Affective Connotation Research Articles

Physiology of Risk-Taking and Risk Management in Realistic Decision-Making Scenarios.

Decisions under risk are a particular case of decisional skills taking place in complex and mostly unpredictable situations, where affective connotation of deciding is highly relevant. We aimed at investigating decisional processes under risk by outlining individual risk-taking (RT) and risk management (RM) attitudes via realistic decision-making and, in keeping with the risk-as-feeling hypothesis, at exploring implicit physiological correlates of such processes. 35 participants were presented with realistic situations where they had to make decisions by choosing between alternatives connoted by different levels of riskiness. Concurrently, autonomic physiological activation (cardiovascular and electrodermal activity) was recorded. Data analysis highlighted that: (i) participants showed higher propensity towards risk management than risk-taking; (ii) the propensity towards both risk taking and risk management was significantly determined by physiological markers of autonomic activity; and (iii) risk taking and risk management indices showed associations with different autonomic measures, respectively heart rate and skin conductance metrics.

Предрассудок как предмет междисциплинарного исследования

The subject of the study is the phenomenon of prejudice, studied in various specialized discourses and con-texts – linguistic, philosophical and psychological. In this regard, the problem under study can quite reasonably be attributed to the objects of multidisciplinary research. An attempt has been made to consider and rethink the well-known term and the problems behind it in a fairly wide field of view. An additional objective of the study is to justify the need to rethink both the very nature of prejudice and the role it actually plays. In accordance with the aim of the study, a wide range of methods was used, used in specific local areas, but requiring a certain general unifying methodological link, technique or principle. This, according to the author, is the so-called sys-temic or rational eclecticism, used in various fields of humanities. Its use allowed, within certain limits, to com-bine ideas contained in relatively localized scientific fields, as well as to turn to artistic and literary genres of creativity as an illustrative background. The main conclusion of the study was the proposition that the phenom-enon of prejudice contains not only a negative emotional and affective connotation, but can also be used as an effective tool to counter undesirable phenomena in specific cognitive, psychological, sociocultural discourses and areas of behavior. The main result that can be used in solving actual specific cognitive, ideological and behavioral problems is proposed to understand the phenomenon of prejudice, where an unprejudiced attitude should be formed towards the prejudice itself, that is, this would mean actually getting rid of prejudice in the opinion regarding the prejudice itself as a phenomenon.

When a smile is still a conflict: Affective conflicts from emotional facial expressions of ingroup or outgroup members occur irrespective of the social interaction context

Facial expressions play a crucial role in human interactions. Typically, a positive (negative) expression evokes a congruent positive (negative) reaction within the observer. This congruent behavior is inverted, however, when the same positive (negative) expression is displayed by an outgroup member. Two approaches provide an explanation for this phenomenon. The social intentions account proposes underlying social messages within the facial display, whereas the processing conflict account assumes an affective conflict triggered by incongruent combinations of emotion and the affective connotation of group membership. In three experiments, we aimed at further substantiating the processing conflict account by separating the affective conflict from potential social intentions. For this, we created a new paradigm, in which the participant was an outside observer of a social interaction scene between two faces. Participants were required to respond to the emotional target person that could represent an ingroup or outgroup member. In all three experiments, irrespective of any social intention, responses were consistently affected by the group relation between participant and emotional target, i.e., the affective (in)congruency of the target seen by participants. These results further support the processing conflict account. The implications for the two theoretical accounts are discussed.

Exploring social responsibility, social marketing and happiness using artificial intelligence, automated text analysis and correspondence analysis

PurposeThis work aims to examine the communication on Twitter of the most responsible companies in Spain to identify the topics covered on corporate social responsibility (CSR) from the perspective of happiness and social marketing. In addition, the profiles of the messages that show an association with the impact of the messages have been identified.Design/methodology/approachAn empirical analysis of the Twitter posts of Spain's ten most responsible companies has been carried out. The methodology of this work combines data mining techniques, sentiment analysis and content analysis, both from a quantitative and qualitative approach.FindingsThe results show that most brand tweets do not deal with CSR-related topics. The topics they address the most are those related to sports and the weather. From the perspective of social marketing, conversational-type tweets are the most published and have achieved the most significant reaction from the public. In addition, four messages' profiles have been identified based on the company and the emotional connotation associated with the impact, giving rise to more outstanding promotion of social causes.Originality/valueOur main contribution to this work has been to value positive communication and social marketing to promote better CSR on Twitter. In this sense, it has been verified that there is a relationship between the public's reaction, the affective connotation and the company that issues the messages.

A Novel Network Approach to Capture Cognition and Affect: COVID-19 Experiences in Canada and Germany.

