Affiliation and self disclosure in a specific ego threat situation

This study presents findings about affiliative reactions to a specific ego threat in a real life situation. Subjects exposed to a personal and cognitive evaluation were asked about their preference for sharing this experience with others or experiencing it individually. They were compared with subjects offered the same choice in a neutral non-evaluative situation. The actual self disclosure of the subjects was also evaluated. As hypothesized, the subjects in the evaluative condition reacted with higher levels of emotional arousal and preferred isolation rather than affiliation. The hypothesis that emotional arousal due to a specific ego threat would restrict self disclosing behavior was only partly confirmed.     

Affiliation of opposite-sexed strangers

This study examined the effects of a subject's sex and affiliative tendency and the other's physical attractiveness on the cross-sexual interaction of strangers. Although previous studies showed that one's interest in an opposite-sexed other is a function of the other's physical attractiveness, the actual behavior of individuals in the presence of attractive and unattractive others had not been systematically examined. Subjects were individually placed in a 5-min waiting situation with a physically attractive or unattractive target of the opposite sex who behaved in a standard way. Conversations were recorded and subsequently analyzed; subjects also provided their impressions of the targets following the waiting period. Physical attractiveness of the opposite-sexed other did not significantly influence the subject's verbal affiliative behavior, but the combined influence of a subject's sex and affiliative tendency was predictive of cross-sexual affiliation. Although physical attractiveness did not account for differences in affiliative behavior, subjects preferred attractive over unattractive targets as potential dates or marriage partners.     

Predicting persistence,stability, and achievement in college by major choice consistency: A test of Holland's consistency hypothesis

This study examined the relationships between students' level of consistency in choosing a major in college and their persistence, stability, and achievement in a 5-year follow-up. In contrast to the findings of most previous studies, it was found that consistent students tend to persist in college, not to change majors, and that they have higher achievement than inconsistent students. It was suggested that the current findings, which support Holland's theory, were different from the results of previous studies because of the use of behavioral definition for consistency level (actual student major choices) rather than responses to various inventories. The significance of these findings were discussed.     

ACHIEVEMENT MOTIVATION OF WOMEN: EFFECTS OF ACHIEVEMENT AND AFFILIATION AROUSAL

Alternative propositions to female achievement motivation theory were investigated in this study. The subjects were 139 Brazilian women selected from a pool of 619 female college students previously classified by levels of achievement (Ach) and affiliative (Aff) needs. The subjects were assigned to three experimental conditions-neutral, affiliation arousal, and achievement arousal—and wrote stories that were analyzed by a projective measure (MPAM). A significant Achievement Level × Treatment Interaction revealed that achievement arousal increased the Ach scores of High Ach subjects but did not affect the scores of Low Ach subjects. Level of affiliative tendencies did not affect these results. Contrary to some of the speculations, achievement arousal did not inhibit the scores of High Ach-High Aff women. Overall, affiliation arousal did not produce the expected effects. However, within the affiliation-arousal condition, High Aff subjects obtained significantly higher scores than Low Aff subjects.     

The effects of observation on emotional arousal and affiliation

This study assessed the influence of anticipated experimenter surveillance during the performance of a painful or potentially embarrassing act on affiliative preferences before engaging in that act. As predicted, there was an overall preference for isolation when the act to be performed was embarrassing, and this tendency increased with anticipated surveillance. There was an overall preference for affiliation under fear arousal, and this preference also increased with anticipated surveillance. Contrary to previous research, whether or not the potential affiliate was a subject in the experiment (i.e., in a similar or dissimilar emotional state) did not affect these tendencies. Possible ways of accounting for these findings are discussed.     

Social comparison and the drive upward revisited: Affiliation as a response to marital stress

To test theoretical ideas derived from classic and recent social comparison theory, two studies examined affiliative tendencies as a response to marital problems among individuals varying in marital dissatisfaction. Study 1 (n. = 632) showed that the higher the degree of marital dissatisfaction and the higher the uncertainty about how things are going in one's marriage, the stronger was the desire for affiliation (operationalized as the desire to talk with others about one's marriage). Moreover, among individuals high in marital dissatisfaction, a preference for upward affiliation was found, i.e. for contact with others having better marriages. Individuals with lower levels of dissatisfaction preferred affiliation with similar others. Women experienced more uncertainty and a stronger affiliative tendency than men. In Study 2 (n = 233), these findings were largely replicated. Moreover, it was shown that the desire to affiliate when facing marital stress was particularly strong among individuals high in interpersonal orientation.     

