Affective Experience Research Articles

The interplay between music engagement and affect: A random-intercept cross-lagged panel analysis.

Engagement with music has the capacity to influence and be influenced by affective experiences. Although cross-sectional and experimental research provides evidence that music engagement is related to higher positive and lower negative affect, few studies have investigated the bidirectional nature of this relationship over time. The present longitudinal study, therefore, examined the interplay between passive and active music engagement and affect using random-intercept cross-lagged panel analysis. Over 8 weeks in 2022, 428 participants regularly engaging with music completed weekly online surveys on quantitative music engagement (i.e., time spent with music listening/music making), qualitative music engagement (i.e., use of music listening/music making for mood regulation) as well as positive and negative affect. Results revealed cross-lagged associations between music engagement and negative affect, but not positive affect: regarding quantitative music engagement, more time spent with music listening (but not music making) was related to less negative affect than usual at the following measurement. Results on qualitative music engagement showed that weeks with more negative affect than usual were followed by an increased use of music listening and music making for mood regulation. Our findings emphasize the bidirectional nature of the relationship between music engagement and affect corroborating the significant role of music engagement in affect regulation. Future research should replicate these findings with a more diverse sample regarding age, sex, ethnicity, education, and socioeconomic status. Additionally, further studies could examine individual and contextual factors and adequate measurement time points for further investigation of bidirectional affective processes involved in music engagement. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Hauntology: The Emotional Costs of Social Policy for Mothers Experiencing Homelessness

ABSTRACT The article is concerned with the emotional effects of homelessness on women who are mothers. It develops a multi-disciplinary conceptualization of “haunting” to bring understanding to the ongoing grief and trauma associated with losing a home and children. It explores how women’s embodied and affective experiences are not just responses to deeply distressing events, but inextricably intertwined with the unfurling of housing and child protection policies, sometimes long after a policy decision (eviction, child removal). Drawing on biographical research with 26 women, the article contributes new insights into both our limited understanding of women’s homelessness but also scholarly work that recognizes the diffuse power of social policy and its harms. The article advances a novel understanding of women’s lived experience of homelessness by conceptualizing and empirically investigating the emotional effects of policy decisions as hauntings that permeate past, present and anticipated futures.

Affective Encounters with More-than-humans: Digital Platforms in a Time of Environmental Loss

Abstract Over the past twenty years, participatory digital platforms have emerged where observations of more-than-humans are shared. Such citizen science initiatives are considered important for science and policy. This research article draws on affect theory to bring to the fore the affective side of encounters between humans and more-than-humans that comes with this practice. Based on ethnographic fieldwork with Dutch observers, we analyse how observers experience the mediation of the digital observation platform Waarneming.nl, specifically in the context of environmental loss. Based on observations of and conversations with observers, we found that bodily and sensory attentiveness of observers is important in establishing encounters with more-than-humans whilst mediated by Waarneming.nl. We propose that sharing an observation on such platforms is an affective act in itself. Observers show deep care about the more-than-humans they encounter, expressing love as well as worry over their decline. The (not) sharing of these encounters is a way for them to care for more-than-humans. We end this analysis by calling for further reflection on the contrast between the data points on the platform and the affective experiences in the field.

Is it possible to run after positive affective experiences instead of health benefits without tackling social inequalities?

Is it possible to run after positive affective experiences instead of health benefits without tackling social inequalities?

IJCM_194A: Diabetes distress and associated factors among adult patients residing in an urban resettlement colony in Delhi

Background: Diabetes distress “refers to the negative emotional or affective experiences resulting from the challenge of living with the demands of diabetes.” The American Diabetes Association recommends routinely screening for distress. Presently, this does not take place and distress remains undiagnosed. Objectives: This study aimed to determine the prevalence of diabetes distress, its associated factors and the relationship between glycemic control and distress. Methodology: This community-based, cross-sectional study was conducted in a resettlement colony in Delhi. The participants were selected using simple random sampling and included adults diagnosed with DM. The sample size calculated was 433 (prevalence: 42%, absolute precision: 5%, non-response rate: 10%). The questionnaire included Diabetes Distress Scale 17 and Diabetes Self-Management Questionnaire. Fasting blood sugar (FBS) was tested for all the participants. Logistic regression was used to determine the factors associated with distress as well as the association between glycemic control status and the presence of distress. Results: 412 adults were included in the study, of which 35.4% had clinically significant distress. The factors found to be associated with diabetes distress on multivariable logistic regression were: female sex, belonging to the lower socio-economic status, having self-reported comorbidities, being diagnosed with diabetes 10 or more years ago, being on treatment from a private or government hospital as compared to not being on treatment and having an unmet need for social support. There was a positive association between physician contact and distress. Those with poor glycemic control had higher odds of distress, regimen related distress and emotional burden, as compared to those who had adequate glycemic control. Conclusion: In this study, distress was prevalent among 35.4% of adults with diabetes. The factors determined to be associated with distress may provide a targeted approach to address distress, which ought to be screened for in routine clinical settings and be addressed, to help improve disease control.

