Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Emotion'

Emotion dysregulation, or difficulties regulating one's emotions, has been increasingly identified as a transdiagnostic factor that can increase risk for and maintain a wide range of psychiatric disorders (Fernandez, Jazaieri, & Gross, 2016). Emotion malleability beliefs represent a potent psychological factor that relates to emotion regulation and, relatedly, holds important clinical implications for our conceptualizations of and treatment for a range of psychiatric disorders. The current dissertation includes one literature review and four empirical investigations that used an array of methodological approaches and possess different clinical and theoretical emphases to deepen and broaden the established influence of emotion malleability beliefs on emotion regulation and mental health.

Chapter 2 provides a theoretical model and discussion of how emotion malleability beliefs could aid in our understanding of several clinical disorders and could be harnessed to enhance motivation for and engagement in psychological treatment. The study described in Chapter 3 is an experimental investigation in which we demonstrate that emotion malleability beliefs can be experimentally manipulated and such an induction can exert a significant influence on individuals' state emotion regulation when coping with unwanted negative affect. The study presented in Chapter 4 consists of a longitudinal investigation that examines how emotion malleability beliefs relate to emotional experiences, emotion regulation, and clinical symptoms in first-year college students. The investigation included as Chapter 5 is of a daily diary study that elucidates how emotion malleability beliefs are tied to daily emotional experiences and emotion regulation as currently depressed individuals. Finally, the experimental study described in Chapter 6 clarifies how beliefs about emotion's malleability relate to treatment willingness, perceptions of agency over depression, and beliefs regarding prognosis. Overall, the work presented in this dissertation complement and extend past work on the role of emotion malleability beliefs in how individuals navigate their emotional worlds and cope with unwanted emotional experiences with the ultimate goal of promoting psychological adjustment and attenuating psychological distress. Future directions for theoretical and empirical work in this domain are presented in Chapter 7.

In this Thesis, I systematize, clarify, and expand the current theory of emotion based on the principles of predictive processing-the interoceptive inference view of emotion-so as to show the following: (1) as it stands, this view is problematic. (2) Once expanded, the view in question can deal with its more pressing problems, and it compares favourably to competing accounts. Thus, the interoceptive inference view of emotion stands out as a plausible theory of emotion. According to the predictive processing (PP) framework, all what the brain does, in all its functions, is to minimize its precision-weighted prediction error (PE) (Clark, 2013, 2016; Hohwy, 2013). Roughly, PE consist in the difference between the sensory signals expected (and generated) from the top-down and the actual, incoming sensory signals. Now, in the PP framework, visual percepts are formed by minimizing visual PE in a specific manner: via visual perceptual inference. That is, the brain forms visual percepts in a top-down fashion by predicting its incoming lower-level sensory signals from higher-level models of the likely (hidden) causes of those visual signals. Such models can be seen as putting forward content-specifying hypotheses about the object or event responsible for triggering incoming sensory activity. A contentful percept is formed once a certain hypothesis achieves to successfully match, and thus supress, current lower-level sensory signals. In the interoceptive inference approach to interoception (Seth, 2013, 2015), the principles of PP have been extended to account for interoception, i.e., the perception of our homeostatic, physiological condition. Just as perception in the visual domain arises via visual perceptual inference, the interoceptive inference approach holds that perception of the inner, physiological milieu arises via interoceptive perceptual inference. Now, what might be called the interoceptive inference theory of valence (ITV) holds that the interoceptive inference approach can be used so as to account for subjective feeling states in general, i.e., mental states that feel good or bad-i.e., valenced mental states. According to ITV, affective valence arises by way of interoceptive perceptual inference. On the other hand, what might be called the interoceptive inference view of emotion (IIE) holds that the interoceptive inference approach can be used so as to account for emotions per se (e.g., fear, anger, joy). More precisely, IIE holds that, in direct analogy to the way in which visual percepts are formed, emotions arise from interoceptive predictions of the causes of current interoceptive afferents. In other words, emotions per se amount to interceptive percepts formed via higher-level, content-specifying emotion hypotheses. In this Thesis, I aim to systematize, clarify, and expand the interoceptive inference approach to interoception, in order to show that: (1) contrary to non-sensory theories of affective valence, valence is indeed constituted by interoceptive perceptions, and that interoceptive percepts do arise via interoceptive perceptual inference. Therefore, ITV holds. (2) Considering that IIE exhibits problematic assumptions, it should be amended. In this respect, I will argue that emotions do not arise via interoceptive perceptual inference (as IIE claims), since this assumes that there must be regularities pertaining to emotion in the physiological domain. I will suggest that emotions arise instead by minimizing interoceptive PE in another fashion. That is, emotions arise via external interoceptive active inference: by sampling and modifying the external environment in order to change an already formed interoceptive percept (which has been formed via interoceptive perceptual inference). That is, emotions are specific strategies for regulating affective valence. More precisely, I will defend the view that a certain emotion E amounts to a specific strategy for minimizing interoceptive PE by way of a specific set of stored knowledge of the counterfactual relations that obtain between (possible) actions and its prospective interoceptive, sensory consequences ("if I act in this manner, interoceptive signals should evolve in such-and-such way"). An emotion arises when such knowledge is applied in order to regulate valence.

The purpose of the present research programme was to inform the development and subsequent delivery of an intervention to enhance interpersonal emotion regulation. Although emotion regulation has been emphasised due to its importance in explaining performance and well-being, the focus of research has predominantly been on intrapersonal emotion regulation. The present study addressed the dual-gap in research by extending research in interpersonal emotion regulation in general and developing and testing theory-led interventions for use in sport. A three-stage programme of research was set up with stage one reviewing the extant literature before proposing a social-functional approach to emotions, and in particular the Emotions As Social Information (EASI) model, as possible theoretical frameworks for use in sport. Qualitative methods were emphasised as these are particularly useful in studies seeking to identify mechanisms underlying the effectiveness of interventions. Stage two began with a narrative analysis to outline the potential social functions and consequences of emotional expressions, verbalisations, and actions in ice hockey. Two ice hockey players, each captain of their respective team, participated in semi-structured interviews. Participants described how emotions informed them of important circumstances in their environment that required attention and prepared them for such challenges at the individual level. At a dyadic level, emotions helped participants understand the emotional states and intentions of their teammates contributing toward an assessment of the extent to which they were prepared to face their challenges. At a group level, emotions helped participants lead their teammates in meeting team goals. Finally, at the cultural level, emotions helped participants maintain culture-related identities. Stage two continued with examining the processes, strategies used, and potential moderating factors in interpersonal emotion regulation among 16 ice hockey players from an English professional league. An inductive and deductive analysis revealed 22 distinct strategies used to regulate teammates' emotions. These were distinguished between strategies that were verbal or behavioural in nature. They were further distinguished between strategies employed to initiate interpersonal emotion regulation through affective and cognitive channels. Moderating factors in the interpersonal emotion regulation process were consistent with the EASI model. Stage three involved the development, delivery and assessment of the intervention. A British ice hockey team was recruited and the intervention was delivered over the course of three competitive seasons. The primary intervention goal was to improve interpersonal emotion regulation as evidenced by being able to accurately identify when an emotion regulation strategy was needed, and select and use a strategy that changed emotions in the direction and strength intended (Webb, Miles, & Sheeran, 2012). Given the link between emotion and performance, it was expected that the intervention would bring about improvements in individual and team performance. Techniques to bring about change comprised of brief contact interventions, dressing room debriefs, feedback from emotional intelligence assessments, and the practitioner managing himself as an intervention tool. The merit of the intervention was judged through practitioner reflections, social validity assessments, pre- and post-intervention measures of emotional intelligence and performance. Collectively, the present research programme contributes to the emotion regulation literature not only in sport, but also in psychology in general. A key achievement of the programme has been the development of a theoretically sound but ecologically valid intervention designed to improve the interpersonal emotion regulation skills of athletes. Although the intervention primarily catered to the needs of the current team and utilised the professional philosophy of the researcher-practitioner, the intervention provides support for enhanced performance derived from theory explaining a social-functional account of emotions. Future research might use the theory and approach to testing the theory in different sports to examine the role of each sport sub-culture on interpersonal emotion regulation.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Psychology, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2008.
Committee Chair: Blanchard-Fields, Fredda; Committee Member: Corballis, Paul; Committee Member: Hertzog, Christopher; Committee Member: Isaacowitz, Derek; Committee Member: Kanfer, Ruth

The purpose of this study was to better understand associations between acculturation, parental beliefs, mother-child emotion talk, and emotion understanding in Latino preschool-aged children. Research on Latino families may prove to be important given the little research that has focused on emotion understanding strictly in Latino cultures. Forty Latino mother-child dyads were observed throughout a series of naturalistic observations. Mothers self-reported their acculturation and their beliefs about the value and danger of childrenâ s emotions, childrenâ s emotional development processes, and their role in guiding their childrenâ s emotions. Mother-child emotion talk and framing was measured during a 15 minute story-telling task using a Lego house and through a wordless picture book. Childrenâ s emotion understanding was measured using two standard tasks. Results showed that mothersâ acculturation was related to their beliefs about the danger of emotions, their role in guiding their childâ s emotions, and their childâ s readiness to learn about emotions. Mothersâ acculturation was also related to childrenâ s emotion understanding. Mothersâ beliefs about guiding childrenâ s emotions were related to mothersâ labeling of emotions and to childrenâ s emotion understanding. This study confirms and expands several previous findings relating to emotion socialization of children. Overall, results highlight the importance of acculturation for parentsâ beliefs about emotions and childrenâ s emotion understanding.
Master of Science

This thesis explored the feasibility and efficacy of individual emotion-focused therapy for binge-eating disorder, and the role of beliefs about emotions and emotional expressivity as potential mechanisms of change. The unique findings of this research will assist clinicians and patients by providing another treatment option for binge-eating disorder, which is important given mounting evidence of the comparatively high prevalence and clinical significance, and the paucity of proven effective treatment approaches for this condition compared to other eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa.

