Sentiment analysis is one of the important tasks of online opinion analysis and an important means to guide the direction of online opinion and maintain social stability. Due to the multiple characteristics of linguistic expressions, ambiguity, multiple meanings of words, and the increasing speed of new words, it is a great challenge for the task of text sentiment analysis. Commonly used machine learning methods suffer from inadequate text feature extraction, and the emergence of deep learning has brought a turnaround (...) for this purpose. In this paper, we investigate the problem of text sentiment analysis using methods related to deep learning. In order to incorporate user and product information in a more diverse way in the model, this paper proposes a model based on a deep bidirectional long-and short-term memory network-self-attention mechanism-custom classifier. The model first identifies contextual associations and acquires deep text features through a deep bidirectional long- and short-term memory network and then captures important features in the text using a self-attentive mechanism. The model finally combines user information and product information to build a custom classifier module and uses context-aware attention mechanisms to assign specific parameters to user information and product information, which improves the performance of the model on public datasets compared with current common models. The results show that the accuracy of the algorithm in this paper is high, and it is about 5% lower than the traditional algorithm. The method can reduce the number of iterations and the running time of the algorithm. (shrink)

With the rapid development of Internet technology and the reform of the education model, online education has been widely recognized and applied. In the process of online learning, various types of browsing behavior characteristic data such as learning engagement and attitude will be generated. These learning behaviors are closely related to academic performance. In-depth exploration of the laws contained in the data can provide teaching assistance for education administrators. In this paper, the random forest algorithm is used to determine the (...) importance of factors for the relationship between 11 learning behavior data and students' psychological quality test data, a total of 12-dimensional feature data and grades, and extracts six factors that have a greater impact on grades. Through the research of this paper, the method of random forest is innovatively used, and it is found that the psychological factor is one of the six important factors. This paper innovatively uses BP neural network as the prediction model, takes six important factors as input, and establishes a complete method of online learning performance prediction. The research in this paper can help teachers monitor students' learning status, detect abnormal learning behaviors and problems in time, and make timely and effective teaching interventions and adjustments in advance according to the abnormal status of students found. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to propose a systematic classification of emotions which can also characterize their nature. The first challenge we address is the submission of clear criteria for a theory of emotions that determine which mental phenomena are emotions and which are not. We suggest that emotions as a subclass of mental states are determined by their functional roles. The second and main challenge is the presentation of a classification and theory of emotions that can account for (...) all existing varieties. We argue that we must classify emotions according to four developmental stages: 1. pre-emotions as unfocussed expressive emotion states, 2. basic emotions, 3. primary cognitive emotions, and 4. secondary cognitive emotions. We suggest four types of basic emotions (fear, anger, joy and sadness) which are systematically differentiated into a diversity of more complex emotions during emotional development. The classification distinguishes between basic and non-basic emotions and our multi-factorial account considers cognitive, experiential, physiological and behavioral parameters as relevant for constituting an emotion. However, each emotion type is constituted by a typical pattern according to which some features may be more significant than others. Emotions differ strongly where these patterns of features are concerned, while their essential functional roles are the same. We argue that emotions form a unified ontological category that is coherent and can be well defined by their characteristic functional roles. Our account of emotions is supported by data from developmental psychology, neurobiology, evolutionary biology and sociology. (shrink)

The convenience of big data processing technology has played a great advantage in many scenarios, and its deep learning can effectively mine different types of data in data sets. Applying this method to mining psychological prediction data set of legal anomie behavior can effectively prevent the occurrence of illegal behavior. The effective analysis of its psychological characteristics and the changes of psychological emotions will have hidden dangers, so it is necessary to extract this kind of data (...) in such cases. Therefore, the forest algorithm under deep learning uses weight factors, simple sampling, and other ideas to build the intervention mechanism, which will improve psychological quality to prevent anomie. The experimental results of this paper are as follows: In the case of testing psychological fluctuation by three algorithms, the forest algorithm calculates the psychological change area steadily, with the increase of the number of samples. In the data sample extraction of different dimensions, the test value increases with the increase of dimensions, and it is stable at 12 dimensions. Preventive intervention is extremely important to construct the mechanism before the anomie behavior occurs, and the longest running time of the roll neural network is as much as 950 s. The data mining technology for constructing the intervention mechanism accounts for 15.4% of counseling, which also shows that the auxiliary measures for preventing behavior are particularly important. (shrink)

It is well-documented that emotional stimuli impact both the cognitive and motor aspects of “goal-directed” behavior. However, how emotional distractors impact motor performance remains unclear. This study aimed to characterize how movement quality was impacted during emotional distractors. We used a modified oddball paradigm and documented the performance of pure movement. Participants were designated to draw a triangle or a polygon, while an emotional stimulus was presented. Speed was assessed using reaction time and movement time. The (...) quality and precision of movement were assessed by calculating the accuracy and root-mean-square error. Compared to drawings of triangles, polygons had higher accuracy under negative stimuli, but lower RMSE under positive stimuli. The results indicate that distracting emotional stimuli impact different aspects of movement quality, with movement complexity influencing accuracy under negative distractors and precision under positive distractors. This study provides further evidence that movement precision is an important feature of emotional embodiment that should be incorporated in future studies. (shrink)

Emotional labor generally exists in organization members. Emotional labor will not only affect employees’ interpersonal relationships, but also affect employees’ mental health. Affected by many factors such as the economic environment, they often need to bear multiple pressures. The degree of stress is positively correlated with the depth of the development of the times and people’s education. As mental health research has become the frontier and hot spot in the field of psychology, the role of mental health in (...) the process of employee creativity has been paid more and more attention. Therefore, this paper proposes a study on the causes of employees’ psychological stress based on emotional feature clustering. Based on the clustering of emotional characteristics, this paper analyzes the causes of employees’ mental health stress from an economic perspective. For teams with low level of team openness, with the improvement of team heterogeneity, team task performance shows a slight upward trend. It is clear from the experiment that when the number of experiments reaches 100, the task performance of high atmosphere level is 12.14, while the task performance of low atmosphere level is only 9.89. Therefore, the atmosphere of team employees is very important to team task performance. Through the cluster analysis of employees’ mental health characteristics, it not only increases employees’ spare time life, but also reduces employees’ daily contradictions. It eases the work pressure of employees, and becomes a platform for employees to improve their awareness and a promoter of harmonious employee relations. (shrink)

Emotions can be explained as specialized states, shaped by natural selection, that increase fitness in specific situations. The physiological, psychological, and behavioral characteristics of a specific emotion can be analyzed as possible design features that increase the ability to cope with the threats and opportunities present in the corresponding situation. This approach to understanding the evolutionary functions of emotions is illustrated by the correspondence between (a) the subtypes of fear and the different kinds of threat; (b) the attributes (...) of happiness and sadness and the changes that would be advantageous in propitious and unpropitious situations; and (c) the social emotions and the adaptive challenges of reciprocity relationships. In addition to addressing a core theoretical problem shared by evolutionary and cognitive psychology, explicit formulations of the evolutionary functions of specific emotions are of practical importance for understanding and treating emotional disorders. (shrink)

What is an emotion? Recent studies of cultural psychology suggest that there is no universally shared way of drawing the boundaries around the domain of emotion. In early Chinese philosophy, the abstract category of emotion that superordinates joy, anger, and sadness is sometimes identified with the term qing. This paper extracts, crystallizes, and examines the conception of qing from the excavated “Xing Zi Ming Chu” (XZMC) text, the most important philosophical work on emotion from early China. The paper argues that (...) XZMC presents a philosophically profound way of thinking about emotion, focusing on its normative role, cognitive features, and functional plasticity. Moreover, the paper explores how the ancient view offers a critical lens to reassess the prevailing assumption that emotions are first and foremost internal states with phenomenal and/or intentional characteristics. The paper highlights the potential for early Chinese philosophy to enrich contemporary conceptualization of emotion and vice versa, suggesting a more cross-cultural approach to philosophizing the category of emotion. (shrink)

Emotion sharing plays a key role in many accounts of empathy. However, some equate emotion sharing with emotional “contagion” and thereby discount it as a form of empathy. In what follows, I clarify the nature of empathic emotion sharing and differentiate it from contagion. I first reflect on the notions of sharing an object and of sharing a life, arguing that each has four core features. I then argue that emotion sharing also has those features. These characteristics allow (...) me to distinguish emotion sharing from contagion and other phenomena like it. I end by offering positive reasons for seeing emotion sharing as a form of empathy – i.e., it provides knowledge of others’ mental states and aids in moral development. (shrink)

Research on collective emotion spans social sciences, psychology and philosophy. There are detailed case studies and diverse theories of collective emotion. However, experimental evidence regarding the universal characteristics, antecedents and consequences of collective emotion remains sparse. Moreover, current research mainly relies on emotion self-reports, accounting for the subjective experience of collective emotion and ignoring their cognitive and physiological bases. In response to these challenges, we argue for experimental research on collective emotion. We start with an overview of theoretical frameworks (...) to identify a set of three characteristics of collective emotion. Based on research in cognitive and affective sciences, we then examine the corresponding candidate mechanisms. Finally, we highlight outstanding questions, review experimental evidence, and suggest ideas for future experimental research. (shrink)

