Michelle N Shiota
Biographic Data
| ID | 122034 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Michelle N Shiota |
| GIVEN NAMES | Michelle N |
| FAMILY NAME | Shiota |
| SIGNATURE | SHIOTA M N |
| AFFILIATIONS | Arizona State University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-9762-915X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 24 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 28 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 24 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2006 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Prototype Facial Response to Cute Stimuli
Cute, kindchenschema stimuli can evoke a suite of cognitive, physiological, and behavioral tendencies thought to promote caregiving. This research investigated facial expression elements associated with this response to cuteness and assessed the recognizability of an expression combining these elements. In Studies 1 and 2, participants at a community outreach event (Study 1, n = 19) and undergraduate students (Study 2, n = 103) showed spontaneous…
Be the Change You Want to See
This research investigated how an instance of intergroup helping affects intergroup attitudes and cooperative behavior. Past research demonstrates that helping behavior elicits prosociality, both reciprocally and toward uninvolved third parties. However, much of this research has either ignored group membership altogether or has assumed a shared group identity between benefactor and beneficiary. Where intergroup helping has been directly evaluate…
Funny Date, Creative Mate? Unpacking the Effect of Humor on Romantic Attraction
Extensive research shows that people are attracted to funny dating partners, with several competing, sometimes conflicting, explanations for why humor is strongly desired in a mate. The present research asks whether humor is interpreted as a reliable, hard-to-fake indicator of some other, valuable trait. Across six experiments, we manipulated humor in a hypothetical date, online dating profile, or video profile and asked which of several traits s…
Emotional Mechanisms of Behavior Change
Traditional models of behavior change emphasize knowledge, beliefs, and injunctive norms as targets of intervention. Emotion—a potent force guiding human behavior—is strikingly absent from most models and most behavioral interventions. This article reviews evidence that emotion is not only consequential for common targets of behavioral intervention, but can be activated strategically to facilitate behavior change. This article presents a new fram…
Empathic concern motivates willingness to help in the absence of interdependence
Previous research suggests that empathic concern selectively promotes motivation to help those with whom we typically have interdependent relationships, such as friends or siblings, rather than strangers or acquaintances. In a sample of U.S. participants (collected between 2018 and 2020), our studies not only confirmed the finding that empathic concern is directed somewhat more strongly toward interdependent relationship partners, but also showed…
Shades of expansiveness
In addition to the face, bodily posture plays an important role in communicating affective states. Postural expansion-how much space the body takes up-has been much studied as expressing and signaling dominance and pride. The present research aimed to expand research on the range of affect dimensions and affect-laden personality characteristics that are expressed via expansiveness, investigating specific forms of expansiveness and their interacti…
Within- and between-group heterogeneity in cultural models of emotion among people of European, Asian, and Latino heritage in the United States
Research on cultural variation in emotion values and beliefs has usually explained this variation in terms of individualism and collectivism, typically comparing European American against East Asian cultural contexts. This study examined emotion model variability across as well as within cultural contexts in a large sample of young adults of Latino heritage along with people of European and East Asian heritage. Using latent class analysis, we cha…
Who emphasizes positivity? An exploration of emotion values in people of Latino, Asian, and European heritage living in the United States
Emotion values vary within and between individualistic and collectivistic cultural contexts. The form of collectivism prevalent in Latin America emphasizes simpatía, a cultural model that stresses the relational benefits of positivity but also the costs of negativity. This model was predicted to engender a pattern of emotion values distinct from that of the more commonly studied collectivist group, people of Asian heritage (PAH), among whom an em…
Responding to the emotions of others
Responding prosocially to the emotion of others may become increasingly important in late life, especially as partners and friends encounter a growing number of losses, challenges, and declines. Facial expressions are important avenues for communicating empathy and concern, and for signaling that help is forthcoming when needed. In a study of young, middle-aged, and older adults, we measured emotional responses (facial expressions, subjective exp…
Ethnic variation in gratitude and well-being
Gratitude is positively associated with health and well-being. Past studies of gratitude have primarily focused on the distinct cultural context of European Americans. The current studies aimed to extend gratitude research to Latino and East Asian Americans, 2 collectivistic contexts known to differently value positive emotions. Two studies explored whether Latino and East Asian Americans varied in gratitude experience and whether the disposition…