Emotional behaviour in the context of crowd simulationis a topic that is gaining particular interest in the area of artificial intelligence. Recent efforts in this domain havelooked for the modelling of emotional emergence and socialinteraction inside a crowd of virtual agents, but further investigation is still needed in aspects such as simulation of emotional awareness and emotion contagion. Also, in relation to perception of emotions, many questions remain about perception of emotional behaviour in the context of virtual crowds.This thesis investigates the current state-of-the-art of emotional characters in virtual crowds and presents the implementation of a computational model able to generate expressive full-body motion behaviour and emotion contagion in a crowd of virtual agents. Also, as a second part of the thesis, this project presents a perceptual study in which the perception of emotional behaviour is investigated in the context of virtual crowds. The results of this thesis reveal some interesting findings in relation to the perception and modelling of virtual crowds, including some relevant effectsin relation to the influence of emotional crowd behaviourin viewers, specially when virtual crowds are not the mainfocus of a particular scene. These results aim to contribute for the further development of this interdisciplinary area of computer graphics, artificial intelligence and psychology.
Emotionellt beteende i simulerade folkmassor är ett ämne med ökande intresse, inom området för artificiell intelligens. Nya studier har tittat på modellen för social interaktion inuti en grupp av virtuella agenter, men fortsatt utredning behövs fortfarande inom aspekter så som simulation av emotionell medvetenhet och emotionell smitta. Också, när det gäller synen på känslor, kvarstår många frågor kring synen på känslomässigt beteende i samband med virtuella folkmassor. Denna studie undersöker de nuvarande "state-of-theart" emotionella egenskaperna i virtuella folksamlingar och presenterar implementationen av en datormodell som kan generera smittsamma känslor i en grupp av virtuella agenter. Också, när det gäller synen på känslor, kvarstår många frågor kring synen på känslomässigt beteende i samband med virtuella folksamlingar. Som en andra del av denna avhandlingen presenteras, i detta projekt, en perceptuell studie där uppfattningen av emotionella beteenden undersöks i samband med virtuella folksamlingar.

Emotions are the very heart of people's experiences. Moreover, emotions determine people's focus because they influences people's interests and define dimensions of people's worlds across cultures. However, past research on emotions has argued about the meaning of basic emotions being relative or universal cross cultures. It seems as if researchers are avoiding the issues regarding the meaning of negative and positive emotions and how these emotions are expressed within a cross–cultural context. One of the biggest concerns is that if the descriptions of people's positive and negative emotions are not understood, it becomes difficult for people from different cultural backgrounds to maintain healthy relationships and relate their emotions with one another. Apart from the lack of research regarding the meaning of emotions across cultures, emotion and emotion experiences in the extrinsic and intrinsic level to the employee, especially within the cross cultural context, is also an under researched topic in South African organisations. The reason for this is that organisations view emotions as a complicated subject to understand and tend to focus more on maintaining positive emotions at work rather than creating a stable emotional climate in an organisation for employees. The lack of creating a stable emotional climate within an organisation and addressing adverse discrete emotions and emotional experiences could have harmful effects on employees' mental health and physical well–being. Furthermore, the absence of measuring instruments to investigate the emotions and emotional experiences of employees may result into experiencing painful personal incidents, lack of pride in one's accomplishments, lack of engagement and commitment, negative behaviour and attitudes, and intentions to quit. These experiences might trigger any negative emotions such as anger, hate, irritation, disappointment, despair and frustrations. The above problem statement gave a reason to investigate whether the meaning of emotions differs across cultures or is the same cross culturally, to identify the meaning structure of emotions and to identify the emotions and emotion experience of the employees within the work environment's extrinsic and intrinsic level experience to the individual. Therefore, the Componential Emotions Theory was a relevant theory to determine the meaning of emotions within the Tswana speaking group. The theory of determining emotions and emotion episodes by the Affective Events Theory was followed as a way of determining emotions and emotion experiences comprehensively in the Setswana speaking language group. The Componential Emotion Theory was adapted to provide a clarification of how people across cultures describe their emotion terms. According to the Componential Emotion Theory, emotion terms across cultures can be described through cognitive appraisal, subjective feelings, facial expressions, verbal expressions, gesture, bodily sensations, action tendencies and emotion regulation. Regarding the Affective Events Theory (AET), the theory suggests that emotion episodes at work can cause or be generated by either positive or negative emotions at work. The theory represents an understanding of how employees emotionally respond to certain emotion episodes that occur in various organisational settings. The following research objectives were formulated based on the above–mentioned description of the research problem. The research objectives were addressed into two research articles where study 1 (the meaning of emotion) was the first research article and study 2 (studying the emotion episodes and associated emotions) was the second research article. The objectives of study 1 were to determine the meaning of emotions as conceptualised in a literature review with specific reference to emotion dimensions; to determine how emotions and culture are conceptualised in a literature review with specific reference to the Setswana language group; to describe the Componential Emotion Theory in the literature as an approach to study the meaning of emotion in cultural contexts; to determine if the 24 emotion terms as measured by the Grid instrument, will refer to all components by revealing the meaning of an emotion structure in Setswana; to determine if the Meaning Grid will display acceptable alpha coefficients when compared with internationally studies having a value of 0, 80 and higher; to determine if the meaning of emotion (as measured in the context of the Componential Emotion Theory approach) in a Setswana–speaking students sample will include the evaluation–pleasantness dimension; to determine if the meaning of emotion (as measured in the context of the Componential Emotion Theory approach) in a Setswana–speaking students sample will include the potency–control dimension; to determine if the meaning of emotion (as measured in the context of the Componential Emotion Theory approach) in a Setswana–speaking students sample will include the activation–arousal dimension; to determine if the meaning of emotion (as measured in the context of the Componential Emotion Theory approach) in a Setswana–speaking students sample will include the unpredictability dimension; and to draw conclusions and suggest future research about the meaning of emotion in the Setswana language group. In this part of the study, the sample consisted of (N=122) and was taken from a higher education institution in the North–West Province. A Setswana translated version of the shortened form of the Meaning Grid instrument was administered. Four pilot studies were conducted (Meaning Grid) which consisted of (N=28) and the data gathering was held in a higher education institution in the North West Province. After all four pilot studies had been conducted, the shortened form of the GRID (Translated in Setswana) was then administered using the paper and pencil method (61 emotion features). Furthermore, by utilising the SPSS program, Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was executed to determine the number of factors and indicate the emotion dimensions present in the Setswana language group. In terms of inter–rater reliability, the cronbach–alpha for each respondent was calculated on their rating of emotion terms. A cut–off point for each item – total correlations of at least 0,20 – was used for inclusion for the final determination of reliability. In essence, it means that unreliable raters were dropped in order to keep the reliability high. The Componential Emotion Theory of Scherer (1987) was applied and indicated a four–factor model that should first be extracted namely: evaluation–pleasantness, activation–arousal, potency–control and unpredictability. However, examination of a three and four factorial extraction was not interpretable. The two emotion words, namely sadness and shame, were eliminated because they were outliers in the rotations done. Further inspection of the Scree–plot indicated that a two factor solution should be extracted. A principal component analysis (PCA) (done on the mean corrected scores) were therefore computed for two factors after a varimax rotation - which was interpretable as Evaluation–pleasantness and potency–control dimensions. The results and the interpretation of the two components (dimensions) are based on their relationship with the 61 emotion features. A further analysis was done to determine the component loadings of the 24 Grid emotion term on each factor. This gave an indication of the position of the emotion terms on the specific factors (evaluation–pleasantness and potencycontrol dimensions). Furthermore, the positions of each emotion term in relation with other emotions were graphically represented in a scatter plot. The objectives of study 2 were to conceptualise emotions at work as from a literature research; To determine the relevance of discrete emotions, emotion episodes and the use of the Affective Events Theory for the work context as presented in the research literature; to determine emotion episodes that are experienced in the workplace by Setswana employees; to determine emotion episodes and associated emotions reported on an extrinsic level of Setswana speaking working adults; to determine emotion episodes and associated emotions reported on an intrinsic level of Setswana speaking working adults; and to draw conclusions and make suggestions for future research about the emotion episodes and related emotions of Setswana employees. Within this part of the study a non–probability availability sample (N= 120) was taken from the mining industry, tourism industry, and community services including the government, manufacturing, agriculture, construction and the infrastructure industry. A pilot study was utilised as a prerequisite for the successful execution, and completion of this research study allowed the researcher to acquire thorough background knowledge about specific problems that the researcher intended to investigate. Thereafter, the Tswana employees understood the questions and could report without effort on emotion episodes at work that they experienced. Data collection was done through the Episode Grid, and two questions on emotion episodes were used for collecting emotion episodes in Setswana namely: the participants had to report their most intense emotion episode that they have experienced within their workplace in detail, for example, what happened? How did the episode begin? How did it evolve? How did it end? Secondly, the participants were asked to describe the three most important emotions or feelings that were experienced in the particular event. The described episodes were then categorised into different categories on intrinsic and extrinsic level experienced to the individual. Furthermore, the specific episodes were divided into two types of category levels namely extrinsic emotion episodes and intrinsic emotion episodes. The categories that were found on the extrinsic level concerning emotion episodes at work were acts of management, acts of colleagues, company procedure/company policy, acts of customers, work procedure, external environment and acts of subordinates. Concerning the intrinsic level about emotion episodes at work, the categories that were found included task problems/making mistakes, personal incidents, goal achievement, receiving recognition, physical incidents, discrimination, workload and lack of control. The emotions that were experienced on the extrinsic level comprised emotion terms such as anger, disappointment, anxiety, hurt, irritation, disgust, annoyance, fear, sadness, despair, worry, frustration, embarrassment, shame, hate, stress and anxiety. Regarding the emotions experienced on the intrinsic level, the emotion terms that were described included anger, disappointment, anxiety, hurt irritation, fear, sadness, despair, frustration, hate, pride, stress, compassion, guilt and happiness. Recommendations for the organisation and future research were made.
Thesis (M.Com. (Human Resource Management))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2011.

