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Updated Information for Poster Presenters

See below for full abstracts of poster presentations.

Please note that all poster presenters need to register for the preconference by Jan 23rd in order to avoid an additional onsite registration fee. Attendees may register at the following link: http://psych.la.psu.edu/preconference/registration.shtml

Second, we have assigned each poster a unique ID that will be used to determine placement on the day of the poster session. The poster session for the preconference will be held in Room 31B (adjacent to the where the main preconference will be held) on Thursday, January 26th 2012. Your unique ID should also have been sent in a separate email to you, but you can also check the posters information page.

Third, the poster guidelines we are asking presenters to abide by are the same guidelines used for the SPSP general poster sessions. For your convenience these are pasted below, but they can also be found at http://www.spspmeeting.org/?Page=poster_guidelines.  If there are any questions please feel free to email the preconference organizers directly: contact information.

Poster Guidelines

A poster should be complete and self-supporting so that different viewers may read at their leisure. The author should only need to supplement or discuss particular points raised during inquiry. Remember that several people of varying degrees of interest and experience may be viewing your poster at once. Therefore, you will want to make your points as complete and brief as possible.

Planning

Posterboards are 4' tall x 8' wide (1.2 meters x 2.4 meters); we recommend using a space of 4' tall x 6' wide for your entire poster. The most effective use of the space would be in grid plan arranged in columns. This prevents viewers from having to cross back and forth in front of each other. Materials should be mounted on colored poster paper or board. Allow for distance when printing and planning layouts. The standard elements are: Introduction, Methods, Results (with supporting figures), and a Conclusion or Summary. Type should be easily seen from a short distance. Using the guidelines above, the introduction would be placed at the upper left, and the conclusion at the lower right, both in large type. It is not necessary to post a copy of the abstract.

Illustrations

Figures should also be easily seen from a distance. Use clear graphics and large type to accomplish this. The main points should be straightforward without extended viewing, but details should be included for those who might wish to discuss it. Because the amount of text is restricted, the figure legend could contain some of the commentary that would usually be contained in the body of a manuscript.

Text

• Minimize narrative.
• Use large type in short separated paragraphs.
• Do not set entire paragraphs in boldface or capital letters.
• Numbered or bulleted lists are a concise but effective way to convey a series of points.

Title

Prepare a banner for the top of the poster indicating the abstract title, author(s) and affiliation(s). Lettering should be about 1 1/4 inches high for the title, 3/4 inches high for the author's names and 1/2 inch high for affiliations.

 

Poster Abstracts

Poster # 1

Emotion in computer-mediated-communication: A fine-grained perspective
Theunis, M., Tsankova, E., Kuester, D., & Kappas, A.

There is a burst of psychological research on many facets of Internet use. In focus typically are its multiple antecedents and long term consequences. However, much of this research neglects the fine-grained affective mechanisms at play when individuals interact online. Our goal is to build solid foundations for the study of affective human behavior online. To this aim, a series of studies were conducted in a simulated online discussion forum. In complement to repeated self-report measures, facial electromyography, heart rate, and electrodermal activity were recorded continuously, while participants were reading (Study 1, N = 53) or contributing (Study 2, N = 65) to the online discussions. For both studies, 18 IAPS (International Affective Picture System, Lang et al., 2008) pictures were used as a control condition. We find that passive observation and active participation in online exchanges elicit similar levels of subjective emotional responses compared to watching IAPS pictures, whereas physiological measures show a more complex pattern of results. The effect of contributing to online exchanges is already observed before individuals start writing and lasts until after messages have been sent. We will discuss the implications of these findings, as well as some of the challenges inherent to this type of research. We will present additional results on interacting dyads from a third study. Finally, we will emphasize the relevance of this type of data collection for understanding collective behavior in online communities in a theoretical framework of multiple nested feedback loops of emotion elicitation, communication, and regulation.

Poster # 2

Selective attention to a stimulus increases its perceived emotional significance
Westfall, J., Van Boven, L., & Huber, M.

It is well established that emotionally relevant stimuli capture and hold attention more easily than do affectively neutral stimuli. We hypothesized that this relationship between emotion and attention is bidirectional, such that selective attention to a stimulus causes that stimulus to take on greater emotional significance for the perceiver. To test this, we developed an experimental paradigm in which participants monitor a series of moving images for occasional changes similar to those found in studies of change blindness. Relative attention was manipulated within-subject as the frequency with which the participant must attend to different images to complete the change blindness tasks. In Experiment 1, we demonstrated a simple effect of increased selective attention on perceived emotional significance. In Experiment 2, we attempted to differentiate between inferential and associative accounts of the phenomenon by including a subsequent recognition memory task in which participants identified the high-frequency vs. low-frequency images presented during the experiment. Contrary to an inferential account, we found no evidence of moderation of the attention effect by recognition accuracy. In Experiment 3, we added two between-subject conditions in which the high-frequency vs. low-frequency manipulation was either highly obvious or absent. Participants in both manipulated conditions gave higher emotional significance ratings than participants in the absent condition, ruling out a process of distractor devaluation, but did not differ from one another, speaking again against an inferential account. Our results suggest a relatively low-level influence of selective attention on perceptions of emotional significance.

Poster # 3

Infant Detection of Masked Emotion
Walle, E. A. & Campos, J. J.

Accurately appreciating and responding to others' emotion communication is crucial for adaptive social functioning. However, this task is made more difficult when the communicated emotion is regulated to manipulate the response of an observer. This study investigated the development of infants' detection of masked emotion.     Sixteen- and 19-month old infants observed an adult actress taste a novel food and then communicate either positive enjoyment of the food (authentic condition) or a brief disgust display followed by positive enjoyment (masked emotion condition). Infants were then allowed 30 seconds to explore the food. Infant exploration (4-point scale) and ingestion of the food was coded.     Nineteen-month-old infants in the authentic condition (mean exploration=3.42) showed greater exploration of the food than infants in the masked condition (mean exploration=2.44), t(34)=2.16, p=0.04, and were significantly more likely to eat the food in the authentic condition than in the masking condition, ?2=4.05, p=0.04. However, 16-month-old infants did not differ in their exploration of the food (authentic=2.83, masking=2.64), t(34)=0.42, p=ns, or in their likelihood to ingest the food between experimental conditions, ?2=0.73, p=ns. Individual differences in infant detection of the masked emotion were explored by parental report on the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (Gross & John, 2006). Parents of 19-month-old infants who detected the masked emotion reported suppressing emotions significantly more than parents of infants who did not detect the masked emotion.     This study suggests that infant detection of masked emotion develops around 19 months of age and may be affected by the child's socio-emotional environment.  

Poster # 4

Assessing lighting effects on perception of emotional facial expressions
Guarnera, G. C., Khooshabeh, P., Debevec, P., Ghosh, A., & Gratch, J.

We report a study that manipulated lighting shadows and directions in order to assess their effect on the perception of emotional facial expressions. We systemically varied the different directions in 45° offsets to the left, right, above, and below the actors posing 7 different expressions. Over 1000 participants from Amazon's Mechanical Turk rated images of real faces under 15 different lighting conditions. Results show that there was an interaction of lighting across all six basic emotions, suggesting that lighting affects certain emotions differently. Faces posing a happy expression were judged to look happier under lighting at a 45° offset. Similar effects of lighting were observed for fear and anger. The exact same facial expression under different lighting shadows and directions conveyed different affect (see also Kappas et al., 1994, for the effect of viewing angle on affect perception). A theoretical interpretation is that emotions are not simply in the face, but that contextual information (Barrett, Mesquita, & Gendron, 2011) affects observers' perceptions of emotions in faces. One outcome of this work is a publicly available database of high resolution images of posed facial expressions under various lighting for future research projects. This effect of lighting on the perception of emotional facial expressions has not been demonstrated before and calls for further systematic investigation.

Poster # 5

Beyond Valence: Emotion Specificity in the Perception of Situational Outcome
Bartoszek, G., & Cervone, D.

Past research reveals that anger and fear differentially affect cognition.  Unlike fear, anger, akin to happiness, increases optimism (e.g., Lerner & Keltner, 2001). However, that past research used emotion manipulations that relied heavily on linguistic processing; effects thus may have been due, in part, to cognitive priming rather than purely emotional effects.  The present study circumvented this problem by inducing emotion through non-verbal procedures.   One of four emotions (i.e., anger, fear, sadness, or happiness) or no emotion (control condition) was induced in participants (N=149) via the Directed Facial Action Task (Ekman, 2007). Next, participants saw twelve IAPS pictures depicting neutral situations and estimated the positivity-negativity of the outcome of the situations. Last, the PANAS-X was administered as a manipulation check.    As hypothesized, participants who felt fear or sadness expected less positive outcome of the situations than those in the control condition did, t=2.04, p<.05 and t=3.03, p<.01, respectively. Moreover, in congruence with our hypothesis, people who felt angry or happy did not differ from people in the control condition regarding their expectations of the situational outcomes, t=.12, ns and t=.13, ns, respectively. Thus, using a non-verbal emotion-induction procedure, this study provides strong support that anger is, in some respects, more closely related to happiness than to two other negative emotions (i.e., fear and sadness). 

Poster # 6

Motivated versus Instructed Focus in Emotion Perception
Aragón, O. R. & Clark, M. S.

Past research in our lab has consistently found that people chronic in a high reliance on reasoning are less emotionally reactive to interpersonal interactions, and that this is mediated by the fact that they report getting less of a sense of their partner's emotion and internal states. This finding holds for investigations both in the lab with movie clips, as well as month-long diary studies where participants report on their real life interactions with both people who they do and do not know well. We presume that people high in a reliance on reasoning are motivated to think, and that they in turn miss implicit emotion signals. In consideration of past research that finds that instructed load-type thinking may facilitate emotion and thin-slice perception, we considered the paradox, and the question of: is it true that instructed thinking might have one outcome, yet motivated thinking have another on emotion perception? Therefore we designed a study, which investigated emotion perception and emotional reactivity under three conditions: control, cognitive load, and cognitive goal. We found that an instructed attention to details (cognitive load) had no detrimental effect on emotion perception or emotional reactivity to viewed interactions, whereas a motivated attention to details (cognitive goal) created the same mediated model that we had seen in chronic high reliance on reasoning. We found a reduced sense of emotion and internal states mediated the negative relationship between reduced emotional reactivity and a motivation to reason. Our theoretical model and implications will be discussed.

Poster # 7

The Emotionally Intelligent Decision-Maker
Yip, J. A., &  Côté, S.