One of the indicators that symbolize the success of an academic field is its academic publications in well-established citation indices. This article first explored the bibliometric characteristics of publications on “teachers' emotional labor” in the Social Sciences Citation Index and the Arts & Humanities Citation Index, two prestigious citation indices available in the Web of Science. Search with the term “teacher emotional labor” retrieved 173 publications that included this term in their titles, abstracts, or keywords in the (...) WoS database between 1900 and 2020. The bibliometric characteristics pertaining to numbers of publications, document types, research categories, research areas, authors, journals, universities, and countries were reported. Then, CiteSpace was utilized to visualize TEL research and to obtain insights into its research focuses and its future directions. The findings will contribute to TEL research by informing scholars in the fields of L2 research and psychology and others. (shrink)

The present study examines 1- to 5-year-old children’s emotion socialization in an early childhood educational setting (a preschool) in Sweden. Specifically, it examines social situations where teachers respond to children’s negative emotional expressions and negatively emotionally charged social acts, characterized by anger, irritation and distress. Data consist of 14 hours of video observations of daily activities, recorded in a public Swedish preschool, located in a suburban middle-class area and include 35 children and five preschool teachers. By adopting a sociocultural (...) perspective on children’s development and socialization, the study examines the communicative practices through which the expressions of negative emotions are responded to and the norms and values that are communicated through these practices. The data are analysed by using multimodal analysis of interaction that provides a tool for detailed analysis of participants’ verbal and embodied actions and sense-making. The analyses show that teachers responded to children’s negatively charged emotional expressions as social acts (that were normatively evaluated) and the adults instructed children how to modify their social conduct (rather than deploying explicit discussions about emotions). The teachers used communicative genres that prioritized general moral principles and implemented the non-negotiability of norms over individual children’s emotional-volitional perspectives and individual preferences. The teachers’ instructive socializing activities were characterized by movement between multiple temporal horizons, i.e., general (emotional) discourse that transcended the here-and-now, and specific instructions targeting the children’s conduct in a current situation. The study discusses how emotion socialization can be related to the institutional characteristics and collective participatory social conditions of early childhood education. (shrink)

Robert Roberts’s fourth secular and eleventh total monograph, Emotions in the Moral Life, exemplifies his characteristic insight, depth, earnestness, humanity, and religious commitment. Poised midway between Emotions: An Essay in Aid of Moral Psychology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003) and Attention to Virtues (in progress), Emotions in the Moral Life draws on the resources Roberts has already developed for analysing emotions as concerned-based construals in order to show how such construals contribute in diverse ways to moral (and immoral) cognition, action, (...) relationships, and character. (shrink)

Objective: We aimed to analyze the characteristics and psychological mechanism of depressive symptoms in elderly patients with alcohol dependence under the COVID-19 epidemic and to observe the effect of acupuncture combined with emotional therapy of Chinese medicine treatment on depressive symptoms in elderly patients with alcohol dependence.Methods: Sixty patients were randomly divided into two groups. One group was treated by a set of emotional therapy of Chinese medicine treatment for 12 weeks. One group was treated by (...) a set of acupuncture combined with emotional therapy of Chinese medicine treatment for 12 weeks. We compared the curative effect between the control group and the treatment group, the mean alcohol consumption, the SF-36 scores before and after treatment, and the scores of Hamilton Depression Scale before and after treatment of 3, 6, and 9 weeks.Results: Based on the cognitive behavior model, the characteristics and psychological mechanism of depression in elderly patients with alcohol dependence under the COVID-19 epidemic situation were summarized. The total effective rate of the control group was 60%, and that of the treatment group was 100%. After 12 weeks of treatment, there were significant differences in PF, RF, physical pain, general health status, energy, and mental health between the treatment group and the control group. Before and after treatment, there were significant differences in PF, RF, physical pain, general health, energy, emotional function, and mental health of the treatment group. The PF, energy, and mental health of the control group were significantly different before and after treatment. There was no significant difference between the treatment group and the control group in the scores of Hamilton Depression Scale before treatment. There was significant difference between the treatment group and the control group in the scores of Hamilton Depression Scale at 3, 6, and 9 weeks after treatment.Conclusion: Attention, cognition, emotion, behavior, and physical response reinforce each other, creating a vicious cycle that reinforces and sustains the depressive symptoms of elderly alcohol dependence under the COVID-19 epidemic, and acupuncture combined with emotional therapy of Chinese medicine treatment for improving the depressive symptoms of elderly alcohol dependence during the epidemic period of COVID-19 has a brilliant therapeutic effect. (shrink)

In the 21st century, Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961) remains one of the key figures in the field of analytical psychology - and Psychological Types, or The Psychology of Individuation, published in 1921, is one of his most influential works. It was written during the decade after the publication of Psychology of the Unconscious (1912), which effectively ended his friendship and collaboration with Sigmund Freud. Whereas the earlier work had clearly marked Jung's psychoanalytical divergence from Freud it is the Psychology (...) of Types that fully clarifies and presents the nature, quality and characteristics of his analytical psychology. The work, which was in part a consequence of his need to reconcile the competing theories of Freud, whom he regarded as extraverted, and Alfred Adler, whom he saw as introverted, develops his concept of descriptive categories for understanding the human mind in terms of the two essential attitude types: introversion and extraversion. These basic attitudes operate in tandem with four principal interacting functions of consciousness which Jung identifies as sensation and intuition, which are functions of perception, and thinking and feeling, which are functions of judgment. The eight resulting psychological types are then explored, described, identified, characterised and explained in considerable detail, with a soaring range of examples drawn from the whole of human history, culture and experience. In his efforts to explore and illuminate the nature of the unconscious mind and indeed the collective unconscious, he investigates the problems posed by the differing psychological types and how these have manifested from classical and medieval times to the 20th century. His observations range from Aristotle, Socrates and Plato to Tertullian and Origen, and from Abélard and Master Eckhart to Martin Luther and the problem of transubstantiation. Jung takes the listener on an odyssey of human thinking. He considers the problem of types in the works of Schiller and Goethe, and Spitteler and his treatment of the Prometheus myth. He contrasts idealism and realism, the Apollonian and the Dionysian in Nietzsche, and explores a host of philosophical and religious sources from the Bible to Taoism to Brahminism. He considers the nature of the reconciling symbol in Spitteler before analysing the nature of types in modern philosophy, aesthetics and biography, giving detailed consideration to William James' characteristic pairs of opposites and Furneaux Jordan's 'character sketch of the emotional types'. Jung goes on to fully identify and describe the characteristic differences between the extraverted and introverted types and provides an extensive chapter on definitions to fully clarify the meaning of the language he employs and make his meaning more accessible. Authoritatively read by Martyn Swain for Ukemi Audiobooks, Psychological Types is an inexhaustible treasure chest of ideas and creative inspiration worth listening to time and time again. (shrink)

