2015 Society for Personality and Social Psychology Emotion Pre

2015 Society for Personality and Social Psychology Emotion Pre-conference
Long Beach, CA
Poster Abstracts
1. The Relationship Between Fitness-Related Pride and Positive Affect: A Serial Mediation Analysis
Jenna D. Gilchrist, Diane E. Mack, & Catherine M. Sabiston
University of Toronto
This study examined the relationship between fitness-related pride and positive affect in a physically active sample
using Organismic Integration Theory (OIT; Deci & Ryan, 2002) as the guiding framework. The regulations housed
within OIT were hypothesized to act as serial mediators between pride and positive affect over a 4-week period.
Young adults (N = 119; Mage = 20.34; SDage = 1.48) completed self-report instruments of fitness-related pride,
behavioural regulations for exercise, and positive affect. Support for the relative autonomy of the regulations at
Time 1 resulting from pride was found to increase participants’ relative autonomy at Time 2 which in turn produced
greater positive affect. These results are in line Fredrickson (2001) whereby positive emotions promote well-being
not simply in the present moment, but over time through enabling various thought-action tendencies that build
enduring personal resources.
2. Feeling Bad when Should be Feeling Good: Heightened Negative Emotions in Positive Contexts among
Individuals with a History of Non-suicidal Self-injury
Jaya Roy, Emily A.K. Finney, & Tchiki S. Davis
University of California – Berkeley
Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) is defined as the deliberate act of inflicting harm on one’s body in absence of
suicidal intent. This behavior, although common, is not very well understood. Theories suggest that NSSI is
associated with amplified negative emotions during negative situations. To build on and extend this research, we
conducted four studies in which we showed that individuals with a prior history of NSSI also experience greater
negative emotions during positive situations. The aim of our current study is to understand why individuals with a
history of NSSI display greater negative emotions in positive situations. We hypothesized that negative self-beliefs
might be responsible for this relationship. In order to test our hypothesis, we measured negative self-beliefs and
negative emotions in response to a positive film clip in a community sample. To assess whether individuals with a
history of NSSI demonstrate heightened negative emotions in a positive situation compared to controls, and if
negative self-beliefs mediate this relationship, we conducted GLMs. Our findings indicate that the NSSI group
displayed heightened negative emotions in response to the positive film clip, compared to the control group, but this
relationship was no longer significant when accounting for negative self-beliefs. This study provides new directions
in research and treatment development by providing an understanding why individuals who engage in NSSI
experience heightened negative emotions in positive situations.
3. A Neural Model of Self-Control Failure Due to Negative Emotion
David S. Chester, Richard Milich, Donald R. Lynam, David K. Powell, Anders H. Andersen, Ruth A. Baer, & C.
Nathan DeWall
University of Kentucky
The inhibition of prepotent responses is the cornerstone of effective self-regulation. However, inhibitory selfregulation becomes impaired under conditions of negative affect. To assess the neural underpinnings of this effect,
we recruited 41 individuals who tended to respond to negative affect with impulsivity (i.e., high in negative
urgency) and 39 individuals who did not. Both groups completed an inhibitory task under negative, neutral, and
positive affective states while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging. Under conditions of negative
affect alone, participants high in negative urgency showed greater bilateral recruitment of the ventrolateral prefrontal
cortex and anterior insula than their less negatively urgent counterparts. Greater recruitment of these regions was
associated with impaired inhibition. Among these regions, right anterior insula activity mediated the effect of
negative urgency on greater alcohol use for both the year prior to the scan and the month afterwards. These findings
suggest that individuals who tend to experience inhibitory failure under negative affect do so because of an
excessive recruitment of brain regions implicated in inhibition and error awareness. This tendency may put
individuals at risk for real-world negative outcomes such as substance abuse.
4. Positive Empathy Promotes Generosity
Rucha Makati, Brittany Torrez, Sylvia Morelli, & Jamil Zaki
Stanford University
Past research suggests that individuals often behave generously because they empathize with and hope to alleviate
others’ distress. However, it’s also possible that individuals may act generously because they anticipate sharing in
the recipient’s joy (i.e., positive empathy). Therefore, we investigated if witnessing a recipient's positive emotional
reaction increases prosociality between strangers. In the positive feedback condition participants saw their partner’s
(a confederate's) positive reaction after making a generous choice. In the anonymous condition, participants could
not see their partner, but knew their partner would still be affected by the choices. We tested different types of
allocations to see if different monetary amounts can change the generosity. Initial results indicate that participants
are more generous when the total monetary amount was smaller than if allocations involved larger monetary
amounts. Each choice would involve two types of allocations: 1) keeping more money for themselves (i.e. not
generous) or (2) giving more money to the other person (i.e., generous). Initial results suggest that participants make
more generous allocations in the positive feedback condition compared to the anonymous condition. This suggests
that positive empathy encourages generosity.
5. Social Power Leads to a Discordance Between Neural and Self-reported Responses
Jennifer M. Perry,1 Petra C. Schmid,2 Katharina Koch,3 & David M. Amodio2
1. Tufts University, 2. New York University, 3. Sapienza University of Rome
Social power is often thought to decrease empathy for others, yet questions remain regarding the nature of this
effect: are powerful people insensitive to others’ suffering? Or is there a disconnect between their sensitivity to
suffering and their expression of empathy? We examined these questions by testing the effect of power on subjects’
sensitivity to others’ pain, as measured by self-report and neural responses. Participants’ feelings of power were
manipulated with a combination of power posing (expansive vs. restricted posture) and imagination of being in highvs. low-power situations. Participants then viewed photographs of hands and feet in painful and non-painful
situations while EEG was recorded. For each image, participants rated their personal distress, and amplitudes of the
N2 event-related potential, an index of anterior cingulate activity, were assessed. Participants then viewed the
stimuli again, rating the pain experienced by the pictured individuals. Results revealed no effect of power on ratings
of self-distress or other-pain, or on N2 responses to painful stimuli. However, for low-power subjects, greater N2
responses to painful stimuli significantly predicted greater pain ratings, suggesting their sensitivity to pain guided
their empathic response. This link was not found in high-power participants, suggesting that despite sensitivity to
others’ pain, their expressions of empathy may be driven by other processes. These findings suggest a more complex
relationship between power and empathy that may reflect high-power individuals’ strategic responses rather than an
inability to experience empathy.
6. Interactions with the Homeless and Emotions Experienced: The Role of Mental Contamination
Rosemond Travis, Thomas A. Fergus, & Wade C. Rowatt
Baylor University
Mental contamination is a contamination fear that can occur without direct physical contact with a contaminant. It is
a phenomenon characterized by feeling dirty or contaminated in a non-physical way, but is associated with negative
outcomes and emotions such as disgust. Because prejudice toward certain groups is associated with disgust, the
purpose of this experiment was to examine the role of mental contamination in regard to emotions toward homeless
individuals. This study examined negative emotions and empathetic emotions following an imagined contact with
an individual who was either homeless or not homeless. Participants were community adults recruited through the
internet (N = 119). The results suggest that trait mental contamination has a moderating effect on the relationship
between the status of the character in the imagined contact scenario and emotions following the imagined contact.
When trait mental contamination was high, there was a significant increase of negative emotions experienced when
the imagined contact scenario involved a homeless man. When trait mental contamination was low, no group
difference was found in negative emotion; however, empathy significantly increased when the man was homeless
and trait mental contamination was low. When mental contamination was high, there was no group difference in
empathetic emotions. The interaction was robust to the effects of trait neuroticism and physical cleanliness of the
man in the scenario. These results indicate that individual differences in mental contamination could influence the
types of emotions felt toward marginalized groups and the possible resulting outcomes. Application for these results
are explored.
7. Brain Bases of Social Affective Experience: A Meta-analysis of Human Neuroimaging Studies
Michael H. Parrish, Jeffrey A. Brooks, Holly Shablack, & Kristen A. Lindquist
University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill
Human beings are social animals. It thus stands to reason that affective experiences that occur in social contexts are
particularly evocative to humans. Although recent meta-analyses explored the neural basis of human affect and
emotion (Kober et al. 2008; Lindquist et al. 2012; Vytal & Hamann, 2009), no meta-analytic research to date has
systematically explored how the brain responds during social v. non-social affective experiences. To address this
question, we performed a meta-analysis of the neuroimaging literature using 86 studies (182 contrasts) of affect and
emotion published between 1992 and 2013. We used the Multivel Kernel Density Analysis to assess whether there
are relative differences in neural activity during affective experiences in response to social stimuli (including other
people) versus non-social stimuli (not including other people). We found more consistent activation in the left
anterior insula (AI) during social v. non-social affective experiences. A second analysis revealed that this effect is
driven by the experience of unpleasant affect in social contexts. Unpleasant, social experiences resulted in consistent
activity in the AI, anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), caudate, pre-SMA and amygdala; there were no consistent
activations associated with pleasant, social experiences, however. The brain areas observed comprise the “salience
network” that is implicated in attention (Corbetta & Shulman, 2008) and highly arousing affective experiences
(Seeley et al. 2007; Touroutoglou et al. 2011). Our findings thus suggest that social contexts may tune the
experience of affect, resulting in greater vigilance and more arousal.
8. Empathy Avoidance: Individual Differences and Effects on prosocial behavior
Erika Weisz & Jamil Zaki
Stanford University
Empathy is a social bridge that facilitates interpersonal interaction, and yet sometimes people don’t want to
experience it. In two studies, we examined factors that influenced people’s decisions to experience or avoid empathy
and subsequent prosocial behavior. In study 1, participants were given a 50-cent bonus and told that they could
watch a neutral video and donate a minimum of 10 cents to a charity (avoid group), or watch an emotionally
evocative video and choose how much to donate to charity (approach group). 37% of participants chose to sacrifice
part of their bonus and avoid empathy. Participants in the avoid group donated significantly more money than
participants in the empathize group. Among avoid group participants, those with high trait personal distress donated
more than those with low trait personal distress. In another version of the paradigm, we framed the payment
accompanying the neutral video as a forfeit of 10 cents instead of a donation of 10 cents, and found that participants
who avoided empathy still donated more money to charity than those who experienced empathy. In study 2
participants were given the same two options, but this time half of the participants watched their video of choice and
half were forced to watch the other video. When forced to watch the emotionally evocative video, participants who
tried to avoid empathy donated significantly more than participants who voluntarily watched the emotionally
evocative video. These studies provide novel insights about people’s empathic tendencies and the factors that
influence prosocial behavior.
