It has been reported that verbalization of emotions (or affect labeling) leads to unintentional emotion regulation. However, the labeling approach (chosen or self-generated) or target (one’s own feelings or the stimulus itself) are not uniform. In previous studies using the self-generated type, the labeling target was only one’s own feelings. In response, in Experiment 1, participants performed affect labeling on the stimulus itself (the stimuli used in this study being positive and neutral images) and subsequently rated their subjective feelings. In Experiment 2, the influence of the labeling target in the self-generated type was examined. Participants performed affect labeling either on the stimulus itself or their own emotions, and subjective feelings as well as pupil diameter were measured. The results suggest that self-generated affect labeling of one’s own feelings or the stimulus itself increases subjective feelings compared to simply viewing the image. In the neutral image condition, pupil diameter dilation was suppressed when the stimulus itself was labeled compared to one’s own feelings. This implies that labeling the stimulus itself to the target may be effective in suppressing immediate emotional responses.

This study aimed to investigate the perception of gratitude expression, focusing particularly on the time interval and repetitiveness of saying “thank you.” Undergraduate students (N＝132) participated in a web-based scenario experiment. The scenario described advising a friend on college coursework or relationship issues. The time interval and repetitiveness of “thank you” were manipulated by varying the scenario depiction on the present and the following days, respectively. Eight distinct scenarios were used: advice content (2)×saying “thank you” on the day (2)×saying “thank you” on the following day (2). Participants were asked to report their perceptions of their friend’s gratitude feeling for each scenario on the present and the next day, respectively. Prior research demonstrates that gratitude feeling includes both joyful and apologetic feelings. Therefore, this study investigated each feeling. The results indicated the effects of “thank you” repetition on joyful gratitude and the effects of time intervals on apologetic gratitude. In the discussion, interpretations of these results and future study recommendations are presented.

The Craving Experience Questionnaire (CEQ) measures the cognitive aspects of craving in terms of intensity and frequency. This study developed a Japanese version of the CEQ and examined its reliability and validity for food craving. A total of 297 adults rated the strength (i.e., intensity) and frequency scales of the CEQ and related scales using a web-based survey. Confirmatory factor analyses for the strength and frequency scales of the CEQ supported the same three-factor model as the original version of the CEQ. Furthermore, the validity of the frequency scale was supported by its correlations with diet-related constructs. Meanwhile, the validity of the strength scale was indicated by the fact that craving intensity increased after a craving induction procedure. Then, three weeks after the initial measurement, we examined the test-retest reliability for each subscale of the frequency scale of the CEQ, and the results indicated good intraclass correlation coefficients. Thus, this study suggests that the Japanese version of the CEQ is a valid and sufficiently reliable measure of food craving, although there are some issues.