Abstracts

Taking Rom Harré's social constructionism as a focus we point to and discuss the issue of the a priori psychological subject in social constructionist theory. While Harré indicates that interacting, intending beings are necessary for conversation to occur, he assumes that the primary human reality is conversation and that psychological life emerges from this social domain. Nevertheless, we argue that a fundamental and agentive psychological subject is implicit to his constructionist works. Our critical analyses focus upon Harré's understandings of persons, human development and human agency. Our intention is neither to suggest that this latent entity must be understood in a Cartesian sense nor is it to ask for an explicit accounting of an autonomous agent. Rather, our claim is simply that psychological subjectivity is reflexively entailed in Harré's human psychology. We suggest that this pertains more generally to social constructionist theory. This paper attempts to demonstrate, at least for the passions, that while emotions are important elements of common sense psychological thought, they are not psychological, neural, or mental entities. People talk of emotions, we claim, in two sorts of cases: Firstly, when it is believed that someone has done something that she shouldn't because she has been overwhelmed by desire (a motive) and secondly, when someone is found to be compelled to devote cognitive resources to an act she knows she will never carry out. In this case motivational states command attention and cognitive and physiological resources, distract us, even though they will not issue in action. In either case pointing to an emotion is pointing to a partial, aborted, or misdirected desire. We discuss why emotions are considered important in common sense and professional psychology though they do not exist. This paper explores new avenues of research on social bases of cognition and a more adequate (than those extant) framework to conceive the phenomena of the human mind. It firstly examines Bartlett's work on social bases of cognition, from which three pertinent features are identified, namely multi-level analyses, evolutionary perspective and embodied mind approach. It then examines recent works on social origins of cognition in ethology and paleoanthropology, and various forms of the embodied mind approach recently proposed in neuroscience and cognitive science. The paper concludes that extending the embodied mind approach would provide the most potent framework to enable, amongst others, the conceptual integration of the biological, psychological and social bases of the human mind, which have in the past been treated mainly as competing alternatives. A conception of parental experience is proposed to enhance the move of the study of parenting into the interpersonal realm by describing parental subjectivity from the parent's point of view. Explanations are based on that which the parent can be accountable for, on parental dialogues with observers/clinicians about their dialogues with their infants. This conception of parental subjectivity is compared with other conceptions which define parental subjectivity as the mental apparatus of the parent and not as representing the evolving relation of the parent with the infant, and with explanations which consider parental reports in terms of the parent's psychodynamics and cognitive abilities rather than in terms of the on-going dialogues between themselves and their infants. The paper introduces a typology of parental dialogues with observers/clinicians about their dialogues with their infants, within the context of the non-verbal nature of the infant's communication. The findings from empirical examinations of this typology are presented, and their implications for the proposal that the study of parental relations with their infants should consider the parent's accountability are discussed.     

Children's Use and Knowledge of Display Rules for Anger Following Hypothetical Vignettes versus Following Live Peer Interaction

Our primary goal was to examine the correspondence between children's self-reported use and knowledge of display rules for anger following hypothetical vignettes versus following live peer interactions. Our secondary goal was to investigate whether children's self-reported experience and self-reported expression of anger were related their observed anger expression, considered an observational measure of use of display rules for anger. Participants were 274 second-grade children. Children were first interviewed about their use and knowledge of display rules for anger in game-playing situations depicted through hypothetical vignettes. Several months later, children interacted with a confederate in standardized games designed to simulate the vignettes and answered the same questions about display rules. Children's responses were moderately related across the two contexts. However, following the live interactions, compared to the hypothetical vignettes, children reported feeling less anger, expressing less anger, intending to hide their anger more, and dissembling their anger more. In addition, there were differences in the quality and quantity of strategies for hiding anger that children generated across the two contexts. Observations of anger expression were not related to self-reports of either the experience or expression of anger.     

Reconstructing the social constructionist view of emotions: from language to culture,including nonhuman culture

The thesis of social constructionism is that emotions are shaped by culture and society. I build on this insight to show that existing social constructionist views of emotions, while providing valid research methods, overly restrict the scope of the social constructionist agenda. The restriction is due to the ontological assumption that social construction is indissociable from language. In the first part, I describe the details of the influential social constructionist views of Averill and Harré. Drawing on recent theorizing in psychology, I suggest that their fixation on language makes these approaches inadequate to the analysis of the social construction of human emotional experience. In the second part, I extend the argument to other species, suggesting that these social constructionist views are incapable of accommodating the fact, ascertained by primatologists, that animals have cultures, and that part of animal culture concerns the social molding of their emotions. I conclude that a reconstructed social constructionism should be regarded not as inimical to, but as part and parcel of, a nonreductive biology of emotions.     

