Affective Experience Research Articles

An Integrative Framework for Capturing Emotion and Emotion Regulation in Daily Life.

When studying emotion and emotion regulation, typical approaches focus on intrapersonal processes. Although this emphasis clarifies what transpires within a person, it does not capture that much of emotional experience and regulation occurs between people. In this commentary, we highlight how the Cognitive-Affective Processing System (CAPS) approach-originally developed by Mischel and Shoda and extended to dyadic interactions by Zayas, Shoda, and Ayduk-can provide a unifying framework for understanding the complexity of everyday affective experiences. We discuss how this framework can be fruitfully applied to the study of emotion and emotion regulation broadly, and particularly to interpersonal emotion regulation, by considering both the mediating psychological processes within individuals, as well as the behavioral processes that transpire between individuals. To illustrate these points, we discuss some of the thought-provoking work in the special double issue on the Future of Affective Science edited by Shiota et al. (2023), and we offer forward-thinking suggestions and propose future research directions informed by the CAPS approach. By employing the CAPS framework, we can better capture the complexity of everyday affective experiences and synthesize the growing body of research in affective science.

Exploring the opportunities for biophilic design application in urban pedestrian environments in China under the context of climate change: a perspective of affective experience

Exploring the opportunities for biophilic design application in urban pedestrian environments in China under the context of climate change: a perspective of affective experience

Inconvenience and Its Sisters: Lauren Berlant's Last Affective Meditation

Abstract: The Inconvenience of Other People describes how inconvenience may appear a minor affective experience, but it is actually a mode of relationality that governs our lives. This essay takes Lauren Berlant's primary analytic mode—the case study—and applies the lessons of Inconvenience to the films R.M.N . and Promising Young Woman to explore how sexual violence constitutes both an object in itself and an entry point into other ways in which affect can disrupt the naturalization of inequality. Both films frame the conditions under which inconvenience become an event and a major force in our lives that helps us grasp what we owe each other and ourselves.

Navigating ‘feel’: When hands touch sound effects

Holding and moving objects to create a sound effect requires a performer to navigate by feel, directing their listening from the solid (dried peas on a drumhead) to the imaginary (sea waves). The illusory properties of sound have long been exploited by sound effects performers for the purposes of Foley, silent cinema and theatre. While sound may provoke the imagination or emotional response of the audience, it also does its affective work on the performer operating the effect. In the moment of practice itself, sound binds to the object being manipulated, blurring the known boundaries of its physical properties. The Foley artist crosses a threshold between the tactility of the material and the dissolved representations of the intangible, as the sound itself feels like it is the material being manipulated. Simple hand actions become a gateway to the imaginary. This article considers the affective experience of creative bodily guided soundmaking, and how the successful operation of a sound effect requires the performer to deliberately navigate between modes of listening, attuning their movements and engaging with a perceptual space where things, while making sound, are no longer what they seem to be. Focusing on sound effects beyond the screen allows for an exploration of the aesthetic, dramatic and syncretic in real-world experiences of sound and movement.

Affect and Impact Neglect in Sustainable Decision-Making

In a recent special section on Sustainability and Emotion, Schneider and van der Linden present how sustainability science could benefit from affective science to address important unanswered questions about the psychological and affective antecedents of people's engagement in relatively high-impact sustainable behaviors. Here, we underline the importance of combining the motivational role of positive affect with an impact-focused research agenda to understand the causal role of affect in sustainable decision-making and to develop communication strategies harnessing affective mechanisms to promote impactful sustainable behaviors. We present potential links connecting affective experience with perceived impact and adoption of sustainable behaviors. Finally, we argue for communication strategies aiming to enhance positive affect associated with high-impact behaviors.

