Self-reported Negative Emotion Research Articles

Getting Specific about Emotion and Self-Inflicted Injury: An Examination Across Emotion Processes in Borderline Personality Disorder

This study aimed to examine which specific emotion processes influence self-inflicted injury: basal respiratory sinus arrhythmia, baseline negative emotional intensity, emotional reactivity, or emotion regulation deficits. Self-injuring individuals with borderline personality disorder (N = 22) reported their lifetime self-injury frequency. Basal respiratory sinus arrhythmia and baseline skin conductance responses measurements were collected. Participants then either reacted as they usually would (i.e., emotional reactivity), or utilized mindfulness- or distraction-based strategies (i.e., emotion regulation), in response to negative images while self-reported negative emotion and skin conductance were monitored. Higher basal respiratory sinus arrhythmia and baseline emotional intensity predicted higher lifetime self-injury frequency. Chronic, resting emotion processes may be more important targets for reducing self-injury compared to labile, acute emotion processes.

Social Antecedents to the Development of Interoception: Attachment Related Processes Are Associated With Interoception.

Current empirical work suggests that early social experiences could have a substantial impact on the areas of the brain responsible for representation of the body. In this context, one aspect of functioning that may be particularly susceptible to social experiences is interoception. Interoceptive functioning has been linked to several areas of the brain which show protracted post-natal development, thus leaving a substantial window of opportunity for environmental input to impact the development of the interoceptive network. In this paper we report findings from two existing datasets showing significant relationships between attachment related processes and interoception. In the first study, looking at a sample of healthy young adults (n = 132, 66 males), we assessed self-reported interoceptive awareness as assessed with the Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness (Mehling et al., 2012) and attachment style as assessed with the Experiences in Close Relationships Scale-Short (Wei et al., 2007). We found relationships between aspects of interoception and attachment style such that avoidant individuals reported lower interoceptive functioning across several dimensions [r’s(130) = -0.20 to -0.26, p’s < 0.05]. More anxious individuals, on the other hand, reported heightened interoceptive across several dimensions [r’s(130) = 0.18 to 0.43, p’s < 0.05]. In the second study, we examined the congruence between a youth’s self-reported negative emotion and a measure of sympathetic nervous system arousal (SCL). The congruence score was positively associated with parental rejection of negative emotion. These results suggest that parenting style, as reported by the mother, are associated with a youth’s ability to coordinate their self-reported emotional and physiological responding across a series of independent assessments, r(108) = -0.24, p < 0.05. In other words, the more maternal reported parental rejection of youth negative emotions, the less congruent a youth’s self and physiological reports of distress.

Affective Neural Mechanisms of a Parenting-Focused Mindfulness Intervention.

Behavioral evidence suggests that parenting-focused mindfulness interventions can improve parenting practices and enhance family wellbeing, potentially operating through altered emotional processing in parents. However, the mechanisms through which parent mindfulness interventions achieve their positive benefits have not yet been empirically tested, knowledge which is key to refine and maximize intervention effects. Thus, as part of a randomized controlled trial, the present study examined the affective mechanisms of an 8-week parenting-focused mindfulness intervention, the Parenting Mindfully (PM) intervention, versus a minimal-intervention parent education control. Twenty highly stressed mothers of adolescents completed pre- and post-intervention behavioral and fMRI sessions, in which mothers completed a parent-adolescent conflict interaction, fMRI emotion task, and fMRI resting state scan. Mothers reported on their mindful parenting, and maternal emotional reactivity to the parent-adolescent conflict task was assessed via observed emotion expression, self-reported negative emotion, and salivary cortisol reactivity. Results indicated that the PM intervention increased brain responsivity in left posterior insula in response to negative affective stimuli, and altered resting state functional connectivity in regions involved in self-reference, behavioral regulation, and social-emotional processing. Changes in mothers' brain function and connectivity were associated with increased mindful parenting and decreased emotional reactivity to the parent-adolescent conflict task. Findings suggest that mindfulness-based changes in maternal emotional awareness at the neurobiological level are associated with decreased emotional reactivity in parenting interactions, illuminating potential neurobiological targets for future parent-focused intervention.

