In chronic schizophrenic patients with both positive and negative symptoms (see Table 1), interhemispheric connections at the high frequency beta2-rhythm are absent during cognitive tasks, in contrast to normal controls, who have many interhemispheric connections at this frequency in the same situation. Connectivity is a fundamental brain feature, evidently greatly promoted by the NMDA system. It is a more reliable measure of brain function than the spectral power of this rhythm.

Research using explicit measures has linked decreased positive future thinking, but not increased negative future thinking, with clinical depression. However, individuals may be unable or unwilling to express thoughts about the future, and can be unaware of implicit beliefs that can influence their behavior. Implicit measures of cognition may shed light on the role of future thinking in depression. To our knowledge, the current study presents the first implicit measure of positive and negative future thinking. A sample of (...) 71 volunteers completed both implicit and explicit measures of positive and negative future thinking. The findings indicate differences in the evaluation of both positive and negative future events between the two groups. However, group differences were more pronounced on the implicit measure. These findings point to the potential utility of an implicit measure of future thinking in mental health research and clinical practice. (shrink)

Acknowledging separable factors underlying negative symptoms may lead to better understanding and treatment of negative symptoms in individuals with schizophrenia. The current study aimed to test whether the negative symptoms factor (NSF) of the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) would be better represented by expressive and experiential deficit factors, rather than by a single factor model, using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Two hundred and twenty individuals with schizophrenia spectrum disorders completed the PANSS; (...) subsamples additionally completed the Brief Negative Symptom Scale (BNSS) and the Motivation and Pleasure Scale—Self-Report (MAP-SR). CFA results indicated that the two-factor model fit the data better than the one-factor model; however, latent variables were closely correlated. The two-factor model’s fit was significantly improved by accounting for correlated residuals between N2 (emotional withdrawal) and N6 (lack of spontaneity and flow of conversation), and between N4 (passive social withdrawal) and G16 (active social avoidance), possibly reflecting common method variance. The two NSF factors exhibited differential patterns of correlation with subdomains of the BNSS and MAP-SR. These results suggest that the PANSS NSF would be better represented by a two-factor model than by a single-factor one, and support the two-factor model’s adequate criterion-related validity. Common method variance among several items may be a potential source of measurement error under a two-factor model of the PANSS NSF. (shrink)

Depression is associated with increased maintenance of negative affect (NA) and reduced – blunted and short-lived – maintenance of positive affect (PA). Studies have focused on factors associated with the maintenance of NA, specifically, the emotion regulation strategy of brooding and the capacity to hold negative affective experiences in working memory (WM). Despite its theoretical importance, less attention has been given to factors associated with the maintenance of PA in depression. This study aims to synthesise factors playing a (...) role in the maintenance of both NA and PA. Specifically, we used self-reported assessment of PA and NA regulation and performance-based measures of NA and PA processing in WM to predict depressive symptoms severity. Participants (N = 219) completed the Affective Maintenance Task (AMT, Mikels et al., Citation2008), which provided performance-based measures of PA and NA maintenance, and filled out questionnaires assessing brooding, positive rumination and depressive severity. Brooding, positive rumination and AMT-based measures of positive (but not negative) affective information processing were independently associated with depressive symptoms. We highlight the unique contributions of PA processing, as well as of self-reported emotion regulation strategies in understanding depression maintenance. (shrink)

Both spiritual experiences and mindfulness as a psychological variable have been identified as components of wellbeing and health. As there is uncertainty about their relationship, we have investigated the impact of spiritual experiences and mindfulness as well as their interaction on distress in chronically ill patients. The unidimensional Daily Spiritual Experiences Scale, the multidimensional Exceptional Experiences Questionnaire, the Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory, and the Brief Symptom Inventory were administered to 109 chronically ill patients. Fifty-eight patients reported regular and frequent spiritual or (...) contemplative practice from different traditions over an average of 14.7 years. Patients with regular spiritual practice reported more positive spiritual experiences, were more mindful and less distressed. A stepwise linear regression analysis revealed that the EEQ subscale “negative spiritual experiences” was the most important single predictor for psychological distress. In contrast, both the EEQ subscale “positive spiritual experiences” as well as the DSES that also captures positives daily encounters with a transcendental realm or entity did not account for a significant amount of variance in distress. Further analysis of the regression model, confirmed that NSE was still the largest predictor for distress and that mindfulness and the interaction between mindfulness and NSE were the most important buffers protecting individuals from distress. Thus, mindfulness seems not only to be a clinically important protective factor for buffering generic distress, but particularly for distress derived from NSEs. This suggests that in addition to directly facilitating well-being and health by means of positive spiritual experiences, at least some form of regular spiritual or meditative techniques seem to endow an individual with a certain degree of resilience against negative spiritual experiences that is likely a consequence of increased mindfulness. If these findings are vindicated by further studies, spiritual experiences should not be conceived and measured as univariate but rather multivariate constructs. (shrink)

