Biomedical subjects

Lisa Feldman Barrett

Publications and source records attributed to Lisa Feldman Barrett.

16 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2007

The experience of emotion.

Experiences of emotion are content-rich events that emerge at the level of psychological description, but must be causally constituted by neurobiological processes. This chapter outlines an emerging scientific agenda for understanding what these experiences feel like and how they arise. We review the available answers to what is felt (i.e., the content that makes up an experience of emotion) and how neurobiological processes instantiate these properties of experience. These answers are then integrated into a broad framework that describes, in psychological terms, how the experience of emotion emerges from more basic processes. We then discuss the role of such experiences in the economy of the mind and behavior.

Affect↗

PubMed2006

Neuroanatomical correlates of extraversion and neuroticism.

Introversion/extraversion and neuroticism are 2 important and frequently studied dimensions of human personality. These dimensions describe individual differences in emotional responding across a range of situations and may contribute to a predisposition for psychiatric disorders. Recent neuroimaging research has begun to provide evidence that neuroticism and introversion/extraversion have specific functional and structural neural correlates. Previous studies in healthy adults have reported an association between neuroticism, introversion/extraversion, and the activity of the prefrontal cortex and amygdala. Studies of individuals with psychopathological states have also indicated that anatomic variations in these brain areas may relate to extraversion and neuroticism. The purpose of the present study was to examine selected structural correlates of neuroticism and extraversion in healthy subjects (n = 28) using neuroanatomic measures of the cerebral cortex and amygdala. We observed that the thickness of specific prefrontal cortex regions correlates with measures of extraversion and neuroticism. In contrast, no such correlations were observed for the volume of the amygdala. The results suggest that specific aspects of regional prefrontal anatomy are associated with specific personality traits.

Adult↗

PubMed2006

Emotional reactivity and the overreport of somatic symptoms: somatic sensitivity or negative reporting style?

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study is to examine the role of emotional reactivity (ER) in symptom reporting and conceptualize somatizing processes as a signal detection task. Emotional reactivity has been theorized to influence symptom reporting through somatic sensitivity as well as via a negative reporting style. We assess the degree to which these two competing theories about the role of ER are accurate within the signal detection framework. METHODS: We used a multimethod approach that included using both static and prospective self-reports as well as a signal detection task. RESULTS: Results suggest that ER exerts its influence on somatization tendencies via a negatively biased reporting style and is not mediated by somatic sensitivity as suggested by the somatosensory amplification and the symptom perception hypothesis. CONCLUSION: Emotional reactivity has yet to be associated with objective measures of somatic sensitivity. Until such an association is found, it is likely that ER influences symptom reports via negatively biased reporting.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2006

Language and the perception of emotion.

Three studies assessed the relationship between language and the perception of emotion. The authors predicted and found that the accessibility of emotion words influenced participants' speed or accuracy in perceiving facial behaviors depicting emotion. Specifically, emotion words were either primed or temporarily made less accessible using a semantic satiation procedure. In Studies 1 and 2, participants were slower to categorize facial behaviors depicting emotion (i.e., a face depicting anger) after an emotion word (e.g., "anger") was satiated. In Study 3, participants were less accurate to categorize facial behaviors depicting emotion after an emotion word was satiated. The implications of these findings for a linguistically relative view of emotion perception are discussed.

Analysis of Variance↗

PubMed2006

Solving the emotion paradox: categorization and the experience of emotion.

In this article, I introduce an emotion paradox: People believe that they know an emotion when they see it, and as a consequence assume that emotions are discrete events that can be recognized with some degree of accuracy, but scientists have yet to produce a set of clear and consistent criteria for indicating when an emotion is present and when it is not. I propose one solution to this paradox: People experience an emotion when they conceptualize an instance of affective feeling. In this view, the experience of emotion is an act of categorization, guided by embodied knowledge about emotion. The result is a model of emotion experience that has much in common with the social psychological literature on person perception and with literature on embodied conceptual knowledge as it has recently been applied to social psychology.

