Do we look happy? Perceptions of romantic relationship quality on Facebook

Does the information that people share about their romantic relationships on Facebook influence how other people perceive their relationship quality? Across 2 studies, people's accuracy at inferring others' relationship quality based on their Facebook profiles and how Facebook profiles influenced others' judgments of people's relationship quality and likability were investigated. Perceived relationship quality corresponded to self‐reported relationship quality (Study 1), and people with more visible relationships were perceived as having greater relationship satisfaction and commitment (Studies 1 and 2) and being more likable (Study 2). High disclosure about the relationship predicted greater perceived relationship quality but lower likability (Study 2). These findings illuminate how sharing information about one's relationship influences other people's impressions of the individual and the relationship.     

A New Scale for Scoring the Bernreuter Personality Inventory

Abstract

Two studies with American students demonstrated the utility of interpersonal theory in social psychological research. The hypothesis in Study 1, following Mead's (1934) interactionist viewpoint, was that others' perceptions of an individual relate to how that individual thinks these others view him and that these reflexive self-perceptions are subsequently linked with an individual's self-perceptions. This conceptualization corrected Shrauger and Schoeneman's (1979) erroneous parallelism between self-images and reflected perceptions and between self-images and others' actual perceptions. It extended previous works by using interpersonally based self- and other-acceptance measures, a “naturalistic” setting, and repeated measurements. Three of four regression analyses supported the hypothesis. Study 2 was conducted to investigate further significant differences found between the self-and other-acceptance measures. As predicted from Sullivan's (1953) interpersonal theory, individuals considered it more important to be viewed as accepting of others than of self, although their other-acceptance schemata was, in general, more poorly defined.     

Self-disgust mediates the relationship between dysfunctional cognitions and depressive symptomatology

Disgust has been linked to several psychopathologies, although a role in depression has been questioned. However, it has recently been proposed that rather than general disgust sensitivity, disgust directed toward the self (self-disgust) may influence the development of depression, providing a causal link between dysfunctional cognitions and depressive symptomatology. This possibility was examined by developing a scale to measure self-disgust (the Self-Disgust Scale; SDS) and then using mediator analysis to determine if self-disgust was able to explain the relationship between dysfunctional cognitions (measured with the use of the Dysfunctional Attitudes Scale) and depressive symptomatology (measured with the use of the Beck Depression Inventory and the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale). The developed SDS was found to exhibit a high level of internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and concurrent validity. Principal-components analysis revealed two factors to underlie responses to SDS items: the 'Disgusting self,' concerned with enduring, context independent aspects of the self, and 'Disgusting ways,' concerned with behavior. Self-disgust was found to mediate the relationship between dysfunctional cognitions and depressive symptomatology, demonstrating for the first time that self-disgust plays a role in depression.     

Workers' self‐objectification and tendencies to conform to others

Recent research showed that workers' self‐objectification—their self‐perception as objects rather than human beings—leads to detrimental intrapersonal consequences. In the present research, we explored whether this phenomenon may also affect interpersonal relations, by increasing workers' tendencies to conform. In a correlational study, Italian workers who perceived their work as more objectifying self‐objectified more—self‐attributed less human mental states and self‐perceive as more instrument‐like than human‐like—and, in turn, were more inclined to conform with others. The second study experimentally confirmed this pattern, showing that British workers who recalled an objectifying (vs. a non‐objectifying) work experience self‐objectified more. Self‐perception as instrument‐like was associated, in turn, with an increased tendency to adapt to others' opinions. The implications for organizational and social psychology are discussed.     

Psychopathy and the ability to read the “language of the eyes”: Divergence in the psychopathy construct

The capacity to interpret others people's behavior and mental states is a vital part of human social communication. This ability, also called mentalizing or Theory of Mind (ToM), may also serve as a protective factor against aggression and antisocial behavior. This study investigates the relationship between two measures of psychopathy (clinical assessment and self‐report) and the ability to identify mental states from photographs of the eye region. The participants in the study were 92 male inmates at Bergen prison, Norway. The results showed some discrepancy in connection to assessment methodology. For the self‐report (SRP‐III), we found an overall negative association between mental state discrimination and psychopathy, while for the clinical instrument (PCL‐R) the results were more mixed. For Factor 1 psychopathic traits (interpersonal and affective), we found positive associations with discrimination of neutral mental states, but not with the positive or negative mental states. Factor 2 traits (antisocial lifestyle) were found to be negatively associated with discrimination of mental states. The results from this study demonstrate a heterogeneity in the psychopathic construct where psychopathic traits related to an antisocial and impulsive lifestyle are associated with lower ability to recognize others' mental states, while interpersonal and affective psychopathic traits are associated with a somewhat enhanced ability to recognize others' emotional states.     