Question mark in Landia

AbstractWhat happens when we remove key specificities that orient ethnography? Based on 30 months of fieldwork somewhere and set in fictional Landia, this piece eschews conventional ways of representing ethnographic encounters—through specific matterings of people and place—for disquieting generality. Against vague references to violence by Snatchers and a movement to protect the Marked, I foreground the affective experiences of two interlocutors without relying on taken‐for‐granted specificities that structure modes of seeing. This reveals how power operates through the reproduction of embodied difference, even within movements by and for people with non‐normative bodyminds; and how generality as a method of creative ethnographic writing can reveal otherwise eclipsed strands of meaning and experience. Despite being Marked, Yuli and Adan do not see themselves in discourses about markedness. As a result, they question processes of categorization, identification, and marginalization in social movements. My goal is to dwell in these moments where operative narratives unravel, and people overspill their categories. Asking what a messier crip politics of difference might do for those with forms of markedness, this piece encourages readers to envision activist‐adjacent modes of redress that acknowledge complicity and entanglement, embrace accountability and repair, and build solidarity across forms of difference.

Can daily affect impact intentions and next day behavior of physical activity? A daily diary study

Background and aimsThis study investigated the role of incidental affect on the intention-behavior process of physical activity (PA). MethodsDaily positive (activated, relaxed, and safe/content) and negative (depressed, anxious, and low-aroused) incidental affects, intention to perform PA, and actual PA were assessed in a sample of 101 college students (17 males and 80 females, age = 21.09 ± 1.57) for 28 days. Bayesian generalized linear multivariate multilevel model was used to predict cross-day intention-behavior profiles (non-intention, exceeding non-intention, unsuccessful intention, and successful intention) with subtypes of affects. ResultsIncreased positive affect and decreased negative affect were related to PA intention formation, intention enactment, and exceeding non-intention. Safe/content positive affect was related to intention formation and translation of PA, while exceeding non-intention was uniquely related to activated positive affect. Negative affect showed a carry-over effect on intention translation of PA next day. ConclusionsOur study findings detailed the role of different incidental affects in the intention-behavior process of PA and we call for more intensive affect measures and rigorous PA intention and behavior assessments to further validate these findings. Practically, our study highlighted the importance that future research should consider incorporating strategies to induce appropriate affective experiences in different stages of intention-behavior process for effective PA interventions.

Network state dynamics underpin basal craving in a transdiagnostic population.

Emerging fMRI methods quantifying brain dynamics present an opportunity to capture how fluctuations in brain responses give rise to individual variations in affective and motivation states. Although the experience and regulation of affective states affect psychopathology, their underlying time-varying brain responses remain unclear. Here, we present a novel framework to identify network states matched to an affective experience and examine how the dynamic engagement of these network states contributes to this experience. We apply this framework to investigate network state dynamics underlying basal craving, an affective experience with important clinical implications. In a transdiagnostic sample of healthy controls and individuals diagnosed with or at risk for craving-related disorders (total N = 252), we utilized connectome-based predictive modeling (CPM) to identify brain networks predictive of basal craving. An edge-centric timeseries approach was leveraged to quantify the moment-to-moment engagement of the craving-positive and craving-negative subnetworks during independent scan runs. We found that dynamic markers of network engagement, namely more persistence in a craving-positive network state and less dwelling in a craving-negative network state, characterized individuals with higher craving. We replicated the latter results in a separate dataset, incorporating distinct participants (N = 173) and experimental stimuli. The associations between basal craving and network state dynamics were consistently observed even when craving-predictive networks were defined in the replication dataset. These robust findings suggest that network state dynamics underpin individual differences in basal craving. Our framework additionally presents a new avenue to explore how the moment-to-moment engagement of behaviorally meaningful network states supports our affective experiences.