Research indicates that positive relationships with fellow church members are associated with better mental health. However, far less research has focused on the relationship between negative interaction with fellow church members and mental health outcomes. The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between church-based negative interaction and depressive symptoms with data from a nationwide sample of older Mexican Americans. Statistically significant findings were found for the following core relationships in our study model: older Mexican (...) Americans who encounter negative interaction with fellow church members experience more doubts about their faith; older Mexican Americans who experience more doubts about their faith are more likely to expect transgressors to perform acts of contrition ; and older Mexican Americans who require transgressors to perform acts of contrition are more likely to experience symptoms of depression. Subsequent empirical analyses provide support for each of these relationships. (shrink)

Background: Altering components of ecological momentary assessment measures to better suit the purposes of individual studies is a common and oftentimes necessary step. Though the inherent flexibility in EMA has its benefits, no resource exists to provide an overview of the variability in how convergent constructs and symptoms have been assessed in the past. The present study fills that gap by examining EMA measurement design for mood and anxiety symptomatology.Methods: Various search engines were used to identify 234 relevant studies. (...) Items administered, data collection schedules, response scales, data collection platforms, and psychometric properties were extracted.Results: Study designs varied greatly in all aspects across the identified papers. Over 4,600 extracted items were qualitatively analyzed, resulting in the identification of 12 themes. The most EMA items focused on affect, with categories such as “happiness” and “tension” appearing most frequently. We provide all of our data extraction in the format of an open-source database.Limitations: Despite our best attempts to include as much of the relevant literature as possible, this review and the accompanying database are not exhaustive, but can easily be built upon to include other, newer studies.Conclusions: The fact that the affect theme featured both positive and negative emotional constructs highlights the dichotomous focus on valence and affect within the literature surrounding anxious and depressive symptomatology. We hope that our database will act as a helpful design decision-making resource for researchers studying this kind of symptomatology in the future.Systematic Review Registration: PROSPERO. (shrink)

Affirmative action continues to divide. My aim in this paper is to present participants in the debate with a new distinction, namely one between negative and positive affirmative action. Whereas positive affirmative action has to do with certain goods, such as a place at a prestigious university or a job at a prestigious company, negative affirmative action has to do with certain bads, such as a firing or a sentence. I then argue that some of the most prominent (...) arguments in favor of affirmative action speak at least as much in favor of negative as positive affirmative action. At the same time, at least one of the most prominent arguments put forward against affirmative action speak less against negative affirmative action. Thus, the paper should redraw the battle lines in the affirmative action debate. (shrink)

This study aims to analyze what drives and prevents the purchasing of eco-friendly products across different consumer groups and develops a conceptual model embracing the positive altruistic, positive ego-centric, and negative ego-centric antecedents of eco-friendly product purchase intention and behavior. We empirically validate the conceptual model for green and non-green consumers. Data are analyzed using structural equation modeling and multi-group analysis of the two groups. The results confirm the relevance of the determining factors in the model and show significant (...) differences in eco-friendly product purchasing patterns between green and non-green consumers. Altruistic motives are more important for green than for non-green consumers. Negative ego-centric motives affect the purchase intentions of non-green consumers more than the intentions of green consumers, whereas the impact of negative motives on behavior is stronger for green than for non-green consumers. The first contribution of this paper is the development and testing of a parsimonious model of eco-friendly products purchasing that embraces both positive and negative antecedents, which have been theoretically suggested in the past but have rarely been empirically tested together. The second contribution of this study is that it develops insight into the specific antecedents of eco-friendly products purchasing for green and non-green consumers to assess potential similarities and differences in eco-friendly products purchasing process, the hypothesized antecedents, their impact on eco-friendly products purchase intention and behavior, and the intention–behavior relation. (shrink)

