Affective processing and lexical decisions: The positive-priority effect

2006 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle Verges ◽  
Zachary Estes
Author(s):  
Xiangyi Zhang ◽  
Zhihui Wu ◽  
Shenglan Li ◽  
Ji Lai ◽  
Meng Han ◽  
...  

Abstract. Although recent studies have investigated the effect of alexithymia on moral judgments, such an effect remains elusive. Furthermore, moral judgments have been conflated with the moral inclinations underlying those judgments in previous studies. Using a process dissociation approach to independently quantify the strength of utilitarian and deontological inclinations, the present study investigated the effect of alexithymia on moral judgments. We found that deontological inclinations were significantly lower in the high alexithymia group than in the low alexithymia group, whereas the difference in the utilitarian inclinations between the two groups was nonsignificant. Furthermore, empathic concern and deontological inclinations mediated the association between alexithymia and conventional relative judgments (i.e., more utilitarian judgments over deontological judgments), showing that people with high alexithymia have low empathic concern, which, in turn, decreases deontological inclinations and contributes to conventional relative judgments. These findings underscore the importance of empathy and deontological inclinations in moral judgments and indicate that individuals with high alexithymia make more utilitarian judgments over deontological judgments possibly due to a deficit in affective processing.


2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linda Netherland ◽  
Daniel J. Schmoller ◽  
Quintino R. Mano ◽  
David C. Osmon

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudia B. Padula ◽  
Robert M. Anthenelli ◽  
James C. Eliassen ◽  
Zach Graham ◽  
Jaimee L. Heffner ◽  
...  

2018 ◽  
Vol 147 (2) ◽  
pp. 282-291 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Mills ◽  
Paul Boychuk ◽  
Alison L. Chasteen ◽  
Jay Pratt

BJPsych Open ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine Hobbs ◽  
Susannah E. Murphy ◽  
Lucy Wright ◽  
James Carson ◽  
Indra Van Assche ◽  
...  

Background Depression is characterised by negative views of the self. Antidepressant treatment may remediate negative self-schema through increasing processing of positive information about the self. Changes in affective processing during social interactions may increase expression of prosocial behaviours, improving interpersonal communications. Aims To examine whether acute administration of citalopram is associated with an increase in positive affective learning biases about the self and prosocial behaviour. Method Healthy volunteers (n = 41) were randomised to either an acute 20 mg dose of citalopram or matched placebo in a between-subjects double-blind design. Participants completed computer-based cognitive tasks designed to measure referential affective processing, social cognition and expression of prosocial behaviours. Results Participants administered citalopram made more cooperative choices than those administered placebo in a prisoner's dilemma task (β = 20%, 95% CI: 2%, 37%). Exploratory analyses indicated that participants administered citalopram showed a positive bias when learning social evaluations about a friend (β = 4.06, 95% CI: 0.88, 7.24), but not about the self or a stranger. Similarly, exploratory analyses found evidence of increased recall of positive words and reduced recall of negative words about others (β = 2.41, 95% CI: 0.89, 3.93), but not the self, in the citalopram group. Conclusions Participants administered citalopram showed greater prosocial behaviours, increased positive recall and increased positive learning of social evaluations towards others. The increase in positive affective bias and prosocial behaviours towards others may, at least partially, be a mechanism of antidepressant effect. However, we found no evidence that citalopram influenced self-referential processing.


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