Positive Psychology Interventions as an Opportunity in Arab Countries to Promoting Well-being AbstractIn this perspective paper, we emphasize the importance of further research on culturally-sensitive positive psychology interventions in the Arab region. We argue that these interventions are needed in the region because they not only reduce mental health problems but also promote well-being and flourishing. To achieve this, we shed light on the cultural elements of the Arab region and how the concept of well-being differs from that of Western (...) culture. We review the research conducted in Arabia, briefly evaluate the quality of this research and list some adapted measurements. We furthermore propose guidelines and recommendations for future evidence-based positive psychology interventions research to align with the national culture in various sectors and community samples that contribute to the development of well-being in the Arab world.Introduction Extensive research on Positive Psychology Interventions (PPIs) - defined as activities focus on promoting positive feelings, thoughts, or behaviour (Sin & Lyubomirsky, 2009) - has shown their effectiveness in well-being and mental illness (e.g., Chakhssi et al., 2018; Hendriks et al., 2020). A recent review of 347 studies showed that PPIs have a significant effect on promoting quality of life and well-being and reducing anxiety and depression (Carr et al., 2020). However, the issue is that most of these studies (82%) remain narrow in focus only on Western Educated Industrialised Rich Democratic (WEIRD) countries (Hendriks et al., 2019). Therefore, they may not be effective for other countries such as the Arab countries where there are various cultural differences. This highlights the key role that culture can play in enhancing PPIs engagement, acceptability, and eventually, effectiveness (Hendriks & Graafsma, 2019). Recently, the field of PP in the Arab region has begun to grow (Basurrah et al., 2021; Rao et al., 2015). However, studies conducted in these countries are scant and of poor methodological quality. We have found humble quantity and quality of empirical studies. Yet, Arab countries, home to 5% of the world’s population, have a burden of mental health problems above global levels (GBD 2015 Eastern Mediterranean Region Mental Health Collaborators, 2018). Prevalent stigma, war and conflict were some of the contributors (Maalouf et al., 2019). Thus, to properly address this cultural stigma against mental health problems, PPIs could provide an additional role alongside traditional psychology approaches (e.g., Cognitive Behavioural therapy - CBT). Further, in light of the political conditions that some Arab countries are going through and the negative effects that they cause, it has become necessary to use the method of prevention that is the focus of PP and not only of treatment as a strategy for applications and practice. It has been noted that the mental health care system in the Arab region focuses highly on illnesses treatment and neglects the significant role that PP plays in enhancing human potential and well-being. We - here in Arabia –are becoming more influenced by many global issues particularly the COVID-19 pandemic and their impact on mental health and well-being (e. g. prevalence of stress, anxiety, depression among the general population during the pandemic (Salari et al., 2020). In response, Waters et al. (2021) have recently presented how positive psychological factors can play a significant role in buffering mental illness, enhancing mental health throughout the pandemic, and building positive processes and capacities that can help to promote future mental health.Here in this perspective paper, we highlight the cultural aspects of Arab countries. Specifically, we present previous PPIs research conducted in Arabia and briefly evaluate the quality of this research. Importantly, we discuss the need of developing an indigenous and culturally sensitive PP among the Arab region (Lambert et al., 2015).Arab Culture “Arab World,” which comprises 5% of the world’s population, refers to the Arab countries in the Middle East and North Africa. Despite the increasing pace and progress of different businesses in many Arab countries, individual communities are still limited in certain prominent economic places. Arab people rather gather in collective communities. They generally share the same Arabic Islamic culture, speak the same language, and descend from the same Arab families when going back in history no matter what nationality they have nowadays. Yet, very many changes came to communities before borders were drawn between countries and after. For instance, geography, topography, demography, and socio-economic status affect peoples’ nature of jobs and lifestyles. For example, Arabs in the east, west, or the middle have similar tongues; however, almost every Arab country has its accent. Therefore, people need to go back to the formal Arabic language ‘Fus-ha’ or learn more about different Arabic dialects when communicating cross-countries. According to Hofstede’s model (2011) based on the individualism-collectivism dimension, the Arab countries (Eastern society) have been classified as a collectivist culture, where their identity and decisions are influenced by social systems. In contrast, the United States (Western society) has been classified as an individualist culture focusing on individual decisions. Although there are degrees of individualism among Arabs in certain countries, they still share collective common characteristics. Here, we explore the meaning of collectivistic conceptions of the self, emotions, values, and religion in Arab countries and how they differ from those in individual Western cultures. The Self Since the field of PP focuses on the development of self, it is vital to recognize that self-concept varies across cultures. Individualism generally emphasises the self-directed and autonomous individual (Realo et al., 2002). People in individualist countries focus primarily on their personal characteristics (e.g., motives, abilities) to build their self-concept. On the other hand, collectivism refers to several social structures that highly value the groups to which people belong, such as family and tribe (Realo, 2003). People in collectivist countries such as the Arab countries focus primarily on their relationships with others to build their self-concept (Markus & Kitayama, 1991). Hence, research from Arab countries should focus on the core elements of collectivism when implementing PPIs to make a significant, meaningful impact. For example, people from a collective culture may experience a greater enhancement in well-being when practising interventions that are more prosocial and group-oriented such as compassion, performing acts of kindness, writing a gratitude letter, and using character strengths in everyday context including social context, compared with self-oriented interventions such as identifying character strengths. Emotions, value, and Religion Research shows that Western culture emphasises the goal of maximizing positive emotions, while Eastern culture emphasises embracing and balancing positive and negative emotions (Leu et al., 2011). To illustrate, culture plays an important role in influencing perceptions of happiness. People in individualist countries value happiness highly. In contrast, people from the collective countries value low arousal positive emotions (Leu et al., 2011) and exhibit a fear of happiness (Joshanloo & Weijers, 2014; Joshanloo, 2013). Hence, the influence of positive emotions plays a limited role in the mental health of Eastern society. Speaking of Value, for an Arab, the family is the centre of honour and the most important social unit. This loyalty has an impact on every part of an Arab’s life. Arabs honour their families and highly value their friendships. Therefore, future research could shed more light on group-oriented interventions (e.g., kindness) that focus more on the relationship with family, friends, and community. When it comes to religion, Arab society has a rich culture in values and believes that place a high emphasis on spirituality. Religion is the most important and distinctive aspect of Arab culture. Arab countries vary in terms of religion, with Islam being the predominant religion in most of them. Well-being (Hedonic and Eudaimonic) It is necessary here to clarify what is meant by hedonic and eudaimonic definitions of well-being. While the term ‘Hedonic’ is based on the pursuit of maximum levels of pleasure (feeling good), the term ‘Eudaimonic’, on the other hand, is based on meaning and the development of virtues (functioning well; Keyes & Annas, 2009). Research indicates that cultures are not equally supportive of hedonic and eudaimonic aspects (Joshanloo & Jarden, 2016). In comparison to collectivism, hedonism appears to be more congruent with individualism (Joshanloo, 2014). Pleasure and positive emotions are considered a way to pursue happiness in Western culture, while this method is not highly favoured in Eastern cultures (Lee et al., 2013); Because they consider suffering and negative emotions as contributing factors to spiritual development. Therefore, the eastern perspective is more in line with a eudaimonistic view which emphasises virtues, meaning, and feeling of belongingness. However, although we believe that both approaches can be found to a certain level in both cultures, the differences suggest that there are different routes to happiness. Positive Psychology in the Arab region Positive psychology - "the scientific study of what makes life most worth living" (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000) - is one of the newest branches of psychology. It focuses on three main pillars: (1) positive subjective experiences (such as happiness and love); (2) positive individual characters (such as gratitude and compassion); and (3) positive institutions (for the application of positive principles within institutions and organizations; Seligman & Csikszentmiha lyi, 2000). Some of the main topics of interest in positive psychology include character strengths, gratitude, hope, happiness, mindfulness, optimism, positive thinking, and resilience. Within the applications of this science, various domains of well-being (such as happiness, engagement, positive emotions, and meaning) can be enhanced by practising positive psychology interventions (Sin & Lyubomirsky, 2009). Interestingly, these interventions have also produced benefits beyond well-being, such as reduced mental health issues (Chakhssi et al., 2018; Hendriks et al., 2020).Nowadays, PP is increasingly noticed in the Arab world (Lambert & Pasha-Zaidi, 2019; Rao et al., 2015). In recent years, there has been a great effort to explore the PP field across Arab countries. Several initiatives have emerged aimed at promoting well-being and flourishing. For example, the Middle East Journal of Positive Psychology published its first volume in 2015. On the International Day of Happiness in 2017, United Arab Emirates University launched its Emirates Center for Happiness Research. Meanwhile, Effat University in Saudi Arabia started the first Positive Psychology and Well-being Research Lab, the first symposium, and the first PP course. In 2019, Louise Lambert and Nausheen Pasha-Zaidi published the first regional text entitled “Positive Psychology in the Middle East/North Africa.” There are other efforts spent in the region as well; such as the work conducted in Egypt. Ibrahim Younus established the Arab Association for Positive Psychology https://www.psycholearn.com/en/associative.php which provides several courses on PP and also published a book entitled “The Power of Positive Psychology” (Younus, 2017). Despite this development, nothing can compare to the quantity and even quality of research in other countries. In light of our observations, the few PP studies may be attributed to the lack of awareness of the constructive approach and prevention compared to problem-solving. An Arab dentist once said: “people do not come to me until they are badly in pain.” In any case, many studies have taken place in Arab countries in the last decade, more of which are descriptive and less of which experimental. For example, Abdel-Khalek (2010) found positive correlations between quality of life, subjective well-being, and religiosity among students in Kuwait. Abdel-Khalek (2016) developed “the Arabic Scale of Religiosity,” which significantly correlated with PP variables among students in Algeria, Kuwait, and Egypt. Recently, empirical studies on PPIs have arisen in Arab-Islamic countries. More attention has been focused on promoting well-being and alleviating the high burden of mental health problems in the region (GBD 2015 Eastern Mediterranean Region Mental Health Collaborators, 2018). For instance, several studies examined the effectiveness of mindfulness among university students (e.g., Al-Ghalib & Slim, 2018; Awad, 2019; Thomas et al., 2016), parents of children with autism (Rayan & Ahmed, 2016) and addicted adults (Al-Rashidi, 2018). Such an intervention has positive effects. Participants who practised mindfulness reported reduction in stress and depression as well as improvement in well-being and resilience. Moreover, the results of a recent pilot study found positive impacts on enhancing emotional regulations and reducing stress among Arab teachers (Berkovich-Ohana et al., 2020). Some studies have also begun to examine various interventions targeting character strengths (Basurrah et al., 2020; Chérif et al., 2020), self-compassion (Elaiwah, 2017), positive thinking (Mohammed et al., 2014; Hadad, 2014), and hope (Zaki, 2016). Interestingly, a new finding considering the fear of happiness among people from collective countries has been examined. Lambert et al. (2019) provided evidence that a 14-week PPIs programme has an impact on reducing the fear and fragility of happiness beliefs among university students in the United Arab Emirates.Since Arab countries place great emphasis on spirituality, several authors have considered the aspect of religion when implementing PPIs. For instance, an empirical study by Al-Seheel and Noor (2016) found that expressing gratitude towards God “Allah” increases the happiness of the Muslim more than the usual gratitude intervention. Additionally, Al-Ghalib and Salim (2018) examined a religiously sensitive mindfulness-training programme with university students and found a positive effect on life satisfaction and a slight reduction in stress, depression, and anxiety. Hence, the role of religion is vital to make the interventions more relevant to Arab culture where people can connect Islamic philosophy with PP theories and practices. These studies reviewed here provide further support for the need for culturally sensitive interventions among the Arab population. More recently, the first systematic review of PPIs in Arab countries was conducted by Basurrah et al. (2021; the protocol has been published in BMJ Open and the final manuscript has been submitted for publication). Reviewing a total of 39 studies, the most commonly studied interventions were mindfulness, positive thinking, and resilience. Only a handful of studies examined gratitude, character strengths, forgiveness, self-compassion, savouring, or finding flow. Further analysis revealed that most studies from Arab countries have several methodological limitations. This included a lack of protocol guidelines, few well-designed randomized controlled trials (RCTs), blinding issues, small sample sizes, lack of active control groups, and lack of research into certain populations (e.g., teachers, employees, and people in distress in refugee camps). Discussion PP was founded on an individualistic framework (Christopher & Hickinbottom, 2008). To ensure that PPIs are culturally meaningful, this paper includes some cultural elements of the Arab region that should be considered to serve the needs of the Arab population. In the Arab world, some people may believe that PP is solely about happiness and being positive. If so, it is important to educate the public about the findings of rigorous studies evaluating PPIs such as gratitude, hope or flow on health, well-being and performance. To explain the value and effectiveness of these evidence-based approaches, examples might include studies linking gratitude with benefits for people with heart disease (Cousin et al., 2021), or how PPIs can promote quality of life in cancer patients (Casellas-Grau et al., 2014). There is some evidence about PPIs being effective in improving well-being in the Arab region, but research in this region is still in its infancy and little information is available regarding PPIs and the experience of Arabs participating in such interventions. Hence, there is still much more to investigate in this regard. Future research should empirically examine the effectiveness of various unstudied interventions such as savouring, gratitude, self-compassion, character strengths or finding flow. A combination of quantitative and qualitative approaches is required to provide an in-depth understanding of Arabs’ experience and impressions of PPIs and how and why they work. This may provide useful information to inform the appropriate design of PPIs to suit Arab culture and needs. Furthermore, while some research on PPIs has been carried out in the region, most of these studies have been of poor quality that suffered from small sample sizes, confounding factors, and a high degree of bias. To overcome these issues, future research should improve research quality, including protocol guidelines and well-designed RCTs. In particular, research should include randomization, allocation, blinding, power analysis to determine adequate sample size, active control groups to reduce bias, and follow-up periods of at least 12 months.Among the most popular resources that future PP practitioners may refer to are the International Positive Psychology Association (IPPA) and the International Positive Education Network (IPEN). Also, we recommend the Middle East Journal of Positive Psychology and the first regional book (Lambert & Pasha-Zaidi, 2019). To develop and/or adapt a multi-component PPIs, we would recommend referring to Character Strengths (Peterson & Seligman, 2004), the theory of well-being (PERMA Model: Positive Emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, and Accomplishment; Seligman, 2011), and the Five Ways to Well-being: Connect, Be Active, Take Notice, Keep Learning, and Give (Aked et al., 2008). Finally, single-component PPIs are based on theories like Broaden-And-Build (Fredrickson, 2004), Hope (Snyder et al., 2002), and Self-Determination (Deci & Ryan, 2012) can be also considered. Two other concepts that would be usefully applied are ‘Savouring’ (Bryant & Veroff, 2007) and Phillip Zimbardo’s Time Perspective (Stolarski et al., 2015). For instance, savouring has a positive temporal orientation to reminiscing the good memories from the past, enjoying the hedonic present moments, and willing proactively to make a better future. Now, what is even maybe more interesting for Muslims is “Transcendent Future” where all intentions, words and actions are devoted to that life after death. In addition, there is a model already prepared for the clinical purpose called Positive Psychotherapy (PPT). Tayyab Rashid and Martin Seligman published a PPT manual for clinicians in 2018. And for cross-cultural applications, including Muslim Arab culture, Rashid and Al-Haj Baddar (2019) have written a paper presenting PPT and its efficacy. PPT overview in detail shows sessions, themes, skills, practice, and cultural considerations where a mixture of PPIs based on PERMA, Strengths, and other PP concepts can be found. Regarding PP measurements, it is highly recommended to generate indigenous tools based on cultural backgrounds reviewed here in the article. An example of this is a tool for measuring Muslim well-being by including domains beyond what is found in Western literature. So far, in the Arab region, several attempts have been made to adapt PP tools. For example, Marei Salama-Younes (2018) validated the Arabic versions of different measures of well-being (e.g., satisfaction with life scale, the subjective vitality scale). Other validated scales as well include the self-compassion scale (Alabdulaziz et al., 2020), and the passion scale (Salama-Younes & Hashim, 2018). Conclusion This paper has discussed the cultural aspects of Arab countries and the need of developing culturally sensitive PPIs. The past decade has seen an increase in mental health problems in the Arab region. Stigma and lack of awareness have been always there. Among the issues are also wars, conflicts, and displacement in many Arab countries such as Iraq, Lebanon, and Palestine (Hassan et al., 2016). These indicate an urgent need to prevent mental illness and promote well-being. Indeed, we highlighted the importance of integrating culture with PPIs, following the guidelines for the cultural adaptation of PPIs (Hendriks & Graafsma, 2019) and the ethical guidelines for PP practice (Jarden et al., 2020). Another significant contribution of this paper is to highlight the importance of improving the quality of research conducted in Arab countries. In brief, this paper has several practical implications. It is an open invitation for researchers, policymakers, and practitioners alike to be more exposed to PP; as well as to better conceptualising and adapting interventions and measurement tools to the local culture in different sectors to maximize their effectiveness. And as we consider it as an invitation for us too, here we are starting a PPIs practice guide in Arabic language and for Arab practitioners. The insights gained from this paper may be useful for placing well-being on top of priorities for achieving individual, organizational, and optimal national functioning in different sectors. There is also a need to change the stigma or negative beliefs about seeking health for psychological support, which is an issue for countries in the Middle East (Baess, 2018). (shrink)

