Accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative: Reducing ambivalence through instructed emotion regulation.

Ambivalence, the simultaneous experience of positivity and negativity, is a conflicting, uncomfortable, arousing state but is a necessary catalyst for behavior change. We sought to examine whether feelings of ambivalence can be reduced using instructed emotion regulation of positive and negative affect, the components of subjective ambivalence. Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were collected while participants played 3 blocks of mixed gambles, in which each trial involved losing or winning the lesser or greater of 2 amounts. In the 1st block participants responded naturally, and in the 2nd and 3rd blocks they were instructed to focus on either the positive or negative aspects of the outcome. Disappointing wins (e.g., winning $5 instead of winning $12) and relieving losses (losing $5 instead of losing $12) reliably elicited ambivalence; focusing on either the negative or positive aspects of the outcome reduced ambivalence as well as the magnitude of the late positive potential (LPP), indicating successful regulation. Both self-reported affect and ERPs indicated that emotional responses to losses were more difficult to regulate than responses to wins, consistent with a negativity bias in affective processing. Results are interpreted in the framework of theories of affect, and implications for changing behavioral motivation to support healthy behaviors are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

The negativity bias, revisited: Evidence from neuroscience measures and an individual differences approach.

Past research has provided support for the existence of a negativity bias, the tendency for negativity to have a stronger impact than positivity. Theoretically, the negativity bias provides an evolutionary advantage, as it is more critical for survival to avoid a harmful stimulus than to pursue a potentially helpful one. The current paper reviews the theoretical grounding of the negativity bias in the Evaluative Space Model, and presents recent findings using a multilevel approach that further elucidate the mechanisms underlying the negativity bias and underscore the importance of the negativity bias for human functioning.

Feeling good and bad about nothing at all: Evidence that the status quo can elicit mixed feelings.

Sometimes we come out ahead and sometimes we fall behind. Sometimes the status quo is maintained and we end up where we began. The status quo can be disappointing when things might have gone better and relieving when they might have gone worse, but it is not clear how the status quo will feel when things might have gone better or worse. Hume (1739/2000) and Bain (1859) would contend that feelings of disappointment and relief will neutralize one another. The evaluative space model (Cacioppo & Berntson, 1994), which conceptualizes the positive and negative substrates of the affect system as separable, raises the possibility that the status quo will elicit mixed feelings in such circumstances. To test this possibility, we had participants play games that offered a 40% chance to win, a 40% chance to lose, and a 20% chance of getting nothing. Participants' self-reported positive and negative affect indicate that the status quo elicited (a) less positive affect than wins and more positive affect than losses, and (b) less negative affect than losses and more negative affect than wins. More interestingly, the status quo elicited more mixed feelings than both wins and losses. Thus, when things might have turned out either better or worse, the status quo may best be conceived of as a bittersweet nothing. More generally, results indicate that a complete understanding of how counterfactual comparisons influence emotions requires conceptualizing positivity and negative as separable. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Ambivalence toward healthy and unhealthy food and moderation by individual differences in restrained eating.

Food may be a particularly ambivalent stimulus, as it may be associated with high feelings of both positivity and negativity (objective ambivalence), in addition to feelings of conflict (subjective ambivalence). In this study we examine objective and subjective ambivalence toward healthy and unhealthy food, as well as nonfood objects. We show that food (particularly unhealthy food) images do elicit higher ambivalence than nonfood images, particularly due to increased negative feelings. Furthermore, individuals higher in eating restraint showed increased objective and subjective ambivalence to healthy food, suggesting that food may be a highly arousing, conflicting stimulus for constant dieters. Implications for treatment of eating disorders and for future research on food consumption are discussed.

Negativity bias in false memory: moderation by neuroticism after a delay.

