Creating and undermining social support in communal relationships: The role of compassionate and self-image goals.

In 2 studies, the authors examined whether relationship goals predict change in social support and trust over time. In Study 1, a group of 199 college freshmen completed pretest and posttest measures of social support and interpersonal trust and completed 10 weekly reports of friendship goals and relationship experiences. Average compassionate goals predicted closeness, clear and connected feelings, and increased social support and trust over the semester; self-image goals attenuated these effects. Average self-image goals predicted conflict, loneliness, and afraid and confused feelings; compassionate goals attenuated these effects. Changes in weekly goals predicted changes in goal-related affect, closeness, loneliness, conflict, and beliefs about mutual and individualistic caring. In Study 2, a group of 65 roommate pairs completed 21 daily reports of their goals for their roommate relationship. Actors' average compassionate and self-image goals interacted to predict changes over 3 weeks in partners' reports of social support received from and given to actors; support that partners gave to actors, in turn, predicted changes in actors' perceived available support, indicating that people with compassionate goals create a supportive environment for themselves and others, but only if they do not have self-image goals. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Acculturative stress, depression, and anxiety in migrant farmwork college students of Mexican heritage.

Migrant status (migrant, nonmigrant) and sex (female, male) differences were examined in a sample of 168 college students of Mexican heritage on measures of college stress, acculturative stress, depression, anxiety, and academic achievement. Migrant farmwork students reported higher levels of acculturative stress than nonmigrants, and men reported higher levels of acculturative stress than women. When language preference was held constant, there were no differences in depression and anxiety. However, migrant students reported higher levels of depression and anxiety than nonmigrants when language preference was not held constant. The overall sample reported high levels of depression: 55% versus the expected 20% of the general population shown in other research. Depression and anxiety were highly correlated, and women reported a higher grade point average than male students. Implications include the importance of integrating cultural factors in stress research with this population and accounting for acculturative stress, depression, and anxiety in clinical treatment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mood-regulation expectancies as determinants of dysphoria in college students.

Predictors of coping styles, depression, and somatic symptoms in college students were examined. In previous research, the use of active and avoidant coping strategies was predicted by stress, family support, self-confidence, and easygoing disposition. This study found that the expectancy to be able to alter one's mood state added significantly to the prediction of coping. Mood-regulation expectancies also predicted dysphoria and somatic symptoms, even with the effects of coping behavior and other variables partialed out. Consistent with response expectancy theory of I. Kirsch (see PA, Vol 73:13702; see also 1990), these data indicate that besides affecting mood indirectly through their impact on coping behavior, expectancies can directly alter dysphoric moods. However, when the effects of expectancy were statistically controlled, active coping was positively associated with dysphoria, which suggests that coping strategies may not be effective unless they are believed in. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

How goals and beliefs lead people into and out of depression.

There is evidence that beliefs (cognitive vulnerabilities) and goals (to prove self-worth) contribute to depression but little consideration of how they work in tandem. Synthesizing research on beliefs and goals leads us to four propositions: (a) People with cognitive vulnerabilities often adopt self-worth goals (seeking to prove self-worth and to avoid proof of worthlessness). People with the opposite beliefs often adopt learning goals. (b) Stressors trigger depression largely because they lead people with self-worth goals to focus narrowly on goals to avoid proof of worthlessness. The same stressors do not lead people with learning goals to become depressed. (c) People with goals to avoid proof of worthlessness adopt defensive self-handicapping behaviors (e.g., effort withdrawal, rumination) when dealing with stressors, because those behaviors serve their goals. The same stressors lead people with learning goals to adopt constructive, problem-solving strategies. (d) A key to alleviating depression is fostering a shift from self-worth goals to learning goals and from the beliefs underlying self-worth goals to the opposite beliefs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Interpersonal consequences of social anxiety.

The behavioral manifestations of social anxiety may have implications for social outcomes. Unfortunately, little is known about how anxiety shapes social interaction. The present study examined social interactions in dyads consisting of either 2 nonsocially anxious (NSA) individuals or 1 socially anxious (SA) and 1 NSA individual. Behavior, self-reported affect, and perceptions were examined. In comparison with the interactions of NSA pairs, high levels of fidgeting, poor reciprocity of smiling behavior, more self-talk, and more frequent reassurance seeking and giving characterized interactions between SA and NSA participants. Both SA participants and their NSA partners rated their interactions as being less smooth and coordinated than did participants in NSA-NSA dyads. In addition, SA participants' reassurance seeking and self-talk correlated negatively with partner positive affect and perceptions of interaction quality. The authors discuss self-focused attention and the interpersonal consequences of social anxiety. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Parental behaviors and adolescents' achievement goals at the beginning of middle school: Emotional problems as potential mediators.