Analyzing the Influence of Visitor Types on Location Choices and Revisit Intentions in Urban Heritage Destinations

Understanding visitors’ spatial choice behavior is important in developing effective policies to counteract overcrowdedness in attractive urban heritage areas. This research presents a comprehensive analysis of visitor location choice behavior, aiming to address two primary objectives. First, this paper investigates the relationship between visitor segments and the choice of particular Points of Interest (POIs). Second, this paper explores the impacts of visitors’ experiences and visitor segments on their revisit intentions. We used a sample of 320 visitors who had been to Amsterdam within the last five years to collect data about their location choice behavior and intention to revisit after a recent visit to the city. Combining the revealed choices and intentions of pre-defined visitor segments obtained from a stated choice experiment, association rules are extracted to reveal differences in the patterns of behaviors related to the segment. The findings identify associations between various POIs, including museums such as the Rijksmuseum and Madame Tussauds, and visitor classes, which include “cultural attraction seekers”, “selective sightseers”, and “city-life lovers”. Furthermore, binary logistic regression analysis reveals that affective experiences, such as feelings of comfort, happiness, and annoyance, have a significant influence on visitors’ intentions to revisit the destination in the future. This research found that “cultural attraction seekers” and “selective sightseers” display a higher likelihood of considering a return visit to the city.

Social excluder's face reduces gaze-triggered attention orienting.

Social ostracism, a negative affective experience in interpersonal interactions, is thought to modulate the gaze-cueing effect (GCE). However, it is unclear whether the impact of social exclusion on the GCE is related to the identity of the cueing face. Therefore, the present study employed a two-phase paradigm to address this issue. In the first phase, two groups of participants were instructed to complete a Cyberball game with two virtual avatars to establish a binding relationship between a specific face's identity and the emotions of social exclusion or inclusion. In the second phase, these two virtual avatars (exclusion faces/inclusion faces) and two new faces (control faces) were used as cueing faces in the gaze-cueing task. The results found that, for the exclusion group, the magnitudes of the GCEs for the exclusion and exclusion-control faces were similar in the 200 ms stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) condition, while the exclusion face's GCE was significantly smaller than that of the exclusion-control face in the 700 ms SOA condition. In contrast, for the inclusion group, the GCEs for inclusion and inclusion-control faces in both the 200 ms SOA and 700 ms SOA conditions did not significantly differ. This study reveals that the effect of social exclusion on the GCE is related to the identity of the cueing face, with individuals more reluctant to follow the gaze direction of excluder and shift their attention and provides experimental evidence that the perception of higher social relations can exert a top-down impact on the processing of social spatial cues.

Objectivity vs affect: how competing forms of legitimacy can polarize public debate in data-driven public consultation

ABSTRACT How do data and objectivity become politicized? How do processes intended to include citizen voices instead push them into social media that intensify negative expression? This paper examines the possibility and limits of ‘agonistic data practices’ (Crooks & Currie, 2021) examining how data-driven consultation practices create competing forms of legitimacy for quantifiable knowledge and affective lived experience. Drawing on a two-year study of a private Facebook group self-presenting as a supportive space for working-class people critical of the development of ‘low-traffic neighbourhoods’ (LTNs), the paper reveals how the dynamics of ‘affective polarization’ associated the use of data with elite and exclusionary politics. Participants addressed this by framing their online contributions as ‘vernacular data’ and also by associating numerical data with exclusion and inequality. Over time the strong statements of feeling began to support content of a conspiratorial nature, reflected at the social level of discourse in the broader media environment where stories of strong feeling gain legitimacy in right-wing sources. The paper concludes that ideologies of dataism and practices of datafication may create conditions for political extremism to develop when the potential conditions of ‘agonistic data practices’ are not met, and that consultation processes must avoid overly valorizing data and calculable knowledge if they wish to retain democratic accountability.

Wilding cities for biodiversity and people: a transdisciplinary framework.

