Psychology Commons^™

From Crime To Punishment: Moral Violations And The Social Function Of Emotion, Michael Ray Brubacher

College of Science and Health Theses and Dissertations

Punishments that are issued by the criminal justice system can enhance factors related to recidivism or contribute to offender rehabilitation. Investigating the ecological element of public attitudes toward punishment can inform efforts of second-order change for reducing recidivism and improving offender and community wellbeing (Bronfenbrenner, 1979; Kelly, 1966; Watzlawick, Weakland, & Fisch, 1974).

The form and duration of punishments can be influenced by the goals that punishments are meant to achieve. Punishment goals include retribution, incapacitation, individual deterrence, general deterrence, rehabilitation, and restorative justice. Each of the goals can lead to sanctions that impact offender behavior differently yet substantive predictors …

Alexithymia Impairs The Cognitive Control Of Negative Material While Facilitating The Recall Of Neutral Material In Both Younger And Older Adults, Déborah Dressaire, Charles B. Stone, Kristy A. Nielson, Estelle Guerdoux, Denis Brouillet, Olivier Luminet

Psychology Faculty Research and Publications

We investigated the moderating impact of the personality construct alexithymia on the ability of younger and older adults to control the recall of negative and neutral material. We conducted two experiments using the directed forgetting paradigm with younger and older adults. Participants studied negative (Experiment 1) or neutral (Experiment 2) words. Participants were instructed to forget the first half and remember the second half of an entire list of words. Overall, we found that alexithymia impairs the ability of both younger and older adults to cognitively control negative material (through both recall and inhibition). The “externally oriented thinking” factor of …

Procedural Due Process In Modern Problem-Solving Courts: An Application Of The Asymmetric Immune Knowledge Hypothesis, Leah C. Georges

Department of Psychology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Problem-solving courts, such as drug and mental health courts, function under the model of therapeutic jurisprudence—the idea that legal policies and procedures should help and not harm clients, within the confines of the law (Winick & Wexler, 2002). Although it would seem that the lack of procedural due process in most problem-solving courts is in direct opposition to the best interests of a client, it is possible that observers find this more of a problem than do the court clients themselves. This two-experiment study applied Igou’s (2008) AIK hypothesis to problem-solving courts’ practice of sanctioning in the absence of due …

Anger In The Courtroom: The Effects Of Attorney Gender And Emotion On Juror Perceptions, Christian B. May

Honors College Theses

This study sought to examine the effects of gender stereotypes of emotional expression on jurors’ perceptions of an attorney’s competence. Participants watched a video of a closing statement of a male or female attorney expressing either anger or neutral emotions and were asked to give a verdict and rate the attorney’s competence. Participants rated an angry male attorney highest in competence and an angry female attorney lowest in competence. Results also showed that participants who viewed a male attorney were more likely to attribute the attorney’s emotions to the situation compared to participants who viewed a female attorney. The implications …

Electrophysiological Evidence Of The Time Course Of Attentional Bias In Non-Patients Reporting Symptoms Of Depression With And Without Co-Occurring Anxiety, Sarah M. Sass, Wendy Heller, Joscelyn E. Fisher, Rebecca L. Silton, Jennifer L. Stewart, Laura D. Crocker, J. Christopher Edgar, Katherine J. Mimnaugh, Gregory A. Miller

Psychology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Anxiety is characterized by attentional biases to threat, but findings are inconsistent for depression. To address this inconsistency, the present study systematically assessed the role of co-occurring anxiety in attentional bias in depression. In addition, the role of emotional valence, arousal, and gender was explored. Ninety-two non-patients completed the Penn State Worry Questionnaire (Meyer et al., 1990; Molina and Borkovec, 1994) and portions of the Mood and Anxiety Symptom Questionnaire (Watson et al., 1995a,b). Individuals reporting high levels of depression and low levels of anxiety (depression only), high levels of depression and anxiety (combined), or low levels of both (control) …

Electrophysiological Evidence Of The Time Course Of Attentional Bias In Nonpatients Reporting Symptoms Of Depression With And Without Co-Occurring Anxiety, Sarah M. Sass, Wendy Heller, Joscelyn Fisher, Rebecca L. Silton

