Emotional Variables Research Articles

Ordinal Logistic Regression Approach for Probability Analysis of Student Stress Levels

Stress is a condition or condition where a person feels pressured because of the many demands, both from within and from outside the individual that must be met. Stress is an uncomfortable stressful event for someone that can cause negative effects such as dizziness, emotional instability, irritability, loss of appetite, difficulty concentrating, and difficulty sleeping. One of the factors that cause stress is doing the Final Project. Someone who is experiencing stress can be seen from the level of stress, namely the level of mild, moderate and severe stress. To see a person's stress level, several variables can be used, namely physiological, emotional, cognitive, supervisory, and knowledge variables. This study aims to find out what variables affect stress levels in students. The analysis used is Ordinal Logistic Regression analysis which is one of the statistical analyzes used to determine the probability of events that are affected by the independent variable, where the response variable is a categorical scale. Variables that affect stress levels are emotional, cognitive and knowledge variables. The results showed that the higher a person's emotion, cognitive and knowledge, the smaller the chance for someone to experience severe levels of stress.

The Effect of Daily Meditative Practices Based on Mindfulness and Self-Compassion on Emotional Distress under Stressful Conditions: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Intervention programs based on self-compassion have demonstrated their efficacy both in reducing psychological distress and increasing well-being. The goal of this study was to test the efficacy of an online intervention to increase mindfulness and self-compassion levels in a non-clinical sample in a highly stressful context: the ten weeks of lockdown imposed in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. The intervention sessions consisted of thirty-minute guided meditations followed by thirty minutes of inquiry. Sixty-one participants completed two thirds of the sessions or more, and 65 individuals participated in a waiting-list (WL) control group. Self-compassion, anxiety, depression and stress levels were assessed. The analysis of pre-post results suggests that the interventions increased self-compassion levels and decreased anxiety, depression and stress levels, whereas the WL group did not show any significant changes. The emotional changes in the intervention group were associated with the increase in self-compassion. However, at follow-up, the scores of emotional distress variables returned to the initial pre-intervention scores. These data can be interpreted in line with previous results that have shown the efficacy of self-compassion-based intervention programs. Given that this efficacy was not maintained at follow-up, data are discussed according to the pervasive role of a highly stressful context and-as described in other studies-the need for regular practice to maintain the benefits obtained.

Two years COVID-19 pandemic: Development of university students' mental health 2020-2022.

The literature indicates a negative impact on the mental health of university students during the COVID-19 pandemic. It remains unclear if this negative impact persists even after lockdown measures are lifted. The current study therefore investigates the mental health status of students by drawing on two previous studies the present study seeks to investigate differences in the mental health status across three time points. A cross-sectional, anonymous online survey among students of six universities was conducted between April and May 2022 (N = 5,510). Symptoms of depression, anxiety, hazardous alcohol use and eating disorders as well as social and emotional variables were assessed utilizing standardized instruments. Risk- and protective factors for severity of depressive and anxiety symptoms were investigated using multiple regression models. Differences in e.g., symptoms of depression across three time points were assessed with one-way analysis of variance. More than one third of students exhibited clinically relevant symptoms of depression (35.5%), hazardous alcohol use (33.0-35.5% depending on gender) or anxiety disorder (31.1%). Taken together, almost two out of three (61.4%) students reported clinically relevant symptoms in at least one of the aforementioned symptom patterns, while almost one fifth of students reported suicidal ideation or thoughts of self-harm (19.6%). Higher perceived stress and loneliness significantly predicted higher levels of depressive symptoms, while resilience and social support were identified as protective factors. Compared to 2020 and 2021, levels of depressive symptoms were significantly reduced in 2022, levels of hazardous alcohol consumption showed a small but significant increase from 2021 to 2022. Worryingly, prevalence of suicidal ideation was the highest yet, being significantly higher than in 2020 (14.5%) and 2021 (16.5%). These results confirm previous results that the pandemic had and still has a negative impact on the mental health of university students. The present study broadens this view by the fact that some areas seem to recover quicker, while others seem to increase worryingly. Especially the persistent rise in suicidal ideation from 2020 to 2021 and to 2022, a constant reduction in reported social support and associated perceived loneliness is concerning. The claim for low-threshold and accessible mental health support for university students remains the same as in the beginning of the pandemic.