The negativity bias is the tendency for individuals to give greater weight, and often exhibit more rapid and extreme responses, to negative than positive information. Using the Deese-Roediger-McDermott illusory memory paradigm, the current study sought to examine how the negativity bias might affect both correct recognition for negative and positive words and false recognition for associated critical lures, as well as how trait neuroticism might moderate these effects. In two experiments, participants studied lists of words composed of semantic associates of an unpresented word (the critical lure). Half of the lists were comprised of positive words and half were comprised of negative words. As expected, individuals remembered negative list words better than positive list words, consistent with a negativity bias in correct recognition. When tested immediately (Experiment 1), individuals also exhibited greater false memory for negative versus positive critical lures. When tested after a 24-hr delay (Experiment 2), individuals higher in neuroticism maintained greater false memory for negative versus positive critical lures, but those lower in neuroticism showed no difference in false memory between negative and positive critical lures. Possible mechanisms and implications for mental health disorders are discussed.

Corrigendum: Brief Mindfulness Meditation Improves Attention in Novices: Evidence From ERPs and Moderation by Neuroticism.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2018.00315.].

Brief Mindfulness Meditation Improves Attention in Novices: Evidence From ERPs and Moderation by Neuroticism.

Past research has found that mindfulness meditation training improves executive attention. Event-related potentials (ERPs) have indicated that this effect could be driven by more efficient allocation of resources on demanding attentional tasks, such as the Flanker Task and the Attention Network Test (ANT). However, it is not clear whether these changes depend on long-term practice. In two studies, we sought to investigate the effects of a brief, 10-min meditation session on attention in novice meditators, compared to a control activity. We also tested moderation by individual differences in neuroticism and the possible underlying neural mechanisms driving these effects, using ERPs. In Study 1, participants randomly assigned to listen to a 10-min meditation tape had better accuracy on incongruent trials on a Flanker task, with no detriment in reaction times (RTs), indicating better allocation of resources. In Study 2, those assigned to listen to a meditation tape performed an ANT more quickly than control participants, with no detriment in performance. Neuroticism moderated both of these effects, and ERPs showed that those individuals lower in neuroticism who meditated for 10 min exhibited a larger N2 to incongruent trials compared to those who listened to a control tape; whereas those individuals higher in neuroticism did not. Together, our results support the hypothesis that even brief meditation improves allocation of attentional resources in some novices.

Aging is associated with a prefrontal lateral-medial shift during picture-induced negative affect.

The capacity to adaptively respond to negative emotion is in part dependent upon lateral areas of the prefrontal cortex (PFC). Lateral PFC areas are particularly susceptible to age-related atrophy, which affects executive function (EF). We used structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to test the hypothesis that older age is associated with greater medial PFC engagement during processing of negative information, and that this engagement is dependent upon the integrity of grey matter structure in lateral PFC as well as EF. Participants (n = 64, 38-79 years) viewed negative and neutral scenes while in the scanner, and completed cognitive tests as part of a larger study. Grey matter probability (GMP) was computed to index grey matter integrity. FMRI data demonstrated less activity in the left ventrolateral PFC (VLPFC) and greater ventromedial PFC (VMPFC) activity with increasing age during negative-picture viewing. Age did not correlate with amygdala responding. GMP in VLPFC and EF were negatively associated with VMPFC activity. We conclude that this change from lateral to medial PFC engagement in response to picture-induced negative affect reflects decreased reliance on executive function-related processes, possibly associated with reduced grey matter in lateral PFC, with advancing age to maintain emotional functioning.

Do Individual Differences and Aging Effects in the Estimation of Geographical Slant Reflect Cognitive or Perceptual Effects?

