Managing the death of close others: Evidence of higher valuing of ingroup identity in young adults who have experienced the death of a close other

The death of a close other (DOCO) is perhaps the most difficult experience that people endure. According to terror management theory (TMT), people manage the potentially terrorizing awareness of their mortality by immersing in cultural worldviews that allow them to feel like valuable members of a meaningful universe who may have some existence or trace after death. Although TMT has potential implications for understanding how people cope with DOCO, few studies have examined this possibility. We report results from four studies showing that, in line with TMT, students who experienced DOCO reported stronger valuing of their identification with their in-groups, which in turn was associated with higher levels of self-esteem. These findings shed new light on the social-psychological dynamics of DOCO.     

Using The Mirror Story to Understand Self

Research indicates self-esteem reflects many factors in a person’s life, such as relationships with parents or parent figures, attachment types, experiences of worth enhancement, ethnicity, generation, and cultural values. However, debate continues on whether self-esteem is simply a reflection of Western culture and may not be a universal factor of human nature. This research was undertaken to understand how four persons of diverse ethnic, gender, and age categories may each perceive the self from reading the same story. First, the authors offer a brief overview of how self-esteem is viewed and explore a few cultural, gender and age aspects of self-esteem. They then present our pilot study with the methodology, results, and discussion, and offer implications for mental health counselors.     

青少年网络利他行为与主观幸福感的关系——一个有中介的调节模型

对1376名青少年进行问卷调查,在控制人口统计学变量后,考察青少年网络利他行为、自尊、自我效能感和主观幸福感之间的关系。结果发现:(1)青少年的网络利他行为对主观幸福感有显著的正向预测作用;(2)自尊调节了网络利他行为与主观幸福感之间的关系;(3)自我效能感在自尊对网络利他行为和主观幸福感关系的调节效应中起完全中介作用。     

Happiness as an additional antecedent of schadenfreude

The current study examined whether dispositionally happy individuals feel less happiness when another person experiences a misfortune. Happy individuals are known to be less vulnerable to upward comparison information. In addition, schadenfreude is elicited by upward comparison targets (e.g. high achievers and tall poppies). Thus, it was assumed that happiness would decrease schadenfreude. The lower level of hostile feelings in happy individuals, which are elicited by threats to one’s person and inferiority heightened when confronted with a high achiever, was hypothesized to decrease schadenfreude. Studies 1 and 2 were conducted with scenario experiments, and the hypotheses were supported in both studies. Regression analyses revealed a significant direct effect of happiness on a reduction in schadenfreude. How not feeling schadenfreude when witness another person’s misfortune helps people maintain and/or increase their happiness is discussed.     

Parenting processes,self-esteem,and aggression: A mediation model

The present study examined the relations between perceived maternal and paternal parenting processes and adolescent aggression, and to what extent these relations were mediated by self-esteem in a sample of 546 (43.8% males and 56.2% females) Turkish adolescents. Participants’ ages ranged from 14 to 18 with a mean of 15.91 years (SD = .95). Findings supported our hypothesized model of the effect of perceived parenting processes on aggression as being mediated through self-esteem for both maternal and paternal parenting measures. Specifically, self-esteem mediated the relations between parental closeness, monitoring, peer approval and adolescent aggression. Self-esteem is an important individual charecteristic to consider for prevention efforts of adolescent aggressive behaviors, along with key parenting behaviors.     

Performance feedback,self-esteem,and cardiovascular adaptation to recurring stressors

Background and Objectives: This study sought to examine the effects of performance feedback and individual differences in self-esteem on cardiovascular habituation to repeat stress exposure.

Methods: Sixty-six university students (n?=?39 female) completed a self-esteem measure and completed a cardiovascular stress-testing protocol involving repeated exposure to a mental arithmetic task. Cardiovascular functioning was sampled across four phases: resting baseline, initial stress exposure, a recovery period, and repeated stress exposure. Participants were randomly assigned to receive fictional positive feedback, negative feedback, or no feedback following the recovery period.