Effects of incidental positive emotion and cognitive reappraisal on affective responses to negative stimuli

ABSTRACTPrevious studies have identified two powerful ways to regulate emotional responses to a stressor: experiencing incidental positive emotions and using cognitive reappraisal to reframe the stressor. Several cognitive and motivational theories of positive emotion support the formulation that incidental positive emotions may facilitate cognitive reappraisal. To test the separate and interacting effects of positive emotions and cognitive reappraisal, we first adapted an established picture-based reappraisal paradigm by interspersing blocks of positive emotion inducing and neutral pictures. Across two pre-registered studies (Studies 1, 2), reappraisal effectively decreased self-reported negative emotions and increased self-reported positive emotions; however, experiencing incidental positive emotions did not facilitate reappraisal success. In another preregistered study (Study 3), we employed a more powerful positive emotion induction via virtual reality (VR), used a social stress anticipation task, and instructed participants to reappraise the anticipated stressor positively. Although there was a robust effect of the positive emotion induction (relative to the neutral induction) on feeling more positive emotions throughout stress anticipation, the results again indicated that incidental positive emotions did not facilitate cognitive reappraisal. We propose that incidental positive emotions and cognitive reappraisal may constitute separate pathways of influence when regulating one's responses to negative events.

Impaired Prefrontal-Amygdala Pathway, Self-Reported Emotion, and Erection in Psychogenic Erectile Dysfunction Patients With Normal Nocturnal Erection.

Background: Neuroimaging studies have demonstrated that the prefrontal cortex and amygdala play an important role in sexual arousal (SA). However, little is known about the interactions between the prefrontal and cortex amygdala, which mediate the cognitive regulation of emotion and SA.Objective: We seek to determine whether nocturnal erection of psychogenic erectile dysfunction (pED) patients are normal and whether there are changes of topological organization in the prefrontal-amygdala pathway of brain network in pED. In addition, whether there are correlations between network property changes and self-reported emotion and erection.Design, setting, and participants: We used the RigiScan device to evaluate erectile function of patients and employed diffusion MRI and graph theory to construct brain networks of 21 pED patients and 24 healthy controls.Outcome measurements and statistical analysis: We considered four nodal metrics and their asymmetry scores, and nocturnal penile tumescence (NPT) parameters, to evaluate the topological properties of brain networks of pED and their relationships with the impaired self-reported emotion and erection.Results and limitations: All the pED patients showed normal nocturnal penile erection, however impaired self-reported erection and negative emotion. In addition, patients showed lower connectivity degree and strength in the left prefrontal-amygdala pathway. We also found that pED exhibited lower leftward asymmetry in the inferior frontal gyrus. Furthermore, patients showed more hub regions and fewer pivotal connections. Moreover, the degree of the left amygdala of pED showed significantly negative correlation with the self-reported erection and positive correlation with the self-reported negative emotion.Conclusions: Together, these results suggest normal nocturnal erection in pED. However, abnormalities of brain network organization in pED, particularly in the left prefrontal-amygdala pathway, are associated with the impaired self-reported erection and negative emotion.

The Relevance of Emotion Regulation in Explaining Why Social Exclusion Triggers Paranoia in Individuals at Clinical High Risk of Psychosis.

Vulnerability-stress models postulate that social stress triggers psychotic episodes in vulnerable individuals. However, experimental evidence for the proposed causal pathway is scarce and the translating mechanisms are insufficiently understood. The study assessed the impact of social exclusion on paranoid beliefs in a quasi-experimental design and investigated the role of emotion regulation (ER) as a vulnerability indicator and emotional responses as a putative translating mechanism. Participants fulfilling criteria for clinical high risk of psychosis (CHR, n = 25), controls with anxiety disorders (AC, n = 40), and healthy controls (HC, n = 40) were assessed for dysfunctional (eg, rumination, catastrophizing, blaming) and functional ER-strategies (eg, reappraising, accepting, refocusing). They were then exposed to social exclusion during a virtual ball game (Cyberball) and assessed for changes in self-reported emotions and paranoid beliefs. The CHR sample showed a significantly stronger increase in paranoid beliefs from before to after the social exclusion than both control groups. This was accounted for by lower levels of functional and higher levels of dysfunctional ER (compared to HC) and by a stronger increase in self-reported negative emotion in the CHR group (compared to AC and HC). The results confirm the role of negative emotion on the pathway from social stressors to psychotic symptoms and indicate that both the use of dysfunctional ER strategies and difficulties in employing functional strategies add to explaining why people at risk of psychosis respond to a social stressor with increased paranoia.

