Getting to know you: the relational self-construal, relational cognition, and well-being

Individuals with a highly relational self-construal define the self in terms of their close relationships with others. Consequently, they seek to nurture and develop new relationships. These studies examine individual differences in the self-construal in the context of a new roommate relationship, with a focus on cognitive aspects of relationship development. Study 1 revealed that persons with a highly relational self-construal were better able than others to predict a new roommate's values and beliefs. Study 2 showed that highly relational individuals tended to think optimistically about a new roommate's feelings about the relationship. The relational self-construal was more strongly related to these measures of relationship cognition in distant relationships than in very close relationships. Participants' self-construals and their perceptions of the closeness of the roommate relationship interacted in predicting well-being, revealing an unexpected negative relation between closeness and well-being for participants with a low relational self-construal.     

Social Comparison and Bystander Intervention in Emergencies

In a 2 × 2 experimental design, male subjects were exposed to a "lady in distress" in the presence of a confederate who was either similar or dissimilar to the subject and who reacted to the situation with either passive unconcern or with apparent alarm. Consistent with a social comparison interpretation, the confederate's reactions markedly influenced whether subjects intervened. While degree of similarity was unrelated to probability of occurrence of an intervention response, it exerted a strong effect on intervention response latency. It is proposed that social comparison processes not only may influence an observer's interpretation of a situation, but may also contribute to situational ambiguity and affect the observer's degree of confidence in the validity of his interpretation of the situation. Any of these factors may, in turn, determine whether and how quickly an intervention response occurs.     

Visual judgments of kinship: an alternative perspective

Following other researchers, we investigated the premise that visual judgment of kinship might be modelled as a signal-detection task, strictly related to similar facial features. We measured subjects' response times to face-pair stimuli while they performed visual judgments of kinship, similarity, or dissimilarity, and examined some priming effects involved. Our results show that kinship judgment takes longer on average than either similarity or dissimilarity judgment-which is compatible with existing models, yet might also suggest that kinship judgments are of a more complex character. In our priming study we observed selective suppression/enhancement of the efficacy of dissimilarity judgments whenever they followed similarity and kinship judgments. This finding confounds the notion, inherent in previous models, of resemblance cues signalling for kinship, since similarity and dissimilarity cannot be considered just as opposite concepts, and observed priming effects need to be explicitly modelled, including dissimilarity cues. To model kinship judgments across faces that are perceived as dissimilar, a new framework may be required, perhaps accepting the perspective of a task-driven use of the visual cues, modulated by experience and cultural conditioning.     

Accuracy of estimates in the social comparison of abilities

An experiment was conducted to test the proposition that comparison with others similar to oneself in performance affords more accurate self-evaluations than comparison with dissimilar others. A previous study presumably demonstrating this effect (R. Radloff, 1966, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Suplement, 1, 6–26) was reinterpreted. It was suggested that in that particular experiment, performance dissimilarity of comparison others may have been confounded with subjects' disconfirmed expectancies concerning own performance. In the present experiment, similarity of comparison others (manipulated via performance extremity relative to others in the group) was orthogonally manipulated to consistency (versus inconsistency) with an expectancy. As predicted, inconsistency with expectancy exerted adverse effects on the accuracy of self-evaluations whereas dissimilarity from comparison others did not. Significance of the findings for social comparison processes was discussed.     

Dissimilarity and attraction: when difference makes a difference.

Students in 93 university classes described themselves and their instructors on personality tests measuring traits relevant (ascendancy and personal relations) and irrelevant (sociability and cautiousness) to teaching skill. Dissimilarity (instructor being higher than student) on relevant trait dimensions was hypothesized to be instrumental for student satisfaction with an instructor's role performance. When students were classified as similar or dissimilar to their instructors on the personality dimensions, those most attracted to their instructors were those dissimilar on relevant (but not irrelevant) traits. The dissimilarity finding was not an artifact of differences in skill of instructor nor of differences in students' perceptions of their instructors' traits. A three-dimensional system was devised to specify when similarity and dissimilarity should promote attraction.     

