Positive Adjectives Research Articles

The influence of context on the processing of emotional and neutral adjectives – An ERP study

The study investigated brain responses to emotional and neutral adjectives within contexts of varying emotional valence. Participants were randomly assigned to 3 context groups where they viewed random sequences of emotional and neutral adjectives intermixed with: emotional pictures (emotional context), neutral pictures (neutral context) and blank screens (zero context). Within the emotional context group the P3 potential was more pronounced in response to positive than either negative or neutral adjectives, and positive picture context impacted positive and negative adjectives differently. In the neutral context group the P2 and P3 potentials were greater in response to the positive adjectives as compared to the neutral ones. There was also a greater negativity of the N400 potential in response to the neutral adjectives. Within the zero context group only the N400 effect was visible. The seeming preference for positive words can be explained in terms of the specific positivity offset phenomenon.

Evidence for implicit self-positivity bias: an event-related brain potential study

We investigated the processing of self-related information under the prime paradigm using event-related potentials (ERPs) to provide evidence for implicit self-positivity bias in Chinese individuals. Reaction times and ERPs were recorded when participants made positive/negative emotional judgments to personality-trait adjectives about themselves or others. Faster responses occurred to self-related positive adjectives and other-related negative adjectives, indicating implicit self-positivity bias at the behavioral level. ERPs showed an interaction between prime and emotion at the P300 amplitude, with larger P300 amplitudes for words within the self-positivity bias, indicating that self-related information occupied more attentional resources. Larger N400 amplitudes elicited by words that were inconsistent with the self-positivity bias, suggesting that accessing non-self-relevant information is more difficult than self-relevant information. Thus, P300 and N400 could be used as neuro-indexes of the implicit self-positivity bias.

Neural Correlates of Self-Appraisals in the Near and Distant Future: An Event-Related Potential Study

To investigate perceptual and neural correlates of future self-appraisals as a function of temporal distance, event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded while participants (11 women, eight men) made judgments about the applicability of trait adjectives to their near future selves (i.e., one month from now) and their distant future selves (i.e., three years from now). Behavioral results indicated people used fewer positive adjectives, more negative adjectives, recalled more specific events coming to mind and felt more psychologically connected to the near future self than the distant future self. Electrophysiological results demonstrated that negative trait adjectives elicited more positive ERP deflections than did positive trait adjectives in the interval between 550 and 800 ms (late positive component) within the near future self condition. However, within the same interval, there were no significant differences between negative and positive traits adjectives in the distant future self condition. The results suggest that negative emotional processing in future self-appraisals is modulated by temporal distance, consistent with predictions of construal level theory.

Self-Structures, Negative Events, and Adolescent Depression: Clarifying the Role of Self-Complexity in a Prospective, Multiwave Study.

The purpose of this multiwave longitudinal study was to examine the structure of self-complexity, and its relation to depressive symptoms, in 276 adolescents (M = 12.55; SD = 1.04). Self-complexity, depressive symptoms, and negative events were assessed during a laboratory assessment at baseline, and then depressive symptoms and negative events were tracked every 3 months over the next 2 years. Findings from the present research showed that girls had higher levels of Overlap (e.g., the degree to which one sees his or her roles as similar) and NASPECTS (the number of aspects) compared with boys, and that older adolescents had lower levels of Overlap. Furthermore, the present study demonstrated that low levels of positive Overlap (e.g., utilizing the same positive adjectives to describe numerous roles) predicted depressive symptoms, especially in the presence of negative events. Other findings along with developmental and clinical implications for this research are discussed.

The market response to exploration, resource and reserve announcements by mining companies: Australian data

This is the first paper to study the market response to “Joint Ore Reserve Committee” –compliant announcements made by Australian mining firms. Results from an event study based on matched firms suggest that these announcements are highly value relevant, with the market reacting in a significantly positive way to both exploration and resource announcements. Larger abnormal returns are found to accrue to smaller firms, to firms that use positive adjectives in their announcement headlines and to firms whose announcements imply larger percentage increases in resource levels. We also find evidence of markets anticipating both exploration and resource announcements a few days before they are released, which may be suggestive of some insider trading.

