Intense Positive Affect Research Articles

Affective dynamics in mother-adolescent dyads: links to mental health and relationship quality

ABSTRACT Current research in developmental psychopathology has emphasised how emotion dynamics, such as affective variability, relate to psychosocial functioning. In this brief article, we examined mean differences in mothers’ and adolescents’ affective intensity and lability in positive and negative emotions and explored how these emotion dynamics related to depressive symptoms and mother-adolescent relationship quality. We administered individual surveys each day for one week to mother-adolescent dyads (N = 109) that inquired about positive and negative affective states. Affective intensity was measured by the mean across the week and lability by the standard deviation. Participants also reported on their depressive symptoms and adolescents reported on relationship quality. Results showed that positive affect was more intense and more variable than negative affect, and adolescents experienced more intense negative affective and less intense positive affect than mothers. Greater mother and adolescent negative affect intensity and less maternal positive affect intensity related to more depressive symptoms. Affective intensity in mothers and adolescents and affective lability in mothers related to mother-adolescent relationship quality. These findings extend the growing body of knowledge on individuals’ affective intensity and variability by considering family dynamics.

Automated measurement of infant and mother Duchenne facial expressions in the Face-to-Face/Still-Face.

Although still-face effects are well-studied, little is known about the degree to which the Face-to-Face/Still-Face (FFSF) is associated with the production of intense affective displays. Duchenne smiling expresses more intense positive affect than non-Duchenne smiling, while Duchenne cry-faces express more intense negative affect than non-Duchenne cry-faces. Forty 4-month-old infants and their mothers completed the FFSF, and key affect-indexing facial Action Units (AUs) were coded by expert Facial Action Coding System coders for the first 30s of each FFSF episode. Computer vision software, automated facial affect recognition (AFAR), identified AUs for the entire 2-min episodes. Expert coding and AFAR produced similar infant and mother Duchenne and non-Duchenne FFSF effects, highlighting the convergent validity of automated measurement. Substantive AFAR analyses indicated that both infant Duchenne and non-Duchenne smiling declined from the FF to the SF, but only Duchenne smiling increased from the SF to the RE. In similar fashion, the magnitude of mother Duchenne smiling changes over the FFSF were 2-4 times greater than non-Duchenne smiling changes. Duchenne expressions appear to be a sensitive index of intense infant and mother affective valence that are accessible to automated measurement and may be a target for future FFSF research.

Intense positive affect without arousal is possible: Subjective and physiological reactivity during a partnered sexual meditative experience

Though common models suggest that affect intensity can be thought of as orthogonal to arousal, examples of intensely pleasant low arousal stimuli remain rare. To support this orthogonal model, we examined whether a specific meditative sexual practice, Orgasmic Meditation (OM), induces such a state. Thus, this study measured changes in subjective affect as well as skin conductance responses (SCR), as a proxy for physiological arousal associated with sympathetic nervous system activity, during a single 15-minute partnered sexual meditative practice (Orgasmic Meditation; OM) in 93 participants. Almost all participants experienced sustained positive affect during the task. Whereas seconds after OM start approximately half the participants experienced sustained increased SCR, the other half experienced sustained decreased SCR. This observation suggests that the experience of sustained positive affect in intimate interactions may be associated with multiple mechanistic profiles including both decreased and increased arousal.

Emotion dynamics in children and adolescents: A meta-analytic and descriptive review.

Theories on children and adolescent emotion dynamics were reviewed using data from 102 ecological momentary assessment studies with 19,928 participants and 689 estimates. We examined age-graded differences in emotional intensity, variability, instability, inertia, differentiation, and augmentation/blunting. Outcomes included positive versus negative affect scales, discrete emotions (anger, sadness, anxiety, and happiness), and we compared samples of youth with or without mental or physiological problems. Multilevel models showed more variable positive affect and sadness in adolescents compared with children, and more intense negative affect. Our additional descriptive review suggests a decrease in instability of positive and negative emotions from early to late adolescence. Mental health problems were associated with more variable and less intense positive affect, and more intense anxiety and heightened sadness variability. These results suggest systematic changes in emotion dynamics throughout childhood and adolescence, but the supporting literature proved to be limited, fragmented, and based on heterogeneous concepts and methodology. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Emotion dynamics across adulthood in everyday life: Older adults are more emotionally stable and better at regulating desires.