Psychology: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Anxiety is characterized by attentional biases to threat, but findings are inconsistent for depression. To address this inconsistency, the present study systematically assessed the role of co-occurring anxiety in attentional bias in depression. In addition, the role of emotional valence, arousal, and gender was explored. Ninety-two non-patients completed the Penn State Worry Questionnaire (Meyer et al., 1990; Molina and Borkovec, 1994) and portions of the Mood and Anxiety Symptom Questionnaire (Watson et al., 1995a,b). Individuals reporting high levels of depression and low levels of anxiety (depression only), high levels of depression and anxiety …

The Role Of Social Relationships And Culture In The Cognitive Representation Of Emotions, Sharon Koh, Christie N. Scollon, Derrick Wirtz

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

There are individual and cultural differences in how memories of our emotions are cognitively represented. This article examines the cognitive representation of emotions in different cultures, as a result of emotional (in)consistency in different cultures. Using a continuous semantic priming task, we showed in two studies that individuals who were less emotionally consistent across relationships have stronger associations of their emotions within those relationships. Further, we found (in Study 2) that in a culture characterised by higher levels of emotional inconsistency across relationships (Singapore), stronger associations between emotions within relationships were found than in a culture characterised by emotional consistency …

Emotional Fit With Culture: Predictor Of Individual Differences In Relational Well-Being, Jozefien De Leersnyder, Batja Mesquita, Heejung Kim, Kimin Eom, Hyewon Choi

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

There is increasing evidence for emotional fit in couples and groups, but also within cultures. In the current research, we investigated the consequences of emotional fit at the cultural level. Given that emotions reflect people’s view on the world, and that shared views are associated with good social relationships, we expected that an individual’s fit to the average cultural patterns of emotion would be associated with relational well-being. Using an implicit measure of cultural fit of emotions, we found across 3 different cultural contexts (United States, Belgium, and Korea) that (1) individuals’ emotional fit is associated with their level of …

Exploring Emotions Using Invasive Methods: Review Of 60 Years Of Human Intracranial Electrophysiology, Sean A. Guillory, Krzysztof A. Bujarski

Dartmouth Scholarship

Over the past 60 years, human intracranial electrophysiology (HIE) has been used to characterize seizures in patients with epilepsy. Secondary to the clinical objectives, electrodes implanted intracranially have been used to investigate mechanisms of human cognition. In addition to studies of memory and language, HIE methods have been used to investigate emotions. The aim of this review is to outline the contribution of HIE (electrocorticography, single-unit recording and electrical brain stimulation) to our understanding of the neural representations of emotions. We identified 64 papers dating back to the mid-1950s which used HIE techniques to study emotional states. Evidence from HIE …

Choosing A Physician Depends On How You Want To Feel: The Role Of Ideal Affect In Health-Related Decision Making, Tamara Sims, Jeanne L. Tsai, Birgit Koopmann-Holm, Ewart A.C. Thomas, Mary K. Goldstein

Psychology

When given a choice, how do people decide which physician to select? Although significant research has demonstrated that how people actually feel (their “actual affect”) influences their health care preferences, how people ideally want to feel (their “ideal affect”) may play an even greater role. Specifically, we predicted that people trust physicians whose affective characteristics match their ideal affect, which leads people to prefer those physicians more. Consistent with this prediction, the more participants wanted to feel high arousal positive states on average ([ideal HAP]; e.g., excited), the more likely they were to select a HAP-focused physician. Similarly, the more …

Student Engagement, Isalt Team

iSALT Resources: Theories, Concepts, and Measures

No abstract provided.