Accelerating urbanisation and associated lifestyle changes result in loss of biodiversity and diminished wellbeing of people through fewer direct interactions and experiences with nature. In this review, we propose the notion of urban wilding (the promotion of autonomous ecological processes that are independent of historical land-use conditions, with minimal direct human maintenance and planting interventions) and investigate its propensity to improve biodiversity and people-nature connections in cities. Through a large interdisciplinary synthesis, we explore the ecological mechanisms through which urban wilding can promote biodiversity in cities, investigate the attitudes and relations of city dwellers towards urban wild spaces, and discuss the integration of urban wilding into the fabric of cities and its governance. We show that favouring assembly spontaneity by reducing planting interventions, and functional spontaneity by limiting maintenance practices, can promote plant diversity and provide ecological resources for numerous organisms at habitat and city scales. These processes could reverse biotic homogenisation, but further studies are needed to understand the effects of wilding on invasive species and their consequences. From a socio-ecological perspective, the attitudes of city dwellers towards spontaneous vegetation are modulated by successional stages, with grassland and woodland stages preferred, but dense shrubby vegetation stages disliked. Wild spaces can diversify physical interactions with nature, and enrich multi-sensory, affective and cognitive experiences of nature in cities. However, some aspects of wild spaces can cause anxiety, feeling unsafe, and the perception of abandonment. These negative attitudes could be mitigated by subtle design and maintenance interventions. While nature has long been thought of as ornamental and instrumental in cities, urban wilding could help to develop relational and intrinsic values of nature in the fabric of cities. Wildness and its singular aesthetics should be combined with cultural norms, resident uses and urban functions to plan and design urban spatial configurations promoting human-non-human cohabitation. For urban wilding to be socially just and adapted to the needs of residents, its implementation should be backed by inclusive governance opening up discussion forums to residents and urban workers. Scientists can support these changes by collaborating with urban actors to design and experiment with new wild spaces promoting biodiversity and wellbeing of people in cities.

Pacing mobility trajectories: Temporality and agency in ‘home’ visits by migrant youth

AbstractResearch on transnational youth mobilities has shown the importance of visits to the ‘home’ country for young people's identities, sense of belonging and access to resources. Yet what transpires on these visits and how do young people agentically shape their experiences? This paper brings into dialogue scholarship on ‘homeland’ mobilities, trajectories and temporalities to shed light on how youth experience their attachments to a ‘homeland’ and reveal the mechanisms through which young people's lives are affected by ‘home’ visits. We use the temporal concept of pacing, recently developed in mobility studies, to analyze how young people experience ‘home’ visits at different moments in their lives. Drawing on 18 months of multi‐sited ethnographic fieldwork using mobile methods with Ghanaian‐background youth who live in Belgium, we show that visits to Ghana are experienced differently by youth throughout their life time in relation to how much control they exert over the pacing of their visits. Through their mobility and their practices before, during and after ‘home’ visits, young people craft affective experiences with people and places in Ghana and experience different paces of life across space and time. This ultimately shapes how young people imagine a future ‘good life’ that involves a transnational lifestyle and that has the ‘right pace’ by incorporating aspects of life from both Belgium and Ghana. A focus on pacing and trajectories contributes to acknowledging both temporal and spatial dimensions of transnational youth mobility.

Other Ways of Knowing the Danish Music Industry: From Disorientation to Feminist Collective Capacity

ABSTRACT In this article, we explore how women and gender-minoritized music professionals experience the gendered infrastructure of the Danish music industry. Based on ethnographic material, we discuss how the Music Movement of 2019, a closed online community, serves as a space where bodily and affective experiences of work-related sexism are shared and transformed into a feminist capacity in terms of a collective body of ideas and initiatives that privilege other ways of knowing popular music and the music industry. We argue that the Music Movement is in itself an important infrastructure that facilitates social change within the Danish music industry.

School trips to historical sites: students’ cognitive, affective and physical experiences from visits to Auschwitz

History can be experienced in many ways, including visits to historical sites. Indeed, it is becoming increasingly common for Swedish schools to organise trips for their students to historical sites; in this case, to concentration camps. This article analyses how cognitive, affective and physical experiences frame students’ interpretations of historical sites, and discusses how visits to historical sites might contribute to history education. The research questions we examine are as follows: What forms of experience did the students express, and how did these forms relate to each other? What implications might these expressed experiences pose for how teachers organise their teaching, including trips to Holocaust memorial sites? This article analyses seminars that comprised part of the examinable work in a course that involved a study trip to Auschwitz concentration camp. Empirical data were analysed using a model in which cognitive, affective and physical experiences were identified and described. The results demonstrate how cognitive, affective and physical responses interact with students’ experiences. Students described how the school trip contributed to their understanding of what is and is not possible to know, and to their will to influence society. Thus, the results indicate that physical encounters with historical sites can create new opportunities for students’ learning of history and the meaning making that comes from it.

