scholarly journals Does Neutral Affect Exist? How Challenging Three Beliefs About Neutral Affect Can Advance Affective Research

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen Gasper ◽  
Lauren A. Spencer ◽  
Danfei Hu
Keyword(s):  
Neutral Affect

Intergenerational Montessori Program for Adults With Memory Concerns

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Michelle Bourgeois ◽  
Jennifer Brush
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Older Adults ◽  
Cognitive Status ◽  
After School ◽  
Program Participation ◽  
After School Program ◽  
Memory Concerns ◽  
Neutral Affect ◽  
With Memory

Purpose This study evaluated the effects of an intergenerational Montessori after-school program on the engagement, affect, and quality of life of older adults with memory concerns and on the attitudes of children toward older adults. Method Eleven older adults were paired with 11 children to participate in a 45-min after-school activity program. Observations of engagement and affect during the interactions were collected 3 times a week for 4 weeks. The older adults' engagement and affect also were observed during 45-min planning/discussion sessions without the children present before their arrival to the program. Results Results revealed significant differences in older adults' engagement and positive affect when the children were present. Significant pre–post improvements in reported quality of life and maintenance of cognitive status were associated with program participation. Children demonstrated more active than passive engagement and more happy than neutral affect during activity sessions. Four of the seven children improved their positive ratings of older adults. Conclusions This program documented success in improving engagement and affect in older adults with mild memory concerns while engaging with children. Future studies with a larger sample of participants with varying degrees of memory impairment are needed to investigate the potential of this promising program.

scholarly journals Happiness and Time Preference: The Effect of Positive Affect in a Random-Assignment Experiment

2011 ◽  
Vol 101 (7) ◽  
pp. 3109-3129 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Ifcher ◽  
Homa Zarghamee
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Positive Affect ◽  
Time Preference ◽  
Random Assignment ◽  
Economic Decision ◽  
Economic Decision Making ◽  
Future Utility ◽  
Neutral Affect

We conduct a random-assignment experiment to investigate whether positive affect impacts time preference, where time preference denotes a preference for present over future utility. Our result indicates that, compared to neutral affect, mild positive affect significantly reduces time preference over money. This result is robust to various specification checks, and alternative interpretations of the result are considered. Our result has implications for the effect of happiness on time preference and the role of emotions in economic decision making, in general. Finally, we reconfirm the ubiquity of time preference and start to explore its determinants. (DJEL D12, D83, I31)

scholarly journals Anger Effects on Driver Situation Awareness and Driving Performance

2014 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-89 ◽  
Author(s):  
Myounghoon Jeon ◽  
Bruce N. Walker ◽  
Thomas M. Gable
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Situation Awareness ◽  
Driving Performance ◽  
Conscious Awareness ◽  
Emotional States ◽  
Neutral State ◽  
Perceived Workload ◽  
Neutral Affect ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Emotional Effects

Research has suggested that emotional states have critical effects on various cognitive processes, which are important components of situation awareness (Endsley, 1995b). Evidence from driving studies has also emphasized the importance of driver situation awareness for performance and safety. However, to date, little research has investigated the relationship between emotional effects and driver situation awareness. In our experiment, 30 undergraduates drove in a simulator after induction of either anger or neutral affect. Results showed that an induced angry state can degrade driver situation awareness as well as driving performance as compared to a neutral state. However, the angry state did not have an impact on participants' subjective judgment or perceived workload, which might imply that the effects of anger occurred below their level of conscious awareness. One of the reasons participants showed a lack of compensation for their deficits in performance might be that they were not aware of severe impacts of emotional effects on driving performance.

The Significance of Suicide Notes

1977 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 197-200 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ray Chynoweth
Keyword(s):  
Marital Status ◽  
Cause Of Death ◽  
Capital City ◽  
Australian Capital ◽  
Suicide Notes ◽  
One Year ◽  
Neutral Affect

Studying the contents of suicide notes might help to improve the understanding of individual cases whilst offering an opportunity to search for possible preventive guidelines. In a study in an Australian capital city, suicides for one year (1972-73) were investigated including the medical and psychiatric data where possible, and psychosocial circumstances in each case. The total number of suicides in the year was 135. Twenty-seven individuals left suicide notes of which 25 were available for examination. The mood as reflected in the notes was categorised in terms of depression and hopelessness, neutral affect and hostility. The affect was related to age, sex, marital status and method of suicide. The results are presented with examples of each category and are discussed with respect to their contribution to (i) understanding the cause of death, (ii) understanding the intention of the suicide, (iii) assisting the relatives in coping with the suicide, (iv) drawing attention to those factors where earlier intervention may have averted suicide.

scholarly journals How do parents' depression and anxiety, and infants' negative temperament relate to parent–infant face-to-face interactions?