Oxytocin promotes altruistic punishment.

The role of neuromodulators in the enforcement of cooperation is still not well understood. Here, we provide evidence that intranasal applied oxytocin, an important hormone for modulating social behavior, enhances the inclination to sanction free-riders in a social dilemma situation. Contrary to the notion of oxytocin being a pro-social hormone, we found that participants treated with oxytocin exhibited an amplification of self-reported negative social emotions such as anger towards free-riders, ultimately resulting in higher magnitude and frequency of punishment of free-riders compared to placebo. Furthermore, we found initial evidence that oxytocin contributes to the positive effects of a punishment institution by rendering cooperation preferable in the oxytocin condition for even the most selfish players when punishment was available. Together, these findings imply that the neural circuits underlying altruistic punishment are partly targeted by the oxytonergic system and highlight the importance of neuromodulators in group cohesion and norm enforcement within social groups.

Relation between social information processing and intimate partner violence in dating couples.

We used couple-level data to predict physical acts of intimate partner violence (IPV) from self-reported negative emotions and social information-processing (SIP) abilities among 100 dating couples (n = 200; mean age = 21.45 years). Participants read a series of hypothetical conflict situation vignettes and responded to questionnaires to assess negative emotions and various facets of SIP including attributions for partner behavior, generation of response alternatives, and response selection. We conducted a series of negative binomial mixed-model regressions based on the actor-partner interdependence model (APIM; Kenny, Kashy, & Cook, 2006, Dyadic data analysis. New York, NY: Guilford Press). There were significant results for the response generation and negative emotion models. Participants who generated fewer coping response alternatives were at greater risk of victimization (actor effect). Women were at greater risk of victimization if they had partners who generated fewer coping response alternatives (sex by partner interaction effect). Generation of less competent coping response alternatives predicted greater risk of perpetration among men, whereas generation of more competent coping response alternatives predicted greater risk of victimization among women (sex by actor interaction effects). Two significant actor by partner interaction effects were found for the negative emotion models. Participants who reported discrepant levels of negative emotions from their partners were at greatest risk of perpetration. Participants who reported high levels of negative emotions were at greatest risk of victimization if they had partners who reported low levels of negative emotions. This research has implications for researchers and clinicians interested in addressing the problem of IPV. Aggr. Behav. 43:329-341, 2017. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Reappraisal and Distraction Emotion Regulation Strategies Are Associated with Distinct Patterns of Visual Attention and Differing Levels of Cognitive Demand.

Multiple emotion regulation strategies have been identified and found to differ in their effectiveness at decreasing negative emotions. One reason for this might be that individual strategies are associated with differing levels of cognitive demand and require distinct patterns of visual attention to achieve their effects. In the current study, we tested this hypothesis in a sample of psychiatrically healthy participants (n = 25) who attempted to down-regulate negative emotion to photographs from the International Affective Picture System using cognitive reappraisal or distraction. Eye movements, pupil dilation, and subjective reports of negative emotionality were obtained for reappraisal, distraction, unpleasant passive viewing, and neutral passive viewing conditions. Behavioral results indicated that reappraisal and distraction successfully decreased self-reported negative affect relative to unpleasant passive viewing. Successful down regulation of negative affect was associated with different patterns of visual attention across regulation strategies. During reappraisal, there was an initial increase in dwell time to arousing scene regions and a subsequent shift away from these regions during later portions of the trial, whereas distraction was associated with reduced total dwell time to arousing interest areas throughout the entire stimulus presentation. Pupil dilation was greater for reappraisal than distraction or unpleasant passive viewing, suggesting that reappraisal may recruit more effortful cognitive control processes. Furthermore, greater decreases in self-reported negative emotion were associated with a lower proportion of dwell time within arousing areas of interest. These findings suggest that different emotion regulation strategies necessitate different patterns of visual attention to be effective and that individual differences in visual attention predict the extent to which individuals can successfully decrease negative emotion using reappraisal and distraction.