Emotions are a central part of our lives and the ability to effectively regulate them is central to well-being. Although a lot of research shows the beneficial role of sleep on emotional reactivity and regulation, little is known about how dream emotions relate to emotional reactivity and regulation. The current study investigated how dreams with high vs low levels of self-rated negative dream affect related to next-day waking emotional reactivity and regulation. Participants kept a home dream diary until reporting dreams on five days. They also reported dream and wake emotions and performed an online emotional reactivity and regulation task. Opposing predictions were derived from the continuity hypothesis and from the emotion regulation theories of dreaming. However, no significant differences were found between emotional reactivity and regulation on mornings following dreams with high vs low negative affect. Thus, no support was provided for the direct predictions made from the two theories. Nevertheless, morning wake affect differed significantly as a function of dream emotions. Specifically, participants reported significantly higher levels of positive emotions on mornings after a dream low, rather than high, in negative affect. Similarly, wake morning negative affect was higher following dreams high, rather than low, in negative affect. Thus, the results support a form of affective continuity between dreams and morning wakefulness.

Research on the socialization of emotion has examined the role of parents’ behavioural responses to children’s negative emotions in the development of a number of psychosocial outcomes for children. Parents’ unsupportive socialization practices have predicted poorer social and emotional functioning both in childhood and later in adulthood. The current study aimed to broaden existing knowledge of the nature and impact of parent emotion socialization practices on emotion regulation. This was done through an exploration of the emotional, cognitive, and behavioural aspects of mothers’ responses to their children’s anger and sadness; by examining the impact of factors such as child gender and age as well as contextual factors on mothers’ responses; and by examining the impact of socialization practices on the development of emotion regulation. An online community sample of 114 mothers of 6- to 10-year-old children read a series of hypothetical situations in which they were asked to imagine their child responding with either anger or sadness. Mothers reported on their emotional responses, their acceptance of their child’s reaction, their causal attributions, and their socialization responses. Mothers also completed measures that assessed perceived social support, recent stressful life events, and the emotion regulation abilities of their child. Mothers were generally positive and supportive in their responses. Mothers were more likely to endorse negative responses to anger than sadness Responses did not differ according to the gender or age of the child. There was general consistency in the tendency to react positively or negatively. High levels of stressful life events predicted anger and punishment responses to child anger. Minimization of sadness was predicted by lower educational status. No other contextual factors were significant. As expected, minimization of sadness and anger both emerged as significant predictors of poorer emotion regulation in children; problem-focused responses predicted better emotion regulation for anger not sadness; unexpectedly emotion-focused responses to anger predicted poorer emotion regulation. Results are discussed in relation to the existing literature on the socialization of emotion and child outcomes. Limitations of this study and future directions for the research are discussed.

This research explores the potential of negative emotions in creating meaningful user experience. It investigates the transformation of negative emotions during interactions and its functional consequences on meaning perception. The causes of specific negative emotions in different contexts of interactions and their effects on cognition and behaviours were examined. The findings reveal the mechanism of changes in emotions over the course of interactions. The predominant role of negative emotions in the meaning-making process is demonstrated. This research outcome consists of two conceptual models for modelling meaningful experiences and systematic methods of emotion induction in users.

This dissertation describes a way of organising the ample existing evidence in the field of digital mental health. For that purpose the DIU framework is presented (D for dissemination, I for improvement and U for understanding). This framework is applied to the specific field of emotion regulation in emotional disorders. In that sense, it presents a description of the current psychopathological transformation in order to outline the role of emotion regulation (ER) as a transdiagnostic and transtheorical mechanism of change. A review of all the existing developments in each of the categories of the DIU framework are described. Each section presents novel empirical results that show how digital interventions may serve to improve ER in emotional disorders. These empirical contributions used a variety of research designs and statistical solutions depending on the different contexts in which the studies were conducted.
Esta tesis describe una forma de organizar la evidencia existente en el campo de la salud mental digital. Para ello se presenta el marco DIU por sus siglas en inglés. Este marco se aplica al campo específico de la regulación emocional en los trastornos emocionales. En este sentido, se presenta una descripción de la transformación psicopatológica actual para describir el papel de la regulación emocional como mecanismo transdiagnóstico y transteórico de cambio. Se describe una revisión de todos los desarrollos existentes en cada una de las categorías del marco DIU. Cada sección presenta resultados empíricos novedosos que muestran cómo las intervenciones digitales pueden servir para mejorar la RE en los trastornos emocionales. Estas contribuciones empíricas utilizaron una variedad de diseños de investigación y soluciones estadísticas en función de los diferentes contextos en los que se realizaron los estudios.
Programa de Doctorat en Psicologia

The thesis examines the relationship between emotional intelligence (EI) traits (capacities people have) and emotion regulation processes (things people do) in two studies: a meta-analysis (Study 1) and a cross-sectional study (Study 2). This research is important for understanding the mechanisms by which EI produces positive outcomes. Emotion regulation can either be intrinsic (regulating one’s own emotions) or extrinsic (regulating others’ emotions). Study 1 estimates the associations of intrinsic emotion regulation processes with each of the three EI streams (ability EI, self-rated EI, and mixed EI), comparing the lower-level branches of ability EI (i.e., emotion perception, use, understanding, and management). Study 2 looks at the associations between ability EI and extrinsic emotion regulation. Chapter 1 introduces background theory on EI and emotion regulation. Chapter 2 presents a meta-analysis (n = 67 studies, k = 618 effects) on EI and intrinsic emotion regulation. Chapter 3 presents a cross-sectional study (N = 178) on EI and extrinsic emotion regulation. Chapter 4 discusses the overall meaning of results. Results indicated that: 1) emotionally intelligent people tend to regulate their own emotions by either solving the problems (direct situation modification and seeking help) or changing their mindset towards the emotional situations (positive reappraisal); 2) emotionally intelligent people tend to use processes that involve high engagement with others’ emotions (reappraisal, receptive listening, and valuing) but not processes that involve low engagement with others’ emotions (downward comparison and expressive suppression); and 3) the test formats and theoretical models of EI measures significantly affect the correlations between EI and intrinsic/extrinsic emotion regulation. This thesis contributed to our understandings of associations between EI and emotion regulation, as well as the moderating effects of EI stream and EI branch.

