A comparison of domain-specific evaluations of life in predicting overall life evaluations and biological inflammation.

Which domain of life evaluation is more important? Using a large-scale public sample of 1888 adults from the United States (880 males, 1008 females; Mage = 53.28), we addressed this question by comparing the predictive strength of six domains of life evaluations on overall life evaluation as well as biomarkers of inflammation. Specifically, we examined individuals' self-rated evaluations of the domains of social belonging, romantic relationships, work, subjective social status, self-esteem and finances, and we examined biological inflammation using an index of five biomarkers of inflammation: interleukin-6, fibrinogen, C-reactive protein, E-selectin and intercellular adhesion molecule 1. Adjusting for demographic variability, romantic evaluation, work evaluation, self-esteem and financial evaluation were equally and uniquely predictive of overall life evaluation. Social belonging remained predictive but was relatively weaker in magnitude, while subjective social status was no longer a significant predictor. Conversely, only financial evaluation was significantly linked to reduced biomarkers of inflammation. The findings suggest that depending on domain-specificity and whether well-being is assessed via subjective or objective indicators, links between life evaluations and well-being may show substantial nuance. In particular, financial evaluation appears to have unique links to biomarkers of inflammation even after accounting for other domains of life evaluations.

Direct versus indirect measures of mixed emotions in predictive models: a comparison of predictive validity, multicollinearity, and the influence of confounding variables.

Mixed emotions have been assessed using both direct measures that utilize self-report questionnaires as well as indirect measures that are computed from scores of positive and negative emotions. This study provides a pre-registered methodological examination on the use of direct and indirect measures of mixed emotions in predictive models. Two samples (N = 749) were collected, and path analyses were performed to compare direct measures and indirect measures in predicting psychological conflict, receptivity, and well-being, controlling for demographics, positive emotions, and negative emotions. We also tested whether trait dialecticism, need for cognition, social desirability, or acquiescence could account for these associations. In both samples, results suggest that indirect measures may be more susceptible to multicollinearity when controlling for positive and negative emotions. Specifically, variance inflation factors (VIF) were consistently higher for indirect measures calculated using the minimum index (MIN; VIFSample-1 = 3.53; VIFSample-2 = 9.46) than direct measures (VIFSample-1 = 2.52; VIFSample-2 = 1.68). Direct measures remained consistently associated with increased conflict and reduced coherence upon controlling for positive and negative emotions, while indirect measures remained consistently associated only with increased conflict. We found little evidence that response biases explained associations between direct measures or indirect measures with each of the outcomes. Specifically, associations between mixed emotions with psychological conflict, receptivity, and well-being largely remained unchanged in models that controlled for trait dialecticism, need for cognition, social desirability, or acquiescence. Implications and recommendations based on our findings are discussed.

Mixed emotional variants of gratitude: antecedent situations, cognitive appraisals, action tendencies, and psychosocial outcomes.

This research provides an exploratory investigation of whether gift/help-receiving contexts that elicit mixed emotional variants of gratitude can be distinguished from typical gratitude-eliciting situations in their associated appraisals, action tendencies, and psychosocial effects. We examined 473 participants (159 males, 312 females, 2 others; Mage = 31.07) using a one-way four-conditions between-subjects experiment. Participants were randomly assigned to complete recall tasks describing four different gratitude-eliciting situations. Emotions, cognitive appraisals, action tendencies, and general psychosocial outcomes were assessed. Relative to a control condition involving receiving a gift or help (gift/help condition), receiving something at the expense of a benefactor (benefactor-inconvenience condition) elicited gratitude-guilt; receiving something with an expectation of return (return-favour condition) elicited gratitude-disappointment and gratitude-anger; while receiving a disliked gift or receiving assistance that made things worse (backfire condition) primarily elicited gratitude-disappointment while also eliciting gratitude-anger and gratitude-guilt. Each condition was differentiable from control in their appraisals, action tendencies, and psychosocial effects. Notably, contexts which elicited mixed emotional variants of gratitude were characterised by the co-occurrence of conflicting appraisals such as pleasantness and unpleasantness or goal-congruence and goal-incongruence. Additionally, the return-favour and backfire conditions were most dissimilar from control, and were associated with the most negative action tendencies and psychosocial outcomes.

Older adults have difficulty decoding emotions from the eyes, whereas easterners have difficulty decoding emotion from the mouth.

