On the social nature of global self-esteem: a replication study

Few researchers have considered the relationship between global self-esteem and the reflected appraisal of others in one's life, or how reflected appraisals and global self-esteem may change as a result of interpersonal feedback. In this study, the authors collected data from 110 undergraduate students on (a) their global self-esteem and the reflected appraisals of multiple others in their lives and (b) how these dimensions changed in hypothetical interpersonal-feedback situations. Results showed that participants' global self-esteem was related to the reflected appraisals of their fathers, teachers, and friends. The results also indicated that others' reflected appraisals and the individual's global self-esteem fluctuated according to the nature (i.e., positive vs. negative) of the hypothetical interpersonal feedback. Overall, the findings emphasize the social nature and regulation of global self-esteem.     

Memory for television advertisements as a function of advertisement–programme congruity

An experiment tested memory for a beer advertisement (placed either at the beginning or the end of the centre advertisement break) within four programme contexts featuring beer drinking either before and after, before or after the centre break, or not at all. The relationship between subjective audience evaluation of the programme and memory for advertisements was also investigated. The sample consisted of students (N = 79) aged 17 to 26 years. Brand recognition of the beer advertisement was significantly related to programme content, showing memory for the advertisement being enhanced when relevant programme material followed the break. Congruent material shown before the centre break had the reverse effect of impairing memory for the advertisement. Increased levels of programme involvement were found to be associated with improved recall and recognition of embedded advertisements but higher rated ‘happiness’ of the programme was associated with poorer memory for advertisement content. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Children's subjective identification with social groups: a self-stereotyping approach

We contend that previous work on children's identification with social groups has looked at the mere categorization of the self in group terms and not subjective identification properly conceived. Drawing upon self-categorization theory, the present research operationalizes identification as self-stereotyping (i.e. the ability to conceive of the self in group-relevant terms). Children's self-stereotyping was explored in two studies using gender as the relevant ingroup. Study 1 required 5-, 7- and 10-year-old children, on two separate occasions, to rate their similarity to, and difference from, same-sex peers. Relative to the control condition, when gender had been made salient, children perceived significantly greater similarity, and smaller difference, between themselves and same-sex peers, thus providing evidence of a capacity for self-stereotyping and, hence, for subjective identification with a social category. Similarly, Study 2 sought trait ratings of the self both when gender had been made salient and when it had not. Boys of all ages (though not girls) rated ingroup-stereotypical traits (such as bravery and strength) to be more characteristic of the self when gender was salient than when it was not. Together, these findings suggest that the capacity for subjective identification with social groups is present at least by the age of 5 years. Moreover, they demonstrate that children's self-conceptions are contextually variable.     

Memory for facial expressions in social phobia

Memory biases toward threat have been documented in several anxiety disorders, but contradictory findings have recently been reported in social phobics' recognition of facial expressions. The present study examined recognition memory in clients with social phobia, in an effort to clarify previous inconsistent results. Just before giving a speech to a live audience, social phobia clients and normal controls viewed photographs of people with reassuring and threatening facial expressions. The stimuli were later presented again alongside photographs of the same person with a different facial expression, and participants chose which face they had seen before. Individuals with social phobia were less accurate at recognizing previously seen photographs than controls, apparently due to state anxiety. In contrast, social phobics did not show a memory bias toward threatening facial expressions. Theoretical and treatment implications are discussed.     

Self-denial as a paradox of political and regional social identity: Findings from a study of 16– and 18–year-olds

Data from a survey of 4591 16-19-year-olds from four parts of Britain demonstrate that a North-South divide is manifested both economically and politically. Southerners are materially better off and more supportive of the Conservative party. Adopting a social identity analysis of sectional effects, we hypothesized that party political support is a manifestation of identification with locality, and also that political support, rather than perceived deprivation, would be associated with intentions to stay in or move out of ones locality. Results revealed that Labour supporters in the north of England, and Conservative supporters in the south were most committed to their locality. In Scotland, where nationalism is more directly linked to political parties, those who supported the Scottish Nationalist Party or Labour Party identified more strongly with Scotland and had less intention to leave, but also perceived their situation as more disadvantaged than did Conservatives. These findings are interpreted as supporting a social identity approach to political support and geographical occupational mobility. We suggest that despite the apparent irrationality of self-denying perceptions and choices, these may also serve self-preserving functions in the longer term.     