The effect of modification of expressive displays on vicarious emotional arousal

Several recent experiments have demonstrated that modulation of the facial expressive response is accompanied by changes in autonomic arousal and subjective response to painful stimuli. The present study asked whether facial self-regulation may also bring about changes in covert vicarious emotional experience. Three groups of subjects were exposed to a videotaped model displaying intermittent pain to shock in a differential vicarious autonomic conditioning paradigm. Subjects in the inhibit and amplify groups were asked, respectively, (a) to inhibit their facial muscles or (b) to pose a facial response of pain when the model was shocked. It was predicted that the inhibit group would show less autonomic arousal to the model's expressive display (empathy) and less conditioning (as measured by skin conductance and heart rate change), and the amplify group more empathy and conditioning, than a third group who was given no facial instruction. In fact, the amplify group showed more skin conductance arousal, heart rate acceleration, and activity in response to the model's expressive display of pain than did the other two groups (which were not different from each other), but no more autonomic or facial conditioning. The overall pattern of physiological data is interpreted as generally supportive of a facial feedback theory of emotion: where significant between-groups' differences were obtained in facial activity, as in vicarious instigation, autonomic arousal differences also emerged; where no expressive differences were obtained, as in vicarious conditioning, no differences in autonomic arousal were found.     

Views of the Self and Affiliation Choices: A Social Comparison Perspective

Associations between self-views and affiliation choices were examined using a conceptual framework derived in part from social comparison theory. Participants were 70 college students with self-esteem and comparative evaluation scores in the lowest or highest tertile who indicated their level of interest in meeting with 4 student groups. As predicted, low and high self-esteem (LSE and HSE) participants showed distinct affiliative patterns. These differences were especially pronounced for threatened participants—those who believed they were not faring as well as other college students. Results corroborate other recent findings suggesting that LSE and HSE individuals use different means to cope with self-evaluative threat. Implications of affiliation choices for problem solving and emotional regulation are discussed.     

The relationship of affiliative arousal to dopamine release

Higher levels of affiliation motivation after exposure to affiliative films are significantly related to higher dopamine concentrations in saliva in one study of 61 college students of both sexes, and in plasma in another study of 47 adults of both sexes. Individuals high in dispositionaln Affiliation, if they also reported high life stress, showed high gains in dopamine concentration in plasma after exposure to an affiliative film significantly more often than other individuals. Since aroused affiliation motivation was not associated with higher concentrations of norepinephrine, epinephrine, or cortisol in either study, it appears likely that dopamine is especially associated with arousal of affiliation motivation, just as norepinephrine has been found to be associated with arousal of power motivation. Thus, different motives may be subserved by different hormones, making it unlikely that all motives lead to the same state of physiological arousal.This research was carried out when all the authors were connected with the Department of Psychology and Social Relations at Harvard University. We acknowledge with thanks the support of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation through a grant to the senior author.     

Psychophysiological responsivity and the type A behavior pattern

Studies were reviewed in which the psychophysiological responses of Type A and B subjects were studied in various contexts. It appears that Type A's manifest greater psychophysiological arousal than Type B's in solitary as well as interpersonal situations in which there is a moderate external incentive to accomplish something. and there is an intermediate probability of failing to accomplish that something. Further, Type A's appear to manifest greater psychophysiological arousal than Type B's in interpersonal situations in which another person annoys or harasses the subject. Why Type A's respond in these situations with greater psychophysiological arousal was discussed in terms of the possibilities that (a) these situations may engage some defining characteristic(s) of Type A's, (b) Type A's may fear and therefore try to avoid failure more vigorously than Type B's, and (c) Type A's may be more motivated to gain and maintain control over important environmental events and therefore are more aroused by threats to such control than Type B's.     

Trait anxiety,stress, and learning a test of Saltz's hypothesis

Behavioral predictions from Saltz's, Spence's, and Spielberger's interpretations of trait anxiety were tested in a complex verbal learning task. Fifty-three high-anxious and 52 low-anxious male college students were randomly distributed to test conditions of failure-stress, pain-stress, or neutral instructions. The learning data revealed that high-anxious-failure and low-anxious-pain Ss were disrupted and supported Saltz's hypothesis; self-reported anxiety (A-State scale, STAI) was observed only in high-anxious-failure Ss and supported Spielberger's theory of the arousal of state anxiety as a function of trait anxiety. However, the contradiction between self-reported anxiety and learning behavior in low-anxious-pain Ss indicated that the verbal report of these Ss was an inaccurate or insensitive index of arousal.     

An investigation of the arousal model of interpersonal intimacy

In a study designed to test Patterson's arousal model of nonverbal intimacy, the heartrate, gaze, smiles, body orientation, and body lean of each of 40 female subjects who interacted with an accomplice were measured. Within a factorial design, subjects were induced to view more or less favorably the accomplice, who subsequently increased or maintained the same level of nonverbal immediacy as she did in an earlier session. It was hypothesized that (1) an increase in the accomplice's immediacy would effect an increase in subjects' arousal (heartrate) which, in turn, (2) would lead to either reciprocal or compensatory nonverbal adjustments by subjects, depending on whether they viewed the accomplice more or less favorably, respectively. The results supported the first but not the second hypothesis. However, interpretation of the results suggests, nevertheless, that they may be consistent with the arousal model.     

