Cognitive reappraisal, changing the way one thinks about an emotional event, is one of the most effective and extensively studied emotion regulation strategies. Previous research has dissociated the generation of reappraisals (i.e., generating candidate alternative meanings of the event) from the implementation of reappraisals (i.e., selecting and elaborating on one reappraisal), finding that while generation slightly changes positive feelings, implementation yields the most substantial changes in positive emotion. Because they are two discrete processes, people might not always choose to implement a reappraisal they generated, and it is unclear what factors might influence implementation choice. We addressed this question in three preregistered studies. In Studies 1 ( = 52) and 2 ( = 58), we examined whether people's choices to implement a generated reappraisal are influenced by (a) their positive emotion after generation and/or (b) the plausibility of that reappraisal (the degree to which a reappraisal reflects what might be actually happening and/or could potentially happen). The results suggest that people monitor their positive emotion when choosing to implement a positive reappraisal, while monitoring plausibility when choosing to implement a negative reappraisal. In Study 3 ( = 134), we found that people primarily monitored their positive emotion (vs. plausibility) both when given a motive to feel better and a motive to understand the stressor. Taken together, we propose that positive emotion after reappraisal generation and reappraisal plausibility are indices of making progress toward the goal of regulation. Our results suggest that these indices influence people's choice to further implement the reappraisal. Our findings further our understanding of reappraisal generation and reappraisal implementation and reveal how and why people might choose to continue to regulate their emotions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Lab experiments have shown that reminders of romantic partners buffer against stressors. Yet, tightly controlled experiments do not mimic what transpires in people's actual lives. Thus, an important question is as follows: To what extent do reminders of romantic partners confer affective benefits when they occur "in the wild" as people experience their daily activities? To capture people's emotional experience in real time, two studies, each spanning 3 months, used event-contingent ecological momentary assessments with a within-subject experimental manipulation. Prior to encountering a stressful event (taking an exam), participants received either a supportive text message from their partner or no message (Studies 1 and 2), or a supportive text message from the research team (Study 2). Receiving supportive partner messages, compared to no messages or messages from the research team, led to less negative affect and greater positive affect, and to less negative affect and greater positive affect about the exam itself. Receiving supportive partner messages had no statistically significant effects on subjective stress. Interestingly, the quality of the partner messages, as coded by independent raters, did not significantly predict the magnitude of the affective benefits. These findings suggest that receiving any supportive partner message, and not necessarily more subtle differences in the quality of the message, may be the key ingredient for these benefits to occur. The present work advances understanding of how the symbolic presence of partners confers affective regulatory benefits in everyday life. Implications for emotion regulation and the utility of integrating perspectives from adult attachment are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

While extant research on empathy has made significant progress in uncovering the mechanisms underlying the responses of an observer (empathizer) to the distress of another (target), it remains unclear how the interaction between the empathizer and the target contributes to distress regulation in the target. Here, we propose that behavioral and neural coupling during empathic interactions contribute to diminished distress. From November 2020 to November 2022, we recruited 37 pairs of previously unacquainted participants ( = 74) from multicultural backgrounds. They engaged in a 5 min face-to-face emotional sharing task, where one participant shared a distressing biographical experience with the other participant. We used functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to measure interbrain coupling in the emotion regulation system, specifically the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC), and the observation execution system, specifically the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG). Results indicate that during emotional sharing the target and the empathizer emotionally converge, such that the empathizer becomes sadder. Moreover, the levels of empathizers' empathy predicted both emotional convergence and target distress relief. The neuroimaging findings indicate that interbrain coupling in the dlPFC, IFG, and premotor cortex, predicted distress relief in the target, and more critically that interbrain coupling in the dlPFC played a mediating role in the relationship between distress relief and the levels of empathy of the empathizer. Considering the role of the dlPFC in emotion regulation, we conclude that interbrain coupling in this region during emotional sharing plays a key role in dyadic coregulation of distress. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Facial emotion recognition is vital for human social behavior. During the COVID-19 pandemic, face masks were widely adopted for viral mitigation and remain crucial public health tools. However, questions persist about their impact on emotion recognition and neural processing, especially in children, parents, and young adults. We developed the Masked Affective and Social Cognition task, featuring masked and unmasked faces displaying fear, sadness, and anger. We recruited three racial and ethnically diverse samples: 119 college students, 30 children who entered school age at the beginning of the pandemic, and 31 fathers of the aforementioned children. Of the latter two groups, 41 participants ( = 23 fathers, 18 children) did the Masked Affective and Social Cognition task during a neuroimaging scan, while the remaining 20 participants ( = 8 fathers, 12 children) who were not eligible for scanning completed the task during their lab visit. Behaviorally, we found that participants recognized emotions less accurately when viewing masked faces and also found an interaction of emotion by condition, such that accuracy was particularly compromised by sad masked faces. Neurally, masked faces elicited greater activation in the posterior cingulate, insula, and fusiform gyrus. Anterior insula and inferior frontal gyrus activation were driven by sad, masked faces. These results were consistent across age groups. Among fathers, activation to sad masked faces was associated with stress and depression. Overall, our findings did not depend on previous mask exposure or timing of participation during the pandemic. These results have implications for understanding face emotion recognition, empathy, and socioemotional neurodevelopment. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Interpersonal emotion regulation commonly occurs in the context of close relationships. The present study examined whether accurately knowing the emotions that one's romantic partner would feel in a given situation was associated with the effectiveness of interpersonal emotion regulation attempts. One partner from 92 romantic dyads ( = 184) was randomly assigned to the role of the target, and the other was assigned to the role of the regulator. Each participant read four vignettes depicting emotion-inducing scenarios. Targets rated the emotions they would feel in each situation, whereas regulators reported how they thought their partner would feel in each situation. Targets were then asked to describe what their partner to help them feel good or better in each situation, using an open-ended response format. The regulators were asked to describe what they to help them feel good or better in each situation. Accuracy was defined as the mean difference in ratings between the regulator's estimates of their partner's emotions and their actual emotion ratings across the scenarios. Effectiveness of regulation was defined as the mean score of similarity between regulator's open-ended responses and target's open-ended responses as rated by independent coders. The results showed that empathic accuracy significantly predicted regulation effectiveness. We also found that individual differences in regulators' emotional clarity scores predicted empathic accuracy. This study sheds light on the importance of accurately perceiving a partner's emotions for effective regulation in close relationships. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Objects that typically induce fear capture attention in an automatic, involuntary manner, particularly for individuals fearful of such objects. This study investigates whether attention to these objects can be attenuated through statistical learning. Participants searched for shapes while occasionally being distracted by images of leaves, which appeared with a higher probability at a particular location, resulting in learned spatial suppression (collected in 2024). Subsequently, distractors also included butterfly and spider images. Counter to a control group, individuals with high fear of spiders exhibited heightened attentional capture by spiders compared to neutral distractors. Critically, at high-probability distractor locations, fearful individuals managed to suppress spider images, resulting in reduced interference. This suggests that attention to fear-inducing stimuli can be modulated through learning processes, offering potential for novel training methods to alleviate biases toward threatening stimuli. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

A growing body of literature supports the idea that prosocial behavior, or behavior done on behalf of another person, is beneficial to well-being. However, modern society often places a greater emphasis on self-care or "treating yourself" in the pursuit of well-being. To understand the effects of these differing forms of kindness (to others or the self), we conducted a 2-week intervention study in December 2020. Participants ( = 999) were randomly assigned to an other-kindness, self-kindness, or control condition. Participants in the other- and self-kindness groups were asked to perform three acts of kindness each week, while participants in the control condition were not. Of those who completed the intervention ( = 781), we found that participants in the other-kindness (vs. self-kindness and control) group experienced significant decreases in depression, anxiety, and loneliness from pre- to postintervention, offering compelling evidence for the mental health benefits of prosocial behavior. Unexpectedly, we also found that participants in the self-kindness (vs. other-kindness and control) group experienced significant increases in depression and anxiety. While the self-kindness group reported enjoying their acts of kindness more, the other-kindness group felt more connected. Overall, these findings reaffirm the benefits of prosocial behavior on well-being and suggest that self-kindness might not be as positive as it feels. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Emotions are powerful tools through which formal leaders influence their followers, whether by overt emotional displays or deliberate attempts to regulate their own and others' emotions. This raises the following question: Can the strategic effort to regulate others' emotions help team members emerge as informal leaders? This work demonstrates that extrinsic emotion regulation-a goal-directed action aimed at regulating team members' emotions-can enable individuals to rise to informal leadership positions. We hypothesize that team members who improve group emotions emerge as informal leaders. This was tested in two studies. In Study 1 (a lab study on 25 ad hoc groups; = 100), individuals recognized for improving group affect were chosen as informal leaders. In Study 2 (a field study of 43 student groups that worked together for 6 weeks; = 141), individuals who self-reported engaging in extrinsic affect-improving were recognized by their peers as fostering positive group affect and subsequently were chosen as the informal leaders of the group. Notably, our findings show that the impact of extrinsic affect-improving was above and beyond that of intrinsic affect-improving. These results underscore the pivotal role of interpersonal emotion regulation, specifically extrinsic affect-improving, in the emergence of informal leadership and highlight its unique contribution to leadership dynamics within teams. