Over-time variability characterizes not only individual-level emotions, but also group-level emotions, those that occur when people identify with social groups and appraise events in terms of their implications for those groups. We discuss theory and research regarding the role of emotions in intergroup contexts, focusing on their dynamic nature. We then describe new insights into the causes and consequences of emotional dynamics that flow from conceptualizing emotions as based in group membership, and conclude (...) with research recommendations. (shrink)

Group-based emotions have been conceptualised as being rooted in perceivers' social identity. Consistent with this idea, previous research has shown that social identity salience affects group-based emotions, but no research to date has directly examined the role of group-based appraisals in comparison with individual appraisals. In the present studies, we measured group-based appraisals through a thought-listing procedure. In Experiment 1, we explicitly reminded people of their group identity, which led (...) to the predicted change in group-based anger. This effect was mediated by group-based appraisals. In Experiment 2, participants either discussed a group-relevant scenario in small groups or a related topic irrelevant to the group. The group-relevant condition not only led to stronger indignation but the perceived presence of group-based appraisals was also related to participants' reports of indignation. These results provide further evidence for the importance of group-based appraisals as components of group-based emotions. (shrink)

Civilian casualties contribute to the perpetuation of intergroup conflicts through increased radicalization and hostilities, but little is known on the psychological processes that affect responses to outgroup civilian casualties. The goal of the present research was to explore two factors expected to lead group members to act more cautiously, thereby reducing civilian casualties: perceived accountability and forecast group-based moral emotions. In two studies, Jewish–Israeli civilians (Study 1) and soldiers (Study 2) were asked to forecast their (...) class='Hi'>group-based moral emotions in case of Palestinian (i.e., outgroup) civilian casualties, then exposed to accountability manipulations. Participants who expected to feel low levels of shame and were primed with accountability made more cautious decisions than those in the control condition. Participants who expected to feel high levels of shame were unaffected by accountability primes. Theoretical and practical implications regarding forecast moral emotions and accountability as an intervention in intergroup conflicts are discussed. (shrink)

This article seeks to analyze the conditions in which group-based pride is rationally appropriate. We first distinguish between the shape and size of an emotion. For the appropriate shape of group-based pride, we suggest two criteria: the distinction between group-based pride and group-based hubris, and between we-mode and I-mode sociality. While group-based hubris is inappropriate irrespective of its mode due to the arrogant, contemptuous, and other-derogating character of this emotion, (...) class='Hi'>group-based pride in the we-mode is appropriate in terms of shape if it is felt over an achievement to which the group members collectively committed themselves. For the same reason, members of I-mode groups can feel appropriately proud of the achievement of their group if they have collectively contributed to it. Instead, group-based pride by mere private identification with a successful group can be rationally appropriate if it manifests the person’s reduced-agency ideal and is also part of a coherent pattern of rationally interconnected emotions focused on the same ideal. Moreover, we suggest that pride in the success of one’s family member or a close friend is typically felt over the rise of social status that one group member’s success grants to the group. However, social status cannot be valued for its own sake as this undermines the values upon which social status is founded. Instead, direct or indirect causal contribution to the success of one’s child, friend, or student can warrant group-based pride, which may be justified on the basis of shared values without causal contribution as well. Finally, regarding the size of group-based pride, members of we-mode groups are warranted to experience and express more intense pride than members of I-mode groups. Moreover, the proper intensity of this emotion depends on the particular other to whom the expression is directed. Finally, criteria of appropriate size don’t apply to shared group-based pride as sharing increases the intensity of emotion by default. (shrink)

Recently, novel lines of research have developed to study the influence of identity processes in sport-related behaviours. Yet, whereas emotions in sport are the result of a complex psychosocial process, little attention has been paid to examining the mechanisms that underlie how group membership influences athletes’ emotional experiences. The present narrative review aims at complementing the comprehensive review produced by Rees et al. (2015) on social identity in sport by reporting specific work on identity-based emotions in (...) sport. To that end, we firstly overview the different terminology currently used in the field of emotions in groups to clarify the distinct nature of emotions that result from an individual’s social identity. Secondly, we discuss key concepts of social identity to better understand the mechanisms underlying identity-based emotions. Thirdly, we address existing knowledge on identity-based emotions in sport. We close the present narrative review by suggesting future research perspectives based on existing meta-theories of social identity. Evidence from the social psychology literature is discussed alongside existing works from the sport literature to propose a crucial theoretical approach to better understand emotions in sport. (shrink)

Research has suggested an increase in loneliness during the COVID-19 pandemic, but much of this work has been cross-sectional, making causal inferences difficult. In the present research, we employed a longitudinal design to identify loneliness trajectories within a period of twelve months during the COVID-19 pandemic in Belgium (N = 2106). We were particularly interested in the potential protective role of self-compassion in these temporal dynamics. Using a group-based trajectory modelling approach, we identified trajectory groups of individuals following (...) low (11.0%), moderate-low (22.4%), moderate (25.7%), moderate-high (31.3%), and high (9.6%) levels of loneliness. Findings indicated that younger people, women, and individuals with poor quality relationships, high levels of health anxiety, and stress related to COVID-19, all had a higher probability of belonging to the highest loneliness trajectory groups. Importantly, we also found that people high in two of the three facets of self-compassion (self-kindness and common humanity) had a lower probability of belonging to the highest loneliness trajectory groups. Ultimately, we demonstrated that trajectory groups reflecting higher levels of loneliness were associated with lower life satisfaction and greater depressive symptoms. We discuss the possibility that increasing self-compassion may be used to promote better mental health in similarly challenging situations. (shrink)

