Emotion regulation (i.e. either up- or down-regulating affective responses to emotional stimuli) has been shown to modulate long-term emotional memory formation. Further, research has demonstrated that the emotional aspects of scenes are preferentially remembered relative to neutral aspects (known as the emotional memory trade-off effect). This trade-off is often enhanced when sleep follows learning, compared to an equivalent period of time spent awake. However, the interactive effects of sleep and emotion regulation on emotional memory are poorly understood. We presented 87 (...) participants with pictures of neutral or negative objects on neutral backgrounds paired with instructions to either increase or decrease their emotional response by altering personal relevance, or to passively view the stimuli. Following a 12 h period of sleep or wakefulness, participants were tested for their memory of objects and backgrounds separately. Although we replicated the emotional memory trade-off effect, no differences in the magnitude of the trade-off effect were observed between regulation conditions. Sleep improved all aspects of memory, but it did not preferentially benefit memory for emotional components of scenes. Irrespective of a period of sleep or wake following encoding, findings suggest emotion regulation during encoding did not influence memory for emotional items at a 12-hour delay. (shrink)

Various philosophers authors have argued—on the basis of powerful examples—that we can have compelling moral or practical reasons to believe, even when the evidence suggests otherwise. This paper explores an alternative story, which still aims to respect widely shared intuitions about the motivating examples. Specifically, the paper proposes that what is at stake in these cases is not belief, but rather acceptance—an attitude classically characterized as taking a proposition as a premise in practical deliberation and action. I suggest that acceptance’s (...) theoretical usefulness in the ethics of belief has been hidden by its psychological obscurity. I thus aim to develop an empirically adequate and mechanistically specific psychological profile of acceptance. I characterize acceptance as centrally involving a cognitive gating function, in which we prevent a target belief state from having its characteristic downstream effects on reasoning, cognition, and action, and restructure those downstream processes. I then argue that there is substantial empirical support for the existence of the cognitive mechanisms needed to instantiate this view, coming from the science of emotion regulation. I argue that acceptance involves deploying the same mechanisms used in emotional response modulation to belief states: acceptance is doxastic response modulation. I then propose that having a better understanding of the psychological profile of acceptance leaves us better positioned to appreciate its potential usefulness for making progress on various puzzles within the ethics of belief. (shrink)

In work on the ethics of cognitive enhancement use, there is a pervasive concern that such enhancement will—in some way—make us less authentic. Attempts to clarify what this concern amounts to and how to respond to it often lead to debates on the nature of the “true self” and what constitutes “genuine human activity”. This paper shows that a new and effective way to make progress on whether certain cases of cognitive enhancement problematically undermine authenticity is to make use of (...) considerations from the separate debate on the nature of authentic emotion. Drawing in particular on Wasserman and Liao, the present paper offers new conditions that can help us assess the impact of cognitive enhancements on authenticity. (shrink)

La investigación reciente en psicología cognitiva sobre la memoria emocional ha estudiado las distintas formas en que las emociones afectan a la memoria, sin profundizar no obstante en la comprensión de la manera en que los aspectos emocionales, afectivos y mnemónicos se encuentran estrechamente entrelazados en el contenido mismo de un acto de reminiscencia. En este artículo propongo un marco conceptual de análisis que nos permite entender los recuerdos personales como recuerdos esencialmente afectivos, y que se articula en torno a (...) dos variables continuas e independientes: por un lado, la intencionalidad del recuerdo, es decir, el objeto hacia el cual el recuerdo está dirigido, que puede ser descriptiva o evaluativa; por el otro, la perspectiva afectiva del recuerdo, que puede fluctuar desde la perspectiva de primera persona hasta la perspectiva de tercera persona. Las dos dimensiones son analizadas en profundidad y las limitaciones de este marco y las futuras líneas de investigación son igualmente presentadas. (shrink)