Dynamically engaged smiling predicts cooperation above and beyond average smiling levels
Beyond happiness
Going off script
People often filter their experience of new events through knowledge they already have; for example, encoding new events by relying on prototypical event "scripts" at the expense of actual details. Previous research suggests that positive affect often increases this tendency. Three studies assessed whether awe-an emotion elicited by perceived vastness, and thought to promote cognitive accommodation-has the opposite effect, reducing rather than in…
Short alleles, bigger smiles? The effect of 5-HTTLPR on positive emotional expressions
The present research examined the effect of the 5-HTTLPR polymorphism in the serotonin transporter gene on objectively coded positive emotional expressions (i.e., laughing and smiling behavior objectively coded using the Facial Action Coding System). Three studies with independent samples of participants were conducted. Study 1 examined young adults watching still cartoons. Study 2 examined young, middle-aged, and older adults watching a thematic…
Turn down the volume or change the channel? Emotional effects of detached versus positive reappraisal
Cognitive reappraisal, or changing one's interpretation of an event in order to alter the emotional response to it, is thought to be a healthy and an effective emotion regulation strategy. Although researchers recognize several distinct varieties of reappraisal, few studies have explicitly compared the effects of multiple reappraisal strategies on emotional responding. The present study compares the effects of detached and positive reappraisal on…
Feeling good
Although dozens of studies have examined the autonomic nervous system (ANS) aspects of negative emotions, less is known about ANS responding in positive emotion. An evolutionary framework was used to define five positive emotions in terms of fitness-enhancing function, and to guide hypotheses regarding autonomic responding. In a repeated measures design, participants viewed sets of visual images eliciting these positive emotions (anticipatory ent…
Influence of different positive emotions on persuasion processing
Much research has found that positive affect facilitates increased reliance on heuristics in cognition. However, theories proposing distinct evolutionary fitness-enhancing functions for specific positive emotions also predict important differences among the consequences of different positive emotion states. Two experiments investigated how six positive emotions influenced the processing of persuasive messages. Using different methods to induce em…
The Many Shades of Rose-Colored Glasses
We present an evolutionary framework for examining the influence of different positive emotions on cognition and behavior. Testing this framework, we investigate how two positive emotions-pride and contentment-influence product desirability. Three experiments show that different positive emotions (compared with a neutral control condition) have specific effects on judgment that are consistent with the proposed underlying evolved function of each …
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…
Music, lyrics, and dangerous things
The nature of awe
Awe has been defined as an emotional response to perceptually vast stimuli that overwhelm current mental structures, yet facilitate attempts at accommodation. Four studies are presented showing the information-focused nature of awe elicitors, documenting the self-diminishing effects of awe experience, and exploring the effects of awe on the content of the self-concept. Study 1 documented the information-focused, asocial nature of awe elicitors in…
Context matters
Positive emotions promote adjustment to aversive life events. However, evolutionary theory and empirical research on trauma disclosure suggest that in the context of stigmatized events, expressing positive emotions might incur social costs. To test this thesis, the authors coded genuine (Duchenne) smiling and laughter and also non-Duchenne smiling from videotapes of late-adolescent and young adult women, approximately half with documented histori…
Positive emotion dispositions differentially associated with Big Five personality and attachment style
Although theorists have proposed the existence of multiple distinct varieties of positive emotion, dispositional positive affect is typically treated as a unidimensional variable in personality research. We present data elaborating conceptual and empirical differences among seven positive emotion dispositions in their relationships with two core personality constructs, the “Big Five” and adult attachment style. We found that the positive emotion …
Silver linings and candles in the dark
Ideal coping strategies enhance positive aspects of well-being as well as reduce distress. Although researchers have identified several "positive coping" strategies, it is unclear which are most strongly associated with well-being or whether all strategies are equally appropriate for all kinds of stressors. Participants completed well-being measures, and described the most negative event of the day and their emotion regulation strategies for the …
The Many Shades of Rose-Colored Glasses
We present an evolutionary framework for examining the influence of different positive emotions on cognition and behavior. Testing this framework, we investigate how two positive emotions-pride and contentment-influence product desirability. Three experiments show that different positive emotions (compared with a neutral control condition) have specific effects on judgment that are consistent with the proposed underlying evolved function of each …