Affect↗

PubMed2005

The interpersonal process model of intimacy in marriage: a daily-diary and multilevel modeling approach.

This study used daily reports of interactions in marriage to examine predictions from the conceptualization of intimacy as the outcome of an interpersonal process. Both partners of 96 married couples completed daily diaries assessing self-disclosure, partner disclosure, perceived partner responsiveness, and intimacy on each of 42 consecutive days. Multivariate multilevel modeling revealed that self-disclosure and partner disclosure both significantly and uniquely contributed to the contemporaneous prediction of intimacy. Perceived partner responsiveness partially mediated the effects of self-disclosure and partner disclosure on intimacy. Global marital satisfaction, relationship intimacy, and demand-withdraw communication were related to daily levels of intimacy. Implications for the importance of perceived partner responsiveness in the intimacy process for married partners are discussed.

Adult↗

PubMed2005

Implicit self-attitudes predict spontaneous affect in daily life.

In 2 studies, the authors examined the degree to which implicit self-attitudes predicted people's spontaneous affective experiences in daily life. Across both studies, implicit attitudes toward the self (as measured by Implicit Association Tests) strongly predicted negative feeling states (as measured by computerized experience-sampling procedures), suggesting that implicit self-attitudes may be linked to changes in undifferentiated negative affect. Explicit attitudes toward the self generally did not account for these relations. Findings extend understanding of the factors that contribute to experienced affect and are the first to empirically link implicit self-attitudes with phenomenological affective experience in real-life settings over time.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2004

Feelings or words? Understanding the content in self-report ratings of experienced emotion.

People differ in the extent to which their verbal reports of experienced emotion are valence focused or arousal focused. Three multimethod studies are reported to explore whether differential focus reflects individual differences in the cognitive structure of emotion language versus differences in phenomenological experience. Although there was some evidence that valence focus and arousal focus were linked to variations differences in cognitive structure, the findings are also consistent with the view that self-report ratings are being driven by the properties of the feelings that are being reported. Implications for the study of experienced emotion are discussed.

Adult↗

PubMed2004

Interoceptive sensitivity and self-reports of emotional experience.

People differ in the extent to which they emphasize feelings of activation or deactivation in their verbal reports of experienced emotion, termed arousal focus (AF). Two multimethod studies indicate that AF is linked to heightened interoceptive sensitivity (as measured by performance on a heartbeat detection task). People who were more sensitive to their heartbeats emphasized feelings of activation and deactivation when reporting their experiences of emotion over time more than did those who were less sensitive. This relationship was not accounted for by several other variables, including simple language effects. Implications for the role of interoception in experienced emotion and the validity of self-reported emotion are discussed.

Adult↗

PubMed2004

Individual differences in working memory capacity and dual-process theories of the mind.

Dual-process theories of the mind are ubiquitous in psychology. A central principle of these theories is that behavior is determined by the interplay of automatic and controlled processing. In this article, the authors examine individual differences in the capacity to control attention as a major contributor to differences in working memory capacity (WMC). The authors discuss the enormous implications of this individual difference for a host of dual-process theories in social, personality, cognitive, and clinical psychology. In addition, the authors propose several new areas of investigation that derive directly from applying the concept of WMC to dual-process theories of the mind.

Humans↗

PubMed2004

Valence focus and the perception of facial affect.

Individuals differ in the extent to which they emphasize feelings of pleasure or displeasure in their verbal reports of emotional experience, an individual difference termed valence focus (VF). This multimethod study indicates that VF is linked to heightened efficiency in perceptual processing of affective stimuli. Individuals higher in VF (i.e., who emphasized feelings of pleasure/displeasure in reports of emotional experiences) were more sensitive to changes in negative facial expressions than individuals lower in VF. The effect was not accounted for by current affective state or other personality characteristics. Implications for the validity of self-reported experienced emotion are discussed.

Affect↗

PubMed2004

Psychological resilience and positive emotional granularity: examining the benefits of positive emotions on coping and health.