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Chronic loneliness has been associated with increased risk for multiple mental disorders. Multiple lines of evidence suggest that problems with emotion regulation (ER) may underlie the course and costs of loneliness, but evidence on the associations between loneliness and ER has not been systematically analyzed until now. The present meta-analysis examined the relations between loneliness and multiple dimensions of ER including the habitual use of common strategies (i.e., rumination, cognitive reappraisal, expressive suppression, distraction), ER difficulties, and ER abilities. A systematic search across four databases returned 4,454 articles, out of which 61 articles (total = 40,641) were eligible for inclusion. The analyses indicated that there were consistent positive relations between loneliness and rumination ( = 0.38), suppression ( = 0.31), and ER difficulties ( = 0.49). Loneliness was also negatively associated with reappraisal ( = -0.23), distraction ( = -0.21), and ER abilities ( = -0.28). The latter two effects were significantly larger in studies on adults compared to adolescents, as indicated by subgroup analyses, and corroborated by metaregressions. Furthermore, the percentage of women in the sample was a negative predictor of the association between loneliness and ER difficulties, and the country cultural individualism was a positive predictor of the association between loneliness and suppression. There was evidence of publication bias in all analyses, but the effect sizes remained significant after imputing for missing studies. Overall, the present results support consistent associations between loneliness and ER and highlight potential targets for future interventions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

One of the richest and most powerful tools in social communication is the face. Facial expressions are a prominent way to convey high-dimensional, dynamic information, such as emotion, motivation, and intentions. Previous research has linked mimicry of facial expressions to positive human interaction (e.g., mutual agreement). In this study, we investigated in a real-world setting whether the mimicry pattern of multiple affective facial expressions depends on the interpersonal attitudinal agreement between interlocutors. We analyzed video clips of Democratic or Republican American politicians being interviewed by either a political ally or an opponent ( = 150 videos). The interviews showed either agreement between two Republicans or two Democrats, or disagreement between members of each affiliation. Using image processing tools, we extracted the intensity of the facial action units for each timepoint. In contrast to the prevalent notion that positive social interaction, such as agreement, fosters mimicry, we found mimicry of all facial expressions in both agreement and disagreement. Moreover, the pattern of the facial expressions mimicry depended on the agreement condition such that an artificial classifier could successfully discriminate between the agreement conditions. Our results suggest that not only positive interpersonal communication is characterized by mimicry but also negative one. This implies that in real-life interactions, mimicry may be a tool to understand others and thus successfully communicate, regardless of the positivity of the social interaction. Whereas the existence of mimicry may be indispensable for social communication, the specific pattern of facial expressions mimicry depends on the social context. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Although parental sensitivity is an established determinant of children's attachment security, effect sizes are modest, suggesting other aspects of parenting that might support secure attachment. Parental emotion socialization (ES) has been proposed as a parenting domain that is theoretically linked to secure parent-child attachment. The goal of this meta-analysis was to evaluate the strength of the relations between parental ES and attachment security in children under the age of 18. We conducted three meta-analyses assessing the links of supportive parental ES, nonsupportive parental ES, and parental elaboration with attachment security assessed with behavioral, representational, and questionnaire measures (s = 9-11 samples; s = 576-1,763 participants). The relation between supportive ES and security was significant but very small ( = .06). The relation between nonsupportive ES and security was not significant ( = -.05). Parental elaboration emerged as a key correlate of secure attachment, with a medium effect size ( = .24), similar to the relation between sensitivity and attachment security. The findings underscore the need for further research to elaborate on the role of ES in the development of attachment. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Emotional dysregulation is considered as an etiologically relevant factor for posttraumatic stress disorder. The relevance of immediate and lasting effects of cognitive reappraisal, a prominent emotion regulation strategy, and its habitual use for the development of posttraumatic stress symptoms in response to an experimental trauma are therefore investigated in our study. Eighty-five healthy women participated in a functional magnetic resonance imaging study, which included an emotion regulation paradigm prior to the conduction of the trauma film paradigm, which was used to assess the development of analog intrusions. During the first phase of the emotion regulation paradigm, participants were instructed to use two reappraisal tactics (reinterpretation and distancing) to reduce negative feelings toward aversive pictures or to passively watch aversive and neutral pictures. One week later, these pictures were presented again during a passive reexposure phase. Ratings of negative feelings and blood oxygen level dependent responses in regions of interest served as main outcome variables. The habitual use of cognitive reappraisal was assessed by questionnaire. Reduced habitual use and stronger lasting effects of cognitive reappraisal, as indicated by reduced insula activation during reexposure to pictures previously reinterpreted and distanced from, predicted the development of long-term analog intrusions. Stronger lasting effects of both reappraisal tactics for women with long-term analog intrusions seem to result from stronger emotional reactivity processes. Women with long-term analog intrusions in response to an experimental trauma seem to benefit to a greater extent from a cognitive reappraisal training than women without long-term intrusions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

The tendency to maintain a positive outlook during adversity associates with better health. Interventions that help people cope with stress by maintaining a positive perspective have potential to improve health. Mindfulness interventions show promise for enhancing positive affect in daily life, and developing acceptance toward momentary experiences may help people notice more positive experiences under stress. In a sample of 153 healthy stressed adults ( = 32 years; 67% female; 53% White, 22% Black, 22% Asian, 4% other race; 5% Hispanic; collected in 2015-2016), we tested whether mindfulness training, and acceptance training in particular, boosts awareness of positive experiences during acute stress. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three matched 15-lesson remote interventions: (1) Monitor + Accept, standard mindfulness instruction in both monitoring and acceptance; (2) Monitor Only, dismantled mindfulness instruction in monitoring only; or (3) Coping control. After the intervention, positive (and negative) experiences during acute stress challenge (using a modified Trier Social Stress Test) were assessed using a new checklist measure. As predicted, Monitor + Accept participants reported noticing significantly more positive experiences during acute stress than Monitor Only ( = .61) and control ( = .58) participants, whereas the number of negative experiences noticed did not differ by condition. Across conditions, positive experiences during acute stress correlated with daily life positive emotions at postintervention ( = .21). Results suggest that mindfulness training, and acceptance training in particular, can broaden awareness to include more positive affective experiences. This work has important implications for understanding coping and affect dynamics following mindfulness interventions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

While most people want to feel happy, valuing happiness can paradoxically make people unhappy. We propose that such costs may extend to interpersonal contexts, given that valuing happiness may shape how people (i.e., regulators) manage others' (i.e., targets') emotions (i.e., extrinsic interpersonal emotion regulation). While valuing happiness could motivate regulators to reduce targets' distress using effective forms of emotion regulation, it may also push them to be intolerant toward targets' distress and, in turn, predict worse target well-being. The current investigation examines how two approaches to happiness (i.e., happiness aspiring and happiness concern) predict how regulators manage their children's and romantic partners' distress-two fundamental close relationship types that allow us to address the robustness of our findings. We obtained longitudinal reports across a year from socioculturally diverse regulators ( = 279, including partially overlapping groups of 155 parents and 248 partnered individuals) and cross-sectional reports from partners. We found that people who aspired to be happy were more successful at using reappraisal and distraction to manage targets' emotions, while those who were concerned about happiness were less successful at accepting targets' emotions (i.e., confirmed by partners' reports). In turn, more successful use of reappraisal and distraction predicted better target well-being, and less successful acceptance of targets' emotions predicted poorer target well-being across the next 8 months. These findings underscore the importance of understanding individual differences that shape consequential forms of interpersonal emotion regulation, thereby illuminating who is most likely to help their loved ones and who may be putting them at risk. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

This research proposes a new framework called interpersonally oriented parental emotion socialization (inter-PES) practices to address parental socialization of adolescents' interpersonal emotional processing. This framework captures parents' interpersonal perspectives when their adolescent children experience negative emotions resulting from social interactions. In Study 1, parents ( = 925; 84.54% females; = 39.86 years, = 4.37) recalled their PES practices. Content analysis of parents' narratives showed four components of inter-PES: In Study 2, parents ( = 536; 57.98% females; = 42.84 years, = 4.01) evaluated their own parenting behaviors on a newly developed scale to measure the four components mentioned above. Factor analysis supported the four-factor structure. Moreover, the four subscales demonstrated good reliabilities. In Study 3, adolescents ( = 864; 45.97% females; = 14.50 years, = 0.77) reported their perceived maternal inter-PES using the same scale, and factor analysis again confirmed the four-factor structure. Study 3 also showed that the four components of inter-PES reported by adolescents were related to their perceptions of other commonly assessed maternal parenting variables and self-reported socioemotional development. Overall, this research develops a new tool for studying inter-PES and reveals new avenues for future research on how parents' interpersonal perspectives during emotional socialization may relate to adolescents' socioemotional outcomes. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

