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Background: With the increased use of patient-reported outcomes measures (PROMs) to assess spine surgery outcomes, it is important to understand how patients interpret their health changes over time. The measurement of cognitive-appraisal processes enables the quantification of how individuals think about quality of life (QOL). This study examined how appraisal processes were associated with patients' views of their role in managing their health-patient activation., Methods: This longitudinal cohort study from August 2019 to January 2022 included 222 adults undergoing spine surgery for cervical (n = 107) and/or lumbar (n = 148) pathology at an academic medical center. PROMs assessed disability (Neck Disability Index for cervical or Oswestry Disability Index for lumbar) and mental health (PROMIS-29 v2.0), cognitive-appraisal processes (QOLAP v2 -SF), and patient activation (Patient Activation Measure). ANOVA models were used to examine the relationships between QOL and cognitive appraisal processes before and after surgery, overall and stratified by patient-activation stage. Effect sizes facilitated interpretation., Results: There were significant improvements in pain-related disability and mental health following surgery. Cognitive appraisal processes explained substantial amounts of variance, particularly with changes in mental health (45% before surgery, 75% at three months, and 63%, at 12-months after surgery). With respect to physical disability, less disability was associated with a lesser focus on negative aspects of QOL. Appraisal explained the most variance before surgery for high-activation patients. At 12-months post-surgery, however, appraisal explained the most variance for the low-activation patients. Appraisal explained similar amounts of variance in mental health at baseline and three-months post-surgery for all activation groups, but substantially more variance in the low-activation group at 12-months post-surgery. There were differences in the direction of appraisal-outcome associations by activation group in selected appraisal items/domains., Conclusions: Cognitive-appraisal processes demonstrate a significant relationship with QOL among spine surgery patients. These processes explain substantial variance in pain-related disability and mental health, especially among those high in activation before surgery and those low in activation at 12-months post-surgery. Our findings suggest that patients' ways of thinking about their health may be effective targets of motivational coaching, to help them become more engaged over the recovery trajectory., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

Aim of the current research was to newly conceptualize nightmare distress. The special focus was on the appraisal of nightmare distress while applying a theory-driven approach based on Lazarus' transactional model of stress. It was argued that individuals feel the more distressed the more they feel threatened and harmed by their nightmares (primary appraisal according to Lazarus) and the more they lack of adequate coping skills to deal with the stressor (secondary appraisal). Based on these assumptions, the questionnaire of Cognitive Appraisal of Nightmares (CAN) was challenged empirically in two studies of patients who have experienced distressing nightmares using explorative and confirmative factor analyses (N = 504 and N = 402). Items and scales showed good psychometric properties and plausible correlations. The CAN sum score was more distinct from nightmare frequency than the frequently used Nightmare Distress Questionnaire (NDQ), underpinning that frequency and distress are both different approaches to what patients suffer from. The NDQ was particularly associated with acted out behaviors after a nightmare, while the CAN was particularly associated with physiological and emotional consequences of a nightmare. In order to obtain a multifactorial and theory-driven picture about how individuals appraise their nightmares, the CAN may be convenient., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest Annika Gieselmann, Nina Elberich, Jonas Mathes, and Reinhard Pietrowsky do not have any conflicts of interest., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Stress pervades everyday life and more importantly, affects prefrontal cortices that support executive control functions, processes that are critical to learning and memory as well as a range of life outcomes. The positive or negative effect of stress on cognition depends on an interaction of factors related to the situation and the individual. Research has shown that psychological characteristics related to self-relevance and the availability of resources may lead individuals to perceive a stressor as a threat or challenge, driving performance outcomes. Given that perception is arguably the key to stress reactivity, positive affect and self-belief constructs are discussed in the context of how they may lead to preserved performance in the face of stress. Understanding the underlying mechanisms of stress perception could inform the development of interventions, a socially important endeavor given the impact of stress on health and cognitive functions., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

For this Special Issue, I highlight the past and present importance of appraisal theory as well as the challenges to its status as a total theory of emotions from the other functions of emotions: associative learning, self-regulation and social communication. This theoretical view applies both to emotion research in general and the specific fields of my interest in the emotions of moral judgment and intergroup processes. Methodologically, developments in analyses of large and more naturally occurring data sets will give an opportunity to square psychology's structural models of discrete emotions with the more complicated reality that exists. Both for the field and for individual researchers picking up the study of emotions, my advice is to pay special attention to measures, their assumptions and their context.