Older adults report experiencing improved emotional health, such as more intense positive affect and less intense negative affect. However, there are mixed findings on whether older adults are better at regulating emotion-a hallmark feature of emotional health-and most research is based on laboratory studies that may not capture how people regulate their emotions in everyday life. We used experience sampling to examine how multiple measures of emotional health, including mean affect, dynamic fluctuations between affective states and the ability to resist desires-a common form of emotion regulation-differ in daily life across adulthood. Participants (N = 122, ages 20-80) reported how they were feeling and responding to desire temptations for 10 days. Older adults experienced more intense positive affect, less intense negative affect, and were more emotionally stable, even after controlling for individual differences in global life satisfaction. Older adults were more successful at regulating desires, even though they experienced more intense desires than younger adults. In addition, adults in general experiencing more intense affect were less successful at resisting desires. These results demonstrate how emotional experience is related to more successful desire regulation in everyday life and provide unique evidence that emotional health and regulation improve with age. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Do nonlinear vocal phenomena signal negative valence or high emotion intensity?

Nonlinear vocal phenomena (NLPs) are commonly reported in animal calls and, increasingly, in human vocalizations. These perceptually harsh and chaotic voice features function to attract attention and convey urgency, but they may also signal aversive states. To test whether NLPs enhance the perception of negative affect or only signal high arousal, we added subharmonics, sidebands or deterministic chaos to 48 synthetic human nonverbal vocalizations of ambiguous valence: gasps of fright/surprise, moans of pain/pleasure, roars of frustration/achievement and screams of fear/delight. In playback experiments (N = 900 listeners), we compared their perceived valence and emotion intensity in positive or negative contexts or in the absence of any contextual cues. Primarily, NLPs increased the perceived aversiveness of vocalizations regardless of context. To a smaller extent, they also increased the perceived emotion intensity, particularly when the context was negative or absent. However, NLPs also enhanced the perceived intensity of roars of achievement, indicating that their effects can generalize to positive emotions. In sum, a harsh voice with NLPs strongly tips the balance towards negative emotions when a vocalization is ambiguous, but with sufficiently informative contextual cues, NLPs may be re-evaluated as expressions of intense positive affect, underlining the importance of context in nonverbal communication.

Automated Detection of Enhanced DBS Device Settings.

Continuous deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the ventral striatum (VS) is an effective treatment for severe, treatment-refractory obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Optimal parameter settings are signaled by a mirth response of intense positive affect, which are subjectively identified by clinicians. Subjective judgments are idiosyncratic and difficult to standardize. To objectively measure mirth responses, we used Automatic Facial Affect Recognition (AFAR) in a series of longitudinal assessments of a patient treated with DBS. Pre- and post-adjustment DBS were compared using both statistical and machine learning approaches. Positive affect was significantly higher post-DBS adjustment. Using SVM and XGBoost, participant's pre- and post-adjustment appearances were differentiated with F1 of 0.76, which suggests feasibility of objective measurement of mirth response.

The Effects of an Ecological Diversifying Experience on Creativity: An Experimental Study.

Sometimes, life houses rare and unexpected events, such as moving abroad or meeting a special person unexpectedly. Recently, these situations have been indicated as “diversifying experiences” (DEs), defined as unusual and unexpected events that drag people outside their daily routine and accustomed schemas. The core mechanism of DEs would entail the disruption of our mental schema, which can facilitate unexpected connections among even distant ideas, thus enhancing people’s cognitive flexibility, that is, a key component of creative thinking. Despite both qualitative and lab-based studies have investigated the features of these experiences, an ecological assessment of their properties also in relation with creativity is still an open issue. The aim of this research is to study the DE–creativity link in a more ecological way, on the basis of a real-life disruptive experience of light deprivation. Specifically, we compared an ecological DE artistic established entertainment format (i.e., “dialogue in the dark,” which is seeing people perform several daily life activities but in the absence of light) with an equivalent experience in which the same activities were acted in the sunlight. The absence of light played the role of violating mechanism, framed within the ecological experiential format of the “dialogue in the dark.” We compared visitors’ emotional profile [Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS), ad hoc Adjective Checklist], perceived impact of the experience [Centrality of Event Scale (CES)], and creative performance [Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT)] in both groups of sighted people (in absence of light vs. in presence of light); and we also controlled for people’s openness to experience and need for cognitive closure, as dispositions. Results showed that (vs. control group) “dialogue in the dark” (i) led to worse creative performances, (ii) produced more intense positive affect, and (iii) resulted as a more impacting experience. Intense short-term impact of DE could have been detrimental for participants’ creativity. People may need more time to elaborate the DE and accommodate existing schema to generate more creative ideas. This is the first study proposing and succeeding in demonstrating the feasibility to investigate even real complex DEs in a controlled way, thus outlining how their link with creativity can take place in real life.

