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PubMed1993

Musical pleasure.

Music reactivates foetal experiences of pleasure connected with auditory contact with the mother. Subject to an appropriate setting, the porosity of the skin-ego is increased, permitting bidirectional traffic between inside and outside. Kristeva uses the word significance to denote the meaning occurring along the spectrum from the infralinguistic level (the semiotics of affects) to language. The infralinguistic level (sonic, rhythmic, visual etc. traces) is that on which music develops, music here being presented as the carrier of nebulous 'fantasies' of fusion with the idealised mother of the foetal era. Primitive musical interchanges are illustrated by a clinical vignette. The paper develops the hypothesis that the pleasure of music revives the primitive auditory fusion with the mother; it points out the relations between aesthetics and musical pleasure and between musical forms and the production of pleasure in the unconscious.

Humans↗

PubMed2006

[Feelings of pleasure and suffering of teachers in the implementation of a curriculum].

The research identified feelings of pleasure and suffering experienced by 30 nurse professors in their job by verifying the dimensions of the valuation, of the exhaustion and of the recognition before the change of the labor process in view of the implementation of an innovating curriculum change. It is a quantitative study based on Dejours' theoretical referential by utilizing Likert's scale. The drawn conclusion is that the professors have more pleasure than suffering in their job because they feel valued, recognized and do not feel exhausted by their activities. These data highlight the importance of the relationship among the professors and their chores, peers and institution, considering that here is the place where the factors that contribute to feelings of pleasure and suffering are established.

Adult↗

PubMed1986

Self-induced photosensitive absence seizures with ictal pleasure.

A 32-year-old woman was treated for self-induced photosensitive seizures that included strong subjective feelings of pleasure and masturbatory behavior. Electroencephalograms demonstrated generalized polyphasic spike-wave discharges in response to stroboscopic stimulation. The behavioral sequences leading to seizures and the effects of treatment can be explained in terms of operant conditioning theory. Data from human and animal studies indicate a correlation between ictal pleasure or reinforcement and the subject's ability to induce seizures. Ictal pleasure is rare in spontaneous seizures that are not under the control of the patient.

Adult↗

PubMed1989

Comparing tobacco cigarette dependence with other drug dependencies. Greater or equal 'difficulty quitting' and 'urges to use,' but less 'pleasure' from cigarettes.

About 1000 persons seeking treatment for alcohol or drug dependence were asked, relative to cigarettes, about the difficulty of quitting the use of the substance for which they were seeking treatment, the strength of their strongest urges to use, and the pleasure they derived from use. Fifty-seven percent said that cigarettes would be harder to quit using than their problem substance. These ratings were related to the level of cigarette dependence and the perceived difficulty of quitting the use of the problem substance. The alcohol-dependent persons were about four times more likely than the drug-dependent persons to say that their strongest urges for cigarettes were at least as great as their strongest urges for their problem substance. Cigarettes were generally rated as less pleasurable than alcohol or other drugs. Thus, experiential experts on dependence judge cigarette dependence as at least as "addictive" as other drug use, but not as pleasurable, indicating important similarities and differences between cigarette dependence and other forms of dependence on psychoactive substances.

Adult↗

PubMed1984

Enhancing dream pleasure with Senoi strategy.

A strategy to increase pleasure and reduce displeasure in dreaming and dream-related behaviors involved three skill sessions in which participants (N = 63) practiced (a) positive expectations for content and outcome of dreams; (b) thought stopping for unpleasant dreams; and (c) self-suggestion that dreams would be recalled and would be pleasant. Findings from pre- and post-survey schedules (pleasure and displeasure ) and from a daily dream behavior check list showed that dreaming and behaviors associated with dreaming were significantly more pleasurable 12 weeks after the dream interventions and maintenance of a daily dream record. A 6-month follow-up showed the changes to be still in effect.

Cognition↗

PubMed2000

Loss of pleasure, ideological food choice reasons and eating pathology.

