Experience Of Positive Affect Research Articles

Modeling the Relation of Goal Orientations to Achievement-Related Affect in Physical Education: Does Perceived Ability Matter?

This study investigated likely determinants of achievement-related affect in physical education. In particular, interrelationships were examined between achievement goal orientations, success perceptions, personally controllable attributions, and achievement-related affect based on data collected from 1,070 British students aged 11-16 years. A positive association emerged between task orientation and success perception, but not between ego orientation and success perception. In addition, perceived success positively influenced personally controllable attributions and positive affect, but had no effect on negative emotion. Furthermore, personally controllable attributions augmented positive emotion and minimized negative affect. Perceived ability moderated the relation between ego orientation and personally controllable attributions. Hence, under the low perceived ability condition, ego orientation was associated with personally uncontrollable attributions, but the opposite was true for the high perceived ability group. An enhancement of both task orientation and perceived athletic competence is needed for adolescents to derive positive affective experiences from physical education.

The amygdala modulates memory for changes in reward magnitude: involvement of the amygdaloid GABAergic system

Rats with bilateral amygdala cannulae were trained to run a straight alley for a large or small food reward. Muscimol (MUS), a GABA A agonist, or bicuculline methiodide (BMI), a GABA A antagonist, were infused into the amygdala immediately after a reward shift. In Experiment 1, rats in the large-reward group were shifted to the small reward and immediately after received an infusion of vehicle or MUS bilaterally into the amygdala. The runway latencies of the shifted vehicle animals were increased in comparison with those of the unshifted controls. In contrast, the shifted MUS (0.001 nM, but not 0.01 nM) animals displayed latencies that were comparable to those of unshifted animals by the second postshift day. These findings suggest that muscimol dose-dependently attenuated the memory of the reward reduction. In Experiment 2 rats were trained as before except they received bilateral infusions of BMI into the amygdala immediately after reward reduction. The shifted BMI (0.1 nM, but not 0.3 nM) animals displayed increased runway latencies, in comparison with those of shifted vehicle animals, by the second postshift day. These findings suggest that BMI dose-dependently enhanced memory of the reward reduction. In Experiment 3, animals were trained as before except they first experienced a reward increase before receiving post-training injections of vehicle, MUS (0.001 nM) or BMI (0.1 nM). On the next day the reward was reduced. Despite reward reduction, shifted BMI animals persisted displaying low latencies for more trials than did shifted MUS animals. These findings suggest that BMI enhanced memory for the reward increase. More generally, the findings suggest that the amygdala and its GABAergic system is involved in memory consolidation for both positive and negative affective experiences.

The Measurement and Conceptualization of Mood Awareness: Monitoring and Labeling One's Mood States

The construct of mood awareness is presented as a form of attention directed toward one's mood states. Two dimensions of mood awareness were investigated through the development and validation of the Mood Awareness Scale. Mood monitoring refers to a tendency to scrutinize and focus on one's moods, whereas mood labeling refers to the ability to identify and categorize one's moods. The role of these two dimensions in self-reported affective experience was explored in four studies using various measures of personality, affect, and mood regulation. Mood monitoring predicted the experience of negative affect, neuroticism, intense affective reactions, and greater rumination on negative mood. Mood labeling predicted the experience of positive affect, extraversion, high self-esteem, and greater satisfaction with social support. The usefulness of these dimensions for predicting affective outcomes is discussed.

An examination of the cocaine relapse process

Although empirical studies of the relapse process have been done with alcoholics, smokers, and opiate addicts, comparatively little information is available on the relapse process in cocaine abusers. This paper presents data from the Cocaine Relapse Interview (CRI), a structured interview that assesses factors associated with the onset, course, and termination of cocaine relapse episodes. In a sample of 95 cocaine dependent patients, the experiences that occurred with the greatest frequency immediately prior to relapse were wanting drugs, being alone, having money, and feeling extremely bored and lonely. Following the onset of the relapse, the most frequent experience was unpleasant affect, although positive reactions were also relatively common. The factors perceived as most important in terminating relapse were painful internal states, help-seeking behaviors, and other coping responses. Three types of relapse experiences, or pathways, were identified: (a) unpleasant affect — painful internal states prior to and throughout the relapse; (b) positive affect — positive affect and pleasant social experiences prior to relapse coupled with a relatively unproblematic course; and (c) sensation seeking — sensation seeking and interpersonal problems prior to relapse coupled with mixed emotional reactions and antisocial behavior during the relapse, and interpersonal problems at relapse termination.

