Emotion Group Meetings

The Emotion Group is an activity for the trainees appointed to the Training Program in Emotion Research. If you would like to be added or removed from the email announcement list, please contact us at emotiont32grant@bi.wisc.edu. To view past Emotion Group schedules, visit the Emotion Group Archives.

Schedule of Emotion Group Meetings for 2025-2026

Friday, October 24th, 2:00-3:00pm

Discussion Leader: Randy Lee

Topic: Gratitude and Costly Prosocial Behavior

Article: This paper challenges the claim that gratitude reinforces complacency. Across seven studies (N = 210,975), we show that people higher in trait gratitude are more likely to engage in costly prosocial actions that advance the greater good. This paper is currently under review. PDF Link. Supplemental Materials.

Meeting Link: Emotion Group Zoom

Friday, November 14th, 1:00-2:00pm

Discussion Leader: Estelle Higgins

Topic: Immune-Brain Dialogues in Depression

Articles:

Miller, A. H. (2025). Advancing an inflammatory subtype of major depression. American Journal of Psychiatry, 182(6). DOI: 10.1176/appi.ajp.20250289

Meeting Link: Emotion Group Zoom

Friday, December 12th, 2:00-3:00pm

Discussion Leader: Zishan Jiwani

Topic: Making Precision Medicine Clinically Applicable

Articles: This article explores opportunities and barriers—clinical, technical, statistical, and contextual—to implementing precision treatment methods in clinical practice and offers a roadmap for overcoming them to make precision mental health care more feasible and effective in real-world settings.

Deisenhofer, A., Barkham, M., Beierl, E. T., et al. (2024). Implementing precision methods in personalizing psychological therapies: Barriers and possible ways forward. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 172, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brat.2023.104443

Meeting Link: Emotion Group Zoom

Friday, January 16th, 2:00-3:00pm

Discussion Leader: Caroline Swords

Topic: Zhan et al. (2025) test whether multi-modal passive sensing (“digital phenotyping”) using smartphone and wearable data can index depression severity and predict treatment response in 183 adults with MDD undergoing standard treatment. Their findings highlight meaningful methodological progress in passive sensing in this area and have implications for monitoring symptom change and improving depression treatment within a real-world setting.

Articles:

Zhan, Y., Liu, H., & Wang, Y. (2025). Digital phenotyping of depression: A multi-modal passive sensing approach to identifying novel behavioral and physiological markers of treatment response. Journal of Psychiatric Research, 194, 40–50. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpsychires.2025.12.036

Meeting Link: Emotion Group Zoom

Friday, February 13th, 2:00-3:00pm

Discussion Leader: Veronika Kobrinsky

Topic: History, Conceptualization, and Measurement of Emotion Differentiation

Article: A conceptual review of how emotion differentiation is defined, measured, and when it might meaningfully predict adaptive psychological outcomes.

Thompson, R. J., Springstein, T., & Boden, M. (2021). Gaining clarity about emotion differentiation. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 15(3), Article e12584. https://doi.org/10.1111/spc3.12584.

Meeting Link: Emotion Group Zoom

Friday, March 20th, 2:00-3:00pm

Discussion Leader: Randy Lee

Topic: TBD

Articles:

Ekman P. (2016). What scientists who study emotion agree about. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 11(1), 31–34. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691615596992

Cowen, A. S. & Keltner, D. (2021). Semantic Space Theory: A computational approach to emotion. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 25(2), 124-136. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2020.11.004

Meeting Link: Emotion Group Zoom

Friday, May 8th, 2:00-3:00pm

Discussion Leader:

Topic: TBD

Articles: TBD