Turn down the volume or change the channel? Emotional effects of detached versus positive reappraisal
Cognitive reappraisal, or changing one's interpretation of an event in order to alter the emotional response to it, is thought to be a healthy and an effective emotion regulation strategy. Although researchers recognize several distinct varieties of reappraisal, few studies have explicitly compared the effects of multiple reappraisal strategies on emotional responding. The present study compares the effects of detached and positive reappraisal on…
Music, lyrics, and dangerous things
Positive emotion dispositions differentially associated with Big Five personality and attachment style
Although theorists have proposed the existence of multiple distinct varieties of positive emotion, dispositional positive affect is typically treated as a unidimensional variable in personality research. We present data elaborating conceptual and empirical differences among seven positive emotion dispositions in their relationships with two core personality constructs, the “Big Five” and adult attachment style. We found that the positive emotion …
Silver linings and candles in the dark
Ideal coping strategies enhance positive aspects of well-being as well as reduce distress. Although researchers have identified several "positive coping" strategies, it is unclear which are most strongly associated with well-being or whether all strategies are equally appropriate for all kinds of stressors. Participants completed well-being measures, and described the most negative event of the day and their emotion regulation strategies for the …
The nature of awe
Awe has been defined as an emotional response to perceptually vast stimuli that overwhelm current mental structures, yet facilitate attempts at accommodation. Four studies are presented showing the information-focused nature of awe elicitors, documenting the self-diminishing effects of awe experience, and exploring the effects of awe on the content of the self-concept. Study 1 documented the information-focused, asocial nature of awe elicitors in…
Context matters
Positive emotions promote adjustment to aversive life events. However, evolutionary theory and empirical research on trauma disclosure suggest that in the context of stigmatized events, expressing positive emotions might incur social costs. To test this thesis, the authors coded genuine (Duchenne) smiling and laughter and also non-Duchenne smiling from videotapes of late-adolescent and young adult women, approximately half with documented histori…
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…
Music, lyrics, and dangerous things
Influence of different positive emotions on persuasion processing
Much research has found that positive affect facilitates increased reliance on heuristics in cognition. However, theories proposing distinct evolutionary fitness-enhancing functions for specific positive emotions also predict important differences among the consequences of different positive emotion states. Two experiments investigated how six positive emotions influenced the processing of persuasive messages. Using different methods to induce em…
The Many Shades of Rose-Colored Glasses
We present an evolutionary framework for examining the influence of different positive emotions on cognition and behavior. Testing this framework, we investigate how two positive emotions-pride and contentment-influence product desirability. Three experiments show that different positive emotions (compared with a neutral control condition) have specific effects on judgment that are consistent with the proposed underlying evolved function of each …
Feeling good
Although dozens of studies have examined the autonomic nervous system (ANS) aspects of negative emotions, less is known about ANS responding in positive emotion. An evolutionary framework was used to define five positive emotions in terms of fitness-enhancing function, and to guide hypotheses regarding autonomic responding. In a repeated measures design, participants viewed sets of visual images eliciting these positive emotions (anticipatory ent…
Turn down the volume or change the channel? Emotional effects of detached versus positive reappraisal
Cognitive reappraisal, or changing one's interpretation of an event in order to alter the emotional response to it, is thought to be a healthy and an effective emotion regulation strategy. Although researchers recognize several distinct varieties of reappraisal, few studies have explicitly compared the effects of multiple reappraisal strategies on emotional responding. The present study compares the effects of detached and positive reappraisal on…
Short alleles, bigger smiles? The effect of 5-HTTLPR on positive emotional expressions
The present research examined the effect of the 5-HTTLPR polymorphism in the serotonin transporter gene on objectively coded positive emotional expressions (i.e., laughing and smiling behavior objectively coded using the Facial Action Coding System). Three studies with independent samples of participants were conducted. Study 1 examined young adults watching still cartoons. Study 2 examined young, middle-aged, and older adults watching a thematic…
Beyond happiness
Going off script
People often filter their experience of new events through knowledge they already have; for example, encoding new events by relying on prototypical event "scripts" at the expense of actual details. Previous research suggests that positive affect often increases this tendency. Three studies assessed whether awe-an emotion elicited by perceived vastness, and thought to promote cognitive accommodation-has the opposite effect, reducing rather than in…
