Active Listening in Peer Interviews: The Influence of Message Paraphrasing on Perceptions of Listening Skill

Perhaps no communication skill is identified as regularly as active listening in training programs across a variety of disciplines and activities. Yet little empirical research has examined specific elements of active listening responses in terms of their effectiveness in achieving desired interpersonal outcomes. This study reports an experiment designed to test the influence of a specific element of active listening responses, namely, the message paraphrase. One hundred and eighty undergraduate students participated in peer interviews in which they received either a paraphrased reflection or a simple acknowledgement in response to their expressed opinions regarding comprehensive examinations. The results of data analysis indicated that message paraphrases were associated with the social attractiveness of the listener but were not associated with participants' conversational satisfaction or perceptions of feeling understood by the listener.     

The Role of Vocal Affect in Persuasion: The CIVA Model

Journal of Nonverbal Behavior - Past research has largely focused on how emotional expressions provide information about the speaker’s emotional state, but has generally neglected vocal...     

Early Intervention and Prevention of Psychopathology: The Potential Role of Affect

This paper attempts to integrate early intervention and prevention concepts with various aspects of affect theory. First, early intervention and prevention of psychopathology in high-risk infants and children are discussed. Second, affect theory and affective interactions between infants and caregivers are presented. Third, an effort is made to integrate affect theory with concepts of prevention, with a focus on the potential role of affect theory to further inform early intervention and prevention. Fourth, a variety of related clinical, theoretical, and research issues are reviewed.     

Gambling Disorder and Affect Regulation: The Role of Alexithymia and Attachment Style

The aim of the present study was to explore the dimensions of alexithymia and attachment styles in a group of disordered gamblers and to evaluate the relationship between alexithymia, attachment styles, and the severity of gambling disorder. Sixty disordered gamblers diagnosed according to the diagnostic and statistical manual-5 filled out the Kurzfragebogen zum Glücksspielverhalten, the 20-Item Toronto Alexithymia Scale, and the Experiences in Close Relationships-Revised. Approximately 70 % of the sample displayed ‘intermediate’ and ‘severe’ gambling severity levels on the Kurzfragebogen zum Glücksspielverhalten, and 77 % showed ‘high’ or ‘borderline’ levels of alexithymia on the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (mean = 56.40). Regarding attachment styles, 70 % of the sample displayed an ‘insecure’ attachment, with a particularly high prevalence of the ‘fearful’ style (26.66 %). A linear regression analysis revealed that only the anxiety dimension of the Experiences in Close Relationships questionnaire predicted the severity of gambling. Our data appear to confirm that gambling disorder is characterised by emotional and relational dysregulation, and that pathological gambling behaviours may serve as external regulators of internal undifferentiated emotional states.     

Newborns' Face Recognition: The Role of Facial Movement

This study investigates the role of dynamic information in identity face recognition at birth. More specifically we tested whether semi‐rigid motion, conveyed by a change in facial expression, facilitates identity recognition. In Experiment 1, two‐day‐old newborns, habituated to a static happy or fearful face (static condition) have been tested using a pair of novel and familiar identity static faces with a neutral expression. Results indicated that newborns manifest a preference for the familiar stimulus, independently of the facial expression. In contrast, in Experiment 2 newborns habituated to a semi‐rigid moving face (dynamic condition) manifest a preference for the novel face, independently of the facial expression. In Experiment 3, a multistatic image of a happy face with different degrees of intensity was utilized to test the role of different amount of static pictorial information in identity recognition (multistatic image condition). Results indicated that newborns were not able to recognize the face to which they have been familiarized. Overall, results clearly demonstrate that newborns' face recognition is strictly dependent on the learning conditions and that the semi‐rigid motion conveyed by facial expressions facilitates identity recognition since birth.     

The Role of Forgiveness in Divorce Adjustment and the Impact of Affect

The role of forgiveness and affect was investigated in relation to divorce adjustment. Ninety-one participants separated from their ex-spouse less than 30 months completed a background questionnaire, the Enright Forgiveness Inventory (EFI), the Self Forgiveness Scale (SFS), the Center for Epidemiological Studies–Depression Inventory (CES–D), the Spielberger State–Trait Anger Inventory (STAXI–2), and the Fisher Divorce Adjustment Scale (FDAS). There were significant relationships between depression and the capacity to forgive and between being in an angry feeling state and harboring a lack of forgiveness toward the ex-spouse. The relationship that emerged as the most powerful was that between trait anger and lack of self-forgiveness. Forgiveness intervention that occurs early in the divorce adjustment process is implicated, particularly in relation to the self.     

