When partner caring leads to sharing: Partner responsiveness increases expressivity, but only for individuals with low self-esteem

Two studies examined whether perceiving a partner as responsive leads people to be more expressive with that partner, and whether the effects of perceived partner responsiveness on expressivity are moderated by self-esteem. In Study 1, female undergraduates with high or low self-esteem disclosed to a fictitious partner about a sad event. Participants either received an understanding, caring, and validating written response from their ostensible partner or did not receive a response. In Study 2, participants wrote an email, supposedly to another participant, about a sad event and received either a highly responsive or a non-responsive email response. In both studies, partner responsiveness increased expressivity among individuals with low self-esteem but not among individuals with high self-esteem. These results provide the first experimental evidence for Reis and Shaver's (1988) theorizing about responsiveness and self-disclosure.     

Exploring body weight, voluntary activity, and intrinsic value in rats

Modeling activity-based anorexia, food-deprived rats consistently show that activity increases as weight decreases. This effect was explored in 8 food-deprived, Sprague-Dawley rats as potentially mediated by intrinsic value of activity. Running-wheel activity rates were recorded for free-fed weight, reduction to 90% of free-fed weight, and to 80% of free-fed weight. As expected, activity increased as weight decreased. Further, significant differences appeared in the trends of individual run rates when compared across all trials. These individual trends were expressed as varied rates of running, with extreme high and low run rates prevalent. The rewarding nature of exercise itself might serve to predict these trends in individual rats and reveal potential indicators for the development of activity-based anorexia.     

How do habits guide behavior? Perceived and actual triggers of habits in daily life

What are the psychological mechanisms that trigger habits in daily life? Two studies reveal that strong habits are influenced by context cues associated with past performance (e.g., locations) but are relatively unaffected by current goals. Specifically, performance contexts—but not goals—automatically triggered strongly habitual behaviors in memory (Experiment 1) and triggered overt habit performance (Experiment 2). Nonetheless, habits sometimes appear to be linked to goals because people self-perceive their habits to be guided by goals. Furthermore, habits of moderate strength are automatically influenced by goals, yielding a curvilinear, U-shaped relation between habit strength and actual goal influence. Thus, research that taps self-perceptions or moderately strong habits may find habits to be linked to goals.     

Anxiety, advice, and the ability to discern: feeling anxious motivates individuals to seek and use advice

Across 8 experiments, the influence of anxiety on advice seeking and advice taking is described. Anxious individuals are found to be more likely to seek and rely on advice than are those in a neutral emotional state (Experiment 1), but this pattern of results does not generalize to other negatively valenced emotions (Experiment 2). The relationships between anxiety and advice seeking and anxiety and advice taking are mediated by self-confidence; anxiety lowers self-confidence, which increases advice seeking and reliance upon advice (Experiment 3). Although anxiety also impairs information processing, impaired information processing does not mediate the relationship between anxiety and advice taking (Experiment 4). Finally, anxious individuals are found to fail to discriminate between good and bad advice (Experiments 5a-5c), and between advice from advisors with and without a conflict of interest (Experiment 6).     

How Are Personality Judgments Made? A Cognitive Model of Reference Group Effects,Personality Scale Responses,and Behavioral Reactions

This article suggests that personality judgments are wholly relative, being the outcome of a comparison of a given individual to a reference group of others. The underlying comparison processes are the same as those used to judge psychophysical stimuli (as outlined by range frequency theory and decision by sampling accounts). Five experimental studies show that the same person's personality is rated differently depending on how his or her behavior (a) ranks within a reference group and (b) falls within the overall range of behavior shown by other reference group members. Results were invariant across stimulus type and response options (7-point Likert scale, 990-point allocation task, or dichotomous choice). Simulated occupational scenarios led participants to give different-sized bonuses and employ different people as a function of context. Future research should note that personality judgments (as in self-report personality scales) only represent perceived standing relative to others or alternatively should measure personality through behavior or biological reactivity. Personality judgments cannot be used to compare different populations when the population participants have different reference groups (as in cross-cultural research).     

