ABSTRACT

The question ‘how far can emotions be changed?’ lies at the heart of innumerable psychological interventions. Although often viewed as static, changes in the intensity, quality, and complexity of emotion can occur from moment to moment, and also over longer periods of time, often as a result of developmental, social or cultural factors.

Changing Emotions highlights several recent developments in this intriguing domain, and provides a comprehensive guide for understanding how and why emotions change. The chapters are organized into five parts:

• Lifespan Perspective
• Learning Perspective
• Social-Cultural Perspective
• Emotional-Dynamics Perspective
• Intervention Perspective.

In each chapter an internationally renowned scholar presents a concise review of key findings from their own research perspective. The book will be of great interest to researchers in the area of emotion and emotion regulation as well as related fields such as developmental psychology, educational psychology, social, clinical psychology and psychotherapy. It may also be of interest to sociologists, philosophers, and economists interested in learning more about emotions.

part 1|44 pages

Lifespan Perspective

chapter 1|7 pages

How kids keep their cool

Young children's use of cognitive strategies to regulate emotion
ByLinda J. Levine, Robin L. Kaplan, Elizabeth L. Davis

chapter 3|7 pages

Age-related changes in empathy-related responding

ByNancy Eisenberg, Jennifer Betkowski, Tracy L. Spinrad

chapter 4|7 pages

Children's expressive behavior in different cultural contexts

ByLinda A. Camras, Michael M. Shuster

chapter 5|6 pages

Shifts in emotional experience and regulation across adulthood

ByTammy English, Laura L. Carstensen

part 2|44 pages

Learning Perspective

chapter 8|7 pages

Extinction learning and its retrieval

ByMichelle G. Craske, Bram Vervliet

chapter 9|7 pages

Mechanisms of extinction in emotional regulation

ByJames Byron Nelson

chapter 10|7 pages

Generalization as a basis for emotional change

Perceptual and non-perceptual processes
ByDirk Hermans, Frank Baeyens

chapter 11|7 pages

Learning mechanisms in the acquisition of disgust

ByPeter J. de Jong

chapter 12|8 pages

Preclinical analysis of developmental transitions in the extinction of learned fear

From infancy through adolescence to adulthood
ByBridget L. Callaghan, Stella Li, Jee H. Kim, Rick Richardson

part 3|46 pages

Social-Cultural Perspective

chapter 13|6 pages

Can socially sharing emotions change emotions?

ByBernard Rimé

chapter 14|8 pages

From group-based appraisals to group-based emotions

The role of communication and social sharing
ByVincent Yzerbyt, Toon Kuppens

chapter 15|8 pages

Emotion and emotion regulation

ByRobert W. Levenson

chapter 16|7 pages

Emotional climate

How is it shaped, fostered, and changed?
ByDarío Páez, Agustín Espinosa, Magdalena Bobowik

chapter 17|7 pages

Dynamics of ideal affect

ByJeanne L. Tsai

chapter 18|8 pages

Emotional acculturation

ByJozefien De Leersnyder, Batja Mesquita, Heejung Kim

part 4|46 pages

Emotional-Dynamics Perspective

chapter 19|7 pages

Emotion regulation

Two souls in one breast?
ByNico H. Frijda

chapter 21|6 pages

Learning to self-generate positive emotions

ByBarbara L. Fredrickson

chapter 23|8 pages

What time can tell us

The temporal dynamics of emotion regulation
ByRavi Thiruchselvam, James J. Gross

chapter 24|7 pages

The duration of emotional episodes

ByIven Van Mechelen, Philippe Verduyn, Karen Brans

part 5|49 pages

Intervention Perspective

chapter 25|4 pages

Can expressive writing change emotions?

An oblique answer to the wrong question
ByJames W. Pennebaker, Jason D. Ferrell

chapter 26|8 pages

The powerful impact of mental imagery in changing emotion

ByArnaud Pictet, Emily A. Holmes

chapter 27|7 pages

Cognitive mechanisms involved in therapeutic change for depression

Reducing abstraction and increasing concreteness
ByEdward R. Watkins

chapter 28|7 pages

A functional approach to the study of human emotion

The centrality of relational processes
ByDermot Barnes-Holmes, Sean Hughes

chapter 29|8 pages

Self-regulation as a mediator of change in psychotherapy

ByTimothy J. Strauman, Megan M. Klenk, Kari M. Eddington

chapter 30|6 pages

Mindfulness-based interventions

The dialectic of changing emotions by accepting them
ByPierre Philippot, Alexandre Heeren

chapter |7 pages

Postscript

Experimental rigor and clinical complexity
ByLes Greenberg