I criticize 5 arguments for the conclusion that religious belief is unreliably formed and hence epistemically tainted. The arguments draw on scientific evidence from Cognitive Science of Religion. They differ considerably as to why the evidence points to unreliability. Two arguments conclude to unreliability because religious belief is shaped by evolutionary pressures; another argument states that the mechanism responsible for religious belief produces many false god-beliefs; a similar argument claims that the mechanism produces incompatible god-beliefs; and a final argument states (...) that the mechanism is offtrack. I argue that the arguments fail to make the case for unreliability or that the unreliability can be overcome. (shrink)

Connie Wang ABSTRACT: Accounts of deep disagreements can generally be categorized as optimistic or pessimistic. Pessimistic interpretations insist that the depth of deep disagreements precludes the possibility of rational resolution altogether, while optimistic variations maintain the contrary. Despite both approaches’ respective positions, they nevertheless often, either explicitly or implicitly, agree on the underlying assumption that...

The skeptical challenge to politics is that if knowledge is in short supply and it is a condition for the proper use of political power, then there is very little just politics. Cicero’s Republicanism is posed as a program for political legitimacy wherein both citizens and their states are far from ideal. The result is a form of what is termed negative conservatism, which shows political gridlock in a more positive light.

This thesis is intended to analyze a mental phenomenon widely neglected in current philosophical discussions: personal memories. The first part presents a general framework to better understand what personal memories are, how we access our personal past and what we access about our personal past. Chapter 1 introduces traditional theories of memory: direct realism and representationalism in their different versions, as well as some objections. I defend here a particular form of representationalism that is based on the distinction between content, (...) intentional object and ontological object. Chapter 2 explores the possible contents of our personal memories, which prove to be heterogeneous, whereas chapter 3 analyses their possible intentional objects, with a special focus on past events. The second part of the thesis explores an aspect of our personal memories that was omitted in the first part: the senses in which our personal past is apprehended as personal. Chapter 4 examines the way in which the “self” intervenes in the construction of our personal memories. Chapters 5 and 6 focus on the analysis of what seems to be the most subjective aspect of our memories, that is, the emotions and feelings of our past experiences. In these last two chapters, I analyze the different interactions that can take place between memories and emotions and defend the idea that there can be emotional memories that are reducible neither to a propositional memory nor an occurrent and present emotion. The overall intention of this thesis is twofold. First, I aim to show to the philosophical community that there is still a lot to be said and discussed about memory as a mental phenomenon. And second, I intend to emphasize the importance of bringing into the philosophical discussions about the mind ideas coming from different philosophical traditions as well as ideas and empirical data coming from scientific research. (shrink)

Emotion processing is known to be impaired in psychopathy, but less is known about the cognitive mechanisms that drive this. Our study examined experiencing and suppression of emotion processing in psychopathy. Participants, violent offenders with varying levels of psychopathy, viewed positive and negative images under conditions of passive viewing, experiencing and suppressing. Higher scoring psychopathics were more cardiovascularly responsive when processing negative information than positive, possibly reflecting an anomalously rewarding aspect of processing normally unpleasant material. When required to experience emotional (...) response, by ‘getting into the feeling’ of the emotion conveyed by a negative image, higher factor 1 psychopathic individuals showed reduced responsiveness, suggesting that they were less able to do this. These data, together with the absence of corresponding differences in subjective self-report might be used to inform clinical strategies for normalising emotion processing in psychopathic offenders to improve treatment outcome, and reduce risk amongst this client group. (shrink)

