Emotional Situations Research Articles

Multidimensional frailty connection in older patients with diabetes mellitus

Background and objectivePatients with diabetes mellitus (DM) experience accelerated aging and, thus, a high prevalence of frailty. Our aim is to outline the type of frailty and prefrailty from a multidimensional perspective and the interaction of these dimensions in this scenery. Material and methodsObservational study of patients with DM over 60 years-old. Variables related to nutrition, cognitive and emotional status, physical and instrumental functional capacity and social resources were collected. They were divided into three groups (robust, prefrail and frail) according to the Fried scale. Each of the variables in the groups were compared and a correspondence analysis was carried out to see the influence of some dimensions with others in each stage of frailty. Results188 patients (mean age 72.6 + 7.5) were analysed. Of them, 105 patients had prefrailty and 66 were frail. With the exception of social resources, the rest of the variables had an increasing prevalence depending on the stage of frailty. However, in the correspondence analysis (with 22.9% of variation explained by two dimensions) it was only patients with frailty who were associated with worse functional capacity, cognitive and emotional situation and mild to moderate social incapacity. ConclusionsIn our sample there was a high prevalence of prefrailty, and frailty associated with an increase in the prevalence of other different dimensions except social resources. However, the interaction between these dimensions was only evident in the case of patients with frailty.

Impact of emotional intelligence on anxiodepressive disorders in nursing staff in the intensive care unit

IntroductionWorking in the intensive care unit (ICU) often involves intensely stressful and emotional situations, which can be strong predictors of poor mental health. Healthcare workers are required to perceive, understand, manage, and use their emotions to provide quality care.ObjectivesTo evaluate the impact of emotional intelligence (EI) on anxiodepressive disorders in nursing staff in the ICU.MethodsThis was a descriptive, cross-sectional, analytical study conducted among nursing staff in the ICUs of two hospitals in Tunisia. Data were collected over a 3-month period. EI was assessed using the SSEIT self-report test, and the hospital anxiety and depression scale (HADS) was used to measure anxiodepressive disorders. Sociodemographic aspects were also taken into account.ResultsWe included 92 healthcare workers. The majority were women (67.4%) with an average age of 25 to 54 years. Nurses represented 58.7% of the study population. About half had less than 5 years of occupational seniority. In terms of lifestyle habits, 76% were smokers, 90.2% did not consume alcohol, and 53% had no leisure activities. The majority had no personal, family, or medical psychiatric history.The mean EI score was 109.9, ranging from 62 to 150. Anxiety was present in 43.49% of participants and depression in 51.08%.A significant association was observed between anxiety and the perception of emotions (p=0.0196) and the management of others’ emotions (p=0.0261).As for depression, a significant association was observed between perception of emotions and depression (p=0.0259), as well as between management of others’ emotions and depression (p=0.0126). EI was positively associated with HADS (p=0.0281), with a correlation value of 0.114.ConclusionsCaregivers with anxiodepressive disorders had significantly lower levels of EI than those without anxiodepressive disorders, suggesting that EI maybe a protective factor against these disordersDisclosure of InterestNone Declared

Effect of emotions on learning, memory, and disorders associated with the changes in expression levels: A narrative review.

Emotions, in general, have no scientific definition. Emotions can be denoted as the mental state because of the neurophysiological changes. Emotions are related to mood, personality, temperament, and consciousness. People exhibit different emotions in different situations causing changes in cognitive functions. One of the major cognitive functions is the ability to learn, to store the acquired information in the parts of the brain such as the hippocampus, amygdala, cortex, and cerebellum. Learning and memory are affected by different types of emotions. Emotional responses such as fear, depression, and stress have impaired effects on cognitive functions such as learning and memory, whereas optimistic and happy emotions have positive effects on long-term memory. Certain disorders have greater effects on the regions of the brain which are also associated with synaptic plasticity and Learning and Memory(LM). Neuroimaging techniques are involved in studying the changing regions of the brain due to varied emotions and treatment strategies based on the changes observed. There are many drugs, and in advancements, nanotechnology is also utilized in the treatment of such psychiatric disorders. To improve mental health and physical health, emotional balance is most important, and effective care should be provided for people with less emotional quotient and different types of disorders to inhibit cognitive dysfunctions. In this review, emotions and their varied effects on a cognitive function named learning and memory, disorders associated with the defects of learning due to emotional instability, the areas of the brain that are in control of emotions, diagnosis, and treatment strategies for psychiatric disorders dependent on emotions are discussed.

