that UNA is often associated with general predispositions toward impulsivity (Tomko et al., 2015), as well as specific impulsive behaviors (Kashdan et al., 2010;Pond et al., 2012;Selby et al., 2013;Zaki et al., 2013). We estimated UNA at both the person level and momentary level using Equations 2, 4, 6, including three ways of handling missing data at the momentary level due to the absence of variability. ...
Emotion differentiation is conceptualized as the process of categorizing one’s general affective experiences into discrete emotions. The experience of undifferentiated affect or the inability to distinguish the particular emotion or combination of emotions that one is experiencing is often considered a hallmark of emotion dysregulation. Some past research has attempted to operationalize the general tendency to experience undifferentiated affect at the trait level using explicit questionnaire measures. More recently, indirect measures using intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) to estimate the consistency between simultaneous measures of different in-the-moment emotional experiences have become the favored method of quantifying undifferentiated affect. While the ICC method constitutes an advancement in estimating undifferentiated affect, which is theorized to be a dynamic process that occurs at a very granular level, prior investigations have used aggregate ICC measures or momentary ICC derivations that ignore multiple sources of dynamic variability to make inferences about in-the-moment experiences. We introduce a new, flexible method of calculating ICC measures of undifferentiated affect at different levels of experience that takes full advantage of time-intensive data measurement and more closely maps onto the theorized process. This method provides more refined estimates of undifferentiated affect and its associations with various behavioral outcomes, as well as uncovers more nuanced associations regarding the temporal process of emotional differentiation. It also elucidates potential conceptual issues in mapping empirical estimates of emotion undifferentiation onto their underlying theoretical interpretations.
... Indeed, affective differentiation is typically represented by the intra-class correlation between similar-valenced states which represents how closely correlated (lower differentiation) or lesser correlated (higher differentiation) similar valenced moods may be perceived Pond Jr et al., 2012), leaving questions as to how additional possible dimensions of similarity (e.g., arousal) may be associated with restricted ranges related to functioning or mental health outcomes. Further study of representational structures of affect, and distinctively so between emotion versus mood states, may help contribute to affect and mental health research in elucidating the dimensions that capture both these affect states and comparing differences in vulnerable populations. ...
... For example, PCA displays multidimensionality on orthogonal dimensions of maximised variability using correlation matrices, while MDS projects multidimensionality onto a two-dimensional space with item similarity interpretable by distance, the mathematical basis for constructing circumplex models of affect (Russell, 1980). Using the MDS approach to explore differences in adolescent views of affective similarity would allow for assessment of perceived differences between emotion and mood in two-dimensions, while considering distinctions in the underlying structure of these two states and affective differentiation Pond Jr et al., 2012;Starr et al., 2020) during an important affective development period. Given past evidence on suggested emotion context insensitivity (Rottenberg, 2005), that is, a restricted range of emotional reactions to relevant contexts in depression, there may be importance in understanding how moods are also represented or restricted (Feldman, 1995) in those at-risk for depression. ...
... There was a significant difference between groups on negative emotion instability Granularity. Granularity was measured by computing average intraclass correlations (ICC) separately for positive and negative emotions, and positive and negative moods (Pond Jr et al., 2012). High ICC scores for within-individual ratings suggest that emotion terms of a similar valence were strongly correlated across time. ...
Affective experiences colour much of human experience, shaping how we feel about, respond to, and regulate daily life. While emotion and mood are distinct though related affective phenomena, many studies use these terms interchangeably and draw conclusions on the latter based on findings that may be more pertinent to the former. Key theoretical differences delineate emotion versus mood, with importance placed in maladaptive experiences of long-term mood rather than short-term emotion in mood disorders such as depression. Unpacking differences in these affective dynamics is vital to approaching improvements in mental health and well-being. In addition, much of waking life is spent mentally wandering, and furthering our understanding of mentation and mind wandering in mental health is of importance in conjunction with affect. Where the mind may go to at rest free from distraction may possess important insights into the nature of the mental landscape and mental well-being. This thesis investigates differential aspects of emotion, mood, and mind wandering in diverse clinical populations with the goal of elucidating these experiences in relation to mental health. This includes investigations through a series of studies on: (i) the underlying structure of emotion and mood representations in adolescents, (ii) intraday emotions dynamics using clinical diagnostic and data-driven assessment of person-specific models of temporal emotion, (iii) interrelationships of emotion and mood over time and summary metrics of group-level complexity for both affect types, (iv) naturalistic mood regulation strategy use and outcomes, (v) a theoretical framework for comprehensive mind wandering study, and finally, (vi) naturalistic mind wandering, related affect, and a sensory deprived assessment of mind dimensions using novel methodologies. Altogether these findings provide evidence for the significance in studying emotion, mood, and mind wandering with the aim of providing a foundation for clarifying affective experience and multidimensional aspects of thought content in mental health.
... However, research has shown that this area of inquiry warrants further exploration, given the established connection between an individual's facility with emotion language and their concurrent experience of emotional stimuli. For example, emotion differentiation is understood as how aware an individual is of their experience and how "skillful" they are at categorizing their experiences into discrete categories (Barrett et al., 2001;Pond et al., 2012). Pond et al. (2012) argued that the ability to understand and think critically about the differences across one's emotional experiences allows an individual to progress beyond simple evaluative processes (e.g. the feeling is "positive" or "negative"), and detach emotion from behavior (Pond et al., 2012). ...
... For example, emotion differentiation is understood as how aware an individual is of their experience and how "skillful" they are at categorizing their experiences into discrete categories (Barrett et al., 2001;Pond et al., 2012). Pond et al. (2012) argued that the ability to understand and think critically about the differences across one's emotional experiences allows an individual to progress beyond simple evaluative processes (e.g. the feeling is "positive" or "negative"), and detach emotion from behavior (Pond et al., 2012). Specifically, they found that individuals who were prone to anger and were more able to differentiate across a range of emotions engaged in fewer aggressive tendencies (Pond et al., 2012). ...
... For example, emotion differentiation is understood as how aware an individual is of their experience and how "skillful" they are at categorizing their experiences into discrete categories (Barrett et al., 2001;Pond et al., 2012). Pond et al. (2012) argued that the ability to understand and think critically about the differences across one's emotional experiences allows an individual to progress beyond simple evaluative processes (e.g. the feeling is "positive" or "negative"), and detach emotion from behavior (Pond et al., 2012). Specifically, they found that individuals who were prone to anger and were more able to differentiate across a range of emotions engaged in fewer aggressive tendencies (Pond et al., 2012). ...
Prior research has assumed that individuals with PTSD find positive emotions enjoyable and rewarding. While intuitive, this assumption is problematic for a number of reasons. A growing body of literature suggests that positive emotions can be unwanted and uncomfortable experiences for many people, particularly individuals with PTSD. Yet our empirical and theoretical models of PTSD do not adequately account for this complexity. Throughout the following pages, we argue that the same behavioral processes that have been heavily researched and associated with fear and avoidance of negative emotions and PTSD can be extended to positive emotions as well. We propose the integrated constructionist approach to emotions, which integrates learning theory principles with a constructionist approach and suggest that trauma experiences lead to a shift in the evaluation, interpretation, and labeling of an individual's internal experiences. This evaluative shift results in generalized patterns of emotional responding characterized by efforts to downregulate internal stimuli that were previously defined as positive and may have been appetitive pre-trauma. We subsequently highlight the theoretical, empirical, and clinical importance of taking an idiographic approach to understanding and working with emotions among individuals with PTSD.
... Based on the GAM, the branch that perceive emotions (personal factor) which reflects individual's ability to recognise other's emotion is included in the first stage, while the managing branch that facilitate emotional state regulation in producing non-aggressive responses should be in the final stage of GAM model . The emotional regulation has been studied as a predictor of aggression in different populations (Garofalo et al., 2015;Maldonado, DiLilo & Hoffman, 2014;Pond, Jr. et al., 2012). The studies that include emotional regulation has been suggested to be beneficial in explaining the tendency of aggressive behaviours. ...
... Regulation of emotion has been regarded as an important aspect in emotional experience of an individual. While it has been proven that frustration as the result of negative mood states does not always cause aggressive behaviours, how a person controls their emotions are being emphasised as an aspect of adaptation, whereby improved emotional regulation strategies may undermine the association between negative mood states and aggression (Pond, Jr. et al., 2012). Since it is known that there is a close link between anger and poor strategies of emotional regulation, Pond, Jr. et al., (2012) conducted three different studies on how emotion differentiation can moderate aggression when a person is angry. ...
... While it has been proven that frustration as the result of negative mood states does not always cause aggressive behaviours, how a person controls their emotions are being emphasised as an aspect of adaptation, whereby improved emotional regulation strategies may undermine the association between negative mood states and aggression (Pond, Jr. et al., 2012). Since it is known that there is a close link between anger and poor strategies of emotional regulation, Pond, Jr. et al., (2012) conducted three different studies on how emotion differentiation can moderate aggression when a person is angry. In his cross-sectional, mixed method studies using daily diary analysis, as well as measurements including Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) and Aggression Questionnaire (AQ), he proved the hypothesis that the ability to differentiate emotion leads to lesser aggressive behaviour in people. ...
The frustration-aggression theorists generally posit aggression based on the influence of negative emotion or affect. Recently, investigation on the principles that influence the tendencies for aggressive responses play out in the mediating pathway, with the context that negative affect may or may not directly lead to aggression. Within the exploration at modifying the frustration-aggression concept, emotional regulation is an identified mechanism that buffers aggression resulting from negative emotional experiences. In turn, this has challenged the traditional frustration-aggression theory that indicates frustration (negative affect) does not always lead to aggression, in the case where the intense emotion from the relevant external situation has a chance to be modulated. However, little studies have documented the role of emotional regulation on negative affect and aggression. Therefore, this paper presents the nature of negative affect and emotional regulation strategies on aggression, while relating their pathway based on the contemporary General Aggression Model (GAM). We utilised the Google Scholar as the database in locating the relevant articles, with the terms focused on “Emotional Regulation” AND “Negative Affect” OR “Negative Mood” OR “Negative Emotion” AND “Aggression”. Reviews on the past studies that have investigated the role of emotional regulation on the relationship between aspects of negative affect and aggression are also discussed. Emotional regulation has been consistently identified as an important mechanism that mediates the effect on negative emotional state on aggressive behaviours. Future studies are suggested to further investigate the inherent strategies of emotional regulation and taps into different forms of negative affect, besides anger, on aggression.
... Scoring the emotion differentiation task requires comparing the emotion ratings made in a single trial by a participant to their ratings for emotions across trials to see if the pattern of scores is consistent or differs across trials (i.e., to determine if emotional ratings are similar or differ across pictures). The standard method used to assess emotion differentiation is the intraclass correlation (ICC; Kashdan et al., 2010; ACCENT AND EMOTION PERCEPTION Pond et al., 2012). The ICC was calculated by comparing the absolute emotion ratings made by a participant for each of the different pictures across all the pictures. ...
... The mean emotion differentiation score was .72 (SD = .18), which is within an expected range when compared to previous research (Emery et al., 2014;Erbas et al., 2014;Kashdan et al., 2010;Pond et al., 2012;Starr et al., 2020). Bivariate correlations were calculated between participants' emotion differentiation scores and participants' performance across the different conditions. ...
The present study examined individuals' ability to identify emotions being expressed in vocal cues depending on the accent of the speaker as well as the intensity of the emotion being expressed. Australian and Canadian participants listened to Australian and Canadian speakers express pairs of emotions that fall within the same emotion family but vary in intensity (e.g., anger vs. irritation). Accent of listener was unrelated to emotion recognition. Instead, performance varied more based on emotion intensity and sex; Australian and Canadian participants generally found high intensity emotions easier to recognize compared to low intensity emotions as well as emotion conveyed by females compared to males. Participants found it particularly difficult to recognize the expressed emotion of Australian males. The results suggest the importance of considering the context in which emotion recognition is embedded. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).
