Taking offense: effects of personality and teasing history on behavioral and emotional reactions to teasing

This study investigated how global personality traits and teasing history are related to participants' emotional and behavioral reactions to an actual teasing event. College undergraduates (N = 108) worked on a task with a same-sex confederate. While interacting, the confederate either teased participants about how slowly they were working on the task or made a benign comment about the nature of the task. Analyses revealed that even mild teasing can generate negativity towards the teaser and interaction. More interestingly, however, personality moderated reactions to teasing, as teasing condition interacted with each of the Big Five personality domains in theoretically meaningful ways. Childhood teasing history also moderated reactions to teasing, as frequent victims and frequent teasers responded in different ways.     

Borderline personality disorder features and cognitive,emotional, and predicted behavioral reactions to teasing

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) involves interpersonal dysfunction. It is unknown to what extent these problems are due to perceptual biases, emotional reactivity, or impulsivity above and beyond emotional reactions. The present study experimentally tested these mechanisms in the context of predicted reactions to teasing. Participants completed the Personality Assessment Inventory-Borderline Features scale [PAI-BOR; Morey, L. C. (1991). Personality assessment inventory: Professional manual. Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources], and the Rejection Sensitivity Questionnaire [Downey, G., & Feldman, S. I. (1996). Implications of rejection sensitivity for intimate relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70(6), 1327–1343], and imagined a scenario that involved teasing. Participants rated the teaser and their own predicted emotional and behavioral reactions. Analysis of Covariance results indicated that individuals who endorsed more BPD features showed elevated emotional reactions and predicted behavioral reactions to teasing, but not perceptual biases. Ratings of predicted behavioral responses could be accounted for by emotional responses, supporting the emotional reactivity perspectives of BPD [Linehan, M. M. (1993). Cognitive-behavioral treatment of borderline personality disorder. New York: Guilford].     

Emotion and personality factors influence the neural response to emotional stimuli

Lindquist et al. assess the neural evidence for locationist versus psychological construction accounts of human emotion. A wealth of experimental and clinical investigations show that individual differences in emotion and personality influence emotion processing. These factors may also influence the brain's response to emotional stimuli. A synthesis of the relevant neuroimaging data must therefore take these factors into consideration.     

The influence of seriousness and contagiousness of disease on emotional reactions to ill persons

Abstract

Extends research on illness cognition by arguing that two major dimensions of illness cognition - seriousness and contagiousness of disease - are responsible for different emotional responses to ill persons, and that the activation of these dimensions is dependent on type of contact with these persons. Using a vignet methodology, nursing students (N = 333) were asked to imagine having different types of contact with patients with diseases differing in seriousness and contagiousness. When participants imagined personal contact with the patient, their anxiety responses and self-efficacy expectations were primarily determined by seriousness of disease. In contrast, when they anticipated close physical contact with the patient, subjects' anxiety reactions and self-efficacy expectations were primarily influenced by contagiousness of disease. Seriousness of disease appeared to be a major determinant of feelings of pity, poweriessness, sadness, and motivation to psychologically support the patient. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Uncertainty management: the influence of uncertainty salience on reactions to perceived procedural fairness.

On the basis of fairness heuristic theory, it is argued in this article that people especially need fairness when they are reminded about aspects of their lives that make them uncertain. It is therefore proposed that thinking about uncertainty should make fairness a more important issue to people. The findings of 3 experiments support this line of reasoning: Asking (vs. not asking) participants 2 questions that solicited their thoughts and feelings of being uncertain led to stronger effects of perceived procedural fairness on participants' affective reactions toward the way they were treated. It is argued that these findings suggest that fairness matters to people especially when they are trying to deal with things that make them uncertain. An implication of the current findings therefore may be that fairness is important to people because it gives them an opportunity to manage uncertain aspects of their lives.     

The contribution of personality characteristics to the relationship between social support and perceived physical health

Although a great deal of research has been conducted on the relationship between social support and physical health, the contribution of personality characteristics to this relationship has rarely been assessed. Structural equation modeling was employed to derive and test a model of the direct and indirect relationships between personality characteristics, social network size, the perceived availability of support, socially supportive behaviors, and perceived physical health with a sample of Pennsylvania adults. Significant paths indicate that individuals who perceive themselves as affiliative and as help seekers and help givers report larger social networks, receive more socially supportive behaviors, and perceive that more support is available to them. The perception that support is available shared a direct relationship with perceived physical health. The utility of including multiple measures of social support and personality characteristics related to receiving support in investigations of the relationship between social support and physical health is discussed.     

