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Depression And Choice Of Emotional Stimuli, Sunkyung Yoon

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Recent research argued that people with major depressive disorder (MDD) tend to prefer sad stimuli because they want to upregulate their sad feelings. This paper aims to examine investigate the choice of emotional stimuli among those who have MDD, compared to individuals without MDD (healthy controls, HC), and explore the reasons for their choice. Seventy six female university students (38 per group) completed three tasks: 1) In the replication music task, participants listened to happy, neutral, and sad music excerpts, chose the one they wanted to listen most, and reported the reasons of their choice. 2) The Emotional Stimuli Selection …

Activation And Habituation Of The Cingulate Cortex During Emotion Processing In Healthy Controls, Borderline, And Schizotypal Personality Disorder, Emily Balevich

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Disturbances in emotional functioning are central features of the clinical profiles of both borderline and schizotypal personality disorder (BPD and SPD, respectively). BPD is characterized by a high sensitivity to emotional stimuli and unusually strong and long-lasting reactions, indicative of impaired habituation to emotional stimuli (Linehan, 1993). Previous research suggests that SPD patients demonstrate limbic hyper-reactivity to unpleasant stimuli, at least initially, but intact habituation to repeated presentation of unpleasant stimuli (Hazlett et al., 2012). The cingulate cortex supports various aspects of emotion processing and regulation, and abnormalities of this region have been related to emotion dysfunction in SPD and …

Understanding The Role Of The Ventrolateral Prefrontal Cortex In Emotional Memory Using Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation And Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, R. Rachel Weintraub-Brevda

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Emotional stimuli can have both beneficial and detrimental effects on memory, such that emotional stimuli can be distracting from current neutral working memory goals, while also leading to enhanced episodic memory for the distracting emotional stimuli. Recent evidence suggests that the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC) has multiple roles in the enhancing effects of emotion on memory through top-down/controlled processes, including 1) coping with negative distraction and 2) elaborative encoding of negative information. Additionally, previous research has alluded to hemispheric differences in the VLPFC (Chapter 1). However, previous research has been correlational, with no strong laterality tests of the VLPFC. Two …

Popular Music-Evoked Autobiographical Memories - Developing A Database Of Songs And Studying The Role Of Cue Emotionality And Relevance On Recalled Memories, Krysten Zator

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

In Study 1, undergraduate students rated popular music songs on several factors. A database of knowledge was created for popular music autobiographical memory (AM) cueing research. Study 2 examined the role of emotional experience and relevance associated with a popular music AM cue on recalled AMs. In Phase 1, undergraduate participants described AMs to short music clips or a blank computer screen (control). In Phase 2, participants answered questions about these AMs. In Phase 3, participants rated musical clips (including Phase 1 stimuli). Unexpectedly, music-cued memories were less salient and did not differ emotionally from control-cued, but contained more perceptual …

Efficacy Of Short-Term Emotional Regulation Training On Interference During Cognitive Tasks, Kerry Margaret Cannity

Doctoral Dissertations

The experience of emotion and attempts to regulate it are universal human phenomena. Emotion regulation is used to alter the affective intensity or tone, behaviors, and consequences associated with an emotional experience. This study examined how two common emotional regulation strategies (mindfulness and distraction) affect attentional performance following a negative mood induction via film. While previous literature has compared emotional regulation strategies’ effects on a variety of outcomes, the efficacy of these strategies to reduce cognitive interference caused by negative mood has not been examined. Both mindfulness and distraction are hypothesized to occur through the Attention Deployment mechanism of the …

Effects Of Self-Affirmation On Emotion And Cardiovascular Responses, Wei-Ju Chen

Theses and Dissertations

Self-affirmation is the act of focusing on important aspects of the self, such as personal values and characteristic. Benefits of self-affirmation have been documented in past research. However, the immediate impacts of self-affirmation on cardiovascular responses have not been fully explored. Therefore, the present study examined such effects both during and consequent to the practice of self-affirmation. One hundred and twenty-five participants completed the study. A within-subject design was used, in which each participant went through both the control and self-affirmation conditions (the order of presentation was counterbalanced). In the self-affirmation condition, participants were asked to write about their top-ranked …

Emotional Memory For Affective Words In Manifest And Prodromal Huntington’S Disease, Patricia Lynn Johnson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Huntington’s disease (HD) patients have been found to have specific deficits in emotional processing, most consistently demonstrating impairment recognizing the emotion expressed on a static face. The purpose of this study was to examine emotional memory in HD, which has not yet been investigated, and its relationship with executive functioning, emotional facial recognition, and the disease progression in HD. An emotional memory task with pleasant, neural, and unpleasant words was administered to control (n=26), prodromal HD (n=26), and manifest HD (n=29) participants in addition to executive function measures, an apathy scale, and emotional facial recognition task. Free recall was not …

Building A Theory Of Adaptive Neuroticism, Sara Jo Weston

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Neuroticism is widely believed to be detrimental to health, but the evidence is mixed. Many large-scale studies find null or positive effects of neuroticism on mortality and health. A theory of “healthy neuroticism” was generated to explain these discrepant results. According to this theory, neuroticism can lead an individual down one of two paths: an anxiety and stress-ridden path of maladaptive coping and poor outcomes, or a path of vigilance and proactivity. Trait conscientiousness is thought to be the defining feature of healthy neuroticism, although studies substantiating this claim are few and far between. Meanwhile, other important factors - notably, …