... The words we use to make sense of and articulate our emotional experiences shape our lives in powerful ways. People with higher emotional granularity report a greater diversity of experiences in everyday life (Hoemann et al., 2023) and enjoy numerous mental and physical health benefits Demiralp et al., 2012;Feldman, 1995;Hoemann et al., 2021a, b;Kashdan et al., 2015;Kimhy et al., 2014;Oh & Tong, 2020;Pond et al., 2012;Suvak et al., 2011;Tan et al., 2022;Tomko et al., 2015;Tugade et al., 2004). Although relatively stable across adulthood (Grühn et al., 2013;Hay & Diehl, 2011;Willroth et al., 2020), emotional granularity may continue to develop over the life course (Mankus et al., 2016;Nook et al., 2017Nook et al., , 2018Ready et al., 2008). ...
... Our crosssectional sample of healthy older adults had a relatively narrow age range in which to explore associations between age and emotional granularity, but there are likely differences in how older adults engage the IFC, anterior temporal lobes, and angular gyri during cognitive and affective tasks (Lacombe et al., 2015;Seghier, 2013). While most previous studies of emotional granularity have focused on younger adults (Barrett et al., , 2007Boden et al., 2013;Kang & Shaver, 2004;Kashdan et al., 2010;Kashdan & Farmer, 2014;Pond et al., 2012), relatively less is known about emotional granularity in the later years of life (Grühn et al., 2013;Mankus et al., 2016;Ong & Bergeman, 2004;Ready et al., 2008;Starr et al., 2017). Knowledge of emotion concepts becomes elaborated across development, with some evidence for nonlinear changes across childhood and adolescence but increasing sophistication in adulthood (Carstensen et al., 2000;Nook et al., 2017Nook et al., , 2018. ...
Individuals with high emotional granularity make fine-grained distinctions between their emotional experiences. To have greater emotional granularity, one must acquire rich conceptual knowledge of emotions and use this knowledge in a controlled and nuanced way. In the brain, the neural correlates of emotional granularity are not well understood. While the anterior temporal lobes, angular gyri, and connected systems represent conceptual knowledge of emotions, inhibitory networks with hubs in the inferior frontal cortex (i.e., posterior inferior frontal gyrus, lateral orbitofrontal cortex, and dorsal anterior insula) guide the selection of this knowledge during emotions. We investigated the structural neuroanatomical correlates of emotional granularity in 58 healthy, older adults (ages 62–84 years), who have had a lifetime to accrue and deploy their conceptual knowledge of emotions. Participants reported on their daily experience of 13 emotions for 8 weeks and underwent structural magnetic resonance imaging. We computed intraclass correlation coefficients across daily emotional experience surveys (45 surveys on average per participant) to quantify each participant’s overall emotional granularity. Surface-based morphometry analyses revealed higher overall emotional granularity related to greater cortical thickness in inferior frontal cortex ( p FWE < 0.05) in bilateral clusters in the lateral orbitofrontal cortex and extending into the left dorsal anterior insula. Overall emotional granularity was not associated with cortical thickness in the anterior temporal lobes or angular gyri. These findings suggest individual differences in emotional granularity relate to variability in the structural neuroanatomy of the inferior frontal cortex, an area that supports the controlled selection of conceptual knowledge during emotional experiences.
... Individuals high in emotion differentiation experience fewer symptoms of poor mental health (Nook, 2021;Seah & Coifman, 2021;Smidt & Suvak, 2015) and engage in fewer maladaptive behaviors when exposed to stress in daily life (e.g., Anand et al., 2017;O'Toole et al., 2020;Pond et al., 2012;Seah et al., 2022;Zaki et al., 2013). Higher differentiation is also associated with experiencing daily stressors as less aversive (Nook et al., 2020;Starr et al., 2020;Willroth et al., 2020) and engaging in more frequent and more successful emotion regulation (Barrett et al., 2001;Brown et al., 2021;Kalokerinos et al., 2019). ...
... There is some evidence that the beneficial outcomes of differentiation are driven by negative emotion differentiation. When assessed separately, negative emotion differentiation (NED) predicts a range of adaptive outcomes, whereas positive emotion differentiation (PED) is more likely to yield null associations with adaptive outcomes (Demiralp et al., 2012;Erbas et al., 2014;Kashdan & Farmer, 2014;Pond et al., 2012;Willroth et al., 2020; although see Selby et al., 2014;Starr et al., 2017;Tugade et al., 2004). ...
Unlabelled:
Emotion differentiation (ED) - the tendency to experience one's emotions with specificity - is a well-established predictor of adaptive responses to daily life stress. Yet, there is little research testing the role of ED in self-reported and physiological responses to an acute stressor. In the current study, we investigate the effects of negative emotion differentiation (NED) and positive emotion differentiation (PED) on participants' self-reported emotions and cardiac-mediated sympathetic nervous system reactivity (i.e., pre-ejection period) in response to a stressful task. Healthy young adults enrolled in a two-session study. At an initial session, participants completed a modified experience sampling procedure (i.e., the Day Reconstruction Method). At session 2, 195 completed the Trier Social Stress Test while cardiac impedance was acquired throughout. Linear regressions demonstrated that higher NED, but not PED, was associated with experiencing less intense self-reported negative, high arousal emotions (e.g., irritated, panicky) during the stressor (β = - .15, p < .05) although people with higher NED also exhibited greater sympathetic reactivity (β = .16, p < .05). In exploratory analyses, we tested whether the effect of NED on self-reported stress was mediated by the tendency to make internally focus (or self-focused) attributions about performance on the task but did not find a significant indirect effect (p = .085). These results both complement prior work and provide a more complex picture of the role of NED in adaptive responses to stressful life events, suggesting that people with higher NED may experience their emotions as more manageable regardless of their level of physiological arousal.
Supplementary information:
The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s42761-023-00189-y.
... The affective dynamics of emotional intensity, instability, granularity, and inertia were calculated from the collected emotion time courses of participants. Each metric was calculated separately for positively and negatively valenced emotion, following prior work (Houben et al., 2015;Pond et al., 2012;Thompson et al., 2021) and the added benefit to compare differential emotion functioning (see Results section). ...
... respectively. Emotion granularity was measured by computing intraclass correlations (ICC; Pond et al., 2012). High ICC scores suggest that emotion terms of a similar valence were strongly correlated across time; coefficients were reverse coded to facilitate interpretation, such that higher scores represent greater granularity. ...
Individuals differ markedly in how they experience the ebb and flow of emotions. In this study, we used daily experience sampling to examine whether these differences reflect the nature and presence of mood disorders or whether they can better be characterized as distinct dynamic emotion profiles that cut-across diagnostic boundaries. We followed 105 individuals in 2019-2020 with diagnoses of major depression, remitted major depression, bipolar disorder, or no history of disorder, over 14 days (n = 6,543 experience-sampling assessments). We applied group iterative multiple model estimation, using both diagnosis-based and data-driven methods to investigate similarities in unfolding within-person emotion-network time-courses. Results did not support diagnosis-based subgroupings but rather revealed two significant data-driven subgroups based on dynamic emotion patterns. These data-driven subgroups did not significantly differ in terms of clinical features or demographics, but did differ on key emotion metrics-instability, granularity, and inertia. These data-driven subgroupings, agnostic to diagnostic status, provide insights into the nature of idiographic emotion-network dynamics that cut-across clinical diagnostic divisions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).
... Greater NED was associated with less use of disengagement strategies (e.g., substance use) to cope with stressful events; however, NED was not correlated with engagement regulation strategies (e.g., problem-solving), nor moderated the association between stress and engagement regulation strategies (Brown et al., 2021). A study using a sample of angry people found that angry people with high NED reported less daily aggressive responses than people with low NED when feeling angry and being provoked (Pond et al., 2012). Collectively, the literature shows that NED serves as a protective factor which reduces the relation between negative emotions and unfavorable outcomes. ...
... Consistent with the literature (Hershfield, Scheibe, Sims, & Carstensen, 2012;Kashdan et al., 2015), ED was perceived as a trait in this study. Following pre-established procedures (Barrett et al., 2001;Pond et al., 2012), NED was calculated by taking the average intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) for all NA items across all assessment points. By the same token, PED was calculated by taking the average intraclass correlation for all PA items across all assessment points. ...
Daily life events often trigger and co-occur with various emotional reactions, which activate self-regulatory processes. One possible outcome of self-regulatory processes is optimism. Limited research has examined optimism in daily life and potential daily predictors including stressors, negative emotions, and positive emotions. Emotion differentiation-the ability to identify and label discrete emotional states-has the potential to change the association between daily predictors and optimism. The current study contextualized optimism in the emotion-laden daily life and examined the association of daily stressors and daily negative and positive emotional states to daily optimism and the role of negative and positive emotion regulation on these relationships. The current study adopted a daily diary design and collected self-reported daily responses from a sample of 248 college students over a seven-day study period. The results included concurrent and lagged effects and showed that daily negative affect and positive affect predicted both concurrent daily optimism and the next day's optimism. Greater negative emotion differentiation predicted higher daily optimism. A better ability to differentiate positive emotions predicted a stronger relation between positive affect and daily optimism. The findings underscored the importance of daily affect and emotion differentiation being important markers for optimism interventions and daily practices.
... Thus, if a person is not able to de-termine what emotion they are feeling, their ability to effectively problem solve to manage that emotion will be diminished. Given mood repair is often prioritized over achieving other more adaptive long-term goals (e.g., remaining abstinent; Tice et al., 2001), this commonly leads to "quick-fix" behaviors aimed at alleviating affective arousal such as risky alcohol use (Kashdan et al., 2010), nonsuicidal self-injury (Zaki et al., 2013), and physical/verbal aggression (Pond et al., 2012). ...
... Traditionally, emotion differentiation is created as a betweenperson variable from EMA data by calculating the intraclass correlation (ICC with absolute agreement) of the positive and negative emotion terms, respectively, for each participant across the momentary assessments (Kashdan et al., 2010;Pond et al., 2012). This calculates the percent of the total variation in emotion ratings due to variation across assessment time points versus variability between emotion terms within time points. ...
Background:
Early recovery from alcohol use disorder (AUD) is commonly associated with high levels of negative affect, stress, and emotional vulnerability, which confer significant relapse risk. Emotion differentiation-the ability to distinguish between discrete emotions-has been shown to predict relapse after treatment for a drug use disorder, but this relationship has not been explored in individuals recovering from AUD.
Methods:
The current study used thrice daily random and up to thrice daily self-initiated ecological momentary assessment surveys (N = 42, observations = 915) to examine whether 1) moments of high affective arousal are characterized by momentary differences in emotion differentiation among individuals in the first year of a current AUD recovery attempt, and 2) individuals' average emotion differentiation would predict subsequent alcohol use measured by the timeline follow-back over a 3-month follow-up period.
Results:
Multilevel models showed that moments (Level 1) of higher-than-average negative affect (p < 0.001) and/or stress (p = 0.033) were characterized by less negative emotion differentiation, while moments of higher-than-average positive affect were characterized by greater positive emotion differentiation (p < 0.001). At the between-person level (Level 2), participants with higher stress overall had lower negative emotion differentiation (p = 0.009). Linear regression showed that average negative, but not positive, emotion differentiation was inversely associated with percent drinking days over the subsequent 3-month follow-up period (p = 0.042). Neither form of average emotion differentiation was associated with drinking quantity.
Conclusions:
We found that for individuals in early AUD recovery, affective states are associated with acute shifts in the capacity for emotion differentiation. Further, we found that average negative emotion differentiation prospectively predicts subsequent alcohol use.
... Prior research on daily affect and aggression has focused on emotion differentiation (vs. within-person affect-aggression effects); adults who showed greater emotion differentiation reported less anger and aggression (Pond, Kashdan, et al., 2012). ...