Release From Proactive Interference : The Impact Of Emotional And Semantic Shifts On Recall Performance, Hugh Knickerbocker

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Proactive interference (PI) occurs when the recall of newly learned information is blocked by previously learned information (e.g., recalling an old list of food items when trying to recall a current list of food items during grocery shopping). Release from PI occurs when newly learned information is recalled without interference from previously learned information. Release from PI has been observed when making changes to the to-be-remembered items. Experiment 1 found significant release from PI when category shifted from a neutral category to an emotion category or an emotion-laden category. Experiments 2 and 3 compared the release from PI when shifting …

Examining The Relations Between Disgust, Fear, And Eating Disorder Symptomatology, Lisa Marie Anderson

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Exposure interventions for eating disorders typically identify fear as a key treatment target (i.e., fear of fat) and integrate a hierarchical list of the patient's fears into treatment. Recently, research has suggested that the disgust emotion may be equally important for exposure efficacy, as it appears to be more resistant to extinction than fear. Currently, the independent contributions of fear and disgust to eating pathology are unknown, which may limit our ability to develop and implement the most effective exposure interventions. Thus, the current study employed hierarchical multiple regression analyses to evaluate each emotion's relative contribution to eating disorder symptoms …

Predictable And Predictive Emotions: Explaining Cheap Signals And Trust Re-Extension, Eric Schniter, Roman M. Sheremeta

ESI Publications

Despite normative predictions from economics and biology, unrelated strangers will often develop the trust necessary to reap gains from one-shot economic exchange opportunities. This appears to be especially true when declared intentions and emotions can be cheaply communicated. Perhaps even more puzzling to economists and biologists is the observation that anonymous and unrelated individuals, known to have breached trust, often make effective use of cheap signals, such as promises and apologies, to encourage trust re-extension. We used a pair of trust games with one-way communication and an emotion survey to investigate the role of emotions in regulating the propensity to …

Facial And Body Emotion Recognition In Infancy, Leah Oberst

Theses and Dissertations--Psychology

Adults are experts at assessing emotions, an ability essential for appropriate social interaction. The present study, investigated this ability’s development, examining infants’ matching of facial and body emotional information.

In Experiment 1, 18 6.5-month-olds were familiarized to angry or happy bodies or faces. Those familiarized to bodies were tested with familiar and novel emotional faces. Those habituated to faces were tested with bodies. The 6.5-month-old infants exhibited a preference for the familiar emotion, matching between faces and bodies.

In Experiment 2, 18 6.5-month-olds were tested with faces and bodies displaying anger and sadness. Infants familiarized to faces showed a familiarity …

Detecting Well-Being Via Computerized Content Analysis Of Brief Diary Entries, William Tov, Kok Leong Ng, Han Lin, Lin Qiu

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

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, …

Children's Recognition Of Pride: An Experimental Approach, Darren Jason Garcia

Theses and Dissertations

Pride is elicited when a child takes credit for an achievement or exceeds a socially valued standard or expectation. Evidence suggests that pride has a distinct nonverbal expression that is recognized by adults across cultures (Tracy & Robins, 2004). Research examining when children recognize pride has yielded age discrepancies between studies that use forced-choice response formats and those that use spontaneous-response formats. Differences in children's ability to use and comprehend language may account for some of these differences. The purpose of this thesis was to examine the age at which children reliably recognize pride, while minimizing the need for children …

Emotion Versus Motivation: Probing Dissociable Effects On Cognitive Control Through Task Performance, Pupillometry Methods, And Individual Differences, Kimberly Sarah Chiew

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

It is becoming increasingly appreciated that affective influences can contribute strongly to goal-oriented cognition and behaviour. However, much work is still needed to properly characterize these influences and the mechanisms by which they contribute to cognitive processing. An important question concerns the nature of emotional manipulations: i.e., direct induction of affectively valenced subjective experience) versus motivational manipulations: e.g., delivery of performance-contingent rewards and punishments) and their impact on cognitive control. Given previous empirical evidence suggesting that positive emotion may enhance cognitive flexibility and reactive control, while performance-contingent rewards may enhance goal maintenance and proactive control, we sought to directly compare …

The Influence Of Anger On Implicit Biases, Katherine Reiter

Master's Theses (2009 -)