Examining Emotion Perception Agreement in Live Music Performance

Current music emotion recognition (MER) systems rely on emotion data averaged across listeners and over time to infer the emotion expressed by a musical piece, often neglecting time- and listener-dependent factors. These limitations can restrict the efficacy of MER systems and cause misjudgements. In a live music concert setting, fifteen audience members annotated perceived emotion in valence-arousal space over time using a mobile application. Analyses of inter-rater reliability yielded widely varying levels of agreement in the perceived emotions. A follow-up lab study to uncover the reasons for such variability was conducted, where twenty-one listeners annotated their perceived emotions through a recording of the original performance and offered open-ended explanations. Thematic analysis reveals many salient features and interpretations that can describe the cognitive processes. Some of the results confirm known findings of music perception and MER studies. Novel findings highlight the importance of less frequently discussed musical attributes, such as musical structure, performer expression, and stage setting, as perceived across different modalities. Musicians are found to attribute emotion change to musical harmony, structure, and performance technique more than non-musicians. We suggest that listener-informed musical features can benefit MER in addressing emotional perception variability by providing reasons for listener similarities and idiosyncrasies.

Motivation to learn science, emotions in science classes, and engagement towards science studies in Chilean and Spanish compulsory secondary education students

AbstractImportant factors in learning science include motivational variables (relevance of science learning for personal goals, self‐efficacy for learning science, and interest in a scientific career), emotional variables (boredom and enjoyment in science classes), and engagement variables (vigor, dedication, and absorption towards science studies). Data from 3034 Chilean and Spanish compulsory secondary education students was used to study the relationships between these variables, by means of a self‐report questionnaire analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM). The model, tested for goodness of fit, showed that motivational variables predict emotions in science classes and explained 43% of boredom variance and 67% of enjoyment variance. Motivational and emotional variables explained the 73% variance in engagement toward science studies. Also seen is the essential role played by emotions that mediate between motivational variables in science learning and engagement towards science studies. When promoting engagement towards science studies, these results can be used to increase relevance of science learning to personal goals, self‐efficacy for learning science, and interest in a scientific career, besides reducing boredom, increasing enjoyment in science classes, and enhancing engagement towards science studies.

The Role of Utilitarian Value, Hedonic Value, and Emotional Value on Purchase Intention through Shopee Live

This research aims to analyze the role of utilitarian value, hedonic value, and emotional value on purchase intention of Somethinc’s products through Shopee Live. A quantitative approach was used through distributing questionnaires and a sample of 82 respondents was obtained. The validity test using loading factors and Average Variance Extracted (AVE) shows valid values. The reliability test using composite reliability values had met the criteria. The data analysis technique used is SEM-PLS (Partial Least Squares). The hypothesis was tested with SmartPLS 3.0, showing that utilitarian value had a positive and significant effect on purchase intention with a significance value of 0.032, hedonic value had a positive and insignificant effect with a value of 0.066 on purchase intention, and emotional value had a positive and significant effect on purchase intention with a value of 0.001. The influence of utilitarian value, hedonic value and emotional value variables on purchase intention is 65% with an R-square value of 0.648, while 35% is explained by other variables outside this research.

The effect of pandemic-related stress on the decision-making process for individual outdoor leisure activities

This study investigates the decision-making process for outdoor leisure activities of the Chinese people in the context of COVID-19. An online survey of residents of Heilongjiang Province was conducted in September and October 2020. In total, 441 questionnaires were returned for empirical analysis. The results reveal that fears of contamination and compulsory checking/reassurance-seeking have had a significant impact on the respondents’ goal-directed behavior for nature-based outdoor leisure activities during the pandemic. The theoretical contribution is that extended goal-directed behavior expands with the inclusion of emotional variables and can be used to predict individual outdoor activity intention and decision-making process in the COVID-19 situation relating to leisure. This study provides useful insights for public health ministries and local governments in any country to encourage nature-based outdoor leisure activities as a public health policy for the mental health of the people.