Older adults and Easterners have worse emotion recognition (than young adults and Westerners, respectively), but the question of why remains unanswered. Older adults look less at eyes, whereas Easterners look less at mouths, raising the possibility that compelling older adults to look at eyes, and Easterners to look at mouths, might improve recognition. We did this by comparing emotion recognition in 108 young adults and 109 older adults from New Zealand and Singapore in the (a) eyes on their own (b) mouth on its own or (c) full face. Older adults were worse than young adults on 4/6 emotions with the Eyes Only stimuli, but only 1/6 emotions with the Mouth Only stimuli. In contrast, Easterners were worse than Westerners on 6/6 emotions for Mouth Only and Full Face stimuli, but were equal on all six emotions for Eyes Only stimuli. These results provide a substantial leap forward because they point to the precise difficulty for older adults and Easterners. Older adults have more consistent difficulty identifying individual emotions in the eyes compared to the mouth, likely due to declining brain functioning, whereas Easterners have more consistent difficulty identifying emotions from the mouth than the eyes, likely due to inexperience inferring mouth information.

Specificity in the Study of Mixed Emotions: A Theoretical Framework.

Research on mixed emotions is yet to consider emotion-specificity, the idea that same-valenced emotions have distinctive characteristics and functions. We review two decades of research on mixed emotions, focusing on evidence for the occurrence of mixed emotions and the effects of mixed emotions on downstream outcomes. We then propose a novel theoretical framework of mixed-emotion-specificity with three foundational tenets: (a) Mixed emotions are distinguishable from single-valenced emotions and other mixed emotions based on their emotion-appraisal relationships; (b) Mixed emotions can further be characterized by four patterns that describe relationships between simultaneous appraisals or appraisals that are unique to mixed emotions; and (c) Carryover effects occur only on outcomes that are associated with the appraisal characteristics of mixed emotion. We outline how mixed-emotion-specific effects can be predicted based on the appraisal tendency framework. Temporal dynamics, the application of mixed-emotion-specificity to individual difference research, methodological issues, and future directions are also discussed.

Torn Between Valences: Mixed Emotions Predict Poorer Psychological Well-Being and Job Burnout.

Conflicting perspectives on whether mixed emotions are adaptive states which promote integrative processes or uncomfortable states which are agonizing make divergent predictions on whether mixed emotions in daily life are conducive towards psychological well-being. We examined this across three studies. Study 1 (N = 335, 135 males; M age = 41.31) examined associations between state mixed emotions and psychological well-being. Study 2 (N = 389; 160 males; M age = 40.86) examined associations between workplace-specific mixed emotions and workplace ill-being assessed based on burnout. Both direct measures and indirect measures were examined in Study 1 and 2, allowing some comparison of methodological issues related to their predictive validity. Study 3 (N = 3444; 1587 males; M age = 55.34) examined bidirectional relationships between an index of emotional ambivalence and psychological well-being about ten years later, controlling for baselines. Demographic covariates, positive emotions, and negative emotions were controlled for in all studies. Analyses were performed using latent variable structural equation modelling. After adjusting for all covariates, the direct measures of mixed emotions predicted poorer psychological well-being (Study 1) and greater burnout (Study 2). However, indirect measures were found to suffer from relatively greater multicollinearity and poorer predictive validity upon controlling for positive and negative emotions. In Study 3, emotional ambivalence predicted poorer long-term psychological well-being, while psychological well-being also predicted lower emotional ambivalence, supporting bidrectionality. The findings provide preliminary evidence that naturalistically experienced mixed emotions may be conflicting and unpleasant, with potentially negative implications for psychological well-being over and above positive and negative emotions. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10902-021-00493-z.

Income robustly predicts self-regard emotions.

There is robust evidence that higher income makes people evaluate their lives more favorably, but there is no consistent evidence on whether it makes people feel better. Analyzing data from five large surveys spanning 162 countries, we predicted and found the most comprehensive evidence to date that income reliably predicted greater positive self-regard emotions (e.g., pride) and lower negative self-regard emotions (e.g., anxiety). In contrast, its relationships with other-regard emotions (e.g., gratitude, anger) and global emotions (e.g., happiness) were weaker in magnitude and difficult to replicate. In addition, income predicted higher (lower) levels of positive (negative) self-regard emotions about 10 years later, controlling for the same self-regard emotions at baseline. Sense of control mediated the relationships between income and both positive and negative self-regard emotions. Income predicted self-regard emotions as strongly as it has been known to predict life evaluation. Hence, having more money makes people feel more proud, contented, and confident and less sad, afraid, and ashamed, but does not affect whether they feel grateful, caring, and angry. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Mixed Emotions, but Not Positive or Negative Emotions, Facilitate Legitimate Virus-Prevention Behaviors and Eudaimonic Outcomes in the Emergence of the COVID-19 Crisis.

