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This study examined whether elevation elicited by meaningful movie clips led to helping regardless of whether a stranger's need for help is attributed to a controllable or an uncontrollable cause. It also compared elevation against positive-valenced affective state in facilitating prosocial behavior. A randomized, between-subject laboratory experiment was conducted with 208 undergraduate participants in the United States approximately one week after they completed a pretest survey. Although participants experienced the induced emotional state, neither of these two types of positive emotions explained their helping behavior. This points to the nuanced nature of the relationships between positive emotions and helping. The role of media content types, attribution, and prosocial personality are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Though research on mindfulness has increased, other contemplative practices have been understudied. This study provided an initial empirical examination of one contemplative exercise rooted in Catholic tradition, the Ignatian examen, and its impact on self-transcendent positive emotions (STPE) and eudaimonic motivation. It also examined the moderating effects of autonomous interpersonal style on the effects of the examen on STPE. Practicing the examen increased in-the-moment experience of STPE and valuation of STPE. Autonomy did not moderate this effect, but those who valued autonomy more experienced STPE less. There were no significant changes in eudaimonic motivation. This study highlights the utility of studying a variety of contemplative practices drawn from ancient traditions that have cultivated contemplation based on their varied understandings of human flourishing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For many people, emotions are frequently expressed in the context of communication with their God. The practice of prayer is clearly embodied and affords the study of full body expressions of emotions in a relevant context. Surprisingly uncharacterized in empirical scientific research, we document full body postures representing prayers in different emotional registers (i.e., prayer, worship, praise, thanksgiving, repentance, confession, anger toward God) and compare them to postures representing specific emotions varying on two basic affective dimensions (valence and dominance), and to specific relevant emotions (gratitude for thanksgiving, guilt for confession and repentance). US community participants with knowledge of Christianity (n = 93) were asked to show how they would express these feelings in the full body by positioning a small mannequin. Postures were analyzed to derive objective measurements of the body's vertical, horizontal, and total space, and subjective perceptions of the same dimensions from a separate sample. An observational coding system was also developed to code for components of the body, such as head and arm positions. Results show distinct differences between postures representing the overarching categories of prayer versus worship. Further, postures representing praise and to a lesser extent those of thanksgiving were found to be expansive and oriented upward, slightly smaller than postures of positive valence but bigger than dominance. Postures representing repentance and confession were found to be constrictive and oriented downward, even smaller than postures of negative valence and similar to submission. These results add to our limited knowledge of postural expressions of emotions and particularly that of positive emotions. Implications for the psychology of religion are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Military veterans are at greater risk for substance misuse. Positive emotional intensity is one well-established antecedent of substance misuse in this population. Positive emotional avoidance, or attempts to alter the form, frequency, or context of positive emotions, may help to explain this association. While clinical practice typically aims to increase positive emotions, such approaches may have iatrogenic effects, as high-intensity positive emotions may be experienced as distressing and prompt avoidance for some populations. This suggests a need to better understand responses to positive emotions to inform clinical practice. Objectives: The goal of the current study was to advance theory, research, and clinical practice by exploring the role of positive emotional avoidance in the associations between positive emotional intensity and both alcohol and drug misuse. We hypothesized that positive emotional intensity would indirectly influence alcohol and drug misuse through positive emotional avoidance. Methods: Participants were a community sample of United States military veterans recruited through Amazon's Mechanical Turk (n = 535, Mage = 37.45, 71.8% male, 69.5% White). Results: Correlations among positive emotional intensity, positive emotional avoidance, and alcohol and drug misuse were significant and positive (rs range from.13 to.41). Further, positive emotional avoidance was found to account for the relations of positive emotional intensity to alcohol (indirect effect: b =.04, 95%CI [.01,.08]) and drug misuse (indirect effect: b =.01, 95%CI [.01,.02]). Conclusions: Results provide preliminary support for the potential clinical utility of targeting avoidance responses to positive emotions in interventions targeting alcohol and drug misuse among military veterans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Scale of Positive and Negative Experience (SPANE) is widely used to measure emotional experiences, but not much is known about its cross-cultural utility. The present study evaluated the measurement invariance of the SPANE across adult samples ( N = 12,635; age range = 18-85 years; 58.2% female) from 13 countries (China, Colombia, Germany, Greece, India, Italy, Japan, Poland, Portugal, Serbia, Spain, Turkey, and the United States). Configural and partial scalar invariance of the SPANE were supported. Three items capturing specific negative emotions (sad, afraid, and angry) were found to be culturally noninvariant. Our findings suggest that the SPANE's positive emotion terms and general negative emotion terms (e.g., negative and unpleasant) might be more suitable for cross-cultural studies on emotions and well-being, whereas caution is needed when comparing countries using the SPANE's specific negative emotion items.