Resting-state effective connectivity is systematically linked to reappraisal success of high- and low-intensity negative emotions.

Emotion regulation is a process by which individuals modulate their emotional responses to cope with different environmental demands, for example, by reappraising the emotional situation. Here, we tested whether effective connectivity of a reappraisal-related neural network at rest is predictive of successfully regulating high- and low-intensity negative emotions in an emotion-regulation task. Task-based and resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) data of 28 participants were collected using ultra-high magnetic field strength at 7 Tesla during three scanning sessions. We used spectral dynamic causal modeling (spDCM) on the rs-fMRI data within brain regions modulated by emotion intensity. We found common connectivity patterns for both high- and low-intensity stimuli. Distinctive effective connectivity patterns in relation to low-intensity stimuli were found from frontal regions connecting to temporal regions. Reappraisal success for high-intensity stimuli was predicted by additional connections within the vlPFC and from temporal to frontal regions. Connectivity patterns at rest predicting reappraisal success were generally more pronounced for low-intensity stimuli, suggesting a greater role of stereotyped patterns, potentially reflecting preparedness, when reappraisal was relatively easy to implement. The opposite was true for high-intensity stimuli, which might require a more flexible recruitment of resources beyond what is reflected in resting state connectivity patterns. Resting-state effective connectivity emerged as a robust predictor for successful reappraisal, revealing both shared and distinct network dynamics for high- and low-intensity stimuli. These patterns signify specific preparatory states associated with heightened vigilance, attention, self-awareness, and goal-directed cognitive processing, particularly during reappraisal for mitigating the emotional impact of external stimuli. Our findings hold potential implications for understanding psychopathological alterations in brain connectivity related to affective disorders.

Factors Affecting the Assertive Communication Skills of Young Women at the Jayapura Mercy Princess Orphanage

This study aims to determine the factors that influence assertive communication skills in adolescent girls at 'Panti Asuhan Putri Kerahiman Jayapura'. The concept used is assertive communication. The research method used a qualitative approach with in-depth interviews with six informants. The results showed that internal factors include fear, lack of confidence, lack of self-awareness, and emotional situations. External factors include family rules, parenting, social support at the orphanage, and a less supportive environment. The main finding is that adolescent girls in orphanages still have psychological barriers to self-expression and assertiveness. In conclusion, there are internal and external factors that affect the assertive communication skills of adolescent girls in orphanages. Recommendations include the need to provide communication education and training, increase self-awareness, and optimize social support and a conducive environment in orphanages.

Manoeuvring Among Institutions and Pandemic Restrictions: When the Fantasy of Parenting After Divorce or Breakup and the Respective Emotions Matter

ABSTRACTUnderstanding social factors that affected how people interpreted the meanings of COVID‐19 measures is important in postpandemic times. This study applies perspectives from research on emotions as one of the possible explanations and focuses on how institutions and their measures are perceived in the context of individual emotional situations. The aim of the study is to understand how parents with joint or shared custody arrangements in Czechia understood COVID‐19–related state interventions and how they dealt with those interventions in their lives. Analysing 16 interviews with these parents, who are considered a potentially vulnerable group, and their interplay with pandemic public policy, the paper suggests the importance of parenting fantasy. The term ‘fantasy’ builds on Illouz's scholarship and reflects individual sense‐making (ideas or practices) based on close and intense personal relationships related to parenting. This paper claims that the existence of this fantasy (in the form of a fulfilled parenting fantasy) or its non‐existence (in the form of a disruption of parenting, called a negative relationship by Illouz) codetermined how these parents dealt with the pandemic measures—whether (and how strongly) they conformed to them or whether they perceived (or used) them as a threat.

