The effects of measuring emotion: physiological reactions to emotional situations depend on whether someone is asking

Karim S Kassam, Wendy Berry Mendes, Karim S Kassam, Wendy Berry Mendes

Abstract

Measurement effects exist throughout the sciences-the act of measuring often changes the properties of the observed. We suggest emotion research is no exception. The awareness and conscious assessment required by self-report of emotion may significantly alter emotional processes. In this study, participants engaged in a difficult math task designed to induce anger or shame while their cardiovascular responses were measured. Half of the participants were asked to report on their emotional states and appraise their feelings throughout the experiment, whereas the other half completed a control questionnaire. Among those in the anger condition, participants assigned to report on their emotions exhibited qualitatively different physiological responses from those who did not report. For participants in the shame condition, there were no significant differences in physiology based on the self-report manipulation. The study demonstrates that the simple act of reporting on an emotional state may have a substantial impact on the body's reaction to an emotional situation.

Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Figure 1. Cardiac output (CO) and total…
Figure 1. Cardiac output (CO) and total peripheral resistance (TPR), heart rate (HR), and pre-ejection period (PEP) reactivity vary by emotion induction and self-report.
Values represent changes from baseline; error bars indicate standard error.

References

    1. Feynman RP, Leighton RB, Sands N (1971) The Feynman lectures on physics (Vol 3).
    1. Barrett LF, Bliss-Moreau E (2009) Affect as a psychological primitive. Adv Exp Soc Psychol 41: 167–218.
    1. Keltner D, Lerner JS (2010) Emotion. In: Gilbert DT, Fiske ST, Lindsay G, editors. The handbook of social psychology. New York: McGraw Hill. 312–347.
    1. Larsen RJ, Fredrickson BL (1999) Measurement issues in emotion research. In: Kahneman D, Diener E, Schwartz N, editors. Well-being: The foundations of hedonic psychology. New York: Gilford. 40–60.
    1. Scherer K (2005) What are emotions? And how can they be measured? Semiotica 44: 695–729.
    1. Northoff G, Richter A, Gessner M, Schlagenhauf F, Fell J, et al. (2000) Functional dissociation between medial and lateral prefrontal cortical spatiotemporal activation in negative and positive emotions: A combined fMRI/MEG study. Cereb Cortex 10: 93–107.
    1. Carreti L, Martin-Loeches M, Hinojosa JA, Mercado F (2001) Emotion and attention interaction studied through event-related potentials. J Cogn Neurosci 13: 1109–1128.
    1. Yamasaki H, LaBar KS, McCarthy G (2002) Dissociable prefrontal brain systems for attention and emotion. Proc Nat Acad Sci, USA 99: 11447–51.
    1. Larsen JT, Berntson GG, Poehlmann KM, Ito TA, Cacioppo JT (2008) The psychophysiology of emotion. In: Lewis M, Haviland-Jones JM, Barrett LF, editors. The Handbook of Emotion. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. 180–195.
    1. Lovallo WR, Thomas TL (2000) Stress hormones in psychophysiological research: Emotional, behavioral, and cognitive implications. In: Cacioppo JT, Tassinary LG, Berntson G, editors. Handbook of psychophysiology. New York: Cambridge University Press. 342–367.
    1. Lambie JA, Marcel AJ (2002) Consciousness and the varieties of emotion experience: A theoretical framework. Psychol Rev 109: 219–259.
    1. Robinson MD, Clore GL (2002) Belief and feeling: Evidence for an accessibility model of emotional self-report. Psychol Bull 128: 934–960.
    1. Kron A, Schul Y, Cohen A, Hassin R (2010) Feelings don’t come easy: Studies on the effortful nature of feelings. J Exp Psychol Gen 139: 520–534.
    1. Leventhal H, Scherer K (1987) The relationship of emotion to cognition: A functional approach to a semantic controversy. Cogn Emot 1: 3–28.
    1. Pennebaker JW (1997) Writing about emotional experiences as a therapeutic process. Psychol Sci 8: 162–166.
    1. Frattaroli J (2006) Experimental disclosure and its moderators: A meta-analysis. Psychol Bull 132: 823–865.
    1. Mendes WB, Reis H, Seery M, Blascovich J (2003) Cardiovascular correlates of emotional expression and suppression: Do content and gender context matter? J Pers Soc Psychol 84: 771–792.
    1. Hughes CF, Uhlmann C, Pennebaker JW (1994) The body's response to processing emotional trauma: Linking verbal text with autonomic activity. J Pers 62: 565–585.
    1. Gross JJ, Levenson RW (1995) Emotion elicitation using films. Cogn Emot 9: 87–108.
    1. Gross JJ (2002) Emotion regulation: Affective, cognitive, and social consequences. Psychophysiology 39: 281–291.
