"Measure That Emotion"

(Updated April 23, 2015)

In many areas of psychology, attitudes and behavior are assessed by self-report questionnaires. Either in paper/pencil format or, increasingly, via the Internet, participants are asked to respond on a scale from 1 to 5 (or 1 to 7, or 1 to 10, etc.) as to how much they agree with or like some stimulus object or how frequently they engage in some behavior. Participants may, of course, misreport their answers, due either to deliberate falsification or lack of access to inner states.

Naturally, researchers have tried coming up with subtle ways to probe attitudes and behaviors, in order to corroborate or circumvent self-report measurements. The field of emotion/affect research has a long history of working with physiological recording techniques for this purpose.

Today's song, "Measure That Emotion," thus delves into the matter of self-report vs. physiological assessment of people's feelings. Below the song lyrics, I've listed several sources for interested readers to pursue the topic in greater detail.

Jeff Larsen, a who moved from Texas Tech to the University of Tennessee, faculty colleague of mine (he's in psychology and I'm in human development and family studies) studied during his Ohio State graduate school years with prominent psychophysiologist John Cacioppo (now at University of Chicago) and has continued to conduct innovative studies on emotion. As I write, Jeff and his Texas Tech students are designing and implementing psychophysiological affect studies, and I dedicate this song to Jeff...

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Measure That Emotion
Lyrics by Alan Reifman
(May be sung to the tune of “I Second That Emotion,” Robinson/Cleveland)

How do you handle, affect measurement?
What should you do, for your experiment?
Should you invest in, phys-i-ol-o-gy?
Expensive, but probes feelings, with subtlety,

Surveys you can give en masse,
The Affect Grid or the PANAS,

Oh, self-report or “physio,”
Whatever your devotion,
Measure that emotion,

Said, self-report or “physio,”
Whatever fits your notion,
Measure that emotion,

Physio measures come in several forms,
Mini-electrical and blood-flow storms,
Should you record the facial EMG?
What does it have for its validity?

Moods, people can self-report,
But respondents, may distort,

Oh, self-report or “physio,”
Whatever your devotion,
Measure that emotion,

Said, self-report or “physio,”
Whatever fits your notion,
Measure that emotion...

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Further Reading

Brian Lickel has a superb online PowerPoint presentation on psychophysiological assessment, entitled “Detecting and Indexing Emotion.” Also, the Society for Psychophysiological Research website has a Teaching Resources component.

Beyond the above web links, several articles -- both contemporary and historical -- deal with assessing emotions:

Cacioppo, J. T., Gardner, W. L., & Berntson, G. G. (1997). Beyond bipolar conceptualizations and measures: The case of attitudes and evaluative space. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 1, 3-25.

Cacioppo, J. T., Petty, R. E., Losch, M. E., & Crites, S. L. (1994). Psychophysiological approaches to attitudes: Detecting affective dispositions when people won't say, can't say, or don't even know. In S. Shavitt & T. C. Brock (Eds.), Persuasion: Psychological insights and perspectives (pp. 43-69). New York: Allyn & Bacon.

Carroll, J.M., Yik, M., Russell, J.A., & Barrett, L.F. (1999). On the psychometric principles of affect. Review of General Psychology, 3, 14-22.

Collins, B. E., Ellsworth, P. C., & Helmreich, R. L. (1967). Correlations between pupil size and the semantic differential: An experimental paradigm and pilot study. Psychonomic Science, 9, 627-628.

[Barry Collins is the first professor from whom I ever took a psychology course, the introductory undergraduate class, Psych 10, at UCLA, whereas Phoebe Ellsworth was one of my mentors in graduate school at the University of Michigan, in psychology and law.]

Ekman, P., Levenson, R. W., & Friesen, W. V. (1983). Autonomic nervous system activity distinguishes among emotions. Science, 221, 1208-1210.

Guglielmi, R.S. (1999). Psychophysiological assessment of prejudice: Past research, current status, and future directions. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 3, 123-157.

Larsen, J.T., Norris, C.J., McGraw, A.P., Hawkley, L.C., & Cacioppo, J.T. (in press). The evaluative space grid: A single-item measure of positivity and negativity. Cognition & Emotion2009;23:453–480.