Although a substantial literature is developing regarding the effects of stress on decision-making, the literature on stress and social decision-making is still in the beginning stage. The present research extends this new literature by examining the mediating and moderating factors of the effect of stress on social decision-making. Furthermore, a novel aspect of the research is its effort to connect the information-processing and functional perspectives, with regard to the acute stress response. Dual-mode theories state that emotional processing, relative to cognitive (...) processing, occurs early during information processing and is associated with stimulus-driven behaviors. Therefore, an intensification of emotional processing and inhibition of cognitive control processes may lead to an earlier and more stimulus-driven initiation of behavioral responses than under normal circumstances. Moreover, such quick, automatic behavioral responses to environmental stimuli may be particularly useful during an acute stress response in that such responses could help prevent disturbances to homeostasis. In order to facilitate such quick, automatic behavioral responses, emotional processing may be intensified and cognitive processing inhibited, during an acute stress response. In support of this notion, empirical findings show that acute stress increases emotion-related phenomena, such as reward salience and emotional learning. However, in a social decision-making context, such enhancement of emotional processing may negatively affect the social interactions, such that negative emotions from perceived unfairness may be amplified when people are undergoing an acute stress response. More specifically, in the context of an Ultimatum Game, people who are stressed may reject more unfair offers than people under normal conditions. This research tested this main hypothesis, and examined emotions and trait emotion regulation tendencies as mediating and moderating factors, respectively, of the relationship between acute stress and Ultimatum Game rejections. These arguments are elaborated in Chapters 1, 2, and 3 of this dissertation. In two experiments, participants played the Ultimatum Game as the Responder after completing a stress or control task. The Cold Pressor Test was used as the stress induction method. Before and after the Ultimatum Game, participants completed state emotion ratings as well as trait emotion regulation questionnaires. Results from Experiment 1 showed a successful stress induction, indicated by higher cortisol levels in the stress, relative to control, group. Moreover, Experiment 1 revealed a significant Stress x Amount interaction, with stress having an effect on rejections of unfair offers, in comparison to fair offers. However, the emotion and emotion regulation results did not indicate the expected pattern, with emotions being uncorrelated with fair, nor unfair offers, and emotion regulation being associated with reduced rejections of fair, but not unfair, offers. In Experiment 2, an experimental manipulation designed to influence negative emotions, namely partner type, was employed. Results did not replicate the results of the first experiment, but unexpected results were found involving partner type and negative emotions, namely that participants who played with human partners, relative to those who played with computer partners, rejected more unfair offers and that negative emotions were positively correlated with rejections of fair and unfair offers. The experiments and their results are described in Chapter 4. It is difficult to draw firm conclusions from these results, but they do offer a starting point for interesting future research questions. Chapter 5 discusses some implications as well as limitations of the present research. (shrink)

Upregulation of implicit positive affect (PA) can act as a mechanism to deal with negative affect. Two studies tracked temporal changes in positive and negative affect (NA) assessed by self-report and the Implicit Positive and Negative Affect Test (IPANAT; Quirin, Kazén, & Kuhl, 2009). Study 1 observed the predicted increases in implicit PA after exposure to a threat-related film clip, which correlated positively with the speed of recognising a happy face among an angry crowd. Study 2 replicated increases in implicit (...) PA after exposition to the same film clip, and showed that such increases were enhanced by priming self-referential stimuli. The findings are discussed against the background of personality systems interaction (PSI) theory (Kuhl, 2000, 2001), which emphasises the role of the implicit self in affect regulation. (shrink)

Since the 1980s, there has been a steady growth of interest in the psychological mechanisms that regulate normal emotional experience. In this same period, cognitive-experimental researchers have sought to delineate the information processing biases that characterize emotional disorders. Exciting potential synergies exist between these two areas of investigation. In this article, we consider ways in which reciprocal benefits could be gained by the constructive transfer of theoretical ideas and methodological approaches between emotion regulation researchers and cognitive-experimental investigators. We also discuss (...) how recent innovations within each field can profitably impact upon progress within the other. It is concluded that the overlap in conceptual constructs, and the convergence of complementary investigative techniques, between these two research domains, provide opportunities for creative synthesis that could significantly enrich understanding of normal and abnormal emotion across future years. (shrink)

In this paper, my aim is to bring together contemporary psychological literature on emotion regulation and the classical sentimentalism of David Hume and Adam Smith to arrive at a plausible account of empathy's role in explaining patterns of moral judgment. Along the way, I criticize related arguments by Michael Slote, Jesse Prinz, and others.