The study compared four types of dieters who stressed ideological food-choice reasons and pleasure in their food choice in different ways. A total of 66 female dieters were included in the study. As hypothesized, the dieters in the high ideology-low pleasure cluster showed more signs of eating disorders, lower psychological well-being and more body-dissatisfaction than other dieters. The differences in internalization of societal thinness ideals and magical beliefs about food and health were not significant. The discussion considers the reasons for the dysfunctionality of the high ideology-low pleasure motive combination in food choice.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2005

The pleasures of uncertainty: prolonging positive moods in ways people do not anticipate.

The authors hypothesized that uncertainty following a positive event prolongs the pleasure it causes and that people are generally unaware of this effect of uncertainty. In 3 experimental settings, people experienced a positive event (e.g., received an unexpected gift of a dollar coin attached to an index card) under conditions of certainty or uncertainty (e.g., it was easy or difficult to make sense of the text on the card). As predicted, people's positive moods lasted longer in the uncertain conditions. The results were consistent with a pleasure paradox, whereby the cognitive processes used to make sense of positive events reduce the pleasure people obtain from them. Forecasters seemed unaware of this paradox; they overwhelmingly preferred to be in the certain conditions and tended to predict that they would be in better moods in these conditions.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2006

Catecholamine response to methamphetamine is related to glucocorticoid levels but not to pleasurable subjective response.

INTRODUCTION: Corticosteroids may modulate addiction. We previously described subjective, physiological, and endocrine effects of 0.5 mg/kg of intravenous methamphetamine after augmenting cortisol level with hydrocortisone or blocking cortisol response with the corticosteroid synthesis inhibitor metyrapone in a double-blind, balanced crossover study. Although the pharmacologic manipulations produced the expected hormonal changes, pleasurable subjective effects of methamphetamine were unchanged. Metyrapone was followed by frequent premature ventricular complexes (PVCs) in two subjects during methamphetamine administration. In order to better understand these results, we examined changes in two plasma catecholamine metabolites, homovanillic acid (HVA) and 3-methoxy-4-hydroxyphenylglycol (MHPG), and their relationship to the previously reported hormonal changes and physiological and subjective responses. METHODS: Plasma from 10 methamphetamine subjects from the earlier study was assayed for HVA and MHPG by high performance liquid chromatography. RESULTS: HVA levels were greater after hydrocortisone or metyrapone pretreatment compared to placebo, and MHPG levels were greater after metyrapone pretreatment. Hydrocortisone pretreatment diminished HVA and MHPG increases after methamphetamine (perhaps explaining the lack of expected increase in pleasurable effects), but metyrapone did not. HVA and MHPG concentrations were not correlated with pleasurable drug effects but were inversely related to reports of "Bad Drug Effect." Increases in MHPG and DHEA concentrations were positively correlated. Metyrapone pre-treated subjects with PVCs had lower HVA and MHPG concentrations. CONCLUSION: Raising cortisol concentration and blocking cortisol synthesis did not produce opposite effects, perhaps because of metyrapone's effect on the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, its stress-like effects, and its effects on neurosteroids.

Adult↗

PubMed2004

Power, desire, and pleasure in sexual fantasies.

One hundred and sixty-two participants (ages 21-45) wrote open-ended sexual fantasies and completed self-report measures of rape myth acceptance, adversarial sexual beliefs, and attitudes toward women. We coded fantasies using a newly developed scoring system that includes themes of dominance, submission, sexual pleasure, and sexual desire. Men fantasized about dominance more than women did; they also tended to focus more on the desire and pleasure of their partner. Desire and pleasure were more closely linked in the fantasies of men than in the fantasies of women, for whom the two were distinct constructs. Although fantasies of submission were not associated with problematic attitudes for either gender, men's fantasies of dominance were associated with greater acceptance of rape myths. For women, greater rape myth acceptance was associated with emotional and romantic fantasy themes.

Adult↗

PubMed1997

Aesthetic pleasure and the rhythms of infancy.

