Audio-recodings of criticism, praise, and neutral comments

<p>An auditory instrument of 100 criticisms, 100 praises, and 100 neutral comments was developed following the conventions for expressed emotion (EE)-criticism and EE-positive comments (Leff &amp; Vaughn, 1985) and following the themes contained in the criticism and praise from an earlier study (Premkumar, et al., 2013). In addition to criticism and praise, neutral comments were designed as a general non-emotional control, and related to topics such as the weather, historical facts, and scientific facts. For example, &lsquo;Today&rsquo;s weather forecast suggests outbreaks of rain across the north, gradually easing with places becoming dry with sunny spells.&rsquo; The number of words per comment ranged from 18 to 20. A male actor and a female actor recorded the comments on a digital voice recorder. The male (AD) and female actors (PP) had a similar age and a similar length of experience in conducting psychological research. When the comments were delivered, the actors were trained to vary the prosodic variables (tone and pitch) to emphasise affective differences between the three types of comments. This was achieved by practising the tone of the voice for each comment type prior to recording. One actor (PP) was trained to rate EE using the CFI, and assessed the consistency of affect between the actors. The actors re-recorded the comments to address any differences in affective expression.&nbsp;</p>