Critical Realism and Causality: Tracing the Aristotelian Legacy

Rom Harré's generative account of causality has been drawn on heavily by advocates of critical realism. Yet Harré argues that critical realists often exaggerate the extent to which powerful causal explanations of social phenomena can be developed. Certain proponents of critical realism have responded to Harré's criticisms by suggesting that it is useful to consider the relevant issues in relation to the familiar Aristotelian classification of four causes. In this paper I contribute to this debate and pursue a similar strategy. The paper adds to existing contributions in two ways. Firstly, I outline how Harré sees his generative account of causality as linking up with Aristotelian themes. It emerges that Harré at times conceives of his generative theory as part of an alternative to the Aristotelian system while at other times he draws connections between it and a reformulated account of formal causality. Secondly, I argue that when we consider the positions of Harré and proponents of critical realism on the scope of causal explanation in the social realm in relation to the interpretation of final causes offered by another philosopher profoundly influenced by the Aristotelian tradition, namely Charles Peirce, we can see both as limited in certain respects.     

Blameless, Constructive, and Political Anger

Scholars of the emotions maintain that all anger requires an object of blame. In order to be angry, many writers argue, one must believe than an actor has done serious damage to something that one values. Yet an individual may be angered without blaming another. This kind of emotion, called situational anger , does not entail a corresponding object of blame. Situational anger can be a useful force in public life, enabling citizens to draw attention to the seriousness of social or political problems, without necessarily vilifying political officials.     

On gender role violations and judgments made about euthanasia: a research note

The impact of perceived gender role violations on the willingness of evaluators to label a deadly act to "end suffering" as euthanasia was explored in two studies. It was predicted that "killing" (even mercy killing) would be perceived as more role contradictory for a female actor than for a male actor. Therefore, it was expected that the deadly actions of a female actor would be judged as less justified (i.e., less likely to be labeled as euthanasia) than the same action committed by a male actor. A total of 486 undergraduates participated in one of two studies. It was found that although perceptions of justification for a deadly act were clearly influenced by whether or not the method of action taken was direct and proactive (commission) vs. indirect and passive (omission), the gender of the actor did not impact differently on the judgments of the participants. Possible explanations and future research directions are discussed.     

Emotions in Marital Conflict Interactions: Empathic Accuracy, Assumed Similarity, and the Moderating Context of Depressive Symptoms

To examine affectivity in marital interaction, 267 couples participated in laboratory-based marital conflicts and afterward rated their own and their spouses' emotions of positivity, anger, sadness, and fear. Actor-Partner Interdependence Models (Cook & Kenny, 2005) estimated empathic accuracy and assumed similarity effects, with symptoms of depression tested as a moderator. Depressive symptoms moderated spouses' ratings of their partners' negative emotions such that assumed similarity was higher and empathic accuracy was lower in the context of elevated depressive symptoms. The results suggest that depression may influence spouses' judgments of how closely linked partner emotions are (i.e., assumed similarity) and spouses' abilities to accurately perceive their partners' negative emotions (i.e., empathic accuracy), potentially contributing to the established marital dysfunction-psychological distress cycle.     

Mothers' Emotions and Behavioral Support During Interactions with Toddlers: The Role of Child Temperament

This article examines mothers' support for children's interests and, specifically, emotional processes in mothers that may explain why they display different levels of support with children of different temperaments. We observed 114 mothers and their 14–27 month-old children during a laboratory interaction. Mothers rated children on three dimensions of temperament: activity, anger proneness, and social fearfulness. As expected, activity predicted mothers' anger, disappointment, and low support for children's interests. Social fearfulness predicted mothers' worry, low anger, low disappointment, and high support for children's interests. Mediational tests verified that (1) mothers' emotions often mediated the relation of child temperament to mothers' supportive behavior, and (2) children's compliance often mediated the relation of child temperament to mothers' emotions. Mothers tended to report negative emotion and to display relatively unsupportive behavior with children whose temperaments corresponded to attributes considered relatively undesirable for their sex.     

Child Anger Regulation, Parental Responses to Children's Anger Displays, and Early Child Antisocial Behavior

The display and regulation of child anger in family interaction was coded in a sample of 240 boys and girls at child age 6, and coded using the Specific Affect Coding System. Child antisocial behavior was longitudinally assessed, beginning in kindergarten. Pooled‐ and family‐level analyses were used to assess hazard rates for child anger. Parents’ ability to modulate their own emotions and negative behavior, and children's ability to down‐regulate anger were associated with increased latency for child anger. Hazard for child anger increased as parents’ insensitive and negative responses toward the child cumulated during family interaction. Macro‐level, non‐hazard analyses indicated that chronic levels of child antisocial behavior were associated with the frequency of parental negative behavior, but not with the frequency of child anger. Micro‐level hazard analyses indicated that children's ability to regulate anger was related to chronic levels of child covert but not overt antisocial behavior.     

