no abstract available / Teacher Education / M.Ed. (Specialisation in Guidance and Counselling)

Aan die hand van 'n literatuur- en empiriese studie is daar ondersoek ingestel na die fenomene skuld en skaamte. Vir diagnosering is daar onderskeid tussen die emosies gemaak. Dit blyk dat die belewing van skaamgevoelens direk met die self te doen het, terwyl skuldgevoelens fokus op die daad wat gedoen of versuim is. Aan die hand van 'n literatuurstudie is riglyne vir die hantering van skuld en skaamte voorgestel. 'n Vraelys is daargestel om skuld en skaamte te identifiseer, om die intensiteit van die emosies te bepaal asook om te onderskei tussen rasionele of irrasionele belewing van skuld en skaamte. 'n Empiriese studie is gedoen om kwalitatief na 'n paar gevallestudies te kyk om sodoende die effektiwiteit van die psigoterapeutiese model en die vraelys te bepaal. Bevindinge van die empiriese studie dui daarop dat die psigoterapeutiese model en die vraelys effektief vir die hantering van skuld en skaamte is. / The purpose of this dissertation is to investigate the phenomena guilt and shame. For effective diagnosis a differentiation between the two emotions was made. It appears that shame feelings focus directly towards the self. Guilt feelings focus on "wrong" or neglected deeds. In view of literature and empirical investigations guidelines were set up for the handling of guilt and shame. A questionnaire was developed to identify guilt and shame, to determine the intensity of these feelings and to differentiate between rational and irrational guilt and shame. Results of the empirical study indicated that the psychotherapeutic model and questionnaire were effective in the treatment of guilt and shame. / Psychology of Education / M. Ed. (Voorligting)

People turn to others for help and advice during hard times. Early psychologists suggested a ‘talking cure’ as a remedy for emotional turmoil (e.g., Freud, 1916–7/1963; Rogers, 1942). Likewise, folk psychology often sees heart-to-heart conversations as a win-win proposition that brings relief to the afflicted person and reinforces social bonds at the time of need. However, talking about problems does not always help (e.g., Rimé, 2009; Rimé, Mesquita, Boca, & Philppot, 1991; Rimé, Philippot, Boca, & Mesquita, 1992; Rose, 2002). In some cases, problem-talk can be a lose-lose proposition that drags both discussants into depression (Rose, 2002; Rose, Carlson, & Waller, 2007). This thesis examines co-rumination (Rose, 2002), a case of emotional sharing that hurts people instead of helping them, on three levels of analysis (individuals, dyads, and groups). At the individual level, I sketch the life course of co-rumination and replicate earlier findings of gender differences. Furthermore, online survey data (N = 464) links co-rumination with agreeableness and neuroticism. I also demonstrate that co-rumination can be assessed with a brief measure that is 66% shorter than the original. At the dyadic level, data from recorded conversations between romantic couples show that face-to-face co-rumination influences people’s real-time emotional trajectories in complex ways. Furthermore, observer-ratings of the conversations suggest that third-parties can detect co-rumination, even from silent videos. Finally, I study how people react to others’ negative mood and co-rumination in a real social context by longitudinally following two cohorts of students and modelling their interactions with social network analysis tools. These models show that co-rumination appears to elicit social rejection from others, implying a possible pathway to depression via loneliness imposed on the co-ruminators.