How do daily fluctuations in aggression relate to daily variability in affect and self‐esteem? Although research has examined how trait aggression relates to affect and self‐esteem, state aggression has received little attention. To this end, we had 120 US undergraduates participate in a 14‐day daily diary study where they responded to state‐level measures of aggression, affect, and self‐esteem. Crucially, we used multifaceted state measures of both aggression (anger, hostility, verbal aggression, physical aggression) and affect (positive vs. negative, activated vs. deactivated). Multilevel models revealed that daily anger and hostility related positively to daily negative affect and negatively to daily positive affect. Similarly, daily anger and hostility related negatively to daily self‐esteem. In contrast, daily verbal and physical aggression were largely unrelated to daily affect and self‐esteem; however, unexpectedly, daily physical aggression related positively to daily positive activated affect, but only when controlling for the other daily aggression domains. Overall, daily attitudinal aggression measures—anger and hostility—related to daily affect and self‐esteem in theoretically consistent ways, whereas daily behavioral aggression measures—verbal and physical aggression—did not. Our findings support expanding the General Aggression Model to incorporate state‐level processes.
... For instance, a study found that people who can better describe their negative emotions tend to consume less alcohol to self-medicate [4]. Another research revealed that high differentiators are less likely to show aggressive impulses (i.e., failure to control anger-driven aggressive impulses when aroused is a common cause of aggression) when experiencing angry emotion [5,6]. The researcher also found adolescents who are suffering from a mood disorder (e.g., depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, substance-induced mood disorder) are deficient in categorizing negative emotions; on the contrary, the development of emotion differentiation may reduce the possibility of mood disorder [7]. ...
... Consequently, people who struggle to identify and label their own and others' feelings and emotions can use impulsive behaviors (such as impulsive aggression) to cope with these difficulties [12,14,26,29]. This is in line with previous literature on the matter, which shows that the ability of a person to identify and, then, categorize negative emotional experiences moderates the relationship between anger and aggressive behaviors [61]. ...
(1) Background: Alexithymia and impulsivity appear to represent risk factors for violence perpetration, while mixed results are present with respect to victimization experience. In light of this, the purpose of this study was to compare the roles of both alexithymia and impulsivity among three different samples of men: men who experienced partner victimization (IPVV); male intimate partner violence perpetrators (IPVP); and men from the general population (CG). (2) Methods: Participants were recruited from specialized centers in Italy. A profile analysis was conducted. (3) Results: The results showed that IPVV presented alexithymia and impulsivity comparable to the CG. Furthermore, differences were found between victims and perpetrators in terms of impulsivity and alexithymia. The IPVP group had higher levels of both impulsivity and alexithymia in comparison to IPVV. Moreover, the perpetrators exhibited significantly higher levels of alexithymia compared to the CG. However, despite the medium Cohen’s d (d = 0.441) resulting from the analyses, IPVP’s level of impulsivity was not statistically different from the CG. (4) Conclusion: Alexithymia and impulsivity appear to play a key role in violent behaviors and should be the focus of psychological interventions with perpetrators
... Individuals who use emotion words in a granular manner are less prone to maladaptive behaviors, such as binge eating (Dixon-Gordon et al., 2014), alcohol abuse (Kashdan et al., 2010), nonsuicidal self-injury (Zaki et al., 2013), and physical aggression (Pond et al., 2012). Emotional granularity is thought to be a transdiagnostic vulnerability across a range of mental health disorders (Kashdan et al., 2015). ...
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Movement Matters introduces a new model, translational learning sciences research, for interpreting and disseminating the latest empirical findings in the burgeoning field of embodied cognition. The book provides an up-to-date, inclusive, and essential resource for those involved in educational planning, design, and pedagogical approaches.
Contributors
Dor Abrahamson, Martha W. Alibali, Petra A. Arndt, Lisa Aziz-Zadeh, Jo Boaler, Christiana Butera, Rachel S. Y. Chen, Charles P. Davis, Andrea Marquardt Donovan, Inge-Marie Eigsti, Virginia J. Flood, Jennifer M. B. Fugate, Arthur M. Glenberg, Ligia E. Gómez, Daniel D. Hutto, Karin H. James, Mina C. Johnson-Glenberg, Michael P. Kaschak, Markus Kiefer, Christina Krause, Sheila L. Macrine, Anne Mangen, Carmen Mayer, Amanda L. McGraw, Colleen Megowan-Romanowicz, Mitchell J. Nathan, Antti Pirhonen, Kelsey E. Schenck, Lawrence Shapiro, Anna Shvarts, Yue-Ting Siu, Sofia Tancredi, Chrystian Vieyra, Rebecca Vieyra, Candace Walkington, Christine Wilson-Mendenhall, Eiling Yee
... In other words, several researchers have found that when students feel insecure and their levels of SAD increase, this influences how they perceive challenging and threatening experiences and how they appraise their ability to cope with those events (Stupnisky, et al., 2013). Our results corroborate the findings of Pond et al. (2012) which revealed that when individuals ruminate on negative experiences, their levels of anxiety and stress increase automatically. Thus, people cannot enjoy the positivity happening in the present time (Fagley, 2018), and their levels of gratitude decrease (Watkins & Bell, 2017). ...
University students experience new academic demands during their transition from school to college. This study explored variables that positively or negatively influence first-year university students' levels of academic self-efficacy, providing insights into teachers' practices and Higher Education Institutions. Data were collected at two points over the course of 6 months from a convenient sample of 311 students, and regression-based path analysis was undertaken using mediation and moderation analysis. The findings showed that positive emotions, negative emotional states, motivational processes, and internal states affect students' academic performance, beliefs, and judgments of their academic self-efficacy. More specifically, the results revealed that students' emotions, such as gratitude, negative emotional states, intrinsic motivation, perceptions of academic control, and motivational processes named obsessive and harmonious passion undermine or facilitate students' academic self-efficacy levels. Limitations and recommendations for future research, as well as practical implications for counselors and teachers, leaders and administrators, and students, are discussed.
... In particular, the ability to generate emotion words more fluently could be important to the ability to specifically identify one's emotions (i.e., emotion differentiation; Barrett et al., 2001;Kashdan et al., 2015). Previous research has found that increased emotion differentiation is associated with adaptive emotion regulation (Kalokerinos et al., 2019;Kashdan et al., 2010;Pond et al., 2012;Smidt & Suvak, 2015). Emotion differentiation, especially for negative emotion words, is also thought to buffer from stress-related psychopathology and behavioral dysregulation (Erbas et al., 2014;Nook, 2021;O'Toole et al., 2020;Seah & Coifman, 2022;Starr et al., 2017Starr et al., , 2020. ...
How do you feel? To answer this question, one must first think of potential emotion words before choosing the best fit. However, we have little insight into how the ability to rapidly bring to mind emotion words-emotion fluency-relates to emotion functioning or general verbal abilities. In this study, we measured emotion fluency by counting how many emotion words participants could generate in 60 s. Participants (N = 151 in 2011-2012) also completed a behavioral measure of verbal fluency (i.e., how many words starting with "P" or "J" participants could produce in 60 s), a cognitive reappraisal emotion regulation task, and emotion functioning questionnaires. In preregistered analyses, we found that participants produced more negative emotion words than positive words and more positive words than neutral words in the emotion fluency task. As hypothesized, emotion fluency was positively related to verbal fluency, but contrary to hypotheses, emotion fluency was not related to self-reported or task-based emotion functioning (e.g., alexithymia, depression, and emotion regulation ability). As such, in community samples, emotion fluency may reflect general cognitive abilities rather than processes crucial to emotional well-being. While emotion fluency as measured here does not track indices of well-being, future research is needed to investigate potential contexts in which verbal fluency for emotion words may be key to emotion regulation. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).
... This can be a reason why there are mixed findings regarding emotion regulation strategies. Another explanation could be that it can be a mediator, such as low emotion differentiation (which involves experiencing and labelling emotions in a granular way) that may prevent someone from successful emotion regulation and that may be linked to more daily aggressive tendencies when angry (Pond et al., 2012). Other mediators that can influence the efficient use of emotion regulation strategies would be the presence of a borderline personality disorder (Daros & Williams, 2019) or gender (Evers et al., 2011). ...
Anger regulation and the way people choose to regulate their anger can influence the intensity of emotion or one's behavior. In this systematic review, identifying 26 studies, we aimed to analyze the impact of several emotion regulation strategies on anger experience. The studies in this present research include interpersonal contexts (e.g., interaction with a participant) or intrapersonal contexts (trait anger or autobiographical recall). There are included studies that focus on implicit emotion regulation strategies, and at the same time, studies that manipulate emotion regulation strategies. All participants in the selected studies are adults. The results show that cognitive reappraisal is a healthy emotion regulation strategy and can decrease the intensity of anger. Another strategy that has the same effect on anger is distraction. Speaking of two other emotion regulation strategies: experiential avoidance and other-blame, evidence suggests that these strategies do not help in dealing with anger. A few studies approach venting as a strategy for regulating anger. The effects of expressive suppression and anger rumination are mixed. Our study emphasizes the need for additional laboratory-based studies and extends the research on different emotion regulation strategies.
... Уміння розрізняти емоції корисне з низки причин. Дослідження показують, що такі навички допомагають зменшити кількість агресивних тенденцій у періоди гніву (Pond et al., 2012) і навіть можуть корелювати з фізичним здоров'ям у довгостроковій перспективі (Oh and Tong, 2020). ...
The article discussed the researches about emotions which were done by Ukrainian scholars in the field of linguistics, analyzes ways to create a list of emotion-related words and criteria for their selection, suggests methods and criteria that can be used to distinguish words to denote emotions in the Ukrainian language. According to the results of the research, most linguistics works in Ukraine about emotions study semantic fields and idiomatic-semantic fields of specific emotions. Methods and criteria for selecting words to describe emotions in English, German, Polish, Korean, Estonian, Chinese, and Ukrainian were analyzed. The following most common methods were identified: field research, selection of words to denote emotions from individual texts and corpora, and selection of words from lexicographical sources. The article analyzes how words to denote emotions can be selected in the Ukrainian language from lexicographic sources on the example of an explanatory dictionary and a dictionary of synonyms. The criteria that can be relied on in such a selection of words are proposed. In particular, to distinguish words to denote emotions using an explanatory dictionary, we can generally suggest the following way: 1. Analyze through which word the words that exactly belong to emotions are most often interpreted. In our case, it is the word «почуття» (feeling). 2. From the dictionary, write out the words that are interpreted through “почуття + word in the genitive case”. 3. Write out the words that are interpreted through “те саме, що (the same as) + one of the words from the list obtained at the previous stage”, “протилежне (opposite) + one of the words from the list already obtained”, “див. (see) + one of the words from the already received list”. 4. Write out the words that are interpreted through synonyms for words from the already obtained list. To separate words to denote emotions using a dictionary of synonyms, we suggest the following way: 1. Choose the source words that exactly are emotion labels. 2. Write out the synonyms for these words from the dictionary. 3. Write out the synonyms to the list of words obtained at the previous stage (to avoid the words that are not related to emotions, but have become a part of the synonymous series due to the homonymy and polysemanticism of words, the meaning of words could be checked in the explanatory dictionary according to the criteria described in the previous method).
... Social withdrawal in early childhood is also accompanied by common signs of emotional dysregulation, such as isolation or solitude, screaming, lack of eye contact, refusal to talk, like running away from problems, crying, high levels of anxiety (Olatunji, Forsyth, & Feldner, 2007). Anger and aggression and decreased interpersonal relationship quality (Pond, Kashdan, DeWall, Savostyanova, Lambert, & Fincham, 2012). It groups these general signs into two categories: emotional dysregulation associated with internalizing behavior and children's externalization (Macklem, 2007). ...
Emotional dysregulation in early childhood has shown various early symptoms, such as aggressiveness, anxiety, short attention span, etc. This study aims to determine the effects of family cohesion, interpersonal communication, and smartphone addiction variables on children's emotional dysregulation. The respondents of this study were 338 students’ parents from Cirebon City, Indonesia. Data were collected by means of online questionnaires distributed individually to each kindergarten selected using proportionate cluster random sampling. The results of this study show that two variables, namely family cohesion (p = .031) and interpersonal communication (p = .016) have negative direct effects on children's emotional dysregulation. Meanwhile, smartphone addiction (p = .000) directly affects children's emotional dysregulation. From the results, it is assumed that children's emotional dysregulation will decrease when there is a focus on improving the quality of family cohesion and on decreasing the level of smartphone addiction. Besides, the government, schools, and parents should concern about and implement a policy to keep on monitoring children when using smartphones and developing positive and harmonious family cohesion.
