A Quantitative Estimate of Schema Abnormality in Socially Anxious and Non‐Anxious Individuals

Although cognitive theories of anxiety suggest that anxious individuals are characterized by abnormal threat‐relevant schemas, few empirical studies have estimated the nature of these cognitive structures using quantitative methods that lend themselves to inferential statistical analysis. In the present study, socially anxious (n = 55) and non‐anxious (n = 62) participants completed 3 Q‐Sort tasks to assess their knowledge of events that commonly occur in social or evaluative scenarios. Participants either sorted events according to how commonly they personally believe the events occur (i.e. “self” condition), or to how commonly they estimate that most people believe they occur (i.e. “other” condition). Participants' individual Q‐Sorts were correlated with mean sorts obtained from a normative sample to obtain an estimate of schema abnormality, with lower correlations representing greater levels of abnormality. Relative to non‐anxious participants, socially anxious participants' sorts were less strongly associated with sorts of the normative sample, particularly in the “self” condition, although secondary analyses suggest that some significant results might be explained, in part, by depression and experience with the scenarios. These results provide empirical support for the theoretical notion that threat‐relevant self‐schemas of anxious individuals are characterized by some degree of abnormality.     

Social Support in Cardiac Rehabilitation Exercise Maintenance: Associations with Self‐Efficacy and Health‐Related Quality of Life1

This study examined whether cardiac rehabilitation (CR) maintenance exercise participants who were high and moderate in social support (SS) differed in their types of self‐efficacy and health‐related quality of life, and whether SS was related to self‐efficacy. Measures of SS, self‐efficacy (i.e., walking, scheduling, in‐class efficacy), and health‐related quality of life (HRQL) were administered to 64 CR maintenance exercise participants. A one‐way, between‐groups MANOVA was significant (p < .01), indicating that CR participants higher in SS reported significantly greater self‐efficacy and physical HRQL than did their moderate counterparts. In addition, social support predicted significant variance in task self‐efficacy. The findings suggest that differential perceptions of SS are related to differences in walking, in‐class and scheduling self‐efficacy, and the physical component of HRQL among CR exercise maintainers.     

The Impact of Positive and Negative Affect and Issue Framing on Issue Interpretation and Risk Taking

Two studies examined the influence of transient affective states and issue framing onissue interpretationandrisk takingwithin the context of strategic decision making. In Study 1, participants in whom transient positive or negative affective states were induced by reading a short story showed systematic differences in issue interpretation and risk taking in a strategic decision making context. Compared to negative mood participants, those in a positive mood were more likely to interpret the strategic issue as an opportunity and displayed lower levels of risk taking. Study 2 replicated and extended these results by crossing affective states with threat and opportunity frames. Results showed that framing an issue (as a threat or an opportunity) had a stronger impact on issue interpretation among negative affect participants than among positive affect participants. Affective states also moderated the impact of issue framing on risk taking: the effect of framing on risk-taking was stronger under negative rather than positive affect. These results are interpreted via information-processing and motivational effects of affect on a decision maker.     

Ostracism,resources, and the perception of human motion

Is perception of human motion affected by psychosocial resources? According to the Resources and Perception Model, perception is jointly affected by subjective threat and psychosocial resources that buffer threat. Two experiments tested whether social threat (i.e., ostracism) and psychosocial resources affect perception of human motion. Observers attempted to identify human movement in ambiguous point‐light displays after being ostracized or not ostracized. Additionally, trait resources (self‐esteem plus social support) were measured (Studies 1 and 2), and self‐affirmation was manipulated (Study 2). Study 1 showed that ostracism reduced sensitivity for detecting human motion but not among people with ample trait resources. Study 2 replicated this ostracism‐by‐trait resources interaction. It also showed that self‐affirmation improved human motion perception for all included participants but only benefited ostracized participants with ample trait resources. These studies show that a basic visual skill—detecting human motion—is jointly affected by social threats and psychosocial resources.     

