Interactions within the social brain: Co-activation and connectivity among networks enabling empathy and Theory of Mind

While empathy and Theory of Mind (ToM) have classically been studied as separate social functions, recent advances demonstrate the need to investigate the two in interaction: Naturalistic settings often blur the distinction of affect and cognition and demand the simultaneous processing of such different stimulus dimensions. Here, we investigate how empathy and ToM related brain networks interact in contexts wherein multiple cognitive and affective demands must be processed simultaneously. Building on the findings of a recent meta-analysis and hierarchical clustering analysis, we perform meta-analytic connectivity modeling to determine patterns of task-context specific network changes. We analyze 140 studies including classical empathy and ToM tasks, as well as complex social tasks. For studies at the intersection of empathy and ToM, neural co-activation patterns included areas typically associated with both empathy and ToM. Network integration is discussed as a means of combining mechanisms across unique behavioral domains. Such integration may enable adaptive behavior in complex, naturalistic social settings that require simultaneous processing of a multitude of different affective and cognitive information.

Environmental influences on affect and cognition: A study of natural and commercial semi-public spaces

Research has consistently shown differences in affect and cognition after exposure to different physical environments. The time course of these differences emerging or fading during short-term exploration of environments is less explored, as most studies measure dependent variables only before and after environmental exposure. In this within-subject study, we used repeated surveys to measure differences in thought content and affect throughout a one-hour environmental exploration of a nature conservatory and a large indoor mall. At each survey, participants reported on aspects of their most recent thoughts (e.g., thinking of the present moment vs. the future; thinking positively vs. negatively) and state affect. Using Bayesian multi-level models, we found that while visiting the conservatory, participants were more likely to report thoughts about the past, more positive and exciting thoughts, and higher feelings of positive affect and creativity. In the mall, participants were more likely to report thoughts about the future and higher feelings of impulsivity. Many of these differences in environments were present throughout the one-hour walk, however some differences were only evident at intermediary time points, indicating the importance of collecting data during exploration, as opposed to only before and after environmental exposures. We also measured cognitive performance with a dual n-back task. Results on 2-back trials replicated results from prior work that interacting with nature leads to improvements in working-memory performance. This study furthers our understanding of how thoughts and feelings are influenced by the surrounding physical environment and has implications for the design and use of public spaces.

People adaptively use information to improve their internal and external states

Information can strongly impact peoples’ affect, their level of uncertainty and their decisions. It is assumed that people seek information with the goal of improving all three. But are they successful at achieving this goal? Answering this question is important for assessing the impact of self-driven information consumption on people’s well-being. Here, over four experiments (total N = 518) we show that participants accurately predict the impact of information on their internal states (e.g., affect and cognition) and external outcomes (e.g., material rewards), and use these predictions to guide information-seeking choices. A model incorporating participants’ subjective expectations regarding the impact of information on their affective, cognitive, and material outcomes accounted for information-seeking choices better than standard models currently used in the literature, which include objective proxies of those subjective measures. This model also accounted for individual differences in information-seeking choices. By balancing considerations of the impact of information on affective, cognitive and material outcomes when seeking knowledge, participants became happier, more certain and earned more points when they purchased information relative to when they did not, suggesting they adopted an adaptive strategy.

People adaptively use information to improve their internal states and external outcomes

Information can strongly impact peoples’ affect, their level of uncertainty and their decisions. It is assumed that people seek information with the goal of improving all three. But are they successful at achieving this goal? Answering this question is important for assessing the impact of self-driven information consumption on people’s well-being. Here, over four experiments (total N = 518) we show that participants accurately predict the impact of information on their internal states (e.g., affect and cognition) and external outcomes (e.g., material rewards), and use these predictions to guide information-seeking choices. A model incorporating participants’ subjective expectations regarding the impact of information on their affective, cognitive, and material outcomes accounted for information-seeking choices better than standard models currently used in the literature, which include objective proxies of those subjective measures. This model also accounted for individual differences in information-seeking choices. By balancing considerations of the impact of information on affective, cognitive and material outcomes when seeking knowledge, participants became happier, more certain and earned more points when they purchased information relative to when they did not, suggesting they adopted an adaptive strategy.

