Spontaneous communication and infant imitation.

Infant behavior is viewed in a social-communicative context centered on the phenomenon of spontaneous communication. Symbolic communication is learned and culturally structured, intentional, consists of symbols, and is propositional in content. In contrast, spontaneous communication is innate in both its sending (display) and receiving (preattunement) aspects, non-intentional, consists of signs, and is non-propositional or emotional in content.

Measuring emotional and cognitive empathy using dynamic, naturalistic, and spontaneous emotion displays.

Most measures of nonverbal receiving ability use posed expressions as stimuli. As empathy measures, such stimuli lack ecological validity, as the participant is not actually experiencing emotion. An alternative approach uses natural and dynamic displays of spontaneous expressions.

Emotional attachment security as the origin of liberal-conservative differences in vigilance to negative features of the environment.

This commentary advances the hypothesis that differences between liberal and conservative orientations noted in the target article are emotional in nature and caused by differences in attachment security: Conservatives are more vigilant to negative features of the environment because of a general sense of insecurity, whereas liberals are relatively more secure.

Extending the global village: emotional communication in the online age.

Bentley et al.'s analysis of how human decision-making has changed in the online age does not mention emotion. Although the suggested dimensions involving social influence and transparency are interesting and suggestive, the engines behind the changes wrought by online media are arguably largely emotional, and implications of the communication of specific emotions via online media need to be better understood.

Prime elements of subjectively experienced feelings and desires: imaging the emotional cocktail.

Primary affects exist at an ecological-communicative level of analysis, and therefore are not identifiable with specific brain regions. The constructionist view favored in the target article, that emotions emerge from "more basic psychological processes," does not specify the nature of these processes. These more basic processes may actually involve specific neurochemical systems, that is, primary motivational-emotional systems (primes), associated with specific feelings and desires that combine to form the "cocktail" of experienced emotion.

Pilot test of an emotional education intervention component for sexual risk reduction.

Objective: Emotions are key predictors of sexual risk behavior but have been largely ignored in theory-based intervention development. The present study aims to evaluate whether the addition of an emotional education intervention component to a traditional social-cognitive safer sex intervention increases intervention efficacy, compared with both a social-cognitive only intervention and a no intervention control condition.

Methods: Young adults were randomized in small groups to receive the social-cognitive-emotional (SCE) intervention, the social-cognitive (SC) intervention, or standard of care.

Communicative genes in the evolution of empathy and altruism.

This paper discusses spontaneous communication and its implications for understanding empathy and altruism. The question of the possibility of "true" altruism-giving up one's genetic potential in favor of the genetic potential of another-is a fundamental issue common to the biological, behavioral, and social sciences. Darwin regarded "social instincts and sympathies" to be critical to the social order, but the possibility of biologically-based prosocial motives and emotions was questioned when selection was interpreted as operating at the level of the gene.

The fragility of intergroup relations: divergent effects of delayed audiovisual feedback in intergroup and intragroup interaction.

Intergroup interactions between racial or ethnic majority and minority groups are often stressful for members of both groups; however, the dynamic processes that promote or alleviate tension in intergroup interaction remain poorly understood. Here we identify a behavioral mechanism-response delay-that can uniquely contribute to anxiety and promote disengagement from intergroup contact. Minimally acquainted White, Black, and Latino participants engaged in intergroup or intragroup dyadic conversation either in real time or with a subtle temporal disruption (1-s delay) in audiovisual feedback.

The relation between negative emotional suppression and emotional distress in breast cancer diagnosis and treatment.

Our objective was to investigate differences in emotional distress between negative emotional suppression and expression patients in the progress of medical treatment, including the operation. We studied the differences in affective response between patients who suppress negative emotion and those who express negative emotion by using Profile of Mood States (McNair, Lorr, & Droppleman, 1971) at four sessions: (a) at the first visit to the clinic, (b) immediately after being told the diagnosis of breast cancer, (c) after the operation, and (d) at 3 months after discharge. Our results showed that emotional suppression patients tended to report more emotional distress (in particular, anxiety, depression, and anger) than did emotional expression patients on 3 sessions, the exception being after the operation.

Anxiety, emotional suppression, and psychological distress before and after breast cancer diagnosis.

The authors examined the influence of anxiety and emotional suppression on psychological distress in 21 patients with breast cancer and 72 patients with benign breast tumor. The patients with breast cancer who suppressed emotion and had chronically high levels of anxiety felt higher levels of emotional distress both before and after the diagnosis. Such patients need psychological interventions, including encouragement to express and communicate their emotions, immediately after disclosure of the diagnosis to help maintain psychological adjustment in the face of the disease.