Differential effects of mood on cortical cerebral blood flow: A 133xenon clearance study

Studies of healthy and clinical populations have suggested valence- specific cortical and subcortical neural systems regulating emotions. In a study of 12 normal volunteers, the 133xenon clearance method for measuring regional cerebral blood flow (CBF) was used to study the effects of experimentally controlled mood states on regional brain activity within superficial cortex. CBF was measured with 254 detectors and bolus infusion during a happy mood induction task, a sad mood induction task, a sex differentiation task, and a resting baseline condition. CBF increased during sad and decreased during happy mood induction, relative to the activated (sex differentiation) and the nonactivated (resting) nonemotional control conditions. Increased CBF during sad mood induction was correlated with greater negative mood changes. Conversely, increased CBF was associated with a stronger subjective experience of positive affect during happy mood induction. This suggests that cortical arousal may serve to intensify the conscious experience of emotion. Heart rate accelerated during happy and sad mood induction and during sex differentiation relative to a pretask baseline condition. Some regional specificity of effects was also observed. The occipital temporal region showed higher overall CBF during sad mood induction than during happy mood induction. The only region that showed specific lateralized changes in CBF which differentiated sad from happy states was the frontal pole, with left CBF being higher during sad and lower during happy mood induction relative to right CBF. For sad mood induction, there were significant regional differences among correlations between CBF and self-ratings. These were attributable to higher negative correlations (i.e., higher CBF correlates with negative self-rating) in midtemporal, occipital temporal, and postcentral regions. These correlations did not vary across the 15 regions for happy mood induction. For sad mood induction, heart rate correlated positively with CBF increase and with negative affect. Correlations were opposite for happy mood induction. The results suggest high cortical and autonomic arousal during negative/sad mood and low cortical and high autonomic arousal during positive/happy mood. They underscore the value of integrating emotional experience with physiologic measures in neuroimaging activation studies.

Affective and social-behavioral correlates of physical and social anhedonia in schizophrenia.

The association between scales measuring physical and social anhedonia, self-reports of affective response to emotion-eliciting films, and role play measures of social skill was evaluated in patients with schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, and bipolar affective disorder. We hypothesized that patients with schizophrenia would report significantly greater anhedonia than the bipolar patients and that higher scores on the anhedonia scales would be related to attenuated reports of the experience of positive affect and poorer social skill. Patients with schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder did not differ in ratings of anhedonia, but both groups had higher physical and social anhedonia scores than did bipolar patients. Higher scores on the physical anhedonia scale, but not the social anhedonia scale, were related to attenuated reports of positive affect following viewing of affect-eliciting films in schizophrenia-schizoaffective disorder patients. Neither anhedonia scale was related to role play measures of social skill performance for any patient group.

Social activity and subjective well-being

Social activity has been identified as one of the most consistent predictors of peoples' subjective reports of happiness. Recent research has examined factors that influence this relationship, including personality moderators and distinctions among types of social activities. Two studies are reported in which undergraduates completed measures gauging their (a) extraversion, (b) need for social approval, and (c) satisfaction with and frequency of four types of social activities (with parents, relatives, friends, and groups). Subjective well-being was defined as (a) life satisfaction, (b) experience of positive affect, and (c) experience of negative affect. In addition, participants completed the measures while alone, with friends present, or with strangers present. Results revealed that satisfaction with social activities was the strongest (positive) predictor of subjective well-being, though the personality measures were significant (positive) predictors as well. Among frequency measures of social activity, the number of activities with groups was the only consistent (positive) predictor of happiness. Also, participants completing questionnaires in the presence of friends reported greater life satisfaction than participants completing questionnaires with strangers.

Evaluation of the Automatic Thoughts Questionnaire: Negative cognitive processes and depression among children.

The Automatic Thoughts Questionnaire (ATQ) assesses negative thoughts that are associated with depression among adults. In this study, the scale was extended to children. Internal consistency and validity of the ATQ were evaluated with 250 child psychiatric inpatient children (ages 6 to 13). Validity was evaluated by examining whether depressed and nondepressed children differed on the scale, whether performance was related to other measures of cognitive attributional processes, and whether the measure was more closely related to depression and cognitive processes than to other constructs predicted to be less central to negative thoughts. The ATQ showed high internal consistency and yielded moderate to high item-total score correlations. Convergent validity was supported by the finding that the ATQ correlated positively with severity of depression, hopelessness, and external locus of control and negatively with self-esteem. Discriminant validity was suggested, but not strongly supported, by higher correlations between ATQ and measures of depression and other cognitive processes than between the ATQ and severity of impairment, prosocial behavior, and positive affective experience. The findings in relation to psychometric properties and concurrent validity of the ATQ with children parallel those evident in the study of depression among adults. Further work is needed to examine the relation of the ATQ to other measures of cognitive processes and diagnoses other than depression.