9. P300 Amplitude Predicts Intuitive Prosociality towards Empathized Targets
Ryan W. Carlson, Lara B. Aknin, Patrick L. Carolan, & Mario Liotti
Simon Fraser University
Recent research suggests that making quick, intuitive decisions often leads to greater cooperation than making slow,
reflective ones (Rand, Greene, & Nowak, 2012). But in what contexts is this most likely to occur? One potential
situation is when our decision impacts an empathized target (de Waal, 2008). Here, we explored this possibility by
using event-related potentials (ERPs) to examine rapid neural responses during intuitive and reflective prosocial
decisions. Specifically, we tested whether the P300 - an ERP wave that is reflexively enhanced when viewing
emotional and motivational stimuli - would be influenced by target empathy and predict intuitive prosociality.
Participants (N = 22) received $20 and were asked to accept or reject donation offers either quickly (intuitively, <5
s) or slowly (reflectively, >5 s). The recipients of these donations were charities that participants had previously
labelled as high or low empathy targets. We found that significantly larger P300 amplitude occurred during donation
decisions affecting high-empathy (vs. low-empathy) targets; however this was only true when decisions were
intuitive, not reflective. Interestingly, increased P300 amplitude also predicted subjects’ subsequent decisions to
accept (vs. reject) offers to high-empathy targets. Together, these findings suggest that P300 responses may signal
intuitive prosocial motivation and predict engagement in prosocial behavior. This work offers novel insight into how
prosocial behaviors, such as helping and giving, may arise intuitively toward targets we care for.
10. Encouraging Cognitive Reappraisal in Expressive Writing Has Immediate and Longer-term Psychological
Benefits in Daily Life
Victoria A. Floerke, Maryna Raskin, Lara Vujovic, & Heather L. Urry
Tufts University
Cognitive reappraisal (CR) is effective at regulating emotions in laboratory studies. And yet, evidence suggests that
people do not often use CR in daily life. In the present study, we used expressive writing as a medium through
which to encourage CR use with the idea that doing so might bring psychological benefits. Participants wrote for
several minutes about a stressful event on consecutive days (1 to 6) outside the laboratory. By random assignment,
half of them did CR Writing (CRW; n = 101) in which they were encouraged to rethink the day’s stressful event so
they felt less stressed; the other half did expressive writing (EW; n = 90) in which they simply wrote about their
thoughts and feelings about the day’s stressful event. Participants rated current negative emotion before and after
writing and depressive symptoms on days 1 and 7. As hypothesized, the CRW group used CR more in their writing
(assessed via blind coding) and experienced less negative emotion after writing each day compared to the EW
group. Although depressive symptoms on day 7 were similar in the CRW and EW groups, there was a significant
indirect effect of group such that, relative to the EW group, the CRW group reported less negative emotion after
writing, which was in turn associated with lower depressive symptoms at the end of the week. Overall, these
findings indicate that one can encourage the use of CR in expressive writing in daily life and doing so confers
immediate and longer-term psychological benefits. / Keywords: cognitive reappraisal, stress, daily writing
11. Are Relationships Good for Regulation? Emotion Regulation and Relationship Status among Patients with
Seizure Disorders
Victoria Bryant, Lori Hermosillo, Nicole Roberts, & Mary Burleson
Arizona State University
Past research shows the importance of emotion regulation and close partner relationships for mental and physical
health. In the present study we examined reports of positive and negative emotional experience, reported difficulties
in emotion regulation, and relationship status among 67 individuals suffering from seizure disorders. Seizure
disorders such as epilepsy are often associated with disruptions in emotion and emotion regulation. The ways in
which partner relationships may mitigate or exacerbate these emotional difficulties, however, is relatively
understudied. We hypothesized that participants who were married or cohabiting would report fewer emotion
regulation difficulties, which in turn would be associated with a lesser impact of seizures on overall functioning,
than unmarried participants (not married nor in a committed relationship). Across the sample, greater reported
emotion regulation difficulties (per the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale) were associated with a greater
reported impact of seizures in multiple domains of functioning. Contrary to our predictions, the impact of seizures
on one’s life was worse for married than unmarried participants. Further, greater reported emotion regulation
difficulties, particularly a lack of emotional acceptance, were associated with a greater negative impact of seizures
on one’s life only for married/cohabiting participants. These findings suggest that difficulties regulating emotions
(though not general positive and negative affective experience) are associated with a more widespread impact of
seizures, and that, paradoxically, such difficulties may be more evident and therefore more problematic among those
who are in a committed partner relationship. Findings may be applicable to other neurological or mental health
conditions.
12. Promoting Emotion Regulation through Affectionate Touch
Laura Phrasavath, Mary H. Burleson, & Nicole A. Roberts
Arizona State University
Affectionate touch may serve as a mechanism through which individuals regulate their own and others’ emotions.
We examined both the frequency and desire for affectionate touch in a multi-ethnic college student sample. For
European American women (n=411), greater frequency of affectionate touch with close persons was associated with
reports of more successful negative mood regulation, lower levels of perceived stress, and lower levels of depressive
symptoms; touch in general (not necessarily affectionate touch with close persons) was associated with more
successful negative mood regulation, yet was not associated with reports of stress or depression. For European
American men (n = 163), greater frequency of touch in general and affectionate touch with close persons in
particular were associated with lower reported levels of emotion regulation difficulties. In addition, women
reporting greater emotion regulation difficulties, perceived stress, depressive symptoms, and trait hostility, and men
reporting greater emotion regulation difficulties and depressive symptoms, reported a greater desire for affectionate
touch. These patterns were largely replicated among Mexican/Mexican American participants (129 women, 44
men), whose culture is considered to show greater acceptability and encouragement of touch. Findings are consistent
with previous research and theories suggesting that affectionate touch serves an emotion regulatory or “coregulation” function, as well as perhaps an “emotion homeostatic” function, whereby a desire for affectionate touch
may not simply reflect a lack of emotional connection to others, but also perhaps emerges in response to an
individual’s emotion regulatory deficits, as a mechanism for restoring adaptive emotion regulatory capacity.
13. Pride and Joy: Using Trait Ratings and Mousetracking to Evaluate Positive Emotion Expressions
Elizabeth B. DaSilva & Aina Puce
Indiana University – Bloomington
Distinguishing between positive expressions has important consequences for interpersonal relationships, especially
regarding affiliation, attraction and social status (see Shariff & Tracy, 2009; 2011). Happiness and pride are two
distinct positive emotions that are sometimes confused as both can feature smiles; pride expressions typically also
include upright posture and slight head tilt (e.g. Tracy & Robins, 2004). We studied how raters characterize static
nonverbal facial expressions of happiness and pride for three female actors. Sixty-two undergraduate participants
completed a forced-choice emotion recognition paradigm and evaluated expressions on several trait dimensions.
During trait judgments, happy expressions were rated as significantly more positive and arousing compared to proud
expressions, as well as significantly more ‘extraverted’ and ‘affiliative.’ Recognition accuracy exceeded 90% for
both expressions, with no response time differences between emotions. Analyzing mouse trajectories during
stimulus classification using MouseTracker software (Freeman & Ambady, 2010) found larger deviation scores and
more mouse movements across the enter (e.g. 'x-flips') during pride compared to happiness classification. These
results suggest participants are more confident evaluating happy expressions and experience greater attraction
towards the “happy” alternative when evaluating pride expressions. Moreover, the response profile for two
additional actors whose happiness and pride expressions could not be differentiated featured high happiness
accuracy with high false alarm rates; participants may consider happiness as the default positive emotion category
until there is sufficient information otherwise. Collectively these results offer converging evidence that for most
actors, happy and proud expressions can be distinguished using nonverbal facial cues.
14. Not Everyone Essentializes Emotions: Exploring the Construct of Emotion Incrementalism
Jennifer K. MacCormack & Kristen A. Lindquist
University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill
Some individuals essentialize emotions, viewing emotions as discrete entities with immutable essences (Lindquist et
al., 2013). We explored whether incrementalism—the perspective that emotions are situated and variable—relates to
greater emotional complexity. Eighty-seven participants completed scales assessing their beliefs about the nature of
emotion (Tamir et al., 2007), the role of context in emotion (Owe et al., 2013), need for cognition (Cacioppo et al.,
1984), alexithymia (Bagby et al., 1994), and interoceptive awareness (Mehling et al., 2013). As hypothesized,
incrementalism was predicted by the emotionally complex view that emotions are situated and variable and
inversely associated with difficulty identifying emotions (alexithymia). Emotion incrementalism was also predicted
by adaptive traits such as need for cognition, the belief that the body is predictable, and self-rated interoceptive
awareness. Finally, emotion incrementalism predicted regulatory self-efficacy. Emotion incrementalists may thus
differ from emotion essentialists, and benefit from perceiving emotions as situated and complex.
15. Practice Makes Perfect? The Effects of Habitual Emotional Suppression on Physiological Response to Disgust
Films
Jeong Ha Choi, Sinhae Cho, & Jose Soto
The Pennsylvania State University
Previous studies have shown that suppression of emotional expression in a laboratory setting can lead to increased
physiological responding to emotional stimuli. However, habitual use of expressive suppression across varied
contexts and over time may actually be associated with a dampening of the physiological response to emotional
stimuli as a result of repeated practice in moderating one’s reaction. Given that the correlates of expressive
suppression have also been shown to vary across cultures, this study investigated the effects of habitual expressive
suppression on physiological responding to negative emotional stimuli and whether this relationship was moderated
by ethnicity. Seventy-one college students from four different ethnic backgrounds (25 Whites, 19 Asians, 17
Latinos, and 10 Blacks) completed the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire and subsequently watched five different
films while their skin conductance level (SCL) and other cardiovascular physiology was monitored. The films
consisted of a neutral film, followed by three disgust films and one positive film at the end, with different regulation
instructions given prior to each of the last two disgust films (Suppression or Amplification). Results revealed a
significant main effect of suppression, which was qualified by a suppression x ethnicity interaction. Overall,
individuals who reported greater use of habitual suppression also showed reduced SCL responding to all three
disgust film conditions, but this effect was most pronounced among Latinos, relative to other groups. Thus, repeated
practice of expressive suppression may lead to dampened reactivity to negative stimuli over time, especially among
cultures that discourage negativity and encourage positivity (e.g. Latinos).