DISORIENTING EASTERN EUROPE: JUDITH HERMANN'S AFFECTIVE GEOGRAPHY

ABSTRACTThis article presents a geocritical interpretation (based on the methodological approach developed by Robert Tally) of two of Judith Hermann's short stories – ‘Diesseits der Oder’ and ‘Osten’. Written almost twenty years apart, the first of these takes place amidst the Oderbruch, whilst the second comprises Hermann's only literary text about a journey to Ukraine. Drawing on interdisciplinary spatial research, I offer a close reading of both stories as they stage, in different ways, an affective experience of East European space. Moreover, I argue that through her critical investigation of the ‘East’ as an imagined and real space, Hermann emerges as a geocritic herself. Drawing on Sara Ahmed's queer phenomenology and Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht's notion of latency in post‐war culture, I contend that ‘Diesseits der Oder’ and ‘Osten’ are constituted as poetic texts that foreground disorientation through the mode of latency as a crucial phenomenological device. Once brought together into their historical and geopolitical contexts and explored through the aesthetic prism of representation of the ‘East’, Hermann's short stories are seen to advance a radical critique of perceptions of Eastern Europe in the German post‐war literary and geographic imagination.

Modeling pedestrians' activity time-use choices in a virtual urban public space: The influences of the environment and affective experience

Understanding pedestrians' time-use choices for multiple activities in urban public spaces is crucial for developing diverse and inclusive public spaces. Few studies have explored how pedestrians' time-use choices are influenced by the physical environment when engaging in various micro-level activities in public spaces, nor have they captured the influence of experience-based factors (e.g., emotion and perceptions) triggered by varying environments, as well as heterogeneity between individuals. This study employs the multiple discrete-continuous extreme value (MDCEV) model to estimate the effects of public space environmental attributes, visit purpose, emotion, and perceptions on individuals' activity time-use choices using data collected in varying virtual hypothetical public spaces. A latent class MDCEV model incorporating personal variables is used to further examine individual heterogeneity. The results indicate that outdoor dining spaces and benches significantly promote outdoor activities. Emotional pleasure and arousal, as well as perceived legibility and liveness, significantly influence various activities in varying ways and to varying degrees. Differences in activity time-use choice patterns between two groups are revealed - one more emotionally driven and the other more cognitively driven. The results complement existing knowledge of pedestrians' activities and inform the planning and design decisions for positive human-environment interactions in urban public spaces.

Indigenous social infrastructures and affective experiences of resettlement in Hasankeyf town after the Ilısu Dam

This study draws attention to the role of urban redevelopment practices in shaping indigenous social infrastructures and community life in the post-displacement and resettlement period. From decolonial and relational perspectives, I explore how relations with social infrastructures change because of urban redevelopment practices following displacement and resettlement in Hasankeyf caused by the Ilısu Dam. To understand the relations between Indigenous resettlers and social infrastructures, I focus on residents’ lived experiences, practices and sense of belonging by examining the affective implications of the changes in the social infrastructures and affordances resulting from urban redevelopment practices (before and after the flooding of Hasankeyf in 2020 and resettlement in 2021). A mix of qualitative methods was used by combining a decolonial method of cuerpo-territorio, interviews and observations. The intertwining of the colonial framework with the practices of urban redevelopment in Turkey is evident in the process of the resettlement of Hasankeyf. The downplay of the reconstruction and protection of indigenous social infrastructures during urban redevelopment after the Ilısu Dam has damaged the sense of belonging, community relations, affective experiences, indigenous cultural practices and social development of the resettlers. I extend the understanding of indigenous social infrastructures in the social infrastructure literature introduced by Klinenberg and by Latham and Layton. I outline five key aspects that highlight the need for and importance of indigenous social infrastructures in the context of urban redevelopment through resettlement.

Health and Well-Being Among College Students in the United States During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Daily Diary Study.

