Saturday, June 11, 2011
Gut Check
Should I go with my gut? Investigating the benefits of emotion-focused decision making
Joseph Mikels et al.
Emotion, forthcoming
Abstract:
Deliberative decision strategies have historically been considered the surest path to sound decisions; however, recent evidence and theory suggest that affective strategies may be equally as effective. In four experiments we examined conditions under which affective versus deliberative decision strategies might result in higher decision quality. While consciously focusing on feelings versus details, participants made choices that varied in complexity, in extent of subsequent conscious deliberation allowed, and in domain. Results indicate that focusing on feelings versus details led to superior objective and subjective decision quality for complex decisions. However, when using a feeling-focused approach, subsequent deliberation after encoding resulted in reduced choice quality. These results suggest that affective decision strategies may be more effective relative to deliberative strategies for certain complex decisions.
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Emotion expression and contagion online: Statuses, sentiment, and sympathy
Adam Kramer
Facebook Working Paper, 2011
Abstract:
In a large-scale study of Facebook status updates, I show that the amount of negative and positive affect expressed by an individual can be predicted by the type of affect expressed by the individual's friends several days prior to the day examined and these effects last several days. Status updates are short descriptions of one's state or "status" that are viewable by the user's friends on the website, and these updates serve as an unobtrusive measure of emotion expression (Kramer, 2010; Kramer & Rodden, 2008). I use the TAWC program (Kramer, Fussell, & Setlock, 2004; no updates were read by any human) to examine positive and negative word frequencies across the status updates of N=998,325 randomly selected English-speaking Facebook users and their friends. Using Poisson regression, I show contagion of both positive and negative emotion: More negative emotion words expressed by friends over the course of three days predicted more negative (and fewer positive) emotion words used by users on the third day; the converse was true when predicting positive word use. Bootstrap analyses revealed that this effect degrades over time, though positive and negative words used by friends up to three days prior remain significant predictors of individuals' word usage on the third day. This evidence for emotion contagion is measured at an unobtrusive, nonreactive, and implicit level, using real text and expressions generated for the purpose of informing friends of one's current state of being. As this study examined online emotion expression, it also provides evidence for emotion contagion without the cues associated with face-to-face communication.
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Disrupting the right prefrontal cortex alters moral judgement
Sébastien Tassy et al.
Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, forthcoming
Abstract:
Humans daily face social situations involving conflicts between competing moral decision. Despite a substantial amount of studies published over the past 10 years, the respective role of emotions and reason, their possible interaction, and their behavioural expression during moral evaluation remains an unresolved issue. A dualistic approach to moral evaluation proposes that the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (rDLPFc) controls emotional impulses. However, recent findings raise the possibility that the right DLPFc processes emotional information during moral decision making. We used repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) to transiently disrupt rDLPFc activity before measuring decision making in the context of moral dilemmas. Results reveal an increase of the probability of utilitarian responses during objective evaluation of moral dilemmas in the rTMS group (compared to a SHAM one). This suggests that the right DLPFc function not only participates to a rational cognitive control process, but also integrates emotions generated by contextual information appraisal, which are decisive for response selection in moral judgements.
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Anticipated regret and organ donor registration - A pilot study
Ronan O'Carroll et al.
Health Psychology, forthcoming
Objective: In this pilot study we tested the influence of manipulating anticipated regret on organ donor registration behavior.
Method: A simple web-based experimental trial was conducted. Nonorgan donors were allocated to a simple anticipated regret manipulation versus a theory of planned behavior or a control condition. The main outcome measure was registration on the U.K. organ donor register at 1-month follow-up.
Results: A simple anticipated regret manipulation led to a significant increase in organ donor registrations.
Conclusion: Interventions utilizing anticipated regret may have the potential to significantly increase organ donation rates.
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Emotions, Oral Arguments, and Supreme Court Decision Making
Ryan Black et al.
