Session 5: Reacting Versus Responding

In this session, a distinction is made between mindfulness (coming to the present moment) and awareness (what we find when we come to this moment). After a discussion of the prior week’s practices, participants are then introduced to Open Monitoring as a way to cultivate awareness and make space for our emotional reactivity. In this context, a discussion is raised about “falling down a hole”—when we have a sustained negative emotional reaction, for example, in response to a cognitive slip-up. Participants are assigned the practice “Emotional Weather” as a way to actively work with emotions. Walking meditation (“Aimless Wandering”) is also provided for home practice.

Session 5: Reacting Versus Responding

In this session, a distinction is made between mindfulness (coming to the present moment) and awareness (what we find when we come to this moment). After a discussion of the prior week’s practices, you will then be introduced to a new practice, “Open Monitoring,” as a way to cultivate awareness and make space for our emotional reactivity. In this context, we will talk about the idea of “falling down a hole”—when we have a sustained negative emotional reaction, for example, in response to a cognitive slip-up. For homework, you will be assigned the practice “Emotional Weather” as a way to actively work with emotions. Walking meditation (“Aimless Wandering”) is provided as a third home practice.

Psychometric Evaluation of The Fear of COVID-19 Scale Among Chinese Population

Background. Fear is a negative emotional reaction to or persistent worry over an imminent public health event like COVID-19. The COVID-Fear Scale was developed in many countries, but not in China. The current study aims to examined the psychometric properties of Chinese version of the Fear of COVID-19 Scale.Methods. Translation into Chinese and back-translation into English were conducted firstly. Item analysis and exploratory factor analysis in Sample 1, followed by validity tests in Sample 2). Likely, test-rest reliability was conducted in Sample 3.Results. A bifactor structure of Chinese version of FCV-19S with a general fear factor and two orthogonal group factors with fear thoughts and physical response was confirmed. Besides, it has good internal consistency reliability (α=.92), composite reliability (CR=.92) and validity correlation validity.Conclusion. The results of the present study confirmed that the Chinese version of FCV-19S has good psychometric properties in the Chinese communities.

The Multigenerational Legacy of Diabetes, Emotional Reactions, and Insulin Adherence

Purpose The purpose of this study was to estimate the effect of having a multigenerational legacy of diabetes on insulin adherence by measuring memories of family members’ experiences with insulin self-injection. Methods A cross-sectional correlational design was implemented by surveying hospitalized adults with type 2 diabetes who recently transitioned to using insulin. Surveys included items about the vividness, frequency, and controllability of memories of a family member self-injecting insulin and concordant emotional reaction, and one’s own emotional reaction to a diagnosis of diabetes and insulin regimen adherence. Results A diverse sample responded to the surveys. Significant associations were revealed between having a recollection of a family member fearing insulin injections and a negative emotional reaction toward one’s own diabetes diagnosis with suboptimal insulin adherence. Suboptimal insulin adherence may be an indication of avoidance-based coping. Inquiry into how a multigenerational legacy of diabetes influences individual coping styles for diabetes self-management will help clinicians identify patients at risk for suboptimal insulin adherence.

Dynamic properties of language anxiety

This article begins by examining previous empirical studies to demonstrate that language anxiety, or the negative emotional reaction learners experience when using a second language (MacIntyre & Gardner, 1999), is a dynamic individual difference learner variable. I show that it forms part of an interconnected, constantly-in-flux system that changes unpredictably over multiple time scales. While at certain times this system might settle into an attractor state that accommodates contradictory conditions, perturbations that arise may lead to development and change with the curious possibility that minor disruptions generate large effects while major alterations go unnoticed. In essence, language anxiety (LA) is part of a continuous complex system in which each state evolves from a previous one. After I establish LA as a dynamic variable using the aforementioned criteria, I outline the implications and challenges for researching LA using a dynamic paradigm, which include focusing on individuals, transforming LA research questions, designing interventions and re-thinking data gathering methodologies. I conclude with implications for language teaching that emphasize: 1) raising awareness of the importance of decoding nonverbal behavior to identify moment-by-moment shifts in learner emotion; 2) remaining vigilant concerning variables that are interacting with LA that make this factor part of a cyclical process; 3) understanding that anxiety co-exists with positive emotions to varying degrees and that language tasks are not unanimously enjoyed or universally anxiety-provoking; and 4) incorporating positive psychology activities that proactively encourage buoyancy and resilience for moment-by-moment daily perturbations as well as debilitating disruptions that result in long-lasting influences.