Emotions and moods have been distinguished in the literature. If they are distinct, we may expect emotion regulation and mood regulation to be distinct too. We show that although emotion regulation and mood regulation are considered theoretically distinct, they are often confounded empirically. We review characteristics proposed to distinguish emotions from moods by different theoretical approaches to emotion. We also review challenges to these propositions, suggesting that one valid distinction involves intentionality. Building on the above, we discuss possible differences between (...) emotion regulation and mood regulation. Finally, we encourage the use of accurate terminology, argue for the importance of empirically testing hypotheses regarding distinctions between emotion regulation and mood regulation, and discuss possible implications. (shrink)

The ability to distinguish between subtle differences among emotions of similar valence is labelled emotion differentiation (ED). Previous research has demonstrated that people high in ED are less likely to use disengagement regulation strategies (i.e. avoidance/distraction) during negative affective states.The present eye-tracking study examined associations between ED and visual attention/avoidance of affective stimuli. A total of 160 participants viewed emotional video clips (positive/ negative), which were concurrently presented with a non-affective distractor image. After each video, participants verbally described their experienced (...) emotions with adjectives in an open-response format. Moreover, they completed an ED questionnaire.The computed ED specificity index for the negative videos (the number of specific adjectives divided by all adjectives used) was positively associated with the scores on the ED questionnaire and visual revisits for the negative videos (how many times the participants gazed back and forth between video and distractor). This viewing style might reflect more active exploratory behaviour directed toward acquiring information about the negative stimulus and its context. The ED measures were not associated with the gaze behaviour for positive videos. (shrink)

As the cores of education, teachers’ emotions have a critical place in academia. However, the power of EFL teachers’ positive emotions and their regulation in online mode of instruction have been ignored by scholars. With the rapid shift of education from face-to-face to remote/electronic delivery, many challenges and emotional problems emerged among teachers and learners worldwide. This entailed the necessity of considering and planning for emotional regulation to generate positive outcomes. To provide a roadmap for this line of research, the (...) present mini-review article presented the theoretical and empirical underpinnings of emotion regulation, its origins and definitions, as well as outcomes for second/foreign language education. The study also presents some implications for EFL teachers, teacher trainers, and avid scholars of this area of research pinpointing the current yawning gaps. (shrink)

Emotional regulation, understood as the skills and strategies needed to influence and/or modify the emotional experiences, has a very remarkable implication within numerous emotional and behavioral disorders in childhood and adolescence. In recent years there has been a significant increase in research on emotional regulation, however, the results are still divergent in terms of differences in emotional regulation in relation to age and gender. This study aimed to assess emotional regulation in adolescents in relation to their age and gender. Two (...) hundred and fifty-four adolescents from eight schools in the Valencian Community and aged between 9 and 16 years participated in the study. The adolescents completed the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire and the FEEL-KJ questionnaire. We analyzed the differences in emotional regulation strategies and a latent emotional regulation variable in two age groups (9 to 12 years and 13 to 16 years) and by gender. The results suggested that children and pre-adolescents in the 9-12 year group obtained lower scores in the emotional regulation strategies than the 13-16 year group. Girls reported higher scores on the use of emotional regulation strategies when experiencing sadness, anxiety and anger than boys, and on the overall average of regulation according to these specific emotions. Age, but not gender, had a major effect on scores for the latent variable of emotion regulation. An interaction effect between age and gender was identified in the latent emotion regulation scores. Girls tended to have higher scores than boys when they were younger and lower scores than boys when they were older. These results could be relevant for designing prevention and intervention programs for adolescents and at different ages. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn this conceptual review, we discuss models of emotion and its regulation and identify a spectrum of processes that characterise adaptive adjustment to the affective environment. We descri...