An analysis of the level of emotional and dependency according to sociodemographic characteristic factors in university students in a period of confinement due to COVID-19. 689 female students of the city of Arequipa were included; we used a measurement instrument with 23 items that allowed us to understand the influence of the current situation on the psychological state of the university. The results indicate that there is a low level of emotional dependence, in relation to the variable (...) of the emotional situation being one of the main reasons why single students are less likely to have this dependence as they do not have any type of romantic relationship, since they focus more on their personal goals through their university studies, which shows that they are more independent when taking on challenges and objectives consistent with their academic training, compared to those who maintain a relationship. (shrink)

It is a daunting task to tell the story of the lives emotions lead, how they are rooted in the deeper folds of the person’s psyche and wax and wane over a lifetime. Wollheim’s book is at times a daring attempt to cast an analytic philosopher in the role of narrator of this fascinating but hard to follow story. Two related story lines run through his book. One repeatedly criticizes contemporary philosophers for turning a blind eye to the psychological (...) reality and developmental nature of desire and emotion. The other, containing the book’s main project, develops an account of the characteristic history of an emotion from its origins in a satisfied or frustrated desire, to the formation of an attitude that lies at the core of an emotion, and finally to the fantasized critic in moral emotions such as shame and guilt. How we rate the success of the project depends in no small part on how we assess the relation between these two themes. (shrink)

The emotions that people experience in day-to-day social situations are often mixed emotions. Although autobiographical recall is useful as an emotion induction procedure, it often involves recalling memories associated with a specific discrete emotion. However, real-life emotions occur freely and spontaneously, without such constraints. To understand real-life emotions, the present study examined characteristics of emotions that were elicited by recalling “stressful interpersonal events in daily life” without the targeted evocation of a specific discrete emotion. Assuming generation of mixed and (...) complex emotions, emotional groups with relatively strong correlation of multiple emotions according to surprise, fear, anger, disgust, sadness, and happiness were expected. Seventy-two university students participated in the study. In the emotion induction procedure, participants freely recalled memories as per the instructions on a monitor, and then responded silently to a series of questions concerning any one recalled incident. Assessments of emotional states using emotion scales and another item indicated that validated emotional changes had occurred during the task. Inter-correlations between six emotions demonstrated an emotional group consisting of disgust and anger, which frequently occur as negative interpersonal feelings, and that of fear and sadness. This indicated generation of mixed and complex emotions as experienced in social life. Future studies concerning relationships between these emotions and other factors, including neurophysiological responses, may facilitate further understanding about relationships between mental and physiological processes occurring in daily life. (shrink)