Despite evidence to suggest that pathways from adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) to psychological distress and offending are gender-specific, theory-driven research examining intervening factors in such pathways is rare. Utilising a mixed-method design, the research presented in this thesis aimed to a) provide further insight into gender-specific trajectories from ACEs to negative outcomes and b) to identify a theoretically viable framework within which to conduct such research. It was anticipated that comparing and contrasting the quantitative (Study 1 and Study 2) with the qualitative (Study 3) findings would help to inform interventions to reduce female offending. The literature review identified an attachment framework as appropriate for the research and highlighted a range of factors that warranted investigation. The findings from an internet survey (Study 1) in a mixed-gender community sample provided some support for the notion of genderspecific pathways to offending. Moreover, several variables were identified (e.g. emotional intelligence, empathy and anger) that warranted further examination in a second survey (Study 2) with a sample of women with a history of ACEs (ex- and non-offenders). The findings from the two studies suggested that emotion coping and management (EI) skills may foster resilience to negative experiences and also provided support for the use of an attachment framework in research that examines the negative sequelae of ACEs. The qualitative study (Study 3) utilised interpretative phenomenological analysis in order to gain a deeper insight into women’s trajectories from ACEs to psychological distress and offending. The findings strongly suggested that interventions may need to target deficits in emotion regulation in order to ameliorate the potential negative outcomes of chronic childhood adversity. The importance of context was also highlighted. Additionally, EI and an emotional approach to coping were identified as factors that were beneficial in terms of the women’s psychological well-being. The findings from the research highlighted emotion coping and management skills as useful targets for intervention in women ex-offender populations with a history of ACEs and associated psychological distress. Based on the findings reported in this thesis, recommendations were made with regard to future research in the field of ACEs, psychological distress and offending.

The research in this thesis focuses on the ways in which participants represent highly charged negative emotional experiences in narrative form through vocal disclosures, and the relationships between disclosure style and psychophysiological activity. This thesis also attempts to theorise some of the psychophysiological mechanisms that may be associated with the effects of emotional disclosure. Participants were randomly assigned to an emotion (disclosure) group (n = 16) in which they talked about a particular highly charged negative experience, or a neutral (control) group (n = 16) in which they talked about their typical morning. Participants undertook these tasks on three separate occasions, each separated by one week. Skin conductance levels (SCLs) were measured throughout. Statistical analyses were conducted to look at possible SCL differences between the two groups and associations between the disclosure style and SCL variations. Although there were no statistically significant differences between the two groups' SCLs, there were significant differences in SCLs with regard to disclosure style. Qualitative narrative and discourse analyses were undertaken on 4 selected participants, chosen on the basis of clinically significant SCL moves. These analyses revealed that neutral participants also engaged in forms of emotional disclosure through forms of identity negotiation that were constructed within their talk concerning their typical mornings. The qualitative analysis also identified disclosure styles that may be associated with variations in psychophysiological activity.

This thesis investigated the processing of emotional stimuli by the visual system, and how the processing of emotions interacts with visual awareness. Emotions have been given ‘special’ status by some previous research, with evidence that the processing of emotions may be relatively independent of striate cortex, and less affected by disruption to awareness than processing of emotionally neutral images. Yet the extent to which emotions are ‘special’ remains questionable. This thesis focused on the processing of emotional stimuli when activity in V1 was disrupted using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), and whether emotional properties of stimuli can be reliably discriminated, or affect subsequent responses, when visibility is low. Two of the experiments reported in this thesis disrupted activity in V1 using TMS, Experiment 1 with single pulses in an online design, and Experiment 2 with theta burst stimulation in an offline design. Experiment 1 found that a single pulse of TMS 70-130 ms following a presentation of a body posture image disrupted processing of neutral but not emotional postures in an area of the visual field that corresponded to the disruption. Experiment 2 did not find any convincing evidence of disruption to processing of neutral or emotional faces. From Experiment 1 it would appear that emotional body posture images were relatively unaffected by TMS, and appeared to be robust to disruption to V1. Experiment 2 did not add to this as there was no evidence of disruption in any condition. Experiments 3 and 4 used visual masking to disrupt awareness of emotional and neutral faces. Both experiments used a varying interval between the face and the mask stimuli to systematically vary the visibility of the faces. Overall, the shortest SOA produced the lowest level of visibility, and this level of visibility was arguably outside awareness. In Experiment 3, participants’ ability to discriminate properties of emotional faces under low visibility conditions was greater than their ability to discriminate the orientation of the face. This was despite the orientation discrimination being much easier at higher levels of visibility. Experiment 4 used a gender discrimination task, with emotion providing a redundant cue to the decision (present half of the time). Despite showing a strong linear masking function for the neutral faces, there was no evidence of any emotion advantage. Overall, Experiment 3 gave some evidence of an emotion advantage under low visibility conditions, but this effect was fairly small and not replicated in Experiment 4. Finally, Experiments 5-8 used low visibility emotional faces to prime responses to subsequent emotional faces (Experiments 5 and 6) or words (Experiments 7 and 8). In Experiments 5, 7 and 8 there was some evidence of emotional priming effects, although these effects varied considerably across the different designs used. There was evidence for meaningful processing of the emotional prime faces, but this processing only led to small and variable effects on subsequent responses. In summary, this thesis found some evidence that the processing of emotional stimuli was relatively robust to disruption in V1 with TMS. Attempts to find evidence for robust processing of emotional stimuli when disrupted with backwards masking was less successful, with at best mixed results from discrimination tasks and priming experiments. Whether emotional stimuli are processed by a separate route(s) in the brain is still very much open to debate, but the findings of this thesis offers small and inconsistent evidence for a brain network for processing emotions that is relatively independent of V1 and visual awareness. The network and nature of brain structures involved in the processing of subliminal and low visibility processing of emotions remains somewhat elusive.