Emotions are a natural vector for acting together with others and are witnessed in human behaviour, perception and body functions. For this reason, studies of human-to-human interaction, such as multi-person motor synchronisation, are a perfect setting to disentangle the linkage of emotion with socio-motor interaction. And yet, the majority of joint action studies aiming at understanding the impact of emotions on multi-person performance resort to enacted emotions, the ones that are emulated based on the previous experience (...) of such emotions, and almost exclusively focus on dyadic interaction. In addition, tasks chosen to study emotion in joint action are frequently characterised by a reduced number of physical dimensions to gain experimental control and subsequent facilitation in data analysis. Therefore, it is not clear how naturalistically induced emotions diffuse in more ecological interactions with other people and how emotions affect the process of interpersonal synchronisation. Here, we show that positive and negative emotions differently alter spontaneous human synchronous behaviour during a multi-person improvisation task. The study involved 39 participants organised in triads who self-reported liking improvisational activities. The task involved producing improvisational movements with the right hand. Participants were emotionally induced by manipulated social feedback involving a personal ranking score. Three-dimensional spatio-temporal data and cardiac activity were extracted and transformed into oscillatory signals to compute behavioural and physiological synchrony. Our results demonstrate that individuals induced with positive emotions, as opposed to negative emotions or a neutral state, maintained behavioural synchrony with other group members for a longer period of time. These findings contribute to the emerging shift of neuroscience of emotion and affective sciences towards the environment of social significance where emotions appear the most—in interaction with others. Our study showcases a method of quantification of synchrony in an improvisational and interactive task based on a well-established Kuramoto model. (shrink)

Given the fundamental role of emotional intelligence in learning, especially in virtual learning contexts where individuals experience more stress and anxiety, the need to understand and recognize one's own feelings and the mutual feelings of peers has gained more importance. Flow as the ultimate state in harnessing emotions in the service of performance and learning has been introduced as the main reason for one's willingness to perform activities which are connected to no external motivation. In this regard, the present (...) study was conducted to first introduce a new educational program to enhance the EI level in the English as a foreign language online education environment and next to investigate the possibility of raising EFL learners' perceived flow. To achieve these goals, the study recruited a sample of 67 EFL learners who were next divided into experimental and control groups. The experimental group received the EI intervention over 10 weeks and the control group received the ordinary online EFL instruction. Data were collected through EI and flow questionnaires and semi-structured interviews which focused on learners' perception of the EI intervention and signs of enhanced flow. Statistical analysis of the data showed a positive effect of the program on the learners' EI and their perceived flow. The study emphasizes the role of applying positive emotions in making language learners more engaged in online classroom tasks. (shrink)

Three studies examined how members of a national group react to in-group wrongdoings. We expected that perceived in-group moral superiority would lead to unwillingness to repair the aggression. We also expected that internal-focused emotions such as group-based guilt and group-based shame would predict specific, misdeed-related reparative intentions but not general approach motivation toward the victim groups. In Study 1, facing the in-group’s recent aggression, participants who believed that the Hungarians have been (...) more moral throughout their history than members of other nations, used more exonerating cognitions, experienced less in-group critical emotions and showed less willingness to provide reparations for the members of the victim group. Study 2 and Study 3 confirmed most findings of Study 1. Perceived in-group moral superiority directly or indirectly reduced willingness to provide either general or specific reparations, while internally focused in-group critical emotions predicted specific misdeed-related reparative intentions but not general approach motivation. The role of emotional attachment to the in-group is considered. (shrink)

This paper presents a theory and computational model of the role of emotions in group decision making. After reviewing the role of emotions in individual decision making, it describes social and psychological mechanisms by which emotional and other information is transmitted between individuals. The processes by which these mechanisms can contribute to group consensus are modeled computationally using a program, HOTCO 3, which has been used to simulate simple cases of emotion-based group decision making.

he design-based approach is a methodology for investigating mechanisms capable of generating mental phenomena, whether introspectively or externally observed, and whether they occur in humans, other animals or robots. The study of designs satisfying requirements for autonomous agency can provide new deep theoretical insights at the information processing level of description of mental mechanisms. Designs for working systems (whether on paper or implemented on computers) can systematically explicate old explanatory concepts and generate new concepts that allow new and richer (...) interpretations of human phenomena. To illustrate this, some aspects of human grief are analysed in terms of a particular information processing architecture being explored in our research group. We do not claim that this architecture is part of the causal structure of the human mind; rather, it represents an early stage in the iterative search for a deeper and more general architecture, capable of explaining more phenomena. However even the current early design provides an interpretative ground for some familiar phenomena, including characteristic features of certain emotional episodes, particularly the phenomenon of perturbance (a partial or total loss of control of attention). The paper attempts to expound and illustrate the design-based approach to cognitive science and philosophy, to demonstrate the potential effectiveness of the approach in generating interpretative possibilities, and to provide first steps towards an information processing account of `perturbant', emotional episodes. (shrink)

ABSTRACTOther people’s emotional reactions to a third person’s behaviour are potentially informative about what is appropriate within a given situation. We investigated whether and how observers’ inferences of such injunctive norms are shaped by expressions of anger and disgust. Building on the moral emotions literature, we hypothesised that angry and disgusted expressions produce relative differences in the strength of autonomy-based versus purity-based norm inferences. We report three studies using different types of stimuli to investigate how emotional reactions (...) shape norms about potential norm violations, and contexts. Consistent with our theoretical argument, the results indicate that observers use others’ emotional reactions not only to infer whether a particular behaviour is inappropriate, but also why it is inappropriate: because it primarily violates auto... (shrink)