Performance perceptions and self-focused attention predict post-event processing after a real-life social performance situation

Background and Objectives: Cognitive approaches to social anxiety suggest that an excessive brooding about one's performance in a social situation (post-event processing; PEP) is involved in the maintenance of anxiety. To date, most studies investigating PEP were conducted in laboratory settings. The present study sought to replicate previous findings on predictors of PEP after a naturalistic social performance situation. Methods: Sixty-five students, who had to give an evaluated presentation for credits, completed measures of trait social anxiety. Immediately after their presentation, participants rated state anxiety and attentional focus during the presentation, and provided an overall evaluation of their performance. One week after the presentation, they rated PEP during the preceding week, and reappraised their performance. Results: Regression analyses demonstrated that the performance ratings after and self-focused attention during the presentation were unique predictors of PEP over and above the effects of trait and state anxiety. There was no evidence that PEP was associated with a biased recall of individual performance evaluations. Conclusions: The results support cognitive theories that emphasize the importance of negative self-perceptions in the development of social anxiety and related processes, and underline self-focused attention and self-evaluative processes as important targets during treatment.     

Stockpiling during the COVID-19 pandemic as a real-life social dilemma: A person-situation perspective

Prior research using economic games has shown that personality drives cooperation in social dilemmas. In this study, we tested the generalizability of these findings in a real-life social dilemma during the COVID-19 pandemic, namely stockpiling in the presence of low versus high resource scarcity. Honesty-Humility was negatively related to stockpiling intentions and justifiability of stockpiling. Moreover, we found a positive albeit weaker effect of Emotionality on stockpiling intentions. Victim Sensitivity was mostly positively associated with stockpiling intentions. None of the personality traits interacted with resource scarcity to predict stockpiling. Our findings replicate established associations between personality and cooperation in a real-life social dilemma, and suggest that the characteristics of interdependent situations during a pandemic additionally afford the expression of Emotionality.     

Marriage and social support in a British–Asian community

People of South Asian origin represent one of the largest ethnic minority populations in Britain. However, research into the marital beliefs and practices of British South Asians has tended to conflate together different South Asian groups of different religious and geographical origins. This study focused on one large religious group originating from one region (Hindus from Gujarat) resident in one large British town, providing analyses drawn from theories of cultural values, acculturation and social identity. Seventy married couples participated in detailed interviews inquiring about the arrangement of their marriage, their attitude towards marriage, gender roles, and the formal and informal support available in times of marital crisis. Our analysis of these interviews suggested that whilst our respondents maintained largely collectivist values in the family, they also saw marriage very much as an expression of individual fulfilment. Marital choice and gender roles in marriage reflected an integrationist strategy combining the traditional cultural practices and identity priorities with the social preferences and economic realities of their new culture. Finally, social support was largely forthcoming from members of the Asian community, reflecting a degree of separation from the majority community particularly when emotional assistance was desired. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Memory for faces: A social learning analysis

Recognition memory for unfamiliar faces was related to locus of control and anxiety. On the basis of Rotter's social learning theory, it was predicted that memory for faces would be associated with more internal locus of control in an unstructured memory task but not when encoding was controlled. In Experiment 1, where no specific instructions about encoding were presented, the predicted relationship was found for males. In addition, better recognition was associated with low anxiety for females. In Experiment 2, where encoding was controlled by having subjects judge the faces, no significant correlations between the personality measures and memory were found. The results are interpreted as supporting predictions made on the basis of social learning theory.     

A longitudinal study of real-life decision making: Choosing a college

Three hundred and twenty two college-bound high school students described aspects of their college decision-making processes. Students listed their criteria as well as the alternatives (i. e., schools) under consideration, rated the importance of each criterion, and rated each alternative with respect to each criterion. They also gave their overall impressions of each alternative. Finally, students rated their comfort with the decision-making process and, at the conclusion of the study, reported on how many schools they had applied to, had or had not been accepted at, were waiting to hear from, or were waitlisted at. Students consider four or five alternatives, and use eight to ten criteria in evaluating them. These figures do not change appreciably over the course of the process, although only about half the criteria or/and slightly more than half of the schools considered at one time are considered again 6 months later, and there are several changes in the kinds of criteria considered at different points in time. There was a marginally significant trend for higher ability and average ability students to consider more criteria, more distinct types of criteria, and more alternatives than do lower ability students. There were no gender differences in this regard. Gender differences and academic ability group differences were apparent, however, in the types of criteria students reported. Participation in multiple sessions in this study had few reliable effects on decision-making performance. Students were given a list of 34 standard criteria at each session, and incorporated some of these into their own lists of criteria during subsequent sessions. However, there was no indication that repeated participation led students to adopt a more analytical strategy than they would have otherwise. Data were compared with three linear models of information integration. Models using data with multiple criteria better fit the students' data than did a model using only the most important criterion. Higher ability students were particularly better able to integrate information according to linear models.     

