The goals of the present study were: 1) to describe and provide initial support for the validity of the Future Scenarios Questionnaire (FSQ), a new self-report questionnaire designed to measure parental responding to anticipated children’s negative emotions; and 2) to examine how maternal responses on the FSQ related to young children’s aggressive, asocial, and prosocial behaviors with peers. Further, this study examined whether the temperamental trait of negative affect moderated the relation between maternal responses on the FSQ and children’s social adjustment outcomes. Participants were 92 mothers of preschool-age children (43 boys and 49 girls; M age 61.5 months). Mothers provided ratings on the FSQ and child temperament ratings on the Child Behavior Questionnaire (CBQ; Rothbart, Ahadi, & Hershey, 1994). They also completed a range of measures which were included to assess the construct validity of the FSQ. These included measures of attachment representations, maternal mind-mindedness, perceived control, and alexithymia. Sixty-nine teachers provided ratings on the Child Behavior Scale (CBS; Ladd & Profilet, 1996) for children’s aggressive, asocial, and prosocial behaviors in the peer context. Factor analysis of the FSQ revealed two subscales: Encourage Emotion Expression (EEE) and Discourage Emotion Expression (DEE). Patterns of correlations among these subscales and the additional mother measures suggested that the FSQ demonstrates some construct validity. Further, the results of the moderation analyses showed that maternal responding on the FSQ interacts with negative affect in the prediction of child behaviors, however not in the hypothesized ways. In particular, encouraging emotion expression significantly predicted more asocial behavior and less prosocial behavior (approached significance), but only for children rated high in negative affect. Similarly, discouraging emotion expression significantly predicted less aggressive behavior only for high negative affect children. None of these relations was significant for children rated low in negative affect. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed in terms of the importance of considering child temperament in emotion socialization processes.

In der vorliegenden Arbeit wurden die Auswirkungen des Musikhörens nach der einmaligen Inhalation eines Gasgemisches aus 35 % CO2 und 65 % O2 auf Emotionen, die aktuelle Stimmung sowie auf die Stress- und Immunparameter Noradrenalin, Leptin, Somatostatin und TNF-α untersucht. Außerdem wurden die Stress- und Immunparameter betreffs ihres Zusammenhangs mit den Emotionen und Stimmungen sowie ihrer Geschlechter- und Tageszeiteneffekte näher betrachtet. In die Studie wurden 143 gesunde Probanden eingeschlossen, die randomisiert jeweils einer Experimentalgruppe und einer Kontrollgruppe zugeteilt wurden. Die Experimentalgruppe hörte nach der Inhalation des Gasgemisches fröhliche belebende Instrumentalmusik, während die Versuchspersonen der Kontrollgruppe nach Zugabe des Gasgemisches neutrale Zwölftonfolgen dargeboten bekamen. Während des Hörens wurden die Emotionen an Hand standardisierter Fragebögen bewertet. Die aktuelle Stimmung wurde jeweils vor und nach dem Experiment erhoben. Zu 6 definierten Zeitpunkten wurden den Probanden Blutproben entnommen, die auf die Stress- und Immunparameter untersucht wurden. Dabei zeigte sich die Inhalation des Gasgemisches aus 35 % CO2 und 65 % O2 als wirkungsvoller Stressor, der die Schlüsselmechanismen der humanen Stressantwort zu aktivieren imstande war. Das Hören der Instrumentalmusik erbrachte signifikant positive Effekte auf die Einschätzung der Emotionen und aktuellen Stimmung verglichen mit dem Hören von Zwölftonfolgen. In den Konzentrationen der Stress- und Immunparameter zeigten sich im Vergleich von Instrumentalmusik mit Zwölftonfolgen jedoch keine eindeutigen Unterschiede. Diese Arbeit liefert damit einen Beleg zur positiven Wirkung von Musik und unterstützt die Bestrebungen, vergleichbare musikalische Stimuli im klinischen Alltag therapeutisch einzusetzen.