We tested a novel method for studying human experience (thoughts and affect). We utilized Cognitive-Affective Maps (CAMs)–an approach to visually represent thoughts and their affective connotations as networks of concepts that individuals associate with a given event. Using an innovative software tool, we recruited a comparative sample of (n = 93) Canadians and (n = 100) Germans to draw a CAM of their experience (events, thoughts, feelings) with the Covid-19 pandemic. We treated these CAM networks as a series of directed graphs and examined the extent to which their structural properties (latent and emotional) are predictive for the perceived coronavirus threat (PCT). Across multiple models, we found consistent and significant relationships between these network variables and the PCT in both the Canadian and German sample. Our results provide unique insights into individuals' thinking and perceptions of the viral outbreak. Our results also demonstrate that a network analysis of CAMs' properties is a promising method to study the relationship between human thought and affective connotation. We suggest that CAMs can bridge several gaps between qualitative and quantitative methods. Unlike when using quantitative tools (e.g., questionnaires), participants' answers are not restricted by response items as participants are free to incorporate any thoughts and feelings on the given topic. Furthermore, as compared to traditional qualitative measures, such as structured interviews, the CAM technique may better enable researchers to objectively assess and integrate the substance of a shared experience for large samples of participants.

Características y capacidad de respuesta lingüística del habla afectiva de los educadores de párvulos al interior de la sala de clases

Increasing attention is being given to early childhood educators’ verbal abilities due to its well-recognized role in teaching and learning by means of a plurality of meanings that are transmitted through them to children. Nevertheless, moderate interest has been devoted to the study of these abilities when addressing the affective domain in early childhood educators’ interactions with children. Therefore, this study identifies qualitative nodes of characteristic uses, meanings, and phrasings produced by these professionals and associated to the affective domain, to then access the degree of expertise in such communicational interactions with preschool children. Through a mixed cross-sectional design, twenty early childhood educators provided a large number of continuous audio-recordings while working in regular educational environments, to identify sentences that, by their phrasings, recall an affective connotation. The findings suggest 8 differential nodes of affective connotations: Positive emotions v/s Negative emotions; Teaching v/s Learning processes; Expression, distinguish, sharing and/or inhibition of emotions; Emotions before, during, and after behavior; Calls for attention, warnings, reprehension and praise; Touching and the body; Increasing, decreasing and normalizing language; and, educators’ own emotions. The degree of linguistic expertise was identified by experts and a blind sequential procedure, showing early childhood educators’ affective-speech is mostly limited to noticing children’s emotional experiences. The scope of these findings is briefly discussed taking into consideration future studies as well as its contributions to early childhood educators’ formative processes

The affective twitches of task switches: Task switch cues are evaluated as negative

Task switching refers to the demanding cognitive control process that allows us to flexibly switch between different task contexts. It is a seminal observation that task switching comes with a performance cost (i.e., switch cost), but recent theories suggest that task switching could also carry an affective cost. In two experiments, we investigated the affective evaluation of task switching by having participants perform a task-switching paradigm followed by an affective priming procedure. Crucially, the transition cues of the task-switching paradigm, indicating task alternations or task repetitions, were used as primes in the affective priming procedure to assess their affective connotation. We found that task alternation primes were evaluated as more negative than task repetition primes. These findings show that task switching is affectively tagged, and suggest a potential role for emotion regulation processes in cognitive control.

Coding valence in touchscreen interactions: hand dominance and lateral movement influence valence appraisals of emotional pictures.

The Body-Specificity Hypothesis postulates that the space surrounding the dominant hand is perceived as positive due to the motor fluency of this hand, whereas the space surrounding the non-dominant hand is perceived as negative. Experimental studies based on this theoretical framework also revealed associations between affective valence and hand dominance (i.e., dominant hand-positive; non-dominant hand-negative), or lateral movements of the hands (i.e., right hand toward the right space-positive; left hand toward the left space-positive). Interestingly, these associations have not been examined with regard to how lateral actions of the hands may influence affective experiences as, for example, in valence appraisals of affective objects that have been manipulated. The study presented here has considered this question in light of the emerging interest of embodied cognition approaches to interactive technologies, particularly in affective experiences with touchscreen interfaces. Accordingly, right-handed participants evaluated the valence of positive and negative emotional pictures after interacting with them either with the dominant right or with the non-dominant left hand. Specifically, they moved the pictures either from left to right or from right to left sides of a touchscreen monitor. The results indicated that a valence matching between the hand used for the interactions, the picture's valence category, and the movement's starting side reinforced the valence appraisals of the pictures (i.e., positive/negative pictures were more positively/negatively evaluated). The findings are discussed against the background of the Theory of Event Coding, which accounts for both the affective properties of the stimuli and the affective connotation of the related action.