Journal of Politics, April 2011, Pages 572-581
Abstract:
Students of linguistics and psychology demonstrate that word choices people make convey information about their emotions and thereby their intentions. Focusing on theory from these related fields we test whether the emotional content of Supreme Court justices' questions and comments made during oral arguments allow us to predict the decisions they make. Using aggregate data from all arguments between 1979 and 2008 and individual-level data from 2004 through 2008 we find justices' use of more unpleasant language towards the attorney representing one side of a case reduces the probability that side will prevail on the merits, both in terms of individual justices' votes and the overall case outcome.
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Surveillance Cues Enhance Moral Condemnation
Pierrick Bourrat, Nicolas Baumard & Ryan McKay
Evolutionary Psychology, May 2011, Pages 193-199
Abstract:
Humans pay close attention to the reputational consequences of their actions. Recent experiments indicate that even very subtle cues that one is being observed can affect cooperative behaviors. Expressing our opinions about the morality of certain acts is a key means of advertising our cooperative dispositions. Here, we investigated how subtle cues of being watched would affect moral judgments. We predicted that participants exposed to such cues would affirm their endorsement of prevailing moral norms by expressing greater disapproval of moral transgressions. Participants read brief accounts of two moral violations and rated the moral acceptability of each violation. Violations were more strongly condemned in a condition where participants were exposed to surveillance cues (an image of eyes interposed between the description of the violation and the associated rating scale) than in a control condition (in which the interposed image was of flowers). We discuss the role that public declarations play in the interpersonal evaluation of cooperative dispositions.
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Gut Liking for the Ordinary: Incorporating Design Fluency Improves Automobile Sales Forecasts
Jan Landwehr, Aparna Labroo & Andreas Herrmann
Marketing Science, May-June 2011, Pages 416-429
Abstract:
Automotive sales forecasts traditionally focus on predictors such as advertising, brand preference, life cycle position, retail price, and technological sophistication. The quality of the cars' design is, however, an often-neglected variable in such models. We show that incorporating objective measures of design prototypicality and design complexity in sales forecasting models improves their prediction by up to 19%. To this end, we professionally photographed the frontal designs of 28 popular models, morphed the images, and created objective prototypicality (car-to-morph Euclidian proximity) and complexity (size of a compressed image file) scores for each car. Results show that prototypical but complex car designs feel surprisingly fluent to process, and that this form of surprising fluency evokes positive gut reactions that become associated with the design and positively impact car sales. It is important to note that the effect holds for both economy (functionality oriented) and premium (identity oriented) cars, as well as when the above-mentioned traditional forecasting variables are considered. These findings are counter to a common intuition that consumers like unusual-complex designs that reflect their individuality or prototypical-simple designs that are functional.
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The automatic aesthetic evaluation of different art and architectural styles
Stefano Mastandrea, Gabriella Bartoli & Giuseppe Carrus
Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, May 2011, Pages 126-134
Abstract:
The subject under discussion concerns the existence of an automatic aesthetic evaluation. When we encounter an object like an artwork or an architectural structure that activates an aesthetic response, does the associated evaluation appear in our mind as an automatic process? From the broad field of aesthetic appraisal, we will be considering a specific aspect that refers only to the positive and negative affects related to an individual's preference between two art styles (figurative vs. abstract) and two architectural styles (classic vs. contemporary). The hypothesis is that there is a preexistent preference within the visual arts and architecture that can clearly be identified using implicit measurements. Results from two experiments that were conducted with the use of the Implicit Association Test (IAT) showed that participants' reaction times were faster in associating positive words to figurative art and classical architecture (the so-called compatible task) than to abstract art and contemporary architecture (the so-called incompatible task). The results are in line with the hypothesis that aesthetic preferences can also be experienced automatically. Prototypicality (i.e., the degree to which an object is representative of a general class of object), familiarity and the relative simplicity of figurative art and classical architecture (compared to abstract art and modern architecture) can explain the shorter reaction time and as a consequence, an implicit aesthetic preference for these kinds of stimuli.
