Pancultural self-enhancement reloaded: a meta-analytic reply to Heine (2005)

C. Sedikides, L. Gaertner, and Y. Toguchi (2003) reported findings favoring the universality of self-enhancement. S. J. Heine (2005) challenged the authors' research on evidential and logical grounds. In response, the authors carried out 2 meta-analytic investigations. The results backed the C. Sedikides et al. (2003) theory and findings. Both Westerners and Easterners self-enhanced tactically. Westerners self-enhanced on attributes relevant to the cultural ideal of individualism, whereas Easterners self-enhanced on attributes relevant to the cultural ideal of collectivism (in both cases, because of the personal importance of the ideal). Self-enhancement motivation is universal, although its manifestations are strategically sensitive to cultural context. The authors respond to other aspects of Heine's critique by discussing why researchers should empirically validate the comparison dimension (individualistic vs. collectivistic) and defending why the better-than-average effect is a valid measure of self-enhancement.     

Self-esteem and favoritism toward novel in-groups: the self as an evaluative base

The self-as-evaluative base (SEB) hypothesis proposes that self-evaluation extends automatically via an amotivated consistency process to affect evaluation of novel in-groups. Four minimal group studies support SEB. Personal trait self-esteem (PSE) predicted increased favoritism toward a novel in-group that, objectively, was equivalent to the out-group (Study 1). This association was independent of information-processing effects (Study 1), collective self-esteem, right-wing authoritarianism (RWA), and narcissism (Studies 2 and 3). A self-affirmation manipulation attenuated the association between in-group favoritism and an individual difference associated with motivated social identity concerns (RWA) but did not alter the PSE effect (Study 3). Finally, the association between PSE and in-group favoritism remained positive even when the in-group was objectively less favorable than the out-group (Study 4).     

The "I," the "we," and the "when": a meta-analysis of motivational primacy in self-definition

What is the primary motivational basis of self-definition? The authors meta-analytically assessed 3 hypotheses: (a) The individual self is motivationally primary, (b) the collective self is motivationally primary, and (c) neither self is inherently primary; instead, motivational primacy depends on which self becomes accessible through contextual features. Results identified the individual self as the primary motivational basis of self-definition. People react more strongly to threat and enhancement of the individual than the collective self. Additionally, people more readily deny threatening information and more readily accept enhancing information when it pertains to the individual rather than the collective self, regardless of contextual influences. The individual self is the psychological home base, a stable system that can react flexibly to contextual influences.     

Depression as a mediator of negative cognitive style and hopelessness in stress generation

Over the past 20 years, there has been considerable interest in the role of cognitive factors in the stress generation process. Generally, these studies find that depressed individuals, or individuals at cognitive risk for depression, are more likely to experience stressful life events that are in part influenced by their own characteristics and behaviours (i.e., negative dependent events). However, there is still much to be learnt about the mediators of these effects. For example, does the development of depression symptoms explain why individuals at cognitive risk for depression experience increased negative dependent events? Or, is it that increases in cognitive risk explain why depressed individuals experience increased negative dependent events? To explore these questions, a short‐term prospective study was conducted with 209 college students who were given measures of depression, depressogenic risk factors (i.e., negative cognitive style and hopelessness), and negative dependent events at two time points 6 weeks apart. Support was found for three models: (1) depression symptoms mediated the relationship between negative cognitive style and negative dependent events; (2) depression symptoms mediated the relationship between hopelessness and negative dependent events; and (3) first hopelessness and then depression symptoms mediated the relationship between negative cognitive style and negative dependent events in a multiple‐step model. In contrast, the reverse models were not confirmed, suggesting specificity in the direction of the mediational sequence.     

Word length effects on novel words: Evidence from eye movements

The present study investigated the effects of word length on eye movement behavior during initial processing of novel words while reading. Adult skilled readers’ eye movements were monitored as they read novel or known target words in sentence frames with neutral context preceding the target word. Comparable word length effects on all single-fixation measures for novel and known words suggested that both types of words were subject to similar initial encoding strategies. The impact of the absence of an existing lexical entry emerged in multiple first-pass fixation measures in the form of interactions between word length (long and short) and word type (novel and known). Specifically, readers spent significantly more first-pass time refixating long novel targets than short novel targets; however, the first-pass time spent refixating known controls did not differ as a function of length. Implications of these findings for models of eye movement control while reading, as well as for vocabulary acquisition in reading, are discussed.     

Perceived benefits of using an Internet-based interactive career planning system

Making Better Career Decisions (MBCD) is an Internet-based interactive career planning system designed to help deliberating individuals. The present research examined the benefits of a dialogue with MBCD, by analyzing 712 users’ perceptions of its contribution to their career decision-making process, and locating variables associated with these perceptions. A pre-dialogue and a post-dialogue questionnaire were used to collect the users’ perceptions of its benefits and measure the change in the degree of decidedness. Perceived benefit was derived from participants’ ratings of the degree of progress they had made in their career decision-making process, whether they had learned about additional factors to be considered and their career-related preferences, as well as their ratings of the quality of the list of “promising” career alternatives presented to them during their dialogue with MBCD. This composite perceived benefit was found to be positively associated with the users’ decidedness at the completion of the dialogue with MBCD. Users’ satisfaction with the length and variety of their personal “promising alternatives” list was associated with a higher perceived benefit.     

Relationship-Based Home Visiting Services for Families Affected by Substance Use Disorders: A Qualitative Study

Journal of Child and Family Studies - Home visiting programs face many challenges when providing evidence-based services to families affected by substance use disorders (SUDs). We conducted...