Emotion regulation flexibility and momentary affect in two cultures

Recent theoretical models highlight the importance of emotion regulation (ER) flexibility, challenging traditional notions of universally maladaptive versus adaptive strategies. Here we employed ecological momentary assessment to develop proxy ecological measures for ER flexibility components (context sensitivity, repertoire and feedback responsiveness) and examine their associations with momentary affective outcomes in two independent samples from the United States (158 adults and 12,217 observations) and China (144 adults and 11,347 observations, analysis preregistered). Participants completed four daily surveys for 21 days, reporting emotional situations, situation characteristics, ER use and change and momentary distress. Increased momentary context sensitivity and use of repertoire were found associated with reduced distress, while results for feedback responsiveness were less consistent. Maintaining effective strategies was generally adaptive, whereas switching from ineffective strategies was adaptive for momentary depressed, but not anxious, mood. This innovative ecological momentary assessment design demonstrates transcultural similarities in ER flexibility’s benefits and nuanced implications of its components on affective outcomes.

Face and context integration in emotion inference is limited and variable across categories and individuals

The ability to make nuanced inferences about other people’s emotional states is central to social functioning. While emotion inferences can be sensitive to both facial movements and the situational context that they occur in, relatively little is understood about when these two sources of information are integrated across emotion categories and individuals. In a series of studies, we use one archival and five empirical datasets to demonstrate that people could be integrating, but that emotion inferences are just as well (and sometimes better) captured by knowledge of the situation alone, while isolated facial cues are insufficient. Further, people integrate facial cues more for categories for which they most frequently encounter facial expressions in everyday life (e.g., happiness). People are also moderately stable over time in their reliance on situational cues and integration of cues and those who reliably utilize situation cues more also have better situated emotion knowledge. These findings underscore the importance of studying variability in reliance on and integration of cues.

Nurse assistants’ perception of caring for older persons who are dying in their own home

BackgroundAs the proportion of older persons in society increases, there is a growing trend towards providing end-of-life care in their homes. Palliative care is a complex and knowledge-demanding form of care, and nurse assistants are those who work closest to the older person at the end-of-life in their own homes. However, nurse assistants sometimes have low educational and insufficient levels of knowledge in palliative care, which can affect the quality of care they provide. Moreover, nurse assistants’ experiences are relatively unexplored in this context. The purpose of the study was to illuminate nurse assistants’ experiences in caring for dying older persons at home.MethodAn empirical, qualitative interview study was conducted with 14 nurse assistants with experience of palliative care in homecare. The material was analyzed using thematic content analysis.ResultsFrom the nurse assistant’s experiences, one main theme emerged: doing everything possible for the dying older person despite challenges. Moreover, three sub-themes emerged: making a difference at a crucial time, death awakens emotions, and balancing personal and professional relationships. The nurse assistants’ saw their role primarily as relieving symptoms but also focusing on next of kin. The following are described as essential parts of their role: carrying out practical nursing tasks, focusing on the physical environment, working alone and seeking help from colleagues due to a physical distance to the other members of the multidisciplinary team. The nurse assistants experienced a lack of support as there was no structured guidance or debriefing available in difficult emotional situations. Furthermore, they disclosed that they were left alone to deal with their feelings.ConclusionThis study demonstrates that nurse assistants strive to provide comprehensive care for dying older persons despite facing obstacles from their working conditions and work organization. They lack supervision and education in palliative care, but they rely on their experience-based knowledge to a large extent and provide care according to the four cornerstones of palliative care.

Three facets of emotion regulation in old and very old age: Strategy use, effectiveness, and variability.

The ability to regulate emotions in stressful situations is an important building block for high well-being across the lifespan. Yet, very little is known about how old and very old adults regulate their emotions. In this study, 123 young old adults (Mage = 67.18, SD = 0.94) and 47 very old adults (Mage = 86.70, SD = 1.46) were prompted 6 times a day for 7 consecutive days to report both their stressors and 10 emotion regulation strategies. Overall, there was little indication of age differences in the use of emotion regulation strategies during exposure to stressors, but very old, as compared with young old, individuals used three of the 10 strategies considered here more intensively. The 10 emotion regulation strategies were similarly effective across age groups based on their association with perceived overall emotion regulation success. We also did not find age group differences in within-strategy variability, defined as the variation in using a given strategy across stressor situations. By contrast, between-strategy variability, defined as the selective use of fewer rather than many strategies across stressor situations, was lower for very old participants. Only between-strategy, and not within-strategy, variability contributed to overall emotion regulation success. There was no age group difference in this regard. Taken together, the evidence suggests small age differences in emotion regulation if at all. This is noteworthy given the advanced age of the very old subsample in this study and the deficits in multiple domains of functioning reported in the literature for this advanced age. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Autonomous sensory Meridian response as a physically felt signature of positive and negative emotions.