Libertarians are an increasingly prominent ideological group in U.S. politics, yet they have been largely unstudied. Across 16 measures in a large web-based sample that included 11,994 self-identified libertarians, we sought to understand the moral and psychological characteristics of self-described libertarians. Based on an intuitionist view of moral judgment, we focused on the underlying affective and cognitive dispositions that accompany this unique worldview. Compared to self-identified liberals and conservatives, libertarians showed 1) stronger endorsement of individual liberty as their (...) foremost guiding principle, and weaker endorsement of all other moral principles; 2) a relatively cerebral as opposed to emotional cognitive style; and 3) lower interdependence and social relatedness. As predicted by intuitionist theories concerning the origins of moral reasoning, libertarian values showed convergent relationships with libertarian emotional dispositions and social preferences. Our findings add to a growing recognition of the role of personality differences in the organization of political attitudes. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with the issue of authenticity in Wittgenstein’s philosophy of psychology. In the manuscripts published as Letzte Schriften über die Philosophie der Psychologie – Das Innere und das Äußere, the German term Echtheit is mostly translated as ‘genuineness’. In these manuscripts, Wittgenstein frequently uses the term as referring to a feature of the expression of feeling and emotion: -/- […] I want to say that there is an original genuine expression of pain; that the expression of pain (...) therefore is not equally connected to the pain and to the pretence. (LW II, p. 55) -/- “This weeping gives the impression of being genuine” – so there is such a thing as genuine weeping. […]. (LW II, p. 87) -/- […] Genuineness and falseness are not the only essential characteristics of an expression of feeling. […]. (LW II, p. 90) -/- Wittgenstein contrasts the genuineness of the expressions with the possibility that the expressions are feigned. It seems to me that Wittgenstein is trying to discredit a specific version of the sceptical claim that we do not know other minds. I will refer to it as the sceptical innuendo. The sceptical innuendo says that every expression of feeling and emotion may be pretended. Wittgenstein’s approach to the issue reflects his later interest in the philosophy of psychology and, in particular, the problem of the ascription of psychological states (P-ascriptions) on the basis of someone else’s expression of feeling or emotion. Thus, the attempt to reject the sceptical innuendo is done mainly by means of conceptual and psychological arguments. Let’s look at this short dialogue between the sceptic and Wittgenstein. The former asks „How do you know that someone else is in a certain psychological state?“ Wittgenstein’s first reply is „I know that he is glad because I see him“. But the sceptic cannot be very happy with this reply. The sceptic’s next question is: „How do you know that he is really glad and he is not pretending?“ Wittgenstein’s response is not a direct refutation but is composed of a number of related reasons. These may be summed up in three arguments: -/- (i) A psychological argument from the very nature of the expressions. The expressions are meant to be natural symptoms of someone else’s psychological state (P-state). -/- (ii) A conceptual argument about the nature of pretence. It claims that pretence is a psychological property which is rightly ascribed when an observer has evidence for it. -/- (iii) A psychological argument from genuineness. It claims that we are committed to accept people’s expressions of feeling and emotion as genuine. (shrink)

Psychology training programs emphasize competencies like professional behavior, interpersonal skills, and emotional intelligence. Some students, known as students with problems of professional competence (SPPC), struggle in these areas. This study explored SPPC characteristics and educator experiences in managing them through semi-structured interviews with twelve Australian psychology educators. Thematic analysis revealed that SPPC often struggle with professional attitudes, feedback integration, reflective skills, and mental health, placing demands on resources and contributing to educator stress. The role of educators as gatekeepers, (...) assessors, and evaluators also raises concerns about maintaining ethical standards. Findings highlight the need for better understanding, support, and strategies for managing SPPC to uphold ethical standards. (shrink)

There is more to skillful performance in sport than technical proficiency. How an athlete feels – whether he or she is confident, elated, nervous or fearful – also matters to how they perform in certain situations. Taking stock of this, some sports psychologists have begun to develop techniques for ensuring more robust, reliable performances by focusing on how athletes respond emotionally to situations while, at the same time, training their action-oriented skills. This chapter adds theoretical insight to those efforts, offering (...) reasons to endorse a radically enactivist framework when it comes to thinking about: the basic characteristics of emotions; how emotions are involved in skilled performance; and how they integrate with the sort of intelligence that informs the skilled execution of action exhibited in embodied expertise. (shrink)

Dispositional mindfulness and emotion regulation are two psychological constructs closely interrelated, and both appear to improve with the long-term practice of mindfulness meditation. These constructs appear to be related to subcortical, prefrontal, and posterior brain areas involved in emotional processing, cognitive control, self-awareness, and mind wandering. However, no studies have yet discerned the neural basis of dispositional mindfulness that are minimally associated with emotion regulation. In the present study, we use a novel brain structural network analysis approach to (...) study the relationship between structural networks and dispositional mindfulness, measured with two different and widely used instruments [Mindfulness Attention Awareness Scale and Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire ], taking into account the effect of emotion regulation difficulties. We observed a number of different brain regions associated with the different scales and dimensions. The total score of FFMQ and MAAS overlap with the bilateral parahippocampal and fusiform gyri. Additionally, MAAS scores were related to the bilateral hippocampus and the FFMQ total score to the right insula and bilateral amygdala. These results indicate that, depending on the instrument used, the characteristics measured could differ and could also involve different brain systems. However, it seems that brain areas related to emotional reactivity and semantic processing are generally related to Dispositional or trait mindfulness, regardless of the instrument used. (shrink)

The aim of this study is to identify the typical psychological, demographic, socio-economical, educational, health, and criminological characteristics of juvenile delinquents who tend to continue in their criminal career to adulthood and therefore obstruct the possibility of successful, non-offending integration to society. Subjects of research were young male prisoners jailed in the Juvenile imprisonment house that completed the test battery. By ex-post analysis after a period of five years, the differences between offenders and non-offenders were identified. Results show (...) significant differences in the age of prisoners, length of imprisonment, presence of violent offence in the criminal history, number of previous offences recorded, differences in factors i, h, and q1 from the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire, responses within the Hand test characteristic, and in several signs of the drawings in a Draw-A-Person test. The importance and influence of listed factors is discussed. (shrink)