Weight bias in graduate school admissions

Whether weight bias occurs in the graduate school admissions process is explored here. Specifically, we examined whether body mass index (BMI) was related to letter of recommendation quality and the number of admissions offers applicants received after attending in-person interviews. Participants were 97 applicants to a psychology graduate program at a large university in the United States. They reported height, weight, and information about their applications to psychology graduate programs. Participants' letters of recommendation were coded for positive and negative statements as well as overall quality. Higher BMI significantly predicted fewer post-interview offers of admission into psychology graduate programs. Results also suggest this relationship is stronger for female applicants. BMI was not related to overall quality or the number of stereotypically weight-related adjectives in letters of recommendation. Surprisingly, higher BMI was related to more positive adjectives in letters. The first evidence that individuals interviewing applicants to graduate programs may systematically favor thinner applicants is provided here. A conscious or unconscious bias against applicants with extra body weight is a plausible explanation. Stereotype threat and social identity threat are also discussed as explanations for the relationship between BMI and interview success.

Fine tuned modulation of the motor system by adjectives expressing positive and negative properties

Using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), motor evoked potentials (MEPs) were recorded from two antagonistic muscles, the first dorsal interosseus (FDI) of the hand and the extensor communis digitorum (EC) of the forearm. FDI is involved in grasping actions and EC in releasing. TMS pulses were delivered while participants were reading adjectives expressing either negative or positive pragmatic properties, at 150ms after presentation of language material. Overall findings showed an interaction of adjective type (positive, negative) and muscle (FDI, EC), the effect being driven by a significant difference for negative adjectives. Further analysis aimed at investigating the effectiveness of positive adjectives showed a similar, but opposite, pattern of effects for the positive words in the initial two blocks. The present results indicate that, as for verbs and nouns, adjectives recruit the sensorimotor system, and their processing is best explained by an embodiment rather than an amodal approach to language.

Abstract WP326: Randomized-Controlled Study on the Effects of Hand Bathing on Stroke Patients in Convalescence - Subjective Improvements in Hand Movement and Increased Positiveness in Talking

Background and Purpose: Depressed stroke patients are more likely to drop out of rehabilitation. Hand bathing is a term used to describe a uniquely Japanese hygiene care in which a nurse washes and stimulates the patient’s hands in warm water while talking to each other. The purpose of this study was to verify, by a randomized-controlled study, the hypothesis indicated in the author’s preliminary studies that hand bathing makes stroke patients more conscious of their hand movement on the affected side and talk more positively. Methods: Stroke patients in convalescent phase in the Brunnstrom stages I to V were randomly allocated to the hand-bathed group (23 patients) or the control (21 patients). Both groups received a 15-minute intervention four times within a week. Before and after each intervention, the visual analogue scale (VAS) was assessed for hand movement, edema, and numbness/pain, the tip palm distance was measured, and the QOL was assessed using the QUIK-R. The t-test and repeated measures ANOVA were used to analyze the data. A verbatim record of all conversation was subjected to morphological analysis, TF-IDF, and TF analysis of nouns and adjectives. Results: The hand-bathed group felt improved hand movement significantly more after the first and fourth interventions (F=4.41,p=.013). No significant difference was detected between the two groups in the VAS for edema, numbness/pain, and heavy feeling in hands. Positive adjectives were used more often by the hand-bathed group after the second, third and fourth interventions (F=3.58, p=.016). In the hand-bathed group, the average score of QOL questions on socializing and sense of contentment/well-being improved significantly after interventions (p=.003) Conclusions: The finding supported the said hypothesis in that hand bathing leads to subjective improvement in hand movement of stroke patients in convalescent phase and makes them talk more positively. It has additionally been indicated that hand bathing also helps them become more sociable and have a better sense of contentment and well-being.