The Other Side of Abortion: The Doctor-Writer in Martin Winckler’s La Vacation (1989)

ABSTRACT In 1989, physician and author Martin Winckler published his first novel, La vacation, in which he introduced the fictional medical practitioner Bruno Sachs. In the novel, the author focuses on Bruno’s moves and gestures, his thoughts and feelings as he performs abortions in a French public clinic. In this article I argue that the novel is a complex, metanarrative account of a medical gesture that engenders and reveals conflicting (and conflictual) situations, emotions and experiences. I suggest that through an elaborate narrative form La Vacation foregrounds the ‘sticky’ feelings surrounding abortion—that abortionist doctors are deeply touched and taxed by the procedure, as convinced as they might be of its importance and rightfulness. Making reference to further works by Winckler, such as La maladie de Sachs and Les trois médécins, this article analyses how the novel’s form is crucial to address the complexity of the affective experience. I will show how Winckler’s novel problematises the subjects and objects of abortion and I will argue that, in his first literary work, he is inscribing himself into a lineage of doctor-writers who are also activist writers who use their pens as swords.

Reciprocal effects between negative affect and emotion regulation in daily life

The extended process model of emotion regulation provides a framework for understanding how emotional experiences and emotion regulation (ER) mutually influence each other over time. To investigate this reciprocal relationship, 202 adults completed a ten-day experience-sampling survey capturing levels of negative affect (NA) experience and use of ten ER strategies in daily life. Residual dynamic structural equation models (DSEMs) were used to examine within-person cross-lagged and autoregressive effects of NA and ER (strategy use and between-strategy variability). Results showed that NA predicted lower between-strategy variability, lower subsequent use of acceptance and problem-solving, but higher subsequent use of rumination and worry. Moreover, reappraisal and between-strategy variability predicted lower subsequent NA levels, while expressive suppression and worry predicted higher subsequent NA levels. Stable autoregressive effects were found for NA and for maladaptive ER strategies (e.g., rumination and worry). Exploratory correlation analyses revealed positive associations between NA inertia and maladaptive ER strategies. Together, these findings provide evidence of a dynamic interplay between NA and ER. This work deepens how we understand the challenges of applying ER strategies in daily life. Future clinical and translational research should consider these dynamic perspectives on ER and affect.

Dissecting abstract, modality-specific and experience-dependent coding of affect in the human brain.

Emotion and perception are tightly intertwined, as affective experiences often arise from the appraisal of sensory information. Nonetheless, whether the brain encodes emotional instances using a sensory-specific code or in a more abstract manner is unclear. Here, we answer this question by measuring the association between emotion ratings collected during a unisensory or multisensory presentation of a full-length movie and brain activity recorded in typically developed, congenitally blind and congenitally deaf participants. Emotional instances are encoded in a vast network encompassing sensory, prefrontal, and temporal cortices. Within this network, the ventromedial prefrontal cortex stores a categorical representation of emotion independent of modality and previous sensory experience, and the posterior superior temporal cortex maps the valence dimension using an abstract code. Sensory experience more than modality affects how the brain organizes emotional information outside supramodal regions, suggesting the existence of a scaffold for the representation of emotional states where sensory inputs during development shape its functioning.

Development and validation of a brain fog scale for coeliac disease.

Brain fog is a subjective cognitive impairment commonly reported in coeliac disease. A standardised tool to define and assess it is an important unmet need. To develop a patient-informed tool to assess brain fog in coeliac disease to support clinical care, research and drug development. A pilot online study defined patient descriptors of brain fog. A second study evaluated the factor structure and performance of the scale across two-time points ('Now' and in the 'Past week'). One month later, participants were invited to repeat the study with two online cognitive processing tests, the Stroop task and the trail making test. Among adults with treated coeliac disease, 37 (91.9% F) participated in the pilot study and 510 (88.8% F) in the second study of whom 99 repeated the study 1 month later with 51 completing cognitive testing. The most common brain fog descriptors were 'difficulty focusing', 'difficulty thinking' and 'difficulty finding the right words and communicating'. The 12-item scale reflects 'cognitive impairment' and 'somatic and affective experience' and demonstrates strong psychometric properties. It tracked with patients report of brain fog being present or absent across two-time points. It did not significantly correlate with the cognitive tests. The brain fog assessment and severity scale is the first patient-informed clinical outcomes assessment tool measuring brain fog in coeliac disease. It is brief and validated for two time-based formats. Further research coupling it with biomarker discovery is needed to confirm its validity as a predictor of cognitive performance.