... In particular, the ability to generate emotion words more fluently could be important to the ability to specifically identify one's emotions (i.e., emotion differentiation; Barrett et al., 2001;Kashdan et al., 2015). Previous research has found that increased emotion differentiation is associated with adaptive emotion regulation (Kalokerinos et al., 2019;Kashdan et al., 2010;Pond et al., 2012;Smidt & Suvak, 2015). Emotion differentiation, especially for negative emotion words, is also thought to buffer from stress-related psychopathology and behavioral dysregulation (Erbas et al., 2014;Nook, 2021;Nook et al., 2021;O'Toole et al., 2020;Seah et al., 2022;Starr et al., 2017Starr et al., , 2020. ...
How do you feel? To answer this question, one must first think of potential emotion words before choosing the best fit. However, we have little insight into how the ability to rapidly bring to mind emotion words—emotion fluency—relates to emotion functioning or general verbal abilities. In this study, we measured emotion fluency by counting how many emotion words participants could generate in 60s. Participants (N = 151 in 2011-2012) also completed a behavioral measure of verbal fluency (i.e., how many words starting with “P” or “J” participants could produce in 60s), a cognitive reappraisal emotion regulation task, and emotion functioning questionnaires. In pre-registered analyses, we found that participants produced more negative emotion words than positive words, and more positive words than neutral words in the emotion fluency task. As hypothesized, emotion fluency was positively related to verbal fluency, but contrary to hypotheses, emotion fluency was not related to self-reported or task-based emotion functioning (e.g., alexithymia, depression, and emotion regulation ability). As such, in community samples, emotion fluency may reflect general cognitive abilities rather than processes crucial to emotional well-being. While emotion fluency as measured here does not track indices of well-being, future research is needed to investigate potential contexts in which verbal fluency for emotion words may be key to emotion regulation.
... The experience of too much or too little of a particular emotion may put a child at risk for a particular type of psychopathology (Garside & Klimes-Dougan, 2002). For example, anger may be associated with aggressive behaviors (Pond et al., 2012). Parental responses to negative emotions may be critical to shaping the emotional repertoires of their children (Eisenberg et al., 1998). ...
Parental emotion socialization is highly associated with children’s internalizing and externalizing problems. However, research on parent–child discrepancies in parental emotion socialization perceptions and their relationship with children’s developmental outcomes remains limited. This study explores the relationship between parent–child discrepancies in their reports of parental emotion socialization and children’s internalizing/externalizing problems in Chinese families. The participants were 390 children (55% girls, Mage = 11.70 years, SDage = 1.17) and their primary caregivers (68% mother, Mage = 39.52 years, SDage = 5.23). A latent profile analysis identified three profiles of parent–child discrepancies in supportive parental emotion socialization and four profiles in non-supportive parental emotion socialization. Children with more negative perceptions of parental emotion socialization than their parents exhibited the most internalizing and externalizing problems. The parent–child perception difference of the supportive dimension connected to internalizing and externalizing problems, while the perception difference of the non-supportive dimension connected only to internalizing problems. These findings advocate for the conceptualization of perceptions of parent–child discrepancies within family dynamics, which may predict children’s developmental outcomes.
... Moreover, anger control, as a self-control process, protects one against vengeful behaviours. People with high control of anger have more resources for the cognitive reappraisal processes required to increase negative affect (Pond et al., 2012), and consequently decreasing self-forgiveness. ...
Self-forgiveness is a process in which emotions, thoughts, and behaviours towards oneself are changed from negative to neutral or positive.. In this study, we examined affectivity and emotional control (of anger, depression, anxiety) as emotional factors promoting or discouraging self-forgiveness. We examined self-forgiveness among Polish adults (N = 380, Mage = 36.26). Respondents completed the Polish version of the Positive Affect Negative Affect Scale, the Courtauld Emotional Control Scale (CECS), and the self-forgiveness subscale of Touissant’s Forgiveness Scale. In our cross-sectional study, we tested the moderating role of emotional control in the relationship between affectivity and self-forgiveness. Our results showed that positive affect was positively correlated with self-forgiveness, whereas negative affect was inversely correlated with self-forgiveness. Additionally, emotional control (anger, depression) was negatively correlated with self-forgiveness. Finally, total control of emotions and control of anger were found to be buffers between negative affect and self-forgiveness, the effect of negative affect on self-forgiveness being weaker among individuals who were more anger-controlling. The obtained results are a prelude to further research into the relationship between affectivity and self-forgiveness.
... For instance, high EG is associated with less self-harm in individuals with BPD (Zaki et al., 2013). In addition, individuals with high EG are less prone to maladaptive behaviors, such as binge eating (Dixon-Gordon et al., 2014), alcohol abuse (Kashdan et al., 2010), and physical aggression (Pond et al., 2012). Finally, there is emerging research linking EG to emotion regulation: individuals with high EG tend to report regulating their emotions more frequently (Barrett et al., 2001), while individuals with low EG are less successful in downregulating their negative emotions (Kalokerinos et al., 2019). ...
... Low emotion differentiation has been linked to poorer mental health and wellbeing, potentially due to problems with emotion regulation . For example, low emotion differentiation has been cross-sectionally associated with higher depressive symptoms (Erbas et al., 2014;Goldston et al., 1992), neuroticism (Erbas et al., 2014, alcohol-related problems (Emery et al., 2014), aggressive tendencies (Pond et al., 2012), and lower self-esteem (Erbas et al., 2014. Relative to healthy controls, people with depression (Demiralp et al., 2012), social anxiety (Kashdan & Farmer, 2014), and borderline personality disorder (Zaki et al., 2013) exhibit lower emotion differentiation. ...
A burgeoning array of affective indices are proposed to capture features of affect that contribute to mental health and wellbeing. However, because indices are often investigated separately, it is unclear what—if any—unique role they have. The present study addresses this question in a high-stress naturalistic context by prospectively testing the relative contributions of eight affective indices to psychological outcomes during the first acute lockdown phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. Across six fortnightly waves of data collection, participants (N = 613, aged 19 to 87 years) reported how much they experienced five positive and five negative emotions in response to images showing the health and social impacts of the pandemic. We used these ratings to calculate participant-level indices of intensity, variability, and differentiation for positive and negative emotions separately, and positive-negative co-occurrence and ratios. Psychosocial outcome measures were general psychological distress, loneliness, work and social impairment specifically due to the pandemic, wellbeing, and coping. On average, psychosocial functioning improved across the lockdown period and, for most affective indices, bivariate relationships with psychosocial functioning supported existing theory and empirical work. However, multiple regression analyses suggested that the contributions of the individual indices were rarely unique, with most of the change in psychosocial functioning over time being explained by affect intensity and variability. These findings highlight that affective indices should be studied in concert to build a comprehensive and integrated understanding of their role in mental health and wellbeing.
... Research shows the clinical value of accurately labeling emotional experiences with a high degree of specificity. People with an ability to finely distinguish and articulate their feelings are less likely to drink "excessively" when stressed (Kashdan, Ferssizidis, Collins, & Muraven, 2010;Kashdan et al., 2015), better able to regulate emotions (Barrett et al., 2001); Kalokerinos, Erbas, Ceulemans, & Kuppens, 2019), specifically anger (Pond et al., 2012), and fear responses (Kircanski, Lieberman, & Craske, 2012), and show higher self-esteem and greater well-being (Erbas et al., 2014Kashdan et al., 2015). This capacity to recognize, classify, and categorize emotions with precision is called emotion differentiation (Barrett et al., 2001). ...
This paper introduces an infographic tool called The Moral Injury Experience Wheel, designed to help users accurately label moral emotions and conceptualize the mechanisms of moral injury (MI). Feeling wheels have been used by therapists and clinical chaplains to increase emotional literacy since the 1980s. The literature on the skill of emotion differentiation shows a causal relationship between identifying emotions with specificity and emotional and behavioral regulation. Emerging research in moral psychology indicates that differentiating moral emotions with precision is related to similar regulatory effects. Based on this evidence, it is proposed that increasing moral emotional awareness through use of an instrument that visually depicts moral emotions and their causal links to MI will enhance appraisal and flexible thinking skills recognized to reduce the persistent dissonance and maladaptive coping related to MI. Design of the wheel is empirically grounded in MI definitional and scale studies. Iterative evaluative feedback from Veterans with features of MI offers initial qualitative evidence of validity. Two case studies will show utility of the wheel in clinical settings and present preliminary evidence of efficacy.
... The EMA method involves prompting individuals multiple times a day -usually via a smartphone or similar portable device -to reflect on and rate the intensity of their current emotions in real-time. Similar to the EMA method, the daily diary method requires the user to keep track of and report their daily emotional state across a particular period of time (Gunthert & Wenze, 2012;Pond et al., 2012). ...
Emotional Granularity (EG) refers to the precision with which we describe and differentiate between our emotion states. Emerging evidence suggests that having poorer EG contributes to the onset and maintenance of psychiatric conditions such as depression. The likely mechanisms of action for this being that poor EG means inferior selection and deployment of relevant emotion regulation strategies to combat negative emotional turbulence. The following reviews research evidence for EG in adolescents (aged 14-24), specifically: (i) how it is measured; (ii) its role in anxiety and depression; (iii) its role as a moderator between emotion regulation and anxiety/depression. In addition, we spoke to adolescent stakeholders with a lived experience of anxiety/depression to gain their insights on EG.A literature review revealed 39 qualitative studies, however there were no studies that examined EG in adolescent populations with clinical diagnoses of anxiety or depression. In typical groups we found: (i) the most common method of measuring EG was with ecological momentary assessment methods; (ii) although there was good evidence that lower EG means greater levels of depressive symptomology, there was less evidence for EGs role in anxiety; (iii) inconclusive evidence of EG as a moderator between emotion regulation and depression/anxiety. Adolescent stakeholders had no difficulty understanding the concept of EG and believed it was one that young people would likely engage with. Importantly, they also felt it was a skill that has the potential to be improved. In sum, although EG shows promise as an active ingredient in adolescent depression, there is insufficient evidence for it playing a role in anxiety and inconclusive evidence of it as a moderator between emotion regulation and mental ill-health. Future studies, should both test EG’s role in depressed and anxious adolescent samples and investigate its potential to be trained.
... Ineffective anger-coping strategies increase negative affect and reduce the regulatory resources needed to restrain aggressive impulses. Factors associated with improved emotion control may reduce the link between anger and aggression (Pond et al., 2012). ...
Many individuals become aggressive in reaction to an actual or potential danger, or it can be a learned behaviour that assists them in meeting their needs. Anger is a natural emotion that everyone feels at different moments. It is, in effect, a normal reaction to a challenge, assisting us in preparing for defence or standing up for ourselves It usually occurs as a response to thoughts or feelings such as pain, irritation, worry, envy, discomfort, rejection, or shame. The purpose of this investigation is to examine effects of trait anger (AN) and aggressiveness (AG) on life satisfaction (LS) of general adult population, as well as to determine whether trait anger (AN) moderates the mediating effect of aggressiveness (AG) in the schadenfreude (SCH)-life satisfaction (LS) relationship. 390 individuals responded to an online investigation, selected via convenience sampling. Trait anger was found to moderate the effect of schadenfreude and life satisfaction. Increased levels of aggressiveness were linked to low levels of life satisfaction. Conditional effects found a stronger association between schadenfreude and aggressiveness for those low in trait anger relative to those high in trait anger. Participants with low scores in trait anger and high scores in schadenfreude had higher levels of aggressiveness than individuals with lows cores in trait anger. Conclusions and implications are discussed.
... For example, emotional differentiation, as one type of the most used indices for emotional complexity, captures how people differ in the specificity of their emotional experiences among various situations (e.g., Barrett et al., 2001 ;Tugade et al., 2004 ); and emotional dialecticism, as another type of emotional complexity indices, captures how people vary in the extent/frequency of co-occurrence of positive and negative emotions (e.g., Grossmann et al., 2016 ). Related studies have proved that these holistic descriptions of individual differences in emotional experiences could be insightful for studies in mental disorders ( Demiralp et al., 2012 ;Kimhy et al., 2014 ), well-being ( Lennarz et al., 2018 ;Tugade et al., 2004 ;Erbas et al., 2014 ;Erbas et al., 2018 ), and adaptive coping ( Pond et al., 2012 ;Kalokerinos et al., 2019 ), etc. ...
