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The authors used experience sampling to investigate biases in affective forecasting and recall in individuals with varying levels of depression and anxiety symptoms. Participants who were higher in depression symptoms demonstrated stronger (more pessim…

When pursuing set goals or intentions, people prefer to acquire information about the pros rather than the cons of their goal pursuit. Little is known about information preferences at earlier stages, when people are not yet serious about pursuing a giv…

Can treating oneself with compassion after making a mistake increase self-improvement motivation? In four experiments, the authors examined the hypothesis that self-compassion motivates people to improve personal weaknesses, moral transgressions, and t…

The emotion of disgust can influence people’s moral judgments, even if this emotion objectively is unrelated to the moral judgment in question. The present work demonstrates that attentional control regulates this effect. In three studies, disgus…

Social identity complexity refers to individual differences in the interrelationships among multiple ingroup identities. The present research conducted in the Netherlands examines social identity complexity in relation to Muslim immigrants’ natio…

Mentally contrasting a desired future with impeding reality promotes goal pursuit when expectations of success are high and curbs goal pursuit when expectations of success are low. Four studies tested whether mental contrasting affects responses to goa…

In two experiments, the authors investigated the interpersonal effects of anger and disappointment in negotiations. Whereas previous research focused on the informational inferences that bargainers make based on others’ emotions, this article emp…

In the affective misattribution procedure (AMP), pairs of prime and target stimuli appear rapidly in succession. Attitudes toward the prime influence the evaluation of the target despite instructions to avoid this influence. Because this priming effect…

This research examines how people respond when a commercial brand they identify with is threatened. Across four studies, the authors found that among participants who identified with a brand, a threat to the brand elicited the same responses as a threa…

How do we decide who merits social status? According to functionalist theories of emotion, the nonverbal expressions of pride and shame play a key role, functioning as automatically perceived status signals. In this view, observers automatically make s…