Personality in context: an interpersonal systems perspective

Because a significant part of individuals' lives involve close relationships, an important and substantial part of the situations they encounter consists of other people's behaviors. We suggest that individuals' characteristic ways of behaving, which are typically attributed to "personality," arise from two processes. One lies primarily within the individual, conceptualized as individual differences in one's cognitive and affective processing system. The other process, which has received less attention in personality research, lies outside the person in the individual differences in the situations that people encounter in their everyday lives. The interplay between these two processes can be particularly relevant for understanding close relationships. By assuming that each partner's behavior provides the situational context for the other partner, we conceptualize a dyadic relationship as the "interlocking" of the cognitive-affective processing systems of both partners. We illustrate this approach to personality-in-context with a hypothetical scenario and use this framework to organize research on attachment styles, rejection sensitivity, self-fulfilling prophecy, the self in relation to others, and interdependence theory.     

Rejection sensitivity and the defensive motivational system: insights from the startle response to rejection cues

Rejection sensitivity (RS) is the disposition to anxiously expect, readily perceive, and intensely react to rejection. This study used the startle probe paradigm to test whether the affect-based defensive motivational system is automatically activated by rejection cues in people who are high in RS. Stimuli were representational paintings depicting rejection (by Hopper) and acceptance (by Renoir), as well as nonrepresentational paintings of either negative or positive valence (by Rothko and Miro, respectively). Eyeblink startle magnitude was potentiated in people high in RS when they viewed rejection themes, compared with when they viewed nonrepresentational negative themes. Startle magnitude was not attenuated during viewing of acceptance themes in comparison with nonrepresentational positive themes. Overall, the results provide evidence that for people high in RS, rejection cues automatically activate the defensive motivational system, but acceptance cues do not automatically activate the appetitive motivational system.     

Rejection Sensitivity and the Rejection–Hostility Link in Romantic Relationships

ABSTRACT Rejection sensitivity is the disposition to anxiously expect, readily perceive, and intensely react to rejection. In response to perceived social exclusion, highly rejection sensitive people react with increased hostile feelings toward others and are more likely to show reactive aggression than less rejection sensitive people in the same situation. This paper summarizes work on rejection sensitivity that has provided evidence for the link between anxious expectations of rejection and hostility after rejection. We review evidence that rejection sensitivity functions as a defensive motivational system. Thus, we link rejection sensitivity to attentional and perceptual processes that underlie the processing of social information. A range of experimental and diary studies shows that perceiving rejection triggers hostility and aggressive behavior in rejection sensitive people. We review studies that show that this hostility and reactive aggression can perpetuate a vicious cycle by eliciting rejection from those who rejection sensitive people value most. Finally, we summarize recent work suggesting that this cycle can be interrupted with generalized self-regulatory skills and the experience of positive, supportive relationships.     

Facilitating adaptive emotional analysis: distinguishing distanced-analysis of depressive experiences from immersed-analysis and distraction

Two studies examined the psychological processes that facilitate adaptive emotional analysis. In Study 1, participants recalled a depression experience and then analyzed their feelings from either a self-immersed (immersed-analysis) or self-distanced (distanced-analysis) perspective. Participants in the distanced-analysis group focused less on recounting their experience and more on reconstruing it, which in turn led to lower levels of depressed affect. Furthermore, comparisons to a distraction group indicated that distanced-analysis was as effective as distraction in reducing depressed affect relative to the immersed-analysis group. Study 2 replicated these findings and showed that both 1 day and 7 days after the experimental manipulations, participants in the distanced-analysis group remained buffered against depressed affect and reported experiencing fewer recurring thoughts about their depression experience over time compared to both the immersed-analysis and distraction groups.     

Verbal intelligence and self-regulatory competencies: Joint predictors of boys’ aggression

Two studies examined the interactive effect of receptive verbal intelligence measured by the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test and self-regulatory competencies measured in the delay of gratification paradigm on boys’ aggression. Study 1 participants (N = 98) were middle school, low-income boys primarily ethnic minority. Participants for Study 2 (N = 59) were drawn from a treatment camp for boys from low-income neighborhoods with behavioral adjustment problems. In both studies, the interaction between verbal intelligence and self-regulation was significant such that verbal intelligence was associated with lower aggression to a greater extent among boys who had effective self-regulatory skills than among those who had ineffective self-regulatory skills. The implications of these findings for interventions and for a theory of risk factors in aggression are discussed.     

"Asking why" from a distance: Its cognitive and emotional consequences for people with major depressive disorder

Although analyzing negative experiences leads to physical and mental health benefits among healthy populations, when people with depression engage in this process on their own they often ruminate and feel worse. Here we examine whether it is possible for adults with depression to analyze their feelings adaptively if they adopt a self-distanced perspective. We examined this issue by randomly assigning depressed and nondepressed adults to analyze their feelings surrounding a depressing life experience from either a self-distanced or a self-immersed perspective and then examined the implications of these manipulations for depressotypic thought accessibility, negative affect, implicit and explicit avoidance, and thought content. Four key results emerged. First, all participants were capable of self-distancing while analyzing their feelings. Second, participants who analyzed their feelings from a self-distanced perspective showed lower levels of depressotypic thought accessibility and negative affect compared to their self-immersed counterparts. Third, analyzing negative feelings from a self-distanced perspective led to an adaptive shift in the way people construed their experience-they recounted the emotionally arousing details of their experience less and reconstrued them in ways that promoted insight and closure. It did not promote avoidance. Finally, self-distancing did not influence negative affect or depressotypic thought accessibility among nondepressed participants. These findings suggest that whether depressed adults' attempts to analyze negative feelings lead to adaptive or maladaptive consequences may depend critically on whether they do so from a self-immersed or a self-distanced perspective. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).     

Comparing the Effects of Three Online Cognitive Reappraisal Trainings on Well-Being

This experimental training study examined which of three brief online cognitive reappraisal training protocols best enhances well-being and emotion regulation in response to stressful events. Participants were randomly assigned to learn positive reframing, self-distancing, or temporal distancing, and were asked to practice these techniques in their daily lives as interpersonal stressors arose naturally. The control group was instructed to continue regulating their emotions as they naturally would. Compared to the control, all training groups showed decreased negative emotional reactivity to the visualization of a recent stressful event 2 weeks post-training. They also showed a significant increase in general well-being from baseline to post-training. Participants’ change in reappraisal accounted for the training groups’ increased well-being.     

少数民族认同研究的现状

从“认同“的概念界定及其嬗变出发,介绍了西方研究者在民族认同的发展、民族认同与心理健康、民族认同与文化适应、民族认同与人格发展等方面的研究,并且概括了民族认同的一些研究策略.文章最后指出,在西部大开发的社会背景下,民族心理研究,尤其是宏观层面民族认同心理的研究对我国的现实意义.     

Predicting cognitive control from preschool to late adolescence and young adulthood

In this longitudinal study, the proportion of time preschoolers directed their attention away from rewarding stimuli during a delay-of-gratification task was positively associated with efficiency (greater speed without reduced accuracy) at responding to targets in a go/no-go task more than 10 years later. The overall findings suggest that preschoolers' ability to effectively direct their attention away from tempting aspects of the rewards in a delay-of-gratification task may be a developmental precursor for the ability to perform inhibitory tasks such as the go/no-go task years later. Because performance on the go/no-go task has previously been characterized as involving activation of fronto-striatal regions, the present findings also suggest that performance in the delay-of-gratification task may serve as an early marker of individual differences in the functional integrity of this circuitry.