Negative Emotions and Defence Mechanisms in Obese People

Negative Emotions and Defence Mechanisms in Obese People

Previous investigations, using an effective non-invasive procedure of short-term experimental stress, proved that Obese vs. Normal Women develop about double the intensity of negative emotions (anxiety, anger, sadness) when under stress (Bonaiuto et al., 1993). A high production of negative emotions as a reaction to many everyday life stressors forces people to resort to psychological defense m...

Praise for regret: People value regret above other negative emotions.

What do people think about the emotion of regret? Recent demonstrations of the psychological benefits of regret have been framed against an assumption that most people find regret to be aversive, both when experienced but also when recalled later. Two studies explored lay evaluations of regret experiences, revealing them to be largely favorable rather than unfavorable. Study 1 demonstrated that...

Persona and defence mechanisms.

Pathogen-avoidance mechanisms and the stigmatization of obese people

Humans possess pathogen-avoidance mechanisms that respond to the visual perception of morphological anomalies in others. We investigated whether obesitymay trigger thesemechanisms. Study 1 revealed that peoplewho are chronically concerned about pathogen transmission havemore negative attitudes toward obese people; this effect was especially pronounced following visual exposure to obese individu...

Negative emotions and anosognosia.

Patients with anosognosia fail to acknowledge, or feel distressed by, their disability. Given the recent suggestion that right (frontal) systems are selectively involved in negative emotions, it might be claimed that anosognosia results from a disruption in negative emotions. This is not consistent with the finding that some anosognosic patients exhibit substantial fluctuations in emotion, incl...