In recent years, the incidence of depressive symptoms among Chinese college students has been increasing. Studies have shown that depressive symptoms are related to a variety of psychosocial factors, among which neuroticism, resilience, and attention bias are most notably related, but the correlation among the three is not clear. This study aimed to investigate the influence mechanisms of different degrees of resilience, attentional bias, and neuroticism in the formation of depressive symptoms. The college freshmen of this study (...) were selected through stratified multi-stage cluster sampling. Students provided informed consent and then completed a general situation questionnaire and four scales: the Chinese version of the Connor–Davidson Resilience Scale, the Attention to Positive and Negative Information Scale, the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire, and the Zung Self-Rating Depressive Symptoms Scale. In total, 1,493 freshmen participated in the research group. Our results showed that low resilience, negative attention bias, and high neuroticism jointly increased the risk of depressive symptoms. There is a significant correlation between these three factors and depressive symptoms. Additionally, strength, tenacity, and attention bias all had more significant effects on the occurrence of depressive symptoms. These findings indicate that there may be an important psychological mechanism for the occurrence, development, and poor prognosis of depressive symptoms. (shrink)

Prior research has demonstrated that the adverse consequences of the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic may go beyond its economic hardships and physical health concerns, having a significant influence on psychological distress for individuals under quarantine. Nevertheless, relatively little attention has been paid to exploring the risk and protective factors in the link between COVID-19 infection risk and psychological distress among young adults. Following a socioecological framework, the current study examines the moderating role of grit and social support in the association (...) between COVID-19 infection risk and depressive symptoms. A sample of 1,251 young adults under home quarantine was involved in this study, and they were asked to complete a set of self-reported questionnaires online. Results of a linear regression analysis exhibited that COVID-19 infection risk was positively associated with depressive symptoms in young adults in quarantine. Moreover, moderation analyses showed that this association was moderated by perseverance and social support. To be specific, for those reporting higher levels of social support, this linkage was not significantly positive; in contrast, for those reporting lower levels of social support, perseverance was a significant protective factor for depressive symptoms when young adults were exposed to a high infection risk of COVID-19. The current study suggests that greater social support is essential to helping young adults deal with possible negative emotions in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, university-based counseling services should pay specific attention to those young adults with relatively insufficient social support resources and low levels of perseverance. (shrink)

This exploration aims to solve the problems of imperfect psychological health education system and poor educational effects on college students. Here, ideological and political education is integrated with mental health education to investigate the role of collaborative intervention in guiding college students to resist negative emotions. First, an overview is offered of research on ideological and political education, mental health education, and negative emotions by the literature survey method. Moreover, a comprehensive investigation is also conducted on research objects, (...) through the questionnaire, to understand the current situation of negative emotions of college students. And finally, an intervention experiment is taken on the negative emotions of college students by combining ideological and political education with mental health education. The results show that after 10 weeks of intervention experiment by combining ideological and political education with mental health education, there are significant differences in depression, negative emotions, somatization symptoms, and interpersonal problems between the treatment group and the control group. Besides, there are significant differences in depression, negative emotions, somatization symptoms, and interpersonal problems between sophomores in the treatment group and the control group. Moreover, there are significant differences in depression, negative emotions, somatization symptoms, and interpersonal problems between male participants in the treatment group and the control group. In summary, ideological and political education integrated with mental health education has a positive guidance effect on the negative emotions of college students, greatly improving the negative emotions of the students, helping the students to regulate their emotions, and benefiting their study and life a lot. The purpose of integrating ideological and political education with mental health education is to provide reference for refining the mental health education system of college students and strengthening the positive guidance of negative emotions of college students. (shrink)

Existing research on the financial implications of corporate social responsibility (CSR) for firms has predominantly focused on positive aspects of CSR, overlooking that firms also undertake actions and initiatives that qualify as negative CSR. Moreover, studies in this area have not investigated how both positive and negative CSR affect the financial risk of firms. As such, in this research, the authors provide a framework linking both positive and negative CSR to idiosyncratic risk of firms. While investigating these (...) relationships, the authors also analyze the moderating role of financial leverage of firms. Overall, analysis of secondary information for firms from multiple industries over the years 2000–2009 shows that CSR has a significant effect on the idiosyncratic risk of firms, with positive CSR reducing risk and negative CSR increasing it. Results also show that the reduction in risk from positive CSR is not guaranteed, with firms having high levels of financial leverage witnessing lower idiosyncratic risk reduction. (shrink)