There is evidence that anxiety and stress increased among college students during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, less is known about daily experiences of affect, worry, substance use behaviors, experiences of pleasure, concern over food security, experiences of bias or discrimination, feelings of belongingness, and other indicators of well-being and how they vary across days in this population. This study surveyed a wide range of indicators of health and well-being in daily life over 21 days with a sample of college students in a large university system in the United States during the pandemic. The overall variance in each daily measure was partitioned to reflect the proportion due to (1) between-person differences versus (2) within-person, day-to-day variability. This is important because measures that vary primarily due to between-person differences may be more amenable to interventions that target particular students, whereas measures that vary more due to day-to-day variability may be more amenable to interventions that target day-level contextual factors. A sample of 2068 young adult college students (aged 18-24, mean 19.8, SD 1.3 years; 66.6% women) completed a baseline survey; 97.3% (n=2012) then completed up to 21 consecutive daily surveys that assessed a comprehensive set of daily markers of health, behavior, and well-being. The daily diary study produced a total of 33,722 person-days. Among all person-days, a minority were substance use days (eg, 14.5% of days involved alcohol use, 5.6% vaping, and 5.5% cannabis). Experiences of pleasure were reported on most (73.5%) days. Between-person differences explained more than 50% of the variance in numerous indicators of health and well-being, including daily vaping, cannabis use, other illicit substance use, experiences of bias or discrimination, positive affect, negative affect, worry, food insecurity, and feelings of belonging at the university. In contrast, within-person differences explained more than 50% of the variance in daily alcohol use, cigarette use, stress, experiences of pleasure, where the student slept last night, and physical activity. College student health and well-being are multifaceted, with some aspects likely driven by person-level characteristics and experiences and other aspects by more dynamic, contextual risk factors that occur in daily life. These findings implicate services and interventions that should target individual students versus those that should target days on which students are at high risk for poor experiences or behaviors.

Sentiments Organize Affect Concepts in Yasawa, Fiji: a Cultural Domain Analysis

Abstract For decades, intensive research on emotion has advanced general theories of culture and cognition. Yet few theories can comfortably accommodate both the regularities and variation empirically manifest in affective phenomena around the world. One recent theoretical model (Gervais & Fessler, 2017) aims to do so. The Attitude-Scenario-Emotion (ASE) model of sentiments specifies an evolved psychological architecture that potentiates regular variation in affective experience and behavior in lived interaction with social, ecological and normative contexts. This model holds that sentiments – functional networks of bookkeeping attitudes and commitment emotions – produce context-dependent universals in salient social-relational experiences, predictably patterning affect concepts. The present research aims to empirically evaluate implications of the ASE model of sentiments using quantitative data from 10 months of fieldwork in Indigenous iTaukei villages on Yasawa Island, Fiji. Study 1 is a series of structured interviews that aim to elicit the full breadth of the Yasawan affect lexicon. In freelists and sentence frames, Yasawans use distinct sets of terms to refer to “feelings about” particular people (attitudes), and “feelings because of” particular events (emotions). Study 2 uses a pile sort task to show that the salient features of Yasawan affective experience are social-relational dimensions of communion and power, while both HCA and MDS reveal distinct social attitudes – “love” (lomani) and “like’ (taleitaki), “respect” (dokai), “contempt” (beci), “hate” (sevaki), and “fear” (rerevaki) – anchoring the conceptual organization of Yasawan emotions. Study 3 uses hypothetical vignettes with a between-subjects attitude manipulation and Likert-style emotion ratings to show that these attitudes differentially moderate emotions across social scenarios; differences are both quantitative and qualitative; each attitude is emotionally pluripotent; and divergent attitudes (e.g., “love” and “hate”) produce the same emotions in starkly different situations – a predicted three-way interaction of attitude x scenario x emotion. These data are broadly consistent with ASE hypotheses; population variation in affective worlds may follow from differential engagement of universal attitude-emotion networks (sentiments) experienced across social, ecological and normative contexts.

Investigating the relationship between emotions and physical literacy in a quality physical education context.

