The Roles of Primary Emotional Systems and Need Satisfaction in Problematic Internet and Smartphone Use: A Network Perspective

Problematic Internet and smartphone use (PIU and PSU, respectively) have received significant attention over the past years. In the current work, we studied the associations between PIU and PSU, primary emotional systems, and need satisfaction. The effective sample comprised 399 people who responded to scales measuring these variables. Bivariate correlation analysis showed that both PSU and PIU were positively associated with negative primary emotion traits (FEAR, ANGER, SADNESS) as well as lower scores on most of the need satisfaction factors. Network analysis showed that while PIU and PSU have a strong association with each other, in general, there were not many significant correlations between PSU, PIU, and other variables in the network. The associations being present were rather weak. Network analysis showed that PSU was positively associated with FEAR, ANGER, PLAY primary emotional systems. Both PSU and PIU had a negative association with safety and security and physiological needs satisfaction. Moreover, PSU had a positive link with belongingness need satisfaction, while higher PIU was associated with lower esteem and self-actualization need satisfaction. Addressing those unmet needs may be helpful in reducing problematic technology use, but further research testing this would be necessary.

A Systematic Review of Evolutionary-Based Conceptualisations of Family Violence and the Development of an Alternative Motivational-Emotional Systems Approach

<p>Evolutionary psychology is a field that provides distal explanations of behaviour. Although it has potential to enhance current understandings of family violence, the present state of the literature is conceptually messy. The aim of the current thesis was to bring coherence to this domain by conducting a systematic review of evolutionary conceptualisations of family violence over the past four decades. Four databases (PsycINFO, PsycArticles, ProQuest Central, and Web of Science) were searched using relevant search terms to identify any work that examined family violence from an evolutionary perspective. A total of 54 publications were included in the review, ranging from theoretical pieces and empirical studies through to several commentaries. Findings indicated family violence was conceptualised as an adaptation, by-product, or pathology. However, numerous authors had contradictory perspectives as to how certain offences should be conceptualised, others failed to make a conceptual claim at all, and there was a tendency among authors to describe the behaviour as an adaptation rather than the underlying psychological mechanisms. To make sense of the findings, six recurrent themes were developed: lack of resources, genetic relatedness as a protective factor, fast life history strategy, reproductive value, lethal violence as pathology, and male sexual and familial proprietariness. The second aim of the thesis was to develop a novel theoretical framework that conceptualised family violence in a more clear and coherent manner. This new model was labelled the Fundamental Motives Framework and mapped findings from the systematic review onto a range of motivational-emotional systems. The Fundamental Motives Framework was discussed as a promising way of providing a multi- faceted, coherent perspective of family violence that accommodates for the heterogeneity in offending. Limitations and directions for future research were also discussed.</p>

A Systematic Review of Evolutionary-Based Conceptualisations of Family Violence and the Development of an Alternative Motivational-Emotional Systems Approach

<p>Evolutionary psychology is a field that provides distal explanations of behaviour. Although it has potential to enhance current understandings of family violence, the present state of the literature is conceptually messy. The aim of the current thesis was to bring coherence to this domain by conducting a systematic review of evolutionary conceptualisations of family violence over the past four decades. Four databases (PsycINFO, PsycArticles, ProQuest Central, and Web of Science) were searched using relevant search terms to identify any work that examined family violence from an evolutionary perspective. A total of 54 publications were included in the review, ranging from theoretical pieces and empirical studies through to several commentaries. Findings indicated family violence was conceptualised as an adaptation, by-product, or pathology. However, numerous authors had contradictory perspectives as to how certain offences should be conceptualised, others failed to make a conceptual claim at all, and there was a tendency among authors to describe the behaviour as an adaptation rather than the underlying psychological mechanisms. To make sense of the findings, six recurrent themes were developed: lack of resources, genetic relatedness as a protective factor, fast life history strategy, reproductive value, lethal violence as pathology, and male sexual and familial proprietariness. The second aim of the thesis was to develop a novel theoretical framework that conceptualised family violence in a more clear and coherent manner. This new model was labelled the Fundamental Motives Framework and mapped findings from the systematic review onto a range of motivational-emotional systems. The Fundamental Motives Framework was discussed as a promising way of providing a multi- faceted, coherent perspective of family violence that accommodates for the heterogeneity in offending. Limitations and directions for future research were also discussed.</p>

