自我相关未来思考:两种基本类型及其主要心理成分比较

自我相关未来思考是个体产生自我相关未来想法的心理加工,它包括未来情景思考和未来个人语义思考两种基本类型。两类思考都需记忆、自我和主观时间三种主要心理成分参与,但参与的具体形式可能有所不同:未来情景思考可能主要依赖于情景记忆和语义记忆、情景自我知识和语义自我知识、经验时间;未来个人语义思考可能主要依赖于语义记忆、语义自我知识和知道时间。三种主要心理成分在两种思考类型中的作用可能是相同的,其中,记忆是原材料,自我起引导作用,主观时间是先决条件。将来可以参照思考未来公众抽象问题的研究进一步明确自我和记忆在未来个人语义思考中的作用,还可以通过探究不同心理成分内部及成分间的交互作用进而了解各成分在自我相关未来思考中的作用机制。     

Positive and negative self-related goals and subjective well-being: A prospective study

To examine whether having self-related personal goals, or rather whether positive or negative appraisal of them, is associated with subjective well-being, 311 students were asked to complete the Personal Project Analysis (PPA) and revised Beck Depression Inventory, first at the beginning of their studies, and then 2 years later. After 3 years they were asked about the use of mental health services. Two groups of students were identified: (1) those with positive self-projects and (2) those with negative self-projects. The results showed that both positive and negative self-related projects showed stability across a 2-year period, but only negative ones were prospectively predicted by earlier depressive symptomatology. Although neither positive nor negative projects predicted depressive symptomatology, both predicted the use of mental health services.     

The automatic and the expected self: separating self- and familiarity biases effects by manipulating stimulus probability

Attentional control over prepotent responses has previously been shown by manipulating the probability with which stimuli appear. Here, we examined whether prepotent responses to self-associated stimuli can be modulated by their frequency of occurrence. Participants were instructed to associate geometric shapes with the self, their mother, or a stranger before having to judge whether the sequential shape–label pairs matched or mismatched the instruction. The probability of the different shape–label pairs was varied. There was a robust advantage to self-related stimuli in all cases. Reducing the proportion of matched self pairs did not weaken performance with self-related stimuli, whereas reducing the frequency of either matched mother or stranger pairs hurt performance, relative to when the different match trials were equiprobable. In addition, while mother and stranger pairs jointly benefitted when they both occurred frequently, there were benefits only to self pairs when the frequency of self trials increased along with either mother or stranger trials. The results suggest that biases favoring self-related stimuli occur automatically, even when self-related stimuli have a low probability of occurrence, and that expectations to frequent, self-related stimuli operate in a relatively exclusive manner, minimizing biases to high-probability stimuli related to other people. In contrast, biases to high-familiarity stimuli (mother pairs) can be reduced when the items occur infrequently and they do not dominate expectations over other high-frequency stimuli.     

儿童期遭受心理虐待个体的自我加工特点

儿童期心理虐待会导致个体形成消极自我,这种消极自我还会影响个体行为。与以往研究采用自我报告方法不同,本研究采用知觉匹配范式,用客观量化方法,以自我加工优势（自我关联会自动增强刺激的加工,表现为人们总是对自己相关信息加工又快又好）来评估儿童期遭受心理虐待个体的自我加工能力。结果发现,儿童期遭受心理虐待个体依然存在自我加工优势,且朋友加工优势得到增强;在消极情绪条件下遭受心理虐待个体自我优势稳定存在,在积极情绪条件其自我优势消失。结论：儿童期遭受心理虐待个体自我整合功能并不稳定,消极情绪维持其自我加工能力,积极情绪则降低其自我加工能力。     

生存和死亡启动对自我参照加工的影响：ERP证据

死亡想法凸显会抑制个体的自我加工,而生存启动是否会对自我加工产生相似或是不同的影响尚不可知。本研究采用事件相关电位技术,以人格特质词自我判断任务为研究范式,探究死亡和生存启动对自我参照加工的影响。结果发现死亡启动时,自我加工所诱发的后期正成分（LPC）显著小于褒贬加工;生存启动时,自我加工的LPC成分显著大于褒贬加工。即死亡想法抑制自我加工,而生存想法促进自我加工。     

Addition through subtraction: Growth following the dissolution of a low quality relationship

Previous research has primarily focused on negative outcomes following relationship dissolution. The purpose of this study is to add to the growing literature that shows the positive outcomes that are possible. It was hypothesized that growth and positive emotions would be associated with self-related variables such as self-expansion and rediscovery of self, as well as coping strategies. Participants were 155 undergraduates who had experienced the dissolution of a relationship in the past 6 months. Results confirmed the hypotheses that growth would be related to ending a relationship low in self-expansion and that the relationship between these variables would be mediated by experiencing more rediscovery of the self, less loss of self, and more positive emotions following dissolution.     

