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Incorporating motivational intensity and direction into the study of emotions: implications for brain mechanisms of emotion and cognition-emotion interactions

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Netherlands Journal of Psychology

Abstract

Contemporary dimensional models of emotion regard the positive to negative valence dimension as an important organising principle. This principle has been used to organise empirical observations of the relationship between left vs. right (asymmetrical) frontal cortical activations and positive vs. negative emotional experience and expression. This affective valence organising principle has also been used in research concerned with how emotions affect cognition, and much research has suggested that positive affects have different effects on cognition than negative affects. In this paper, we review recent research that questions the utility of the affective valence dimension in understanding the functions of asymmetrical frontal cortical activity and in understanding the effects of emotions on cognition. We will show that the incorporation of motivational direction as a separate dimension from affective valence will benefit understanding of brain mechanisms involved in emotions as well as emotion-cognition interactions. (Netherlands Journal of Psychology, 64, 132-142.)

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Acknowledgement

Portions of the research described within this article were supported by grants from the National Science Foundation (BCS 0350435; BCS 0643348).

Our main fields of interest are emotion, motivation, and social processes, and the neural processes underlying these psychological constructs.

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  1. Department of Psychology, Texas A&M University, 4235 TAMU, College Station, TX, 77843, USA

    Eddie Harmon-Jones & Philip A. Gable

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  1. Eddie Harmon-Jones
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  2. Philip A. Gable
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Correspondence to Eddie Harmon-Jones.

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Received 1 September 2008; revision accepted 9 September 2008.

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Harmon-Jones, E., Gable, P.A. Incorporating motivational intensity and direction into the study of emotions: implications for brain mechanisms of emotion and cognition-emotion interactions. NEJP 64, 132–142 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03076416

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