The situational context within which an activity takes place, as well as the personality characteristics of individuals shape the types of strategies people choose in order to regulate their emotions, especially when confronted with challenging or undesirable situations. Taking self-regulation as the framework to study emotions in relation to learning and performing chamber music canon repertoire, this quasi-experimental and intra-individual study focused on the self-rated emotional states of a professional classical cellist during long-term sustained practice across 100-weeks. This (...) helped to develop greater awareness of different emotions and how they vary over artistic events (9 profiled concerts and 1 commercially recorded album). Data analysis included traditional psychometric measurements to test the internal consistency of the time series data as well as the relationship between variables (artistic events). The study mapped the cellist’s flexible regulation of 17 different positive and negative emotions empirically linked to learning and achievement while practicing within the social context of performing music publicly at a high level. Findings arising from the study help with understandings of how to support musicians to maximize their artistic potential by reducing emotion dysregulation and strengthening the types of adaptive methods that enable them to manage their own emotions. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Reason and Emotion. Essays in Ancient Moral Psychology and Ethical TheoryEve Browning ColeJohn M. Cooper, Reason and Emotion. Essays in Ancient Moral Psychology and Ethical Theory. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999. Pp. xiii + 605. Cloth, $75.00.This collection of essays spans 27 years of John Cooper's career as an interpreter of ancient philosophy. Its earliest essay, "The Magna Moralia and Aristotle's Moral Philosophy," already shows Cooper's distinctive approach; (...) he seeks to discover "a simpler and more natural way" (200) to understand the discrepancies between this small treatise and Aristotle's major ethical works than by the comparatively convoluted theory of Dirlmeier. In seeking this simpler and more natural interpretive route, Cooper attends to "the philosophical content of the work" (202), rather than considerations of style and linguistic usage. He concludes with frank discussion of the problems which his interpretation cannot solve; these are dismissed with characteristic exasperation-italics: "... one must not expect to explain everything..." (210). He confines his rougher polemical points to footnotes (Dirlmeier "doesn't even face the question squarely" in note 19, hence he is "wildly off" in note 28). [End Page 430]These characteristics run through all the essays here collected. Only two of the 23 essays are previously unpublished: a reconsideration of Xenophon as a source on Socrates, and a treatment of pleasure and desire in Epicurus. Other essays take up moral problems examined by Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and several Hellenistic philosophers or schools. A theme running through most if not all the discussions is the desire (shared by the ancient philosophers and by Cooper equally, it would seem) to develop and defend a viable eudaimonism. The relation between human goodness and human happiness must be shown to be one of extremely close affinity, such that the virtuous are also the happy, even in adversity. Thus though no attempt is made to connect the essays into a coherent argument leading to a global thesis about ancient moral philosophy, the book nevertheless contains the ingredients for such an argument and thesis. The book presenting such an argument and thesis could in some ways be both more elegant and more helpful than this collection; it could spend fewer of its pages in arguing against other interpreters over minor differences (the standard journal-article format for our time), more of its pages awakening the texts, eliciting their message, and presenting it in a form useful for guiding life. Perhaps Cooper will write such a book soon.But the present volume will certainly be of interest to scholars and students, who will find in it much to enjoy and ponder. Generally what is striking about Cooper's interpretations is their freshness. He is at his best when dislodging some stale orthodoxy. The essay on Xenophon's Socrates is a case in point. The portrait of Socrates which emerges in Xenophon's Memorabilia is usually taken to be far less accurate than that presented in Plato's earlier dialogues. The Memorabilia seldom appear on the required reading lists of Greek philosophy courses, nor does Xenophon's version of Socrates' approach to moral questions receive even a fraction of the scholarly attention devoted to Plato's early work. Cooper convincingly shows this neglect to rest on a prejudice. The Socrates of Xenophon's portrait addresses a different kind of audience than that of Plato; the difference in the style of questioning and in the topics discussed reflects the historical Socrates' sensitivity to his partners in conversation. He addresses them where they live (so to speak), and this makes him "all the more remarkable a person" (14).Two other strengths run throughout the essays here collected. No matter how intense the exegetical quibble may have become on any given page, Cooper is able to make a sudden soaring flight upward and provide a synoptic view of the broader philosophical terrain, both for any given philosopher and for that philosopher's contemporaries, predecessors, and successors. These flights are sometimes dizzying and often unpredictable, but always refreshing.In addition, Cooper is able to make connections with large issues in contemporary moral philosophy, relating the ancient controversies to their modern versions (John Rawls, Bernard Williams, Leo Strauss... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:On Emotions That Last LongerArgyris Stringaris (bio)Keywordsemotion, mood, Aristotle, longitudinal studies, SchelerDistinguishing between emotions and cognitions does not seem entirely straightforward. Both are said to involve some form of computational activity and both to require a decision-making process. For example, according to Lazarus’ appraisal theory of emotions, “the person must decide whether what is going on is relevant to important values or goals” (Lazarus 1991, 30). Conversely, feelings seem (...) to be easier to separate from other experiences and, accordingly, those having a feeling are usually in position to contrast them with, say, what they would describe as their thoughts. Moreover, people would claim without much hesitation that they are able to distinguish between feelings: some are “good” and some are “bad,” whereas others are “deep” and others still “shallow.” The reliability of feelings—as judged by, for example, how we currently feel about something that seemed to be a good feeling some time ago—is certainly imperfect, but this does not necessarily negate their value.Rosfort and Stanghellini (2009) raise several important and complex issues about emotions and provide us with several good reasons to think more about feelings. They argue that, if, as some proponents of the cognitive theory of emotions claim, we can have emotions and not even know about them, then, at least, whenever we have feelings we are in position to know that we have emotions. For the authors, this is one of the main reasons why feelings are so crucial in “uncovering a person's situatedness in the world.” Feelings “reveal the diverse phenomenal structure” of emotions and, thus, according to the authors there is a need to distinguish between fundamental states such as moods and affects. The distinction is one classically made in continental psychopathology and the authors draw on interesting, and little known, aspects of the phenomenological tradition in doing so. They base their distinction on three dimensions, namely intentionality, temporality, and narrativity—these they consider as three core aspects of personhood.The authors’ strategy is yielding and it seems worthwhile that their work be further pursued. A great number of very interesting questions arising from Rosfort and Stanghellini's article. For example, the authors state that moods and affects are “opposites” of each other. Although they seem distinguishable on the basis of what the authors say, there is no compelling reason to see them as opposites. To use one of their examples, the fact that anxiety is different from fear because it lasts longer and because it is more diffuse does not mean that the two are either polar opposites or orthogonal to each other. Perhaps more important, it could be argued that short and focused emotional states, such as fear, may be predicated upon the more enduring ones, in this case anxiety. Conversely, it could mean that the occurrence of a [End Page 277] shorter, more focused state, of an affect in the authors’ terminology, will trigger longer-lasting and diffuse states, that is, moods. Furthermore, how long is long enough for something to constitute an affect? According to the authors, sadness is an example of a mood, whereas grief is classified as an affect. But sadness may be short lived and be highly focused; grief, on the other hand, can persist for months. And what is grief if not an instance of sadness? The authors wisely concede some of these points in their paper.It seems that a more general question needs to be asked: how long may emotions last? Emotions are regarded by many as short-lived and transient phenomena. However, within each person there is probably a fair degree of consistency in some patterns of emotional reactions. Thus, not least according to common belief, it is the angry man who is prone to angry outbursts (in Aristotle, the swiftly moving to anger, εὐκίνητος πρὸς ỏργὴν is the angry man, ỏργίλος or ỏξύθυμος).). This view seems justified by some evidence. Consider, for example, the predictions of temperamental characteristics at age three from the Dunnedin study (Caspi 2000); those children found to be emotionally labile, restless, and impulsive are, compared with so-called inhibited children, about three times more likely to become adults with antisocial personality. Or consider how predictive... (shrink)

Emotional self-regulation in childhood and adolescence constitutes a growing interest in the scientific community, highlighting in recent years the need to observe its development in their daily life. Therefore, the objective of this systematic review is to characterize publications referring to the development of emotional self-regulation of people under 18 years-old, in natural contexts. Based on the PRISMA guidelines, searches are carried out in the Web of Science, Scopus and PsycINFO databases, and in Google Scholar until May 2020. (...) After reviewing the full text of 376 publications, 14 works are selected that are observed in their extrinsic, substantive and methodological characteristics based on the GREOM and MQCOM guidelines, by two independent evaluators. Most of the studies correspond to the last 20 years, increasing the interest in observing older children, in interaction with adults and/or in different cultures. They apply mixed methodologies, not always ascribing to a low intensity design. Strengths are observed regarding the collection and analysis of the quality of the data; and weaknesses related to the failure to record the duration and sequence of behaviors, highlighting the use of guidelines as guides for future research. (shrink)

Besides sensory characteristics of food, food-evoked emotion is a crucial factor in predicting consumer’s food preference and therefore in developing new products. Many measures have been developed to assess food-evoked emotions. The aim of this literature review is (i) to give an exhaustive overview of measures used in current research and (ii) to categorize these methods along measurement level (physiological, behavioral, and cognitive) and emotional processing level (unconscious sensory, perceptual / early cognitive, and conscious / decision making) level. (...) This 3x3 categorization may help researchers to compile a set of complementary measures (‘toolbox’) for their studies. We included 101 peer-reviewed articles that evaluate consumer’s emotions and were published between 1997 to 2016, providing us with 59 different measures. More than 60% of these measures are based on self-reported, subjective ratings and questionnaires (cognitive measurement level) and assess the conscious / decision-making level of emotional processing. This multitude of measures and their overrepresentation in a single category hinders the comparison of results across studies and building a complete multi-faceted picture of food-evoked emotions. We recommend (1) to use widely applied, validated measures only, (2) to refrain from using (highly correlated) measures from the same category but use measures from different categories instead, preferably covering all three emotional processing levels, and (3) to acquire and share simultaneously collected physiological, behavioral, and cognitive datasets to improve the predictive power of food choice and other models. (shrink)

Subjective and psychophysiological emotional responses to music from two different cultures were compared within these two cultures. Two identical experiments were conducted: the first in the Congolese rainforest with an isolated population of Mebenzélé Pygmies without any exposure to Western music and culture, the second with a group of Western music listeners, with no experience with Congolese music. Forty Pygmies and 40 Canadians listened in pairs to 19 music excerpts of 29–99 s in duration in random order (eight from (...) the Pygmy population and 11 Western instrumental excerpts). For both groups, emotion components were continuously measured: subjective feeling (using a two- dimensional valence and arousal rating interface), peripheral physiological activation, and facial expression. While Pygmy music was rated as positive and arousing by Pygmies, ratings of Western music by Westerners covered the range from arousing to calming and from positive to negative. Comparing psychophysiological responses to emotional qualities of Pygmy music across participant groups showed no similarities. However, Western stimuli, rated as high and low arousing by Canadians, created similar responses in both participant groups (with high arousal associated with increases in subjective and physiological activation). Several low-level acoustical features of the music presented (tempo, pitch, and timbre) were shown to affect subjective and physiological arousal similarly in both cultures. Results suggest that while the subjective dimension of emotional valence might be mediated by cultural learning, changes in arousal might involve a more basic, universal response to low-level acoustical characteristics of music. (shrink)