Our daily emotional experience is a complex construct that usually involves multiple emotions blended in a context-dependent manner. However, the co-occurring and context-dependent nature of human emotions was understated in previous studies when addressing the individual difference in emotional experiences. The present study proposed a situated and blended ‘profile’ perspective to characterize individualized emotional experiences. Eighty participants watched a series of emotional videos with their EEG recorded, and the individual differences in their emotion profiles were measured as the vector distances between their multidimensional emotion ratings for these video stimuli. This measure was found to be a reliable descriptor of individualized emotional experiences and could efficiently predict classical emotional complexity indices. More importantly, inter-subject representational analyses revealed that similar emotion profiles were associated with similar delta-band activities over the prefrontal and temporo-parietal regions and similar theta-band activities over the frontal regions. Furthermore, left- and right-lateralized temporo-parietal representations were observed for positive and negative emotion profiles, respectively. Our findings demonstrate the potential of taking a ‘profile’ perspective for understanding individual differences in human emotions.
... 5 Individuals with high granularity are able to distinguish feelings of irritation from impatience, agitation, excitement, and annoyance. Individuals who use emotion words in a granular manner are less prone to maladaptive behaviors, such as binge eating (Dixon-Gordon et al., 2014), alcohol abuse (Kashdan et al., 2010), nonsuicidal self-injury (Zaki et al., 2013), and physical aggression (Pond et al., 2012). Emotional granularity is thought to be a transdiagnostic vulnerability across a range of mental health disorders (Kashdan et al., 2015). ...
Experts translate the latest findings on embodied cognition from neuroscience, psychology, and cognitive science to inform teaching and learning pedagogy.. Embodied cognition represents a radical shift in conceptualizing cognitive processes, in which cognition develops through mind-body environmental interaction. If this supposition is correct, then the conventional style of instruction—in which students sit at desks, passively receiving information—needs rethinking. Movement Matters considers the educational implications of an embodied account of cognition, describing the latest research applications from neuroscience, psychology, and cognitive science and demonstrating their relevance for teaching and learning pedagogy. The contributors cover a range of content areas, explaining how the principles of embodied cognition can be applied in classroom settings.
... Furthermore, emotion differentiation also appeared to facilitate more successful emotion regulation (Barrett et al., 2001;Kalokerinos et al., 2019). For instance, higher levels of emotion differentiation protected individuals from destructive behavior such as excessive alcohol consumption (Kashdan et al., 2010), aggression (Pond et al., 2012), and unhealthy eating behavior (Mikhail et al., 2019). Positive emotion differentiation in turn was associated with more effective coping styles, i.e., less mental self-distraction during stressful times, higher engagement in the coping process, less automatic responding, and greater thinking through behavioral options before acting (Tugade et al., 2004). ...
Labeling emotions with a high degree of granularity appears to be beneficial for well-being. However, there are individual differences in the level of emotion differentiation, and some individuals do not appear to differentiate much between different emotions. Low differentiation is associated with maladaptive outcomes, therefore such individuals might benefit from interventions that can increase their level of emotion differentiation. To this end, we tested the effects of an emotion knowledge intervention on the level of emotion differentiation. One hundred and twenty participants were assigned to either an experimental or a control condition. Emotion differentiation was assessed with a Scenario Rating Task before and after the intervention, and at follow-up. As predicted, negative emotion differentiation increased significantly after the emotion knowledge intervention, and this increase was not observed in the control group. Positive emotion differentiation also increased slightly; however, it did not reach significance level. This finding suggests that an emotion knowledge intervention might be beneficial for increasing negative emotion differentiation and may have implications for the clinical context.
... That is, high levels of reactivity were associated with significantly lower edge weights. Positive emotion differentiation has been less consistently linked with emotion regulation and other adaptive outcomes than negative emotionality (Kashdan & Farmer, 2014;Pond Jr et al., 2012), and has even been associated with maladaptive outcomes in the context of depressive symptoms (Starr et al., 2017). Low PA differentiation may in fact be adaptive insofar as activation of one positive emotion may trigger multiple other positive emotions. ...
We estimated a network model of trait affect to examine the pattern of associations between emotions. We reasoned that more independence across valences (e.g., enthusiastic-upset) and within valence (e.g., distressed-afraid) would represent a more adaptive affective structure characterized by greater emotion differentiation. The network structure was expected to vary as a function of effortful control and reactivity. We hypothesized effortful control would be associated with weaker associations between and within emotional valences and reactivity would be associated with stronger associations between and within emotional valences (less complexity). Hypotheses were partially supported in a cross-sectional study of 403 young adults. Findings indicated that low effortful control (e.g., low planning and problem solving) was related to stronger associations
between emotional valences and reactivity (e.g., impulsivity, distractibility) was associated with stronger associations
between negative emotions. This pattern of findings is consistent with a conceptualization of self-regulation characterized by
more complex and unique emotional experiences. Unexpectedly, reactivity was associated with lower associations between
positive emotions. These mixed findings give a preliminary window into the ways in which the structure of affect varies as
a function of two important dimensions of self-regulation.
... Thus, like participants with low ICC values, we considered participants with negative ICC values as having high emotion differentiation. Then we transformed the ICC values using a Fisher's r-to-z transformation (Pond et al., 2012). Finally, because higher ICC values reflect greater similarity in ratings of different emotions across occasions (i.e., lower differentiation), we subtracted the transformed scores from one, so that higher scores reflected greater differentiation to ease interpretation. ...
People with current major depressive disorder (MDD) experience diminished emotion differentiation. We tested the hypothesis that this emotional disturbance is chronic and also characterizes those whose MDD has remitted. As our main aim, we examined emotion differentiation in conjunction with elevated negative and diminished positive emotional intensity, which are both cardinal symptoms of MDD. As an exploratory aim, we examined the predominant theoretical conceptualization that people low in emotion differentiation use more general state terms (e.g., bad) and fewer emotion terms (e.g., anger) to describe their emotional experience. Participants (assessed via diagnostic interview) included individuals who had current MDD (current depressed; n = 48), individuals whose MDD was in full remission (remitted depressed; n = 80), and healthy controls ( n = 87). Participants also completed two self-report measures of depressive symptoms and reported momentary emotion repeatedly for 14 days via experience sampling, from which we computed emotion differentiation (i.e., intraclass correlation coefficient) and emotional intensity (i.e., average of the mean emotion ratings across surveys). Finally, participants described a momentary emotional experience via an open-response format, which was coded for the use of general state and emotion terms. Compared to the healthy control group, the current and remitted depressed groups showed similarly low levels of negative and positive emotion differentiation. These findings suggest that diminished emotion differentiation may be a stable characteristic of depressive disorders and a possible target for future prevention efforts. Diminished negative emotion differentiation was significantly associated with higher depressive symptoms as assessed by only one of the depression measures, though this finding did not hold after adjusting for negative emotional intensity. Finally, participants’ emotion differentiation was not associated with use of general state and emotion terms, and groups did not use general state and emotion terms in ways that were consistent with the predominant theoretical conceptualization of emotion differentiation, suggesting the need for clarification in this research domain.
... To date, only relatively few studies have investigated NED as a predictor of individual differences in within-person affectrelated processes. In one AA study (Kashdan et al., 2010), NED moderated (buffered) the within-person link between momentary negative affect and alcohol consumption, and in another AA study (Pond et al., 2012), NED buffered the withinperson link between momentary anger and aggressive behavior. Recently, Starr et al. (2020) proposed a diathesis-stress model of NED. ...
The ability to differentiate between negative emotional states [negative emotion differentiation (NED)] has been conceptualized as a trait that facilitates effective emotion regulation and buffers stress reactivity. In the present research, we investigated the role of NED in within-person processes of daily affect regulation and coping during times of stress (the first COVID-19-related pandemic lockdown in April 2020). Using intensive longitudinal data, we analyzed whether daily stress had an indirect effect on sleep quality through calmness in the evening, and we tested whether NED moderated this within-person indirect effect by buffering the link between daily stress and calmness in the evening. A non-representative community sample (n = 313, 15–82 years old) participated in a 21-day ambulatory assessment with twice-daily surveys. The results of multilevel mediation models showed that higher daily stress was related to within-day change in calmness from morning to evening, resulting in less calmness in the evening within persons. Less calmness in the evening, in turn, was related to poorer nightly sleep quality within persons. As expected, higher NED predicted a less negative within-person link between daily stress and calmness in the evening, thereby attenuating the indirect effect of daily stress on nightly sleep quality through calmness. This effect held when we controlled for mean negative emotions and depression. The results provide support for a diathesis-stress model of NED, and hence, for NED as a protective factor that helps to explain why some individuals remain more resilient during times of stress than others.
... Several studies have demonstrated that people with higher emotion differentiation tend to have better mental health (see Kashdan et al., 2015;Smidt and Suvak, 2015;Trull et al., 2015;Hoemann et al., 2020a;Thompson et al., 2021 for reviews andO'Toole et al., 2020;Seah and Coifman, 2021 for meta-analyses). A substantial body of research in adult samples now shows that emotion differentiation scores are associated with healthier and more effective responses to intense negative emotions (Barrett et al., 2001;Tugade et al., 2004;Kashdan et al., 2010;Pond et al., 2012;Zaki et al., 2013;Kalokerinos et al., 2019;Ottenstein, 2020) and that emotion differentiation scores tend to be lower in adults experiencing several forms of psychopathology (e.g., depression, anxiety disorders, eating disorders, schizophrenia, autism, and borderline personality disorder; Decker et al., 2008;Demiralp et al., 2012;Erbas et al., 2013;Dixon-Gordon et al., 2014;Kashdan and Farmer, 2014;Kimhy et al., 2014;Tomko et al., 2015;Mikhail et al., 2020). Together, this body of research suggests that the ability to specifically identify one's emotions bolsters adaptive emotional responding and protects against psychopathology. ...
A growing body of research identifies emotion differentiation—the ability to specifically identify one’s emotions—as a key skill for well-being. High emotion differentiation is associated with healthier and more effective regulation of one’s emotions, and low emotion differentiation has been documented in several forms of psychopathology. However, the lion’s share of this research has focused on adult samples, even though approximately 50% of mental disorders onset before age 18. This review curates what we know about the development of emotion differentiation and its implications for youth mental health. I first review published studies investigating how emotion differentiation develops across childhood and adolescence, as well as studies testing relations between emotion differentiation and mental health in youth samples. Emerging evidence suggests that emotion differentiation actually falls across childhood and adolescence, a counterintuitive pattern that merits further investigation. Additionally, several studies find relations between emotion differentiation and youth mental health, but some instability in results emerged. I then identify open questions that limit our current understanding of emotion differentiation, including (i) lack of clarity as to the valid measurement of emotion differentiation, (ii) potential third variables that could explain relations between emotion differentiation and mental-health (e.g., mean negative affect, IQ, personality, and circularity with outcomes), and (iii) lack of clear mechanistic models regarding the development of emotion differentiation and how it facilitates well-being. I conclude with a discussion of future directions that can address open questions and work toward interventions that treat (or even prevent) psychopathology.
... Individuals with higher granularity report less alcohol consumption during negative emotional experiences (Kashdan et al., 2010), fewer urges to binge eat (Dixon-Gordon et al., 2014), and lower incidence of drug relapse (Anand et al., 2017). Higher emotional granularity also results in fewer negative social outcomes, including decreased urges to physically aggress when provoked (Pond et al., 2012), and reduced neural responses to social rejection . These positive outcomes are more consistently associated with emotional granularity for negative emotions than for positive emotions (O'Toole et al., 2020;Thompson et al., 2021). ...