Affective experiences have been shown to influence attitudes and future behaviors related to physical activity, but no studies have related these experiences to physical literacy or examined affective experiences in quality physical education (QPE). The aim of this study was to describe emotions experienced in a QPE context and relate those emotions to students' physical literacy and self-esteem. A cross-sectional study of 145 4th and 5th grade students was surveyed after a single PE class on their emotional experiences (positive emotions: pride, enjoyment, and relief; negative, emotions: shame, anger, and boredom; aggregate emotional experience as the sum of positive and negative emotions) physical literacy (self-description and movement valuation) and self-esteem. In this QPE context, 73% of students reported only positive emotions, 26% mixed positive and negative emotions and 1% expressed only negative emotions. Pride and enjoyment were strongly co-occurring (89%). Among students expressing mixed emotions, 90% still yielded positive aggregate emotional experiences. Positive emotions have significant (p<0.001), moderate to strong positive correlations with physical literacy (rho=0.65 pride, 0.50 enjoyment) and self-esteem (rho=0.48 pride, 0.38 enjoyment), and negative emotions have significant (p<0.001), moderate negative correlations with physical literacy (rho = -0.47 shame, -0.30 anger, -0.32 boredom) and self-esteem (rho = -0.33 shame, -0.29 anger, -0.21 boredom). This study reveals strong positive emotional responses by students in a purported QPE context. The presence of mixed emotions with net positive aggregate experiences highlights the importance of consideration of both negative and positive emotions in movement contexts. Affective states have been proposed as key elements of physical literacy, and this study supports this through valence matched associations between both positive/negative affect with physical literacy and self-esteem.

Post-COVID cognitive impairment, level of depression and anxiety in university students

Recently, a significant amount of research has focused on the impact of COVID-19 on mental health. One of the increasingly common long-term consequences of COVID-19 is its effect on cognitive function, even in patients with an initially mild course of the acute illness. The article presents the results of a study of cognitive impairment and anxiety and depression levels among students of a higher medical educational institution. The study consisted of a continuous screening survey of students who had and had not experienced COVID-19 using an original questionnaire, as well as psychometric scales: Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9), and Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7). Based on the screening results, two groups were formed (those who had COVID-19 and those who did not), and a comparative analysis was carried out. It was found that a third (32.4%) of young people who had COVID-19 developed cognitive impairment. In students who were not ill, cognitive impairment was detected half as often – 16.8%. It was revealed that regardless of the fact of having suffered an infectious disease, a quarter of students experienced increased anxiety and decreased mood. Affective experiences, in turn, negatively affected cognitive functioning and caused young people to be more attentive to their health, including mental health, which was accompanied by a large number of positive responses when using the PHQ-9 and GAD-7 screening questionnaires.

‘I felt as if I was overflowing’: transitions to adulthood in the aftermath of the Colombian armed conflict

ABSTRACT This paper proposes a rethinking of the temporal conditions of childhood by centring the affective experiences of fourteen young activists who continuously inhabit the past by working at a collective memory museum in Colombia. It questions notions of time as linear, progressive, chronological, and universal and instead presents alternative ways of being in time. I discuss young activists’ struggles to imagine mundane futures while constantly comparing themselves with the experiences of the victims of the armed conflict. I then discuss how the museum, as an institutional site of remembrance, sanitises and dictates how the young museum workers ought to remember, making them feel inadequate when their emotions do not align with the museum’s mission. The young activists demonstrate how their transitions into adulthood are determined by simultaneously inhabiting multiple temporalities and defying adult expectations on how to remember.

Shaping (queer) orientations: affective experiences and professional changes of a transgender and intersex teacher in physical education

ABSTRACT Research on LGBTQIA+ topics in sport and physical education have painted a dim view of inclusivity for the field. Research with LGBT physical educators has illustrated many challenges, discriminatory behaviours as well as complexities of being queer in schools. To date, there is little research on the experiences of transgender and intersex physical educators. Using a queer phenomenological lens, the authors explored the affective experiences and professional changes of a transgender and intersex physical educator in Colombia. Using an intrinsic case study, the authors considered how Andrea (pseudonym) was affected by, and produced affect in, traditional physical education practices. To conclude, the authors discuss how Andrea’s experiences can inform future research in LGBTQIA+ topics in sport and physical education.

