Self-reported Negative Affect Research Articles

Novel computational algorithms to index lexical markers of psychological distancing and their relationship to emotion regulation efficacy over time.

The degree to which one employs an objective or spatially/temporally distant perspective via language, i.e., linguistic distancing, has previously been shown to be positively associated with well-being. We sought to further elucidate relationships among language and emotion over time as a function of the implementation of sub-tactics of psychological distancing. In Study 1, we developed novel deep machine learning algorithms to identify the degree to which linguistic patterns reflect two types of psychological distancing, namely objective (OBJ) and spatial/temporal (FAR) distancing. In Study 2, in an expressive writing-based longitudinal emotion regulation training task, participants transcribed their thoughts while viewing negative or neutral stimuli over 5 sessions in one of three ways: by implementing objective language (Objective group), by implementing spatially/temporally distant language (Far group), or by responding naturally. We found that the OBJ and FAR algorithms significantly predicted changes in task-based self-reported negative affect in the Objective group and found no significant associations in the Far group. The relationship between the algorithm scores and self-reported negative affect was stronger in the Objective group compared to the Far group. These findings describe sensitive linguistic distancing algorithms that are capable of tracking changes in self-reported negative affect. These results may be useful in developing novel, unobtrusive emotion regulation assessments and interventions that utilize natural language processing.

Explaining age differences in the memory-experience gap.

Emotions and symptoms are often overestimated in retrospective ratings, a phenomenon referred to as the "memory-experience gap." Some research has shown that this gap is less pronounced among older compared to younger adults for self-reported negative affect, but it is not known whether these age differences are evident consistently across domains of well-being and why these age differences emerge. In this study, we examined age differences in the memory-experience gap for emotional (positive and negative affect), social (loneliness), and physical (pain, fatigue) well-being. We also tested four variables that could plausibly explain age differences in the gap: (a) episodic memory and executive functioning, (b) the age-related positivity effect, (c) variability of daily experiences, and (d) socially desirable responding. Adults (n = 477) from three age groups (21-44, 45-64, 65+ years old) participated in a 21-day diary study. Participants completed daily end-of-day ratings and retrospective ratings of the same constructs over different recall periods (3, 7, 14, and 21 days). Results showed that, relative to young and middle-aged adults, older adults had a smaller memory-experience gap for negative affect and loneliness. Lower day-to-day variability partly explained why the gap was smaller for older adults. There was no evidence that the magnitude of the memory-experience gap for positive affect, pain or fatigue depended on age. We recommend that future research considers how variability in daily experiences can impact age differences in retrospective self-reports of well-being. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

The role of music-induced emotions on recognition memory of filmed events

The present study investigated the effects of pairing a comedic movie trailer with emotive music on subsequent recognition memory of the events depicted in the trailer. In an independent groups design, the comedic trailer was paired with happy music (congruent condition) or sad music (incongruent condition). A no music condition served as the control condition. The results showed that participants in the incongruent condition displayed a recognition memory advantage for visual test items over participants in the congruent and control conditions. While changes in self-reported positive and negative affect did not correlate significantly with recognition memory, the perception of emotion-specific categories did. These findings help to establish an empirical basis of ironic contrast techniques and propose an affective component in the integration and representation of audiovisual action that is likely to emerge where a participant perceives or recognizes expressed emotions in music, without necessarily feeling an overall positive or negative affect.