Recognition bias for critical faces in social phobia: a replication and extension

Studies using linguistic stimuli have provided little support for explicit memory biases among individuals with social phobia (SP). However, using facial stimuli rated on their criticalness, Lundh and Ost (1996) found that individuals with SP recognized more critical than accepting faces, whereas non-anxious controls tended to show the opposite pattern. Since the publication of Lundh and Ost's findings, additional studies using a variety of facial stimuli have produced inconsistent findings (J. Anxiety Disord. 14 (2000) 501; Behav. Res. Ther. 39 (2001) 967). Unfortunately, these inconsistencies are difficult to reconcile given great variation in methods and stimuli. Therefore, we designed a study to replicate and extend the work of Lundh and Ost (Behav. Res. Ther. 34 (1996) 787). Similar to Lundh and Ost, individuals with SP identified a significantly higher proportion of old critical faces as old than did non-anxious controls. Further, extending the work of Lundh and Ost, signal detection analyses revealed group differences on response bias according to face type. Specifically, controls showed a response bias towards indicating that accepting faces were previously seen, whereas individuals with SP did not. Finally, signal detection analyses failed to reveal group differences in the accuracy of memory.     

Oral approach‐avoidance: A replication and extension for European–Portuguese phonation

Previous research revealed that mouth movements influence attitudes. Covert subvocal articulations inducing muscular contractions resembling ingestion movements were preferred over expectoration‐like movements, unveiling a relationship between vocal muscles' wandering and motivational states such as approach and avoidance. These findings, explained in terms of embodied cognition, suggest that specific movements are directly connected to, and more importantly, automatically activate concordant motivational states. The oral approach‐avoidance effect was replicated using the original stimulus set and a new set of stimulus developed for Portuguese. Results from two high‐powered (total N = 407), independent replications, revealed that the preference for inward words (over outwards) exists in both sets but to a greater extent in the pool phonetically adapted for Portuguese.     

Confidence–Accuracy Calibration with General Knowledge and Eyewitness Memory Cued Recall Questions

Summary: The confidence–accuracy relationship has primarily been studied through recognition tests and correlation analysis. However, cued recall is more ecological from a forensic perspective. Moreover, there may be more informative ways of analysing the confidence–accuracy relationship than correlations. In the present study, participants viewed a video of a bank robbery and were asked cued recall questions covering general knowledge and the video itself. Confidence ratings were collected, and correlations, calibration and discrimination measures were calculated. All measures indicated a strong confidence–accuracy relationship that was better for general knowledge than eyewitness memory questions. However, there were no differences in confidence ratings for correct answers, suggesting that the differences could be limited to the evaluation of incorrect answers. We concluded that confidence may be a good marker for accuracy with cued recall, but that further research using ecological tests and more informative data analysis techniques is needed. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Online attention modification for social anxiety disorder: replication of a randomized controlled trial

Social anxiety disorder (SAD) models posit vigilance for external social threat cues and exacerbated self-focused attention as key in disorder development and maintenance. Evidence indicates a modified dot-probe protocol may reduce symptoms of SAD; however, the efficacy when compared to a standard protocol and long-term maintenance of treatment gains remains unclear. Furthermore, the efficacy of such protocols on SAD-related constructs remains relatively unknown. The current investigation clarified these associations using a randomized control trial replicating and extending previous research. Participants with SAD (n = 113; 71% women) were randomized to complete a standard (i.e. control) or modified (i.e. active) dot-probe protocol consisting of 15-min sessions twice weekly for four weeks. Self-reported symptoms were measured at baseline, post-treatment, and 4-month and 8-month follow-ups. Hierarchical linear modeling indicated significant self-reported reductions in symptoms of social anxiety, fear of negative evaluation, trait anxiety, and depression, but no such reductions in fear of positive evaluation. Symptom changes did not differ based on condition and were maintained at 8-month follow-up. Attentional biases during the dot-probe task were not related to symptom change. Overall, our results replicate support for the efficacy of both protocols in reducing symptoms of SAD and specific related constructs, and suggest a role of exposure, expectancy, or practice effects, rather than attention modification, in effecting such reductions. The current results also support distinct relationships between fears of negative and positive evaluation and social anxiety. Further research focused on identifying the mechanisms of change in attention modification protocols appears warranted.