Several individual differences including age have been suggested to affect the perception of slant. A cross-sectional study of outdoor hill estimation (N = 106) was analyzed using individual difference measures of age, experiential knowledge, fitness, personality traits, and sex. Of particular note, it was found that for participants who reported any experiential knowledge about slant, estimates decreased (i.e., became more accurate) as conscientiousness increased, suggesting that more conscientious individuals were more deliberate about taking their experiential knowledge (rather than perception) into account. Effects of fitness were limited to those without experiential knowledge, suggesting that they, too, may be cognitive rather than perceptual. The observed effects of age, which tended to produce lower, more accurate estimates of hill slant, provide more evidence that older adults do not see hills as steeper. The main effect of age was to lower slant estimates; such effects may be due to implicit experiential knowledge acquired over a lifetime. The results indicate the impact of cognitive, rather than perceptual factors on individual differences in slant estimation.

Twice the negativity bias and half the positivity offset: Evaluative responses to emotional information in depression.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Humans have the dual capacity to assign a slightly pleasant valence to neutral stimuli (the positivity offset) to encourage approach behaviors, as well as to assign a higher negative valence to unpleasant images relative to the positive valence to equally arousing and extreme pleasant images (the negativity bias) to facilitate defensive strategies. We conducted an experimental psychopathology study to examine the extent to which the negativity bias and the positivity offset differ in participants with and without major depression.. METHOD: Forty-one depressed and thirty-six healthy participants were evaluated using a structured clinical interview for DSM-IV Axis I disorders, questionnaires, and a computerized task designed to measure implicit affective responses to unpleasant, neutral, and pleasant stimuli. RESULTS: The negativity bias was significantly higher and the positivity offset was significantly lower in depressed relative to healthy participants.. LIMITATIONS: Entry criteria enrolling medication-free participants with minimal DSM-IV comorbidity may limit generalizability of the findings. CONCLUSIONS: This study advances our understanding of the positive and negative valence systems in depression, highlighting the irregularities in the positive valence system..

The negativity bias predicts response rate to Behavioral Activation for depression.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: This treatment study investigated the extent to which asymmetric dimensions of affective responding, specifically the positivity offset and the negativity bias, at pretreatment altered the rate of response to Behavioral Activation treatment for depression. METHOD: Forty-one depressed participants were enrolled into 16 weekly sessions of BA. An additional 36 lifetime healthy participants were evaluated prospectively for 16 weeks to compare affective responding between healthy and remitted patients at post-treatment. All participants were assessed at Weeks 0, 8 and 16 using repeated measures, involving a structured clinical interview for DSM-IV Axis I disorders, questionnaires, and a computerized task designed to measure affective responses to unpleasant, neutral, and pleasant images. RESULTS: The negativity bias at pre-treatment predicted the rate of response to BA, while the positivity offset did not. LIMITATIONS: Only one treatment condition was used in this study and untreated depressed participants were not enrolled, limiting our ability to compare the effect of BA. CONCLUSIONS: Baseline negativity bias may serve as a signal for patients to engage in and benefit from the goal-directed BA strategies, thereby accelerating rate of response.

Prolonged marital stress is associated with short-lived responses to positive stimuli.

Marital stress is associated with a higher incidence of psychiatric disorders, in particular major depression. One pathway through which marital stress may impact emotional health is by compromising emotion-responding processes. We examined a longitudinal sample of adults (N = 116; 59 males; 39-84 years) to verify how marital stress predicts reactivity to, and recovery from, emotional provocation. Individuals watched positive, neutral, and negative pictures while an objective measure of affective state, corrugator supercilii muscle activity, was recorded continuously. Our results indicate that marital stress is associated with short-lived responses to positive pictures, indexed by a less persistent decrease in corrugator activity after picture offset. Extending beyond the prior focus on negative emotional processes, these results suggest that social stress may impact health by influencing the time course of responding to positive events.

Spatial affect learning restricted in major depression relative to anxiety disorders and healthy controls.

