The present thesis examines evidence for the self-relaxation assumption of Personality-Systems-Interactions (PSI) theory, i.e. the involvement of the self-system in the intuitive downregulation of negative affect. Chapter 1 introduces PSI a self-regulation theory that explains personality and behavior according to the dynamic interplay of neuropsychological systems. Chapter 2 provides an evaluation of the Implicit Positive and Negative Affect Test (IPANAT) that indirectly assesses affect via judgments about the phonetic resemblance between artificial pseudo-words and mood adjectives. The test shows remarkable reliability for each scale as well as good factorial, construct and criterion-based validity. Chapter 3 presents an experiment that investigates the extent to which self-activation (experimental presentation of self-referential terms such as my bed, my body, etc.) after stress exposure affects negative and positive affect as measured by both the IPANAT and an explicit affect scale. As compared to neutral terms (the bed, the body, etc.) in the control group, self-referential terms led to a decrease in negative affect and an increase in positive affect according to the IPANAT but not according to the explicit measure. The results are discussed with respect to the intuitive nature of self-relaxation. Chapter 4 includes a study that examines the relationships between inter-individual differences in self-functioning (adult attachment security, self-determination, self-esteem) and the cortisol response to an acute stressor and awakening in the morning. Self-functioning in terms of attachment security was negatively related to the acute stress cortisol response and, along with self-determination and self-esteem, positively related to the awakening cortisol response. A hypothesized link between the hippocampus, which has been shown to be especially important for cortisol regulation and the retrieval of episodic memory, and the self-system is discussed.

This dissertation extends previous work on the Positive and Negative Affect Test (IPANAT), a test that was developed to measure affective processes at an implicit (supposedly automatic, preconscious) level. In particular, the first manuscript that is included in this dissertation demonstrates that the IPANAT picks up on processes resembling counter-regulation (cf. Rothermund, Voss, & Wentura, 2008) after exposure to negatively valenced emotional stimuli. The IPANAT might therefore be a suitable measure of affect regulation in some contexts. Furthermore, the second manuscript introduces a version of the IPANAT that was designed for the measurement of distinct emotions, the IPANAT for distinct emotions (IPANAT-DE). Finally, the third manuscript and an additional supplemental study not yet submitted for publication provide evidence that the subscales of the IPANAT-DE are sensitive to priming with different emotional expressions, and that facial expressions of the same valence but of different distinct emotions trigger emotion specific changes of IPANAT-DE scores. In the last part of this dissertation, the three manuscripts and the supplemental study are discussed with respect to three overarching issues: 1. The kinds of processes that might drive IPANAT scores and whether these processes are indeed influenced by affective experience or whether they are purely cognitive. 2. How IPANAT scores are related to other aspects of affect. 3. How the IPANAT can be adapted to different research questions as well as to applied contexts.

This study focused on the criterion-related validity of the Implicit Positive and Negative Affect Test (IPANAT). The IPANAT is thought to be a measure of automatic activation of cognitive representations of affects. In this study, it was investigated whether implicit affect scores differentially predict ratings of facial emotions over and above explicit affectivity. Ninety-six young female participants completed the IPANAT, the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) as an explicit measure of state and trait affectivity, and a task for the perception of facial emotions. Implicit negative affect predicted the perception of negative but not positive facial emotions, whereas implicit positive affect predicted the perception of positive but not negative facial emotions. The observed double-dissociation in the correlational pattern strongly supports the validity of the IPANAT as a measure of implicit affectivity and is indicative of the orthogonality and thus functional distinctness of the two affect dimensions of the IPANAT. Moreover, such affect-congruent correlations were absent for explicit affect scales, which additionally supports the incremental validity of the IPANAT.