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Research on color-emotion associations provides evidence that hue, chroma, and lightness relate to various emotional experiences. Most of this research has assessed these relationships via isolated color swatches while confounding color dimensions. We broadened the medium in which color-emotion associations were made by manipulating color in photographs varying in valence and/or arousal, and we solely focused on the chroma dimension. In Experiment 1, participants perceived neutral and positive-valence photographs to be happier and more arousing when displayed chromatically, relative to achromatically. In Experiment 2, participants increased the chroma content of photographs to make them appear maximally happy, and they decreased the chroma content of photographs to make them appear maximally sad. In Experiment 3, participants altered the chroma content of photographs to their preferred levels, with positive-valence photographs containing the most chroma, followed by neutral, then negative-valence photographs. In Experiment 4, participants increased the chroma content of photographs to make them appear maximally positive or arousing, and they decreased chroma to make photographs appear maximally negative or calming. This pattern was similar regardless of the initial valence/arousal content of the images. These results indicate that chroma may convey emotion-relevant information independent of hue or lightness. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

People often reflect nostalgicallyon the momentous occasions of their relationships. Experiencing romantic nostalgia-nostalgia for shared experiences with one's current romantic partner-likely confers relationship-specific benefits. Indeed, prior research indirectly hints at this assumed outcome by looking at relationship narratives. More recent work provides direct evidence that romantic nostalgia is both positively correlated with and causally enhances relationship-specific benefits. We describe such research and discuss avenues for future investigations that address mechanisms and potential downsides of romantic nostalgia while exploring translational possibilities., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

People often think, feel, and behave metaphorically according to conceptual metaphor theory. There are normative sources of support for this theory, but individual differences have received scant attention. This is surprising because people are likely to differ in the frequency with which they use metaphors and, therefore, the frequency with which they experience the costs and benefits of metaphoric thinking. To investigate these ideas, a 5-study program of research (total N = 532) was conducted. Study 1 developed and validated a Metaphor Usage Measure (MUM), finding that people were fairly consistent in their tendencies toward literal thought and language on the one hand versus metaphoric thought and language on the other. These differences were, in turn, consequential. Although metaphor usage predicted susceptibility to metaphor transfer effects (Studies 2 and 3), it was also linked to higher levels of emotional understanding (Studies 4 and 5). The findings provide support for several key premises of conceptual metaphor theory in the context of a new measure that can be used to track the consequences of metaphoric thinking. (PsycINFO Database Record, ((c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).)

The Internet is a central source of information. It is increasingly used for information search in self-relevant domains (e.g., health). Self-relevant topics are also associated with specific emotions and motivational states. For example, individuals may fear serious illness and feel threatened. Thus far, the impact of threat has received little attention in Internet-based research. The current studies investigated how threat influences Internet search. Threat is known to elicit the preferential processing of positive information. The self-directed nature of Internet search should particularly provide opportunities for such processing behavior. We predicted that during Internet search, more positive information would be processed (i.e., allocated more attention to) and more positive knowledge would be acquired under threat than in a control condition. Three experiments supported this prediction: Under threat, attention is directed more to positive web pages (Study 1) and positive links (Study 2), and more positive information is acquired (Studies 1 and 3) than in a control condition. Notably, the effect on knowledge acquisition was mediated by the effect on attention allocation during an actual Internet search (Study 1). Thus, Internet search under threat leads to selective processing of positive information and dampens threatened individuals' negative affect., ((c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).)

The purpose of the current experiment was to distinguish between the impact of strategic and affective forms of gain- and loss-related motivational states on the attention to negative stimuli. On the basis of the counter-regulation principle and regulatory focus theory, we predicted that individuals would attend more to negative than to neutral stimuli in a prevention focus and when experiencing challenge, but not in a promotion focus and under threat. In one experiment (N = 88) promotion, prevention, threat, or challenge states were activated through a memory task, and a subsequent dot probe task was administered. As predicted, those in the prevention focus and challenge conditions had an attentional bias towards negative words, but those in promotion and threat conditions did not. These findings provide support for the idea that strategic mindsets (e.g., regulatory focus) and hot emotional states (e.g., threat vs. challenge) differently affect the processing of affective stimuli.

