Goal-directed Attentional Deployment to Emotional Faces and Individual Differences in Emotional Regulation
Gladys Leon
Florida International University
Goal-directed Attentional Deployment to Emotional Faces and Individual Differences in Emotional Regulation
Summary
Johnson (2009) conducted a study to test the hypothesis that an effective method for regulating emotion is goal-directed attentional deployment. The sample was comprised of a total of one hundred and nine participants. All of the participants were undergraduate psychology students from the University of Oklahoma. These students chose to participate in this experiment for an alternative course credit. Forty-two students were males and the average age was nineteen years old.
A combination of experimental and correlational
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approaches were used. The experimental method revealed that direction of goal attentional disposition to positive stimuli can function as a comprehensive instrument of emotion regulation (Johnson, 2008). This connection would not have been recognized if this study was tested solely by using the correlational approach. The correlational method was significant in this study because it exposed the reality that individual differences can alter the capability to utilize goal-directed attentional disposition under anxiety. This method also displayed that individuals who are better at utilizing goal-directed attentional deployment under anxiety were also regulated emotion more effectively. This study consisted of an independent variable and a dependent variable. The independent variable was the condition. There were two possible conditions which were goal and no goal. The independent variable is recognizable because it is the condition whose variation does not depend on that of another. The dependent variable was the amount of time used to complete the anagram task. The time is recognized as a dependent variable because its value is dependent on the participant's capability to complete the anagram task. The procedure for this study was performed as followed: All of the participants filled out questionnaire that consisted of two items and were a total of a one to ten scale. This questionnaire was given to measure state frustration and state anxiety. Following the completion of this questionnaire, the participants were given the first anagram task and a second assessment of state frustration and state anxiety immediately after. The anagram task was intended to put a demand on emotion regulation, such as provoking frustration and anxiety where participants were required to unscramble a group of letters to make a new word. There were four different types of anagrams in which participants received. Two were unsolvable anagrams and two were challenging anagrams. Participants were not permitted to write anything on their anagrams while in process of completing the task and they were told that they would be expected to recollect the tactics that were used to solve the anagrams. This first time the anagram task was given guaranteed participants were under pressure when they took the dot-probe task. In the dot-probe task, participants were presented with a pair of faces, then the faces were removed and a dot-probe appeared in replacement of one of the faces. Participants respond as quickly as possible to the dot-probe by indicating whether they visualized one or two dots. Each face pair contained the same person appearing to be happy and having an angry expression. The participants were then randomly selected to either a goal or no goal condition. The goal condition group was comprised of fifty-four participants. They were instructed to focus their eyes on happy faces. After the dot-probe task, participants filled out the measure of state frustration and state anxiety a third time. Then, they were given the anagram task to complete a second time with four different anagrams. At the end of the session, participants completed a fourth and final assessment of state frustration and state anxiety. The results of this study validates the hypothesis of Johnson (2009) that individuals utilize goal-directed attentional deployment to regulate emotion. The results revealed that those provided with a goal to give undivided attention to the happy faces demonstrated a preliminary preconscious bias to angry faces while those without this goal did not. In the goal condition at the early stage of the time course, participants reacted more rapidly to angry dot-probes than to happy dot-probes. Later in the time course, participants were able to adhere to the emotional goal and reacted significantly quicker to dot-probes following happy faces rather than to angry faces. In the no goal condition at the midpoint in the time course, participants reacted quicker to angry dot-probes than to happy dot-probes. There was not a substantial attentional bias at the early stage or late stage of the time course. Participants in the no goal condition displayed a bias toward angry faces in attentional processing. This study showed that participants are able to proceed an emotional goal while under pressure and that this technique leads to enlarged regulation effectiveness on a succeeding stressor. Critique This study was very well organized and conducted in a structured manner. The tools that were used, such as the dot-probes and anagrams, strengthened the validity in this study. This study is valid because the methods that were intended to test the participant’s emotion regulation actually measured their ability to regulate their emotions when using goal-directed attentional deployment to positive stimuli. The anagrams and dot-probes reflect the participant’s performance based on their stress level. The validity of the preliminary questionnaire that participants complete before moving on to the tasks is questionable because that section is based on the information that each participant wishes to disclose. If a participant chose to be dishonest during the two-item Likert scale (1–10) questionnaire, than his or her state frustration and state anxiety may be measured incorrectly. This study was highly reliable, especially due to the fact that retests were administered. Test-retest reliability is a measure of reliability acquired by administering the same test more than once over a period of time to a group of participants. The scores from both times are then be correlated in order to assess the test for stability over time. Although the preliminary questionnaire could possibly be invalid, it is still considered reliable because it is administered at the beginning of this study and re-administered at the end. The results of Johnson (2009) were clearly interpreted with the use of a chart. The results presented in the article seemed to be as strong as the claims of the author because his study supported his findings from previous work and literature, which he has taken into account. The findings were consistent with the claims of the author because it displayed that deployment of attention to emotional stimuli can be used as a comprehensive mechanism for emotion regulation. This concurrently supports emotion regulation theory that proposes attentional deployment is a chief mechanism of emotion regulation. To build on the findings of this study, a follow-up study should be designed to analyze how different emotion regulation demands can affect goal-directed emotional attention. A follow-up study can consist of the same sample size, but different tasks and different conditions. Instead of dot-probes, for the follow-up study, participants should be given a sixty second commercial to watch. The commercial depicts children playing at a playground. There will be a group of happy children laughing and playing and a group of upset children who appear to be crying. The participants will randomly be assigned to either focus on the happy children playing or the upset children crying. Shortly after, they will be given a word search puzzle. In the word search there will be words related to happiness and words related to sadness (such as pleasure, joy, sorrow, despair, etc.).The participants will be given ninety seconds to find as many words as possible. The hypothesis of this follow-up study would be that participants will find more words that are related to the goal they were given and ultimately, goal-directed attentional deployment will regulate emotion. Brief Summary Johnson (2009) designed a study that examined whether the direction of goal attentional disposition to emotional facial expressions served as an effective technique to regulate emotion.
