Prototype Facial Response to Cute Stimuli: Expression and Recognition.

Cute, stimuli can evoke a suite of cognitive, physiological, and behavioral tendencies thought to promote caregiving. This research investigated facial expression elements associated with this response to cuteness and assessed the recognizability of an expression combining these elements. In Studies 1 and 2, participants at a community outreach event (Study 1, = 19) and undergraduate students (Study 2, = 103) showed spontaneous facial displays while watching videos/photos of baby humans and animals.

Drinking While Stressed and Drinking to Cope Differentially Relate to Mental Health.

Excessive alcohol use, as well as drinking to manage distress, are known to undermine mental health. The current study examined the unique associations of simply consuming alcohol while stressed, versus using alcohol to cope with distress, with mental health during the early stages of COVID-19. Participants ( = 264) reported their alcohol use and use of alcohol/substances to cope with stress daily for 22 days and completed measures of mental health at baseline and every 7 days thereafter.

Be the Change You Want to See: Intergroup Helping Reduces InGroup Bias and Facilitates OutGroup Bias in Trading Behaviors.

This research investigated how an instance of intergroup helping affects intergroup attitudes and cooperative behavior. Past research demonstrates that helping behavior elicits prosociality, both reciprocally and toward uninvolved third parties. However, much of this research has either ignored group membership altogether or has assumed a shared group identity between benefactor and beneficiary.

Breaking the Link Between Negative Emotion and Unhealthy Eating: the Role of Emotion Regulation.

Unlabelled: Stressful experiences frequently lead to increased consumption of unhealthy foods, high in sugar and fat yet low in nutrients. Can emotion regulation help break this link? In a laboratory experiment ( = 200), participants were encouraged to ruminate on a current, distressing personal problem, followed by instruction to use a specific emotion regulation strategy for managing feelings around that problem (challenge appraisal, relaxation/distraction, imagined social support, no-instruction control). Participants then spent 15 min on an anagram task in which 80% of items were unsolvable-a frustrating situation offering a second, implicit opportunity to use the regulation strategy.

Funny Date, Creative Mate? Unpacking the Effect of Humor on Romantic Attraction.

Extensive research shows that people are attracted to funny dating partners, with several competing, sometimes conflicting, explanations for why humor is strongly desired in a mate. The present research asks whether humor is interpreted as a reliable, hard-to-fake indicator of some other, valuable trait. Across six experiments, we manipulated humor in a hypothetical date, online dating profile, or video profile and asked which of several traits statistically linked to humor are reliably inferred about funny partners.

The Future of Affective Science: Introduction to the Special Issue.

Modern affective science-the empirical study of emotional responding and affective experience-has been active for a half-century. The special issue considers the history of this field and proposes new directions for the decades ahead. Contributors represent diverse theoretical perspectives, methodological expertise, and domains of study, and the special issue includes both literature reviews and new empirical studies as illustrations.

Empathic concern motivates willingness to help in the absence of interdependence.

Previous research suggests that empathic concern selectively promotes motivation to help those with whom we typically have interdependent relationships, such as friends or siblings, rather than strangers or acquaintances. In a sample of U.S.

Fulfilling the Promise of Well-Being Science: the Quest for Conceptual and Measurement Precision.

Research on well-being has grown exponentially in the last 30 years, employing a variety of constructs and operational measures to produce a wealth of empirical research. This has led to a rich and high-impact, yet somewhat fragmented body of work. The target article by Park and colleagues initiates a valuable conversation aimed at converging on a shared conceptual definition of well-being.

Shades of expansiveness: Postural expression of dominance, high-arousal positive affect, and warmth.

In addition to the face, bodily posture plays an important role in communicating affective states. Postural expansion-how much space the body takes up-has been much studied as expressing and signaling dominance and pride. The present research aimed to expand research on the range of affect dimensions and affect-laden personality characteristics that are expressed via expansiveness, investigating specific forms of expansiveness and their interactions with other postural elements (e.

Within- and between-group heterogeneity in cultural models of emotion among people of European, Asian, and Latino heritage in the United States.

Research on cultural variation in emotion values and beliefs has usually explained this variation in terms of individualism and collectivism, typically comparing European American against East Asian cultural contexts. This study examined emotion model variability across as well as within cultural contexts in a large sample of young adults of Latino heritage along with people of European and East Asian heritage. Using latent class analysis, we characterized and predicted endorsement of emotion models, distinguishing emotion ideals (the emotions one desires) from beliefs about injunctive norms for emotion (the emotions one believes are appropriate).

Awe, wonder, and the human mind.

The human mind is unique in its ability to form, store, and manipulate elaborate conceptual models of the world; yet these models have vast, inevitable gaps. Where the models end, the potential for wonder and awe begins. Psychology research has begun to uncover distinctive implications of awe for how we perceive our environment and ourselves.

Positive emotion dispositions and emotion regulation in the Italian population.

The goal of this large-scale study was to test the relationship between positive emotion dispositions (i.e., Joy, Contentment, Pride, Love, Compassion, Amusement, and Awe) and two strategies of emotion regulation (i.

Effects of Therapeutic Intervention on Parentally Bereaved Children's Emotion Reactivity and Regulation 15 Years Later.

The Family Bereavement Program (FBP) is a family-based intervention for parentally bereaved children and surviving caregivers. Results are reported of a randomized controlled trial, examining intervention effects on emotional reactivity and regulation of young adults who participated in the program 15 years earlier. Participants (N = 152) completed four emotion challenge tasks: reactivity to negative images, detached reappraisal while viewing negative images, positive reappraisal while viewing negative images, and reengagement with positive images.

