published_or_final_version / Clinical Psychology / Master / Master of Social Sciences

No description available.

No description available.

The aim of this thesis was to examine the effects of people???s current moods and emotions on affective forecasting. The primary hypothesis was mood congruence: people currently feeling happy were expected to generate relatively positive affective forecasts and people currently feeling sad were expected to generate relatively negative forecasts compared to people currently in a neutral state. In addition, a moderated mood congruence hypothesis, predicted by the Affect Infusion Model (AIM, Forgas, 1995), stating that mood congruence effects are more pronounced under conditions of constructive processing, was tested. Two secondary hypotheses concerning the processing and motivational consequences of transient moods were also examined in each of the studies in this thesis. Studies 1 to 3 examined these hypotheses using a variety of manipulations of constructive processing. In Study 1, happy, neutral and sad participants made affective forecasts about a variety of everyday events, under overt instructions to process constructively or not. In Study 2, the ambiguity of the forecast was the manipulation of constructive processing. In Study 3, Need for Cognition, was used as a measure of constructive processing. Results of Studies 1-3, however, did not support either the mood congruence or the moderated mood congruence hypotheses. Further, neither of the secondary hypotheses was supported. Studies 4 and 5 examined the influence of transient high arousal emotions on affective forecasts. In Study 4, anxious or neutral people forecasted their feelings about an upcoming public speaking engagement and also rated their willingness to give a public speech. Study 5 replicated and extended Study 4 by examining how happy, sad and angry participants made those same predictions. In both Study 4 and 5, anxious people made more pessimistic forecasts and were less likely to engage in a public speech than were neutrals. This effect did not generalize to anger. Results suggest that while anxiety does have implications for affective forecasting and decision making, lower intensity moods and anger do not. Implications of these results are discussed with a focus on the benefits of an emotion-specific approach to the study of affect and affective forecasting.

Thesis (M.Soc.Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 2006. / Title from title page (viewed Apr. 23, 2007) Includes bibliographical references (p. 41-52).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Columbia University, 1925. / Vita. "Reprinted from the Archives of psychology ... no. 76." Bibliography: p. 176-181.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Johns Hopkins University, 1928. / Published also as Genetic psychology monographs, vol. 7, no. 1. Vita. Bibliography: p. 77.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2002. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Available also from UMI Company.

Thesis--Ph. D., University of Hong Kong. / Also availalbe in microfilm.

Background: In recent years, the study of emotion in psychosis has been neglected, and it would seem from the literature that emotion is not related to the formation or prediction of psychosis. Because emotions are the subjective experience of patients, they are not easily quantified. However, the latest fMRI research has shown that emotion and brain function are related and that understanding emotion is valuable for understanding patients’ cognitive function and its potential relationship with psychosis. Emotion regulation can be divided into two different categories based on when in the sequence of emotion regulation they appear. Cognitive reappraisal is antecedent-focused, and suppression is response-focused. I hypothesize that cognitive reappraisal can decrease maladaptive thought and emotions. In contrast, expressive suppression can reduce the appearance of emotion but not inner emotion. Furthermore, inhibiting a preference may not stop maladaptive emotions from arising over a long period of time. Methods: Two groups were recruited in study: a clinical group of patients with psychosis and a nonclinical group of healthy adolescents with no record of mental illness. Twenty-four psychotic patients were recruited from Early Assessment Services for Young People (EASY) in Queen Mary Hospital, and 30 nonclinical participants were recruited from nongovernmental organizations and schools. The participants ranged from 17 to 34 years old and were native Cantonese speakers living in Hong Kong. They completed a variety of measures of emotion regulation, depression, and anxiety. Results: The clinical and nonclinical groups were similar on several dimensions, including their demographic information and pattern of strategy usage. A higher percentage used both emotion-regulation strategies to cope with maladaptive emotion, and fewer used a single strategy. However, the two groups had significantly different outcomes from using expressive suppression as their major emotion regulation pattern. The clinical group was more likely to have higher depressive symptoms (moderate to severe levels on the Beck Depression Inventory). Conclusion: It is valuable to assess emotion-regulation strategies in order to evaluate patients’ habitual coping strategy. Cognitive reappraisal seems to allow participants to retain their cognitive function when maladaptive emotions are not fully occupying their cognitive resources. In contrast, when maladaptive emotion reaches a very high level, it cannot be contained through cognitive reappraisal. Habitual use of expressive suppression affects cognitive functioning and depletes resources that could be used for other regulation attempts. Unsuccessfully regulated maladaptive emotions could be a risk factor that occupies the cognitive functioning of psychotic patients. In order to solidify this hypothesis, further longitudinal research on psychotic patients’ emotional history is needed. More research is needed to understand the relationship between maladaptive emotions, cognitive function, and psychosis. / published_or_final_version / Psychological Medicine / Master / Master of Psychological Medicine