scholarly journals Constructing negative emotions in cinematic discourse: a cognitive-pragmatic perspective

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Negative Emotion ◽  
Negative Emotions ◽  
Cognitive Model ◽  
Integrative Approach ◽  
Semiotic Resources ◽  
Dynamic Perspective ◽  
Film Making ◽  
Emotive Meaning

This article reveals cognitive-pragmatic properties of constructing negative emotions in English feature cinematic discourse. This research is underpinned by semiotic theories, linguistic theory of emotions, discourse studies, cognitive linguistics, the theories of conceptual integration and joint attention, which stipulate an integrative approach to the multisemiosis of negative emotive meanings by verbal, non-verbal, and cinematographic semiotic resources. This research stressess the polycoded and multimodal nature of cinematic discourse, where a combination of visual and acoustic modes changes dynamically in the film time and space. Adopting an interactional-dynamic perspective on emotive meaning making in film, I claim that negative emotions in cinematic discourse are emergent multimodal dynamic constructs resulting from the online interaction of verbal, non-verbal, and cinematic resources, which takes place at primary and secondary stages of film making. The primary semiosis of negative emotive meaning occurs in the screenplay, which is an integral part of cinematic discourse and presents a film cognitive model. The secondary semiosis takes place in the film diegesis through a combination of verbal, non-verbal and cinematographic means specific for a particular negative emotion. In feature cinematic discourse, I distinguish eight combination patterns of multimodal semiotic resources depending on a set of criteria: quantitative vs qualitative or synchronous vs sequential configuration patters. The collective author’s intention and film genres influence the choice of cinematic techniques and their configuration patterns.

scholarly journals Multimodal instantiation of negative emotions in English cinematic discourse

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Practice ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Negative Emotion ◽  
Negative Emotions ◽  
Semantic Space ◽  
Semantic Field ◽  
Lexical Semantic ◽  
Semiotic Resources ◽  
Emotive Meaning ◽  
Dynamic Criteria

The article focuses on revealing the multimodal instantiation of anger, fear, sadness, and disgust in English cinematic discourse and determining the mechanisms of their construction by verbal, nonverbal, and cinematographic semiotic resources. The cognitive-pragmatic linguosemiotic approach enables to identify cognitive and communicative characteristics of negative emotions, and focuses on the process of emotive meaning-making as a social practice. Emotions in cinematic discourse undergo primary (in the screenplay) and secondary semiosis (in the film diegetic space through multimodal realization). The communicative properties of film emotions are based on conceptual features that are entrenched in the semantic space structured by a lexical-semantic field with a dominant ‒ the name of the concept. The tokens of a certain field serve as indicators of negative emotions in the screenplay and enable to objectively define the film emotion. The specific multisemiotic nature of cinematic discourse emphasizes the characteristics of the concept to be marked by heterogeneous signs and determines verbal, nonverbal, and cinematographic profiles of the emotion. Semiotic means of the corresponding profiles form combinations of emotive meaning instantiation. Each negative emotion is realized by specific models of heterogeneous semiotic resources interaction according to static and dynamic criteria. The former identifies the models by the parameters of quantity (two-/three-componental), quality (convergent/ divergent), and prominence (parity/non-parity). The latter determines synchronous and consequent models.

Transcending Time and Space with Digital Emotional Support

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tyler Colasante ◽  
Lauren Lin ◽  
Kalee DeFrance ◽  
Tom Hollenstein
Keyword(s):  
Emotional Support ◽  
Negative Emotion ◽  
Negative Emotions ◽  
Good News ◽  
Social Avoidance ◽  
Time And Space ◽  
Beneficial Effects ◽  
Digital Devices ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Socially Isolated

In the current digital age, emotional support is increasingly received through digital devices. However, virtually all studies assessing the benefits of emotional support have focused on in-person support. Using an experience sampling methodology, we assessed participants’ negative emotions, digital and in-person support for those emotions, and success in regulating them three times per day for 14 days, thus covering a wide range of digital support scenarios (N = 164 participants with 6,530 collective measurement occasions). We also considered whether participants were alone versus with others at the time of their negative emotion and higher versus lower in social avoidance as plausible moderators of when digital support was utilized and effective. We expected more pronounced use and efficacy of digital support when participants were alone and higher in trait social avoidance. However, digital support was used and perceived as effective for regulating negative emotions regardless of these factors and its beneficial effects were on par with those of traditional in-person support. The unique benefits of digital support may not be restricted to socially isolated or socially avoidant users. These findings are timely given the widespread anxiety and isolation under the current COVID-19 pandemic. If transcending time and space with digital emotional support is the new norm, the good news is that it seems to be working.