This contribution provides a brief commentary to Bakker’s and Lelkes’s plea to emotion researchers to engage more thoroughly with research on affective polarisation. I begin by summarising some of the main arguments and suggestions developed by Bakker and Lelkes and then make a number of suggestions that focus on how accounting for discrete emotions can make a particularly valuable contribution to affective polarisation research. The first suggestion pertains to the intentionality of emotions, and specifically of political emotions (...) in intergroup contexts. The second suggestion emphasises that emotions convey meaning about social relations that is considerably richer than the information contained in affect alone. The third proposition highlights that relations characterised by discrete emotions also reveal information about the cultural value and appropriateness of these relations. Finally, I discuss how discrete emotions specifically contribute to processes of community building and social exclusion. (shrink)

The present study investigated the effect of Parkinson’s disease (PD) on prospective memory (PM) tasks by varying the emotional content of the PM actions. Twenty-one older adults with PD and 25 healthy older adults took part in the present study. Participants performed three virtual days in the Virtual Week task. On each virtual day, participants performed actions with positive, negative or neutral content. Immediately following each virtual day, participants completed a recognition task to assess their retrospective memory for the various (...) prospective memory tasks. PD patients were less accurate than the control group at both PM accuracy and recognition task accuracy. The effect of emotional valence was also evident, indicating that all participants were more accurate on positive PM tasks than both negative and neutral. This study confirmed PM impairment in PD patients and extended previous research showing how positive emotional stimuli can influence PM performance. (shrink)

The main aim of this paper is to contribute to the development of the distributed emotion framework and to conceptualize collective emotions within that framework. According to the presented account, dynamics of mutual affecting and being affected might couple individuals such that macro-level self-organization of a distributed cognitive system emerges. The paper suggests calling a distributed self-organizing system consisting of several emoters a “collective.” The emergence of a collective with a distributed affective process enables the involved individuals to enact (...) emotions together. Accordingly, the suggestion is to conceptualize collective emotions as mereologically complex affective processes consisting of contributions which are distributed among several individuals and integrated through ongoing macro-level self-organization. To spell-out this account, the paper combines key conceptual resources from dynamical systems theory, enactive cognitive science, ecological psychology, and phenomenology. A second aim of the paper is distinguishing collective emotions from group-based emotions and suggesting an understanding of shared emotions as a subtype of collective emotions within the distributed emotion framework. (shrink)

IntroductionIn this study we compared the effects of a mindfulness-based intervention with a story reading intervention on the executive functions and psychological profile of children in two different public schools in São Paulo, Brazil.MethodsIn this controlled clinical trial, 207 children aged 8 to 9 years old responded to the Five-Digit Test, stress levels, depression, anxiety, positive and negative affect, at baseline and 8 weeks later. From T0 to T1, school 1 participated in MBI classes and school 2 in IS (...) classes.ResultsIn school 1, children improved their scores on all tests except reading and counting compared with school 2. No differences were observed between groups in terms of emotional health.ConclusionIt is feasible to implement MBI or SI in Brazilian public schools. Students in the MBI group presented broader effects in executive functions, while students in the SI group showed a trend toward reduced negative affect and depression symptoms. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 39, Issue 3, pp 312 - 343 The aim of this study was to explore which group-based emotion regulation goals and strategies are offered in the group culture of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Based on interviews with 29 group-active JW s in Norway, a thematic analysis was conducted in which an overall pattern of cognition taking precedence over emotions was found. Due to end-time expectations and a long-term goal of eternal life in Paradise, (...) future emotions were prioritized. The emotion regulation strategies identified among JW s were _social sharing_ and the interconnected _cognitive reappraisal_. A new concept, _emotional forecasting_, was introduced, describing a reappraisal tactic of regulation using prospects of future emotions to regulate the here and now. It was concluded that the prospection of the future is a strong regulator of emotions of the _here and now_ and should be included in psychological models of emotion regulation. (shrink)

Emotional competence has an important influence on development in school. We hypothesized that reading and discussing children’s books with emotional content increases children’s emotional competence. To examine this assumption, we developed a literature-based intervention, named READING and FEELING, and tested it on 104 second and third graders in their after-school care center. Children who attended the same care center but did not participate in the emotion-centered literary program formed the control group ( n = 104). Our goal was (...) to promote emotional competence and to evaluate the effectiveness of the READING and FEELING program. Emotional competence variables were measured prior to the intervention and 9 weeks later, at the end of the program. Results revealed significant improvements in the emotional vocabulary, explicit emotional knowledge, and recognition of masked feelings. Regarding the treatment effect for detecting masked feelings, we found that boys benefited significantly more than girls. These findings underscore the assumption that children’s literature is an appropriate vehicle to support the development of emotional competence in middle childhood. (shrink)

The aim of this study was to explore which group-based emotion regulation goals and strategies are offered in the group culture of Jehovah's Witnesses (JWS). Based on interviews with 29 group-active JWS in Norway, a thematic analysis was conducted in which an overall pattern of cognition taking precedence over emotions was found. Due to endtime expectations and a long-term goal of eternal life in Paradise, future emotions were prioritized. The emotion regulation strategies identified (...) among JWS were social sharing and the interconnected cognitive reappraisal. A new concept, emotional forecasting, was introduced, describing a reappraisal tactic of regulation using prospects of future emotions to regulate the here and now. It was concluded that the prospection of the future is a strong regulator of emotions of the here and now and should be included in psychological models of emotion regulation. (shrink)

