Affect Theory Research Articles

Work Environment as a Correlate of Teachers Psychological Wellbeing in Universities in Fako Division: The Case of the Chattered University Institute of Cameroon- CUIC

Purpose: This study investigates the correlation between the work environment and the psychological wellbeing of teachers within Universities in Cameroon: The Case of the Chattered University Institute of Cameroon-CUIC Drawing on theories such as Herzberg's Motivation-hygiene theory, Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, and the Affective Events Theory, the research explores how factors like classroom teaching space and office space availability influence the psychological wellbeing of educators. Materials and Methods: Using a quantitative-based cross-sectional design and purposive sampling, data were collected via a Likert scale questionnaire from 10 participants across seven departments. Descriptive and inferential statistics were employed for data analysis. Findings: The findings reveal significant positive relationships between both the availability of classroom teaching space and office space with the psychological wellbeing of teachers. The study underscores the importance of a conducive work environment in enhancing teachers' psychological wellbeing. Implications to Theory, Practice and Policy: It recommends measures for improving classroom and office space provisions to support teacher satisfaction and effectiveness. These findings contribute to the ongoing discourse on the role of the work environment in promoting teacher wellbeing and, by extension, student learning outcomes.

How was your day? A within-person analysis of how mental health may moderate the route from daily micro-events to satisfaction after work via affect and contextual performance.

This study builds on the affective events theory and the conservation of resources theory to propose a model that analyses an affect-to-behaviour-to-outcome route, highlighting how daily micro-events and subsequent affective reactions lead to behaviours (performance) and cognitions (satisfaction after work), and how mental health moderates this process. Results from a 5-day diary study, during the pandemic (N = 250, n = 1221), provided data to test the proposed affect-to-behaviour-to-outcome route. Poorer mental health buffered the positive within-person relationship between daily micro-events, affective reactions, performance and satisfaction after work, suggesting that high levels of mental health allowed individuals to maximise the benefits of positive daily micro-events in their satisfaction after work via affect and performance. This study presents original research analysing how situational factors create a route through which individuals experience affective reactions that influence their work behaviour, and in turn their levels of satisfaction after work.

The effects of involvement, authenticity, and destination image on tourist satisfaction in the context of Chinese ancient village tourism

Authenticity and destination image, as significant topics in tourism research, have received relatively less attention within the context of ancient village tourism. Given that ancient villages encompass multidimensional attributes including rural settlements, cultural heritage, and tourism resources, the relationship between influencing elements of tourism experience becomes inherently complex. Consequently, this article focuses on five ancient villages along the Yellow River in Hancheng City, China, employing methodologies such as in-depth interviews, field surveys, and participatory observation. Drawing upon affective appraisal theory, this study aims to investigate the interplay between authenticity, situational involvement, destination image, and tourist satisfaction. Its objective is to elucidate the pivotal role of these factors in enhancing tourist experiences and encouraging the long-term growth of village tourism. It was found that contextual involvement enhances the depth of visitor experience, authenticity maintains the cultural uniqueness of the village, and destination image reflects the overall perception of the village by visitors, and all three are positively related to visitor satisfaction. Furthermore, higher contextual involvement strengthens the mediation function of destination image between authenticity and tourist satisfaction. Theoretically, this study advances the enrichment of scholarship in affective evaluation theory and tourism experience, offering new perspectives on understanding the influencing factors of tourist satisfaction. In practical terms, as an emerging form of tourism, ancient village tourism has great market potential and economic value. This study helps to enhance the attractiveness and competitiveness of ancient village tourism by revealing the influencing factors of tourists' satisfaction. It also guides tourism development to give the preservation and inheritance of cultural heritage greater consideration, avoids excessive commercialization and homogenization, and ensures the continuation of the cultural characteristics and historical values of ancient villages.