Interpretation of ambiguous information is influenced by anxious (Richards, Reynolds, & French, 1992) and depressive (Wisco, & Nolen-Hoeksema, 2010) symptoms. Emotion regulation strategies, and in particular, cognitive reappraisal has shown to be effective at reducing feelings of distress (Denson, Grisham, & Moulds, 2011). The current study seeks to understand the extent that emotion regulation can influence interpretation bias, thoughts and behaviors. In the current study, participants underwent both Angry and Neutral mood inductions. For each mood condition, participants were instructed to cognitively reappraise and attend to their emotions. Participants rated the degree of negative affect they experienced, and completed 6 …

Modified Impact Of Emotion On Temporal Discrimination In A Transgenic Rat Model Of Huntington Disease, Alexis Faure, Mouna Es-Sesddiqi, Bruce L. Brown, Hoa P. Nguyen, Olaf Riess, Stephan Von Hörsten, Pascale Le Blanc, Nathalie Desvignes, Bruno Bozon, Nicole El Massioui, Valérie Doyère

Publications and Research

Huntington's disease (HD) is characterized by triad of motor, cognitive, and emotional symptoms along with neuropathology in fronto-striatal circuit and limbic system including amygdala. Emotional alterations, which have a negative impact on patient well-being, represent some of the earliest symptoms of HD and might be related to the onset of the neurodegenerative process. In the transgenic rat model (tgHD rats), evidence suggest emotional alterations at the symptomatic stage along with neuropathology of the central nucleus of amygdala (CE). Studies in humans and animals demonstrate that emotion can modulate time perception. The impact of emotion on time perception has never been …

Glad To Be Sad, And Other Examples Of Benign Masochism, Paul Rozin, Lily Guillot, Katrina Fincher, Alexander Rozin, Eli Tsukayama

Music Theory, History & Composition Faculty Publications & Performances

No abstract provided.

The Role Of Emotion In Environmental Decision Making, Hannah Dietrich

Department of Psychology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Given the environmental concerns of our planet, it is imperative to consider issues of environmental sustainability. Researchers argue that the most serious environmental problems are not merely issues of science, but that of individual behavior. Solutions, therefore, must consider the role of the individual—how one can change his/her behaviors to be more environmentally conscious. The experience of negative or positive emotions, may impact not only people’s experiences with the environment, but also their tendency to engage in pro-environmental behavior. The present study sought to experimentally investigate the role of emotion and information on pro-environmental behavior change. Results indicate that neither …

Emotion Regulation In European American And Hong Kong Chinese Middle School Children, Kayan Phoebe Wan

Dissertations, 2014-2019

This study explored emotion regulation strategies in middle school European American (N = 54) and Hong Kong Chinese (N =89) children. Based on Gross’s theory (1998), the Survey of Emotion Regulation Strategies was designed to study children’s perceived effectiveness of emotion regulation strategies (deep breathing, thinking positively, situation avoidance, talking and suppression) in three fictitious scenarios associated with sadness, anger, and fear. Five mixed ANOVAs were conducted to evaluate the effect of culture, gender and the type of emotion on each emotion regulation strategy. The results demonstrated that American children considered deep breathing more effective in dealing with anger than …

Dispositional Mindfulness As A Moderator Of Electrocortical And Behavioral Responses To Affective Social Stimuli, Jordan T. Quaglia

Theses and Dissertations

Numerous studies have linked dispositional mindfulness to enhanced emotion regulation. The present research examined dispositional mindfulness as a predictor of emotion regulation in social affective contexts. Participants completed passive viewing and Emotional Go/No-Go tasks involving social affective stimuli (happy, neutral, and fearful facial expressions). Event-related potentials (ERPs) and behavioral responses were examined to discern whether dispositional mindfulness predicted differential neural and behavioral responses indexing attention to, awareness of, and inhibitory control over automatic responses to affective social stimuli. Dispositional mindfulness predicted larger (more negative) N100, N200 and No-Go N200 amplitudes during the Emotional Go/No-Go task, but was not associated with …

Shared Neural Substrates Of Emotionally Enhanced Perceptual And Mnemonic Vividness, Rebecca M. Todd, Taylor W. Schmitz, Josh Susskind, Adam K. Anderson