_ Source: _Page Count 32 The aim of this study was to explore which group-based emotion regulation goals and strategies are offered in the group culture of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Based on interviews with 29 group-active JW s in Norway, a thematic analysis was conducted in which an overall pattern of cognition taking precedence over emotions was found. Due to end-time expectations and a long-term goal of eternal life in Paradise, future emotions were prioritized. (...) The emotion regulation strategies identified among JW s were _social sharing_ and the interconnected _cognitive reappraisal_. A new concept, _emotional forecasting_, was introduced, describing a reappraisal tactic of regulation using prospects of future emotions to regulate the here and now. It was concluded that the prospection of the future is a strong regulator of emotions of the _here and now_ and should be included in psychological models of emotion regulation. (shrink)

The theories or programs of research described in the chapters of this book move beyond the traditional evaluation model of prejudice, drawing on a broad range of theoretical ancestry to develop models of why, when, and how differentiated reactions to groups arise, and what their consequences might be. The chapters have in common a re-focusing of interest on emotion as a theoretical base for understanding differentiated reactions to, and differentiated behaviors toward, social groups. The contributions also share a focus on (...) specific interactional and structural relations among groups as a source of these differentiated emotional reactions. The chapters in the volume thus reflect a theoretical shift from an earlier emphasis on knowledge about ingroups and outgroups to a new perspective on prejudice in which socially-grounded emotional differentiation becomes a basis for social regulation. (shrink)

The theories or programs of research described in the chapters of this book move beyond the traditional evaluation model of prejudice, drawing on a broad range of theoretical ancestry to develop models of why, when, and how differentiated reactions to groups arise, and what their consequences might be. The chapters have in common a re-focusing of interest on emotion as a theoretical base for understanding differentiated reactions to, and differentiated behaviors toward, social groups. The contributions also share a focus on (...) specific interactional and structural relations among groups as a source of these differentiated emotional reactions. The chapters in the volume thus reflect a theoretical shift from an earlier emphasis on knowledge about ingroups and outgroups to a new perspective on prejudice in which socially-grounded emotional differentiation becomes a basis for social regulation. (shrink)

Emotion Review, Volume 14, Issue 1, Page 31-42, January 2022. This paper distinguishes collective emotions from other phenomena pertaining to the social and interactive nature of emotion and proposes a taxonomy of different types of collective emotion. First, it emphasizes the distinction between collective emotions as affective experiences and underpinning mechanisms. Second, it elaborates on other types of affective experience, namely the social sharing of emotion, group-based emotions, and joint emotions. Then, it proposes a (...) working definition of collective emotion via a minimal threshold and four structural features. Finally, it develops a taxonomy of five types of collective emotion: emotional sharing, emotional contagion, emotional matching, emotional segregation, and emotional fusion. (shrink)

ABSTRACTA careful look at societies facing threat reveals a unique phenomenon in which liberals and conservatives react emotionally and attitudinally in a similar manner, rallying around the conservative flag. Previous research suggests that this rally effect is the result of liberals shifting in their attitudes and emotional responses toward the conservative end. Whereas theories of motivated social cognition provide a motivation-based account of cognitive processes, it remains unclear whether emotional shifts are, in fact, also a motivation-based process. Herein, (...) we propose that under threat, liberals are motivated to feel existential concern about their group’s future vitality to the same extent as conservatives, because this group-based emotion elicits support for ingroup protective action. Within the context of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, we tested and found support for this hypothesis both inside and outside the laboratory. We d... (shrink)

Emotion Review, Volume 14, Issue 1, Page 31-42, January 2022. This paper distinguishes collective emotions from other phenomena pertaining to the social and interactive nature of emotion and proposes a taxonomy of different types of collective emotion. First, it emphasizes the distinction between collective emotions as affective experiences and underpinning mechanisms. Second, it elaborates on other types of affective experience, namely the social sharing of emotion, group-based emotions, and joint emotions. Then, it proposes a (...) working definition of collective emotion via a minimal threshold and four structural features. Finally, it develops a taxonomy of five types of collective emotion: emotional sharing, emotional contagion, emotional matching, emotional segregation, and emotional fusion. (shrink)

Emotion recognition systems have been of interest to researchers for a long time. Improvement of brain-computer interface systems currently makes EEG-based emotion recognition more attractive. These systems try to develop strategies that are capable of recognizing emotions automatically. There are many approaches due to different features extractions methods for analyzing the EEG signals. Still, Since the brain is supposed to be a nonlinear dynamic system, it seems a nonlinear dynamic analysis tool may yield more convenient results. A novel (...) approach in Symbolic Time Series Analysis for signal phase space partitioning and symbol sequence generating is introduced in this study. Symbolic sequences have been produced by means of spherical partitioning of phase space; then, they have been compared and classified based on the maximum value of a similarity index. Obtaining the automatic independent emotion recognition EEG-based system has always been discussed because of the subject-dependent content of emotion. Here we introduce a subject-independent protocol to solve the generalization problem. To prove our method’s effectiveness, we used the DEAP dataset, and we reached an accuracy of 98.44% for classifying happiness from sadness. It was 93.75% for three, 89.06% for four, and 85% for five emotional groups. According to these results, it is evident that our subject-independent method is more accurate rather than many other methods in different studies. In addition, a subject-independent method has been proposed in this study, which is not considered in most of the studies in this field. (shrink)

People can experience great distress when a group to which they belong (in-group) is perceived to have committed an immoral act. We hypothesised that people would direct hostility toward a transgressing in-group whose actions threaten their self-image and evoke collective shame. Consistent with this theorising, three studies found that reminders of in-group transgression provoked several expressions of in-group-directed hostility, including in-group-directed hostile emotion (Studies 1 and 2), in-group-directed derogation (Study 2), and in-group-directed (...) punishment (Study 3). Across studies, collective shame—but not the related group-based emotion collective guilt—mediated the relationship between in-group transgression and in-group-directed hostility. Implications for group-based emotion, social identity, and group behaviour are discussed. (shrink)

