Research Seminar
Affect dynamics change under stress: Individual differences in the effect of anticipating a social stressor on emotional inertiaPete KovalKU Leuven | |
| Abstract: | Emotional inertia, or the degree to which people’s feelings carry over from one moment to the next, is an important property of the temporal dynamics of affect. Previous studies have found that higher inertia is related to neuroticism, depression and low self-esteem, suggesting that having an affective system characterized by overly slow changes may be maladaptive. However, experiencing rapid changes in one’s feelings from one moment to the next (i.e., low inertia) may also be unhealthy. Moreover, affect dynamics need not be stable over time: internal or external events may trigger changes in the operating characteristics of a person’s affective system, giving rise to a different set of dynamic properties. I will present a study in which we investigated how social stress influences emotional inertia, and how these changes are related to individual differences in sensitivity to ‘social-evaluative threat’ (i.e., depression, self-esteem and fear of negative evaluation). The results suggest that, for people with these specific vulnerabilities, an impending social stressor may cause inertia to drop significantly making their feelings more labile and unpredictable. |
| Date: | Tue Nov 30, 12:15 pm - 1:15 pm |
| Place: | room 03.60 (Department of Psychology, Tiensestraat 102, 3000 Leuven) |