As part of the longitudinal study First Steps, this thesis attempts to elaborate on our understanding of the development of emotion matching and emotion regulation in infancy. Emotion matching can be defined as the ability to accurately copy the same facial configuration of another with, or without, experiencing the associated internal emotional state. Using a peek-a-boo emotion elicitation paradigm, this thesis explores the age at which infants first match emotional expressions, and whether this ability is affected by valence of matched expressions, or infant age. Additional analysis explores whether emotion matching is related to other forms of early matching behaviour. Emotion regulation can be defined as the ability to modify affective experience. This thesis outlines an experimental procedure for assessing whether infants use spontaneous blinking and gaze aversion to self-regulate the intensity of emotional experience. Potential relationships between emotion regulation and temperament, as well as other forms of regulatory behaviour, are also explored. In addition, links between emotion regulation and emotion matching are investigated. Results demonstrated that from 3-months-old infants are able to match both happy and sad emotional expressions, but that emotion matching ability selectively declines with age. Furthermore, emotion matching was found not to be related to other forms of early matching behaviour. Results also identified spontaneous blinking and gaze aversion as self-regulation strategies utilised in early infancy. In addition, a relationship was identified between regulation ability and higher scores of temperament shyness. However, emotion regulation was found not to be linked to other forms of regulatory behaviour. Finally, a potential relationship was identified between emotion regulation ability early in infancy and infant ability to match happy expression later in life. These results are considered in relation to previous literature, examining the processes and theories behind emotion matching and emotion regulation.

Despite many positive outcomes associated with emotion coaching, factors related to individual differences in emotion coaching have yet to be explored. The current study examined cultural differences in the role of maternal characteristics, specifically emotional awareness and emotion regulation, as determinants of emotion coaching. These findings will facilitate culturally desired emotion socialization practices leading to optimal emotional development of children. In the current study, I translated two English-based questionnaires into Chinese to assess maternal emotional awareness and emotion coaching. Next, I examined relations of reappraisal, suppression, and emotional awareness to maternal emotion coaching. I also investigated the role of maternal emotional awareness as a mediator in the relation of maternal use of reappraisal and suppression to maternal emotion coaching in both Chinese and American cultures. Participants included American (n=164) and 163 Chinese (n=163) mothers. Maternal emotional awareness was measured using subscales of Toronto Alexithymia Scale 20 and Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale. Emotion regulation strategies were assessed using Emotion Regulation Questionnaire. To measure emotion coaching, mothers completed Parents' Beliefs about Children's Emotions questionnaire. Structural equation models were estimated to examine how maternal emotional awareness and emotion regulation related to emotion coaching. Results confirmed the reliability and validity of the Chinese questionnaires. Maternal emotion coaching did not include mothers' views about negative emotions because equivalence could not be established across Chinese and American cultures; therefore, the emotion coaching discussed in this study is different from previous research on emotion coaching that typically involves responses to negative emotions. Maternal emotional awareness was associated with their emotion coaching in both samples and the strength of the association was not different across cultures. However, relations of reappraisal and suppression to emotional awareness and emotion coaching were different across Chinese and American samples. Emotional awareness mediated the relation of reappraisal to emotion coaching only in the American sample. Additionally, emotional awareness was a mediator of the relation of suppression to emotion coaching in both samples. Overall, the findings of this study supported that maternal emotional awareness and use of emotion regulation strategies are important determinants of maternal emotion coaching in both cultures.
Ph. D.

An aim of this research was to gain prevalence rates of emotional abuse (EA) and emotional neglect (EN) in a community based adolescent sample. This exploratory research also attempted to determine the impact of EA, EN and a combination of the two (emotional maltreatment; EM) on adolescent’s emotion regulation (ER). The impact of temperament, gender and age was also considered, along with the adolescent’s subsequent quality of life ratings. Method: A total of 540 adolescents (mean age 14 years) were recruited through their secondary schools, and completed the following questionnaires: the EN and EA subtests of the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ; Bernstein & Fink, 1994); the Early Adolescent Temperament Questionnaire – Short Form (EATQ – SF; Ellis & Rothbart, 1999); the Basic Emotions Scale (BES; Power, 2006); the Regulation of Emotions Questionnaire (REQ; Phillips & Power, 2007) and the Kid Screen -10 item Health Questionnaire for Children and Young People (Ravens-Sieberer et al., 2005). Results: Prevalence rates of EA and EN were reported. Differences were detected between EA and EN in terms of how they affect experiences of basic emotions and how they impact on ER, even after controlling for temperament. Only EA was associated with aggression, whereas both EA and EN were associated with depressive mood and reduced quality of life. Conclusions: EA and EN are different maltreatment experiences which have different detrimental effects on the individual, therefore requiring different interventions.

I argue that emotion is an ontologically emergent and sui generis. I argue that emotion meets both of two individually necessary and jointly sufficient conditions for ontological emergence. These are, (i) that emotion necessarily has constituent parts to which it cannot be reduced, and (ii) that emotion has a causal effect on its constituent parts (i.e. emotion demonstrates downward causation). I argue that emotion is partly cognitive, partly constituted by feelings and partly perceptual. 1) I argue that both the type and the intensity of an emotion supervene on cognitive factors. But emotion cannot be reduced to cognition because emotions are paradigmatically valenced and cognitions are not. 2) I argue that the phenomenal properties of emotion are determined by bodily feelings, thus emotion necessarily requires feelings. But emotion cannot be reduced to feelings because emotion has rational properties not held by bodily feelings. 3) I argue that the intentional objects of emotion are perceptual objects, and hence emotion necessarily requires perception. But emotion cannot be reduced to perception because emotion has second orders (as evidenced by metaemotion) and perception does not. Thus emotion meets the first necessary condition for ontological emergence; emotion has constituent parts to which it cannot be reduced. I go on to argue that emotion has a causal effect on its 4) cognitive, 5) feeling, and 6) perceptual parts, both as a faculty and at the level of the individual emotion. Emotion meets the two individually necessary and jointly sufficient conditions for ontological emergence: (i) emotion has composite parts to which it cannot be reduced, and (ii) emotion has a causal effect on its composite parts. Thus emotion is ontologically emergent. Being ontologically emergent, emotion is sui generis.

My art making approach has enabled me to focus on the connection between our anatomical makeup and the inner workings of the mind. It has been a journey to personally bridge the gap between the two and to make sense of the overlapping functions. Anatomical imagery has lent itself to my exploration into the topics of transformation and social interaction, and the emotions that are tied to these concepts. My body of work consists of mixed media and sculptural pieces. I make use of found objects such as vinyl records, rotary phones, and old black and white photographs. These items are considered to be outdated by modern standards but once had purpose and stories attached to them, as people do. Bright color schemes as well as the manipulation of these outdated objects brings a very experimental and playful approach to my art making. While integrating a variety of materials, I juxtapose objects and anatomical imagery to form my narratives on identity.

In this study of preschool children and parents (N=64), we examined relations between two facets of parents' emotion socialization: direct and indirect socialization; three facets of children's emotional competence: emotion expression, regulation, and understanding; and their relations with children's social and emotional adjustment. Few associations were observed between indicators of parents' emotion socialization and among indicators of children's emotional competence, suggesting that these constructs are better understood as multi-faceted, rather than unitary processes. Additionally, aspects of children's emotional competence linked--both directly and indirectly--parents' emotion socialization behaviors and children's social and emotional adjustment. Results are discussed with regard to the role of parents' emotion socialization and children's emotional competence, especially emotion regulation, in children's adjustment during preschool.

The development of emotion regulation has been the focus of much research due to its long-term impact on an individual’s wellbeing and mental health. Parents often play a crucial role in fostering the development of emotion regulation in their children. This thesis seeks to understand the influence of two parent factors: emotion socialisation and emotion regulation on children’s emotion regulatory abilities in three parts. Part One of the thesis is a systematic review of the existing literature that examines the relationship between parental emotion socialisation practices and child emotion regulation. The studies suggest that supportive emotion socialisation is associated with better child emotion regulation, and unsupportive emotion socialisation is associated with poorer child emotion regulation, indicating the importance of parents’ emotion socialisation practices in the development of their children’s regulatory abilities. Part Two of the thesis is an empirical paper examining the relationship between parent and child emotion regulation. Children were observed across three time-points on two emotion regulatory tasks (fear and anger episodes, Lab-TAB). The raw data for the fear episode was jointly managed with Nikki Lim-Ashworth, another trainee. Parent emotion regulation strategies that worsen others’ emotions predicted reduced child emotion reactivity in the fear episode and an increased use of redirected action strategies in the anger episode. Parent emotion regulation was also found to have a significant relationship with their emotion socialisation practices. The final part of the thesis is a critical appraisal discussing the research rationale. It explores the process of undertaking this project and raises additional clinical and research implications of the findings.

