Tobias Ringeisen

Home Institution
Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz

Host Institution
Boston College, Department of Psychology, The Feldman Barrett Emotional Experience Lab (FEEL), Chestnut Hill, MA
Research Mentor: Prof. Lisa Feldman Barrett, Ph.D.

E-Mail: tobias.ringeisen@gmx.net

Research Topic
see Abstract
Personal Reactions to the U.S. Experience
There is no doubt that my research stay in the US was an extremely enriching experience - which refers both to scientific development and personal growth! Therefore, I want to thank everybody who made this stay possible and contributed to its successful completion, especially Birgit Heller, Prof Hilmar Stolte and Laurie Williams of the BMEP and Prof Feldman Barrett at Boston College.
This stay enabled me to gain insight into how research in my field of interest, namely emotional experience and emotion expression, is been done at a renowned American institution. Participation in three research projects fostered my understanding of different methodological approaches and deepened my knowledge both in theory building trends and current empirical findings. What impressed me most was the fact that I was fully integrated into the lab right from the beginning, even though the preparation period for both sides was extremely short, due to a cancellation of my initial arrangements. At this point many thanks go to all my lab mates for their help and cooperation!
Equally important as the scientific opportunities were the challenges I faced in private life. When leaving Germany I had made the difficult decision to give up an interesting job, leave my partner, and quit the security of an well-established social web. However, I quickly realized that being abroad doesn't cut the bonds to loved ones, but may even strengthen these relationships. Moreover, I met fascinating people from the US and from various foreign countries who added spice to the stew of the Bostonian experiences. Some of them have become friends and they will certainly remain a part of my life after I return to Germany. In sum, these months in the US not only challenged me intellectually but also deeply broadened my personal horizons.
Greatest Difficulties Encountered
Besides that fact that visa application procedures and immigration regulations have dramatically changed as a result of the events of September 11 of 2001, the most difficult encounter was definitely finding a place to stay. As a consequence of the huge number of students, apartments are not only expensive but also rare. Generally, Boston, like most cities of the upper east coast in the US, requires a monthly budget of at least $1200, which results in the frustrating experience of having to restrict one's own expenses. My situation became even worse, since I arrived only in mid-October when most apartments were already rented. However, I was lucky and eventually found a place close to Boston College, though the state and equipment of the apartment were rather bad.
Most humorous incident
One day I was at one of these really crowded parties where you cannot remember people's names, even though they have certainly been introduced to you. Some time during the night I started chatting with a bunch of vaguely familiar-looking faces who, to my embarrassment, all knew my name. Scanning my brain, I eventually came up with their names and the chat really seemed to turn out well. However, the next day I randomly found that I had assigned a wrong name to almost half of them, which in fact must have been the reason for the entertaining atmosphere!
Helpful Hints for Future Students
No matter which university you are planning to attend, make sure to contact the international office a couple of weeks before you arrive. They usually provide helpful information about living expenses, rentals, how to find an apartment, public transport, shopping facilities and so forth. Avoid living on-campus, since mostly undergrads take advantage of this opportunity, and you would find yourself among a screaming crowd which is on average 5 years younger than you!
In order to find an affordable place you may want to check one of the following web pages: www.craigslist.com or www.bostonapartments.com. If you prefer to live further away from campus, due to lower rent costs, make sure there is either public transport or simply consider buying a car! If you have further questions regarding any topic please feel free to email me!

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Abstract on Research Topic
The intentional expression of emotions: Approaching a phenomenon from a culturally based perspective of decision framing
Authors
Ringeisen, T., & Feldman Barrett, L.; Boston College
Institution
Boston College, Department of Psychology, The Feldman Barrett Emotional Experience Lab (FEEL),
Theoretical background
A variety of studies has shown the influence of cultural factors on emotional expression (see e.g. Matsumoto, Kodoh, Scherer & Wallbott, 1988). Among these variables especially the cultural construal of self has been found to essentially determine intensity, frequency and quality of emotional expression (Markus & Kitayama, 1991; Kitayama et al., 1997). For people with an interdependent self emotional expression seems to be mediated by the primary goal of keeping affiliation whereas for independent selves the underlying goal is to maintain autonomy.
However, when changing perspective from a cultural level to the more general level of group membership also cognitive variables like attribution seem to play an important role in the intentional expression of emotions. In the context of personal status, especially the framing of events as a gain or a loss of power seems to influence the expression of emotions (Hess & Kirouac, 2000; Kemper, 1990). Further evidence for this notion stems from a comparative study on emotional expression in three culturally different language groups in South Africa: As Ringeisen (2001) reports, intensity of emotional expression for certain negative emotions was highest for the language group with the presumingly lowest power level followed by the group with highest power level. The group with a medium power level was the least expressive.
Generally, such phenomenon can be explained by applying prospect theory, (Tversky & Kahnemann, 1981). According to the theory, people tend to accept more risks in an objectively equivalent situation when they evaluate behavioral options in terms of associated losses but act to avoid risks when the same options are framed in terms of associated gains.
Purpose/Hypotheses
Combining these two paradigms, quality and intensity of emotion expression in a certain situation are predicted to vary as a function of one's cultural construal of self and the framing of behavioral options as either a gain or a loss: Given a cross-culturally relevant emotion situation which is considered to be gain-framed for independent selves and therefore loss-framed for interdependent selves, the interdependent selves should show a higher tendency to engage in risky behavioral options than the independent selves. Additionally, in the same situation independent selves should show a higher tendency for non-risky behavioral options than interdependent selves. On the other hand, given a cross-culturally relevant emotion situation which is considered to be loss-framed for independent selves the expression pattern should be vice versa.

Material and Methods
The study comprises both a pilot and the main study. The goal of the pilot is to obtain norms for emotional expression in each of three cross-culturally relevant social scenarios (success, offense by an intimate other, insensitive behavior by an intimate other). For each scenario, participants are given a questionnaire to rate the extent to which they would consider emotional expression a risk to either maintaining affiliation in one condition or to maintain autonomy in the other. In sum, participants rate the expression of 26 different emotions on a Likert scale ranging from 1 to 7.
In the main study participants are randomly assigned to one of three goal conditions (autonomy, affiliation to others, control). These goals are primed using a sentence scramble task (Srull & Wyer, 1979). Then, participants of each condition receive a modified version of the original questionnaire. For each scenario, participants are asked to indicate the extent to which they would express each of a variety of emotions. In order to control for impression management tendencies (Ekman, 1992), subjects are randomly given either one of two questionnaire versions: Half of the participants are asked to give their intensity ratings for themselves whereas the other half is asked to give ratings from the perspective of a typical student. In addition, for each emotion scenario an emotion report is given measuring the extent to which participants would experience each of 26 emotions. Lastly, in both studies subjects are asked to complete a demographics sheet. The sample of participants in both studies will comprise exclusively students of Boston College; the estimated sample size is going to n=100 for the pilot and n=240 for the main study.

Results/conclusion
At the time when the submittal of the abstract was due the procedure of data collection was not finished yet. Therefore no overview over the results can be given here nor can potentially interesting findings be discussed.