Detecting transient emotional responses with improved self-report measures and instructions.

Psychological research often yields null results on self-reported emotion as measured by the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS; Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988), even when using manipulations that might intuitively be expected to be emotionally impactful. Three studies reported here support the hypothesis that changes in self-reported negative emotion may be detected more sensitively when discrete emotions are measured rather than by either PANAS NA or a measure created by combining discrete emotions, and when participants were instructed to report how they felt during an emotion-eliciting event versus how they felt afterward. In Study 1, emotion was manipulated with disgusting photographs, in Study 2, with recall of social exclusion/inclusion, and in Study 3, with reminders of personal mortality. Discussion focuses on implications for detecting emotional changes in psychological research, and the inadvisability of interpreting null results on an insensitive measure as indicating that emotional changes did not occur. (PsycINFO Database Record

The Influence of Agreeableness and Ego Depletion on Emotional Responding.

Agreeable individuals report more intense withdrawal-oriented negative emotions across aversive situations. Two studies tested the hypothesis that self-regulatory depletion (i.e., ego depletion) moderates the relationship between trait Agreeableness and negative emotional responding. Ego depletion was manipulated using a writing task. Emotional responding was measured with startle eye-blink responses (Study 1, N = 71) and self-reported valence, arousal, and empathic concern (Study 2, N = 256) during emotional picture viewing. Trait Agreeableness was measured using a questionnaire. In Study 1, Agreeableness predicted especially large startle responses during aversive images and especially small startles during appetitive images. After exercising self-control, the relationship between startle magnitudes and Agreeableness decreased. In Study 2, Agreeableness predicted more empathic concern for aversive images, which in turn predicted heightened self-reported negative emotions. After exercising self-control, the relationship between Agreeableness and empathic concern decreased. Agreeable individuals exhibit heightened negative emotional responding. Ego depletion reduced the link between Agreeableness and negative emotional responding in Study 1 and moderated the indirect effect of Agreeableness on negative emotional responding via empathic concern in Study 2. Empathic concern appears to be a resource-intensive process underlying heightened responding to aversive stimuli among agreeable persons.

Differential effects of self- and situation-focused reappraisal.

In the present research, we investigated the effects of self- and situation-focused reappraisal, which are 2 distinct types of cognitive reappraisal, on emotion experiences, memory, and electrocortical responses to unpleasant pictures. In Study 1, situation-focused reappraisal was found to improve recall accuracy, whereas self-focused reappraisal had no effect. Both strategy types were associated with reductions in self-reported negative emotion, with larger reductions during situation-focused reappraisal. In Study 2, event-related potentials (ERPs) were measured while participants engaged in the 2 strategy types. Situation-focused, but not self-focused, reappraisal was associated with reductions in the late positive potential, an ERP that reflects facilitated attention to emotional stimuli. Taken together, these findings suggest that reappraisal is not a homogenous regulation strategy; on the contrary, subtypes of reappraisal elicit distinct consequence profiles. (PsycINFO Database Record

Legitimacy Processes and Emotional Responses to Injustice

People typically respond with negative emotions when they perceive an authority’s outcome distribution to be unjust. We argue, however, that legitimacy of the authority—“what others think” in terms of support coworkers and superiors extend to an individual occupying an authority position—acts as an opposing force, attenuating negative emotions and thus helping to sustain stratified orders. Likewise, legitimacy may stymie intentional displays of felt emotions. Our experiment examines the effects of perceived distributive injustice, legitimacy of the authority, and authority’s procedural fairness on members’ self-reported emotions and likelihood of intended emotional displays toward that authority, a superordinate authority, and coworkers in a work group context. Findings demonstrate that while perceived injustice arouses expected self-reported negative emotions, legitimacy (authorization as support by a superordinate authority and endorsement as support by coworkers) reduces such feelings. Also, strong authorization and endorsement indirectly affect intended emotional displays through self-reported negative emotions.