We examined how a core dimension of emotional intelligence, emotion understanding ability, facilitates decision-making. Individuals with high emotion understanding ability can correctly identify the events that caused their emotions and, in particular, whether their emotions stem from events that are unrelated to current decisions. We thus predicted that incidental feelings of anxiety, which are unrelated to current decisions, would influence risk-taking more strongly among individuals with lower rather than higher emotion understanding ability. In Experiment 1, incidental anxiety reduced risk-taking among individuals with lower emotion understanding ability, but not among their higher ability counterparts. In Experiment 2, the effect of incidental anxiety on risk-taking among participants with lower emotion understanding ability was eliminated in a condition where we informed participants about the source of their anxiety, revealing that emotion understanding ability guards against the biasing effects of incidental anxiety by helping individuals determine that it is irrelevant to current decisions.

Poster # 8

Empathy and Distress-Sensitivity: Insights into the Empathic Person
Tullett, A. M., Harmon-Jones, E., & Inzlicht, M.

Often, characterizations of empathy have foregrounded selflessness and generosity. Alternatively, however, some researchers have suggested that empathy is better characterized as an egoistic feeling of personal distress. This latter conceptualization would suggest that the people who are most likely to be empathic are, in fact, the people who are most sensitive to distress. Across two studies we show that dispositional distress-sensitivity is predictive of empathic concern towards the suffering of others. In the first, we looked at right-frontal cortical asymmetry, an index of avoidance motivation and an indicator of susceptibility depression and avoidance-related emotions. We found that people with greater baseline levels of relative right-frontal cortical activation reported stronger feelings of empathic concern towards images of suffering children. In the second study, we used electromyography (EMG) to measure subtle facial expressions of disgust towards control images. Here, we found that disgust expressions towards control images were predictive of stronger empathic concern towards images of suffering children. Because both right-frontal cortical asymmetry and disgust sensitivity can be construed as measures of dispostional distress-sensitivity, we interpret these findings as evidence that people who are more susceptible to distress are also more likely to "feel the pain" of others. Interestingly, we found no evidence of a link between distress-sensitivity and perspective-taking, a more cognitive form of empathy. Further research is needed to clarify the extent to which distress-sensitivity may help to explain behavioral outcomes, particularly avoidance and helping.

Poster # 9

Vocal non verbal indicators of empathy towards anger and sadness
Biassoni, F., & Ciceri, R.

Empathy prompts people to act on the strenght of what they feel. Very few studies have analyzed changes in vocal expression resulting from feeling and displaying empathy, expecially empathy towards anger.  The present work aims at investigating modifications in vocal non-verbal expression between non-emotional condition (baseline) and empathic condition (empathy expression towards sadness or anger).  Sixty-two subjects were submitted to an empathy-inducing situation: They read a narrative in which the protagonist expressed sadness or anger. The two narratives were equal as far as content, semantic and lexical strucuture is concerned.  The subjects were asked to answer the protagonist of the narrative as if he was there, speaking directly to them. Their answers were digitally analyzed (tool: CSL, KAYPentax), extracting twelve acoustic features (about time, pitch and energy).  Mixed-model design ANOVA shows that speech uttered when expressing both empathy towards sadness and anger is featured by lower Fo mean, intensity mean and intensity variability in comparison to the baseline. "Empathy towards anger condition" is also featured by lower duration and higher speech rate. This is consistent with acoustical pattern typical of sadness expression, so showing a mirroring, while in the case of empathy towards anger two aspects coexists: Features typical of anger expression and elements revealing intimacy with the interlocutor. 

Poster # 10

The role of empathy in musical non verbal communication
Di Nuzzo, C., Colombo, B., Biassoni, F., & Antonietti, A.

This research investigates how empathy, both aroused by an "external" interactive event (the convergence of the performers gazes) and "internal" (trait of the spectator), influences the emotional reactions of an audience attending a musical performance.  Aim of the work is to examine how eye contact between two artists who perform together can influence the physiological response of viewers featured by high and low levels of trait empathy.  Participants were divided into two groups, according to three experimental conditions (no eye contact, coherent and incoherent eye contact between performers). They observed three music videos (romantic, sad, joyful) while their physiological activation was recorded using biofeedback equipment. Afterwards, they filled in a self report questionnaire to evaluate emotional valence of each video, and IRI questionnaire to assess trait empathy.  Results show how the level of empathy affect participants' physiological responses: participants presenting high scores in trait empathy are more relaxed while watching videos, probably because they can easily understand singers' metacomunication. Individuals with low level of empathy, instead, have higher values of pulse and skin conductance.  Moreover, when singers' eye contact is consistent, so are the emotional evaluations of the participants. Instead, if the eye contact is inconsistent or absent, individuals report an emotional evaluation not consistent with the musical piece they are rating, and generally, tend to attribute negative hedonic valence.  The role of empathy in order to enhance the effectiveness of emotional communication in music performance is discussed. 

Poster # 11

IPANAT-4EM: Structural and Temporal Aspects of an Indirect Test for Assessing Discrete Emotions
Quirin, M., & Bode, R.

Affective changes in response to social stimuli are related to a number of interindividual differences and play an important role in social interactions. Yet, most affect measures available to social and personality psychologists are inadequate for assessing affective due to their explicit nature and their inadequate temporal resolution. The original variant of the implicit positive and negative affect test (IPANAT; Quirin, Kazén, & Kuhl, 2009, JPSP) offers an alternative to explicit self-report measures; however, it only distinguishes positive and negative affect instead of different emotions. We introduce a new IPANAT variant that is adapted for the measurement of implicit happiness, anger, fear, and sadness that can also be used for a more fine-grained temporal analysis of affective changes. We provide evidence that affect measured with this variant does show the expected four component structure and that it is valid as a measure of the time course of specific affective changes.

Poster # 12

Are parents more accurate at gauging the happiness of their adolescent sons or daughters?
Layous, K., Nelson, S. K., Jacobs Bao, K., Plomin, R., Haworth, C. M. A., & Lyubomirsky, S.

Self and parent reports of adolescents' happiness were measured at baseline, after 6 weeks of the adolescents' engaging in simple, self-directed positive activities twice a week, and at a 1-month follow-up (N = 56, Mage = 14.89). The adolescents significantly improved in self-reported happiness over the 6 weeks [t(55) = 1.77, p = .04 (one-tailed), r = .23], and maintained this increase over baseline at the 1-month follow-up [t(54) = 1.81, p = .04 (one-tailed), r = .24]. At baseline, we found a marginally significant reporter (self vs. parent) by sex of adolescent interaction, such that parent reports of happiness matched well their sons' reports, but underestimated the happiness of their daughters (F (1, 114) = 3.07, p = .08 (two-tailed), r = .28). However, parent reports of changes in their children's happiness during the intervention period largely mirrored the self-report data, as the change scores showed no main effects of reporter (F(s < .21) or sex (Fs < 2.54), and no sex by reporter interaction (Fs < .02). These findings suggest that parents may be sensitive to changes in both their sons' and daughters'  happiness, but might inaccurately perceive their daughter's average levels of well-being.

Poster # 13

The Perception of Changing Emotion Expressions
Sacharin, V., Sander, D., & Scherer, K. R.

The utility of recognizing emotion expressions for coordinating social interactions is well-documented, but less is known about how continuously changing emotion displays are perceived. The nonlinear dynamic systems view of emotions suggests that mixed emotion expressions in the middle of displays of changing expressions may be decoded differently depending on the expression origin. Hysteresis is when an impression (e.g. disgust) persists well after changes in facial expressions that favor an alternative impression (e.g. anger). In expression changes based on photographs (study 1) and avatar images (studies 2a-c, 3), we found hystereses particularly in changes between emotions that are perceptually similar (e.g., anger-disgust). We also consistently found uncertainty (neither emotion contributing to the mixed expression was perceived), which was more prevalent in expression sequences than in static images. Uncertainty occurred particularly in changes between emotions that are perceptually dissimilar, such as changes between happiness and negative emotions. This suggests that the perceptual similarity of emotion expressions may determine the extent to which hysteresis and uncertainty occur. Both hysteresis and uncertainty effects support our premise that emotion decoding is state dependent, a characteristic of dynamic systems. We propose avenues to test possible underlying mechanisms.  

Poster # 14

Angry Lesbians and Happy Gays: Judging Sexual Orientation from Emotional Displays
Filip-Crawford, G., White, A.E., Kwan, V.S.Y.

The ability to detect sexual orientation from implicit cues is popularly known as "gaydar." Previous research shows that gender atypical facial morphology is a signal of sexual orientation. However, research on facial cues has focused on relatively static indicators. Dynamic facial expressions and, in particular, emotional displays, are crucial for social judgments and interactions, and are also perceived as being gender dimorphic. In this research, we proposed that gender atypical displays of happiness and anger, as gender typical emotions for women and men, respectively, would be linked with perceptions of masculinity/femininity and homosexuality. Specifically, happy male faces and angry female faces would be more likely to be judged as gender atypical and homosexual. Across three studies, we assessed perceptions of sexual orientation for male and female faces displaying happiness, anger, or neutral emotion. We utilized two sets of stimuli: photos of real targets and computer-generated photos. Both sets contained three photos of each target: happy, angry, and neutral. Using the real faces, Study 1 (n=80) showed that angry women were seen as significantly more masculine, while happy men were rated as significantly more feminine. Studies 2 (n=89) and 3 (n=145), utilizing the computer-generated and real stimuli, respectively, showed that happy men and angry women were significantly more likely to be judged as gay or lesbian. Together, these studies extend knowledge about the detection of sexual orientation beyond previously explored static traits. The present findings demonstrate how even transient emotional displays can affect judgments of sexual orientation.

Poster # 15

Gender and Facial Expressions of Threat: Differential Attention Over Time
Nelson, A. J., & Adams, R. B., Jr.

Male and female faces differ both in terms of visual features (facial maturity) and the gender stereotypes they represent. Male faces tend to be more mature whereas female faces tend to be more babyish in appearance (Friedman & Zebrowitz, 1992). Likewise, mature faces share perceptual features with angry facial expressions and babyfaces with fearful expressions (Marsh et al., 2005). In addition, stereotypes of emotionality suggest that it is acceptable for males to express anger and females to express fear (Fabes & Martin, 1991). The current set of studies sought to to determine 1) whether attention to anger/fear expressions are moderated by face gender, and 2) whether these effects are driven by facial appearance (maturity) or gender more broadly. Participants engaged in a dot-probe task with male and female faces, matched for expression (anger/fear), appearing in each trial for 300 or 1000ms. Reaction times for responses to targets appearing behind one of the faces were recorded. Across 3 studies, we consistently find attentional biases towards the stereotype congruent female (versus male) fear faces at 300ms, with later biases towards stereotype incongruent (male fear, female anger) pairings at 1000ms. Additionally, using androgynous faces matched for facial maturity, we show that these effects are driven by the gender of the face rather than maturity. Implicit endorsement of gender stereotypes appears to play a partial role in this, but further research is necessary. Additionally, further research is needed to determine why the hypothesized early attentional bias to male (versus female) anger are not found.

