Disquotationalism, reference, and object dependence

In this paper I consider whether disquotationalist accounts of reference can accommodate our intuitions concerning reference. I argue that, if our intuitions are to be satisfactorily accommodated, the disquotationalist must regard the semantic content of a referring singular term as depending upon the object which is the intuitive referent of that singular term. Granted this, however, the way then looks open for the inflationist about reference to simply identify the object dependence relation with the reference relation. I consider how damaging this is for the disquotationalist, and how she might respond, concluding on a note of pessimism for disquotationalist accounts of reference.     

Expressiveness does predict well-being

Previous studies of sex role and well-being have yielded mixed results on the relationship between expressive traits and well-being. This may be due to methodological inconsistencies, problems inherent in early sex role inventories, and narrow definitions of well-being. This study assessed the relationship between the instrumental and expressive traits on the Short Bem Sex Role Inventory (SBSRI) and a composite picture of well-being, including depression, positive affect, affect balance, life satisfaction, and affect intensity, in a sample of primarily white middle-class college students. The two scales of the SBSRI predicted most aspects of well-being equally well, yielding two independent main effects. The expressive scale was the only significant predictor of affect intensity. Expressiveness scores were positively correlated with affect intensity overall, and with positive affect intensity in particular. It is suggested that the SBSRI is tapping two factors of a general positive self-schema, rather than sex role per se.Funds for this study were provided by the University of Pennsylvania Psychology Department. Many thanks to Martin Seligman and Janet Spence for their helpful comments on several drafts. Thanks also to Jay Hull and George Wolford for their help with statistical queries.     

Expressiveness in musical emotions

This study was designed to investigate how emotion category, characterized by distinct musical structures (happiness, sadness, threat) and expressiveness (mechanical, expressive) may influence overt and covert behavioral judgments and physiological responses in musically trained and untrained listeners. Mechanical and expressive versions of happy, sad and scary excerpts were presented while physiological measures were recorded. Participants rated the intensity of the emotion they felt. In addition, they monitored excerpts for the presence of brief breaths. Results showed that the emotion categories were rated higher in the expressive than in the mechanical versions and that this effect was larger in musicians. Moreover, expressive excerpts were found to increase skin conductance level more than the mechanical ones, independently of their arousal value, and to slow down response times in the breath detection task relative to the mechanical versions, suggesting enhanced capture of attention by expressiveness. Altogether, the results support the key role of the performer’s expression in the listener’s emotional response to music.     

Sex,Sex Roles,and Emotional Expressiveness

Differences in emotional expressiveness between males and females have generally been attributed to sex-role socialization, but most studies have not included measures of sex-role orientation. We hypothesized that sex role would be a more salient factor than sex and that androgynous and feminine persons would be more expressive than masculine and undifferentiated individuals. Data were gathered from 230 college students using Bem's (1975) Sex-Role Inventory and Balswick's (1975) Expression of Emotion Scale. Both hypotheses were supported.     

Parents' Expressiveness and Young Children's Emotion Decoding With Parents and Unknown Adults

The authors investigated young children's ability to decode the emotions of happiness and anger expressed by their parent and an adult stranger. Parents and adult strangers (encoders) were videotaped while describing events that had elicited happiness or anger. Children viewed brief clips edited from these videotapes and indicated the emotion that their parent or the stranger was expressing. With male encoders, only children's age predicted accuracy. With female encoders, mothers' expressive style and children's age interacted to predict children's decoding accuracy. Compared with older children of less positively expressive mothers, older children of more positively expressive mothers were more accurate overall, because they were better at recognizing happiness. In general, children were no more or less accurate in decoding their parent's emotions than they were in decoding an unknown adult's emotions.     

