Search

There is an emerging use of devices and wearables for tracking a variety of daily behaviors such as sleep quality and calorie counts. While tracking such behavior has proven to be beneficial for physical health, less is known about the benefits of tracking mental health. This paper examines the impact of tracking daily emotions on emotional and subjective well-being. Two longitudinal studies (N = 1025) show that tracking people's emotions (i.e., reporting and reminding participants of their past emotions) has an asymmetric persistence effect, such that positive (but not negative) emotions are more likely to linger the next day. The results shed light on the importance and benefits of tracking emotions for improving consumers' mental health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emotions can offer instrumental benefits, but people do not always take advantage of them. In this paper, we identify one factor that might propel people to seek emotions that have instrumental value – namely, the level at which a situation is construed. According to construal level theory, construing a situation in high-level terms increases preferences reflecting self-control (i.e., preferences for delayed over immediate outcomes). Therefore, we hypothesized that activating a high-level construal would motivate people to experience emotions that are perceived as instrumental for achieving their goals in the long-run, even if they may be aversive in the short-run. In three studies, inducing a high (vs. low) level mindset increased participants' preferences for useful, albeit unpleasant, emotions. Participants in a high (vs. low) level mindset expressed a stronger preference for anger when they were asked to imagine a hypothetical scenario in which anger was presented as more useful for goal pursuit (Studies 1–2) and when they played an economic game in which anger was potentially useful (Study 3). We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indirect forms of intergroup contact, such as extended and vicarious contact, are thought to provide a promising alternative to direct contact, but very few studies have compared the effectiveness of these two types of contact to confirm this claim. Furthermore, Wright, Aron, McLaughlin-Volpe, and Ropp (1997) postulated, but did not test, that the usefulness of extended (or vicarious) over direct contact lies in these forms of indirect contact being likely to elicit less anxiety and more group salience at the time of the interaction, both of which are beneficial for contact. The present paper reports two experiments comparing the effects of direct and vicarious contact on: (i) outgroup attitudes and anxiety for future contact both immediately after contact (posttest) as well as a week later (delayed posttest), and (ii) their elicited interaction-induced anxiety and group salience. Both studies were conducted in Cyprus, with Greek Cypriot participants and the Turkish Cypriot community as the outgroup. Results did not support Wright et al.’s postulations. They furthermore showed that direct contact had a relative advantage over vicarious contact in leading to more positive outgroup attitudes at posttest, but that attitudes reverted to pretest levels for both conditions at delayed posttest. Vicarious, unlike direct, contact, did, however, lead to a persistent reduction of anxiety for future contact, thus suggesting that the greatest utility of indirect forms of contact may lie in their emotionally preparing individuals for subsequent face-to-face interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two lines of previous research have found that revenge can make people feel worse, contrary to conventional wisdom about the hedonic benefits (i.e. “sweetness”) of revenge (Carlsmith, Wilson, & Gilbert, 2008; Lambert, Peak, Eadeh, & Schott, 2014). However, such findings appear inconsistent with general principles arising from the justice literature, which implies that people should feel satisfaction when they perceive that transgressors have been punished for their misdeeds. In this paper, we use a variety of different measures of affect (mood, linguistic analyses, direct ratings of emotional reactions) to show that revenge is capable of producing both negative (“bitter”) and favorable (“sweet”) reactions. In particular, we find support for a bittersweet model of revenge, in that such acts concurrently elicit genuinely positive appraisals, over and above the elicitation of negative affect. We consider the implications of our research for a more nuanced understanding of the dynamics of revenge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The goal of the present paper was to demonstrate the influence of general evaluations and stereotype associations on emotion recognition. Earlier research has shown that evaluative connotations between social category members and emotional expression predict whether recognition of positive or negative emotional expressions will be facilitated (e.g. ). In the current paper we tested the hypothesis that stereotype associations influence emotion recognition processes, especially when the difference between valences of emotional expressions does not come into play. In line with this notion, when participants in the present two studies were asked to classify positive versus negative emotional expressions (i.e. happy versus anger, or happy versus sadness), valence congruency effects were found. Importantly, however, in a comparative context without differences in valence in which participants were asked to classify two distinct negative emotions (i.e. anger versus sadness) we found that recognition facilitation occurred for stereotypically associated discrete emotional expressions. With this, the current results indicate that a distinction between general evaluative and cognitive routes can be made in emotion recognition processes. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: We all know the awkward feeling when a conversation is disrupted by a brief silence. This paper studies why such moments can be unsettling. We suggest that silences are particularly disturbing if they disrupt the conversational flow. In two experiments we examined the effects of a single brief instance of silence on social needs, perceived consensus, emotions, and rejection. Study 1 demonstrated that fluent conversations are associated with feelings of belonging, self-esteem, and social validation. If a brief silence disrupts this fluency, negative emotions and feelings of rejection arise. Study 2 replicated these effects in a more realistic setting, and showed that the effects of a brief silence are considerable despite participants'' unawareness of the silence. Together, results show that conversational flow induces a sense of belonging and positive self-esteem. Moreover, this research suggests an implicit route to social validation, in which consensus is inferred from fluent group conversation. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper examines individuals’ reactions to the prospect of gaining or losing status in groups. The results of three experiments provide evidence that individuals attach greater value to status when recalling the risk of status loss than when recalling the potential for status gain (Experiment 1), are willing to pay more to avoid a status loss than to achieve a status gain (Experiment 1), and put forth greater effort when striving to prevent status loss than when striving to gain status (Experiment 2). Finally, individuals who risk losing status allocate more resources toward personal status concerns (and away from group interests and potential monetary gain) than do individuals who have a chance of gaining status (Experiment 3). We discuss the implications of this research both in terms of individuals’ psychological experience of their status, as well as status attainment and maintenance concerns in groups. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Guilt has often been conceptualized as a moral emotion because it stimulates transgressors to restore a damaged relationship. However, not much has been investigated about when the guilt-induced relational-promoting goal conflicts with certain moral norms (for instance, honesty). In this paper, we demonstrate that guilt increases the transgressors' lying intentions in situations where honesty is anticipated to incur immediate relational harm with the victim and that this effect is driven by the transgressors' short-term relational focus. Across three experiments (two preregistered), we provide robust evidence for our prediction. Study 1 examined the effect of guilt on inflating the feedback to the victim, measured relational focus and the focus on the instrumental value of honesty (i.e., long-term benefits brought by honesty such as career growth) as simultaneous mechanisms, and contrasted the effect of guilt on the lying intention with that of shame. Study 2 better measured the short-termism in the relational focus and examined a situation wherein guilty participants could lie to a third party for the benefit of the victim. Study 3 provided additional support for our proposed mechanism by showing that deliberation on the consequences of not being honest (i.e., indirectly increasing participants' focus on the long-term instrumental value of honesty) decreases people's lying intentions. These results contribute to our understanding of the complex interpersonal nature of guilt and, specifically, its temporal focus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]