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HOW DO WE DEFINE AND MEASURE EMOTION?
What is an emotion? How do emotions differ from each other? What is the best way to measure an emotion? These are some of the basic questions that drive research in our lab. We seek to understand what emotions are at the most basic of levels, and to find the ways that are most appropriate to capture them in experimental frameworks.
Relevant Publications & Presentations:
Mullin, C.J., & McGinley, J.J. (September, 2019). The interaction of disgust and vagal activity informs subsequent risk-taking behavior. Talk presented at the 59Th Annual Meeting for the Society for Psychophysiological Research, Washington D.C.
McGinley, J.J. & Friedman, B.H. (2017). Autonomic specificity in emotion: The induction method matters. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 118, 48-57. DOI: 10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2017.06.002
Simon, T., Berger, K., Friedman, B.H., & McGinley, J.J. (2016). Autonomic differentiation for emotions? How about autonomic differentiation for emotion-eliciting tasks? [abstract]. Psychophysiology, 53(Suppl. 1), S27.
McGinley, J.J., Choi, H., & Friedman, B.H. (2016). Autonomic expression to negative emotions: The context matters [abstract]. Annals of Behavioral Medicine (Suppl. 1), S122.
McGinley, J.J., Choi, H., Friedman, B.H. (2015). Univariate autonomic responses to discrete emotion manipulations continue to vary across different methods of manipulation [abstract]. Psychophysiology(Suppl. 1), S121.
HOW, AND UNDER WHAT SITUATIONS, DO WE REGULATE EMOTIONS?
Flexible emotion regulation is necessary for healthy adaptations to everyday stressors in life. What does healthy emotion regulation look like? What are the biological correlates of this emotion regulation?
Relevant Publications & Presentations:
Judy, K., McGinley, J.J., & Llera, S. (2022). Emotion Regulation Difficulties Moderate the Effects of Pandemic-Related Factors on Stress and Anxiety during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Archives of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, 24(1), 33-42. DOI: 10.12740/APP/144540
Sagan, O., & McGinley, J.J. (April, 2018). Employing emotion regulation strategies in the presence of social stress. Poster presented at the 2nd Annual Mid-Atlantic Undergraduate Psychology Conference, Bel Air, MD.
Rompilla Jr., D. & McGinley, J.J. (2017). Cardiovascular changes in emotion up-regulation during goal pursuit. [abstract]. Psychophysiology, 54(Suppl. 1), S050.
WHAT IS EMPATHY AND TO WHAT DEGREE DO WE SHARE EMOTIONS?
Conceptual conflict has surrounded the concept of empathy since its advent. Many of the issues that surround the conceptual discord are also reflected in the measurement of empathy. Therefore, we hope to further promote a unifiable conceptualization of empathy and understand how it mechanistically operates at the biological level.
Relevant Publications & Presentations:
Baldner, C. & McGinley, J.J. (2020). Self-report empathy scales lack consistency: Evidence from exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. Testing, Psychometrics, Methodology in Applied Psychology, 27, 103-128. DOI: 10.4473/TPM27.1.7
Baldner, C. & McGinley, J.J. (2016). Extracting empathy from related concepts: Historical, theoretical, and empirical support in C. Edwards (Ed.), Psychology of Empathy: New Research (pp. 69-128). New York: Nova Science Publishers, Inc.
Baldner, C. & McGinley, J.J. (2014). Correlational and exploratory factor analyses (EFA) of commonly used empathy questionnaires: New insights. Motivation and Emotion, 38(5), 727-744. DOI: 10.1007/s11031-014-9417-2
McGinley, J.J., Baldner, C., Tallman, C. W., & Friedman, B.H. (May, 2014). Comparative Analyses of Cognitive and Affective Scales of Empathy Questionnaires. Poster presented at the 26th annual conference for the Association for Psychological Science, San Francisco, CA.
Baldner, C. & McGinley, J.J. (February, 2012). What is empathy? An exploratory factor analysis. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, San Diego, CA.
WHAT IS THE ROLE OF EMOTION IN MORAL JUDGMENT?
The field of moral judgment has seen a resurgent interest in recent years. The role that emotion plays in moral decision-making has been surprisingly underdeveloped, thus permitting the vast literature of emotion theory to provide meaningful contributions.
Relevant Publications & Presentations:
Parton, D., & McGinley, J.J. (2019). At the heart of harm: Cardiac substrates of action-based aversion to harm. Personality and Individual Differences, 151(1), 109497. DOI:10.1016/j.paid.2019.07.007
Leigh, A.O., Stansbury, J.A., Munro, G.D., & McGinley, J.J. (under review). To push or not to push? Actions, omissions, and their emotional responses in modified moral dilemmas.
WHAT IS RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN HEART RATE VARIABILITY & SELF-REGULATION?
What is vagally-mediated heart rate variability an index of? This construct has been used and abused in claims of regulating emotion, cognition, and social processes. However, the effect sizes have often been small and the replications have often been sparse. Therefore, we aim to better define and understand this mercurial construct.
Relevant Publications & Presentations:
Spangler, D.P., Yang, X., Weidler, B.J., Thayer, J.F., & McGinley, J.J. (revise & resubmit). Unraveling the cognitive correlates of heart rate variability with drift diffusion modeling. International Journal of Psychophysiology
Spangler, D.P., & McGinley, J.J. (2020). Vagal flexibility promotes stability in cognition across varying socioemotional demands. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 2093. DOI:10.3389/fpsyg.2020.02093
Mullin, C.J., & McGinley, J.J. (September, 2019). The interaction of disgust and vagal activity informs subsequent risk-taking behavior. Talk presented at the 59Th Annual Meeting for the Society for Psychophysiological Research, Washington D.C.
McGinley, J.J., Elsayed, S.E., Weidler, B.J., & Mullin, C. (May, 2019). The New Normal? No Relationship Between Resting Heart Rate Variability and Attentional Regulation. Poster to be presented at the 31st annual convention for the Association for Psychological Science, Washington D.C.
Spangler, D.P., Gamble, K.R.., McGinley, J.J., Thayer, J.F., & Brooks, J.R. (2018). Intra-individual variability in vagal control is associated with response inhibition under stress. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 12, 475
McGinley, J.J., Sagan, O., Parton, D., Rompilla, D.R. (October, 2018). Escaping the file drawer: Is heart rate variability always useful as a biomarker for self-regulation? Abstract presented at the 58th Annual Meeting for the Society for Psychophysiological Research, Quebec City, Canada.
McGinley, J.J., Parton, D., Rompilla, D.B., & Sagan, O. (May, 2018). Eight cases with non-significant relationships between resting heart rate variability and individual difference measures. Poster presented at the 30th annual convention for the Association for Psychological Science, San Francisco, CA.