Aesthetic experience involves the resolution of contradiction, accomplished in part through the viewer's mental oscillations between antithetical constructs. These oscillatory phenomena evoke enjoyable associations with infancy's earliest pleasurable experiences, which are themselves characterized by rhythmic oscillations that lay the groundwork for the developing sense of psychological separateness. A work of art, functioning as a special kind of transitional object, affords the viewer an opportunity to experience a pleasurable sense of achievement by accomplishing additional increments in the work of psychological separation. These two mechanisms account for some of the pleasure inherent in aesthetic experience.

Child Development↗

PubMed2006

Identifying expressions of pleasure and displeasure by persons with profound and multiple disabilities.

BACKGROUND: The aim of this study was to explore a procedure for drafting individualised profiles of how people with profound multiple disabilities express pleasure and displeasure. METHOD: There were 6 participants with profound multiple disabilities. The procedure involved an observational analysis of videotaped critical incidents by a researcher and a questionnaire for parents and support workers. RESULTS: The procedure is useful for making an individualised profile of the ways a person with profound multiple disabilities expresses his/her pleasure and displeasure. Despite the significant correlation between parents, support workers and the researcher, each has a complementary contribution to make in identifying affective expressions. People with profound multiple disabilities especially use sounds and facial expressions to express pleasure and displeasure and positive or negative moods. CONCLUSIONS: The procedure may be useful in services or schools for learning more about the affective communication of these individuals, to determine their specific interests, and to evaluate the effects of living and support characteristics on their wellbeing.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1978

Dissociation of self-reported and observed pleasure in depression.

Anhedonia, or the inability to experience pleasure, is an important component of depressive symptomatology. Observer ratings of positive affect and self-ratings of pleasurable experience were collected from ten depressed inpatients and ten ward staff members during the patients' base-line, medication-free period. Depressives were observed to display significantly lower degrees of positive affect than the normal group, but they reported significantly higher degrees of experienced pleasure. The normal group displayed positive affective behavior that was consistent with self-reported data. Thus, normal subjects showed synchronous, or associated self-reported and observed activity, whereas depressives appeared to be dissociated along those same dimensions. A dissociation also appeared in self-reports of positive versus negative mood states, suggesting the existence of a malfunction in these normally inhibitory affective mechanisms.

Depression↗

PubMed1995

A scale for the assessment of hedonic tone the Snaith-Hamilton Pleasure Scale.

BACKGROUND: Hedonic tone and its absence, anhedonia, are important in psychopathological research, but instruments for their assessment are lengthy and probably culturally biased. METHOD: A new scale was constructed from the responses of a large sample of the general population to a request to list six situations which afforded pleasure. The most frequent items were reviewed and those likely to be affected by cultural setting, age, or sex were removed. A pilot study led to an abbreviated scale of 14 items, covering four domains of pleasure response. This questionnaire was subjected to psychometric evaluation in new samples from the general population and psychiatric patients. RESULTS: The scale was found to have a score range that would distinguish a 'normal' from an 'abnormal' response. Validity and reliability were found to be satisfactory. CONCLUSIONS: The new scale, the Snaith-Hamilton Pleasure Scale (SHAPS), is an instrument which may be recommended for psychopathological research.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1999

Pleasure, guilt and secretory immunoglobulin A.

Before producing saliva samples for Immunoglobulin A assay, 30 subjects listed their pleasurable activities and rated them in terms of pleasure and guilt. Levels of Immunoglobulin A were higher in those subjects with high ratios of pleasure-guilt scores.

Adult↗

PubMed1991

[Breast feeding and pleasure].

Thirty-six Sicilian women (mean age 26.2 years, range 18-34) who had chosen to breastfeed their newborn babies were included in the study. A semi-structured questionnaire was used by a pediatrician to interview all subjects 4 months after the birth. 94.7% of the women interviewed (36 cases) said that they had derived pleasure from breastfeeding while 5.3% (2 cases) stated that they had not. 44.7% (15 cases) experienced strong uterine contractions (described ad "cramps") during breastfeeding (these were described as occurring "often" in ten cases and "rarely" in five cases); in 6 (35.3%) out of 17 patients "uterine cramps" were a cause of "pleasure", whereas in the rest (64.7%) they were described as "bothersome" (5 cases), "painful" (2 cases) or "indifferent" (4 cases). If sexual pleasure is derived from the breastfeeding one's offspring, it may be to a certain extent represent, together with the joy of bringing up children, a compensatory substitute for the couple's sex life following the change of the woman's centre of attention from the sexual pole to that of the continuation of the species.