Emotion Regulation and Memory: Differential Associations in Younger and Midlife/Older Adults

Background/Study Context: Older adults may devote more cognitive resources to the processing and regulation of emotion stimuli than younger adults, but no studies have determined associations between episodic memory performance and naturalistic emotion recovery in a mixed-age sample. The current study ascertained if episodic memory scores were associated with emotion recovery in younger and midlife/older adults and if these associations were moderated by age.Methods: Participants watched a montage of film clips about interpersonal loss. Self-reported negative and positive emotions were assessed prior to the video, immediately after, and again 10 min after the video. Executive functions, processing speed, and episodic memory were assessed.Results: Participants with better episodic memory recovered more quickly from the mood induction than participants with lower scores. Age moderated the association between joviality recovery and memory. Specifically, there was a significantly stronger, positive association between joviality recovery and memory in midlife/older adults relative to younger adults.Conclusions: Stronger memory may facilitate emotion recovery, and this may be particularly true for older adults. Older adults with memory impairment may be at risk for emotion dysregulation.

Asian Indian Immigrant and White American Maternal Emotion Socialization and Child Socio-Emotional Functioning

Previous research provides an inadequate account of parental emotion socialization and its relation to child functioning among ethnic minority groups in the United States. This study compared reports of Asian Indian immigrant and White American mothers’ emotion socialization and examined relations between mothers’ emotion socialization and child outcomes in these two groups. Indian immigrant (n = 34) and White American (n = 38) mothers completed measures of child behavior problems and social competence, as well as self-report measures of two types of emotion socialization, responses to children’s negative emotions and emotion expressivity. Children completed a self-report measure of social competence. Results revealed that Indian immigrant mothers were more likely than White American mothers to report responding nonsupportively to their children’s negative emotions. However, reports of mothers’ nonsupportive responses were not related to child outcomes in the Indian immigrant group. In the White American group, reports of mothers’ nonsupportive responses were positively related to child behavior problems. Mothers’ self-reported negative emotion expressivity was positively related to child behavior problems and negatively related to mother-rated child social competence for Indian immigrants, while no significant relation was found between mothers’ negative emotion expressivity and child outcomes for White Americans. Moderation analyses were performed with these variables but were nonsignificant. Results are discussed in the context of cultural influences on emotion socialization and subsequent impact on child functioning.

Suppression dampens unpleasant emotion faster than reappraisal: Neural dynamics in a Chinese sample.

The timing dynamics of regulating negative emotion with expressive suppression and cognitive reappraisal were investigated in a Chinese sample. Event-Related Potentials were recorded while subjects were required to view, suppress emotion expression to, or reappraise emotional pictures. The results showed a similar reduction in self-reported negative emotion during both strategies. Additionally, expressive suppression elicited larger amplitudes than reappraisal in central-frontal P3 component (340-480 ms). More importantly, the Late Positive Potential (LPP) amplitudes were decreased in each 200 ms of the 800-1600 ms time intervals during suppression vs. viewing conditions. In contrast, LPP amplitudes were similar for reappraisal and viewing conditions in all the time windows, except for the decreased amplitudes during reappraisal in the 1400-1600 ms. The LPP (but not P3) amplitudes were positively related to negative mood ratings, whereas the amplitudes of P3, rather than LPP, predict self-reported expressive suppression. These results suggest that expressive suppression decreases emotion responding more rapidly than reappraisal, at the cost of greater cognitive resource involvements in Chinese individuals.

Impact of cognitive-behavioral therapy for social anxiety disorder on the neural bases of emotional reactivity to and regulation of social evaluation

We examined whether Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) for social anxiety disorder (SAD) would modify self-reported negative emotion and functional magnetic resonance imaging brain responses when reacting to and reappraising social evaluation, and tested whether changes would predict treatment outcome in 59 patients with SAD who completed CBT or waitlist groups. For reactivity, compared to waitlist, CBT resulted in (a) increased brain responses in right superior frontal gyrus (SFG), inferior parietal lobule (IPL), and middle occipital gyrus (MOG) when reacting to social praise, and (b) increases in right SFG and IPL and decreases in left posterior superior temporal gyrus (pSTG) when reacting to social criticism. For reappraisal, compared to waitlist, CBT resulted in greater (c) reductions in self-reported negative emotion, and (d) increases in brain responses in right SFG and MOG, and decreases in left pSTG. A linear regression found that after controlling for CBT-induced changes in reactivity and reappraisal negative emotion ratings and brain changes in reactivity to praise and criticism, reappraisal of criticism brain response changes predicted 24% of the unique variance in CBT-related reductions in social anxiety. Thus, one mechanism underlying CBT for SAD may be changes in reappraisal-related brain responses to social criticism. ClinicalTrials.gov identifierNCT00380731.http://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00380731?term=social+anxiety+cognitive+behavioral+therapy+Stanford&rank=1.