Poster # 16

An Eye for an Eye: Awareness of Own Emotions Predicts Emotion Detection Accuracy
Vincelette, T. M., Gunther, S., Barker, M., Schneider, T., & Roberts, N. A.

Reading others' emotional cues arguably is the foundation for social interaction. We used a measure of subtle emotion detection abilities (the Revised Eyes Test; Baron-Cohen, Wheelwright, Hill, Raste, & Plumb, 2001) to investigate the relationship between emotion detection and emotion regulation difficulties. Fifteen participants (80% female; mean age 33.5 years) with a history of prior trauma completed the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS; Gratz & Roemer, 2004) and the Revised Eyes Test, where an experimenter asked them to examine pictures of eyes and choose one of four emotional words indicating what emotion the eyes in the pictures were experiencing.  Data were analyzed in regression models.  We found that having greater awareness of one's own emotions (based on the awareness subscale of the DERS) was significantly related to more accurate detection of emotion based on eyes, specifically feelings of upset (B=.058, t=2.613, p=.02), regret (B=.059, t=2.438, p=.03), and contemplativeness (B=.050, t=2.305, p=.04).  Other aspects of emotion regulation, however (e.g., ability to control impulses or engage in goal-directed behavior when distressed) were less consistently related to emotion detection. These results suggest that among individuals with prior trauma, better awareness of one's own emotions may provide better identification of others' emotions. This has practical implications for promoting better interpersonal awareness, as well as scientific implications regarding relationships among different aspects of emotion.

Poster # 17

The role of prenatal and circulating testosterone in the perceptual asymmetry of emotion
Cárdenas, R. A., Puts, D. A., & Harris, L. J.

Most adults show a left visual field bias for the perception of emotion. In light of some studies finding that the bias is stronger in men than in women, a recent study of 77 women examined whether prenatal testosterone (T) exposure contributes to the sex difference. The results suggested that women with higher levels of prenatal T exposure had a stronger left bias for the perception of emotion. In the current study, we re-examined the robustness of this finding with a larger sample of women (n = 139) and by also including a sample of men (n = 176). We assessed perceptual laterality with a free-viewing version of a chimeric faces test (CFT), and we assessed prenatal T exposure by measuring the 2D:4D ratio in both hands. We also assessed activational effects of T by testing subjects in the morning and in the evening so to track circadian changes in T levels. Circulating T levels were measured using salivary assays. The CFT results showed that both men and women had similar left visual-field biases for emotion perception and that the biases were stable across the day. Consistent with these results, performance on the CFT was unrelated to the 2D:4D and circulating T. Overall, the results suggest that neither prenatal T exposure nor circulating T contribute substantially to right-hemisphere dominance for emotion perception in young men and women. The results are further discussed as they pertain to the more general question of sex differences in laterality.

Poster # 18

The utility of alexithymia facets: A test with crying behavior
Panaite, V. & Rottenberg, J.

Alexithymia is characterized as a personality trait evidenced by difficulty in several domains of emotional experience and expression. It is actively debated whether alexithymia is best understood at the global or the facet level. Rottenberg et al. (2008) found that people  with high levels of global alexithymia cry less in response to emotional events and tend to fare worse after crying.  The current study performed a reanalysis of Rottenberg et al. at the facet level.Adult Dutch women (n = 196) reported on the Bermond-Vorst Alexithymia Questionnaire (Vorst & Bermond, 2001) and the Adult Crying Inventory (Becht & Vingerhoets, 2002).. Correlations among the five alexithymia subscales were only moderate. Multiple regression analyses with alexithymia subscales as predictors showed the emotional arousal (emotionalizing) subscale was a strong predictor of decreased positive emotions after crying, and of crying frequency and proneness. Those reporting low emotional arousal to emotional events also cried less often and were less prone to crying regardless of event.  The current facet level analysis afforded the identification of specific characteristics within this broader construct of alexithymia that relate to crying behavior.  Investigating facets of alexithymia can confer specificity, incremental information and is valuable in investigating crying behavior.

Poster # 19

Perceived isolation and health behavior: A daily process examination of loneliness-related alcohol consumption and social context
Arpin, S. N., Mohr, C. D., & Wendt, S. (2011)

Social relationships have long been thought of as vital to well-being and human flourishing, the deficit of which can have severe consequences including depression, suicide, and substance use (Berkman & Breslow, 1984). The negative affective experience of loneliness is a common indicator of relationship deficits, and has been linked to outcomes including alcohol consumption (Cacioppo et al., 2002). Though ample research has explored the health and behavioral correlates of loneliness cross-sectionally, less research has examined daily loneliness and subsequent behavioral responses, such as alcohol consumption. Further, no research to date has examined loneliness-related alcohol consumption in different contexts (e.g. social versus solitary). The purpose of this study is to explore daily loneliness and subsequent drinking behavior in social and solitary contexts. A sample of 51 Japanese students completed daily surveys on positive and negative moods, social interactions, and health behaviors, once a day over 30 days. Within-person associations between daily loneliness, evening solitary and social alcohol consumption were examined. On days with greater loneliness, participants reported more subsequent solitary consumption (b = .31, p = .004). Yet, gender differences reveal that lonely mood-solitary and lonely mood-social drinking relationships are more positive for Japanese women than men. These findings demonstrate patterns of context-specific loneliness-related consumption, thus making a significant contribution to existing loneliness literature. 

Poster # 20

Anhedonia in Depression: Distinguishing Motivational and Consummatory Deficits
Mowrer, S.M. & Cunningham, W.A.

Anhedonia, a major affective symptom of depression, refers to a loss of interest or pleasure in previously rewarding stimuli (APA, 2000). Affective neuroscience has suggested motivation and pleasure arise from distinct neural processes (Berridge & Robinson, 2003). While motivation and pleasure are typically coupled, they can become dissociated in a dysfunctional system, such as among drug addicts (Berridge & Robinson, 1998) and potentially in depression (Klein, 1987). This research has prompted a recent call to examine both motivational and consummatory deficits in anhedonia (Dichter, 2010; Treadway & Zald, 2010). However, current measures of anhedonia focus largely upon lack of pleasure and do not adequately assess motivation. We created a new scale measuring both anhedonia (restricted to loss of pleasure) and amotivation (loss of motivation). Using Mechanical Turk we collected responses to new measures along with a battery of clinical and personality scales. An exploratory factor analysis showed amotivation and anhedonia loaded on different factors. Interestingly, a regression analysis also showed that correlation between motivation and pleasure decreased as Beck Depression Inventory scores increased, suggesting motivation and pleasure are functionally coupled in healthy individuals but become decoupled in depression. We provide initial evidence that both amotivation and anhedonia may distinctly contribute to depression, and depression may arise in part due to a lack of integration of motivational and consummatory processes.

Poster # 21

Examining the link between trait levels of self-esteem, state concentration and attentional bias
Jevtic, I., Dedovic, K., & Pruessner, J. C.

Introduction: In the present pilot study, we investigated whether current levels of attention/concentration can impact the association between trait self-esteem levels and attentional bias (AB) toward happy and sad faces in healthy young individuals.   Methods. We recruited 17 college students (9 women). The participants completed a modified version of a classical dot-probe task for assessment of AB. We administered Rosenberg Self-esteem Inventory for assessment of self-esteem, and a visual analogue scale for assessment of concentration levels. Using a median-split, we created two factors: low and a high self-esteem, as well as low and high concentration. A three-factor mixed design ANOVA was used to examine whether there was an association between self-esteem and concentration levels, and AB.     Results: A significant interaction was found between self-esteem and AB (F=6.9, p=.02), revealing that high self-esteem individuals exhibited higher happy bias compared to low self-esteem participants (F=9.6, p=.008). We also found an interaction between concentration and AB (F=5.4, p=.04), where those who concentrated less during the task showed higher sad bias then those who concentrated more (F=4.49, p=.05). A three-way interaction was not significant (F-.981, p=.34).   Discussion: The pattern of these results suggest that the association between trait factors such as self-esteem and AB is not mediated by concentration, although concentration levels are on their own associated with AB.  

Poster # 22

Is body shame bad for your health? Relationships among trait body shame, interoceptive awareness, perceived control over health, and acute health outcomes.
Lamont, J. M.

Body shame, a regular emotional experience for women in Western culture, is linked to poor psychological health.  Body shame may also be linked to poor physical health, because body shame causes individuals to attend to body appearance instead of bodily functioning.  Ignoring bodily functioning is linked to decreased interoceptive awareness, which may lead to diminished perceptions of control over one's health, both of which predict poor physical health.  Therefore, body shame may relate to poor physical health through the mechanisms of decreased interoceptive awareness and diminished perceptions of control over health.  However, no research to date has addressed these relationships.  The purpose of the present study is to test whether trait body shame (TBS) and physical health are related, and whether that relationship is mediated by interoceptive awareness and perceived control over health.  Female undergraduates (N=177) completed measures of TBS, interoceptive awareness, perceived control over health, and acute health outcomes.  TBS and acute health outcomes were shown to be positively correlated, and this relationship was mediated by perceived control over health.  However, interoceptive awareness did not mediate this relationship.  These results extend body shame research to include physical health outcomes, and suggest a mechanism for this relationship.  As these results are correlational, future research is planned to assess the relationships among these and related variables in longitudinal and experimental studies.

Poster # 23

Analyzing the Spanish and German  equivalents of disgust from a prototype perspective
Schweiger-Gallo, I., Fernández-Dols, J. M., Pablo-Lerchundi, I., & Gollwitzer, P. M.

Little is known about the everyday concept of disgust in non-American cultures. Within a probabilistic view of concepts, we tested the internal structure of asco in Spanish and Ekel in German and to what extent the two emotion categories have overlapping constitutive features.   In Study 1, 80 Spanish and 129 German speakers gave descriptions of asco and Ekel, respectively, and listed the most accessible constitutive features of the concepts in terms of definition, elicitors, and physical reactions. In Study 2, 110 Spanish and 116 German participants were asked to judge the extent to which each of 30 sentences, mentioned by more than 15% of the participants in Study 1, was typical of asco or Ekel. Results showed significant differences on typicality ratings in 15 of the constitutive features and thus different internal structures for asco and Ekel. These differences were not only found for the elicitors, but also for the physical symptoms. Interestingly, the socio-moral domain takes up a central role in the Spanish asco, but not Ekel.  The results confirm that a prototype approach is useful in order to study the internal structure of emotions and unraveling their constitutive features and degree of overlap with regards to the same emotion in different countries. Moreover, these findings raise questions regarding the direct translation of equivalent emotion terms. 

Poster # 24

Primary motor cortex and individual differences influence emotional evaluation of dance videos
Colombo, B., Di Nuzzo, C., Puglisi, G. & Macca, E.

