Are there aspects of affect that can be generalized across different languages? Are there consistent patterns of associations between self-reported affect and personality across groups speaking different languages? In the present dissertation, I explore these two questions in five different language samples. Studies of current self-reported affect in English suggest that Russell's (1980), Thayer's (1989), Larsen and Diener's (1992), and Watson and Tellegen's (1985) models of affect variables can be integrated and summarized by a two-dimensional space defined by Pleasant vs Unpleasant and Activated vs Deactivated axes. To assess the cross-language generalizability of this integrated structure, data on translations of the English affect scales (N for Spanish = 233, N for Chinese = 487, N for Japanese = 450, N for Korean = 365) were compared with the structure in English ON = 535). Systematic and random errors were controlled through multi-format measurements (Green, Goldman, & Salovey, 1993) and structural equation modeling. Individual measurement models as defined in English received support in all five languages, although revisions of these scales in non-English samples provided an even closer approximation to the two-dimensional structure in English. In all five languages, the two dimensions explained most, but not all, of the reliable variance in other affect variables (mean = 88%). The four structural models fit comfortably within the integrated two-dimensional space. In fact, the variables fell at different angles on the integrated space, suggesting a new circumplex structure. In prior studies conducted in English, the personality traits of Neuroticism and Extraversion were most predictive of affect and they aligned with the Pleasant Activated and Unpleasant Activated states. To clarify and extend the previous findings, participants in all five samples also completed NEO FFI (Costa & McCrae, 1992), a measure for the Five Factor Model of personality (FFM). Again, Neuroticism and Extraversion were most predictive of affect, accounting for, on average, 10% of the variance. The remaining three factors of the FFM contributed, on average, 2%. In all five languages, the FFM dimensions did not align with the two predicted affective dimensions. Rather, they fell all around the upper half of the twodimensional space.

The study was designed to examine the hypothesis that psychopathy is associated with an affective deficit. Subjects were 42 incarcerated offenders divided into nonpsychopathic and psychopathic groups based on their scores on the Hare Revised Psychopathy Checklist (Hare, 1991). Facial expressions, central and peripheral physiological activity, and subjective ratings of affective valence and arousal were measured during exposure to a series of slides and film clips designed to elicit either positive or negative affective states. The results indicate that psychopaths do not differ from criminal controls in their affective self-report, autonomic nervous system response, or observed facial expressions to emotional stimuli. However, with respect to cerebral asymmetry, psychopaths failed to show relative right frontal activation during exposure to the disgust film. This result is discussed in relation to recent attempts to explain psychopathy in terms of lateralized cerebral dysfunction.

Since the 1950's, researchers have sought unsuccessfully to identify a consensual psychometric structure of self-reported affect. One unresolved question, central to any psychometric model, is whether the structure includes bipolar or unipolar dimensions. For example, are positive and negative affect two ends of the same bipolar dimension or are they better represented by separable unipolar dimensions? In contrast to what has been assumed in previous analyses, a bipolar model is presented that distinguishes between two forms of bipolarity, each with its own conceptual definition, operational definition, and statistical properties. It is shown both conceptually and empirically that the two forms of bipolarity lead to different results when examined by traditional psychometric methods such as exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, and the linear correlation. Furthermore, when the bipolar model is applied to previous analyses, the psychometric evidence that has suggested unipolar dimensions can be interpreted as evidence suggesting bipolar dimensions. Two studies were conducted to examine specific predictions of the bipolar model. Study 1 examined judgements of the hypothesized opposites of hot-cold and happy-sad. Study 2 examined judgments of affect terms based on a circumplex model of affect characterized by orthogonal valence and activation dimensions. In both studies the bipolar model is strongly supported. Furthermore, the analyses highlighted specific problems with current methods that emphasize sophisticated techniques based on the correlation coefficient and demonstrated the utility of more simple descriptive statistics.

