Emotional Reactivity Research Articles

Associations between emotion reactivity to daily interpersonal stress and acute social-evaluative stress during late adolescence.

Emotion reactivity refers to the intensity of changes in positive and negative emotion following a stimulus, typically studied with respect to daily stressors (e.g., arguments, demands) or laboratory stressors, including the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST). Yet, it is unclear whether emotion reactivity to daily and to laboratory stressors are related. The present study examined whether greater emotion reactivity to daily stressors (i.e., arguments, demands) is associated with greater reactivity to the TSST. Late adolescents (N=82; Mage=18.35, SD=0.51, range 17-19; 56.1% female; 65.9% Latine, 34.2% European American) reported whether they experienced arguments and demands with friends, family, and individuals at school and their negative and positive emotion nightly for 15days. They also completed the TSST, a validated paradigm for eliciting social-evaluative threat, and reported their emotion at baseline and immediately post-TSST. Multilevel models examined whether daily and laboratory emotion reactivity were related by testing whether the daily associations between arguments and demands with emotion differed by emotion reactivity to the TSST. Individuals with greater positive emotion reactivity (i.e., greater reductions in positive emotion) and greater negative emotion reactivity to the TSST showed greater positive emotion reactivity to daily demands. Emotion reactivity to the TSST was not significantly related to emotion reactivity to arguments. Findings provide preliminary evidence that emotion reactivity to the TSST relates to some aspects of daily emotion reactivity, with relations differing depending on type of daily stressor and valence of emotion. Results contextualise the implications of emotion reactivity to the TSST for daily stress processes.

Political Rage and the Value of Valuing

AbstractThis paper focuses on the question of political anger's non-instrumental justification. I argue that the case for anger is strong where anger expresses a valuable form of valuing the good. It does so only when properly integrated with non-angry emotional responsiveness to the good. The account allows us to acknowledge the non-instrumentally bad side of anger while still delivering the intuitive verdict that anger is often justified. Moreover, it provides an avenue for criticizing much of the anger run amok in contemporary political life without directly engaging entrenched moral and political views.

Role of Emotion Reactivity to Predict Facial Emotion Recognition Changes with Aging

ABSTRACT Emotional intelligence includes an assortment of factors related to emotion function. Such factors involve emotion recognition (in this case via facial expression), emotion trait, reactivity, and regulation. We aimed to investigate how the subjective appraisals of emotional intelligence (i.e. trait, reactivity, and regulation) are associated with objective emotion recognition accuracy, and how these associations differ between young and older adults. Data were extracted from the CamCAN dataset (189 adults: 57 young/118 older) from assessments measuring these emotion constructs. Using linear regression models, we found that greater negative reactivity was associated with better emotion recognition accuracy among older adults, though the pattern was opposite for young adults with the greatest difference in disgust and surprise recognition. Positive reactivity and depression level predicted surprise recognition, with the associations significantly differing between the age groups. The present findings suggest the level to which older and young adults react to emotional stimuli differentially predicts their ability to correctly identify facial emotion expressions. Older adults with higher negative reactivity may be able to integrate their negative emotions effectively in order to recognize other’s negative emotions more accurately. Alternatively, young adults may experience interference from negative reactivity, lowering their ability to recognize other’s negative emotions.

Hypnotic suggestion modulates visual recognition of negative words depending on word arousal

This study examined whether and how emotional hypnotic suggestions modulate the visual recognition of negative words. We investigated the influence of hypnotic suggestions aimed at modifying emotional reactivity on the arousal effect in negative words. High and low suggestible individuals performed a go/no-go lexical decision task in three intra-individual conditions: with a suggestion to increase emotional reactivity, with a suggestion to decrease emotional reactivity and without hypnotic suggestion. Results showed that hypnotic suggestions modulated the arousal facilitation effect differently depending on the level of suggestibility of the participants. In high suggestible individuals, response times for low-arousal negative words varied oppositely according to the suggestion administered, while no modulations were retrieved for high-arousal ones. In contrast, no suggestion effects were found for low suggestible participants. Altogether, these findings suggest a higher influence of hypnotic suggestions on emotional words that require longer processing times in high suggestible individuals.

