Approach motivation and positive affect

Differentiating adolescent suicidal and nonsuicidal self-harm with artificial intelligence: Beyond suicidal intent and capability for suicide

Clinical differentiation between adolescent suicidal self-harm (SSH) and nonsuicidal self-harm (NSSH) is a significant challenge for mental health professionals, and its feasibility is controversial. The aim of the present study was to determine whether adolescent SSH can be differentiated from NSSH based on a holistic multimodel domain analysis (HMDA) of individual, psychological, sociodemographic, and environmental data without relying on intent and acquired capability for suicide. The study also sought to compare the compatibility of the HMDA result with four theories of suicide: the interpersonal theory of suicide, the three-steps theory, the integrated motivational-volitional model, and the theory of adolescent suicidality and self-destruction. This cross-sectional study analyzed data from a nationwide survey conducted from 2017 to 2019 in Norway. The sample included 26,904 adolescents (mean age = 15.01; 29.9 % males), who self-reported suicidal and nonsuicidal self-harm. The meta-learner classification model reached an AUC of 77.0 % and a 70.0 % for both sensitivity and specificity in differentiating the two conditions. Exploratory factor analysis suggested eight factors for clustering the important risk and protective indicators: 1) disordered eating and future orientation, 2) sleep disturbance, 3) orientation toward affects and self, 4) risk-taking behavior, 5) peer relationships, 6) victimization, safety, and security, 7) family relationships, and 8) substance use. These factors emphasize that domains central to adolescent physical, personal, social, and expected future well-being provide invaluable information about risk of suicidal and self-destructive behavior. The results also indicated that despite their high comorbidity, adolescent SSH and NSSH are multifaceted and can be differentiated without relying on suicide-related information. These findings fully supported the theory of adolescent suicidality and self-destruction and partially supported the ideation-to-action theories.

Not all emotional expressions facilitate recognition of other-race faces in Chinese infants

Previous research has shown that the addition of happy or angry expressions to other-race faces can assist infants in overcoming the perceptual narrowing of face race and reinstating their recognition of other-race faces. In the present study, we examined how different facial expressions (happy, angry, fearful, and neutral) influence the recognition of African faces among Chinese infants aged 8 to 12 months. We employed a visual familiarization task and measured infants' looking time. The results revealed that infants exhibited above-chance discrimination of African faces in the happy and angry conditions, but not in the neutral or fearful conditions. The findings suggest that not all facial expressions have a uniform effect on infants' ability to recognize faces of other races.

Effects of motivated emotion regulation on downstream memory for and affective responses to re-encountered stimuli

Emotion regulation is integral to well-being and adaptive behavior. Differing regulation strategies have important downstream consequences. Evidence suggests that reappraisal use can improve memory and reduce emotional reactivity to previously regulated stimuli. Reappraisal is cognitively demanding and dependent on prefrontal-based cognitive control processes typically enhanced by motivation. We recently demonstrated that motivational incentives increased reappraisal use and decreased negative affect during emotion regulation. It is currently unknown how incentive manipulations of emotion regulation affect later memory and affective response: some accounts suggest that motivation boosts memory relatively automatically, via dopamine input to hippocampus, whereas others suggest that motivated memory might depend on control allocation at encoding. In a 2-day online study, we examined how motivated emotion regulation relates to downstream memory and affect. Participants completed an emotion regulation task under baseline and incentive conditions, with recognition memory and affect examined ~ 24-hours later. Surprisingly, for stimuli encountered under incentive, memory decreased, challenging the hypothesis that motivational enhancements of memory occur automatically. Additionally, Day 2 affect did not significantly differ for stimuli encountered in baseline and incentive contexts, suggesting that incentive-related affective benefits were short-lived. In contrast, reappraisal predicted increased memory and reduced negative affect upon reencounter. These results suggest that incentive may have promoted global, potentially automatic changes in affect, independent from regulatory control processes that also could lead to affective change. Further characterization of these multiple pathways will be important for advancing a mechanistic understanding of emotion regulation and its consequences across motivational contexts.

Emotion regulation strategies explain associations of theta and Beta with positive affect

Maladaptive emotion regulation (ER) strategies are a transdiagnostic construct in psychopathology. ER depends on cognitive control, so brain activity associated with cognitive control, such as frontal theta and beta, may be a factor in ER. This study investigated the association of theta and beta power with positive affect and whether emotion regulation strategies explain this association. One hundred and twenty-one undergraduate students (mean age = 20.74, SD = 5.29; 73% women) completed self-report questionnaires, including the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire and the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule. Spectral analysis was performed on resting state frontal electroencephalogram activity that was collected for eight 1-min periods of alternating open and closed eyes. Relative beta and theta band power were extracted relative to global field power at frontal channels. Regression analysis revealed that positive affect is significantly predicted by theta power (β = 0.24, p = .007) and beta power (β = -0.33, p < .0001). There was an indirect effect of beta power on positive affect via reappraisal, but not suppression. Additionally, theta power significantly predicted suppression, but no indirect effect was observed between theta power and positive affect. These findings are consistent with a prior study reporting a positive and negative relationship between theta and beta power, respectively, and positive affect induction. This study elucidates how modulation of theta and beta bands link to ER strategies.

Transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation enhanced emotional inhibitory control via increasing intrinsic prefrontal couplings

Background

Inhibitory control represents a core executive function that critically facilitates adaptive behavior and survival in an ever-changing environment. Non-invasive transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation (taVNS) has been hypothesized to improve behavioral inhibition performance, however the neurocomputational mechanism of taVNS-induced neuroenhancement remains elusive.

Method

In the current study, we investigated the efficacy of taVNS in a sham-controlled between-subject functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) experiment with an emotional face Go/No-Go paradigm in ninety healthy young adults.

Results

After a data quality check, eighty-two subjects were included in the final data analysis. Behaviorally, the taVNS improved No-Go response accuracy, together with computational modeling using Hierarchical Bayesian estimation of the Drift Diffusion Model (HDDM) indicating that it specifically reduced the information accumulation rate for Go responses, and this was negatively associated with increased accuracy of No-Go responses. On the neural level, taVNS enhanced engagement of the bilateral inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) during inhibition of angry expression faces and modulated functional couplings (FCs) within the prefrontal inhibitory control network. Mediation models revealed that taVNS-induced facilitation of inhibitory control was critically mediated by a decreased information accumulation for Go responses and concomitantly enhanced neurofunctional coupling between the inferior and orbital frontal cortex.

Discussion

Our findings demonstrate a potential for taVNS to improve emotional inhibitory control via reducing pre-potent responses and enhancing FCs within prefrontal inhibitory control networks, suggesting a promising therapeutic role in treating specific disorders characterized by inhibitory control deficits.

Spice up the moment: The influence of spicy taste on people's metaphorical perspectives on time

Embodied cognition contends that sensorimotor experiences undergird cognitive processes. Three embodied cross-domain metaphorical mappings constitute quintessential illustrations: spatial navigation and orientation underpin the conceptualization of time and emotion and gustatory sensation underlies the formulation of emotion. Threading together these strands of insights, the present research consisted of three studies explored the potential influence of spicy taste on people's metaphorical perspectives on time. The results revealed a positive correlation between spicy taste and the ego-moving metaphor for time such that individuals who enjoyed spicy taste (Study 1) and who consumed spicy (vs. salty) snack (Study 2) exhibited a predilection for the ego-moving perspective when cognizing a temporally ambiguous event. Because both spicy taste and the ego-moving metaphor are associated with anger and approach motivation, the latter two were postulated to be related to the novel taste-time relationship. Corroborative evidence for the hypothesis was found, which indicated that spicy (vs. salty) intake elicited significantly stronger anger toward and significantly greater approach-motivated perception of a rescheduled temporal event (Study 3). Taken together, the current findings demonstrate that spicy taste may play a role in people's perspectives on the movement of events in time and highlight the involved embodied interrelation between language, emotion, and cognition.

Repeated response execution and inhibition alter subjective preferences but do not affect automatic approach and avoidance tendencies toward an object

Background

Repeated action or inaction toward objects changes preferences for those objects. However, it remains unclear whether such training activates approach-avoidance motivation toward the objects, which leads to actual behavior. We conducted a pre-registered online experiment to examine whether approach and avoidance tendencies were affected by the experience of having executed or withheld a button-press response to a stimulus.

Methods

Participants (N = 236) performed a Go/NoGo task in which they were asked to repeatedly execute a response to a picture of a mug (i.e., Go-primed stimulus) and suppress a response to another picture of a mug (i.e., NoGo-primed stimulus). They then received one of two manikin tasks, which were implicit association tests designed to assess approach-avoidance tendencies. One manikin task measured the reaction times of moving a manikin toward or away from the Go-primed stimulus and the other picture of a mug (i.e., unprimed stimulus). The other manikin task measured the reaction times of moving a manikin toward or away from the NoGo-primed stimulus and the unprimed stimulus. The participants then rated their preference for the Go-primed, NoGo-primed, and unprimed items.

Results

The Go-primed item was evaluated as more highly preferable than the unprimed item in the Go condition, while the NoGo-primed item was evaluated as less preferable than the unprimed item in the NoGo condition. In contrast, the mean approach/avoidance reaction times in the manikin task showed no difference between the Go-primed and unprimed stimuli or between the NoGo-primed and unprimed stimuli.

Conclusion

When participants repeatedly responded or inhibited their responses to an object, their explicit preference for the object increased or decreased, respectively. However, the effect did not occur in approach-avoidance behaviors toward the object.

