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As students mature the types and frequency of stressors increase with age. Notably, middle school can be a stressful transition period that includes new peer relationships and hormonal changes, along with an increased probability of experiencing bullying and suicide ideation. Stress has been shown to have negative effects in psychological and physiological functioning among adolescents (Brietzke et al., 2012; De Young, Kenardy, & Cobham, 2011; Green et al., 2010). Effective coping skills can help to buffer these issues, giving adolescents a repertoire of tools to use. Along with that, proper emotional regulation has been shown decrease the negative effects of stress on adolescents (Berking & Whitley, 2014; Braet et al., 2014; Moriya & Takashi, 2013). These skills may be particularly important amongst adolescents living in rural areas, as they face unique and often more difficult challenges compared their urban counterparts (Imig, Bokemeier, Keefe, Struthers, & Imig, 1997; Sherman, 2006). However, research exploring rural populations is limited and does not focus on the mostly rural populated areas of the southern United States (Strong, Del Grosso, Burwick, Jethwani, & Ponza, 2005). To address the gaps in research, the purpose of the current study was to investigate if coping response styles predicted perceived stress scores in middle school students living in rural areas. Additionally, the purpose was to explore if emotional regulation moderated the relationship between coping and perceived stress. Multiple regression analysis was used to explore the predictability of coping on perceived stress scores (i.e., Perceived Stress Scale). Moreover, hierarchal regression analysis was used to explore moderation of emotional regulation on coping and perceived stress. Data were collected from a northeastern school in a rural area in Mississippi from a sample of 149 middle school students. The results indicated that coping is a statistically significant predictor of perceived stress scores, indicating that the better a student was at coping, the less likely he or she was to report perceived stress. Lastly, results revealed that a student’s emotional regulation does not strengthen or weaken their coping responses effect on perceived stress. Understanding how theses variables work together will provide educators with knowledge that is vital to development of prevention and intervention strategies.

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Research on revenge often treats vengeful acts as singular one-way experiences, an approach which fails to account for the social nature and functions of revenge. This dissertation aims to integrate emotional punishment reactions into dynamic revenge sequences to investigate the affective and cognitive consequences of revenge within a social interaction. Exacting revenge can evoke intense affective consequences, from feelings of guilt to the genuine enjoyment of the suffering of others. In Chapter 2, affective responses towards suffering opponents and the regulation of aggression based on the appraisal of distinct suffering indicators were investigated. Results indicate that the observation of opponent pain evokes positive affect (measured via facial muscle contractions during the observation), which is followed by a downregulation of subsequent punishment. Both, positive affective reactions and the downregulation of punishment, were only observed following pain and not sadness expressions. Empathic distress, indexed by negative affective reactions, was only present following the observation of pain in non-provoking opponents. Showcasing the modulation of empathy related processes due to provocation and competition. In Chapter 3, a significant escalation of punishment, when being confronted with Schadenfreude, was observed. Results are interpreted as supporting the assumption that opponent monitoring processes inform subsequent action selection. The observation of opponent smiles led to imitation behavior (facial mimicry), which was partially attenuated due to previous provocation. The different functions of smile mimicry in the context of the aggressive competitive setting are discussed as containing simulation aspects (to aid in opponent understanding) and as a potential mirroring of dominance gestures, to avoid submission. In an additional series of studies, which are presented in Chapter 4, changes in memory of opponent faces following vengeful encounters were measured. Based on provocation, and punishment outcomes (pain & anger), face memory was distorted, resulting in more positive representations of opponents that expressed pain. These results are discussed as evidence of the impact of outcome appraisals in the formation of opponent representations and are theorized to aid empathy avoidance in future interactions. The comparison of desired and observed opponent states, is theorized to result in appraisals of the punishment outcomes, which evoke affective states, inform the action selection of subsequent punishments, and are integrated into the representation of the opponent in memory. Overall, the results indicate that suffering cues that are congruent with the chosen punishment action are appraised as positive, evoking an increase in positive affect. The emergence of positive affect during the observation of successful aggressive actions supports recent theories about the chronification of aggressive behavior based on reinforcement learning. To allow positive affect to emerge, affective empathic responses, such as distress, are theorized to be suppressed to facilitate the goal attainment process. The suffering of the opponent constitutes the proximate goal during revenge taking, which highlights the importance of a theoretical differentiation of proximate and ultimate goals in revenge to allow for a deeper understanding of the underlying motives of complex revenge behavior. / Die bisherige Forschung zu den Mechanismen von Racheverhalten behandelt die Ausübung von Rache häufig als eine singuläre und unilaterale Erfahrung. Diese Herangehensweise berücksichtigt den sozialen Kontext und die Funktion von Rache nur unzureichend. Die vorliegende Dissertation zielt darauf ab, mittels empirischer Befunde emotionale Reaktionen in dynamische Rachesequenzen zu integrieren. Die Ausübung von Rache kann intensive affektive Zustände wie Schuldgefühle bis hin zu dem Empfinden von Freude über das Leid Anderer (Schadenfreude) auslösen. In Kapitel 2 werden Ergebnisse geschildert, welche die unterschiedlichen affektiven Reaktionen des Aggressors in Abhängigkeit zu Indikatoren des Leides des Gegners untersuchen. Im Rahmen der durchgeführten Studien wurde eine positive Reaktion (gemessen anhand von fazialen Muskelaktivierungen) während der Beobachtung von Schmerzausdrücken des Gegners beobachtet. Die positive affektive Reaktion geht mit einer Reduktion der darauffolgenden Strafe einher. Sowohl der positive Affekt als auch die Reduktion von Strafe wurden nur in Folge von Schmerzindikatoren und nicht nach Ausdrücken von Trauer beobachtet. Empathischer Stress nach ausgeführten Rachehandlungen, indiziert durch negative affektive Reaktionen, wurde nur gezeigt, nachdem nicht-provokative Gegner Schmerzreaktionen zeigten. Dies zeigt die Modulation von empathischen Prozessen in Abhängigkeit von Provokation und Konkurrenz. Kapitel 3 beschreibt die signifikante Eskalation von aggressiven Interaktionen durch eine Konfrontation mit Schadenfreude des Gegners während der Bestrafung. Dies lässt darauf schließen, dass die Beobachtung des Gegnerzustandes während der gesamten Interaktion die Wahl von Handlungen beeinflusst. Die Beobachtung des Lächelns beim Gegenüber führt zu Nachahmungsverhalten (faziale Mimikry), welches durch vorherige Provokation graduell abgeschwächt wird. Die verschiedenen Funktionen der Mimikry des Lächelns im Kontext einer aggressiv kompetitiven Situation enthalten Elemente von Simulation, zum besseren Verständnis der Gegnerreaktion, und dienen dazu als potenzielle Reaktion auf Dominanzverhalten Submission zu vermeiden. In einer weiteren Experimentalreihe, beschrieben in Kapitel 4, wird die Integration von erlebter Provokation und daraus resultierenden empfundenen Ärger in die Erinnerung an den Gegner demonstriert. Ergebnisse dieser Studienreine legen nahe, dass die Repräsentation des Gesichtes des Gegners in der Erinnerung basierend auf vorheriger Provokation und distinkten emotionalen gegnerischen Reaktionen auf Strafe (Schmerz & Ärger) systematisch variiert. Gegner, welche Schmerzreaktionen zeigten, wurden mit positiveren Gesichtskonfigurationen repräsentiert, im Gegensatz zu Gegnern, welche Ärger zeigten. Diese Ergebnisse werden als Belege für den Einfluss von Ergebnisbewertungen auf die Formation von Gegnerrepräsentationen und ihren potenziellen Nutzen für die Vermeidung von Empathie in zukünftigen Auseinandersetzungen diskutiert. Aus dem Abgleich zwischen dem gewünschten und beobachteten gegnerischen Reaktionen resultiert eine Bewertung des Erfolgs der Strafe. Dieser Bewertungsvorgang kann positive Affekte auslösen, die als Information in die Wahl der nächsten Handlung einfließen und die Repräsentation des Gegners in der Erinnerung verändern. Die Ergebnisse der hier dargestellten Studien deuten darauf hin, dass Signale des Leidens, die unmittelbar kongruent zu den zuvor gewählten Strafhandlungen sind, als positiv bewertet werden und somit zu einem unmittelbar erlebten positiven Affekt führen. Das Vorhandensein von positivem Affekt während der Beobachtung des leidenden Gegners nach erfolgreicher Bestrafung stimmt mit neueren Forschungsansätzen überein, die Verstärkungslernen als zentralen Prozess bei der Chronifizierung von aggressivem Verhalten postulieren. Das Auftreten von positivem Affekt wird durch die Herabsetzung von affektiv empathischen Prozessen gegenüber dem Gegner ermöglicht. Die Unterdrückung von affektiver Empathie erleichtert hierbei den Prozess der Zielerreichung. Das Leid des Gegners wird als proximales Ziel der Rachehandlung diskutiert. Eine Unterscheidung zwischen proximalen und distalen Zielen bei der Ausübung von Rache ermöglicht ein tieferes Verständnis für die zugrundeliegende Motive komplexen Racheverhaltens.

