心理科学 ›› 2017, Vol. 40 ›› Issue (6): 1435-1441.

• 社会、人格与管理 • 上一篇    下一篇

预期如何影响人们对不愉快事件的体验?

唐文杰,侯玉波   

  1. 北京大学
  • 收稿日期:2017-05-02 修回日期:2017-12-21 出版日期:2017-11-20 发布日期:2017-11-20
  • 通讯作者: 侯玉波

The Impact of the Expectation Strength and the Expectation Confidence on the Unpleasant Perceptual Experience

  • Received:2017-05-02 Revised:2017-12-21 Online:2017-11-20 Published:2017-11-20
  • Contact: Yu-Bo Hou

摘要: 本研究以味觉和痛觉两种感觉通道的体验为对象,探讨个体在面对不愉快情境时,预期的效价和信心如何影响知觉体验结果及其作用机制。通过2个实验,发现个体的预期会影响即时的知觉体验,并且预期信心在其中起到调节作用——对预期充满信心时,如果即时体验和对结果的预期保持一致时,预期越积极即时体验越好,预期越消极即时体验越差;而对预期缺乏信心时,即时体验和预期之间呈现背离趋势,预期越积极即时体验越差,预期越消极即时体验则越好。研究结果阐明了预期影响即时体验的机制,对我们理解身心关系也具有重要的理论意

关键词: 预期效价, 预期信心, 感觉通道, 即时体验

Abstract: Expectation is an individual’s belief of future outcomes of forthcoming events. The intensity of the belief is called expectation strength while to what extent one believes these outcomes will come true is called expectation confidence. Previous researches mainly focused on how expectation strength affects people’s sensation and perception. Nevertheless, previous researchers obtained different results in different fields. Our target is to explore the impact of expectation strength and confidence on immediate experience based upon sensory channels, thereby to answer the reason why expectation strength had different effects on outcomes in past researches. Ultimately, we give some useful advices about expectation to optimize their actual experiences when encountering some negative events. For this purpose, we conduct two experiments which start respectively from sense of touch and taste to find out whether the expectation strength and expectation confidence have influence on actual pain and subjective feeling when faced with unpleasant events in daily life. In Experiment 1, we conduct a new situation in which participants are asked to experience a hot product-shiatsu sheet which can generate pain feeling. We manipulate expectation strength with different text description about shiatsu sheet and activate expectation confidence through asking participants to illustrate three reasons about their expectations or describe 3 things they have done today. For the dependent variable, we measure participants’ pain perception and subjective feeling through self-evaluation scale under controlling self-confidence, emotion state and personality trait. The main results show that expectation strength and expectation confidence have interaction effect on practical experience, F(2,110)=10.06,p<0.001,η2=0.16. Participant with positive expectation have better feeling while they have strong expectation confidence, F(2,110)=16.78,p<0.001,η2=0.23. Meanwhile, expectation will not influence actual experience when participants do not have confidence, F(2,110)=0.15,p=0.858,η2=0.003. Interestingly, for the pain perception, expectation strength and expectation confidence have the same effect on actual experience, F(1,111)=13.53,p<0.001,η2=0.11, but for the subjective feelings, the two independent variables do not have significant influence, F(1,111)=1.83,p=0.179. In Experiment 2, we ask participants to taste some home-made drink and make evaluation. Participants experience their feelings more immediately since they are more familiar with this scene, so they can easily compare actual experience with expectation. The method of manipulating independent variables is the same with Experiment 1. For the dependent variables, we measure participant’s taste perception, subjective feeling and aversion under controlling emotion. The results of Experiment 2 are consistent with experimental hypothesis that expectation strength and expectation confidence have interaction effect on practical experience, F(3,94)=4.62,p=0.005,η2=0.13. Participant with positive expectation have better feeling when they have strong expectation confidence, F(3,94)=3.83,p=0.012,η2=0.11. In the contrary, participant with negative expectation have better feeling when they have weaker expectation confidence, F(3,94)=2.87,p=0.069,η2=0.08. For the dependent variables, the findings are the same with experimental 1, expectation strength and expectation confidence only influence taste perception without any effect on subjective feelings. In conclusion, results suggest the expectation strength can impact individuals’ immediate experience in which expectation confidence plays a moderating role. When people have strong expectation confidence, their actual experience is consistent with outcomes of expectation, that is, people with positive expectations can experience better and vice versa; On the contrary, when expectation confidence is lacked, individuals’ actual experience is different from the expectation, in other words, those who have negative expectation can experience better instead. These findings depict how expectation influences perception and sensory. In terms of theoretical significance, the research not only reveals the mechanism that expectation strength and confidence influence individuals’ immediate experience, but also provides theoretical and practical implications for understanding the nature of body-mind relationship. expectation strength, expectation confidence, sensory channel, sensory experience;

Key words: expectation strength, expectation confidence, sensory channel, sensory experience