We examined the influence of affective priming on the appreciation of abstract artworks using an evaluative priming task. Facial primes (showing happiness, disgust or no emotion) were presented under brief (Stimulus Onset Asynchrony, SOA = 20ms) and extended (SOA = 300ms) conditions. Differences in aesthetic liking for abstract paintings depending on the emotion expressed in the preceding primes provided a measure of the priming effect. The results showed that, for the extended SOA, artworks were liked more when preceded by happiness primes and less when preceded by disgust primes. Facial expressions of happiness, though not of disgust, exerted similar effects in the brief SOA condition. Subjective measures and a forced-choice task revealed no evidence of prime awareness in the suboptimal condition. Our results are congruent with findings showing that the affective transfer elicited by priming biases evaluative judgments, extending previous research to the domain of aesthetic appreciation.
With an estimated 50 million or more users worldwide, Tinder has become one of the most popular mobile dating applications. Although judgments of physical attractiveness are assumed to drive the "swiping" decisions that lead to matches, we propose that there is an additional evaluative dimension driving behind these decisions: judgments of moral character. With the aim of adding empirical support for this proposition, we critically review the most striking findings about first impressions extracted from faces, moral character in person perception, creepiness, and the uncanny valley, as they apply to Tinder behavior. Drawing on this research and the evolutionary theory of biological markets, we formulate several hypotheses that offer directions for future studies of Tinder and other dating apps. We conclude that research on face perception of novel targets supports the plausibility of moral character as a potential factor affecting the swiping decisions and subsequent behavior of Tinder users.
The purpose of this research is to analyze the empirical evidence on the relationship between social cognition and prosocial behavior in children and adolescents with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). A systematic review was carried out following the PRISMA guidelines of empirical studies found in PubMed and Scopus databases, including a total of 51 research studies. The results indicate that children and adolescents with ADHD have deficits in social cognition and prosocial behavior. For children with ADHD, their deficits in social cognition highlight their difficulty in the process of theory of mind, emotional self-regulation, emotion recognition and empathy, affecting prosocial behavior, evidencing difficulty in personal relationships, and the creation of emotional bonds with their peers.
Disgust is, at its core, an emotion that responds to cues of parasites and infection, likely to be evolved to protect human organism from the risk of disease. Interestingly, a growing body of research implicates disgust as an emotion central to human morality. The fact that disgust is associated with appraisals of moral transgressions and that this emotion influences moral judgments implies a remarkable puzzle: Why does an emotion that originally functions in the domain of infectious entities become such a good candidate to play the role of a moral arbiter? The aim of the present review is to clarify the nature of the relationship between disgust and morality. First, we examine the relevant features of disgust in order to explore whether the phenomenology of disgust favors its implementation as a defensive mechanism against offensive social entities. Second, we critically review the most striking findings about the effects of disgust on moral judgments. The revisited analysis of the literature strongly suggests a bidirectional causal link between disgust and moral cognition. We propose that the particular phenomenology of disgust (which involves a sense of offensiveness and rejection) favored the co-adaptation of this emotion to the moral domain.