Evaluating self- vs. other-owned objects: The modulatory role of oxytocin

Previous research has shown that the neuropeptide oxytocin promotes various prosocial sentiments, such as trust, generosity and cooperation. Here we investigate whether it plays a role in evaluating self- vs. other-owned objects. Brain potentials were recorded in participants who judged the ownership of objects that were described in either positive or negative terms. Results showed that self-owned objects framed by positive adjectives elicited more positive-going brain responses than those framed by negative adjectives, irrespective of oxytocin or placebo being administrated. Negatively described other-owned objects evoked more positive-going responses than positively described other-owned objects, but the opposite pattern was found with the administration of oxytocin. Thus, oxytocin abolishes other-derogation but does not affect self-enhancement in object evaluation, consistent with the proposal that oxytocin enhances affilliative and approach motivations during social interaction.

Young Children's Attitudes Toward Peers with Intellectual Disabilities: Effect of the Type of School

This study explored typically developing children's attitudes towards peers with intellectual disabilities, with special reference to the type of school they attended. Two hundred and fifty-six Greek children aged 9-10 (135 in inclusive settings) completed a questionnaire and an adjective list by Gash (European Journal of Special Needs Education 1993; 8, 106) and drew a child with intellectual disabilities, commenting also on their drawings. Typically developing children expressed overall neutral attitudes towards peers with intellectual disabilities. Type of school differentiated their attitudes, with children from inclusive settings being more positive towards peers with intellectual disabilities and choosing less negative adjectives to describe them than children from non-inclusive settings. Girls and students who expressed more positive social, emotional and overall attitudes towards students with intellectual disabilities chose more positive adjectives to describe a child with intellectual disabilities. It was also found that children from inclusive settings drew children with intellectual disabilities as more similar to a child with Down syndrome in comparison with children from non-inclusive settings. Effective inclusive practices should be promoted to foster social acceptance of students with intellectual disabilities.

The effects of ageing and divided attention on the self-reference effect in emotional memory: Spontaneous or effortful mnemonic benefits?

The self-reference effect (SRE) is a powerful memory advantage associated with encoding in reference to the self (e.g., Rogers, Kuiper, & Kirker, 1977). To explore whether this mnemonic benefit occurs spontaneously, the current study assessed how ageing and divided attention affect the magnitude of the SRE in emotional memory (i.e., memory for emotional stimuli). The sample included a young Full Attention group (young-FA), a young Divided Attention group (young-DA), and an older adult group. The division of attention was manipulated at encoding where participants incidentally studied positive, negative, and neutral trait adjectives in either a self-reference (i.e., rating how well each word describes themselves) or an other-reference condition (i.e., rating how well each word describes another person). Memory for these words was assessed with both recall and recognition tasks. The results from both tasks demonstrated equivalent SRE for all three groups across emotional valence categories of stimuli, suggesting that the SRE is a spontaneous, effortless, and robust effect in memory.

Information processing in adolescents with bipolar I disorder

Cognitive models of bipolar I disorder (BD) may aid in identification of children who are especially vulnerable to chronic mood dysregulation. Information-processing biases related to memory and attention likely play a role in the development and persistence of BD among adolescents; however, these biases have not been extensively studied in youth with BD. We administered the self-referent encoding task and the dot-probe task to adolescents with bipolar I disorder (BD, n = 35) and a demographically similar healthy comparison group (HC, n = 25) at baseline, and at a 1-year follow-up in a subset of this cohort (n = 22 per group). At both baseline and 1-year follow-up, there were significant interactions of group (BD, HC) and valence of stimulus (positive, negative adjective) on endorsement and recall of self-referent adjectives. HC adolescents endorsed and recalled more positive self-referent adjectives at baseline and follow-up while adolescents with BD endorsed and recalled more negative self-referent adjectives at baseline but not follow-up. Over time, depression symptomatology was associated with impaired memory for positive self-referent adjectives. There were no group differences in attentional bias at either time points. Adolescents with BD exhibit bias away from endorsement and recall of positive adjectives, which remained stable over time and independent of mood state.