Speech as an indicator for psychosocial stress: A network analytic approach

Recently, the possibilities of detecting psychosocial stress from speech have been discussed. Yet, there are mixed effects and a current lack of clarity in relations and directions for parameters derived from stressed speech. The aim of the current study is – in a controlled psychosocial stress induction experiment – to apply network modeling to (1) look into the unique associations between specific speech parameters, comparing speech networks containing fundamental frequency (F0), jitter, mean voiced segment length, and Harmonics-to-Noise Ratio (HNR) pre- and post-stress induction, and (2) examine how changes pre- versus post-stress induction (i.e., change network) in each of the parameters are related to changes in self-reported negative affect. Results show that the network of speech parameters is similar after versus before the stress induction, with a central role of HNR, which shows that the complex interplay and unique associations between each of the used speech parameters is not impacted by psychosocial stress (aim 1). Moreover, we found a change network (consisting of pre-post stress difference values) with changes in jitter being positively related to changes in self-reported negative affect (aim 2). These findings illustrate – for the first time in a well-controlled but ecologically valid setting – the complex relations between different speech parameters in the context of psychosocial stress. Longitudinal and experimental studies are required to further investigate these relationships and to test whether the identified paths in the networks are indicative of causal relationships.

Hatha Yoga Improves Psychophysiological Responses of College Students in Both Indoor and Outdoor Environments

College students experience increased stress levels that could predispose them to develop mental and physical health conditions throughout adulthood. Yoga is an ancient mind-body practice including breath techniques, body exercises, and meditation that may be a useful strategy for enhancing college student health. Likewise, exposure to nature has been shown to have beneficial impacts on human health. This study investigates physiological and psychological responses of college students to yoga practiced in outdoor versus indoor environments. Fifty-eight college females between the ages of 18-28 were randomly assigned to complete a 40-minute Hatha yoga session either indoors (empty classroom) or outdoors (green park) at a mid-sized public university. Heart rate, respiration rate, perfusion index, and positive and negative affect states were recorded pre/post yoga. Heart rate, respiration rate, and negative affect significantly improved after the yoga sessions in both indoor and outdoor environments. Baseline self-reported negative affect was significantly lower in the outdoor group compared to the indoor group. There were no significant interaction effects of yoga and environment. This study suggests that one 40-minute-session of Hatha yoga may be a useful method to alleviate acute signs of physiological stress and decrease negative affect for college females in both indoor and outdoor environments. Further research about potential synergistic effects of yoga and exposure to nature is warranted to better understand whether the environment in which yoga is practiced could enhance the benefits of this mind-body modality on health.

Affective and Autonomic Reactivity During Parent-Child Interactions in Depressed and Non-Depressed Mothers and Their Adolescent Offspring.

Depression presents risks that are profound and intergenerational, yet research on the association of depression with the physiological processes that might be associated with impaired mental and physical health has only recently been contextualized within the family environment. Participants in this multi-method case-control study were 180 mother-adolescent dyads (50% mothers with a history of depression treatment and current depressive symptoms). In order to examine the association between maternal depression and affective and autonomic reactivity amongst these mothers and their adolescent offspring we collected self-reported measures of positive and negative affect, as well as measures of cardiovascular and electrodermal autonomic activity, during mother-adolescent interaction tasks. Findings indicated that depressed mothers and their adolescent offspring exhibited greater self-reported negative affect reactivity during a problem-solving interaction and blunted (i.e., low) sympathetic activity as measured via skin conductance level across both interaction tasks. These effects remained significant after controlling for a range of potential covariates, including medication use, sex, age, adolescents own mental health symptoms, and behavior of the other interactant, along with correcting for multiple comparisons. Findings indicate that depressed mothers and their adolescent offspring both exhibit patterns of affect and physiology during interactions that are different from those of non-depressed mothers and their offspring, including increased negative affect reactivity during negative interactions and blunted sympathetic activity across both positive and negative interactions. These findings have potential implications for understanding the role of family processes in the intergenerational transmission of risk for depressive disorders.