This research investigates how the inhibition of primary motor cortex (M1) influences the emotional elaboration of relaxing and activating dance videos. Recent studies have recognized that cognitive and emotional interpretation of dance videos is influences both by the activity of M1 (mirror neurons theory) and by individual differences.  M1 was inhibited by transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), in a sample of 20 individuals with high and low dance expertise, whose creativity levels had been tested using Torrance creative thinking test. While watching video, participants' physiological indices were recorded by biofeedback equipment, in order to assess their activation. Individuals' emotional evaluation of the different videos were also recorded using self-report questionnaires.   Results highlight how the inhibition of M1 has a strong influence on emotional evaluation, causing a significant increase of skin conductance level.  Also individual differences have an important role in emotional elaboration of the video.   Expertise is involved in perception of negative emotion, which are reported more frequently by those with low expertise. This can be due to a less automatic elaboration and attribution of general meaning to the stimuli, which can cause an increase of anxiety, which influences video evaluation.  Moreover, emotional processing appears to be more coherent in participants with high levels of creativity.  Future development of this research will be aimed at comparing the effect of increased activation of M1 on the emotive processing of the same videos. 

Poster # 25

The attenuation effect of mood self reports
Lane, S. P., McClure, M. J., Stadler, G., Shrout, P., Bolger, N.

The attenuation effect, which is the tendency for reports, such as total number of depressive episodes, to decline inexplicably upon repeated measurement, has puzzled epidemiologists and clinical researchers for decades. We replicate the attenuation effect for self reports of mood and illustrate the potential implications of failing to take it into account when studying emotional processes. We assigned 218 pre-med college students preparing for a difficult examination into 7 14-day diary conditions, which began between 2 and 8 days before their examination. Twice each day (morning and evening) participants completed 6 subscales of the Profile of Mood States (Lorr & McNair, 1971). For all 6 subscales (vigor, low arousal positive affect, fatigue, anxiety, depression, anger) we observed reliable attenuation effects such that reports from participants’ first diary day were elevated within-person. Attenuation effects comparing the same days before the exam across conditions were less robust. Furthermore, first measurements, which are often all that are available in many experimental studies, correlated differentially with personality measures (e.g. self esteem, all subscales of the Big 5) than average (i.e. trait) levels across the diary period, adjusting for weekend, exam day, and linear time effects. These findings bear upon classic personality studies with respect to emotional experience and offer insight into various mixed results that have accumulated over the past 30 years.

Poster # 26

Smiles may go unseen in generalized social anxiety disorder: Evidence from binocular rivalry
Anderson, E., Dryman, M. T., Worthington, J., Hoge, E., Pollack, M. H., Barrett, L. F., Simon, N. M. 

Generalized Social Anxiety Disorder (GSAD) is characterized by heightened anxiety and avoidance of social and performance situations. In individuals with GSAD, social interactions evoke an overestimation of negative social evaluations and an underestimation of positive social evaluations. Little is known, however, about whether GSAD is associated with changes in visual consciousness for social information. In this experiment, we examined the extent to which faces dominated in visual consciousness using binocular rivalry. Perceptually dissimilar images were presented to each eye (a scowling, smiling or neutral face to one eye and a house to the other). We found that smiling faces were dominant for significantly shorter durations in GSAD compared to normal control participants. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that GSAD involves a reduced salience for positive social cues. This reduced salience of positive emotional expression might contribute to GSAD related psychopathology.

Poster # 27

Reactance to Depression Public Service Announcements
Lienemann, B.A., & Siegel, J.T.

People with depression process information with a negative bias when confronted with self-relevant information. As such, they likely will be reactant to the messages of greatest importance to their wellbeing - depression public service announcements (D-PSA). It was expected that severely depressed individuals would be reactant to D-PSAs, while mildly depressed individuals would be more open to persuasion. Participants (N=944) were recruited online, randomly assigned to a non-relevant control ad or a D-PSA with autonomy-supportive (ASLA) or controlling language (CLA), and responded to scales assessing depressive symptoms, reactance, and attitudes toward seeking professional help (ASPH). Participants were categorized as asymptomatic, mildly, moderately, or severely depressed. For the ASLA, the severely depressed were angrier and counterargued more than all other groups, while the mildly depressed had more positive attitudes toward the source than the moderately and severely depressed and more positive ASPH than the severely depressed. For the CLA, the severely depressed were angrier than the asymptomatic and mildly depressed, counterargued more than the mildly depressed, and had more negative ASPH than all other groups; while the mildly depressed had more positive attitudes toward the source than the moderately and severely depressed. The severely depressed were angrier and counterargued both the D-PSAs more than the control. For the mildly and severely depressed the CLA resulted in more negative ASPH than the control ad. Thus, the severely depressed responded more positively to a non-relevant ad than a D-PSA. Great care must be taken when developing D-PSAs so a boomerang effect does not occur.

Poster # 28

Money can "kill" the joys of parenthood
Kushlev, K., Dunn, E. W., & Ashton-James, C.,

Acquiring greater resources before having children seems like an intuitive strategy for people to enhance their well-being during parenthood. Extending previous research on the effects of money and well-being, we gathered both correlational and experimental evidence exploring the hypothesis that money might decrease, rather than increase, parental well-being. In Study 1, we used the Day Reconstruction Method (DRM)-an alternative to experience sampling-to sample parents' experiences over multiple episodes of a day in their life. We found that, as compared to parents of lower socio-economic status (SES), parents of higher SES, on average, tended to report a lower sense of meaning across episodes of the day when they were taking care of their children. In Study 2, we collected experimental evidence that money compromised parents' current experience during a festival they were attending with their children. We showed that simply exposing parents to a picture of money made parents report less sense of meaning while with their children than parents exposed to a neutral picture. These findings contribute to our understanding of the relationship between money and well-being by showing that money can compromise the experience of parents during the fundamental human activity of taking care of one's children.  

Poster # 29

Disparity in Parents' Views on the Value of Emotions and Children's Later Adjustment
Booker, J. A., Dunsmore, J. C., & Ollendick, T. H.

Parents' views and behaviors toward children's emotional displays are believed to be influential in child adjustment over time (Gottman, Katz, & Hooven, 1996). Disparity between parents' beliefs may determine the pathway of such influences. Forty-nine families participated in a study in which mothers and fathers reported their baseline beliefs about children's emotions and children reported their personal adjustment at two time points. Parents' completed items from the Emotion Regulation Checklist (Shields & Cicchetti, 1997) and the Parents' Beliefs about Children' Emotions (Halberstadt et al., 2008) scales. Children reported on adjustment at each time point through the Behavioral Assessment Scale for Children-2 (Kamphaus & Frick, 2005). Greater differences in beliefs were associated with children reporting more school difficulties and lower personal adjustment at the latter time point, controlling for children's baseline reports. Results suggest that parents' consistent and cohesive approach toward children's emotions may be important in children's long-term adjustment.     Forty-nine mothers and fathers reported their baseline beliefs regarding children's emotions while children reported on their personal adjustment at two time points. Results showed that greater baseline disparities between parents' views on the values and dangers of emotions were associated with children reporting later difficulties in school and personal adjustment. 

Poster # 30

On the role of goal relevance in emotional attention: Disgust evokes early attention to cleanliness
Vogt, J., Lozo, L., Koster, E.H.W., & De Houwer, J.

Prior evidence has shown that aversive emotional states are characterized by an attentional bias  towards aversive events. The present study investigated whether aversive emotions also bias  attention towards stimuli that represent means by which the emotion can be alleviated. We  induced disgust by having participants touch fake disgusting objects. Participants in the control  condition touched non-disgusting objects. The results of a subsequent dot probe task revealed  that attention was oriented to disgusting pictures irrespective of condition. However, participants  in the disgust condition also oriented towards pictures representing cleanliness. These findings  suggest that the deployment of attention in aversive emotional states is not purely stimulusdriven  but is also guided by the goal to alleviate this emotional state.

Poster # 31

Claiming value in negotiations: The effect of anger, hormones and negotiation role
Fabiansson, E. C., & Denson, T. F.

Past research has primarily explored only one side of angry negotiations by using a computer-simulated opponent to represent the counterpart. In negotiations, anger has been found to result in both greater gains and losses. This study aimed to clarify these conflicting findings, and examine the role of testosterone in value claiming. To manipulate angry and neutral affect, participants (N=160) wrote about a recent anger provoking or ordinary negotiation experience. Participants were randomly assigned the role of candidate or recruiter and negotiated a job contract. Trait salivary testosterone levels were collected. Participants who recalled an angry memory reported experiencing greater anger during memory recall, and claimed more individual negotiation points, than participants in the control. During the negotiation, participants in the anger condition reported expressing greater anger, and perceived that their counterpart also expressed greater anger relative to the control condition. A significant interaction revealed that whilst recruiters claimed more individual points than candidates, trait testosterone levels had no effect on the number of points claimed for recruiters. However, candidates claimed more points when they were high rather than low in testosterone. These findings suggest that anger can result in claiming more in negotiations and that hormones may play a greater role in value claiming for low powered positions.

Poster # 32

Incidental and Integral Affect In Judgment and Decision Making
Vastfjall, D, Peters, E., & Slovic, P.

Two types of affect influence judgment and decision making: incidental affect (affect that is unrelated to a judgment or decision such as mood) and integral affect (affect that is part of the decision makers' internal representation of the option.  These two lines of research have seldom crossed so that knowledge concerning their combined effects is largely missing. We performed four experiments where positive and negative mood participants set prices (willingness to pay for consumer goods, investments in stocks, charitable donations) that were either affect-rich or affect-poor. Across the studies we find that incidental mood has a larger effect for affect-poor goods.

Poster # 33

What Arouses Envy? The Effects of Perceived Control
Inoue, Y., & Murata. K.

This study aims to examine whether the degree of perceived control influences the arousal of envy. An experiment was carried out by manipulating the level of perceived control. Participants competed with their confederates over a task to find the regularity of figures, and were told that the task measured a fictional ability, which they were told predicted social success. Then, participants were informed that their performance was worse than that of their confederate and the possibility of their future success was at an ordinary level. Afterwards the participants' potential was explained to them. Those in the low perceived control condition were informed that the possibility to improve their ability would remain very low regardless of their effort, whereas those in the high perceived control condition were informed that they might be able to improve depending on their effort. Subsequently, the participants rated their own emotions and emotions towards the confederates. As predicted, our finding demonstrated that those in the low perceived control condition felt envy more than those in the high perceived control condition.

Poster # 34

Taking pride in being fair: The role of anticipated emotions in fair and unfair social decisions
Van der Schalk, J., Manstead, A.S.R., Bruder, M.

