Self-reported Negative Emotion Research Articles

Positive and negative emotion prospectively predict trajectories of resilience and distress among high-exposure police officers.

Responses to both potentially traumatic events and other significant life stressors have been shown to conform to discrete patterns of response such as resilience, anticipatory stress, initial distress with gradual recovery, and chronic distress. The etiology of these trajectories is still unclear. Individual differences in levels of negative and positive emotion are believed to play a role in determining risk and resilience following traumatic exposure. In the current investigation, we followed police officers prospectively from academy training through 48 months of active duty, assessing levels of distress every 12 months. Using latent class growth analysis, we identified 4 trajectories closely conforming to prototypical patterns. Furthermore, we found that lower levels of self-reported negative emotion during academy training prospectively predicted membership in the resilient trajectory compared with the more symptomatic trajectories following the initiation of active duty, whereas higher levels of positive emotion during academy training differentiated resilience from a trajectory that was equivalently low on distress during academy training but consistently grew in distress through 4 years of active duty. These findings emerging from a prospective longitudinal design provide evidence that resilience is predicted by both lower levels of negative emotion and higher levels of positive emotion prior to active duty stressor exposure.

Looking Inward

Selective attention plays a fundamental role in emotion regulation. To date, research has examined individuals’ use of selective attention to regulate emotional responses during stimulus presentation. In the present study, we examined whether selective attention can be used to regulate emotional responses during a poststimulus period when representations are active within working memory (WM). On each trial, participants viewed either a negative or a neutral image. After the offset of the image, they maintained a representation of it in WM and were cued to focus their attention on either neutral or arousing aspects of that representation. Results showed that, relative to focusing on an arousing portion of a negative-image representation within WM, focusing on a neutral portion of the representation reduced both self-reported negative emotion and the late positive potential, a robust neural measure of emotional reactivity. These data suggest that selective attention can alter emotional responses arising from affective representations active within WM.

Anger and sadness in response to an emotionally neutral film: Evidence for age-specific associations with well-being.

When the association between emotion and well-being is being considered, positive emotions usually come to mind. However, negative emotions serve important adaptive functions and particular negative emotions may be especially adaptive at different stages of adult development. We examined the associations between self-reported negative emotions in response to an emotionally neutral, thematically ambiguous film and subjective well-being among 76 young (age 20-29), 73 middle-aged (age 40-49), and 73 older (age 60-69) adults. Results indicated that higher self-reported anger in response to the film was associated with higher well-being for middle-aged adults, but not for young and older adults. Higher self-reported sadness in response to the film was associated with higher well-being for older adults, but not for young and middle-aged adults. These findings were stronger for cognitive well-being (i.e., satisfaction with life) than for affective well-being (i.e., ratio of dispositional positive to negative affect) and were specific to these emotions (not found for self-reported disgust or fear) and to the emotionally neutral film (not found for sad or disgusting films). Results are discussed in terms of the functions that anger and sadness are thought to serve and the control opportunities afforded in midlife and late life that render these functions differentially adaptive.

Correlates and characteristics of adolescents' encoded emotional arousal during family conflict.

Associations between adolescents' range of fundamental frequency, cortisol output, and self-reported emotional experience were examined during problem discussions with parents. Participants are a community-based sample of 56 boys and girls in a longitudinal study on conflict exposure. Results reveal that higher aggregate levels of range of fundamental frequency are associated with higher cortisol output and higher levels of self-reported negative emotions for boys and girls. Additionally, greater cortisol output is significantly associated with a slower time-to-peak of range of fundamental frequency for girls and with significantly less variability in range of fundamental frequency for boys. Implications of results for emotional development in adolescents, measurement, and modeling are discussed.

Too upset to think: The interplay of borderline personality features, negative emotions, and social problem solving in the laboratory.

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is associated with poor social problem solving and problems with emotion regulation. In this study, the social problem-solving performance of undergraduates with high (n = 26), mid (n = 32), or low (n = 29) levels of BPD features was assessed with the Social Problem-Solving Inventory-Revised and using the means-ends problem-solving procedure before and after a social rejection stressor. The high-BP group, but not the low-BP group, showed a significant reduction in relevant solutions to social problems and more inappropriate solutions following the negative emotion induction. Increases in self-reported negative emotions during the emotion induction mediated the relationship between BP features and reductions in social problem-solving performance. In addition, the high-BP group demonstrated trait deficits in social problem solving on the Social Problem-Solving Inventory-Revised. These findings suggest that future research must examine social problem solving under differing emotional conditions, and that clinical interventions to improve social problem solving among persons with BP features should focus on responses to emotional contexts.

