Psychological well-being is known to be related to factors of affective chronometry, in particular, the ability to sustain positive responses (hedonic sustainability) and the ability to rapidly recover from negative responses. Both of these are under the phenomenological umbrella of “emotion regulation” and the methodological umbrella of “affective chronometry”. Here we focus on recovery from negative responses. The dilation of these responses may be related to self-focused rumination. We aim to measure the chronometry of the BOLD response to a painful thermal stimulus, as well as these measures of self-focused cognition and behavior: 1. A monetary donation paradigm; 2. The Endowment Effect, where participants show an increased valuation of objects they associate with themselves; 3. Questionnaire measures of self-focused attention. We expect these three behavioral measures to be related, and to predict dilated BOLD response to the painful stimulus. Future work will also examine the effects on hedonic sustainability.