Thesis (BA(Hons) (Psychology)) - Faculty of Life and Social Sciences, Swinburne University of Technology, 2006.
"July 2006". A thesis is submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree Bachelor of Social Science with Honours in Psychology, [Faculty of Life and Social Sciences], Swinburne University of Technology - 2006. Typescript.

[Truncated abstract] The finding that less time is needed to evaluate the valence of a target when it is preceded by a prime of the same valence, as opposed to one of the opposite valence, has become known as the affective priming effect. The research reported here investigated a new model of the mechanisms underlying affective priming effects, which focuses on the role of specific emotions within global valence categories. Specifically, this model stipulates that when presented with a stimulus that elicits particular emotions, the area of the brain corresponding to that emotion is automatically stimulated. This in turn will produce a diffuse activation of meaning nodes that are associated with that emotion. This emotion-based priming model departs from previous spreading activation accounts of affective priming, as it suggests that the facilitation effects observed in such studies may be due primarily to spreading activation via emotion-congruent, rather than valence-congruent, nodes. The overarching goal of the empirical research programme reported here was to test predictions based on this model. In three studies, facilitation effects ascribable to specific emotion-based congruence (e.g., fear-fear) were compared with those ascribable to global valence-based congruence (e.g., negative-negative) alone (i.e., in the absence of emotion-based congruence). Participants made valence judgements on targets which represented one of five basic human emotions: one positive (happy) and four negative (disgust, fear, sad, and anger). ... The fundamental design elements were the same across all three studies: the only difference was in the stimulus format of the prime-target pairs: emotion-laden scenes were used in Study One; facial expressions in Study Two; and emotion-laden words in Study Three. Results showed that, in comparison to the neutral and incongruent baselines, there were significant emotion-based priming effects across all stimulus formats. This result was also consistent across all of the negative emotions employed. Significant valence-based priming effects were, however, also obtained in each of the three studies, although these effects were more inconsistent than those obtained for emotion-based priming. That is, reaction times were significantly shorter on valence-congruent than on neutral and incongruent baseline trials, but only for a portion of the tests performed across the three studies. In Studies One and Two, reaction times were consistently shorter for emotion-congruent prime-target pairs than for valence-congruent prime-target pairs. This trend was absent in Study Three, in which word stimuli were used. These results indicate that while reaction times were facilitated, albeit inconsistently, for valence-congruent prime-target pairs, they were facilitated significantly further for emotion-congruent pairs when picture-based stimuli were used. The emotion-based and valence-based priming effects obtained across the three studies are discussed in terms of three competing theories: (i) spreading activation via global valence nodes, (ii) spreading activation via emotion centres, and (iii) expectancy-based processes. A dual-process hypothesis of affective priming is then proposed. The plausibility of the hypothesis is then explored through a synthesis and re-examination of results reported in previous affective priming research. Directions for future research to elaborate and extend on this work are discussed.

People are guided by their emotions which in turn are a consequence of their understanding of others’ emotion expressions. Their skills to read and accurately identify others’ emotion expressions are a key ingredient for good emotion understanding. That is, accurate emotion identification can be considered as the first frontier of successful emotion understanding, and as the first step of a sequence which results in empathic responding. Impairment within this sequence might mean that the way people respond to their environment may not be appropriate or even cause harm to others. Children and adolescents with callous-unemotional traits have difficulties reading emotional cues correctly, specifically those cues which show others in distress. Such an impairment is thought to underlie a distinct pathway to severe and stable antisocial behaviour. Conventional methods of curbing the antisocial behaviour of children with high callous-unemotional traits such as punishment or time-out do not have the desired effect. Instead, this group of individuals seems to respond well to parental warmth and sensitive responding. Given that children start to learn early how to read and respond to emotions in an empathic manner through interactions, parents have a potential role by intervening early to foster good emotional and social skills even in children with high callous-unemotional traits. Study 1 tested whether adolescent boys with high callous-unemotional traits exhibit an impairment that is specific to distress cues such as fear, sadness or pain as difficulties to recognise such cues in others may impair typical inhibition to behave in an antisocial manner. In Study 2, it was expected that successful parental scaffolding is dependent on parent’s own emotion understanding skills, and therefore, study 2 investigated ways in which parents can scaffold emotion understanding in typically developing children, e.g. through talking about others’ emotion states and through engaging children in mutual eye gaze. Study 3 examined the impact that varying levels of child callous-unemotional traits have on parent-child interaction. Specifically, it was of interest whether children with high callous-unemotional traits are willing to engage with their parents on an emotional level permitting successful parental scaffolding. Parental understanding of emotions was tested in terms of promoting parental sensitive responsiveness. In sum, there are three main points the present thesis contributed: first, findings of Study 1 and 3 support a theory of emotion processing impairment that is not specific to fear or sadness, but describe a broader impairment of a failure to engage with the emotional environment and attend to salient emotional stimuli. Second, this thesis confirms the value of studying callous-unemotional traits in adolescents and young children as well as their parents. Third, findings of Studies 2 and 3 support the important role parents play in the lives of their children with callous-unemotional traits, specifically through their own emotion understanding.

Emotions remain notably underexplored in both criminology and prisons research. This thesis sets out to address this problem by centralizing the importance of emotions in prison: especially the way prisoners express and regulate their affective states. To collect the data, 25 male and 25 female prisoners were 'shadowed', observed and interviewed across two prisons (HMP Send and HMP Ranby). Based on these findings, this thesis describes the emotional world of prisoners and their various 'affective' strategies. The three substantive chapters reveal the textured layers and various emotional states experienced by prisoners: first, at the level of the self (psychological); second, as existing between groups (social emotions); and, third, in relation to the physical environment (spatial). An individual substantive chapter is dedicated to each of these three levels of analysis. A primary finding was the prevalence of a wide range of 'emotion management' strategies among prisoners. One such strategy was emotion suppression, which was extremely salient among both men and women. While this emotion suppression was, in part, a product of pre-prison experiences it was also strongly influenced by institutional practices. Importantly, there was a strong correlation between prisoners who suppressed emotions and who were subsequently involved in violence (towards others, or inflicted upon themselves). A second key finding was the wide range of emotions that exist within, and are shaped by, different prison spaces-previous accounts have described prison as emotionally sterile, or characterised by anxiety and fear but this study develops the idea that prisons have an 'emotional geography' or affective 'map'. The study findings have implications for the 'emotional survivability' of our prisons; the need to open legitimate channels for emotional expression; and designing prisoners that are supportive, safe and secure establishments for prisoners to live in.

The thesis makes an overall contribution to the qualitative research on soldiers’ experiences from service primarily in low-intensity mission areas, this operational environment being placed within a framework of emotion sociology. The central argument put forward states that even on this type of mission the emotional demands are considerable, and that the need for emotional management in Peace Support Operations (PSO) should therefore generally follow other demarcations than the formal military divisions of high and low intensity conflicts respectively. In contrast to the prevalent view stating that the successful soldier is someone with emotional control in the sense that he ‘lacks’ feeling towards what he is doing, this thesis argues that soldiers’ emotion management work when choosing, modelling, managing, and displaying the ‘right’ emotional expression is what it takes to get the job done. Further, the thesis argues that emotion management demands are not restricted to the tour of service. Returning home often involves feeling both cognitively and emotionally disorientated, even if the mission has been militarily quite uneventful. A new theoretical concept, Post-Deployment Disorientation (PDD), is introduced to explain and highlight the origin of these feelings. PDD is not a diagnosis, however, but a term reserved for a phenomenon invisible in statistics that likely confronts the majority of Swedish soldiers on return. The thesis comprises four essays and draws on qualitative data collected mainly from soldiers deployed to Kosovo and Liberia in 2006/2007. Two of the essays also include data from Afghanistan. Jointly, the four essays help us understand that from an emotion management perspective, serving abroad is both a varied and challenging experience. Nevertheless, the informants seem to muddle through many difficulties and the study broadly confirms Bolton’s (2005) accounts of the multi-talented emotional actor, who is quite capable of handling contradiction while negotiating feeling rules. However, this does not mean an adjustment with negligible effort or without substantial emotional costs.