Substance Abuse Among Sex Offenders

A total of 461 male sex offenders were compared on their histories of alcohol and street drug use. The Drug Use Survey, Michigan Alcoholism Screening Test (MAST), and Drug Abuse Screening Test (DAST) were examined to provide measures of 1) type and frequency of substance use, 2) mood on alcohol and drugs, and 3) alcoholism and drug abuse. Most sex offenders had used alcohol and they had tried a wide range of street drugs. Over half of the sample had tried at least one street drug, including minor tranquilizers, amphetamines, barbiturates, cocaine, narcotics, phencyclidine, hallucinogens, and solvents. Marijuana was used most. Over one half of the sex offenders were alcoholics, based on the MAST. Results of the DAST suggested that less than a fifth of the sample had a drug abuse problem at the time of examination. Although the majority experienced positive affect in conjunction with alcohol and drug use, between one fifth and one half experienced depressed affect. Use of alcohol and amphetamines were most often associated with hostile feelings. Amphetamine and hallucinogen use were associated most with paranoia. Respondents felt most ‘out of control’ with cocaine and hallucinogens. Results are discussed in terms of the role of substance abuse and violence in sex offences.

Central but not basolateral amygdala mediates memory for positive affective experiences

Rats were trained in an 8-arm radial maze on a task in which memory for magnitude of reinforcement was tested. Rats received a single trial per day consisting of a study phase and a test phase. In the study phase, the animals received 1 or 7 pieces of food on different arms of the maze. After the study phase, the rats were delayed for 5 s, 5 min or 15 min. After the delay the animals were allowed to choose between the two arms presented in the study phase. The correct response, leading to an additional reinforcement, was to select the arm in which the animal had received the 7 pieces of food. After learning this task to a criterion of 80% or better performance on blocks of 10 trials for each delay, the animals received electrolytic lesions of the basolateral or central amygdala. After recovery from surgery animals were tested at each delay. The results indicate that there were no deficits at any delay with basolateral amygdala lesions. In contrast, lesions of the central amygdala produced a marked deficit at the 5- and 15-min delays, but no deficit at the 5-s delay. Based on the assumption that in this task memory for magnitude of reinforcement is a function of the formation of reinforcement-spatial location associations resulting in the activation of affective experiences, it is concluded that the central but not basolateral amygdala is involved in the coding of positive affect information.

The Experience of Leisure in Adolescence

This article investigates the psychological dimensions of leisure for adolescents, examining their experience of freedom, intrinsic motivation and positive affect in free time versus productive and maintenance activities. In addition, it examines the degree of challenge and concentration in such activities in order to consider the preparation they provide for serious adult roles. Following the procedures of the experience sampling method, 75 adolescents provided 4,489 self-reports on various dimensions of experience during their daily lives. As expected, in free time activities the adolescents reported experiencing greater freedom, intrinsic motivation and positive affect than in productive and maintenance activities, while they reported higher degrees of challenge and concentration in productive rather than free time activities. However, several free time activities, specifically, sports and games and arts and hobbies, were higher on concentration and challenge than all other activities. Contrasted with the more “relaxed leisure” of activities such as socializing and television watching, these more structured activities are seen as “transitional” in being similar in their demand characteristics to the serious activities of adult roles.

A test of the utility of social indicators for behavioral health service planning

Given current imperatives for more effective, responsive, and economical government, policy planners and administrators are seeking increasing assistance from social scientists. Here the usefulness of social indicators to the processes of policy planning and implementation in the delivery of mental health, alcohol and drug abuse services is investigated to determine whether social indicator data can contribute to more effective policy planning. In a two part study, the relationship between social indicators and Specific sources of these data were: population total, subdivided by geographic area and race (Caucasian, Black, and Other, which in Arizona is virtually all Native Americans) from the 1975 special census; population by age and ratio of dissolutions to marriages from the for 1977; crime rates from the Arizona State Justice Planning Agency for 1975; and cause of death rates from the Bureau of Vital Statistics, Arizona Department of Health Services for 1975. Subjective measures of psychological well-being were not available for the internal validational component of the study. state wide service utilization rates and The measures the individual's level of anxiety, worry, loneliness, and sadness, and is associated with other measures that have been used in epidemiological studies to identify persons with psychological difficulties. The assesses an individual's level of psychiatric impairment as evidenced by the frequency with which he or she reports having experienced each of the 22 psychological and psychosomatic symptoms on the scale. It has also been used in numerous epidemiological studies to investigated levels of impairment among various populations. The reflects the degree to which the person is involved with, interested in, and experiences control over his or her physical and social environment. Active involvement with the world and frequent social participation are considered to be conducive to the experience of positive affect. The measures the degree to which the persons is satisfied with the quality of his or her life. The score on this scale is a composite of the respondent's level of satisfaction in different areas of life such as standard of living, health, personal functioning, and family life. The greater the satisfaction in these separate areas, the higher will be the individual's overall evaluation of the quality of his or her life. psychological well-being in the community is examined. Both objective and subjective social indicators were studied. Both types of indicators were found to be useful and complementary in identifying service needs and states of well-being in the community.