Breast Feeding↗

PubMed1980

Structural consequences of psychic trauma: a new look at "Beyond the Pleasure Principle".

Freud's theory of repetition compulsion is complicated by his reliance on a "death instinct" which has been justly rejected by most subsequent analysts on theoretical grounds. An alternate theory based on traumatic neurosis as a model is proposed here which does away with the death instinct concept, ordering the data instead in terms of levels of organization of structure. It is argued that repetition complusion functioning is qualitatively different from wish-fulfillment (pleasure-principle) functioning. The differences are clinically detectable and are explainable theoretically in terms of differences in organization of memory, drive, and affect. Psychic trauma interferes with the satisfactory linking of drive with experience, and thus with the attainment of the organization of mentation we designate as the pleasure-unpleasure principle. Under analytic influence the progressive structuration of memory, drive, and affect results in the conversion of repetition compulsion functioning into pleasure principle functioning, a process of importance in a wide variety of psychopathological conditions. These considerations lead to a revised theory of the structure of the id, and of the development of psychic structure in general. Primary process organization develops through experience, rather than being a given. The ideal of "unstructured energy" in the id is replaced by a scheme of levels of organization of drive-representatives.

Death↗

PubMedDate not supplied

[Capacity to experience pleasure and displeasure by Cloninger and von Knorring in type I and II alcoholism].

The aim of the present study is to test the hypothesis that Cloninger and von Knorring's type II alcoholics are more hedonic and experience less displeasure than type I alcoholics. 55 inpatients filled out the DSM III-R criteria for abuse or alcoholic dependence. The alcoholics were dichotomized into type I or type II using the onset of their alcoholism (type II < 25 years, type I > or = 25 years). In the few days of their hospitalization, the subjects filled out the Fawcett Clark Pleasure Capacity Scale-Physical Pleasure (FCPCS-PP), the Hardy Displeasure Capacity Scale-Physical Displeasure (HDCS-PD) and the abridged form of the Beck Depression inventory (BDI). The sociodemographic characteristics, the proportions of "abusers" and "dependents" and the scales scores were compared between the two groups. The sex-ratio and the educative level were not different between the two groups; the values of the chi 2 were respectively 1.36 (df = 1), p = 0.24 and 1.03 (df = 2), p = 0.59. The ratio "abusers" /"dependents" was not different (chi 2 = 1.115, p = 0.291). The mean age of the type I alcoholics was higher (m = 46.7, sd = 11.2) than that of the type II (m = 38.9, sd = 7.9) (U = 218.5, p = 0.013). Using covariance analyses (ANCOVA) to control the age, the results have shown that the FCPCS-PP and HDCS-PD scores of the type II alcoholics were not different than these of the type I alcoholics [respectively F (1.52) = 1.5, p = 0.23 and F (1.52) = 0.14, p = 0.7]. In conclusion, we failed to confirm the hypothesis that type II alcoholics would experience more pleasure and less displeasure than type I alcoholics. These negative results were discussed and the potential factors that could explain them are detailed.

Adult↗

PubMed1997

Beyond pleasure and pain.

People approach pleasure and avoid pain. To discover the true nature of approach-avoidance motivation, psychologists need to move beyond this hedonic principle to the principles that underlie the different ways that it operates. One such principle is regulatory focus, which distinguishes self-regulation with a promotion focus (accomplishments and aspirations) from self-regulation with a prevention focus (safety and responsibilities). This principle is used to reconsider the fundamental nature of approach-avoidance, expectancy-value relations, and emotional and evaluative sensitivities. Both types of regulatory focus are applied to phenomena that have been treated in terms of either promotion (e.g., well-being) or prevention (e.g., cognitive dissonance). Then, regulatory focus is distinguished from regulatory anticipation and regulatory reference, 2 other principles underlying the different ways that people approach pleasure and avoid pain.

Emotions↗