Individuals differ in their ability to create instances of emotion that are precise and context-specific. This skill – referred to as emotional granularity or emotion differentiation – is associated with positive mental health outcomes. To date, however, little work has examined whether and how emotional granularity might be increased. Emotional granularity is typically measured using data from experience sampling studies, in which participants are prompted to report on their emotional experiences multiple times per day, across multiple days. This measurement approach allows researchers to examine patterns of responses over time using real-world events. Recent work suggests that experience sampling itself may facilitate increases in emotional granularity in depressed individuals, such that it may serve both empirical and interventional functions. We replicated and extended these findings in healthy adults, using data from an intensive ambulatory assessment study including experience sampling, peripheral physiological monitoring, and end-of-day diaries. We also identified factors that might distinguish individuals who showed larger increases over the course of experience sampling and examined the extent of the impact of these factors. We found that increases in emotional granularity over time were facilitated by methodological factors, such as number of experience sampling prompts responded to per day, as well as individual factors, such as resting respiratory sinus arrhythmia. These results provide support for the use of experience sampling methods to improve emotional granularity, raise questions about the boundary conditions of this effect, and have implications for the conceptualization of emotional granularity and its relationship with emotional health.
... Empirical evidence supports the assumption that EDin particular negative ED-is associated with overall better mental health (Smidt and Suvak, 2015) and with specific positive outcomes pertaining to situational responding (for a review see Kalokerinos et al., 2019), including reduced alcohol consumption (Kashdan et al., 2010), less impulsivity (Tomko et al., 2015), more empathetic attunement to one's partner (Erbas et al., 2016), and less aggression (Pond et al., 2012). Thus, there appears to be a direct, attenuating effect of ED on a range of maladaptive behaviors. ...
Negative emotion differentiation (ED) has been suggested to be important for adaptive emotion regulation (ER). However, knowledge concerning how ED may impact specific ER strategy choice remains surprisingly sparse. We therefore investigated (1) if person-level negative ED was associated with habitual use of individual ER strategies, (2) how person-level negative ED was associated with daily use of individual ER strategies, and finally (3) how within-person daily fluctuations in negative ED were associated with daily use of individual ER strategies. During a 10-day experience sampling study, 90 healthy participants rated their momentary emotions and their ER efforts in response to those emotions. ER strategies included four putatively adaptive strategies (reflection, distancing, non-reactivity, reappraisal) and four putatively maladaptive strategies (rumination, experiential avoidance, expressive suppression, worry). Results revealed that negative ED at the person level was neither associated with habitual nor daily ER strategy endorsement when controlling for negative emotions. Likewise, associations between within-individual daily variation in negative ED and daily ER did not remain statistically significant after controlling for negative emotions. The results thus point to no or weak associations between negative ED and ER choice above and beyond negative emotions. Future experimental studies addressing ED at the momentary level and teasing out the ED–ER causal timeline are needed to further evaluate ED–ER associations. Findings from such research may represent an important step toward refining psychotherapeutic interventions aimed at improving emotional problems.
Background:
Deficits in the differentiation of negative emotions - the ability to specifically identify one's negative emotions - are associated with poorer mental health outcomes. However, the processes that lead to individual differences in negative emotion differentiation are not well understood, hampering our understanding of why this process is related to poor mental health outcomes. Given that disruptions in some affective processes are associated with white matter microstructure, identifying the circuitry associated with different affective processes can inform our understanding of how disturbances in these networks may lead to psychopathology. Thus, examination of how white matter microstructure relates to individual differences in negative emotion differentiation (NED) may provide insights into (i) its component processes and (ii) its relationship to brain structure.
Method:
The relationship between white matter microstructure and NED was examined.
Results:
NED was related to white matter microstructure in right anterior thalamic radiation and inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus and left peri-genual cingulum.
Limitations:
Although participants self-reported psychiatric diagnoses and previous psychological treatment, psychopathology was not directly targeted, and thus, the extent to which microstructure related to NED could be examined in relation to maladaptive outcomes is limited.
Conclusions:
Results indicate that NED is related to white matter microstructure and suggest that pathways subserving processes that facilitate memory, semantics, and affective experience are important for NED. Our findings provide insights into the mechanisms by which individual differences in NED arise, suggesting intervention targets that may disrupt the relationship between poor differentiation and psychopathology.
Background: Emotion dysregulation is a hallmark characteristic of psychopathology following trauma. Yet, emotion dysregulation is multifaceted, and little is known about which aspects of emotion dysregulation predict depression and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptom severity following traumatic injury.
Objective: The aim of this longitudinal study was to evaluate how facets of dysregulation differentially predicted the severity of PTSD symptom clusters and depressive symptoms six months after a traumatic injury requiring medical treatment.
Methods: Traumatically injured adults (N = 99) presenting to a Level 1 trauma centre completed a measure of emotion dysregulation 2 weeks post-injury, and PTSD and depression were assessed at 2-weeks and 6 months later.
Results: Using stepwise regressions controlling for baseline symptoms, age, gender, race, and injury severity, results showed baseline emotion dysregulation significantly predicted the four symptom clusters of PTSD 6 months post-injury. Notably, hyperarousal symptoms and negative alterations in mood and cognition were predicted by a lack of clarity. On the other hand, depressive symptoms were significantly predicted by difficulty accessing emotion regulation strategies.
Conclusion: Results highlight that specific facets of emotion dysregulation predict PTSD and depression symptom severity differentially after injury. Indeed, lack of emotional clarity appears to predict PTSD symptomatology, suggesting a potential mechanism driving worsening symptoms. Lack of clarity could also be detrimental to engagement in PTSD treatment. Conversely, lack of regulation strategies may represent a sense of helplessness in managing depression after trauma. As such, future research should elucidate whether interventions targeting aspects of emotion dysregulation based on symptom presentations are useful in treating PTSD and depression following injury.
Health-Risk Behaviours (HRBs) are significantly associated with avoidable mortality in adolescents, and preventing HRBs requires an adequate understanding of related factors. Among associated factors, emotion regulation difficulties may impact youths’ engagement in HRBs. Researchers explored the relation of emotion regulation with HRBs; however, specific emotion regulation difficulties for less severe and more prevalent HRBs, such as self-harming behaviour, risky-driving, violence, unhealthy dietary behaviour, and poor adherence to prescribed medication, has not been much explored. The current study aimed to explore the predictability of adolescents’ specific difficulties in emotion regulation in relation to their engagement in HRBs. For this purpose, six different HRBs, that is, self-harm, violence, risky-driving, unhealthy dietary behaviour, inadequate physical activity, and lack of medication adherence, were studied. A total of 617 (Males = 356) adolescents ( M age = 15.77) from five districts of Punjab state (India) provided required information on standardised self-report measures. The data were subjected to regression analysis, and the findings show that the participants who scored high on emotion regulation difficulties reported engagement in HRBs more than their counterparts. Some specific difficulties are more important than others for different forms of HRBs. It implies that the intervention programmes targeting specific HRBs should address specific facets of emotional dysregulation.
In this review, we synthesize evidence to highlight cognitive appraisal as an important developmental antecedent of individual differences in emotion differentiation and adept emotion regulation. Emotion differentiation is the degree to which emotions are experienced in a nuanced or “granular” way—as specific and separable phenomena. More extensive differentiation is related to positive wellbeing and has emerged as a correlate of emotion regulation skill among adults. We argue that the cognitive appraisal processes that underlie these facets of emotional development are instantiated early in the first year of life and tuned by environmental input and experience. Powerful socializing input in the form of caregivers’ contingent and selective responding to infants’ emotional signals carves and calibrates the infant’s appraisal thresholds for what in their world ought to be noticed, deemed as important or personally meaningful, and responded to (whether and how). These appraisal thresholds are thus unique to the individual child despite the ubiquity of the appraisal process in emotional responding. This appraisal infrastructure, while plastic and continually informed by experience across the lifespan, likely tunes subsequent emotion differentiation, with implications for children’s emotion regulatory choices and skills. We end with recommendations for future research in this area, including the urgent need for developmental emotion science to investigate the diverse sociocultural contexts in which children’s cognitive appraisals, differentiation of emotions, and regulatory responses are being built across childhood.
Past research has documented the many psychological and behavioral benefits of negative emotion differentiation, that is, the degree to which one can identify, distinguish, and describe specific negative feeling states. Drawing on Affective Events Theory, we argue that negative emotion differentiation affects how individuals react to a need-laden affective event (i.e., being in a situation where one is asked for some assistance). Specifically, we posit that individuals high in negative emotion differentiation will be more adept at interpreting their negative emotions as arising from others' needs (i.e., moral emotions) and regulating them through helping behavior. We tested this basic premise in two studies conducted in East Asia – a field study involving working adults in a general work setting and a quasi-experiment involving a student sample. In both studies, we examined the role of negative emotion differentiation in how individuals respond to negative emotions facing a need-laden affective event. The results supported our predictions, as high negative emotion differentiation weakened the negative relationship between general negative emotions and subsequent helping behavior (Study 1) and strengthened the positive relationship between negative moral emotions and helping behavior (Study 2). Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
Objective:
Negative affect intensity is robustly related to binge eating, but the relationship between negative emotion differentiation (i.e., the ability to differentiate negatively-valenced emotions) and binge eating is unclear. Further, little is known about factors that might reduce emotion intensity and/or enhance emotion differentiation, thereby reducing binge eating. Self-compassion is consistently linked to less binge eating, which may be due to decreased negative affect and/or an enhanced ability to differentiate emotions. The current study examined the roles of negative emotion intensity, negative emotion differentiation, and self-compassion in binge eating using ecological momentary assessment.
Method:
Participants were 201 university students (52.2% female) who completed questionnaires assessing affect seven times a day, and engagement in loss of control (LOC) eating episodes at the end of each day, for 10 days. The average of sadness, fear, guilt, and hostility subscales represented negative emotion intensity; intraclass correlations across negative affect subscales defined negative emotion differentiation. Both daily (i.e., within-person) and trait (i.e., between-person) emotion variables were examined as predictors.
Results:
Between-person negative emotion intensity, but not negative emotion differentiation, significantly predicted LOC eating occurrence. Self-compassion had a significant effect on LOC eating frequency, and this relationship was partially mediated via negative emotion intensity, but not via negative emotion differentiation.
Discussion:
Lower levels of negative emotion intensity partially account for the relationship between greater self-compassion and less frequent LOC eating. These findings highlight the importance of cultivating self-compassion to down-regulate negative emotions and to reduce LOC eating.
Public significance statement:
Our findings suggest that university students who approach their limitations compassionately experience fewer negative emotions in daily life and engage in less loss of control eating. Lower levels of negative affect partially explain this relationship between self-compassion and loss of control eating. These results highlight the importance of cultivating an understanding and a compassionate attitude toward oneself for reducing eating pathology.
Эмоциональная дифференцированность (ЭД) выражает дробность эмоционального опыта человека, то есть степень различения человеком своих эмоций. Показано, что ЭД не сводится лишь к семантической структуре эмоционального языка, которой располагает человек. ЭД обнаруживает положительную связь с эмоциональной регуляцией и разными компонентами психологического благополучия. Люди с высокой ЭД применяют более широкий круг стратегий эмоциональной регуляции, в меньшей степени склонны к употреблению алкоголя в тяжелых жизненных ситуациях, реже проявляют агрессивное поведение в ситуации злости.
Background and objectives
Emotional expression (i.e., identifying and labeling emotion using specific words), is theorized to reduce negative emotion and facilitate emotion regulation. However, it remains unclear how individuals with borderline personality disorder express emotion, and whether this influences their emotion regulation. This study examined whether: 1) emotional expression in borderline personality disorder differed from healthy controls based on word valence, emotionality, and vocabulary; and 2) whether such characteristics predict emotion regulation effectiveness across self-reported and physiological emotion domains differentially across these groups.
Methods
Individuals with borderline personality disorder (n = 29) and age and sex-matched healthy controls (n = 30) listened to an evocative story, expressed emotion, and regulated emotion by applying Mindfulness or Cognitive Reappraisal. Emotion regulation was measured by changes in self-report, parasympathetic, and sympathetic emotion, while implementing the emotion regulation strategies. The words used to express emotion were coded based on valence, emotionality, and depth of vocabulary.
