Fear, anger, and risk

Sympathy towards people infected with COVID-19 mediates relations between media use and death anxiety

The COVID-19 pandemic threatened mental health. This study examined the longitudinal associations among pandemic-related media use, sympathy for people infected with COVID-19 (PIWC), and death anxiety. 132 Chinese adults completed measures three times, one week apart during the initial phase of COVID. The results showed that media use, sympathy, and death anxiety decreased significantly over the first month of the outbreak. Pandemic-related media use predicted increased future sympathy for PIWC, and sympathy predicted increased future death anxiety. The study identified the short-term effects of media use on sympathy and death anxiety, and suggests that reduced media exposure may be beneficial.

Guilt emotion and decision-making under uncertainty

This paper examines the impact of moral emotions, such as guilt, on decisions under risk. In two experiments, we demonstrated that guilt emotion influences preferences for risky and riskless choices, depending on the subject's moral goal, i.e., reparation or expiation, whereas anger consistently elicits a preference for taking risks. Unlike other moral emotions (e.g., anger), guilt is thus not characterized by a fixed preference for either risky or riskless choices. Preferences vary as a function of the option that may satisfy the moral goal, instead of by a form of bias that the different emotions play toward decisions under risk. Finally, in both experiments, responses appear to be based on the framing of the decision problem according to the induced emotional state (guilt or anger), rather than on the descriptions of the outcomes as given in the options (gain-loss framing effect).

How Message-Evoked Emotions Undermine Persuasion: The Mediating Role of Fear and Anger in Health Message Effects Among Older Adults

Guided by literature on framing, this study explored how the presence of age labels in different message frames influenced message-evoked fear and anger responses, particularly for older adults with different levels of need for autonomy (NFA), which ultimately affected their physical activity intentions. The results of a three-factor between-subjects experiment, with message frame (gain versus loss) and age label (present versus absent) as manipulated variables and NFA (low versus medium versus high) as quasi-experiment variable (N = 237) revealed that loss-framed message evoked higher levels of fear and anger as compared to gain-framed message. Furthermore, the anger elicited by loss-framing was more pronounced when age labels were present, especially among older adults with low NFA. The moderated mediation analysis revealed that, among older adults with low NFA, loss-framed messages decreased physical activity intentions through message-evoked anger. Notably, this mediating effect was more pronounced when age labels were present.

Subjective probability is modulated by emotions

Information about risks and probabilities is ubiquitous in our environment, forming the basis for decisions in an uncertain world. Emotions are known to modulate subjective probability when probabilistic information is desired (as in gambles) or undesired (as in risks). Yet little is known about the role of emotions in shaping the subjective probability of affectively neutral events. We investigated this in one correlational study (Study 1, N = 162) and one experimental study (Study 2, N = 119). As predicted, we found that participants higher in emotional dominance were more conservative in their probability estimates, avoiding the extremes. Remarkably, this pattern also transferred to realistic risk assessments. Furthermore, respondents' tendency to use the representativeness heuristic as a proxy for probability was increased in high dominance individuals. Our findings suggest that emotional dominance may be a unifying construct explaining previously reported effects of emotions on probabilistic cognition.

The Appraisal Model of Conspiracy Theories (AMCT): Applying Appraisal Theories to Understand Emotional and Behavioral Reactions to Conspiracy Theories

Beliefs in conspiracy theories are related to a diverse set of emotional and behavioral consequences. At the same time, a theoretical model detailing when a conspiracy theory is more likely to elicit confrontation compared to withdrawal, indirect aggression or community-building is missing. We argue that appraisals provide the missing link between conspiracy beliefs and their consequences, proposing the Appraisal Model of Conspiracy Theories (AMCT). Based on appraisal theories of emotions, we outline how the focus on different features that vary between conspiracy theories and the situations in which they are embedded (i.e., focus on secrecy vs. gained knowledge; powerlessness vs. option of confrontation; harm to oneself vs. others) facilitate specific appraisals, resulting in different behavioral outcomes. We also outline how the AMCT helps to reconcile inconsistent research on conspiracy beliefs by providing better predictions about their emotional and behavioral consequences.

Reflection impulsivity in patients with panic disorder

BACKGROUND

Individuals with panic disorder (PD) often exhibit a proclivity to conclude that an imminent catastrophe looms, drawing such conclusions from limited physical information. Reflection impulsivity, characterized by decision-making without adequate information, likely affects this bias. This study examines the relationship between reflection impulsivity and self-report impulsive features in individuals with PD.

METHODS

Fifty patients with PD and 50 healthy controls (HC) participated to this study. Reflection impulsivity was assessed using the Information Sampling Task (IST), while trait impulsivity was measured using the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS). Participants also completed the Beck Anxiety Inventory, Panic and Agoraphobia Scale (P&A), and Anxiety Sensitivity Index-3 (ASI-3).

RESULTS

Individuals with PD exhibited higher reflection impulsivity compared to HC. Increased reflection impulsivity correlated positively with PD severity as assessed by the P&A and cognitive concerns measured by ASI-3. No significant correlations were found with physical or social concerns. PD patients had higher BIS scores than HC. Higher trait impulsivity was linked to recurrent emergency department visits among PD patients.

DISCUSSION

The findings of this study reveal the notion of increased impulsivity among individuals with PD and its relationship with cognitive concerns, as well as recurrent visits to the emergency department stemming from panic attacks.

Information Avoidance: Past Perspectives and Future Directions

In the present age of unprecedented access to information, it is important to understand how and why people avoid information. Multiple definitions of "information avoidance" exist, and key aspects of these definitions deserve attention, such as distinguishing information avoidance from (lack of) information seeking, considering the intentionality and temporal nature of information avoidance, and considering the personal relevance of the information. In this review, we provide a cross-disciplinary historical account of theories and empirical research on information avoidance and seeking, drawing from research in multiple fields. We provide a framework of antecedents of information avoidance, categorized into beliefs about the information (e.g., risk perceptions), beliefs about oneself (e.g., coping resources), and social and situational factors (e.g., social norms), noting that constructs across categories overlap and are intertwined. We suggest that research is needed on both positive and negative consequences of information avoidance and on interventions to reduce information avoidance (when appropriate). Research is also needed to better understand temporal dynamics of information avoidance and how it manifests in everyday life. Finally, comprehensive theoretical models are needed that differentiate avoidance from seeking. Research on information avoidance is quickly expanding, and the topic will only grow in importance.

How perceived risk of recurrence strengthens health management awareness in stroke patients: the chain mediating role of risk fear and health literacy

Background

Prior research has found that perceived risk in stroke patients motivates health behaviors in visitors. However, the role that perceived risk of recurrence in stroke patients plays in reinforcing health management awareness during the motivation phase is unclear.

Objective

This study explores this issue by examining the effects of risk fear and health literacy on health management awareness due to perceived risk of recurrence in stroke patients.

Methods

We validated the effect of perceived risk of recurrence on health management awareness and its internal mechanism by constructing a structural equation model and including 763 stroke patients, extending the relevant literature and application of the Healthy Behavior Procedural Approach (HAPA) model.

Result

The results suggest that perceived risk of recurrence in stroke patients can effectively reinforce and improve health management awareness, with risk fear and health literacy having a chain-mediated role in this group relationship.