16. Compassion Meditation Increases the Duration of Cardiovascular Recovery following an Anger Induction
Paul Condon, Ian Kleckner, Karen Quigley, Lisa Feldman Barrett, & David DeSteno
Northeastern University
Studies indicate that mindfulness training can help regulate emotional experiences by reducing reactivity to stressful
situations. Yet other studies have shown that compassion meditation an produce increased reactivity to the suffering
of others. To further explore the possible divergent effects of these two different types of meditation, we examined
participants experience and reaction to a real-time anger induction in the laboratory after training. After eight-weeks
of compassion- or mindfulness-based training (or an active control), 92 participants returned to the lab to complete
tests of mathematical ability. During the math task, participants were subjected to an orchestrated anger induction
delivered by a rude and incompetent experimenter (cf. Mass et al., 2010). We examined participants' cardiovascular
reactivity and the duration of cardiovascular recovery following the anger induction, a measure that is strongly tied
to long-term cardiovascular health risk. Although all three groups experienced the same amount of cardiovascular
reactivity, those who completed compassion-training experienced longer duration of cardiovascular recovery
compared with those in the control. Those in the mindfulness group did not differ from the control group. These
results demonstrate the importance of examining cardiovascular recovery in addition to reactivity, as well as the
possible divergent effects of two different types of meditation. Although delayed cardiovascular recovery has
negative health consequences, this training-induced effect may be adaptive in some contexts.
17. Gratitude Intervention Increases Giving of Social Support
Mona Moieni, Kate E. Byrne Haltom, Ivana Jevtic, Steve W. Cole, & Naomi I. Eisenberger,
University of California – Los Angeles
The expression of gratitude has been found to increase prosocial behaviors, feelings of connection to others, and
social support. Building on this literature, in the present study, we conducted an intervention in which participants (n
= 68) were assigned to a gratitude or control condition for 6 weeks. Those in the gratitude condition were asked to
write once weekly in response to prompts meant to elicit feelings of gratitude (e.g., writing about people they are
grateful for) while those in the control group wrote once weekly about a routine experience (e.g., longest distance
they walked that day). Both groups were sent an excerpt of their writings later in the week and asked to reflect on
how grateful and connected they felt in response to reading their writing. Directly before and after the 6-week
intervention, all participants were asked about the degree to which they give social support to others using the 2-
Way Social Support Scale. We found that the gratitude (vs. control) group reported increases in how much social
support they gave others post-intervention (controlling for pre-intervention levels). We also found that feelings of
connectedness, but not feelings of gratefulness, in response to the weekly writings moderated this effect, such that
those who felt more connected reading their weekly writings reported increased giving of social support postintervention. Adding to the current literature on gratitude and prosocial behaviors, these findings suggest that
gratitude increases giving of social support, and that feelings of connection are an important moderator of this
relationship.
18. Awesome Day Keeps Stress Away: the Effect of Awe on Daily Hassles
Gening Jin, Yang Bai, Jingxin Chen, Urara Oe, Yee Tsoi Ching, & Dacker Keltner
University of California – Berkeley
Positive emotions are frequently experienced in everyday life and they have substantial influence on people’s
emotional well-being. Previous research has documented that positive emotions could facilitate broaden-minded
stress coping style and elevate positive affects. However, research on this positive emotion “awe” and its effect on
stress is sparse. In two experiments, we investigated (1) the effect of the emotion of awe on changing people’s
perception on stress caused by major life events and daily hassles; (2) how such function of the emotion of awe on
the perception of stress was different from other positive emotions, such as joy. Results across the two experiments
demonstrated that both the emotion of awe and the emotion of joy could lead to a generally low level of perceived
stress, regardless of the stressor being daily hassles or major life events. However, compared to the emotion of joy,
the emotion of awe had lager effect on reducing the perceived stress caused by daily hassles.
19. Lust is Pleasant, but does that Make it Good? Examining the Relationship between Evaluative and Hedonic
Judgments of Emotion.
Ajay B. Satpute, Alex S. Lee, Maxine S. Garcia, & Vivian L. Carrillo
Pomona College
Evaluating emotion categories in terms of their “goodness” or “badness” can guide which emotions are cultivated in
society (e.g. from parents to children, by a religious community, or across cultures). Prior work examining emotion
knowledge often focused on the hedonic value of emotions without consideration of how people might evaluate
these emotions along other dimensions. Here, we tested whether emotions differed in terms of how much their
evaluation could be accounted for by hedonics alone. Participants judged several emotion words for hedonic value
(“pleasantness”/“unpleasantness”), but also made evaluative judgments of them (“good”/“bad”, and “importance”).
We observed that some emotions such as happiness, misery, and jealousy showed strong positive associations
between their evaluative and hedonic judgments. But for other emotions, such as guilt, empathy, and fear, their
hedonic value was not as strongly associated with how they were evaluated. As for importance, social emotions such
as empathy and guilt were judged as more important than putative “survival” and reproduction oriented emotions
such as disgust and lust. These findings suggest that several dimensions may contribute to how an emotion is
evaluated, and points to several future avenues for work examining contextual, individual, and sociocultural
variability in how people decide which emotions are good and which are bad.
20. Low Levels of Positive Emotional Feedback and Somatization
Adam Kiss, Cayla J. Duncan, & Mary H. Burleson
Arizona State University
The need for interpersonal relationships and feelings of belonging has long been considered essential for positive
mental health in humans. Infants learn patterns of seeking and receiving care and affection from interactions with
their caregivers. These patterns develop into attachment styles, and are carried into adulthood when dealing with, for
example, romantic partners. The present poster explores somatization as one possible consequence of receiving
suboptimal levels of positive reinforcement manifested as feelings of being loved and cherished by a spouse. We
also examined how positive and negative moods may moderate the prevalence of somatic complaints when positive
emotional feedback is low. Data were gathered from a sample of 268 couples who had been married for at least 6
months. Participants completed online diary entries for two weeks and completed online questionnaires. We found
that low reports of feeling loved and cherished significantly predicted reports of pain for husbands, but not for
wives. Reports of negative mood were significant predictors of reporting physical pain for both sexes.
21. The Role of Emotion Words in the Experience and Perception of Emotion: A Meta-Analysis of the Neuroimaging
Literature
Jeffrey A. Brooks, Holly Shablack, Michael Parrish, Maria Gendron, Ajay B. Satpute, Katie Hoeman
University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill, Northeastern University, & Pomona College
Recent work supporting a psychological constructionist approach to emotion suggests that the language we use to
describe emotions can also partially constitute them (Lindquist et al. in press). A constructionist approach
hypothesizes that affect is represented in the brain differently when experienced or perceived in the context of
emotion words. To observe the differences in neural activity when emotion words were present vs. not present in an
experimental task, we performed a meta-analysis of the neuroimaging literature on emotion. We included 809
contrasts across 352 studies in a Multilevel Kernel Density Analysis (MDKA) performed in NeuroElf. When
emotion words were present (v. not present) in experimental tasks, there was more frequent activity in the thalamus
(p < .001) and at a lower threshold (p < .02), the dorsal anterior insula, left inferior frontal gyrus, and caudate
nucleus. By contrast, when emotion words were not present in experimental tasks (v. present), there was more
frequent activity in the right amygdala (p < .001). Together, these findings are consistent with evidence from studies
of “affect labeling” (Lieberman et al. 2007), which show decreased activity in the amygdala when participants label
the meaning of facial expressions of emotion. Our findings are also consistent with the constructionist view that
words help make meaning of otherwise ambiguous affective states by increasing sensory processing of affective
stimuli and reducing their uncertainty. Implications for the role of emotion words in emotional experiences and
perceptions will be discussed.
22. The Adaptiveness of Emotion Regulation Strategies: Reappraisal Leads to More Success and Less Regret than
Suppression
Lameese Eldesouky &Tammy English
Washington University in St. Louis
Previous research has found that emotion regulation strategies can have distinct affective and social consequences.
Specifically, cognitive reappraisal has been found to contribute to positive outcomes (e.g., feeling more positive
emotion), while expressive suppression has been associated with negative outcomes (e.g., feeling more negative
emotion). This implies that reappraisal is a more adaptive strategy to use than suppression. However, it is unclear
whether people perceive reappraisal to always be more helpful than suppression in accomplishing their goals. In the
current study, we examined people’s goals in a situation where they regulated their emotions and whether using
reappraisal or suppression helped them accomplish their goals. 97 participants were assigned to one of two emotion
regulation conditions (suppression or reappraisal) and asked to write about situations in which they used the
assigned regulation strategy. For each situation, they rated how much they had various emotional and instrumental
goals and how much suppression (or reappraisal) helped them achieve their goals. As expected, individuals in the
reappraisal condition reported that reappraisal helped them accomplish their goals, led to positive outcomes, and was
a strategy they would use again in the same context. On the other hand, individuals in the suppression condition
reported that suppression made it difficult for them to accomplish their goal, led to negative outcomes, and was a
strategy they regretted using. This suggests that even when considering context, reappraisal may be more generally
adaptive to use than suppression.
23. Explicit and Implicit Emotion Perception Bias Predicts Romantic Relationship Outcomes
William J. Brady, Jonathan B. Freeman, & Emily Balcetis
New York University
Emotion expressions signal internal states of the expresser, but individuals vary in the information they extract from
emotion signals, and such variation may have consequences for interpersonal interactions. We proposed that people
vary in emotion perception bias, or a systematic tendency to extract more frequently either positive of negative
information from emotion expressions. We also posited that variation in emotion perception bias would predict
romantic relationship outcomes. 280 participants categorized ambiguous (blends of happy and sad / angry
expressions) and non-ambiguous emotion expressions as positive or negative. We tracked trajectories of their
computer-mouse movements to the category labels to index bias in emotion perception. Participants then recalled a
recent conflict experience with their relationship partner and reported how negative they felt before, during and after
the conflict. When categorizing ambiguous emotions, participants showed variation in emotion perception bias
measured as a) the discrepancy in the number of positive vs. negative end categorizations made, and b) in attraction
toward opposite categories measured via mouse-tracking. Furthermore, participants who categorized ambiguous
faces more often as negative reported greater negative affect during the recalled conflict. Additionally, for nonambiguous faces, greater attraction toward the negative category in mouse trajectories, regardless of end
categorization, was related to greater escalation of negative affect leading up to conflict. These preliminary results
suggest (1) that emotion perception bias can be measured with emotion stimuli of varying ambiguity if measured
explicitly and implicitly, and (2) emotion perception bias measured explicitly and implicitly may be importantly
related to interpersonal relationship outcomes.
