Anxiety, emotional reactivity, and attachment as predictors of embedding dimensionality of affect

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Publication Type thesis
School or College College of Social & Behavioral Science
Department Psychology
Author Story, Trent Nathan
Title Anxiety, emotional reactivity, and attachment as predictors of embedding dimensionality of affect
Date 2011-08
Description In this study we investigated individual differences in emotionality and affect dynamics in couples over 21 days using a modified version of the False Nearest Neighbors method to estimate the embedding dimensionality of positive and negative affect. We estimated the number of dynamic degrees of freedom contributing to changes observed in time series' of affect. Patterns in daily affect may reflect an additive impact of stimuli (attending to many unique influences, high dimensionality) or a coordinative process that recruits stimuli (hyper-focus, low dimensionality). We examined the relationship between the embedding dimensionality of affect and macroscopic descriptors of emotionality that bear on affect regulation and appraisal processes. Associations were found for negative affect only. Higher levels of trait anxiety, emotional reactivity, and attachment anxiety were associated with lower dimensionality, regardless of the occurrence of daily negative events. The findings were consistent with the hyper-focus hypothesis. Individuals low in negative emotionality had high dimensionality except when they reported greater frequency of daily negative events. The pattern of results is discussed with respect to flexibility in affect regulation.
Type Text
Publisher University of Utah
Subject Affect; Dynamics; Personality
Dissertation Institution University of Utah
Dissertation Name Master of Science
Language eng
Rights Management Copyright © Trent Nathan Story 2011
Format Medium application/pdf
Format Extent 196,775 bytes
Identifier us-etd3,51783
Source original in Marriott Library Special Collections ; BF21.5 2011 .S76
ARK ark:/87278/s6nc6fxz
Setname ir_etd
ID 194503
Reference URL https://collections.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s6nc6fxz