Managing motivational conflict: How self-esteem and executive resources influence self-regulatory responses to risk

This article explores how self-esteem and executive resources interact to determine responses to motivational conflict. One correlational and 3 experimental studies investigated the hypothesis that high and low self-esteem people undertake different self-regulatory strategies in "risky" situations that afford opportunity to pursue competing goals and that carrying out these strategies requires executive resources. When such resources are available, high self-esteem people respond to risk by prioritizing and pursuing approach goals, whereas low self-esteem people prioritize avoidance goals. However, self-esteem does not influence responses to risk when executive resources are impaired. In these studies, risk was operationalized by exposing participants to a relationship threat (Studies 1 and 2), by using participants' self-reported marital conflict (Study 3), and by threatening academic competence (Study 4). Executive resources were operationalized as cognitive load (Studies 1 and 2), working memory capacity (Study 3), and resource depletion (Study 4). When executive resources were ample, high self-esteem people responded to interpersonal risk by making more positive relationship evaluations (Studies 1, 2, and 3) and making more risky social comparisons following a personal failure (Study 4) than did low self-esteem people. Self-esteem did not predict participants' responses when executive resources were impaired or when risk was absent. The regulatory function of self-esteem may be more resource-dependent than has been previously theorized. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).     

Rumination and the Displacement of Aggression in United Kingdom Gang‐Affiliated Youth

The concept of gang aggression oftentimes elicits images of brutal intergang violence. In reality, gang‐related aggression can vary widely, can have various motivations and causal factors, and includes interpersonal as well as intergroup aggression. This study examined the tendency of UK youth to engage in displaced aggression (aggression aimed at undeserving targets) and examined the relationship among gang affiliation, ruminative thought, and aggression levels. Students in three London schools were asked to complete a questionnaire that assessed levels of gang affiliation, rumination about aversive events, and a tendency to engage in displaced aggression. Our analyses found a three‐way interaction between gang affiliation, rumination, and gender, such that males who were high in affiliation and rumination had the greatest tendency to displace aggression toward innocent others. Additionally, it was shown that rumination could account for a significant part of the correlation between gang affiliation and displaced aggression. Furthermore, regression analyses showed that even after controlling for trait aggression, anger, hostility, and irritability, rumination remained a significant predictor of displaced aggression. The implications for understanding gang‐related aggression and for conducting future research in this area were discussed. Aggr. Behav. 38:89‐97, 2012. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Emotional self-efficacy moderates anxiety-related impairments in math performance in elementary school-age youth

Excessive anxiety is associated with impairments in academic achievement. However, not all children with elevated anxiety share an equal risk for academic difficulty. The current study investigated whether individual differences in emotional self-efficacy - confidence in one’s ability to regulate negative emotions - protected against anxiety-related impairments in a standardized math exam in a sample of elementary school youth (N = 139). Results indicated that anxiety negatively predicted math test performance only for children with low levels of emotional self-efficacy. Students reporting high levels of emotional self-efficacy did not show anxiety-related decrements on the test performance. Emotional self-efficacy appears useful in managing negative effects of anxiety.     

Positive and negative appraisals of the consequences of activated states uniquely relate to symptoms of hypomania and depression

Individuals may appraise internal states positively or negatively. Positive appraisals involve desiring or pursuing the state or experience, while negative appraisals involve dreading or avoiding the experience. The extent to which individuals make extreme positive or negative appraisals of high, activated, energetic states might determine whether they experience symptoms of high or low mood. This study extends the existing literature by considering the role of opposing appraisals and beliefs about the same internal states and by controlling for the potential correlation between depression and activation symptoms. Extreme, positive and negative appraisals of activated mood states related distinctly to experiences of activation and depression symptoms respectively, in an analogue sample (n=323). Positive appraisals of activated internal states were uniquely associated with elevated activation and hypomania symptoms. Negative appraisals of the same states were uniquely associated with elevated depression symptoms. Opposing appraisals of internal states may underlie mood swing symptoms.