Jürgen H. Otto

The Colors of Anger, Envy, Fear, and Jealousy A Cross-Cultural Study

Word associations or verbal synesthesia between concepts of color and emotions were studied in Gersnany, Mexico, Poland, Russia, and the United States. With emotion words as the between-subjects variable, 661 undergraduates indicated on 6-point scales to what extent anger, envy, fear, and jealousy reminded them of 12 terms of color. In all nations, the colors of anger were black and red, fear was black, and jealousy was red. Cross-cultural differences were (a) Poles connected anger, envy, and jealousy also with purple; (b) Germans associated envy and jealousy with yellow; and (c) Americans associated envy with black, green, and red, but for the Russians it was black, purple, and yellow. The findings suggest that cross-modal associations originate in universal human experiences and in culture-specific variables, such as language, mythology, and literature.

Entwicklung eines Fragebogens zur Erfassung der wahrgenommenen emotionalen Intelligenz

Zusammenfassung. Basierend auf der Trait Meta-Mood Scale (Salovey, Mayer, Goldman, Turvey & Palfai, 1995) wurde in 3 Studien fur 3 Aspekte der wahrgenommenen emotionalen Intelligenz (die Aufmerksamkeit auf sowie die Klarheit und Beeinflussbarkeit von Emotionen) ein deutschsprachiger Fragebogen konstruiert und validiert. Zwei faktorenanalytische Studien mit 341 Universitatsstudierenden fuhrten zu 3 entsprechenden Skalen hoher interner Konsistenzen (von .81 bis .88) mit hoher konvergenter und diskriminanter Validitat in Bezug auf verwandte Fragebogen. Die 3. Studie mit 95 Versuchsteilnehmern und 28 Photographien von 7 fazialen Emotionen (Freude, Angst, Ekel, Uberraschung, Wut, Trauer und Verachtung) bestatigte die Hypothese, dass Personen, die Emotionen starke Aufmerksamkeit schenken, den Emotionsausdruck bei anderen genauer wahrnehmen als Personen, die Emotionen wenig Aufmerksamkeit schenken. Abschliesend werden Fahigkeits- und Mischmodell-Konzepte der emotionalen Intelligenz diskutiert und das Verhaltnis ...

Anger, Envy, Fear, and Jealousy as Felt in the Body: A Five-Nation Study:

An ongoing debate is centered on the question of whether emotions have their own pattern of autonomic nervous system activation. To determine whether individuals do perceive subjective physiological changes for different emotions, 514 university students in Germany, Mexico, Poland, Russia, and the United States indicated on a 6-point scale to what extent they felt anger, envy, fear, and jealousy in particular parts of the body and body processes. In agreement with recent studies, the pattern of sites where emotions were re ported to be felt varied for different emotions. Cross-cultural commonalities and differences were also found. The findings were

Cross-Cultural Comparisons of Nouns Associated With Jealousy and the Related Emotions of Envy, Anger, and Fear

To determine cross-cultural variations in associative meaning, 389 males and females in Germany, Russia, and the United States rated nouns for their degree of association with the concepts of jealousy, envy, anger, and fear. The findings touched on several issues. Re garding the conceptual distinction between jealousy and envy, the associations overlapped strongly in the United States, somewhat in Germany, and not at all in Russia. In agreement with scholars who posit that jealousy is a combination of anger and fear, we found that jealousy overlapped with anger in three nations and with fear in two nations. But the overlap was far less than that between anger and fear. Evidence for the proposal that anger and fear are more firmly rooted in the biological heritage of human beings than are jealousy and envy was inconclusive. Predictions drawn from tax onomy and prototype models that anger, envy, and jealousy would have similar associations but that each emotion would differ from fear were not supported.

Individual Differences in Emotional Clarity and Complex Problem Solving

Complex problem solving can be predicted to a fair degree by test intelligence. But if emotions are informative, emotional intelligence scores might increase this prediction even more. Therefore, we assessed problem solving behavior, performance, and mood in a quasi-experimental design with 63 students who varied in emotional clarity and solved problems low or high in complexity. Processing capacity served as a covariate. Results revealed that high clarity participants show more conducive problem-solving behavior with high complex problems and generally reach better performance than low clarity participants. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that emotional clarity predicts performance independent of and to the same degree as processing capacity. Finally, the ability- and mixed-model conceptions of emotional intelligence are discussed and the relationship between subjective and objective components of intelligence is questioned.