Emotion Naming Impedes Both Cognitive Reappraisal and Mindful Acceptance Strategies of Emotion Regulation

Friends and therapists often encourage people in distress to say how they feel (i.e., name their emotions) with the hope that identifying their emotions will help them cope. Although lay and some psychological theories posit that emotion naming should facilitate subsequent emotion regulation, there is little research directly testing this question. Here, we report on two experimental studies that test how naming the emotions evoked by aversive images impacts subsequent regulation of those emotions. In study 1 (N = 80), participants were randomly assigned into one of four between-subjects conditions in which they either (i) passively observed aversive images, (ii) named the emotions that these images made them feel, (iii) regulated their emotions by reappraising the meaning of images, or (iv) both named and regulated their emotions. Analyses of self-reported negative affect revealed that emotion naming impeded emotion regulation via reappraisal. Participants who named their emotions before reappraising reported feeling worse than those who regulated without naming. Study 2 (N = 60) replicated these findings in a within-participants design, demonstrated that emotion naming also impeded regulation via mindful acceptance, and showed that observed effects were unrelated to a measure of social desirability, thereby mitigating the concern of experimenter demand. Together, these studies show that the impact of emotion naming on emotion regulation opposes common intuitions: instead of facilitating emotion regulation via reappraisal or acceptance, constructing an instance of a specific emotion category by giving it a name may “crystalize” one’s affective experience and make it more resistant to modification.

Gender differences in functional connectivity during emotion regulation

Gender differences in emotion regulation (ER) have been postulated, yet their neural basis remains poorly understood. The goal of this study was to investigate this issue from a functional connectivity (FC) perspective. Utilizing a region of interest (ROI) analysis, we investigated whether men and women (N = 48) differed in their FC pattern while viewing versus regulating negative emotion induced by highly salient pictures, and whether this pattern related to their self-reported negative affect and suppression success. Despite women reporting more negative affect, both genders had comparable suppression success. Moreover, differences emerged between men and women's FC patterns. During the regulation of negative emotion, better suppression in women was associated with stronger FC within a cingulo-opercular network, while men exhibited stronger FC within posterior regions of the ventral attentional network. We conclude that due to their propensity for higher emotional reactivity, women may employ a frontal top-down control network to downregulate negative emotion, while men may redirect attention away from the negative stimulus by using posterior regions of the ventral attention network. The findings may have significant implications for understanding women's vulnerability for developing affective disorders and developing targeted individualized treatment.

Association of Self-Reported Depression and Anger with Law Enforcement Officers’ Physical Abuse of Black Men in 4 Georgia Counties, 2011

IntroductionThe association between the behavioral affect of black men and law enforcement officers’ physical abuse of those men is not well-understood. This analysis measures the association between self-reported negative affect behavior (anger or depression) by the men and physical abuse by law enforcement officers, controlling for demographic and behavioral attributes. MethodsA single point-in-time cross-sectional survey was conducted in 2011 through random-digit telephone dialing among a sample of English-speaking black men aged 18-65 years in 4 Georgia (USA) counties. Associations among the outcomes, self-reported history of physical abuse by law enforcement officers, and the predictor variables of interest (self-reported anger or depression) was conducted through multivariable logistic regression. Other independent variables of interest measured were age; country of origin; parental country of origin; education; income; employment status; previous residency in a juvenile, jail, or prison facility; coping styles; and self-reported gender role and racism stress levels. ResultsOf the 633 survey participants who had interacted with law enforcement officers within the past 5 years, 129 (20.4%) reported physical abuse by law enforcement officers. Three factors had statistically significant, independent associations with reported law enforcement officer physical abuse: high levels of depression stratified by often or sometimes coping with stress through anger (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] = 4.9; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.4-16.9), previous residency in a jail or prison (aOR = 2.3; 95% CI: 1.8-3.1), and higher levels of exposure to racism (aOR [high levels of racism] = 15.0; 95% CI: 6.7-33.7 and aOR [medium levels of racism] = 6.5; 95% CI: 3.4-12.3). ConclusionCohort studies are needed to determine if a black man's negative coping style, history of incarceration or exposure to racism is causally related to his history of physical abuse by a law enforcement officer.