Mauss, I. B, & Robinson, M. D. (2009). Measures of emotion: A review. Cognition & Emotion, 23, 209–237.

Russell, J.A., Weiss, A., & Mendelsohn, G.A. (1989). Affect Grid: A single-item scale of pleasure and arousal. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57, 493-502.

Scherer, K.R. (2005) What are emotions? And how can they be measured? Social Science Information, 44, 695-729.

Watson, D., Clark, L. A., & Tellegen, A. (1988). Development and validation of brief measures of Positive and Negative Affect: The PANAS Scales. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 1063-1070.

Watson, D., & Vaidya, J. (2013). Mood measurement: Current status and future directions. In J. A. Schinka & W. Velicer (Eds.), Comprehensive handbook of psychology. Volume 2: Research Methods in psychology (2nd Ed.) (pp. 369-394). New York: Wiley.

"It’s Agapē" (Love Styles)

I hope everyone is having a nice Thanksgiving weekend. Our next song involves the concept of "love styles," which were proposed by John Alan Lee of the University of Toronto and converted into a questionnaire measure by Clyde and Susan Hendrick, to whom I've dedicated the song. Clyde and Susan are colleagues of mine at Texas Tech, although we're in different departments (I'm in human development and family studies, and they're in psychology).

In doing research for this entry, I found a fairly extensive Wikipedia page on love styles, which I spruced up a bit. Specifically, I added the section about the Hendricks' measure and created the References section. Anyone interested in background information and further readings is invited to visit the Wikipedia page.

Today's song alludes to the six love styles: eros, ludus, storgē, pragma, mania, and agapē. Enjoy...

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It’s Agapē (please pronounce ē like “ay”)
Lyrics by Alan Reifman, Dedicated to Clyde and Susan Hendrick
(May be sung to the tune of “Have a Nice Day,” Bon Jovi/Sambora/Shanks)

What kind of a lover, do you want to find?
Should it be the eros or the storgē kind?
The ludus kind of lover likes to fool around,
The pragma person’s preferences just abound,
The mania type could fall right out of control,
How do you decide, before you get too old?

Ooh, if there’s one trait that I’m drawn to,
So we may rise above,
Selfishness, I know, will surely haunt you,
I want agapic love,

Eros reflects passion, friendship is storgē,
You have to decide, by the end of the day,

What choice will you come up with?
I say, it’s agapē,
It’s agapē…

"Positive Illusions"

The idea that holding overly positive, "rose-colored" impressions of one's spouse/partner seems to improve the quality of relationships may strike some as counterintuitive. It could be argued, for example, that viewing one's partner realistically might be more likely to promote personal improvement in the partner, than would the apparent overlooking of any shortcomings.

However, as studied by the trenchant trio of Sandra Murray (whom I know from my years in Buffalo), John Holmes, and Dale Griffin, such "positive illusions" appear to be beneficial for couples. As summarized by Murray and colleagues (2003, p. 290):

...[individuals] were happier in their relationships when they saw their partner more generously than their partner saw himself or herself. In fact, people were also happier in their relationships when their partner put the best possible spin on the available evidence and idealized them.

Over the longer term, these types of positive illusions had positive, self-fulfilling effects. Specifically, people ultimately reported relatively greater satisfaction, less conflict, and fewer doubts about their partner the more they idealized their partner initially and the more their partner idealized them initially.

Also doing research in this area is Sylvia Niehuis, a new colleague of mine on the Human Development and Family Studies faculty at Texas Tech University. Sylvia's arrival got me looking at the positive-illusions literature again, which in turn, inspired me to write the following song...

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Positive Illusions
Lyrics by Alan Reifman
(May be sung to the tune of “The Grand Illusion,” Dennis DeYoung, for Styx)

How do lovers, view their partners?
Honestly, with warts and all?
Or is it, through glasses tinted rose?

Does inflating, your perception?
Raise your, satisfaction level?
Or does it, contribute to your woes?

Are we fooled by, being in love?
Seeing just, what we want to see,
Getting ideas of, what coupled life should be,
Is it real, or fantasy?

So if your relationship, lacks complete effusion,
Don’t worry, help is on the way,
Thriving couples hold, positive illusions,
And happiness, is here to stay,
It’s here to stay…

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Further Reading

Fowers, B.J., Fışıloğlu, H., & Procacci, E. (in press). Positive marital illusions and culture: A comparison of American and Turkish spouses’ perceptions of their marriages. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships.