The partial N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor agonist d-cycloserine may enhance psychological therapies. However, its exact mechanism of action is still being investigated. Cognitive bias modification techniques allow isolation of cognitive processes and thus investigation of how they may be affected by d-cycloserine. We used a cognitive bias modification paradigm targeting appraisals of a stressful event, Cognitive Bias Modification-Appraisal, to investigate whether d-cycloserine enhanced the modification of appraisal, and whether it caused greater reduction in indices of psychopathology. Participants received either 250 mg of d-cycloserine ( n=19) or placebo ( n=19). As a stressor task, participants recalled a negative life event, followed by positive Cognitive Bias Modification-Appraisal training. Before and after Cognitive Bias Modification-Appraisal, appraisals and indices of psychopathology related to the stressor were assessed. Cognitive Bias Modification-Appraisal successfully modified appraisals, but d-cycloserine did not affect appraisals post-training. There were no post-training group differences in frequency of intrusions. Interestingly, d-cycloserine led to a greater reduction in distress and impact on state mood from recalling the event, and lower distress post-training was associated with fewer intrusions. Therefore, d-cycloserine may affect emotional reactivity to recalling a negative event when combined with induction of a positive appraisal style, but via a mechanism other than enhanced learning of the appraisal style.

Humans acquire much of their knowledge from the testimony of other people. An understanding of the way that information can be conveyed via gesture and vocalization is present in infancy. Thus, infants seek information from well-informed interlocutors, supply information to the ignorant, and make sense of communicative acts that they observe from a third-party perspective. This basic understanding is refined in the course of development. As they age, children's reasoning about testimony increasingly reflects an ability not just to detect imperfect or inaccurate claims but also to assess what inferences may or may not be drawn about informants given their particular situation. Children also attend to the broader characteristics of particular informants-their group membership, personality characteristics, and agreement or disagreement with other potential informants. When presented with unexpected or counterintuitive testimony, children are prone to set aside their own prior convictions, but they may sometimes defer to informants for inherently social reasons.

Background and Objectives: Prior research suggests that altering situation-specific evaluations of stress as challenging versus threatening can improve responses to stress. The aim of the current study was to explore whether cognitive, physiological and affective stress responses can be altered independent of situation-specific evaluations by changing individuals' mindsets about the nature of stress in general., Design: Using a 2 × 2 design, we experimentally manipulated stress mindset using multi-media film clips orienting participants (N = 113) to either the enhancing or debilitating nature of stress. We also manipulated challenge and threat evaluations by providing positive or negative feedback to participants during a social stress test., Results: Results revealed that under both threat and challenge stress evaluations, a stress-is-enhancing mindset produced sharper increases in anabolic ("growth") hormones relative to a stress-is-debilitating mindset. Furthermore, when the stress was evaluated as a challenge, a stress-is-enhancing mindset produced sharper increases in positive affect, heightened attentional bias towards positive stimuli, and greater cognitive flexibility, whereas a stress-is-debilitating mindset produced worse cognitive and affective outcomes., Conclusions: These findings advance stress management theory and practice by demonstrating that a short manipulation designed to generate a stress-is-enhancing mindset can improve responses to both challenging and threatening stress.

Adolescence is a sensitive period for increases in normative but also debilitating social fears and worries. As the interpretation of interpersonal cues is pertinent to social anxiety, investigating mechanisms that may underlie biases in social cue appraisal is important. Fifty-one adolescents from the community aged 14-19 were presented with self- and other-relevant naturalistic social scenes for 5s and then required to rate either a negative or a positive interpretation of the scene. Eye-tracking data were collected during the free viewing period to index attentional deployment. Individual differences in social worries were measured via self-report. Social anxiety levels significantly predicted biases in interpretation ratings across scenes. Additionally, cumulative attentional deployment to peer cues also predicted these interpretation biases: participants who spent more time on facial displays perceived more threat, i.e. endorsed more negative and less positive interpretations. Self-relevant scenes yielded greater tendencies to draw negative interpretations. Finally, older adolescents also selected more benign interpretations. Social anxiety is associated with a bias in interpreting social cues; a cognitive bias that is also influenced by attentional deployment. This study contributes to our understanding of the possible attention mechanisms that shape cognitions relevant to social anxiety in this at-risk age group., (Copyright © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Cognitive models of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) postulate that cognitive biases in attention, interpretation, and memory represent key factors involved in the onset and maintenance of PTSD. Developments in experimental research demonstrate that it may be possible to manipulate such biases by means of Cognitive Bias Modification (CBM). In the present paper, we summarize studies assessing cognitive biases in posttraumatic stress to serve as a theoretical and methodological background. However, our main aim was to provide an overview of the scientific literature on CBM in (analogue) posttraumatic stress. Results of our systematic literature review showed that most CBM studies targeted attentional and interpretation biases (attention: five studies; interpretation: three studies), and one study modified memory biases. Overall, results showed that CBM can indeed modify cognitive biases and affect (analog) trauma symptoms in a training congruent manner. Interpretation bias procedures seemed effective in analog samples, and memory bias training proved preliminary success in a clinical PTSD sample. Studies of attention bias modification provided more mixed results. This heterogeneous picture may be explained