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. / Arts, Faculty of / Psychology, Department of / Graduate

No description available.

The present investigation included three studies of the effect of liking upon the differential accuracy of performance ratings of instructors. Likableness and performance level were manipulated within vignettes. Liking was manipulated with trait terms that were found in a pretest to have little implication for performance on the rating dimensions. Instructor performance level was manipulated with incidents of teacher behaviors. The first study investigated the effects of ratee likableness (liked vs. disliked vs. neutral) and ratee performance (high vs. low) as well as the effects of rater sex, rater selective attention ability (high vs. low), and the memory demand of the rating task (memory vs. no memory) on the differential accuracy of ratings. A total of 288 subjects, 144 males and 144 females, rated the performance of four instructor vignettes. The differential accuracy of ratings was analyzed as a 3x2x2x2x2 between-subjects design. Differential accuracy was found to be significantly influenced by the performance level of raters, the selective attention of raters, and the memory demand of the rating task. The factors of likableness, ratee performance, and rater sex jointly influenced differential accuracy. The second study investigated the effect of order of format presentation (before vs. after ratee observation) as well as ratee likableness and performance on rating accuracy. A 3x2x2 (liking x performance x format) between-subject ANOVA on the differential accuracy of ratings provided by 144 male and female subjects revealed the three factors to have a joint influence-on rating accuracy. Ratings were more accurate in the format before than in the format after condition with liking and performance having an interactive effect only in the after condition. Study 3 investigated the operation of schemata, discounting, and recall bias as well as liking and performance on rating accuracy. A regression analysis revealed the recall bias measure to be the only significant predictor of rating accuracy. It was concluded that the pattern of results across the three studies did not offer direct support for either an integrality or schema conceptualization of affect. Consideration of schematic processing offered a potential explanation of the recall bias finding. Applied implications of the results are discussed. / Ph. D.

published_or_final_version / Psychology / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

This study examined gender and self-monitoring as separate and interacting variables predicting judgmental accuracy on the part of observers of facial expressions of emotional categories. The main and interaction effects failed to reach significant levels during the preliminary analysis. However, post hoc analyses demonstrated a significant encoder sex variable. Female encoders of emotion were judged more accurately by both sexes. Additionally, when the stimulus was limited to female enactments of emotional categories, the hypothesized main and interaction effects reached significant F levels. This study utilized 100 observers and 10 encoders of seven emotional categories. Methodological considerations and alternatives are examined at length.

Orientador: Fernando Silva Teixeira Filho / Banca: Leonardo Lemos de Souza / Banca: Ana Claudia Bortolozzi Maia / Resumo: Os discursos sobre a infância e a maneira como tem sido percebida e teorizada ao longo dos anos determinam os tipos de ações voltadas às necessidades das crianças e adolescentes, bem como são ressignificados os papéis e a função do grupo familiar mediante tais modificações. Diante desse processo de definições e redefinições sociais e subjetivas, as crianças e adolescentes que têm seus direitos violados dentro de sua família de origem, e que portanto, precisam ser retiradas desse convívio para sua proteção, tornam-se alvo das políticas públicas e de suas medidas protetivas. O dispositivo de institucionalização da infância passou por fortes questionamentos quanto à sua efetividade em garantia de direitos, principalmente no que concerne à convivência familiar e comunitária. É assim que por meio do PNAS (Plano Nacional de Assistência Social, 2004) é estabelecida uma nova modalidade de acolhimento, o familiar, que com as alterações da lei n º 12.010 de 2009 feitas ao ECA (Estatuto da Criança e do Adolescente), passa a ser prioritário frente ao acolhimento institucional. As famílias acolhedoras são voluntárias e passam por seleção e treinamento realizados pelas equipes técnicas dos programas e assim recebem e acolhem em suas casas as crianças e adolescentes encaminhadas(os). O objetivo da presente pesquisa foi cartografar os afetos nesse contexto de acolhimento que inclui a sociedade na efetivação de uma política pública de proteção. Isso foi possível por meio do acompanhamento de duas famílias acolhedoras oriundas de diferentes cidades do interior paulista, por meio de encontros, telefonemas, conversas, e de material proveniente do Facebook. Dentre os afetos cartografados destacam-se a rivalidade e a ambivalência e outros decorrentes de dificuldades, principalmente, em relação ao fim dos acolhimentos / Abstract: The discourses about childhood and the way it has been perceived and theorized over the years determine the types of actions toward to the needs of children and adolescents, as well as the roles and the role of the family group are redefined through such modifications. In this process of social and subjective definitions and redefinitions, children and adolescents who have their rights violated within their family of origin, and therefore need to be removed from this conviviality for their protection, become the target of public policies and their protective measures. The institutionalization of childhood was strongly questioned as to its effectiveness in guaranteeing rights, especially in relation to family and community life. Thus, through the PNAS (National Plan of Social Assistance, 2004), a new modality of foster care, the family, is established, which with the amendments of law nº. 12.010 of 2009 made by ECA (Children and Adolescent Statute), it becomes priority against the institutional care. The foster families are volunteers and go through selection and training by the technical teams of the programs and thus receive and welcome in their homes the children and adolescents sent to them. The objective of the present research was to map the affections in this context of foster care, which includes the society in the accomplishment of a public policy of protection. This was possible through the accompaniment of two foster families from different cities in the interior of São Paulo, through meetings with such families, phone calls and conversations, and material from Facebook. Among the affects mapped out are the rivalry and ambivalence and others coming from difficulties, especially in relation to the end of the foster care / Mestre