Age Advantages of Emotional Experience during the COVID-19 Pandemic are Robust, but Diminished Compared to Pre-pandemic Conditions

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rui Sun ◽  
Disa Sauter
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Negative Emotion ◽  
Emotional Experience ◽  
Negative Emotions ◽  
Older Individuals ◽  
Selection Strategies ◽  
Scale Test ◽  
Prolonged Stress

Getting old is generally seen as unappealing, yet aging confers considerable advantages in several psychological domains (North & Fiske, 2015). In particular, older adults are better off emotionally than younger adults, with aging associated with the so-called “age advantages,” that is, more positive and less negative emotional experiences (Carstensen et al., 2011). Although the age advantages are well established, it is less clear whether they occur under conditions of prolonged stress. In a recent study, Carstensen et al (2020) demonstrated that the age advantages persist during the COVID-19 pandemic, suggesting that older adults are able to utilise cognitive and behavioural strategies to ameliorate even sustained stress. Here, we build on Carstensen and colleagues’ work with two studies. In Study 1, we provide a large-scale test of the robustness of Carstensen and colleagues’ finding that older individuals experience more positive and less negative emotions during the COVID-19 pandemic. We measured positive and negative emotions along with age information in 23,629 participants in 63 countries in April-May 2020. In Study 2, we provide a comparison of the age advantages using representative samples collected before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. We demonstrate that older people experience less negative emotion than younger people during the prolonged stress of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the advantage of older adults was diminished during the pandemic, pointing to a likely role of older adults use of situation selection strategies (Charles, 2010).

scholarly journals Anthropomorphic Strategies Promote Wildlife Conservation through Empathy: The Moderation Role of the Public Epidemic Situation

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (7) ◽  
pp. 3565
Author(s):  
Dan Yue ◽  
Zepeng Tong ◽  
Jianchi Tian ◽  
Yang Li ◽  
Linxiu Zhang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
College Students ◽  
Behavioral Intention ◽  
Wildlife Conservation ◽  
Negative Emotion ◽  
Public Awareness ◽  
Negative Emotions ◽  
Experimental Studies ◽  
Wildlife Trade ◽  
Illegal Wildlife Trade ◽  
The Impact

The global illegal wildlife trade directly threatens biodiversity and leads to disease outbreaks and epidemics. In order to avoid the loss of endangered species and ensure public health security, it is necessary to intervene in illegal wildlife trade and promote public awareness of the need for wildlife conservation. Anthropomorphism is a basic and common psychological process in humans that plays a crucial role in determining how a person interacts with other non-human agents. Previous research indicates that anthropomorphizing nature entities through metaphors could increase individual behavioral intention of wildlife conservation. However, relatively little is known about the mechanism by which anthropomorphism influences behavioral intention and whether social context affects the effect of anthropomorphism. This research investigated the impact of negative emotions associated with a pandemic situation on the effectiveness of anthropomorphic strategies for wildlife conservation across two experimental studies. Experiment 1 recruited 245 college students online and asked them to read a combination of texts and pictures as anthropomorphic materials. The results indicated that anthropomorphic materials could increase participants’ empathy and decrease their wildlife product consumption intention. Experiment 2 recruited 140 college students online and they were required to read the same materials as experiment 1 after watching a video related to epidemics. The results showed that the effect of wildlife anthropomorphization vanished if participants’ negative emotion was aroused by the video. The present research provides experimental evidence that anthropomorphic strategies would be useful for boosting public support for wildlife conservation. However, policymakers and conservation organizations must be careful about the negative effects of the pandemic context, as the negative emotions produced by it seems to weaken the effectiveness of anthropomorphic strategies.

Maternal and paternal unsupportive parenting and children's externalizing symptoms: The mediational role of children's attention biases to negative emotion

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Patrick T. Davies ◽  
Morgan J. Thompson ◽  
Jesse L. Coe ◽  
Melissa L. Sturge-Apple
Keyword(s):  
Developmental Psychopathology ◽  
Negative Emotion ◽  
Negative Emotions ◽  
Externalizing Symptoms ◽  
Family Adversity ◽  
Children's Attention ◽  
Specific Association ◽  
Mediational Role ◽  
And Behavior

Abstract This study examined children's duration of attention to negative emotions (i.e., anger, sadness, fear) as a mediator of associations among maternal and paternal unsupportive parenting and children's externalizing symptoms in a sample of 240 mothers, fathers, and their preschool children (Mage = 4.64 years). The multimethod, multi-informant design consisted of three annual measurement occasions. Analysis of maternal and paternal unsupportive parenting as predictors in latent difference changes in children's affect-biased attention and behavior problems indicated that children's attention to negative emotions mediated the specific association between maternal unsupportive parenting and children's subsequent increases in externalizing symptoms. Maternal unsupportive parenting at Wave 1 predicted decreases in children's attention to negative facial expressions of adults from Wave 1 to 2. Reductions in children's attention to negative emotion, in turn, predicted increases in their externalizing symptoms from Wave 1 to 3. Additional tests of children's fearful distress and hostile responses to parental conflict as explanatory mechanisms revealed that increases in children's fearful distress reactivity from Wave 1 to 2 accounted for the association between maternal unsupportive parenting and concomitant decreases in their attention to negative emotions. Results are discussed in the context of information processing models of family adversity and developmental psychopathology.