by differences in the type of population or variations in the CBM procedure. Therefore, we sketched a detailed research agenda targeting the challenges for CBM in posttraumatic stress., (Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Background: Appraisals are suggested to play a determining role in the clinical outcome of psychotic experiences (PEs). We used experimental tasks that mimic PEs to investigate appraisals in individuals with PEs with and without a 'need-for-clinical-care', and psychosis patients whose symptoms have remitted. We predicted that patients would appraise the tasks as threatening regardless of current symptom level, while non-clinical and control groups would appraise them as non-threatening., Method: Appraisals following three anomalous experiences-inducing tasks [Telepath, Cards task, Virtual acoustic space paradigm (VASP)] were examined in 71 individuals: symptomatic (n = 18) and remitted (n = 16) psychosis patients; non-clinical group with PEs (n = 16); controls without PEs (n = 21)., Results: As predicted, symptomatic patients endorsed more threatening appraisals for all tasks than non-clinical and control groups, who did not differ from each other. However, remitted patients were less likely to endorse threatening appraisals of the Cards and Telepath than their symptomatic counterparts, although they did not differ in global ratings of how striking, threatening and distressing they found the tasks. Moreover, remitted participants endorsed more threatening appraisals of the Telepath and VASP than non-clinical participants, and of the VASP than controls. Remitted participants also rated all three tasks as globally more threatening than the non-clinical group and controls., Conclusions: Clinical outcome may not necessarily be driven by the presence of symptoms, with threatening appraisals of PEs representing a key factor. The remitted group's intermediate appraisal scores imply that the relationship between appraisal and clinical outcome is not straightforward, and potential mediating factors need to be determined.

Background: The emotional context insensitivity (ECI) hypothesis suggests individuals with depression have blunted affective responses to both positive and negative events. We tested ECI in a social context to examine how depression relates to affective responses to social acceptance and rejection outcomes. Furthermore, we aimed to identify cognitive mechanisms linking depression with affective response to social feedback. Finally, we tested whether these processes are similar for social anxiety., Method: 90 participants (age 18-26 years; 53 women) completed the two-visit Chatroom task. At Visit 1 they rated their expectations about being liked by 60 peers. At Visit 2 they completed self-reports of depressive and social anxiety symptoms, and of cognitive flexibility, then received acceptance or rejection feedback from each peer and rated their affective response., Results: Greater depressive symptoms related to negative expectancy bias, lower cognitive flexibility, and less positive affective response to acceptance, but did not relate to rejection. Negative expectations and cognitive flexibility mediated the relationship between depressive symptoms and affective response for acceptance; only negative expectations mediated rejection responses. These cognitive mechanisms were not related to social anxiety., Limitations: A community sample was used to assess depression. Rumination and current mood state were omitted as potential predictors of affective response., Conclusions: Findings support the ECI framework. Depression but not social anxiety interferes with positive and negative affect through cognitively mediated dampening of emotional response to social acceptance and rejection. Emotion regulation strategies in depression therapy can target social flexibility to improve alignment of affective reactions to social outcomes., (Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

The present analysis aims at a theoretical integration of, and a systems-neuroscience perspective on, a variety of historical and contemporary views on perception-action coordination (PAC). We set out to determine the common principles or lawful linkages between sensory and motor systems that explain how perception is action-oriented and how action is perceptually guided. To this end, we analyze the key ingredients to such an integrated framework, examine the architecture of dual-system conjectures of PAC, and endeavor in an historical analysis of the key characteristics, mechanisms, and phenomena of PACs. This analysis will reveal that dual-systems views are in need of fundamental re-thinking, and its elements will be amalgamated with current views on action-oriented predictive processing into a novel integrative theoretical framework (IMPPACT: Impetus, Motivation, and Prediction in Perception-Action Coordination theory). From this framework and its neurocognitive architecture we derive a number of non-trivial predictions regarding conative, motive-driven PAC. We end by presenting a brief outlook on how IMPPACT might present novel insights into certain pathologies and into action expertise., (Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Despite the well-documented success of cognitive restructuring techniques in the treatment of anxiety disorders, there is still little clarity on which cognitions underpin fear and anxiety in children with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder. This study examined whether certain cognitive appraisals, known to be associated with fear and anxiety in typically developing groups, may help explain these emotions in children with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder. It also investigated relations between these cognitive appraisals and theory of mind. Appraisals, fear and anxiety were assessed using a vignette approach in 22 children with high-functioning autism spectrum disorders and 22 typically developing children. The two groups differed significantly on all four appraisal types. Anxiety was negatively correlated with future expectancy and positively with problem-focused coping potential in the high-functioning autism spectrum disorder group but was not correlated with appraisals in the typically developing group. The two appraisals associated with fear were emotion-focused coping potential (in the high-functioning autism spectrum disorder group only) and self-accountability (in the typically developing group only). Linear regression analysis found that appraisals of emotion-focused coping potential, problem-focused coping potential and future expectancy were significant predictors of theory-of-mind ability in the high-functioning autism spectrum disorders group. These findings indicate that specific, problematic patterns of appraisal may characterise children with high-functioning autism spectrum disorders.