    1. Carver CS, Scheier MF (1982) Control theory: A useful conceptual framework for personality–social, clinical, and health psychology. Psychol Bull 92: 111.
    1. Scheier MF (1976) Self-awareness, self-consciousness, and angry aggression1. J Pers 44: 627–644.
    1. Carver CS, Blaney PH, Scheier MF (1979) Focus of attention, chronic expectancy, and responses to a feared stimulus. J Pers Soc Psychol 37: 1186.
    1. Scheier MF, Carver CS (1977) Self-focused attention and the experience of emotion: Attraction, repulsion, elation, and depression. J Pers Soc Psychol 35: 625.
    1. Scheier MF, Carver CS, Gibbons FX (1981) Self-focused attention and reactions to fear. J Res Pers 15: 1–15.
    1. Lieberman MD, Eisenberger NI, Crockett MJ, Tom SM, Pfeifer JH, et al. (2007) Putting feelings into words: Affect labeling disrupts amygdala activity to affective stimuli. Psychol Sci 18: 421–428.
    1. Creswell JD, Way BM, Eisenberger NI, Lieberman MD (2007) Neural correlates of dispositional mindfulness during affect labeling. Psychosom Med 69: 560–565.
    1. Jamieson JP, Koslov K, Nock MK, Mendes WB (2013) Experiencing discrimination increases risk-taking. Psychol Sci 24: 131–139.
    1. Mauss IB, Cook CL, Cheng JYJ, Gross JJ (2007) Individual differences in cognitive reappraisal: Experiential and physiological responses to an anger provocation. Int J Psychophysiol 66: 116–124.
    1. Mendes WB, Major B, McCoy S, Blascovich J (2008) How attributional ambiguity shapes physiological and emotional responses to social rejection and acceptance. J Pers Soc Psychol 94: 278–291.
    1. Herrald MM, Tomaka J (2002) Patterns of emotion-specific appraisal, coping, and cardiovascular reactivity during an ongoing emotional episode. J Pers Soc Psychol 83: 434–450.
    1. Jamieson JP, Nock MK, Mendes WB (2012) Mind over matter: Reappraising arousal improves cardiovascular and cognitive response to stress. J Exp Psychol Gen 141: 417–422.
    1. Tracy JL, Robins RW (2006) Appraisal antecedents of shame and guilt: Support for a theoretical model. Pers Soc Psychol Rev 32: 1339–1351.
    1. Wechsler D (2003) Wechsler Intelligence Scales for Children Fourth Edition (WISC-IV). San Antonio, TX: Psychological Corporation.
    1. Blascovich J, Mendes WB (2010) Social psychophysiology and embodiment. In: Fiske ST, Gilbert DT, editors. The Handbook of Social Psychology. New York: McGraw Hill. 194–227.
    1. Weiner B (1980) The role of affect in rational (attributional) approaches to human motivation. Educ Res 9: 4–11.
    1. Stemmler G (1989) The autonomic differentiation of emotions revisited: Convergent and discriminant validation. Psychophysiology 26: 617–632.
    1. Brownley KA, Hurwitz BE, Schneiderman N (2000) Cardiovascular psychophysiology. In: Cacioppo JT, Tassinary LG, Berntson GG, editors. Handbook of psychophysiology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 224–264.
    1. Chesney MA, Rosenman RH (1985) Anger and hostility in cardiovascular and behavioral disorders; Anger and hostility in cardiovascular and behavioral disorders. Washington: Hemisphere Publishing Corporation.
    1. Spielberger CD, Johnson EH, Russell SF, Crane R, Jacobs GA, et al. (1985) The experience and expression of anger: Construction and validation of an anger expression scale. Aggr Behav 11: 5–30.
    1. Suls J, Wan CK, Costa PT (1995) Relationship of trait anger to resting blood pressure: A meta-analysis. Health psychol 14: 444.
    1. Lyubomirsky S, Nolen-Hoeksema S (1995) Effects of self-focused rumination on negative thinking and interpersonal problem-solving. J Pers Soc Psychol 69: 176–190.
    1. Ayduk O, Kross E (2008) Enhancing the pace of recovery: Differential effects of analyzing negative experiences from a self-distanced vs. self-immersed perspective on blood pressure reactivity. Psychol Sci 19: 229–231.
    1. Kross E, Ayduk O (2011) Making meaning out of negative experiences by self-distancing. Curr Dir Psychol Sci 20: 187–191.
    1. Bushman BJ, Baumeister RF, Phillips CM (2001) Do people aggress to improve their mood? Catharsis beliefs, affect regulation opportunity, and aggressive responding. J Pers Soc Psychol 81: 17–32.
    1. Gerin W, Zawadzki MJ, Brosschot JF, Thayer JF, Christenfeld N, et al... (2012) Rumination as a mediator of chronic stress effects on hypertension: A causal model. Int J Hypertens 2012.
    1. Brosschot JF, Gerin W, Thayer JF (2006) The perseverative cognition hypothesis: A review of worry, prolonged stress-related physiological activation, and health. J Psychosom Res 60: 113–124.
    1. Nolen-Hoeksema S (2000) The role of rumination in depressive disorders and mixed anxiety/depressive symptoms. J Abnorm Psychol 109: 504–511.