Traumatic Experiences in Childhood and Adult Substance Use in a Nonclinical Sample: The Mediating Role of Arousal/Reactivity

The vast majority of adults in the United States experience at least one traumatic event during childhood. According to the self‐medication hypothesis of substance use disorders, adult survivors of childhood trauma may cope with trauma‐related symptoms via alcohol or drug use. The purpose of this study is to identify through which specific PTSD symptom clusters childhood trauma exposure are associated with adult substance use. Participants of this study (N = 627) were not recruited based on substance use or traumatic exposure. Results of this study demonstrate that arousal/reactivity partially mediates the association between childhood trauma and current substance use. Implications for treatment include recommendations for trauma‐informed approaches that aim to decrease arousal/reactivity and subsequently substance use.     

Promoting Volunteerism: Effects of Self-Efficacy, Advertisement-Induced Emotional Arousal, Perceived Costs of Volunteering, and Message Framing

This paper examines the extent to which communication strategies may influence willingness to volunteer. Research on persuasive advertising and the “arousal: cost-reward” model serve as theoretical foundations. The results of two experiments indicate that advertisement-induced (ad-induced) emotional arousal, message framing, and manipulations of self-efficacy perceptions can impact willingness to volunteer. Analysis detected a significant interaction between perceived self-efficacy and message framing. In the low (high) self-efficacy condition gain frames (loss frames) were more persuasive. When gender-related differences were considered, analysis revealed that ad-induced emotional arousal and manipulations of self-efficacy had their impact solely on men’s willingness to volunteer. Based on the results of the empirical analyses, implications for management and starting points for future research are presented.     

Residual Categories in Medical Simulation: The Role of Affect in the Performance of Disease

Extending Susan Leigh Star’s conceptualization of residual categories, the author highlights the role of affect in the construction of standardized symptoms in medical simulation and in the performance of scientific evidence. The author analyzes two cases, public performances of hysteria in the 19th century and standardized patients in contemporary simulation laboratories, revealing potentialities in the construction of medically accurate and pedagogically achievable standards. Conceptualizing patient performers as a standardization technology representing medical knowledge of patient experience allows the author to reveal how the performers’ affective perspective becomes appropriated into the biomedical discourse to legitimate its categories and educate healthcare professionals.     

A New Test to Measure Emotion Recognition Ability: Matsumoto and Ekman's Japanese and Caucasian Brief Affect Recognition Test (JACBART)

In this article, we report the development of a new test designed to measure individual differences in emotion recognition ability (ERA), five studies examining the reliability and validity of the scores produced using this test, and the first evidence for a correlation between ERA measured by a standardized test and personality. Utilizing Matsumoto and Ekman's (1988) Japanese and Caucasian Facial Expressions of Emotion (JACFEE) and Neutral Faces (JACNeuF), we call this measure the Japanese and Caucasian Brief Affect Recognition Test (JACBART). The JACBART improves on previous measures of ERA by (1) using expressions that have substantial validity and reliability data associated with them, (2) including posers of two visibly different races (3) balanced across seven universal emotions (4) with equal distribution of poser race and sex across emotions (5) in a format that eliminates afterimages associated with fast exposures. Scores derived using the JACBART are reliable, and three studies demonstrated a correlation between ERA and the personality constructs of Openness and Conscientiousness, while one study reports a correlation with Extraversion and Neuroticism.     

Positive Affect and Career Decision‐Making: The Moderating Role of Interpersonal Spin

We investigated the moderating role of interpersonal spin in the relationships between positive affect, career decision self‐efficacy (CDSE), and career indecision among young adults (16 women, 79 men). Interpersonal spin was calculated using the diary method, wherein students reported their daily interpersonal behaviors for 14 consecutive days. Results indicated that positive affect was positively associated with CDSE and negatively associated with career indecision. Interpersonal spin diminished the positive relationship between positive affect and CDSE and the negative relationship between positive affect and career indecision. Our findings extend prior studies by uncovering the influence of positive affect and behavioral stability, including interpersonal spin, on the career decision process. Counselors are encouraged to foster individuals' positive affect and reduce their interpersonal spin to obtain positive career outcomes, such as high CDSE and low career indecision.     