24. A Default Approach Bias Following Human Amygdala Lesions
Laura Harrison, Rene Hurlemann, & Ralph Adolphs
California Institute of Technology & University of Bonn
Approach and avoidance constitute a basic dimension of all animal behavior, important in guiding emotional
reactions to stimuli. A large literature documents approach and avoidance elicited by specific sensory stimuli, yet
comparatively little is known about default approach biases in the absence of specific information. The amygdala, a
cluster of nuclei in the medial temporal lobe, is well-known to process threat and fear in response to stimuli, with
bilateral amygdala damage resulting in a constellation of behavioral and cognitive changes that largely bias towards
approaching stimuli that are normally avoided. The amygdala is also sensitive to ambiguity, a stimulus feature
strongly correlated with risk-assessment - a defensive behavior common across animal species. In the present study,
we tested whether the amygdala’s role in approach biases is based on a basic dimension (ambiguity) or whether it
depends on certain learned stimulus features (facial features, for which a specific deficit is implicated in amygdala
damage). A novel task asked three rare patients with bilateral amygdala lesions to make approach-related judgments
about intact photos of faces and the same stimuli but with all internal facial features occluded. Direct comparisons of
these stimuli isolated a stimulus-independent bias. The amygdala lesion patients showed a greater tendency than
controls to default to rating ambiguous occluded faces as more approachable than unambiguous whole faces. This
finding suggests that the amygdala is necessary for cautionary behavior given a lack of information.
25. The Self-Control of Avoidance Motivation
Nicholas J. Kelley & Brandon J. Schmeichel
Texas A&M University
Self-control involves the inhibition of dominant response tendencies. Most research on self-control has examined the
inhibition of approach-motivated tendencies. For example, experiments manipulating frontal brain activity via
transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) have found that greater right than left frontal cortical activity increases
self-control over approach-motivated responding (e.g., risk-taking in a gambling task; Fecteau et al., 2007). The
current experiment assessed the effects of manipulated increases in right versus left frontal cortical asymmetry on
the inhibition of avoidance-motivated responses. Prior to tDCS, participants used a joystick to pull neutral images
toward and push threatening images away from the self. Then they received 15 minutes of tDCS to increase relative
left frontal cortical activity, increase relative right frontal cortical activity, or sham stimulation. After stimulation,
participants had to pull threatening images toward or push neutral images away from the self. This response requires
self-control insofar as pushing (not pulling) threatening stimuli away is the pre-potent response tendency (e.g.,
Rinck & Becker, 2007). Results revealed that participants who received stimulation to increase relative right frontal
cortical asymmetry pulled threats toward the self more quickly relative to other participants. These results lend
support to the idea that both approach and avoidance impulses share a common neural mechanism Š—– relative
right frontal cortical asymmetry.
26. Oxytocin Receptor Gene and Ingroup Bias in Empathy-related Brain Activity
Siyang Luo, Yina Ma, Ting Zhang, Wenxin Li, Wenxia Zhang, Yi Rao, & Shihui Han
Peking University
The human brain responds more strongly to ingroup than outgroup individuals' pain. This ingroup bias varies across
individuals and has been attributed to social experiences. What remains unknown is whether the ingroup bias in
brain activity is associated with a genetic polymorphism. In study1, we investigated genetic associations of racial
ingroup bias in brain activity to racial ingroup and outgroup faces that received painful or non-painful stimulations
by scanning A/A and G/G homozygous of the oxytocin receptor gene polymorphism (OXTR rs53576) using fMRI.
We found that G/G compared to A/A individuals showed stronger activity in the anterior cingulate (ACC) to racial
ingroup members' pain, whereas A/A relative to G/G individuals exhibited greater nucleus accumbens (NAcc)
activity to racial outgroup members' pain. Moreover, the racial ingroup bias in ACC activity positively predicted
participants’ racial ingroup bias in implicit attitudes and NAcc activity to racial outgroup individuals’ pain
negatively predicted participants’ motivations to help racial outgroup members. In study2, we investigated whether
the association between OXTR rs53576 and racial ingroup bias in empathy (RBE) was moderated by mini-group
manipulation by using EEG. We found that excluding same-race individuals as one's opponent team for
competitions eliminated the RBE by decreasing neural responses to pain expressions in same-race faces in G/G but
not A/A individuals. Our results suggest that the two variants of OXTR rs53576 are associated with racial ingroup
bias in brain regions that are linked to implicit attitude and altruistic motivation, respectively, and this association
will be modulated by temporary group membership.
27. Emotional Expression in Older Adults: Exploring the Positivity Effect
Alison Cooke & Lisa Emery
Appalachian State University
Prior research has found that older adults have more difficulty recognizing some facial expressions (anger, sadness,
and fear) than others (disgust, happiness, surprise), a finding that has been attributed in part to aging-related brain
changes (Ruffman et al., 2008). The current study examined whether the same pattern was found for older adults’
ability to create facial expressions. A sample of 26 adults between the ages of 61 and 81 were shown basic emotion
words for 3 seconds and were asked to create the emotion with their facial expressions. Independent raters then rated
the intensity and accuracy of the emotions expressed (modeled after Borod et al., 2004). Intensity was measured by
separating the different expressive areas (eyes, mouth, forehead, etc.) and measuring the intensity of each area to
create an overall estimate of the intensity of the emotion. Accuracy was measured by again separating the different
expressive areas and assessing the accuracy for each area for an overall estimate of accuracy. The results showed
that older adults produced more accurate and intense facial expressions of happiness and surprise, compared to the
four negative emotions. Within the four negative emotions, fear expressions were significantly less intense and
accurate than anger, disgust, and sadness. Overall, the pattern of expressivity only partially matched prior patterns of
recognition accuracy. These findings suggest that older adultsŠ—È facial expressions of emotion, as opposed to
their recognition of emotion, may be driven by motivational changes related to the positivity effect (Carstensen &
Mikels, 2005).
28. The Collapse of Compassion Revisited: The Role of Cultural Collectivism
Yujin Jeong, Hu Young Jeong, Hyun Euh, & Hoon-Seok Choi
Sungkyunkwan University
Compassion promotes pro-social behavior and is essential for a mature society. One puzzling aspect of compassion
found in the Western literature is that people feel less compassion for many victims than for a single victim.
Previous studies focusing on the motivational underpinnings of the phenomenon suggest that people regulate their
feelings of compassion due to the costs associated with helping many victims. Unlike the findings reported in the
West, our own research involving Korean college students showed an opposite trend (i.e. the augmentation of
compassion). In the current study, we examined the role of cultural collectivism in the experience of compassion. A
total of seventy Korean college students participated in the study. We measured participants’ beliefs in cultural
collectivism using items driven from existing IND-COL scales. We presented a picture of either a child or 8 children
suffering from disease and malnutrition in the Darfur region of Sudan and asked our participants to indicate the
degree of compassion and their willingness to help the victim(s). We found a significant interaction between
participants’ cultural collectivism and the number of victims (one vs. eight) on both compassion and intention to
help. Simple slope analysis indicated that, for individuals with a strong collectivistic orientation, the number of
targets positively predicted both compassion and intention to help. In contrast, compassion was not related to the
number of targets among individuals with a weak collectivistic orientation. We discuss the implications of these
findings and future directions for research on compassion.
29. Emotional Extremes Inhibit Emotional Understanding
Leigh K. Smith & Timothy Loving
University of Texas – Austin
Not all emotions are created equal — some are more difficult to understand than others. Specifically, our research
demonstrates that extremely weak and extremely strong emotions may be harder to understand than moderate ones.
In two studies, participants reflected on the intimate details of either recently falling in love or recently going
through a breakup. Immediately following the reflection, participants indicated how strong their emotions were as
well as how clear their emotions were. They also wrote for 7 minutes and their writing was coded for uncertaintyrelated phrases such as “I don’t know what I am feeling right now.” Lastly, they completed a version of the PANAS
to which we added “I am not sure” as a response item so that participants could indicate a lack of clarity around any
specific emotion. Multiple regression analyses confirmed that emotional intensity was curvilinearly related to all
measures of emotional understanding, regardless of emotion valence. Physiological arousal (indexed by acute blood
pressure and increased cortisol) mediated the relationship between emotional intensity and emotional understanding.
Our results suggest that strong emotions are accompanied by correspondingly intense physiological symptoms
which may in turn disrupt cognitive processes related to emotional understanding, whereas weak emotions are
accompanied by such faint physiological symptoms that they may be difficult to detect or sustain attention to, and
are therefore harder to label. In contrast, moderately intense emotions may produce enough physiological arousal to
be consciously detected without disrupting cognitive processes related to identification, interpretation and ultimately
understanding.
30. The Association between Emotional Ratings and Physiology in Dementia Patients Predicts Caregiver Wellbeing and Mental Health
Casey L. Brown, Sandy Lwi, James J. Casey, Marcela Otero, & Robert W. Levenson
University of California – Berkeley
Many emotion theories suggest that emotional experience is highly influenced by underlying physiological activity.
The integration of emotional experience and physiology is thought to involve the anterior insula. The insula is
particularly vulnerable to degeneration in frontotemporal dementia (FTD), a neurodegenerative disease that
negatively affects emotional functioning. We assessed the association between moment-to-moment ratings of
another person’s emotional state (a task that is thought to produce mimetic emotional experience in the rater) and
raters’ own physiology using time-lagged cross-correlations in 33 FTD patients. Patients watched an 80-second film
clip in which the main character experiences negative and positive emotions. Patients continuously rated the
emotions of the main character using a rating dial while their physiology was recorded. Lower correlations between
emotion ratings and physiology in patients is predictive of lower emotional well-being, b=.541, t(29)=3.0, p=.006,
and worse general health, b=.541, t(29)=3.0, p=.006, in their caregivers (even after controlling for patients’
cognitive impairment and accuracy in rating the clip). Preliminary neuroanatomical data for 6 of these FTD patients
also suggests that lower correlations between emotion ratings and physiology is associated with smaller right insula
volume, r(4)=.845, p<.03. We believe that low association between emotional ratings and physiology is a general
marker of emotional dysfunction in dementia patients and that this dysfunction adds to caregiver burden, leading to
lower caregiver well-being and lower mental health.