“What it is exactly that circulates”: Affective value, re/production, and rhetorical exchange

Revising Marxist theories of circulation with affect theory, this article establishes a new model of rhetorical analysis that positions rhetorical exchange as a circulatory infrastructure of late capitalism. By measuring the value produced by rhetors and audiences in rhetorical exchange, we can see how the daily rhetorical activity of neoliberal subjects captures our behavior, positioning us a raw material for late capitalists. This new theory of rhetorical circulation is tested and revised by a qualitative study on the mundane communication of neoliberal subjects, in this case, the group chat of one fantasy football league. Fantasy football communication creates an ambient backdrop for its users, leading to quotidian rhetorical exchanges in clearly defined social networks. The study shows the contours of rhetorical exchange in one league's GroupMe chat. I found that, in exchange, subjects transform their investments into social and cultural capital (Bourdieu's capital forms). Ultimately, subjects can produce what I call affective capital, a uniquely neoliberal capital form. I find that the immense value of affective capital produced by league members in rhetorical exchange points to the reasons why neoliberal subjects repeatedly return to platforms that harvest our data.

Does Helping Others Make You Happier?

Abstract: This study integrates the need fulfillment and affective events theories to investigate the effects of the interaction between job involvement and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) on employee well-being. Two-wave data, collected from 196 paired samples of employees and their supervisors, were analyzed. This study confirms that both job involvement and OCB are positively related to well-being. Furthermore, job involvement moderates the relationship between OCB and well-being. Specifically, OCB had a positive relationship with well-being when job involvement was high, but a negative one when job involvement was low. This study’s findings suggest that OCB is beneficial to employees only when they have high-level involvement in their jobs. Implications for practice and further research are also discussed.

Regulating test anxiety by aesthetic musical emotions: based on the mutual promotion and mutual counteraction (MPMC) theory of affect

Regulating test anxiety by aesthetic musical emotions: based on the mutual promotion and mutual counteraction (MPMC) theory of affect

Differential Costs of Raising Grandchildren on Older Mother-Adult Child Relations in Black and White Families.

Drawing from theories of affect, role strain and stress processes, we studied the impact of raising grandchildren on older mothers' relationships with the adult offspring whose children they raised, with particular attention to how these patterns differ by race and ethnicity. We used mixed-methods data collected from 531 older mothers regarding their relationships with 1935 of their adult children as part of the Within-Family Differences Study. Multilevel regression analyses showed that raising grandchildren was associated with greater mother-adult child closeness in Black families; however, in White families, raising grandchildren was associated with greater mother-adult child conflict. Qualitative analyses revealed that these differences could be explained by the tendency of Black grandmothers to emphasize positive aspects of raising grandchildren, compared to White grandmothers, who viewed raising grandchildren as demanding and who described their exchanges with their adult children as unequal. Overall, our findings reflect racial and ethnic differences in intergenerational solidarity.

Challenge or Hindrance? The Dual Impact of Algorithmic Control on Gig Workers' Prosocial Service Behaviors.

Algorithmic technological progress presents both opportunities and challenges for organizational management. The success of online labor platforms hinges on algorithmic control, making it imperative to explore how this control affects gig workers' prosocial service behaviors. Drawing from affective event theory, our study delves into the factors influencing gig workers' prosocial service behaviors in the online labor platform setting. We utilize the challenge-hindrance appraisal framework to highlight the pivotal role of algorithmic control. To rigorously test our hypotheses, we gathered empirical data from an online questionnaire survey of 660 gig workers. Our results indicate that challenge appraisals and hindrance appraisals in regard to platform algorithm control have a nuanced dual impact on gig workers' prosocial service behaviors. This relationship is clarified by the mediating function of work engagement. A challenge appraisal of platform algorithmic control can positively influence gig workers' prosocial service behaviors. However, hindrance appraisal of platform algorithmic control can negatively influence gig workers' prosocial service behaviors. Interestingly, workplace interpersonal capitalization boosts the effect of challenge appraisal on employees' prosocial service behaviors. However, it does not mitigate the adverse effects of hindrance appraisal on such behaviors. This study has multiple theoretical implications, and it also provides valuable practical insights into organizational management.