Our project aims to shed light on the conditions that promote or hinder fairness, trust, and cooperation in social behavior. We argue that anticipated emotions play a key role in this behavior, and seek to understand how a decision maker's anticipated emotions are influenced by emotions of others about this behavior.     We will report the results of two studies. The results of Study 1 showed that others' expressions of pride about fair behavior increased levels of fairness, and that other's regret about fair behavior decreased levels of fairness. In Study 2 we found evidence that other's admiration and contempt about fair behavior similarly influenced levels of fairness, through self-reported anticipated emotions. Our results further show that self-reported anticipated pride and regret can both increase and decrease levels of fairness, depending on the displayed fairness of an exemplar. In addition, individual differences in preferences for equal and competitive patterns outcomes as measured by Social Value Orientation were explained by differential patterns in self-reported anticipated emotions.     Our findings show that fairness in social and economic decision making is better understood when anticipated emotions are taken into account.  

Poster # 35

Trait anticipatory pleasure and state affect predict risk taking in a laboratory emotion induction
Zielinski, M. J., & Veilleux, J. C.

The relationship between future focused state affect (e.g., anxiety and excitement), trait emotional tendencies and risk taking has received little empirical attention to date, particularly for positive anticipatory affect. In the current study, 44 college students (68.2 % women; 77.3% Caucasian; mean age 19.75) completed individual difference questionnaires, including the Temporal Experience of Pleasure Scale (Gard et al., 2006), prior to experiencing an induction of anticipatory affect involving a brief food tasting. Participants in the positive condition (n = 22) were led to believe the food would be pleasant, while participants in the negative condition (n = 22) were led to believe the food would be unpleasant. Experimenter feedback as well as a comment sheet from "past participants" was used to aide in deception. Participants rated their state affect at baseline and after the induction. Participants were then asked to engage in a computerized gambling task (Columbia Card Task; Figner et al., 2009) where the number of cards selected indicates level of risk taking. Regression analyses revealed that a greater increase in self-reported negative affect predicted number of cards selected (i.e., level of risk), as did trait anticipatory pleasure. Additionally, a significant interaction between condition and trait anticipatory pleasure emerged, such that higher trait anticipatory pleasure was associated with increased risk for the positive condition, but decreased risk for the negative condition.

Poster # 36

Emotional Acceptance Lowers Anxiety but not Sadness for Individuals with High Trait Negative Affect
Boland, M., Shallcross, A. J., Papa, A., & Mauss, I. B.

Previous research suggests that emotional acceptance is associated with lower levels of negative emotion. However, few studies have examined for whom or for which specific emotions acceptance may be most beneficial. To test whether accepting negative emotions has differential benefits for individuals high versus low in negative affect (NA) and for what emotions it may be beneficial, we randomly assigned female participants (N=37) to two experimental conditions. One group was instructed to accept their emotions while the other was not given specific instructions (control). After a neutral baseline and a subsequent film clip that induced both anxiety and sadness, participants rated their experience of anxiety and sadness. Analyses revealed a group (acceptance versus control) by trait (high versus low NA) interaction for anxiety but not for sadness. Post-hoc analyses revealed an expected difference in anxiety between high and low NA in the control group but no differences in anxiety between high and low NA in the acceptance group. This finding suggests that acceptance causes those high in NA to experience as low levels of anxiety as those low in NA. Additionally, the effect of acceptance on anxiety but not on sadness is consistent with research suggesting a distinct role of acceptance in the modulation of anxiety compared to other negative emotions. Theoretical and clinical implications of these findings are discussed.

Poster # 37

Integrating the Study of Actions, Inhibited Actions, and Big-Five States in Emotion Experience
Rauch, E. H., &  Noftle, E. E.

Functionalist theories argue that emotions are adaptive because they  trigger specific and distinct physiological, phenomenological, and  behavioral changes that enable an individual to respond to the threat,  challenge, or opportunity afforded by a situation (Lazarus, 1991).  However, aside from facial expressions, astonishingly little research has  examined this latter "action tendency" component, rarely allowing  comparisons between several different emotions. The current research  integrates "molecular" and "molar" approaches in simultaneously assessing  three divergent aspects of action tendencies: actions, inhibited actions,  and Big-Five personality states. In two studies (N=187; 895), participants  were asked to recall and recount recent experiences of 15 different  emotions, including their action tendencies. Results revealed that  emotions vary considerably in the patterns of actions, inhibited actions  and Big-Five states exhibited, supporting distinct behavioral functions of  emotions. Results also demonstrated a meaningful correspondence across  aspects of action tendencies, suggesting the usefulness of combining  methods of assessing behavior in emotion research.

Poster # 38

Disgust Shows Larger Differences in Gender Role Expectations than Anger or Amusement
Skolnick, A. J.

To establish gender-based stereotypes of disgust, we adapted the graphical Gender Role Expectations of Pain scale (GREP, Robinson et al., 2001) to address disgust. Using the GREP, people rate their own feelings or that of a typical man or typical woman for disgust sensitivity (DS) and willingness to report the emotion (WR). We predicted relatively large differences in gender-role expectations, with men expected to be low and women expected to be high in DS and WR. Our predictions were confirmed statistically in a sample of undergraduates. We then used the GREP to target anger (expected the opposite pattern: men higher than women for anger sensitivity and WR) and amusement (no gender-based patterns expected). In contrast to disgust, no gender differences in ratings on the GREP for anger were found, except both men and women rated a typical man as more willing to report anger than a typical woman. The GREP responses to amusement were as predicted: no strong gender differences. We also found significant correlations between GREP-Disgust responses and the Disgust Scale-Revised, GREP-Anger responses and the anger subscale of the Differential Emotions Scale, and GREP-Amusement responses and the enjoy subscale of the DES. The GREP graphical scale provides a valid and useful measure of gender-based expectations for emotion that may aid in our understanding of gender differences in emotion.

Poster # 39

Flexibility of Emotional Expression Correlates with Flexibility of Emotional Experience
Doerr, Papa, Boland, & Bonanno 

Adapting to new environments and stressors can be a difficult process, especially in the initial adjustment to entering college. Expressive flexibility (EF), or the ability to both express or suppress emotional expressions, has been shown to be a positive predictor in reducing stress during life adjustment. This study examined how EF related to experiential flexibility by testing how level of EF was related to how participants used different types of emotion and cognitive process words during a writing task.  Sixty participants from a large eastern university were instructed to write about positive and negative aspects of coming to their university. To examine the link between EF and experiential flexibility, the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count software program (LIWC) was used to analyze various emotional, cognitive, and structural components of each participant's written except. Results showed high positive correlations between EF and words that reflected emotional processing (happy, cried, abandon), anxiety (worried, fearful, nervous), cognitive processing (cause, know, ought), and insight (think, know, consider).  These results suggest that EF is associated with an individual's ability to talk about emotions more freely and openly, linking EF with overall experiential flexibility and highlighting the need for further examination of the link between EF and the specific emotional factors that affect psychological adjustment.

Poster # 40

Proud Warriors: Group-level Pride Augments Intergroup Aggression
Williams, L. A., & Denson, T. F.

Emotions play an integral role in shaping intergroup relations, including intergroup aggression. Until now, most research has focused on how anger can exacerbate intergroup aggression. The current experiments are the first empirical investigation of how taking pride in achievement of one's group might similarly augment aggression in the presence of salient intergroup threat. After being reminded of the threat of attack from al Qaeda, Americans led to feel pride in their group's accomplishments or anger on behalf of their group endorsed higher levels of aggressive action towards al Qaeda relative to an affectively neutral control condition (Experiment 1). Participants feeling group pride endorsed equal levels of aggressive action as those feeling group anger. In Experiment 2, Americans were led to feel group pride on behalf of the U.S. and read about the possibility of a North Korean military attack. Replicating Experiment 1, participants feeling group pride endorsed higher levels of aggression against North Korea than participants in a neutral, control condition. Moreover, group pride increased aggression only among those who perceived the U.S. as invulnerable. The effect of the interaction of these two variables on aggression was mediated by an increase in motivation to affiliate with ingroup members following threat. Across both studies, these effects remained significant after controlling for social dominance orientation and level of ingroup identification. By demonstrating a role of group pride for the first time in augmenting intergroup aggression, these studies advance our understanding of the complex and fascinating role of emotion in shaping intergroup relations.

Poster # 41

Are Menstrual Cycle-Related Changes in Emotion Reports a Response to changes in Menstrual Cycle-Related Sexual Activity?
Azmat, A., Burleson, M., Todd, M., & Trevathan, W. R.

Studies have shown that emotion reports vary systematically across the menstrual cycle, such that women often report more positive mood, less negative mood, or both, during the follicular and ovulatory phases (Collins et al., 1985).  Research also has shown that sexual arousal and proceptive behaviors often increase during the follicular phase and premenstrual phase (Van Goozen et al., 1997). However, most studies in this area have been carried out in heterosexual samples, whereas lesbian sex roles, social support systems, and attitudes towards the menstrual cycle differ from the heterosexual domain.  This study investigated the relationship among menstrual cycle phase, sexual activity, and mood in 97 lesbian women (ages 21-42). They kept daily records of positive and negative mood and sexual activity for three complete menstrual cycles. Results showed that sexual activity and positive mood were highest during the follicular phase, and displayed similar cyclical patterns, whereas negative mood was lowest in the follicular phase.  Multilevel models revealed that after controlling for the other mood, orgasm with a partner on any given day was positively correlated with positive mood and negatively correlated with negative mood on that day.  Further, orgasm with a partner predicted a higher level of positive mood on the following day, even after controlling for negative mood.  These results are consistent with the notion that sexual interaction with a partner may lead to increases in positive emotions and that partnered sexual interaction may mediate menstrual cycle effects on emotion reports.

Poster # 42

Pride and Shame Influence Moral Judgment
University of British Columbia

Self-conscious emotions such as pride and shame are often considered "moral emotions," yet few studies have examined their impact on moral judgments pertinent to resource division (i.e., "gut" feelings of fairness). These judgments are shaped by both abstract rules (e.g., equality) and hierarchical norms (e.g., the powerful receive more; De Cremer & Van Dijk, 2005); yet it remains unclear how individuals effectively integrate these two often incompatible sets of norms to allocate resources such that cooperative benefits are maximized-a proposed ultimate evolutionary function of morality (Williams, 1966). We argue that pride and shame evolved as intrapsychic signals of social rank which alter perceived fairness and thereby promote judgments that "feel" fair yet take into account status differences. Pride informs individuals that they are high status and thus deserve more, while shame does the opposite, and these self-perceptual shifts may, on average, promote greater benefits for all interactants, compared to a system of allocations that are perceived as unfair, resulting in costly turmoil.     To test this account, seventy undergraduates were induced to feel pride or shame prior to playing the role of proposer in a dictator game. Pride promoted greater self-allocations than shame, p<.05, but did not change participants' perceptions of how fairly they behaved. This suggests that emotions shifted participants' sense of fairness; those who experienced pride came to believe they deserved more, those who experienced shame reached the opposite conclusion. These findings suggest that pride and shame may function to guide moral decision-making. 