Am I the typical student? Perceived similarity to student prototypes predicts success

Two studies assessed the relationships between perceived similarity to the college student prototype and academic outcomes. In Study 1, students' similarity to the prototypical good student and their levels of depressed mood were assessed. A year later, students high in depressed mood who did not see themselves as similar to the good student prototype did worse academically. In Study 2, students' perceived favorability and similarity to the prototypical student at their university were assessed along with their levels of neuroticism. Enrollment at their university was then tracked for 5 semesters. Students high in neuroticism who perceived the typical student as both favorable and dissimilar to themselves were less likely to stay enrolled. These findings highlight the importance of perceived dissimilarity in prototype perception, particularly among those high in negative affect.     

THE ATTRACTION PARADIGM REVISITED Responses to Dissimilar Others

A laboratory study investigated the effects of three kinds of information on response to dissimilar others. A2 × 2 × 2 design with two levels of “expectation of evaluation” (expressed like or dislike), two levels of “message openness” (open or closed), and two levels of “attribution of intent” (expressed desire to share or change attitudes) was employed to test hypotheses related to impression formed, defensiveness of response, and attraction toward a dissimilar other. Results from a multivariate analysis showed that response to dissimilarity differed significantly with variation in expectation of evaluation and message openness, but that responses did not vary in relation to attribution of intent. Results support uncertainty reduction theory, and it is suggested that some of the rewards normally associated with similarity can also be associated with dissimilar others, thus making for a more positive response to dissimilarity.     

Communicator credibility and persuasian

Prior research has usually found a positive relationship between a communicator’s perceived credibility and his persuasiveness. An experiment was designed to test the hypothesis that the perceived vested interest of a speaker, the position the speaker advocated, and the social similarity between audience and speaker would influence attributions of credibility and affect the speaker’s persuasiveness. Three variables were manipulated in a 2 by 2 by 2 factorial design. Ss read a speech that either favored (pro) or opposed (con) student voting rights; the speech was attributed to a speaker who was either similar (student) or dissimilar (townie) to the stndent audience and who either had a vested interest (running for elective office) or had no vested interest (merely giving his opinion) :in the position he advocated. As predicted, the similarity of the speaker to the audience, the vested interest of the speaker, and the position advocated in the speech strongly influenced attributions of credibility. However, in contrast to much previous research, persuasion was found to be relatively independent of the variation in the speaker’s perceived credibility. It was suggested that the failure of attributions of credibility to relate to persuasion may have been due to the high degree of ego involvement for the Ss in the topic of student voting rights.     

Mouse killing in rats induced by lesions of the medial hypothalamus or medial accumbens: short-term preoperative exposure to a mouse does not suppress the killing

Rats were either exposed or not exposed to a mouse in their living cage for a 48-hr period. At the end of this time a bilateral lesion was made in the medial accumbens region or in the medial hypothalamus. When tested 2 days postoperatively, the killing frequency among rats that had been exposed to mice preoperatively was not significantly lower than that of rats that were not preoperatively exposed. The ineffectiveness of preoperative experience in suppressing the mouse killing induced by medial accumbens and medial hypothalamic lesions is similar to that found previously with dorsal-median raphe lesions and olfactory bulb lesions and is in contrast to the ease with which preoperative experience prevents mouse killing induced by septal lesions and serotonergic lesions induced by 5,7-dihydroxytryptamine.     

The Effect of Similarity Between Donor and Recipient on Recipient's Reactions to Aid1

This study explored the effect of similarity-dissimilarity between the donor and the recipient on the recipient's self-perception and his perception of the donor. A 2 x 2 between-subjects design was employed in which aid versus no aid and similarity versus dissimilarity were the experimental factors. The results indicate that receiving aid from a similar other had a negative effect on the recipient's situational self-esteem and self-confidence, while aid from a dissimilar other had a positive effect on situational self-esteem and self-confidence. Social comparison theory (Festinger, 1954) was suggested as a means of explaining this finding. In addition, it was found that a donor of aid was more favorably rated than a nondonor.     