Cognitive approaches offer clear links between how emotions are thought about in everyday life and how they are investigated psychologically. Cognitive researchers have focused on how emotions are caused when events or other people affect concerns and on how emotions influence processes such as reasoning, memory, and attention. Three representative cognitive theories of emotion continue to develop productively: the action-readiness theory, the core-affect theory, and the communicative theory. Some principles are common to them and divergences can be resolved by future research. Recent explanations have included how emotions structure social relationships, how they function in psychological illnesses, and how they are central to music and fiction., (Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

This work aims to examine the identities communicated prior to and during a role-playing game (RPG) for individuals with acquired brain injury (ABI). Appraisal, an analysis tool of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), that allows one to examine the interpersonal metafunction, was applied to interview and RPG group treatment conversations. This allowed for the investigation of the evaluative language of five individuals with ABI. The analysis revealed that individuals were capable of using various resources of appraisal to communicate their identities and did so differently across contexts. SFL, specifically the analysis of appraisal, is a useful resource for examining the communication and negotiation of identity after ABI. This has implications for interventions that support and facilitate positive identity negotiation and thus, enhanced rehabilitation outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Psychology-oriented research extensively studied how affect influences human decision making. Particularly, the cognitive tuning assumption suggests that mood can serve to regulate between shallow and deliberative decisions – a more negative mood means higher deliberation. This work proposes a model that mimics the cognitive tuning assumption. To that end, the Collective Risk Dilemma (CRD) game For the Planet was designed and created, a process allowing for distinct levels of reasoning was defined and tested in that game, and mood was integrated to control the level of reasoning of such a process. Several distinct Artificial Intelligence (AI) profiles were created to verify that the developed model was able to dynamically change the level of reasoning and adjust the resulting AI behavior in our CRD game. Results revealed that the distinct AI profiles were influenced by their affective states and experienced circumstances, and that the emergent behaviors were consistent with the cognitive tuning assumption, thus demonstrating that we managed to construct an innovative and flexible model that can use mood to dynamically adjust the level of reasoning of an AI agent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Microaggression research has made great strides over the past decade while steadily pushing itself into mainstream psychological science. Yet the field remains firmly situated within the Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (WEIRD) cultural context. Correspondingly, recurring criticisms against the validity of microaggressions are often rooted in individualist, decontextualized understandings of behavior, and critics' rebuttals are often grounded in a philosophical and reflective understanding of the cultural context. In this article, I put forward that (a) the enactments and appraisals of microaggressions are the behavioral results of the cognitive salience of cultural schemas; (b) cultural schemas are informed by cultural ideologies, underlining their methodological and empirical relevance for future research; and (c) cultures are dynamic by highlighting the effects of geopolitical events on the content of cultural schemas that may moderate the perception and enactment of microaggressions. For these reasons, I argue that a cultural psychology of microaggressions may help to depathologize the individual by situating behavior in its cultural context while at the same time necessitating the inclusion of communities residing in non-WEIRD societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study extends earlier works that focused on stressor appraisals (stressor as challenge and stressor as hindrance) as mediators of stressors and psychological strains. We also tested whether psychological strains would then affect organisational outcomes. Survey data were gathered from a general sample of 237 full-time employees at three time points. The first time was a screener survey to ensure the study represented full-time working adults. After the screening survey, data on both predictor and criteria were gathered two more times. Time 1 reflects data gathered on role stressors (overload and conflict), appraisals (challenge and hindrance), and psychological strains (anxiety and tedium). Time 2 also included a set of measures targeted toward organisational attitudes (affective organisational commitment, job satisfaction) and outcome (turnover intention). Drawing from the transactional model of stress, we tested a structural equations model to the data and found that stressor appraisals did not mediate the stressor-psychological strain outcome. However, consistent with prior research, psychological strains did mediate the relationship between stressors and organisational outcomes and across all models, psychological strains measured at T1 had the highest goodness of fit. These findings suggest that self-appraisal may not be sufficient to explain the causal mechanism linking stressors to outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Background: Sleep disturbance is considered a transdiagnostic process due to high comorbidity with mental health difficulties. In particular, sleep disturbances are a feature of mood disorders. To advance transdiagnostic psychological interventions