31. Interpersonal Emotion Regulation Style Predicts Social-emotional Well-being
W. Craig Williams & Jamil Zaki
Stanford University
Individuals often use emotion regulation strategies such as reappraisal, but also often manage their emotions through
social interactions. To assess whether people differ in their use of interpersonal emotion regulation (IER), and
whether this predicts well-being, we developed and validated the Interpersonal Regulation Questionnaire (IRQ). In
Study 1 (N= 285), factor analysis of 87 test items revealed a 2x2 structure corresponding to individuals’ (1)
tendency to pursue and (2) perceived efficacy of IER for (1) reducing negative and (2) increasing positive emotion.
In Study 2 (N = 347), participants completed a reduced 16-item IRQ and individual difference measures. Higher
IRQ scores predicted individuals’ reported social integration, tendency to socially share their emotions, and positive
emotional experience, but did not track socially desirable responding. In Studies 3a (N = 186) and 3b (N = 200),
participants chose whether to complete online tasks either alone or with another individual. The negative-tendency
IRQ subscale predicted stronger desire to affiliate during an unpleasant math task (3a), whereas the positivetendency IRQ subscale predicted greater affiliation for a pleasant image-rating task (3b). In Studies 4a (N = 391)
and 4b (N = 396), participants wrote about disclosing a recent emotional event to a friend, and rated how well their
friend responded. Here, the negative-efficacy IRQ subscale predicted higher support ratings for unpleasant
experiences (4a), but the positive-efficacy IRQ subscale predicted better support following pleasant experiences
(4b). In sum, individuals vary in IER style, and this variation critically predicts individual difference and
experimental measures of well-being.
32. Embracing Diversity on a Pale Blue Dot: Using Awe to Improve Whites’ Treatment of Blacks
Rodolfo Cortes Barragan
Stanford University
Recent researchers have suggested that experiencing awe does not improve interracial attitudes and behaviors (Lai,
Haidt, & Nosek, 2014; Lai et al., 2014). This conclusion seems to be incompatible with past perspectives suggesting
that awe does, in fact, produce better relational outcomes (e.g., Keltner & Haidt, 2003.) In this research, new
manipulations that targeted awe were contrasted with robust control conditions. The findings systematically showed
that awe does improve interracial attitudes and behaviors. In Study 1, reading a famous description of the Earth as a
“pale blue dot” that is humanity’s only home (vs. the Wikipedia description) led White participants to support the
“#BlackLivesMatter” movement. In Study 2, participants who wrote about personal experiences with awe (vs.
amusement) showed greater openness to learning about Black culture and befriending Blacks. Study 3 manipulated
awe by having participants collect awe-inspiring images of the universe (vs. pictures of computers) and found the
same effects. Study 4 suggests a mechanism: awe builds a sense of connection to the rest of humanity. Taken as a
whole, the studies suggest that experiences with awe can, in fact, improve interracial attitudes and behaviors.
Implications for the role of self-transcendental emotions in facilitating intergroup harmony are discussed.
33. The Causes and Consequences of ‘Parochial Empathy' during Intergroup Conflict
Emile Bruneau, Mina Cikara, & Rebecca Saxe
Harvard University & Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Empathy can drive altruistic behavior. However, in competitive intergroup contexts, empathy may be hijacked to
serve intergroup goals: increasing in-group empathy, decreasing out-group empathy, and especially generating large
differences in empathy depending on group membership (i.e. 'parochial' empathy) may restrict out-group help and
even license out-group harm. We predicted that parochial empathy would be independent of an individual's overall
(i.e. trait) empathy, and would be particularly relevant to intergroup contexts. We tested this prediction in 3
experiments. In novel groups (Study 1), and in real groups (Americans versus Arabs, Studies 2 and 3), we found that
parochial empathy is unrelated to trait empathy, but correlated with in-group versus out-group identification and
social dominance orientation. Parochial empathy predicted intergroup attitudes and behaviors better than either ingroup, out-group or trait empathy. These data illuminate a construct of empathy that may be particularly relevant to
intergroup conflict.
34. Too Much Emotion and Too Little Control: Group Membership and Perception of Emotional Appropriateness
Jacqueline S. Smith, Marianne LaFrance, & John F. Dovidio
University of Massachusetts – Amherst & Yale University
When is an emotional display perceived as passionate and when is it judged as excessive? Norms of appropriate
emotional expression operate in most if not all social contexts, but the boundaries of what is considered appropriate
may shift depending on the group memberships of the expresser and observer. We investigated whether group
membership, specifically whether targets are members of an ingroup or outgroup, leads to differences in perceptions
of the appropriateness of another’s emotion. Participants read scenarios in which members of minimal groups (Study
1) or political groups (Study 2) expressed high-intensity anger or happiness in a workplace context. We examined
perceptions of appropriateness of the target person’s emotion in terms of both felt and expressed emotion. As
predicted, emotional expressions were perceived to be less appropriate when displayed by outgroup compared to
ingroup members in both studies. Whereas there was no difference in the perceived appropriateness of felt emotion
for members of minimal groups in Study 1, in Study 2 using real groups we found that outgroup members were
perceived as less appropriate in terms of both experienced and expressed emotion. Furthermore, political outgroup
members were actually perceived to be expressing more emotion than ingroup members and were attributed less
emotional control, an effect that was mediated by both perceived intensity and perceptions of emotional
appropriateness. Being perceived to deviate from emotion norms and lack sufficient emotional control likely
undermines perceptions of outgroup members’ competence and may obstruct opportunities for cooperation and
compromise.
35. Going Downhill? Maybe It’s Just in Your Head: The Moderating Role of Affect Discrepancy in Age and Health
Decline
Michael C.H. Chan & Helene H. Fung
The Chinese University of Hong Kong
The Affect Valuation Theory (AVT; Tsai, Knutson, & Fung, 2006) suggested that how one ideally wants to feel, or
ideal affect, and how one actually feels, or actual affect, were two distinct constructs. Previous research on the
theory further suggested that bigger discrepancy between ideal and actual affect was associated with more
depressive symptoms. However, little research has investigated the relationship between affect discrepancy and
physical health. Aging is related to more health-related symptoms and smaller affect discrepancy (Scheibe, English,
Tsai, & Carstensen, 2013). In this study, we investigated the role of affect discrepancy in the relationship between
aging and physical health decline. In this study, we recruited 321 Hong Kong Chinese participants (166 Female)
with age ranging from 16 to 89 years old, and they completed the Affect Valuation Inventory (Tsai et al. 2006) as
well as the Wahler Physical Symptoms Inventory (Wahler, 1968). Increase in age was related to more health-related
symptoms and smaller positive affect discrepancy. Furthermore, we found an Age X Lower Arousal Positivity
(LAP) interaction in predicting health-related symptoms. Smaller discrepancy was related to less age-related health
symptoms. We also found gender differences in the moderation (c.f. Bagozzi, Wong, & Yi, 2010). Implications of
the results to the field of affective science X physical health are further discussed (c.f. DeSteno, Gross, &
Kubzansky, 2013).
36. Fire on Ice: How Emotion Juxtaposition and the Temporal and Social Placement of Emotion Generates
Leadership Effectiveness
Anthony Silard
IESE Business School
While emotion and leadership is a burgeoning topic in social psychological and organizational research, little is still
known about the actual emotion-related behaviors of leaders, the granulated mechanisms that underlie these
behaviors, and the contingencies that influence their relevance to the generation of beneficial organizational
outcomes. Through an inductive, multiple-case study drawing from 19 semi-structured interviews with individuals
that have alternately occupied leader and follower roles in a wide array of contexts, I develop a model of the
behaviors, mechanisms, contingencies, and outcomes of the leader employment of emotional labor and regulation
tactics. I uncover that emotions are temporally and socially situated, that effective emotion-related leadership
behaviors comprise three dimensions of emotion juxtaposition - valence, social, and expression-suppression - and
that these dimensions are operationalized through the mechanisms of developmental concern and particularized
holistic interest. I further discover that these leader behaviors lead to positive organizational outcomes such as
follower loyalty, developmental growth, and engagement, and that these relationships depend on the leader traits of
authenticity and competence and the contextual factors of transcendent motives and status differentiation.
Implications for leadership research and practice are discussed.
37. Negating versus engaging with Stress: Types of Reappraisal Differentially Affect Response to Stress
Alissa Beath, Mike Jones, & Julie Fitness
Macquarie University
Reappraisal, an emotion regulation strategy that involves changing the interpretation of the negative emotioneliciting stimuli, is beneficial in decreasing individuals’ stress, though differences may exist between sub-types of
reappraisal. The present study set out to investigate the stress response of individuals who reappraised the
significance of the present situation (situation-focused reappraisal) versus those who reappraised the wider goal
(goal-focused reappraisal). Forty-nine undergraduate psychology students (86% female) participated in the study,
randomly allocated to receive situation-focused (n = 15), goal-focused (n = 16) or no reappraisal (n = 14)
instructions. Physiological data were measured using skin conductance level (SCL), and stress was induced by
telling participants they were to complete a simple task that was predictive of psychological career success, which
actually consisted of difficult IQ-test items. The situation-focused group experienced the least increase in SCL,
whereas the goal-focused group experienced a significantly greater increase in SCL in anticipation of the task, but
less of an increase in SCL throughout the task, compared to the control group. The results demonstrate the
differential benefit of types of reappraisal on responses to stress: reappraising the present situation is cognitively
simpler, but might be less beneficial long-term, than reappraising the goal.