Detecting and learning the location of unpleasant or pleasant scenarios, or spatial affect learning, is an essential skill that safeguards well-being (Crawford & Cacioppo, 2002). Potentially altered by psychiatric illness, this skill has yet to be measured in adults with and without major depressive disorder (MDD) and anxiety disorders (AD). This study enrolled 199 adults diagnosed with MDD and AD (n=53), MDD (n=47), AD (n=54), and no disorders (n=45). Measures included clinical interviews, self-reports, and a validated spatial affect task using affective pictures (IAPS; Lang, Bradley, & Cuthbert, 2005). Participants with MDD showed impaired spatial affect learning of negative stimuli and irrelevant learning of pleasant pictures compared with non-depressed adults. Adults with MDD may use a "GOOD is UP" heuristic reflected by their impaired learning of the opposite correlation (i.e., "BAD is UP") and performance in the pleasant version of the task.

Purpose in life predicts better emotional recovery from negative stimuli.

Purpose in life predicts both health and longevity suggesting that the ability to find meaning from life's experiences, especially when confronting life's challenges, may be a mechanism underlying resilience. Having purpose in life may motivate reframing stressful situations to deal with them more productively, thereby facilitating recovery from stress and trauma. In turn, enhanced ability to recover from negative events may allow a person to achieve or maintain a feeling of greater purpose in life over time. In a large sample of adults (aged 36-84 years) from the MIDUS study (Midlife in the U.S., http://www.midus.wisc.edu/), we tested whether purpose in life was associated with better emotional recovery following exposure to negative picture stimuli indexed by the magnitude of the eyeblink startle reflex (EBR), a measure sensitive to emotional state. We differentiated between initial emotional reactivity (during stimulus presentation) and emotional recovery (occurring after stimulus offset). Greater purpose in life, assessed over two years prior, predicted better recovery from negative stimuli indexed by a smaller eyeblink after negative pictures offset, even after controlling for initial reactivity to the stimuli during the picture presentation, gender, age, trait affect, and other well-being dimensions. These data suggest a proximal mechanism by which purpose in life may afford protection from negative events and confer resilience is through enhanced automatic emotion regulation after negative emotional provocation.

Individual differences in positivity offset and negativity bias: Gender-specific associations with two serotonin receptor genes.

Individual differences in the evaluation of affective stimuli, such as the positivity offset and negativity bias may have a biological basis. We tested whether two SNPs (HTR2A; 102T>C and HTR1A; 1019C>G) related to serotonin receptor function, a biological pathway associated with affective regulation, were differentially related to positivity offset and negativity bias for males and females. Participants were 109 cigarette smokers who rated a series of affective stimuli to assess reactions to positive and negative pictures. Gender × genotype interactions were found for both SNPs. Males with the 102T allele showed a greater positivity offset than males with the 102C allele. For females, in contrast, the 1019C allele was associated with a greater positivity offset than the 1019G allele, whereas the 102T allele was associated with a greater negativity bias than the 102C allele. Identifying how gender differences may moderate the effect of serotonin receptor genes on affective information processing may provide insight into their role in guiding behavior and regulating affect.

Counterfactual thinking and reward processing: an fMRI study of responses to gamble outcomes.

The process of comparing obtained outcomes to alternative possible outcomes, known as counterfactual thinking, is inescapable in daily life; however, the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying counterfactual thinking and how they influence emotional responses to better and worse outcomes is not well understood. We conducted an event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) gambling study in which participants were informed of two equally possible outcomes of a card gamble before they selected a card. Participants reported experiencing mixed emotions (i.e., both positive and negative affect) for disappointing wins (winning the lesser of two amounts) and relieving losses (losing the lesser of two amounts). Neuroimaging results supported the hypothesis that these mixed emotions were associated with activation of a fronto-parietal network, which subsequently influenced processing in reward and punishment regions (dorsal and ventral striatum, right anterior insula). The fronto-parietal network was sensitive to outcomes that resulted in mixed emotions, whereas reward and punishment regions were sensitive to comparisons between obtained and unobtained outcomes. These findings provide insight into the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying the mixed emotional experiences that result from counterfactual comparisons, and inform our understanding of how the brain is optimized to use the wealth of environmental information to inform current and future behavior.