Delivering domiciliary pharmaceutical care from a health centre pharmacy

Abstract Aim To develop and administer a pharmacist domiciliary visiting programme from a community pharmacy based in a health centre. Design Prospective cohort with peer professional intervention assessment and patient feedback questionnaires. Subjects and setting Total general practitioner surgery list (4,922 patients) in an urban residential area. Candidates were defined by three inclusion criteria: 65 years or older taking five or more repeat medicines (polypharmacy); any age plus polypharmacy plus significant disablement; 80 years or older taking three or more specified medications on repeat prescription. Outcome measures Interventions made during a programme of three visits for each patient; peer assessment of impact on patient care and cost by the three surgery GPs and three clinical pharmacists; patients' perceived worth of the service; cost of the service. Results One hundred patients (2 per cent) were visited over a period of six months; 74 completed the three-visit programme that involved a total of 256 visits. There were 160 interventions classified as: medicines management issues (88), health beliefs and concordance (41) or therapeutic problems, including adverse effects (31). Nineteen patients required specific and detailed collaboration with the patient's GP. There was good agreement on the utility of the pharmacist's interventions at this level with only four negative assessments out of a possible 114 (3.5 per cent). The programme was well received by patients. Talking to a pharmacist (as opposed to another health care professional) about their medicines was important to 70 of 74 patients. Sixty-one described their reaction to the visiting programme using one of three positive adjectives, “relieved,” “reassured” or “grateful”. Based on this cohort, the estimated costs to the pharmacy were £5,000 per annum, equivalent to 33 working days. Cost savings based on outcomes were not estimated. Conclusions This study demonstrated the feasibility of identifying candidates for domiciliary care from surgery records using carefully selected inclusion criteria. This is likely to encompass between 2 and 3 per cent of a surgery population. The visiting programme, which was well received by patients, had a favourable effect on patient care in the majority of the cohort and a very important impact in a minority (19 per cent). This success required the commitment of all members of the health centre team. It benefited from the proximity of the visiting pharmacist to medical records and prescribers.

Social Expectations Bias Decision-Making in Uncertain Inter-Personal Situations

Understanding the role that social cues have on interpersonal choice, and their susceptibility to contextual effects, is of core importance to models of social decision-making. Language, on the other hand, is one of the main means of communication during social interactions in our culture. The present experiments tested whether positive and negative linguistic descriptions of alleged partners in a modified Ultimatum Game biased decisions made to the same set of offers, and whether the contextual uncertainty of the game modulated this biasing effect. The results showed that in an uncertain context, the same offers were accepted with higher probability when they were preceded by positive rather than by negative valenced trait-words. Participants also accepted fair offers with higher probability than unfair offers, but this effect did not interact with the valence of the social descriptive words. In addition, the speed of the decision was affected by valence: acceptance choices were faster when they followed a positive adjective, whereas rejection responses were faster after a negative-valenced word. However, these effects were highly reduced when the uncertainty was eliminated from the game. This suggests that positive and negative relevant social information can bias decisions made to the same pieces of evidence during interpersonal interactions, but that this mainly takes place when the uncertainty associated with the choices is high.

Expressive Modification and the Licensing of Measure Phrases

This squib points out that adjectives with measure phrases are incompatible with expressive modifiers such as goddamn. It shows that this otherwise mysterious fact can be explained relatively straightforwardly if, as Schwarzschild (2005) has argued, positive adjectives can support measure phrases only as the result of a type-shifting rule in the lexicon.

N400 and the activation of prejudice against rural migrant workers in China

Rural migrant workers (RMWs) are a special social group under the household registration system in China. Although RMWs work in the city, they are not issued a permanent city resident card, and are hardly integrated into the city life. City residents harbour strong negative stereotypes about RMWs. Facing a word-pair comprising a status noun (RMWs vs. Unban workers) followed by an adjective, 16 young participants were required to classify the adjective as being either negative or positive, while the event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were recorded. An ERP component identified as the N400 was found, and was studied with the question whether its amplitude reflected the effects of prejudice against RMWs. The reaction times to identify the positive adjectives preceded by the nouns pertaining to RMWs were significantly longer than to those preceded by nouns denoting Urban workers. The amplitude of the N400 evoked in RMW-Positive adjective condition was significantly larger than in Urban worker-Positive adjective condition, possibly reflecting the higher conflict when participants identified the adjectives as positive primed by RMWs. These findings revealed that negative stereotypes about RMWs still exist today, although Chinese mainstream media has disseminated positive messages about the RMWs for decades.