This article considers the question of whether corporate entities can benefit from the criminal-law defence of duress. The excuse of duress is accorded in recognition of the defendant’s extreme fear of a threatened consequence, and it is unclear whether corporate entities—as distinct from their members—can experience fear. Many proponents of corporate rationality deny that corporations can have emotional states. I argue that corporations can experience the fear that is necessary to ground a claim of duress, but that the law should (...) only allow fear to excuse coerced corporate action in a narrow set of circumstances. (shrink)

Reinforcement learning relies on the reward prediction error (RPE) signals conveyed by the midbrain dopamine system. Previous studies showed that dopamine plays an important role in both positive and negative reinforcement. However, whether various reinforcement processes will induce distinct learning signals is still unclear. In a probabilistic learning task, we examined RPE signals in different reinforcement types using an electrophysiology index, namely, the feedback-related negativity (FRN). Ninety-four participants were randomly assigned into four groups: base (no money incentive), positive reinforcement (presentation (...) of money rewards), negative reinforcement (removal of money losses), and combined reinforcement (money rewards and removal of money losses) groups. In addition, in order to evaluate the engagement of emotional activity in the different reinforcement processes, Positive and Negative Affect Schedule-Expanded Form (PANAS-X) scales were applied before and after the experiment to detect the emotional changes. The results showed that there was no difference between groups in the dopamine-related learning bias. However, compared to the other three groups, negative reinforcement elicited smaller FRN (the difference-wave measure) during the learning, stronger positive affect and joviality, and less fatigue after the learning, in which the difference between the negative and positive reinforcement groups was smaller. The results indicated that pure avoidance motivation may induce distinct emotional fluctuations, which influence the feedback processing. (shrink)

Self-esteem and emotional reactivity may be important personality determinants of human functioning in situations of social exposure. In this study, we compared the levels of these personality variables in a group of professional theater actors and a group of professional illusionists with a control group of participants who were neither actors nor illusionists and had no artistic education. We also examined the correlations between emotional reactivity and self-esteem in the three groups. For emotional reactivity, we found (1) (...) very strong evidence that the level is less for magicians than for controls, (2) substantial evidence that the level is less for magicians than for actors, (3) anecdotal evidence that the level is less for actors than for controls, and (4) decisive evidence that the average score is less for males than for females. For self-esteem, we found (1) anecdotal evidence that the level is higher for magicians than for controls, (2) substantial evidence that there is no difference between actors and magicians, (3) anecdotal evidence against a difference between actors and controls, and (4) anecdotal evidence against a difference between males and females. Based on the entire sample we found a moderate correlation between self-esteem and emotional reactivity (r = -.30, p < 0.001). Our results are compatible with the notion that emotional reactivity – as part of the temperament concept – is a factor influencing the choice of an artistic profession. (shrink)

Improving emotion regulation is central to borderline personality disorder (BPD) treatment, but little research indicates which emotion regulation strategies are optimally effective and when. Basic emotion science suggests that engagement emotion regulation strategies that process emotional content become less effective as emotional intensity increases, whereas disengagement strategies that disengage from it do not. This study examined whether emotional reactivity to emotional stimuli predicts the effectiveness of engagement and disengagement emotion regulation across self-report, general physiologic (heart rate), sympathetic (skin conductance responses), (...) and parasympathetic (respiratory sinus arrythmia) emotion in BPD, healthy, and clinical control (i.e. generalized anxiety disorder; GAD) groups. 120 participants (40 per group) were exposed to emotion inductions and then instructed to implement engagement (mindful awareness) and disengagement (distraction) strategies while self-report and physiological emotion measurements were taken. In the BPD and GAD groups, higher heart rate or respiratory sinus arrythmia reactivity, respectively, predicted improved mindful awareness effectiveness. Higher skin conductance reactivity predicted worsened distraction effectiveness in BPD. Higher reactivity may potentiate engagement emotion regulation, and exacerbate disengagement from emotional content, in BPD. Future research should examine other domains of emotion regulation that may be influenced by emotional intensity, and other forms of emotional intensity that may influence them. (shrink)

Emotion theory is beset by category disputes. Examining the nature and function of scientific classification can make some of these more tractable. The aim of classification is to group particulars into <<natural>> classes - classes whose members share a rich cluster of properties in addition to those used to place them in the class. Classification is inextricably linked to theories of the causal processes that explain why certain particulars resemble one another and so are usefully regarded as <<of the (...) same kind>>. The need to base categories on underlying causal processes explains why mere careful definition (including operational definition) need not produce categories that are productive objects of scientific study. Because different causal processes produce different patterns of similarity there is unlikely to be a single classification that is optimal for addressing all scientific questions. Cultural categories should not be contrasted to natural categories, but should be treated as natural classes generated by underlying social processes. Our capacity to introduce epistemically optimal categories is often restricted because categories play a role in social and political, as well as epistemic, projects. This account of classification has many implications for emotion theory. (shrink)