Fowers, B.J., Lyons, E., Montel, K., & Shaked, N. (2001). Positive illusions about marriage among married and single individuals. Journal of Family Psychology, 15, 95-109.

Fowers, B.J., Veingrad, M.R., & Dominicis, C. (2002). The unbearable lightness of positive illusions: Engaged individuals' explanations of unrealistically positive relationship perceptions. Journal of Marriage and Family, 64, 450–460.

Miller, P.J., Niehuis, S., & Huston, T.L. (2006). Positive illusions in marital relationships: A 13-year longitudinal study. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 32, 1579-1594.

Murray, S.L., Holmes, J.G., & Griffin, D.W. (1996a). The benefits of positive illusions: Idealization and the construction of satisfaction in close relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70, 79–98.

Murray, S. L., Holmes, J. G., & Griffin, D. W. (1996b). The self-fulfilling
nature of positive illusions in romantic relationships: Love is not blind, but prescient. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71, 1155–1180.

Murray, S.L., Holmes, J.G., Griffin, D.W. (2003). Reflections on the self-fulfilling effects of positive illusions. Psychological Inquiry, 14, 289-295.

"Wegner's Thought-Suppression Dare (Don't Think of a White Bear)"

(Updated April 23, 2015)

For over 20 years, Dan Wegner (who died of ALS in 2013) and colleagues studied what they called the paradoxical effects of thought suppression. Their basic paradigm was to instruct research subjects not to think of some object (a white bear, which is a Dostoevsky reference). Subjects tended not to be able to suppress thoughts of a white bear and, in an open-thought session later in the experiment, they exhibited an increased frequency of white-bear thoughts relative to a control group that did not have to suppress white-bear thoughts earlier.

After you've sung the following song, try not to think about it...

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Wegner’s Thought-Suppression Dare
Lyrics by Alan Reifman
(May be sung to the tune of “Living on a Prayer,” Bon Jovi/Sambora/Child)

Want to keep a thought, out of mind?
Actively blocking, ain’t going to work,
You’ll find, you’ll find,

If you try to block, something out,
It’s gonna rebound, harder than before,
There is, no doubt,

You know, we can’t control thoughts, that’s what it seems,
It only helps a little, if you try different schemes,
Yes, it’s futile, to try and block out memes,
They’ll intrude, right into your dreams…

Oh-h-h, Wegner’s thought-suppression dare,
Doh…on’t think of a white bear!
The target, will re-appear,
If you, try to block white bears…

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Background/Explanation

For the most part, the lyrics should be self-explanatory. The phrasing of how cognitive "schemes" can "help a little" refers to a finding in the original Wegner et al. (1987) Experiment 2. Subjects in a variation of a thought-suppression condition were instructed to substitute the thought of a red Volkswagen for the forbidden white bear, and this technique made the suppression somewhat more effective than suppression instructions alone. The part about intrusion "right into your dreams" is based on an actual study (Wegner et al., 2004).

Further Reading

In addition to the articles listed below, there are several websites that provide information related to thought-suppression research. The topic has a Wikipedia entry. A self-report questionnaire measure from Wegner's lab on suppression and control of thoughts, known as the "White Bear Suppression Inventory" is available here. Finally, a news release on the research from Rice University, the home of collaborator David Schneider, is available here.

Wegner, D.M. (1989). White bears and other unwanted thoughts: Suppression, obsession, and the psychology of mental control. New York: Viking/Penguin. (1994 Edition, New York: Guilford Press.)

Wegner, D.M. (1992). You can't always think what you want: Problems in the suppression of unwanted thoughts. In M. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 25, pp. 193-225). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.

Wegner, D.M., & Schneider, D.J. (2003). The white bear story. Psychological Inquiry, 14, 326-329.

Wegner, D.M., Schneider, D.J., Carter, S.R., & White, T.L. (1987). Paradoxical effects of thought suppression. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53, 5–13.

Wegner, D.M., Wenzlaff, R.M., & Kozak, M.. (2004). Dream rebound: The return of suppressed thoughts in dreams. Psychological Science, 15, 232-236.