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In spite of evidence for increased maintenance and/or improvement of emotional experience in older adulthood, past work suggests that young adults are better able than older adults to identify emotions in others. Typical emotion recognition tasks employ a single-closed-response methodology. Because older adults are more complex in their emotional experience than young adults, they may approach such response-limited emotion recognition tasks in a qualitatively different manner than young adults. The first study of the present research investigated whether older adults were more likely than young adults to interpret emotional expressions (facial task) and emotional situations (lexical task) as representing a mix of different discrete emotions. In the lexical task, older adults benefited more than young adults from the opportunity to provide more than one response. In the facial task, however, there was a cross-over interaction such that older adults benefited more than young adults for anger recognition, whereas young adults benefited more than older adults for disgust recognition. A second study investigated whether older adults benefit more than young adults from contextual cues. The addition of contextual information improved the performance of older adults more than that of young adults. Age differences in anger recognition, however, persisted across all conditions. Overall, these findings are consistent with an age-related increase in the perception of mixed emotions in lexical information. Moreover, they suggest that contextual information can help disambiguate emotional information.

abstract: The purpose of this study was to examine the longitudinal relations of maternal behaviors, children`s temperamental negative emotionality, and children`s emotion perception processes, including emotion perception accuracy (EPA) and emotion perception bias (EPB), to children`s conduct disorder symptoms in a normative sample. Separate structural equation models were conducted to assess whether parenting or children`s proneness to negative emotions at 24-30 (T2), 36-42 (T3) and 48-54 (T4) months predicted children`s EPA and EPB over time, and whether T3 and T4 children`s emotion perception processes were predictive of children`s conduct disorder at 72 months of age (T5). None of the hypothesized longitudinal relations was supported; however, other noteworthy results were observed. T3 children`s proneness to negative emotions was positively related to children`s concurrent bias toward anger. The latent constructs of negative parenting, children`s proneness to negative emotions, and the observed measure of children`s emotion perception accuracy showed stability over time, whereas the observed measures of children`s bias toward understanding distinct negative emotions were unrelated across time. In addition, children`s expressive language was predicted by children`s earlier emotion perception accuracy, which emphasized the importance of improving children`s emotion understanding skills during early years. Furthermore, the previously established negative relation between EPA and EPB variables was only partially supported. Findings regarding the relations between parenting, children`s negative emotionality and emotion perception processes are discussed from a developmental perspective. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.S. Family and Human Development 2011

Ce travail de thèse avait pour objectif de déterminer la « meilleure » approche neurochirurgicale, entre l´amygdalo-hippocampectomie sélective (SAH) et la lobectomie temporale antérieure (ATL) dans le cadre d´épilepsie temporomésiale pharmacorésistante avec sclérose hippocampique unilatérale. Pour réaliser cette étude, trois critères ont été appréciés : la guérison des crises, l´impact sur les fonctions mnésiques et l´impact sur les capacités de reconnaissance des émotions faciales (FER). Ces critères ont été évalués lors d’un suivi à long terme ; en moyenne 7 ans après la résection. Pour ce faire, 2 populations de patients souffrant d´une épilepsie temporale ont été étudiées, les uns soignés en Allemagne, et les autres opérés en France. Tous ont été sélectionnés rétrospectivement et les deux groupes sont supposés homogènes en raison d´une sélection très drastique. Les résultats obtenus ont mis en évidence une relative supériorité de la méthode la plus sélective concernant l´impact sur les fonctions mnésiques, sans pour autant objectiver une réduction significativement moindre de l´arrêt des crises. L’implication du pôle temporal dans les capacités de mémoire à court terme et de mémoire de travail a été démontrée, les patients du groupe SAH objectivant des performances supérieures en postopératoire comparées aux performances du groupe ATL. Concernant les émotions, une atteinte hémisphérique unilatérale est en lien avec un déficit de FER, indépendamment de la méthode neurochirurgicale employée. Ainsi, cette étude suggère une préférence de la méthode sélective, puisqu´elle permet une atteinte moindre des fonctions mnésiques sur un suivi postopératoire à très long terme. / The objective of this thesis work was to examine the “best” neurosurgical method, between selective amygdalohippocampectomy (SAH) and anterior temporal lobectomy (ATL) in the context of pharmacoresistant mesial temporal lobe epilepsy with unilateral hippocampal sclerosis. In order to execute this study, three criteria were taken into account: seizure freedom, the effect on memory and facial emotion recognition capacities (FER).These criteria were studied after a long-term delay of 7 years after the resection. Hence, two populations of patients suffering from temporal lobe epilepsy that were either treated in Germany and the others had received surgery in France. All were selected retrospectively and both groups were supposed to be homogenous due to strong selection criteria. The results showed a better outcome for the most selective method, concerning the impact on memory, however there was no significant reduction of seizures.The implication of the temporal pole in the capacities of short-term memory and working memory was shown, with patients from the SAH group showing superior postoperative performances when compared with performances of the ATL group. Concerning emotions, a unilateral lesion is related to deficits of FER independently of the neurosurgical method applied.Therefore this study shows a better outcome for the selective method, since it allows for reduced damage concerning mnesic functions on a very long-term postoperative follow-up.