38. The Relationship between Emotion Regulation Skills and Dyadic Coping
Sarah R. Holley, Sarah Wagner, Kera Mallard, Ashley K. Randall, & Casey Totenhagen
San Francisco State University, Arizona State University, & University of Alabama
Dyadic coping (efforts used by relationship partners to help one another deal with stressful events; Bodenmann,
2005) has important implications for individual and relationship functioning. Specifically, supportive dyadic coping
(SDC; support provided to assist the partner in his/her coping efforts) is beneficial, whereas negative dyadic coping
(NDC; superficial, ambivalent, or hostile support provision) is detrimental (e.g., Papp & Witt, 2010). We
investigated whether emotion regulation skills (ERS) were associated with tendencies to engage in supportive versus
negative dyadic coping behaviors in both partners (i.e., actor and partner effects). Given that adaptive dyadic coping
requires the individual to function effectively in stressful situations, emotion regulatory abilities may be a critical
factor in facilitating efforts to engage in dyadic support processes during distressing times. We hypothesized that
ERS will be a) positively associated with SDC, and b) negatively associated with NDC. Two hundred forty-nine
couples completed an online survey. ERS were assessed with the Difficulty with Emotion Regulation Scale (Gratz
& Roemer, 2004); dyadic coping was assessed with the Dyadic Coping Inventory (Bodenmann, 2008). Hypotheses
were evaluated using Actor-Partner Interdependence Models (Cook & Kenny, 2005). Results supported our
hypotheses. For both women and men, a) ERS were positively associated with their own and their partner’s SDC;
and b) ERS were negatively associated with their own and their partner’s NDC. This suggests that emotion
regulation skills are linked to an individual’s ability to provide adaptive support to his/her partner during stressful
times, as well as to the partner’s ability to provide such support.
39. Empathy and Appraisal: Appraisals of Other-Agency Cause Empathic Anger
Joshua D. Wondra & Phoebe C. Ellsworth
University of Michigan
We used appraisal theories of emotion to predict that empathy, feeling what another feels, is based on interpretations
(appraisals) of others’ situations, just like firsthand emotions. Appraisals that bad situations are caused by someone
else (high other-agency appraisal) make people feel angry, but appraisals that they are caused by bad circumstances
(high situational agency appraisal) make people feel sad. In one study, subjects read about a disadvantaged high
school student who applied to college and received only rejections. Although the rejected student felt sad, subjects
felt angry when the student’s friend caused the bad outcome (other-agency condition, n = 71) but not when the
student’s disadvantaged circumstances caused it (situational agency condition, n = 74). The results conflict with
contemporary theories that base empathy on perceptions of the other’s emotional state, but they are consistent with
an appraisal theory approach where empathy is one possible outcome of general appraisal processes.
40. The Psychological Structure of Humility
Aaron C. Weidman, Joey t. Cheng, & Jessica L. Tracy
University of British Columbia & University of California – Irvine
Religious scholars, philosophers, and psychologists have long considered humility an important emotion; it is
central to modesty and prosociality more generally, and, somewhat paradoxically, may be experienced in response
to both success and failure. Yet, no studies of which we are aware have systematically explored the psychological
structure of this emotion, leaving open the question: what exactly is humility? To address this gap in knowledge, the
present research provided the first comprehensive, bottom-up examination of the content and psychological structure
of humility. Across four multi-method studies (total n = 1440) using cluster analyses of semantic similarity ratings,
and exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis of state and trait emotional experiences, evidence for two largely
independent humility factors consistently emerged. The first, which we labeled appreciative humility, is comprised
of items such as considerate, generous, and understanding, and is positively correlated with authentic pride,
agreeableness, expressions of gratitude, and seeing oneself as moral. The second factor, labeled self-abasing
humility, is comprised of items such as meek, submissive, and worthless, and is positively correlated with shame,
neuroticism, social withdrawal, and low self-esteem. Based on these results we developed and validated brief sixitem scales that can be used to reliably measure each humility dimension. Together, these findings elucidate the
content and dual-faceted structure of humility, and provide a novel instrument for the assessment of humility in
future work.
41. Rethinking prejudice: Subjective interpretation of implicit bias as sympathy reduces the relationship between
implicit bias and fear of African-American men
Kent M. Lee, Kristen A. Lindquist, & B. Keith Payne
University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill
Negative affect toward African Americans often predicts discriminatory behavior. However, some evidence
suggests that negative affect might also be related to sympathy for African-Americans (Uhlmann et al., 2006).
Drawing from psychological constructionist models of emotions (e.g., Barrett, 2009; Lindquist, 2013), we
hypothesized that subjective interpretations of negative affect toward African Americans could result in different
emotions. In two experiments, we measured participants’ negative affect toward African Americans using the Affect
Misattribution Procedure. After measuring negative affect, we led one group to interpret negative affect as fear and
the other group to interpret it as sympathy. Next, we asked participants to explicitly report how much fear and
sympathy they felt toward African Americans. Participants with greater implicit bias endorsed greater fear of
African Americans, but only when they were led to interpret negative affect as fear. Interpreting negative affect as
sympathy reduced the correspondence between implicit bias and explicitly reported fear.
42. Age Differences in Neural Responses to Race Exist within the Prejudice Network
Brittany S. Cassidy & Anne C. Krendl
Indiana University
Much work has characterized a network of brain regions responding to different aspects of race perception. For
instance, amygdala activity characterizes affective responses while the engagement of cognitive control regions
(e.g., dorsolateral and ventrolateral prefrontal cortex [dlPFC; vlPFC]) reflects regulating affective responses. This
network may be particularly impacted in older adults because aging has been widely associated with impairments in
regulatory function. Indeed, prior behavioral work has shown that age-related regulatory decline exacerbates older
adults’ prejudice. During fMRI, 16 younger and 39 older adults viewed Black and White faces and cars. Older adults
were normal functioning, but varied in their relative amount of cognitive decline. When perceiving Black versus
White faces, younger adults displayed increased engagement of dlPFC and vlPFC — two regions implicated in
initiating and maintaining regulation — relative to older adults. For the same contrast, younger adults also displayed
enhanced posterior cingulate activity compared to older adults, suggesting less individuation of Black versus White
faces with age. Given the critical role of the amygdala within the prejudice network, we extracted parameter
estimates from anatomically defined amygdala ROIs to assess a potential relationship with regulatory function.
Importantly, poorer executive ability predicted increased left amygdala response to Black over White faces,
suggesting greater affective response given less regulatory ability. These findings are the first to reveal age
differences in neural recruitment within key nodes of the prejudice network that impact the processing and
regulation of attitudes and emotional responses toward racial outgroup members.
43. Positive Mood Attenuates the Happiness Superiority Effect in Visual Search for Schematic Faces
Belinda M. Craig & Ottmar V. Lipp
University of Queensland & Curtin University
Recently, Becker, Anderson, Mortensen, Neufeld, and Neel (2011), argued that the faster detection of angry than
happy faces in crowds commonly observed in the literature is due to methodological confounds which conceal a true
Happiness Superiority Effect (HSE). Following their recommendations to eliminate these confounds with schematic
face stimuli, Experiment 1 yielded the predicted HSE extending prior findings with photographic stimuli. In
Experiment 2, the mediating role of positive expectancy was tested. A happy or sad mood was induced to enhance or
reduce the positive expectancy bias prior to the same two search tasks used in Experiment 1. A HSE was observed
for participants in a sad but not in a happy mood. This suggests that, unlike the categorization advantage for happy
faces, the HSE observed in visual search was not due to a positive expectancy bias.
44. Positive Emotion, Drinking Motivation, and Problematic Drinking: A Case for Cultural Variations
Arezou Mortazavi, Jose A. Soto, & Nicholas C. Jacobson
The Pennsylvania State University
Emotions have frequently been established as antecedents or correlates of maladaptive substance use. While the
relationship between negative emotions and alcohol abuse is well-established, the role of positive emotions in
alcohol use, and how this varies across cultural groups, is less understood. This study investigated how positive
emotion states are related to motivations for drinking as well as how motivations for drinking are related to
problematic outcomes, and how these relationships differ among three ethnocultural groups with different norms
regarding positive emotions (Latino, Asian/Asian-American, and European-American). 99 participants completed
baseline measures regarding emotional experience, current alcohol use, motives for drinking, and problematic
outcomes. Across each of the next 14 days, participants reported how much positive, neutral, and negative emotion
they experienced and whether they drank. Those who reported drinking were also asked how much they drank, why
they drank, and whether they experienced problematic outcomes. Results indicated that positive affect predicted
drinking for enhancement purposes, defined as drinking to maintain or increase positive affect, when measured
daily, and this effect was moderated by ethnicity. Enhancement motivations predicted problematic outcomes at
baseline and when measured daily. Drinking volume mediated this effect, and this was moderated by ethnicity such
that Latinos experienced greater problematic outcomes when drinking equal amounts as Asians and Caucasians for
enhancement purposes. These findings may help to explain higher rates of problematic drinking in Latinos, and
indicate a need for further investigation of the ways in which positive emotion uniquely contributes to alcohol use in
different cultural groups.
45. “Do Whatever it Takes?”— Intergroup Aggression as a Reaction to Group-Based Humiliation Depends on
Perceived Group-Status
Lisabeth Mann, Jolanda Jetten, & Alex Haslem
University of Amsterdam & University of Queensland
Humiliation may be conceptualized as the experience of being lowered in status compared to others. Although
group-based humiliation has been related to aggression and revenge (e.g., Lickel, 2012), there is little empirical
evidence that shows this link. We propose that reactions to humiliation of one’s group differ depending on perceived
status of that group. In particular when the group is perceived as being of high-status, humiliation may lead to
aggression as a means to compensate for the status-loss. We tested this idea in two studies in which participants
were confronted with a historical defeat of their group. In Study 1, both humiliation about the defeat as well as
perceived group-status predicted endorsement of aggression towards another (unrelated) group. In Study 2,
humiliation predicted endorsement of aggression, but only for participants who perceived their group as being of
high-status. Implications of these results are discussed.
46. Why Social Pain Lives on: Different Neural Mechanisms are Associated with Reliving Social and Physical Pain
Meghan L. Meyer, Kipling D. Williams, & Naomi I. Eisenberger
University of California – Los Angeles & Purdue University
People easily re-experience the painful feelings of past social pains (e.g., past romantic rejection/social exclusion;
Chen et al., 2008), but have difficulty re-experiencing the painful feelings of past physical pains (Morley, 1993).