The perfect combination to win the competition: Bringing sustainability and customer experience together

AbstractUnderstanding the connection between how consumers perceive sustainability and how they experience the offered products or services can make a big difference for companies to stay ahead of the competition. When companies work to make their products and services align with what their customers value, like being eco‐friendly and socially responsible, it may not only draw in new customers but also make the existing ones stick around. Using behavioral reasoning theory, we attempt to explore the impacts of perceived benefits and skepticism on attitude toward sustainability and the moderating role of customer experience on the relationship between these variables and loyalty. Findings (n = 660) showed that attitude toward sustainability mediates the relationship between perceived benefits, skepticism, and customer loyalty. Furthermore, our findings highlighted that customer experience moderates the relationship between attitude toward sustainability and loyalty. The details of the moderation analysis suggest that cognitive, affective, physical, and social experiences have a stronger effect than sensory experiences in reinforcing the impact of perceived benefits and attitude on consumer loyalty in a sustainability context. The article concludes with implications and research directions for further investigation.

How does social support affect subjective well-being among Chinese widowed older adults?

Social support (SS) is an important factor influencing subjective well-being (SWB) in older adults. This is especially true for the special group of widowed older adults (WOA). Widowhood means that older adults have lost their most important SS, and therefore, the search for a guardian from outside the spouse becomes a central issue in ensuring the SWB of WOA. The data for this paper were obtained from CGSS 2021, a large national social survey in China. We operationalized SWB as an individual's overall perception of his or her experience of happiness using 'affective well-being' (i.e., emphasizing an individual's positive affective experiences), and scores were calculated using a Likert scale. This study used linear regression modeling to examine the impact of SS on the SWB of WOA (aged 60 and above). It was found that, first, this study presents the role of different circles of SS on the SWB of WOA, fully highlighting the importance of social context. Specifically, daughters, neighbors, and relatives constitute the guardians of the SWB for WOA in rural, whereas daughters and friends constitute the guardians of the SWB for WOA in rural. Second, the protective resources provided by the guardians not only serve as a buffer for WOA in distress but also reduce the likelihood of negative events occurring, thereby increasing WOA's SWB. This paper partially corroborates the findings of established studies on the topic of SS and SWB among older adults and the above findings not only help us to further explain the relationship between SS and SWB theoretically but also help us to rationalize the construction of SS for WOA practically.

The Growth of Desire in Intersubjective Space

ABSTRACT Contrasting the work of French child psychoanalyst Françoise Dolto with that of American Relational theorist Jessica Benjamin yields significant shared sensibilities, notably regarding what was in Dolto’s context a radical assertion of the small child as subject who needed to be considered as such, and the role of the parent’s relating and communications in nurturing both subjectivity and agentic desire. However, Benjamin’s writing makes clear not only that the parent’s subjectivity is central to the child’s affective experience, but the waysthe child’s subjectivity takes shape in response to the mix of attunement, rupture, acknowledgment and repair. This makes parenting both riskier and more intimate; children can experience recognition that is inherently mutual, but are also more vulnerable to parental failures of both responsiveness and self-regulation. Relational perspectives are also considered regarding conscious and unconscious parental transmissions as they influence the development of a child’s desire.

The aesthetic and affective matrix of pre-reflective sensemaking at the origins of the relationship between subject and world: A dialogue between Kant’s Third Critique and psychoanalysis

ABSTRACT The authors discuss the relevance of aesthetic and affective experience at the heart of the human being’s capability to relate to the world and to found relations of sense. Faced with anguish that the world can be meaningless and with fear of uncertainty/chaos, trust and hope are needed for the world to be a hospitable place for existence. Such experience is aesthetic, sensitive and affective before being rational, reflective and deliberative. Through a dialogue between Kant, Winnicott and Bion, it is shown how foundation of trust is based on two essential aspects: (1) The illusion that reality was created to allow us to live in it (namely, the fictionality is a prerequisite for each possible development of psyche) and (2) this illusion is not generated by a solipsistic activity of the human mind; rather, it is made possible starting from the primordial relationship with the other, by containing anguish, nourishing trust and hope, and supporting psychic development and elaboration of progressive forms of symbolisation. The authors discuss how these points have a profound aesthetic implication through deepening the reflection on the ontogenetic development of the psyche, the complex intertwining between primary and secondary processes, and clinical implications.