Trots den omfattande forskning som utförts om både priming och emotioner, och relationen dem emellan, finns det ännu idag anledning att fortsätta söka fördjupa förståelsen av hur emotionell priming processeras i hjärnan. Den aktuella studien har ämnat utgöra en liten men relevant del av neuropsykologins kontinuerliga arbete med att underbygga fortsatta framsteg och fördjupad förståelse om hur människans hjärna arbetar. Experiment med emotionell priming har genomförts, för att med EEG-mätningar undersöka hjärnans reaktioner. Studiens resultat uppvisar en neurologisk skillnad mellan hur hjärnan reagerar på leende ansikten jämfört med neutrala ansikten. Däremot kunde ingen primingeffekt påvisas vid upprepade tester, vilket skulle kunna tyda på att priming inte sker på neurologisk nivå utan kräver någon form av medveten eller omedveten kognitiv aktivering för att ha någon effekt. / Despite the extensive research conducted on both priming and emotions, and the relationship between them, there is still reason to further seek to deepen our understanding of how emotional priming is processed in the brain. The current study aimed to be a small but relevant part of neuropsychology's ongoing work in supporting continued progress and in-depth understanding of how the human brain works. Experiments with emotional priming have been carried out to examine the brain's reactions with EEG measurements. The results of the study show a neurological difference between how the brain reacts to smiling faces versus neutral faces. However, no priming effect could be detected in repeated tests, which could indicate that priming does not occur at the neurological level but requires some form of conscious or unconscious cognitive activation to have an effect.

xv, 97 p. A print copy of this thesis is available through the UO Libraries. Search the library catalog for the location and call number. / Emotion experiences such as internalized distress have been described mostly in European Americans and adults in the psychological literature and less in Asian American children. Associations between emotion experience and expressivity have been established mostly through samples of European American children. Finally, the functionality of emotion experience and expressivity across cultural norms has not been examined thoroughly, especially in ethnic minority or bicultural children. This is of concern given that cultural ideals for emotion differ across cultural groups. This dissertation incorporates a cultural perspective to understanding the emotion experience while also relying on the functionalist approach as an organizing framework to understand expressivity in children from an Asian background. This study examined 70 Chinese American and 71 European American mothers and their 5 to 7 year old children. Mother and child reports of children's internalized V experience were obtained. Observers also rated children's expressivity in a frustration- eliciting task, alone and in the presence of their mothers. The first objective of the dissertation was to characterize the emotion experiences of Chinese American and European American young children, in particular, internalized distress. The second objective of this dissertation sought to observe children's expressivity in response to a frustrating situation, with and without their mothers. As a whole, Chinese American children experienced greater internalized distress than European American children based on mother and child reports. Contrary to hypotheses, Chinese American children were just as expressive as European American children during the frustration eliciting task, especially when mothers were present in the room. Furthermore, it appeared that European American children with greater child-reported anxiety and mother-reported depression showed less increase in their expressivity than all the other children when their mothers entered into the room. This study explored the role of culture in the socialization of emotion and the functionality of expressivity in solitary and social situations. Overall, this dissertation suggests that cultural, situational, and internal emotion experience are factors which concurrently play a role in children's emotion expressivity. / Adviser: Jeffrey Measelle

