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.     

"In Search of Token Women in Academia": Some Definitions and Clarifications

This article makes an important distinction between two definitions of "token woman." In the first definition, a token woman is one of few women in a predominantly male setting. The second meaning of "Token Woman" identifies that subset of such women who have made the distinctive psychological adaptation described by Laws (1975). The methodological decisions in Young, MacKenzie, and Sherif's (1980) research are justified as based on that definitional distinction. Constantinople's critique is shown to be appropriate as an alternative to Laws' theory, but not as a criticism of our research. Alternative generational explanations for previous findings about Token Women are not supported by existing data.