Wahrgenommene Beeinflussbarkeit von negativen Emotionen, Stimmung und komplexes Problemlösen

Zusammenfassung: Die traditionelle Intelligenzkomponente “Verarbeitungskapazitat” kann komplexes Problemlosen vorhersagen. Wir untersuchen, ob eine Komponente der wahrgenommenen emotionalen Intelligenz, namlich die Beeinflussbarkeit von negativen Emotionen, die Vorhersagemoglichkeiten verbessert. N = 92 Studierende (67 Frauen, 25 Manner, Mdn = 21 Jahre) wurden mit einem 2 × 3 quasi-experimentellem Design untersucht. In Gruppen mit hoch oder gering beeinflussbarkeitsdisponierten Versuchsteilnehmern wurden negative, neutrale oder positive Emotionszustande induziert. Beim komplexen Problemlosen wurden Indikatoren des Problemloseverhaltens, der Leistung und des Gefuhlszustandes erhoben. Als Kovariate wurde die Verarbeitungskapazitat erfasst. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass hoch beeinflussbarkeitsdisponierte Personen bei induzierter negativer Emotion ungeeigneteres Problemloseverhalten und eine schlechtere Leistung zeigen als niedrig beeinflussbarkeitsdisponierte Personen. Hoch beeinflussbarkeitsdisponierte Person...

Zur Bedeutung von subjektiven, emotionalen Intelligenzkomponenten für das komplexe Problemlösen

Zusammenfassung: Traditionelle Intelligenzkomponenten (z.B. die Verarbeitungskapazitat) sind bei ublichen Problemloseaufgaben zur Verhaltensvorhersage geeignet, wahrend bei komplexen Problemsituationen subjektive, emotionale Intelligenzkomponenten (z.B. die Klarheit der Emotionen) die Verhaltensvorhersage verbessern sollen. An N = 63 Studierenden (32 Frauen, 31 Manner, Mdn = 26 Jahre) wurden in einem 2 × 2-Design, das aus einer weniger gegenuber einer hoch komplexen Problemsituation und Gruppen mit hoch vs. gering klarheitsdisponierten Versuchsteilnehmern bestand, Indikatoren des Problemloseverhaltens, der Leistung und des Gefuhlszustandes erfasst. Als Kovariate wurde die Verarbeitungskapazitat erhoben. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass hoch klarheitsdisponierte Personen geeigneteres Problemloseverhalten in der hoch komplexen Situation und generell eine bessere Leistung und Stimmung aufweisen als niedrig klarheitsdisponierte Personen. Regressionsanalytisch sagt die emotionsbezogene Klarheit unabhangige, gleich ...

Self-Awareness and Coping Style: Differential Effects of Mild Physical Exercise

Publisher Summary This chapter presents a study focusing on self-awareness and coping style. By using a multidimensional model of activation (arousal), the long-term effect of mild exercise (10 minute treadmill walk) was investigated in the chapter. Additionally, the habitual coping style and self-awareness of the subjects were assessed using a questionnaire technique. N = 40 male and female introductory psychology students served as subjects. The session for each subject lasted two hours with measures taken every 10 minutes on the self-report dimensions of the activation–deactivation adjective checklist and physiological indicators, such as heart rate, pulse volume amplitude, and skin conductance level. The results showed a general exercise effect for a time period up to 30 min after the exercise: The self-report of energetic arousal, as well as the pulse volume amplitude were significantly elevated for the experimental group. A differential analysis provided further insight into this phenomenon. Also there were no differences on the physiological level of arousal repressers and sensitizers displayed significant different verbal reports stressing the importance of the underlying self-awareness and cognitive appraisals. Whereas extreme repressers spoke of no feelings at all, sensitizers reported an effect for 20 minutes.

Change of anxiety states by probabilistic processing

Abstract In contrast to the vast literature on the influence of affect on cognitive processing, this report raised the neglected question whether cognitive processing can influence anxiety states. Based on network and proceduralization models, the hypothesis was that anxiety states are prolonged only when congruent with compatible types of probabilistic processing. Anxiety states were induced in 66 female university students with an auto-biographical recollection method. To manipulate style of processing, the participants judged the likelihood of events happening to them using probability or categorical response formats. Results showed that different types of anxiety states (i.e., threat to self-esteem, physical threat) are sustained by different kinds of processing (i.e., graded or yes-no likelihood judgments, respectively). These findings point to the reciprocal influence of cognitive processing on affect. The results are discussed with regard to network and proceduralization models and the mood repair ...

The Problem of Attribution and Cognitive Therapy

The following chapter, which presents an introduction to the research on attribution and its clinical relevance, is divided into three main sections. In the first part, the classical theories of attribution by Heider (1958) — to whom the theory of attribution is often attributed—Jones and Davis (1965), and Kelley (1967) will be presented with regard to its sphere of application in therapy. In the second part, those aspects of the classical theories will be described towards which the interest of recent research has been directed, whereby those aspects in particular which seem relevant for a therapeutic process will be emphasized, such as certain forms of cognitive processes of judgment, aspects of verbal usage, and emotional disorders. In the third and final section, investigations which have become part of the clinical experimental literature under the heading “attribution therapy,” will be specifically presented in detail.