Lawrence R. Burns

Spontaneous emotion regulation during evaluated speaking tasks: Associations with negative affect, anxiety expression, memory, and physiological responding.

In these studies, the correlates of spontaneously using expressive suppression and cognitive reappraisal during stressful speeches were examined. Spontaneous emotion regulation means that there were no instructions of how to regulate emotions during the speech. Instead, participants indicated after the speech to what extent they used self-motivated expressive suppression or reappraisal during the task. The results show that suppression is associated with less anxiety expression, greater physiological responding, and less memory for the speech while having no impact on negative affect. In contrast, reappraisal has no impact on physiology and memory while leading to less expression and affect. Taken together, spontaneous emotion regulation in active coping tasks has similar consequences as experimentally induced emotion regulation in passive tasks.

Facets of Dynamic Positive Affect: Differentiating Joy, Interest, and Activation in the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS)

This article proposes the differentiation of Joy, Interest, and Activation in the Positive Affect (PA) scale of the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS; D. Watson, L. A. Clark, & A. Tellegen, 1988). Study 1 analyzed the dynamic course of PA before, during, and after an exam and established the differentiation of the three facets. Study 2 used a multistate-multitrait analysis to confirm this structure. Studies 3-5 used success-failure experiences, speaking tasks, and feedback of exam results to further examine PA facets in affect-arousing settings. All studies provide convincing evidence for the benefit of differentiating three facets of PA in the PANAS: Joy, Interest, and Activation do have distinct and sometimes even opposite courses that make their separation meaningful and rewarding.

The relationship between positive and negative affect in the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule

Abstract The Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS; Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988 ) is one of the most widely used affect scales. Nevertheless, the relation between its two scales, positive affect (PA) and negative affect (NA), is still controversial. Previous results that suggest independence between NA and PA were limited to manifest variables. In this study, the relation between PA and NA for both state and trait instructions was analyzed by means of structural equation modeling. Two hundred ninety-two participants responded to the PANAS at three occasions of measurement. No association was found between trait PA and NA, but significant negative correlations between state PA and NA emerged. In the second step, the observed variance of state PA and NA was decomposed into a dispositional component, an occasion-specific component, a method-specific component, and a component due to measurement error by employing a multi-construct latent state–trait model. This analysis confirmed and extended the results of our first analysis: the dispositional components of state PA and NA were unrelated. In contrast, the situation-specific components were negatively associated. Thus, the negative correlation between state PA and NA could be traced back to situation-specific effects.

The Assessment of Dispositional Vigilance and Cognitive Avoidance: Factorial Structure, Psychometric Properties, and Validity of the Mainz Coping Inventory

This article reports the construction and empirical evaluation of the English adaptation of the Mainz Coping Inventory (MCI). The MCI, which is based on the model of coping modes (Krohne, 1993), is organized as a stimulus–response inventory and contains two subtests. Eight fictitious situations are presented to the participants. Four of these situations represent physical threat (subtest MCI-P) and four ego threat (subtest MCI-E). Each situation is conjoined with five vigilant and five cognitive avoidant coping strategies, thus allowing the separate assessment of the coping dispositions of vigilance and cognitive avoidance. Analyses concerning appraisals of the threat situations, factorial structure, and psychometric properties of the MCI as well as convergent and discriminant associations with coping and affect variables are presented. Results of the analyses indicate that the MCI is a reliable and valid measure of two central coping dimensions.

Individual Differences in Perceived Information Processing Styles in Stress and Coping Situations: Development and Validation of the Perceived Modes of Processing Inventory

A new self-report instrument was constructed toassess a persons awareness and perception of his or herdominant mode of information processing in stress andcoping situations. The items were based on Epsteins (1990) cognitive-experientialself-theory, which distinguishes between rational andexperiential information processing. Exploratory andconfirmatory factor analyses found that this instrument is measuring three different perceivedprocessing styles: (1) rational processing, (2)emotional processing, and (3) automatic processing.Collectively, these measures were named the PerceivedModes of Processing Inventory (PMPI). Data supporting thereliability and criterion validity of the PMPI werepresented. In general, perceived rational processing wasmost strongly and consistently related to adaptiveproblem focused coping and positive psychologicalwell-being. Perceived emotional processing was relatedto adaptive emotion-focused coping (expressing emotions,seeking social support), but it was also related to more psychological distress and less positivewell-being.

The Socratic Method: Empirical Assessment of a Psychology Capstone Course.

Although students make some epistemological progress during college, most graduate without developing meaning-making strategies that reflect an understanding that knowledge is socially constructed. Using a pre-test–post-test design and a within-subjects 2 × 2 mixed-design ANOVA, this study reports on empirical findings which support the Socratic method of teaching as effective in challenging and changing psychology capstone students’ levels of epistemological maturity as measured by the Learning Environment Preferences survey and Perry’s model of intellectual maturity.