A genetically informed examination of the relations between inaccurate emotion expression and recognition and experiencing peer victimization

This study examines children's abilities to accurately portray emotions (emotion expression; EE) and to read others' emotions (emotion recognition; ER) as possible genetically influenced behaviors that may increase vulnerability to victimization. In this study of 127 6–10‐year‐old multiples, children were assessed for EE accuracy by being photographed when told to display different emotions; photographs were subsequently rated for emotion accuracy. Children also were assessed for ER accuracy on a computer task by rating the emotions of displayed children's faces. Genetic likelihood scores for angry and fearful EE and ER errors were calculated. Children also completed a victimization questionnaire. Results showed that children who were poor at making angry faces (EE angry misses) were less likely to be victimized, and children who were more likely to rate faces as fearful (ER fearful biases) were more likely to be victimized. ER fearful biases were related to victimization through a shared genetic link. Finally, demonstrating gene–environment correlation, girls with a genetic likelihood for not looking fearful when they were intending to (EE fearful misses) were significantly less likely to be victimized by peers. These results show that emotion skills surrounding expressing and recognizing anger and fear are associated with peer victimization risk.     

The Development of Dynamic Facial Expression Recognition at Different Intensities in 4- to 18-Year-Olds

The primary purpose of this study was to examine the effect of the intensity of emotion expression on children's developing ability to label emotion during a dynamic presentation of five facial expressions (anger, disgust, fear, happiness, and sadness). A computerized task (AFFECT—animated full facial expression comprehension test) was used to display facial emotion expressions as animations with four levels of intensity (35, 50, 75, and 100 percent). In this study, which employed a cross-sectional design, 240 participants from 4 to 18 years completed the AFFECT. Results indicated that recognition ability developed for each of the emotions, with the exception of disgust, over the age range tested. Girls were more accurate than boys, especially for anger and disgust expressions. Recognition accuracy was found to increase as a function of the intensity of emotional expressions.     

In Defense of Shame: Shame in the Context of Guilt and Embarrassment

We are interested in the relations among shame, guilt, and embarrassment and especially in how each relates to judgments of character. We start by analyzing the distinction between being and feeling guilty, and unearth the role of shame as a guilt feeling. We proceed to examine shame and guilt in relation to moral responsibility and to flaws of character. We address a recent psychological finding (Tangney, Wagner, Hill-Barlow, and Marshall, 1996; Tangney, Hill-Barlow, Wagner and Marshall, 1996) that shame is both destructive and in so far as it has a social function could be replaced by guilt. We reinterpret the guilt culture/shame culture distinction in terms of our way of distinguishing these emotions. Finally we examine embarrassment as distinct from shame and find the difference to lie not so much in the phenomenology of the participant as it is in context, and in which elements of the context the speaker describing the emotion wishes to stress. We conclude by defending shame despite its psychological troubles.     

Low and Middle Income Mothers' Regulation of Negative Emotion: Effects of Children's Temperament and Situational Emotional Responses

The present study investigated the effects of situational (child situational emotions) and dispositional (child temperament) child variables on mothers’ regulation of their own hostile (anger) and nonhostile (sadness and anxiety) emotions. Participants included 94 low and middle income mothers and their children (41 girls; 53 boys) aged 3 to 6 years. Children's situational emotions (anger, sadness, or fear) and parent emotion type (hostile or nonhostile) were important predictors of mothers’ regulation, but their effects were influenced by SES: Middle income mothers were more likely to control hostile than nonhostile emotions in response to child anger and sadness, and more likely than low income mothers to control hostile emotions in response to child sadness and fear. Low income mothers were more likely than middle income mothers to control nonhostile emotions in response to child anger. However, results also suggest that differences in emotion regulation between low and middle income mothers may stem from the link between SES and authoritarian parenting beliefs. Maternal regulation of negative emotion was not predicted by child temperament.     