Temptations of friends: adolescents’ neural and behavioral responses to best friends predict risky behavior

Adolescents are notorious for engaging in risky, reward-motivated behavior, and this behavior occurs most often in response to social reward, typically in the form of peer contexts involving intense positive affect. A combination of greater neural and behavioral sensitivity to peer positive affect may characterize adolescents who are especially likely to engage in risky behaviors. To test this hypothesis, we examined 50 adolescents’ reciprocal positive affect and neural response to a personally relevant, ecologically valid pleasant stimulus: positive affect expressed by their best friend during a conversation about past and future rewarding mutual experiences. Participants were typically developing community adolescents (age 14–18 years, 48.6% female), and risky behavior was defined as a factor including domains such as substance use, sexual behavior and suicidality. Adolescents who engaged in more real-life risk-taking behavior exhibited either a combination of high reciprocal positive affect behavior and high response in the left ventrolateral prefrontal cortex—a region associated with impulsive sensation-seeking—or the opposite combination. Behavioral and neural sensitivity to peer influence could combine to contribute to pathways from peer influence to risky behavior, with implications for healthy development.

Is a Fixer-Upper Actually a Downer? Homeownership, Gender, Work on the Home, and Subjective Well-being

This article investigates whether homeownership provides psychological benefits, particularly as mediated through the act of working on the dwelling. It examines whether work on the home potentially increases subjective well-being (SWB) for home occupants because such work improves the dwelling or because the work is fulfilling and promotes feelings of mastery and control. It also investigates whether homeowners are more likely to perform such work compared with renters. The article finds that homeownership is associated with somewhat elevated life satisfaction, but that homeowners tend to experience less intense positive affect than renters. Homeowners spend much more time working on the home than renters. Strong links between work on the home and life satisfaction are not found, but certain types of home work activities—such as interior or exterior decoration and repairs and yard work—tend to be experienced as psychologically meaningful. Gender also plays a role in the division of home labor and the psychological costs and benefits of homeownership and work on the home. Women are much more likely than men to clean the interiors of dwellings, an activity associated with poor affect. Men perform more of most of the other types of work on the home; in homeowning households these burdens tend to balance each other out, but in renting households there tends to be a dramatic disparity in terms of work on the home, raising concerns about gender inequity.

Happiness as a Buffer of the Association Between Dependence and Acute Tobacco Abstinence Effects in African American Smokers.

African American (AA) smokers are at disproportionate risk of tobacco dependence, utilizing smoking to regulate stress, and poor cessation outcomes. Positive emotional traits may function as coping factors that buffer the extent to which dependence increases vulnerability to adverse responses to acute tobacco abstinence (ie, tobacco withdrawal). This laboratory study examined subjective happiness (SH; dispositional orientation towards frequent and intense positive affect [PA] and life satisfaction) as a moderator of the relation between tobacco dependence and subjective and behavioral abstinence effects among AA smokers. AA smokers (N = 420, 39.0% female) completed self-report measures of tobacco dependence and SH followed by two counterbalanced experimental sessions (nonabstinent vs. 16-hour abstinent) involving self-report measures of composite withdrawal, urge to smoke, and mood, and a behavioral smoking task in which participants could: (1) earn money to delay smoking reinstatement, and (2) subsequently purchase cigarettes to smoke. Tobacco dependence was positively associated with increased abstinence effects in composite withdrawal, urge to smoke, PA, and latency to smoking reinstatement (ps < .04). SH significantly moderated the relation between dependence and abstinence-induced increases in composite withdrawal (β = -.17, p < .001), such that the predictive power of dependence on withdrawal severity grew proportionately weaker as levels of SH increased. SH may insulate against adverse effects of dependence on withdrawal during acute smoking abstinence, particularly withdrawal symptom clusters that are craving- and mood-based. Consideration of positive emotional traits as stress-coping factors in the dependence-withdrawal link may be warranted in research and practice with AA smokers. The current study contributes to a growing body of literature examining the potentially advantageous role of positive emotional traits to smokers. We do so by identifying a relatively understudied psychological construct within tobacco research-subjective happiness-that may suppress the extent to which more severe tobacco dependence increases risk for subjective withdrawal-related distress during acute smoking abstinence in AA smokers. In doing so, the study provides a primer for future targeting of subjective happiness and other positive emotional traits as means to understand and treat acute tobacco abstinence effects among dependent AA smokers.