Coping Styles,Pain Expressiveness,and Implicit Theories of Chronic Pain

Whereas some individuals use active coping strategies and are able to adaptively cope with their pain, others use passive strategies and catastrophic appraisals, which are often associated with increased displays of pain behavior and negative pain-related outcomes. To investigate attribution-based implicit theories as a potential underlying mechanism that might affect coping success, we hypothesized that pain patients with an incremental implicit theory of pain (i.e., view pain as malleable) would have more active coping strategies, lower levels of pain expressiveness, and better pain-related outcomes than those with an entity implicit theory of pain (i.e., view pain as nonmalleable). Patients with chronic back pain undergoing a functional assessment completed a variety of self-report measures and participated in a pain-inducing physiotherapy procedure. The results revealed those with an incremental theory of pain used more active coping strategies, displayed less pain behavior, and reported better pain-related outcomes (e.g., lower levels of depression) than individuals with an entity theory of pain. The findings suggest implicit theories of pain may represent an underlying social-cognitive mechanism linked to important coping, emotional, and expressive reactions to chronic pain. Identifying such a mechanism may provide valuable information for the assessment and treatment of chronic pain.     

Students' Perceptions of Expressiveness: Age and Gender Effects on Teacher Evaluations

In this study we investigated the relationship between college students' perceptions of professors' expressiveness and implicit age and gender stereotypes. Three hundred and fifty-two male and female students watched slides of an age- and gender-neutral stick figure and listened to a neutral voice presenting a lecture, and then evaluated it on teacher evaluation forms that indicated 1 of 4 different age and gender conditions (male, female, “old,” and “young”). Main and interaction effects indicated that students rated the “young” male professor higher than they did the “young” female, “old” male, and “old” female professors on speaking enthusiastically and using a meaningful voice tone during the class lecture regardless of the identical manner in which the material was presented. Implications of biased teacher-expressiveness items on student evaluations are discussed.     

Value Relevance and the Value-Attitude Relation: Value Expressiveness Versus Halo Effects

This study examined whether considering the relevance of values to an attitude issue differentiated between two processes potentially underlying the relations between undergraduates' general value priorities and their attitudes toward capital punishment and affirmative action: value expressiveness, whereby attitude express values, and halo effects, whereby attitudes affect perception of values. In line with findings that indicate the attitudes of low self-monitors (SMs) are value expressive, while those of high SMs are not, the impact of value relevance on the value-attitude relation differed for high and low SMs. Low SMs' attitudes were correlated only with those values deemed relevant to an attitude issue, while high SMs' attitudes were related to both relevant and irrelevant values. Regression analyses revealed that controlling for the relation between low SMs' attitudes and irrelevant values slightly increased the relation between their attitudes and relevant values. Controlling for the relation between high SMs' attitudes and irrelevant values, in contrast, decreased the strength of the relation between their attitudes and relevant values. This suggest the magnitude of the relation between attitudes and relevant values, after controlling for the extent to which attitudes are tied to irrelevant values, may reflect the extent to which attitudes are value expressive. The implications of these findings for the methods used to change values and attitudes are also discussed.     

Masculine Instrumentality and Feminine Expressiveness: Their Relationships with Sex Role Attitudes and Behaviors

Data from the Bern Sex Role Inventory (BSRI) and the Personal Attributes Questionnaire (PAQ) Masculinity and Femininity scales have led to the hypothesis that androgynous individuals are more "behaviorally flexible" than others, manifesting both masculine and feminine role behaviors. Sex-role androgyny is also said to have other beneficial consequences such as high self esteem. The content of these instruments, however, is largely confined to socially desirable instrumental (masculine) and expressive (feminine) personality traits. A review of the literature indicates that these abstract trait dimensions have only minimal relationships with sex-role attitudes and sex-role behaviors not tapping instrumentality and expressiveness, and provide little support for the general behavioral flexibility hypothesis. Although PAQ and BSRI findings cannot be generalized to sex-role behaviors in general, the literature suggests that instrumentality and expressiveness per se have important implications. Appreciation of their contributions may be advanced more rapidly if these trait dimensions are disentangled from global concepts of sex-roles or masculinity, femininity, and androgyny.     

Measured Increases in Male Emotional Expressiveness Following a Structured Group Intervention

This study investigated whether men age 30 to 50 are able to increase their level of affective expressiveness, as measured by both self-report and behavioral tests. Twenty-eight subjects, drawn from a pool of 42 volunteers who met the criteria for participation, were randomly selected and placed into experimental or control groups. Experimental group subjects participated in a multimodal group intervention based on Social Learning Theory principles and targeted at changing cognitive, affecfive, and behavioral components of expressiveness. Results of the analyses revealed significant group differences in expressiveness across measures. That is, men can learn to express their feelings given the proper conditions. The experimental group showed greater consistency between their self-reported and actual behavioral expressiveness than did the control group. The contrast between subjects' behavorial expressiveness and perceived frequency of expressiveness are considered. Implications for counseling are discussed.     