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Annett Schirmer et al.
Social Neuroscience, May/June 2011, Pages 219-230
Abstract:
Being touched by another person influences our readiness to empathize with and support that person. We asked whether this influence arises from somatosensory experience, the proximity to the person and/or an attribution of the somatosensory experience to the person. Moreover, we were interested in whether and how touch affects the processing of ensuing events. To this end, we presented neutral and negative pictures with or without gentle pressure to the participants' forearm. In Experiment 1, pressure was applied by a friend, applied by a tactile device and attributed to the friend, or applied by a tactile device and attributed to a computer. Across these conditions, touch enhanced event-related potential (ERP) correlates of picture processing. Pictures elicited a larger posterior N100 and a late positivity discriminated more strongly between pictures of neutral and negative content when participants were touched. Experiment 2 replicated these findings while controlling for the predictive quality of touch. Experiment 3 replaced tactile contact with a tone, which failed to enhance N100 amplitude and emotion discrimination reflected by the late positivity. This indicates that touch sensitizes ongoing cognitive and emotional processes and that this sensitization is mediated by bottom-up somatosensory processing. Moreover, touch seems to be a special sensory signal that influences recipients in the absence of conscious reflection and that promotes prosocial behavior.
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Taking More, Now: The Optimality of Impulsive Choice Hinges on Environment Structure
Ross Otto, Arthur Markman & Bradley Love
Social Psychological and Personality Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Impulsivity is a stable personality trait associated with myopic choice behavior that favors immediate rewards over larger, delayed rewards and is often characterized as maladaptive inside and outside of the laboratory. An alternative view suggests that the consequences of trait impulsivity depend on the nature of the task environment. On this view, the optimal level of impulsivity varies across task payoff structures. This hypothesis is tested in two dynamic decision-making tasks that differ in the relative payoffs of delayed and immediate rewards. In a task that favors delayed rewards to immediate rewards, high-impulsive participants perform worse than low-impulsive participants. In contrast, in a task that favors immediate rewards over delayed rewards, high-impulsive participants outperform low-impulsive participants. These results suggest a more nuanced conceptualization of trait impulsivity as it applies to rewards-related decision making that may help explain the variability observed in this trait across individuals.
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"Instant Success": Turning Temptations Into Cues for Goal-Directed Behavior
Floor Kroese et al.
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, forthcoming
Abstract:
Contrary to lay intuition, counteractive control theory posits that tempting food cues can help individuals to act in accordance with their long-term dieting goal. However, studies have shown that temptations trigger goal-directed behavior only in successful but not in unsuccessful self-regulators. The aim of the present study was to test whether it is possible to create facilitated temptation-goal associations in unsuccessful dieters using implementation intentions (e.g., "If I see or smell chocolate then I will follow my goal to diet") and whether this indeed stimulates more successful self-regulation. It was found that implementation intentions linking a temptation to a dieting goal lead to self-perceived improved resistance to (Study 1) as well as reduced consumption (Study 2) of tempting snacks compared to a control condition. Moreover, Study 2 revealed that the reduced snack consumption was indeed related to facilitated temptation-goal associations in participants who had formed implementation intentions.
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Allan Filipowicz, Sigal Barsade & Shimul Melwani
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Research on the interpersonal functions of emotions has focused primarily on steady-state emotion rather than on emotional transitions, the movement between emotion states. The authors examined the influence of emotional transitions on social interactions and found that emotional transitions led to consistently different outcomes than their corresponding steady-state emotions. Across 2 computer-mediated negotiations and a face-to-face negotiation, participants negotiating with partners who displayed a "becoming angry" (happy to angry) emotional transition accepted worse negotiation outcomes yet formed better relational impressions of their partners than participants negotiating with partners who displayed steady-state anger. This relationship was mediated through 2 mechanisms: attributional and emotional contagion processes. The "becoming happy" (angry to happy) emotional transition as compared with steady-state happiness was not significantly related to differences in negotiation outcomes but was significantly related to differences in relational impressions, where perceivers of the "becoming happy" emotional transition gave their partners lower relational impression ratings than perceivers of steady-state happiness.