Poster # 43

Implicit theories of happiness and other specific emotions
Livingstone, K.M., & Srivastava, S.

People differ in their beliefs about the malleability or fixedness of emotions in general (Tamir et al., 2007). The purpose of this research was to determine whether individuals hold different beliefs about the malleability of specific emotions, and if so, to examine initial predictive validity of such beliefs. Sample 1 (N=198) completed a measure of implicit theories of emotion broadly (Tamir et al., 2007), then measures of implicit theories of six specific emotions: anger, anxiety, sadness, happiness, love, and pride. Theories of specific emotions were moderately correlated but not redundant (r's=.27 to .50). Participants rated anger and happiness as more malleable, and love, anxiety, and sadness as less malleable than general emotions. Next, we developed a scale to measure implicit theories of happiness. Sample 2 (N=210) completed 14 items measuring implicit theories of happiness. Factor analysis revealed a single factor, and the top 10 items were used to construct a questionnaire (?=.89) that correlated (r=.48) with a measure of subjective happiness. Sample 3 (N=69) completed the 10-item implicit theories of happiness measure (?=.88) and a measure of psychological well-being (Ryff, 1989). Beliefs about the malleability of happiness were associated with all six domains of psychological well-being. These data provide initial support for the hypothesis that people hold separate beliefs about different emotions, and that these beliefs predict important outcomes.

Poster # 44

Boosting Mood Through Speed: Effects of thought acceleration on positive mood in a dysphoric sample
Yang, K. & Pronin, E.

Experimentally inducing rapid thinking elevates positive mood, energy, and self-esteem (Pronin & Wegner, 2006; Pronin, Jacobs, & Wegner, 2008). These qualities tend to be abnormally low among people suffering from depression. The present experiment tested the hypothesis that accelerating thought speed in depressed people improves positive mood. We further predicted this effect might be especially apparent among those experiencing milder depression. 126 subjects recruited on the Internet through a BDI-II depression prescreen were randomly assigned to read aloud text (neutral trivia statements) presented at either a fast or normal pace. They completed pre and post-test mood (PANAS) and depressive symptoms (CES-D) scales.    Consistent with past studies, normal subjects (n=76) displayed greater positive mood in the fast-speed condition than in the normal-speed condition (controlling for pre-test positive mood). For those with BDI scores suggestive of depression (n=50), an interaction effect emerged whereby those who displayed severe dysphoria showed no response to the speed manipulation, but those who displayed more moderate dysphoria showed the predicted speed effect of more positive mood in the fast-speed condition than the normal-speed condition. The simple effect of speed condition was significant for the moderately dysphoric. No significant effects were found for negative mood or depressive symptoms. This experiment provides the first evidence that manipulating thought speed may help boost positive mood among at least some depressed people.

Poster # 45

Predicting Choice: Distraction and Reappraisal as Strategies for Emotion Regulation
Yih, J., Sheppes, G., Gross, J.J., & Urry, H.L.

Little work has looked at how people choose to regulate their emotions. We were interested in identifying predictors of strategy choice. What is it about high and low emotion that directs choice? Emotions are characterized by two dimensions--valence and arousal. Valence corresponds with how pleasant an emotion is, and it has been associated with corrugator EMG activity. Arousal refers to emotional intensity, and it has been linked to electrodermal activity (EDA). We hypothesized that participants would choose reappraisal under low emotion and distraction under high emotion. Furthermore, we hypothesized that lower valence (more negative) and higher arousal during an initial presentation of the stimulus would be associated with the increased likelihood of choosing distraction. The present study included 40 unselected undergraduates (51.3% female) between 18 and 27 years old (M=19.05, SD=1.69). Participants did a choice task that included 90 pictures with an initial presentation, choice screen, and then regulation phase. Results indicated that the proportion of choice for reappraisal was greater under low emotion while choice for distraction was greater under high emotion, p<.001. More negative normative ratings of valence and more intense ratings of arousal predicted choosing distraction, p<.001. Although corrugator EMG activity was not implicated as a predictor of choice, greater EDA did predict choosing distraction, p=.028. The implications of the present study are discussed.

Poster # 46

Negative affect mediates the relationship between emotion regulation and nonsuicidal self-injury
Davis, T.S.,  Barrocas, A.L., Mauss, I.B., Young, J., Abela, J.,  Hankin, B.L.

What explains whether someone will engage in nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI; deliberate and direct harm inflicted on oneself without suicidal intent)? Theory suggests poor emotion regulation and negative affect may contribute to NSSI. However, little is known about how these risk factors contribute to NSSI, and even less in known about how these factors contribute to NSSI in youth. Therefore, our goal was to determine whether poor emotion regulation and negative affect independently contribute to NSSI, or if increases in negative affect among those with a history of NSSI could be attributed to poor emotion regulation. To test these hypotheses, we recruited a community sample of third, sixth, and ninth graders both with and without a history of NSSI (N = 665). Participants completed an interview that was used to assess history of NSSI and questionnaires regarding poor emotion regulation (rumination, poor emotional awareness, and emotional inexpressivity) and negative affect (negative emotions and depression symptoms). SEM analyses revealed that both poor emotion regulation and negative affect were associated with NSSI. Further, negative affect fully mediated the relationship between poor emotion regulation and NSSI for sixth and ninth graders, but not for third graders. Findings suggest that improving emotion regulation is key in reducing negative affect and subsequent NSSI among older youth. However, among younger youth, alternative mechanisms need to be explored.

Poster # 47

Two steps forward, two steps back: Taking a self-immersed perspective while engaging in cognitive reappraisal
Hawkes,  T. K.,  Davis,  T. S.,  Troy,  A. S.,  Johnson,  D. R.,  &  Mauss,  I. B.

On average, cognitive reappraisal has been shown to be an adaptive (i.e., associated with positive outcomes) emotion regulation strategy. But is cognitive reappraisal always adaptive? Recent studies demonstrate that those who use a self-immersed perspective (specific memories) versus a self-distanced perspective (general memories) while recalling emotional events show decreased emotional well-being. This leads to the hypothesis that people who take a self-immersed versus a self-distanced perspective while engaging in cognitive reappraisal might exhibit decreased emotional well-being. To test this hypothesis, we asked a community sample of 111 participants (51% female) to use cognitive reappraisal while watching a sad film clip. Following the task, participants were asked to indicate on a Likert-type scale from 1 to 9 to what extent they use general memories or specific memories to reappraise. To measure an index of emotional well-being, participants additionally completed questionnaires in which they indicated how strongly they experienced negative emotions. Negative emotions were assessed cross-sectionally, in a two-week diary assessment, and six months later. Findings indicate that greater use of a self-immersed perspective versus a self-distanced perspective is associated with decreased emotional well-being cross-sectionally, during a two-week diary assessment, and prospectively. Our findings suggest that, depending on the perspective used, cognitive reappraisal may not always be an adaptive emotion regulation strategy.

Poster # 48

Cognitive Control Ability in Positive Reappraisal Across the Life Span
Chang, Y.C., Troy, A. S., Shallcross, A. J., Floerke, V. & Mauss, I. B.

Positive reappraisal, which involves cognitively reframing negative information in a positive light, has been shown to promote resilience against depression during hardships and helps enhance positive emotions in daily life. There are theoretical reasons to predict that high-level cognitive control (CC) processes support positive reappraisal; however, there hasn't been empirical research examining the relationship between CC and positive reappraisal. Previous studies of reappraisal are also limited in that 1) No studies have examined the CC process on valence-specific information in reappraisal; 2) The relationship between CC and positive reappraisal has not yet been studied across the life span. We addressed these limitations by examining the relationship between inhibition of neutral and affective material, working memory for neutral and affective material, and positive reappraisal ability in a community sample, ages 18 through 73 (N=284). Results showed that inhibition of negative information and working memory for positive information both positively correlated with and contribute to individuals' positive reappraisal ability. With age, inhibition of negative information becomes more strongly related to positive reappraisal, but not working memory. Our results indicate valence-specific CC processes are involved in the ability to use positive reappraisal in emotion regulation, and suggest that inhibiting negative information in reappraisal may become more automatic as age advances.

Poster # 49

Does cognitive appraisal predict physiology, expressive behavior and subjective experience?
Balzarotti, S.

Cognitive appraisal theories argue that the impact of emotions lies in the cognitive evaluation of the events to which we attribute them. However, still few studies have tested this claim experimentally, considering physiology and expressive behavior as response systems besides subjective self-report experience. In this study, 46 female participants (age: M = 23.86; SD = 3.14) watched two 4-minute videos (a neutral and an emotional clip showing a childbirth). Physiological measures (skin conductance, interbeat interval, heart rate variability, respiration) and facial expressive behaviour were recorded while participants were watching the videos. Appraisal was measured by means of the Geneva Appraisal Questionnaire (GAQ). Participants reported to have felt both negative (disgust, anxiety, fear) and positive (joy, tenderness, pride) emotions. In multiple regression analyses, appraisal dimensions were significant predictors of self-reported emotions, expressive behaviour and physiological measures, generally supporting appraisal theories. However, for physiology less variance was explained (R2 ranging from .20, p < .01 for IBI to .33, p <.01 for RSA) and only a few measures were predicted (IBI, RSA, pNN50, Respiration rate, SCL).

Poster # 50

social relationships and emotion regulation
Guan, X., Burleson, H. M., & Roberts, N. 

Numerous studies examined the association between social support and well-being or health; however the impact of social support on emotion regulation is not well understood. Social support may be used for emotion regulation by reducing potential adverse effects of stressful events (stress buffering hypothesis) or by direct effects. In the present study, we examined these two possibilities using an online survey from 79 students. Specifically, we tested the association between perceived social support and emotion regulation difficulty and strategy (reappraisal and suppression). Stepwise regression showed social support (t=-1.952, p=.055) and social conflict (t=.015, p=.016) contributed to a model explaining significant variance in emotion regulation difficulty (R square=.17, p=.001). To examine the role of stress, we added perceived stress (t=4.695, p<.001) to the model. It improved the overall model (R square change=.209, p<.001), but reduced the contributions of social support and conflict to non-significance. The interaction of stress and social support was also not significant, which suggest that stress buffering hypothesis does not hold in the context of emotion regulation. Regarding emotion regulation strategies, perceived social support was positively associated the use of reappraisal (t=3.299, p=.001), but use of suppression was not associated with social support, social conflict, or perceived stress. The results may imply a mediation effect of stress between social support and emotion regulation difficulty.