Theorizing Affect in Mahler

ABSTRACT This article examines ways of theorizing affect in Mahler’s music, focusing on reading Adorno’s material theory of form as an affective theory of form, and shedding light on the potential critiques that this reading may face, and, more broadly, the ramifications it holds for Mahler studies and affect studies. It begins with an exploration of the dialectical nature of Adorno’s material theory of form, then posits that one’s affective experience of the categories laid out in the theory can be theorized by what Adorno calls the ‘shudder’ in the form of an ungraspable petrification. After discussing two other theoretical angles in literature on Mahler through which my reading of Adorno’s Formenlehre can be evaluated, the article throws into relief how Adorno’s affective theory of form may contribute to affect studies in simultaneously subjecting affect and music to critique.

Intense impressions: Joseph R. Biden toward a 2020 national grief

By mid-May of 2020, the United States surpassed 100,000 lives lost to COVID-19. The nation was scrambling to make sense of the global pandemic amid the 2020 U.S. presidential election. Focusing on Biden’s pandemic-related speaking moments throughout the 2020 election, I attend to the way Biden lingers in the felt intensities of grief. With this, I illustrate how Biden’s articulations of grief rely on affective intensities which situate a personal grief in open relation to an invisible other, a reaching out, the towardness of which moves away from the particular and toward the singular collective—national grief. Utilizing affect theory, public feelings scholarship, and precedential expectations for presidential speech, I argue that Biden’s grief rhetoric, against the absence of any similar grief-related public address from Trump during this time, defines the emergence of an affective national body—a grieving public. This analysis weaves between notions of individual and collective loss and prompts wider questions of presidential responsibility in response to shared trauma.

Disentangling the relationship between social cognition, executive functions and behaviour changes in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

BackgroundSocial cognition (SC) deficits are included in the amyotrophic lateral sclerosis-frontotemporal spectrum disorder (ALS-FTDS) revised diagnostic criteria. However, the impact of SC assessment on cognitive classification and the cognitive–behavioural correlates...

UGC’s self-deprecation humor and sustainable brand support attitude on social media: expansion of the perspective of affective events theory

ABSTRACT Utilising User Generated Content (UGC) on social media platforms like TikTok and Facebook can establish genuine connections between content creators and their audience. However, managing and maintaining long-term brand development remains a significant challenge. Research on the mechanisms behind sustainable brand support attitudes towards UGC is limited. This paper explores whether a self-deprecating style of humour affects audiences’ sustained brand support attitudes towards social media content creators. Theoretically, this study combines Affective Events Theory (AET) and Intergroup Emotion Theory (IET) to explore how individual attitudes extend to group reactions and the sustainability of personal brands. It aims to thoroughly investigate, in the context of social media, the cognitive and emotional changes in individuals towards themselves and their groups under the stimulus of UGC self-deprecating humour, as well as the process of forming sustainable brand support attitudes. Methodologically, this study employs a covariance-based structural equation model to establish the path mechanism of self-deprecating humour expression on sustainable brand support attitudes at both individual psychology and group attitude levels. Additionally, it analyzes the limitations of self-deprecating humour in UGC, considering users with varying levels of need for cognition. Lastly, the paper discusses the theoretical contributions and practical implications of this study.

Affective Subjects and Perceptions of Waste in Don Delillo’s Underworld

Abstract: This article reads the trope of waste in Don DeLillo’s Underworld through the lens of theories of affect and embodied cognition. Specifically, it examines how the bodily and perceptual habits of the novel’s characters are shaped through encounters with waste. Furthermore, it argues that these changing perceptions, attitudes, and dispositions toward waste demonstrate broader shifts in the development of capitalist subjects during the latter half of the twentieth century. Specifically, the novel depicts a transition from a desire to reconcile capitalist growth with traditionalism, not unlike the “fusionism” that dominated conservative thought during the middle of the twentieth century, to a more utopian vision of boundless capitalist growth popularized in post-Reagan America. The novel thus suggests that the political dispositions of its characters are better understood in terms of their affects and bodily habits than more traditional metrics like ideology.