Current research on Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR) assumes that ASMR is always accompanied by contentment, and it is distinct from frisson due to positive emotions. Thus, research investigations tend to limit their scope to solely focusing on the sensation of relaxation that ASMR induces. This study explores whether it is possible to have a different emotional experience and still perceive ASMR, testing the theory of ASMR as an amplifier of pre-existing emotion instead of a determination of positive affect. The emotional arousal and valence, and mood changes of 180 ASMR-capable and incapable individuals were analysed using questionnaires after altering the affective interpretation associated with auditory ASMR (tapping) with visual priming to examine whether the primed emotion (fearful, relaxing, or neutral) could be amplified. It was found that an ASMR response occurred in all priming conditions, including the fear priming group. No significant difference was found in the emotional outcome or mood of the neutral and relaxing priming groups. Upon comparison with ASMR-incapable individuals, both the relaxing and neutral priming groups demonstrated the same affect, but greater potent for ASMR-capable. Individuals who appraised ASMR after visual fear priming demonstrated a significant decrease in positive emotional valence and increased arousal. The findings suggest that ASMR occurs in both positive and negative emotional situations, suppressing contentment induction if ASMR stimuli are interpreted negatively and amplifying contentment when interpreted positively. While more research is needed, the results highlight that ASMR and frisson might describe the same phenomenon, both a physically felt signature of emotion. Therapeutic usage of ASMR should carefully select appropriate stimuli that emphasise contentment to avoid potential health risks associated with negative emotions until a further understanding of ASMR's affective parameters has been established.

Expression and co-regulation of negative emotion in 18-month-olds at increased likelihood for autism with diverse developmental outcomes.

Managing negative emotion can be challenging for autistic individuals and their families from a young age. Parents help young children manage negative emotions by responding in comforting or supportive ways. Not much research has examined how negative emotions and parent responses to negative emotions are different in very young autistic children. This study used videotapes of 18-month-old toddlers and parents at home. We examined how much and how intensely toddlers expressed negative emotion in everyday situations, and how parents responded. Participants were younger siblings of autistic children, and we compared three groups-children that (1) later received an autism diagnosis; (2) had language delays but not autism; and (3) had no delays or autism. We found that autistic toddlers' negative emotion was more likely to be intense and to continue once it started compared with children without delays or autism. Language-delayed toddlers also showed some, but not all these differences. Parents responded similarly to negative emotions in all groups. When parents used strategies to help, it reduced the chances of the negative emotions continuing, although it may have been less helpful for autistic toddlers. This study shows that autistic children may express more intense and long-lasting negative emotions from an early age. It also shows that parents of autistic children are very responsive to their children's negative emotions, but these responses may not be as helpful to autistic children. While more research is needed, this study helps us understand how autistic toddlers may express and experience emotions differently.

Aerobic exercise promotes emotion regulation: a narrative review.

Aerobic exercise improves the three stages of emotion regulation: perception, valuation and action. It reduces the perception of negative emotions, encourages individuals to reinterpret emotional situations in a positive or non-emotional manner, and enhances control over emotion expression behaviours. These effects are generated via increased prefrontal cortex activation, the strengthening of functional connections between the amygdala and several other brain regions, and the enhancement of the plasticity of key emotion regulation pathways and nodes, such as the uncinate fasciculus. The effect of aerobic exercise on emotion regulation is influenced by the exercise intensity and duration, and by individuals' exercise experience. Future research may explore the key neural basis of aerobic exercise's promotion of emotion regulation.