Emotional eating during COVID-19 in the United Kingdom: Exploring the roles of alexithymia and emotion dysregulation

Emotional eating, generally defined as (over)-eating in response to negative emotions, has been associated with poor physical and psychological outcomes. During a time of heightened negative affect, it is important to understand the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and associated lockdown measures on eating behaviours, and further elucidate the ways in which emotional eating is related to emotion dysregulation and impaired abilities to identify emotions (i.e. alexithymia). The aims of this study were to explore perceived changes in eating behaviours in relation to self-reported negative affect during the pandemic and to examine direct and indirect effects of alexithymia on emotional eating. An online questionnaire measured these constructs in the general population of the United Kingdom (n = 136). Findings demonstrated that those who reported changes to their eating behaviours during the pandemic also reported greater levels of depression during the same time frame. Mediation analyses revealed that difficulties identifying and describing feelings both predicted emotional eating indirectly via emotion dysregulation. Findings contribute to the understanding of the mechanisms underpinning the relationship between alexithymia and emotional eating and describe changes to eating behaviours during COVID-19. We discuss how these findings should be applied, and recommendations for future research.

Feasibility and acceptability of a Whole-Body hyperthermia (WBH) protocol

Background Whole-body hyperthermia (WBH) has shown promise as a non-pharmacologic treatment for major depressive disorder (MDD) in prior trials that used a medical (infrared) hyperthermia device. Further evaluation of WBH as a treatment for MDD has, however, been stymied by regulatory challenges. Objective We examined whether a commercially available infrared sauna device without FDA-imposed limitations could produce the degree of core body temperature (101.3 °F) associated with reduced depressive symptoms in prior WBH studies. We also assessed the frequency of adverse events and the amount of time needed to achieve this core body temperature. We explored changes (pre-post WBH) in self-reported mood and affect. Methods Twenty-five healthy adults completed a single WBH session lasting up to 110 min in a commercially available sauna dome (Curve Sauna Dome). We assessed core body temperature rectally during WBH, and mood and affect at timepoints before and after WBH. Results All participants achieved the target core body temperature (101.3 °F). On average, it took participants 82.12 min (SD = 11.3) to achieve this temperature (range: 61–110 min), and WBH ended after a participant maintained 101.3 °F for two consecutive minutes. In exploratory analyses of changes in mood and affect, we found that participants evidenced reductions (t[24] = 2.03, M diff = 1.00, p=.054, 95% CI [−2.02,0.02]) in self-reported depression symptoms from 1 week pre- to 1 week post-WBH, and reductions (t[24]= −2.93, M diff= −1.72, p=.007, 95% CI [−2.93, −0.51]) in self-reported negative affect pre-post-WBH session. Conclusion This novel WBH protocol holds promise in further assessing the utility of WBH in MDD treatment. Trial registration This trial was registered at clinicaltrivals.gov (NCT04249700).

Neighborhood safety concerns and daily well-being: A national diary study

People living in unsafe neighborhoods often report poor health. The reasons for this are multi-faceted, but one possibility is that unsafe neighborhoods create a situation of chronic stress, which may deplete people's resources to cope with the daily stressors of life. How people respond to daily stressors (e.g., with increased self-reported negative affect and physical symptoms) is positively associated with health problems and may thus be one pathway linking perceptions of neighborhood safety to poor health. The current study investigated the relationship between neighborhood safety concerns, daily stressors, affective well-being, and physical health symptoms in a national sample of adults from the Midlife in the United States Study II (n = 1748). In 2004, participants reported neighborhood safety concerns and history of chronic stress exposure. Across eight days, they also reported daily stressors, physical symptoms and negative affect. Greater neighborhood safety concerns were associated with higher negative affect and more physical symptoms, adjusting for other sources of chronic stress. Moreover, lower perceived neighborhood safety was related to greater increases in negative affect and physical symptoms on days during which stressors were reported, even after accounting for established interactions between daily stressors and other sources of chronic stress. Exposure to neighborhoods perceived as unsafe is associated with poorer daily well-being and exacerbated responses to daily stressors, which may serve as an individual-level pathway contributing to poorer health among people living in neighborhoods perceived as unsafe.

Sleep restriction alters physiological and emotional responses to emotion induction.