Conclusion

This study reveals the differential effects of perceived risk of recurrence, risk fear, and health literacy in stroke patients on health management awareness at the individual level, providing valuable guidance for healthcare practitioners and families to improve patients' health outcomes and health well-being.

The Association of Risk-Related Behaviors and Mental Health Symptomatology on Problematic Alcohol Use Among U.S. Army Reserve and National Guard Soldiers

OBJECTIVE

We sought to examine the association of risk behaviors (i.e., risk perception, risk-taking/impulsivity, and sensation-seeking) and mental health symptomatology (depression, posttraumatic stress disorder [PTSD], anxiety and anger) on problematic alcohol use (alcohol problems and frequent heavy drinking [FHD]) among United States Army Reserve and National Guard (USAR/NG) soldiers.

METHODS

Cross-sectional data (N = 343) from Operation: SAFETY (Soldiers And Families Excelling Through the Years), an ongoing study of USAR/NG soldiers were utilized. Negative binomial regression models investigated risk behaviors and alcohol use controlling for age and sex, with interaction models among risk behaviors and mental health symptoms.

RESULTS

Greater risk perception was associated with a lower likelihood of alcohol problems (p < .05), and FHD (p < .01). Greater risk-taking/impulsivity was associated with a greater likelihood of alcohol problems (p < .01). Interaction models showed moderate risk-taking/impulsivity and high sensation-seeking with depression predicted greater alcohol problems (p < .01, respectively). Greater sensation-seeking and PTSD symptomatology, and sensation-seeking and anxiety were associated with increased alcohol problems (p < .05, respectively). Moderate risk-taking/impulsivity and depression (p < .05), greater risk perception and greater sensation-seeking and anxiety had the highest probability of FHD (p < .05 and p < .01, respectively). No associations between risk behaviors and anger were observed.

CONCLUSIONS

This study assesses the combined associations of risk behaviors and mental health on alcohol use among USAR/NG soldiers. USAR/NG soldiers may benefit from alcohol use interventions that target risk-taking/impulsivity, sensation-seeking behaviors, and mental health symptomatology such as depression, PTSD, and anxiety.

Development of the Disaster Risk Perception Scale: Evaluation of Its Impact on Disaster Preparedness

OBJECTIVES

Developing a disaster risk perception scale is a critical component of Disaster Risk Management (DRM), enabling the assessment and evaluation of the reactions, behaviors, and risk culture characteristics of individuals living under disaster risk. The objective of this study is to develop a disaster risk perception scale and to assess its effect on disaster preparedness.

METHODS

A pilot study was conducted with 359 participants, followed by a main study involving 786 participants. All participants resided in Giresun and Elazig, Turkey, the regions recently affected by earthquakes, floods, and landslides.

RESULTS

A reliable and valid disaster risk perception scale with 25 items and 5 dimensions (exposure/impact, probability, uncontrollable, worry/fear, and vulnerability) was developed. The disaster risk perception of the participants differed significantly according to their educational level, income level, city of residence, and disaster education. As per the multiple regression analysis, the exposure/impact and worry/fear variables had positive and significant effects on disaster preparedness.

CONCLUSIONS

For future studies, it is recommended to implement the disaster risk perception scale across diverse disaster types to assess and evaluate the outcomes effectively.

"Rat race" or "lying flat"? The influence of performance pressure on employees' work behavior

Introduction

Performance pressure refers to employees' subjective perception of the necessity to achieve expected goals, accompanied by a sense of urgency and tension. This study explores how employees cope with performance pressure, focusing on two contrasting strategies: the "rat race" (proactive work behavior) or "lying flat" (work withdrawal). Grounded in the transactional theory of stress and affective event theory, this research aims to uncover the mechanisms through which performance pressure influences work behavior.

Methods

A moderated dual-mediation model was developed to examine the dual pathways of challenge appraisal and workplace anxiety as mediators in the relationship between performance pressure and work behavior. Data were collected through a two-stage survey involving 356 employees from various industries. Statistical analyses, including structural equation modeling, were used to test the hypothesized relationships.

Results

The findings reveal that performance pressure has a dual effect: it simultaneously stimulates challenge appraisal, promoting proactive work behavior, and induces workplace anxiety, leading to work withdrawal behavior. Additionally, learning goal orientation moderates these effects. Specifically, it strengthens the positive relationship between performance pressure and challenge appraisal while weakening the link between performance pressure and workplace anxiety.

Discussion

This study highlights the complex and dual nature of performance pressure in influencing employee behavior. By identifying learning goal orientation as a critical moderator, organizations can better understand how to harness the positive aspects of performance pressure while mitigating its negative effects. These insights provide practical guidance for managing performance pressure and minimizing associated risks in the workplace.

Examining psychological correlates of vaccine hesitancy: a comparative study between the US and Israel

It is important to identify psychological correlates of vaccine hesitancy, including among people not from the United States (U.S.). College students were recruited between March-June 2023 in the US (n = 330, M age = 20.21, 79.5% female) and in Israel (n = 204, M age = 23.45, 92.6% female) to complete a cross-sectional survey on vaccine attitudes, emotions, and behavior. A 2 (Nation: US, Israel) × 2 (Vaccine Status: Vaccinated, Unvaccinated) factorial design was used. Individual ANCOVAS controlling for sociodemographic factors were conducted to test main effects of nation and vaccine status, and their interaction, across various psychological correlates of health behavior. Consistent with hypotheses, unvaccinated (vs. vaccinated) individuals reported higher perceived ambiguity, reactance, and anger as well as perceived lower susceptibility, severity, worry, positive emotion, and intentions to vaccinate. Contrary to hypotheses, unvaccinated individuals reported greater fear. Israeli (vs. American) participants reported higher perceived ambiguity, worry, fear, and anger, as well as lower perceived susceptibility. Vaccinated Americans reported higher intentions to vaccinate again in the future (M = 2.89, SE = 0.08) compared to vaccinated Israelis (M = 2.36, SE = 0.08). However, unvaccinated Americans reported lower intentions to vaccinate (M = 1.80, SE = 0.15) than unvaccinated Israelis (M = 1.95, SE = 0.21). Findings provide insight into correlates to target for vaccine promotion and emphasize the need for cultural tailoring.

Effect of changing threat conditions on police and military commanders' preferences for urgent and offensive actions: An analysis of decision making at the operational level of war

A simulation was conducted to examine the decision making of 102 high-ranking police and military commanders (male/female = 88/12, mean years of employment = 22.15) engaged in a simulated hybrid attack on Norway. Four 2 × 3 repeated-measures ANOVA tests were performed, with two groups (police, military) and three phases (peace, war, and post-conflict) as independent variables. The decision tasks of force posture and mission urgency, along with Subject Matter Expert (SME) ratings of decision-making performance, served as dependent variables. By using social cognitive theory as the theoretical framework, the analysis demonstrated within-group effects indicating how the transition from peace to war caused more offensive postures, higher urgency levels, and increased performance in wartime. Between-group differences were also found, illustrating that police commanders had higher levels of urgency than military commanders in general. Regarding force posture, within-group differences were only found in the post-conflict phase, when police commanders returned to pre-war levels, while military commanders showed less offensive postures than in peacetime. No significant between-group differences were found in decision-making performance. The analysis demonstrated new empirical findings about how crisis management is impacted by change and the backgrounds of those in charge. The findings have implications for designing interagency frameworks that improve police-military interoperability in collaborative efforts.