Self-Compassion and Well-Being during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Study of Greek College Students

The present study examined the relationship between self-compassion (SC) and emotional well-being in college students during the COVID-19 pandemic. The theoretical framework for the study was that SC, defined as an understanding and caring response to one's suffering and limitations, may serve as a protective factor against negative mental health outcomes. A sample of college students (N = 101) completed self-report measures of SC, depression, anxiety, stress, life satisfaction and subjective happiness. Data were analysed using regression analysis to examine the prediction of emotional well-being variables by SC and moderation analysis to examine the moderating effect of SC on the relationships between emotional well-being variables. The study's results confirmed the hypothesis that SC would predict emotional well-being. SC significantly predicted all variables examined, including depression, anxiety, stress, life satisfaction (LS) and subjective happiness (SH). However, SC did not moderate the relationships between these variables. Isolation significantly moderated the relationship between SH and depression among college students. These findings support the idea that SC may serve as a protective factor against negative mental health outcomes and suggest that interventions aimed at increasing SC may improve mental health and overall well-being in college students during the COVID-19 pandemic. Further research is needed to understand these relationships' mechanisms and the factors that may influence them.

Predicting children's internalizing symptoms across development from early emotional reactivity

AbstractCurrent methods of assessing children's emotional reactivity fail to capture individual differences in emotion across contexts that may be meaningfully related to youth psychopathology. We therefore explored the utility of modeling variability in young children's positive and negative emotion across emotionally evocative laboratory tasks to predict later adjustment. At age 3, 409 children completed a battery of laboratory tasks eliciting either positive or negative affect. We used latent difference score (LDS) modeling to predict children's caregiver‐reported internalizing symptoms across ages 3, 5, 8, and 11 from variability in their observer‐rated positive and negative emotion across laboratory tasks. We found that sex moderated the association between both average and variability measures of children's negative emotion at age 3 and trajectories of their anxious‐depressive symptoms across childhood. Measures of emotion variability predicted children's internalizing symptoms above and beyond measures of average emotion. Variability indices also provided unique information about the trajectories of children's symptoms. We discuss implications for the utility of LDS modeling in assessing children's emotional reactivity.

The Relationship Between Chinese EFL Learners’ Learning Anxiety and Enjoyment in a Blended Learning Environment

For the past two decades, learner psychology in relation to second language acquisition (SLA) has been a hot topic, and negative emotional variables in students’ language learning have attracted a lot of attention. More recently, focus has shifted to a positive emotion, enjoyment, and its relationship with anxiety. The present mixed-method study investigated the levels of FLCA and FLE of 228 Chinese EFL learners, the correlations between the two and the sources evoking these two emotions in a blended learning environment. Considering the questionnaire’s findings, participants reported relatively high levels of FLE (Mean=3.53, SD=.61) and low levels of FLCA (Mean=3.12, SD=.42). There was no significant correlation between FLCA and FLE, according to correlation analysis. Additionally, a qualitative investigation of students’ emotional experiences found that FLCA was more closely tied to learner-internal factors while FLE was to the teacher. The conclusions have pedagogical ramifications for EFL teaching in China’s educational system.

Emotional intelligence subdimensions as moderators in the association between body dissatisfaction and symptoms of eating disorders among female Mexican adolescents.

