Individual Differences in Mood Attenuation: How and Why

University Of Mississippi, University MS

Investigators

Abstract

[unreadable] DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The underlying assumption of this research program is that the information carried by one's emotional feelings is critical for judgment and decision-making. A multivariate psychometric approach detected a group of individuals (30% of college samples) who report confusion in attempting to use their feelings as information. An experimental approach confirmed that these individuals (Overwhelmed) react in highly distinctive ways in the most common laboratory paradigms for studying the effects of emotion. The overwhelmed were defined by their tendency to experience emotions more intensely than others, their reports of being confused by their feelings while still being average in the extent to which they value and attend to their feelings. It is likely that the particular configuration of traits exhibited by these individuals (emotional intensity without understanding) is associated with maladaptive behavior and psychological distress. For example, responding differently than others to emotional situations could lead to interpersonal difficulties. Being confused by emotional experiences could lead to inappropriate use of feelings as motivation and information. Thus, learning more about these Overwhelmed individuals has potentially broad mental health significance. This research is designed to begin asking more detailed questions about how and why Overwhelmed individuals distrust their own feelings. Overwhelmed persons attempt to avoid the influence of emotion by managing their mood. This research examines how they regulate their mood by testing the hypothesis that cognitive distraction is a mechanism. Thus. Experiment 1 induces mood (happy/sad) and manipulates the demand level of a distracter task before assessing judgment and mood. This research begins to examine why Overwhelmed persons distrust their feelings by testing the hypothesis that it is not all emotion that they distrust, but their understanding of their own emotion. Thus, Experiment 2 manipulates the self-relevance of mood by having participants write about an event (happy/sad) that happened either to them or a close friend, then assesses judgment and mood. The Overwhelmed would be identified using the previously validated battery of scales. [unreadable] [unreadable]