2016 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 697-710 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evin Aktar ◽  
Cristina Colonnesi ◽  
Wieke de Vente ◽  
Mirjana Majdandžić ◽  
Susan M. Bögels
Keyword(s):  
Facial Expressions ◽  
Anxiety Symptoms ◽  
Depression Symptoms ◽  
Depression And Anxiety ◽  
Clinical Interviews ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Symptoms Of Depression ◽  
Interactive Behavior ◽  
Facial Expressions Of Emotion ◽  
Neutral Affect

AbstractThe present study investigated the associations of mothers' and fathers' lifetime depression and anxiety symptoms, and of infants' negative temperament with parents' and infants' gaze, facial expressions of emotion, and synchrony. We observed infants' (age between 3.5 and 5.5 months, N = 101) and parents' gaze and facial expressions during 4-min naturalistic face-to-face interactions. Parents' lifetime symptoms of depression and anxiety were assessed with clinical interviews, and infants' negative temperament was measured with standardized observations. Parents with more depressive symptoms and their infants expressed less positive and more neutral affect. Parents' lifetime anxiety symptoms were not significantly related to parents' expressions of affect, while they were linked to longer durations of gaze to parent, and to more positive and negative affect in infants. Parents' lifetime depression or anxiety was not related to synchrony. Infants' temperament did not predict infants' or parents' interactive behavior. The study reveals that more depression symptoms in parents are linked to more neutral affect from parents and from infants during face-to-face interactions, while parents' anxiety symptoms are related to more attention to parent and less neutral affect from infants (but not from parents).

Affect and Interaction Frequency as Determiners of the Complexity of Interpersonal Perception

1969 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-113 ◽  
Author(s):  
John W. Reich
Keyword(s):  
Positive Affect ◽  
High Frequency ◽  
Interpersonal Perception ◽  
Sorting Task ◽  
Interaction Frequency ◽  
Social Stimuli ◽  
Enhancing Effect ◽  
Frequency Of Contact ◽  
Neutral Affect ◽  
Affective Involvement

To delineate the effects of affective involvement and frequency of experience on cognitive discrimination of social stimuli, 60 Ss were asked to describe in as many ways as they could persons meeting each of six descriptions, the descriptions entailing both affect and frequency of experience. Ss then grouped those descriptions in a free-sorting task. Results indicated that positive affect and high frequency of contact had a significantly enhancing effect on the quantity of responding but that neutral affect exercised a significantly enhancing effect on the discriminational complexity of the responding. Implications of these results for three contradictory theoretical stances are discussed.

Asymmetric Effects of Positive and Negative Affect on Decision Making

2010 ◽  
Vol 106 (1) ◽  
pp. 193-204 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caitriona Cahir ◽  
Kevin Thomas
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Negative Affect ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Lower Risk ◽  
Neutral Condition ◽  
Positive And Negative Affect ◽  
Asymmetric Effects ◽  
Neutral Affect

Although affect is a fundamental element of decision making, there are different theoretical accounts and conflicting empirical evidence of its influence. This experiment was done to begin a more coherent account of the influence of affect by using standardised images to induce affect and a betting task to measure decision making. Eighty-five participants were assigned to a positive, a negative, or a neutral affect condition before making decisions on two hypothetical horse races. Analysis indicated that those in the positive and negative conditions made lower-risk decisions than those in the neutral condition; however, this did not differ between the races, suggesting that task familiarity did not moderate the influence of affect. Contrary to previous research, these results indicate that positive and negative affect do not necessarily exert symmetrical effects on decision making. Implications for the major accounts of the influence of affect on decision making are discussed in relation to the findings.

An Empirical Investigation of the Modeling of Depression

1978 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 823-832 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Abrams ◽  
Glen D. King
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Investigation ◽  
Check List ◽  
Personality Variables ◽  
Group Design ◽  
Adjective Check List ◽  
Neutral Affect ◽  
Affect Adjective ◽  
State Form ◽  
Psychological Inventory

To investigate the effects of viewing various films on affect, 200 volunteer subjects were assigned to 10 groups following a modified Solomon four-group design. Five groups received pretesting and five groups received no pretesting before being exposed to one of five treatments and follow-up testing 2 or 3 wk. later with the State Form of the Multiple Affect Adjective Check List and the Depression Check List. The treatments required viewing films of an actor who conveyed depression, positive affect, and neutral affect, and a no-film control. Subjects viewing a film were administered 13 semantic differential adjective pairs to obtain the observers' perception of the character in the film and the California Psychological Inventory. Depression increased following the depressed and neutral film conditions, and decreased from posttest to follow-up test, while the positive and no-film control conditions produced no change from pretest to posttest levels of depression. Similar results were found for the measure of anxiety but not for hostility. Subjects tended to be affected in the same way by the treatments regardless of their pretreatment levels of depression, anxiety, or hostility. Relationships between the changes in depression from pre-to posttest and personality variables were not confirmed.

Projected Social Distances from Mental Patient Related Items by Male and Female Volunteers and Nonvolunteers

1975 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 515-521 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leonore Loeb Adler ◽  
Jean G. Graubert
Keyword(s):  
Negative Affect ◽  
Mental Hospital ◽  
Mental Patient ◽  
Control Stimulus ◽  
Critical Difference ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
Volunteer Program ◽  
Neutral Affect ◽  
Placement Procedure

A figure-placement procedure was used to measure projected social distances which students ( N = 179) perceived between themselves and several stimulus objects. Subjects ( N = 72) applying for a college volunteer program placed themselves significantly closer to “mental patient,” “retardate,” and related stimuli than did nonvolunteering subjects. No differences were found with control stimulus items. Although volunteers were similar to nonvolunteers, the critical difference between them was the projected distances they placed between themselves and “mental patient” and related stimuli. Dividing the data by sex showed that among nonvolunteers, males placed themselves significantly farther than females from “retardate,” “mental patient,” and to a lesser degree from “mental hospital.” For the male nonvolunteers, stimulus items, conveying a negative affect, elicited greater projected social distances than did the responses to stimulus objects conveying a positive or neutral affect.

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