What is the central question of this study? The aim of the present study was to assess the effects of sleep restriction on self-report and autonomic responses to neutral and sad film clips. What is the main finding and its importance? Ratings of sadness and heart rate deceleration were greater while watching the sad clip, with no effect of sleep restriction, whereas heart rate variability and skin conductance were impacted by sleep restriction and, to a lesser extent, by film clips. The results suggest that autonomic function was adaptively altered by sleep restriction, in order to maintain a 'normal' response to emotional cues, despite mounting fatigue. Habitual insufficient sleep has long-term health consequences via its impact on autonomic nervous system (ANS) function and on regulation of emotion. To our knowledge, the effects of insufficient sleep on emotion-induced ANS function have not been tested. The present study aimed to address this lacuna. Using an emotion induction procedure, the effects of sleep restriction on physiological responses to validated neutral and sad film clips were assessed in a two-by-two, pseudo-randomized, cross-over design. Thirty-one participants, aged 20-33years, were assessed after sleeping for either 5h (sleep restricted, SR) or 8h (well rested, WR) per night, for three consecutive nights. Physiological measures included heart rate, heart rate variability, skin conductance response (SCR) and participants' ratings of affect and fatigue. There was no effect of sleep conditions on self-reported negative affect, but watching the sad clip reduced self-reported fatigue in the SR condition. There was greater heart rate deceleration while watching sad relative to neutral clips, independent of the sleep condition. Sleep restriction increased heart rate variability measures, with no effect of emotion induction. There was an interaction of emotion induction with sleep condition for SCR, with more SCRs to sad relative to neutral clips in the WR condition, and the opposite effect in the SR condition. Combined, the results suggest that the ANS response to an emotional cue was altered by sleep restriction. The results suggest an adaptive ANS response to mild, chronic sleep restriction, resulting in constant heart rate response and self-reported experience across WR and SR conditions, despite mounting fatigue.

Measuring fear: Association among different measures of fear learning.

Background and objectivesFear conditioning paradigms use various measures to assess learned fear, including autonomic arousal responses like skin conductance, and self-reports of both associative (US-expectancies) and evaluative (affective ratings) learning. The present study uses a dimensional approach to examine associations among fear indices directly. MethodsSeventy-three participants completed a differential fear conditioning experiment, during which a neutral stimulus (CS+) was paired with an electric shock (US), while another stimulus (CS-) was never paired with the shock (partially instructed fear acquisition). Ten minutes later, both stimuli were presented without any shocks (fear extinction). Skin conductance responses and US-expectancy ratings were recorded during each phase, while self-reported negative affect was assessed for each CS at the end of extinction. ResultsResults showed a positive association among US-expectancy ratings and skin conductance responses during acquisition and early extinction. US-expectancy ratings during overall extinction were positively associated with post-extinction negative affect. LimitationsThe lack of affective ratings post-acquisition may have obscured associations between associative and evaluative learning indices. ConclusionsResults provide evidence for the expected correspondence among different indices of associative fear learning. Findings emphasize the need for incorporating both associative and evaluative learning measures in fear conditioning paradigms.

Feeling good and bad about nothing at all: Evidence that the status quo can elicit mixed feelings.

Sometimes we come out ahead and sometimes we fall behind. Sometimes the status quo is maintained and we end up where we began. The status quo can be disappointing when things might have gone better and relieving when they might have gone worse, but it is not clear how the status quo will feel when things might have gone better or worse. Hume (1739/2000) and Bain (1859) would contend that feelings of disappointment and relief will neutralize one another. The evaluative space model (Cacioppo & Berntson, 1994), which conceptualizes the positive and negative substrates of the affect system as separable, raises the possibility that the status quo will elicit mixed feelings in such circumstances. To test this possibility, we had participants play games that offered a 40% chance to win, a 40% chance to lose, and a 20% chance of getting nothing. Participants' self-reported positive and negative affect indicate that the status quo elicited (a) less positive affect than wins and more positive affect than losses, and (b) less negative affect than losses and more negative affect than wins. More interestingly, the status quo elicited more mixed feelings than both wins and losses. Thus, when things might have turned out either better or worse, the status quo may best be conceived of as a bittersweet nothing. More generally, results indicate that a complete understanding of how counterfactual comparisons influence emotions requires conceptualizing positivity and negative as separable. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Examining the Causal Effects of Sleep Deprivation on Emotion Regulation and Its Neural Mechanisms.