In this paper, a rights-based argument for the impermissibility of abortion, infanticide and neglect of some pre-natal organisms and infants/children is advanced. I argue, in opposition to most rights-ethicists, that the potentiality for autonomous agency gives individuals negative rights. I also examine the conjecture that potential autonomous agents have positive rights in virtue of their vulnerability. According to this suggestion, once an individual obtains actual autonomous agency, he or she has merely negative rights. Possible solutions to conflicts of (...) rights between parents and their offspring are investigated. Finally, I discuss a lexical order between positive and negative rights, which may solve conflicts between the rights of potential autonomous agents and actual autonomous agents. (shrink)

BackgroundIn the early days of COVID-19 outbreak, the normally orderly health system was severely challenged by large numbers of feverish patients and shortage of healthcare workers. The outbreak played a harmful role in the mental health of these healthcare workers.ObjectiveWe aim to assess the prevalence of moderate or severe anxiety and depression symptoms of healthcare workers in different regions during COVID-19 disaster and identify the potential risk factors.MethodsWe did a cross-sectional study on ADS of healthcare workers in epicenter-Hubei province (...) and regions in lower epidemic-other provinces by questionnaire online. The data of ADS, the demographic characteristics, occupational exposure, physical condition, family situation, and coping styles were collected and analyzed.ResultsA total of 24.68% of the respondents had experienced moderate or severe ADS. Moderate or severe ADSs were in a higher prevalence in Hubei than other provinces. Suspicious symptoms on their own and in family members were independent risk factors of moderate or severe ADS of all health workers. Working on the frontline was the independent risk factor for participants in Hubei province, whereas quarantine was the independent risk factor for those in other provinces. Moreover, among all participants, those with negative coping style were more than four times more likely to have moderate or severe ADS than those with positive coping style.ConclusionModerate or severe ADSs were in a higher prevalence in healthcare workers of Hubei province during COVID-19 outbreak. The coping style may have major impact on ADS in such situation. (shrink)

I explore how many within modern industrial societies currently understand, manage, and respond to their emotional suffering. I argue that this understanding and management of suffering has radically altered in the last 30 years, creating a new model of suffering, “the negative model” (suffering is purposeless), which has largely replaced the “positive model” (suffering is purposeful) that prevailed in the 18th and 19th centuries. This shift has been hastened by what I call the “rationalization of suffering”—namely, the process by (...) which suffering is predominantly now understood in biological and psychiatric terms rather than in religious, philosophical, or moral. This process accompanied the great forces of secularization, medicalization unleashed at the enlightenment—forces gaining their modern expression through psychiatry, the behavioral psychotherapies, the happiness industries, as well as through aggressive market, individualistic, medical, and positivistic ideas and movements. This shift has entailed many socio/cultural implications important for anthropologists to explore further. (shrink)

This study aims to analyze what drives and prevents the purchasing of eco-friendly products across different consumer groups and develops a conceptual model embracing the positive altruistic, positive ego-centric, and negative ego-centric antecedents of eco-friendly product purchase intention and behavior. We empirically validate the conceptual model for green and non-green consumers. Data are analyzed using structural equation modeling and multi-group analysis of the two groups. The results confirm the relevance of the determining factors in the model and show significant (...) differences in eco-friendly product purchasing patterns between green and non-green consumers. Altruistic motives are more important for green than for non-green consumers. Negative ego-centric motives affect the purchase intentions of non-green consumers more than the intentions of green consumers, whereas the impact of negative motives on behavior is stronger for green than for non-green consumers. The first contribution of this paper is the development and testing of a parsimonious model of eco-friendly products purchasing that embraces both positive and negative antecedents, which have been theoretically suggested in the past but have rarely been empirically tested together. The second contribution of this study is that it develops insight into the specific antecedents of eco-friendly products purchasing for green and non-green consumers to assess potential similarities and differences in eco-friendly products purchasing process, the hypothesized antecedents, their impact on eco-friendly products purchase intention and behavior, and the intention–behavior relation. (shrink)

In this paper, a rights-based argument for the impermissibility of abortion, infanticide and neglect of some pre-natal organisms and infants/children is advanced. I argue, in opposition to most rights-ethicists, that the potentiality for autonomous agency gives individuals negative rights. I also examine the conjecture that potential autonomous agents have positive rights in virtue of their vulnerability. According to this suggestion, once an individual obtains actual autonomous agency, he or she has merely negative rights. Possible solutions to conflicts of (...) rights between parents and their offspring are investigated. Finally, I discuss a lexical order between positive and negative rights, which may solve conflicts between the rights of potential autonomous agents and actual autonomous agents. (shrink)

The distinction between negative and positive liberty remains a standard approach to the idea of freedom in contemporary political theory. In Rethinking Positive and Negative Liberty, Maria Dimova-...