Attitudes and Attraction: Optimism and Weight as Explanations for the Similarity–Dissimilarity Asymmetry

The positive link between attitude similarity and attraction is one of the fundamental outcomes in social psychology. However, attitude dissimilarity seems to be a stronger driver of this relationship than attitude similarity. The authors review the evidence on this similarity–dissimilarity asymmetry, and discuss two explanations. One is that people generally enter into interactions with optimism, and so supposedly neutral partners are often seen as mildly positive. Another is that dissimilar attitudes carry greater weight than similar attitudes in cognitive processes. Implications of these mechanisms for wider issues in person perception and attitude structure are discussed, connecting them with more recent theories of attitudinal ambivalence and evaluative space.     

Different and similar at the same time: when the activation of dissimilarity makes people look more similar

Whether two people are presented as similar or different may have a strong impact on the outcome of their comparison. In the present research, we examined the counterintuitive hypothesis that activating dissimilarity increases the perception of similarities between people, in other words increases perceived feature overlap, during the comparison process. We investigated this prediction by asking people to judge the perceived similarity between two faces with a suboptimally related or unrelated morph inserted in between (to influence joint categorization), and with similar or different facial expressions (to vary the salience of similar or different features). The results confirmed our expectations: In the similarity (joint categorization) condition, two faces that differed in expression were perceived as more dissimilar than faces with the same expression. More important for our prediction, in the dissimilarity condition two faces with different expressions were no longer perceived as more dissimilar than two faces with the same expression. We discuss implications of these findings for the mechanisms underlying comparisons between people. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Social support and recovery from surgery

This study examined the relationship of naturally occurring social support from the spouse with the preoperative anxiety and postoperative recovery of 56 male coronary-bypass patients. Patients were divided into groups based on whether the overall quality of their marital relationship was perceived to be relatively good or bad at the time of surgery and on whether they received relatively high or low spouse support in the hospital (defined in terms of frequency of visits). A fifth group (n = 16), consisting of unmarried patients, enabled additional comparisons. The results indicated that, although groups were essentially equivalent in preoperative physical status, married patients who received higher hospital support took less pain medication and recovered more quickly than their low-support counterparts. In contrast, perceived quality of the marital relationship was a relatively insignificant factor. Speed of recovery for unmarried patients was generally slower than for married, high-support patients and faster than for married, low-support patients.     

Feminist and sympathetic feminist consciousness

Data from the 1976 American National Election Study were used to assess the effects of one outgroup characteristic, belief similarity—dissimilarity, on the enhancement of women's feminist consciousness. Women were focused on as the ingroup and men as the outgroup. The sample consisted of 677 women who believed that women should have an equal role with men. Outgroup belief similarity referred to women's perception that most men supported an equal role for women and outgroup dissimilarity to the perception that men did not support an equal role. Results indicated that outgroup belief similarity significantly enhanced women's feminist consciousness. Women who supported an equal role and perceived outgroup belief dissimilarity scored higher on cognitive and behavioural measures of feminist consciousness than those who supported an equal role but did not perceive outgroup dissimilarity. Secondary analyses were undertaken assessing the effect of ingroup belief similarity dissimilarity on the enhancement of sympathetic feminist consciousness among men.     

Depression and interpersonal attraction: the role of perceived similarity

We hypothesized that depressed individuals are generally viewed as dissimilar and that this perceived dissimilarity contributes to negative reactions to the depressed. In addition, we hypothesized that if perceived similarity affects liking of depressed individuals, then nondepressed subjects should prefer nondepressed targets, but depressed subjects should not share this preference. To test these hypotheses, depressed and nondepressed subjects received information about two targets, both either depressed or nondepressed, one attitudinally dissimilar and one attitudinally similar. They were then asked to fill out an attraction measure and an interest in meeting measure for each target. The results clearly supported the primary hypotheses, demonstrating that nondepressed subjects preferred nondepressed targets and perceived them as more similar than depressed targets, and that this preference for nondepressed targets is not shared by depressed subjects. Tests of supplementary hypotheses also confirmed that depressed subjects perceive their best friends as being more depressed and more dissimilar than do nondepressed subjects. The implications of these findings for the social world of the depressed were discussed.     