In Recognition of Their Desperation: Sonic Relationality and the Work of Deep Listening

This essay places composer Pauline Oliveros’s philosophy and practice of Deep Listening in conversation with analytic theories of listening in a duet that explores one central question: What can listening do? Thinking through the impact of cultivated listening practices on the sensorium, the relational implications of listening across difference, and the centrality of practices of listening to the therapeutic action of psychoanalysis as well as the transformational capacity of performance, this essay claims Oliveros as a practitioner and theorist of a central psychoanalytic practice: listening. Deep Listening has the capacity to act as an amplifier for extending the reach of analytic listening beyond the clinic into an expanded cultural field. Likewise, psychoanalytic thinking allows for a rich exploration of the interpersonal and intrapsychic dynamics of Oliveros’s sonic meditations as they resonate in the circuits between the psyche and the social. Her 1970 composition To Valerie Solanas and Marilyn Monroe In Recognition of Their Desperation acts as a case study for exploring the dynamics of feminist listening.     

The Role of Rape-Supportive Attitudes,Alcohol, and Sexual Arousal in Sexual (Mis)Perception: An Experimental Study

While sexual misperception does not irrevocably lead to sexual aggression, it remains a significant risk factor. The present study investigated the effects of rape-supportive attitudes, alcohol, and sexual arousal on sexual perception. We used a 2 × 2 between-participants factorial design to randomly assign 135 men from the general population to a condition with or without alcohol (blood alcohol concentration target of .08%) and to a condition with or without sexual arousal. Participants were asked to listen to an audiotape depicting a sexual interaction between a man and woman and to indicate if and when they believed the woman was no longer interested in having sex. Results, obtained through survival analyses, indicate that the effects of rape-supportive attitudes on sexual misperception are moderated by alcohol consumption. Alcohol appears to be an important situational factor for activating men’s implicit theories. Our study sheds new light on the role of knowledge structures in sexual perception: It identifies when, as well as suggesting how, rape-supportive attitudes may disturb sexual perception and ultimately lead to sexual misperception.     

Essay: The Role of Participatory Listening in Collaborative Discourse: Insights from Studies of Engineering Design Teams

In this article, we summarize evidence from observations of engineering teams for the importance of active listening in collaborative design problem solving. We focus on the way speakers use freehand sketching to convey complex design ideas, and how listeners support them whilst they do this. We argue that listeners temporarily redistribute the shared cognitive load of discourse production and comprehension within design teams: whilst speakers are engaged in sketch construction they are unable to take account of listener understanding, and listeners respond intuitively by anticipating and avoiding difficulties in this process. We conclude that this cooperativeness emerges naturally from the operation of effort conserving principles underlying collaborative social interaction, and show that by focusing on the contribution of the listener to the production of creative engineering discourse, this principle can be thrown into sharp relief.     

Listening to care-givers: The community,work and family interface

Vic Riley talks about families challenging and contesting many assumptions about their role in long-term care-giving. His reflections invite the reader to revisit narrow and restrictive images of people with learning difficulties as dependent upon their parents for the provision of care and reveal a powerful picture of changes in the organisation of family life that have taken place in one small-town community. The role of the community in facilitating such transitions cannot be underestimated in the lives of care-givers and the people with learning difficulties they support. This account provides a compelling picture of changing aspirations amongst families involved in care-giving and the reader is invited not just to read it, but to make sure it amplifies their personal understandings and assumptions.     

The Role of Depression and Negative Affect Regulation Expectancies in Tobacco Smoking Among College Students

Objective: Expectancies about nicotine's ability to alleviate negative mood states may play a role in the relationship between smoking and depression. The authors examined the role of negative affect regulation expectancies as a potential mediator of depression (history of depression and depressive symptoms) and smoking among college students. Participants and Methods: As part of a larger study, 315 undergraduate smokers completed a 296-item survey from January to May of 2001 and 2002. Results: Cross-sectional analyses revealed that negative affect regulation expectancies fully mediated the positive relationship between depressive symptoms and level of smoking. Conclusions: Although depressive symptoms are associated with higher levels of tobacco smoking, the expectation that smoking will reduce negative emotions is 1 factor that accounts for this relationship.