Giulia Poerio
University of York, Psychology, Post-Doc
Social relationships and interactions contribute to daily emotional well-being. The emotional benefits that come from engaging with others are known to arise from real events, but do they also come from the imagination during daydreaming... more
Social relationships and interactions contribute to daily emotional well-being. The emotional benefits that come from engaging with others are known to arise from real events, but do they also come from the imagination during daydreaming activity? Using experience sampling methodology with 101 participants, we obtained 371 reports of naturally occurring daydreams with social and non-social content and self-reported feelings before and after daydreaming. Social, but not non-social, daydreams were associated with increased happiness, love and connection and this effect was not solely attributable to the emotional content of the daydreams. These effects were only present when participants were lacking in these feelings before daydreaming and when the daydream involved imagining others with whom the daydreamer had a high quality relationship. Findings are consistent with the idea that social daydreams may function to regulate emotion: imagining close others may serve the current emotional needs of daydreamers by increasing positive feelings towards themselves and others.
Research Interests:
Mind-wandering is closely connected with negative mood. Whether negative mood is a cause or consequence of mind-wandering remains an important, unresolved, issue. We sought to clarify the direction of this relationship by measuring mood... more
Mind-wandering is closely connected with negative mood. Whether negative mood is a cause or consequence of mind-wandering remains an important, unresolved, issue. We sought to clarify the direction of this relationship by measuring mood before and after mind-wandering. We also measured the affective content, time-orientation and relevance of mind-wandering to current concerns to explore whether the link between mind-wandering and negative mood might be explained by these characteristics. A novel experience-sampling technique with smartphone application prompted participants to answer questions about mind-wandering and mood across 7days. While sadness tended to precede mind-wandering, mind-wandering itself was not associated with later mood and only predicted feeling worse if its content was negative. We also found prior sadness predicted retrospective mind-wandering, and prior negative mood predicted mind-wandering to current concerns. Our findings provide new insight into how mood and mind-wandering relate but suggest mind-wandering is not inherently detrimental to well-being.
Research Interests:
BACKGROUND: This investigation focuses on what occurs to individuals' self-regulatory resource during controlled Interpersonal Affect Regulation (IAR) which is the process of deliberately influencing the internal feeling states of others.... more
BACKGROUND: This investigation focuses on what occurs to individuals' self-regulatory resource during controlled Interpersonal Affect Regulation (IAR) which is the process of deliberately influencing the internal feeling states of others. Combining the strength model of self-regulation and the resources conservation model, the investigation tested whether: (1) IAR behaviors are positively related to ego-depletion because goal-directed behaviors demand self-regulatory processes, and (2) the use of affect-improving strategies benefits from a source of resource-recovery because it initiates positive feedback from targets, as proposed from a resource-conservation perspective.
METHOD: To test this, a lab study based on an experimental dual-task paradigm using a sample of pairs of friends in the UK and a longitudinal field study of a sample of healthcare workers in Spain were conducted.
RESULTS: The experimental study showed a depleting effect of interpersonal affect-improving IAR on a subsequent self-regulation task. The field study showed that while interpersonal affect-worsening was positively associated with depletion, as indicated by the level of emotional exhaustion, interpersonal affect-improving was only associated with depletion after controlling for the effect of positive feedback from clients.
CONCLUSION: The findings indicate that IAR does have implications for resource depletion, but that social reactions play a role in the outcome.
METHOD: To test this, a lab study based on an experimental dual-task paradigm using a sample of pairs of friends in the UK and a longitudinal field study of a sample of healthcare workers in Spain were conducted.
RESULTS: The experimental study showed a depleting effect of interpersonal affect-improving IAR on a subsequent self-regulation task. The field study showed that while interpersonal affect-worsening was positively associated with depletion, as indicated by the level of emotional exhaustion, interpersonal affect-improving was only associated with depletion after controlling for the effect of positive feedback from clients.
CONCLUSION: The findings indicate that IAR does have implications for resource depletion, but that social reactions play a role in the outcome.