Mothers’ attachment styles and their children’s self-reported security, as related to maternal socialization of children’s positive affect regulation

This study investigated how mothers’ attachment was related to their responses to their own and their children’s positive events and positive affect (PA). Ninety-seven mothers reported on their attachment and their responses to their own and their 7–12-year-old children’s positive events and emotions. Children reported on their mothers’ responses to the children’s positive events and their attachment security with their mothers. The results indicated that more avoidant mothers reported less intense PA in response to their own and their children’s positive events. More avoidant mothers also were less likely to encourage their children to savor positive events (through expressing PA, reflecting on PA or themselves, giving rewards, and affectionate responses). Mothers higher on anxiety reported greater likelihood of dampening (e.g., minimizing the event’s importance) their own positive events and reported being more likely to feel discomfort and to reprimand their children for expressing PA. Children’s security was predicted by mothers’ lower likelihood of encouraging children’s dampening and of reprimanding children for PA displays. This study advances the literature on how mothers’ attachment is related to the ways in which they regulate their own and their children’s PA, which may have implications for children’s attachment and developing PA regulation.

Inter-episode affective intensity and instability: Predictors of depression and functional impairment in bipolar disorder

Background and objectivesDysregulated affect is a hallmark feature of acute episodes of bipolar disorder (BD) and persists during inter-episode periods. Its contribution to course of illness is not yet known. The present report examines the prospective influence of inter-episode affect dysregulation on symptoms and functional impairment in BD. MethodsTwenty-seven participants diagnosed with inter-episode bipolar I disorder completed daily measures of negative and positive affect for 49 days (±8 days) while they remained inter-episode. One month following this daily assessment period, symptom severity interviews and a measure of functional impairment were administered by telephone. ResultsMore intense negative affect and positive affect during the inter-episode period were associated with higher depressive, but not manic, symptoms at the one-month follow-up assessment. More intense and unstable negative affect, and more unstable positive affect, during the inter-episode period were associated with greater impairment in home and work functioning at the follow-up assessment. All associations remained significant after controlling for concurrent symptom levels. LimitationsThe findings need to be confirmed in larger samples with longer follow-up periods. A more comprehensive assessment of functional impairment is also warranted. ConclusionsThe findings suggest that a persistent affective dysregulation between episodes of BD may be an important predictor of depression and functional impairment. Monitoring daily affect during inter-episode periods could allow for a more timely application of interventions that aim to prevent or reduce depressive symptoms and improve functioning for individuals with BD.

Impulsivity dimensions, emotion dysregulation, and borderline personality disorder features among Italian nonclinical adolescents.

BackgroundContemporary theorists have suggested that impulsivity and emotion dysregulation are two of the core features of BPD. The aim of this study was to evaluate the relationships between Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) features, impulsivity, and emotion dysregulation in adolescence.Methods1,157 nonclinical adolescents were administered the Borderline Personality Inventory, following which three groups of adolescents with high (high–BPD; n = 29), average (average-BPD; n = 31), and low (low–BPD; n = 31) levels of BPD features were selected. Participants in these three groups were administered the UPPS-P Impulsive Behavior Scale (UPPS-P) and the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS).ResultsUPPS-P Negative and Positive Urgency scales, as well as the DERS total score, significantly discriminated high-BPD adolescents from both other groups. The differences in UPPS-P Negative and Positive Urgency between high-BPD adolescents and both control groups remained significant when partialing out the variance associated with the DERS; However, when partialing out the variance associated with Positive and Negative Urgency, high-BPD adolescents reported significantly higher DERS scores than only the low-BPD control group (and not the average-BPD group). Finally, although the differences in Positive Urgency between high-BPD adolescents and both control groups remained significant when partialing out the variance associated with Negative Urgency, the between group differences in Negative Urgency did not remain significant when controlling for the variance associated with Positive Urgency.ConclusionsThese findings highlight the relevance of both emotion dysregulation and two dimensions of impulsivity (negative and positive urgency) to BPD features in adolescence, providing evidence for a unique association between BPD features and Positive Urgency in particular. These findings add to the literature in this area, suggesting that the tendency to act rashly in the context of intense positive affect may have unique relevance to BPD features in adolescence.