The association between temperament and depressive symptoms in adolescence: Brooding and reflection as potential mediators

This study examined whether rumination subtypes (brooding and reflection) mediated prospective associations between temperament (negative emotionality and positive emotionality) and depressive symptoms in a community sample of 423 adolescents. Effortful control and sex were examined as potential moderators of the mediated pathway. Youth self-reported negative emotionality (NE), positive emotionality (PE), and effortful control (EC) at age 12; brooding and reflection subtypes of rumination at age 14; and depressive symptoms at ages 12, 14, and 15. Hierarchical linear regression analyses indicated that, controlling for initial levels of depressive symptoms, high NE, but not low PE, predicted increases in depressive symptoms from age 12 to age 15. Brooding, but not reflection, mediated the association between NE and depressive symptoms. Neither sex nor EC moderated either indirect pathway in the mediated model. The results confirm and extend previous findings on the association between affective and cognitive vulnerability factors in predicting depressive symptoms in adolescence.

Can Sophie's choice be adequately captured by cold computation of minimizing losses? An fMRI study of vital loss decisions.

The vast majority of decision-making research is performed under the assumption of the value maximizing principle. This principle implies that when making decisions, individuals try to optimize outcomes on the basis of cold mathematical equations. However, decisions are emotion-laden rather than cool and analytic when they tap into life-threatening considerations. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), this study investigated the neural mechanisms underlying vital loss decisions. Participants were asked to make a forced choice between two losses across three conditions: both losses are trivial (trivial-trivial), both losses are vital (vital-vital), or one loss is trivial and the other is vital (vital-trivial). Our results revealed that the amygdala was more active and correlated positively with self-reported negative emotion associated with choice during vital-vital loss decisions, when compared to trivial-trivial loss decisions. The rostral anterior cingulate cortex was also more active and correlated positively with self-reported difficulty of choice during vital-vital loss decisions. Compared to the activity observed during trivial-trivial loss decisions, the orbitofrontal cortex and ventral striatum were more active and correlated positively with self-reported positive emotion of choice during vital-trivial loss decisions. Our findings suggest that vital loss decisions involve emotions and cannot be adequately captured by cold computation of minimizing losses. This research will shed light on how people make vital loss decisions.

Never Smile at a Crocodile: Betting on Electronic Gaming Machines is Intensified by Reptile-Induced Arousal

Tourists at the Koorana Saltwater Crocodile Farm in Coowonga, Queensland, Australia, including 62 males and 41 females, aged 18-66 (M = 34.2, SD = 13.3), were randomly assigned to play a laptop-simulated Electronic Gaming Machine (EGM) either: (1) prior to entry, or (2) after having held a 1-m saltwater-crocodile. Gambling behavior; including bet-size, speed of betting, final payouts and trials played on the EGM; was investigated with respect to participants' assigned arousal condition, problem-gambling status, and affective state. At-risk gamblers with few self-reported negative emotions placed higher average bets at the EGM after having held the crocodile when compared to the control. In contrast, at-risk gamblers with many self-reported negative emotions placed lower average bets at the EGM after having held the crocodile. The results suggest that high arousal can intensify gambling in at-risk players, but only if this feeling state is not perceived as a negative emotion.

Disentangling emotion processes in borderline personality disorder: physiological and self-reported assessment of biological vulnerability, baseline intensity, and reactivity to emotionally evocative stimuli.

This study investigated M. Linehan's (1993) theory that individuals meeting criteria for borderline personality disorder (BPD) have high biological vulnerability to emotion dysregulation, including high baseline emotional intensity and high reactivity to emotionally evocative stimuli. Twenty individuals with BPD, 20 age-matched individuals with generalized social anxiety disorder (SAD), and 20 age-matched normal controls (NCs) participated in 2 separate emotion induction conditions, a standardized condition, and a personally relevant condition. Respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), skin conductance response (SCR), and self-report measures were collected throughout the experiment. BPD participants displayed heightened biological vulnerability compared with NCs as indicated by reduced basal RSA. BPD participants also exhibited high baseline emotional intensity, characterized by heightened SCR and heightened self-reported negative emotions at baseline. However, the BPD group did not display heightened reactivity, as their physiological and self-reported changes from baseline to the emotion inductions tasks were not greater than the other 2 groups.

Startle response in generalized anxiety disorder.

