Predicting Self‐Confident Behaviour with Implicit and Explicit Self‐Esteem Measures

The present research compared the validity of popular direct and indirect measures of self‐esteem in predicting self‐confident behaviour in different social situations. In line with behavioural dual‐process models, both implicit and explicit self‐esteem were hypothesized to be related to appearing self‐confident to unacquainted others. A total of 127 participants responded to the Rosenberg Self‐Esteem Scale, the Multidimensional Self‐Esteem Scale, and an adjective scale for measuring explicit self‐esteem (ESE). Participants' implicit self‐esteem (ISE) was assessed with four indirect measures: the Implicit Association Test (IAT), the name‐letter task (NLT), and two variants of an affective priming task, the reaction‐time affective priming task (RT‐APT) and the error‐based affective priming task (EB‐APT). Self‐confident behaviour was observed in four different social situations: (i) self‐introduction to a group; (ii) an ostracism experience; (iii) an interview about the ostracism experience; and (iv) an interview about one's personal life. In general, appearing self‐confident to unknown others was independently predicted by ESE and ISE. The indirect measures of self‐esteem were, as expected, not correlated, and only the self‐esteem APTs—but not the self‐esteem IAT or the NLT—predicted self‐confident behaviours. It is important to note that in particular the predictive power of the self‐esteem EB‐APT pertained to all four criteria and was incremental to the ESE measures. Copyright © 2016 European Association of Personality Psychology     

Relationships between time of day,day of the week,and positive mood: Exploring the role of the mood measure

This study examined the relationship between time of day, day of the week, and two measures of positive affect (PA). According to previous research and the circumplex model of affect, one scale was designed to assess the activation component of PA, and the other one measured the pleasantness aspect. Subjects rated their mood three times a day for 7 consecutive days. Consistent with our hypotheses, PA-Pleasantness showed a peak on the weekend, whereas PA-Activation remained stable throughout the week. Regarding time of day, maximum PA-Activation was reached in the afternoon. In contrast, the Pleasantness component of PA increased from morning to evening. Implications of these results as well as other findings concerning the differential content of PA measures are discussed regarding the fact that a certain scale is most appropriate and maximally valid for representing certain aspects of affective experience.We would like to thank two anonymous reviewers and the associate editor, Robert A. Baron, for their constructive comments on an earlier version of this article.     

"I know you self-handicapped last exam": gender differences in reactions to self-handicapping

Past research has shown that self-handicapping involves the trade-off of ability-related attributional benefits for interpersonal costs. Study 1 examined whether perceiver or target sex moderates impressions of self-handicapping targets. Although target sex was not an important factor, female perceivers were consistently more critical of behavioral self-handicappers. Two additional studies replicated this gender difference with variations of the handicap. Study 3 examined the motives inferred by perceivers and found that women not only view self-handicappers as more unmotivated but also report greater suspicion of self-handicapping motives; furthermore, these differences in perceived motives mediated sex differences in reactions to self-handicappers. Implications for the effectiveness of self-handicapping as an impression management strategy are discussed.     

Stability and change of personality across the life course: the impact of age and major life events on mean-level and rank-order stability of the Big Five

Does personality change across the entire life course, and are those changes due to intrinsic maturation or major life experiences? This longitudinal study investigated changes in the mean levels and rank order of the Big Five personality traits in a heterogeneous sample of 14,718 Germans across all of adulthood. Latent change and latent moderated regression models provided 4 main findings: First, age had a complex curvilinear influence on mean levels of personality. Second, the rank-order stability of Emotional Stability, Extraversion, Openness, and Agreeableness all followed an inverted U-shaped function, reaching a peak between the ages of 40 and 60 and decreasing afterward, whereas Conscientiousness showed a continuously increasing rank-order stability across adulthood. Third, personality predicted the occurrence of several objective major life events (selection effects) and changed in reaction to experiencing these events (socialization effects), suggesting that personality can change due to factors other than intrinsic maturation. Fourth, when events were clustered according to their valence, as is commonly done, effects of the environment on changes in personality were either overlooked or overgeneralized. In sum, our analyses show that personality changes throughout the life span, but with more pronounced changes in young and old ages, and that this change is partly attributable to social demands and experiences.     

Early-Onset Bipolar Spectrum Disorders: Diagnostic Issues

Since the mid 1990s, early-onset bipolar spectrum disorders (BPSDs) have received increased attention in both the popular press and scholarly press. Rates of diagnosis of BPSD in children and adolescents have increased in inpatient, outpatient, and primary care settings. BPSDs remain difficult to diagnose, particularly in youth. The current diagnostic system makes few modifications to accommodate children and adolescents. Researchers in this area have developed specific BPSD definitions that affect the generalizability of their findings to all youth with BPSD. Despite knowledge gains from the research, BPSDs are still difficult to diagnose because clinicians must: (1) consider the impact of the child’s developmental level on symptom presentation (e.g., normative behavior prevalence, environmental limitations on youth behavior, pubertal status, irritability, symptom duration); (2) weigh associated impairment and course of illness (e.g., neurocognitive functioning, failing to meet full DSM criteria, future impairment); and (3) make decisions about appropriate assessment (differentiating BPSD from medical illnesses, medications, drug use, or other psychiatric diagnoses that might better account for symptoms; comorbid disorders; informant characteristics and assessment measures to use). Research findings concerning these challenges and relevant recommendations are offered. Areas for further research to guide clinicians’ assessment of children with early-onset BPSD are highlighted. Principal Investigators and Coinvestigators of Longitudinal Assessment of Manic Symptoms (LAMS) Group are listed in Appendix.     

What Is and Is Not Ethnocentrism? A Conceptual Analysis and Political Implications

Conceptual analysis has not been systematically implemented in psychology, and many concepts have often been defined in different and contradictory ways. This article focuses on a conceptual clarification of ethnocentrism. It points out the conceptual confusion surrounding the term, reviews numerous definitions and operationalizations, and attempts to clarify it. Ethnocentrism is reconceptualized as a strong sense of ethnic group self‐centeredness, which involves intergroup expressions of ethnic group preference, superiority, purity, and exploitativeness, and intragroup expressions of ethnic group cohesion and devotion. It is conceptually and empirically distinguished from other concepts, such as outgroup negativity and mere ingroup positivity. The article presents a theoretical framework and related empirical analyses supporting the usefulness of reconceptualized ethnocentrism. It also details important and unique implications of reconceptualized ethnocentrism for political phenomena. It is expected that reliance on the clarified reconceptualization should enable researchers to systematically study ethnocentrism, its origins, and consequences.     

Measuring task-switching ability in the Implicit Association Test

Recently, the role of method-specific variance in the Implicit Association Test (IAT) was examined (McFarland & Crouch, 2002; Mierke & Klauer, 2003). This article presents a new content-unspecific control task for the assessment of task-switching ability within the IAT methodology. Study 1 showed that this task exhibited good internal consistency and stability. Studies 2-4 examined method-specific variance in the IAT and showed that the control task is significantly associated with conventionally scored IAT effects of the IAT-Anxiety. Using the D measures proposed by Greenwald, Nosek, and Banaji (2003), the amount of method-specific variance in the IAT-Anxiety could be reduced. Possible directions for future research are outlined.