Affective Influences on the Intensity of Mental Effort: 25 Years of Programmatic Research

This article highlights the systematic impact of experienced and implicit affect on the intensity of mental effort. The key argument is that both consciously experienced affect and implicitly activated affect knowledge can influence responses in the cardiovascular system reflecting effort intensity by informing individuals about task demand-the key variable determining resource mobilization. According to the motivational intensity theory, effort rises with experienced demand as long as success is possible and the necessary effort is justified. Twenty-five years of programmatic research have provided clear evidence that both consciously experienced affect and implicitly activated affect knowledge systematically influence the intensity of effort. Importantly, affect's impact on effort is moderated by task context variables, like objective task difficulty, incentive, and other general boundary conditions.

Reference-Point Theory: An Account of Individual Differences in Risk Preferences

We propose an account of individual differences in risk preferences called "reference-point theory" for choices between sure things and gambles. Like most descriptive theories of risky choice, preferences depend on two drivers-hedonic sensitivities to change and beliefs about risk. But unlike most theories, these drivers are estimated from judged feelings about choice options and gamble outcomes. Furthermore, the reference point is assumed to be the less risky option (i.e., sure thing). Loss aversion (greater impact of negative change than positive change) and pessimism (belief the worst outcome is likelier) predict risk aversion. Gain seeking (greater impact of positive change than negative change and optimism (belief the best outcome is likelier) predict risk seeking. But other combinations of hedonic sensitivities and beliefs are possible, and they also predict risk preferences. Finally, feelings about the reference point predict hedonic sensitivities. When decision makers feel good about the reference point, they are frequently loss averse. When they feel bad about it, they are often gain seeking. Three studies show that feelings about reference points, feelings about options and feelings about outcomes predict risky choice and help explain why individuals differ in their risk preferences.

Voter emotional responses and voting behaviour in the 2020 US presidential election

Political polarisation in the United States offers opportunities to explore how beliefs about candidates - that they could save or destroy American society - impact people's thoughts, feelings, and behaviour. Participants forecast their future emotional responses to the contentious 2020 U.S. presidential election, and reported their actual responses after the election outcome. Stronger beliefs about candidates were associated with forecasts of greater emotion in response to the election, but the strength of this relationship differed based on candidate preference. Trump supporters' forecast happiness more strongly related to beliefs that their candidate would save society than for Biden supporters. Biden supporters' forecast anger and fear were more strongly related to beliefs that Trump would destroy society than vice versa. These forecasts mattered: predictions of lower happiness and greater anger if the non-preferred candidate won predicted voting, with Biden supporters voting more than Trump supporters. Generally, participants forecast more emotion than they experienced, but beliefs altered this tendency. Stronger beliefs predicted experiencing more happiness or more anger and fear about the election outcome than had been forecast. These findings have implications for understanding the mechanisms through which political polarisation and rhetoric can influence voting behaviour.

Prolonged exertion of self-control causes increased sleep-like frontal brain activity and changes in aggressivity and punishment

Impulsive reactions in social interactions may result in poor or even detrimental outcomes. Particular cognitive states, such as mental fatigue induced by extended practice with cognitively demanding activities, especially if combined with sleep restriction or deprivation, seem to impair the individuals' ability to exert self-control effectively and may result in impulsive behaviors, including aggressive acts. We demonstrate that exertion of self-control for as little as 45 min can lead to an increased propensity for engaging in aggressive acts in the context of socially relevant choices, as measured by a set of economic games. Also, we show that such behavioral changes are associated with increased sleep-like (delta) activity within frontal brain areas related to decision-making and impulse control. The local occurrence of sleep-like slow waves may lead to a disengagement of frontal areas and explain the reduced ability of individuals to exert self-control effectively. Our results suggest that sleep-like activity may emerge within the awake brain within a relatively short time scale, with detectable effects on socially relevant behavior.

A multinational analysis of how emotions relate to economic decisions regarding time or risk

Emotions have been theorized to be important drivers of economic choices, such as intertemporal or risky decisions. Our systematic review and meta-analysis of the previous literature (378 results and 50,972 participants) indicates that the empirical basis for these claims is mixed and the cross-cultural generalizability of these claims has yet to be systematically tested. We analysed a dataset with representative samples from 74 countries (n = 77,242), providing a multinational test of theoretical claims that individuals' ongoing emotional states predict their economic preferences regarding time or risk. Overall, more positive self-reported emotions generally predicted a willingness to wait for delayed rewards or to take favourable risks, in line with some existing theories. Contrary to the assumption of a universal relationship between emotions and decision-making, we show that these relationships vary substantially and systematically across countries. Emotions were stronger predictors of economic decisions in more economically developed and individualistic countries.

The Role of Disgust Certainty in Intuitive Thought Processing: Electrophysiological Evidence

Introduction

The impact of emotions on intuitive and analytical thinking has been widely studied. Most research suggests that negative emotions enhance analytical processing. However, there are studies indicating that the sense of certainty associated with disgust can stimulate intuitive processing. Despite these findings, the neuroelectrophysiological evidence supporting the role of disgust in promoting intuitive processing remains unexplored.

Methods

This study aimed to investigate the neuroelectrophysiological mechanisms by which disgust promotes intuitive processing. A total of 54 participants were recruited and randomly assigned to specific emotion groups. Emotional states were induced by exposing participants to disgust and fear videos designed to evoke specific dimensions of certainty and uncertainty. Event-related potentials (ERP) and the Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT) were utilized as experimental materials to measure participants' responses.

Results

The results demonstrated that disgust facilitated intuitive thinking, as evidenced by the lowest accuracy in behavioral outcomes. ERP findings showed that disgust led to smaller N2 and larger P3b amplitudes under conditions of conflict. These results suggest that disgust reduces individuals' conflict-detection ability, resulting in a stronger sense of certainty in intuitive but incorrect answers.

Conclusion

This study provides neuroelectrophysiological evidence that disgust enhances intuitive thinking. The findings offer a new perspective on the influence of emotions on dual-process thinking, highlighting the role of disgust in shaping intuitive and analytical thought processes.

A Novel Data Analytics Methodology for Discovering Behavioral Risk Profiles: The Case of Diners During a Pandemic

Understanding tourist profiles and behaviors during health pandemics is key to better preparedness for unforeseen future outbreaks, particularly for tourism and hospitality businesses. This study develops and applies a novel data analytics methodology to gain insights into the health risk reduction behavior of restaurant diners/patrons during their dining out experiences in a pandemic. The methodology builds on data relating to four constructs (question categories) and measurements (questions and attributes), with the constructs being worry, health risk prevention behavior, health risk reduction behavior, and demographic characteristics. As a unique contribution, the methodology generates a behavioral typology by identifying risk profiles, which are expressed as one- and two-level decision rules. For example, the results highlighted the significance of restaurants’ adherence to cautionary measures and diners’ perception of seclusion. These and other factors enable a multifaceted analysis, typology, and understanding of diners’ risk profiles, offering valuable guidance for developing managerial strategies and skill development programs to promote safer dining experiences during pandemics. Besides yielding novel types of insights through rules, another practical contribution of the research is the development of a public web-based analytics dashboard for interactive insight discovery and decision support.