Affective ambiences created with lighting for older people

Current lighting technologies provide huge flexibility in creating ambiences that may be adapted to the needs of an occupant in a room. These ambiences not only satisfy visual needs, but may also improve people’s well-being. This paper describes one possible application of adaptable light ambiences, namely to counteract negative mood states that older people often experience in care centres. To this end, we wanted to create a pleasant, relaxing ambience to counteract anxiousness and a pleasant, activating ambience to counteract sadness. We asked 15 (relatively young) lighting designers to create these ambiences and averaged their input to create both ambiences in a real room. Subsequently, these ambiences were evaluated with the Atmosphere questionnaire by younger and older participants. The affective connotation of the ambiences in terms of the Atmosphere dimensions was well recognized by the younger participants but significantly less so by the older people. Hence, a photo interview with older people was used to make the ambiences more appropriate for them. A final validation experiment confirmed that the affective connotation of these new ambiences was well recognized by the older people.

Preferring alphabet–keyboard compatibility: Congruency between spatial codes shapes the affective connotation of letters

When letters are encountered, two spatial stimulus codes resulting from their positions within the alphabet and on the computer keyboard are activated mentally. If these two spatial codes match, letter processing is more efficient. The present study tested whether the processing fluency gain resulting from alphabet–keyboard compatibility also enhances affective evaluations of letters. In Experiment 1, participants preferred alphabet–keyboard compatible over incompatible letters in a forced-choice preference rating. Similarly, in Experiment 2, liking ratings for alphabet–keyboard compatible letters were higher compared to incompatible letters. Moreover, in Experiment 3, preference ratings of non-words were positively correlated with the relative number of alphabet–keyboard compatible letters within these letter strings. These findings suggest that alphabet–keyboard compatibility shapes the affective connotation of letters. Moreover, this processing fluency–valence association is activated at the level of letters as well as whole letter strings.

“Black and White” thinking: Visual contrast polarizes moral judgment

Recent research has emphasized the role of intuitive processes in morality by documenting the link between affect and moral judgment. The present research tested whether incidental visual cues without any affective connotation can similarly shape moral judgment by priming a certain mindset. In two experiments we showed that exposure to an incidental black and white visual contrast leads people to think in a “black and white” manner, as indicated by more extreme moral judgments. Participants who were primed with a black and white checkered background while considering a moral dilemma (Experiment 1) or a series of social issues (Experiment 2) gave ratings that were significantly further from the response scale's mid-point, relative to participants in control conditions without such priming. These findings suggest that in addition to affective cues and gut feelings, non-affective cues relating to processing style can influence moral judgments.

When does hearing laughter draw attention to happy faces? Task relevance determines the influence of a crossmodal affective context on emotional attention

Prior evidence has shown that a person's affective context influences attention to emotional stimuli. The present study investigated whether a crossmodal affective context that is induced by remembering an emotional sound modulates attention to visual emotional stimuli. One group of participants had to remember a positive, negative, or neutral sound during each trial of a dot probe paradigm. A second group of participants also had to encode the valence of the sound. The results revealed that attention was preferentially deployed to stimuli that were emotionally congruent to the affective context. However, this effect was only evident when participants had to encode the valence of the affective context. These findings suggest that a crossmodal affective context modulates the deployment of attention to emotional stimuli provided that the affective connotation of the context is task-relevant.

Does ignoring lead to worse evaluations? A new explanation of the stimulus devaluation effect

Affective evaluation of stimuli just seen in visual search tasks has been shown to depend on task-relevant stimulus configuration (Raymond, Fenske, & Tavassoli, 2003): Whereas targets and novel stimuli were evaluated similarly, distractors were devaluated. These results were explained by an inhibition-based account of the influence of selective attention on emotion. In the present experiments, we demonstrated that stimulus devaluation might not be a consequence of attentional inhibition. By simply instructing participants to react to an accepted or rejected stimulus in the visual search task of Experiment 1, we found distractor devaluation in the first case and target devaluation in the second case. We conclude that devaluation of stimuli is mediated by the affective connotation implied by response labels and instructions. This was confirmed in Experiment 2: To-be-ignored stimuli were not devaluated when participants knew that those stimuli would become task-relevant during the experiment.

Affect in the abstract: Abstract mindsets promote sensitivity to affect

Affective information is a key element of abstract, gist-based representations. Given this central role of affect in abstract representations, the authors hypothesized that those in an abstract mindset may show more sensitivity to affective information when attending to, interpreting, or responding to external stimuli. Across 5 studies, the authors present consistent evidence that those who tend to view the world in more abstract versus concrete terms, or who have been experimentally induced into an abstract (versus concrete) mindset, had their attention automatically captured by highly-affective stimuli (Studies 1a, 1b, and 1c), automatically extracted the affective connotation of stimuli presented outside of awareness (Study 2), and behaved more consistently with their affective construal of stimuli (Study 3). These findings suggest that the numerous dispositional and situational factors that influence the level at which one construes the world may also have, heretofore overlooked, consequences for basic affective processing. The present research also emphasizes the interdependence of so-called affective and cognitive processes, bridging major literatures on construal and affect that have developed largely independently.