targeting sleep, the Positive and Negative Sleep Appraisal Measure (PANSAM) was developed. The PANSAM is a theory‐driven measure based on an Integrative Cognitive Sleep Model and proposes that positive and negative sleep appraisals for excessively long and short sleep durations play a key role in the development of insomnia, hypersomnia, and reduced need for sleep. This study evaluated clinical validity of this new measure. Methods: Participants were those who met bipolar at risk criteria and bipolar diagnoses (bipolar spectrum group) (N = 22), major depressive disorder (unipolar depression group) (N = 18), and a nonclinical group (N = 22). To compare against previous insomnia and bipolar disorder relevant research, administered measures included the Dysfunctional Beliefs and Attitudes about Sleep Scale (DBAS) and the Hypomanic and Positive Predictions Inventory (HAPPI). Results: Analysis of variance (ANOVA) tests revealed that the clinical groups scored significantly higher on the PANSAM. The same was shown for the DBAS and HAPPI. Post hoc analyses showed that the PANSAM scale and subscales had significant correlations with all clinical measures. Effect sizes are reported due to sample size limitations. Conclusion: This study has initially validated the PANSAM with clinical populations and highlighted its applicability to a transdiagnostic approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BackgroundThe emotional context insensitivity (ECI) hypothesis suggests individuals with depression have blunted affective responses to both positive and negative events. We tested ECI in a social context to examine how depression relates to affective responses to social acceptance and rejection outcomes. Furthermore, we aimed to identify cognitive mechanisms linking depression with affective response to social feedback. Finally, we tested whether these processes are similar for social anxiety.Method90 participants (age 18-26 years; 53 women) completed the two-visit Chatroom task. At Visit 1 they rated their expectations about being liked by 60 peers. At Visit 2 they completed self-reports of depressive and social anxiety symptoms, and of cognitive flexibility, then received acceptance or rejection feedback from each peer and rated their affective response.ResultsGreater depressive symptoms related to negative expectancy bias, lower cognitive flexibility, and less positive affective response to acceptance, but did not relate to rejection. Negative expectations and cognitive flexibility mediated the relationship between depressive symptoms and affective response for acceptance; only negative expectations mediated rejection responses. These cognitive mechanisms were not related to social anxiety.LimitationsA community sample was used to assess depression. Rumination and current mood state were omitted as potential predictors of affective response.ConclusionsFindings support the ECI framework. Depression but not social anxiety interferes with positive and negative affect through cognitively mediated dampening of emotional response to social acceptance and rejection. Emotion regulation strategies in depression therapy can target social flexibility to improve alignment of affective reactions to social outcomes.

Background: Dysfunctional appraisals are a key mechanism in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Experimental manipulations of appraisals via Cognitive Bias Modification-Appraisal (CBM-App) training targeting cognitions related to the 'self' has shown to affect analog trauma symptoms. The present study aimed to conceptually replicate and extend previous findings by comparing a newly developed 'world' to the original 'self' training, and investigate the moderating role of locus of control (LOC) on intrusions. Methods: Healthy participants (N = 173) were exposed to distressing films as an analog trauma induction. Next, participants received positive or negative CBM-App, targeting either self- or world-relevant appraisals. Dysfunctional appraisals and LOC were assessed pre- and post-training. During the week after the laboratory session, participants recorded their intrusions and associated distress in a diary. One week later, trauma-relevant symptomatology was assessed. Results: Positive compared to negative CBM-App induced training-congruent appraisals, independent of the trained cognition (self vs. world). However, there was no effect on analog trauma symptoms and LOC did not moderate the training's effect. Conclusions: Our results underline the validity of CBM-App as a method to experimentally manipulate appraisals. However, since we did not fully replicate previous findings further research on mechanisms associated with transfer effects is warranted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present studies, we investigate the hypothesis that guilt influences risk taking by enhancing one's sense of control. Across multiple inductions of guilt, we demonstrate that experimentally induced guilt enhances optimism about risks for the self (Study 1), preferences for gambles versus guaranteed payoffs (Studies 2, 4, and 6), and the likelihood that one will engage in risk-taking behaviors (Study 5). In addition, we demonstrate that guilt enhances the sense of control over uncontrollable events, an illusory control (Studies 3, 4, and 5), and found that a model with illusory control as a mediator is consistent with the data (Studies 5 and 6). We also found that a model with feelings of guilt as a mediator but not generalized negative affect fits the data (Study 4). Finally, we examined the relative explanatory power of different appraisals and found that appraisals of illusory control best explain the influence of guilt on risk taking (Study 6). These results provide the first empirical demonstration of the influence of guilt on sense of control and risk taking, extend previous theorizing on guilt, and more generally contribute to the understanding of how specific emotions influence cognition and behavior.