Emotional memory consolidation during sleep is associated with slow oscillation-spindle coupling strength in young and older adults.

Emotional memories are processed during sleep; however, the specific mechanisms are unclear. Understanding such mechanisms may provide critical insight into preventing and treating mood disorders. Consolidation of neutral memories is associated with the coupling of NREM sleep slow oscillations (SOs) and sleep spindles (SPs). Whether SO-SP coupling is likewise involved in emotional memory processing is unknown. Furthermore, there is an age-related emotional valence bias such that sleep consolidates and preserves reactivity to negative but not positive emotional memories in young adults and positive but not negative emotional memories in older adults. If SO-SP coupling contributes to the effect of sleep on emotional memory, then it may selectively support negative memory in young adults and positive memory in older adults. To address these questions, we examined whether emotional memory recognition and overnight change in emotional reactivity were associated with the strength of SO-SP coupling in young (n = 22) and older (n = 32) adults. In younger adults, coupling strength predicted negative but not positive emotional memory performance after sleep. In contrast, coupling strength predicted positive but not negative emotional memory performance after sleep in older adults. Coupling strength was not associated with emotional reactivity in either age group. Our findings suggest that SO-SP coupling may play a mechanistic role in sleep-dependent consolidation of emotional memories.

Improved depressive symptoms, and emotional regulation and reactivity, in individuals with obstructive sleep apnea after short- and long-term CPAP therapy use

Obstructive Sleep Apnoea (OSA) is associated with high rates of depression; however, if and how treatment of OSA improves depressive symptoms is unclear. To further understand this link we considered the role of emotional regulation – the ability to control and express our emotional responses – thought to be a central component of depression. This study aimed to assess changes in depressive symptoms and emotional responses in individuals with OSA after 4- and 12-months of continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) treatment. One-hundred and twenty-one OSA participants (50 female, Mage = 51.93; mean AHI = 36.27) were recruited from a tertiary clinical sleep service prior to CPAP initiation, and randomised to either a CPAP group or a 4 month wait-list group. Participants completed the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale, the Emotional Reactivity Scale and the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale at baseline, and 1-, 2-, and 4-months follow-up. The CPAP group also completed the questionnaires 12-months after CPAP initiation. CPAP use at 1 month and 12 months was 5.1h/night and 4.9h/night, respectively. Significant improvements in depressive symptoms, emotional regulation and reactivity, and subjective sleepiness were observed after 4 months in both groups, however, the within group changes were only significant for those using CPAP. After 12-months of CPAP treatment, these improvements were maintained. There was no association between CPAP treatment adherence and improvements in any outcome. CPAP treatment for 12 months may reduce symptoms of depression and improve emotional regulation in individuals with OSA.

The Kusa manga, a secondary prevention program for cannabis use in adolescence based on emotional regulation: Preliminary data

IntroductionFrance is one of the European countries with the highest prevalence of cannabis use, particularly in adolescence. Emotional regulation (ER) is one of the major risk factor in the etiology and the maintenance of cannabis use disorder and therefore is a key target for prevention programs. ObjectivesThis study aimed to evaluate the feasibility and the impact of a prevention program focusing on ER (especially on various emotional skills like awareness, emotional clarity and reactivity, ER strategies, and the level of emotional awareness) and on cannabis use among adolescents from various institutions. MethodIn total, 87 adolescents from various institutions were included. ER was assessed by the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire, the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale, the Emotion Reactivity Scale and the Adolescent Levels of Emotional Awareness Scale; cannabis use was assess by the Cannabis Abuse Screening Test (CAST). All participants were assess before preventive intervention (T0) and four months after the end of the program (T1). ResultsBetween T0 and T1, for all participants, there was an increase of emotional awareness, a decrease of emotional sensitivity, intensity and persistence, and an increase of the level of emotional awareness (total, self and others). There was no significant difference between T0 and T1 in CAST scores. ConclusionsThe prevention program showed encouraging results with a vulnerable group of adolescents in institutional care, particularly those from the Child Social Care (Aide sociale à l’enfance) and Child Forensic Institution (Protection judiciaire de la jeunesse) by showing an effect on different components of ER but not directly on cannabis use.