In this article, I consider the interpersonal support, i.e., scaffolding, that agents provide to one another to share emotions. Moreover, the main target of this paper is to identify those scaffolds and their features that effectively function to boost, support, or enable emotional sharing interactions. To do so, I engage with the “multi-dimensional framework of environmental scaffolding” proposed by Sterelny (_Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences_ 9:465–481, 2010). This framework highlights various types of environmental resources, including social and interpersonal factors, (...) that serve as scaffolds for human cognitive agency. Furthermore, the model identifies the functional characteristics associated with these resources, which significantly contribute to scaffolding cognitive (and emotional) performance and skillfulness. Mainly concentrating on social interaction, I argue that individual, familiar social interaction behaviors, shared references, and shared bodily-affective and habitual patterns scaffold the interacting individuals allowing them to effectively share emotions. By examining the functional relationship between these particularly interpersonal scaffolds and shared emotions, I suggest that we can better understand the complex, situationally unfolding dynamics and the versatility of conditions that can boost emotional sharing. As a result, my analysis reveals that there are different types of social interactional scaffolds that vary in familiarity, predictability, robustness, individualization, and mutual adaptation. These features boost and trigger emotional sharing in degrees and different functions and different degrees of these functional features; therefore, different types of social interaction scaffolds are required depending on the situation to situation. (shrink)

A system of description, identification and classification of factors determining driving style is proposed in the article; stable and variable factors determining driving style are studied. Driving style is analyzed within the framework of structural approach. The variable factor are: specifications and technical condition of the vehicle, class of the car, its prestige, training of the driver, social regulators, features of the road environment, psychophysiological condition of the driver. The stable factors are: individual-typological properties, the level of suitability for driver”s (...) activities, personal features of a driver and sources of activity. Five main characteristics of driving style are selected and presented: safety-risk, confidence with parking, relation to the means of security; planning-impulsivity; driving culture. There are results of empirical research directed on discovery of relationship between styles of driving activities as one characteristic of driving style, emotions typical for driver while driving and accidents. Increase of safety as a result of planning style of activities is shown. The paper offers direction of work for optimizing driving style: the formation of compensating planning style of activities, psychotherapeutic work, modeling training, psychological selection, training and education work in driving schools. (shrink)

Cultural development is often reflected in the emotional expression of various cultural carriers, such as literary works, movies, etc. Therefore, the cultural development can be analyzed through emotion analysis of the text, so as to sort out its context and obtain its development dynamics. This paper proposes a text emotion analysis method based on deep learning. The traditional neural network model mainly deals with the classification task of short texts in the form of word vectors, which causes the model (...) to rely too much on the accuracy of word segmentation. In addition, the short texts have the characteristics of short corpus and divergent features. A text emotion classification model combing the Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers and Bi-directional Long Short-Term Memory is developed in this work. First, the BERT model is used to convert the trained text into a word-based vector representation. Then, the generated word vector is employed as the input of the BiLSTM to obtain the semantic representation of the context of the relevant word. By adding random dropout, the mechanism prevents the model from overfitting. Finally, the extracted feature vector is input to the fully connected layer, and the emotion category to which the text belongs is calculated through the Softmax function. Experiments show that in processing short texts, the proposed model based on BERT-BiLSTM is more accurate and reliable than the traditional neural network model using word vectors. The proposed method has a better analysis effect on the development of western culture. (shrink)

This volume presents cutting-edge theory and research on emotions as constructed events rather than fixed, essential entities. It provides a thorough introduction to the assumptions, hypotheses, and scientific methods that embody psychological constructionist approaches. Leading scholars examine the neurobiological, cognitive/perceptual, and social processes that give rise to the experiences Western cultures call sadness, anger, fear, and so on. The book explores such compelling questions as how the brain creates emotional experiences, whether the "ingredients" of emotions also give rise (...) to other mental states, and how to define what is or is not an emotion. Introductory and concluding chapters by the editors identify key themes and controversies and compare psychological construction to other theories of emotion. (shrink)

he design-based approach is a methodology for investigating mechanisms capable of generating mental phenomena, whether introspectively or externally observed, and whether they occur in humans, other animals or robots. The study of designs satisfying requirements for autonomous agency can provide new deep theoretical insights at the information processing level of description of mental mechanisms. Designs for working systems (whether on paper or implemented on computers) can systematically explicate old explanatory concepts and generate new concepts that allow new and richer interpretations (...) of human phenomena. To illustrate this, some aspects of human grief are analysed in terms of a particular information processing architecture being explored in our research group. We do not claim that this architecture is part of the causal structure of the human mind; rather, it represents an early stage in the iterative search for a deeper and more general architecture, capable of explaining more phenomena. However even the current early design provides an interpretative ground for some familiar phenomena, including characteristic features of certain emotional episodes, particularly the phenomenon of perturbance (a partial or total loss of control of attention). The paper attempts to expound and illustrate the design-based approach to cognitive science and philosophy, to demonstrate the potential effectiveness of the approach in generating interpretative possibilities, and to provide first steps towards an information processing account of `perturbant', emotional episodes. (shrink)

Emotion Review, Volume 14, Issue 1, Page 3-14, January 2022. Advocates for the psychological construction of emotion view themselves as articulating a non-essentialist alternative to basic emotion theory's essentialist notion of affect programs. Psychological constructionists have also argued that holding essentialist assumptions about emotions engenders misconceptions about the psychological constructionist viewpoint. If so, it is important to understand what psychological constructionists mean by “essentialism” and “non-essentialism.” To advance the debate, I take a deeper dive into non-essentialism, (...) comparing the non-essentialist views of the early empiricists with those of the psychological constructionists, focusing on the theories of James Russell and Lisa Barrett. Using Lakatos’ notion of scientific research programs, I also describe how Russell's and Barrett's views have evolved into different and potentially competing research programs under the psychological constructionist banner. (shrink)

This paper comprises a sketch of Wittgenstein's view of emotion. Addressed especially are his claims in the three books of his philosophical psychology published in the eariy 1980s: Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology (two volumes) and Last Writings on the Philosophy of Psychology, Two suggestions are made. First, to understand Wittgenstein's view of emotion one must notice how he sees emotion as, characteristically, linked to its surroundings. Second, the 1980s publications contain some modification of a central theme in Wittgenstein's (...) later philosophy: that inner processes need outward criteria. These suggestions are illustrated, elucidated and supported with textual material on his general account of emotion and then on his particular example of the emotion of fear. (shrink)

In the context of animal cognitive research, anthropomorphism is defined as the attribution of uniquely human mental characteristics to animals. Those who worry about anthropomorphism in research, however, are immediately confronted with the question of which properties are uniquely human. One might think that researchers must first hypothesize the existence of a feature in an animal before they can, with warrant, claim that the property is uniquely human. But all too often, this isn't the approach. Rather, there is an (...) a priori argument against attributing some properties to animals. Which features are thought to be uniquely human on a priori grounds? The class can be quite large, including psychological states such as beliefs and desires, personality traits such as confidence or timidity, emotions such as happiness or anger, social organizational properties such as culture or friendship, moral behavior such as punishment or rape. For convenience, I will refer to the members of the class as "psychological properties". One critic includes feeling, purpose, intentionality, consciousness, and even cognition in his list of psychological properties that are incorrectly attributed to animals (Kennedy 1992). Among the critics, there is quite a bit of disagreement about what counts as an anthropomorphic attribution, and this alone should raise questions about the charge. We can identify two different questions about the practice of attributing psychological properties to animals within a scientific context. First we can ask whether it is scientifically respectable to examine questions about the mental, psychological, cultural, etc. states of animals. Those who bemoan anthropomorphism think that we ought not even ask such questions. I will look at the worries about asking the question, and argue that there is no special problem with it. The second question arises with an affirmative answer to the first. Given that it is scientifically respectable to examine whether an animal has a psychological property, there must be some scientifically respectable method for doing the examination.. (shrink)

Research on the relationship between emotions and job performance is ubiquitous, yet few scholars have examined the combined effects of different emotions. Drawing on the broaden-and-build theory and conservation of resources theory, we propose that employees’ daily emotion fluctuations will affect their service performance in opposite directions. Furthermore, we propose these effects will be moderated by psychological [i.e., regulatory emotional self-efficacy ] and physiological characteristics of the employees. Based on the experience sampling method, data obtained from 187 (...) frontline employees of 35 bank branches over 18 consecutive days supports our hypotheses. (shrink)