The head is thought to be rational and cold, whereas the heart is thought to be emotional and warm. In 8 studies (total N = 725), we pursued the idea that such body metaphors are widely consequential. Study 1 introduced a novel individual difference variable, one asking people to locate the self in the head or the heart. Irrespective of sex differences, head-locators characterized themselves as rational, logical, and interpersonally cold, whereas heart-locators characterized themselves as emotional, feminine, and interpersonally warm (Studies 1-3). Study 4 showed that head-locators were more accurate in answering general knowledge questions and had higher grade point averages, and Study 5 showed that heart-locators were more likely to favor emotional over rational considerations in moral decision making. Study 6 linked self-locations to reactivity phenomena in daily life--for example, heart-locators experienced greater negative emotion on high stressor days. In Study 7, we manipulated attention to the head versus the heart and found that head-pointing facilitated intellectual performance, whereas heart-pointing led to emotional decision making. Study 8 replicated Study 3's findings with a nearly year-long delay between the self-location and outcome measures. The findings converge on the importance of head-heart metaphors for understanding individual differences in cognition, emotion, and performance.

Nostalgia is an emotion that confers psychological benefits. The literature has neglected romantic nostalgia—that is, nostalgia specifically for past experiences shared with one's partner—and its potential advantages for relationships. We examined romantic nostalgia in one correlational study, two experiments, and one daily diary study (N = 638). Romantic nostalgia was positively associated with greater relationship commitment, satisfaction, and closeness (Study 1). Additionally, inducing romantic nostalgia via a writing task (Study 2) or music (Study 3) strengthened relational benefits. Finally, participants reported more positive relationship-specific experiences on days when they felt greater romantic nostalgia (Study 4). We discuss contributions to the nostalgia and relationships literatures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The two hemispheres of the brain appear to play different roles in emotion and/or motivation. A great deal of previous research has examined the valence hypothesis (left hemisphere = positive; right = negative), but an increasing body of work has supported the motivational hypothesis (left hemisphere = approach; right = avoidance) as an alternative. The present investigation ( N = 117) sought to provide novel support for the latter perspective. Left versus right hemispheres were briefly activated by neutral lateralized auditory primes. Subsequently, participants categorized approach versus avoidance words as quickly and accurately as possible. Performance in the task revealed that approach-related thoughts were more accessible following left-hemispheric activation, whereas avoidance-related thoughts were more accessible following right-hemispheric activation. The present results are the first to examine such lateralized differences in accessible motivational thoughts, which may underlie more 'downstream' manifestations of approach and avoidance motivation such as judgments, decision making, and behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Two studies (total N =145) examined the novel idea that individual differences in emotion repair may relate to the attention deployment stage of emotion regulation. More specifically, it was hypothesized that high repair individuals would be able to maintain focus on an attention-demanding task in an aversive context, but that low repair individuals would not, in both cases relative to a control condition. This sort of interactive hypothesis was supported in Study 1, which manipulated aversive events through the use of concurrent auditory stimulation and conceptual replication was found in Study 2. Together, the two studies offer suggestive evidence for the role of attention direction in emotion repair. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Approach–avoidance frameworks for political ideology have been proposed with increasing frequency. Following such frameworks and a wider motivation–emotion literature, it was hypothesized that political ideology would be predictive of the extent to which anxiety (avoidance-related) versus anger (approach-related) words would be evident in written texts. Study 1 sampled user-generated text within conservative versus liberal Internet chat rooms. After correcting for the greater normative frequency of anger words, a crossover ideology by emotion type interaction was found. Study 2 found a parallel interaction among college students writing about a non-political topic. Political ideology thus has a discrete emotional signature, one favoring anxiety among conservatives and anger among liberals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]