Preschoolers' cognitive flexibility and emotion understanding: a developmental perspective.

Cognitive flexibility is the ability to adapt to changing tasks or problems, while emotion understanding is the ability to interpret emotional cues and information in different contexts. Both abilities are crucial for preschoolers' socialization. This study selected 532 preschool children aged 3-6 years from two kindergartens in a central province of China. The Dimensional Change Card Sorting (DCCS) task and emotion understanding tasks were used to investigate the developmental characteristics of cognitive flexibility, emotion understanding abilities, and their relationship. The results showed: (1) For cognitive flexibility, children older than 5 years scored significantly higher than younger children, and girls scored higher than boys. (2) For facial emotion recognition: (i) Children's recognition scores for happy, sad, and angry expressions were significantly higher than fear; children could accurately recognize happy, sad, and angry emotions by age 3, while fear recognition developed rapidly after age 5; (ii) Girls scored higher in recognizing fearful faces than boys. (3) For situational emotion understanding: (i) Children's development followed the hierarchical order of external, desire, clue, and belief-based understanding. Situational and desire-based understanding already reached high levels by age 3, while clue and belief-based understanding developed quickly after age 5; (ii) Girls scored higher than boys in belief-based emotion understanding. (4) Cognitive flexibility significantly predicted children's facial emotion recognition, external and desire-based emotion understanding. Parents and teachers should cultivate children's cognitive flexibility and provide personalized support. They should also fully grasp the characteristics of children's emotion understanding development, systematically nurture their emotion understanding abilities, and leverage cognitive flexibility training to improve their emotion understanding.

Music Recommendation System based on Emotions in User’s Social Media behaviour

The modern lifestyle makes people more competitive. It can lead to more stressful situations in our lifestyle. With the changes in human emotional behaviour, they tend to share their feelings on social media platforms rather than communicating with relatives. Studies proved that people used to listen to music to avoid emotional situations in their life. But there is no proper way to get the most accurate music to listen to and avoid emotional conflicts. Resolving these conflicts, the music recommendation system based on emotion introduced. It analyses the users’ recent social media content and detects the various kind of emotions. The lyrics analysing was done using natural language processing techniques to identify the music emotions. Most people pay attention to the meaning of the songs, that was the major reason to consider the emotions of the lyrics. The research was considered on a language-independent platform for both English and Sinhala.

Professional Book Reviews

Richard Willis, visiting professor at the University of South Wales, reviews a book containing activities to help early years professionals work with young children who are neurodivergent. Meg Barclay, educational consultant and early years reviewer for the School Library Association, reviews picture books which support children who are about to become siblings for the first time, help children understand emotions in overwhelming situations and introduce them to animals living in different parts of the world.

Дезадаптивные личностные, нейропсихологические и социально-психологические факторы у подростков с отклоняющимся самоповреждающим поведением

According to theoretical data, the propensity to self-injurious behavior is compared with addictive patterns based on unifying behavioral, mental and psychological factors within the framework of a clinical approach. Emotional regulation, cognitive functioning, features of deviant behavior, and socio-psychological characteristics in adolescents with self-harm, depending on the presence or absence of a suicidal goal, have been studied to a small extent so far. The Columbia Suicide Severity Assessment Scale, a questionnaire for the study of deviant behavior, a brief assessment of cognitive functions, and an emotional regulation questionnaire examined 156 adolescents with non-suicidal self-harm and 148 adolescents with suicidal behavior. The results of the study of the cognitive regulation of emotions convincingly indicate the presence of a pronounced cognitive-affective imbalance with a shift towards a deficit of effective strategies for overcoming emotional situations in adolescents with suicidal behavior. Adolescents with suicidal self-harm have a tendency to various manifestations of deviations. Affective interference, problem-solving behavior, operative memory, and emotion suppression are more impaired in adolescents with suicidal behavior compared to adolescents with non-suicidal self-harm.

Curricular Reform in Serious Illness Communication and Palliative Care: Using Medical Students' Voices to Guide Change.

