Robert W. Levenson

University of California, Berkeley

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Research Trends

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Document Type

Co-Authors

Bruce L. Miller

University of California, San Francisco

John M. Gottman

University of Washington

Claudia M. Haase

Northwestern University

Kuan‐Hua Chen

University of California, Berkeley

Casey L. Brown

Georgetown University

Howard J. Rosen

University of California, San Francisco

Virginia E. Sturm

University of California, San Francisco

Sandy J. Lwi

VA Northern California Health Care System

Jennifer Merrilees

University of California, San Francisco

Paul Ekman

University of California, San Francisco

Cooperative Institutions

University of California, San Francisco

145

University of California, Berkeley

105

University Memory and Aging Center

Yale University

University of California, Los Angeles

Harvard University

Stanford University

Massachusetts General Hospital

University of Pennsylvania

University of California System

Author Statistics

Papers

Citation

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Influence of age and gender on affect, physiology, and their interrelations: A study of long-term marriages.

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (1994)

Robert W. Levenson Laura L. Carstensen John M. Gottman

Affect

10.1037/0022-3514.67.1.56

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Citations (266)

Anger and sadness in response to an emotionally neutral film: Evidence for age-specific associations with well-being.

Psychology and Aging (2011)

Claudia M. Haase Benjamin H. Seider Michelle N. Shiota Robert W. Levenson

When the association between emotion and well-being is being considered, positive emotions usually come to mind. However, negative emotions serve important adaptive functions and particular negative emotions may be especially adaptive at different stages of adult development. We examined the associations between self-reported negative emotions in response to an emotionally neutral, thematically ambiguous film and subjective well-being among 76 young (age 20-29), 73 middle-aged (age 40-49), and 73 older (age 60-69) adults. Results indicated that higher self-reported anger in response to the film was associated with higher well-being for middle-aged adults, but not for young and older adults. Higher self-reported sadness in response to the film was associated with higher well-being for older adults, but not for young and middle-aged adults. These findings were stronger for cognitive well-being (i.e., satisfaction with life) than for affective well-being (i.e., ratio of dispositional positive to negative affect) and were specific to these emotions (not found for self-reported disgust or fear) and to the emotionally neutral film (not found for sad or disgusting films). Results are discussed in terms of the functions that anger and sadness are thought to serve and the control opportunities afforded in midlife and late life that render these functions differentially adaptive.

Sadness

Disgust

Association (psychology)

Affect

10.1037/a0024959

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Citations (52)

Genuine Smiles by Patients During Marital Interactions are Associated with Better Caregiver Mental Health

The Journals of Gerontology Series B (2017)

Sandy J. Lwi James Casey Alice Verstaen Dyan E. Connelly Jennifer Merrilees

Abstract Objective Providing care for a spouse with dementia is associated with an increased risk for poor mental health. To determine whether this vulnerability in caregivers is related to the expression of positive emotion, we examined 57 patients with Alzheimer’s disease and behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia and their spouses as they discussed a marital conflict. Method Facial behavior during the discussion was objectively coded to identify Duchenne (i.e., genuine) smiles and non-Duchenne (i.e., polite) smiles. Caregiver mental health was measured using the Medical Outcomes Survey. Results Greater expression of Duchenne smiles by patients was associated with better caregiver mental health, even when accounting for covariates (i.e., diagnosis, patient cognitive functioning, and caregiver marital satisfaction). Greater expression of non-Duchenne smiles by patients was associated with worse caregiver health, but only when covariates were entered in the model. Expression of Duchenne and non-Duchenne smiles by caregivers was not associated with caregiver mental health. Discussion Patients’ expression of Duchenne and non-Duchenne smiles may reveal important aspects of the emotional quality of the patient–caregiver relationship that influence caregiver burden and mental health.

Spouse

Vulnerability

Marital status

10.1093/geronb/gbx157

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Citations (16)

Ethnographic notions of the relationship between physiology and reported affect in Chinese and European cultures: A test of opposing predictions

PsycEXTRA Dataset (1996)

Jeanne L. Tsai Robert W. Levenson

Affect

10.1037/e526132012-321

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Citations (0)

Subjective, behavioral, and physiological reactivity to ethnically matched and ethnically mismatched film clips.

Emotion (2006)

Nicole A. Roberts Robert W. Levenson

This study examined whether individuals from 4 major ethnic groups within the United States (African American, Chinese American, European American, and Mexican American) showed greater subjective, behavioral, and physiological responses to emotional film clips (amusement, sadness, and disgust) with actors from their own ethnic group (ethnically matched) compared with actors from the other 3 ethnic groups (ethnically mismatched). Evidence showed greater responsivity to ethnically matched films for African Americans and European Americans, with the largest effect for African Americans. These findings were consistent across both sex and level of cultural identification. Findings of ethnic difference notwithstanding, there were many areas in which ethnic differences were not found (e.g., little or no evidence was found of greater response to ethnically matched films in Chinese-American or Mexican- American participants). These findings indicate that the emotional response system clearly reacts to stimuli of diverse ethnic content; however, the system is also amenable to subtle "tuning" that allows for incrementally enhanced responding to members of one's own ethnic or cultural group.