Cognitive reappraisal (CR) is a strategy used to regulate emotions that is thought to be effective but effortful, relying on higher-order cognitive control systems to engage in active regulation. Sleep deprivation is believed to impair the functioning of these control systems, suggesting that it may impede the ability to implement CR effectively. This study tested the causal effects of sleep deprivation on emotional reactivity and the neurobiological systems underlying CR. We employed a within-subject crossover design in which participants underwent fMRI scanning twice, once when fully rested and once after a night of total sleep deprivation. During scans, participants passively viewed or used CR to down-regulate their emotional response to negative and neutral images. Contrary to hypotheses, both self-reported negative affect ratings and neural responses to the images indicated no difference in the way participants implemented CR when sleep deprived and when fully rested. Meanwhile, neural regions that showed distinct reactivity responses to negative relative to neutral images lost this specificity under deprived conditions. Negative affect ratings and heart rate deceleration, a physiological response typically evoked by aversive pictures, exhibited a similar blunting. Together, these results suggest that, although sleep deprivation may reduce the discrimination between emotional reactivity responses to negative and neutral stimuli, it does not impact CR the way it is presently studied.

789-P: Self-Care for Blood Glucose Monitoring (BGM) in Teens with Type 1 Diabetes (T1D): Impact of Real-Time Positive and Negative Affect

Aim: Teens with T1D often report negative emotions related to diabetes self-care. Affect tends to vary throughout the day and may provide an explanatory pathway to poor diabetes self-care and suboptimal glycemic control in teens. We used momentary sampling to examine associations between affect and BGM adherence in teens with T1D. Methods: Over 2 weeks, 32 teens (ages 14-18 years) used handheld computers to self-report positive (POS) and negative (NEG) affect (Positive and Negative Affect Schedule) and BGM adherence 4 times daily. Teens selected the times to receive the messages based on their usual BGM times. There were 225 paired affect and BG adherence reports. Z-scores were calculated for the NEG and POS subscales to reflect deviations from each teen’s overall affect. Separate logistic generalized estimating equations, adjusted for age, sex, T1D duration, and pump therapy assessed associations between POS and NEG affect and BGM adherence. Results: Teens (56% female) were (M±SD) 16.6±1.4 years old with T1D duration of 8.8±4.2 years; 63% were pump treated and A1c was 8.8±1.4%. Teens reported checking BG 59% of the time. In adjusted models, greater NEG affect was associated with lower odds of BGM (OR=0.5, 95% CI: 0.4-0.8, p=.001). POS affect was not significantly associated with BGM. Age, sex, T1D duration, and pump therapy were not significantly associated with BGM. Conclusions: In a sample of teens with T1D receiving multiple daily prompts to check BG, positive affect did not relate to BGM frequency; however, negative affect was associated with being half as likely to check BG. These findings suggest a need to provide teens with strategies for maintaining diabetes self-care behaviors when they are experiencing negative emotions. Disclosure A. Shapira: None. L.K. Volkening: None. J. Borus: None. L.M. Laffel: Advisory Panel; Self; Roche Diabetes Care. Consultant; Self; Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, Inc., ConvaTec Inc., Dexcom, Inc., Insulet Corporation, Insulogic LLC, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Lilly Diabetes, Novo Nordisk Inc., Sanofi US. Funding JDRF International; National Institutes of Health (P30DK036836, K12DK094721)

Reflecting on Existential Threats Elicits Self-Reported Negative Affect but No Physiological Arousal.