State of belief, subjective certainty and bliss as a product of cortical dysfunction

IntroductionEcstatic seizures are focal epileptic seizures which are fascinating from a phenotypical point of view as they include intense positive affect, feelings of heightened self-awareness and enhanced well-being. They have been previously suggested to arise in the anterior insular cortex, although strong arguments are still lacking. MethodsWe describe the cases of two new patients with ecstatic seizures. Their evaluation included a careful history, encouraging the patient to provide significant details about their ictal symptoms in order to better understand the origin of the sense of bliss and support the hypothesis of an insular involvement according to the current stage of knowledge. Ictal electroencephalographic and blood flow studies complemented these data in one patient. ResultsThe comprehensive description of the ictal ecstatic symptoms by the two patients has brought out an unfamiliar sense of absence of doubt which was at the basis of a feeling of meaningfulness and certainty. The ictal single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) showed an increased blood flow maximal at the junction of the right dorsal mid-insula and the central operculum. ConclusionsThe unveiling of an ictal sense of certainty during ecstatic seizures might imply, in the light of current knowledge, a defect in the system processing prediction errors within the framework of generalized predictive coding mechanisms of the brain. Accumulative evidence has recently highlighted a crucial role of the anterior insular cortex in this system, particularly in the detection of mismatch/conflict between prediction state and outcome. Abnormal activity related to epileptic seizure in a structure prevents its normal activity: in the anterior insula, it could prevent the detection of prediction errors, and thereby prevent the feeling of ambiguity (and the associated negative emotional component), leading to a blissful state which could be close to the deeper states of meditation.

Moved by music: A typology of music listeners

A typology of music listeners was constructed on the basis of importance attributed to music and four types of music use: mood enhancement; coping with problems; defining personal identity; and marking social identity. Three Listener Groups were identified through Latent Class Analysis of internet survey data of 997 Dutch respondents, aged 12—29. High-Involved listeners (19.7%) experienced music as a very important medium and used music most often for mood enhancement, coping with distress, identity construction and social identity formation. Medium- (74.2%) and Low- Involved (6.1%) listeners formed two distinct groups with less intense importance/use patterns Furthermore, High-Involved listeners reported that they liked a broad range of genres (Pop, Rock, High Brow, Urban and Dance) and experienced the most intense positive affect when listening. However, both High- and Medium-Involved listeners also reported more negative affects (anger and sadness) when listening, compared to the Low-Involved group. Even the Low-Involved group listened frequently to music and used music as a mood enhancer. Generally, people who are ‘moved by music’, either positively or negatively, use it for mood enhancement and coping more often. Therefore, the High-Involved group seems to benefit most from music’s capacity to enliven and enlighten life.

Retrospective recall of affect in clinically depressed individuals and controls

The current study examined the nature of retrospective recall of affect in depressed participants and nonclinical controls. Utilising the Experience Sampling Method, we compared average momentary affect reports to retrospective summaries of the same period of time. Both groups exhibited exaggerated retrospective summaries of positive affect (PA) and negative affect (NA). Greater bias for PA than NA was found in the controls but not the depressed. Across groups, depressed individuals exhibited more absolute inaccuracy in their recall of NA but not PA. For depressed and nonclinical individuals, retrospective summaries of PA were better predicted by an average of all weekly momentary PA than a combination of the most intense (“peak”) PA and most recent (“end”) PA experiences. For nonclinical participants, retrospective NA was better predicted by an average of all weekly momentary NA. For depressed individuals, however, no clear advantage to predicting retrospective NA by average weekly NA relative to a combination of peak NA and end NA was found. Based on our findings, clinicians should realise that depressive cognition may not lie in recall that is less positive and more negative than “reality” but in retrospective intensifications of all affect that are, compared to normal, relatively greater for negative than for positive affect.

