Jessica L. Hartnett

The fading affect bias in the context of emotion activation level, mood, and personal theories of emotion change.

The intensity of emotions associated with memory of pleasant events generally fades more slowly across time than the intensity of emotions associated with memory of unpleasant events, a phenomenon known as the fading affect bias (FAB). Four studies examined variables that might account for, or moderate, the bias. These included the activation level of the emotions, individual differences in dispositional mood, and participant expectations of emotion change across time. Results suggest that (a) although emotion activation level was related to overall fading of affect, it was unrelated to the FAB; (b) dispositional mood moderated the FAB, but could not fully account for it; and (c) although participants’ predictions of event-related emotion change across time were somewhat veridical, the FAB emerged even when these predictions were accounted for statistically. Methodological and theoretical implications for research on the affect associated with autobiographical events are discussed.

Experimenter Characteristics and Word Choice: Best Practices When Administering an Informed Consent

The present research seeks to better understand research conditions in laboratory research, with special attention paid to the informed consent process and experimenter characteristics. The first study tested the impact of language perspective and experimenter demeanor upon participant retention of the informed consent information, attitudes toward the research project, and performance on experimental tasks. The second study examined the impact of experimenter attire. Across the two studies, our results suggest that there was no impact of language perspective, whereas the number of other participants in the laboratory, experimenter attire, and experimenter demeanor influence participant behaviors in the laboratory.

Affective forecasts and the Valentine's Day shootings at NIU: People are resilient, but unaware of it

People overestimate the extent to which emotion-producing life events affect subsequent affect. However, research has yet to conclusively demonstrate that this phenomenon occurs following significant trauma affecting entire communities, or whether it applies to predictions of discrete emotions. Exploring such issues, student reports of emotion states were collected both before and after the oncampus Valentines Day, 2008 shootings at Northern Illinois University (NIU). A separate group of students not on campus when the shootings occurred provided emotion state reports and predictions of the emotions they would expect to experience 2 weeks after a shooting occurred. Examination of these data suggests that: (1) emotion states of NIU students reflected resilience, and (2) students made affective forecasting errors indicating that this resilience was unexpected. These data confirm results of prior affective forecasting studies, extending them to cases of traumatic experiences, and suggest that such studies can expand their focus to explore specific post-event emotions.

Sex differences in jealousy: the (lack of) influence of researcher theoretical perspective

ABSTRACT The sex difference in jealousy is an effect that has generated significant controversy in the academic literature (resulting in two meta-analyses that reached different conclusions on the presence or absence of the effect). In this study, we had a team of researchers from different theoretical perspectives use identical protocols to test whether the sex difference in jealousy would occur across many different samples (while testing whether mate value would moderate the effect). In our samples, we found the sex difference in jealousy to occur using both forced choice and continuous measures, this effect appeared in several different settings, and, we found that mate value moderated participant responses. The results are discussed in light of the controversy surrounding the presence of the effect.

Using Data Mining to Teach Applied Statistics and Correlation

This article describes two class activities that introduce the concept of data mining and very basic data mining analyses. Assessment data suggest that students learned some of the conceptual basics of data mining, understood some of the ethical concerns related to the practice, and were able to perform correlations via the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS, Version 20).

Stats on the Cheap: Using Free and Inexpensive Internet Resources to Enhance the Teaching of Statistics and Research Methods

The present article describes four free or inexpensive Internet-based activities that can be used to supplement statistics/research methods/general psychology classes. Each activity and subsequent homework assessment is described, as well as homework performance outcome and student opinion data for each activity.