Association between anticipated affect and behavioral intention: A meta-analysis

It is widely accepted that affect is associated with motivation, decision making and well-being. Studies from various domains suggest that anticipated affect is a key determinant of behavioral intention. In this research, we conducted a meta-analysis to determine the strength of the correlation between anticipated affect and behavioral intention. We searched the electronic databases PsycInfo, Scopus, Pubmed and Cochrane Library for articles published before July 2021. Studies were included based on the criteria 1) Participants are adults, 2) Participants rated their intention to engage in some behavior and the affect that they anticipate to experience if they perform or (not perform) the particular behavior, and 3) Pearson correlation coefficient(s) between behavioral intention and anticipated affect are reported. Studies whose target populations were patients with known psychiatric conditions were excluded. Correlation coefficients gathered from the selected studies were analyzed using a correlation-based meta-analysis. Meta-analytic estimate from 87 selected studies indicates a strong correlation between anticipated affect and behavioral intention (r = .61,95%CI = [.57,.64],p < .0001,k = 67,N = 25652). However, significant heterogeneity is observed across the included studies and moderator analysis shows a significant difference (p = .006) between hedonic vs. non-hedonic behaviors. While the estimated correlation between anticipated affect and behavioral intention is large, there is heterogeneity across studies. This correlation is significantly higher for hedonic behaviors than non-hedonic behaviors. We suggest that differences in the range of affect/emotions covered by each study is another potential moderator. Our results motivate further studies, covering a broader range of affect/emotions for a more accurate estimate of the correlation between anticipated affect and behavioral intention as well as experimental interventions to validate the causal direction of this relationship.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12144-023-04383-w.

Positive emotions and their upregulation increase willingness to consume healthy foods

While highly relevant for everyday life, it is unclear whether experiencing incidental positive or negative emotional states, and active emotion regulation, influence the weighting of perceived taste and health in food choices. In Experiment 1, we examined two emotion regulation strategies, reappraisal and distraction, used to decrease negative emotions. Participants were cued to experience or decrease their emotional response for either neutral or negative incidental emotion-inducing images. They subsequently rated their willingness to consume foods, which varied in their taste and health attributes. Mixed-effects model analysis showed that compared to neutral, negative emotions decreased willingness to consume, regardless of perceived taste and health, but neither emotion regulation strategy had a significant effect. Experiment 2 used images inducing incidental positive emotions in combination with three emotion regulation strategies: reappraisal, distraction, and increasing positive emotions. Experiencing positive emotions generally increased willingness to consume, with stronger effects for tasty and healthy foods. Decreasing positive emotions via reappraisal decreased willingness to consume, particularly for healthy foods. Increasing positive emotion intensity further increased willingness to consume, with stronger effects for healthy foods. The results suggest that experiencing positive emotions increases desire particularly strongly for healthy foods, which can additionally be modulated via emotion regulation. This has important implications for designing health-related interventions targeting mood improvement.

The Impact of Team Learning Climate on Innovation Performance - Mediating role of knowledge integration capability

To address the fierce competition for corporate innovation in the digital economy, this study introduces knowledge integration capability as a mediating variable in light of social information processing theory, and explores the mechanism of team learning climate on innovation performance. Data were collected from a sample of 184 team members for statistical analysis, and Statistical methods such as descriptive statistical analysis, correlation analysis, and regression analysis were used to verify the study hypotheses through SPSS and Amos software, and the results showed that: (1) Team learning climate has a significant positive effect on knowledge integration capability. (2) Team learning climate has a significant positive effect on innovation performance. (3) Knowledge integration capability has a significant positive effect on innovation performance. (4) Knowledge integration capability partially mediates the role between team learning climate and innovation performance. The results proved the perspective of knowledge integration capability for the mechanism of team learning climate on innovation performance from the perspective of knowledge integration capability, and provided theoretical references for creating a learning climate in companies to promote members' knowledge learning and enhance innovation performance.

Using the theory of constructed emotion to inform the study of cognition-emotion interactions

In this article I suggest how theories of emotion construction may inform the study of cognition-emotion interactions. To do so, I adopt the two main concepts core affect and emotions as categories: Core affect, one's current affective state, which is defined by the two dimensions pleasure and arousal, is an inherent part of any conscious experience. Specific emotions are understood as categories including highly diverse exemplars. I argue that (1) affective states can and should not be differentiated from cognitive states, and that (2) specific emotions may follow the same principles as other biological or more general categories. I review some empirical evidence in support of these ideas and show avenues for future research.

