Christopher Oveis
Biographic Data
| ID | 102246 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Christopher Oveis |
| GIVEN NAMES | Christopher |
| FAMILY NAME | Oveis |
| SIGNATURE | OVEIS C |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of California San Diego |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5239-3203 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 24 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 164 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 24 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2006 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Co-imagination fosters shared emotions of future experiences
Emotions play a crucial role in a host of goal-directed cognitive processes such as imagining and planning for the future. From hope to despair, shared emotions within representations of the future can motivate farsighted decisions and facilitate social coordination. Though interpersonal dynamics are critical to theories of emotion, imagination has been primarily studied as a process occurring within individuals rather than between them. Neverthe…
What can I say to help you? Language associated with successful extrinsic emotion regulation
When individuals regulate another person's emotions during a supportive conversation, they can help the person's emotions improve and nurture social connection. However, little is known about what specifically regulators say when regulating a target's emotions effectively. In the present research, we examined associations between regulators' language and targets' perceptions of emotion improvement, responsiveness, and trust in 114 naturalistic co…
Helping you helps me: Beneficial effects of regulating others’ emotions on well-being and physiological stress
Improving others' emotions is cognitively and emotionally demanding, potentially increasing stress levels and decreasing well-being. However, the opposite could also occur: Attempts at improving others' emotions-that is, affect-improving extrinsic interpersonal emotion regulation-could enhance regulators' affective well-being and shield against physiological stress because we theorize that engaging in regulatory action to improve others' emotions…
Application of an egocentric social network approach to examine changes in social connections following treatment for anxiety and depression: A novel measurement tool for clinical trials research
A conflict of values: When perceived compassion decreases trust
A new perspective on the social functions of emotions: Gratitude and the witnessing effect
the person toward whom gratitude was expressed. Experiments 6-8 used within-subjects designs to test hypothesized behavioral and social-perceptual mechanisms for these effects, with videos of real gratitude expressions. Gratitude may help build multiple relationships within a social network directly and simultaneously. By specifying proximal interpersonal mechanisms for reverberating consequences of 1 person's communicated emotion, the present wo…
Beyond happiness: Building a science of discrete positive emotions.
Laughter conveys status
Power Gets You High: The Powerful Are More Inspired by Themselves Than by Others
Inspiration is a source of admirable creation—but where do people get it from? We propose that power allows individuals to draw inspiration from the self. Four studies involving different social settings and operationalizations support this idea. Study 1 revealed that greater power is associated with more self-derived inspiration and less other-derived inspiration. In Study 2, participants with a higher sense of power were more inspired by their …
Affective and physiological responses to the suffering of others: Compassion and vagal activity
Compassion is an affective response to another's suffering and a catalyst of prosocial behavior. In the present studies, we explore the peripheral physiological changes associated with the experience of compassion. Guided by long-standing theoretical claims, we propose that compassion is associated with activation in the parasympathetic autonomic nervous system through the vagus nerve. Across 4 studies, participants witnessed others suffer while …
When You Think Your Partner Is Holding Back: The Costs of Perceived Partner Suppression During Relationship Sacrifice
Do people benefit when they think their partner has made a sacrifice for the relationship? In a multimethod study of 80 couples, we examined whether people can detect when their partner suppresses their emotions and if perceived partner suppression is costly for the recipient of sacrifice. When people listened to their partner recall an important sacrifice in the lab and when people thought their partner sacrificed in daily life, they thought tha…
Vagal activity is quadratically related to prosocial traits, prosocial emotions, and observer perceptions of prosociality
In the present article, we introduce the quadratic vagal activity-prosociality hypothesis, a theoretical framework for understanding the vagus nerve's involvement in prosociality. We argue that vagus nerve activity supports prosocial behavior by regulating physiological systems that enable emotional expression, empathy for others' mental and emotional states, the regulation of one's own distress, and the experience of positive emotions. However, …
