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The Effects of Context Upon the Frequency of Short‐Term Changes in Affective States
Author(s) -
SHAPIRO M. B.,
LITMAN G. K.,
HENDRY E.
Publication year - 1973
Publication title -
british journal of social and clinical psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.479
H-Index - 92
eISSN - 2044-8260
pISSN - 0007-1293
DOI - 10.1111/j.2044-8260.1973.tb00071.x
Subject(s) - feeling , context (archaeology) , psychology , affect (linguistics) , term (time) , subject (documents) , cognitive psychology , psychotherapist , social psychology , communication , computer science , paleontology , physics , quantum mechanics , library science , biology
Individual‐centred experiments were carried out on two subjects in order to investigate the effects of two kinds of context upon short‐term changes in the intensity of feelings. One context was termed ‘referential’, i.e. the feelings were related to circumstances outside the subject himself and to times other than the present. An example is ‘I feel depressed because I am not needed ’. The other context was termed ‘non‐referential’, i.e. the feelings were not related to anything but the subject in the immediate present. An example is ‘I feel depressed’. Each patient assessed the intensity of a number of her affective states immediately before and immediately after situations such as behaviour therapy and psychotherapy sessions. Each of three situations was presented on between 6 and 10 occasions to each patient. Each affect was assessed in both referential and non‐referential contexts. In accordance with expectation, referential states produced less frequent reductions of intensity than non‐referential states. Similar results for increases of intensity were produced by one patient and inconsistent results by the other. These results have implications for a theory of affective change and for the development of treatment strategies.