Carol Gohm - US grants

[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]

Research on brain damaged persons has shown the negative consequences of being unable to use feelings when making everyday judgments and decisions. Individuals who misinterpret their feelings, or who are unwilling to attend to feelings believing that feelings lead to poor judgments, are likely to be similarly disadvantaged when making decisions. Research demonstrating the consequences of these individual differences and exploring the psychological processes involved would provide a basis of knowledge which educators and clinicians could use to develop teaching and therapy programs to assisted persons low in these traits.

The purpose of this research is to use individual differences as a tool to explore processes and consequences associated with being unable (low in the trait of emotional clarity) or unwilling (low in the trait of attention to emotion) to use the information supplied by one?s own emotions. Determining the meaning and significance of one?s emotions is certainly adaptive. Individuals who attempt to ignore their emotions, believing that emotions lead to poor judgments, or who misinterpret their emotions are likely to be disadvantaged in many cognitive processes. Specifically, three studies would manipulate mood and investigate how attention and clarity might moderate the effect of mood on judgment and decision making. One study would examine the direct effects of the traits on memory for an emotional event, confidence in that memory and in judgments about that event. One study would examine the effects of the traits on predictions of future emotion. One study would investigate whether the traits are associated with differences in reliance on situational cues (as opposed to experiential cues) when reporting reactions to the environment.