Wenzlaff, R.M., & Wegner, D.M. (2000). Thought suppression. In S.T. Fiske (Ed.), Annual review of psychology (Vol. 51, pp. 59-91). Palo Alto, CA: Annual Reviews.

"Asch Followed Sherif"

Solomon Asch's (1951, 1955) conformity studies are among the best-known in social psychology. Using a line-length judging task that a control condition of subjects participating alone showed to be quite easy, Asch demonstrated that naive subjects could be induced to answer incorrectly by implicit social pressure. Specifically, by having a unanimous panel of confederates (i.e., shills) give an incorrect answer in the naive subject's presence before the subject's turn to answer, substantial proportions of matching incorrect answers could be elicited from naive subjects.

An inspiration -- if not the inspiration -- for Asch's research was that of Muzafer Sherif (1935, 1936). Sherif had used an ambiguous stimulus -- a visual illusion known as the autokinetic effect -- for his initial demonstrations of conformity in a psychology lab. Asch wanted to see if conformity effects could be obtained even with unambiguous stimuli (i.e., the aforementioned line-judging task), and the rest is history...

The following song conveys the historical sequence.

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Asch Followed Sherif
Lyrics by Alan Reifman
(May be sung to the tune of “I Shot the Sheriff,” Bob Marley)

Asch followed Sherif, in the study of conformity,
Both lines of research, in the field, had great enormity,

Sherif’s light spots were hazy,
And the majority held sway,
Citing this ambiguity,
Asch said he’d go another way,
...said he’d go another way,

Asch followed Sherif, in the study of conformity,
Both lines of research, in the field, had great enormity,

Asch used the lengths of lines which,
With lone subjects, were easy to discern,
But shills still got subjects to accede,
As Asch was soon to learn,
...Asch was soon to learn,

Asch followed Sherif, in the study of conformity,
Both lines of research, in the field, had great enormity...

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Background/Explanation

Saul McLeod's "Simply Psychology" website provides a detailed summary of the evolution of conformity research, from Sherif's study to Asch's.

Further Reading

Asch, S.E. (1951) Effects of group pressure upon the modification and distortion of judgement. In H. Guetzkow (Ed.), Groups, leadership and men. Pittsburgh, PA: Carnegie Press.

Asch, S.E. (1955). Opinions and social pressure. Scientific American, 193, 31-35.

Sherif, M. (1935). A study of some social factors in perception. Archives of Psychology, 27,(No. 187, whole issue) .

Sherif, M. (1936). The psychology of social norms. New York: Harper Collins.

"Bystander"

(Updated May 1, 2017)

I'd been working on a song about bystander intervention and helping, when an article by Rachel Manning and colleagues came out in the September 2007 American Psychologist. The article argues that the popular account of the event that spurred bystander intervention research in social psychology -- the murder of Kitty Genovese -- is wrong. Specifically, claim Manning et al., courtroom and other records are inconsistent with the characterization that there were 38 eyewitnesses to the murder, who took no action.

Manning and colleagues make it abundantly clear, however, that questions about the historical accuracy of how the murder has been reported in no way vitiate the scientific validity of the social psychological studies, by Latané, Darley, and others, that followed: "It does not matter to the bystander effect that the story of the 38 witnesses may be misconceived" (p. 556).

Given that bystander intervention research may now receive greater attention, I've gone ahead and completed my song on the topic...

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Bystander
Lyrics by Alan Reifman
(May be sung to the tune of “Matchmaker,” Bock/Harnick, from Fiddler on the Roof)

Bystander, bystander, will you help out?
You might think so, but research casts doubt,
Latané and Darley identify,
The steps helpers must surmount,

Bystander, bystander, you must decide,
Should you jump in, or move aside?
How you interpret the situation,
Determines if aid is tried,

First, you, must notice what happened,
Decide, next, it's an, emergency,
Am I, the one to take action?
You'll get involved, if you claim all three,

Bystander, bystander, right on the scene,
Something is wrong, that’s what you glean,
How many witnesses, are there with you?
With fewer, you’ll intervene

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Background/Explanation

Latané and Darley's research supported the idea of a decision tree, in which only a constant string of "yes" responses will lead to helping. First, of course, someone must notice the event, then interpret it as an emergency, and then assume responsibility for helping; the presence of many bystanders has been shown to diminish the latter (i.e., diffusion of responsibility). The bystander must also know how to help in the particular situation, and must make the ultimate decision to help.