The contribution of self‐deceptive enhancement to display rules in the United States and Japan

Socially desirable responding was tested as a mediator of American and Japanese college student differences in display rules. Americans endorsed the expression of anger, contempt, disgust, fear, happiness, and surprise more than the Japanese. Americans also exhibited more self‐deceptive enhancement than the Japanese, and self‐deceptive enhancement partially mediated country differences on the endorsement of anger, disgust, happiness, and surprise, but not contempt and fear. These findings highlight the role of self‐deceptive enhancement in contributing to expressive display rules and support the point of view that socially desirable responding is a reflection of one's personality and culture rather than a statistical nuisance.     

Two‐year‐olds’ understanding of self‐symbols

This study investigated 48 2.5‐year‐olds’ ability to map from their own body to a two‐dimensional self‐representation and also examined relations between parents’ talk about body representations and their children's understanding of self‐symbols. Children participated in two dual‐representation tasks in which they were asked to match body parts between a symbol and its referent. In one task, they used a self‐symbol and in the other they used a symbol for a doll. Participants were also read a book about body parts by a parent. As a group, children found the self‐symbol task more difficult than the doll‐task; however, those whose parents explicitly pointed out the relation between their children's bodies and the symbols in the book performed better on the self‐symbol task. The findings demonstrate that 2‐year‐old children have difficulty comprehending a self‐symbol, even when it is two‐dimensional and approximately the same size as them, and suggest that parents’ talk about self‐symbols may facilitate their understanding.     

Interpersonal orientation and the accuracy of personality judgments

Are those who are more invested in developing and maintaining interpersonal relationships able to provide more accurate judgments of others' personality characteristics? Previous research has produced mixed findings. In the present study, a conceptual framework was presented and methods were used that overcome many of the problems encountered in past research on judgmental accuracy. On four occasions, 102 judges watched a 12‐min videotaped dyadic interaction and described the personality of a designated target person. Judges' personality characteristics were described by self, parents, and friends. Results revealed that psychological communion was positively associated with judges' accuracy in rating targets' personality characteristics. In addition, whereas women were more communal and provided more accurate judgments than men, the relationship between communion and accuracy held after controlling for the effect of gender. Finally, preliminary findings suggested that interpersonally oriented individuals may sometimes draw on information about themselves and about stereotypical others to facilitate accurate judgments of others.     

Attachment and expectations about future relationships: Moderation by accessibility

This article examined the relationship between internal working models of self and other (Bowlby, 1969) and expectations for satisfaction in a future relationship, and how that relationship is moderated by the accessibility of one's internal models. Study one showed that the model of self was predictive of expected satisfaction, but the model of other was not. In study two, the results of study one were replicated. However, using a reaction time task to measure the chronic accessibility of internal models, it was shown that the relationship between model of self and expected satisfaction existed only for people with highly accessible internal models. The implications of these findings for a more cognitive view of attachment-processes is discussed.     

The importance of inner and outer body parts attitudes in the self-concept of late adolescents

The differential roles of inner and outer body parts attitudes in predicting the self-concepts of late adolescents (107 female and 72 male undergraduates) were assessed in order to test derivations from Erikson's notions (1964) about sex differences in the import of inner and out body “space” for personality. To assess knowledge about inner body space, subjects drew and labeled their internal body parts within an asexual frontal outline figure. Affect associated with internal and external body parts was assessed by rating 36 body characteristics in terms of their importance in making subjects attractive, effective people. Subjects responded also to a short self-concept scale. Females demonstrated greater knowledge of their inner body and attached generally higher levels of importance to their internal (and external) body parts than did males. However, completely opposite to the tested Eriksonian notions, inner body parts attitudes predicted self-concepts for males, but not for females. Moreover, more external than internal body parts were significant predictors of females' self-concepts, and the former parts accounted for more variance in self-concept than the latter ones. The results are interpreted to speak against theories which attempt to dichotomize the source of sex differences in personality development into either biologically or societally based contributions.     