Responsivity to Interviewer during Interview-Based Assessment of Physical Intimate Partner Violence.

Interview assessments of intimate partner violence (IPV) may provide more accurate behavior frequency estimates than self-report questionnaires. However, concerns have been raised about whether participants underreport IPV during interviews due to an emotional response to the interviewer. Participants were 42 mixed gender community couples (83 individuals) in which at least one partner endorsed physical IPV perpetration or victimization in their relationship. We examined whether participants were emotionally responsive to the interviewer during an interview about physical IPV. Responsivity was defined as the extent to which participants' emotional arousal, indexed by vocal fundamental frequency (f0), was predicted by interviewers' emotional arousal at the previous talk turn on a moment-by-moment basis. We then examined whether participants' responsivity predicted interview-based reporting of IPV relative to their own self-report on an IPV measure and to the highest other available report (including partner report). Repeated measures actor-partner interdependence models conducted in a multi-level modeling framework indicated that, on average, participants were responsive to interviewers' emotional arousal, even when controlling for responsivity to their own arousal, and that responsivity varied across participants. However, participants' responsivity to interviewer arousal did not significantly predict reporting of IPV perpetration or victimization during the interview relative to their own self-report or to the highest other available report. Participants are emotionally responsive to interviewer arousal, but this responsivity does not appear to reduce interview-based reporting of IPV relative to self-report, supporting the utility of IPV interviews in clinical and research settings.

The Future of Affective Science: Introduction to the Special Issue.

Modern affective science-the empirical study of emotional responding and affective experience-has been active for a half-century. The Future of Affective Science special issue considers the history of this field and proposes new directions for the decades ahead. Contributors represent diverse theoretical perspectives, methodological expertise, and domains of study, and the special issue includes both literature reviews and new empirical studies as illustrations. This introductory article synthesizes the contributions, articulating the broader context of the current status of our field and highlighting common themes across articles as well as gaps notable even in this special issue. Sections of the article address theoretical and conceptual issues, research methodology, the questions we ask, and translation of basic affective science to applied domains. We conclude that much has been learned from the first 50years of affective science, and it is now time for new theories, new research questions, and innovative methods for the decades ahead.

Attachment style, emotional feedback, and neural processing: investigating the influence of attachment on the P200 and P400 components of event-related potentials.

Understanding the interplay between attachment style, emotional processing, and neural responses is crucial for comprehending the diverse ways individuals function socially and emotionally. While previous research has contributed to our knowledge of how attachment style influences emotional processing, there is still a gap in the literature when it comes to investigating emotional feedback using event-related potentials (ERPs) within a cognitive framework. This study aims to address this gap by examining the effects of attachment style and feedback valence on ERP components, specifically focusing on the P200 and P400. The findings reveal significant effects of attachment style and feedback valence on both components. In insecure attachment styles, noticeable shifts in relative energy are observed during the transition from negative to positive feedback for both the P200 and P400. Conversely, individuals with secure attachment styles exhibit minimal to moderate variations in relative energy, consistently maintaining a lower P200 energy level. Additionally, both secure and insecure individuals demonstrate heightened intensity in the P400 component in response to positive feedback. These findings underscore the influential role of attachment style in shaping emotional reactivity and regulation, emphasizing the significance of attachment theory in understanding individual differences in social and emotional functioning. This study provides novel insights into the neural mechanisms underlying the influence of attachment style on emotional processing within the context of cognitive task performance. Future research should consider diverse participant samples, employ objective measures of attachment, and utilize longitudinal designs to further explore the neural processes associated with attachment.