scholarly journals The Impact of Memory Change on Everyday Life Among Older Adults: Association with Cognition and Self-Reported Memory

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Komal T. Shaikh ◽  
Erica L. Tatham ◽  
Susan Vandermorris ◽  
Theone Paterson ◽  
Kathryn Stokes ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Negative Emotion ◽  
Negative Emotions ◽  
Strategy Use ◽  
Everyday Functioning ◽  
Positive Coping ◽  
Memory Change ◽  
Lifestyle Activities ◽  
The Impact ◽  
With Memory

Abstract Objectives: Many older adults experience memory changes that can have a meaningful impact on their everyday lives, such as restrictions to lifestyle activities and negative emotions. Older adults also report a variety of positive coping responses that help them manage these changes. The purpose of this study was to determine how objective cognitive performance and self-reported memory are related to the everyday impact of memory change. Methods: We examined these associations in a sample of 94 older adults (age 60–89, 52% female) along a cognitive ability continuum from normal cognition to mild cognitive impairment. Results: Correlational analyses revealed that greater restrictions to lifestyle activities (|rs| = .36–.66), more negative emotion associated with memory change (|rs| = .27–.76), and an overall greater burden of memory change on everyday living (|rs| = .28–.61) were associated with poorer objective memory performance and lower self-reported memory ability and satisfaction. Performance on objective measures of executive attention was unrelated to the impact of memory change. Self-reported strategy use was positively related to positive coping with memory change (|r| = .26), but self-reported strategy use was associated with more negative emotions regarding memory change (|r| = .23). Conclusions: Given the prevalence of memory complaints among older adults, it is important to understand the experience of memory change and its impact on everyday functioning in order to develop services that target the specific needs of this population.

Exploring Intercultural Interaction: The Use of Semiotic Resources in Meaning-Making Processes

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nur Nabilah Abdullah ◽  
◽  
Rafidah Sahar ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Action ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Eye Gaze ◽  
Semantic Content ◽  
Nonverbal Cues ◽  
Context Word ◽  
Intercultural Interaction ◽  
Semiotic Resources ◽  
Word Search ◽  
Cultural Origins

Intercultural communication refers to interaction between speakers of different backgrounds, such as different linguistic and cultural origins (Kim 2001). Interaction in face-to face situations has demonstrated that spoken language involves both verbal and semiotic resources for social action. Semiotic resources that include use of talk, gestures, eye gaze and other nonverbal cues can convey semantic content and can become a crucial point in conversation (Hazel et al. 2014). Drawing on a Aonversation Analysis (CA) approach, we explore how participants employed semiotic resources in word searches activities in an intercultural context. Word searches are moments in interaction when a speaker’s turn is temporarily ceased as the speaker displays difficulty in searching for appropriate linguistic items so as to formulate the talk (Schegloff et al. 1977; Kurhila 2006). In this study, naturally occurring interactions in a multilingual setting were video recorded. The participants were Asian university students with different language backgrounds. The findings suggest that multilingual participants mutually collaborate by utilizing verbal affordances, gaze, gesture and other nonverbal cues as useful semiotic resources in the meaning-making process, and thus resolving word search impediments to facilitate intercultural interaction.

scholarly journals Why expressive suppression does not pay? Cognitive costs of negative emotion suppression: The mediating role of subjective tense-arousal

2015 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 336-349 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dorota Szczygieł ◽  
Tomasz Maruszewski
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Problem Solving ◽  
Negative Emotion ◽  
Digit Span ◽  
Negative Emotions ◽  
Span Task ◽  
Expressive Suppression ◽  
Mediating Role ◽  
Negative Effect ◽  
Problem Solving Task