This thesis examines the validity of polyvagal theory as a model of normal socio-emotional responding (Porges, 1995, 2001, 2003a). Polyvagal theory makes several claims, and to date many of its predictions lack empirical testing. In the current research, five main hypotheses stemming from polyvagal theory were identified and tested using healthy participants. The initial empirical study examined the influence of laboratory stressors on autonomic function. The findings revealed that social evaluative threat increases activation of the sympathetic nervous system more than a virtual reality maze, and that arousal remains elevated for longer during anticipation of social evaluative threat in comparison to recovery from social evaluative threat. The second study investigated the effects of emotion regulation strategies on autonomic function, and highlighted the effectiveness of two meditation practices in reducing defensive physiological arousal and increasing subjective positive emotion. These studies were followed with a set of studies designed to evaluate the effects of defensive physiological arousal on socio-emotional functioning, as a direct test of polyvagal theory. The first study examined the effects of a laboratory stressor on facial expressivity, revealing that social evaluative threat had little impact on expressive regulation. A second study investigated the effects of a laboratory stressor on emotional sensitivity and spontaneous facial mimicry. Some limited support was found for polyvagal theory, although neither emotional sensitivity nor facial mimicry was significantly affected by laboratory stress. A final empirical study investigated the effects of a laboratory stressor on affiliation tendencies. The laboratory stressor did not influence participants’ willingness to spend time with others, however the experiment did reveal significant relationships between markers of social safeness and affiliation. The overall conclusion of this thesis is that polyvagal may not be a representative model of socio-emotional functioning in healthy participants. The implications of these findings are discussed in relation to the validity of polyvagal theory as a universal model of socio-emotional responding.

The sense of humour is a uniquely human skill and understanding humour is an important and rewarding part of social interaction. This thesis begins by discussing the definition of humour, followed by a review of the evidence we have that humour is an evolved and adaptive behaviour. Humour may play an important role in helping individuals to bond and signal cooperation, which may be further communicated by the humour style which is used to communicate. Research has also demonstrated that humour is an attractive quality in a mate, though the precise reasons for this are currently debated (Chapter 1). Empirical work in the first section of the thesis is consistent with evidence demonstrating that humour is attractive and sexually selected for. Chapter 2 tests the influence of modality and relationship context in an effort to further our understanding of why humour is attractive and provides evidence that more attractive people are rated as being funnier than less attractive people. Humour was also found to be more attractive for short-term relationships than long-term relationships, possibly due to the similarity between funniness and flirtatiousness. In Chapter 3, attractiveness ratings of vignettes in the style of personal advertisements, which contained either aggressive or affiliative humour, demonstrated the importance of humour style. An affiliative humour style was more attractive for long-term relationships whereas an aggressive humour style was more attractive for short-term relationships. Further testing provided evidence that humour styles were associated with personality traits which are highly relevant in a mating context, helping to explain the functions of different humour styles. The second section of the thesis examines the relationship between humour, cooperation, and dominance as an alternative explanation for the evolution of humour. Chapter 4 contains an extended introduction to the physical, verbal, and nonverbal cues to dominance and the sex differences that exist in expressive behaviours. Chapter 5 continues this theme and elaborates further on the function of humour in group situations, before providing empirical evidence of how humour is used in the context of a competitive ‘desert-island’ style conversation between same-sex dyads. Chapter 6 further expands on this line of research as empirical evidence presented in this chapter demonstrates that males may be using humour as a way of communicating the desire to cooperate with other males who are of a similar level of dominance. The communication of dominance is further examined in Chapter 7, where ethological evidence showed that males who were more physically dominant tended to knock doors with greater frequency than males who were less physically dominant. In the final chapter of the thesis (Chapter 8), the evolution of humour is discussed in light of the evidence presented in Chapters 2-7. The thesis presents evidence to suggest that humour production is an important skill for males for two reasons. Firstly, a good sense of humour is a highly attractive quality to females and may be a cue to genetic quality or good partner qualities, depending on the humour style used. Secondly, it may be important for males to use humour to signal cooperation to other males in order to form alliances. In females, the evidence presented in the thesis suggests that humour production may be a way for females to demonstrate romantic interest or flirtatiousness but the function of humour use between females remains largely inconclusive.

