title: The Perception of Aversiveness of Surgical Procedure Pictures Is Modulated by Personal/Occupational Relevance.
abstract: It is well established that emotions are organized around two motivational systems: the defensive and the appetitive. Individual differences are relevant factors in emotional reactions, making them more flexible and less stereotyped. There is evidence that health professionals have lower emotional reactivity when viewing scenes of situations involving pain. The objective of this study was to investigate whether the rating of pictures of surgical procedure depends on their personal/occupational relevance. Fifty-two female Nursing (health discipline) and forty-eight Social Work (social science discipline) students participated in the experiment, which consisted of the presentation of 105 images of different categories (e.g., neutral, food), including 25 images of surgical procedure. Volunteers judged each picture according to its valence (pleasantness) and arousal using the Self-Assessment Manikin scale (dimensional approach). Additionally, the participants chose the word that best described what they felt while viewing each image (discrete emotion perspective). The average valence score for surgical procedure pictures for the Nursing group (M = 4.57; SD = 1.02) was higher than the score for the Social Work group (M = 3.31; SD = 1.05), indicating that Nursing students classified those images as less unpleasant than the Social Work students did. Additionally, the majority of Nursing students (65.4%) chose "neutral" as the word that best described what they felt while viewing the pictures. In the Social Work group, disgust (54.2%) was the emotion that was most frequently chosen. The evaluation of emotional stimuli differed according to the groups' personal/occupational relevance: Nursing students judged pictures of surgical procedure as less unpleasant than the Social Work students did, possibly reflecting an emotional regulation skill or some type of habituation that is critically relevant to their future professional work.
authors: Laboratory of Cognitive Psychophysiology, Department of Natural Sciences, Institute of Humanities and Health, Federal Fluminense University, Rio das Ostras, RJ, Brazil.|Laboratory of Neurophysiology of Behavior, Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Biomedical Institute, Federal Fluminense University, Niterói, RJ, Brazil.
authors: Juliana
authors: J
authors: Paes
authors: Laboratory of Neurophysiology of Behavior, Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Biomedical Institute, Federal Fluminense University, Niterói, RJ, Brazil.
authors: Leticia
authors: L
authors: de Oliveira
authors: Laboratory of Neurophysiology of Behavior, Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Biomedical Institute, Federal Fluminense University, Niterói, RJ, Brazil.
authors: Mirtes Garcia
authors: MG
authors: Pereira
authors: Laboratory of Neurophysiology of Behavior, Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Biomedical Institute, Federal Fluminense University, Niterói, RJ, Brazil.
authors: Isabel
authors: I
authors: David
authors: Laboratory of Psychophysiology, Department of Biological Sciences, Federal University of Ouro Preto, Ouro Preto, MG, Brazil.
authors: Gabriela Guerra Leal
authors: GG
authors: Souza
authors: Department of Engineering, Institute of Science and Technology, Federal Fluminense University, Rio das Ostras, RJ, Brazil.
authors: Ana Paula
authors: AP
authors: Sobral
authors: Laboratory of Cognitive Psychophysiology, Department of Natural Sciences, Institute of Humanities and Health, Federal Fluminense University, Rio das Ostras, RJ, Brazil.
authors: Walter
authors: W
authors: Machado-Pinheiro
authors: Laboratory of Cognitive Psychophysiology, Department of Natural Sciences, Institute of Humanities and Health, Federal Fluminense University, Rio das Ostras, RJ, Brazil.
authors: Izabela
authors: I
authors: Mocaiber
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000339:Affect / Q000502:physiology*; D001143:Arousal / Q000502:physiology; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D004645:Empathy; D005260:Female; D013502:General Surgery; D006801:Humans; D009042:Motivation; D016273:Occupational Exposure; D010465:Perception; D012647:Self-Assessment; D014796:Visual Perception; D055815:Young Adult