Social influence via threats

Influence via threats was investigated in correspondent relationships (characterized by commonality of interest) and in noncorrespondent relationships (characterized by conflict of interest). In addition, the degree of informational power attributed by the influencee to the influencer and to himself, and the severity of threats used by the influencer were manipulated. The results point to the existence of two qualitatively different processes of influence. In correspondent relationships, threats are viewed as conveying the influencer's belief about the choice of action that would benefit both parties to the relationship. Further, the more severe the threat, the more confident the influencer would appear to be of his choice of action. As a result, the influencee's willingness to rely on the influencer's judgment, as conveyed by the threat, becomes an important aspect of the influence process. Such willingness is affected by the influencee's attribution of informational power to the influencer and to himself. In noncorrespondent relationships, on the other hand, suspicion and mutual distrust preclude reliance on threats as sources of information. Under such circumstances, social influence via threats becomes a simple process of coercion.     

The roles of aggressive and affiliative behaviors in resource control: A behavioral ecological perspective

Extant literature in developmental psychology has documented the co-occurrence of aggressive and affiliative behaviors with various measures of social dominance. While these findings have been taken as evidence for the functional value of aggression, they have not been integrated into a more general theoretical frame accounting for contextual variation. In this paper the literature on aggression, agonism, affiliation, and social dominance is reviewed in light of behavioral ecological theory suggesting that different forms of competition (scramble and contest) determine, respectively, the use of affiliative and aggressive strategies. Results generally support the hypotheses advanced by this theory. In order to further integrate these findings suggestions for the study sequences of behavior, where reconciliations follow aggression, are made.     

Some effects of gaze on subjects motivated to seek or to avoid social comparison

In a conceptual replication and extension of Sarnoff and Zimbardo's study (Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 1961, 62, 356–363), subjects were motivated to seek (Fear Arousal) or avoid (Embarrassment Arousal) social comparison. They were then required to affiliate with another person who either encouraged social comparison by gazing directly at the subject or discouraged it by averting his gaze. This other person was either an appropriate reference person (similar saate) or irrelevant for social comparison purposes. As predicted, Fear subjects liked a companion who looked at them and felt less tense in his presence, while Embarrassed subjects preferred the person who looked away. This interaction occurred only in the Appropriate Reference Person condition, a result consistent with an explanation based on social comparison processes.     

Personality and conditioning of tumescence and detumescence

Retrospective questionnaire surveys have associated extroversion with sexual hedonism and both introversion and neuroticism with sexual inhibition, guilt and fear. These findings have been related by Eysenck to his general theory of personality. In the present study. eight normally functioning adult males participated in eight laboratory sessions involving conditioning and deconditioning of sexual arousal. Direct relationships were found between magnitude of sexual conditioning and extroversion, and between magnitude of sexual deconditioning and introversion. The findings with respect to neuroticism were suggestive but nonsignificant. The findings are discussed in terms of Eysenck's (1967) general theory of personality and Gray's (1972) extension of that theory.     

Concurrent validity of Holland's theory for college degreed working women

The study was designed to explore two areas: (1) the concurrent validity of Holland's theory for employed college degreed women using two different operational definitions (Vocational Preference Inventory and the Self-Directed Search) of vocational orientation; and (2) the relationships among same named scales across the VPI and the SDS. Concurrent validity was studied by administering the VPI and the SDS to 179 women workers in occupational environments consistent with Holland's six vocational environments. In general, the findings indicate that the VPI and SDS scales tend to effectively discriminate among the occupational groups consistent with Holland's theoretical framework. In addition, the correlation coefficients for same named scales for the two inventories were all found to be significant. In sum, the results of the study lend some support to the concurrent validity of Holland's theory for employed college degreed women.     

Fostering a career in engineering

The purpose of the present study was to examine J. Holland's (Making vocational choices: a theory of careers, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1973) congruence hypothesis within the context of intraoccupational rather than interoccupational differences. One hundred and nine engineers were tested on an interest inventory which was designed to measure the vocational interest in six different job functions of the engineering occupation. Reliability coefficients range between .66 and .93. Results confirmed the congruence hypothesis: Correlations between job satisfaction and three measures derived from the interest inventory were .45, .44, and .62, respectively (p < .01). The theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Reference groups and professional self-image: The case of architects

The two objectives of this study are: (1) to investigate empirically the relationships between reference groups and the individual's self-image, as part of understanding the process of self-image development; and (2) to increase our understanding of architects' professional identity dilemma of whether to identify themselves as artists or as engineers. The study demonstrated that reference groups which were not membership groups, and even not dominant references, were significantly associated with self-image. Focusing on architectural students, it showed that although reference to artists was not dominant for most of the subjects (i.e., they did not select artists as one of the two most important groups of evaluators of one's professional work), a significant difference was found between the self-image of students who referred to artists and those who did not. The image of the former was closer to that of the artist, while the latter was closer to that of the engineer.     

Concurrent validity of Holland's theory for non-college-degreed working women

This study, using the Vocational Preference Inventory (VPI) and the Self-Directed Search (SDS), explored the concurrent validity of Holland's theory for employed non-college-degreed women. The VPI and SDS were administered to 114 women workers in occupational environments consistent with Holland's vocational environments. The results revealed that three scales of the VPI and five scales of the SDS successfully differentiated the occupational groups consistent with Holland's theoretical notions. In general, the findings lend some support to the concurrent validity of Holland's theory for employed non-college-degreed women.