Strong empirical research has shown a relationship between body dissatisfaction and symptoms of eating disorders (ED) and the direct and combined influence of emotional factors and dimensions of emotional intelligence (EI) on ED symptoms. However, whether these emotional variables and competencies moderate the well-established relationship between body dissatisfaction and ED symptomatology has not yet been tested. Neither have studies of this nature been performed among high at-risk populations such as Mexican female adolescents. Thus, this research aimed to explore the moderator role of EI subdimensions in the relationship between body dissatisfaction and ED symptoms among female adolescents from Sinaloa, Mexico. A total of 485 female adolescents aged 14-19 years old (M =16.81, SD=1.33) who were students in middle school, high school, and college completed questionnaires about body dissatisfaction, ED symptomatology, and EI. We conducted moderating analyses. Subdimensions of EI significantly moderated the relationship between body dissatisfaction and symptoms of ED. For participants high in body dissatisfaction, lower levels in stress management ability and higher levels in the interpersonal EI and Adaptability EI dimensions were associated with higher levels of ED symptomatology. Subdimensions of EI have an important role in moderating the association between body dissatisfaction and symptoms of ED. The findings of this study contribute to improving the knowledge about the role of emotional competencies in ED. Proposals for future research and to improve preventative approaches are discussed. This study shows the moderating role of EI dimensions in the well-established relationship between body dissatisfaction and ED symptomatology. The research was conducted with a population at high risk of ED: female adolescents in the northwest of Mexico. Results showed that low Stress management EI, high Adaptability EI, and high Interpersonal EI were associated with higher levels of ED symptomatology among participants with high (but not low) body dissatisfaction. These insightful results have theoretical and practical implications.

Eating when depressed, anxious, bored, or happy: An examination in treatment-seeking adults with overweight/obesity

Emotions that differ in valence are uniquely associated with eating. In our previous study with an online sample of adults with overweight/obesity, eating in response to depression was the type of emotional eating most closely associated with negative psychosocial correlates (Braden et al., 2018). The current study extended this research by examining associations between emotional eating types (eating in response to depression, anxiety, boredom, happiness) and psychological correlates among treatment-seeking adults. The present study was a secondary analysis of adults (N = 63; 96.8% female) with overweight/obesity and self-identified emotional eating who completed a baseline assessment for a behavioral weight loss intervention. Emotional eating in response to depression (EE-depression), anxiety/anger (EE-anxiety/anger), and boredom (EE-boredom) were assessed with the revised Emotional Eating Scale (EES-R), and positive emotional eating (EE-positive) was assessed with the positive emotions subscale of the Emotional Appetite Questionnaire (EMAQ). The Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire (EDE-Q), Binge Eating Scale (BES), Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS), and Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9; depressive symptoms) were also administered. Frequencies showed the most endorsed emotional eating type was EE-depression (44.4%; n = 28). Four multiple regression analyses examined associations between emotional eating (EE-depression, EE-anxiety/anger, EE-boredom, and EE-positive) and dependent variables (EDE-Q, BES, DERS, and PHQ-9). Results showed that depression was the emotional eating type most closely related to disordered eating, binge eating, and depressive symptoms. Eating in response to anxiety was closely related to emotion regulation difficulties. Positive emotional eating was related to less depressive symptoms. Exploratory analyses showed that lower levels of positive emotional eating were related to higher depressive symptoms among adults with greater emotion regulation difficulties. Researchers and clinicians may consider tailoring weight loss treatment based on unique emotions that trigger eating.

Unifying Algorithmic and Theoretical Perspectives: Emotions in Online Reviews and Sales

Emotion artificial intelligence, the algorithm that recognizes and interprets various human emotions beyond valence (positive and negative polarity), is still in its infancy but has attracted attention from industry and academia. Based on discrete emotion theory and statistical language modeling, this work proposes an algorithm to enable automatic domain-adaptive emotion lexicon construction and multidimensional emotion detection in texts. Using a large-scale dataset of China’s movie market from 2012 to 2018, we constructed and validated a domain-specific emotion lexicon and demonstrated the predictive power of eight discrete emotions (i.e., surprise, joy, anticipation, love, anxiety, sadness, anger, and disgust) in online reviews on box office sales. We found that representing overall emotions through discrete emotions yields higher prediction accuracy than valence or latent emotion variables generated by topic modeling. To understand the source of the predictive power from a theoretical perspective and to test the cross-culture generalizability of our prediction study, we further conducted an experiment in the U.S. movie market based on theories on emotion, judgment, and decision-making. We found that discrete emotions, mediated by perceived processing fluency, significantly affect the perceived review helpfulness, which further influences purchase intention. Our work shows the economic value of emotions in online reviews, generates insight into the mechanism of their effects, and has managerial implications for online review platform design, movie marketing, and cinema operations.