The last 20 years have seen the development of a new form of therapy, compassion focused therapy. Although CFT has a growing evidence base, there have been few studies of CFT outside of an Anglo-European cultural context. In this paper, we ask: Might a CFT-based approach be of value for Indigenous Australians? If so, what kind of cultural adaptations might be needed? We report the findings from a pilot study of an arts-based compassion skills training group, in (...) which usual CFT group processes were significantly adapted to meet the needs of Indigenous Australians. At face value, CFT appeared to be a promising approach to enhancing the social and emotional wellbeing of Australia’s Indigenous peoples. However, despite initial consultations with Indigenous health professionals, the first attempts to offer a more conventional group-based CFT to Indigenous clients were largely unsuccessful. Following a review and advice from two Indigenous clients, we combined elements of CFT with visual arts to develop a new approach, “arts-based compassion skills training”. This paper reports an evaluation of this pilot ABCST group. The group had 6 × 4 h sessions of ABCST, facilitated by two psychologists and two artists. There were 10 participants, who attended between 2 and 6 sessions: five were clients, five were health professionals. Between 1 and 3 months later, six of the participants were interviewed. Qualitative analysis of interview data identified that two key processes—creating a positive group atmosphere and channeling compassion skills training through the medium of visual arts—led to four positive outcomes for participants: planting the seeds of new understandings, embodying the skills of compassion, strengthening relationships with others, and evolving a more self-compassionate relationship. We suggest that the preliminary results are sufficiently encouraging to warrant further development of ABCST in Indigenous communities. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that social networking sites (SNSs) are emotion technologies that promote a highly charged emotional environment where intrinsic emotion regulation is significantly weakened, and people's emotions are more strongly modulated by other people and by the technology itself. I show that these features of social media promote a simplistic emotional outlook which is an obstacle to the development and maintenance of virtue. In addition, I focus on the mechanisms that promote group-based anger and (...) thus give rise to affective polarisation. In the final section, after a discussion of the positive value of some forms of anger, I argue that SNSs should not be designed to prohibit or suppress anger, but that its encouragement should also be avoided. I conclude with a suggestion about how this might be achieved. (shrink)

Emotion-Focused Training for Emotion Coaching is based on Emotion-focused Therapy findings and was developed to help participants deepen their emotional skills. The goal was to examine the efficacy of a 12-week EFT-EC group program the level of emotion intelligence, self-compassion and self-criticism in a student population. A quasi-experiment with no control group was conducted with pre- and post-measurements using The Self-compassion scale, the Forms of Self-Criticising/attacking & Self-Reassuring Scale, and the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire – short form. (...) The EFT-EC participants were128 students. The EFT-EC intervention had a significant effect on self-criticism and self-control latent scores as reported at post-measurement. The structural equation model with latent variables was not an adequate fit for the rest of the subscales. These results are promising and suggest that interventions intended to enhance emotion skills can also reduce self-criticism even when not directly addressing it. (shrink)

Why is it that we respond emotionally to plays, movies, and novels and feel moved by characters and situations that we know do not exist? This question, which constitutes the kernel of the debate on »the paradox of fiction«, speaks to the perennial themes of philosophy, and remains of interest to this day. But does this question entail a paradox? A significant group of analytic philosophers have indeed thought so. Since the publication of Colin Radford's celebrated paper »How Can (...) We Be Moved by the Fate of Anna Karenina?« (1975), the number of proposals to solve, explain, reformulate, dismiss or even revitalize this apparent paradox has continued to proliferate. In line with recent developments in the philosophy of emotion, in this paper I will argue against the sustainability of the paradox, claiming that the only reasonable way to continue our discussions about it consists in using it as a heuristic tool to shed light on problems regarding our involvement with fiction. Against this background, I will then focus on one of the problems related to how our emotional responses to fiction contribute to our appreciation of it. The paper is divided into three main sections. The first section shows the parallel evolution of the paradox of fiction and the analytic philosophy of emotion. Here I claim that, although the paradox is epistemically flawed, since one of its premises is rooted in a limited view on the emotions typical of early cognitiv-ism, the discussions it provokes are still epistemically useful. As Robert Stecker (2011, 295), among others, has pointed out, the paradox was formulated during the heyday of cognitive theories of the emotions in which emotion necessarily requires belief. Today, however, only few authors would endorse this premise. If emotion does not always require belief (as the majority of authors in the contemporary debate admit), let alone belief about the existence of the object towards which it is directed, then there is no reason to speak of a paradox. From this first conclusion, however, it does not follow that the paradox is completely without use from the epistemic point of view. A glimpse at the topics touched on during the discussions about how to solve, reformulate, or negate the paradox reveals their value in shedding light on the interrelation between emotion and fiction. The second section elaborates a phenomenologically inspired cognitive account of the emotions by focusing on their cognitive bases, their influence on Emotion in the Appreciation of Fiction 205 cognitions, and their cognitive function. In this model, emotions are responsible for indicating values, for showing what matters to us, and for being appropriate to their objects. My claim is that this view applies not only to reality, but also to our involvement with fiction. In the final section I draw on this account to focus on one kind of appreciation of fiction which necessarily requires our emotional involvement. Following an idea put forward by Susan Feagin (1996, 1), I employ the concept of »appre-ciation« to refer to a set of abilities exercised with the aim of extracting value from the work. There is a long tradition in aesthetics that condemns any focus on the emotions in the appreciation of art and fiction, and defends the necessity of aesthetic appreciation without emotional influence. To refer to this negative attitude towards the emotions, I will borrow an expression coined by Susan Feagin (2013, 636), who refers to »the intellectualized view of appreciation«. Against this widespread view, I will argue that some aspects of the fiction can only be appreciated with the help of our emotions. The cognitive approach developed in the previous section can explain how the emotions might in fact play a significant role in the appreciation of art and fiction. Attention will be paid to three activities involved in appreciation, for all of which emotion is crucial: processing relevant information about the fictional world, understanding aspects of it, and becoming acquainted with the values it presents. My aim here is to argue that there are particular aspects of the fictional world that can only be appreciated if recipients have the appropriate emotions. (shrink)