Background: Emotional response to infertility is mediated by numerous interrelated psychological variables such as personality, health perceptions, cognitive appraisals, coping, and social support. While men and women respond to infertility differently, illness cognitions are a vital component of their emotional adjustment. The aim of this study is to compare the infertile men and women undergoing fertility treatments on perceived distress, helplessness, acceptance, benefits, anxiety, and depression. Materials and Methods: Eighty-one infertile couples, undergoing intrauterine insemination participated in the study. They were assessed on the presence of infertility distress using the fertility problem inventory, for psychiatric morbidity using the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview, for affective disturbances using the Hamilton Anxiety and Depression scales, and for illness cognitions using the Illness Cognition Questionnaire. Statistical Analysis: Data are analyzed using SPSS version 15. The paired sample t-test is performed for assessing differences on normally distributed data. The Wilcoxon Signed-Rank test is performed for assessing differences in medians obtained on data that was skewed. Results and Discussion: Infertile women (wives) were more emotionally distressed, anxious, and depressed than men (husbands). Gender-wise differences were found for perceptions of helplessness and acceptance of infertility. Infertility was perceived to be a nonbeneficial event for both partners investigated. Conclusion: Negative cognitions and affective disturbances may contribute to higher treatment burden in couples seeking-assisted conception. The present study suggests that psychosocial intervention for couples plays a central role and should be integrated within the conventional treatments for infertility.

From theatre plays in ancient Greece to modern paintings, grief has been depicted as involving a specific bodily posture, a drooping head and a use of the hands to cover the eyes, mouth and forehead. In this article, I explore what role the body plays in the emotion of grief. It is argued that bereavement both makes an impression on the body, which in turn displays an expression of the emotion of grief. The dynamics of impression–expression are used to articulate a theory of grief as an emotion, which is at once cognitive (involving recognition of a situation) and communicative (expressing something to others). Appraisal theories of emotion come closest to acknowledge this dynamic, but needs a greater awareness of the role of the body. The appraisal process is not purely intellectual, but a wholly embodied affair, which is particularly evident in grief. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emotion is an integral part of cognition. There is significant evidence of mutual, bi-directional influence between cognitive and emotional processes. Also, more and more research works propose an integrative view of emotion and cognition. In this paper, we review a large literature on emotion–cognition interactions in psychology, neuroscience, and computational modeling. Then, we introduce eMODUL, which consolidates this literature into a conceptual model. In particular, this model stresses the importance of emotional modulations and the roles they play with respect to the system autonomy depending on the targeted computational/cognitive processes (e.g., allocation of resources, organization of behavior). To illustrate these aspects and support our theoretical model, we review two robotic experiments where eMODUL is instantiated. The results demonstrate the interest of our approach for the development of interaction/communication and autonomy/adaptation capabilities in cognitive robots. In terms of natural cognition understanding they give additional insights into the emergence of emotion, the construction of multilevel appraisal, and the link between emotion and cognition in task-related emotions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper analyzes cognitive mechanisms advanced by CBT models as sustaining psychopathology, through the lens of developments from the dual process approach to judgment, decision, and cognitive appraisal. We show that augmenting CBT theories with data from dual process models reveals new mechanisms (e.g., automatic appraisals, heuristics) that can contribute to psychopathology and that can be targeted in therapy. Furthermore, we propose that different concepts from different CBT approaches—cognitive therapy (CT), rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT), and "third-wave" therapies—can be translated into common underlying constructs from the dual process theories. This translation facilitates a deeper understanding of the commonalities shared by these different CBT approaches and enables concrete steps for their integration. Finally, we propose new testable hypotheses and research directions derived from these analyses, which can enhance our knowledge of cognitive processing in CBTs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Emotional response to infertility is mediated by numerous interrelated psychological variables such as personality, health perceptions, cognitive appraisals, coping, and social support. While men and women respond to infertility differently, illness cognitions are a vital component of their emotional adjustment. The aim of this study is to compare the infertile men and women undergoing fertility treatments on perceived distress, helplessness, acceptance, benefits, anxiety, and depression. Materials and Methods: Eighty-one infertile couples, undergoing intrauterine insemination participated in the study. They were assessed on the presence of infertility distress using the fertility problem inventory, for psychiatric morbidity using the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview, for affective disturbances using the Hamilton Anxiety and Depression scales, and for illness cognitions using the Illness Cognition Questionnaire. Statistical Analysis: Data are analyzed using SPSS version 15. The paired sample t-test is performed for assessing differences on normally distributed data. The Wilcoxon Signed-Rank test is performed for assessing differences in medians obtained on data that was skewed. Results and Discussion: Infertile women (wives) were more emotionally distressed, anxious, and depressed than men (husbands). Gender-wise differences were found for perceptions of helplessness and acceptance of infertility. Infertility was perceived to be a nonbeneficial event for both partners investigated. Conclusion: Negative cognitions and affective disturbances may contribute to