Emotional reactivity and emotion regulation among adults with a history of self-harm: laboratory self-report and functional MRI evidence.

Intentionally hurting one's body (deliberate self-harm; DSH) is theorized to be associated with high negative emotional reactivity and poor emotion regulation ability. However, little research has assessed the relationship between these potential risk factors and DSH using laboratory measures. Therefore, we conducted 2 studies using laboratory measures of negative emotional reactivity and emotion regulation ability. Study 1 assessed self-reported negative emotions during a sad film clip (reactivity) and during a sad film clip for which participants were instructed to use reappraisal (regulation). Those with a history of DSH were compared with 2 control groups without a history of DSH matched on key demographics: 1 healthy group low in depression and anxiety symptoms and 1 group matched to the DSH group on depression and anxiety symptoms. Study 2 extended Study 1 by assessing neural responding to negative images (reactivity) and negative images for which participants were instructed to use reappraisal (regulation). Those with a history of DSH were compared with a control group matched to the DSH group on demographics, depression, and anxiety symptoms. Compared with control groups, participants with a history of DSH did not exhibit greater negative emotional reactivity but did exhibit lower ability to regulate emotion with reappraisal (greater self-reported negative emotions in Study 1 and greater amygdala activation in Study 2 during regulation). These results suggest that poor emotion regulation ability, but not necessarily greater negative emotional reactivity, is a correlate of and may be a risk factor for DSH, even when controlling for mood disorder symptoms.

Detecting well-being via computerized content analysis of brief diary entries.

Two studies evaluated the correspondence between self-reported well-being and codings of emotion and life content by the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC; Pennebaker, Booth, & Francis, 2011). Open-ended diary responses were collected from 206 participants daily for 3 weeks (Study 1) and from 139 participants twice a week for 8 weeks (Study 2). LIWC negative emotion consistently correlated with self-reported negative emotion. LIWC positive emotion correlated with self-reported positive emotion in Study 1 but not in Study 2. No correlations were observed with global life satisfaction. Using a co-occurrence coding method to combine LIWC emotion codings with life-content codings, we estimated the frequency of positive and negative events in 6 life domains (family, friends, academics, health, leisure, and money). Domain-specific event frequencies predicted self-reported satisfaction in all domains in Study 1 but not consistently in Study 2. We suggest that the correspondence between LIWC codings and self-reported well-being is affected by the number of writing samples collected per day as well as the target period (e.g., past day vs. past week) assessed by the self-report measure. Extensions and possible implications for the analyses of similar types of open-ended data (e.g., social media messages) are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved).

School-Aged Children's Depressive Rumination is Associated with Their Reactivity to Sadness but not Fear

It is well documented that a ruminative response style is associated with greater risk for depression in children and adults. Less is known about the association between rumination and stress reactivity, particularly among children. Similarly, the extent to which depressive rumination is associated with general reactivity to negative emotion, or more specifically to sadness, has not received sufficient attention. The current study examines the association between depressive rumination and stress reactivity in response to a mild laboratory stressor in school-aged children. A diverse sample of 94 children between the ages of 8 and 12 participated in this 2-session study in which they reported on their tendency to engage in depressive rumination. Children's cardiovascular reactivity (operationalized as respiratory sinus arrhythmia) was assessed while they completed a task in which they read vignettes depicting children experiencing sadness and fear. Children also reported on their emotional reaction to the sad and fear vignettes, and we assessed the length of time it took them to respond to these questions (reaction time). Rumination was associated with greater decreases in respiratory sinus arrhythmia and greater increases in self-reported negative emotion in response to the sad but not the fear vignettes, suggesting that children higher in depressive rumination experienced more subjective arousal and showed evidence of greater regulatory effort when contemplating sadness. Rumination was associated with slower reaction time to both types of vignettes in one condition of the paradigm only. Results are discussed in terms of their implications for rumination and stress reactivity.