Rami Gabriel and Stephen Asma’s book The Emotional Mind: The Affective Roots of Culture and Cognition sketches an ambitious research agenda that centers the explanation and understanding of human experience in our embodied, emotional makeup. It argues for a new evolutionary paradigm that naturalizes the understanding of mind, knowledge, and culture, and emphasizes the affective over the cognitive. I argue that they mischaracterize the role that rationality and philosophical theories of rationality play in understanding and shaping our experience. Furthermore, I (...) argue that the book is insufficiently critical about the emotional origins of the theories it explores, which leads to its uncritical acceptance of androcentric ideas and it all but ignores the great and growing problems of group-based inequality whose roots are in the overriding effect of affect. (shrink)

Mixed emotions remain a fascinating, yet still understudied phenomenon. All of the previous research has focused solely on ambivalence, studying only the mix of positivity and negativity in emotions (the dimensions of valence). We sum up the already existing knowledge about the dimensional approach to ambivalence and its consequences. Based directly on this knowledge, we introduce a new theoretical model describing ambiguity in four additional dimensions (apart from valence), grouped into two bivariate spaces: origin (dimensions of automaticity (...) and reflectiveness) and activation (arousal and subjective significance). Both of these spaces have never been studied before in the context of ambiguity and mixed feelings. Future implications of the new model are discussed, including any potential impact on the methodology of research and the possible advantages in understanding and describing emotional experiences. (shrink)

Early adversity and trauma can have profound effects on children’s affective development and mental health outcomes. Interventions that improve mental health and socioemotional development are essential to mitigate these effects. We conducted a pilot study examining whether a reading-based program improves emotion recognition and mental health through socialization in Syrian refugee and Jordanian non-refugee children aged 7–12 years old living in Jordan. To measure emotion recognition, children classified the expression in faces morphed between two emotions, while mental health (...) was assessed using survey measures of optimism, depression, anxiety, distress, and insecurity. Prior to the intervention, both groups of children were significantly biased to interpret ambiguous facial expressions as sad, while there was no clear bias on the fear–anger spectrum. Following the intervention, we found changes in Syrian refugee children’s bias in emotion recognition away from sad facial expressions, although this returned to pre-intervention levels 2 months after the end of the program. This shift in the bias away from sad facial expressions was not associated with changes in self-reported mental health symptoms. These results suggest a potential positive role of the reading intervention on affective development, but further research is required to determine the longer-term impacts of the program. (shrink)

Conventional wisdom has it that street protests are typically driven by rage due to grievances perceived to inflict on a group. This emotive atmosphere can shape protest methods to be vandalistic to the point where armed attacks against targeted opponents are justified. This paper suggests that rage-influenced struggle can be counterproductive as it obstructs a movement from building a coalition board enough to challenge the ruling elites it opposes. This paper argues that carnivalization of protests can prevent this setback (...) in two directions. First, it potentially transforms protesters’ collective emotion from rage to cheerfulness. This effect may lessen a possibility where protesters project violent revenge on those thought to represent the ruling elites. Second, while helping protesters to address sources of their grievances, carnivalesque protests create a “friendly” image that may convince a public audience outside the movement to support its cause. In assessing a political process of carnivalesque protests, this paper bases its analysis on an account of protest actions by Thailand’s Red Sunday group emerging after the 2010 crackdown. (shrink)

Conventional wisdom has it that street protests are typically driven by rage due to grievances perceived to inflict on a group. This emotive atmosphere can shape protest methods to be vandalistic to the point where armed attacks against targeted opponents are justified. This paper suggests that rage-influenced struggle can be counterproductive as it obstructs a movement from building a coalition board enough to challenge the ruling elites it opposes. This paper argues that carnivalization of protests can prevent this setback (...) in two directions. First, it potentially transforms protesters’ collective emotion from rage to cheerfulness. This effect may lessen a possibility where protesters project violent revenge on those thought to represent the ruling elites. Second, while helping protesters to address sources of their grievances, carnivalesque protests create a “friendly” image that may convince a public audience outside the movement to support its cause. In assessing a political process of carnivalesque protests, this paper bases its analysis on an account of protest actions by Thailand’s Red Sunday group emerging after the 2010 crackdown. (shrink)

Conventional wisdom has it that street protests are typically driven by rage due to grievances perceived to inflict on a group. This emotive atmosphere can shape protest methods to be vandalistic to the point where armed attacks against targeted opponents are justified. This paper suggests that rage-influenced struggle can be counterproductive as it obstructs a movement from building a coalition board enough to challenge the ruling elites it opposes. This paper argues that carnivalization of protests can prevent this setback (...) in two directions. First, it potentially transforms protesters’ collective emotion from rage to cheerfulness. This effect may lessen a possibility where protesters project violent revenge on those thought to represent the ruling elites. Second, while helping protesters to address sources of their grievances, carnivalesque protests create a “friendly” image that may convince a public audience outside the movement to support its cause. In assessing a political process of carnivalesque protests, this paper bases its analysis on an account of protest actions by Thailand’s Red Sunday group emerging after the 2010 crackdown. (shrink)

How to strengthen emergency management and improve the ability to prevent and respond to emergencies is an important part of building a harmonious socialist society. This paper proposes a domain emotion dictionary construction method for network public opinion analysis of public emergencies. Using the advantages of corpus and semantic knowledge base, this paper extracts the seed words based on the large-scale network public opinion corpus and combined with the existing emotion dictionary, trains the word vector through the word2vec model (...) in deep learning, expands the emotion words, and obtains the candidate emotion words according to the semantic similarity calculation, So as to generate a domain emotion dictionary. The accuracy rate of emotion discrimination by the emotion dictionary constructed in this paper is 0.86, the recall rate is 0.92. Through the verification of accuracy and recall rate, the construction method proposed in this paper has good accuracy and reliability. Because of the great differences in different experiences and situations of different groups, there will be great differences in views and perspectives on the same event. The key to prevent the public from blindly following the crowd should be to reach groups close to emotional distance, and targeted prevention and control of public opinion can be conducted according to different characteristics of different groups. (shrink)