Dispositional compassion shifts social preferences in systematic ways

INTRODUCTION

How people attach value to the outcomes of self and other-social preferences-is central to social behavior. Recently, how dispositional and state emotion shape such social preferences has received researchers' attention.

METHOD

The present investigation asked whether and to what extent dispositional and state compassion predict shifts in social preferences across 4 samples: two correlational samples (final ns 153 & 368, study 1a and 1b) and two experimental samples (final ns: 430 & 530, studies 2 and 3).

RESULTS

In keeping with recent accounts of compassion, dispositional compassion predicted general preference for equality, expressed as dispreference for both monetary advantage over another (interaction βs = -0.36, -0.33, -0.25, -0.22; all p < 0.001) and monetary disadvantage relative to others (βs: 0.26, 0.27, 0.28, 0.17; all p < 0.01; positive coefficients imply dispreference). This dispositional effect persisted when controlling for prosociality, positivity, agreeableness, and respectfulness. Furthermore, these dispositional compassion effects were relatively unchanged by experimental emotion inductions in studies 3 and 4. The experimental inductions of state compassion and state pride showed little evidence of systematic effects on social preferences relative to each other or a neutral condition.

DISCUSSION

Discussion focused on individual differences in emotion and social preferences.

Social sanctions in response to injunctive norm violations

Injunctive social norms are societal standards for how people are expected to behave. When individuals transgress these norms, they face social sanctions for their behavior. These sanctions can take many forms ranging from verbal or non-verbal reactions and from disapproval to ostracism. We review the stable characteristics and situational variables that affect a bystander's tendency to enact social sanctions against someone who violates an injunctive social norm. Stable characteristics include the bystander's extraversion, altruism, the belief that others can change their behavior, and their cultural background. Situational factors include the extent to which the violated norm implicates the bystander, the social hierarchies among the bystander and transgressor, the presence of additional bystanders, and (when applicable) the bystander's relationship to the victim of the norm violation. We also discuss the costs that a bystander can incur by attempting to enact social sanctions. We conclude with a discussion of the application of social sanctions to enforce pro-social social norms.

Shyness and risk-taking during peer observation in children and adolescents

Although temperamental shyness is conceptualized as a trait marked by cautiousness, we know relatively little about its relation to risk-taking. We examined how shyness was related to opportunities for risk-taking while considering how social context (i.e., presence of peers) and developmental stage (i.e., children and adolescents) might influence this relation. In the current study, 198 children (Mage = 10.17 years) and 221 adolescents (Mage = 13.46 years) completed the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART) alone or during a peer observation manipulation. For children and adolescents, shyness was related to physiological arousal and self-reporting feeling anxious during the peer condition. However, peer observation did not influence the relation between shyness and behavioral responses during the BART. Across both alone and peer conditions, shyness was related to a longer response time for children and adolescents, which may reflect decisional conflict during risk-taking opportunities. Furthermore, shyness in children (but not in adolescents) was related to poorer performance (i.e., fewer points), whereas shyness was unrelated to risk-taking propensity (i.e., number of pumps) for both children and adolescents. Overall, although the presence of peers may induce anxiety during a risk-taking opportunity for children and adolescents higher in shyness, this does not appear to modify their risk-taking behaviors. Instead, shyer children and adolescents in general may take a longer time to decide whether to act in a risky manner, whereas shy children in particular may show poorer performance in obtaining a reward on a risk-taking task.

Age matters: The effect of regret and loss aversion on cultured meat acceptance

Cultured meat shows great promise as a more sustainable alternative to conventional meat consumption. However, consumer acceptance of cultured meat remains a great challenge as studies indicate a general reluctance to adopt this product. Notably, while existing literature has provided various factors influencing consumer acceptance of cultured meat, there is a limited focus on the use of affective cues. The present research examines the impact of regret appeal on consumers' willingness to try cultured meat. In two experimental studies, the authors investigate (1) the interactive effect between regret and age on willingness to try cultured meat, and (2) the role of loss aversion as a mediating factor between regret and willingness to try cultured meat. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of regret appeal in increasing consumers' willingness to try cultured meat, particularly among older populations. This is because older populations exhibit higher levels of loss aversion. The present study is the first to shed light on the interactive effect of regret and age in influencing sustainable product acceptance. Furthermore, the study establishes the first empirical evidence to demonstrate that loss aversion is a valid self-regulating strategy adopted to cope with the feeling of regret in a consumption context.

Time in hand: Temporal focus in risk discourse and audience emotions on knowledge-sharing platforms

Online knowledge-sharing platforms construct risk knowledge and provide the audience with risk-related scientific facts. We study how speakers organize narratives in past, present, and future foci to influence the audience's emotions through the audience's appraisal of motive congruency and coping potential. Empirical evidence from 210 Technology, Entertainment, Design talks about disasters from 2002 to 2018 demonstrates that emphasizing the past, present, and future in risk narrative leads to the audience's comments with more negative, less positive, and more positive emotions, respectively. Concrete (vs. abstract) portrayal of the risk narrative improves the audience's situational awareness, enhances their risk appraisal, and intensifies the impact of temporal focus on emotions, providing evidence of how temporal focus impacts. These findings demonstrate that temporal focus can effectively reduce risk overreaction or ignorance and facilitate emotion regulation in risk communication.

Impact of NGOs' undercover videos on citizens' emotions and pro-social behaviors

Undercover videos have become a popular tool among NGOs to influence public opinion and generate engagement for the NGO's cause. These videos are seen as a powerful and cost-effective way of bringing about social change, as they provide first-hand evidence and generate a strong emotional response among those who see them. In this paper, we empirically assess the impact of undercover videos on support for the cause. We in addition analyze whether the increased engagement among viewers is driven by the negative emotional reactions produced by the video. To do so, we design an online experiment that enables us to estimate both the total and emotion-mediated treatment effects on engagement by randomly exposing participants to an undercover video (of animal abuse) and randomly introducing a cooling-off period. Using a representative sample of the French population (N=3,310), we find that the video successfully increases actions in favor of animals (i.e., donations to NGOs and petitions), but we fail to prove that this effect is due to the presence of primary emotions induced by the video. Last, we investigate whether activists correctly anticipate their undercover videos' (emotional) impact via a prediction study involving activists (exploratory analysis). PROTOCOL REGISTRATION: This manuscript is a Stage-2 working paper of a Registered Report that received In-Principle-Acceptance from Scientific Reports on November 20th, 2023 [ Link to Stage-1 ]. The Stage-1 that received In-Principal-Acceptance can be found here: https://osf.io/8cg2d .