Combating Student Alienation Through Assignment Design

In recent years, increased attention has been paid to mental health struggles among students, and a range of interventions have been proposed to improve student retention and learning through “trauma-engaged pedagogy” and “cultures of caring.” Drawing on the insights of affect theory, we argue that such a focus, although possibly helpful, ignores the role of alienation as a factor in student struggles. We further argue that assignment design is an overlooked and crucial site of student alienation, arguing that culturally relevant or politically inspiring readings and curricula will do little to ensure student engagement if assignments are arbitrary, artificial, and appear as simulacra of academic writing rather than as real sites of intellectual engagement. Drawing on our many years of experience as composition teachers at a community college as well as the work of colleagues and scholars and traditions of progressive pedagogy, we then suggest some criteria for assignments that foster engagement, offer lists of examples of such assignments, and outline a few of them in detail.

Unlearning emotional imperialism in education: political, theoretical and pedagogical implications

ABSTRACT This paper emerges from a set of questions about what it means pedagogically to undertake the paradoxical and difficult task of unlearning the emotional experience of imperialism. The analysis discusses the notion of ‘emotional imperialism’ and the various forms in might take; to do so, the author draws on concepts from affect theory (Reddy’s notion of ‘emotional regimes’) and decolonial theory (Fanon’s concept of ‘affective ankylosis’) to shed light on what emotional imperialism might involve in social and political life, including education. The analysis concludes with a discussion of the political, theoretical and pedagogical implications of ‘unlearning emotional imperialism’ in educational settings. It is argued that calls for undoing and unlearning emotional imperialism in education are an inseparable part of new onto-epistemological, affective and political imaginaries that aim to transform colonial violence into nonimperial ways of living in our common world.

Scratch and Mark: Affective Intermediality Towards Mathilde

Claire Denis’ cinema relies on in-betweenness of the film medium, combining it with other art forms and media through sensations. Towards Mathilde (2005) documents the correspondence between the director’s own work and that of the famous choreographer, Mathilde Monnier, reflecting on artistic expression, movement, and embodiment with the senses. This article explores the intricate texture of affective intermediality within the film. Interweaving the theories of affect and intermediality within film studies, this analysis delves into the ways in which Denis embodies a wide range of intermedial elements to inspire emotional responses. Through a detailed examination of the use of cinematography, sound design, and music, it uncovers how Denis engages in different arts and media to create a deeply affective cinematic experience. By examining the interplay between visual, auditory, and sense in dance and cinema as two distinct but intertwined art forms, this article aims to illuminate the affective intermediality at work in the film, offering insights into the complex ways in which cinema and dance can move and communicate emotion.

The individual-team multilevel outputs of humble leadership based on the affective events theory

Purpose This study aims to break through the limitations of previous studies that have focused too much on the individual-level effects of humble leadership. Based on the affective events theory (AET), this study provides to construct an individual-team multilevel model of humble leadership focusing on the followers’ affective reaction and attribution of intentionality. Design/methodology/approach On the basis of subordinates’ attribution of humble leadership, it is believed that there are actually two motivations for humble leadership: true intention (serve the organizational collective interest) and pseudo intention (serve the leader’s self-interest), to which subordinates have different affective reactions, causing different leadership effectiveness. Thus, this study conducted an extensive review based on the qualitative method and proposed an integrated multilevel model of leader humility on individual and team outputs. Findings Followers’ attribution of intentionality moderates the relationship between humble leadership and followers’ affective reaction, which also determines followers’ performance (task performance, interpersonal deviant behavior and leader–member exchange); the interaction between team leaders’ humble leadership and collective attribution of intentionality influences team outputs (team outputs, organizational deviant behavior and team–member exchange) through team affective reaction; team humble leadership affects individual outputs through affective reaction and team affective climate plays a moderating role between affective reaction and individual outputs. Originality/value This study explores the individual-team multilevel outputs of humble leadership based on the AET theory, which is relatively rare in the current field. This study attempts to incorporate leaders’ motivation (such as attributions of intentionality) into the humble leadership research, by confirming that humble leadership affects affective reaction, which further influences individual-team multilevel outputs.