This study also analyzed whether individual variances in this ability to adhere to goal-directed attentional deployment predicted more effective emotion regulation. One hundred and nine undergraduate students participated in the dot-probe task under pressure and were randomly chosen to either focus their attention towards the happy faces (which was an attentional goal) or no attentional goal.
Participants who were selected to focus on the happy faces reported approximately three times less frustration in response to a stressful anagram task compared to those who were not told to focus on any of the faces in particular. The participants who were given the goal of focusing on the happy faces and were able to adhere to the goal had a longer endurance during the stressful anagram task. Trait anxiety was not a component that decreased these results. These conclusions have significant inferences for concepts of emotion regulation and anxiety-related attentional
biases. References Johnson, D. (2009). Goal-directed attentional deployment to emotional faces and individual differences in emotional regulation. Journal of Research in Personality, 43(1), 8-13. doi:10.1016/j.jrp.2008.09.006
Physiologically, happiness is activity of the mind, predominantly in the left prefrontal cortex, anterior cortex, and the amygdale. Recent studies made possible by scanning systems such as MRIs and Positron Emission Tomography show that when an individual experiences feelings of happiness, the activity in these areas of the brain increase proportionally. This empirical evidence concurs with Aristotle’s definition, wi...
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The first section explores the “flat-brain theory of emotions, flat-brain syndrome, and flat-brain tango” (Petersen, 2007, pp. 2-45). All three are interrelated (Petersen, 2007). The flat-brain theory of emotions “demonstrates what’s occurring inside of us when things are going well, and how that changes when they are not” (Petersen, 2007, p. 11). Petersen’s (2007) theory “explains how our emotions, thinking, and relating abilities work and how what goes on inside us comes out in the ways we communicate and act” (p. 8). The “flat-brain syndrome” describes what happens when an individual wears their emotions on their sleeve. This “makes it
Korman, L. M., & McMain, S. (2001). Dialectical behavior therapy and the treatment of emotion dysregulation. Psychotherapy in Practice, 183-196.
97). What this implies is that our emotions energize our actions, which we direct toward achieving some goal. According to Adler (Ferguson), “ emotion helps to move the person toward his or her goals”. Additionally, “if there are maladaptive aspects it isn’t the emotion but the goals that are maladaptive” (pg.98).
Throughout childhood and our adolescent years, we learn to control our emotions, eventually gaining an understanding of how and when it is appropriate to express or suppress those emotions. This technique is referred to as emotional regulation or effortful control and is considered a lifelong endeavor, with early childhood being a crucial time for development (Berger. 2014, p.210) According to Berger, by age 6 signs of emotional regulation are evident with most children being able to become upset or angry without emotional outburst or proud without being narcissistic (Gross,2014; Lewis,2013). Emotional control and delayed gratification are developed using motivation either intrinsic (the joy felt within after achieving something) or extrinsic (the gratification felt after receiving praise or acknowledgment from outside sources) (Berger. 2014, p.214). Unlike intrinsic motivation, because extrinsic motivation requires outside reinforcements to be achieved, once the extrinsic reward stops, so does the behavior; unless it becomes habitual due to intrinsic gratification (Berger,2014, p.214).
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Significant reaction times differences were found between high versus low mood groups’ (see Figure 1; left). As well, significant within-group compatibility effects (responses to items congruent or the same as, versus items incongruent or opposite to, the central target item). This task incorporated a spatial element (near vs. far), whereas our subsequent research, the Emotional Flanker-Gratton (EFG)5, investigated the effects of sequential mood-stimuli on emotional attention in high vs. low mood-groups (see figure 1, right). The EFG revealed significant congruency sequence effects (difference between incongruent and congruent trials is typically strongly reduced when the previous trial was incongruent compared to when congruent) and supported EF low/high group findings. Sequence effects are calculated via the subject’s reaction times, which correspond to electrical brain impulses; measureable by various biomedical equipment. When the brain up-regulates the amount of control (i.e., electrical activity) in the Anterior Cingulate Cortex and Dorsal Lateral Prefrontal Cortex, more intense attentional control is exerted – resulting in a faster response, after a slower (compatibility effect) response to stimuli. Interestingly, high mood-score groups show consistent differences to control groups during attention tasks when viewing emotion-related
Rosen, L. D., Cheever, N. A., Cummings, C., & Felt, J. (2008). The impact of emotionality and
“Three of the most effective tools for managing strong emotions are asking questions, reframing, and paraphrasing” (Fitch, B. 2016
Park, C. L., Wright, B. E., Pais, J., & Ray, D. M. (2016). Daily Stress and Self-Control., 35, 738-753.
Emotion has a major role that it plays in the learning environment (Cleveland-Innes & Campbell, 2012). Educational psychologists believe the motivation, achievements, and the overall educational performance has a direct correlation to the human emotion (Cleveland-Innes & Campbell, 2012). That statement alone reflects the significant role that emotion plays in education. There is a major need for human emotion to be displayed in the educational environment and it really does not matter whether it is a brick and mortar class or an online learning environment; emotion must and in fact does play a role.