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Emotional Outlook on Life Predicts Increases in Physical Activity Among Initially Inactive Men
Meghan Baruth et al.
Health Education & Behavior, April 2011, Pages 150-158
Abstract:
This study examined the relationship between emotional outlook on life and change in physical activity among inactive adults in the Aerobics Center Longitudinal Study. A total of 2,132 sedentary adults completed a baseline medical examination and returned for a follow-up examination at least 6 months later. Participants self-reported physical activity level and emotional outlook on life. Emotional outlook on life was significantly and positively related to physical activity participation at the follow-up visit in men but not women. Men who were usually very happy and optimistic at baseline had significantly greater increases in physical activity compared to men who were not happy. Men with a more positive outlook on life (e.g., happier) may be more likely to increase physical activity levels. Physical activity interventions targeting men may be more successful if they first increase happiness.
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Megan Robbins et al.
Health Psychology, forthcoming
Objective: The goal of this study was to explore the intra- and interpersonal consequences of swearing. Specifically, it investigated what implications swearing has for coping with and adjustment to illness.
Methods: The present project combined data from two pilot studies of 13 women with rheumatoid arthritis and 21 women with breast cancer. Participants wore the Electronically Activated Recorder, an unobtrusive observation sampling method that periodically records snippets of ambient sounds, on weekends to track spontaneous swearing in their daily interactions, and completed self-reported measures of depressive symptoms and emotional support.
Results: Naturalistically observed swearing in the presence of others, but not alone, was related to decreases in reported emotional support and increases in depressive symptoms over the study period. Further, decreases in emotional support mediated the effect of swearing on disease-severity adjusted changes in depressive symptoms.
Conclusion: These exploratory results are consistent with the notion that swearing can sometimes repel emotional support at the expense of psychological adjustment. This is one of the first studies to examine the role of swearing, a ubiquitous but understudied psychological phenomenon, in a medical context.
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Nikole Ferree, Rujvi Kamat & Larry Cahill
Consciousness and Cognition, forthcoming
Abstract:
Spontaneous intrusive recollections (SIRs) are known to follow emotional events in clinical and non-clinical populations. Previous work in our lab has found that women report more SIRs than men after exposure to emotional films, and that this effect is driven entirely by women in the luteal phase of the menstrual cycle. To replicate and extend this finding, participants viewed emotional films, provided saliva samples for sex hormone concentration analysis, and estimated SIR frequency following film viewing. Women in the luteal phase reported significantly more SIRs than did women in the follicular phase, and SIR frequency significantly correlated with salivary progesterone levels. The results are consistent with an emerging pattern in the literature suggesting that menstrual cycle position of female participants can potently influence findings in numerous cognitive domains. The potential implications of these results for disorders characterized by intrusions, such as post-traumatic stress disorder, are also discussed.
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Active Transgressions and Moral Elusions: Action Framing Influences Moral Behavior
Rimma Teper & Michael Inzlicht
Social Psychological and Personality Science, May 2011, Pages 284-288
Abstract:
Are certain methods more effective for eliciting altruism than others? If so, what are the factors that stimulate moral behavior? Although past research has suggested that "passive" transgressions are more acceptable than "active" transgressions, it is unclear whether this bias translates to actual behavior. The goal of this research was to investigate the role of active or passive framing in prescriptive and proscriptive moral situations. In Study 1, participants were more likely to help a student with a disability if they were asked directly than if they were passively presented with the opportunity to help. In Study 2, participants completing a math task cheated less when cheating involved an action on their part rather than an omission. This research indicates that individuals are less likely to transgress if the transgression is explicit, a finding that has practical applications, informing how people and organizations can foster prosocial behavior and increase giving.