    1. Treynor W, Gonzalez R, Nolen-Hoeksema S (2003) Rumination reconsidered: A psychometric analysis. Cognit Ther Res (Special Issue on Rumination) 27: 247–259.
    1. Glynn LM, Christenfeld N, Gerin W (2007) Recreating cardiovascular responses with rumination: the effects of a delay between harassment and its recall. International J Psychophysiol 66: 135–140.
    1. Zoccola PM, Dickerson SS, Zaldivar FP (2008) Rumination and cortisol responses to laboratory stressors. Psychosom Med 70: 661–667.
    1. Blascovich J, Tomaka J (1996) The biopsychosocial model of arousal regulation. In: Zanna MP, editor. Advances in experimental social psychology. San Diego: Academic Press. 1–51.
    1. Mischkowski D, Kross E, Bushman BJ (In press) Flies on the wall are less aggressive: Self-distancing “in the heat of the moment” reduces aggressive thoughts, angry feelings and aggressive behavior. J Exp Soc Psychol.
    1. Ekman P, Levenson R, Friesen W (1983) Autonomic nervous system activity distinguishes among emotions. Science 221: 1208–1210.
    1. Tracy JL, Robins RW (2004) Putting the self into self-conscious emotions: A theoretical model. Psychol Inq 15: 103–125.
    1. Heerey EA, Keltner D, Capps LM (2003) Making sense of self-conscious emotion: Linking theory of mind and emotion in children with autism. Emotion 3 394–400.
    1. Lewis M (1993) Self-conscious emotions: Embarassment, pride, shame, and guilt. In: Lewis M, Haviland-Jones J, editors. Handbook of emotion. New York: Guilford. 563–573.
    1. Orth U, Berking M, Burkhardt S (2006) Self-conscious emotions and depression: Rumination explains why shame but not guilt is maladaptive. Pers Soc Psychol Bull 32: 1608–1619.
    1. Cohen TR, Wolf ST, Panter AT, Insko CA (2011) Introducing the GASP scale: A new measure of guilt and shame proneness. J Pers Soc Psychol 100: 947–966.
    1. Lieberman MD, Inagaki TK, Tabibnia G, Crockett MJ (2011) Subjective responses to emotional stimuli during labeling, reappraisal, and distraction. Emotion 11: 468–480.
    1. Conner TS, Reid KA (2012) Effects of intensive mobile happiness reporting in daily life. Soc Psychol Personal Sci 3: 315–323.
    1. Wilson TD (2005) Centerbar DB, Kermer DA, Gilbert DT (2005) The pleasures of uncertainty: Prolonging positive moods in ways people do not anticipate. J Pers Soc Psychol 88: 5–21.
    1. Lyubomirsky S, Sheldon KM, Schkade D (2005) Pursuing happiness: The architecture of sustainable change. Rev Gen Psychol 9: 111–131.
    1. Levenson RW (2003) Autonomic specificity and emotion. In: Davidson RJ, Scherer KR, Goldsmith HH, editors. Handbook of affective sciences. New York: Oxford University Press. 212–224.
    1. Barrett LF (2006) Emotions as natural kinds? Perspect Psychol Sci 1: 28–58.
    1. Ray RD, Wilhelm FH, Gross JJ (2008) All in the mind’s eye? Anger rumination and reappraisal. J Pers Soc Psychol 94: 133–145.
    1. Pedersen WC, Denson TF, Goss RJ, Vasquez EA, Kelly NJ, et al. (2011) The impact of rumination on aggressive thoughts, feelings, arousal, and behavior. Br J Soc Psychol 50: 281–301.
    1. Spielberger CD, Sydeman SJ (1994) State-Trait Anxiety Inventory and State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory. In: Maruish ME, editor. The use of psychological testing for treatment planning and out- come assessment. Hillsdale NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. 292–321.
    1. Clay DL, Anderson WP, Dixon WA (1993) Relationship between anger expression and stress in predicting depression. J Couns Dev 72: 91–94.
    1. Bridewell WB, Chang EC (1997) Distinguishing between anxiety, depression, and hostility: Relations to anger-in, anger-out, and anger-control. Pers Individ Dif 22: 587–590.
    1. Matthews KA (2005) Psychological perspectives on the development of coronary heart disease. Am Psychol 60: 783–796.
    1. Jefferson AL (2010) Cardiac output as a potential risk factor for abnormal brain aging. J Alzheimers Dis 20: 813–821.
    1. Tangney JP, Wagner P, Fletcher C, Gramzow R (1992) Shamed into anger? The relation of shame and guilt to anger and self-reported aggression. J Pers Soc Psychol 62: 669.
    1. Lewis HB (1971) Shame and guilt in neurosis. New York: International Universities Press.
    1. Miller S (1985) The shame experience. Hillsdale NJ: Erlbaum.
    1. Gendron M, Lindquist K, Barsalou L, Barrett LF (2012) Emotion words shape emotion percepts. Emotion 12: 314–325.
    1. Lindquist K, Barrett LF (2008) Constructing emotion: The experience of fear as a conceptual act. Psychol Science 19: 898–903.

Source: PubMed

Szponzorok és közreműködők

Egészségi állapot

Kábítószer-beavatkozások

3
Iratkozz fel