This thesis examined the nature, experience and consequences of humiliation among Dalits (ex-Untouchables) in India (and also among UK students for comparative purposes). Social psychological research looks at humiliation as automatic, extreme and intense emotion which often leads to extreme and irrational behaviors (Lindner, 2002; Otten & Jonas, 2014; Elison & Harter, 2007). The research in this thesis contested this view and underlined the need to look at humiliation as 1) inherently relational or dynamic in nature, 2) a distinguishably group level phenomenon and 3) a mobilised phenomenon. Study 1 analysed the experiences of humiliation among Dalits and conceptualised humiliation as a complex social encounter in which one party attempts to diminish identity of another party. Study 1 also identified important dimensions of humiliating encounters that were examined in subsequent studies. Studies 2 - 3 manipulated perspective (victim or witness) and target of devaluation (personal identity or social identity) in a humiliating encounter and showed that the nature of humiliation and how it is experienced depends upon the way in which identities are defined in a humiliating encounter. Both UK students (Study 2) and Dalit participants (Study 3) confirmed the collective experience of humiliation i.e. one can feel humiliated simply by witnessing humiliation of another group member. Studies- 4 - 7 manipulated victim's response (resistance vs. compliance) during a humiliating encounter. These studies showed that humiliation is an encounter within power relations and victims of humiliation possess choice and agency to change the outcome of humiliating encounters. Study 8 analysed the humiliation rhetoric in the speeches of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, the most important of Dalits leaders, and showed that the way in which humiliating encounter is resolved depends upon the mobilisation processes which can even change the nature of identities and, therefore, the nature of experience of the encounter.

The symptomatology of depression includes affective and cognitive features. As such, depression has been associated both with maladaptive concern over emotional material, and also with general impairments in attentional control. In the current thesis, I investigated the potential influence of such depression-related dysfunctional emotional processing on a range of cognitive control abilities, using experimental paradigms containing either neutral or affective stimuli. In contrast to the hypothesis that depressive symptoms are associated with generally compromised cognitive control, depression-related impairments were not found on a range of ‘classic' measures of cognitive control, including error-processing (pre-error speeding, posterror slowing and error-related ERPs), overriding response conflict (colour-word Stroop interference, conflict adaptation) or more sustained control processes (cued-RT performance, preparatory ERPs, and maintaining long-term speed-accuracy tradeoffs). Interestingly, however, differences between groups with low and elevated levels of depressive symptoms emerged during the performance of emotionally valenced tasks. First, an elevated depressive symptom group showed a reduced ability to resolve emotional conflict arising between competing affective representations. When compared with spared performance on the classic Stroop task, this result suggests that depressive symptoms are associated with a specific impairment in the ability to regulate emotional distraction. Secondly, an ERP related to advanced preparation in cued-RT tasks (the CNV), but not those associated with early perceptual processing (P1, N170), was selectively modulated by negative, but not positive, task-irrelevant emotional distractors presented during the cue-target interval. This pattern of ERP results supports a late processing locus of affective attentional bias in depression. Together, the current results propose that control processes which facilitate the regulation of emotional material (i.e. over emotional sources of distraction) might be selectively affected by increased depressive symptoms, suggesting that future work should consider affective variables when investigating executive control processes in depression.