Abstract The aim of this paper was to contribute to a broader understanding of the cognitive consequences of expressive suppression. Specifically, we examined whether the deteriorating effect of expressive suppression on cognitive functioning is caused by tense arousal enhanced by suppression. Two experiments were performed in order to test this prediction. In both studies we tested the effect of expressive suppression on working memory, as measured with a backwards digit-span task (Study 1, N = 43) and anagram problem-solving task (Study 2, N = 60). In addition, in Study 2 we tested whether expressive suppression degrades memory of the events that emerged during the period of expressive suppression. Both studies were conducted in a similar design: Participants watched a film clip which evoked negative emotions (i.e. disgust in Study 1 and a combination of sadness and anxiety in Study 2) under the instruction to suppress those negative emotions or (in the control condition) to simply watch the film. The results of these experiments lead to three conclusions. First, the results reveal that expressive suppression degrades memory of the events that emerged during the period of expressive suppression and leads to poorer performance on working memory tasks, as measured with a backwards digit-span task and anagram problem-solving task. Second, the results indicate that expressive suppression leads to a significant increase in subjective tense arousal. Third, the results support our prediction that expressive suppression decreases cognitive performance through its effects on subjective tense arousal. The results of the Study 1 show that tense arousal activated during expressive suppression of disgust fully mediates the negative effect of suppression on working memory as measured with a backwards digit-span task. The results of Study 2 reveal that subjective tense arousal elicited while suppressing sadness and anxiety mediates both the effect of suppression on working memory - as measured with the anagram task - and memory of the events that occurred during the period of suppression.

Neural responses during down-regulation of negative emotion in patients with recently diagnosed bipolar disorder and their unaffected relatives

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Hanne Lie Kjærstad ◽  
Julian Macoveanu ◽  
Gitte Moos Knudsen ◽  
Sophia Frangou ◽  
K. Luan Phan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Bipolar Disorder ◽  
Emotion Regulation ◽  
Functional Connectivity ◽  
Neural Activity ◽  
Negative Emotion ◽  
Negative Emotions ◽  
Imaging Study ◽  
Neural Responses ◽  
Functional Magnetic Resonance ◽  
Down Regulation

Abstract Background Aberrant emotion regulation has been posited as a putative endophenotype of bipolar disorder (BD). We therefore aimed to compare the neural responses during voluntary down-regulation of negative emotions in a large functional magnetic resonance imaging study of BD, patients' unaffected first-degree relatives (URs), and healthy controls (HCs). Methods We compared neural activity and fronto-limbic functional connectivity during emotion regulation in response to aversive v. neutral pictures in patients recently diagnosed with BD (n = 78) in full/partial remission, their URs (n = 35), and HCs (n = 56). Results Patients showed hypo-activity in the left dorsomedial, dorsolateral, and ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (DMPFC and DLPFC) during emotion regulation while viewing aversive pictures compared to HCs, with URs displaying intermediate neural activity in these regions. There were no significant differences between patients with BD and HCs in functional connectivity from the amygdala during emotion regulation. However, exploratory analysis indicated that URs displayed more negative amygdala–DMPFC coupling compared with HCs and more negative amygdala-cingulate DLPFC coupling compared to patients with BD. At a behavioral level, patients and their URs were less able to dampen negative emotions in response aversive pictures. Conclusions The findings point to deficient recruitment of prefrontal resources and more negative fronto-amygdala coupling as neural markers of impaired emotion regulation in recently diagnosed remitted patients with BD and their URs, respectively.

scholarly journals Emotion Goals: What Do Sexual Offenders Want to Feel?

2019 ◽  
Vol 63 (15-16) ◽  
pp. 2611-2629 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlo Garofalo ◽  
Belén López-Pérez ◽  
Michaela Gummerum ◽  
Yaniv Hanoch ◽  
Maya Tamir
Keyword(s):  
Emotion Regulation ◽  
Sexual Offenders ◽  
Positive Emotion ◽  
Negative Emotion ◽  
Emotional Experience ◽  
Negative Emotions ◽  
The Other ◽  
Limited Data ◽  
Perceived Utility ◽  
Emotional Dysfunction

Sexual offenders typically experience more negative emotions and greater difficulties in regulating emotions than non-offenders. However, limited data exist on what sexual offenders want to feel (i.e., their emotion goals). Notably, emotion goals play a key role in emotion regulation and contribute to emotional experience. The present study tested whether sexual offenders ( N = 31) reported higher scores for negative emotion goals and lower scores for positive emotion goals, compared with general offenders ( N = 26) and non-offenders ( N = 26). In addition, we tested whether sexual offenders differed from the other two groups in their perceived pleasantness and perceived utility of emotions. Sexual offenders reported greater scores for the emotion goal of sadness, and lower scores for the emotion goal of excitement, compared with both general offenders and non-offenders. State and trait levels of these emotions could not fully account for these differences. Furthermore, sexual offenders reported lower perceived pleasantness for sadness than general offenders and lower perceived pleasantness for excitement compared with both other groups. Finally, sexual offenders reported greater perceived utility of sadness than non-offenders. These novel findings and their implications for research and interventions are discussed in the context of sexual offenders’ emotional dysfunction.

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