Related neural networks underlie suppression of emotion, memory, motor processes as identified by data-driven analysis

BackgroundGoal-directed behavior benefits from self-regulation of cognitive and affective processes, such as emotional reactivity, memory retrieval, and prepotent motor response. Dysfunction in self-regulation is a common characteristic of many psychiatric disorders, such as PTSD and ADHD. This study sought to determine whether common intrinsic connectivity networks (ICNs; e.g. default mode network) are involved in the regulation of emotion, motor, and memory processes, and if a data-driven approach using independent component analysis (ICA) would successfully identify such ICNs that contribute to inhibitory regulation.MethodsEighteen participants underwent neuroimaging while completing an emotion regulation (ER) task, a memory suppression (Think/No-Think; TNT) task, and a motor inhibition (Stop Signal; SS) task. ICA (CONN; MATLAB) was conducted on the neuroimaging data from each task and corresponding components were selected across tasks based on interrelated patterns of activation. Subsequently, ICNs were correlated with behavioral performance variables from each task.ResultsICA indicated a common medial prefrontal network, striatal network, and frontoparietal executive control network, as well as downregulation in task-specific ROIs.ConclusionsThese results illustrate that common ICNs were exhibited across three distinct inhibitory regulation tasks, as successfully identified through a data-driven approach (ICA).

A neuropsychological study of misophonia

Background and objectivesMisophonia is a recently identified condition characterized by negative emotional responsivity to certain types of sounds. Although progress has been made in understanding of neuronal, psychophysiological, and psychopathological mechanisms, important gaps in research remain, particularly insight into cognitive function. Accordingly, we conducted the first neuropsychological examination of misophonia, including clinical, diagnostic, and functional correlates. MethodsA misophonia group (n = 32) and a control group (n = 64) were screened for comorbidities using a formal semi-structured interview and completed a comprehensive neuropsychological battery and self-report measures of depression, anxiety, stress, impulsivity, and functional impairment. ResultsThe misophonia group significantly underperformed the control group on only 2 neuropsychological outcomes involving verbal memory retrieval. Subscales of the Misophonia Questionaaire (MQ) were inversely correlated only with measures of attention. The misophonia group reported significantly higher anxiety symptoms, behavioral impulsivity, and functional impairments, and had numerically higher rates of ADHD and OCD. LimitationsTo facilitate comparability, in lieu of a formal diagnostic algorithm for misophonia, we used a commonly used empirical definition for group allocation that has been utilized in numerous previous studies. ConclusionsMisophonia was associated with a reduction in performance on a minority of cognitive tasks and a modest increase in some psychological symptoms and comorbid conditions. Correlational data suggest that difficulties with attention regulation and impulsivity may play a role in misophonia, albeit attention functions were intact. Results should be interpreted with caution given the variability in diagnostic definitions, and more research is needed to understand cognitive functioning under ‘cold’ conditions in misophonia.

Clinical practice supportive psychotherapy for borderline personality disorder

Link of Video Abstract: https://youtu.be/rmJ-ivpSU3g Borderline Personality Disorder is usually unstable due to periods of acute crisis, aggressive behavior, suicide attempts, and even substance abuse. Individual psychotherapy has long been considered the main treatment for Borderline Personality Disorder. Supportive psychotherapy can be used on people who are experiencing stressful situations that the person's coping mechanisms are unable to cope with, resulting in tension and distress. Individually supportive psychotherapy involves treating the patient with compassion, empathy, and commitment, regardless of whether the therapist agrees or disagrees with the patient's behavior and thoughts. Supportive psychotherapy seeks to overcome emotional reactivity to stressors and develop ways to inhibit maladaptive impulses. Supportive psychotherapy for Borderline Personality Disorder who have deficits in self-experience by focusing on the dimensions of impulsivity/aggression, affective instability, cognitive/perceptual distortions, and anxiety/inhibition. Supportive psychotherapy sessions discuss the four dimensions according to the patient's condition, which is expected to help patients overcome emotional reactivity and develop ways to inhibit maladaptive impulses.