Profiling ambivalence in the context of nonsuicidal self-injury.

We aimed to identify profiles of ambivalence among individuals with a history of non-suicidalself-injury (NSSI)and tested whether profiles differed across various theoretically informed constructs: NSSI-related characteristics, cognitive (outcome expectancies, self-efficacy to resist NSSI), emotional (psychological distress, difficulties in emotion regulation), personality, and incentives to engage/not engage in NSSI. Individuals with a lifetime history of NSSI (n = 224) reported the extent to which they wanted to and did not want to engage in NSSI and completed well-validated measures of the constructs of interest. Latent profile analysis indicated four ambivalence profiles (avoid: n = 39; moderately ambivalent: n = 85; highly ambivalent: n = 30; approach: n = 70). The profiles differed across a number of NSSI-related characteristics, cognitive, emotional, and incentive-related variables. Differences between the ambivalence profiles and the avoid/approach profiles varied across constructs. For example, the ambivalence and approach profiles were similar for NSSI-related outcome expectancies, but the ambivalence and avoidance profiles were similar for self-efficacy to resist NSSI. Findings highlight variation between the desire to engage or not engage in NSSI that are consistent with the notion of ambivalence. Understanding these differences may allow for a more person-centered approach in treatment for NSSI.

Students’ self-regulated learning strategies and science achievement: exploring the moderating effect of learners’ emotional skills

ABSTRACT This study aims to underline the importance of school-based social-emotional learning (SEL) by exploring the relationship between self-regulated learning (SRL) strategies and science achievement with a moderator of students’ emotional skills. In previous studies, SEL scholars have paid attention to explaining the complicated relationships among the social, emotional, and cognitive development of school-aged children. Based on the SEL framework, this study investigated the moderating effect of emotional skills on students’ SRL strategies and science achievement with 79 sixth-grade students in South Korea. Students’ emotional regulation was a significant moderator of all the subfactors in SRL and science performance. Notably, motivational beliefs in SRL strategies are linked to higher science achievement. The findings support the idea of a SEL approach that posits that social and emotional variables are related to students’ science achievement, which invites the consideration of how these emotional skills can assist students to become better prepared learners.

A within-person examination of the effect of mentors' daily ostracism on protégés' displaced aggression and in-role performance.

Drawing on social information processing theory and social comparison theory, we test how mentors' daily ostracism triggers protégés' envy, thus leading to decreased in-role performance and increased displaced aggression. Using an experience sampling study across three work weeks, the study provided theoretical and empirical examinations of dynamic, within-person processes related to mentors' ostracism. Mentors' daily ostracism triggers protégés' envy, which mediates the effect of mentors' daily ostracism on protégés' displaced aggression and in-role performance. Our findings supported our hypothesis of the buffering effect of mentorship quality on the negative effect of mentors' ostracism on protégés' envy but did not show a significant moderating effect on the mediating effect of protégés' emotions between mentors' daily ostracism and protégés' behaviors. Our study focused on the victims of mentors' ostracism on a daily basis. We constructed an overarching theoretical model to investigate how, why, and when mentors' daily ostracism leads to protégés' emotional and behavioral variability. The study provided how to cope with ostracism and envy. We discuss the theoretical implications of our findings for research on mentors' ostracism, protégés' emotions, and protégés' behaviors.

Assessing Decentering Capacity in Athletes: A Moderated Mediation Model.