Language Attitudes And Gender: Descriptors And Nationalistic Ideologies

The present study explores language attitudes among 23 English language learners of Spanish enrolled in elementary Spanish. The data elicited from these participants were analyzed to see whether females used more positive adjectives to describe the Spanish language than their male counterparts (as shown in previous studies). The data were also analyzed to see whether the participants’ adjectives and comments supported evidence of nationalistic language ideology. The results mirrored those of past studies: females were more likely to describe Spanish with positive adjectives. Additionally, there was a great amount of nationalistic language ideology and ethnocentrism among the participants who felt negatively toward Spanish. The researcher argues that this may have contributed towards negative language ideologies reported by the participants.

The degree functions of negative adjectives

This paper provides a new account of positive versus negative antonyms. The data includes well-known linguistic generalizations regarding negative adjectives, such as their incompatibility with measure phrases (cf. two meters tall/ *short) and ratio phrases (twice as tall/ #short) as well as the impossibility of truly crosspolar comparisons (*Dan is taller than Sam is short). These generalizations admit a variety of exceptions, e.g., positive adjectives that do not license measure phrases (cf. #two degrees warm/cold) and rarely also negative adjectives that do (cf. two hours late/early). Furthermore, new corpus data is presented regarding the use of twice with positive and negative adjectives. The analysis the paper presents supposes that grammar associates gradable adjectives with measure functions—mapping of entities to a set of degrees isomorphic to the real numbers (Kennedy, Projecting the adjective: The syntax and semantics of gradability and comparison, 1999). On this analysis, negative adjectives map entities to values that are linearly reversed and linearly transformed in comparison with their values in the positive antonyms. As shown, the generalizations, as well as their exceptions, directly follow. Negative polarity is explained in terms of function reversal, and non-licensing of measure phrases is explained in terms of transformation by an unspecified value.

The Impact of Country-of-Origin and Joy on Product Evaluation: A Comparison of Chinese and German Intimate Apparel

Abstract Consumer’s differentiated perception and appraisal of a product’s country-of-origin (COO) exerts large influence on perception of the COO-image (COI) and on the perceived product quality. At peripheral information processing COO-Image (COI) provides a basis to ease requirements for information processing in form of heuristics. Most of internationalization literature examines the COO effect with respect to high-involvement products and in context of cognitive processing. However studies from Maheswaran and Chen (2006) point out, that besides cognitive influences, also specific emotions impact on COO-effects. Whereas the influence of negative emotions like anger, sadness or frustration on processing and judgments could be exposed, the issue of positive emotions’ impact still stays open. Since the question should be answered, if emotions impact on COO-Effects, it is emphasized to focus on COO as an affective heuristic operating as a “halo” effect on attitudes towards a product. Because both marketin...

Biases in use of positive and negative words across twenty natural languages

Positive events are more common (more tokens), but negative events are more differentiated (more types). These observations and asymmetries about the world are consistent with a number of features or biases favouring positive adjectives that have been shown for English. Compared to their opposites, positive adjectives in English are more likely to be unmarked, negated into their opposite, define the entire negative to positive dimension, and occur first in conjunctions with their negative opposite. In this paper we document that these biases have considerable generality, appearing in all or almost all of 20 natural languages. The greater differentiation of negative states is illustrated here by the demonstration that five common nouns describing negative states in English (disgust, risk, sympathy, accident, murderer) have equivalents in most or all of the 20 languages surveyed, but the opposite of these nouns is not lexicalised in most of the 20 languages.