Personality, Self-Disclosure and Friendship Between Chinese University Roommates

The present study examined the relations among personality perceptions, self-disclosing behavior, and friendship strength between Chinese roommates. These variables are rarely measured together and, when jointly assessed, allow for the disentanglment of personality factors from the social behavior of self-disclosure, making it possible to assess the role of self-disclosure behavior in the nexus of personality perceptions relating to friendship. One hundred and thirty-one university students rated their own and their roommate's personality, their self-disclosing behavior, and the strength of their friendship six months after being assigned to room together. It was found that self-ratings on the personality dimension of application were related both to one's friendship ratings and one's self-disclosing behavior, suggesting that personality variation is responsible for some of the well-established (Collins and Miller, 1994) links between self-disclosure and friendship strength. After controlling for self-rated application, it was found that both the respondent's and the roommate's self-disclosing behavior contributed separately to increasing the respondent's friendship ratings, as has also been found in Western research. Surprisingly, respondent self-disclosure was unrelated to how respondents perceived their roommates. However, the perceived roommate qualities of helpfulness and intellect were associated with the respondent's friendship ratings, suggesting that other, unmeasured social behaviors are being exchanged between roommates to enhance their friendship. Future research should examine these other behavioral mediators of friendship, so that we can develop a behavioral topology for this important social relationship and link these behaviors to dimensions of interpersonal perception.     

When similars do not attract: Tests of a prediction from the self‐expansion model

This study tested the hypothesis from the self‐expansion model that the usual effect of greater attraction to a similar (vs. dissimilar) stranger will be reduced or reversed when a person is given information that a relationship would be likely to develop (i.e., that they would be very likely to get along) with the other person. The study employed the “bogus stranger” paradigm and focused on similarity/dissimilarity of interests in the context of attraction to a same‐gender other. The effect for similarity under conditions in which no information is given about relationship likelihood replicated the usual pattern of greater attraction to similars. However, as predicted, a significant similarity by information interaction demonstrated that this effect was significantly reduced (and slightly reversed) when participants had been given information that the partner will like self. In analyses for each gender separately, both of these effects were significant only for men, suggesting that the focus on interest similarity may have been less relevant for women.     

The integration of visual and functional classifications in concept formation

Summary Simple motor responses of different similarity were assigned to geometric figures of different similarity. Subsequently, subjects had to learn hierarchical classifications of visually similar or dissimilar figures which were associated with either similar or dissimilar responses. In this way, the visual and the functional similarity of the conceptually united figures were orthogonally varied. It was found that visually similar figures are conceptually classified fastest regardless of their functional similarity. In contrast, functional similarity has a considerable impact on the hierarchical classification of visually dissimilar figures. Functionally similar figures are conceptually faster classified than dissimilar ones. From the results we conclude that concepts are autonomously formed as mediating representations in stimulus-response coordinations. The hierarchical organization of concepts is thereby based on the sequential organization of both the visual input and the behavioral output. Further consequences of this approach are discussed.Portions of this research were presented at the International Symposium on Structure and Function of Human Memory, in Memoriam Hermann Ebbinghaus, Berlin, July 1985     

Psychotherapy with an adolescent boy who refused medical treatment

In this paper we describe psychotherapeutic work carried out in a paediatric hospital to illustrate the important contribution of a psychoanalytically-oriented approach in a hospital context. The work concerns an adolescent boy who had undergone several surgical operations with the result that some of his natural orifices were obstructed and artificial ones had to be created. He was referred to us because he refused pharmacological and rehabilitative treatment necessary prior to further surgery and his eventual recovery. The boy's experience of loss of control of his life and the more primitive anxieties of not feeling safely contained in his physical and psychic skin emerged and were worked through in the psychotherapeutic relationship. The parallel work with medical staff reduced the risk of splitting and acting out by the patient and professionals. The approach adopted enabled this boy to resume his medical treatment and his developmental process.