Search

Psychological science has a hard time assessing affective processes of the individuals that they may not recognize or do not like to report on. Here, the authors used the Implicit Positive and Negative Affect Test (IPANAT; Quirin et al., 2009) to investigate whether reminders of an existential threat induce unpleasant implicit affect in soldiers waiting for their deployment to a country with high levels of terrorist threat, Afghanistan. As expected, relative to reminding participants of a television evening, implicit negative affect was higher and implicit positive affect was lower after reminding participants of terror acts performed in different cities. No significant effects were found in self-reports of negative or positive affect. Our findings suggest that reminders of existential threat can elicit implicit negative affect that individuals may not report on explicitly and thus, validate the IPANAT as an easily applicable measure in emotional contexts.

As self-reports of affect are limited in several regards, an indirect measure of affect, the Implicit Positive and Negative Affect Test (IPANAT; Quirin, Kazén, & Kuhl, 2009) has previously been developed and adapted to more than 10 languages (Quirin et al., 2018), showing adequate reliability and validity. Based on a sample of 242 Spanish adults (111 males), we evaluate a trimmed 18 items version of the IPANAT (IPANAT-18). Item reductive procedures consisted in a random selection of the stimuli words used in the IPANAT. Psychometric properties of the IPANAT-18 were evaluated via Confirmatory Factor Analysis. In addition, correlational analyses were used to determine the relationship between the brief and the full version of the IPANAT, and with explicit measures of affect. We replicated a two-factors structure of positive affect versus negative affect and found a good fit for the IPANAT-18 model (CFI = 1; TLI = 1; RMSEA = .00; SRMR = .03). Reliability was adequate (implicit PA, 'α' = .86; implicit NA, 'α' = .77) and the pattern of relationships with explicit affect measures were congruent and consistent with previous findings. Differences between the mean scores of implicit affect assessed with 18 items or 36 items were statistically non-significant, and showed strong correlations (PA, 'r' = .92, 'p' < .01; NA, 'r' = .88, 'p' < .01). In sum, the IPANAT-18 showed satisfactory psychometric properties and constitutes a useful tool for economically measuring affective processes such as in experimental and economical multiple assessment (e.g., daily diary) settings.

Although emotion deficits in schizotypy have been reported, the exact nature of these deficits is now well understood. Specifically, for social anhedonia (SocAnh), there are questions about whether any decrease in positive affect only reflects an explicit bias not observed in other measures (e.g., implicit affect measure). At the same time, for individuals with elevated levels of perceptual aberrations or magical ideation (PerMag), there is some evidence of an increased influence of affect on judgment. It is also possible that the influence of implicit affect on judgment might be especially pronounced in PerMag; however, this has not been previously examined. The current study involved people with elevated levels of SocAnh (n = 95), elevated levels of PerMag (n = 62), and people with average or lower levels of both (n = 246). We found that SocAnh was associated with decreases in both explicit and implicit positive affect. We also found that PerMag was related to stronger relationships between implicit affect, both positive and negative, and a judgment task. These results suggest that decreased positive affect is a core feature of SocAnh and that a heightened influence of affect could be related to the development of peculiar beliefs/experiences associated with PerMag.

Self-report, i.e. explicit, measures of affect cannot fully explain the cardiovascular (CV) responses to stressors. Measuring affect beyond self-report, i.e. using implicit measures, could add to our understanding of stress-related CV activity. The Implicit Positive and Negative Affect Test (IPANAT) was administered in two studies to test its ecological validity and relation with CV responses and self-report measures of affect. In study 1 students (N = 34) viewed four film clips inducing anger, happiness, fear, or no emotion, and completed the IPANAT and the Positive And Negative Affect Scale at baseline and after each clip. Implicit negative affect (INA) was higher and implicit positive affect (IPA) was lower after the anger inducing clip and vice versa after the happiness inducing clip. In study 2 students performed a stressful math task with (n = 14) or without anger harassment (n = 15) and completed the IPANAT and a Visual Analogue Scale as an explicit measure afterwards. Systolic (SBP), diastolic (DBP) blood pressure, heart rate (HR), heart rate variability (HRV) and total peripheral resistance (TPR) were recorded throughout. SBP and DBP were higher and TPR was lower in the harassment condition during the task with a prolonged effect on SBP and DBP during recovery. As expected, explicit negative affect (ENA) was higher and explicit positive affect (EPA) lower after harassment, but ENA and EPA were not related to CV activity. Although neither INA nor IPA differed between the tasks, during both tasks higher INA was related to higher SBP, lower HRV and lower TPR and to slower recovery of DBP after both tasks. Low IPA was related to slower recovery of SBP and DBP after the tasks. Implicit affect was not related to recovery of HR, HRV and TPR. In conclusion, the IPANAT seems to respond to film clip-induced negative and positive affect and was related to CV activity during and after stressful tasks. These findings support the theory that implicitly measured affect can add to the explanation of prolonged stress-related CV responses that influence CV health.