The relationship between emotion comprehension and social competence from very young ages has been addressed in numerous studies in the field of developmental psychology. Emotion knowledge in childhood seems to have its roots in the conversations and explanations children hear about what emotions are and how to manage them. Given that behavioral interventions often do not achieve medium-term improvements or generalization to other contexts, this study evaluates the results of an intervention using the Thinking Emotions program. This program (...) uses Philosophy for Children as the work format and is based on the idea that reflection and dialogue among peers is one of the most effective ways to interiorize significant knowledge. The program was applied during one school year in two preschool classrooms . Comparisons of the pre- and post-treatment measures of the control and experimental groups show significant improvements in emotion comprehension and social competence in the 5-year-old children and improvements related to social competence in the 4-year-olds. (shrink)

Emotion understanding (EU) is the capacity to understand the nature, causes, and consequences of the emotional experience of the self and others. The cultural differences and similarities in the development of EU are still not well recognized, especially within Slavic culture and language. We tested 180 Polish children aged 5–11 years using the Test of Emotion Comprehension and compared their results with data from British and Italian children. We revealed a similar pattern of EU development between the three groups, showing (...) a growing number of the core EU components with age. In all samples, the three difficulty-differentiated clusters of EU components were distinguishable. Some cultural differences were observed only in a few EU components – especially, British and Italian children recognized the cognitively-based individualistic aspect of emotions to a higher degree than Polish children. These results supplement the current knowledge about EU development in children within European cultures. (shrink)

According to theoretical work on epistemic injustice, baseless discrediting of the knowledge of people with marginalized social identities is a central driver of prejudice and discrimination. Discrediting of knowledge may sometimes be subtle, but it is pernicious, inducing chronic stress and coping strategies such as emotional avoidance. In this research, we sought to deepen the understanding of epistemic injustice’s impact by examining emotional responses to being discredited and assessing if marginalized social group membership predicts these responses. We conducted a (...) novel series of three experiments (Total N = 1690) in which participants (1) shared their factual knowledge about how a game worked or their personal feelings about the game; (2) received discrediting feedback (invalidating remarks), validating feedback (affirming remarks), or insulting feedback (general negative social evaluation); and then (3) reported their affect. In all three studies, on average, affective responses to discrediting feedback were less negative than to insulting feedback, and more negative than to validating feedback. Participants who shared their knowledge reported more negative affect after discrediting feedback than participants who shared their feelings. There were consistent individual differences, including a twice-replicated finding of reduced negative affect after receiving discrediting and insulting feedback for Black men compared to White men and women and Black women. Black men’s race-based traumatic symptom scores predicted their affective responses to discrediting and insulting feedback, suggesting that experience with discrimination contributed to the emotional processing of a key aspect of epistemic injustice: remarks conveying baseless discrediting of knowledge. (shrink)

This paper addresses the role of social emotional competence in the emotional and behavioral problems and learning outcomes of preschool children based on their parents’ and teachers’ evaluations. In this study, we compared the perceptions of teachers and parents when evaluating the same child using the multi-informant assessment. First, the associations and differences between both the informant evaluations were investigated. Second, the correlation of the social emotional competence and emotional, and behavioral difficulties among preschool children was analyzed, separately addressing (...) their parents’ and teachers’ evaluations. Third, the role of the preschool children’s social emotional competence in their emotional and behavioral problems, and learning outcomes was investigated building the regression and mediation models. The sample consisted of 507 preschool children and their parents and teachers. Both informants completed the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire and Social Skills Improvement System Social-Emotional Learning Brief Scales, and teachers reported on each child’s learning outcomes. When comparing both informants’ evaluations, positive associations were found between teacher and parental evaluations of prosocial behavior and emotional, and behavioral difficulties of preschool children, as well as self-management. Parents evaluated their children higher than teachers in conduct problems, hyperactivity, prosocial behavior, and total difficulty, while teachers evaluated children higher than parents in social emotional competence. According to teachers, the social emotional competence of preschool children was negatively correlated to all difficulty scales, and positively related to the prosocial behavior scale. The demographic variables, as well as parental socioeconomic status and children’s belonging to a vulnerable group were not found to be significantly associated with the preschool children’s learning outcomes. However, social emotional competence remains a significant variable in teacher-rated learning outcomes of preschool children even if sociodemographic variables are controlled. Our findings indicate that a higher level of social emotional competence and lower levels of social, emotional, and behavioral difficulties are related to a higher preschoolers’ academic learning in their teachers’ evaluation. This suggests the importance of early facilitation of social emotional competence as a key factor for academic success and more positive behavioral outcomes. (shrink)

: In this chapter I argue that fanaticism is characterized by an orientation to value. I identify three distinctive features of this way of committing to one’s values. First, it is wholehearted. Second, it involves a perception that the values one has chosen are at risk of being rendered unintelligible. Third, the choice of the values to which the fanatic commits wholeheartedly is based on emotional appraisals or moral testimony rather than on reflection. I also argue that these appraisals (...) are often constituted by group-based emotions. Contra Katsafanas (2019), I show that fanaticism is not necessarily a rational failing or a moral pathology. However, fanaticism often exhibits these shortcomings because it is a product of affective polarization by means of emotional contagion. I support this claim by showing that polarizing processes tend to produce emotions that are not fitting. (shrink)