Motivated for movement: Beta activation over the motor cortex resulting from intrinsic and extrinsic motivators

Past work on motivation has primarily studied dichotomous distinctions of motivation (e.g., extrinsic or intrinsic). However, focusing on the overall motivational intensity may be better at accentuating the unique differences within and between varying motivators as it pertains to the impetus to act. Specifically, motivational intensity influences neural patterns of beta band frequency (13-30 Hz) as measured by electroencephalography (EEG) that enable motor-action preparation, a neural correlate of motivated movement. The primary aim of across three experiments was to investigate neural motor-action preparation to modified flanker tasks within achievement (Experiment 1), autonomous (Experiment 2), and extrinsic vs. intrinsic (Experiment 3) motivational contexts. Experiment 1 revealed greater motor-action preparation for challenging trial cues and did not differ in behavioral attentional and performance measures across both trial types. Experiment 2 revealed no significant difference in motor-action preparation, did not differ in behavioral attentional narrowing and had worse behavioral performance in high autonomy relative to low autonomy trials. Experiment 3 revealed greater motor-action preparation for challenging trial cues, did not differ in behavioral attentional narrowing and had a faster performance for reward trials relative to high autonomy trials. These findings suggest motivators of the same category (i.e., intrinsic) may differ in motivational strength, as suggested by a neurophysiological measure of immediate motivated movement planning.

The Influence of Family Supportive Supervisor Behavior on Employee Creativity: The Mediating Roles of Psychological Capital and Positive Emotion

In an increasingly complex external environment, innovation is an important way for companies to build sustainable competitiveness. This research discusses employee creativity from the perspective of Family Supportive Supervisor Behavior (FSSB) based on conservation of resource theory, social exchange theory, psychological capital theory and emotional spillover theory. Through a series of surveys of employees in different companies and jobs, we can understand the impact of family-supporting supervisors' behavior on their creativity. Combined with the survey data, a structural equation model (SEM) is constructed to analyze the mediating effects of psychological capital and positive emotions based on the causal mediation model. The research found that the positive influence of family-supporting supervisors' behavior on employees' creativity has three forms. First, supervisors improve employees' motivation and sense of efficacy by providing various support resources. Second, supervisors can generate positive spillover effects among employees by influencing employees' psychological state. Third, supervisors stimulate the creativity of subordinates by promoting work participation and mobility. According to the research conclusions, in order to improve the employee creativity, we should provide incentives to encourage supervisors to carry out family support behaviors, identify employee characteristics to help supervisors provide personalized support, cultivate family supportive leaders, and attach importance to emotional support and play the role of psychological capital and positive emotions.

How Does Emotion Influence Time Perception? A Review of Evidence Linking Emotional Motivation and Time Processing

Emotions have a strong influence on how we experience time passing. The body of research investigating the role of emotion on time perception has steadily increased in the past twenty years. Several affective mechanisms have been proposed to influence the passing of time. The current review focuses on how three dimensions of affect-valence, arousal, and motivation-are related to time perception. The valence-based model of time perception predicts that all positive affects hasten the perception of time and all negative affects slow the perception of time. Arousal is thought to intensify the effects of the influence of valence on time perception. In much of this past work, motivational direction has been confounded with valence, whereas motivational intensity has been confounded with arousal. Research investigating the role of motivation in time perception has found that approach-motivated positive and negative affects hasten the perception of time, but withdrawal-motivated affects slow the perception of time. Perceiving time passing quickly while experiencing approach-motivated states may provide significant advantages related to goal pursuit. In contrast, perceiving time passing slowly while experiencing withdrawal-motivated states may increase avoidance actions. Below, we review evidence supporting that approach motivation hastens the passing of time, whereas withdrawal motivation slows the passing of time. These results suggest that motivational direction, rather than affective valence and arousal, drive emotional changes in time perception.

Limb Preference in Animals: New Insights into the Evolution of Manual Laterality in Hominids

Until the 1990s, the notion of brain lateralization—the division of labor between the two hemispheres—and its more visible behavioral manifestation, handedness, remained fiercely defined as a human specific trait. Since then, many studies have evidenced lateralized functions in a wide range of species, including both vertebrates and invertebrates. In this review, we highlight the great contribution of comparative research to the understanding of human handedness’ evolutionary and developmental pathways, by distinguishing animal forelimb asymmetries for functionally different actions—i.e., potentially depending on different hemispheric specializations. Firstly, lateralization for the manipulation of inanimate objects has been associated with genetic and ontogenetic factors, with specific brain regions’ activity, and with morphological limb specializations. These could have emerged under selective pressures notably related to the animal locomotion and social styles. Secondly, lateralization for actions directed to living targets (to self or conspecifics) seems to be in relationship with the brain lateralization for emotion processing. Thirdly, findings on primates’ hand preferences for communicative gestures accounts for a link between gestural laterality and a left-hemispheric specialization for intentional communication and language. Throughout this review, we highlight the value of functional neuroimaging and developmental approaches to shed light on the mechanisms underlying human handedness.