The authors propose that how people want to feel ("ideal affect") differs from how they actually feel ("actual affect") and that cultural factors influence ideal more than actual affect. In 2 studies, controlling for actual affect, the authors found that European American (EA) and Asian American (AA) individuals value high-arousal positive affect (e.g., excitement) more than do Hong Kong Chinese (CH). On the other hand,...

Tested 9 hypotheses about the burnout phenomenon, defined as a 3-component syndrome of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and feelings of low personal accomplishment. Burnout was hypothesized to be associated with unmet employee expectations and job conditions. Hypothesized consequences of burnout included (a) preferred job type, (b) subsequent thoughts about leaving, (c) job-search behaviors, (d) training received, (e) intentions to leave, and (f) voluntary leaving. Elementary and...

In the present article, we introduce the quadratic vagal activity–prosociality hypothesis, a theoretical framework for understanding the vagus nerve’s involvement in prosociality. We argue that vagus nerve activity supports prosocial behavior by regulating physiological systems that enable emotional expression, empathy for others’ mental and emotional states, the regulation of one’s own distress, and the experience of positive emotions. However, we contend that extremely high levels...

 One of life's great challenges is successfully regulating emotions. Do some emotion regulation strategies have more to recommend them than others? According to Gross's (1998, Review of General Psychology, 2, 271–299) process model of emotion regulation, strategies that act early in the emotion-generative process should have a different profile of consequences than strategies that act later on. This review focuses on two commonly used strategies...

Using email is one of the most common online activities in the world today. Yet, very little experimental research has examined the effect of email on well-being. Utilizing a within-subjects design, we investigated how the frequency of checking email affects well-being over a period of two weeks. During one week, 124 adults were randomly assigned to limit checking their email to three times a day;...

 Numerous studies demonstrate links between chronic stress and indices of poor health, including risk factors for cardiovascular disease and poorer immune function. Nevertheless, the exact mechanisms of how stress gets “under the skin” remain elusive. We investigated the hypothesis that stress impacts health by modulating the rate of cellular aging. Here we provide evidence that psychological stress— both perceived stress and chronicity of stress—is significantly...

 Delayed type hypersensitivity (DTH) reactions are antigen-specific, cell-mediated immune responses which, depending on the antigen involved, mediate beneficial (resistance to viruses, bacteria, fungi, and certain tumors) or harmful (allergic dermatitis, autoimmunity) aspects of immune function. We have shown that acute stress administered immediately before antigenic challenge results in a significant enhancement of a skin DTH response in rats. A stress-induced trafficking or redeployment of leukocytes...

The present study investigated the effects of acute stress exposure on learning performance in humans using analogs of twoparadigms frequently used in animals. Healthy male participants were exposed to the cold pressor test (CPT) procedure, i.e.,insertion of the dominant hand into ice water for 60 sec. Following the CPT or the control procedure, participants completeda trace eyeblink conditioning task followed by a virtual navigation Morris...

The literature on both the Transformational and Charismatic theories of leadership espouse the importance of communication as part of the leadership phenomena. However, the existing measurement scales (The Multidimensional Leadership Questionnaire, the Conger–Kanungo Charisma Scale, the Followership Scale and the Romance of Leadership Scale) that are used to assess both the Transformational and Charismatic Theories fail to adequately address and measure the communication behaviors that...

Behavioral studies have shown that engaging in a secondary task, such as talking on a cellular telephone, disrupts driving performance. This study used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate the impact of concurrent auditory language comprehension on the brain activity associated with a simulated driving task. Participants steered a vehicle along a curving virtual road, either undisturbed or while listening to spoken sentences that...