Decentering has received more attention in sports literature as a self-regulating skill capable of significantly limiting episodes of mental block in competitive situations. This contribution depicts a comparative study conducted with 375 Italian national and international athletes. The objective was to evaluate athletes' decentralization skills across different sports and levels of competition and test a mediation model of decentering in sports with coping and emotional balance variables. Pearson bivariate correlations, linear hierarchical regression, and simple mediation analysis were conducted for all main measures (The Decentering Sport Scale, The Emotion Regulation Questionnaire, and The Coping Orientations to Problems Experienced). Outputs reported significant associations with emotional regulation and coping styles. Mediation analysis confirmed the central mediating role of decentering capacity which has indirect effects on both the coping ability of problem solving (z-value = 2.986; p = 0.003) and cognitive reappraisal (z-value = 2.779; p = 0.005). Decentering acts as a mediator between an athlete's positive attitude, problem-orientation ability, and management of emotions in competition through cognitive reappraisal. The study highlights the significance of evaluating and enhancing decentralization skills in order to establish specific action mechanisms, which are crucial for both peak performance and the athlete's health.

Adapt, Explore, or Keep Going? The Role of Adaptability, Curiosity, and Perseverance in a Network of Study-Related Factors and Scholastic Success.

Soft skills are the key characteristics for students' success and wellbeing in the 21st century, but they were only rarely studied contemporarily or integrated into comprehensive models of self-regulated learning. This makes it difficult to understand the role that specific skills have above and beyond the others and how they work together to favor students' achievement and life satisfaction. For this reason, in a sample of 585 students (10-18 years old), we applied an exploratory network analysis and studied three crucial soft skills (i.e., adaptability, curiosity, and perseverance) and their contemporary network of inter-relationships with a host of functional study-related factors, including self-regulated learning strategies, motivation, emotions, cognitive abilities, academic achievement, and life and school satisfaction. Results show that the three soft skills play a positive role within the school context through their association with the majority of the study-related factors that mediate their relationships with academic achievement. Importantly, the results differentiated adaptability (which mainly relates with wellbeing and emotional variables), perseverance (which relates with the cognitive and behavioral aspect of learning), and curiosity (which bridges the connection between the other skills and relates with emotional and behavioral variables) in the school context. Overall, these findings contribute to the deepening of the theoretical framework on soft skills and their role as part of a successful learning profile, and inform us about the possible effectiveness of intervention on soft skills for students' achievement and wellbeing.

Effect of facial expression on decision making

Sometimes we advise others persons on the decisions they should make, and we accept risks that would be modulated by cognitive and emotional variables. In order to analyze the role of the expressed emotion in this type of interactions, it was conducted an experiment in which the type of emotion (facial expression: joy vs. sadness) and the type of advice (health vs. financial) were manipulated in order to analyze their impact on risk-taking and confidence in the response. The subjects accepted less risk when the facial expression was sadness (vs. happiness) in the financial situations. The findings are discussed as part of the reciprocity process in social interaction, where emotional information could play an important modulating role.

Self-Protection Behaviors towards COVID-19 among Women Religious Group in Indonesia: A Qualitative Study

Background: Optimizing the role of religious-based communities in preventing the transmission of COVID-19 through the application of self-protection to its facilitators and members is an important part of efforts to stop the pandemic. 
 Objective: The purpose of this study was to determine the perceptions of facilitators and members of religious group in implementing self-protection behaviour.
 Method: A qualitative study was conducted from August to December 2021 using a purposive sampling approach to collect the data. In total, 6 individual interviews were conducted with facilitators of religious group and one focus group discussion (FGD) with 12 members of religious-based communities. Data analysis was performed using a conventional content analysis approach.
 Results: The results of this study indicate that both facilitators and members of religious-based communities have a favourable perception of self-protection in religious group. However, this perception is not enough to support readiness in implementing self-protection behaviour. Self-efficacy is still weak, this is indicated by weaknesses in mastery experiences, vicarious experiences, verbal persuasion, and emotional and physiological states variables.
 Conclusion: Increasing int ernal and external roles in religious-based communities and strengthening collaboration in the application of self-protection through increasing self-efficacy forming variables in religious group are urgent needs to be carried out in COVID-19 prevention programs.