Thinking about oneself and others: the relational-interdependent self-construal and social cognition

These studies focus on the relational-interdependent self-construal's association with implicit or indirect cognitive processes. In the relational-interdependent self-construal, the self is defined largely in terms of close relationships, resulting in variation in self-related processes. In Studies 1 and 2, the relational self-construal was associated with positive implicit evaluations of relational concepts and with tightly organized cognitive networks of relational terms. Studies 3 and 4 demonstrated that this self-construal was associated with memory for and implicit organization of relational information. In Studies 5 and 6, the relational self-construal was positively related to the degree to which participants described themselves and a friend similarly. The implications of the relational self-construal for theories of relationship cognition and for other self-related cognitive processes are discussed.     

死亡启动影响自我参照记忆的年龄差异

以往研究表明对死亡不可避免性的认识使人类产生死亡焦虑,并且为了降低该焦虑,年轻人倾向于抑制生理自我加工;然而相比年轻人,老年人对死亡的接受程度更高,并且自我抑制能力减弱。因此本研究采用死亡启动范式,探讨了死亡对自我相关记忆的影响以及可能存在的年龄差异。实验一以大学生为被试,结果发现死亡启动后,个体对自我相关信息的再认率显著低于消极启动后;实验二以老年人为被试,结果发现死亡启动后,个体对自我相关信息的再认率与消极启动后无差异。上述结果说明,死亡启动对自我相关记忆的影响存在年龄差异。在大学生中,死亡启动使个体抑制自我相关信息,而在老年人中该抑制效应并不存在。     

Self-reference during explicit memory retrieval: an event-related potential analysis

Is there a specific neurocognitive system underlying the subjective sense of having a unitary continuous self across time? If so, it should be possible to isolate functions involved in the sense of self from those supporting mental activities that the self is currently engaged in. We report a study of real-time noninvasive recordings of the brain's electrical activity (event-related potentials, ERPs). We found a common neural signature that is associated with self-referential processing regardless of whether subjects are retrieving general knowledge (noetic awareness) or reexperiencing past episodes (autonoetic awareness). These ERP data are consistent with models of autobiographical memory that postulate a single locus of control over explicit memory for various kinds of self-related information. The temporal properties and scalp distribution of this novel self-reference ERP effect also suggest that it may be a neurophysiological correlate of self-related activation in medial prefrontal and parietal neocortical circuits identified in functional magnetic resonance imaging experiments.     

The Self’s Symbolic Role in Implicit Approach/Avoidance: Movement Time Evidence

Theories of self-regulation emphasize the special role that the symbolic self may play in approach and avoidance movements, but experimental evidence is lacking. In two experiments (total N = 157), participants moved either a self-relevant (e.g., “me”) or non-self (e.g., “not me”) agent to one of two locations, one occupied by a positive word and the other occupied by a negative word. In both experiments, the movement agent interacted with the destination valence such that it was only the symbolic self that moved more quickly to positive rather than negative locations. These results established a role for the symbolic self in approach/avoidance that had been questioned, thereby supporting both classic and contemporary self-related theories of approach and avoidance.     

Not all positive categories are alike: Exploring the superiority of the self as a positive source for associative attitude change via intersecting regularities

In associative evaluative learning, attitudes can originate from intersecting regularities between a target and both positive- and self-related stimuli. Liking for a focal target is primarily driven by its reference to one source, but it might be qualified by the reference to a contrast target. This contribution focuses on how the nature of positive and contrast sources affects learning via intersecting regularities. In two studies (N = 199 and N = 185), the self and another positive category lead to increased implicit and explicit liking, regardless of the contrast source's valence. In Study 3 (N = 128), confronting the self and the positive category in the same paradigm yields only implicit preferences for self-related targets. Both implicitly and explicitly, this preference for self- over positive-related target was moderated by self-positivity. Our findings confirm the robustness of learning via intersecting regularities and suggest that the self is a special evaluative source.     

Thought listing and endorsement measures of self-referential thinking in test anxiety

Abstract

The primary purpose of the present study was to examine cognitive reactions of high and low test-anxious subjects while performing a task of extreme difficulty. A sample of 44 subjects (28 females, 16 males) attempted a difficult analogies task and then reported their thoughts during the task. Subjects also completed the Sarason Test Anxiety Scale and several other self-report measures of their cognitive reactions to the task. Thought listings were classified according to their referent (self, task, or unrelated) and their valence (positive, negative, or neutral). Correlational analyses were then performed with the various measures and revealed an association between test anxiety and reports of negative thoughts involving the self. Test anxiety was not related significantly to the number of thoughts involving the task nor to actual performance on the task. However, test-anxious subjects did report more negative expectancies for their performance and greater cognitive interference during the task. Negative self-expectancies were also related to more negative self thoughts, fewer positive self thoughts, and fewer positive task-related thoughts. The results are interpreted as further evidence for both the role of negative self-related cognitions in the experience of test anxiety and the usefulness of unstructured measures in anxiety research.     

