Cultural variation in social judgments of smiles: The role of ideal affect.

While significant research has demonstrated that people's beliefs about a group shape how they judge members of that group, few studies have examined whether people's beliefs and values regarding emotion (their "ideal affect") shape how they socially judge people's emotional facial expressions. We predicted that the more people valued and ideally wanted to feel excitement and other high arousal positive states (HAP), the more affiliative (extraverted, agreeable) they would judge excited (vs. calm) faces.

Valuing calm enhances enjoyment of calming (vs. exciting) amusement park rides and exercise.

Do people derive more enjoyment from activities that match how they ideally want to feel (their "ideal affect")? Affect valuation theory (AVT) predicts that they do; however, no study has directly examined whether this is the case. Therefore, the authors conducted 4 studies that examined whether valuing calm and other low arousal positive states (LAP) increased enjoyment of calming (vs. exciting) activities.

Neural evidence for cultural differences in the valuation of positive facial expressions.

European Americans value excitement more and calm less than Chinese. Within cultures, European Americans value excited and calm states similarly, whereas Chinese value calm more than excited states. To examine how these cultural differences influence people's immediate responses to excited vs calm facial expressions, we combined a facial rating task with functional magnetic resonance imaging.

The role of asthma management beliefs and behaviors in childhood asthma immune and clinical outcomes.

Objective: This study examined associations of asthma management-related beliefs and behaviors with immune markers and clinical outcomes in a sample of 66 children with asthma (ages 9-18 years).

Methods: Children and parents were interviewed about asthma management beliefs and behaviors. Immune measures included stimulated production of cytokines implicated in asthmatic airway inflammation, eosinophil counts, and IgE levels.

The role of the social environment in children and adolescents with asthma.

Rationale: Biopsychosocial models of asthma have been proposed in the literature, but few empirical tests of social factors at various levels of influence have been conducted.

Objectives: To test associations of neighborhood, peer, and family factors with asthma outcomes in youth, and to determine the pathways through which these social factors operate.

Methods: Observational study of youths with asthma (n = 78).