Affective Neuroscience: The Suitability of a Web App to Monitor Affective States at Work

This work describes in detail the use of a new tool, a web-app, based on the conceptual framework of affective neuroscience, in particular on Panksepp’s 7 basic emotional systems. Affective neuroscience has been used effectively in many areas, but there have been very few applications in the workplace, due to the lack of a smart implementation tool. The novelty of this work does not lie in the new information, but in a new “clinical” approach. There is a theoretical framework that allows data to be interpreted rather than simply described. Furthermore, the knowledge of working realities through the web app is specific and longitudinal. Finally, emotions are detected in hic et nunc, so the role of reflexive-cognitive mediation and recall bias are minor. This “more situated” knowledge can then guide specific leadership strategies. This paper presents the results of the tool’s application in a company in Northern Italy. The findings of our project, which recorded basic affective states and the functioning of several working teams, are detailed herein. The project’s 488 web-app records are summarized in this report, alongside our examination of related mood tags. Through this project, our analysis has enabled to determine affective neuroscience profiles of the teams analyzed, allowing the researchers to identify areas of possible interventions. The data appear very encouraging.

The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Primary Emotional Systems and Emotional Regulation

(1) Background: The COronaVIrus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic poses a unique challenge as a severe global crisis affecting physical and psychological health. The main purpose of this work is to study the impact of a traumatic event while also observing the human ability to adapt. One of the first theories to study the adaptive importance of the evolutionary lineage of the affective systems is referred to as BrainMind (Panksepp, 2010). This study aims to explore whether primary emotional systems (PES) and emotion regulation (ER) strategies show differences between the pre- and post- lockdown period; and if positive systems and specific emotion regulation pre-pandemic act as a protective or risk factor for mental and physical wellbeing. (2) Methods: 98 participants who had participated in a previous study before the pandemic were re-contacted to refill the Affective Neuroscience Personality Scale (ANPS) and the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ) after the outbreak of the pandemic with the addition of the Symptom Checklist-90-Revised (SCL-90R). (3) Results: The results showed that the COVID-19 lockdown rules had an impact on Emotional Regulation and on a re-balancing of PES. Moreover, pre-pandemic expressive–suppressive ERQ strategies and ANPS SADNESS scores appeared as relevant risk factors, which predicted higher Global Severity Index (GSI) scores during lockdown. (4) Conclusions: The lockdown appears to have activated PLAY and CARE as protective systems, but has detuned the ability to positively reinterpret the situation.

A meta-analysis on individual differences in primary emotional systems and Big Five personality traits

The Affective Neuroscience Personality Scales (ANPS) were constructed as a self-report assessment to measure individual differences in Jaak Panksepp’s cross-species primary emotional systems: SEEKING, PLAY, CARE (positive emotions) and FEAR, SADNESS, ANGER (negative emotions). Beginning with the first published work on the ANPS in 2003, individual differences on the ANPS measures of these six primary emotional systems have been consistently linked to Big Five personality traits. From a theoretical perspective, these primary emotional systems arising from subcortical regions, shed light on the nature of the Big Five personality traits from an evolutionary perspective, because each of these primary emotional systems represent a tool for survival endowing mammalian species with inherited behavioral programs to react appropriately to complex environments. The present work revisited 21 available samples where both ANPS and Big Five measures have been administered. Our meta-analytical analysis provides solid evidence that high SEEKING relates to high Openness to Experience, high PLAY to high Extraversion, high CARE/low ANGER to high Agreeableness and high FEAR/SADNESS/ANGER to high Neuroticism. This seems to be true regardless of the ANPS inventory chosen, although much more work is needed in this area. Associations between primary emotional systems and Conscientiousness were in the lower effect size area across all six primary emotions, thereby supporting the idea that Conscientiousness rather seems to be less directly related with the subcortical primary emotions and likely is the most cognitive/cortical personality construct out of the Big Five. In sum, the present work underlines the idea that individual differences in primary emotional systems represent evolutionarily ancient foundations of human personality, given their a) meaningful links to the prominent Big Five model and b) their origins lying in subcortical areas of the human brain.