Suppression Sours Sacrifice: Emotional and Relational Costs of Suppressing Emotions in Romantic Relationships
What happens when people suppress their emotions when they sacrifice for a romantic partner? This multimethod study investigates how suppressing emotions during sacrifice shapes affective and relationship outcomes. In Part 1, dating couples came into the laboratory to discuss important romantic relationship sacrifices. Suppressing emotions was associated with emotional costs for the partner discussing his or her sacrifice. In Part 2, couples part…
To have and to hold: Gratitude promotes relationship maintenance in intimate bonds
This multimethod series of studies merges the literatures on gratitude and risk regulation to test a new process model of gratitude and relationship maintenance. We develop a measure of appreciation in relationships and use cross-sectional, daily experience, observational, and longitudinal methods to test our model. Across studies, we show that people who feel more appreciated by their romantic partners report being more appreciative of their par…
Emotions as Moral Amplifiers: An Appraisal Tendency Approach to the Influences of Distinct Emotions upon Moral Judgment
In this article, we advance the perspective that distinct emotions amplify different moral judgments, based on the emotion’s core appraisals. This theorizing yields four insights into the way emotions shape moral judgment. We submit that there are two kinds of specificity in the impact of emotion upon moral judgment: domain specificity and emotion specificity. We further contend that the unique embodied aspects of an emotion, such as nonverbal ex…
Social power facilitates the effect of prosocial orientation on empathic accuracy
Power increases the tendency to behave in a goal-congruent fashion. Guided by this theoretical notion, we hypothesized that elevated power would strengthen the positive association between prosocial orientation and empathic accuracy. In 3 studies with university and adult samples, prosocial orientation was more strongly associated with empathic accuracy when distinct forms of power were high than when power was low. In Study 1, a physiological in…
Moving toward more perfect unions: Daily and long-term consequences of approach and avoidance goals in romantic relationships
In 2 daily experience studies and a laboratory study, the authors test predictions from approach-avoidance motivational theory to understand how dating couples can maintain feelings of relationship satisfaction in their daily lives and over the course of time. Approach goals were associated with increased relationship satisfaction on a daily basis and over time, particularly when both partners were high in approach goals. Avoidance goals were ass…
Compassion, pride, and social intuitions of self-other similarity
Compassion and pride serve contrasting social functions: Compassion motivates care-taking behavior, whereas pride enables the signaling and negotiation of rank within social hierarchies. Across 3 studies, compassion was associated with increased perceived self-other similarity, particularly to weak or vulnerable others. In contrast, pride was associated with an enhanced sense of similarity to strong others, and a decreased sense of similarity to …
Resting respiratory sinus arrhythmia is associated with tonic positive emotionality
Resting respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSAREST) indexes important aspects of individual differences in emotionality. In the present investigation, the authors address whether RSAREST is associated with tonic positive or negative emotionality, and whether RSAREST relates to phasic emotional responding to discrete positive emotion-eliciting stimuli. Across an 8-month, multiassessment study of first-year university students (n = 80), individual diffe…
Smile intensity and warm touch as thin slices of child and family affective style
The authors investigate the claim that thin slices of expressive behavior serve as reliable indicators of affective style in children and their families. Using photographs, the authors assessed smile intensity and tactile contact in kindergartners and their families. Consistent with claims that smiling and touch communicate positive emotion, measures of children's smile intensity and warm family touch were correlated across classroom and family c…
Disgust and the moralization of purity
Guided by appraisal-based models of the influence of emotion upon judgment, we propose that disgust moralizes--that is, amplifies the moral significance of--protecting the purity of the body and soul. Three studies documented that state and trait disgust, but not other negative emotions, moralize the purity moral domain but not the moral domains of justice or harm/care. In Study 1, integral feelings of disgust, but not integral anger, predicted s…
Power, Distress, and Compassion: Turning a Blind Eye to the Suffering of Others
Responses to individuals who suffer are a foundation of cooperative communities. On the basis of the approach/inhibition theory of power (Keltner, Gruenfeld, & Anderson, 2003), we hypothesized that elevated social power is associated with diminished reciprocal emotional responses to another person's suffering (feeling distress at another person's distress) and with diminished complementary emotion (e.g., compassion). In face-to-face conversations…