A Randomized trial of a cognitive‐behavioral therapy and hypnosis intervention on positive and negative affect during breast cancer radiotherapy

Breast cancer radiotherapy can be an emotionally difficult experience. Despite this, few studies have examined the effectiveness of psychological interventions to reduce negative affect, and none to date have explicitly examined interventions to improve positive affect among breast cancer radiotherapy patients. The present study examined the effectiveness of a multimodal psychotherapeutic approach, combining cognitive-behavioral therapy and hypnosis (CBTH), to reduce negative affect and increase positive affect in 40 women undergoing breast cancer radiotherapy. Participants were randomly assigned to receive either CBTH or standard care. Participants completed weekly self-report measures of positive and negative affect. Repeated and univariate analyses of variance revealed that the CBTH approach reduced levels of negative affect [F(1, 38)=13.49; p=.0007, omega(2)=.56], and increased levels of positive affect [F(1, 38)=9.67; p=.0035, omega(2)=.48], during the course of radiotherapy. Additionally, relative to the control group, the CBTH group demonstrated significantly more intense positive affect [F(1, 38)=7.09; p=.0113, d=.71] and significantly less intense negative affect [F(1, 38)=10.30; p=.0027, d=.90] during radiotherapy. The CBTH group also had a significantly higher frequency of days where positive affect was greater than negative affect (85% of days assessed for the CBTH group versus 43% of the Control group) [F(1, 38)=18.16; p=.0001, d=1.16]. Therefore, the CBTH intervention has the potential to improve the affective experience of women undergoing breast cancer radiotherapy.

Social Anxiety's Impact on Affect, Curiosity, and Social Self-Efficacy During a High Self-Focus Social Threat Situation

Upon being exposed to a high self-focus, potentially socially threatening situation, excessively socially anxious (SA) individuals were posited to experience amplified negative emotional states, as well as diminished positive emotional, cognitive, and intimacy-related outcomes. Ninety-one college students engaged in a reciprocal self-disclosure task with a trained confederate. Participants and confederates took turns answering (while a camera was directed at them) and asking questions that gradually increased in personal content. The results indicated that high SA individuals experienced more intense negative affect, less intense positive affect, and poorer social self-efficacy compared to low SA individuals in both conditions. However, differences between high and low SA individuals were larger in the social threat/self-focus condition, and self-focused attention partially accounted for these effects. In terms of specificity, nearly all findings remained after statistically controlling for depressive symptoms. In contrast, social anxiety effects were generally absent on measures of observed behavior and intimacy outcomes. These findings implicate the role of social threat and self-focused attention in contributing to affective and cognitive disturbances among SA individuals.

Spontaneous versus Controlled Influences of Stimulus-Based Affect on Choice Behavior

This article identifies two routes through which affect and cognitions arising from a stimulus can influence choices: a “lower order” route, where choices are influenced through automatic affective processes, and a “higher order” route, where choices are influenced through more controlled affective or consequence-related cognitive processes. Across three experiments the extent of deliberation, mental preoccupation, and the nature of exposure to the stimuli were manipulated to identify conditions under which lower order affect, higher order affect, or higher order cognitions impact choices. Respondents chose between two alternatives: one that was associated with more intense positive affect but less favorable cognitions (e.g., chocolate cake), and one that was associated with less intense positive affect but more favorable cognitions (e.g., fruit salad). Findings suggest that when the individual makes the decision quickly and is mentally preoccupied while making the decision, choices are driven by lower order affect. When the individual deliberates on the decision without being mentally preoccupied and the affect-laden option is in full view while the decision is being deliberated upon, choices are driven by higher order affect. In both cases, the affect-laden option (e.g. chocolate cake) is selected. In all other situations, choices are driven by higher order consequence-related cognitions and the alternative that is superior on the cognitive dimension (e.g. fruit salad) is selected. It is suggested that the effects of affective reactions on choice occur through the activation of appetitive (i.e., gratification-seeking) goals.