How a perceived status change increase consumers’ tendency toward consumption through double psychological mechanisms

While previous research has demonstrated that status significantly affects consumer behaviour, most studies have examined objective status rather than perceived status. The present article, therefore, aims to examine how a perceived change in status affects consumers’ status consumption as well as the underlying psychological mechanisms for this behaviour. Study 1 manipulates participants’ perceived status change and measures their tendencies toward status consumption. Results show that both participants undergoing status improvement and those perceiving a threat to their status are more inclined towards status consumption than participants in a control condition. Study 2 manipulates participants’ perceived status change and measures their self‐presentation motivation, self‐compensation motivation, and status consumption tendency. A series of mediation analyses shows that self‐presentation, rather than self‐compensation, mediates the positive effect of status improvement on consumers’ status consumption and that self‐compensation, rather than self‐presentation, mediates the positive effect of status threat on consumers’ status consumption. Results of our studies suggest that consumers who perceive status improvement seek status consumption for self‐presentation purposes, while consumers who perceive status threat seek status consumption for self‐compensation. The article concludes by discussing the theoretical contribution of this research and offering practical suggestions regarding product marketing.     

Social threat,social reward,and regulation of investment in romantic relationships

Regulation of romantic investment is often examined in terms of concerns over self‐protection. Perceived opportunity for intimate connection has been an overlooked motivational force in investment decisions. In 4 studies, participants assessed risks of rejection and opportunity for connection from future partners (among single participants), current partners (among coupled participants), and ex‐partners (all participants). Beyond rejection risks, intimacy potential of future/current partners negatively predicted pining for an ex‐partner, whereas intimacy potential of ex‐partners positively predicted such longing. Rewarding ex‐partners garnered particularly strong investment when future/current partners were lacking in intimacy potential, suggesting the need to belong motivates pursuit of intimacy in a hydraulic fashion: When connection is lacking in one relationship, the draw of intimacy from another becomes particularly strong.     

How to save the wounded self: Power distance belief's moderation of self‐identity threat and status‐related consumption

There is ample evidence in the relevant literature to show that self‐identity threat affects consumers' behavior, psychological needs, purchasing behavior, and product choice. The present research takes self‐identity threat to another level with a focus on the moderating role of power distance belief (PDB) in the relation to self‐identity threat and status consumption. The research involves two studies. Study 1 shows that threatened participants with a high PDB prefer status goods to nonstatus goods. By contrast, the low‐PDB group is indifferent to the status of goods. Study 2 reexamines the results of Study 2 with different participants and goods and tests the moderated mediation of symbolic compensatory need in the status consumption of high‐PDB participants. The results and implications of our findings are presented in the Discussion section.     

A threatening exchange: Gender and life history strategy predict perceptions and reasoning about sexual harassment

Sexual harassment is a serious societal issue, with extensive economic and psychological consequences, yet it is also an ill-defined construct fundamentally defined in terms of subjective perception. The current work was designed to examine the ways in which individual differences between people are systematically related to different perceptions of sexual harassment scenarios, as well as reasoning about those harassment situations. Participants (N = 460) read several possible harassment scenarios and rated how uncomfortable they would find them. They then also evaluated a quid pro quo sexual harassment situation in terms of their interpretation of it as a threat or a social exchange and completed a deductive reasoning task about the same situation. Females and individuals with slow life history strategies were more uncomfortable with potential harassment situations and were more likely to interpret the quid pro quo scenario as a threat. Further, interpreting the scenario as a threat was associated with poorer performance on the deductive logic task, compared to those who interpreted the scenario as a social exchange.     