Results
Generalized estimating equations revealed no differences between groups in valence, emotionality, and vocabulary. Additionally, using a larger emotional vocabulary predicted more effective sympathetic emotion regulation, and using more negatively valenced words predicted more effective parasympathetic emotion regulation across groups.
Limitations
Among other things, this study is limited by its predominantly female sample, and that it does not determine whether valence, emotionality, or vocabulary independently predict emotional expression effectiveness.
Conclusions
Emotional expression may not be deficient in borderline personality disorder across the indices studied. Using more negative words and broadening vocabulary while expressing emotion may offer emotion regulation benefits.
A numerous of mathematical models that outline a long tradition of attempts to objectify measurements about simple and complex human feelings is addressed in this brief scientific release. There are statistical reasons for adopting valid indexes in the study of the process of identification and association of categories for simple emotions, emotion-laden themes and scripts (Tomkins 1979, Demorest 2008, Ferdinandov 2018a). Linear and non-linear functions are used to derive indices of objective frustration, subjective ambivalence and emotional conflicts between most frequently depicted emotions. Comparing statistical power, levels of significance and size effects of two samples-high-school students and undergraduates in psychology (N = 196, from 14 to 23 age old) and adults with unipolar depression, bipolar affective disorders and schizophrenia (N = 38, from 25 to 72 age old) are considered as a key factor that could be adopted as a distinguishing clue to mental disturbance. Differences in mental pace as a function of the time invested in understanding the conditions and fulfilling the linguistic tasks are elaborated. A "Misery" index (modified Utility index, Kahneman & Kruger 2006) has been found to represent a potential and statistically significant additional criterion to the objective properties. The modified utility ("Misery") index demonstrated very high statistical significance and observed power, but with moderate to strong size effects compare to the mental pace depending on healthy status. This functional model overrun other mathematical measurements about affective ambivalence and subjective frustration (Brown &
Emotion recognition (ER) can be conceived of as an integration of affective cues in working memory. We examined whether reduced working memory capacity and brain lesions in neural networks involved in emotion processing interactively impair ER of both one’s own and another person’s emotions. To assess the recognition of one’s own and other’s emotions, pictures from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS) and facial expressions from the Karolinska Directed Emotional Faces (KDEF) database representing fear, anger, disgust, and sadness were presented to 40 lesioned patients and 40 healthy students. To manipulate working memory, a math task was imposed between exposure to the stimuli and collection of responses. Participants indicated the intensity of each of the four emotions for each picture. ER was computed as the difference between trials where the elicited emotion matched the requested emotion and trials where the elicited and requested emotions did not match. Whereas lesions impaired ER in both self and others, working memory load exclusively decreased recognition of other persons’ emotions.
• The purpose of this chapter is to demonstrate how the general aggression model (GAM) helps to answer perplexing questions regarding the causes and conditions of aggression and violence. The GAM is a dynamic, social–cognitive, developmental model that provides an integrative framework for domain-specific aggression theories. It includes situational, personological, and biological variables. The GAM draws heavily on social–cognitive and social learning theories that have been developed over the past 40 years by social, personality, cognitive, and developmental psychologists. The chapter is organized into seven sections. First, we offer definitions of antisocial, aggressive, and violent behavior. Second, we provide a brief description of the GAM. Third, we discuss the dynamic process by which personological and situational factors establish and sustain aggression: the violence escalation cycle. Fourth, we use the GAM to understand how seemingly ordinary citizens become terrorists, suicide bombers, torturers, and other doers of aggression and violence. Fifth, we discuss the implications of the GAM for aggression between groups of people. Sixth, we apply the GAM to show how certain government actions designed to promote peace can increase aggression and violent behavior. Seventh, we discuss useful suggestions based on the GAM regarding ways to reduce aggression and violence. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
• The purpose of this chapter is to demonstrate how the general aggression model (GAM) helps to answer perplexing questions regarding the causes and conditions of aggression and violence. The GAM is a dynamic, social–cognitive, developmental model that provides an integrative framework for domain-specific aggression theories. It includes situational, personological, and biological variables. The GAM draws heavily on social–cognitive and social learning theories that have been developed over the past 40 years by social, personality, cognitive, and developmental psychologists. The chapter is organized into seven sections. First, we offer definitions of antisocial, aggressive, and violent behavior. Second, we provide a brief description of the GAM. Third, we discuss the dynamic process by which personological and situational factors establish and sustain aggression: the violence escalation cycle. Fourth, we use the GAM to understand how seemingly ordinary citizens become terrorists, suicide bombers, torturers, and other doers of aggression and violence. Fifth, we discuss the implications of the GAM for aggression between groups of people. Sixth, we apply the GAM to show how certain government actions designed to promote peace can increase aggression and violent behavior. Seventh, we discuss useful suggestions based on the GAM regarding ways to reduce aggression and violence. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
The most commonly used method to test an indirect effect is to divide the estimate of the indirect effect by its standard error and compare the resulting z statistic with a critical value from the standard normal distribution. Confidence limits for the indirect effect are also typically based on critical values from the standard normal distribution. This article uses a simulation study to demonstrate that confidence limits are imbalanced because the distribution of the indirect effect is normal only in special cases. Two alternatives for improving the performance of confidence limits for the indirect effect are evaluated: (a) a method based on the distribution of the product of two normal random variables, and (b) resampling methods. In Study 1, confidence limits based on the distribution of the product are more accurate than methods based on an assumed normal distribution but confidence limits are still imbalanced. Study 2 demonstrates that more accurate confidence limits are obtained using resampling methods, with the bias-corrected bootstrap the best method overall.
In this article, we attempt to distinguish between the properties of moderator and mediator variables at a number of levels. First, we seek to make theorists and researchers aware of the importance of not using the terms moderator and mediator interchangeably by carefully elaborating, both conceptually and strategically, the many ways in which moderators and mediators differ. We then go beyond this largely pedagogical function and delineate the conceptual and strategic implications of making use of such distinctions with regard to a wide range of phenomena, including control and stress, attitudes, and personality traits. We also provide a specific compendium of analytic procedures appropriate for making the most effective use of the moderator and mediator distinction, both separately and in terms of a broader causal system that includes both moderators and mediators. (46 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Does distraction or rumination work better to diffuse anger? Catharsis theory predicts that rumination works best, but empir- ical evidence is lacking. In this study, angered participants hit a punching bag and thought about the person who had angered them (rumination group) or thought about becoming physically fit (distraction group). After hitting the punching bag, they reported how angry they felt. Next, they were given the chance to administer loud blasts of noise to the person who had angered them. There also was a no punching bag control group. People in the rumination group felt angrier than did people in the distrac- tion or control groups. People in the rumination group were also most aggressive, followed respectively by people in the distraction and control groups. Rumination increased rather than decreased anger and aggression. Doing nothing at all was more effective than venting anger. These results directly contradict catharsis theory.
The personality construct of alexithymia is thought to reflect a deficit in the cognitive processing and regulation of emotional states. To explore the relations between alexithymia and emotional responding, 50 older adults (28 men, 22 women) were studied across different contexts: (1) initial exposure to an emotion‐evoking movie; (2) second exposure to that stimulus; (3) reports of rumination and social sharing; and (4) describing their emotional response (verbal re‐evocation). Facets of the alexithymia construct were associated at the initial exposure with lower emotional responses at the cognitive‐experiential level, but with higher emotional responses at the physiological level as measured by heart rate. At the second exposure, the results were replicated for physiological responses. Certain facets of alexithymia were associated also with lower reports of rumination and social sharing involving emotional aspects, and with a lower proportion of emotional words related to the emotional stimulus during the verbal re‐evocation.
Factor-analytic evidence has led most psychologists to describe affect as a set of dimensions, such as displeasure, distress, depression, excitement, and so on, with each dimension varying independently of the others. However, there is other evidence that rather than being independent, these affective dimensions are interrelated in a highly systematic fashion. The evidence suggests that these interrelationships can be represented by a spatial model in which affective concepts fall in a circle in the following order: pleasure (0), excitement (45), arousal (90), distress (135), displeasure (180), depression (225), sleepiness (270), and relaxation (315). This model was offered both as a way psychologists can represent the structure of affective experience, as assessed through self-report, and as a representation of the cognitive structure that laymen utilize in conceptualizing affect. Supportive evidence was obtained by scaling 28 emotion-denoting adjectives in 4 different ways: R. T. Ross's (1938) technique for a circular ordering of variables, a multidimensional scaling procedure based on perceived similarity among the terms, a unidimensional scaling on hypothesized pleasure–displeasure and degree-of-arousal dimensions, and a principal-components analysis of 343 Ss' self-reports of their current affective states. (70 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
A review of the literature concerning the promotive influence of experimentally generated happiness and sadness on helping suggests that (a) increased helping among saddened Ss is an instrumental response designed to dispel the helper's negative mood state, and (b) increased helping among elated Ss is not an instrumental response to (maintain) the heightened effect but is a concomitant of elevated mood. A derivation from this hypothesis—that enhanced helping is a direct effect of induced sadness but a side effect of induced happiness—was tested in an experiment that placed 86 undergraduates in a happy, neutral, or sad mood. Through a placebo drug manipulation, half of the Ss in each group were led to believe that their induced moods were temporarily fixed, that is, temporarily resistant to change from normal events. The other Ss believed that their moods were labile and, therefore, manageable. As expected, saddened Ss showed enhanced helping only when they believed their moods to be changeable, whereas elated Ss showed comparable increases in helping whether they believed their moods to be labile or fixed. (40 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Interpersonal aggression is prevalent and disturbing. This chapter presents a metatheoretical perspective, I³ theory, that seeks (a) to impose theoretical coherence on the massive number of established risk factors for aggression and (b) to use the tools of statistical (and conceptual) moderation to gain new insights into the processes by which a previously nonaggressive interaction escalates into an aggressive one. I³ theory (pronounced “I-cubed theory”) does not advance one key variable (or even a specific set of key variables) as the root cause of aggression. Rather, it seeks to present an organizational structure for understanding both (a) the process by which a given risk factor promotes aggression and (b) how multiple risk factors interrelate to aggravate or mitigate the aggression-promoting tendencies of each. As detailed in this chapter, I³ theory suggests that scholars can predict whether an individual will behave aggressively in a given situation by examining the main and interactive effects of the instigating triggers, impelling forces, and inhibiting forces at play. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
The present study provides evidence that v alence focus and arousal focus are important processes in determining w hether a dimensional or a discrete emotion model best captures how people label their affective states. Indivi-duals high in valence focus and low in arousal focus ® t a dimensional model better in that they reported more co-oc currences among like-valenced affec-tive states, whereas those low er in v alence focus and higher in arousal focus ® t a discrete model better in that they reported fe wer co-occurrences betw een like-valenced affective state s. Taken together, these ® ndings sugge st that one static, nomothetic theory may not accurately describe the subjective affective experience of all individuals.
Individuals differ considerably in their emotion experience. Some experience emotions in a highly differentiated manner, clearly distinguishing among a variety of negative and positive discrete emotions. Others experience emotions in a relatively undifferentiated manner, treating a range of like-valence terms as interchangeable. Drawing on self-regulation theory, we hypothesised that indivi-duals with highly differentiated emotion experience should be better able to regulate emotions than individuals with poorly differentiated emotion experience. In particular, we hypothesised that emotion differentiation and emotion regulation would be positively related in the context of intense negative emotions, where the press for emotion regulation is generally greatest. To test this hypothesis, parti-cipants' negative and positive emotion differentiation was assessed using a 14-day diary protocol. Participants' regulation of negative and positive emotions was assessed using laboratory measures. As predicted, negative emotion differentiation was positively related to the frequency of negative emotion regulation, particularly at higher levels of emotional intensity.
Research on human aggression has progressed to a point at which a unifying framework is needed. Major domain-limited theories of aggression include cognitive neoassociation, social learning, social interaction, script, and excitation transfer theories. Using the general aggression model (GAM), this review posits cognition, affect, and arousal to mediate the effects of situational and personological variables on aggression. The review also organizes recent theories of the development and persistence of aggressive personality. Personality is conceptualized as a set of stable knowledge structures that individuals use to interpret events in their social world and to guide their behavior. In addition to organizing what is already known about human aggression, this review, using the GAM framework, also serves the heuristic function of suggesting what research is needed to fill in theoretical gaps and can be used to create and test interventions for reducing aggression.