People place value on emotion categories that inform which emotions to cultivate and which to regulate in life. Here, we examined how people's beliefs about emotion categories varied along three valence-related dimensions: evaluation (good, bad), hedonic feeling (pleasure, displeasure), and desirability (want to feel, do not want to feel). In Studies 1A and 1B, we found that evaluative (good/bad) and hedonic (pleasant/unpleasant) ratings were distinct for certain emotions including lust, anger, shame, fear, and guilt. In Study 2, we found that emotion valuation depended on cultural background in a sample of Asian Americans and Caucasian Americans. Overall, Asian American participants evaluated certain emotions (including, but not limited to, anger, sadness, guilt, and shame) more positively than Caucasian American participants, and this difference was more pronounced on the evaluative rating dimension. Finally, in Study 3, we examined how evaluative and hedonic dimensions further relate with the desire to experience certain emotions and the emotions that people believe they feel in everyday life. Our findings support a model in which evaluative and hedonic dimensions of emotion valuation predict desired emotional states, which in turn predicts beliefs about the reported frequency of emotions experienced in everyday life. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

This study investigates (a) age-related differences in how the intensity of stereotyped facial expressions influence the emotion label children, adolescents, and adults assign to that face and (b) how this perceptual sensitivity relates to subclinical symptoms of psychopathology. In 2015-2016, 184 participants aged 4-25 years viewed posed stereotypes of angry, fearful, sad, and happy expressions morphed with neutral expressions at 10%-90% intensity. Thin plate regression smoothing splines were used to chart nonlinear associations between age and the perceptual threshold participants needed to assign the emotion label expected based on cultural consensus. Results suggest that sensitivity to labeling stereotypical happy faces as "happy" peaked by age 4. Sensitivity to perceiving stereotypical angry faces as "angry" increased from ages 4 to 7 and then plateaued. In contrast, sensitivity to perceiving stereotypical fearful and sad faces demonstrated protracted development, not reaching a plateau until ages 15 and 16, respectively. Reduction in selecting the "I don't know" response was the primary driver of these age-related changes. Stereotyped fear expressions required the highest intensity to be labeled as such and showed the most marked change in perceptual threshold across development. Interestingly, lower intensity morphs of stereotypical fear faces were frequently labeled "sad." Furthermore, perceiving lower intensity fear morphs was associated with fewer internalizing and externalizing symptoms in participants aged 7-19. This study describes the development of perceptual sensitivity to labeling stereotypical expressions of emotion according to cultural consensus and shows that how people perceive and categorize ambiguous facial expressions is associated with vulnerability to psychopathology. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Growing evidence suggests that social contexts may prompt qualitatively distinct experiences of emotions than nonsocial contexts. In this study of people's naturalistic daily emotional experiences, we examined in adults with and without major depressive disorder (MDD) whether experiencing emotions in a social context (with others) versus nonsocial context (without others) was associated with greater emotional clarity and attention to one's emotional experience (i.e., ). Based on evidence that social stimuli are highly salient to social species, we predicted that interactions with social others-and especially close social others-would be associated with greater emotional awareness. We furthermore expected that individuals with MDD, who tend to have diminished emotional clarity and social deficits, might experience less emotional awareness in social settings than healthy controls. Across a 2-week experience sampling study that concluded in 2019, we assessed emotional awareness when people were interacting with others (vs. not) and interacting with close (vs. nonclose) others among adults with current MDD ( = 53), remitted MDD ( = 80), and healthy controls ( = 87). As expected, attention to emotion and emotional clarity were higher in social versus nonsocial contexts and when interacting with close versus nonclose others. Contrary to expectations that these effects would be weaker among those with current MDD, the current MDD group showed enhanced emotional clarity in social versus nonsocial settings compared to the other two groups. Insofar as emotional clarity is beneficial to well-being, these findings suggest those with MDD may especially benefit from social contexts. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Children with facial differences, such as repaired cleft lip and palate (CLP), may present with reduced capacity for sensorimotor simulation, particularly in the form of facial mimicry. This study examined whether facial mimicry, emotion recognition, and empathy skills are reduced in children with CLP when compared with sex/age-matched controls. A case-control design was utilized. Forty-five children between the ages of 8 and 12 with CLP, and 45 age/sex-matched controls were recruited. Participants completed a facial mimicry task, and facial movements were tracked and quantified using OpenFace. Participants also completed picture and context-based emotion recognition tasks. Picture-based assessment involved identifying emotions from the Dynamic FACES database. Context-based assessment consisted of identifying how a child might feel in various situations. Finally, participants and their parents completed the Empathy Questionnaire for Children and Adolescents (EmQue-CA). Children with CLP presented with significantly reduced facial mimicry ( = .017), picture-based ( < .001), and context-based emotion recognition scores ( < .001) when compared with controls. Better facial mimicry was associated with better picture-based emotion recognition scores in the control group only ( = .22, < .01). Children with CLP also had significantly lower child and parent-proxy EmQue-CA scores ( < .001). Greater facial mimicry significantly predicted better parent-proxy EmQue-CA scores ( = .016) but did not predict child scores. Children with CLP presented with reduced facial mimicry, poorer emotion recognition, and empathy skills. These findings have a broader relevance as they suggest children with facial differences may present with reduced facial mimicry and/or deficits in emotion recognition. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Previous research has suggested that empathic concern may affect cultural differences in social support-seeking. However, neither the mechanisms through which empathic concern promotes support-seeking nor the explanations for cultural differences in empathic concern are clear. This study attempted to address these questions by conducting three studies in Japan and the United States. The results showed that Japanese participants reported having lower trait-empathic concern and seeking less social support in dealing with stress than European Americans. Study 1 found that trait-empathic concern mediated the cultural differences in support-seeking by increasing beliefs about others' prosocial willingness. Using a controlled set of stressful scenarios, Study 2 replicated the results of Study 1. Additionally, Study 2 showed that Japanese participants reported greater endorsement of the causal repressive suffering construal than European Americans, partly accounting for cultural differences in trait-empathic concern. Using an experimental design, Study 3 showed that primed empathic concern increased support-seeking in coping with follow-up stress across cultures. These findings contribute to our understanding of the role of empathic concern in support-seeking and cultural differences in empathic concern. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

In cultures with high relational mobility, relationships are free and flexible. People can make new friends easily, and they have the freedom to leave unsatisfying relationships. In cultures with low relational mobility, relationships are more fixed, and people have less freedom to leave relationships. We argue that people experience higher well-being if they have the freedom to exit toxic relationships and find new partners easily. In Study 1, we ran a controlled comparison by testing people all within the same nation. We measured well-being and relational mobility in a representative sample of 22,669 people across China. People reported greater well-being in relationally mobile prefectures. Study 2 found this same relationship across 74,657 people in 34 cultures. Study 3 used a cross-lagged design to give more insight into the direction of the relationship. The results showed that relational mobility predicted later subjective well-being, but not the opposite direction. Overall, these data suggest the cultural environments of relational mobility make people happy. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Philosophers and experimentalists have long debated whether bodily representation of emotion is grounded in our sensory experience. Indeed, we are used to observe emotional reactions expressed through the bodies of others, yet it is still unknown whether this observation influences how we experience affective states in our own bodies. To delve into this question, we developed a naturalistic haptic task and asked a group of early ( = 20) and late ( = 20) blind, as well as sighted individuals ( = 20) to indicate where in the body they perceive changes associated with affective states. Our results show that visual experience shapes bodily representation of emotion. Blind and sighted individuals attribute different importance to body regions in relation to specific emotional states, as sighted people focus more on visceral sensations, while blind report as more relevant the mouth and the hand areas. We also observe differences in the coherence of bodily maps of specific emotions, such as aggressiveness, for which early and late blind are homogenous in reporting the mouth, while sighted subjects demonstrate a scattered pattern of activation across the body. Finally, our findings show that blind people rely on a different organization of affect, as only sighted categorize bodily maps of emotion through the valence and arousal dimensions. In summary, we demonstrate that sensory experience impacts the bodily representation of affect by modulating the relevance that different body parts have in emotional reactions, modifying the weights attributed to interoceptive and exteroceptive signals, and changing how emotions are conceptualized in the body. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

The Cognitive Mediation Beliefs Questionnaire is a 15-item tool that assesses individuals' emotion beliefs about the cognitive mediation of emotions. It measures two emotion beliefs: stimulus-response generation beliefs and cognitive mediation change beliefs. This study aimed to reduce the number of items and test the validity of a briefer version of the Cognitive Mediation Beliefs Questionnaire. We combined data from 13 unpublished data sets collected between 2019 and 2023 and reached a final sample of 2,872 participants. While this data set is relatively large and diverse (e.g., participants from 53 nationalities), most were from developed countries, and the data were not fully representative across demographic characteristics, such as age and ethnicity. The data were randomly split by 50%/25%/25% (60%/40% female/male) to conduct one exploratory factor analysis and two confirmatory factor analyses. Using an iterative process in the exploratory factor analysis, seven items were deleted for failing to meet item retention criteria, resulting in an eight-item solution across two factors. Across two confirmatory factor analyses with independent samples, the eight-item and the 15-item solutions were tested. The eight-item model was superior in terms of model fit in both samples. These results were in line with our hypothesis in that an eight-item Short Cognitive Mediation Beliefs Questionnaire confirmed the validity of the two-factor structure. The present study offers a valid and efficient measure of emotion beliefs that can be used to make a rapid assessment of beliefs about emotions and to support clinical interventions, particularly cognitive behavioral therapy approaches, where cognitive change is fundamental. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Affect is thought to be a low-dimensional representation of ongoing body activity. Recent studies have demonstrated that individual differences in the ability to objectively detect one's body activity are related to affective experience, particularly the experience of affective arousal. However, less is known about the role of of body sensations in affective experience, a facet of interoception that has been distinguished from objective detection on theoretical and empirical grounds. Moreover, there is a lack of evidence concerning how affective experience relates to the perception of body activity in the moment; that is, how awareness of sensations from the body may covary with affective and emotional experiences in real time. In the present studies, we examine within-person relationships between subjective awareness of body sensations and self-reported affect in real-world settings using ecological momentary assessment (EMA) paradigms. Across two EMA studies with international samples of adults, we found participants reported greater awareness of body sensations in moments where they also reported experiencing heightened arousal and more negatively valenced affect. In Study 1 ( = 109; data collected and analyzed 2022), we found that the associations held across a 4-week EMA protocol. In Study 2 ( = 116; data collected 2020, analyzed 2022), we also derived measures of affective valence from participants' freely generated descriptions of their ongoing thoughts, and we explored the consistency of this relationship with awareness of several individual body sensations (e.g., awareness of one's breathing, awareness of one's heart rate). We conclude that affective experience covaries moment to moment with subjective awareness of the body. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

The current research represents one of the first attempts to investigate how various thought qualities that naturally fluctuate across attention states (i.e., mind wandering vs. present-focused attention) impact mood. Of specific interest was whether thought valence may account for previously reported effects of attention state on mood. To examine this, an experience sampling methodology was used to capture participants' ( = 337) attention state (present or mind wandering), thought valence, and mood 6 times per day for 7 days during daily life (all data collected in 2022-2023). Participants further indicated the form of their thoughts (e.g., inner speech), as well as their clarity and interestingness. This design allowed for a conceptual replication and expansion of Killingsworth and Gilbert (2010) in which it was observed that mind wandering leads to relatively poorer mood compared to present-focused attentional states, with the poorest mood for negatively valenced wandering thoughts. Unlike their study, however, we inquired about thought valence for both mind-wandering and present moments. Our findings revealed that the relationship between attention state and mood is substantially accounted for by thought valence, while interestingness and clarity further provided significant, albeit much weaker, indirect effects on mood. Exploratory analyses suggested that the effect of attention state on mood is greatest for older people. Overall, these findings suggest that the commonly reported detrimental impact of mind wandering on mood may largely be accounted for by certain confounding variables. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

The present study investigated the involvement of facial muscle responses in the indirect and direct processing of emotional facial expressions. Five discrete emotion categories were used, and we assessed both facial muscle and behavioral responses on a trial-by-trial basis. Experiment 1 tested facial muscle activation of clearly visible stimuli in an emotion categorization task. We observed emotion-specific facial muscle responses and corresponding behavioral categorization effects, providing evidence for the specificity of facial muscle activation. By contrast, under masked indirect presentation conditions in which emotional facial expressions were presented as primes in an emotion misattribution procedure, a specific pattern of emotion-congruent and cross-category behavioral misattributions was observed (in line with Rohr et al., 2015, 2018). Multilevel analyses in Study 2 suggest that an emotional reaction feeds into the behavioral decision, as indicated by differential activation of the frontalis lateralis in response to angry faces. Thus, the present study provides evidence that facial muscle responses contribute to behavioral decisions under masked indirect processing conditions. The different pattern of effects in both studies suggests that facial muscle responses index different processes, depending on the processing conditions: sensorimotor simulation in direct processing conditions and emotional reactions in masked indirect processing conditions. We discuss the implications for models that aim to account for facial muscle activity in response to emotional facial expressions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Navigating our social environment requires the ability to distinguish ourselves from others. Previous research suggests that training interventions have the potential to enhance the capacity for self-other distinction (SOD), which then may impact various sociocognitive domains, including imitation-inhibition, visual perspective taking, and empathy. Importantly, empirical research on the role of SOD in emotion regulation remains scarce. In this study, we aim to investigate the impact of training SOD on emotion regulation and