Pleasant hostility: Disidentified consumers' emotional and behavioral reactions to a brand crisis

This research explores how consumers react in a crisis situation that happens to a brand with which they disidentify. Consumer–brand disidentification (CBD) is a state of self‐categorization regarding the separation from and rejection of a brand. It predestines individuals to move away from and go against the misbehaving company because the failure of the object of disidentification provides a perfect opportunity for them to validate their identity. We argue that disidentification is closely related not only to a person's propensity to behave but also to feel in a specific way. Surveys data were collected in the United States and Germany to answer the research question regarding the role of emotions in the relationship between CBD and consumers' intention to demonstrate brand‐opposition behavior. Volkswagen, which experienced a crisis related to its manipulation of emission tests, served as the brand stimulus. The results show that CBD can stimulate hostile emotions and schadenfreude, which can function as mediators of the influence of disidentification on brand opposition (negative word‐of‐mouth, brand avoidance, punishing the brand). This research contributes to the growing body of research on the “dark side” of consumer‐brand relationships and its perils for brands. It also enhances understanding of the role of emotions in (dis)identification and social identity research and widens the scholarship on emotions in crises. Managerial implications include to thoroughly consider trade‐offs of creating a strong and unique brand that may give rise to disidentification; monitoring negative voices, especially online; and differentiating disidentified consumers from other types of opposing stakeholders.     

The influence of Japanese mothers' styles of emotional expression on thirteen-month-old infants' reactions to a stranger

The present study investigated the hypothesized influence of mothers' styles of emotional expression on infants' responses to the stranger in Episode 3, the Ainsworth Strange Situation. One hundred and thirty-five mothers volunteered for this experiment with their 13-month-olds. The mothers' answers on an expression style questionnaire (EESQ) were factor analysed. According to their mothers' factor scores, infants were divided into four groups, those having (a) expressive type mothers (N = 40), (b) suppressive type mothers (N = 39), (c) positive expressive type mothers (N = 31), and (d) negative expressive type mothers (N = 25). The infants' behaviours were analysed in 5-sec intervals. The infants having expressive type mothers showed a strong interest in the stranger and interacted with her willingly. The infants having suppressive type mothers exhibited less smiling and much freezing behaviour. The infants having positive expressive type mothers reacted with more smiling, much bodily contact behaviour with the mother and less crying. The infants having negative expressive type mothers showed more often crying and frequent head orientation towards the stranger.     

The relation between antisocial personality and the perceived ability to deceive

The current study investigated relations between the perceived ability to deceive and the Dark Triad personality traits in two samples. In study 1, the sample consisted of 1074 participants (329 male, 745 female) aged 17–71 years (M = 22.96, SD = 6.92). Participants completed the perceived ability to deceive scale, in which they were asked to estimate the percentage of people who are worse at lying than they are in a number of situations. Participants also completed the Short-D3 – a measure of the Dark Triad personality traits. As expected, correlational analyses demonstrated that Machiavellianism was most highly correlated with the perceived ability to deceive (r = .41), followed by psychopathy (r = .35), and narcissism (r = .33). These findings were replicated in study 2, which consisted of 1448 undergraduate students (498 males, 947 females, 3 other), aged 18–43 (M = 18.35, SD = 1.77). Study 2 also investigated the association of the Dark Triad and perceived ability to deceive with dimensions of the Big Five model of personality. Implications are discussed.     

Ageism and death: effects of mortality salience and perceived similarity to elders on reactions to elderly people

The present research investigated the hypotheses that elderly people can be reminders of our mortality and that concerns about our own mortality can therefore instigate ageism. In Study 1, college-age participants who saw photos of two elderly people subsequently showed more death accessibility than participants who saw photos of only younger people. In Study 2, making mortality salient for participants increased distancing from the average elderly person and decreased perceptions that the average elderly person possesses favorable attitudes. Mortality salience did not affect ratings of teenagers. In Study 3, these mortality salience effects were moderated by prior reported similarity to elderly people. Distancing from, and derogation of, elderly people after mortality salience occurred only in participants who, weeks before the study, rated their personalities as relatively similar to the average elderly person's. Discussion addresses distinguishing ageism from other forms of prejudice, as well as possibilities for reducing ageism.     