IntroductionDespite a growing interest in the field, scarce narrative studies have delved into adolescents’ psychological experiences related to global emergencies caused by infective diseases. The present study aims to investigate adolescents’ narratives on positive and negative experiences related to COVID-19.MethodsItalian adolescents, 2,758, completed two narrative tasks on their most negative and positive experiences during the COVID-19 emergency. Data were analyzed by modeling an analysis of emergent themes.Results“Staying home as a limitation of autonomy,” “School as an educational, not relational (...) environment,” the impact of a “new life routine,” and experiencing “anguish and loss” are the four emergent themes for negative experiences. As for positive experiences, the four themes were “Being part of an extraordinary experience,” “Discovering oneself,” “Re-discovering family,” and “Sharing life at a distance.”ConclusionAuthors discuss the impact of COVID-19 on adolescents’ developmental tasks, such as identity processes and autonomy acquisition. (shrink)

This book argues that the distinction between positive and negative freedom remains highly pertinent today, despite having fallen out of fashion in the late twentieth century. It proposes a new reading of this distinction for the twenty-first century, building on the work of Constant, Green and Berlin who led the historical development of these ideas. The author defends the idea that freedom is a dynamic interaction between two inseparable, yet sometimes fundamentally, opposed positive and negative concepts - the (...) yin and yang of freedom. Positive freedom is achieved when one succeeds in doing what is right, while negative freedom is achieved when one is able to advance one's wellbeing. In an environment of culture wars, resurging populism and challenge to progressive liberal values, recognising the duality of freedom can help us better understand the political dilemmas we face and point the way forward. The book analyses the duality of freedom in more philosophical depth than previous studies and places it within the context of both historical and contemporary political thinking. It will be of interest to students and scholars of liberalism and political theory. (shrink)

Cellular circuits have positive and negative feedback loops that allow them to respond properly to noisy external stimuli. It is intriguing that such feedback loops exist in many cases in a particular form of coupled positive and negative feedback loops with different time delays. As a result of our mathematical simulations and investigations into various experimental evidences, we found that such coupled feedback circuits can rapidly turn on a reaction to a proper stimulus, robustly maintain its status, and (...) immediately turn off the reaction when the stimulus disappears. In other words, coupled feedback loops enable cellular systems to produce perfect responses to noisy stimuli with respect to signal duration and amplitude. This suggests that coupled positive and negative feedback loops form essential signal transduction motifs in cellular signaling systems. BioEssays 29: 85–90, 2007. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Ritualistic consumption refers to integrating ritual elements into the process of product design and usage. By conducting three studies, we find that ritualistic consumption can offer new and interesting experiences and help consumers gain a sense of control. Both positive and negative emotions can promote ritualistic consumption tendencies. However, their underlying psychological mechanisms are different. Specifically, positive emotion can arouse consumers’ desire for interesting experience and thus promotes their preference for ritualistic consumption, while negative emotion can arouse consumers’ (...) need for control and thus promote their preference for ritualistic consumption. Our research results offer a theoretical contribution and practical inspiration for emotional marketing. (shrink)

Acts of criticism characteristically display a negative and a positive dimension. I undertake a qualified defense of the thesis that both dimensions are essential, at least in the case of logical criticism – criticism that relies either implicitly or explicitly on the resources of logic. Such criticism presupposes at least a minimal grasp on what is involved in ‘getting it right’ in the domain that is subjected to critique. In making the case I distinguish between positive and negative (...) logic. Traditional logic is positive insofar as it takes as primitive a positive notion, typically truth. I consider to what extent logic might be reconstructed on an exclusively negative basis – as a tool for avoiding falsity and fallacy. Negative logic faces serious obstacles which suggest a prima facie case that logical criticism is essentially, not just accidentally, positive. (shrink)