Socially excluded individuals fail to recruit medial prefrontal cortex for negative social scenes.

Converging behavioral evidence suggests that people respond to experiences of social exclusion with both defensive and affiliative strategies, allowing them to avoid further distress while also encouraging re-establishment of positive social connections. However, there are unresolved questions regarding the cognitive mechanisms underlying people's responses to social exclusion. Here, we sought to gain insight into these behavioral tendencies by using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine the impact of social exclusion on neural responses to visual scenes that varied on dimensions of sociality and emotional valence. Compared to socially included participants, socially excluded participants failed to recruit dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC), a brain region involved in mentalizing, for negative social scenes. Moreover, following social exclusion, dmPFC demonstrated a linear effect of valence, with greater activity to positive social scenes compared to negative social scenes. These results suggest that, following social exclusion, people display a preference for mentalizing about positive social information and tend to avoid negative aspects of their social world.

Aging is associated with positive responding to neutral information but reduced recovery from negative information.

Studies on aging and emotion suggest an increase in reported positive affect, a processing bias of positive over negative information, as well as increasingly adaptive regulation in response to negative events with advancing age. These findings imply that older individuals evaluate information differently, resulting in lowered reactivity to, and/or faster recovery from, negative information, while maintaining more positive responding to positive information. We examined this hypothesis in an ongoing study on Midlife in the US (MIDUS II) where emotional reactivity and recovery were assessed in a large number of respondents (N = 159) from a wide age range (36-84 years). We recorded eye-blink startle magnitudes and corrugator activity during and after the presentation of positive, neutral and negative pictures. The most robust age effect was found in response to neutral stimuli, where increasing age is associated with a decreased corrugator and eyeblink startle response to neutral stimuli. These data suggest that an age-related positivity effect does not essentially alter the response to emotion-laden information, but is reflected in a more positive interpretation of affectively ambiguous information. Furthermore, older women showed reduced corrugator recovery from negative pictures relative to the younger women and men, suggesting that an age-related prioritization of well-being is not necessarily reflected in adaptive regulation of negative affect.

The current status of research on the structure of evaluative space.

The structure of evaluative space shapes emotional life and must be capable of an astonishing range of emotional experience and expression. In this article, we outline the current status of research on the Evaluative Space Model (ESM; Cacioppo et al., 1997, 1999), which proposes that behavioral predispositions (e.g., approach, withdrawal) are the ultimate output of the affect system, which is defined by operating characteristics that differ for positivity and negativity, and across levels of the nervous system. First, we summarize the tenets of the model, as well as counterarguments raised by other theorists. To address these counterarguments, we discuss the postulates of affective oscillation and calibration, two features of the affect system proposed to underlie the durability and adaptability of affect. Finally, we consider the implications of disorder in the structure of evaluative space for the comprehension and treatment of depression and anxiety.

Corrugator muscle responses are associated with individual differences in positivity-negativity bias.

Corrugator supercilii muscle activity is considered an objective measure of valence because it increases in response to negatively valenced facial expressions (angry) and decreases to positive expressions (happy). The authors sought to determine if corrugator activity could be used as an objective measure of positivity-negativity bias. The authors recorded corrugator responses as participants rated angry, happy, and surprised faces as "positive" or "negative." The critical measure of bias was the percentage of positive versus negative ratings assigned to surprised faces by each participant. Reaction times for surprise expressions were longer than for happy and angry expressions, consistent with their ambiguous valence. Participants who tended to rate surprised faces as negative showed increased corrugator activity to surprised faces, whereas those who tended to rate surprise as positive showed decreased activity. Critically, corrugator responses reflected the participants' bias (i.e., their tendency to rate surprise as positive or negative). These data show that surprised faces constitute a useful tool for assessing individual differences in positivity-negativity bias, and that corrugator activity can objectively reflect this bias.