Response biases and the relation between negative life events and psychological symptoms

This research was an investigation of whether reporting biases can account for the correlation between negative life events (as measured via life events questionnaires) and subclinical psychological symptoms. Subjects completed two life events scales, a measure of psychological symptoms, a measure of depression, and a measure of social desirability. Friends were asked to report about life events experienced by the subjects. No evidence was found for a subject reporting bias associated with social desirability, depression, or symptoms. In fact, for one of the life events scales, depression was significantly associated with a higher rate of agreement between subjects and friends as to which negative events occurred to subjects. Moreover, there were significant correlations between symptom and depression measures and life events measures that were free of subject-reporting biases (subjects' negative life events reported by both subjects and their significant others, as well as subjects' negative life events as reported by significant others alone). These data suggest that response biases may not be able to account for the relation between negative events and psychological symptoms. Thus the hypothesis that negative life events play a significant role in symptom development remains plausible.     

Lapses in sustained attention and their relation to executive control and fluid abilities: An individual differences investigation

A latent variable analysis was conducted to examine the nature of individual differences in lapses of attention and their relation to executive and fluid abilities. Participants performed a sustained attention task along with multiple measures of executive control and fluid abilities. Lapses of attention were indexed based on the slowest reaction times in terms of both quintiles and the τ parameter from the ex-Gaussian distribution. It was found that the slowest, but not the fastest, RTs in the sustained attention task were related to a broad based executive control factor and a fluid intelligence factor. The results further suggested that only the working memory capacity and response inhibition sub-executive control factors were related to the slowest RTs, with the fluency measures not being related to any of the RT variables. The results are consistent with the idea that fluctuations or lapses in sustained attention, as indexed by the slowest responses, are related to executive control and fluid abilities.     

Secure versus fragile high self-esteem as a predictor of verbal defensiveness: converging findings across three different markers

ABSTRACT Why is it that many individuals verbally rationalize and distort self‐esteem threatening information? We examined whether such verbal defensiveness ( Feldman Barrett, Williams, & Fong, 2002 ) differs as a function of whether individuals' high self‐esteem is secure or fragile. Our findings indicated that individuals whose self‐esteem was stable, not contingent, or congruent with high implicit self‐esteem exhibited especially low amounts of verbal defensiveness. In contrast, verbal defensiveness was considerably higher when individuals' high self‐esteem was unstable, contingent, or paired with discrepant low implicit self‐esteem. Discussion centers on why the possession of well‐anchored and secure high self‐esteem obviates defensiveness directed toward enhancing, maintaining, or bolstering feelings of self‐worth.     

Mindfulness as a means of reducing aggressive behavior: dispositional and situational evidence

Recent research and theory suggest that mindfulness, or enhanced attention and awareness in the present moment [Brown and Ryan, 2003], may be linked to lower levels of ego-involvement and, as a result, may have implications for lowering hostility and aggressive behavior. Accordingly, we conducted two studies to examine the potential aggression-mitigating role of mindfulness. In Study 1, we found that dispositional mindfulness correlated negatively with self-reported aggressiveness and hostile attribution bias. In Study 2, participants made mindful before receiving social rejection feedback displayed less-aggressive behavior than did rejected participants not made mindful. Discussion centers on potential mechanisms by which mindfulness operates to reduce aggressive behavior.     

How people make support judgments: individual differences in the traits used to infer supportiveness in others.

Social support and other social judgments are composed of several distinct components, of which relationship effects are an important part. With regard to support judgments, relationship effects refer to the fact that when judging the same targets, people differ systematically in whom they see as supportive. One explanation for this effect is that people differ in how they combine information about targets to judge supportiveness. Participants rated the supportiveness of hypothetical targets and targets from their own social networks. Multilevel modeling identified the traits participants used to make support judgments. There were significant differences in the extent to which participants used different target personality traits to judge supportiveness. In addition, participant neuroticism predicted the extent to which participants used target neuroticism and agreeableness to judge supportiveness.     

Preverbal error-monitoring in stutterers and fluent speakers

This study was designed to characterize the brain system that monitors speech in people who stutter and matched controls. We measured two electrophysiological peaks associated with action-monitoring: the error-related negativity (ERN) and the error positivity (Pe). Both the ERN and Pe were reliably observed after errors in a rhyming task and a nonverbal flanker task, replicating previous reports of a language-monitoring ERN and demonstrating that the Pe can also be elicited by phonological errors. In the rhyming task, stutterers showed a heightened ERN peak regardless of whether they actually committed an error. Similar results, though only marginally significant, were obtained from the flanker task. These results support the vicious cycle hypothesis, which posits that stuttering results from over-monitoring the speech plan. The elevation of the ERN in stutterers and the similarity of the results between the flanker and rhyming tasks implies that speech-monitoring may rely on the same neural substrate as action-monitoring.     

Examining the Differential Item Functioning of the Rosenberg Self‐Esteem Scale Across Eight Countries1

We examined the differential item functioning (DIF) of Rosenberg's (1965 ) Self‐Esteem Scale (RSES) and compared scores from U.S. participants with those from 7 other countries: Canada, Germany, New Zealand, Kenya, South Africa, Singapore, and Taiwan. Results indicate that DIF was present in all comparisons. Moreover, controlling for latent self‐esteem, participants from individualistic countries had an easier time reporting high self‐esteem on self‐competence‐related items, whereas participants from communal countries had an easier time reporting high self‐esteem on self‐liking items ( Tafarodi & Milne, 2002 ). After adjusting for DIF, we found larger mean self‐esteem differences between the countries than observed scores initially indicated. The suitability of the RSES, and the importance of examining DIF, for cross‐cultural research are discussed.     

Individual differences in authenticity and mindfulness as predictors of verbal defensiveness

We examined the extent to which individual differences in authenticity and mindfulness predicted verbal defensiveness. Participants first completed measures of authenticity [Kernis, M. H., & Goldman, B. M. (2006). A multicomponent conceptualization of authenticity: Theory and research. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, Vol. 38 (pp. 283–357).] and mindfulness [Brown, K. W., & Ryan, R. M. (2003). The benefits of being present: Mindfulness and its role in psychological well-being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84, 822–848]. Within the next few weeks, participants completed the Defensive Verbal Behavior Assessment [Feldman Barrett, L., Williams, N. L., & Fong, G. T. (2002). Defensive verbal behavior assessment. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28, 776–788]. Their responses to potentially self-threatening experiences subsequently were rated for the extent to which they reflected openness and honesty as opposed to defensiveness. Our findings indicated that authenticity and mindfulness correlated positively and that higher scores on each related to lower levels of verbal defensiveness. Additional analyses revealed that the relation between authenticity and verbal defensiveness was indirect, mediated by mindfulness. These findings support the view that higher authenticity and mindfulness relate to greater tendencies to engage self-relevant information in a relatively non-defensive manner.