Who emphasizes positivity? An exploration of emotion values in people of Latino, Asian, and European heritage living in the United States.

Emotion values vary within and between individualistic and collectivistic cultural contexts. The form of collectivism prevalent in Latin America emphasizes simpatía, a cultural model that stresses the relational benefits of positivity but also the costs of negativity. This model was predicted to engender a pattern of emotion values distinct from that of the more commonly studied collectivist group, people of Asian heritage (PAH), among whom an emphasis on moderating positive and negative emotions is typically observed, and from people of European heritage (PEH), among whom authenticity in emotions is typically valued.

Emotion recognition in objects in patients with neurological disease.

Objective: Considerable research indicates that individuals with dementia have deficits in the ability to recognize emotion in other people. The present study examined ability to detect emotional qualities of objects.

Method: Fifty-two patients with frontotemporal dementia (FTD), 20 patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD), 18 patients awaiting surgery for intractable epilepsy, and 159 healthy controls completed a newly developed test of ability to recognize emotional qualities of art (music and paintings), and pleasantness in simple sensory stimuli (tactile, olfactory, auditory), and to make aesthetic judgments (geometric shapes, room décor).

Responding to the emotions of others: Age differences in facial expressions and age-specific associations with relational connectedness.

Responding prosocially to the emotion of others may become increasingly important in late life, especially as partners and friends encounter a growing number of losses, challenges, and declines. Facial expressions are important avenues for communicating empathy and concern, and for signaling that help is forthcoming when needed. In a study of young, middle-aged, and older adults, we measured emotional responses (facial expressions, subjective experience, and physiological activation) to a sad, distressing film clip and a happy, uplifting film clip.

Beyond happiness: Building a science of discrete positive emotions.

While trait positive emotionality and state positive-valence affect have long been the subject of intense study, the importance of differentiating among several "discrete" positive emotions has only recently begun to receive serious attention. In this article, we synthesize existing literature on positive emotion differentiation, proposing that the positive emotions are best described as branches of a "family tree" emerging from a common ancestor mediating adaptive management of fitness-critical resources (e.g.

Going off script: Effects of awe on memory for script-typical and -irrelevant narrative detail.

People often filter their experience of new events through knowledge they already have; for example, encoding new events by relying on prototypical event "scripts" at the expense of actual details. Previous research suggests that positive affect often increases this tendency. Three studies assessed whether awe-an emotion elicited by perceived vastness, and thought to promote cognitive accommodation-has the opposite effect, reducing rather than increasing reliance on event scripts.

An insecure base: Attachment style and orienting response to positive stimuli.

In adults as in infants, psychological attachment to close others provides a "secure base" for exploration and pursuit of opportunities. Insecure attachment is likely to interfere with this function. The present study examined the association of individual differences in adult attachment style with peripheral physiological measures of automatic orienting to several kinds of positive, rewarding stimuli.

Turn down the volume or change the channel? Emotional effects of detached versus positive reappraisal.

Cognitive reappraisal, or changing one's interpretation of an event in order to alter the emotional response to it, is thought to be a healthy and an effective emotion regulation strategy. Although researchers recognize several distinct varieties of reappraisal, few studies have explicitly compared the effects of multiple reappraisal strategies on emotional responding. The present study compares the effects of detached and positive reappraisal on thought content, subjective emotional experience, physiological reactivity, and facial expressions of emotion while viewing film clips evoking sadness and disgust.

What is shared, what is different? Core relational themes and expressive displays of eight positive emotions.

Understanding positive emotions' shared and differentiating features can yield valuable insight into the structure of positive emotion space and identify emotion states, or aspects of emotion states, that are most relevant for particular psychological processes and outcomes. We report two studies that examined core relational themes (Study 1) and expressive displays (Study 2) for eight positive emotion constructs--amusement, awe, contentment, gratitude, interest, joy, love, and pride. Across studies, all eight emotions shared one quality: high positive valence.

Feeling good: autonomic nervous system responding in five positive emotions.

Although dozens of studies have examined the autonomic nervous system (ANS) aspects of negative emotions, less is known about ANS responding in positive emotion. An evolutionary framework was used to define five positive emotions in terms of fitness-enhancing function, and to guide hypotheses regarding autonomic responding. In a repeated measures design, participants viewed sets of visual images eliciting these positive emotions (anticipatory enthusiasm, attachment love, nurturant love, amusement, and awe) plus an emotionally neutral state.

Anger and sadness in response to an emotionally neutral film: evidence for age-specific associations with well-being.

When the association between emotion and well-being is being considered, positive emotions usually come to mind. However, negative emotions serve important adaptive functions and particular negative emotions may be especially adaptive at different stages of adult development. We examined the associations between self-reported negative emotions in response to an emotionally neutral, thematically ambiguous film and subjective well-being among 76 young (age 20-29), 73 middle-aged (age 40-49), and 73 older (age 60-69) adults.

Greater sadness reactivity in late life.

Although previous research suggests that overall emotional reactivity does not change with normal aging, it is possible that different emotions follow different developmental courses. We examined emotional reactivity to films selected to elicit sadness, disgust, and a neutral state in young, middle-aged and older adults (total N = 222). Physiology and expressive behavior were measured continuously and reports of subjective emotional experience were obtained following each film.