Affective Science
Affective science is the interdisciplinary field focused on understanding emotional and affective processes. Affective science involves research on emotion, emotion regulation, mood disorders, and affective neuroscience. Affective scientists use a variety of methods and approaches in their work, from purely behavioral and organizational studies in humans to molecular and cellular studies in animals. There are multiple faculty in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, across program areas, who focus on affective processes in their research programs. This research cluster has formed a discussion group with faculty in the department and across campus, with the aim of catalyzing emotion research that crosses traditional disciplines and methods to address important societal issues, such as substance abuse and fear disorders.
Affiliated Faculty
Affective Science. Reward learning, punishment learning, and attention.
Affective Science. Causal relationships between early-life experience, brain, biochemistry, and behavior; regulation of mood and motivated behaviors.
Personality Processes, & Affective Science. Developmental psychology; emotional and biological risk factors for anxiety and psychopathology in early life.
Personality Processes. Existential psychology; meaning in life; authenticity.
Affective Science. Affect and motivation; cognitive processes related to drug and alcohol abuse; positive emotions as predictors of objective life outcomes.
Personality Processes. Emotion and cognition; forecasting; optimism.
Affective Science. Affective reactions and emotions when thinking about the future; decision making.
Neuroscience. Emotions in psychiatric health and disease; cognitive factors; neuroimaging and psychophysiology in humans.
Affective Science. Affect and cognition; psychophysical measures of emotional response to health and disease.
Neuroscience. Neural systems for emotion, learning, and memory; fear and anxiety; rodent models.
Affective Science. Extinguishing fear memories; developing neurotherapeutic interventions for fear.
Neuroscience, Diversity Science, & Affective Science. Disparities in pain in humans; social and cultural factors affecting pain experience and pain physiology; empathy for physical, social, and emotional pain and suffering.
Neuroscience. Psychoneuroimmunology; pain; stress and disease in humans and animal models.
Affective Science. Interactions of pain, emotion, and stress; effects on motivation and decision making; affect regulation in clinical pain.
Neuroscience. Memory systems; psychological and neurobiological mechanisms of emotional memory; rodent models.
Affective Science. Control and fear; aversive memory.
Neuroscience & Affective Science. Hormonal regulation of behavior; sex differences; fear and anxiety; neurosteroids; rodent models.
Neuroscience & Affective Science. Voluntary task selection behavior; prefrontal cortex; neuroimaging; addiction and psychosis in humans.
Neuroscience & Affective Science. Neurobiology of memory; multiple memory systems; acquisition and expression of learned behavior; rodent models.
Personality Processes & Affective Science. Willpower; emotion regulation; self-control, motivation, and behavior; ego defenses; individual differences in cognitive ability.
Neuroscience & Affective Science. Neural mechanisms underlying drug addiction and relapse; maladaptive behavior; rodent models.