Increasingly, social and personality psychologists are conducting studies in which data are collected simultaneously at multiple levels, with hypotheses concerning effects that involve multiple levels of analysis. In studies of naturally occurring social interaction, data describing people and their social interactions are collected simultaneously. This article discuses how to analyze such data using random coefficient modeling. Analyzing data describing day-to-day social interaction is used to illustrate the analysis of event-contingent data (when specific events trigger or organize data collection), and analyzing data describing reactions to daily events is used to illustrate the analysis of interval-contingent data (when data are collected at intervals). Different analytic strategies are presented, the shortcomings of ordinary least squares analyses are described, and the use of multilevel random coefficient modeling is discussed in detail. Different modeling techniques, the specifics of formulating and testing hypotheses, and the differences between fixed and random effects are also considered.
Multilevel modeling is a technique that has numerous potential applications for social and personality psychology. To help realize this potential, this article provides an introduction to multilevel modeling with an emphasis on some of its applications in social and personality psychology. This introduction includes a description of multilevel modeling, a rationale for this technique, and a discussion of applications of multilevel modeling in social and personality psychological research. Some of the subtleties of setting up multilevel analyses and interpreting results are presented, and software options are discussed.
The present study employed a battery of verbal tests that included a broad range of executive demands to demonstrate the differential contributions of language and executive function to the performance decrement observed in individuals who display impulsive aggressive (IA) outbursts. A profile analysis revealed that despite not differing on tasks requiring limited verbal output, the IAs deviated further from nonaggressive controls as the tasks required increasing spontaneous organization. Results suggest that language ability per se is not impaired in IAs; rather inefficient executive functioning is responsible for their significantly poorer performance on complex verbal tasks.
There is controversy in the literature as to whether alexithymia reflects a deficit in the cognitive processing of emotions or a defensive coping style. Previous studies with clinical populations reported a strong association between alexithymia and a maladaptive (immature) ego defense style. The present study was designed to examine this relationship in nonclinical populations, and also to explore the relationships between alexithymia and three general styles for coping with stressful situations. Sample 1, 287 nonclinical adults, completed the Twenty-Item Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) and the Defense Style Questionnaire (DSQ). Sample 2, 83 undergraduate students who had been categorized previously into alexithymic and nonalexithymic subgroups, completed the DSQ and the Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations (CISS). In sample 1, the TAS-20 and its three factors were associated most strongly with an immature defense style, weakly with a neurotic defense style, and negatively with a mature defense style. In sample 2, alexithymic students scored significantly higher than nonalexithymic students on the immature and neurotic defense factors of the DSQ and significantly lower on the mature defense factor. Alexithymic students also scored significantly higher on the emotion-oriented coping scale and the distraction component of the avoidance-oriented coping scale of the CISS and significantly lower on the task-oriented coping scale. The results fail to support the view that alexithymia is an adaptive defense or coping style.
Interpersonal provocation is a common and robust antecedent to aggression. Four studies identified angry rumination and reduced self-control as mechanisms underlying the provocation-aggression relationship. Following provocation, participants demonstrated decreased self-control on an unpleasant task relative to a control condition (Study 1). When provoked, rumination reduced self-control and increased aggression. This effect was mediated by reduced self-control capacity (Study 2). State rumination following provocation, but not anger per se, mediated the effect of trait rumination on aggression (Study 3). Bolstering self-regulatory resources by consuming a glucose beverage improved performance on a measure of inhibitory control following rumination (Study 4). These findings suggest that rumination following an anger-inducing provocation reduces self-control and increases aggression. Bolstering self-regulatory resources may reduce this adverse effect.
Some people are adept at using discrete emotion categories (anxious, angry, sad) to capture their felt experience; other people merely communicate how good or bad they feel. We theorized that people who are better at describing their emotions might be less likely to self-medicate with alcohol. During a 3-week period, 106 underage social drinkers used handheld computers to self-monitor alcohol intake. From participants' reported experiences during random prompts, we created an individual difference measure of emotion differentiation. Results from a 30-day timeline follow-back revealed that people with intense negative emotions consumed less alcohol if they were better at describing emotions and less reliant on global descriptions. Results from ecological momentary assessment procedures revealed that people with intense negative emotions prior to drinking episodes consumed less alcohol if they were better at describing emotions. These findings provide support for a novel methodology and dimension for understanding the influence of emotions on substance-use patterns.
Terror management theory posits that people tend to respond defensively to reminders of death, including worldview defense, self-esteem striving, and suppression of death thoughts. Seven experiments examined whether trait mindfulness-a disposition characterized by receptive attention to present experience-reduced defensive responses to mortality salience (MS). Under MS, less mindful individuals showed higher worldview defense (Studies 1-3) and self-esteem striving (Study 5), yet more mindful individuals did not defend a constellation of values theoretically associated with mindfulness (Study 4). To explain these findings through proximal defense processes, Study 6 showed that more mindful individuals wrote about their death for a longer period of time, which partially mediated the inverse association between trait mindfulness and worldview defense. Study 7 demonstrated that trait mindfulness predicted less suppression of death thoughts immediately following MS. The discussion highlights the relevance of mindfulness to theories that emphasize the nature of conscious processing in understanding responses to threat.
Do people aggress to make themselves feel better? We adapted a procedure used by G. K. Manucia, D. J. Baumann, and R. B. Cialdini (1984), in which some participants are given a bogus mood-freezing pill that makes affect regulation efforts ineffective. In Study 1, people who had been induced to believe in the value of catharsis and venting anger responded more aggressively than did control participants to insulting criticism, but this aggression was eliminated by the mood-freezing pill. Study 2 showed similar results among people with high anger-out (i.e., expressing and venting anger) tendencies. Studies 3 and 4 provided questionnaire data consistent with these interpretations, and Study 5 replicated the findings of Studies I and 2 using measures more directly concerned with affect regulation. Taken together, these results suggest that many people may engage in aggression to regulate (improve) their own affective states.
A new questionnaire on aggression was constructed. Replicated factor analyses yielded 4 scales: Physical Aggression, Verbal Aggression, Anger, and Hostility. Correlational analysis revealed that anger is the bridge between both physical and verbal aggression and hostility. The scales showed internal consistency and stability over time. Men scored slightly higher on Verbal Aggression and Hostility and much higher on Physical Aggression. There was no sex difference for Anger. The various scales correlated differently with various personality traits. Scale scores correlated with peer nominations of the various kinds of aggression. These findings suggest the need to assess not only overall aggression but also its individual components.
This chapter examines some of the literature demonstrating an impact of affect on social behavior. It will consider the influence of affect on cognition in an attempt to further understand on the way cognitive processes may mediate the effect of feelings on social behavior. The chapter describes the recent works suggesting an influence of positive affect on flexibility in cognitive organization (that is, in the perceived relatedness of ideas) and the implications of this effect for social interaction. The goal of this research is to expand the understanding of social behavior and the factors, such as affect, that influence interaction among people. Another has been to extend the knowledge of affect, both as one of these determinants of social behavior and in its own right. And a third has been to increase the understanding of cognitive processes, especially as they play a role in social interaction. Most recently, cognitive and social psychologists have investigated ways in which affective factors may participate in cognitive processes (not just interrupt them) and have begun to include affect as a factor in more comprehensive models of cognition. The research described in the chapter has focused primarily on feelings rather than intense emotion, because feelings are probably the most frequent affective experiences. The chapter focuses primarily on positive affect.
Negative (adverse or threatening) events evoke strong and rapid physiological, cognitive, emotional, and social responses. This mobilization of the organism is followed by physiological, cognitive, and behavioral responses that damp down, minimize, and even erase the impact of that event. This pattern of mobilization-minimization appears to be greater for negative events than for neutral or positive events. Theoretical accounts of this response pattern are reviewed. It is concluded that no single theoretical mechanism can explain the mobilization-minimization pattern, but that a family of integrated process models, encompassing different classes of responses, may account for this pattern of parallel but disparately caused effects.
1What is Aggression?2Frequency of Violent and Aggressive Behavior3Developmental Trends and Gender Differences in Aggression4Theoretical Orientations for the Study of Aggression5Causes of Aggression6Predisposing Personal Factors7Predisposing Environmental Factors8Reducing Aggression9Summary
For decades, coping researchers have used between-person designs to address inherently within-person questions derived from theory and clinical practice. The authors describe recent developments in the use of within-person, process-oriented methods that examine individuals intensively over time. Ongoing studies of stress and alcohol consumption, the effects of depression on adaptational processes, and the temporal dynamics of coping with chronic pain demonstrate that by tracking rapidly fluctuating processes such as mood and coping close to their real-time occurrence, daily process designs offer unique insights into conceptually and clinically challenging questions. Such designs also provide new opportunities to examine the purported mechanisms of therapeutic interventions. Despite its demands on participants and investigators, daily process research offers fresh opportunities to link psychological theory, research, and practice.
This study explored the impact of positive mood on the cognitive processes mediating attitude change in response to a persuasive communication. Subjects in either a good mood or a neutral mood were exposed to either a proattitudinal or a counterattitudinal message comprised of either strong or weak arguments. Subjects were also provided with a persuasion cue that could be used to judge the validity of the message without processing message content. As expected, subjects in a positive mood exhibited both attitude change and cognitive responses that were indicative of reduced systematic processing. Relative to subjects in a neutral mood, subjects in a good mood showed attitude change that was significantly less influenced by manipulations of message quality, and tended to be more influenced by the presence or absence of the persuasion cue. Subjects experiencing a positive mood recalled less of the message, and their cognitive responses differentiated less between strong and weak arguments and more between t...
Discussion on results of recent studies on Irritability and Emotional Susceptibility scales introduces the presentation of a new scale to study individual differences related to aggressive behavior. The new Dissipation-Rumination Scale results from examining the influence of the interval of time between the instigation and the opportunity to aggress and is related to the inclination to overcome and abandon more or less rapidly feelings of distress and wishes of retaliation associated with the experience of insults suffered. While principal-components analysis confirms the unifactorial structure of the scale with respect to groups of Ss of different language and nationality, results of experimental studies clarify its construct validity.
The decomposition of effects in structural equation models has been of considerable interest to social scientists. Finite-sample or asymptotic results for the sampling distribution of estimators of direct effects are widely available. Statistical inferences about indirect effects have relied exclusively on asymptotic methods which assume that the limiting distribution of the estimator is normal, with a standard error derived from the delta method. We examine bootstrap procedures as another way to generate standard errors and confidence intervals and to estimate the sampling distributions of estimators of direct and indirect effects. We illustrate the classical and the bootstrap methods with three empirical examples. We find that in a moderately large sample, the bootstrap distribution of an estimator is close to that assumed with the classical and delta methods but that in small samples, there are some differences. Bootstrap methods provide a check on the classical and delta methods when the latter are applied under less than ideal conditions.
A Monte Carlo study examined the statistical performance of single sample and bootstrap methods that can be used to test and form confidence interval estimates of indirect effects in two cluster randomized experimental designs. The designs were similar in that they featured random assignment of clusters to one of two treatment conditions and included a single intervening variable and outcome, but they differed in whether the mediator was measured at the participant or site level. A bias-corrected bootstrap had the best statistical performance for each design and was closely followed by the empirical-Mtest, either of which is recommended for testing and estimating indirect effects in multilevel designs. In addition, consistent with previous research, the commonly used z test had relatively poor performance.
In recent studies of the structure of affect, positive and negative affect have consistently emerged as two dominant and relatively independent dimensions. A number of mood scales have been created to measure these factors; however, many existing measures are inadequate, showing low reliability or poor convergent or discriminant validity. To fill the need for reliable and valid Positive Affect and Negative Affect scales that are also brief and easy to administer, we developed two 10-item mood scales that comprise the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS). The scales are shown to be highly internally consistent, largely uncorrelated, and stable at appropriate levels over a 2-month time period. Normative data and factorial and external evidence of convergent and discriminant validity for the scales are also presented. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)