Alexithymia is conceptualized as a personality variable involving profound affective deficits. Individuals with high levels of alexithymia are characterized by difficulty in describing emotions, a preoccupation with somatic symptoms, and an insensitive interpersonal style. Alexithymia is commonly found among chronic pain patients. Despite a burgeoning literature, researchers have not identified either the precise characteristics and source of the poor interpersonal performance associated with alexithymia, or how the presence of alexithymia relates to the phenomenology and conceptualization of pain. The Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) was used to assess alexithymia in a sample of 145 female university students who had reported experiencing significant pain during the past year. An exploratory factor analysis was conducted to check the factor structure of the TAS-20 with this sample. A series of three studies was designed to explore the relationship with alexithymia and: 1) reactions to facial expressions of emotion, 2) reactions to others' pain, and 3) conceptualization of own pain. The cleanest factor solution was yielded by a Maximum Likelihood Analysis with oblique rotation. In this sample, the TAS-20 is adequately represented as 4 factors: 1) Difficulty Identifying Bodily Sensations (Body); 2) Confusion about Emotions (Emotions); 3) External Cognitive Style (External), and 4) Interpersonal Awkwardness (Awkward). Study 1 investigated the ability to judge and respond to facial expressions of emotion, as a potential source of interpersonal difficulties. Participants examined slides of adults modeling specific emotions, and attempted to identify the modeled affective states. Alexithymia was expected to be related to difficulty in assessing facial expressions of emotion. As predicted, the ability to identify and appropriately respond to modeled emotional expressions was significantly lower in high-alexithymia participants. Alexithymia scores were related to a tendency to rate various modeled emotions as "pain," providing support for the association with a somatic preoccupation. Study 2 entailed evaluation of interpersonal perception in the context of pain by investigating the relationship between alexithymia and judgement of pain in infants. Participants evaluated two dimensions of pain (sensory discomfort and emotional distress) while watching videotapes of neonates undergoing invasive but routine medical procedures. It was hypothesized that the somatic preoccupation and emotional insensitivity associated with alexithymia would lead high-alexithymia individuals to exaggerate the sensory component of pain in infants and underestimate the affective domain. Predictions were only partially supported. When depressed mood and extent of current pain were controlled, the hypothesized relationship emerged between the TAS-20 External factor and lower ratings of perceived emotional distress, and between the Body factor and higher ratings of perceived sensory discomfort. Contrary to expectations, Body factor scores were related to higher emotional distress ratings. In Study 3, participants assessed retroactively the sensory and affective components of their own painful experiences. There is an increasing trend for multidisciplinary pain clinics to include psychological interventions, treatments whose success is largely dependent upon patients distinguishing the sensory and affective components of pain. It was predicted that high-alexithymia participants would emphasize the sensory rather than the affective dimension, a judgement pattern which could explain the link found between high levels of alexithymia and poorer recovery from chronic pain conditions. Contrary to expectations, it was found that alexithymia scores were unrelated to ratings of sensory intensity. After controlling for depressed mood and extent of current pain, the only significant result to emerge was between the TAS-20 Awkward factor and higher (not lower) ratings of the affective component of participants' own painful experiences. Results suggest that a source of the social awkwardness associated with alexithymia may arise from an insensitivity to facially expressed mood states. There is some evidence that individuals with an external cognitive style pay less attention to the affective distress entailed in infants' pain experiences. The overall pattern of results suggests that alexithymia, as measured by the TAS-20, is best viewed as factorially complex. While the factors display some interdependence, there is greater utility in computing and examining all factor scores rather than describing individuals by a global TAS-20 total score.

This project examines attitude change between 1981 and 2001 for a population of young, well educated Canadians, employing evaluation, potency and activity (EPA) semantic differential ratings of approximately 800 social identities. This comprises my larger data set. I also employ a smaller subset of 102 social identities drawn from the larger data set to explore changes across three points in time (1981, 1995, and 2001) for 102 social identities, supplementing my analysis across two points in time (1981 and 2001) for 800 social identities. The objectives for this dissertation are: (1) to assess stability of attitudes for social identities over time; (2) to identify and describe patterns of change in identity attitudes and to connect observed changes in identity attitudes to historical events, and to social and cultural change in Canadian society; (3) to explore the extent to which identities that cluster together in EPA space define social institutions; and (4) to explore how changes in identity attitudes affect role expectations over time. Despite significant shifts in attitudes for a number of identities, approximately 80% of identity attitudes remained stable over time, confirming findings from past research that cultural sentiments are slow to change. Observed changes could be connected to social and cultural structure. Specifically, dramatic changes occurred for religious and sexual preference/orientation identities. Numerous religious identities decreased on evaluation for male respondents between 1981 and 1995 and then were restored to earlier levels by 2001. Female respondents were not as forgiving and 1995 decreases in evaluation were sustained. These changes are connected to increased secularization and earlier sexual scandals in religious institutions. Sexual preference/orientation identities increased significantly on evaluation for both males and females. However, increases for females were more dramatic and occurred across all three points in time while changes in attitudes for males occurred between 1981 and 1995 and then changed little between 1995 and 2001. These changes can be connected to numerous factors, including the increased visibility of gay/lesbian culture in mainstream media and the absence of a strong anti-gay counter movement. Although social identities clustered in interesting ways, cluster analysis was not very successful in defining social institutions. Computer simulations revealed how role and behaviour expectations change with changes in identity attitudes. For example, there is obvious increase in evaluation between 1981 and 2001 for the behavior of a police officer toward a homosexual. This dissertation concludes by addressing methodological issues such as sample size and generalizability. It is suggested that the corpus of identities should be continually updated to include identities that are emerging from pop culture. Finally, four areas of future research are suggested: (1) a continual monitoring of cultural sentiments; (2) a more detailed focus on individual social institutions; (3) a confirmation of computer predictions with qualitative interview data; and (4) identifying the implications of this research for trend analysis. Practical implications of this dissertation research include the use of computer simulations of identity-role processes in the areas of education and policy research.

No description available.

