Physical aggression as a function of objective self-awareness and attitudes toward punishment

Based on a theory of self-awareness, it was hypothesized that subjects would use their attitudes to determine their behaviors when (a) that attitude was salient and (b) their attention was directed toward themselves. Subjects, who on questionnaires had indicated that they opposed or condoned the use of punishment, were given the opportunity to shock a male confederate in two (bogus) learning experiments. Each subject was instructed to use his own attitude in choosing shocks to punish incorrect responses. Self-awareness was increased among half the subjects by the presence of a mirror. In each experiment a Punitiveness by self-awareness interaction resulted: High Punitive-Mirror subjects shocked higher than Low Punitive-Mirror subjects, but their respective No Mirror controls did not differ from each other.     

Facilitation of physical aggression through objective self-awareness

Based on a theory of self-awareness it was hypothesized that induced attention to the self would facilitate aggression if the salient standard of behavior was one in which high aggression was positively valued. Female subjects were given an opportunity to shock a male confederate of the experimenter in a presumed learning experiment. Self-awareness was induced in half the subjects by the presence of a mirror. The Mirror group delivered significantly higher shocks to the confederate than did the No-Mirror control group.     

Outcome expectancy,locus of attribution for expectancy,and self-directed attention as determinants of evaluations and performance

Are internal versus external attributions of responsibility for prior outcomes important determinants of subsequent performances? or is their effect limited to influencing the affective and evaluative experiences that are associated with the task outcomes? Recent theoretical statements appear to differ on this issue. The present study examined the question, while at the same time testing the influence of self-directed attention on the process under investigation. Subjects attempted a series of mazes in collaboration with an ostensible cosubject (actually a confederate). The pair experienced either three consecutive sucesses or three consecutive failures. Subjects were led to perceive the responsibility for these outcomes as residing primarily with themselves or primarily with their partner. Self-focus was manipulated (by a mirror) prior to attempting a fourth maze and completing a set of rating scales. Success-condition subjects performed better on the fourth maze in the mirror's presence than in its absence, whereas failure-condition subjects tended to perform more poorly in the mirror's presence than in its absence. The manipulation of internal versus external attributions did not influence behavior, but did influence subjects' affective and evaluative reactions to themselves and their partner. Discussion centers on the relationship between these findings and other recent findings in the areas of attribution and achievement-related behavior.     

Generalization, Adverse Events, and Development of Depressive Symptoms

Many diathesis-stress models have been proposed in which cognitive processes of various types are presumed to represent vulnerabilities to development of depressive symptoms. This study tested three potential vulnerabilities as prospective predictors of such symptoms: the holding of especially high standards, the tendency to be self-critical after failure, and the tendency to generalize from a single failure to the broader sense of self-worth. At the start of a semester, college students completed a measure of these cognitive tendencies and a measure of depressive symptoms. Six weeks later they completed the same measure of depressive symptoms and a brief measure of intervening life events. Hierarchical regression analysis yielded evidence that Generalization interacted with adverse events to predict subsequent depressive symptoms. Self-Criticism also tended to predict later symptoms, but only if the symptoms were present initially. High Standards had no adverse effect.     

Effects of amount of attention allocated to the location of visual stimulus pairs on perception of simultaneity

This study examined whether a change in the amount of attention equally allocated to two locations affects judgments of the simultaneity or successiveness of stimuli presented at those locations. Observers were cued to expect two brief flashes either to the left and right of fixation or above and below fixation. Stimulus onset asynchrony was randomly varied. On a small proportion of trials, the stimuli appeared at the unexpected locations. Observers were more likely to report the stimuli as simultaneous when they appeared in the unexpected locations. A model proposed to account for the data assumes that a brief stimulus event is represented by a probability distribution reflecting the uncertainty in determining the time of the event’s occurrence, and two events are judged to be simultaneous if they are perceived to fall within some critical temporal interval, c, which is a function of the amount of attention allocated to the task.     

Self-focused attention and the placebo effect: Fooling some of the people some of the time

An experiment tested the hypothesis that mirror-induced self-awareness would minimize a “placebo” effect. Some subjects were led to believe that a drug that they were about to ingest would produce arousal symptoms as a side effect. Self-aware subjects in this condition subsequently reported experiencing less arousal from the placebo, and fewer of the side effects ascribed to it, than did less self-aware subjects. Discussion centered on the implications of these findings for placebo research and implications for two common alternative interpretations of self-awareness effects.     

Serotonergic function, two-mode models of self-regulation, and vulnerability to depression: what depression has in common with impulsive aggression

Evidence from diverse literatures supports the viewpoint that two modes of self-regulation exist, a lower-order system that responds quickly to associative cues of the moment and a higher-order system that responds more reflectively and planfully; that low serotonergic function is linked to relative dominance of the lower-order system; that how dominance of the lower-order system is manifested depends on additional variables; and that low serotonergic function therefore can promote behavioral patterns as divergent as impulsive aggression and lethargic depression. Literatures reviewed include work on two-mode models; studies of brain function supporting the biological plausibility of the two-mode view and the involvement of serotonergic pathways in functions pertaining to it; and studies relating low serotonergic function to impulsiveness, aggression (including extreme violence), aspects of personality, and depression vulnerability. Substantial differences between depression and other phenomena reviewed are interpreted by proposing that depression reflects both low serotonergic function and low reward sensitivity. The article closes with brief consideration of the idea that low serotonergic function relates to even more diverse phenomena, whose natures depend in part on sensitivities of other systems.     

Psychoanalysis, the brain, and amazing grace

Believing that there are many paths to wholeness, the author attempts to investigate three seemingly diverse concepts of healing--spirituality, psychoanalysis, and brain biology. He demonstrates how these three modes may have more in common than often has been historically recognized and this leads him to celebrate that reality.