Advances in our understanding of appraisal processes and emotion regulation have been two of the most important contributions of research on cognition and emotion in recent decades. Interestingly, however, progress in these two areas has been less mutually informative than one might expect or desire. To help remedy this situation, we provide an integration of appraisal theory and the process model of emotion regulation by describing parallel, interacting and iterative systems for emotion generation and emotion regulation. Outputs of the emotion (...) generation system are perceived by the emotion regulation system, and emotion regulation strategies then modulate emotion by intervening at specific stages of the emotion generation system, ultimately changing appraisal dimensions. We hope that our unified perspective will encourage and guide future research at the interface of cognition and emotion. (shrink)

This study investigates the relationship between EI and the state of mental health of unemployed persons. Gender differences were also identified in terms of mental health and its correlation with EI. A sample of 160 Polish unemployed persons aged 35 to 45 years filled in self-descriptive measures of EI and mental health. Significant gender differences were found - unemployed women were characterised by a greater intensity of mental health disorders than unemployed men. EI was negatively correlated with mental health disorders, (...) but the correlations were few and weaker than expected. However, when unemployed persons with a low, average and high EI were compared, it turned out that participants with a low EI were characterised by a significantly worse condition of mental health than participants with a average or high EI. (shrink)

This paper critiques Jesse Prinz’s rejection of Adam Smith’s model of impartial spectatorship as a viable corrective to empathic bias. I argue that Prinz’s case is unconvincing, insofar as it rests on an underdeveloped account of Smith’s view of critical self-regulation. By presenting a more detailed and attentive reading of Smithean impartial spectatorship, and exploring Smith’s compelling account of structural supports for sympathetic engagement, this paper demonstrates how Smith’s work is able to constructively engage with contemporary concerns regarding empathy’s role (...) in guiding moral behaviour. (shrink)

ABSTRACTWhich emotion regulation strategy one uses in a given context can have profound affective, cognitive, and social consequences. It is therefore important to understand the determinants of emotion regulation choice. Many prior studies have examined person-specific, internal determinants of emotion regulation choice. Recently, it has become clear that external variables that are properties of the stimulus can also influence emotion regulation choice. In the present research, we consider whether reappraisal affordances, defined as the opportunities for re-interpretation of a stimulus that (...) are inherent in that stimulus, can shape individuals’ emotion regulation choices. We show that reappraisal affordances have stability across people and across time, and are confounded with emotional intensity for a standardised set of picture stimuli. Since emotional intensity has been shown to drive emotion regulation choice, we construct a context in which emotional intensity is separable from r... (shrink)

ABSTRACTPrevious work has shown that a stooped posture may activate negative mood. Extending this work, the present experiments examine how stooped body posture influences recovery from pre-existing negative mood. In Experiment 1, participants were randomly assigned to receive either a negative or neutral mood induction, after which participants were instructed to take either a stooped, straight, or control posture while writing down their thoughts. Stooped posture led to less mood recovery in the negative mood condition, and more negative mood in (...) the neutral mood condition. Furthermore, stooped posture led to more negative thoughts overall compared to straight or control postures. In Experiment 2, all participants underwent a negative mood induction, after which half received cognitive reappraisal instructions and half received no instructions. Mood-congruent cognitions were assessed through autobiographical memory recall. Again, stooped position led to less mood recovery. Notably, this was independent of regulation instruction. These findings demonstrate for the first time that posture plays an important role in recovering from negative mood. (shrink)

Emotion regulation is an umbrella term to describe interactive, goal-dependent explicit and implicit processes that are intended to help an individual manage and shift an emotional experience. The primary window for appropriate emotion regulation development occurs during the infant, toddler, and preschool years. Atypical emotion regulation development is considered a risk factor for mental health problems and has been implicated as a primary mechanism underlying childhood pathologies. Current treatments are predominantly verbal- and behavioral-based and lack the opportunity to practice in-the-moment (...) management of emotionally charged situations. There is also an absence of caregiver-child interaction in these treatment strategies. Based on behavioral and neural support for music as a therapeutic mechanism, the incorporation of intentional music experiences, facilitated by a music therapist, may be one way to address these limitations. Musical Contour Regulation Facilitation is an interactive therapist-child music-based intervention for emotion regulation development practice in preschoolers. The Musical Contour Regulation Facilitation intervention uses the deliberate contour and temporal structure of a music therapy session to mirror the changing flow of the caregiver-child interaction through the alternation of high arousal and low arousal music experiences. The purpose of this paper is to describe the Therapeutic Function of Music, a theory-based description of the structural characteristics for a music-based stimulus to musically facilitate developmentally appropriate high arousal and low arousal in-the-moment emotion regulation experiences. The Therapeutic Function of Music analysis is based on a review of the music theory, music neuroscience, and music development literature and provides a preliminary model of the structural characteristics of the music as a core component of the Musical Contour Regulation Facilitation intervention. (shrink)