The structure of affective action representations: temporal binding of affective response codes

Two experiments examined the hypothesis that preparing an action with a specific affective connotation involves the binding of this action to an affective code reflecting this connotation. This integration into an action plan should lead to a temporary occupation of the affective code, which should impair the concurrent representation of affectively congruent events, such as the planning of another action with the same valence. This hypothesis was tested with a dual-task setup that required a speeded choice between approach- and avoidance-type lever movements after having planned and before having executed an evaluative button press. In line with the code-occupation hypothesis, slower lever movements were observed when the lever movement was affectively compatible with the prepared evaluative button press than when the two actions were affectively incompatible. Lever movements related to approach and avoidance and evaluative button presses thus seem to share a code that represents affective meaning. A model of affective action control that is based on the theory of event coding is discussed.

Why Do People Stop Treating Contaminated Drinking Water With Solar Water Disinfection (SODIS)?

Solar Water Disinfection (SODIS) is a simple method designed to treat microbiologically contaminated drinking water at household level. This article characterizes relapse behavior in comparison with continued SODIS use after a 7-month nonpromotion period. In addition, different subtypes among relapsers and continuers were assumed to diverge mainly in their intention to use SODIS and their degree of cognition intensity. Data were taken from a longitudinal SODIS promotion study. Cluster analyses were applied to find subtypes among 166 relapsers and 123 continuers. Overall relapsers have lower values for all psychological variables compared to overall continuers. A low-value and a high-value relapser subtype as well as a low-value and a high-value continuer subtype were found. Low-value relapsers differ from high-value relapsers in one central belief (taste), in affective connotation, social norms, and dissonance. Interestingly, high-value relapsers have values almost as high as low-value continuers, differing only in their degree of habit. Only high-value continuers seem to be stable and did not show a decrease in critical habit variables over time. The different subtypes are placed along the behavior change process, and possible interventions for each type are highlighted.

Decreasing complexity of affective space in older adults lower on cognitive control: Affective effects in a nonaffective task and with nonaffective stimuli.

Many theoretical accounts predict that as people age, they rely increasingly on affect. At least one account (Dynamic Integration Theory) makes the additional prediction that an accompanying effect of aging is a narrowing of affective space. These predictions were tested in the context of the relatively automatic low-level cognitive process of lexical access (auditory word recognition). Experiment 1 used emotion words and Experiment 2 used nonemotion words. Both experiments provided support for both predictions. Compared to younger adults (ns = 36 and 56), older adults (ns = 36 and 54) showed larger but less complex effects of dimensions of affective connotation. In addition, older adults with more cognitive resources showed a data pattern like that of younger adults, while those with fewer resources did not. Affective effects emerge even in nonaffective contexts. The tight link between affect and cognition is discussed.

Internet mediated adolescent relationships

This paper aims to contribute towards the comprehension of the adhesion of adolescent to digital technologies and their usage in the search for or consolidation of relationships with their peers. The objective was to analyze the role of blogs in the maintenance and establishment of relationships among adolescents from the State of Espírito Santo, Brazil. Three boys’ blogs and three girls’ blogs were selected, and five pages of each blog were selected, in a total of 30 pages. Categories were elaborated from reading the posts left at the 30 pages and subsequently used to classify and quantify the posts. Messages and comments left at the blogs had a positive affective connotation, in search for approximation and contact with the blog owner. Messages were also noted for gender differences. It was concluded that some determined patterns of offline interaction guided the establishment of online relationships.

Revisiting the affective Simon effect

We replicated the affective Simon effect found by De Houwer and Eelen (1998) in a situation in which participants had to respond by saying positive or negative depending on the grammatical category of the stimulus words while ignoring their affective connotation. Our results show that the affective Simon effect can be modulated by varying the proportion of experimental stimuli bearing a strongly polarised affective connotation. We propose that affective Simon effect depends at least in part on participants’ awareness of the correspondence between the affective connotation of the words and the responses. We also submit that this effect might not be specific to affective processing in that it is a token of a vast category of congruity effects that can be based on any kind of meaning of the stimuli, whether semantic or affective.

Emotionally charged earcons reveal affective congruency effects

In the present study, the affective impact of earcons on stimulus classification is investigated. We show, using a picture–categorization task, that the affective connotation of earcons in major and minor mode (representing positive and negative valence, respectively) can be congruent or incongruent with response valence. Twenty participants classified pictures of animals and instruments in 256 trials, using positive and negative Yes or No responses. Together with the pictures, either a chord in major mode or minor mode was played. The affective valence of the chords either did or did not match the valence of responses. Response–time latencies show congruency effects of the matching and non–matching sound and response valences, indicating that it is important to carefully investigate human–computer interfaces for potential affective–congruency effects, as these can either facilitate or inhibit user performance.