Negative Intergroup Contact and Radical Right‐Wing Voting: The Moderating Roles of Personal and Collective Self‐Efficacy

This study examines whether negative contact with immigrants promotes voting for radical right‐wing parties, to what extent this relationship can be explained by feelings of outgroup threat, and whether this relationship depends on perceived personal and collective self‐efficacy. Hypotheses were tested among 630 native Dutch respondents, mainly living in multicultural neighborhoods. The results show that negative contact with immigrants is associated with feelings of personal (egocentric) and group (sociotropic) threat, and both these feelings, in turn, are associated with radical right‐wing voting. However, negative intergroup contact is less strongly related to egocentric threat when individuals feel able to personally address negative situations with other people (personal self‐efficacy). Furthermore, the findings suggest that negative intergroup contact is less strongly related to sociotropic threat when individuals believe that people in their neighborhood are able to collectively address some negative situations (collective self‐efficacy).     

Self‐Report and Psychophysiological Responses to Fear Appeals

This study was designed to assess the relationship between self‐report and psychophysiological responses to fear appeals and behavioral changes elicited by these. Ninety‐two subjects watched one of four messages that varied in level of threat (high vs. low) and efficacy (high vs. low). Concomitantly, psychophysiological measures (heart rate and skin conductance) were registered. Perceived threat and efficacy varied according to the characteristics of the message. High‐threat messages elicited significantly different levels of autonomic arousal than low‐threat messages. Following of behavioral recommendation was higher among subjects who were exposed to the high threat / high efficacy stimulus, those who reported high perceived threat, and for those who showed an autonomic response pattern related to the facilitation of attentional processes.     

The threat of moral transgression: The impact of group membership and moral opportunity

When other ingroup members behave immorally, people's motivation to maintain a moral group image may cause them to experience increased threat and act defensively in response. In the current research, we investigated people's reactions to others' misconduct and examined the effect of group membership and the possible threat‐reducing function of moral opportunity—the prospect of being able to re‐establish the group's moral image. In Study 1, students who were confronted with fellow students' plagiarism and who received an opportunity to improve their group's morality reported feeling less threatened than students who did not receive such opportunity. In Study 2, students reacted to a recent academic fraud case, which either implicated an ingroup (scholar in their own discipline) or an outgroup member (scholar in another discipline). Results indicated that participants experienced more threat when an ingroup (versus an outgroup) member had committed the moral transgression. However, as hypothesized, this was not the case when moral opportunity was provided. Hence, the threat‐reducing effect of moral opportunity was replicated. Additionally, participants generally were more defensive in response to ingroup (versus outgroup) moral failure and less defensive when moral opportunity was present (versus absent). Together, these findings suggest that the reduction of threat due to moral opportunity may generally help individuals take constructive action when the behavior of fellow group members discredits the group's moral image.     

When a threat to the brand is a threat to the self: the importance of brand identification and implicit self-esteem in predicting defensiveness

This research examines how people respond when a commercial brand they identify with is threatened. Across four studies, the authors found that among participants who identified with a brand, a threat to the brand elicited the same responses as a threat to the self. Specifically, participants with low implicit self-esteem defended the brand when the self was activated, unlike their high implicit self-esteem counterparts. In addition, brand defense was reduced when individuals had the opportunity to affirm a valued aspect of their self-concept. These findings suggest that when a brand that people identify with is threatened, they may defend the brand to preserve the integrity of the self. More broadly, these findings are consistent with the notion that brands may be included into the extended self-concept, which supports William James's original ideas concerning the breadth and heterogeneity of the self.     

“This doesn’t look too hard”: A mixed methods exploration of self‐efficacy and sources of self‐efficacy information in a novel puzzle task