The impact of anger on intertemporal decision-making in individuals with internet addiction: an fNIRS study

Intertemporal decision-making is the choice between an immediate smaller reward (SS) and a delayed larger reward (LL). Intertemporal decision-making depends on the interaction of the cognitive and emotional systems, and the latter is particularly vital. According to the Appraisal Tendency Frame (ATF) theory, anger influences intertemporal decision-making by increasing an individual's sense of certainty and control. This study examined whether anger affects intertemporal decision-making in individuals with internet addiction (IA) in this manner and investigated its neural mechanisms. Nineteen individuals with IA and 20 healthy controls were recruited. All subjects performed the Monetary choice task under anger and neutral emotions while functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) equipment simultaneously recorded the hemodynamics in the prefrontal cortex (PFC). Individuals with IA showed a more considerable delay discount and lower brain activations in the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (L-dlPFC) compared to HC. Moreover, individuals with IA made more LL choices in the angry condition than in the neutral emotion, yet there was no difference in HC. The brain activation in L-dlPFC of individuals with IA tends to increase in the angry condition compared to the neutral condition. These findings revealed that impairment of intertemporal decision-making in individuals with individuals with IA might be related to the dysfunction of OFC and L-dlPFC. Our work also provided initial footing for the applicability of the appraisal tendency frame theory to individuals with IA, and L-dlPFC might play a role in the effects of anger on intertemporal decision-making.

Links between Vaccination Fear-, Anxiety-, Alexithymia-, and Type D Personality-Related Vaccination Decisions: A Network Analysis in a Multicultural Sample

This study examines the links between vaccination status, fear of vaccination (cognitive and somatic symptoms), anxiety, alexithymia, and type D personality (negative affect and social inhibition), to propose policies to increase vaccination rates. A sample of university students (n = 2535; mean age = 20.59, SD = 2.04; male: 26.75%, female: 73.25%) from Spain, Italy, Lebanon, Nigeria, Turkey, and Ukraine completed the Vaccination Fear Scale (VFS-6), the Generalised Anxiety Disorder scale (GAD-7), the Perth Alexithymia Questionnaire-Short Form (PAQ-S), the Type D Scale (DS14), and also a question on vaccination status. Correlation, regression, and network analyses were applied. Cognitive symptoms of fear of vaccination and negative affect were the most significant in the correlation and regression analyses. In the network analysis, negative affect showed the highest values in all centrality indices and positive relationships with other nodes. Vaccination status showed negative relationships with fear of vaccination, alexithymia, and social inhibition. The network structure is similar between the sexes but varies between cultures and sexes within cultures. The relationship between vaccination status and cognitive symptoms of fear of vaccination was the most consistent, allowing for interventions at this level to be advised across cultures. For more specific interventions, cultural context must be considered for optimal results.

The role of positive emotion in harmful health behavior: Implications for theory and public health campaigns

Meta-analyses have concluded that positive emotions do not reduce appetitive risk behaviors (risky behaviors that fulfill appetitive or craving states, such as smoking and excessive alcohol use). We propose that this conclusion is premature. Drawing on the Appraisal Tendency Framework and related theories of emotion and decision-making, we hypothesized that gratitude (a positive emotion) can decrease cigarette smoking, a leading cause of premature death globally. A series of multimethod studies provided evidence supporting our hypothesis (collective N = 34,222). Using nationally representative US samples and an international sample drawn from 87 countries, Studies 1 and 2 revealed that gratitude was inversely associated with likelihood of smoking, even after accounting for numerous covariates. Other positive emotions (e.g., compassion) lacked such consistent associations, as expected. Study 3, and its replication, provided further support for emotion specificity: Experimental induction of gratitude, unlike compassion or sadness, reduced cigarette craving compared to a neutral state. Study 4, and its replication, showed that inducing gratitude causally increased smoking cessation behavior, as evidenced by enrollment in a web-based cessation intervention. Self-reported gratitude mediated the effects in both experimental studies. Finally, Study 5 found that current antismoking messaging campaigns by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention primarily evoked sadness and compassion, but seldom gratitude. Together, our studies advance understanding of positive emotion effects on appetitive risk behaviors; they also offer practical implications for the design of public health campaigns.

Kindness or Intelligence? Angry Men are Perceived as Less Intelligent by Their Female Romantic Partners

We were interested in how people in a romantic relationship would perceive the intelligence of their partners who have high or low trait anger. Specifically, we referred to the tension between compassion (low anger) and competence (high intelligence) in mate choice. Some evolutionary theories suggest that mating might be considered a bargaining process between these two higher-order attributes. Our study involved 148 heterosexual couples in romantic relationships. We measured the relationship between relationship satisfaction, trait anger, objective intelligence, self-assessed intelligence, and subjectively assessed partners' intelligence. We found that angrier men were less satisfied in their romantic relationship than those men who were less angry, and their partners were also less satisfied in the relationship. Additionally, women perceived angrier men as less intelligent, an effect that remained after controlling for men's objective intelligence. Lastly, we found that women's perception of their partner's intelligence mediated the link between men's anger and relationship satisfaction for both sexes. Our findings suggest that both anger and intelligence play important roles in romantic relationship functioning, consistent with evolutionary theories that emphasize the value of competence (i.e., intelligence) and compassion (i.e., low anger) in romantic partners. Furthermore, our study highlights the importance of women's perception of their partner's intelligence in determining the quality of the relationship.

Examining Links Between Distinct Affective States and Tobacco Lapse During a Cessation Attempt Among African Americans: A Cohort Study

BACKGROUND

Affect states are posited to play a pivotal role in addiction-related processes, including tobacco lapse (i.e., smoking during a quit attempt), and distinct affective states (e.g., joy vs. happiness) may differentially influence lapse likelihood. However, few studies have examined the influence of distinct affective states on tobacco lapse.

PURPOSE

This study examines the influence of 23 distinct affect states on tobacco lapse among a sample of tobacco users attempting to quit.

METHODS

Participants were 220 adults who identified as African American (50% female, ages 18-74). Ecological momentary assessment was used to assess affect and lapse in real-time. Between and within-person associations testing links between distinct affect states and lapse were examined with multilevel modeling for binary outcomes.

RESULTS

After adjusting for previous time's lapse and for all other positive or negative affect items, results suggested that at the between-person level, joy was associated with lower odds of lapse, and at the within-person level, attentiveness was associated with lower odds of lapse. Results also suggested that at the between-person level, guilt and nervous were associated with higher odds of lapse, and at the within-person level, shame was associated with higher odds of lapse.

CONCLUSIONS

The present study uses real-time, real-world data to demonstrate the role of distinct positive and negative affects on momentary tobacco lapse. This work helps elucidate specific affective experiences that facilitate or hinder the ability to abstain from tobacco use during a quit attempt.

Trends of fear and anger on YouTube during the initial stage of the COVID-19 outbreak in South Korea

BACKGROUND

The COVID-19 pandemic has been the most widespread and threatening health crisis experienced by the Korean society. Faced with an unprecedented threat to survival, society has been gripped by social fear and anger, questioning the culpability of this pandemic. This study explored the correlation between social cognitions and negative emotions and their changes in response to the severe events stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic in South Korea.

METHODS

The analysis was based on a cognitive-emotional model that links fear and anger to the social causes that trigger them and used discursive content from comments posted on YouTube's COVID-19-related videos. A total of 182,915 comments from 1,200 videos were collected between January and December 2020. We performed data analyses and visualizations using R, Netminer 4.0, and Gephi software and calculated Pearson's correlation coefficients between emotions.

RESULTS

YouTube videos were analyzed for keywords indicating cognitive assessments of major events related to COVID-19 and keywords indicating negative emotions. Eight topics were identified through topic modeling: causes and risks, perceptions of China, media and information, infection prevention rules, economic activity, school and infection, political leaders, and religion, politics, and infection. The correlation coefficient between fear and anger was 0.462 (p < .001), indicating a moderate linear relationship between the two emotions. Fear was the highest from January to March in the first year of the COVID-19 outbreak, while anger occurred before and after the outbreak, with fluctuations in both emotions during this period.