Poster # 51

Reappraisal mediates the relationship between mindfulness and decreased depressive symptoms
Goode, K.M., Shallcross, A.J., & Mauss, I.B.

Research suggests that mindfulness (awareness and acceptance of present-moment experiences) is an adaptive trait associated with greater well-being and less depression. However, little is known about how mindfulness may lead to such outcomes. By promoting awareness and the ability to distinguish 'the self' from emotional content, mindfulness may allow individuals to identify and disengage from negative emotions. Thus, mindfulness may lead to better emotion regulation, which may in turn lead to decreased depression. Indeed, some studies suggest that mindfulness is associated with increased cognitive reappraisal (positively reframing a negative experience). No studies to date, however, have examined whether reappraisal is a link between mindfulness and decreased depression. We tested whether reappraisal mediates the relationship between mindfulness and decreased depressive symptoms in a community sample with remitted Major Depressive Disorder (N = 81). All variables were assessed via self-report. Analyses reveal that reappraisal mediates the relationship between mindfulness and decreased depressive symptoms. Because mindfulness is multi-faceted (it involves observing, describing, not judging, and not reacting to experiences), we explored whether subscales pay different roles. Non-judgment and non-reactivity were the only subscales that replicated the meditational findings, suggesting distinct roles of distinct facets of mindfulness. Although results are cross-sectional, this study is an important first step in understanding the emotion-regulatory mechanisms that may explain how mindfulness leads to decreased depression.

Poster # 52

Aging, Emotions, and Goals: Dispositional Positive Emotions Predict Well-Being Across Adulthood
Danvers, A. F., & Shiota, M. N.

Positive emotions are associated with well-being, in part because they facilitate taking advantage of important opportunities. Functional theories posit that different positive emotions promote adaptive responses to different kinds of opportunities. Across the adult lifespan, however, people's goals change in relative importance. The relative importance of specific kinds of goals - and the associated positive emotions - for well-being may thus change as well. This study examined whether different positive emotion dispositions uniquely predicted well-being in different stages of adulthood. Participants (N = 208) included 71 young, 66 middle-aged, and 71 older adults residing in the San Francisco Bay area. Participants completed the Dispositional Positive Emotions Scale (Shiota et al., 2006) and the Satisfaction with Life Scale (Diener et al., 1985). The seven DPES scales were entered as simultaneous predictors in a regression model predicting well-being, separately for each age group. For young adults, only dispositional pride uniquely predicted well-being (?=0.412, p=0.001). For middle-aged adults, both pride (? =0.490, p<0.001) and contentment (? =0.475, p<0.001) predicted well-being. For older adults, only contentment uniquely predicted well-being (?=0.486, p<0.001). Consistent with functional theories of positive emotions, these results suggest that the implications of various positive emotions for well-being change with the goals that are most salient at different life stages.

Poster # 53

You say potato, I say emotion: The effects of categorization on emotional experience
Kennedy, L. A., Kok, B. E. & Fredrickson, B. L.

Researchers have yet to reach a consensus on how exactly to define emotions. While some researchers believe that emotions are hardwired and follow biologically predetermined scripts (e.g., Izard, 2007), others believe that emotions exist when core affective experiences are labeled via conceptual knowledge (see Barret, 2006). This study was designed to test the conceptual act model of emotion by manipulating conceptual knowledge about an experience (anger) and measuring psychophysiological responses to that experience. Seventy-two participants were instructed to identify a memory of a recent frustrating experience. They were then asked to read and evaluate one of two articles, ostensibly as part of a pilot study for an upcoming project. These articles reported that recent research confirmed anger and embarrassment as either emotional experiences (control) or nonemotional, instinctual experiences (experimental manipulation). Participant ratings of believability, persuasiveness, and understandability of the article did not differ across condition. After reading the article, the experimenter engaged the participant in a stress interview focused on their previously identified frustrating memory and then left the participant alone to silently reflect on this memory. Measures of heart rate, respiration, finger pulse, skin conductance, facial EMG, facial temperature, and movement were collected throughout. Relative to the control condition, participants who had been told that anger was not an emotion showed dampened cardiovascular and respiratory reactivity during the stress interview and accelerated return to baseline for respiratory period and tidal volume during the reflection period. This study provides evidence that conceptual knowledge can influence the physiological experience of emotion.

Poster # 54

Regulation of positive and negative emotion: Effects of social context
Snyder, S.A., Heller, S.M., & McRae, K.L.

Previous research has demonstrated the use of emotion regulation strategies can vary by social context. One unique social context, in terms of emotion regulation, is an annual art festival that creates a temporary culture known as Burning Man. In this social context, participants use expressive suppression (a strategy generally associated with maladaptive outcomes) less frequently, and cognitive reappraisal (a strategy associated with adaptive outcomes) more frequently (McRae, Heller, John, & Gross, 2011).  What is unclear is whether these changes in emotion regulation strategy use are different for the regulation of positive and negative emotions. To address this question, participants at Burning Man were asked to report their use of expressive suppression and cognitive reappraisal, when at the festival and at home. Using three separate datasets, we demonstrated that the decreased use of suppression is more strongly driven by the decreased suppression of positive emotions at Burning Man. We did not observe systematic differences in the reappraisal of positive and negative emotions.  These findings have implications for understanding the maladaptive effects of suppression and the contexts in which they are minimized.         

Poster # 55

Why Bad Moods are Such a Turn-off: Emotion Regulation Difficulties Predict Perceived Attractiveness
Valancova, K., Vincelette, T., Hess, L., Roberts, N. A., & Burleson, M. H.

The present study examined whether emotion regulation difficulties predict spouses' perceptions of each other's physical and sexual attractiveness in married couples.  To our knowledge, no previous study has investigated this question.  We examined data from 15 couples (15 wives, [M age=31.71, SD=5.6] and 14 husbands [M age=32.79, SD=6.0]; one husband did not complete the survey). Spouses completed the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS; Gratz & Roemer, 2004), as well as two scales rating the physical attractiveness and sexual attractiveness of their partner.  Linear regressions showed that as husbands' emotion regulation difficulties increased, wives' perceptions of their husbands' physical (B=-1.428, t=-2.805, p=.015) and sexual attractiveness (B=-1.285, t=-2.627, p=.021) decreased.  Further analyses with DER subscales showed that husbands' impulse control difficulties significantly predicted wives' ratings of husbands' physical (B=-1.526, t=-3.669, p=.003) and sexual attractiveness (B=-1.509, t=-4.103, p=.001).  Husbands' limited access to emotion regulation strategies also predicted wives' perceptions of their husbands' physical (B=-1.199, t=-4.222, p=.001) and sexual attractiveness (B=-1.126, t=-4.234, p=.001). However, wives' emotion regulation difficulties were not related to husbands' perceptions of their wives' physical and sexual attractiveness.  These findings suggest that men's emotion-related qualities may influence their wives' perceptions of their attractiveness, and that women may be more likely than men to take note of emotional and other characteristics aside from appearance, even when judging physical attractiveness. Whether these perceptions influence behavior remains to be determined; nevertheless, these results suggest another reason to attend to emotion regulation difficulties in marriage.

Poster # 56

Differential patterns of emotional regulation associated with Attachment Style
Dwyer, R., Papa, A., Boland, M., & Bonnano, G.A.

Attachment has been strongly linked to patterned regulatory responses to stress. However, there is little empirical research linking attachment styles to emotion regulation concepts of suppression, reappraisal, and flexibility often seen in the emotion literature. This study sought to fill that gap. To examine the link between attachment style and regulation ability, we used the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire to measure self-reported tendency to reappraise and suppress emotions. We also used a lab based task to measure participants' ability to both enhance and suppress expression of emotion as a measure of expressive flexibility (EF). Results indicate that attachment styles highly relate to both indices of emotion regulation. Specifically, ERQ suppression differed by attachment style, F(3,87)=3.11 p<.05. Post hoc analysis revealed that secure attachment style (M=2.62) reported less suppression than insecure styles (M=3.18), t(87)=-2.56 p<.05. ERQ reappraisal also differed by attachment style, with styles low in overall attachment anxiety (secure and dismissing, M=5.01) reporting more of a tendency to reappraise emotionally evocative situations than those high in attachment anxiety (preoccupied and fearful, M=4.31), t(87)=-3.36 p<.01. Attachment styles also differed in EF(3,84)=3.16 p<.05, with postdoc contrasts indicating that fearful attachment styles (M=4.49) demonstrated lower levels of EF than the pooled mean of the other attachment styles (M=6.25) in a lab based task.  Theoretical and clinical implications of these findings are discussed.

Poster # 57

Differential Neural Activations in Affect Labeling and Reappraisal
Torre, J. B., Inagaki, T. I., Mulvenna, C. M., Haltom, K. E. B., Stanton, A. L., & Lieberman, M. D.

Putting feelings into words has long proven to confer both physical and mental health benefits, though the mechanism by which these benefits operate remains undiscovered.  Recently, an incidental form of emotion regulation known as affect labeling has been identified as a possible candidate through which these benefits may be conferred.   Previous work on affect labeling has shown a similar pattern of neural activation as found during studies of more intentional forms of emotion regulation such as reappraisal.  However, no research has been done directly comparing the two forms of emotion regulation within the same imaging study.  In one of the larger neuroimaging studies on emotion regulation to date, 90 subjects (52 male) were asked to engage in affect labeling and reappraisal while viewing highly aversive images from the International Affective Picture Set.  The results, analyzed in a block design at p < .001 and a cluster threshold of 20 voxels, replicated previous work investigating these regulatory strategies showing increased ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (vlPFC) for the affect labeling condition and bilateral vlPFC activation for the reappraisal condition when each is compared against a passive observation condition.  Direct comparison of affect labeling and reappraisal provided new evidence of reduced bilateral vlPFC, increased bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC), and increased right orbitofrontal (rOFC) involvement in affect labeling.

Poster # 58

Adding Injury to Insults: Reappraisal as a Potentially Ruminative Thought Process
Perez, C. R., Newman, M. G., & Soto, J. A.

Cognitive reappraisal has been shown to be an effective emotion regulation strategy associated with greater psychological functioning (Gross & John, 2003).  Recent work, however, suggests that certain emotion-eliciting events, such as discrimination, may not lend themselves to cognitive reappraisal because they offer few, if any, positive reinterpretations.  In these instances, cognitive reappraisal might "fail," emulating the process of rumination-a process linked to decreased psychological functioning (Nolen-Hoeksema, 2000).  The current study experimentally assessed this possibility in a sample of 86 Latino Americans.  Participants were randomly assigned to imagine themselves in either an ethnically discriminating scenario or an equally negative personally insulting scenario.  Subsequently, participants were randomly assigned to either reappraise or ruminate about the scenario.  Self-reported anxiety, anger, and general negative affect were measured before and after both the emotion induction and regulation tasks.  Results indicate that reappraising a personally insulting event was significantly more effective than reappraising ethnic discrimination, which was similar in effect to rumination in response to either scenario.  This is posited to be due to a unique context in which ethnic minorities exist-specifically, a context where one's group is made personally salient by their environment thereby making positive perspectives regarding discrimination improbable despite repeated attempts to find them.