Studies have found self‐efficacy to be a key predictor of performance across domains (e.g., Feltz & Magyar, 2006; Judge & Bono, 2001). However, few studies have examined how self‐efficacy and the sources of self‐efficacy information change over time, and most of these studies utilized tasks participants were familiar or experienced with. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine how participants weighed and interpreted the sources of self‐efficacy information during initial learning of a novel puzzle task. A secondary aim was to explore differences between student‐athletes and non‐athletes in the sources of self‐efficacy information. Sixty‐three college students completed measures of self‐efficacy, sources of self‐efficacy information, and performed trials of the Tower of Hanoi Puzzle, a wooden puzzle solving test requiring participants to move wooden pieces from one point to another in a specific order. Quantitative results revealed hierarchical performance self‐efficacy for the number of moves required and time required to solve the puzzle significantly changed across the four trials. Qualitative results indicated verbal and imaginal experiences were the two most prominent sources of participants’ self‐efficacy information on trial 1, but by trial 4 mastery experiences and verbal information were the most prominent sources, also suggesting that that the influence of self‐efficacy sources may change over time. Implications for practitioners to assist individuals with novel cognitive tasks are discussed.     

Elevated self‐esteem 12 months following a 10‐day developmental voyage

The following article examined elevated self‐esteem as a function of a 10‐day developmental voyage. Two studies were conducted. Study 1 demonstrated that participants who completed the voyage experienced elevated self‐esteem. Study 2 replicated and extended these results insofar as it revealed that (a) elevated self‐esteem was maintained 12 months following the voyage; and (b) increasing levels of perceived self‐efficacy and belonging (as assessed on the last day of the voyage), but not social support, each made a unique contribution to these effects. Together, these findings provide converging evidence to suggest that a 10‐day developmental voyage upon the Spirit of New Zealand promotes elevated self‐esteem that is maintained over time, and that perceived self‐efficacy and belonging contribute to this outcome.     

Anticipated Guilt as Behavioral Motivation

The current study posits that messages used to elicit behaviors to help unknown others must present substantial perceptions of a threat and efficacy to be successful. Given that many prosocial helping messages depict a threat to unknown others, the current investigation proposed that anticipated guilt is a motivating force behind individuals' willingness to engage in behaviors to avert the unknown‐other‐directed threat. Specifically, this study hypothesized that messages which induce substantial perceptions of (a) threat, (b) response‐efficacy, and (c) self‐efficacy would result in feelings of anticipated guilt that subsequently motivate behavioral intent and, ultimately, behaviors to avert the threat to unknown others and avoid the future guilt that they might feel personally. Brehm's (1966) psychological reactance theory, however, notes that such appeals might result in reactance and thus decrease compliance with a message's prescribed actions. Two research questions were posed to determine (a) whether or not individuals experience reactance and (b) what effect, if any, reactance has on compliance. Additionally, participants' accuracy in forecasting guilt was assessed. The proposed model and research questions were tested by focusing on the topic of bone marrow donation. Participants were assigned randomly to one of three message conditions (control and two experimental messages), completed a questionnaire and returned to complete a follow‐up survey 7–10 days later. The data were consistent with the proposed model, and additional findings indicated that participants did not experience psychological reactance and were not accurate when forecasting future feelings of guilt.     

Not All Hazards are Created Equal: The Significance of Hazards in Inattentional Blindness for Static Driving Scenes

Explaining how we attend to some objects and not others in real world environments remains a challenge for theories of attention. Driving is an ideal example of this, as it requires a complex synthesis of attentional processing, while still allowing attention to be captured by hazards. In the current study we employed a static inattentional blindness (IB) driving task in which participants were required to make decisions about the content of driving‐related scenarios. In a critical trial, an additional stimulus was added to the driving scenario. All unexpected stimuli were thematically consistent with a normal driving environment but varied in their level of hazard threat. Rates of IB were consistent with the level of hazard threat of the stimuli. The results are discussed in terms of semantic‐based attentional capture in driving, and models of IB.Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Influence of achievement goals and self‐efficacy on students' self‐regulation and performance