The Impact of Depression on Self–Other Discrepancies in Decision Making

Although there is a small but growing body of literature on how people make risky decisions for others and predict others' decisions, results seem to be contradictory. The authors contribute to the understanding of these mixed results by investigating how depression affects self–other discrepancies in decision making and the psychological processes that underlie these discrepancies. In an experiment, depressed and nondepressed individuals read a series of scenarios involving decisions about health, money, and interpersonal relationships. They then indicated which of two options they would choose for themselves or for another person, or predicted which option this person would choose for himself or herself. Finally, participants reported benefits and drawbacks of the decisions (i.e., cognitions) and feelings about risk. Depressed individuals were less prone to bias when they predicted others' decisions than nondepressed individuals. Feelings about risk played a key role in determining the direction and the magnitude of this bias. In contrast, both depressed and nondepressed individuals showed bias when they made decisions for others. This bias affected their decisions in opposing ways and was determined by cognitions. This bias is consistent with literature showing that depression is associated with an increased sensitivity to social risks. The authors provide a theoretical explanation of self–other discrepancies in decision making in depressed and nondepressed individuals and conclude that the results support the assumption that depression is associated with psychological processes whose role is to increase sensitivity to social threats rather than with a more general negative bias in cognitive functioning. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Pursuing Goals with Others

This article explores motivation in a social context: how people pursue goals with others, with information on others, and for the self and others. As people incorporate close others into their extended selves (Aron et al., 1991 ), they begin to treat others' actions and outcomes as partially their own. This tendency, in turn, has implications for coordinating goal pursuits with others and for the preference for actions that maximize the total benefits for the self and others. To demonstrate these principles – coordination and joint‐benefits maximization – we first explore coordination in pursuing goals with others (i.e., working in teams), showing that people respond to others' actions and lack of action similarly to how they respond to their own actions and lack of action. We next explore coordination in pursuing goals with information on others, showing that people conform to others' preferences and attitudes yet choose actions that complement others' actions. Finally, we review research on pursuing goals for the self and others, showing that people wish to maximize the total benefits for the group.     

Pathogens and Politics: Current Research and New Questions

The emotion of disgust has been linked to more conservative social attitudes and to self‐placement on the left–right political spectrum. This relationship seems to be robust and general: It has been observed by multiple labs, using diverse methods and measures, in a variety of countries and cultures. However, why disgust should be associated with social and political attitudes is still an open question. We first review the evidence for a link between disgust and political attitudes and then outline competing accounts of why there should be a relationship between the two in the first place.     

Television Exposure and Children's Decoding of Nonverbal Behavior1

Two studies considered the way in which the magnitude of exposure to television relates to children's understanding and interpretation of others' nonverbal behavior. In the first study, 6th graders made judgments regarding other children whose nonverbal facial behavior did not match their internal emotional state. Results showed that heavier television viewers held a less differentiated, more simplistic view of the consequences of nonverbal self-presentation strategies. In the second study, children in Grades 2 through 6 made judgments of others' nonverbal expressions of emotion. As predicted, heavier television viewers were better at decoding others' nonverbal expressions than lighter viewers, presumably because of their greater exposure to nonverbal displays of emotion on television. In addition, nonverbal decoding skills improved with age.     

The Receiver's Dilemma: Impressions Formed in Response to Impression Management

Two studies examined the extent to which individuals' racial attitudes are influenced more by interdependent others' attitudes than people with whom they do not mutually depend. Study 1 demonstrated that participants significantly changed their racial attitudes when they received disagreement feedback from an ingroup friend, whereas there was no change in attitudes when participants received disagreement feedback from an ingroup stranger, agreement feedback, or no feedback. Furthermore, feelings of interdependence mediated the relationship between feedback from a friend versus stranger and changes in racial attitudes. In Study 2, we manipulated interdependence and found that interdependent partners altered their racial attitudes after receiving disagreement information, whereas independent partners did not. The importance of interdependent others' attitudes in reducing prejudice is discussed.     

Early stages of initiative and environmental response

Research results on the association between maternal response to infant' initiative and the development of such initiatives is being presented. This study is based on 239 feeding situations belonging to 41 mother–infant pairs videotaped at home at 30-day intervals, from the beginning of spoon-feeding until 1 year of age. The results showed that the basic hypotheses of this study were confirmed. There was a clear association between maternal responses to initiatives of the infant and four variables: Initiatives, Attempted Initiatives, Aversive Behavior, and Conflictivity. A favorable maternal response went along with more initiatives, fewer Attempts, less Aversivity, and less Conflictivity. Conflictivity was understood as reciprocal exchange of antipathetic reactions such as opposition, disgust, and hostility. Therefore, conflicts show struggle and confrontation between both members of the interaction. Aversivity is the infant's sole reaction to disgust, distaste, or opposition. As the infant risks confrontations with the care-giver to sustain her initiatives, we can say that, although highly influentiable by maternal response, Initiative is a contribution of the infant to her own development. Thus, in our view, a developing self shows an emerging capacity to initiate actions of his/her own. This becomes a relational issue as soon as the infant's initiative hits the interactional field, causing an environmental response that ultimately will allow or impede initiative. In case of impediments, the strong reaction of the infant will produce an impact upon the progressive stages of construction of the relationship, and certainly will be influential upon the further development of the infant's self.     