EXPRESS: Embodied Mental Imagery Improves Memory

According to embodied cognition theory, cognitive processes are grounded in sensory, motor and emotional systems. This theory supports the idea that language comprehension and access to memory are based on sensorimotor mental simulations, which does indeed explain experimental results for visual imagery. These results show that word memorization is improved when the individual actively simulates the visual characteristics of the object to be learned. Very few studies, however, have investigated the effectiveness of more embodied mental simulations, that is, simulating both the sensory and motor aspects of the object (i.e., motor imagery) from a first-person perspective. The recall performances of 83 adults were analysed in four different conditions: mental rehearsal, visual imagery, third-person motor imagery, and first-person motor imagery. Results revealed a memory efficiency gradient running from low-embodiment strategies (i.e., involving poor perceptual and/or motor simulation) to high-embodiment strategies (i.e., rich simulation in the sensory and motor systems involved in interactions with the object). However, the benefit of engaging in motor imagery, as opposed to purely visual imagery, was only observed when participants adopted the first-person perspective. Surprisingly, visual and motor imagery vividness seemed to play a negligible role in this effect of the sensorimotor grounding of mental imagery on memory efficiency.

The Associations between Imageability of Positive and Negative Valence Words and Fear Reactivity

This study investigated the associations of imageability with fear reactivity. Imageability ratings of four word classes: positive and negative (i) emotional and (ii) propriosensitive, neutral and negative (iii) theoretical and (iv) neutral concrete filler, and fear reactivity scores—degree of fearfulness towards different situations (Total Fear (TF) score) and total number of extreme fears and phobias (Extreme Fear (EF) score), were obtained from 171 participants. Correlations between imageability, TF and EF scores were tested to analyze how word categories and their valence were associated with fear reactivity. Imageability ratings were submitted to recursive partitioning. Participants with high TF and EF scores had higher imageability for negative emotional and negative theoretical words. The correlations between imageability of negative emotional words and negative theoretical words for EF score were significant. Males showed stronger correlations for imageability of negative emotional words for EF and TF scores. High imageability for positive emotional words was associated with lower fear reactivity in females. These findings were discussed with regard to negative attentional bias theory of anxiety, influence on emotional systems, and gender-specific coping styles. This study provides insight into cognitive functions involved in mental imagery, semantic competence for mental imagery in relation to fear reactivity, and a potential psycholinguistic instrument assessing fear reactivity.

The Brain Emotional Systems in Addictions: From Attachment to Dominance/Submission Systems

Human development has become particularly complex during the evolution. In this complexity, adolescence is an extremely important developmental stage. Adolescence is characterized by biological and social changes that create the prerequisites to psychopathological problems, including both substance and non-substance addictive behaviors. Central to the dynamics of the biological changes during adolescence are the synergy between sexual and neurophysiological development, which activates the motivational/emotional systems of Dominance/Submission. The latter are characterized by the interaction between the sexual hormones, the dopaminergic system and the stress axis (HPA). The maturation of these motivational/emotional systems requires the integration with the phylogenetically more recent Attachment/CARE Systems, which primarily have governed the subject’s relationships until puberty. The integration of these systems is particularly complex in the human species, due to the evolution of the process of competition related to sexual selection: from a simple fight between two individuals (of the same genus and species) to a struggle for the acquisition of a position in rank and the competition between groups. The latter is an important evolutionary acquisition and believed to be the variable that has most contributed to enhancing the capacity for cooperation in the human species. The interaction between competition and cooperation, and between competition and attachment, characterizes the entire human relational and emotional structure and the unending work of integration to which the BrainMind is involved. The beginning of the integration of the aforementioned motivational/emotional systems is currently identified in the prepubertal period, during the juvenile stage, with the development of the Adrenarche—the so-called Adrenal Puberty. This latter stage is characterized by a low rate of release of androgens, the hormones released by the adrenal cortex, which activate the same behaviors as those observed in the PLAY system. The Adrenarche and the PLAY system are biological and functional prerequisites of adolescence, a period devoted to learning the difficult task of integrating the phylogenetically ancient Dominance/Submission Systems with the newer Attachment/CARE Systems. These systems accompany very different adaptive goals which can easily give rise to mutual conflict and can in turn make the balance of the BrainMind precarious and vulnerable to mental suffering.