CONCLUSIONS

This study confirmed that social cognitions and negative emotions are intertwined in response to major events related to the COVID-19 pandemic, with each emotion varying individually rather than being ambiguously mixed. These findings could aid in developing social cognition-emotion-based public health strategies through education and communication during future pandemic outbreaks.

Before Omicron's Arrival: Effects of Negative Emotions and Comparative Optimism on COVID-19 Protection and Detection Behaviors

This study examined the associations of emotions, cognitions, and behavioral intentions in response to exposure to news stories reporting on the arrival of Omicron variant in Vietnam. Outcomes included fear, anxiety, anger, comparative optimism, intentions to conduct prevention behavior (wash hands with soap), detection behavior (test for Omicron infection), and share health information. Two experiments were conducted with participants being randomized to either low-risk or high-risk condition that contained information promoting hand-washing with soap (Experiment 1, N = 303), or information promoting COVID-19 testing (Experiment 2, N = 303). Results indicated that viewing high-risk news stories led to higher fear, anxiety, and anger than low-risk news stories. Fear fully mediated the effect of news exposure on intentions to test for Omicron infection and share health information. Comparative optimism moderated the indirect effect of news exposure on intentions to wash hands with soap and share information about COVID-19 testing. Theoretical and practical implications were discussed.

For Better and For Worse: Frequent Gamblers Use Dual Counterfactuals to Justify Continued Gambling

How might frequent gamblers convince themselves to keep playing despite persistent losses or after a win that should be savored? The purpose of this research is to examine the unexplored question of how frequent gamblers' use counterfactual thinking to motivate their desire to continue gambling. Using a sample of n = 69 high and n = 69 low frequency gamblers in a field setting, we found that infrequent gamblers tended to consider how the perceived outcome of losing "could have been better" (i.e., upward counterfactual thinking), and how a winning outcome "could have been worse" (i.e., downward counterfactual thinking). This pattern of counterfactual thinking is considered typical in many settings and may, in a gambling context, support a potentially more responsible approach by helping infrequent gamblers to learn from past mistakes to avoid significant future losses and to savor wins to protect returns gained. Alternatively, we found that frequent gamblers were more likely to generate 'dual counterfactuals' which include both upward and downward counterfactuals in response to losses and wins. We argue that this dual pattern of counterfactual thinking may allow frequent gamblers to more easily justify their desire to continue gambling. Findings suggest that challenging gamblers counterfactual thinking patterns could assist clinicians in moderating the potential for high-risk behaviors.

Personality processes of everyday moral courage

INTRODUCTION

Moral courage manifests in acts intended to intervene to stop or redress witnessed moral norm violations, despite the risk of negative consequences for the intervener. We investigate moral courage in everyday life and ask what personality processes are involved. Based on an extended process model of moral courage, we derived hypotheses on cognitive and emotional processes that should facilitate or hinder intervention. Further, we identified candidate personality dispositions that should shape these processes and thereby predict who tends to intervene against others' norm violations and who does not.

METHODS

Using a quota-based sample of the German population (N = 1108), we conducted a personality assessment, followed by a 7-day experience sampling during which participants reported norm violations witnessed in their daily life as well as their cognitive, emotional, and behavioral reactions.

RESULTS

In total, 678 participants reported 1965 norm violations and intervened against 32% of them. Dispositional self-efficacy facilitated intervention by increasing a sense of efficacy when confronted with others' norm violations. Conversely, dispositional moral disengagement hindered intervention by reducing perceived own responsibility.

DISCUSSION

Our findings provide novel insights into the situations affording moral courage in everyday life, and the personality processes that uniquely guide this behavior.

Older adults select different but not simpler strategies than younger adults in risky choice

Younger and older adults often differ in their risky choices. Theoretical frameworks on human aging point to various cognitive and motivational factors that might underlie these differences. Using a novel computational model based on the framework of resource rationality, we find that the two age groups rely on different strategies. Importantly, older adults did not use simpler strategies than younger adults, they did not select among fewer strategies, they did not make more errors, and they did not put more weight on cognitive costs. Instead, older adults selected strategies that had different risk propensities than those selected by younger adults. Our modeling approach suggests that age differences in risky choice are not necessarily a consequence of cognitive decline; instead, they may reflect motivational differences between age groups.

Motives matter: The psychological experience of ostracizing among sources

Individuals ostracize others for myriad reasons, yet the influence of those reasons on the psychological experience of ostracizing is yet unknown. Two studies aimed to determine the emotional and behavioral sequelae of ostracizing for different motives, directly comparing punitive to defensive motives. We focused our examination on a suite of emotions expected to arise as a function of (1) the situations that give rise to ostracizing for punitive and defensive reasons (anger, fear, anxiety, and sadness) and (2) the act of ostracizing itself (i.e., pride and guilt). The research employed a novel paradigm to induce the experience of ostracizing for defensive or punitive motives. Study 1 (N = 372) investigated sources' experienced emotion as a function of motive. Study 2 (N = 743) expanded consideration to behavioral intentions, including intentions to continue ostracizing and to recruit others to join in ostracizing the target. Across both studies and supported by an internal meta-analysis, ostracizing for defensive reasons was associated with higher levels of guilt, fear, and anxiety, and lower levels of anger, compared to ostracizing for punitive reasons. Neither sadness nor positive emotion (pride or happiness) differed significantly according to motive in either study. Moreover, guilt and anger mediated the impact of motive on intentions to continue ostracizing and recruit others to join them in ostracizing. To the extent that punitive sources experienced anger relative to defensive sources, they expressed greater intentions to continue ostracizing the target and to recruit others to join in ostracizing the target. To the extent that defensive sources experienced guilt relative to punitive sources, they reported reduced intentions to continue ostracizing the target. Findings add to a growing literature on ostracism sources, and highlight the mediating role of sources' emotion in guiding future actions.

Betting on Your Feelings: The Interplay between Emotion and Cognition in Gambling Affective Task

Background: Gambling Disorder (GD) is a bio-psycho-social disorder resulting from the interaction of clinical, cognitive, and affective factors. Impulsivity is a crucial factor in addiction studies, as it is closely linked to cognitive distortions in GD by encompassing impulsive choices, motor responses, decision-making, and cognitive biases. Also, emotions, mood, temperament, and affective state are crucial in developing and maintaining GD. Gambling can be used as a maladaptive coping strategy to avoid or escape problems and distress. Methods: The aim of the present study is to explore differences in personality traits and emotion regulation of people suffering from GD, substance-dependent gamblers (SDGs), and healthy controls (HCs). Additionally, the study proposes a new experimental task: the "Gambling Affective Task" (GAT) to investigate the influence of affective priming on risk-taking behaviors. Results: Our findings indicate that participants placed lower bets following positive priming. Additionally, SDGs wagered significantly higher amounts than HCs, regardless of priming type. In general, participants exhibited longer response times after positive priming trials, compared to negative and neutral priming trials. These findings suggest that experiencing positive emotions can act as a protective factor by delaying and lengthening gambling behaviors. By comparing gamblers with and without substance comorbidity, we can gain insight into the exclusive factors of GD and improve our understanding of this disorder. Conclusions: By elucidating the impact of emotional states on risk-taking, the research also provides new insights into the prevention and treatment of GD.