The main purpose of the present study was to examine the startle reflex in individuals diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) and control participants in terms of three questions. First, is the basic startle reflex modulated by autonomic nervous system (ANS) activation and/or attentional focus? Second, are induced and self-reported emotional states related to the magnitude of the startle response? And third, do individuals with GAD and their controls show differential startle responses? Experimental tasks designed to elicit sympathetic and parasympathetic activation and requiring internal and external attention foci were administered to nine individuals with GAP and nine controls. Individuals with GAD showed a greater startle reflex than controls during involvement in tasks that either induced worry or relaxation but not during a baseline period. Startle responses differed in terms of intentional focus but not ANS activity. During baseline and emotional induction, self-reported negative emotionality was significantly correlated with magnitude of the startle response. These results suggest that negative emotionality at the time of the startle probe is an important determinant. Further, attentional focus plays a more important role in startle modulation than autonomic nervous system manipulation. These results are discussed in relation to negative emotion, focus of attention, and use of the startle response as a measure of change during psychotherapy.

Negative emotionality influences the effects of emotion on time perception.

In this study I used a temporal bisection task to test if greater overestimation of time due to negative emotion is moderated by individual differences in negative emotionality. The effects of fearful facial expressions on time perception were also examined. After a training phase, participants estimated the duration of facial expressions (anger, happiness, fearfulness) and a neutral-baseline facial expression. In accordance to the operation of an arousal-based process, the duration of angry expressions was consistently overestimated relative to other expressions and the baseline condition. In support of a role for individual differences in negative emotionality on time perception, temporal bias due to angry and fearful expressions was positively correlated to individual differences in self-reported negative emotionality. The results are discussed in relation both to the literature on attentional bias to facial expressions in anxiety and fearfulness and also, to the hypothesis that angry expressions evoke a fear-specific response.

Variation in the serotonin transporter gene modulates selective attention to threat.

The 5-HTTLPR is an insertion/deletion polymorphism in the promoter region of the serotonin transporter gene. Prior research has revealed associations between the short-allele variant of this polymorphism, enhanced self-reported negative emotionality, and hypersensitivity of fear relevant neural circuits. In a sample of 50 healthy women we examined the role of 5-HTTLPR for cognitive-affective processing of phylogenetical fear-relevant stimuli (spiders) in a dot probe task. In contrast to homozygote long-allele carriers (ll), participants carrying at least 1 short allele (ss and sl) selectively shifted attention toward pictures of spiders, when these were presented for a duration of 2,000 ms. These results argue for an involvement of 5-HTTLPR in cognitive processing of threatening stimuli and thus, underpin its general role for individual differences in negative affect.

Do others really know us better? Predicting migraine activity from self- and other-ratings of negative emotion

Objective The validity of self-reported negative emotion to predict health status is limited by response biases, introspection limitations, and methodological confounds. The reports of significant others about the patients' negative emotion may circumvent these limitations. This study sought to compare the validity of self- versus other-reported negative emotion as a correlate of migraine headache activity. Methods On 89 patients with migraine headache (74 women and 15 men), we correlated self-ratings and significant-other-ratings of patients' negative emotion with patients' report of migraine frequency and severity, which were assessed both cross-sectionally and prospectively, 3 months later. Results Other-reported negative emotion correlated with migraine activity better than did self-reported negative emotion, both cross-sectionally and prospectively. Patterns were different for women and men, however. Among women, other-reported negative emotion was positively associated with migraine activity. Among men, other-reported negative emotion was inversely associated with migraine frequency and severity. Conclusion The results suggest that it may be valuable to obtain significant-other-ratings when assessing negative emotion in patients and that the genders may differ in how others' ratings are related to the patients' health.

When You're Smiling does the Whole World Smile for You?

Objective: To summarise and review findings from a longitudinal study examining the predictive significance of authentic smiling. Conclusions: A smile captured at one point in time (i.e. in a college photograph) was modestly but significantly associated with less self-reported negative emotionality and more perceived self-competence in a sample of women followed up over several years. Smiling also had a favourable influence upon observer judgements, with subjects who smiled being judged as more likeable and approachable than non-smilers and non-authentic smilers. Authentic smiling in adults is probably a behavioural marker of various helpful or protective psychological qualities fuelled at least moderately by temperament. Variation exists in smiling behaviour like it does in any other individual difference, but the very act of smiling might even serve as a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy - so smile more, but don't fake it!

Psychological responses to body shape exposure in patients with bulimia nervosa

One of the unresolved issues regarding research on bulimia nervosa concerns the question as to how patients diagnosed with bulimia nervosa respond to body image exposure. In addition, it remains unclear whether there are differential responses associated with different exposure techniques (e.g. in vivo exposure vs. exposure by visualization). The aim of the present study was to investigate psychological responses to body image exposure. Twenty participants diagnosed with bulimia nervosa (DSM IV) and twenty non-eating disordered individuals were exposed to their body image using a video recording (video confrontation). In addition, they were asked to imagine and describe the appearance of their body (imagery task). Results indicate that self-reported negative emotions increased in response to both, video confrontation and imagery task, in the clinical as well as in the control group. Furthermore, video confrontation led to more pronounced group differences than exposure by visualization (imagery task). Participants diagnosed with bulimia nervosa took less time to describe their waist, hips and bottom compared to non-eating disturbed controls. This last result could be interpreted in terms of avoidance behavior and other mechanisms during body image exposure.