This thesis aimed to examine the impact of emotion suppression of negative material on subsequent reactivity to positive material with a group of MDD participants and healthy controls. A mixed design laboratory based experiment was used, where in the first condition participants firstly “just viewed” a sad film clip, and in the second condition they suppressed their emotions to a different sad film clip. Before and after each of the film clips, positive self referent and non self referent material was presented. Based on findings from Dunn et al. (2009), Liverant et al. (2008), and Kashdan and Breen (2008) it was suggested that the suppression of negative emotional experience would down-regulate negative affect, but with the consequence of reducing reactivity to subsequently presented material, including positive. The underlying rationale was that alterations in emotion regulation, and specifically, emotion suppression, may be a contributory factor in the processing disturbances, which occur in MDD, particularly anhedonia. These ideas overlap with current clinical thinking, where interventions such as Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) and Mindfulness Based Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (MCBT) have begun to target both emotion regulation difficulties, and explore the role of acceptance of emotional experience, as opposed to emotion suppression. The results showed that there were no changes in reactivity to positive nonself referent material as a function of emotion regulation type. However, the results from the positive self referent material, showed that emotion suppression to negative material influenced subsequent reactivity to it. For the control group, the results replicated the findings from the Dunn et al. (2009) study. Namely, a consequence of emotion suppression was the dampening of positive reactivity to positive self referent material following suppression of emotions to a negative film clip. However, for the MDD group, the opposite pattern was obtained, participants had a greater reduction in positive reactivity following the view condition, compared to the suppress condition. This effect occurred despite higher suppression effort reported following the suppress condition. With regard to emotion reactivity more generally, across both conditions, there was significantly higher ratings of sadness to the positive memories in the MDD group compared to the control group, there were also significantly lower ratings of happiness to the positive images in the MDD group relative to the control group. With regard to the negative videos, there was no evidence of elevated sadness from the MDD in response to the negative videos; however the MDD group did report significantly lower happiness ratings following the sad videos. These findings offered support for both the positive attenuation view, and partially for the ECI hypothesis. A number of interpretations of the data have been offered, with regard to the differences between the control and MDD group on the effects of suppression. In particular, the idea of “ego depletion” as a result of the suppress condition, with subsequent implications for reactivity related to self control. Executive function processes were implicated as generic processing factors, which are implicated both in emotion regulation and in self control and self regulation. The clinical implications from these results focused on the role of flexibility and of habitual suppression in emotional experience. Finally, future research areas were suggested, including examining the role of executive function load in a precise way, and looking at the time course of emotional reactivity following specific types of regulation.

Few studies currently exist which examine expressed emotion in depressed fathers, despite considerable evidence linking expressed emotion and depression in mothers. These findings are important as they indicate that mothers’ depressed mood is associated with an increase in child-directed critical comments and a decrease in positive comments, which have been linked to poorer child emotional and behavioural outcomes. There are limited findings exploring how depressed mood may impact fathers’ expressed emotion, and how this is in turn may impact upon the child. This paper reports findings from part of a longitudinal study examining fathers with depression in the postnatal period. The aim of this study was to determine whether child emotional and behavioural problems at age 2 years were associated with increased critical comments and decreased positive comments made by fathers (N = 143). It was predicted that fathers who were depressed when their child was 3 months or 12 months old would make more critical comments and fewer positive comments about their children at age 24 months, and that fathers’ critical comments would predict child emotional and behavioural problems at 24 months. Fathers’ depression at 12 months was found to be significantly related to child emotional and behavioural problems at 24 months. The children of fathers who made more positive comments had fewer reported emotional and behavioural difficulties at 24 months. Fathers’ positive comments were found to remain stable from 12 months to 24 months. There were no significant relationships found between fathers’ depression and the frequency of positive or critical comments. This study has implications for increasing fathers’ child-directed positive comments in order to prevent the development of child emotional and behavioural difficulties.

This thesis examines the context and practices of emotion management for National workers in International Non-Governmental Organizations (INGOs) through a study of national workers recruited into disaster intervention in India. The research draws on postcolonial theory and problematizes current work exploring the implications of race and intersectionality within emotion management. The data collection strategy involved a narrative-based semi-structured interview process with a view to surfacing social and discursive constructions. The interpretation comprised of three levels of reading that included explication, explanation and exploration based reading using postcolonial and poststructural-feminist theories. Results highlight the dominance of neoliberal practices in INGOs and explain how these practices foreground various colonial continuities in the ways in which INGOs respond to disasters. Neoliberal practices inform and impact on the emotion management of National workers as they create a masculine and instrumental emotion regime where emotions and compassion are seen as dispensable. The colonial continuities on which neoliberalism draws, have an impact on the relationships between National and Expatriate workers. These relationships become ‘emotional encounters’ based on asymmetries that disadvantage the former. This understanding paves the way for proposing changes in contemporary disaster management practices. In this context the emotion management of National workers is a complex performance. These complex performances are linked to the postcolonial concepts of mimicry, sly-civility and hybridity and to the operation of power through desires and subjectivity. Through this context based interpretation, emotion management and theorising can be extended in useful ways. In particular, I go beyond the normative nature of much current theorising. In doing so I am able to consider emotion management as an ‘embodied emotional performance’ that places additional stress on stigmatised identities. This formulation helps break down the binaries that inform our current conceptualisation of emotion management such as emotion work and emotional labour; surface and deep acting; real and fake emotions; felt and expressed emotions. It also blurs the distinction between emotional labour and aesthetic labour. Further, it helps identify different forms of resistance to neoliberal dictates about the role of emotions in organizations. This allows for the recognition that embodied emotional performances enable conformity as well as creative resistance against emotion norms in organizations.

This thesis examines the interaction between emotional stimuli and motor processes. Emotions are thought to be intimately linked to action, often triggering specific biases that automatically guide our behaviour for successful interaction. For example, emotional behaviour is influenced in a very specific way by two opposing appetitive and defensive motivational systems that trigger specific actions. Appetitive stimuli trigger approach, whereas aversive stimuli trigger avoidance, freezing or attack. These approachavoidance tendencies are likely to interact with and bias various motor processes, such as action selection, planning and execution, revealing a privileged relationship between emotion and motor processes. However, this interaction remains poorly understood. Investigating how emotional tendencies influence different motor processes will further our understanding of how emotions influence actions. To this end, five experiments were conducted. Experiment One examined how approach-avoidance actions are selected. Experiment Two investigated how emotional cues in the environment bias and prepare for action to anticipated emotional stimuli. Experiment Three evaluated the effect of approachavoidance tendencies on action execution and motor planning. Experiment Four assessed whether tendencies also influence our ability to suppress action execution. Finally, Experiment Five investigated whether updating of actions in response to emotional changes in the environment are influenced by response tendencies. Overall, this thesis found that approach-avoidance tendencies influence the selection of actions via a combination of topdown, goal-directed processes, and bottom-up, automatic processes. Predisposed tendencies did not influence any other motor process. Instead, positive and negative stimuli influenced action planning, execution and inhibition. Thus, motor processes are differentially influenced by approach-avoidance tendencies and emotional valence. This thesis demonstrates an intimate relationship between emotional stimuli and the motor system that appears to be influenced by both top-down and bottom-up mechanisms.

Studies in the perceptual identification of emotional states suggested that listeners seemed to depend on a limited set of vocal cues to distinguish among emotions. Linguistics and speech science literatures have indicated that this small set of cues included intensity, fundamental frequency, and temporal properties such as speech rate and duration. Little research has been done, however, to validate these cues in the production of emotional speech, or to determine if specific dimensions of each cue are associated with the production of a particular emotion for a variety of speakers. This study addressed deficiencies in understanding of the acoustical properties of duration and intensity as components of emotional speech by means of speech science instrumentation. Acoustic data were conveyed in a brief sentence spoken by twelve English speaking adult male and female subjects, half with dramatic training, and half without such training. Simulated expressions included: happiness, surprise, sadness, fear, anger, and disgust. The study demonstrated that the acoustic property of mean intensity served as an important cue for a vocal taxonomy. Overall duration was rejected as an element for a general taxonomy due to interactions involving gender and role. Findings suggested a gender-related taxonomy, however, based on differences in the ways in which men and women use the duration cue in their emotional expressions. Results also indicated that speaker training may influence greater use of the duration cue in expressions of emotion, particularly for male actors. Discussion of these results provided linkages to (1) practical management of emotional interactions in clinical and interpersonal environments, (2) implications for differences in the ways in which males and females may be socialized to express emotions, and (3) guidelines for future perceptual studies of emotional sensitivity.