also replicate findings on empathy and the attribution of mental states to others. Using a pre-post design, participants ( = 104) were assigned to either the imitation-inhibition or general inhibitory control training. Compared to general inhibitory control training, participants trained to inhibit imitation displayed a significant increase in posttest emotion regulation levels compared to pretest levels, indicating that imitation-inhibition training increased self-reported emotion regulation. Notably, emotional interference remained unaffected by either form of training. Both training interventions resulted in diminished self-reported empathic concern, while only general inhibitory control training led to a reduction in personal distress. Moreover, neither type of training had an impact on self-reported perspective taking or theory of mind performance. This study provides novel empirical evidence of the positive impact of imitation-inhibition training on emotion regulation. Furthermore, our findings make significant contributions to the advancement of research in this area and offer further support for the advantages of behavioral training as a methodological approach to studying sociocognitive abilities. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

The fluctuations in emotions during constant help are unexplained by traditional emotion theories but may align with the predictive coding theory. This theory suggests that individuals tend to form expectations of others' help during social interactions. When outcomes exceed expectations, positive prediction errors are generated, potentially increasing gratitude. Conversely, constant help may build up expectations that surpass outcomes, resulting in negative prediction errors and reduced gratitude. Nevertheless, there is a lack of studies to examine the relationship between prediction errors and gratitude and its underlying mechanism. Here, we conducted two studies. Study 1 consistently found that higher expectations were associated with lower gratitude, when benefactors refused to help, in both reward-gaining and punishment-avoiding tasks. Moreover, prediction errors were positively and reliably linked to gratitude. Study 2 further identified that gratitude dynamically changed through an expectation-updating mechanism. A computational model incorporating predictive coding outperformed traditional theories in predicting the dynamics of gratitude. The findings support predictive coding theory, providing a temporal perspective and a mechanistic understanding of the fluctuations in gratitude, thus having implications for new interventions to improve mental health and well-being. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Physiological synchrony-or similarity between two people's physiological responses-is thought to have important consequences for health and well-being and has been observed in social relationship contexts. The present study investigated variability in dyads' physiological synchrony as a function of both partners' behaviors during an emotionally salient discussion. We examined concurrent covariation in cardiac interbeat intervals in a sample of young adult romantic couples ( = 79 dyads) who discussed the coordination of a personal goal with the future of their relationship (data collected from 2013 to 2015). Partners assigned to be revealed hypothetical good news (e.g., a dream job offer) with their partner, the , who reacted to this disclosure. To understand covariation-behavior associations, we examined three motivationally relevant behaviors that may underlie synchrony based on people's role in the discussion. We found significant variability in how much couples experienced covariation, and covariation depended, at least in part, on people's behaviors during the discussions. When disclosers spoke more (a behavior associated with less satisfying relationships and less positive partner perceptions), dyads experienced less physiological covariation. Furthermore, when responders showed more neglect and withdrawal, and when both partners displayed less positive emotion, dyads experienced less physiological covariation. These findings underscore couples' physiological synchrony as a heterogeneous process that can emerge with the presence of greater behavioral and emotional positivity. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Positive reappraisal has been shown to be a generally effective emotion regulation strategy associated with multiple indices of greater psychological functioning. There are, however, some emotion-eliciting events, such as discrimination, that may not lend themselves to favorable alternative interpretations or which have relatively fewer affordances. In such instances, a reappraisal strategy could lose its effectiveness. We conducted an experimental test of this hypothesized ineffectiveness of positive reappraisal within a discriminatory context. Participants were 404 Black and Latine college students randomly assigned to imagine being the recipient of a rude or discriminatory comment and immediately afterward were asked to either ruminate about or positively reappraise the event. Overall, positive reappraisal was more effective than rumination in downregulating anxiety and anger. However, a single- contrast test revealed that positive reappraisal in response to the rude comment was significantly more effective in reducing anxiety relative to the other three conditions (average of positive reappraisal of the discriminatory comment or rumination to either the rude or discriminatory comment). Additional analyses also showed that oppressed minority ideology (OMI) moderated the utility of anger regulation such that, for those lower on OMI, positive reappraisal was most effective in regulating anger in response to discrimination (compared to all other conditions), but among those higher on OMI, rumination and reappraisal to discrimination were equally effective. Results suggest that the effectiveness of positive reappraisal is lessened in a discrimination context and that more robust strategies may be needed to deal with the emotional fallout from this unique stressor. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).