Risk for mania and positive emotional responding: Too much of a good thing
Although positive emotion research has begun to flourish, the extremes of positive emotion remain understudied. The present research used a multimethod approach to examine positive emotional disturbance by comparing participants at high and low risk for episodes of mania, which involves elevations in positive emotionality. Ninety participants were recruited into a high or low mania risk group according to responses on the Hypomanic Personality Sc…
Emotional Intuitions and Moral Play
Disgust and the moralization of purity
Guided by appraisal-based models of the influence of emotion upon judgment, we propose that disgust moralizes--that is, amplifies the moral significance of--protecting the purity of the body and soul. Three studies documented that state and trait disgust, but not other negative emotions, moralize the purity moral domain but not the moral domains of justice or harm/care. In Study 1, integral feelings of disgust, but not integral anger, predicted s…
To have and to hold: Gratitude promotes relationship maintenance in intimate bonds
This multimethod series of studies merges the literatures on gratitude and risk regulation to test a new process model of gratitude and relationship maintenance. We develop a measure of appreciation in relationships and use cross-sectional, daily experience, observational, and longitudinal methods to test our model. Across studies, we show that people who feel more appreciated by their romantic partners report being more appreciative of their par…
Moving toward more perfect unions: Daily and long-term consequences of approach and avoidance goals in romantic relationships
In 2 daily experience studies and a laboratory study, the authors test predictions from approach-avoidance motivational theory to understand how dating couples can maintain feelings of relationship satisfaction in their daily lives and over the course of time. Approach goals were associated with increased relationship satisfaction on a daily basis and over time, particularly when both partners were high in approach goals. Avoidance goals were ass…
Compassion, pride, and social intuitions of self-other similarity
Compassion and pride serve contrasting social functions: Compassion motivates care-taking behavior, whereas pride enables the signaling and negotiation of rank within social hierarchies. Across 3 studies, compassion was associated with increased perceived self-other similarity, particularly to weak or vulnerable others. In contrast, pride was associated with an enhanced sense of similarity to strong others, and a decreased sense of similarity to …
Social power facilitates the effect of prosocial orientation on empathic accuracy
Power increases the tendency to behave in a goal-congruent fashion. Guided by this theoretical notion, we hypothesized that elevated power would strengthen the positive association between prosocial orientation and empathic accuracy. In 3 studies with university and adult samples, prosocial orientation was more strongly associated with empathic accuracy when distinct forms of power were high than when power was low. In Study 1, a physiological in…
Affective and physiological responses to the suffering of others: Compassion and vagal activity
Compassion is an affective response to another's suffering and a catalyst of prosocial behavior. In the present studies, we explore the peripheral physiological changes associated with the experience of compassion. Guided by long-standing theoretical claims, we propose that compassion is associated with activation in the parasympathetic autonomic nervous system through the vagus nerve. Across 4 studies, participants witnessed others suffer while …
Laughter conveys status
A conflict of values: When perceived compassion decreases trust
Vagal activity is quadratically related to prosocial traits, prosocial emotions, and observer perceptions of prosociality
In the present article, we introduce the quadratic vagal activity-prosociality hypothesis, a theoretical framework for understanding the vagus nerve's involvement in prosociality. We argue that vagus nerve activity supports prosocial behavior by regulating physiological systems that enable emotional expression, empathy for others' mental and emotional states, the regulation of one's own distress, and the experience of positive emotions. However, …
A new perspective on the social functions of emotions: Gratitude and the witnessing effect
the person toward whom gratitude was expressed. Experiments 6-8 used within-subjects designs to test hypothesized behavioral and social-perceptual mechanisms for these effects, with videos of real gratitude expressions. Gratitude may help build multiple relationships within a social network directly and simultaneously. By specifying proximal interpersonal mechanisms for reverberating consequences of 1 person's communicated emotion, the present wo…
Emotional Intuitions and Moral Play
Power, Distress, and Compassion: Turning a Blind Eye to the Suffering of Others
Responses to individuals who suffer are a foundation of cooperative communities. On the basis of the approach/inhibition theory of power (Keltner, Gruenfeld, & Anderson, 2003), we hypothesized that elevated social power is associated with diminished reciprocal emotional responses to another person's suffering (feeling distress at another person's distress) and with diminished complementary emotion (e.g., compassion). In face-to-face conversations…