"`In that Instant I recognized myself': Affective Response in the Writings of Hadewijch of Brabant" analyzes the use of style and rhetoric in the writings of the eponymous thirteenth century Dutch mystic, (c.1250). Specifically, it examines the way she uses a style of writing that relies on affect to produce meaning. She employs these techniques in her prose and verse as a means both of teaching non rational knowledge about mystic union with God and of shaping the audience's emotional response to this knowledge. I argue that the affective style she uses is epistemic in all three modes in which she wrote (letters, book of visions, and songs) and that it is central to her strategy of teaching by word and by example in that the audience is led to feel the content of her words. The reader is affectively engaged through this sensory experience of the text, and affective response acts to confirm the cognitive component of her teaching. Because the formal framework of each mode influences her use of stylistics differently, I develop an explanatory model for each mode in order to highlight distinctions before offering a synthesis. This dissertation broadens the range of studies of affective style in medieval devotional literature, such as Sarah McNamer's study Middle English and Latin texts, by including a substantial Middle Dutch corpus of spiritual writings that offers a point of comparison for the philological study of the language of feelings in emergent vernaculars. Moreover, by expanding the range of vernacular literary forms studied from the perspective of stylistics to include the writings of the most significant female writer in Middle Dutch, this study thereby furthers the understanding of the use of three characteristic modes of writing in vernacular theology. This was a theology that relied less on technical precision in its expression and more on affective appeal. "In that Instant" also contributes to historical research on new forms of lay spiritual life in thirteenth century Europe. It accomplishes this by demonstrating how trends in affective devotional writing among women are reflected those of a prolific lay writer. My analysis further reveals how Hadewijch's varied texts are designed to themselves become sites in which affective desires are generated and directed. The first chapter examines Hadewijch's epistolarity i.e. how she uses the formal properties of the letter mode to produce and present meaning when giving spiritual direction to a small group of female followers. To contextualize my analysis of her epistolarity, I theorize the function of the sections of her letters using both medieval letter writing manuals and her use of the apostolic letters of Saint Paul as models of epistolary practice. Hadewijch found in Paul's letters a style of exhortative spiritual direction known as paraenesis; this allowed her to teach authoritatively on the basis of her personal experience while dissuading her readers from relying upon her instead of developing their own ability to discern God's will. Paul's letters also suited her belief that she was divinely chosen to teach others on the basis of her own salvation experience just as Paul believed of himself. I argue that Hadewijch's use of an affective style in the form of rhetorical devices and rhythm is an innovative interpretation of the medieval conception of the letter as a means of simulating for the reader the presence of the writer. Following Anika, I argue that when Hadewijch's letters are read aloud, the reader's breathing rhythm matches the rhythm of the prose as well as the units of thought marked out in the clauses of Hadewijch's periodic sentences. This bio rhythm enables the reader to feel the text and be lead to certain identifications through rhetorical figures of repetition. Moreover, the use of a bio rhythmic prose style enacts Hadewijch's belief throughout her letters that the members of her community are of one body and heart and must be made to feel that way to become friends in Christ. In the second chapter, I analyze how Hadewijch's book of visions, which I believe were written for one of the women addressed in her letters, shapes its reader. Unlike the letters, which are based on second-person address, the book of visions is a first-person account of Hadewijch's growth to spiritual perfection, and it does not address the reader directly until the final chapter. This requires the reader to analogize between herself and Hadewijch. The book can be described as an exemplar based on Hadewijch's growth to spiritual perfection and her understanding of this process through experience and reflection. I argue that the synaesthetic language used in the vision narratives is intended to allow the reader to understand the type of sensory knowledge and understanding that Hadewijch describes during her moments of mystic union. The arrangement of the vision narratives in a series of chapters in a single book facilitates the reader's understanding of Hadewijch's growth by establishing a horizon of expectations that is modified as the reader progresses through the text. I maintain that Hadewijch chose to create the book as a series of chapters in order to demonstrate to her reader how she meditated on her own experience and came to understand her growth as a series of stages. The third and final chapter is a study of Hadewijch's songs, which combine the courtly love lyric with a form of love mysticism derived from monastic commentaries on the Song of Songs. In addition to being musical texts, her songs differ from her prose works in that they were apparently composed for performance in her community of women. Thus, they have a ritual dimension that is not found in the letters or book of visions. Because her songs use the register of courtly love, passion and self understanding are foregrounded in the form of the suffering singer who seeks to understand the reasons her love is unrequited. I argue that the singer's lamentations, caused by her perception of God's absence, is a pedagogical method intended to instruct the audience in compassion, charity and the salutary effects of suffering. They also provide the audience with an exemplar of the proper relationship between the soul seeking God, which is based partially on a rhetorical model that Hadewijch derives from the Book of Job. Appealing to their sense of compassion by using a series of rhetorical commonplaces, the singer draws the listeners into the performance, empathetically absorbing them into the text and into her cognitive processes as she comes to understand the causes of her feelings and the proper responses to them. Acknowledging the suffering of the singer and empathizing with her, the audience becomes more communally oriented and less self-centered. Each of the modes Hadewijch uses presents her teaching in different ways, making it necessary to initially study her letters, book of visions, and songs apart from one another in order to see how they relate. Her letters address circumstantial topics specific to the spiritual life of an individual reader and seek to reorient the reader's affective disposition regarding that topic. The songs, by contrast, treat of subjects that are not circumstantially localized but applicable to the emotional disposition of her entire community. The book of visions is Hadewijch's introspective analysis of her spiritual growth to perfection and the process of self understanding through which she went. This requires the reader to analogize in order to transpose herself into the narratives. Even though there are significant differences among them, Hadewijch's writings are unified by her use of affective stylistics to convey to an uninitiated community of readers the mystical knowledge learned through her personal experience of divine union.

