Social influences on cognitive processing in enacted social support: effects on receivers’ cognitive appraisals,emotion, and affiliation

Background and objectives. Social support is linked with psychological health, but its mechanisms are unclear. We examined supporters’ influence on recipients’ cognitive processing as a mechanism of effects of support on outcomes associated with depression.

Design/methods. 2?×?2 between-subjects experiment. 147 participants (1) experienced a negative event (false feedback); (2) received social support modeling one of two contrasting cognitive processing modes (abstract/evaluative or concrete/experiential); (3) generated explanations for the event, later coded for processing mode and internal/external causal attribution; and (4) reported on emotion, perceptions of self and future, and social affiliation. To examine relational effects, half of participants were led to perceive the supporter as similar to themselves via a shared birthday manipulation.

Results. Support condition influenced participants’ processing mode and causal attributions as predicted. Abstract/evaluative support led to more positive emotion and self-perceptions, and less pessimistic expectancies for the future than concrete/experiential support. Perceived similarity moderated effects on beliefs about an upcoming social interaction, magnifying positive affiliation outcomes of abstract/evaluative versus concrete/experiential support.

Conclusions. Processing modes that are generally maladaptive at the intrapersonal level may be adaptive (and vice versa) when they are interpersonally influenced, and perceived similarity may facilitate interpersonal effects of processing mode on affiliation.     

Family treatment approaches to drug abuse problems: a review.

This review covers the literature that has emerged specifically on the family treatment of drug abuse problems. Following a brief discussion of patterns and structures prevalent in drug-abusing families, 68 different studies or programs (discussed in 74 papers) are compared as to their techniques and results. These are categorized within the following modalities: marital treatment, group treatment for parents, concurrent parent and identified patient treatment, treatment with individual families (both inpatient and outpatient), sibling-oriented treatment, multiple family therapy, and social network therapy. A table presents the various studies, along with the types of results they provide. Outcomes are contrasted for the 14 studies that quantified their results. The final section presents implications for the following areas: treatment activities (clarification of technique, family recruitment, direction and effectiveness of treatment, confidentiality, and treatment delivery systems), training, prevention, and future research (outcome, technique and responsibility). It is concluded that family treatment for drug abuse is gaining widespread acceptance and shows considerable promise for dealing effectively with problems of this type.     

Private Eyes Are Watching You: Reactions to Location Sensing Technologies

Purpose  

This study explored reactions to location sensing technologies (LSTs) which enable organizations to track the location and movements of employees, even off-site. In particular, we examined the relationships among two monitoring characteristics (i.e., purpose and control), perceptions of privacy invasion, and monitoring fairness.     

Social comparison and adjustment to breast cancer: an experimental examination of upward affiliation and downward evaluation.

In a study designed to evaluate the divergence of social comparison activities under health threat, breast cancer patients (n = 94) were assigned randomly to listen to an audiotaped interview in which the target's psychological adjustment and disease prognosis were manipulated to reflect good, poor, and unspecified psychological and physical health status. Results supported hypotheses regarding downward self-evaluative and upward affiliative comparison activity, as well as predictions regarding the influences of comparison dimension. With regard to desire for affiliation, participants demonstrated a greater desire for information and emotional support from the well-adjusted target than from the poorly adjusted target. Self-evaluation of adjustment and prognosis varied as a function of target characteristics, although a pervasive tendency toward downward comparison in self-evaluation also was noted.     

Effects of acceptance-oriented versus evaluative emotional processing on heart rate recovery and habituation

The effects of emotional processing on stress response trajectories may depend on the nature of processing, as evaluative rumination about emotions can prolong distress. In contrast, observing negative emotions in an accepting manner may promote efficient recovery from stressful situations. The present study examined the effect of acceptance-oriented versus evaluative emotional processing on cardiovascular habituation and recovery. Across two experimental sessions, 81 participants were randomly assigned to write about an ongoing stressful experience while either (1) evaluating the appropriateness of their emotional response (EVAL), (2) attending to their emotions in an accepting way (ACC), or (3) describing the objective details of the experience (CTL). Heart rate was assessed continuously throughout baseline, writing, and recovery. Results suggest that writing about emotions in an evaluative way leads to less efficient heart rate habituation and recovery than processing emotions in an accepting manner. These findings highlight a potential mechanism of mindfulness- and acceptance-based interventions' effects on health outcomes and further suggest that habitually evaluating the appropriateness of one's emotional responses rather than accepting them as they unfold may have consequences for cardiovascular health.     

The yellow brick road and the emerald city: benefit finding, positive reappraisal coping and posttraumatic growth in women with early-stage breast cancer.

Predictors and outcomes of benefit finding, positive reappraisal coping, and posttraumatic growth were examined using interviews and questionnaires from a longitudinal study of women with early-stage breast cancer followed from primary medical treatment completion to 3 (n=92) and 12 months (n=60) later. Most women (83%) reported at least 1 benefit of their breast cancer experience. Benefit finding (i.e., identification of benefits, number of benefits), positive reappraisal coping, and posttraumatic growth had distinct significant predictors. Positive reappraisal coping at study entry predicted positive mood and perceived health at 3 and 12 months and posttraumatic growth at 12 months, whereas benefit finding did not predict any outcome. Findings suggest that benefit finding, positive reappraisal coping, and posttraumatic growth are related, but distinct, constructs.     

Is there an association between lateral preference and delinquent behavior?

Results of recent research suggests an association between left lateral preference and delinquent behavior. In this study the lateral preferences of 881 seven-year-old children were determined using behavioral indicators of hand and foot use. Mixed-handedness was associated with parent-reported problem behavior scores and self-reported delinquency scores at ages 13 and 15. However, preference for left hand and foot use was found to be unrelated to the delinquency measures. The distribution of lateral preferences in an identified delinquent group was not significantly different from the distribution in the sample remainder. The lack of an association between left preference and delinquency may be accounted for by an increased cultural acceptance of individual preference.     

Coping through emotional approach: scale construction and validation

Four studies demonstrate the psychometric adequacy and validity of scales designed to assess coping through emotional approach. In separate undergraduate samples, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses of dispositional (Study 1) and situational (Study 3) coping item sets yielded 2 distinct emotional approach coping factors: emotional processing (i.e., active attempts to acknowledge and understand emotions) and emotional expression. The 2 scales yielded high internal consistency and test-retest reliability, as well as convergent and discriminant validity. A study (Study 2) of young adults and their parents established the scales' interjudge reliabilities. Longitudinal (Study 3) and experimental (Study 4) research supported the predictive validity of the emotional approach coping scales with regard to adjustment to stressful encounters. Findings highlight the utility of functionalist theories of emotion as applied to coping theory.