Risk for mania and positive emotional responding: Too much of a good thing
Although positive emotion research has begun to flourish, the extremes of positive emotion remain understudied. The present research used a multimethod approach to examine positive emotional disturbance by comparing participants at high and low risk for episodes of mania, which involves elevations in positive emotionality. Ninety participants were recruited into a high or low mania risk group according to responses on the Hypomanic Personality Sc…
Resting respiratory sinus arrhythmia is associated with tonic positive emotionality
Resting respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSAREST) indexes important aspects of individual differences in emotionality. In the present investigation, the authors address whether RSAREST is associated with tonic positive or negative emotionality, and whether RSAREST relates to phasic emotional responding to discrete positive emotion-eliciting stimuli. Across an 8-month, multiassessment study of first-year university students (n = 80), individual diffe…
Smile intensity and warm touch as thin slices of child and family affective style
The authors investigate the claim that thin slices of expressive behavior serve as reliable indicators of affective style in children and their families. Using photographs, the authors assessed smile intensity and tactile contact in kindergartners and their families. Consistent with claims that smiling and touch communicate positive emotion, measures of children's smile intensity and warm family touch were correlated across classroom and family c…
Disgust and the moralization of purity
Guided by appraisal-based models of the influence of emotion upon judgment, we propose that disgust moralizes--that is, amplifies the moral significance of--protecting the purity of the body and soul. Three studies documented that state and trait disgust, but not other negative emotions, moralize the purity moral domain but not the moral domains of justice or harm/care. In Study 1, integral feelings of disgust, but not integral anger, predicted s…
Moving toward more perfect unions: Daily and long-term consequences of approach and avoidance goals in romantic relationships
In 2 daily experience studies and a laboratory study, the authors test predictions from approach-avoidance motivational theory to understand how dating couples can maintain feelings of relationship satisfaction in their daily lives and over the course of time. Approach goals were associated with increased relationship satisfaction on a daily basis and over time, particularly when both partners were high in approach goals. Avoidance goals were ass…
Compassion, pride, and social intuitions of self-other similarity
Compassion and pride serve contrasting social functions: Compassion motivates care-taking behavior, whereas pride enables the signaling and negotiation of rank within social hierarchies. Across 3 studies, compassion was associated with increased perceived self-other similarity, particularly to weak or vulnerable others. In contrast, pride was associated with an enhanced sense of similarity to strong others, and a decreased sense of similarity to …
Emotions as Moral Amplifiers: An Appraisal Tendency Approach to the Influences of Distinct Emotions upon Moral Judgment
In this article, we advance the perspective that distinct emotions amplify different moral judgments, based on the emotion’s core appraisals. This theorizing yields four insights into the way emotions shape moral judgment. We submit that there are two kinds of specificity in the impact of emotion upon moral judgment: domain specificity and emotion specificity. We further contend that the unique embodied aspects of an emotion, such as nonverbal ex…
Social power facilitates the effect of prosocial orientation on empathic accuracy
Power increases the tendency to behave in a goal-congruent fashion. Guided by this theoretical notion, we hypothesized that elevated power would strengthen the positive association between prosocial orientation and empathic accuracy. In 3 studies with university and adult samples, prosocial orientation was more strongly associated with empathic accuracy when distinct forms of power were high than when power was low. In Study 1, a physiological in…
Suppression Sours Sacrifice: Emotional and Relational Costs of Suppressing Emotions in Romantic Relationships
What happens when people suppress their emotions when they sacrifice for a romantic partner? This multimethod study investigates how suppressing emotions during sacrifice shapes affective and relationship outcomes. In Part 1, dating couples came into the laboratory to discuss important romantic relationship sacrifices. Suppressing emotions was associated with emotional costs for the partner discussing his or her sacrifice. In Part 2, couples part…
To have and to hold: Gratitude promotes relationship maintenance in intimate bonds