This dichotomy is intriguing because both kinds of pain have been found to rely on common neural and
psychological mechanisms (Eisenberger et al., 2003). If the same mechanisms support both kinds of pain, then why
can people easily re-experience past social, but not physical, pain? We found this dichotomy occurs because people
use different top-down neurocognitive mechanisms to remember the two kinds of pain, and critically, only the topdown mechanisms used to remember social pains worked with the affective pain system to regenerate painful
feelings. Eighteen participants who had experienced intense social and physical pains matched on initial reports of
pain in the past five years underwent fMRI scanning while they remembered these events. Behaviorally, participants
rated re-experiencing more pain after remembering social vs. physical pain memories. At the neural level of
analysis, social pain reliving recruited dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, often associated with social memory retrieval,
which functionally correlated with affective pain system responses. In contrast, physical pain reliving recruited
inferior frontal gyrus, known to be involved in body memory retrieval, which functionally correlated with activation
in the sensory pain system (but not affective pain system). These results update the physical-social pain overlap
hypothesis: while overlapping mechanisms support live social and physical pain, distinct mechanisms guide
remembering social and physical pain, making past social pains more easily re-experienced.
47. Depression Trajectories in Adolescence Longitudinally Predict Body-related Guilt and Shame
Eva Pila, Catherine Sabiston, Michael Chaiton, & Jennifer O’Loughlin
University of Toronto & University of Montreal
Negative emotions of guilt and shame are commonly endorsed in self-evaluative and socially constructed domains
such as body image. Since chronic experiences of guilt and shame are hallmark manifestations of psychopathology,
it is important to explore proneness to experiencing these negative body-related emotions. The purpose of this study
was to test if depression symptoms during adolescence predict body-related shame and guilt in adulthood.
Adolescents (n=780; 45% male) participating in a prospective longitudinal cohort study reported depression
symptoms every 3-4 months until the end of high school, and body-related shame and guilt six-years after
graduation from high school. Trajectories of depressive symptoms were estimated using latent growth modeling
which were then studied as predictors of body-related emotions. During adolescence, three depression symptoms
trajectory groups were identified: low and declining depressive symptoms (n=295), moderate and stable depressive
symptoms (n=328) and high increasing depressive symptoms (n=157). In MANOVA analyses, there were
significant main effects for both emotions based on the depression trajectories, F(4, 1552)=26.02, p < .001.
Individuals in the low depression group reported lower guilt (M=1.79) and shame (M=1.42), compared with
moderate (Mguilt=2.13, Mshame=1.75) and high depression (Mguilt=2.59, Mshame=2.21) trajectory groups. In
post-hoc analyses, differences in body emotions were significant across all depression trajectories (p<.001). Based
on these findings, it is suggested that early onset of depressive symptoms can increase vulnerability to negative
body-related emotions in adulthood. Clinical intervention strategies should focus on managing early depression
symptoms to help mitigate the influence on chronic negative body emotions.
48. Automatic Facial Coding: Validation of Action Unit Analysis Using FaceReader
Maurizio Mauri, Peter Lewinski, Fabio Giulini, Vincenzo Russo, Hans Theuws, & Tim M. den Uyl
International University of Languages and Media – Milan, University of Amsterdam, Noldus Information
Technology BV, & Vicarious Perception Technologies BV
The Facial Action Coding System (FACS) is a common standard for coding facial expressions. It encodes the
activity of individual facial muscles thus deconstructing the expression into individual Action Units. Using an
automated system for analyzing Action Units can support psychologists in dealing with subjectivity issues and the
time consuming coding process. FaceReader is a software tool capable of automatically analyzing a set of 20
commonly used Action Units. When using an automated tool, it is essential to know how the performance of this
automated system compares to manual coding of Action Units. In this poster we will present a validation study,
testing the performance of FaceReader by comparison of the automatic analysis with manually coded Action Units.
Two commercials have been used as stimuli, one based on a seductive communication strategy and the other one
based on an ironic communication strategy. A baseline session was carried out before the exposure to the two
experimental stimuli. During the exposure to the baseline and to the experimental stimuli, facial expressions of all
15 subjects were recorded. The preliminary results are promising: the overall concordance was 0.68 across all
subjects. Further analyses will be important to support a larger and more robust comparison between the two
techniques for a complete validation. Another study shows the software reaches a FACS index of agreement of 0.67
on two other datasets. In this poster we will also elaborate on this validation study.
49. Reframing the Negative: The Stress-buffering Role of Cognitive Reappraisal Ability on BMI
Sara J. Sagui & Sara M. Levens
University of North Carolina – Charlotte
An individual’s response to a stressor can contribute to adverse health outcomes including obesity, which can lead to
diabetes and heart disease. Importantly, stress reaction begins with the negative appraisal of a situation. Thus, the
ability to use cognitive reappraisal, an emotion regulation strategy that involves reinterpreting an appraisal to change
its emotional impact, could be a protective factor against the health consequences of stress reactivity. Therefore, the
present study investigated if cognitive reappraisal ability acts as a stress-buffer against high body mass index (BMI).
Participants (N = 174, age = 40.64 α 12.51, 56% female) completed a cognitive reappraisal ability (CRA) task
where they viewed a series of sad film clips and were asked to rate their emotions after each clip. During one clip,
participants were instructed to re-think (reappraise) the situation in a more positive way. A CRA change score was
calculated by subtracting sadness ratings after the reappraisal clip from those after a baseline clip, with higher scores
reflecting greater CRA. Participants also completed the Perceived Stress Reactivity Scale and self-reported their
height and weight. Results indicated that at high levels of stress reactivity, individuals with high CRA had the lowest
BMI, whereas, at low levels of stress reactivity those with low CRA exhibited the lowest BMI. These findings
suggest that if an individual is highly stress reactive, high reappraisal ability is protective. However, if a person is
not as stress reactive, high reappraisal ability may actually increase their reactivity, leading to physical health
problems.
50. Neuroanatomical Markers of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: Associations between Regional Grey and White
Matter Volumes and Domain-specific Symptom Severities
Tong Sheng, Jordan M. Nechvatal, J. Kaci Fairchild, Salil Soman, Ansgar J. Furst, J. Wesson Ashford, & Maheen
M. Adamson
Palo Alto VA Medical Center, Stanford University School of Medicine, & Harvard Medical School
Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms include re-experiencing traumatic events, avoiding people and
situations that can be reminders of trauma, and exhibiting increased emotional arousal and anxiety, all of which
interfere with daily functioning. These distinct but co-occurring symptom domains may be supported by different
affective and cognitive neural systems, and a more precise understanding of domain-specific associations between
neuroanatomical markers and PTSD symptoms can potentially inform more precise treatment. In the current study,
Veterans (n=101; age range: 23-71) underwent magnetic resonance brain imaging and completed the PTSD
Checklist, a questionnaire that assesses global and domain-specific PTSD symptom severity. Global PTSD
symptom severity was associated with greater grey matter volume (GMV) in the right inferior frontal cortex and
greater white matter volume (WMV) in tracts projecting to the left occipital cortex. However, domain-specific
associations between PTSD and GMV/WMV were heterogeneous. More severe re-experiencing and avoiding
symptoms were associated with greater GMV in right frontal regions and greater WMV in occipital tracts, while reexperiencing symptoms were associated with less WMV in left cingulum and hyper-arousal symptoms were
associated with less WMV in left hippocampus. Unfortunately, our results cannot clarify whether greater regional
brain tissue volumes imply greater susceptibility to PTSD, or if they reflect neuroplastic consequences of traumatic
experiences. However, as the development of PTSD may have origins in different neural systems, optimal treatment
paths are also likely to differ. A greater focus on patients’ unique symptom profiles may be particularly beneficial.
51. Let's get Physical: Positive Automatic Thoughts Reflect Incentive Salience for Health Behaviors
Elise Rice & Barbara L. Fredrickson
University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill
Despite the abundance of research on unpleasant automatic cognitions such as intrusive thoughts, no prior work has
addressed the role of positive automatic thoughts in daily life. In the present study, we investigate how such
thoughts may be implicated in motivation; specifically, we predict that positive automatic thoughts about a target
reflect heightened incentive salience, thereby mediating the relationship between “liking” and “wanting.” Ninetythree adults from the Chapel Hill community completed daily measures of physical activity including total instances
of activity engagement (a behavioral index of wanting) and affect experienced during engagement (an index of
liking) across one week. On the third day, participants also reported on the valence and frequency of their typical
automatic thoughts about physical activity. Consistent with our hypothesis, bootstrapping analysis revealed that the
indirect effect of positivity during physical activity (liking) on instances of physical activity (wanting) via positivity
of automatic thoughts about physical activity was significant (unstandardized bootstrap estimate = 0.419, SE =
0.244, 95% CI [0.075, 1.080]). More specifically, greater positivity during physical activity predicted increasingly
positive automatic thoughts about physical activity, and in turn, increasingly positive automatic thoughts about
physical activity predicted more instances of physical activity over seven days. Implications for motivational
processes and behavior change will be discussed.
52. Feeling High but Craving Low: Affect Valuation in Currently Manic and Remitted Bipolar I Disorder
Alta du Pont & June Gruber
University of Colorado – Boulder
Bipolar I disorder (BD) is a severe illness characterized by heightened positive affect across contexts and difficulty
regulating positive emotions (Gruber, 2011). Recent research underscores the importance of examining the valuation
of positive emotions in influencing emotion-related difficulties in this disorder (Ford, Mauss, & Gruber, in press).
Despite this work emphasizing the importance of positive emotion valuation in BD, no research to date has
examined such processes Š—– and how they compare to experienced emotion Š—– among currently manic
individuals with bipolar disorder. The present study analyzed actual and ideal affect among currently manic adults
with bipolar disorder (BDm; n = 18), remitted adults with bipolar disorder (BDr; n = 32), and healthy controls (CTL;
n = 31). Analyses for actual affect suggested that the BDm group report greater high arousal positive affect then the
BDr group and increased high arousal negative affect than both BDr and CTL groups. Analyses for ideal affect
revealed that the BDm group reported increased ideal low arousal positive affect compared to both BDr and CTL
group. Interestingly, follow-up analyses indicated that the BDm group reported greater difference scores between
actual and ideal low arousal positive emotions compared to both BDr and CTL groups. Taken together, these
findings extend current research on affect valuation in BD and indicate that while currently manic individuals with
BD exhibit high arousal positive feelings, they actually desire low arousal positive states.
53. Using Polygenic Scores to Delineate Relationships among Impulsivity Endophenotypes, Schizophrenia, and
Bipolar Disorder
Rebecca Fortgang, Amanda Zheutlin, Christina M. Hultman, Shaun Purcell, & Tyrone Cannon
Yale University, Karolinska Institute, & Center for Human Genetic Research
Schizophrenia (SZ) and bipolar disorder (BD) are highly heritable individually and share substantial heritability.