Further examination of behavior during extinction‐based treatment of pediatric food refusal

AbstractResearchers have demonstrated the effectiveness of extinction‐based treatments to reduce challenging behavior. Although bursts and temporary increases in emotional responding may occur in some basic and applied studies, recent studies on their prevalence have shown that side effects are far from ubiquitous. Woods and Borrero (2019) determined that bursts of inappropriate mealtime behavior and increases in emotional responding occurred in 30% of data sets during extinction‐based treatment of pediatric feeding difficulties. In the current study, we conducted a retrospective consecutive‐controlled case series by evaluating treatment graphs of inappropriate mealtime behavior, negative vocalizations, active acceptance, and mouth clean for 60 children admitted to an intensive day‐treatment feeding disorders program. We discuss the implications of these findings and provide general recommendations for the use of extinction‐based treatment.

Yucatec Maya Children’s Responding to Emotional Challenge

While the field of affective science has seen increased interest in and representation of the role of culture in emotion, prior research has disproportionately centered on Western, English-speaking, industrialized, and/or economically developed nations. We investigated the extent to which emotional experiences and responding may be shaped by cultural display rule understanding among Yucatec Maya children, an indigenous population residing in small-scale communities in remote areas of Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula. Data were collected from forty-two 6- and 10-year-old Yucatec children who completed a resting baseline and a structured disappointing gift task. Children were asked about whether specific emotions are better to show or to hide from others and self-reported the intensity of their discrete positive and negative emotional experiences. We observed and coded expressive positive and negative affective behavior during and after the disappointing gift task, and continuously acquired physiological measures of autonomic nervous system function. These multi-method indices of emotional responding enable us to provide a nuanced description of children’s observable and unobservable affective experiences. Results generally indicated that children’s understanding of and adherence to cultural display rules (i.e., to suppress negative emotions but openly show positive ones) was evidenced across indices of emotion, as predicted. The current study is a step toward the future of affective science, which lies in the pursuit of more diverse and equitable representation in study samples, increased use of concurrent multimethod approaches to studying emotion, and increased exploration of how emotional processes develop.

Sticky criticism? Affective and neural responses to parental criticism and praise in adolescents with depression.

Parent-adolescent interactions, particularly parental criticism and praise, have previously been identified as factors relevant to self-concept development and, when negative, to adolescent depression. Yet, whether adolescents with depression show aberrant emotional and neural reactivity to parental criticism and praise is understudied. Adolescents with depression (n = 20) and healthy controls (n = 59) received feedback supposedly provided by their mother or father in the form of negative ('untrustworthy'), neutral ('chaotic'), and positive ('respectful') personality evaluations while in an MRI-scanner. After each feedback word, adolescents reported their mood. Beforehand, adolescents had rated whether these personality evaluations matched their self-views. In both groups, mood decreased after criticism and increased after praise. Adolescents with depression reported blunted mood responses after praise, whereas there were no mood differences after criticism. Neuroimaging analyses revealed that adolescents with depression (v. healthy controls) exhibited increased activity in response to criticism in the subgenual anterior cingulate cortex, temporal pole, hippocampus, and parahippocampal gyrus. Praise consistent with adolescents' self-views improved mood independent of depression status, while criticism matching self-views resulted in smaller mood increases in adolescents with depression (v. healthy controls). Exploratory analyses indicated that adolescents with depression recalled criticism (v. praise) more. Adolescents with depression might be especially attentive to parental criticism, as indexed by increased sgACC and hippocampus activity, and memorize this criticism more. Together with lower positive impact of praise, these findings suggest that cognitive biases in adolescent depression may affect how parental feedback is processed, and may be fed into their self-views.

Promoting appetitive learning of consensual, empowered vulnerability: a contextual behavioral conceptualization of intimacy.