This multimethod series of studies merges the literatures on gratitude and risk regulation to test a new process model of gratitude and relationship maintenance. We develop a measure of appreciation in relationships and use cross-sectional, daily experience, observational, and longitudinal methods to test our model. Across studies, we show that people who feel more appreciated by their romantic partners report being more appreciative of their par…
When You Think Your Partner Is Holding Back: The Costs of Perceived Partner Suppression During Relationship Sacrifice
Do people benefit when they think their partner has made a sacrifice for the relationship? In a multimethod study of 80 couples, we examined whether people can detect when their partner suppresses their emotions and if perceived partner suppression is costly for the recipient of sacrifice. When people listened to their partner recall an important sacrifice in the lab and when people thought their partner sacrificed in daily life, they thought tha…
Vagal activity is quadratically related to prosocial traits, prosocial emotions, and observer perceptions of prosociality
In the present article, we introduce the quadratic vagal activity-prosociality hypothesis, a theoretical framework for understanding the vagus nerve's involvement in prosociality. We argue that vagus nerve activity supports prosocial behavior by regulating physiological systems that enable emotional expression, empathy for others' mental and emotional states, the regulation of one's own distress, and the experience of positive emotions. However, …
Power Gets You High: The Powerful Are More Inspired by Themselves Than by Others
Inspiration is a source of admirable creation—but where do people get it from? We propose that power allows individuals to draw inspiration from the self. Four studies involving different social settings and operationalizations support this idea. Study 1 revealed that greater power is associated with more self-derived inspiration and less other-derived inspiration. In Study 2, participants with a higher sense of power were more inspired by their …
Affective and physiological responses to the suffering of others: Compassion and vagal activity
Compassion is an affective response to another's suffering and a catalyst of prosocial behavior. In the present studies, we explore the peripheral physiological changes associated with the experience of compassion. Guided by long-standing theoretical claims, we propose that compassion is associated with activation in the parasympathetic autonomic nervous system through the vagus nerve. Across 4 studies, participants witnessed others suffer while …
Laughter conveys status
Beyond happiness: Building a science of discrete positive emotions.
A conflict of values: When perceived compassion decreases trust
A new perspective on the social functions of emotions: Gratitude and the witnessing effect
the person toward whom gratitude was expressed. Experiments 6-8 used within-subjects designs to test hypothesized behavioral and social-perceptual mechanisms for these effects, with videos of real gratitude expressions. Gratitude may help build multiple relationships within a social network directly and simultaneously. By specifying proximal interpersonal mechanisms for reverberating consequences of 1 person's communicated emotion, the present wo…
Helping you helps me: Beneficial effects of regulating others’ emotions on well-being and physiological stress
Improving others' emotions is cognitively and emotionally demanding, potentially increasing stress levels and decreasing well-being. However, the opposite could also occur: Attempts at improving others' emotions-that is, affect-improving extrinsic interpersonal emotion regulation-could enhance regulators' affective well-being and shield against physiological stress because we theorize that engaging in regulatory action to improve others' emotions…
Application of an egocentric social network approach to examine changes in social connections following treatment for anxiety and depression: A novel measurement tool for clinical trials research
What can I say to help you? Language associated with successful extrinsic emotion regulation
When individuals regulate another person's emotions during a supportive conversation, they can help the person's emotions improve and nurture social connection. However, little is known about what specifically regulators say when regulating a target's emotions effectively. In the present research, we examined associations between regulators' language and targets' perceptions of emotion improvement, responsiveness, and trust in 114 naturalistic co…
Co-imagination fosters shared emotions of future experiences
Emotions play a crucial role in a host of goal-directed cognitive processes such as imagining and planning for the future. From hope to despair, shared emotions within representations of the future can motivate farsighted decisions and facilitate social coordination. Though interpersonal dynamics are critical to theories of emotion, imagination has been primarily studied as a process occurring within individuals rather than between them. Neverthe…
Psychology (21 works) · Social Psychology (20 works) · Developmental psychology (14 works) · Emotions and Moral Behavior (9 works) · Cultural Differences and Values (8 works) · Social Psychology (7 works) · Clinical Psychology (6 works) · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment (6 works) · Attachment and Relationship Dynamics (5 works) · Social and Intergroup Psychology (5 works)