The link between overgeneral autobiographical memory (ANI) and depression has been well established in adults and in limited research on adolescents. Major theories propose that overgeneral AM is a consequence of childhood trauma, serving to minimise negative affect associated with aversive memories. The body of research in the area tends to support the premise that overgeneral ANI function as a short-term protective factor against memories of distressing experiences. However, in tile longer term, it may interact with other mechanisms such as rumination, social problem solving and working memory capacity, resulting in Vulnerability to depression. Understanding the developmental course of overgeneral AM in people Suffering from depression is important in the design and implementation of interventions for both children and adults suffering with depressed mood. This large-scale research project reviewed and critically evaluated studies on autobiographical memory across the lifespan in the context of the models of AM such as the Affect Regulation Hypothesis and Working Memory Capacity theories of Williams (1996). The aim of the current study was to explore the relationships between measures of AM, depressed mood, emotional intelligence and a new paradigm known as emotion focusing, in a non-clinical sample of 58 primary school age children. No statistically significant relationships were found between the constructs and children categorised as high and low in depression did not differ significantly on any of the measures suggesting that overgeneral AM may not be associated with depression in this age group. An analysis of effect sizes indicated that more depressed children may become increasingly reliant on an overgeneral retrieval style with age. This finding is potentially clinically meaningful and worthy of discussion. Limitations of the research and directions for future investigation, particularly those including longitudinal designs, are discussed. In addition, the theoretical and clinical implications of these findings are discussed.

One of the ways in which the attachment relationships we develop during infancy influence us throughout life is by emotion regulation. Although studies have shown that attachment orientations affect emotional functioning, the effect of attachment dimensions on overall emotional functioning and sociability has still not been investigated. The purpose of the present study was to examine if attachment dimensions predict emotional intelligence (EI) and sociability. The sample consisted of 75 psychology students at Stockholm University who completed the Attachment Style Questionnaire (ASQ; Feeney, Noller & Hanrahan, 1994) and a section of the Understanding Personal Potential (UPP; Sjöberg, 2001) that measures EI with self-report as well as performance measures, and sociability. The current data did not offer conclusive evidence for the impact of attachment on EI, but suggests that secure attachment predicts sociability. The results are discussed in relation to existing theory and a more integrative approach is suggested for future studies.

Emotion research is an important research topic, thus making the measurement of emotion in the workplace crucial. In attempting to study, understand and measure the role of emotions in the human condition, various researchers have identified different theoretical models to manage the information they have gathered and the observations they have made. In order to study or scientifically investigate any human behaviour, it is essential that such behaviour can be measured, if not quantitatively, then at least qualitatively. However, what one finds with regard to emotion research and measurement are two–dimensional models. The existing affect has been described with a choice of two dimensions and structures, i.e. circumplex, positive and negative affect, tense and energetic arousal, and eight combinations of pleasantness and activation. These two dimensions and structures measure a person’s experiences and, thereafter, report them. The question is if these two–dimensional emotion models are sufficient to cover the broad and often complex dynamics of emotions. The start of multiple–emotion dimension models were reported by researchers, who identified a three–dimensional structure in the emotion domain that is suggestive of the Evaluation–Potency– Activation (EPA) dimensions in the connotative or affective meaning of words. However, in recent studies the sufficiency of two–dimension models to comprehensively investigate emotions was questioned. The three–dimensional emotion model was replicated in cross–cultural similarity sorting studies by other researchers. The similarity sorting studies also indicate the importance of studying emotions in specific cultural contexts. Studying emotion in different cultures is especially relevant in a country such as South Africa that has a variety of cultures and eleven official languages. Researchers followed an approach that studied the meaning of emotion in different cultural groups in the context of 144 emotion features using a componential emotion theory approach. Researchers argue in the groundbreaking research that was published in Psychological Science that emotion meaning has more than only two dimensions. The approach postulated by researchers was tested in a student population of three language groups, namely Dutch–, Englishand French–speaking students. According to researchers this is an empirical and theoretical method to study the meaning of emotions across cultures. However, apart from studying the meaning of emotions in specific cultural groups, research also attempts to determine the meaning of emotion in the natural contexts in which they occur. The relevant natural contexts for the field of Industrial Psychology are the work contexts. It is therefore also important to investigate the categories of emotion episodes in the work environment. The general goal of this study was therefore a) to investigate the emotion lexicon in the white Afrikaans–speaking working adult language group, b) to determine the cognitive emotion structure of this cultural group, c) to investigate the meaning of emotion as comprehensively as possible (multidimensional models of the meaning of emotion), and d) to determine the meaning and content of emotion episodes in the workplace. Research Article 1 The research was subsequently presented in two independent phases. Firstly, a free listing of emotion terms was compiled, and secondly the emotion terms were prototypically rated by Afrikaans–speaking people in South Africa. Both of these were then used as measuring instruments. A survey was designed to explore the research objectives utilising availability samples in two studies. The participants in the free–listing (N=70) and in the prototypicality (N=70) study consisted of native Afrikaans–speaking employees. The sample consisted of participants from the white ethnic group speaking Afrikaans within the Eastern Cape, Gauteng, Free State, Mpumalanga, North–West and KZN provinces and use was made of an availability sample. After conducting the research, the emotion terms with the highest frequency, as identified during the first study, the free listing task, were to be happy (gelukkig wees), be sad (hartseer wees), love (liefde), anger (kwaad) and hateful (haatlik). The emotion terms with the lowest scores as identified during the free listing were uncomfortable (ongemaklik), painful (seer), be hurt (seergemaak wees), sympathetic (simpatiek) and shout/yell (skreeu). Correspondingly, the five (5) prototypical terms with the highest scores in Afrikaans were nice (lekker), fed–up/had enough (gatvol/“genoeg gehad”), loveable (liefdevol), anger (kwaad) and to be scared (om bang te wees). The five (5) least prototypical terms from the list generated in the free listing task were: unstable (onvas), bashfulness (skugterheid), captivation (geboeidheid), envy (naywer) and delight (opgetoënheid). From the information obtained in this research it was revealed that the emotion terms nice (lekker), fed up/had enough (gatvol/“genoeg gehad”) and loveable (liefdevol) are at this stage unique to the white Afrikaans language group. These terms had not been reported in any previously conducted prototypical studies. The results of this study contribute to a cross–cultural understanding of the emotion concepts within the Afrikaans–speaking language groups in South Africa. Research Article 2 A survey design was used to achieve the research objectives utilising availability samples in a series of one study. The participants of the Similarity study (N=131) consisted of native Afrikaans–speaking employees. The sample consisted of participants from the white ethnicity group speaking Afrikaans within the Eastern Cape, Gauteng, Free State, Mpumalanga, North– West, KZN and Northern Cape provinces and use was made of an availability sample. Results of Multidimensional Scaling revealed a three–dimensional cognitive emotion structure. The first dimension was the evaluation–pleasantness dimension. This dimension evaluates the pleasantness versus the unpleasantness of an emotion. This dimension is characterised by intrinsic appraisals of pleasantness and goal conduciveness and action tendencies of approach versus avoidance. The second dimension that emerged was a power–control dimension. This dimension is characterised by appraisals of control, how powerful or weak a person feels when a particular emotion is experienced. This includes feelings of dominance or submission, the impulse to act or withdraw and changes in speech and parasymphatic symptoms. The third dimension which emerged was an activation–arousal dimension. According to other researchers this arousal dimension is characterised by sympathetic arousal, e.g. rapid heartbeat and readiness for action. This study produced a cognitive emotion structure in a white Afrikaans–speaking working adult population in South Africa. To add value to the field of Industrial Psychology, the threedimension structure (evaluation–pleasantness, power–control and activation–arousal dimension) that was found, is very important and valuable when studying the meaning of emotion and can consequently be used as a reference for other emotion research constructs. If it is accurate as stated in literature, there are three and not only two emotion dimension structures, and researchers are missing out on a bigger picture for not drawing on the experience of emotion sufficiently. Research Article 3 A survey design and an availability sample (N=120) in the Eastern Cape, Free State and Gauteng provinces in South Africa was utilised for this study. The Meaning Grid was translated and backtranslated and adapted for use in Afrikaans. The Cronbach's alpha coefficients were obtained for the emotion terms. According to the results of the Meaning Grid instrument, the following emotion terms were the highest: disgust (afkeur) 0,95; pleasure (plesier) 0,94; stress (stres) 0,92; happiness (blydskap) 0,91; joy (vreugde) 0,91; fear (bang) 0,91; anger (angstig) 0,91 and hate (haat) 0,90. The emotion terms that scored the lowest with the Meaning Grid instrument were compassion (medelye) 0,79; pride (trots) 0,79 and contempt (minagting) 0,74. Out of the 24 emotion terms of the Meaning Grid instrument, 8 terms were above 0,90 and 13 were between 0,80 and 0,89. Only 3 terms were between 0,74 and 0,79 [compassion (medelye), pride (trots) and contempt (minagting)]. A three–factor solution was found which represented four emotion dimensions (evaluation, arousal/unpredictability and power) that were universal to the emotion structures found in European samples. Factor scores of the 24 Meaning Grid emotions indicate a three–factor solution that explained 62,2 % of the total variance. The first factor was labelled evaluation and explained 43,0% of the variance, the second factor was labelled arousal/unpredictability as it was a combination of arousal and unpredictability and explained 11,0% of the variance, and the third factor was labelled power and explained 8,2% of the variance. This study followed an approach that investigated the meaning structure of emotion in the sample group in the context of 144 emotion features using a componential emotion theory approach. Different researchers argued that emotion meaning has more than only two dimensions. A three–dimensional emotion structure was found that was universal to the emotion structures of three language groups in a European sample. Therefore, the meaning of emotions for this sample group is far more complex than the two–dimensional emotion models that are found in literature. According to the componential emotion theory approach, the 144 emotion features are very important building blocks for Industrial Psychology when studying the meaning of emotion. Research Article 4 A survey design was used in this research study. The Episode Meaning Grid was administered and participants reported on the two intense emotion experiences at work (in total 358 episodes). Employees rated their emotion experiences on features based on the componential emotion theory and also described the emotion events in their own words. The participants in the emotion episodes (N=179) study consisted of native white Afrikaans–speaking working adults. The sample consisted of participants from the white ethnicity group speaking Afrikaans within the Eastern Cape, Free State and North–West provinces and use was made of an availability sample. The results indicated a three–dimensional structure (evaluation–pleasantness, activation–arousal and power–control dimension) was identified within a white Afrikaans–speaking working adult language group. The first dimension was an evaluation–pleasantness dimension. The second dimension was an activation–arousal dimension. The third dimension was a power–control dimension. Regarding the reporting of emotion episodes one hundred and ninety seven respondents reported 84 satisfying emotion episodes and 267 less satisfying emotion episodes that took place at work. Nine different categories of episodes for satisfying emotions experienced were mentioned. It consists of behaviour of work colleagues, acts of boss/superior/management, goal achievement, receiving recognition, workplace policy, task recognition, personal incidents, emotion involvement and subordinate behaviour. The three highest categories of satisfying emotions episodes were “Goal Achievement” (N=31), “Receiving Recognition” (N=20) and “Personal Incidents” (N=10). Goal achievement describes situations where job related targets or goals were met, and receiving recognition refers to positive feedback from managers, supervisors and work colleagues on meeting targets. Nineteen different categories of episodes for less satisfying emotion episodes were mentioned. It consists of behaviour of work colleagues, acts of boss/superior/management, lack of goal achievement, lack of receiving recognition, workplace policy, task requirement, personal incidents, emotional involvement, subordinate behaviour, workload, work mistakes, customer behaviour, external environment, lack of control, physical well–being, involvement in disciplinary action, workplace strikes, wellness of colleagues and unfairness in the workplace. In the categories of less satisfying emotions episodes, the three highest were “Behaviour of Work Colleagues” (N=58), “Acts of Boss/Superior/Management” (N=47) and “Task Requirement” (N=33). The first two categories are appraised less satisfying behaviour towards oneself or others by work colleagues, managers, supervisors and customers. In terms of the categories of satisfying and less satisfying emotions episodes, less satisfying emotion episodes outnumbered satisfying emotions episodes by three to one. By making use of a multi–componential emotion model, the results confirm that the four factors of pleasantness, power, arousal, and unpredictability, in that order of importance, are essential to satisfactorily determine the emotion experience and meaning of emotion terms. A threedimensional emotion structure (evaluation, arousal and power) was found after determining the meaning of emotion in the natural contexts in which they occur. The answer to the question if these two–dimensional emotion models, as stated in literature, are sufficient to cover the broad and often complex dynamics of emotion, is certainly no. Recommendations for the organisation and future research were made.
Thesis (Ph.D. (Industrial Psychology))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2012.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2000.
Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 75-80). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.