Acute Affective Responses to Virtual Reality Exercise: A Crossover Randomized Clinical Trial.

Virtual reality (VR) exercise aims to offer positive affective and sensory experiences through an immersive experience rich in audiovisual stimuli. Notwithstanding, there is a paucity of large sample size studies comparing the acute effects of VR exercise compared with a matched exercise performed in a non-VR environment. The study compared the acute effects of a VR exercise session versus a matched non-VR exercise session in effect, pleasure, enjoyment, perceived exertion, and heart rate. This is a crossover randomized clinical trial. The time, difficulty, and exercise type of the non-VR exercise were matched to VR exercise. Before and immediately after each session, participants responded to the Borg's Perceived Exertion Scale, the Feeling Scale and the Felt Arousal Scale, and the Physical Activity Enjoyment Scale. The analyses were conducted with Generalized Linear Models, Wilcoxon's, and T-test for paired samples. A total of 83 adults (40 females) aged 35.46 years were included in the study. Participants in the VR condition had a greater increase in affect (mean change difference = 0.95, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.83-1.06, P < 0.001), arousal (mean change difference = 0.37, 95% CI = 0.23-9.50, P < 0.001). The pleasure and enjoyment median after the VR session were higher. In conclusion, the immersive VR exercise was more strenuous, but resulted in a better affective response, greater pleasure, and enjoyment.

Unraveling the optimal balance of problem-related affective experiences and need satisfaction in cognitive-behavioral therapy: A response surface analysis

Objective: Although therapists are encouraged to balance emotionally involving work on the patient’s problems with need satisfaction in therapy sessions, effects of this balance have rarely been studied empirically. Hence, we examined congruence effects between problem-related affective and need-satisfying experiences in cognitive–behavioral therapy (CBT). Method: 165 distressed family caregivers rated problem-related affective experiences, need-satisfying experiences comprising self-esteem, positive interpersonal, and control experiences, as well as coping experiences after 12 CBT sessions. We examined within-person congruence effects of problem-related affective and need-satisfying experiences on subsequent coping in multilevel response surface analysis. Further, we included between-person problem-related affective and need-satisfying experiences and pretreatment depression and anxiety as moderators of within-person effects. Results: A slight predominance of self-esteem over problem-related affective experiences as well as exact correspondence between problem-related affective and both interpersonal and control experiences was most predictive of coping. Between-person moderators supported a cross-level balance heuristic of problem-related affective and self-esteem experiences. Finally, a stronger emphasis on self-esteem and interpersonal over problem-related affective experiences proved more beneficial for patients with high anxiety and low depression. Conclusions: The findings highlight the importance of balancing problem-related affective and need-satisfying experiences in CBT and provide insights into how balancing may be tailored to specific patients.

Affective foundations in AI-human interactions: Insights from evolutionary continuity and interspecies communications

The imminent arrival of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) compels a reevaluation of AI-human interactions, particularly through affective communication. This research synthesizes insights from evolutionary biology, comparative psychology, and AI development, advocating for a paradigm shift beyond conventional human-like cognitive processes. It emphasizes the universal nature of affective pathways, as evidenced across various species. We introduce three affective interaction models — the Affective Threshold Model, the Dynamic Set-Point Model, and the Affective Schema Model — all of which stem from an in-depth analysis of interspecies communications. These models present a roadmap to craft AI interfaces attuned to human affective experiences, elucidating avenues of trust, intuition, and reciprocal recognition between machines and their human counterparts. By further crystallizing the concept of the “Large Affect Model”, we project a horizon where AI not only deciphers but also empathizes with human partners, paving the way for a revolutionary cooperative paradigm between AI and humanity.