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

It is well known that emotionally salient events are remembered more vividly than mundane ones. Our recent research has demonstrated that such memory vividness is due in part to the subjective experience of emotional events as more perceptually vivid, an effect we call emotion-enhanced vividness, or EEV. The present study built on previously reported research in which fMRI data were collected while participants rated relative levels of visual noise overlaid on emotionally salient and neutral images. Ratings of greater EEV were associated with greater activation in the amygdala, visual cortex, and posterior insula. In the present study, we measured BOLD …

The Psychological Relationship Between Spirituality And Emotional Responses To Music, Anais D. Norman

Senior Honors Theses

A study was conducted with 251 undergraduate psychology students at a Christian university to determine the nature of the relationship between spirituality and music-based emotions. Two hypotheses were proposed: First, students with higher levels of spirituality would experience higher emotional intensity while listening to music. Second, students will experience equal emotional intensity when listening to the “sacred” or “secular” selections. In answer to the first hypothesis, results indicated that overall intensity in emotional response to musical selections did significantly and positively correlate with higher spirituality scores. In answer to the second hypothesis, the strength of emotional intensity did differ, and …

Infants’ Responses To Affect In Music And Speech, Daniel K. Feinberg

Pitzer Senior Theses

Existing literature demonstrates that infants can discriminate between categories of infant-directed (ID) speech based on the speaker’s intended message – that is, infants recognize the difference between comforting and approving ID speech, and treat different utterances from within these two categories similarly. Furthermore, the literature also demonstrates that infants understand many aspects of music and can discriminate between happy and sad music. Building on these findings, the present study investigated whether exposure to happy or sad piano music would systematically affect infants’ preferences for comforting or approving ID speech. Five- to nine-month-old infants’ preferences for comforting or approving ID speech …

Lateralized Difference In Tympanic Membrane Temperature: Emotion And Hemispheric Activity, Ruth E. Propper, Tad T. Brunyé

Department of Psychology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

We review literature examining relationships between tympanic membrane temperature (TMT), affective/motivational orientation, and hemispheric activity. Lateralized differences in TMT might enable real-time monitoring of hemispheric activity in real-world conditions, and could serve as a corroborating marker of mental illnesses associated with specific affective dysregulation. We support the proposal that TMT holds potential for broadly indexing lateralized brain physiology during tasks demanding the processing and representation of emotional and/or motivational states, and for predicting trait-related affective/motivational orientations. The precise nature of the relationship between TMT and brain physiology, however, remains elusive. Indeed the limited extant research has sampled different participant populations …

The Relative And Unique Contributions Of Emotion Dysregulation And Impulsivity To Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Among Substance Dependent Inpatients, Nicole H. Weiss, Matthew T. Tull, Michael D. Anestis, Kim L. Gratz

Faculty Publications

Background: Despite elevated rates of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among substance use disorder (SUD) patients, as well as the clinical relevance of this co-occurrence, few studies have examined psychological factors associated with a PTSD–SUD diagnosis. Two factors worth investigating are emotion dysregulation and impulsivity, both of which are associated with PTSD and SUDs. Therefore, this study examined associations between PTSD and facets of emotion dysregulation and impulsivity within a sample of trauma-exposed SUD inpatients.

Methods: Participants were an ethnically diverse sample of 205 SUD patients in residential substance abuse treatment. Patients were administered diagnostic interviews and completed a …

An Examination Of Disgust, Its Measures, And Gender Differences In The Experience Of Disgust Sensitivity, Diane M. Kedzierski

Theses and Dissertations

The emotion of disgust is understudied. It has been implicated in various forms of psychopathology, but its overall influence remains unclear. New and improved methods and constructs are required if we are to better understand the relationship of disgust in attitude formation and psychological functioning. This study was an investigation of a measure referred to herein as the Disgust Propensity and Sensitivity Evolutionary Scale (DPSES). A total of 655 participants were recruited from a private university in the southeastern United States to complete a pencil -and-paper version of the measure in exchange for course credit. Exploratory factor analysis revealed an …