Is self-positive information more appealing than money? Individual differences in positivity bias according to depressive symptoms

The self-positivity bias, which is inherent to healthy people, is known to be blunted in depression. The lack of positive or excessive negative self-reference is considered to be a potential mechanism underlying depressive rumination. However, the motivational factors that drive people to approach and avoid emotional self-related materials are still unclear. Therefore, we measured intrinsic motivation that is associated with emotional self-references by using a reward-based decision-making task (pay-per-view paradigm). Forty-nine undergraduates completed two tasks in which they were asked to choose between negative vs. positive references (Task 1) and self vs. other references (Task 2) for variable monetary rewards. Participants with lower levels of depressive symptoms showed a self-positivity bias, sacrificing rewards for the opportunity to engage in positive self-reference, whereas those with higher levels of depressive symptoms had no specific preference for either negative or positive self-reference (Task 1). However, all participants sacrificed monetary rewards for the opportunity for self-reference versus other reference, regardless of the symptom level or the primed valence (Task 2). Together, these findings suggest that depressive cognition could be characterised by the lack of intrinsic motivation for positive self-reference, which is attributable to the biased valence selection, but not to self–other preferences.     

Abstracting and extracting: Causal coherence and the development of the life story

This study compared life story memories of emerging adults and early adolescents to other autobiographical memories. Participants described three scenes of their respective life stories, a high point, low point, and turning point narrative, and described the connections between them in a fourth narrative. Participants also related four autobiographical narratives from corresponding time periods for comparison. Narratives were analysed for two measures of causal coherence, narrative complexity and meaning making, and for thematic coherence. Life story narratives contained more self-related lessons and insights and greater recognition of complexity than non-life-story narratives, but these differences were confined to narratives of turning points and connections between events. Thematic connections between narratives were more abstract and self-related in life story narratives. Emerging adults' narratives, when compared to those of early adolescents, showed more evidence of self-related abstract thinking and recognition of multiple dimensions. Findings indicate consistent ways in which life story memories differ from other autobiographic memories, and show evidence of development in adolescence.     

Effects of positive mood on attention broadening for self-related information

Studies on cognitive effects of positive emotions have associated positive emotions to broadened attention. Given the widely investigated relationship between self-focused attention and mood, it is important to investigate the effect of positive mood on visuospatial attention for self-related information. We used a performance-based measure to assess fluctuations in attentional broadening from self-related contrasted to not-self-related information. In Experiment 1, we checked that the self-related versus not-self-related stimuli did not evoke differential attention effects in general. In Experiment 2, we manipulated mood and found that an increase in positive mood was associated with a relative broadening of attention for self-related information. These results suggest that the meaning of the target of attention provides an interesting dimension for further investigation into the relation between positive emotions and attentional broadening.     

他人面孔情绪知觉中自我参照与母亲参照的一致性：来自ERP的证据

本研究采用不同参照语境下的面孔情绪评定任务, 使用事件相关电位技术, 考察了自我参照、母亲参照及他人参照对面孔情绪知觉加工的影响。行为结果显示, 与他人参照相比, 在自我参照与母亲参照的消极语境中的面孔被认为更消极, 积极语境中的面孔被认为更积极。ERP的结果显示, 相比他人参照, 自我参照与母亲参照都能诱发更大的EPN波幅; 自我参照与母亲参照对EPN和LPP波幅的影响差异并不显著。这些研究结果表明, 自我参照和母亲参照在面孔情绪知觉上具有一致性, 本研究从他人面孔情绪加工的角度为中国人的自我结构中包含“母亲”成分提供了进一步的证据。     

Contributions of Cognitive-Motivational Factors to the Sense of Identity

This study addressed the relationship between sense of personal identity and thinking dispositions such as need for cognition, reflection, and integrative self-knowledge as well as modes of coping with self-related discrepancies through either excessive assimilation or accommodation. Participants were 544 young adults. The correlation and path analyses revealed, as expected, that need for cognition and integrative self-knowledge positively influenced one’s sense of identity, while over-responsiveness to discrepant information about the self influenced it negatively. The effects of reflection and imperviousness to discrepancies appeared more complicated and varied. Together, the findings confirm the importance of cognitive-motivational variables in the development and maintenance of a sense of identity, and suggest that gender differences in their relative significance may deserve additional research attention.