The primary focus of this research was to investigate the emotion language and emotion narratives of Turkish-English late bilinguals who have been living in the U.S. Previous research has shown that the emotion language and narratives of second language learners and native speakers of English are different. This study focused on late bilinguals who had learnt English in instructed settings in their home country, and came to the U.S. for M.A. and Ph.D. degrees. The study consisted of two parts. In the first part, the elicited personal narratives of Turkish-English late bilinguals in English were compared to those elicited from native speakers of English with regard to both emotion and emotion-laden word production and narrative structure. The results showed that there were differences between the emotion language and narratives of the bilinguals and native speakers in their English narratives. In the second part of the study, personal narratives were elicited from Turkish-English late bilinguals in their first language, Turkish and their emotion language and narrative structure from their English narratives were compared to their narratives produced in Turkish. Similarly, the results showed that the emotion language and emotion narratives of bilinguals in English and Turkish were different. In conclusion, late bilinguals' emotion language and narratives are different in their first and second languages. Furthermore, they are different from the emotion language and narratives of native speakers.

This study examines associations of emotion language with emotion understanding and emotion regulation during the preschool years. There is evidence that the way parents talk about emotions with their children promotes children's emotion understanding and regulation (e.g. Bird and Reese, 2006; Laible, 2011). However, there has been little attention paid to associations of these outcomes with children's emotion language. In this study, I examined associations of children's emotion language on their emotion understanding and emotion regulation, and tested whether parents' emotion language was indirectly associated with these outcomes through children's emotion language. One hundred fifty-six 3- to 5-year-old children participated with their primary caregiver. Parent-child dyads engaged in an emotion-laden conversation to measure parent and child emotion language. Children also engaged in the locked box task (Cole et al., 2009; Goldsmith et al., 1993) to measure emotion regulation and completed the Diagnostic Analysis of Nonverbal Accuracy (Nowicki and Duke, 1994) to measure emotion understanding. Results differed for younger preschoolers (36 - 53 months) compared with older preschoolers (54 - 69 months) in regard to emotion regulation. For younger preschoolers, path analyses indicated an indirect effect in which parent emotion talk was associated with less attention shifting during the locked box task. There was also a direct effect in which children's greater use of emotion labels was positively associated with emotion understanding. Results may reflect the rapid emotional development occurring during the preschool years and suggest the importance of early emotion socialization.
Ph. D.

Recognition of emotions and mental states (ER) in others is a core difficulty for individuals with autism spectrum conditions (ASC). In contrast, they show good skills in ‘systemizing’- understanding non-agentive systems. This thesis evaluated the effectiveness of Mind Reading, a computer program teaching ER from a wide range of facial expression videos and recorded speech segments, systematically presented. Three different experiments tested the effectiveness of a minimum of 10 hours of software use over a period of 10-15 weeks among individuals with ASC. Experiments included evaluation of independent use of the software by adults and by 8-11 year olds with ASC, and tutor and group supported use of the software in adults with ASC. ER skills were assessed on four levels of generalisation before and after the training period, and compared to matched ASC and typically developing control groups. Results showed improved ER for software users from faces and voices, compared to the ASC control groups. Improvement was mostly limited to faces and voices which were included in the software. Generalisation to stimuli not included in the software was found in the children experiment, in the vocal and visual channels separately. Follow up assessment after a year showed greater improvement on general socio-emotional functioning measures among child and adult software users, compared to ASC controls. These results suggest that individuals with ASC can improve their ability to recognise emotions using systematic computer-based training with long term effects, but may need further tutoring to prevent hyper-systemising, and to enhance generalisation to other situations and stimuli. The reasons behind generalisation difficulties and the study’s limitations are discussed, and suggestions for future work are offered.

Flood literature presents an inconsistent account of post-disaster distress; debating whether distress is pathological or normal and attempting to understand distress in terms of disaster variables. The literature therefore provides little guidance as to how to formulate difficulties in a clinically meaningful way reflective of individual’s experiences. The SPAARS model is presented as a model by which to reconcile these differences and quantitative support for its concepts were studied within two flooded samples. Participants who were flooded in Carlisle in 2005 (n=32) and participants flooded in Morpeth in 2008 (n=29) provided two samples at different stages in flood recovery and facilitated a quasi-longitudinal sample for comparison of flood-related distress over time. Participants were asked to complete a survey pertaining to: basic emotions experienced during the flood event, basic emotions experienced after the flood, Impact of Events Scale-Revised (IES-R), Regulation of Emotions Questionnaire (REQ) and the Trauma Symptom Inventory (TSI). Findings suggest that a third of participants who were flooded experienced clinically significant levels of distress, even after four years. Both samples showed higher levels of impact symptoms on the IES compared to symptoms on the TSI. Anxiety and anger were significant in reported flood experiences both during and after the flooding. Flood-related variables and previous experiences had no effect on increased distress but greater use of internal-dysfunctional emotion regulation strategies was related to increased impact and distress symptoms. Study findings and the SPAARS model are discussed in relation to previous flooding and PTSD literature, as well as clinical implications for the treatment of post-disaster distress and for the future management of flood-affected populations.