The Emotional Attentional Blink: A Review And Research Agenda, Jonathan Keefe

Senior Theses

The Emotional Attentional Blink (EAB) refers to a temporary impairment in the ability to identify a single target when that target is preceded by an emotionally salient distractor, such as a disgusting, violent or erotic image (Most, Smith, Cooter, Levy, & Zald, 2007; Ciesielski, Armstrong, Zald, & Olatunji, 2010). The EAB represents a failure to perform an endogenous target discrimination task as a result of exogenous attentional capture by an emotional image, making it an effective medium through which to study the intersection of these two attentional systems. The present review seeks to relate existing models of the EAB to …

Parents’ Perceptions And Responses To Infant Emotions, Lauren Renee Bader

Doctoral Dissertations

Parents respond to their infants’ emotions in ways they believe are most appropriate. These reciprocal interactions make up the infants’ social-emotional environment and appear to guide future development and relationship formation; this trajectory is supported mostly from research in Western industrialized contexts. This dissertation consists of three studies and addresses the following over-arching research questions: How have parents’ perceptions of infant emotions been studied? How do Gamo mothers in rural Southern Ethiopia perceive their infants’ emotions and what do they believe are appropriate responses to emotions? Do Gamo mothers vary in their feelings about their infants’ negative emotions and is …

Give Hate A Chance: An Exploration Of The Affective State Of Interpersonal Hate, Carmen Merrick

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Interpersonal hate, the affective state of one individual experiencing hate toward another, is widely experienced. However, to date there is no experimental evidence of interpersonal hate. This phenomenon was explored, as was its place in the triad of hostile emotions. It was theorized that interpersonal hate would be differentiated from the hostile emotions (contempt, anger, and disgust) by appraisal of violation type and by behavioral response, and that the hostile emotions could be recognized by these characteristics, as well. Specifically, it was hypothesized that interpersonal hate would be incited by autonomy violations and avoidance responses; anger would be incited by …

Approaching Stressful Situations With Purpose: Strategies For Emotional Regulation In Sensitive People, Amy D. Nagley

Industrial-Organizational Psychology Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to evaluate strategies for emotional self-regulation (EMSR) in highly sensitive people (HSPs) under pressure. Specifically, a model of EMSR was evaluated through a moderated-mediation design with two manipulations across two experiments. A total of 445 individuals participated in the current study (52% female), all of which were US citizens. Results suggested that the relationship between sense of purpose (SoP) and EMSR was moderated by focus on potential (FoP). Specifically, SoP significantly impacted FoP, b = .89, t = 5.23, p < .01, FoP significantly impacted EMSR, b = 1.11, t = 5.88, p < .01, and the Sobel test suggested a significant indirect effect, z = 3.91, p < .01.

The hypothesis that …

The Role Of Mindfulness In The Regulation Of Behavior Among Those Prone To Negative Urgency, Alexandra M. Martelli

Theses and Dissertations

Negative emotions can be challenging to regulate, and for some individuals can lead to failures of behavior regulation. The present study is an initial effort to explore the role that mindfulness may play in fostering effective behavior regulation among those prone to high negative urgency (NU). Eighty undergraduate students were recruited based on their high or low scores of NU. First, participants completed a self-report measure of mindfulness (Mindful Attention Awareness Scale; MAAS), an Emotional Go/No Go task in an fMRI scanner, and then reported alcohol consumption. Results showed that those with high in NU had low levels of mindfulness …

Synchrony And Concordance: A Multilevel Analysis Of The Effects Of Individual Differences During A Co2 Challenge, Rachel E. Wallace

Theses and Dissertations

Emotion theories posit that emotion systems (e.g., behavior, self-report, physiology) should be related when an emotion is being elicited because this serves an adaptive purpose and allows the individual to respond appropriately to the present situation. Oftentimes, this coherent relationship is not found, and research has hypothesized that the type of analyses used and lack of examination of individual differences could be affecting this relationship. Most studies examine the relationship between emotion systems between-subjects when within-subjects analyses may be more appropriate. The present study examined the relationship between self-reported distress (SUDS) and heart rate, and whether trait differences of anxiety …

To Help Or Not To Help? Assessing The Impact Of Envy And Gratitude On Prosocial Behaviors, Anna Maria C. Behler

Theses and Dissertations

Envy is an other-oriented but negative emotion; no research has examined the influence of envy on prosocial behavior. Study 1 examined whether envy and gratitude would promote or inhibit prosocial behavior. I hypothesized that envy would result in less helping behavior than a neutral condition, whereas gratitude would increase helping behavior. Results supported the hypothesis that envy inhibits prosocial behavior. There was not enough evidence to suggest that gratitude promoted helping.

Study 2 examined how envy and gratitude affected prosocial behavior when participants were given the choice to help or harm others. I hypothesized that experiencing envy would result in …

Eating Your Feelings: The Relationship Between Core Affect And Food Choices, Kana V. Rolett

Honors Theses

The psychology of eating behavior is increasingly important given that more than one- third of Americans are obese, with 74% of men considered overweight or obese (Overweight and Obesity Statistics, 2012). This study examines the relationship between core affect and healthy food choices. Though previous research has examined relationships between specific emotions and eating behavior, little is known about core affect or about these relationships in more naturalistic settings (outside the lab). To evaluate the role of core affect in healthy food choices, a field study was conducted in the University of Richmond (UR) dining hall to measure UR students’ …

Facial Emotion Recognition Impairments In Subclinical Depression, Charles Hale Leighton

Senior Projects Spring 2017

Depression brings with it a wide variety range of symptoms. One of the least studied symptoms in depression is an impairment in the ability to recognize the emotions on the faces of others. Previous literature has shown both that many people without diagnosed depression still display some depressive symptoms as well as that the impairments in emotion recognition are an extremely common symptom. These impairments are frequently associated with an increase in the severity of other symptoms, which makes their presence in subclinical populations especially important to uncover. In this proposed study, 400 students who don’t meet the diagnostic criteria …