As suggested by this Wikipedia entry on the "Bystander Effect," research on helping appears to be known best for the number-of-bystanders aspect. The other aspects, such as whether or not someone interprets a situation as an emergency, are important, too, however.

Further Reading

Darley, J.M. & Latané, B. (1968). Bystander intervention in emergencies: Diffusion of responsibility. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 8, 377-383.

Latané, B. & Darley, J.M. (1968). Group inhibition of bystander intervention in emergencies. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 10, 215-221.

Latané, B. & Darley, J.M. (1970). The unresponsive bystander-Why doesn't he help? New York: Appleton- Century-Crofts.

Manning, R., Levine, M., & Collins, A. (2007). The Kitty Genovese murder and the social psychology of helping: The parable of the 38 witnesses. American Psychologist, 62, 555-562.

"Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment"

(Updates added 4/30/2017)

Phil Zimbardo and colleagues' Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE), though conducted and reported in the early 1970s, continues to stimulate vigorous discussion to this day. Here are some areas in which the SPE comes up today:

1. It is often discussed in conjunction with the Abu Ghraib prison-abuse scandal (2003-04) in Iraq.

2. The SPE sometimes serves as a focal point in larger debates over the person and the situation.

3. Empirical studies on specific aspects of the SPE itself continue to be conducted (e.g., the nature of individuals who would volunteer for a prison study as opposed to an ordinary study; Carnahan & McFarland, 2007).

4. A feature film, "The Stanford Prison Experiment," was released in 2015.

To honor the staying power of the SPE, I've written the following lyrics...

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Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment
Lyrics by Alan Reifman
(May be sung to the tune of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," Lennon/McCartney)

It was back ’round 1970,
Phil Zimbardo did a test to see,
What kind of conduct would prevail,
From a made-up college-student jail,
Inmates and guards, a random split,
So real, they didn’t know what hit,
Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Exper’ment,

(Fanfare)

Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Exper’ment,
Life simulated in the hole*,
Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Exper’ment,
What happens when you play a role,
Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison, ’Bardo’s Stanford Prison,
Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Exper’ment,

The guards seemed to be normal,
They passed their pre-screening,
But once they got their billy clubs,
Their treatment became demeaning,
The study careening,

Chaos soon took over like a storm,
Conflict heightened and rebellions formed,
Guards struggled for the upper hand,
Pressure many inmates could not stand…

Back in the news with Abu Ghraib,
The study’s relevance has stayed,
Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Exper’ment…


*The term "the hole" appears to be slang specifically for solitary confinement, as opposed to prison in general. The word "hole" fits in so nicely with the rhyme scheme, so I hope everyone will extend me some artistic license.
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Background/Explanation

The song basically presents the conventional situationist account of the SPE. College-student volunteers who "seemed to be normal" were assigned via "random split" to be either prisoners or guards. Prisoners and guards alike, upon assumption of their statuses ("what happens when you play a role" and, on the guards' part, "once they got their billy clubs"), then took on extreme and pathological forms of behavior. The guards, of course, became sadistic, and some of the prisoners experienced nervous breakdowns.

Further Reading

Carnahan, T. & McFarland, S. (2007). Revisiting the Stanford Prison Experiment: Could participant self-selection have led to the cruelty? Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 33, 603-614.

Haslam, S.A. & Reicher, S. (2007). Beyond the Banality of Evil: Three dynamics of an interactionist social psychology of tyranny. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 33, 615-622.

[Discussion of these two articles on Psychology and Crime News.]

Stanford Prison Experiment website.

The Situationist blog. Discussion by Zimbardo and others on person X situation interaction, see postings from late July and early August 2007.

Zimbardo, P. (2007). The Lucifer Effect: Understanding how good people turn evil.New York: Random House. (Website)

Zimbardo, P.G., Maslach, C, & Haney, C. (2000). Reflections on the Stanford Prison Experiment: Genesis, transformations, consequences. In T. Blass (Ed.), Obedience to authority: Current perspectives on the Milgram paradigm (pp. 193-237). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. (Chapter in manuscript form)