The present study aimed to examine the relationships between visual and auditory modalities in appraisals of and emotional responses to audio-visual stimuli under conditions in which visual and auditory stimuli were either congruent or incongruent. The participants included 37 undergraduate and graduate students who viewed 4 audio-visual stimuli. The audio-visual stimuli comprised a combination of visual stimuli and auditory stimuli. The visual stimuli in the present study were excerpts of motion pictures, and the auditory stimuli were excerpts of classical music. Affective valences of used stimuli were operated in valence dimension, and all stimuli were controlled in high arousal tone. Participants' appraisals of and emotional responses to audio-visual stimuli were measured. Our findings were as follows. In appraisals of and emotional responses to audio-visual stimuli: 1) high valence moving pictures elicited more positive responses than low ones; 2) high valence music pieces elicited more positive responses than low ones; 3) the effects of music were significant when the visual stimuli were high valence. The sequence of processes by which emotional responses are formed was discussed from the viewpoint of relationships between visual and auditory modalities.

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This study investigated whether the threat-superiority effect in a visual search task was based on the processing of shapes (lower level), or the processing of semantic characteristics (higher level). Participants were asked to determine whether all pictures in a visual search display were members of the same category (all distractors), or whether there was a discrepant member (the target). The threat-superiority effect was determined by a shorter reaction time for detecting threatening, than non-threatening targets. If the threat-superiority effect was based on semantic processing, it was expected that the effect would be observed even when a target and distractors shared a basic shape, such as a knife among combs, or a comb among knives. Experiment 1 showed a threat “shape”-superiority effect, but not a threat “semantic”-superiority effect. In Experiment 2, when the threatening target was a gun (Japanese participants have no direct experiences with guns, but know that guns are threatening), the threat-superiority effect was not found. These findings suggest that the threat-superiority effect is not based on semantic processing, but on processing of shape characteristics.

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Previous studies have revealed that narcissism was positively related to self-esteem. Given that narcissism was related to negative interpersonal features such as exploitativeness and aggression, however, a negative relation between narcissism and self-esteem was predicted. The purpose of this meta-analysis was to examine the relations between factors of narcissism and self-esteem. This study targeted the correlations between four subscales of Narcissistic Personality Inventory (Emmons, 1984) and self-esteem. A total of fourteen studies were collected via comprehensive literature review. The results showed that while the estimated population correlations between Leadership/Authority, Superiority/Arrogance, and Self-Absorption/Self-Admiration and self-esteem was positive, the population correlation between Exploitativeness/Entitlement and narcissism was nearly zero. Path analyses revealed that Exploitativeness/Entitlement negatively predicted self-esteem and other three subscales of narcissism positively predicted self-esteem. The different functions of factors of narcissism are discussed.

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This study had three purposes: first, to classify the situations that produce feelings of gratitude; second, to clarify the groups of emotional experiences that compose gratitude; third, to examine the relationship between the type of situations and the groups of emotional experiences. Results of a preliminary study indicated that situations that produce gratitude were classified into five types: “receiving help”, “receiving gifts”, “getting a condition improved”, “changeless condition”, and “imposing on others”. Then, words that express emotions in these situations were classified 38 items. Further, 434 undergraduate students were asked to rate these 38 items about emotion in accordance with how they would feel if they were placed in these five situations. Factor analysis revealed three groups of emotional experiences: ‘contentment’, ‘apologetic emotion’, and ‘unpleasantness’. Of these three, ‘contentment’ and ‘apologetic emotion’ composed gratitude. However ‘unpleasantness’ did not compose any part of gratitude. In addition, combination of the group of emotional experiences differed with the type of situation. For example, ‘apologetic emotion’ was felt in situations in which the existence of another person was emphasized, but this emotion was not felt in situations that did not do so.

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In the tradition of social psychology, it was commonly assumed that consciousness plays a crucial role in human psychological functioning. However, research over the last thirty years had uncovered more of its limitations than its strengths, setting a stage for a new research paradigm focusing on pervasive and adaptive nature of the unconscious in human functioning. The present article explores empirical findings pointing to the automaticity of emotional reactions and implications of these findings in accounting for endurance and evanescence of human emotions. Finally, some prospects for emerging themes and novel research methods for the future of study on emotions are discussed.

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How emotion functions adaptively in two distinct self-regulation systems (promotion focus and prevention focus) is discussed, reviewing related research. Promotion focus represents goals as hopes and aspirations, and prefers eager strategies; prevention focus represents goals as duties and obligations, and prefers vigilant strategies. The former process concerns an emotional dimension of cheerfulness-dejection, and the latter process concerns an emotional dimension of quiescence-agitation. These qualitatively different emotions have distinct effects on attention and motivation, through which they contribute to adaptive goal-attainment. Also, “feeling right” emerges when goals and strategies are at regulatory fit, and encourages one to be engaged in goal-directed actions.

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Emotion regulation has been viewed as a deliberate strategy to modulate one's undesirable state. Accordingly, much of the previous emotion regulation researches have examined conscious and deliberate ways of emotion regulation. Recently, however, some researchers began to explore the automaticity of emotion regulation. Their approach to the automatic emotion regulation integrates paradigms and constructs from research on automaticity and deliberative emotion regulation. This article reviews assumptions and theoretical backgrounds put forth by recent advances in automatic emotion regulation research which utilizes automatic goal pursuit and emotional priming techniques, a radical departure from basic methods employed in previous emotion regulation research. Finally, future directions for automatic emotion regulation research will be discussed.

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