Fraud can cause severe financial losses and affect the physical and mental health of victims. This study aimed to explore the manipulative characteristics of fraudsters and their relationship with other psychological variables. Thirty-four fraudsters were selected from a medium-security prison in China, and thirty-one healthy participants were recruited online. Both groups completed an emotional face-recognition task and self-report measures assaying emotional manipulation, psychopathy, emotion recognition, and empathy. Results showed that imprisoned fraudsters had higher accuracy in identifying (...) fear and surprise faces but lower accuracy in identifying happiness than controls. Significantly lower scores on non-prosocial factors on the Managing the Emotions of Others scale were found for imprisoned fraudsters, relative to controls. Imprisoned fraudsters had low scores in the assessment of psychopathy than the control group, especially Factor 1. For empathy, imprisoned fraudsters had significantly higher scores in perspective-taking than controls. Correlation analyses revealed that psychopathic traits were positively correlated with non-prosocial factors in both groups. However, the relationships between emotional manipulation and emotional recognition and empathy were not consistent across the groups. The results suggest that fraudsters may pretend to be as prosocial as healthy controls, who had lower antisocial tendencies, normal empathy ability, and would like to manipulate others’ emotions positively during social interaction. (shrink)

Recent conceptual developments in the psychology of gender can be productively applied to understanding two facets of emotion: the biological manifestation of emotion and the psychological embodiment of emotion. Gender researchers distinguish between sex, the biologically based categories of female and male and gender, the psychological features that are often associated with biological states and that involve social categories rather than biological categories. In other words, the term sex is used to refer to the physical fact of primary (...) and secondary sex characteristics; the term gender is used to refer to a psychological and cultural construct, a loose translation of sex into social terms. It is proposed that two analogous facets of emotion can be identified, namely, one which is comprised of emotion's hardwired, pan-cultural, developmentally persistent qualities, the analogue to sex. The second, constructed aspect of emotion is the analogue to gender. Six dimensions on which sex and gender can be contrasted are described, and the application of each to the study of emotion is discussed. (shrink)

What is Love? Discourse about Emotions in Social Sciences The study of emotions has been one of the most important areas of research in the Social Sciences. Social Psychology has also contributed to the development of this area. In this article we analyse the contribution of social Psychology to the study of emotion, understood as a social construct, and its strong relationship with language. Specifically, we open a discussion on the basis of the general characteristics of the Social Psychology (...) of emotions and the contributions from different disciplines in this area of research, to give meaning to the relationship they have with the language of emotions. In this regard, we have reviewed basic references for the study of the construction of an emotion, and thematically classified them into three broad categories: 1) Contributions from different backgrounds and perspectives; 2) Construction and de-construction studies of emotion, and 3) Postconstructionist studies of emotion. In the first category, we consider the main contributions from the Social Sciences, which can be summarized in two areas: philosophical-construction of an emotion; mainstream-psychology of emotion. In the second category we have began with the relationship between emotion and language and the social construction of emotion, i.e., its discursive status. We end with postconstructionist theories, i.e., Butler's concept of performance and technoscience. To give more meaning to this line of research, the use of a concrete example of emotion seemed appropriate. Thus, we chose "love". (shrink)

The question of what constitutes and facilitates mental health or psychological well-being has remained of great interest to martial artists and philosophers alike, and still endures to this day. Although important questions about well-being remain, it has recently been argued in the literature that a paradigmatic or prototypical case of human psychological well-being would characteristically consist of positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishment. Other scholarship has also recently suggested that martial arts practice may positively promote psychological (...) well-being, although recent studies on martial arts have not yet been reviewed and integrated under the PERMA framework from positive psychology to further explore and explicate this possibility. This article therefore contributes to the literature by reviewing recent work on psychological well-being and martial arts to determine whether there is substantive support for the claim that practicing martial arts can positively contribute to one flourishing with greater psychological well-being. (shrink)

The purpose is to help college students start their own businesses and protect and develop China’s intangible cultural heritage. The entrepreneurship of college students in the field of intangible culture is studied from the perspective of entrepreneurial psychology. First, the related characteristics, main content, and research status of college entrepreneurship education are described in detail. Entrepreneurial psychology is divided into entrepreneurial cognition, entrepreneurial emotion and entrepreneurial will. Then, the concept and development status of intangible cultural heritage are briefly summarized (...) to illustrate the importance of inheriting and developing intangible cultural heritage. A questionnaire is designed based on intangible cultural heritage development mode to interview local college students randomly. Finally, the results are analyzed by descriptive statistics. The results show that massive students do not understand the entrepreneurial policy, and only 16% of them know it very well. More than 30% of the students think that entrepreneurship will improve personal responsibility. Nearly 50% of the students believe that entrepreneurship can increase their life experience. Almost 50% of the students have the psychological quality of persistence and courage in entrepreneurship. The final results show that there are great differences in entrepreneurial cognition among students of different grades. Regarding entrepreneurial emotion, there are obvious differences among students of different genders, disciplines, and grades. Regarding the entrepreneurial will, there are only differences among students with different grades. In entrepreneurship education, different teaching methods should be adopted for different ages to comprehensively improve the effect of entrepreneurship education for students of all grades and help them obtain good entrepreneurship results. This exploration provides technical support for the inheritance of material and cultural inheritance and contributes to the entrepreneurship education of college students. (shrink)

Background: The Marathon runners must have the proper technical preparation to reach excellence and to achieve adequate psychological preparation for the race. Against this background, the current study aims to describe the implementation results of a cognitive-behavioral intervention based on psychological skills training for marathon runners.Methods: Fourteen amateur male marathoners with an average age of 30 were trained with various emotional and cognitive control techniques to enhance their performance in competition. Various psychological variables, related to the (...) subjects level of perceived stress, and to qualitative characteristics of their thoughts were measured before and after the target marathon race. Results were analyzed through non-parametric tests for two related samples. The Cohen's d effect size for single-group pretest-posttest repeated measures were also performed.Results: Statistical analysis reveals that, controlling for age and running experience, the intervention decreased significantly the level of perceived stress and the occurrence of negative thoughts before the race, during, and after the race.Conclusion: Training in cognitive control and relaxation techniques, as part of the psychological skills training could determine the quality of performance of marathon runners. (shrink)

This paper presents and discusses the psychological interventions that are primarily based on the development of mindful awareness as a psychotherapeutic tool. Mindfulness based psychological interventions are defined and situated in their historical context, in the larger perspective of the evolution of psychotherapies in the Western world in the last two decades. A special focus is given to mindfulness based stress reduction and to mindfulness based cognitive therapy . The structure and core elements of these interventions are presented. (...) Then, we examine their effectiveness in improving psychological and physical well-being. In the next section, we speculate about the underlying psychological mechanisms that might account for the effects of mindfulness based interventions. Special attention is devoted to the cognitive processes underlying emotion regulation and self-awareness. Finally, we examine how a first person approach might contribute to the understanding of mindfulness based interventions. (shrink)

The ability to rapidly detect facial expressions of anger and threat over other salient expressions has adaptive value across the lifespan. Although studies have demonstrated this threat superiority effect in adults, surprisingly little research has examined the development of this process over the childhood period. In this study, we examined the efficiency of children's facial processing in visual search tasks. In Experiment 1, children (N=49) aged 8 to 11 years were faster and more accurate in detecting angry target faces embedded (...) in neutral backgrounds than vice versa, and they were slower in detecting the absence of a discrepant face among angry than among neutral faces. This search pattern was unaffected by an increase in matrix size. Faster detection of angry than neutral deviants may reflect that angry faces stand out more among neutral faces than vice versa, or that detection of neutral faces is slowed by the presence of surrounding angry distracters. When keeping the background constant in Experiment 2, children (N=35) aged 8 to 11 years were faster and more accurate in detecting angry than sad or happy target faces among neutral background faces. Moreover, children with higher levels of anxiety were quicker to find both angry and sad faces whereas low anxious children showed an advantage for angry faces only. Results suggest a threat superiority effect in processing facial expressions in young children as in adults and that increased sensitivity for negative faces may be characteristic of children with anxiety problems. (shrink)

Delusions are one of the most classical symptoms described in schizophrenia. However, despite delusions are often emotionally charged, they have been investigated using tasks involving non-affective material, such as the Beads task. In this study we compared 30 patients with schizophrenia experiencing delusions with 32 matched controls in their pattern of responses to two versions of the Beads task within a Bayesian framework. The two versions of the Beads task consisted of one emotional and one neutral, both with ratios (...) of beads of 60:40 and 80:20, considered, respectively, as the “difficult” and “easy” variants of the task. Results indicate that patients showed a greater deviation from the normative model, especially in the 60:40 ratio, suggesting that more inaccurate probability estimations are more likely to occur under uncertainty conditions. Additionally, both patients and controls showed a greater deviation in the emotional version of the task, providing evidence of a reasoning bias modulated by the content of the stimuli. Finally, a positive correlation between patients’ deviation and delusional symptomatology was found. Impairments in the 60:40 ratio with emotional content was related to the amount of disruption in life caused by delusions. These results contribute to the understanding of how cognitive mechanisms interact with characteristics of the task in the context of delusional thinking. These findings might be used to inform improved intervention programs in the domain of inferential reasoning. (shrink)