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Previous research has suggested that there are multiple psychological processes underlying delusional thought. While it appears that cognitive biases in certain reasoning and attention processes are related to delusion-proneness, the influence of emotion on these processes is not well understood. The overall objective of this study was to investigate the effect of emotional content on performance on tasks thought to measure attentional bias, preferential recall, and probabilistic reasoning in individuals with schizophrenia and demographically matched controls. In order to account for level of delusion-proneness, participants also completed a multidimensional measure of delusional thought. It was hypothesized that individuals with schizophrenia would perform more poorly on both the emotional and neutral versions of these tasks compared to controls. It was also hypothesized that within each group, there would be a statistically significant emotion effect, indicated by a difference in performance on the emotional (compared to neutral) condition of each task. This emotion effect was expected to be larger in the schizophrenia group. Finally, it was hypothesized that the emotion effect would increase as the severity of delusional proneness increased for all participants, regardless of group. As hypothesized, the schizophrenia group performed more poorly on the tasks overall, though expected emotion effects were generally absent. There were no differences in the size of emotion effects between the groups on any of the cognitive tasks administered, and the emotion effect did not appear to increase as severity of delusion-proneness increased. Factors that may have contributed to this pattern of results are discussed. Implications of these findings on theoretical models of delusions and future directions for research in this area are also discussed.

Previous research suggests that some individuals have negative views about happiness and may actively avoid positivity due to associating it with previous negative experiences. The Approach-Avoidance Task (AAT) is a paradigm that examines approach and avoidance tendencies. However, the AAT has previously never been used to examine motivational tendencies in individuals who fear happiness. In this study, we used the AAT to examine if individuals who fear happiness respond aversively in the face of prospective positivity. Results revealed that the difference between the duration of pulling the joystick for both stimuli is negatively related to fear of happiness (FHS) such that individuals with higher FHS scores pulled the joystick for a shorter amount of time for positive stimuli than neutral. This suggests that individuals with a fear of happiness may exhibit aversive tendencies for positive information in comparison to neutral information, similar to that seen in depressed individuals.

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