How individuals form justice perceptions has been a fundamental question in justice research. While most justice researchers treat justice perceptions as results of deliberate cognitive process, very few studies examined the role of affect in justice perception formation. Among these studies, most of them perceive affect as outcomes of justice; others investigating the predicting role of affect in justice perceptions were far from enough, either due to lack of solid theoretical foundation or due to the limitation of methodology. Based on the Affect Infusion Model, this dissertation focused on exploring the predicting role of affect in justice perception formation and three moderating contextual factors, including personal relevance, emotional control, and group context. A pilot study and two experimental studies, with both student sample and employee sample, were conducted. Structural equation modeling, ANOVA and regression were employed to test the hypotheses. / Results showed that people in positive affective states perceived higher distributive justice, procedural justice, interpersonal justice, and informational justice than their counterparts in negative affective states. Moreover, personal relevance moderated the relationships between affect and distributive justice and procedural justice so that the relationships above were enhanced as personal relevance increased. It is also suggested that individuals constrained the influence of their affect on procedural justice in group context, compared to the case when they make individual judgment. Surprisingly, the moderating effect of emotional control was not found as predicted. Results, implications, limitations as well as future directions were discussed. / Mao, Yina. / Adviser: C.S. Wong. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 72-04, Section: A, page: . / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2010. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 118-133). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, MI : ProQuest Information and Learning Company, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstract also in Chinese.

This work seeks to explore the possibilities of applying affect theory to practices of social justice, specifically, through the affect theories based on energetics described by Teresa Brennan. The first section gives an overview on Brennan’s main arguments and how I interpret her through a Spinozistic lens. This project then explores the positive and negative roles that happiness, anger, grief, and humor have had in various social movements and how they have often been mis- or underused in these moments. The final section offers Brennan’s theory of “Living Attention” as a means of understanding our own affects and the affects of others and how to use them effectively and healthily. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2019. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Thesis (Psy. D.)--Wheaton College, 2007. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 54-61).