We report four studies (N=1419) examining emotional reactions from March to April 2020, when COVID-19 exhibited exponentially increasing infections and fatalities. Specifically, we examined associations between emotions with self-reported intentions to enact virus-prevention behaviors that protect oneself from COVID-19 and eudaimonic functioning. Study 1A, 1B, and Study 2 provided naturalistic evidence that mixed emotions predicted legitimate virus-prevention behaviors and eudaimonic functioning in the USA and Singapore, and Study 2 also supported receptivity as a mediator. Finally, Study 3 provided experimental evidence that mixed emotions causally increased legitimate virus-prevention behaviors relative to neutral, positive emotion, and negative emotion conditions, whereas eudaimonic functioning was increased only relative to the neutral condition. Across all studies, positive and negative emotions were unrelated to legitimate virus-prevention behaviors, while relationships with eudaimonic functioning were inconsistent. While self-reported measures do not represent actual behaviors, the findings suggest a potential role for mixed emotions in pandemic-related outcomes. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s42761-021-00045-x.

Sadness, but not anger or fear, mediates the long-term leisure-cognition link: an emotion-specific approach.

Past research has provided some evidence of positive relationships between leisure and cognitive functioning, but questions remain regarding their mechanisms. We argue that specific negative emotions may provide promising theoretical mechanisms for the leisure-cognition link. Guided by theories of leisure and emotion-specificity, we used a large-sample, longitudinal dataset of adult participants (N = 3536; 1940 females; Mage = 56.16) to examine the leisure-cognition link over about a decade and to test whether sadness, anger, or fear would be supported as emotion-specific mediators of the leisure-cognition link. Analyses were performed using observed variable path analyses and latent variable structural equation modelling. Controlling for demographics (age, gender, education level) and baseline cognitive functioning, leisure predicted better episodic memory and executive function a decade later. Moreover, both observed variable and latent variable mediational analyses supported sadness as a mediator of the link between leisure and episodic memory as well as executive function, such that leisure predicted reduced sadness, in turn predicting improved cognitive functioning. In contrast, neither fear nor anger were supported as mediators of the leisure-cognition link. Thus, the results support long-term links between leisure and cognitive functioning and also support sadness as an emotion-specific mediator of these relationships.

Gratitude and Adaptive Coping Among Chinese Singaporeans During the Beginning of the COVID-19 Pandemic.

We report results of a cross-sectional survey conducted during March-April 2020 which marked the start and escalation of the COVID-19 crisis in Singapore. Our purpose was to examine whether reported feelings of gratitude among Chinese Singaporeans (N = 371; 124 males, 247 females; M age = 22.54, SD age = 3.63, age range: 18-53 years) could be linked to adaptive responses to the pandemic. The results revealed that gratitude was associated with stronger endorsement of virus-prevention measures (ß = 0.25, p = 0.001) that are necessary for protecting the physical health of oneself and others but disruptive to daily lives. Gratitude was also positively related to the tendency to perceive meaningful benefits in the crisis (ß = 0.25, p = 0.002). Importantly, demonstrating the uniqueness and robustness of gratitude as a predictor of positive coping in response to the pandemic, these relationships remained significant when controlling for other protective psychological factors (resilience and optimism), emotions, and key demographic variables. Among the emotions measured, gratitude was also reported the most strongly. The findings support theoretical models that gratitude facilitates prosocial inclinations and openness to different ways to support the well-being of others and suggest that in a collectivistic culture, gratitude could be a key resource enabling adaptation to a crisis.

Negative emotion differentiation and long-term physical health-The moderating role of neuroticism.

OBJECTIVE: Negative emotion differentiation refers to the ability to make complex distinctions between specific negative emotions. However, little research has examined its associations with long-term physical health and its potential limitations. The present study aims to investigate whether negative emotion differentiation would predict long-term health outcomes and whether neuroticism would moderate this relationship. METHODS: Adult participants (N = 1,010; 433 men, 577 women; Mage = 55.53) were studied in the present research. Negative emotion differentiation was computed based on a daily diary procedure, whereas neuroticism was measured using a validated 4-item scale. Physical health was assessed at baseline as well as an average of 7 years later using a combination of subjective (3-item self-report scale) and objective (number of chronic conditions and number of prescription medications) measures. Demographical variables (age, gender, income, education, household size, ethnicity) were controlled for. RESULTS: Negative emotion differentiation did not uniquely predict later health (ß = .02) upon controlling for baseline health and demographical covariates. However, neuroticism significantly moderated this relationship, such that negative emotion differentiation significantly predicted better health (ß = .12) an average of 7 years later after accounting for baseline health, but only for those low on neuroticism. CONCLUSION: For individuals low on neuroticism, negative emotion differentiation is a beneficial regulatory capacity that has substantial positive associations with later health outcomes. However, these health benefits did not generalize to individuals higher on neuroticism, suggesting that there are limits to the regulatory benefits afforded by negative emotion differentiation. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).