Results: Negative feedback was associated with a sensitized blood pressure response to a second exposure of the stress task. Positive feedback was associated with decreased cardiovascular and psychological responses to a second exposure. Self-esteem was also found to predict reactivity and this interacted with the type of feedback received.

Conclusions: These findings suggest that negative performance feedback sensitizes cardiovascular reactivity to stress, whereas positive performance feedback increases both cardiovascular and psychological habituation to repeat exposure to stressors. Furthermore, an individual’s self-esteem also appears to influence this process.     

内隐自尊的特性：来自EAST的证据

采用外部情绪性Simon任务（EAST）对109名大学生对代表自我和他人的刺激词的态度差异进行测量,从而探讨内隐自尊的特性。结果显示：在个体的认知图式中,对自我持有一种内隐的积极的评价或态度,对他人持有一种内隐的相对消极的评价或态度。具体表现在：（1）内隐自尊的特性是将自己与积极的评价和情感相联系,将他人与消极的评价和情感相联系;（2）自我姓名激活的积极的内隐自我态度比一般性自我词更为强烈,而他人姓名激活的消极的内隐态度比一般性非我词更弱。本研究表明,EAST能有效检测出内隐自尊效应,并可以同时获得个体对自我和他人的内隐态度的强度和方向,为内隐自尊研究提供了一种新的有效的方法,但其应用仍需谨慎。     

Age differences in instability, contingency, and level of self-esteem across the life span

We investigated age differences in instability, contingency, and level of self-esteem from age 13 to 72 years, using data from 1386 individuals who participated in a diary study over 25 days. Instability and contingency of self-esteem decreased from adolescence to old age, whereas level of self-esteem increased. Big Five personality traits predicted the level, but not the slope, of the trajectories of self-esteem characteristics. Age differences in self-esteem characteristics did not merely reflect age differences in instability and level of positive and negative affect. Finally, self-esteem characteristics showed a stable pattern of interrelations across the life span. Overall, the findings suggest that people’s self-esteem tends to become better adjusted—i.e., more stable, less contingent, and higher—across the life course.     

Self-esteem and passion for activities

The Dualistic Model of Passion (Vallerand, 2010) regards passion as a strong inclination toward a self-defining activity that one loves, values, and in which one invests a substantial amount of time and energy. The model proposes two distinct types of passion, harmonious and obsessive, that predict adaptive and less adaptive outcomes, respectively. We hypothesized that individuals relatively high on explicit self-esteem would experience higher levels of harmonious passion, given their implementation of relatively adaptive self-regulatory strategies. Individuals relatively low on implicit self-esteem, on the other hand, would experience higher levels of obsessive passion, given their ego fragility and defensiveness. Participants completed the Passion Scale, the Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale, and the self-esteem Implicit Association Task. Path analyses revealed that, consistently with hypotheses, explicit self-esteem positively predicted harmonious passion, whereas implicit self-esteem negatively predicted obsessive passion.     

Perfectionism erodes social self-esteem and generates depressive symptoms: Studying mother-daughter dyads using a daily diary design with longitudinal follow-up

The perfectionism social disconnection model (PSDM) asserts socially prescribed perfectionism confers risk for depression by eroding social self-esteem. However, self-oriented perfectionism and other-oriented perfectionism are neglected in extant tests of the PSDM. Moreover, the PSDM attributes the source of depression to dispositional characteristics without considering interpersonal contexts. We expanded and tested the PSDM in 218 mother-daughter dyads using a daily diary design with longitudinal follow-up. Daughters completed measures of self-oriented and socially prescribed perfectionism (Wave 1), social self-esteem (Wave 2), and depression (Wave 1 and Wave 3). Mothers completed a measure of other-oriented perfectionism (Wave 1). Daughters’ socially prescribed and self-oriented perfectionism, and mothers’ other-oriented perfectionism, conferred vulnerability to daughters’ depression by lowering daughters’ social self-esteem.