Liturgical Anthropology

According to recent accounts of so called “liturgical anthropology,” human beings are ritual creatures shaped more by what they feel than what they think. This is because the liturgies that make up our daily lives orient our desires towards certain goals and visions of the good life. We seek to expand this vision of liturgical anthropology by offering a critique of a predominantly affective vision of human development in which liturgy shapes primarily what we love. Drawing insights from developmental psychology, we argue that affect and cognition and intertwined throughout development, each reinforcing the other. Instead of attempting to artificially separate cognition and affect, then, we offer a vision of liturgical anthropology that is holistic, paying attention to the ways in which both our desires and beliefs are shaped by participation in liturgies, whether these be religious or otherwise. Finally, we argue that the psychological concept of “joint attention” can provide a helpful focal point for establishing why liturgy and ritual is so formative for human development.

Leaders’ Windows of Tolerance for Affect Arousal—and Their Effects on Political Decision-making During COVID-19

The recent ‘affect revolution’ in strategic decision-making research has placed greater emphasis on the role of stress and emotions in decision-making, with new theorizing to highlight how leader decisions often differ from rational choice expectations. However, while existing theories add to our understanding of the interplay between affect and cognition, they have not yet explained why affect drives decisions in some situations and not others. Undertheorized connections between leaders’ neurobiological windows of tolerance to affect arousal and their self-regulatory capacity—their capacity to regulate stress and emotions so that these phenomena do not drive resulting decisions—may hold the key to explaining this variation in affect’s influence on decision-making. Furthermore, this article considers how leaders’ windows of tolerance have unique ripple effects in their social environments, thereby affecting their groups’ collective window of tolerance. While regulated leaders can convey a calming and creative influence in their organizations that helps the group access strategic decision-making, dysregulated leaders are likely to convey stress and emotion contagion—which may erode the group’s ability to cooperate, adapt, and learn. It illustrates this argument using evidence from the upper echelons of governmental decision-making, comparing New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s and US President Donald Trump’s responses to the coronavirus pandemic in their respective nations. It concludes by offering hypotheses for testing the argument in future empirical research.

School Memories of Preservice Teachers: An Analysis of Their Role in the Conceptions About the Relationships Between Emotions and Teaching/Learning Processes

With the aim of exploring the role of emotional elementary school memories that preservice teachers have, in their conceptions about the relationships between emotions and teaching-learning processes, a study was carried out. The sample consisted of all first-year preservice teacher from one campus of a Chilean public university (167 students). The study used a mixed method research composed of two stages. In the first part (quantitative), the conceptions of the preservice teachers were evaluated by means a dilemma questionnaire. In the second part (qualitative), a retrospective imagery was applied to a subgroup of thirty participants from the total sample with the aim of detecting and analyzing emotionally significant memories of teaching-learning situations in elementary school. The result of the first part of the study showed that most of preservice teachers maintain conceptions that separates affect and cognition as non-integrated processes. The results of the second part revealed that preservice teachers remember different types of experiences, most of them are associated with the characteristic and behavior from their primary school teachers. Finally, the recovered memories were analyzed in terms of their relationship with conceptions, concluding that having experienced fear in school could be a factor related to the type of conceptions held.

The ageing of the social mind: replicating the preservation of socio-affective and the decline of socio-cognitive processes in old age

Anticipating population ageing to reach a historically unprecedented level in this century and considering the public goal of promoting well-being until old age, research in many fields has started to focus on processes and factors that contribute to healthy ageing. Since human interactions have a tremendous impact on our mental and physical well-being, scientists are increasingly investigating the basic processes that enable successful social interactions such as social affect (empathy, compassion) and social cognition (Theory of Mind). However, regarding the replication crisis in psychological science it is crucial to probe the reproducibility of findings revealed by each specific method. To this end, we aimed to replicate the effect of age on empathy, compassion and Theory of Mind observed in Reiter and colleagues' study (Reiter et al. 2017 Sci. Rep. 7 , 11046 ( doi:10.1038/s41598-017-10669-4 )) by using the same ecologically valid paradigm in an independent sample with similar age ranges. We were able to replicate the previously observed results of a preservation or even enhancement in socio-affective processes, but a decline in socio-cognitive processes for older adults. Our findings add to the understanding of how social affect and cognition change across the adult lifespan and may suggest targets for intervention studies aiming to foster successful social interactions and well-being until advanced old age.