Foraging in a non-foraging task: Fitness maximization explains human risk preference dynamics under changing environment

Changes in risk preference have been reported when making a series of independent risky choices or non-foraging economic decisions. Behavioral economics has put forward various explanations for specific changes in risk preference in non-foraging tasks, but a consensus regarding the general principle underlying these effects has not been reached. In contrast, recent studies have investigated human economic risky choices using tasks adapted from foraging theory, which require consideration of past choices and future opportunities to make optimal decisions. In these foraging tasks, human economic risky choices are explained by the ethological principle of fitness maximization, which naturally leads to dynamic risk preference. Here, we conducted two online experiments to investigate whether the principle of fitness maximization can explain risk preference dynamics in a non-foraging task. Participants were asked to make a series of independent risky economic decisions while the environmental richness changed. We found that participants' risk preferences were influenced by the current and past environments, making them more risk-averse during and after the rich environment compared to the poor environment. These changes in risk preference align with fitness maximization. Our findings suggest that the ethological principle of fitness maximization might serve as a generalizable principle for explaining dynamic preferences, including risk preference, in human economic decision-making.

Nurses' Anxiety Mediates the Relationship between Clinical Tolerance to Uncertainty and Antibiotic Initiation Decisions in Residential Aged-Care Facilities

HIGHLIGHTS

The impact of non-clinical factors (e.g., resident and family preferences) on prescribing is well-established. There is a gap in the literature regarding the mechanisms through which these preferences are experienced as pressure by prescribers within the unique context of residential aged-care facilities (RACFs).A significant relationship was found between nurses' anxiety, clinical tolerance of uncertainty, and the perceived need for antibiotics and assessment.As such, there is a need to expand stewardship beyond education alone to include interventions that help nurses manage uncertainty and anxiety and include other stakeholders (e.g., family members) when making clinical decisions in the RACF setting.

Does sadness bring myopia: an intertemporal choice experiment with college students

Introduction

While economics often interprets individual intertemporal choice preferences through the rationality assumption of utility maximization, the reality is that as emotional beings, individuals' preferences for intertemporal behavior are much more diverse and inconsistent. Prior research has predominantly focused on positive or negative emotions based on prospect theory, such as anxiety, anger, disgust, and depression. However, there has been relatively little research on how sadness affects individuals' preferences for immediate and future rewards.

Methods

In this study, 170 college students are recruited as participants, and their emotions are primed with a video before engaging in an intertemporal task. Covariance analysis and logit regression model are established to examine the main and interactive effects of sadness on individuals' immediate reward preferences.

Results

The findings reveal that sadness led individuals to prefer smaller immediate rewards, demonstrating a more myopic behavioral pattern, but didn't affect time discount rate. As the reward baseline increases, sadness's impact on immediate reward preferences is more pronounced, exacerbating individuals' myopic behavior.

Discussion

In conclusion, these findings underscore the importance of considering emotional states in economic decision-making models and suggest avenues for future research to explore the complex dynamics of emotions and intertemporal choices.

Gender differences in the effects of emotion induction on intertemporal decision-making

'Good things come to those who wait' is a popular saying, which goes along with numerous daily life decisions requiring trade-offs between immediate-small and later-larger rewards; however, some individuals have a tendency to prefer sooner rewards while discounting the value of delayed rewards, known as delay discounting. The extant literature indicates that emotions and gender can modulate intertemporal choices, but their interplay remains hitherto poorly investigated. Here, 308 participants were randomized to different conditions, inducing distinct emotions-fear, joy, a neutral state-through standardized movie clips, and then completed a computerized delay discounting task for hypothetical money rewards. Following the induction of fear, women discount the future steeper than men, thus preferring immediate-smaller rewards rather than larger-delayed ones. Also, women were more prone to choose immediate rewards when in a fearful condition than when in a positive state of joy/happiness. By contrast, men were unaffected by their emotional state when deciding on monetary rewards. Our findings provide evidence that fear can trigger different intertemporal choices according to gender, possibly reflecting the adoption of different evolutionary strategies.

The Effect of Emotion on Time Perception in Youth Athletes with Different Alerting Efficiencies

Purpose

Time perception plays a critical role in executing movements in various competitions. However, less research has been conducted on the alerting component of attention in the processing of time perception, and that the effects of emotion on the alerting network show inconsistent effects. This study is aimed to explore the factors that may influence time perception in youth athletes and these relationships.

Methods

A total of 225 participants were recruited to assess alerting efficiency using the Attention Network Test and were divided into high and low alerting efficiency groups based on the front and back 27% of the ranked alerting scores as a dividing metric, and subsequently participants completed Time replication task under different emotionally induced conditions.

Results

Alerting efficiency had a significant effect on time perception, with the high alerting efficiency subjects having higher time estimation accuracy [F (1106) = 6.32, p = 0.013, η2p = 0.10] and being more inclined to overestimate time perception [F (1106) = 12.64, p = 0.001, η2 p = 0.11]. An interaction was found between emotion and alerting efficiency on time replication ratio [F (2106) = 3.59, p = 0.031, η2p = 0.08], and further simple effects analyses found that the low alerting efficiency subjects tended to overestimate time in the anger state relative to the happy and neutral states [F (2106) = 5.93, p < 0.01, η2p = 0.10].

Conclusion

These findings suggest that high alerting efficiency in youth athletes is associated with greater time perception response advantage; The time perception of low alerting efficiency youth athletes was more likely to be affected by emotions. This study provides a reference for the training of time perception and specialized perceptual ability of youth athletes, enriches the index system of psychological selection of youth athletes.

Is the expression of different discrete emotions related to time? Evidence from online Chinese reviews using sentiment analysis and human behavior dynamics

Objectives

The online behavior of online users has taken on complex and diverse characteristics, and posting product reviews on e-commerce platforms is no exception. In fact, reviews contain rich and multi-dimensional discrete emotional information, and whether there is a relationship between the expression of these different discrete emotions and the time interval between product purchase and review posting as well as their related characteristics are the issues that this study needs to analyze and solve in depth.

Methods

Based on the OCC model (named after three proposers) of psychological emotional cognitive evaluation theory as the basis for emotion classification, the study used the massive amounts of Chinese reviews of mobile phones on the Chinese e-commerce platform Jingdong Mall as the research object, applied supervised machine learning methods to classify discrete emotions, and constructed a large corpus containing satisfaction, disappointment, admiration, reproach, love, and hate; then the study delved into the distribution and behavioral dynamics characteristics of consumers' comments containing the different discrete emotions at different "purchase-comment" time intervals.

Results

The results showed that the first peak of the distribution curves of the six discrete emotions at different "purchase-comment" time intervals occurs on the first day after purchase and then decreases gradually but at different rates. The three curves for satisfaction, love, and hate emotions also show a second peak on the eleventh day, which is more similar to the bimodal distribution, implying that the corresponding product reviews are more objective. In addition, the distribution of reviews containing the six discrete emotions at different "purchase-comment" time intervals follows a power-law distribution and has the temporal characteristics of human behavioral dynamics, that is, "strong paroxysms and weak memory". However, the reviews containing the admiration and reproach emotions were most intensively written by consumers after the purchase, indicating that the service provided by the seller, logistics, and e-commerce platform stimulates more consumers to give quick responses and detailed reviews.