There is mixed evidence whether reflecting on an existential threat increases negative affect and thereby elicits subjective arousal and physiological activation. Additionally, it is debated whether different existential and non-existential threats elicit different arousal responses, although systematic comparisons are lacking. The current study explored affective, subjective, and physiological arousal responses while comparing several existential threats with a non-existential threat and with a control condition. One-hundred-and-seventy-one undergraduate students were randomly allocated to one of four existential threat conditions: mortality salience (MS), freedom restriction, uncontrollability, and uncertainty; or to the non-existential threat condition: social-evaluative threat (SET); or to a control condition (TV salience). Self-reported positive/negative affect was measured before and after reflection, while subjective arousal and physiological activation (electrodermal, cardiovascular, and respiratory) were measured on a high time-scale during baseline and reflection. Results showed larger increases in self-reported negative affect, as compared to the control condition, for all existential threat conditions, while there were no differences between the control condition and threat conditions regarding positive affect, subjective arousal, skin conductance, respiratory rate, and respiratory sinus arrythmia. There were subtle differences between existential and non-existential threat conditions, most notably in affective responses. Correlations showed positive associations between negative affect and subjective arousal and between trait avoidance and subjective arousal. This study is the first to systematically compare affective, subjective, and physiological changes in arousal due to reflecting on different existential threats, as well as one non-existential threat. We showed that, as compared to a control condition, reflecting on threats has a large impact on negative affect, but no significant impact on positive affect, subjective arousal, and physiological activation.

When smiles (and frowns) speak words: Does power impact the correspondence between self‐reported affect and facial expressions?

Self-reported experiences are often poor indicators of outward expressions. Here we examine social power as a variable that may impact the relationship between self-reported affect and facial expressions. Earlier studies addressing this issue were limited by focusing on a single facial expression (smiling) and by using different, less sensitive methods that yielded mostly null results. Sampling, for the first time, self-reported affect repeatedly in response to different negative, neutral and positive stimuli, and measuring concurrent facial muscle activation via electromyography, we found that high power (vs. baseline) increased the correspondence between self-reported positive affect and smiling. There was also an indication that high power (vs. baseline) bolstered the association between self-reported negative affect and frowning but the effect did not pass more stringent criteria for significance (p≤.005) and was therefore deemed inconclusive. The prediction that low power (vs. baseline) decreases the correspondence between self-reported affect and smiling and frowning facial expressions was not supported. Taken together, it would appear that (high) power can impact the relationship between self-reported affect and facial expressions, but it remains to be seen whether this effect extends beyond smiling facial expressions.

Dogs as an Adjunct to Therapy: Effects of Animal-Assisted Therapy on Rehabilitation Following Spinal Cord Injury

ABSTRACTApproximately 17,000 new cases of spinal cord injury (SCI) are reported annually in the United States. Rehabilitation from SCI involves substantial mental, emotional, and physical challenges. Using a randomized controlled trial design, we assessed the efficacy of animal-assisted therapy (AAT) as an aid in rehabilitation following a SCI. We hypothesized that patients with SCI undergoing rehabilitation occupational therapy with AAT would demonstrate greater positive shifts in mood and outlook, reduced pain, and reduced stress compared with patients exposed to the same rehabilitation therapy but without AAT. Over four sessions of occupational therapy, 31 patients completed standard rehabilitation activities (control group) or rehabilitation activities integrating an animal therapy team (treatment group). Patients completed the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) and Numerical Rating Scale (NRS) at each session, had salivary cortisol sampled at the second session, and completed the Brief Pain Inventory at study baseline and exit. Data were analyzed using repeated measures ANOVAs and t-tests. The results revealed a small but significant effect of animal-assisted therapy on self-reported negative affect. Findings for group differences on positive affect, stress, and pain unpleasantness were null, although non-significant findings were in the hypothesized direction for several variables and yielded small effect sizes. Continued research is needed on the influence of AAT on mood improvement, stress reduction, and ultimately improved physical health outcomes during rehabilitation after SCI.