Ethnically diverse

Sadness

Amusement

Disgust

Pride

Chinese americans

10.1037/1528-3542.6.4.635

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Citations (37)

Emotion regulation in couples.

Robert W. Levenson Claudia M. Haase Lian Bloch Sarah R. Holley Benjamin H. Seider

Source

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Citations (53)

Basic Research Funding: An Exercise in NIH-ilism

APS observer (2005)

Robert W. Levenson

Source

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Citations (1)

EMOTIONAL FUNCTIONING IN PEOPLE WITH DEMENTIA AND CAREGIVER AFFECT DURING DYADIC INTERACTIONS

Innovation in Aging (2022)

Hannah Cozad Yuxuan Chen Casey L. Brown Julian A. Scheffer Kuan‐Hua Chen

Abstract Dementia caregivers can experience negative affect when interacting with their care recipients. However, few studies have examined the specific factors that predict caregiver negative affect in this dyadic context. We hypothesized that deficits in care recipients’ emotional functioning would be associated with increased intensity of caregivers’ negative affect during interactions with their care recipient. Caregivers (Nf100) reported on two aspects of their care recipients’ emotional functioning: (1) emotion recognition (the ability to recognize other people’s emotions), and (2) negative emotional reactivity (the ability to generate negative emotional responses). Dyads then visited the laboratory and engaged in a 10-minute conversation about an area of conflict in their relationship. Caregivers then watched recordings of their conversation while rating the valence and intensity of their experienced affect using a rating dial. We used these ratings to quantify changes in caregivers’ emotional valence across the course of the conversation. Caregivers of care recipients with greater deficits in emotion recognition demonstrated greater increases in negative affect across the conversation. In contrast, care recipients’ negative emotional reactivity was not related to changes in the valence of caregivers’ affect across the conversation. Findings remained significant even after accounting for caregiver baseline valence ratings, biological sex, and age, as well as the care recipients’ diagnosis and level of cognitive impairment. Results reveal the important role that care recipients’ deficits in emotion recognition play in caregivers’ emotional lives. Caregivers’ negative affect may be more likely to increase when their care recipient has deficits in emotion recognition.

Affect

10.1093/geroni/igac059.2813

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Citations (0)

POSITIVE EMOTIONAL CONNECTION AND CAREGIVER WELL-BEING IN BEHAVIORAL-VARIANT FRONTOTEMPORAL DEMENTIA

Innovation in Aging (2022)

Kuan‐Hua Chen Claire Yee Casey L. Brown А. Г. Сапожникова Peter Pressman

Abstract Behavioral-variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) is characterized by impairment in socioemotional functioning. Spouses caring for individuals with bvFTD often experience profound health/well-being declines, compared to Alzheimer’s disease (AD) caregivers and non-caregiving older adults. We hypothesized that disrupted positive emotional connections between spousal caregivers and individuals with bvFTD contribute to caregivers’ lower emotional well-being. 23 bvFTD-caregiver, 23 AD-caregiver, and 17 control dyads had a 10-minute conflict conversation in the laboratory. Positive emotional connections were measured as the covariation of partners’ positive emotional behaviors during the conversation. Caregiver emotional well-being was assessed via questionnaire (SF-36). We found that bvFTD caregivers had lower emotional well-being than AD caregivers and controls (who did not differ from each other, t=.80, p=.43), c=-.70, p<.01. Importantly, this effect was fully mediated by bvFTD caregivers' lower positive emotional connections, c’=-.38, n.s. We speculate that lower positive emotional connections can cause social isolation and contribute to bvFTD caregivers’ health/well-being declines.

Socioemotional selectivity theory

Family Caregivers

Caregiver Burden

10.1093/geroni/igac059.1577

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Citations (0)

The psychophysiology of crying

Psychophysiology (1994)

James J. Gross Barbara L. Fredrickson Robert W. Levenson

Abstract Two conflicting views have emerged as to why people cry when they are sad. One suggests that crying serves homeostasis by facilitating recovery; the other suggests that crying produces an aversive high‐arousal state that motivates behavior aimed at ending the tears. To test hypotheses drawn from these views, we showed a short film known to elicit sadness to 150 women. During this film, 33 subjects spontaneously cried and 117 did not. Subjects who eried exhibited more expressive behavior and reported feeling more sadness and pain than did subjects who did not cry. Crying also was associated with increases in somatic and autonomic nervous system activity. The increases in autonomic activity could not be accounted for solely by the increases in somatic activity. Crying is thus associated with an aversive state, including negative emotion and a complex mixture of sympathetic, parasympathetic, and somatic activation, and we speculate about the functional implications of these findings.

Sadness

Psychophysiology

10.1111/j.1469-8986.1994.tb01049.x

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Citations (114)