Emotions make significant contributions to rational thought and behavior at multiple levels. Most research with computational models of emotion focuses on reactive behaviors caused by base or learned emotions; yet emotions can play a role in purposeful behaviors as well, leading to emotion-related actions rather than reactions. Higher-level cognitive processes can reflect on the emotional state...

In social dilemmas, equality is an important coordination rule. When equality is violated, people seek explanations. In Experiment 1, the authors assessed dispositional trust and found that especially high trusters were affected by the given explanation. High trusters reacted less negatively to external than internal explanations. Experiment 2, using a manipulation of trust in others, revealed ...

Depression and anxiety load in families. In the present study, we focus on exposure to parental negative emotions in first postnatal year as a developmental pathway to early parent-to-child transmission of depression and anxiety. We provide an overview of the little research available on the links between infants' exposure to negative emotion and infants' emotional development in this developme...

Prior research suggests that rumination and chronic negative emotions serve to maintain emotional disorders. However, some evidence suggests that pondering the nature and meaning of negative experiences can be adaptive. To better understand the function of this dimension of rumination, we studied the use of this strategy in response to negative emotions as they unfold from day to day in veteran...

Four studies support the hypothesis that expressing negative emotion is associated with positive relationship outcomes, including elicitation of support, building of new close relationships, and heightening of intimacy in the closest of those relationships. In Study 1, participants read vignettes in which another person was experiencing a negative emotion. Participants reported they would provi...

We distinguish between two kinds of future-oriented emotions (anticipatory and anticipated) and investigate their behavioral effects. Anticipatory emotions are currently experienced due to the prospect of a future event (e.g., hope or fear). Anticipated emotions, on the other hand, are expected to be experienced in the future if certain events do or do not occur (e.g., anticipated joy or regret...

Early developments in toddlers’ responses to adults’ distress have been extensively examined, but less work has been directed to young children’s responses to other children in distress. In the current study, we examined 12-, 18-, and 24-month-old children’s (N = 71) behavioral and affective responses to a crying infant (doll) present in the room with the child. A comparison condition included ...