Vulnerability is emphasized in a number of theoretical models of intimacy (e.g., Intimacy Process Model), including from behavioral and contextual behavioral perspectives. Vulnerability is generally defined as susceptibility to harm and involves behaviors that have been historically met with aversive social consequences. From these perspectives, intimacy is fostered when vulnerable behavior is met with reinforcement. For example, interventions have trained intimacy by building skills in emotional expression and responsiveness with promising results. Vulnerability has divergent functions, however, depending on the interpersonal context in which it occurs. Functional intimacy is explored through the lens of functional relations, which play a key role in interpersonal processes of power, privilege, and consent. This conceptualization suggests that vulnerability must be under appetitive functional relations, consensual, and empowered for safe intimacy to emerge. The responsibility to promote appetitive learning of consensual, empowered vulnerability to foster intimacy falls to the person with more power in a particular interaction and relationship. Recommendations are offered for guiding this process.

Biobehavioral mechanisms underlying testosterone and mood relationships in peripubertal female adolescents.

The pubertal transition is characterized by pronounced sex hormone fluctuation, refinement of affective neural circuitry, and an increased risk of depression in female adolescents. Sex hormones, including testosterone, exert modulatory effects on frontal-limbic brain networks and are associated with emotion dysregulation and depressive symptoms. Weekly changes in hormones predict affective symptoms in peripubertal female adolescents, particularly in the context of stress; however, the biobehavioral mechanisms underlying hormone change and mood relationships during the pubertal transition have yet to be determined and was the objective of the present study. Forty-three peripubertal female adolescents (ages 11-14) collected 8-weekly salivary hormone (estrone, testosterone) samples and mood assessments to evaluate hormone-mood relationships, followed by a biobehavioral testing session with psychosocial stress and EEG. Within-person correlations between weekly hormone changes and corresponding mood were performed to determine individual differences in mood sensitivity to weekly hormone change. Increased frontal theta activity indexing emotion reactivity, reduced cortisol reactivity, and reduced vagal efficiency predicted the strength of the relationship between testosterone and mood. Further, testosterone-sensitivity strength was associated with the enhancement of negative affect following stress testing. Results identify divergent frontal theta and stress responses as potential biobehavioral mechanisms underlying mood sensitivity to peripubertal testosterone fluctuation.

Positive emotional reactivity to pleasant social and nonsocial stimuli in social anxiety disorder.

Prior research has shown that Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) is associated with significantly diminished positive affect (PA). Few studies have examined PA reactivity to pleasant experimental stimuli in individuals with SAD and whether emotional responses might be moderated by social context. Here, we investigated repeated measures of PA reactivity among individuals with SAD (n = 46) and healthy controls (HC; n = 39) in response to standardized neutral images, pleasant music, and social versus nonsocial guided imagery. Primary analyses revealed that SAD and HC participants did not differ in their PA reactivity when PA was conceptualized as a unitary construct. Exploratory analyses examining discrete subfacets of PA revealed potential deficits for SAD participants in relaxed and content PA, but not activated PA. Although participants with SAD reported relatively lower levels of relaxed and content PA overall compared with controls, they exhibited normal increases in all PA subfacets in response to pleasant music as well as pleasant social and nonsocial stimuli. These findings support a more nuanced conclusion about PA deficits in SAD than is described in the extant literature, suggesting that detecting PA deficits in SAD may depend upon how PA is conceptualized, evoked, and measured. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Эмоциональный интеллект педагога как необходимое условие воспитания эмоциональной отзывчивости у младших школьников

The article is devoted to one of the most important aspects of psychological and pedagogical support of the process of educating younger schoolchildren, namely, the formation of an emotional component in the structure of a developing personality. Emotional responsiveness of children, its content and features of manifestation depend on many factors and conditions, among which a special place is occupied by the emotional intelligence of the teacher as the central subject of educational activity, managing and controlling the entire course of pedagogical communication, which, in turn, affects the mental development, behavior and further socialization of students. The authors of the article, based on the results of an empirical study, analyze the psychological and pedagogical resources of the emotional intelligence of a teacher, whose creative and cognitive components directly and indirectly determine the ability of a younger student to empathy, empathy, responsiveness, empathy.
 In the proposed material, the emphasis is placed on the fact that the emotional intelligence of a teacher is an active motivating condition for the personal development of schoolchildren, and therefore requires a deeper study in the context of education in the educational environment of the school.