higher treatment burden in couples seeking-assisted conception. The present study suggests that psychosocial intervention for couples plays a central role and should be integrated within the conventional treatments for infertility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides results of analysis of data collected from online Spanish-medium subject courses taught in Spanish by the same teacher to students whose first language is English. The students are at a high-intermediate to advanced level (B2-C1), and are enrolled at an American university in Madrid in courses centring on topics of Spanish language and language teaching. The teacher categorized the discussions as more or less successful, mainly depending on the amount of interaction perceived as taking place, but also on the participants’ ability to express the vertical knowledge of the disciplinary concepts they are studying. The study reported on in this article uses functionally oriented models of evaluative language and of knowledge to analyse a “problematic” on-line discussion, along with two other discussions which serve as points of comparison. Quantitative results, in the form of descriptive statistics, are presented in order to underpin a qualitative discussion of where the difficulties lie in students’ ability to create an interactive discussion about course knowledge, leading to some suggestions for setting up on-line discussion in content-based courses, especially for students studying through an additional language. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Objective: This study addressed the role of positive (event is due to God’s Love or to God’s Will) and negative (event is due to God’s Anger) spiritual causal attributions in women’s adjustment to breast cancer. Design: Ninety-three women diagnosed with breast cancer were assessed at six times from pre-diagnosis through two years post-surgery. Main outcome measures: Women completed positive and negative measures of spiritual causal attributions (e.g. God’s Love), cognitive appraisals (e.g. threat), coping behaviour (e.g. avoidance) and well-being (e.g. distress). Results: Positive spiritual attributions were consistently related to positive aspects of adjustment (e.g. positive appraisal, acceptance coping, and/or emotional well-being) while negative spiritual attribution was related to negative factors (e.g. appraisals of loss and uncontrollability, avoidance coping, and/or emotional distress). Path analyses revealed that the effects of positive and negative spiritual attributions on well-being were mediated by general cognitive appraisal and coping behaviour. Cross-lagged correlational analysis revealed a ‘downward spiral’ effect wherein the negative attribution of God’s Anger at pre-diagnosis predicted greater distress at 1 week pre-surgery which in turn predicted an increase in the negative attribution and so on across time. Conclusion: Although positive spiritual attributions may help women maintain an attitude of hope and acceptance in the face of cancer, results indicate that the effects of negative spiritual attribution can play a significant role in undermining their well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

While psychiatry and clinical psychology have long discussed the topic of unconscious emotion, and its potentially explanatory role in psychopathology, this topic has only recently begun to receive attention within cognitive neuroscience. In contrast, neuroscientific research on conscious vs. unconscious processes within perception, memory, decision-making, and cognitive control has seen considerable advances in the last two decades. In this article, we extrapolate from this work, as well as from recent neural models of emotion processing, to outline multiple plausible neuro-cognitive mechanisms that may be able to explain why various aspects of one’s own emotional reactions can remain unconscious in specific circumstances. While some of these mechanisms involve top-down or motivated factors, others instead arise due to bottom-up processing deficits. Finally, we discuss potential implications that these different mechanisms may have for therapeutic intervention, as well as how they might be tested in future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose that the domain general process of categorization contributes to the perception of stress. When a situation contains features associated with stressful experiences, it is categorized as stressful. From the perspective of situated cognition, the features used to categorize experiences as stressful are the features typically true of stressful situations. To test this hypothesis, we asked participants to evaluate the perceived stress of 572 imagined situations, and to also evaluate each situation for how much it possessed 19 features potentially associated with stressful situations and their processing (e.g., self-threat, familiarity, visual imagery, outcome certainty). Following variable reduction through factor analysis, a core set of 8 features associated with stressful situations—expectation violation, self-threat, coping efficacy, bodily experience, arousal, negative valence, positive valence, and perseveration—all loaded on a single Core Stress Features factor. In a multilevel model, this factor and an Imagery factor explained 88% of the variance in judgments of perceived stress, with significant random effects reflecting differences in how individual participants categorized stress. These results support the hypothesis that people categorize situations as stressful to the extent that typical features of stressful situations are present. To our knowledge, this is the first attempt to establish a comprehensive set of features that predicts perceived stress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study focuses on the affect generated by cognitive appraisals of work events in workers' daily life. In this relationship, two moderators have been tested, relevance of the event and explanatory style. Seventy-three workers answered an attributional style questionnaire once (between-level data) and also a daily questionnaire (within-level data) about work events and affect for ten days (N = 730 observations). Multilevel analysis results showed that the influence of moderators in the relationship of appraisal-affect is asymmetric for positive and negative affect. At within-level there is a moderation of the importance attributed to the event for negative affect, but not for positive affect. In the same line, but in an inter-level relationship, the explanatory style has a moderator effect for negative affect when the event is appraised as important. Nevertheless, such