It is widely admitted that low self‐efficacy has a detrimental impact on the functioning and performance of a person mainly concerned with performance goals but has no impact when a person is mainly concerned with learning goals (Dweck, 1986 ). However, results from both correlational and experimental studies are divergent. Since these studies examined very few indicators of participants' cognitive functioning, they may have failed to detect those aspects that could be more vulnerable to a negative impact of the combination of performance goals and low self‐efficacy. Another concern is the lack of most studies to clearly distinguish the type of performance goal examined, particularly the performance‐avoidance versus the performance‐approach goal. In the current study, we decided to focus on performance‐approach and learning goals in order to examine how self‐efficacy intervenes in their effects on participants' self‐regulation and performance on a cognitive task. One hundred and forty participants (85 females and 55 males) were examined. They were randomly assigned either to the learning or the performance‐approach goals condition. In each condition, half of the participants received feedback aimed at inducing either high or low self‐efficacy beliefs with regard to the task prior to executing it aloud. Examination of participants' verbal reports, direct observation of some of their behaviours while solving the task, and responses to a retrospective questionnaire allowed the assessment of several indicators of their self‐regulation and performance. As already reported by many studies, self‐efficacy influenced various aspects of participants' self‐regulation and performance. However, contrary to Dweck's hypothesis ( 1986 ), when interaction effects between self‐efficacy and goals were observed, they always involved learning instead of performance‐approach goals. Findings of this study suggest that the nature of the goal might not matter as much as its personal significance or value.     

Are survival processing memory advantages based on ancestral priorities?

Recent research has suggested that our memory systems are especially tuned to process information according to its survival relevance, and that inducing problems of “ancestral priorities” faced by our ancestors should lead to optimal recall performance (Nairne & Pandeirada, Cognitive Psychology, 2010). The present study investigated the specificity of this idea by comparing an ancestor-consistent scenario and a modern survival scenario that involved threats that were encountered by human ancestors (e.g., predators) or threats from fictitious creatures (i.e., zombies). Participants read one of four survival scenarios in which the environment and the explicit threat were either consistent or inconsistent with ancestrally based problems (i.e., grasslands–predators, grasslands–zombies, city–attackers, city–zombies), or they rated words for pleasantness. After rating words based on their survival relevance (or pleasantness), the participants performed a free recall task. All survival scenarios led to better recall than did pleasantness ratings, but recall was greater when zombies were the threat, as compared to predators or attackers. Recall did not differ for the modern (i.e., city) and ancestral (i.e., grasslands) scenarios. These recall differences persisted when valence and arousal ratings for the scenarios were statistically controlled as well. These data challenge the specificity of ancestral priorities in survival-processing advantages in memory.     

The role of self‐esteem and anxiety in decision making for self versus others in relationships

Previous research has documented a tendency for people to make more risk‐seeking decisions for others than for themselves in relationship scenarios. Two experiments investigated whether this self–other difference is moderated by participants' self‐esteem and anxiety levels. In Experiment 1, lower self‐esteem and higher anxiety levels were associated with more risk‐averse choices for personal decisions but not for decisions for others. Therefore, participants with lower self‐esteem/higher anxiety showed greater self–other differences in comparison to participants with higher self‐esteem/lower anxiety levels. Experiment 2 demonstrated that this effect was largely mediated by participants' expectations of success and feelings about potential negative outcomes. These results are discussed in the context of “threats to the self,” with a central role played by anxiety and self‐esteem threats in personal decision making but not in decision making for others. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Imitation of Self‐Aggressive Behavior: An Experimental Test of the Contagion Hypothesis1

The purpose of the present study was to experimentally examine the influence of a self‐aggressive model on self‐aggressive behavior under controlled laboratory conditions. Participants (N= 94) were given the opportunity to self‐administer electric shock while competing with a fictitious opponent in a reaction‐time task. Participants observed the opponent self‐administer either increasingly intense shock (a self‐aggressive model) or constant low shocks (a non‐self‐aggressive model). Self‐aggression was defined as the intensity of shock that was self‐administered by participants. Results provide support for the notion that social information can influence the expression of self‐aggressive behavior. Specifically, participants attended to the opponent's shock choices in both model conditions, and chose shocks consistent with those of the observed model.