Mediators' Emotional Responses to Self-Injurious Behavior: An Experimental Study

Researchers have suggested that mediators find challenging behaviors aversive. An ecologically valid control comparison study to support this contention was conducted. Sixty mediators from schools for children with mental retardation watched one of five carefully matched videos depicting no self-injury, self-injury maintained by positive reinforcement, self-injury maintained by negative reinforcement, and self-injury unrelated to social events. Those viewing the no self-injury video reported fewer negative emotional responses than did those watching self-injury videos. Effects of behavioral function were found on mediators' self-reported emotional responses. In particular, self-injury maintained by negative reinforcement was associated with more self-reported negative emotion. Methodological issues and implications for research and practice are discussed.

Comment on “negative emotions and acute cardiovascular responses to laboratory challenges”

Feldman et al. (1) analyzed data from several studies and found only small associations between cardiovascular responses and self-reported emotional responses to laboratory They concluded that emotions play a small role in physiological responses to acute laboratory stressors. We believe this conclusion is premature. The connection between emotionality and cardiovascular reactivity (CVR) can be examined at the level of tasks (Do tasks that produce strong emotions also produce large cardiovascular reactions?) and at the level of individual differences (Are people who show large emotional responses to a given task the same ones who show large cardiovascular reactions?). Feldman et al. (1) consider only the latter issue. We leave the discussion of the former to the accompanying commentary by Schwartz (2) (though we note that the difference between a resting baseline and, for example, an anger-recall or shock-threat task is the level of emotionality, and this has profound consequences for CVR [3,4]). Even if limited to the examination of individual differences, the data presented by Feldman et al. (1) are not conclusive. The studies they review used star mirror-tracing, speech, and handgrip as the laboratory The use of such tasks limits the conclusions in two ways. First, the chosen tasks do not involve very powerful emotional interventions. Handgrip and star mirrortracing are not tasks one would choose if one were interested in emotional responses, and even a speech task need not be highly emotional. (Along these lines, we note that Table 3 of the paper shows that in only 3 of the 16 cases was the average of self-reported negative emotionality above the midpoint--moder-

Environmental Correlates of Negative Emotions in Children

Studies of the place uses and place preferences of young people have often disregarded the effects of negative and positive emotions. Conversely, studies of emotional disorders in young people have used a narrow definition of environment in describing the etiology and sequelae of depressive and anxious symptoms. This study explored the relations between emotions and environment in a group of 322 boys, aged 8 to 16, who attended a residential summer camp for 2 or 4 weeks. Self-reported negative emotions were associated with low overall environmental satisfaction. In addition, boys with higher levels of negative emotions were more likely to choose favorite places where they could be alone, whereas happier children chose places where they could socialize. Contrary to expectations, there was some evidence that negative emotions increased environmental exploration. Children’s negative emotions may be both a cause and a consequence of unsatisfactory interactions with novel environments and may result in compensatory behavioral withdrawal or perseverative exploration.

Personality and coronary heart disease: the type-D scale-16 (DS16).

Clinical diagnoses of depression, self-reported negative emotions, and personality traits have been associated with both the development and progression of coronary heart disease (CHD). This article focusses on negative affectivity (the tendency to experience negative emotions) and social inhibition (the tendency to inhibit self-expression in social interaction) in CHD patients. Two independent samples of patients with CHD were included in this study. Both empirical and internal-structural criteria were used to devise a brief self-report measure comprising an eight-item negative affectivity and an eight-item social inhibition scale in Sample 1 (N = 400). These scales were internally consistent (alpha = .89 and .82), stable over time (three-month test-retest reliability = .78 and .87) and were validated against standard personality scales. CHD patients with a "distressed" personality (Type-D) report high levels of negative affectivity and social inhibition; accordingly, this self-report measure was termed Type-D Scale-16 (DS16). Previous research showed that Type-D was associated with cardiac events and incidence of cancer in patients with CHD. Type-D as measured by the DS16 was associated with depressive affect and symptoms, stress, poor self-esteem, dissatisfaction with life, and low positive affect in Sample 2 (N = 100) of the present article. It is concluded that research on CHD should focus on affective disorder, specific negative emotions, and global personality traits, and that the DS16 is a practical, sound research tool that can be used to assess Type-D.