One of the most fundamental distinctions in the field of emotion is the distinction between emotion generation and emotion regulation. This distinction fits comfortably with folk theories, which view emotions as passions that arise unbidden and then must be controlled. But is it really helpful to distinguish between emotion generation and emotion regulation? In this article, we begin by offering working definitions of emotion generation and emotion regulation. We argue that in some circumstances, the distinction between emotion generation and emotion (...) regulation is indeed useful. We point both to citation patterns, which indicate that researchers from across a number of sub-areas within psychology are making this distinction, and to empirical studies, which indicate the utility of this distinction in many different research contexts. We then consider five ways in which the distinction between emotion generation and emotion regulation can be problematic. We suggest that it is time to move beyond debates about whether this distinction is useful to a more specific consideration of when and in what ways this distinction is useful, and in this spirit, we offer recommendations for future research. (shrink)

According to legal tradition, the ideal judge is entirely dispassionate. Affective science calls into question the legitimacy of this ideal; further, it suggests that no judge could ever meet this standard, even if it were the correct one. What judges can and should do is to learn to effectively manage—rather than eliminate—emotion. Specifically, an emotion regulation perspective suggests that judicial emotion is best managed by cognitive reappraisal and, often, disclosure; behavioral suppression should be used sparingly; and suppression of emotional experience (...) is rarely helpful. We argue that the dispassionate-judge ideal presents a barrier to achieving the flexibility necessary for adaptive judicial emotion regulation. We suggest a new ideal, that of the emotionally well-regulated judge, and propose several directions for future research to strengthen ties between law and psychology, with particular attention to the study of emotion. (shrink)

Much of the recent work in psychology (and affective science) has shown that humans regulate their emotions nearly constantly, sometimes well and sometimes poorly. I argue that properly regulating one’s emotions displays emotional rationality, and failing to do so displays emotional irrationality. If an agent feels an emotion that is obviously problematic for the agent to feel and she is aware that it is problematic, then the agent ought to regulate her emotions in future similar situations. To capture this aspect (...) of emotional rationality, I introduce the concept of imprudence, which is meant to capture a familiar way that we assess each other’s emotions, despite the fact that it has yet to be a factor in the literature on emotions in philosophy, psychology, or affective science. (shrink)

What psychological mechanisms enable people to reappraise a situation to change its emotional impact? We propose that reappraisal works by shifting appraisal outcomes—abstract representations of ho...

While philosophers have discussed the emotion of contempt from antiquity to the present day, contempt has received less attention in psychological research. We review the defining features of contempt, both as a short-term emotion and as a more long-lasting sentiment. Contempt is similar to anger in that it may occur after (repeated) social or moral transgressions, but it differs from anger in its appraisals, actions, and emotivational goals. Unlike anger, contempt arises when a person’s or group’s character is appraised as (...) bad and unresponsive to change, leading to attempts to socially exclude the target. We discuss associative, self-regulatory, and social distancing functions of contempt and present a dynamic social model of contempt versus anger. (shrink)

Complex problem solving (CPS) emerged in the last 30 years in Europe as a new part of the psychology of thinking and problem solving. This paper introduces into the field and provides a personal view. Also, related concepts like macrocognition or operative intelligence will be explained in this context. Two examples for the assessment of CPS, Tailorshop and MicroDYN, are presented to illustrate the concept by means of their measurement devices. Also, the relation of complex cognition and emotion in the (...) CPS context is discussed. The question if CPS requires complex cognition is answered with a tentative “yes.”. (shrink)