Ethical Consumption

This chapter focuses on ethical consumption, analyzing the mechanisms behind the purchase preferences for fair trade apparel products through an investigation of the role of emotions. The results of an experimental study show that consumer preference for a fair-trade clothing item is driven by the recall of an unethical action and the emotional state aroused by it. The authors hypothesize that recalling an unethical action would trigger a negative emotional reaction in consumers, which, in turn, would increase their preference for a product carrying the fair-trade certification versus a product carrying a more traditional quality certification. Contrition has emerged as the negative emotion that mediates the effect of recalling an unethical action on product choice. The results shed light on a compensatory mechanism whereby consumers alleviate negative emotions arising from recalling an unethical behavior they had engaged in by making an ethical purchase.

Dark and Peculiar

Earlier research suggested that militant extremists could have certain aspects of psychopathic and psychotic characteristics. Relying on these studies, we investigated whether the Militant Extremist Mind-Set (MEM) could be explained by psychopathy, sadism, and Disintegration (psychosis proneness), as subclinical manifestations of amoral, antisocial, and psychotic-like traits. In Study 1 (306 undergraduate students), it was shown that sadistic and psychopathic tendencies were related to Proviolence (advocating violence as a means for achieving a goal); psychopathic and disintegrative tendencies were associated to the Vile World (belief in a world as a corrupted and vile place), while Disintegration was the best predictor of Divine Power (relying on supernatural forces as a rationale for extremist acts). In Study 2 (147 male convicts), these relations were largely replicated and broadened by including implicit emotional associations to violence in the study design. Thus, while Proviolence was found to be related to a weakened negative emotional reaction to violent pictures, Vile World was found to be associated with stronger negative emotions as a response to violence. Furthermore, Proviolence was the only MEM factor clearly differentiating the sample of convicts from male students who participated in Study 1. Results help extend current understanding about personal characteristics related to militant extremism.

The Messenger Matters: Invalidating Remarks From Men Provoke a More Negative Emotional Reaction Than Do Remarks From Women

Despite negative consequences of emotional invalidation, research has not examined the effect of gender on responses to validation or invalidation or how an invalidating comment from a male versus a female confederate may influence affective responses. We used a two-study quasi-experimental design to examine variables that influence the emotions of individuals validated or invalidated for their emotions. Male and female undergraduates received either validating or invalidating remarks from a gender-ambiguous confederate (Study 1) or invalidating remarks from either a male or female confederate (Study 2). Results showed that invalidation from a gender-ambiguous confederate produced more negative emotional reactions than validation regardless of participants’ gender. Furthermore, being invalidated by a man rather than by a woman provoked a specifically more negative emotional response. Interpersonal interventions should explore ways to reduce invalidation and particularly strive to mitigate the effects of invalidation from men, whose criticisms may provoke heightened negative responses from others.

Speech Situation Checklist–Revised: Investigation With Adults Who Do Not Stutter and Treatment-Seeking Adults Who Stutter

Purpose The aim of this study was to evaluate the usefulness of the Speech Situation Checklist for adults who stutter (SSC) in differentiating people who stutter (PWS) from speakers with no stutter based on self-reports of anxiety and speech disruption in communicative settings. The SSC's psychometric properties were examined, norms were established, and suggestions for treatment were formulated. Method The SSC was administered to 88 PWS seeking treatment and 209 speakers with no stutter between the ages of 18 and 62. The SSC consists of 2 sections investigating negative emotional reaction and speech disruption in 38 speech situations that are identical in both sections. Results The SSC–Emotional Reaction and SSC–Speech Disruption data show that these self-report tests differentiate PWS from speakers with no stutter to a statistically significant extent and have great discriminative value. The tests have good internal reliability, content, and construct validity. Age and gender do not affect the scores of the PWS. Conclusions The SSC–Emotional Reaction and SSC–Speech Disruption seem to be powerful measures to investigate negative emotion and speech breakdown in an array of speech situations. The item scores give direction to treatment by suggesting speech situations that need a clinician's attention in terms of generalization and carry-over of within-clinic therapeutic gains into in vivo settings.

Evaluation of a Victim-Centered, Trauma-Informed Victim Notification Protocol for Untested Sexual Assault Kits (SAKs)

Throughout the United States, hundreds of thousands of sexual assault kits (SAKs) have not been submitted by the police for forensic DNA testing, which raises complex issues regarding how victims ought to be notified about what happened to their kits. In this project, we evaluated a victim-centered, trauma-informed victim notification protocol that was implemented in Detroit, Michigan. Most victims (84%) did not have a strong negative emotional reaction to notification, and most (57%) decided to reengage with the criminal justice system. Victims of nonstranger sexual assaults were less likely to reengage postnotification compared with victims of stranger rape.