Promoting Sustainable Development of Organizations: Performance Pressure, Workplace Fun, and Employee Ambidextrous Innovation

In the context of an economic downturn, organizations need to continuously improve their performance requirements for employees, and in the macro environment of intensified competition, organizations need to continuously motivate employees to innovate in order to seize development opportunities. Flexibly adjusting to the internal pressure of an organization while ensuring organizational vitality can promote employee adaptive growth and achieve sustainable development in the organization. However, the impact of performance pressure on employee ambidextrous innovation is currently unknown. Based on this, this article explores the positive effects of performance pressure in influencing employee ambidextrous innovation through job involvement from the perspective of Affective Events Theory and uses workplace fun as a moderating variable in order to analyze the internal logic of long-term motivation for employee ambidextrous innovation in organizations. This article conducted a survey and analysis of 362 in-service employees in enterprises and institutions and found the following: (1) performance pressure has a significant positive impact on employee ambidextrous innovation; (2) job involvement plays a partial mediating role between performance pressure and exploratory innovation; (3) workplace fun has a moderating effect on the relationship between job involvement and exploitative innovation, and the higher the level of workplace fun, the stronger the positive impact of job involvement on exploitative innovation.

Multidimensional assessment of social cognition using non-immersive virtual reality in dementia with Lewy bodies and Alzheimer’s disease: an exploratory study

ABSTRACT Introduction Few studies have focused on social cognition in dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB), even though some brain structures being well known as underlying social cognitive processes are directly impacted in this disease. Furthermore, social cognition processes have been mostly studied independently using evaluations with poor ecological validity. We aimed at studying the ability of a new naturalistic and multidimensional social cognition task to reveal impairments in DLB patients. We chose to compare the profile of these patients with that of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) patients, for which social cognition is better preserved. Method Fifteen patients (DLB: n = 7; AD: n = 8) and 28 healthy controls underwent the REALSoCog task. They encountered several social situations (e.g. control versus transgressions) in a non-immersive virtual city environment allowing the assessment of moral cognition, cognitive and affective theory of mind (ToM), emotional empathy and behavioral intentions. Results The main results showed (i) a lower ability to detect transgressions in DLB patients, particularly conventional ones, whereas moral cognition seemed better preserved in AD patients; (ii) a cognitive ToM impairment in both DLB and AD patients, while affective ToM is impaired only in DLB patients; (iii) a decreased emotional empathy specifically observed in DLB patients; (iv) more inappropriate behavioral intentions, mainly in DLB patients, but also in some AD patients. Conclusions This study suggests the feasibility and potential interest of the REALSoCog task in revealing social cognition deficits, particularly for DLB patients by showing different social patterns as compared to AD patients. These results offer interesting clinical perspectives to develop more naturalistic tasks in such populations and for clinical differential diagnosis. Limitations and future perspectives are discussed.

Exploring the effects of similarity in basic needs on moral judgment of characters

ABSTRACT While affective disposition theory (ADT) claims that moral judgment of a character is the key mechanism underlying enjoyment, we often enjoy stories where characters violate our moral standards (morally ambiguous characters, or MACs). Initial research suggests that similarity between MACs and viewers (e.g. sharing ethnicity) may increase moral approval. However, the effect of internal similarity (similarity in higher-order human qualities) on moral judgment of MACs is underexplored. Humans share three basic psychological needs but are motivated by these needs to different degrees. Thus, similarity in degree of sensitivity to a given need is an internal quality that participants can share with MACs. The effect of similarity in basic needs on moral judgment of MACs is examined in a posttest-only experiment with 185 participants. Similarity in basic needs had a small effect on moral judgment of MACs as people, although it had no effect on judgment of a MAC’s behavior.