The dynamics of emotional discordance: Psychophysiology, observed affect, and self-reported experience

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Emotion theories assert that the hallmark of a coherent emotional response is the concordance or mutual amplification across the physiological, experiential, and behavioural domains. In contrast, models of emotion regulation (ER) emphasize the adaptive modulation of emotion processes in service of goals. Efforts to down regulate negative emotions, for example, focus on selectively controlling physiological (e.g., deep breathing) or experiential (e.g., re-evaluating emotional significance) or behavioural (e.g., suppressing expressions) manifestations in order to realize a less distressed emotional state. Thus, the concordance expected by emotion theory (which has received limited empirical support) is disrupted by the control processes of ER. The primary objective of the proposed set of topics is to better understand emotion and ER through the examination of discordance. Through the manipulation of social and non-social emotion induction techniques within innovative multi-method designs, we will examine synchronized profiles of emotional reactivity and recovery across the physiological, experiential, and behavioural domains. The short-term objectives are to conduct studies to understand the nature of discordance and develop a theoretical model of the emotion system. These projects are designed to answer several questions: What are associations between discordance and specific ER strategies, moderated by gender? How do variations in the social context influence discordance? Does within-individual discordance change as a function of discrete emotional states? How stable are measures of discordance? Does discordance increase from childhood through adulthood? Funds will support student training (minimum of 5 BSc, 2 MSc, and 3 PhD) with sophisticated technology to perform high-level research. Results will have a significant impact on the understanding of emotional processes by functionally integrating emotion- and ER-based models to make discoveries about the dynamic processes of emotion and ER. Ultimately, we will use this knowledge to develop an empirically-supported theoretical model of the emotion system.