Empathy and the Self-Absorption Paradox II: Self-Rumination and Self-Reflection as Mediators Between Shame,Guilt, and Empathy

The present study tested the hypothesis that proneness to shame would predict self-rumination (and personal distress) whereas proneness to guilt would predict self-reflection (and perspective taking, and empathic concern). Results supported the majority of these predictions, and revealed that self-reflection mediates the relationship between guilt and perspective taking. Additional results provided some support for the hypothesis that self-rumination mediates the relationship between shame and personal distress. However, results also revealed that shame mediated the relationship between self-rumination and personal distress, suggesting that shame and self-rumination may feed each other within a reciprocal cycle that is likely to result in a maladaptive empathic response (i.e., personal distress). Empathic concern was associated with higher levels of guilt, but results failed to replicate earlier findings demonstrating a positive relationship between empathic concern and self-reflection. The present results replicate and extend past research and suggest several promising avenues for future research.     

Evidence for mixed feelings of happiness and sadness from brief moments in time

Theorists disagree about whether valence is a basic building block of affective experience or whether the positive and negative substrates underlying valence are separable in experience. If positivity and negativity are separable in experience, people should be able to feel happy and sad at the same time. We addressed limitations of earlier evidence for mixed feelings by collecting moment-to-moment measures of happiness and sadness that required participants to monitor their feelings only occasionally. In Study 1, participants were occasionally cued to press one button if they felt happy and another if they felt sad. Participants spent more time reporting mixed feelings (i.e., simultaneously pressing both buttons) during bittersweet scenes than non-bittersweet scenes. In Study 2, participants reported their feelings only once. Participants spent more time reporting mixed feelings when cued during a bittersweet, as opposed to non-bittersweet, scene. These results extend earlier evidence that happiness and sadness can co-occur.     

Using paired-choice assessment to identify variables maintaining sleep problems in a child with severe disabilities

In this study, we used a paired-choice assessment protocol to identify the relative reinforcing value of stimuli and activities for a child with severe disabilities when she failed to settle to sleep at night. The results of this assessment indicated that the child preferred the mother's attention relative to other activities presented. Assessment results were incorporated into an intervention, that produced a reduction in sleep disturbance that was maintained at a 12-month follow up.     

Why do people need self-esteem? A theoretical and empirical review

Terror management theory (TMT; J. Greenberg, T. Pyszczynski, & S. Solomon, 1986) posits that people are motivated to pursue positive self-evaluations because self-esteem provides a buffer against the omnipresent potential for anxiety engendered by the uniquely human awareness of mortality. Empirical evidence relevant to the theory is reviewed showing that high levels of self-esteem reduce anxiety and anxiety-related defensive behavior, reminders of one's mortality increase self-esteem striving and defense of self-esteem against threats in a variety of domains, high levels of self-esteem eliminate the effect of reminders of mortality on both self-esteem striving and the accessibility of death-related thoughts, and convincing people of the existence of an afterlife eliminates the effect of mortality salience on self-esteem striving. TMT is compared with other explanations for why people need self-esteem, and a critique of the most prominent of these, sociometer theory, is provided.     

The agony of victory and thrill of defeat: Mixed emotional reactions to disappointing wins and relieving losses

Because of counterfactual comparisons, good outcomes that could have been better (i.e., disappointing wins) and bad outcomes that could have been worse (i.e., relieving losses) elicit relatively middling ratings on bipolar emotion scales. We conducted two experiments with gambles to examine whether such outcomes elicit neutral emotions, sequentially mixed emotions of positive and negative affect, or simultaneously mixed emotions. In Experiment 1, static unipolar measures of positive and negative affect revealed that disappointing wins and relieving losses elicit mixed emotions, rather than relatively neutral emotions. In Experiment 2, participants provided continuous unipolar measures of positive and negative affect by pressing one button whenever they felt good and another button whenever they felt bad. Results revealed that disappointing wins and relieving losses elicit positive and negative affect simultaneously, rather than in alternation.     

Good citizens to the end? It depends: empathy and concern with future consequences moderate the impact of a short-term time horizon on organizational citizenship behaviors

Organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) can be viewed as a social dilemma in which short-term employee sacrifice leads to long-term organizational benefits. With 3 studies, the authors evaluated a set of interrelated hypotheses based on a social dilemma analysis of OCBs. In Study 1, participants rated OCBs as costly to an employee in the short run and beneficial to an organization in the long run, indicating that OCBs were viewed as social dilemmas. In Studies 2 and 3, self-reported (Study 2) and supervisor-rated (Study 3) likelihood of engaging in OCBs was higher among those who adopted a long-term horizon within an organization and those high in empathy (M. H. Davis, 1983). Most important, a short-term time horizon led to a steeper decline in OCBs among employees low in empathy and those concerned with the future consequences of their actions.     

Being bad isn't always good: affective context moderates the attention bias toward negative information

Research has demonstrated that people automatically devote more attention to negative information than to positive information. The authors conducted 3 experiments to test whether this bias is attenuated by a person's affective context. Specifically, the authors primed participants with positive and negative information using traditional (e.g., subliminal semantic priming) and nontraditional (e.g., social interactions) means and measured the amount of attention they allocated to positive and negative information. With both event-related brain potentials (Experiment 1) and the Stroop task (Experiments 2 and 3), results suggest that the attention bias to negative information is attenuated or eliminated when positive constructs are made accessible. The implications of this result for other biases to negative information and for the self-reinforcing nature of emotional disorders are discussed.     

Teaching 'Yes' and 'No' responses to children with multiple disabilities through a program including microswitches linked to a vocal output device

The present study introduced two children (a boy and a girl of 9.2 and 12.3 yr. of age, respectively, with multiple disabilities) to an intervention program for establishing Yes and No responses in relation to preferred and nonpreferred stimuli and assessed the acquisition and generalization of those responses. The program involved the use of microswitches, which monitored the nonverbal Yes and No responses performed by the children and ensured that these responses produced the matching verbal utterances via a vocal output device. Analysis showed children acquired Yes and No responses in relation to the stimuli used for the intervention and, to a comparable degree, to the stimuli used for generalization checks as well. An interview of 30 educational staff of a center for persons with multiple disabilities indicated that they considered the presence of Yes and No verbal utterances preferable to the absence of such utterances, and thought that the utterances could be helpful for the children's response acquisition and would be useful and pleasing for staff and parents. General implications of the findings were discussed.     

A brief account of statistical tests for single-case research with persons with developmental disabilities

Education and rehabilitation research with persons with developmental disabilities is often based on single-case designs (with small numbers of ordinal data points collected at irregular intervals) and relies upon graphic display and visual inspection of the data. This paper (a) provides a brief account of some statistical tests, which may serve to supplement the visual inspection process and (b) underlines some of their strengths and limitations to help education and rehabilitation personnel make a reasonable choice among them.