The relative strength of both neuroticism and affect in predicting common physical symptoms was tested. An event-sampling design was used to overcome methodological limitations of past research in the area. Contrary to much previous research, neuroticism was not related to reports of physical symptoms, although it was related to unpleasant affect. Unpleasant affect bore a strong concurrent relation to the frequency of reported symptoms. Temporal relations between experiences of unpleasant affect and subsequent symptoms were found for some individuals, but wide individual variability was seen in both the strength and direction of this linkage. The findings suggest that when individuals are asked to report their subjective experiences of physical illness without the necessity to retrospect over significant periods of time, unpleasant affect is more strongly related to experience of symptoms than is neuroticism.

This dissertation consists of two essays on the influence of affect on consumer intentions and behavioral responses. In the first essay, the influence of negative affect on consumer satiation is investigated. In the second essay, the influence of conceptual fluency, a positive affective response of “feeling right” during advertising evaluations, evoked by the structural properties of memory networks, is identified. In the first essay, how anticipated consumption variety influences consumers’ affective responses to slow satiation in the present is investigated. Prior research has focused on how cognitive appraisals of present variety influence consumers’ satiation rates. However, in addition to cognitively attending to the present, consumers also generate affective information regarding future consumption events (e.g. thinking about dessert while eating an entrée). Results indicate that more anticipated consumption variety reduces the amount of negative affect consumers experience during recurrent consumption, which is found to extend consumers’ present consumption enjoyment (reduced satiation rates). Further, the moderating roles of vice and virtue product perceptions and consumer emotional intelligence are also investigated, providing additional evidence of the proposed affective process mechanism while identifying boundary conditions for the effect. In the second essay, how the structural nature of semantic memory can produce affective responses, in the form of conceptual fluency, to influence consumers’ product behavioral intentions is investigated. Memory activations, generated by key words in advertising, can provide a temporary boost to the perceived desirability of a given product. However, memories are not activated in isolation. Rather, an entire network of interrelated concepts is activated along with the focal memory through various learned associations. Despite a great deal of knowledge detailing the phenomena of memory spreading activations, research has primarily focused on which memories are connected to each other, rather than on how activated memories are connected to their surrounding networks. This essay identifies consumers’ responses to the betweenness centrality (e.g. providing mediated access to other concepts in memory via the shortest path) of a focal word in advertising, rather than the activation of specific associations, as critical for advertising success.

Current theorising of trauma continues to suffer from Post-Holocaust understandings that render trauma as indefinable, yet the myriad representations produced across different discursive domains – testimony, documentary, film and art – challenge such claims. Rather it is difficult to define, plagued by the parameters of trauma – as having no “beginning”, “ending”, “during” or “after” as Laub contends – and is further hampered by its clinically inadequate categorisation as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) within the Diagnostic Statistical Manual (DSM). While the inclusion of PTSD in the DSM-III in 1980 promised to normalise the long history of trauma resulting from combat experience, its increasing and continuing expansion of categories since then has undermined this combat-specific diagnosis. Particularly, it fails to recognise the specific traumas intrinsic to soldiers who wage war as an occupation (specifically the act of killing), and the complex way in which PTSD is triggered in veterans (the political deceit and denial that accompanies the experience of the initial event). With 1 in 5 returned soldiers currently screening for PTSD, and more veterans having committed suicide than have died in combat, it is clear that there is a crisis in the way PTSD is theorised, recognised and understood. This thesis provides a discursive analysis of contemporary media texts, proposing that discourses produced within these domains challenge, undermine and potentially remedy combat trauma’s current “crisis of representation.” While professionally produced documentaries and current affairs programmes were found to align with the political and ideological discourses prominent within the military and psychiatric professions, soldier-produced content – through raw video, art and digital pastiche – functioned as traumatic performances that produced personal articulations of trauma. Moreover, the televisual flashback succeeds in conveying the “traumatised subjectivity” through cinematic and aesthetic conventions that allow the viewer to see beyond the confines of the body and into the flashback as it is experienced by the eye-witness. In doing so, these texts help to construct social and cultural knowledge of trauma and PTSD and facilitate acts of bearing witness. Such articulations allow veterans to understand their own disorder as normal and are influential in the processes of healing and recovery.

The purpose of the present study was to examine whether women who have been victimized can have a decrease in their negative affect by being exposed to the suggestion of one of two dimensions of forgiveness. The study also examined the moderating effect of several personality variables on participants reactions to the intervention. Seventy-nine women were given several personality and affect questionnaires before and after they listened to instructions for either granting forgiveness (interpersonal), letting go of their negative affect (intrapsychic), or relaxation (control). Results indicated that focusing on granting forgiveness was associated with more negative affect than the other two interventions. Main effects and moderating effects were found for certain personality characteristics such as self esteem and self efficacy. These findings provide conflicting support for the use of forgiveness therapy with victimized women by suggesting that some benefits may be gained, but personality characteristics should be considered before beginning this type of therapy.