孔子的情绪教育思想论析

面对人们存在的某些消极情绪,孔子的情绪教育思想无疑有着积极的价值和意义。孔子认为,"志于道"是积极情绪扩建的根本,"知不惑"是情绪调节的认知方法,"知天命"使情绪获得意义支撑与宽舒,"兴于诗"是强调文艺对情绪的感通和涵养作用;"立于礼"是情绪的表达与节制。     

Effects of Provocation on Maltreated and Nonmaltreated Preschoolers' Understanding of Moral Transgressions

This study examined maltreated and nonmaltreated preschool children's judgments regarding hypothetical provoked and unprovoked moral transgressions. Maltreated children (17 physically abused and 19 neglected) and 19 matched nonmaltreated children rated the severity and deserved punishment and evaluated affective responses to six hypothetical moral transgressions which were depicted as both unprovoked and provoked by another child's actions. All children rated unprovoked transgressions as more serious and deserving of punishment and as eliciting more happiness and fear and less anger than transgressions that were depicted as provoked by another's actions. No gender or maltreatment status differences in ratings of transgression severity and deserved punishment were found; however, patterns of affective responses to hypothetical transgressions differed as a function of maltreatment subtype. Findings are discussed in terms of previous research on maltreatment and moral judgment development.     

Emotion Regulation in Low-income Preschoolers

The present study was concerned with identifying the causes of low-income preschoolers' negative emotions and their most common regulation responses. The relations of family socialization practices and temperament to the children's emotion regulation skills were also examined. Ninety predominantly minority low-income preschoolers (46 boys) and their mothers participated. During visits to the children's preschools, observers watched for expressions of anger and sadness, and recorded the causes of the displays and the children's reactions. Mothers reported on their emotion socialization and discipline practices and their children's temperament. Although the children expressed more anger than sadness, they used more constructive reactions in response to sadness and more non-constructive reactions in response to anger. Maternal reports of appropriate family emotion were associated with low levels of non-constructive regulation responses to anger and sadness whereas reports of inconsistent parental discipline were generally associated with non-constructive regulation responses. All in all, the findings of this study are in accord with findings on middle-income children and indicate that low- and middle-income children are more alike than different with regard to the regulation of negative emotion in the peer environment.     

Parasympathetic Regulation and Parental Socialization of Emotion: Biopsychosocial Processes of Adjustment in Preschoolers

Variations in parents' emotion socialization have been linked to children's social competence (SC) and behavior problems, but parental influences do not act independently of children's characteristics. A biopsychosocial model was tested, in which children's parasympathetic regulation of cardiac function and paternal and maternal socialization of negative emotions were examined as joint predictors of young children's SC and behavior problems at daycare and preschool. Mothers and fathers responded differently to children's emotions, and cardiac vagal tone moderated the relations between parents' emotion socialization and children's behavior in early childcare settings. Both maternal and paternal emotion socialization strategies were more strongly associated with preschool adjustment for children with relatively less parasympathetic self‐regulatory capacities than for more self‐regulated children. Paternal reactions to children's anger, and maternal responses to children's sadness and fear, were particularly closely tied to variations in SC and internalizing and externalizing problems.     

The Collapsing Choice Theory: Dissociating Choice and Judgment in Decision Making

Decision making theory in general, and mental models in particular, associate judgment and choice. Decision choice follows probability estimates and errors in choice derive mainly from errors in judgment. In the studies reported here we use the Monty Hall dilemma to illustrate that judgment and choice do not always go together, and that such a dissociation can lead to better decision-making. Specifically, we demonstrate that in certain decision problems, exceeding working memory limitations can actually improve decision choice. We show across four experiments that increasing the number of choice alternatives forces people to collapse choices together, resulting in better decision-making. While choice performance improves, probability judgments do not change, thus demonstrating an important dissociation between choice and probability judgments. We propose the Collapsing Choice Theory (CCT) which explains how working memory capacity, probability estimation, choice alternatives, judgment, and regret all interact and effect decision quality.      

An Integrative Examination of Peer Conflict: Children's Reported Goals, Emotions, and Behaviors

The primary purpose of the present study was to examine the interrelations among children's typical emotions, goals, and behavior during peer conflict and to examine emotions and goals as joint predictors of behavior. Children (7 to 11 years old) described recent conflicts with peers and were questioned about their emotions, goals, and behaviors. The friendliness of children's reported goals during conflict was associated with low anger intensity and with high intensity of sadness. Children who tended to report nonconstructive behavior also tended to report relatively intense anger and relatively unfriendly goals. Furthermore, in regression analyses, the friendliness of goals uniquely predicted the constructiveness of children's behavior after controlling for the effects of anger intensity, age, gender, provoking event, and friendship with the peer. Although boys and girls reported similar levels of anger and sadness, girls reported friendlier goals and more constructive behavior than did boys. The use of self‐reports of actual events to examine peer conflict during middle childhood is also discussed.