Despite this, few individual genetic loci have been identified to confer individual or shared risk, and the variance
they account for is far below that attributable broadly to genetic factors. Two approaches used to address this issue
—endophenotype and polygenic score approaches — may be possible to fruitfully combine using polygenic scores
trained to endophenotypes. These scores may be useful to ascertain endophenotypic overlap between disorders.
Impulsivity is a multidimensional and heritable trait associated with both SZ and BD. Here, we tested whether four
components of impulsivity are endophenotypes for SZ and BD in a sample of 123 twin pairs with and without
psychopathology, recruited from the Swedish Twin Registry, and we used heritability modeling in Mx to test
whether there is evidence for common pathways among impulsivity phenotypes and with SZ. We found that factors
of the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS) patterned as endophenotypes for SZ and BD, and Stop Signal Task (SST)
Stop Signal Reaction Time (SSRT) did not. We found evidence of shared heritability among phenotypes using a
common pathways model. We then generated polygenic scores trained to these impulsivity variables and tested for
relationships among the scores. We also directly test whether these scores correlate with previously derived
polygenic scores for SZ risk. We found that impulsivity polygenic scores were significantly higher in cases than
controls, with effect sizes greater than the group differences observed using behavioral measures. Although twin pair
was entered as a random variable in all linear mixed models tested, we also observed higher scores in co-twins than
controls across all BIS phenotypes for both SZ and BP, suggesting that some genetic relationships among
phenotypes may be obscured when looking only at self-report measures. Finally, we observed strong correlations
between impulsivity phenotype polygenic scores and schizophrenia risk scores calculated using variants identified
by the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium in a large case-control sample. This suggests that common genetic
variation influences impulsivity phenotypes in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, and that a common set of genes
may impact these phenotypes in both disorders. We plan next to test the scores in a replication sample.
54. Tears Peak at Two Angles of the Affect Circumplex
Victoria C. Oleynick, Todd M. Thrash, Emil G. Moldovan
College of William and Mary & Northeastern University
Psychogenetic lacrimation — the shedding of emotional tears — is a uniquely human phenomenon. Tears are among
the most compelling and unmistakable forms of emotional expression, yet little is known about the types of affective
experiences associated with tears. In light of this gap, we tested the relation of emotional tears to core affect at three
levels of analysis (person, stimulus, and person-by-stimulus levels) using cross-classified structural equation
modeling. Participants (n = 153) watched a set of diverse, emotionally evocative film clips and reported on tears and
core affect in response to each film clip. Results indicate that there is a similar pattern of relationships between tears
and core affect at these three conceptually and statistically independent levels of analysis, such that the relation of
tears to core affect is maximized at two angles within the affect circumplex. Specifically, tears related most strongly
to the states of activated pleasure and deactivated displeasure. These results build on previous findings linking tears
to discrete positive (e.g., joy, elation, gratitude) and negative (e.g. sadness, grief) emotions. This study, however, is
the first to relate tears to core affect and the first to document peaks at two angles of the affect circumplex. The
experimental design also overcomes common limitations of past studies, including retrospective recall biases,
inattention to the broad range of emotional states that are associated with tears, and need for a systematic framework
for testing the affective states associated with tears.
55. Exploring Socioeconomic-related Differences in Emotion Regulatory Success.
Jessica Jones, Ozlem Ayduk, & Rodolfo Mendoza-Denton
University of California – Berkeley
Individual differences in emotion regulatory skills vary widely, and numerous factors may influence one’s ability to
successfully employ certain strategies when faced with negative events. One relatively unexplored factor is the
individual’s level of socioeconomic status (SES). In an emotion regulation success task, participants (N = 91) were
instructed to employ cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression strategies while viewing negative and neutral
images. Natural (unregulated) responses were also collected for both image groups. Trials in this within subjects
design consisted of an instruction cue (“reappraise”, “suppress”, or “respond naturally”) followed by the consecutive
presentation of three negative or neutral images. An affect rating concluded each trial. Initial analyses revealed that
reappraisal produced significant decreases in negative affect relative to suppression (F(1,89)= 12.35, p< .001) and
unregulated natural response trials (F(1,89)= 78.15, p< .0001), indicating that at the group level, participants were
successful in down-regulating negative affect via reappraisal. More importantly, however, three separate indicators
of SES (parent’s social class, total household income, and subjective SES) predicted reappraisal success: individuals
who reported higher SES displayed significantly less reappraisal success after viewing negative images (rs > .24, ps
< .016). This effect remained significant after controlling for levels of lifetime exposure to positive and negative
events. Overall, these results suggest that independent of significant life events, individuals who are higher in
socioeconomic status are either worse at implementing reinterpretation-based emotion regulation strategies or
benefit less from them. Possible mechanisms that might explain these findings will be discussed and examined in
future studies.
56. When a Neutral Face isn't Neutral
Daniel Albohn & Reginald Adams
The Pennsylvania State University
Researchers have known for decades that perceivers utilize the face as a prominent source of information to make
predictions about individuals. However, the accuracy of predictions drawn from faces has been mixed, but
consistent, given certain parameters. In three preliminary studies we investigated one mechanism, emotion residue,
that may be driving such differences in perception to occur. In study 1 we used pre- and post-expressive neutral
faces to determine whether participants were able to correctly distinguish the temporal occurrence of the stimuli. In
the second study, we compared pre- and post-expressive neutral faces for differences in trait ratings. Finally, study 3
examined mental representation of neutral utilizing a standard reverse correlation technique. For study 1,
participants were able to correctly identify a face a post-expressive at better than chance levels, with ratings of
“facial tension” appearing to drive this effect. For study 2, post-expressive faces were rated as significantly more
dominant than pre-expressive faces, with other traits marginally significant. Finally, in study 3, individuals rated the
mental representation of neutral as more angry and fearful and less happy than comparable faces. Taken together,
these results suggest that one mechanism that may be driving differences in face perception is emotion residue.
Furthermore, these results provide insight into how face perception should be studied in the future, especially when
neutral is used as a baseline.
57. East-Asian Adolescents’ Emotional Home Life Predicts the Acquisition of an Acculturated Pattern of
Correlation between Anterior Insula Activity and Social-emotional Feelings
Xiao-Fei Yang & Mary Helen Immordino-Yang
University of Southern California
During adolescence, youths develop abilities to make complex social-cognitive inferences and to think abstractly
about the social world, including through the emotional reactions they have to others. This development is shaped by
cultural ideals transmitted via personal relationships, such as through family. Previously we demonstrated a cultural
effect in which Chinese and American young adults’ social-emotional feelings correlated differently with neural
activity in the anterior insula (AI), the cortical region associated with conscious emotional feelings (Craig, 2002;
Damasio, 1999). We found that feeling strength correlated primarily with ventral AI activity (the autonomic
modulatory sector) among Chinese, but with dorsal AI activity (the visceral-somatosensory/cognitive sector) among
Americans (Immordino-Yang, Yang & Damasio, 2014). Here we conducted a developmental version of this
neuroimaging study with bicultural adolescent participants —27 East-Asian 2nd generation Americans aged 14-17.
We also collected data on the youths’ quality of home social relationships (amount of interpersonal aggression,
perceived strength of love and closeness). As hypothesized, youths who reported better family relationships showed
a more acculturated pattern of neural processing. Specifically, we found that the better youths’ home lives, the more
closely their real-time fluctuations in reported feeling strength correlated with ventral AI activity relative to dorsal
AI activity (the Chinese adult normative pattern). / The results suggest that the neural process by which adolescents’
build conscious emotional experiences is related to the quality of their family relationships, with culture-specific
patterns emerging in youths from more loving and socially competent families.
58. The Neural Correlates of Self-Affirmation
Janine M. Dutcher, J. David Creswell, Julienne E. Bower, & Naomi I. Eisenberger
University of California – Los Angeles & Carnegie Mellon University
Although self-affirmation leads to many benefits including reduced threat and stress responding; the mechanisms
underlying this relationship are unclear. Here, we conducted two fMRI studies to begin to examine the neural
mechanism for self-affirmation. Because self-affirmation increases feelings of social connection, we hypothesized
that self-affirmation would lead to increased activity in a neural region associated with feelings of social connection,
specifically the ventral striatum (VS). Critically, research has shown that greater VS activity is associated with
reduced threat-related neural activity, which could offer a mechanistic explanation for self-affirmation’s threatreducing effects. In Study 1, we created a self-affirmation task in which participants made preference judgments
between two highly ranked values in the self-affirmation condition, and two lower ranked values in the control
condition. As an additional between-subjects control condition, a separate group of participants made judgments
about others’ preferred attributes of toasters (experimental condition) and less preferred attributes (control
condition). Results revealed greater activity in an anatomical VS ROI during self-affirmation (vs. control). This
same pattern was not shown for the participants who viewed toasters (vs. control). In Study 2, we expanded to a
community sample (older adult females). Again, we found that self-affirmation (vs. control) led to greater activity in
the VS as well as greater activity in a ventromedial prefrontal cortex ROI, another region implicated in reward
processing and social connection. These results suggest that self-affirmation activates reward-related regions also
involved in social connection, which may offer a potential mechanism for how self-affirmation reduces stress.
59. Vasopressin, but not Oxytocin, Increases Empathic Concern among Individuals who Received Higher Levels of
Paternal Warmth
Benjamin A. Tabak, Meghan L. Meyer, Elizabeth Castle, Janine M. Dutcher, Michael R. Irwin, Matthew D.
Lieberman, Naomi I. Eisenberger
University of California – Los Angeles
Empathy improves our ability to communicate in social interactions and motivates prosocial behavior. The
neuropeptides arginine vasopressin and oxytocin play key roles in socioemotional processes such as pair bonding
and parental care, which suggests that they may be involved in empathic processing. We investigated how
vasopressin and oxytocin affect empathic responding in a randomized, double-blind, placebo controlled, betweensubjects study design. We also examined the moderating role of parental warmth, as reported in the early family
environment, on empathic responding following vasopressin, oxytocin, or placebo administration. Among
participants who reported higher levels of paternal warmth (but not maternal warmth), vasopressin (vs. placebo and
oxytocin) increased ratings of empathic concern after viewing distressing and uplifting videos. No main or
interaction effects were found for individuals who received oxytocin. Vasopressin has a role in enhancing empathy
among individuals who received higher levels of paternal warmth.