To gather and leverage the voices of students to drive creation of required, integrated palliative care curricula within undergraduate medical education in Massachusetts, which is lacking in a majority of U.S. medical schools. The study was conducted by the Massachusetts Medical Schools' Collaborative, a working group committed to ensuring all medical students in Massachusetts receive foundational training in serious illness communication (SIC) and palliative care. Eight focus groups (2 per participating medical school) were conducted during January-May 2021 and included a total of 50 students from Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Tufts University School of Medicine, and the UMass Chan Medical School. Data collected from focus groups were discussed and coded. Themes were identified using the immersion/crystallization qualitative data analysis approach. Six key themes emerged. Students viewed SIC as essential to high-quality medical practice regardless of specialty, and believed training in SIC skills and palliative care should be required in medical school curricula. Students preferred to learn and practice these skills using frameworks, particularly in real-world situations. Students recognized the expertise of palliative care specialists and described them as a scarce, often misunderstood resource in health care. Students reported it was mostly "luck" if they were included in family meetings and observed good role models. Finally, students desired practice in debriefing after difficult and emotional situations. This study confirms long-standing themes on students' experiences with SIC and palliative care topics, including feeling inadequately prepared to care for seriously ill patients as future physicians. Our study collected students' perspectives as actionable data to develop recommendations for curricular change. Collaborative faculty also created recommendations based on the focus group data for immediate and ongoing SIC and palliative care curricular change in Massachusetts, which can apply to medical schools nationwide.

Attachment Orientation and Preferences for Partners' Emotional Responses in Stressful and Positive Situations.

Attachment theory proposes that close relationships help us to regulate our emotions in stressful and positive situations. However, no previous studies have examined preferences for a partner's emotional response to one's own stressful and positive situations or tested whether these preferences differ based on attachment orientation. This study examines the association of attachment orientation and preferences for partners' emotional responses relative to one's own emotional responses in stressful and positive contexts among 425 United States adults who were currently in a committed relationship of ≥6 months. Data were collected in 2020. Overall, participants preferred their partners to feel and express less distress, less worry, more calm, and more hope than themselves during stressful situations and for their partners to feel and express more excitement, pride, and hope than themselves during positive situations. Higher attachment anxiety predicted preferences for partners to feel and express more distress/worry in stressful situations, whereas higher attachment avoidance predicted preferences for partners to feel and express less hope in stressful situations. Statistical interactions of attachment anxiety × attachment avoidance indicated that the combination of low attachment anxiety and high attachment avoidance (dismissing avoidance) was associated with preferences for partners to feel and express less positive emotions in positive situations, whereas the combination of high attachment anxiety and high attachment avoidance (fearful avoidance) was associated with preferences for partners to feel and express more negative emotions in stressful situations and less positive emotions in positive situations. This investigation provides novel evidence for links between attachment orientation and preferences for partners' emotional responses in two theoretically important contexts, which has implications for the nature and function of emotion regulation in close relationships. Future research is needed to determine the generalizability of these findings to more collectivist cultural contexts.

Exploring urban-rural differences in foreign language enjoyment, anxiety, boredom, and burnout among Chinese secondary students

ABSTRACT Building on situated emotion framework, this study examined the variations in foreign language (FL) enjoyment, anxiety, boredom, and burnout between urban and rural students in China. The sample included 1,455 urban (55.6% male) and 546 rural students (53% male) (Mage = 15.41). Data were gathered through self-administered questionnaires measuring FL enjoyment, anxiety, boredom, and burnout, as well as FL achievement test. Independent sample t-tests found that urban students exhibited higher enjoyment and anxiety compared to their rural peers, while experiencing lower boredom and burnout. Analysis of covariance revealed that the observed differences remained significant after controlling for FL achievement, except for anxiety. Pearson correlation analysis showed that FL achievement for both urban and rural students was positively associated with enjoyment and negatively associated with boredom and burnout. Only a weak positive correlation was observed between anxiety and FL achievement among rural students. Multiple regression analysis indicated that enjoyment was a positive predictor of FL achievement for both groups, whereas burnout negatively influenced their achievement. Additionally, boredom negatively impacted urban students’ achievement, while anxiety emerged as a positive predictor. These results offer valuable insights for FL instruction in both urban and rural contexts and contribute empirical evidence to situated emotion research.