Conclusion

This study is not only of great significance for exploring the internal mechanisms of consumer discrete emotional expression but also provides important decision-making references for potential consumer purchasing decisions, product updates for developers, marketing strategy formulation for marketing teams, and service improvement for sellers, logistics companies, and e-commerce platforms.

Emotions on Twitter as crisis imprint in high-trust societies: Do ambient affiliations affect emotional expression during the pandemic?

During the Covid-19 crisis, citizens turned to Twitter for information seeking, emotional outlet and sense-making of the crisis, creating ad hoc social communities using crisis-specific hashtags. The theory of ambient affiliation posits that the use of hashtags upscales the call to affiliate with the values expressed in the tweet. Given the deep functional tie between values and emotions, hashtag use might further amplify certain emotions. While emotions in crises-hashtagged communities have been previously investigated, the hypothesis of amplification of emotions through hashtag use has not yet been tested. We investigate such effect during the Covid-19 crisis in a scenario of high-trust Nordic societies, focusing on non-hashtagged, crisis hashtagged (e.g., '#Covid-19') and threat hashtagged (e.g., '#misinformation') tweets. To do so we apply XLM-RoBERTa to estimate Anger, Fear, Sadness, Disgust, Joy and Optimism. Our results revealed that crisis-hashtagged (#Covid-19) tweets expressed more negative emotions (Anger, Fear, Disgust and Sadness) and less positive emotions (Optimism and Joy) than non-hashtagged Covid-19 tweets for all countries except Finland. Threat tweets (#misinformation) expressed even more negative emotions (Anger, Fear, Disgust) and less positive emotions (Optimism and Joy) than #Covid-19 tweets, with a particularly large effect for Anger. Our findings provide useful context for previous research on collective emotions during crises, as most Twitter content is not hashtagged, and given the faster spread of emotionally charged content, further support the special focus on specific ad hoc communities for crisis and threat management and monitoring.

The Human Affectome

Over the last decades, theoretical perspectives in the interdisciplinary field of the affective sciences have proliferated rather than converged due to differing assumptions about what human affective phenomena are and how they work. These metaphysical and mechanistic assumptions, shaped by academic context and values, have dictated affective constructs and operationalizations. However, an assumption about the purpose of affective phenomena can guide us to a common set of metaphysical and mechanistic assumptions. In this capstone paper, we home in on a nested teleological principle for human affective phenomena in order to synthesize metaphysical and mechanistic assumptions. Under this framework, human affective phenomena can collectively be considered algorithms that either adjust based on the human comfort zone (affective concerns) or monitor those adaptive processes (affective features). This teleologically-grounded framework offers a principled agenda and launchpad for both organizing existing perspectives and generating new ones. Ultimately, we hope the Human Affectome brings us a step closer to not only an integrated understanding of human affective phenomena, but an integrated field for affective research.

Uncertainty in a globalizing world. Livelihood and fertility variance increases in response to rapid change

OBJECTIVES

The extreme condition that we address in this special issue is how people adapt to rapid change, which in this case study is instigated by globalization and the process of market integration. Although market integration has been underway for centuries in some parts of the world, it often occurs precipitously in small-scale societies, initiating an abrupt break with traditional ways of life and fostering a keen sense of uncertainty.

METHODS

Using cross sections from 30-years of data collected in a Yucatec Maya subsistence farming community, we test the expectation that when payoffs to pursue new livelihood and reproductive options are uncertain, variance in social, economic, and reproductive traits will increase in the population. Our data span the transition from subsistence farming to a mixed economy, and bridge the transition from natural to contracepting fertility. Exposure to globalizing and market forces occurred when a paved road was built in the early 2000s.

RESULTS

We find that livelihood traits (a household's primary economic strategy, amount of land under cultivation, amount of maize and honey sold), become more variable as new, but uncertain options become available. Variance in levels of education and family size likewise immediately increase following the road, but show signs of settling back down a decade later. Rather than replacing one way of life with another, Maya farmers conservatively adopt some new elements (family planning, wage labor), until the tradeoffs to commit to smaller families and the labor market become clearer.

CONCLUSION

Our findings highlight that in rapidly changing environments when the payoffs to assimilate new options are uncertain, some households and individuals intensify what they know best, while others adopt new opportunities, driving variance up in the population.

Evacuate or social distance? Modeling the influence of threat perceptions on hurricane evacuation in a dual-threat environment

This study investigates how different risk predictors influenced households' evacuation decisions during a dual-threat event (Hurricane Laura and COVID-19 pandemic). The Protective Action Decision Model (PADM) literature indicates that perceived threat variables are the most influential variables that drive evacuation decisions. This study applies the PADM to investigate a dual-threat disaster that has conflicting protective action recommendations. Given the novelty, scale, span, impact, and messaging around COVID-19, it is crucial to see how hurricanes along the Gulf Coast-a hazard addressed seasonally by residents with mostly consistent protective action messaging-produce different reactions in residents in this pandemic context. Household survey data were collected during early 2021 using a disproportionate stratified sampling procedure to include households located in mandatory and voluntary evacuation areas across the coastal counties in Texas and parishes in Louisiana that were affected by Hurricane Laura. Structural equation modeling was used to identify the relationships between perceived threats and evacuation decisions. The findings suggest affective risk perceptions strongly affected cognitive risk perceptions (CRPs). Notably, hurricane and COVID-19 CRPs are significant predictors of hurricane evacuation decisions in different ways. Hurricane CRPs encourage evacuation, but COVID-19 CRPs hinder evacuation decisions.

Effects of a fearful emotional state on financial decisions in the presence of prior outcome information

Negative emotions have been shown to influence financial risk-taking. However, how receiving salient information about prior outcomes interacts with a decision-maker's emotional state is not well known. In a laboratory experiment, we induced a fearful emotional state to investigate its effects on financial investment when outcome probabilities are unknown but decision-makers observe prior outcomes. The effects of fear on investment depended on whether the sequence of previous outcomes was favorable or unfavorable and contained weak or strong information. Our findings suggest that fear affected investment, at least in part, through changes in expectations of success.

Use of default option nudge and individual differences in everyday life decisions

People often make inefficient decisions for themselves and the community (e.g. they underuse medical screenings or vaccines and they do not vote) also because of their individual characteristics, such as their level of avoidance or anxiety. In recent years, governments have successfully applied strategies, called "nudges", to help people maximizing their decisions in several fields; however, the role of individual characteristics has been poorly explored. The present study investigated whether one kind of nudge, the default option (automatic enrolment in a specific plan), can modulate the influence of such individual differences, promoting favourable decisions in different field, such as the medical and civic ones. One hundred and eighty-three participants completed the Trait Anxiety Inventory, the General Decision-Making Styles Inventory and scenarios about health and civic decisions. Participants have hypothetically been enrolled by default or not enrolled in specific plans and had to decide whether adhere or not to the plan proposed. Result showed that the default option drives anxious and avoidant individuals, who usually refuse to make a choice due to their overestimation of negative events' occurrence, to undergo medical screenings and vaccine and to vote more. Nudge confirmed its effectiveness in favouring better decisions among people according to their individual differences.