Perceiver's use of thought suppression to maintain a consistent attitude toward another person ironically leads to nonlinear changes in their evaluations over time. In this study of interpersonal evaluation, 157 participants across three conditions (high-level mindset, low-level mindset, and control) observe the same person in seven counter-balanced videotaped social interactions depicting helpful, rude, and ambiguous behaviors. The high-level prime instructed participants to focus on the target's goals and intentions ; low-level participants focused on the target's specific concrete behaviors. High-level participants better resisted the influence of conflicting information by surpressing thoughts inconsistent with their initial evaluation of the target. From the dynamical systems perspective, such suppressed information over time becomes organized as an alternative attractor, nonconsciously influencing the perceiver's cognitive system, leading to change away from an initial attitude, as measured by the Mouse Paradigm procedure. / by Steven S. Parkin. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2012. / Includes bibliography. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / System requirements: Adobe Reader.

Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 91-116).

Thesis (M.A.)--York University, 2002. Graduate Programme in Psychology. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 95-103). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/yorku/fullcit?pMQ71608.

published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Clinical Psychology / Master / Master of Social Sciences

published_or_final_version / Psychology / Master / Master of Philosophy

This study was undertaken in an attempt to assess the Affect Intensity Measure (AIM) as a simpler alternative to the Overexcitability Questionnaire (OEQ) as a measure of emotional intensity in high ability young people. Participants were 30 young adolescents from grade 6 to grade 11 from the McGill Summer "Explorations" Program for the gifted, 75 undergraduate students and 46 doctoral students from various departments of McGill University. The Affect Intensity Measure was administrated to all three groups. There were no affect-intensity differences among the three groups of participants. Affect Intensity Measures particularly failed to distinguish gifted and nongifted groups. This result was inconsistent with previous studies using Overexcitability Questionnaire. There were gender differences but no age differences in affect intensity. The gender differences result was also inconsistent with the findings in several earlier studies using Overexcitability Questionnaire in which no gender differences in overexcitability were found among the gifted. Reasons why the AIM was not found to be an adequate substitute for the OEQ are explored, with the present samples, and possibly in general.

The present thesis investigated age differences in emotion recognition skills of 146 older adults (age range 60-92 years) and 146 young adults (age range 18-25 years) in four experiments. Experiment 1 assessed participants� ability to categorise facial expressions of sadness, fear, happiness, and surprise. In Experiments 2 and 3, participants were asked to identify six emotions (happiness, sadness, surprise, fear, anger, disgust) from still and dynamic faces, alone and in combination with vocal expressions. Finally, Experiment 4 compared performance on these standard emotion recognition paradigms to that of more ecologically-valid measures; the Faux Pas and Verbosity and Social Cues Tasks. Across the four studies, there was evidence of an age-related decline in emotion recognition skills. Older adults were overall less sensitive to perceptual differences between faces in Experiment 1 and showed a loss of categorical perception effect for fearful faces. Older adults were less accurate than young adults at recognising expressions of sadness, anger, and fear, across types of expression (voices and faces). There were some differences across modalities, with older adults showing difficulties with fear recognition for faces, but not voices, and difficulty in matching happy voices to happy faces but not for happy voices and faces presented in isolation. Experiment 2 also showed that the majority of older adult participants had some decline in emotion recognition skills. Age differences in performance were also apparent on the more ecologically-valid measures. Older adults were more likely than young adults to rate the protagonist as behaving inappropriately in the Faux Pas Task, even with the control videos, suggesting difficulty in discriminating faux pas. Older adults were also judged to be more verbose and to offer more off-topic information during the Verbosity Task than young adults and were less likely to recognise expressions of boredom in the Social Cues Task. These findings are discussed in terms of three theoretical accounts. A positivity bias (indicating increased recognition and experience of positive emotions and reduction for negative emotions) was not consistent with the older adults� difficulties with matching happy faces to voices and relatively preserved performance with disgusted expressions. Age-related decline in cognitive processes did not account for the specific pattern of age differences observed. The most plausible explanation for the age differences in the present thesis is that age-related neurological changes in the brain areas that process emotions, specifically the temporal and frontal areas, are likely to contribute to the older adults� declines in performance on emotion categorisation, emotion recognition, and social cognition tasks. The implications for everyday social interactions for older adults are also discussed.

The present thesis investigated age differences in emotion recognition skills of 146 older adults (age range 60-92 years) and 146 young adults (age range 18-25 years) in four experiments. Experiment 1 assessed participants� ability to categorise facial expressions of sadness, fear, happiness, and surprise. In Experiments 2 and 3, participants were asked to identify six emotions (happiness, sadness, surprise, fear, anger, disgust) from still and dynamic faces, alone and in combination with vocal expressions. Finally, Experiment 4 compared performance on these standard emotion recognition paradigms to that of more ecologically-valid measures; the Faux Pas and Verbosity and Social Cues Tasks. Across the four studies, there was evidence of an age-related decline in emotion recognition skills. Older adults were overall less sensitive to perceptual differences between faces in Experiment 1 and showed a loss of categorical perception effect for fearful faces. Older adults were less accurate than young adults at recognising expressions of sadness, anger, and fear, across types of expression (voices and faces). There were some differences across modalities, with older adults showing difficulties with fear recognition for faces, but not voices, and difficulty in matching happy voices to happy faces but not for happy voices and faces presented in isolation. Experiment 2 also showed that the majority of older adult participants had some decline in emotion recognition skills. Age differences in performance were also apparent on the more ecologically-valid measures. Older adults were more likely than young adults to rate the protagonist as behaving inappropriately in the Faux Pas Task, even with the control videos, suggesting difficulty in discriminating faux pas. Older adults were also judged to be more verbose and to offer more off-topic information during the Verbosity Task than young adults and were less likely to recognise expressions of boredom in the Social Cues Task. These findings are discussed in terms of three theoretical accounts. A positivity bias (indicating increased recognition and experience of positive emotions and reduction for negative emotions) was not consistent with the older adults� difficulties with matching happy faces to voices and relatively preserved performance with disgusted expressions. Age-related decline in cognitive processes did not account for the specific pattern of age differences observed. The most plausible explanation for the age differences in the present thesis is that age-related neurological changes in the brain areas that process emotions, specifically the temporal and frontal areas, are likely to contribute to the older adults� declines in performance on emotion categorisation, emotion recognition, and social cognition tasks. The implications for everyday social interactions for older adults are also discussed.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of North Carolina Wilmington, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves: [50]-54)

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Tufts University, 2000. / Adviser: Holly Taylor. Submitted to the Dept. of Psychology. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 109-136). Access restricted to members of the Tufts University community. Also available via the World Wide Web;