Emotion and Ambivalence

Music festivals have become an important element of the cultural and turistic programme of the western cities. These events are the origin of several intangible impacts such as the socio-cultural or the emotional which are linked to the personal identity. Understanding the emotional impact as an indicator composed of the description of the emotions and their intensity, this impact may help to comprehend the intense experience of the attendant in the context of these events. In that perspective, we stablished two aims for the research. Firstly, propose a model of evaluation of the emotional impact in music events in relation with the cultural construction of the identity. Secondly, test the model in four different music festivals. This combination becomes the first attempt to combine different models of psychological identification of emotions with the cultural impact event evaluation. Moreover, allows the observing on attendees experiences in how emotion affects the participation in music festivals and serves to understand the role of emotions in the construction of the cultural identity of the participants. The findings confirmed the correlation between the existence of intense emotions and the creation of several items in the personal cultural identity, namely: the sense of community, the city pride, the consolidation of music preferences or the creation of new aesthetic interests.

Since Darwin the vagus nerve has been proposed as an essential anatomical foundation enabling optimal social interactions. Specifically, vagal activity is assumed to be causally related to facial expressivity. Although repeatedly proposed supporting empirical evidence is exclusively correlative in nature. Here we aimed at directly testing the proposed causal link between vagal activity and facial expressivity as indexed by facial mimicry. For this, we employed transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation (tVNS) as a non-invasive neuromodulation technique. Specifically, we manipulated vagal activity by superficially stimulating the cymba conchae ¬– a vagally innervated region of the external ear. In two sessions, participants received active or sham stimulation before and during performing a facial mimicry task including electromyographic recordings. We observed a typical facial mimicry effect which, importantly, was more pronounced in the active as compared to the sham condition. Thus, our study is the first to demonstrate a causal role of vagal activity in facial expressivity which expands existing knowledge about the neuroanatomical regulation of facial mimicry and highlights the role of vagal activity for optimal socio-emotional functioning.

Information integration principles have an influence on how information about the presence or absence of an ingredient may lead to buying decisions. Based on the theory of perceived threat (Slovic, 1987) we propose that both form and content of conveying information about presence and absence have separate influence and present two experiments that test this assumption. In a 2 (label vs. no label - within) x2 (label information: presence, absence - between) x2 (healthiness of food product: healthy, not healthy - between) mixed design 142 participants saw a label that indicated either the absence or the presence of an unknown ingredient. Participants’ task was to compare the product with the label to the same product without the label in terms of its tastiness and healthiness. Furthermore, we measured their tendency to buy the products. Ambivalence was assessed objectively with the Griffin scale and subjectively by asking directly. Participants indicated a preference to buy products without a label. Products without a label were also perceived as tastier than those with a label. Confirming our prediction that form and content interact asymmetrically, products without a label were rated as healthier than products without a label, if the label said “with” rather than “without”. Objective ambivalence correlated highly with subjective ambivalence for products without a label, but not for products with a label. In a second experiment to be reported we varied label information verbally rather than visually. Meaning of results will be discussed in both a basic and an applied sense.

We investigate attitudinal ambivalence using diffusion models, which compute different parameters mapped to cognitive processes. This allows us to compare ambivalent trials on speed of response execution (d), non-decisional time (t0), and drift rate (v). Participants were instructed to respond speedily to obtain a sufficient amount of incorrect trials for the diffusion modelling. Experiment 1 (N=76) used ambivalent words as primes in an evaluative priming paradigm. Mixed model analysis showed higher latencies for ambivalent trials than for congruent trials. The diffusion modelling, with correct and incorrect as the decision boundaries, also showed differences with congruent trials, where the t0-parameter was higher for the ambivalent trials. Both methods showed little difference between ambivalent and incongruent trials. In Experiment 2 (N=73) ambivalent words served as target stimuli instead of primes. Mixed model analysis showed that ambivalent targets were categorized more slowly than congruent trials. The diffusion model analysis was conducted with positive and negative as the decision boundaries. For both the d-and t0-parameters, negative target trials had significantly lower values compared to both positive and ambivalent target trials. The v-parameter was also significantly different between all three conditions, with positive and negative trials showing drift rates in the direction of their respective boundary, and ambivalent trials showing no preference. In conclusion, it seems that ambivalent targets allow for a faster response execution and non-decisional time than negative targets. This contrasts with ambivalent primes, where their dual nature makes them inherently incongruent with positive or negative targets.

Studying the ebb and flow of affect in daily life provides important insights into psychological functioning and well-being. However, little attention has been paid to the sources and underlying processes of these short-term changes. We propose a model in which affect is conceptualized as the output of dynamic processes. Given that affect reflects transactions between an organism and its proximal environment, we relate the evaluative aspect of events in terms of their pleasantness or unpleasantness (iV, “valence”) to fluctuations in momentary affective experience (dV, “affect”). The model explains affective experience as resulting from the cumulative effects of previous valent events (“accumulation principle”). The core of the model consists of parameters that moderate the relation between valent events and affective experience. These parameters reflect individual differences in the extremity of short-term changes (reactivity) and in longer-term changes in affective experience (attenuation) caused by positive or negative events. A simulation study revealed identifiability of the model’s core parameters via Bayesian data analysis. An empirical application of our model will be presented using daily affect and event ratings from 315 individuals ranging in age between 14 – 86 years. The general pattern of results suggested more age-related similarities than differences. For reactivity and the attenuation of negative event impact, no age-related changes were found. However, attenuation for the impact of positive events decreased with increasing age. We discuss potentials and limitations of the approach and close with an outlook on the broader implications for understanding emotional development.