Being better than others but otherwise perfectly normal: Perceptions of uniqueness and similarity in close relationships

The current research addresses individuals' self-generated thoughts regarding their own and others' relationships, examining the ways in which perceptions of uniqueness and similarity are manifested in judgments regarding own and others' responses to dissatisfying incidents. Consistent with the uniqueness bias, participants characterized their own relationships by a greater number of constructive responses and a smaller number of destructive responses relative to characterizations of others' relationships. Moreover, external raters judged own constructive responses to be more constructive than others' constructive responses. Consistent with the similarity bias, external raters judged items describing others' responses to be less frequently occurring and more extreme than their own responses. Also, this research revealed support for the claim that the similarity bias is more pronounced for destructive responses than for constructive responses. A recall task corroborated these findings, revealing very good recall for destructive responses enacted by others and poor recall for destructive responses enacted by oneself.     

Disgust predicts prejudice and discrimination toward individuals with obesity

This study examined the relevance of disgust to evaluations of an obese target person, and the connection between disgust and prejudice toward that person. Participants (n = 598) viewed an image of an obese or non‐obese woman, and then evaluated that woman on a number of dimensions (emotions, attitudes, stereotypes, desire for social distance). Compared with the non‐obese target, the obese target elicited more disgust, more negative attitudes and stereotypes, and a greater desire for social distance. Furthermore, disgust mediated the effect of the target's body size on all of the outcome variables (attitudes, stereotypes, social distance). Disgust plays an important role in prejudice and discrimination toward individuals with obesity, and might in part explain the pervasiveness of weight bias.     

Social cognition and the development of rule-guided behaviour

The weak to modest relationship between cognitive measures of judgement and reasoning and children's behaviour has led to a search for more satisfactory predictors of behaviour. One proposal is to integrate cognitive-developmental theory with children's perceptions of the self and others. In this regard, cross-sectional and longitudinal evidence indicates that children's “identification” as expressed by self-reports of parents' attractiveness and similarity to the self is correlated with their rule-guided behaviour. These relationships reflect the effects of sex-typing. In a study of behaviour in a naturalistic setting, Grade 1 girls' identification with the mother was correlated with a resistance to others' ruleviolations in Grade 2. Boys' self-initiated violations in Grade 2 were correlated with father identification in Grade 3. Given that behaviour can be mediated by perceptions of parents in relation to the self, and that effective socialization may reflect perceptions of control and a willingness to obey, a study of children's evaluations of maternal discipline techniques is reported. Findings were that children of all ages prefer an authoritative parent who displays firmness and flexibility in dealing with the situation at hand. The implications for theories of social development are discussed. Bidirectional influences in parent-child relations are considered as well as age-related changes in the connection between behaviour and sources of perceived control. Processes by which perceptions of control form a basis for autonomy and responsibility are examined.     

Personality Expression and Impression Formation in Online Social Networks: An Integrative Approach to Understanding the Processes of Accuracy,Impression Management and Meta‐accuracy

In this paper, we investigate personality expression and impression formation processes in online social networks (OSNs). We explore whether, when and why people accurately judge others' personalities (accuracy), successfully manage the impressions that others form of them (impression management) and accurately infer others' impressions of them (meta‐accuracy) at zero acquaintance. On the basis of targets' OSN profiles (N = 103), overall perceiver impressions were collected and compared with targets' self‐view, desired impression and meta‐perception. In addition, independent groups of thin‐slice perceivers based their personality impressions solely on one of four kinds of information within the OSN profiles (profile picture, interests field, group list and notice board), and more than 300 OSN cues (e.g. attractive person and number of friends) were coded. Results showed evidence of accuracy, impression management and meta‐accuracy, but their extent was moderated by the trait (e.g. Big Five and self‐esteem), the kind of information and the interplay of trait and information. Findings could be explained by cue expression and cue utilization processes (lens model analyses). Future prospects for studying personality impressions in online and offline environments are discussed. Copyright © 2013 European Association of Personality Psychology.