an influence is not found for positive affect. The study provides new elements for a multilevel study of third variables in the daily dynamics of appraisal and affect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In high-risk domains such as human space flight, cognitive performances can be negatively affected by emotional responses to events and conditions in their working environment (e.g., isolation and health incidents). The COgnitive Performance and Error (COPE) model distinguishes effects of work content on cognitive task load and emotional state, and their effect on the professional's performance. This paper examines the relationships between these variables for a simulated Mars-mission. Six volunteers (well-educated and -motivated men) were isolated for 520 days in a simulated spacecraft in which they had to execute a (virtual) mission to Mars. As part of this mission, every other week, several computer tasks were performed. These tasks consisted of a negotiation game, a chat-based learning activity and an entertainment game. Before and after these tasks, and after post-task questionnaires, the participants rated their emotional state consisting of arousal, valence and dominance, and their cognitive task load consisting of level of information processing, time occupied and task-set switches. Results revealed significant differences between cognitive task load and emotional state levels when work content varied. Significant regression models were also found that could explain variation in task performance. These findings contribute to the validation of the COPE model and suggest that differences in appraisals for tasks may bring about different emotional states and task performances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The problem of how to characterize emotions is still open. Different approaches have been grouped into two major views: on the one hand, cognitive theory holds that emotions are essentially constituted by some kind of evaluative judgment; on the other, perceptual theory denies that an evaluation of that sort is necessary for an emotion to occur. In this paper I examine the proposal of evolutionary psychology, specially in the face of emotion problems. In particular, I consider the possibility that their original conception of emotions as superordinate programs, could solve the dispute between the perceptual view and those that defend that a cognitive component, usually an appraisal, is required for an emotion to occur. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of emotional states has recently received considerable attention within the cognitive and neural sciences. However, limited work has been done to synthesize this growing body of literature within a coherent hierarchical, neuro-cognitive framework. In this article, we review evidence pertaining to three interacting hierarchical neural systems associated with the generation, perception and regulation of one's own emotional state. In the framework we propose, emotion generation proceeds through a series of appraisal mechanisms – some of which appear to require more cognitively sophisticated computational processing (and hence more time) than others – that ultimately trigger iterative adjustments to one's bodily state (as well as to the modes of processing in other cognitive systems). Perceiving one's own emotions then involves a multi-stage interoceptive/somatosensory process by which these body state patterns are detected and assigned conceptual emotional meaning. Finally, emotion regulation can be understood as a hierarchical control system that, at various levels, modulates autonomic reactions, appraisal mechanisms, attention, the contents of working memory, and goal-directed action selection. We highlight implications this integrative model may have for competing theories of emotion and emotional consciousness and for guiding future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on previous empirical findings, “challenge stressors” (Cavanaugh, Boswell, Roehling, & Bouderau, 2000; Lepine, Podsakoff, & Lepine, 2005), such as the amount and scope of responsibility, can be loosely considered as “good stressors” that are consistently and positively related to job satisfaction and performance. We introduce the role of appraisal to further examine how challenge stressors are connected to performance. Structural equation modelling analyses using an applied sample of 284 employee–supervisor dyads showed that affective commitment to the organization mediated the relationship between both opportunity and threat appraisal and performance (in-role and extra-role). The mediating role of increased psychosomatic distress was supported only for the relationship between threat appraisal and in-role performance. The findings indicate the importance of taking into account the actual appraisal of “challenge stressors”, as it carries implications for performance, and reveals the key role of affective commitment and induced distress mechanisms in this relationship. In conclusion, “challenge stressors” are not always positively related to performance, but only when they are perceived as opportunities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper reports an attempt to integrate key concepts from cognitive models of emotion to cognitive models of interaction established in HCI literature. The aim is to transfer the strengths of interaction models to analysis of affect-critical systems in games, e-commerce and education, thereby increasing their usefulness in these systems where affect is increasingly recognised as a key success factor. Concepts from Scherer's appraisal model and stimulation evaluation checks, along with a framework of emotion contexts proposed by Coulson (An everything but framework for modelling emotion. In proceeding of AAAI spring symposium on architectures for emotion, ), are integrated into the cycle of display-based action proposed by Norman (The design of everyday things. Basic Books, New York, ). Norman's action cycle has commonly been applied as an interaction analysis tool in the field of HCI. In the wake of the recent shift of emphasis to user experience, the cognition-based action cycle is deemed inadequate to explicate affective experiences, such as happiness, joy and surprise. Models based on appraisal theories, focusing on cognitive accounts of emotion, are more relevant to understanding the causes and effects of feelings arising from interacting with digital artefacts. The paper explores the compatibility between these two genres of model, and future development of integrated analysis tools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]