It is shown that in every gauge the potential of the electromagnetic field in the presence of sources is resolved by an extension of the Helmholtz theorem into a solenoidal component and an irrotational component irrelevant for description of the field. Only irrotational components are affected by gauge transformations; in Coulomb gauge the irrotational component vanishes: the potential is solenoidal. The method of solution of the wave equation by use of positive- and negative-frequency parts is extended to solutions of (...) D'Alembert's equation, and applied to equations satisfied by the potential in Coulomb gauge and the electric and magnetic vectors. Fourier transforms of potentials specifying destruction/creation operators become time dependent in the presence of sources. Our central equation states this time dependence. Frequency parts of Maxwell's equations are obtained. When the retarded potential in Coulomb gauge is resolved into kinetic and dissipative components, the latter is shown to be in radiation gauge. Correspondingly, the energy/stress tensor is resolved into three components; the power/force density, into two: a kinetic and a dissipative component. Work done by the latter component is negative: energy and momentum are dissipated from matter to radiation. Boson quantization conditions are satisfied by the kinetic component of the retarded potential, but commutators of the dissipative component are determined by the current sources. The energy/stress tensor and Hamiltonian of the field in the presence of sources are derived from the classical Lagrangian density. The relation between the Hamiltonian and the energy is shown to agree with the time dependence of the destruction/creation operators in Heisenberg picture. (shrink)

It is widely acknowledged that Isaiah Berlin’s seminal essay “Two Concepts of Liberty” has to a large extent set the tone and determined the content of the debates within political philosophy in the English-speaking world. Berlin maintains that the conceptual and institutional history of liberty can be understood in terms of the various responses to the logically distinct questions: “Who governs me?” and “How far does government interfere with me?”. In Berlin’s first question, the salient issue is whether the valid (...) authority to positively rule an individual resides within the individual herself or in some external person, social class, institution, empirical circumstance, or tradition. In contrast with the personal freedom to direct oneself, the second issue is concerned with liberating the individual from the coercion of others, especially the government, by limiting authority as such. Berlin dedicates much of his essay to demonstrating that the positive and negative concepts of liberty are not merely two sides of the same coin; rather, he argues that in human psychology and history these mark “two profoundly divergent and irreconcilable attitudes to the ends of life”. According to Berlin’s line of reasoning, to perceive the personal authority to rule oneself as one’s primary end requires a sacrifice of one’s negative liberty. Reciprocally, to make the limitation of authority and coercion in general one’s highest end demands that one relinquish some positive freedom. (shrink)

It is widely acknowledged that Isaiah Berlin’s seminal essay “Two Concepts of Liberty” has to a large extent set the tone and determined the content of the debates within political philosophy in the English-speaking world. Berlin maintains that the conceptual and institutional history of liberty can be understood in terms of the various responses to the logically distinct questions: “Who governs me?” and “How far does government interfere with me?”. In Berlin’s first question, the salient issue is whether the valid (...) authority to positively rule an individual resides within the individual herself or in some external person, social class, institution, empirical circumstance, or tradition. In contrast with the personal freedom to direct oneself, the second issue is concerned with liberating the individual from the coercion of others, especially the government, by limiting authority as such. Berlin dedicates much of his essay to demonstrating that the positive and negative concepts of liberty are not merely two sides of the same coin; rather, he argues that in human psychology and history these mark “two profoundly divergent and irreconcilable attitudes to the ends of life”. According to Berlin’s line of reasoning, to perceive the personal authority to rule oneself as one’s primary end requires a sacrifice of one’s negative liberty. Reciprocally, to make the limitation of authority and coercion in general one’s highest end demands that one relinquish some positive freedom. (shrink)

People judge positive information to be more alike than negative information. This good-bad asymmetry in similarity was argued to constitute a true property of the information ecology (Alves, H., Koch, A., & Unkelbach, C. (2017). Why good is more alike than bad: Processing implications. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 21, 69–79). Alternatively, the asymmetry may constitute a processing outcome itself, namely an influence of phasic affect on information processing. Because no research has yet tested whether phasic affect influences perceived similarity (...) among stimuli, we conducted 5 Experiments that also tested whether phasic affect can account for the higher judged similarity among positive compared to negative stimuli. In three experiments, we affectively charged pictures of different Pokemon by pairing them with monetary gains and losses (Exp. 1a, 1b) as well as positive and negative trait words (Exp. 2); yet, the evaluative charge did not differentially influence perceived similarity among the Pokemon. Experiment 3 replicated the basic similarity asymmetry among positive and negative words, and found that it was unaffected by externally induced phasic affect. Experiment 4 showed that phasic affect had no influence on perceived similarity of non-evaluative words either. We conclude that albeit a weak influence of phasic affect on perceived similarity of stimuli cannot be ruled out entirely, it can most likely not account for the typically medium to large sized asymmetry in similarity among positive and negative stimuli. (shrink)