Poster # 59

Emotion Regulation and Depressive Symptoms in a Culturally Diverse Sample
Mortazavi, A., Hanley, K., Dawson-Andoh, N.A., & Soto, J.A.

Previous research has suggested that individuals from different cultures vary in their use of emotion regulation strategies and utilize these strategies at different rates, particularly suppression. We were interested in investigating whether this tendency was demonstrated in an experimental setting and was impacted by the presence of depression symptoms. In order to test this 35 number of European-, 17 African-, and 32 Asian-Americans were asked to engage in a suppression task while measuring emotional experience, expression, and physiology. Participants were asked to watch or suppress their emotionally expressive behavior while watching a disgust-inducing video. Although there were no differences in self-reported disgust in the Watch condition, Asian-Americans experienced more disgust as indicated by an increase in Parasympathetic Nervous System (PNS) activity. In the Suppress condition, among those less depressed, we found that minority individuals reported more disgust and showed increased PNS activity relative to European-Americans. Among those more depressed, Asian and African-Americans showed signs of greater experience of disgust. However, European-Americans who were more depressed showed increased Sympathetic Nervous System activity, indicating greater regulatory efforts. We discuss these findings in relation to the Cultural Norm Hypothesis of emotion regulation. 

Poster # 60

Emotion regulation across cultures: Consequences for psychophysiological reactivity and recovery
Lee, E. A., Soto, J. A., Swim, J. K., Perez, C. R., Hanley, K., & Minnick, M. M.

Historically, much empirical work has documented the benefits of expressing emotions  versus suppressing emotions, suggesting expression may be universally adaptive. However,  suppression may be adaptive for Asian Americans, a cultural group who regards suppression  favorably. Additionally, past work has assumed that expressing negative emotions as a result  of an aversive event is adaptive without equal consideration of expressing positive emotions as  another viable means of regulating emotions. Asian Americans, a cultural group whose norms  discourage the expression of negative emotions may find that the expression of positive emotions  could be adaptive. The current research employed psychophysiological and self-report measures  in order to better understand emotion regulation's consequences for Asian and European  Americans. In a within subjects design, participants watched aversive films and were asked  to engage in suppression or amplification of their emotional responses. No group differences  were found for self-reported negative or positive emotion across suppression and amplification  conditions.  Psychophysiological reactivity and recovery results generally supported predictions regarding the benefits of suppression for Asian Americans and expression for European Americans.  During suppression, Asian Americans showed lower skin conductance levels (SCL), whereas during amplification, European Americans showed higher SCL reactivity, yet faster SCL  recovery. Furthermore, self-reported positive emotion was correlated with faster physiological  recovery for Asian Americans, whereas self-reported negative emotion was correlated with faster  recovery for European Americans. These findings point to the need for more work clarifying the  consequences of emotion regulation across cultural contexts.

Poster # 61

Relations of Self-Regulation and Acculturation to Chinese American Children's Empathy
Main, A., Sum, C., & Zhou, Q.

Using a longitudinal, multi-method design, the present study examined relations of Chinese American children's (N = 258) self-regulation to their empathy and prosocial behavior. The ability to focus one's attention on the needs of others, shift attention away from one's own needs, and inhibit aggressive behaviors have implications for children's empathy (Eisenberg et al., 2007) and prosocial behavior (Padilla-Walker & Christensen, 2011). The present study tested the hypothesis that empathy mediated the relation between self-regulation and prosocial behavior and that these relations were moderated by children's acculturation.    Self-regulation was assessed using parent/teacher reports, computerized tests, and persistence on a behavioral task when children were in first or second grade (Wave 1) and third or fourth grade (Wave 2). Empathy was measured using adult and child report and child report of emotional responses to a film depicting poor children living in China at Wave 2. Whether the child donated a prize to a child from the film indicated prosocial behavior. Acculturation was measured using the Cultural and Social Acculturation Scale (CSAS; Chen & Lee, 1996).    Structural equation modeling showed that empathy mediated relations between attention focusing and inhibitory control (but not cognitive flexibility) and prize donation. Moreover, children high in Western acculturation were more likely to donate a prize to a Chinese child than children high in Chinese orientation. Further analyses revealed children high in Western orientation had higher empathy. Taken together, these findings suggest that prosocial behavior is determined by a complex interplay between self-regulation, empathic disposition, and cultural orientation.     

Poster # 62

Reverse appraisal: Appraisals mediate the effect of emotion displays on decision-making
de Melo, C., Carnevale, P., Read, S., & Gratch, J.

Two studies are described that explore the interpersonal effect of emotion displays in decision-making in a social dilemma. Study 1 (N=405) shows that emotion displays (neutral, joy, anger, sadness and guilt) had an effect on perception of how the person is appraising the social dilemma outcomes (perception of appraisals) and on perception of how likely the person is to cooperate in the future (perception of cooperation). Study 1 also shows that perception of appraisals (partially and, in some cases, fully) mediated the effect of emotion displays on perception of cooperation. Study 2 (N=202) shows that manipulating perception of appraisals produced an effect on perception of cooperation thus, providing evidence for a causal model where emotion displays cause perception of appraisals which, in turn, cause perception of cooperation. Our results lend support to Hareli and Hess' (2010) findings that people's inferences, from emotion displays, about someone else's character are mediated by appraisals. We advance the reverse appraisal proposal that, in line with a social-functions view of emotion (Frijda & Mesquita, 1994; Keltner & Haidt, 1999), argues people can infer, from emotion displays, how others are appraising a situation which, in turn, support inferences that are relevant for decision-making. These results and proposal have implications for decision and emotion theory.

Poster # 63

The protective effects of cognitive reappraisal ability depend on the context: The role of stress co
Troy, A. S. & Mauss, I. B.

Robust evidence shows that cognitive reappraisal is associated with positive psychological health outcomes. However, theories across the social sciences suggest that no psychological process is always adaptive. This raises the question of whether there are contexts in which the use of reappraisal is maladaptive. Theoretically, CR may not be adaptive when a person's situation can -- and should -- be changed. The present study tested the hypothesis that the controllability of a person's situation moderates the relationship between reappraisal and psychological health. To do so, a community sample (N=173) reported their life stress and depressive symptoms and completed a multi-method laboratory measure of cognitive reappraisal ability (CRA). A separate matched community sample (N=21) provided ratings of participants' stressors' controllability. In support of our hypothesis, when life stress was relatively uncontrollable, CRA served a protective function, such that those with higher (compared to lower) CRA had lower levels of depression. In contrast, in the context of relatively controllable stress, higher (compared to lower) CRA was associated with increased depression. These findings support a novel theoretical model in which particular emotion-regulation strategies are not adaptive or maladaptive per se. Rather, a strategy's adaptiveness may depend on the context in which it is used.

Poster # 64

Influences of trait anxiety on emotion regulation selection and physiological response
Hanley, K. E., & Soto, J. A.

We examined the influence of trait anxiety on the selection of strategies to regulate emotion during a stressful speech task and the subsequent effectiveness of that strategy.  Ninety-seven undergraduates with a range of trait anxiety were asked to deal with their anxiety in anticipation of an evaluative speech task by choosing to write about one of three topics corresponding to the three emotion regulation strategies of reappraisal, distraction, and venting.  Self-reported anxiety, sympathetic nervous system (SNS) activity, and parasympathetic nervous system activity (PNS) were measured before, during, and after the writing task.  All participants displayed a stress response from baseline to the speech instructions (increased SNS and decreased PNS activity).  Participants higher in trait anxiety were more likely to choose venting or reappraisal relative to distraction.  Trait anxiety moderated the physiological response from post speech instructions to post regulation.  For individuals with higher levels of trait anxiety, use of all emotion regulation strategies was associated with a continued stress response (no SNS or PNS change).  For individuals with lower levels of trait anxiety, choice of venting and distraction was associated with a non-reactive response (i.e., decreased SNS and PNS), while choice of reappraisal was associated with a relaxed response (i.e., decreased SNS and increased PNS).  Implications for the role of high trait-level anxiety in selection and effective utilization of emotion regulation strategies are discussed.

Poster # 65

The interaction between valuing and defining happiness predicts psychological health
Floerke, V. A., Ford, B. Q., & Mauss, I. B.

United States inhabitants claim what they most want in life is happiness.  However, valuing happiness is sometimes associated with being less happy.  Yet valuing happiness may not necessarily be bad.  Rather, people who become unhappier as a result of valuing happiness may simply define happiness in maladaptive terms.  Defining happiness individualistically may be particularly detrimental. While some Americans value happiness derived from personal feelings and success, some also value happiness cultivated through their interpersonal relationships.  Knowing which types of happiness are most beneficial to well-being is particularly useful in the context of high levels of life stress, for stress strongly affects psychological health.  It was hypothesized that differences in effects of Americans' valuing of happiness on well-being occur based on whether individuals value individualistic or social types of happiness, whereby Americans who value social types of happiness have greater psychological health than Americans who value individualistic types of happiness. To test this hypothesis self-reported measures of how individuals value happiness, how they define happiness, and their psychological health were administered to women with high levels of life stress (N = 76).  As hypothesized, women who highly valued social types of happiness had greater psychological health than women who highly valued individualistic types of happiness. These findings suggest that how much one values and how one defines happiness jointly affect well-being.    

Poster # 66

Examining the Social Comparison Effect of Income on Life Satisfaction
Cheung, F., & Lucas, R. E.

Understanding the relationship between income and well-being is an important research question concerning subjective well-being. Social comparison - the evaluation of one's standings relative to one's peers - has been proposed as a possible mechanism through which income can affect well-being. Past research has also found that individuals are particularly likely to compare themselves with peers in the immediate and local environment - a phenomenon termed the local dominance effect. We examined social comparison and local dominance in a sample of over 1.7 million Americans. Specifically, we attempted to replicate the finding that once personal income is controlled, the income of one's neighbors is negatively associated with life satisfaction. In addition, we tested whether the size of the community moderated this effect. Using multilevel modeling techniques, we predicted life satisfaction from personal income, county income, and size of the county. Controlling for personal income, county income had a significant negative effect on life satisfaction, pointing to a social comparison effect. Moreover, we found that county size moderated the social comparison effect such that the social comparison effect was stronger in smaller counties than in larger counties. Our findings provided evidence for social comparison as an explanation for the relationship between income and well-being. Taken together, the current study suggested that one's standings relative to others matter, especially one's standings to immediate others.

 

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