Because of the central involvement of emotion regulation in psychological health and the role that implicit (largely unconscious) processes appear to play in emotion regulation, implicit emotion-regulatory processes should play a vital role in psychological health. We hypothesised that implicitly valuing emotion regulation translates into better psychological health in individuals who use adaptive emotion-regulation strategies. A community sample of 222 individuals (56% women) who had recently experienced a stressful life event completed an implicit measure of emotion regulation valuing (ER-IAT) and (...) reported on their habitual use of an important adaptive emotion-regulation strategy: cognitive reappraisal. We measured three domains of psychological health: well-being, depressive symptoms, and social adjustment. As hypothesised, individuals who implicitly valued emotion regulation exhibited greater levels of psychological health, but only when they were high in cognitive reappraisal use. These findings suggest that salutary effects of unconscious emotion-regulation processes depend on its interplay with conscious emotion-regulation processes. (shrink)

Physicians, nurses, and other clinicians readily acknowledge being troubled by encounters with patients who trigger moral judgments. For decades social scientists have noted that moral judgment of patients is pervasive, occurring not only in egregious and criminal cases but also in everyday situations in which appraisals of patients' social worth and culpability are routine. There is scant literature, however, on the actual prevalence and dynamics of moral judgment in healthcare. The indirect evidence available suggests that moral appraisals function via a (...) complex calculus that reflects variation in patient characteristics, clinician characteristics, task, and organizational factors. The full impact of moral judgment on healthcare relationships, patient outcomes, and clinicians' own well-being is yet unknown. The paucity of attention to moral judgment, despite its significance for patient-centered care, communication, empathy, professionalism, healthcare education, stereotyping, and outcome disparities, represents a blind spot that merits explanation and repair. New methodologies in social psychology and neuroscience have yielded models for how moral judgment operates in healthcare and how research in this area should proceed. Clinicians, educators, and researchers would do well to recognize both the legitimate and illegitimate moral appraisals that are apt to occur in healthcare settings. (shrink)

Over the last century, emotion research has been beset by the problem of major disagreements with respect to the definition of the phenomenon and an abundance of different theories. Arguably, these divergences have had adverse effects on theory development, on the theoretical foundations of empirical research, and on knowledge accumulation in the study of emotion. Similar problems have been encountered in other areas of behavioural science. Increasingly, there have been calls to work towards some form of theory integration. In contrast, (...) here an effort is made to show that a reasonable degree of theory convergence in the area of emotion science can be attained by adopting a design feature-based working definition of emotion and highlighting the basic agreement on the components of the dynamic emotion process. The aim is to invite constructive discussion on communalities and divergences between different theories and foster the development of more complementary theoretical frameworks to guide future empirical research. (shrink)

The article presents the results of two experimental studies in which I investigated the effect of the situational context and action vs. state orientation on perseverance and efficacy in task performance. The results of Study 1 confirmed that in a context which supports autonomy - as opposed to one which induces external control - people are much more likely to be not only more persistent and effective in their actions but also much more interested in the performed task. Interest in (...) the performed task seems to also be - to some extent- a mediator in the relationship between persistence and efficacy. The results of Study 2 confirmed that a context, which supports autonomy positively, affects both persistence and efficacy. At the same time, the study shows that in a context, which supports autonomy, action-oriented people are more persistent and efficient in their actions than are state-oriented people. What is more, in an autonomy-supporting context, action-oriented people have a more positive attitude towards a given task than do state-oriented people. (shrink)

In this article, we introduce a theory on the dynamic development of affective processes, affect regulation, and the relationship between emotions and sport performance. The theory focusses on how affective processes emerge and develop during competitive sport involvement. Based on Scherer’s component process model, we postulate six components of emotion that interact with each other in a circular fashion: triggering processes, physiological reactions, action tendencies, expressive behaviors, subjective experience, and higher cognitive processes. The theory stresses the dynamics of affective processes (...) and describes the consequences for performance in competitive sports. It assumes that the peculiarities of different sports must be taken into account in order to understand the affective processes, and offers starting points on which strategies can be used to effectively regulate affective states. Consequences for research and practice are derived and discussed. To study the development of affective processes, future research should test the assumptions in ecologically valid contexts, such as real competitions or competition-like situations, using multi-component measures of emotions. (shrink)