父母温暖与青少年情绪表达能力的关系:害羞和自尊的中介作用

采用父母教养方式问卷、情感交流能力测验(ACT)、Rosenberg自尊量表和害羞量表测量449名高中生。探讨害羞和自尊在父母温暖与青少年情绪表达能力之间的中介作用。结果表明:父母温暖与自尊和情绪表达能力均呈显著正相关、与害羞呈显著负相关;自尊与情绪表达能力呈显著正相关,而害羞与情绪表达能力呈显著负相关;自尊和害羞在父母温暖与情绪表达能力之间起部分中介作用。因此,父母温暖不仅可以直接影响青少年的情绪表达能力,也可以通过提高自尊或减少害羞进而有助于青少年情绪表达能力的发展。     

Paternal Family Expressiveness as a Mediator Between Father's Dispositional Optimism and Child's Dispositional Optimism

Although dispositional optimism serves as a resource for psychological and physical well-being, very little research has explored how to promote child dispositional optimism within the family context. The authors evaluated paternal emotional expressiveness within the family as a mediator of the association between father's and child's dispositional optimism. Participants were 422 father (M age = 44.97 years, SD = 4.21 years)–child (M age = 11.75 years, SD = 0.77 years) dyads in South Korea. Results showed that fathers’ dispositional optimism was positively linked to their expressiveness, which in turn was positively linked to their children's dispositional optimism. No significant gender or socioeconomic status differences were found. The findings have important implications for future research and for preventive interventions.     

母亲消极情绪表露与儿童焦虑的关系：有调节的中介模型

本研究以临沂市3所小学1173名一至六年级的学生及其母亲为被试,探讨了母亲消极情绪表露与儿童焦虑的关系,以及母子冲突和母子亲密在这一关系中的作用。采用家庭情绪表露问卷、亲子关系问卷、儿童焦虑性情绪障碍筛查表进行研究。结果表明：(1)母亲消极情绪表露与母子冲突、儿童焦虑两两显著正相关,母子亲密与母亲消极情绪表露、母子冲突、儿童焦虑的相关不显著;(2)母亲消极情绪表露显著正向预测儿童焦虑;(3)母子冲突在母亲消极情绪表露与儿童焦虑间起中介作用,且上述中介效应的后半段路径受到母子亲密的调节。     

When Situations Call for Instrumentality and Expressiveness: Resource Appraisal,Coping Strategy Choice,and Adjustment

The coping model of Holahan and Moos (1987) served as a framework for examining associations among resource appraisals, gender-role coping strategy choices, and adjustment in situations having salient social expectations for expressiveness and instrumentality (i.e., dual-expectation situations). Participants were 70 male and 124 female undergraduates. Appraisals of setting-specific social support availability and self-esteem were related to coping strategy choices. Androgynous copers had higher social support appraisals than instrumental or indeterminate copers and higher self-appraisals than indeterminate copers. Androgynous coping was (a) positively related to well-being at all levels of resource appraisals and (b) negatively related to stress at moderate and low levels of social support and all levels of self-esteem.

     

Integrating Expressiveness and Instrumentality in Real-Life Settings: A New Perspective on the Benefits of Androgyny

Personality trait research has failed to substantiate a link between androgyny and well-being. Using an alternate, social context approach, the present study investigated (a) positive and negative aspects of situations in which expectations for androgynous behavior were salient (dual expectation situations), and (b) associations between gender role coping strategies and well-being in these situations. Interviews were conducted with 124 female and 70 male undergraduates, most of whom were African American (14%) or White American (81%). Participants reported significantly more negative aspects of the process of coping with dual expectation situations and more positive aspects of the outcomes of the situations. Androgynous coping strategies were associated with greater positive well-being and lesser negative well-being than were instrumental or indeterminate strategies. Well-being scores of expressive strategists were not significantly different from those of androgynous strategists.