Past experiments have demonstrated that the cognitive broadening produced by positive emotions may extend to social contexts. Building on this evidence, we hypothesized that positive emotions triggered by thinking about Barack Obama may broaden and expand people's sense of self to include others. Results from an expressive-writing study demonstrated that African American college students prompted to write about Obama immediately prior to and after the 2008 presidential election used more plural self-references, fewer other-references, and more social references. Mediation analyses revealed that writing about Obama increased positive emotions, which in turn increased the likelihood that people thought in terms of more-inclusive superordinate categories (we and us rather than they and them). Implications of these findings for the role of positive emotions in perspective-taking and intergroup relations are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whereas theoreticians are interested in modeling how bereavement contributes to health, the bulk of research on spousal bereavement is conducted after a loss has occurred. Using prospective longitudinal data, this study examined the extent to which positive emotion following spousal loss varies on the basis of preloss characteristics of the bereaved spouse and the marital relationship prior to loss. Analyses are based on the National Survey of Midlife Development (MIDUS), a 2-wave panel survey of adults in the contiguous United States. Results indicate that compared with continuously married controls, widowed participants experienced a significant decline in positive emotion within 3 years following loss. Conversely, no significant declines in positive emotion were evident among widowed persons with greater preloss trait resilience or greater marital strain. Results provide support for the notion that adjustment to loss may be linked to factors that precede actual loss. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a philosophy and method for an ongoing investigation into the cause and effect of student emotions in higher education. In particular, it presents the possibilities for exploring students' positive emotions as 'jouissance' experiences linked to the transgression of power relations and social structures. The paper takes the form of 'evolutionary musings' that guide the reader through a confessional account of the research programme, the epistemological and methodological challenges, the limits of data already produced, and suggestions for a future approach. The musings maintain that descriptions of causal relationships of pedagogic action and the phenomenology of students' feelings of gratification are not enough to plausibly interpret the locatedness and meaning of emotions, and that the emotional nexus is shaped by and continues to inform social relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: The co-occurrence of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and alcohol misuse presents a pervasive and clinically relevant concern among US military veterans., Objective: The current investigation sought to examine the role of positive emotion dysfunction in the relation between PTSD symptomatology and alcohol misuse. To do so, we examined the separate and sequential roles of positive emotional intensity and positive emotional avoidance in the relation between PTSD symptoms and alcohol misuse among US military veterans., Method: Cross-sectional data were collected from 468 US military veterans (M age = 37.74, 70.5% male, 69.0% White) who responded to an online survey., Results: Findings suggest that positive emotional avoidance, separately, and positive emotional intensity and positive emotional avoidance, sequentially, mediated the relation between PTSD symptoms and alcohol misuse., Conclusions: Findings advance theory on the role of positive emotions and related processes in the co-occurrence of PTSD and alcohol misuse, and highlight important avenues for future research and treatment focused on the PTSD-alcohol misuse co-occurrence., 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 © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Background: This study aims to examine the lay perceptions of successful aging among elderly Chinese in Hawai'i, the state has the highest life expectancy in the United States. Method: Principal components factor analysis and logistic regression models were used to analyze survey data collected among 136 respondents who were asked to evaluate the importance of 12 successful aging items developed in Asian societies involving the Chinese population. Results: Results from factor analysis reveal three distinct factors out of the 12 items of successful aging—(a) psychosocial and economic well-being, (b) physical well-being, and (c) social support from adult children. The former two factors were perceived as important dimensions of successful aging by most survey participants, and approximately 35%-41% respondents viewed items composing Factor 3 as important. Discussion: Results suggest that elderly Chinese in Hawai'i have unique perceptions of successful aging that go beyond the Rowe and Kahn's biomedical model to include more psychosocial components. In addition, their perceptions are similar to but slightly different from perceptions of elderly Chinese in China and Singapore in levels of familism. Our findings indicate cultural variation of successful aging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]