Dynamically engaged smiling predicts cooperation above and beyond average smiling levels
Responding to the emotions of others
Responding prosocially to the emotion of others may become increasingly important in late life, especially as partners and friends encounter a growing number of losses, challenges, and declines. Facial expressions are important avenues for communicating empathy and concern, and for signaling that help is forthcoming when needed. In a study of young, middle-aged, and older adults, we measured emotional responses (facial expressions, subjective exp…
Ethnic variation in gratitude and well-being
Gratitude is positively associated with health and well-being. Past studies of gratitude have primarily focused on the distinct cultural context of European Americans. The current studies aimed to extend gratitude research to Latino and East Asian Americans, 2 collectivistic contexts known to differently value positive emotions. Two studies explored whether Latino and East Asian Americans varied in gratitude experience and whether the disposition…
Who emphasizes positivity? An exploration of emotion values in people of Latino, Asian, and European heritage living in the United States
Emotion values vary within and between individualistic and collectivistic cultural contexts. The form of collectivism prevalent in Latin America emphasizes simpatía, a cultural model that stresses the relational benefits of positivity but also the costs of negativity. This model was predicted to engender a pattern of emotion values distinct from that of the more commonly studied collectivist group, people of Asian heritage (PAH), among whom an em…
Shades of expansiveness
In addition to the face, bodily posture plays an important role in communicating affective states. Postural expansion-how much space the body takes up-has been much studied as expressing and signaling dominance and pride. The present research aimed to expand research on the range of affect dimensions and affect-laden personality characteristics that are expressed via expansiveness, investigating specific forms of expansiveness and their interacti…
Within- and between-group heterogeneity in cultural models of emotion among people of European, Asian, and Latino heritage in the United States
Research on cultural variation in emotion values and beliefs has usually explained this variation in terms of individualism and collectivism, typically comparing European American against East Asian cultural contexts. This study examined emotion model variability across as well as within cultural contexts in a large sample of young adults of Latino heritage along with people of European and East Asian heritage. Using latent class analysis, we cha…
Emotional Mechanisms of Behavior Change
Traditional models of behavior change emphasize knowledge, beliefs, and injunctive norms as targets of intervention. Emotion—a potent force guiding human behavior—is strikingly absent from most models and most behavioral interventions. This article reviews evidence that emotion is not only consequential for common targets of behavioral intervention, but can be activated strategically to facilitate behavior change. This article presents a new fram…
Empathic concern motivates willingness to help in the absence of interdependence
Previous research suggests that empathic concern selectively promotes motivation to help those with whom we typically have interdependent relationships, such as friends or siblings, rather than strangers or acquaintances. In a sample of U.S. participants (collected between 2018 and 2020), our studies not only confirmed the finding that empathic concern is directed somewhat more strongly toward interdependent relationship partners, but also showed…
Be the Change You Want to See
This research investigated how an instance of intergroup helping affects intergroup attitudes and cooperative behavior. Past research demonstrates that helping behavior elicits prosociality, both reciprocally and toward uninvolved third parties. However, much of this research has either ignored group membership altogether or has assumed a shared group identity between benefactor and beneficiary. Where intergroup helping has been directly evaluate…
Funny Date, Creative Mate? Unpacking the Effect of Humor on Romantic Attraction
Extensive research shows that people are attracted to funny dating partners, with several competing, sometimes conflicting, explanations for why humor is strongly desired in a mate. The present research asks whether humor is interpreted as a reliable, hard-to-fake indicator of some other, valuable trait. Across six experiments, we manipulated humor in a hypothetical date, online dating profile, or video profile and asked which of several traits s…
Prototype Facial Response to Cute Stimuli
Cute, kindchenschema stimuli can evoke a suite of cognitive, physiological, and behavioral tendencies thought to promote caregiving. This research investigated facial expression elements associated with this response to cuteness and assessed the recognizability of an expression combining these elements. In Studies 1 and 2, participants at a community outreach event (Study 1, n = 19) and undergraduate students (Study 2, n = 103) showed spontaneous…
Psychology (22 works) · Social Psychology (20 works) · Developmental psychology (14 works) · Cognitive psychology (11 works) · Social Psychology (8 works) · Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior (6 works) · Facial expression (6 works) · Media Influence and Health (6 works) · Communication (5 works) · Behavioral Health and Interventions (4 works)