Emotional reactions to dramatic film stimuli: the influence of cognitive and emotional empathy

The idea that empathy may best be considered a multidimensional construct, consisting of both cognitive and emotional facets, has recently been gaining in popularity. To date, however, little research explicitly based on such a view has been carried out. We conducted the present experiment to explore the different influences of cognitive and emotional empathy on two types of responses to dramatic stimuli: positive and negative emotional reactions. Consistent with a multidimensional view of empathy, the two types of empathy exhibited different effects; positive emotional reactions were affected primarily by cognitive empathy, and negative emotional reactions were most heavily influenced by emotional empathy. The results are discussed in terms of their relevance to a multidimensional approach to the study of empathic responding.     

Emotional and behavioral reactions to social undermining: A closer look at perceived offender motives

This study examined how perceptions of underlying offender motives affect victims’ emotional and behavioral reactions toward their offender. Perceived offender motives of malice and greed were embedded in a cognition–emotion–behavior model based on theories of attribution, forgiveness and revenge, and tested in the context of social undermining. Findings suggested that victims distinguished between offender malice and greed, and that these attributions shaped subsequent emotional reactions, which in turn demonstrated independent relations with revenge, avoidance, and reconciliation.     

The influence of individual characteristics and severity of harassing behavior on reactions to sexual harassment

Differences in reactions to 18 scenarios depicting potentially sexually harassing situations were studied as a function of harassment severity and individual level factors. The scenarios illustrate a continuum of behavior, with some situations depicting overt sexual harassment and others portraying more innocuous behaviors. The individuals' reactions were strongly influenced by the perceived severity of the incidents. Reactions were influenced to a lesser extent by the individual level factors of gender, attitudes toward women, religiosity, and locus of control. Among these factors, gender had the strongest effect on reaction types. Findings indicate that harassment severity and individual level factors may combine to influence reactions to sexual harassment.The authors would like to thank Barbara Gutek and Gary Powell for their comments on an early draft of this paper.     

Physical, emotional, and behavioral reactions to breaking up: the roles of gender, age, emotional involvement, and attachment style

Associations between gender, age, emotional involvement, and attachment style and reactions to romantic relationship dissolution were studied in a survey of more than 5,000 Internet respondents. It was hypothesized that individual reactions to breakups would be congruent with characteristic attachment behaviors and affect-regulation strategies generally associated with attachment style. Attachment-related anxiety was associated with greater preoccupation with the lost partner, greater perseveration over the loss, more extreme physical and emotional distress, exaggerated attempts to reestablish the relationship, partner-related sexual motivation, angry and vengeful behavior, interference with exploratory activities, dysfunctional coping strategies, and disordered resolution. Attachment-related avoidance was weakly and negatively associated with most distress/proximity-seeking reactions to breakups and strongly and positively associated with avoidant and self-reliant coping strategies. Security (low scores on the anxiety and avoidance dimensions) was associated with social coping strategies (e.g., using friends and family as "safe havens"). Attachment insecurity, particularly anxiety, was associated with using drugs and alcohol to cope with loss.     

Disordered eating in adolescent males and females: Associations with temperament,emotional and behavioral problems and perceived self-competence

The purpose of this study was to describe similarities and differences for adolescent males and females in the association between disordered eating and temperament, emotional and behavioral problems and perceived self-competence. The study sample consisted of 239 youngsters (47% males), aged 14–20 years. Drive for Thinness (DT), Bulimia (B) and Body Dissatisfaction (BD) were associated with eating disorder (ED) related traits, depression and negative perceived self-competence in both sexes. Further, Bulimia was significantly related with aggressive symptoms in both sexes. Additionally, gender differences with respect to the correlations between DT and B and temperament emerged. DT was more strongly associated with a low behavioral activation (BAS) in males (compared to females), whereas B was more strongly related with low effortful control in females (compared to males). These findings confirm and extend previous research concerning gender differences in disordered eating.     

Computer-adaptive testing: the impact of test characteristics on perceived performance and test takers' reactions

This study examined how specific features of adaptive tests are related to test takers' reactions. Participants took a computer-adaptive test in which 2 features, difficulty of the initial item and difficulty of subsequent items, were manipulated, then responded to questionnaires assessing their reactions to the test. The data show that the relationship between a test's objective difficulty, which was determined by the 2 manipulated test characteristics, and reactions was fully mediated by perceived performance. Additional analyses evaluated the impact of feedback on reactions to the adaptive test. In general, feedback that was consistent with perceptions of performance was positively related to reactions. The results suggest that minor changes to the design of an adaptive test may potentially enhance examinees' reactions.