For centuries, folk theory has promoted the idea that positive emotions are good for your health. Accumulating empirical evidence is providing support for this anecdotal wisdom. We use the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions (Fredrickson, 1998; 2001) as a framework to demonstrate that positive emotions contribute to psychological and physical well-being via more effective coping. We argue that the health benefits advanced by positive emotions may be instantiated in certain traits that are characterized by the experience of positive emotion. Towards this end, we examine individual differences in psychological resilience (the ability to bounce back from negative events by using positive emotions to cope) and positive emotional granularity (the tendency to represent experiences of positive emotion with precision and specificity). Individual differences in these traits are examined in two studies, one using psychophysiological evidence, the second using evidence from experience sampling, to demonstrate that positive emotions play a crucial role in enhancing coping resources in the face of negative events. Implications for research on coping and health are discussed.

Adaptation, Psychological↗

PubMed2004

THE ROLE OF AFFECTIVE EXPERIENCE IN WORK MOTIVATION.

Based on psychological and neurobiological theories of core affective experience, we identify a set of direct and indirect paths through which affective feelings at work affect three dimensions of behavioral outcomes: direction, intensity, and persistence. First, affective experience may influence these behavioral outcomes indirectly by affecting goal level and goal commitment, as well as three key judgment components of work motivation: expectancy judgments, utility judgments, and progress judgments. Second, affective experience may also affect these behavioral outcomes directly. We discuss implications of our model.

Journal Article↗

PubMed2003

On the broad applicability of the affective circumplex: representations of affective knowledge among schizophrenia patients.

Studies of affective experience are guided by the assumption that the structure of affect generalizes across people. Yet this assumption has not been tested among educationally and economically diverse community residents or among individuals with psychopathology. This study explicitly examined the broad applicability of the valence-arousal circumplex and whether schizophrenia patients and nonpatients have comparable knowledge structures of affective phenomena. Patients and nonpatients completed similarity ratings of 120 pairs of affect words. Similarity judgments were analyzed separately for each group using a multidimensional scaling procedure, and solutions were compared. Results revealed the same two-dimensional valence-arousal solution for schizophrenia patients and nonpatients, although there were subtle differences between the groups. These findings provide additional evidence that the circumplex model is a useful formalism for representing affective phenomena across diverse populations, and they bolster confidence in existing interpretations of schizophrenia patients' reports of affective experience.

Adult↗

PubMed2003

Remembering everyday experience through the prism of self-esteem.

Two studies examined whether global self-esteem was associated with bias in memory for autobiographical experience. For 7 days, participants described specific events and made ratings of their experience (i.e., state self-esteem, positive and negative emotion, and perceived valence of the event) in response to each event. Later, participants were presented with their event descriptions and were asked to recall their experience ratings from memory. As hypothesized, higher global self-esteem predicted positive shifts in memory for experience, whereas lower global self-esteem predicted negative shifts in memory for experience. Patterns of bias were strongest for remembered state self-esteem, moderate for positive emotion, and minimal for event valence. Self-esteem did not predict bias for negative emotion. Mood at the time of recall (measured in Study 2) generally did not account for the patterns. These findings strengthen the view that self-esteem is a rich source of knowledge about the self that can influence memory for some kinds of autobiographical experience.

Adult↗

PubMed2002

Cardiovascular patterns associated with threat and challenge appraisals: a within-subjects analysis.

Previous studies demonstrated distinct cardiovascular patterns associated with threat and challenge appraisals for groups of participants. We extend these results by assessing whether appraisals continue to be associated with these cardiovascular response patterns within an individual as appraisals change. Participants completed four verbal mental arithmetic tasks for which they made appraisals before and after each task. Cardiac reactivity and total peripheral resistance (TPR) were calculated for the first and last minutes of each task, and the number of responses and percent correct were measured for each task. In line with our prediction, pretask appraisals were related to some task-related cardiac responses across the four tasks. In addition, task-related cardiovascular reactivity and behaviors both influenced appraisals following the task. Our findings suggest that an idiographic analysis of appraisals, cardiovascular physiology, and task-related behaviors provides a richer understanding of the appraisal process and reveals sex differences deserving further assessment.

Adolescent↗