Objective: The purpose of this dissertation was to reproduce Thayer and Lane’s (2000) neurovisceral model by examining both tonic and phasic heart rate variability (HRV) and emotion regulation (ER), and explore the effects of brief evidence-based intervention techniques in a sample of adults with clinically elevated levels of anxiety. Methods: This was a comprehensive multi-methodological study of 34 adults (ages 19 to 63 years) with clinically elevated levels of anxiety. Study 1 examined subjective and physiological effects of implementing ER strategies in response to a well-validated emotion elicitation paradigm consisting of viewing emotion-eliciting aversive images and sentences. Study 2 employed a within-subject RCT design and compared the impact of cognitive restructuring (CR), a top-down ER technique, with open monitoring mindfulness (OM), a bottom-up ER technique. Effects of intervention on self-regulation were assessed at a physiological (i.e. HRV), behavioral (i.e. ER and executive function (EF) computerized task) and subjective (i.e. self-report questionnaires) level. Results: Study 1 revealed that tonic HRV significantly predicted perceived ER success for both top-down and bottom-up generated emotions, whereas phasic HRV only predicted perceived ER success under conditions of bottom-up emotion generation. Variability emerged in our findings depending on the unique ER strategy used. Study 2 indicated a significant time by intervention effect on phasic HRV on the ER task, where HRV decreased with CR and increased with OM. There was a main effect of age independent of intervention on the EF task, such that increased age was related to increased phasic reactivity. On the ER task, CR led to greater perceived success in cognitive reappraisal. On the EF task, CR became faster, whereas OM became slower but more accurate. Significant intervention effects were also found on self-reported anxiety and aspects of mindfulness, with greatest reductions in anxiety found in OM compared to CR. Conclusions: In keeping with the neurovisceral integration model, HRV was reduced in individuals’ with clinically elevated levels of anxiety. Moreover, our findings illustrate that the method of emotion generation and regulation matters and has a significant impact on the degree to which persons with clinical levels of anxiety are able to successfully self-regulate. Finally, our results demonstrate the utility of multi-modal assessment of cognitive and emotional dysregulation in anxiety disorders, as well as the different pathways through which different interventions can impact HRV and ameliorate symptoms of anxiety. / Graduate

abstract: Seizure disorders are a widespread health concern (England, Liverman, Schultz, & Strawbridge, 2012). Past research shows that a good quality marital relationship can have numerous health benefits (Homish & Leonard, 2008); however, there is little evidence to show that individuals suffering from seizures are receiving any of these marital benefits. Instead, most research suggests that individuals with a seizure disorder are significantly less likely to marry, have more marital conflict, and report the seizures as a main reason for divorce (Chen, et al., 2013). The current study included 67 individuals who self-reported that they suffered from a seizure disorder. These individuals took part in an online survey that included questions about their experience with seizures, their strategies for managing emotions, and their relationship (marital) status. It was hypothesized that individuals who were married would report fewer emotion regulation difficulties and be less impacted by their seizures than those who were unmarried. The results of this study showed that: 1) married and unmarried individuals did not differ in reported emotion regulation difficulties; 2) contrary to predictions, married individuals were more impacted by their seizures than unmarried individuals; 3) greater emotion regulation difficulties (specifically difficulty accepting emotions and difficulty carrying out goal-directed behavior when upset) were associated with a greater perceived impact of seizures on one’s life; and 4) marriage moderated the relationship between emotion regulation difficulties and impact of seizures, such that difficulty accepting emotions predicted a greater impact of seizures on one’s life for married but not unmarried individuals. This was not the case for another facet of emotion regulation measured, namely difficulties engaging in goal-directed behavior when upset. An important conclusion from this study is that a failure to accept emotions may be more likely to contribute to seizure impact among married than unmarried individuals. Promoting acceptance of emotions, perhaps in the context of one’s marital relationship as well as in general, may be beneficial for individuals suffering from a seizure disorder. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Psychology 2015