Recent literature on the determinants of academic motivation has shown that parenting and emotions are central elements in understanding students' achievement goals. The authors of this study set out to examine the predictive relationship between parental behaviors during the last year of elementary school and adolescents' achievement goals at the end of their first year of middle school. Manifestations of anxiety and depression in Grade 6 were examined as explanatory mechanisms for this relationship. A total of 498 early adolescents participated in the study. The results of structural equation modeling analyses demonstrated that parental involvement predicted mastery goals, whereas parental control predicted performance goals among these adolescents. This relationship was mediated by the adolescents' symptoms of anxiety. These results underscore the need for educators and clinicians to consider parental behaviors and emotional problems among elementary school students when seeking to understand the behaviors and learning strategies adopted by these students in middle school. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Interpersonal pathoplasticity in individuals with generalized anxiety disorder.

Recent theories of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) have emphasized interpersonal and personality functioning as important aspects of the disorder. We examined heterogeneity in interpersonal problems in 2 studies of individuals with GAD (n = 47 and n = 83). Interpersonal subtypes were assessed with the Inventory of Interpersonal Problems–Circumplex (Alden, Wiggins, & Pincus, 1990). Across both studies, individuals with GAD exhibited heterogeneous interpersonal problems, and cluster analyses of these patients' interpersonal characteristics yielded 4 replicable clusters, identified as intrusive, exploitable, cold, and nonassertive subtypes. Consistent with our pathoplasticity hypotheses, clusters did not differ with GAD severity, anxiety severity, or depression severity. Clusters in Study 2 differed on rates of personality disorders, including avoidant personality disorder, further providing support for the validity of interpersonal subtypes. The presence of interpersonal subtypes in GAD may have important implications for treatment planning and efficacy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Meta-analysis of the relations of anxiety sensitivity to the depressive and anxiety disorders.

There is a substantial literature relating the personality trait anxiety sensitivity (AS; tendency to fear anxiety-related sensations) and its lower order dimensions to the mood and anxiety (i.e., internalizing) disorders. However, particularly given the disorders’ high comorbidity rates, it remains unclear whether AS is broadly related to these disorders or if it shows a pattern of differential relations. Meta-analyses of the concurrent relations of AS with the internalizing disorders were conducted based on 117 studies and 792 effect sizes. Mean Anxiety Sensitivity Index scores by diagnostic group and AS–symptom correlations both indicated that AS is most strongly related to panic, generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). More specific analyses were also conducted on (a) AS correlations with symptom dimensions within individual disorders and (b) correlations between lower order AS components and symptoms. The meta-analytic correlation matrix for higher order AS–disorder relations was submitted to path analysis, modeling latent Distress disorders and Fear disorders that control for much of the shared variance among the disorders. Results of the path analysis indicated that AS is broadly related to these disorders but that agoraphobia, GAD, panic, and PTSD have the strongest associations. In addition, AS was more strongly related to the latent distress disorders than the fear disorders. Because of the contemporaneous assessment of AS and internalizing disorders in these studies, the results should not be taken to mean that AS has a stronger casual association with certain disorders. Implications for concurrent AS–internalizing relations, interpretations of the AS construct, and structural models of personality and psychopathology are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Interpersonal concomitants and antecedents of depression among college students.

Depressed college students were compared with other-psychopathology and normal controls regarding the relationship they developed with dormitory roommates during a 9-month period. Diagnostic status was periodically assessed via SADS interviews, thus also permitting identification of new cases of depression during the year. Psychosocial characteristics found to be uniquely associated with current depression were: (a) low social contact with roommates, (b) low enjoyability of these contacts, and (c) high life-event stress. Roommates of depressives reported low enjoyability of the relationship and high levels of aggressive behavior towards the depressive. No features were found to be uniquely associated with new cases before they became depressed; however, several antecedents of general psychopathology were identified. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of anxiety, threat, and racial environment on task performance of Negro college students.

This study dealt with the effect on Negro efficiency of variations in degree of stress and in the race of other persons in the task situation. 115 Negro students at Fisk University performed individually a digit-letter substitution task in the presence of an administrator and a confederate posing as another S, both of whom were either white or Negro. In addition, Ss were told to expect either mild or strong nonavoidance electric shocks while working. The main findings, that (a) performance was better in White-Mild Threat than in Negro-Mild Threat, and (b) Strong Threat, as compared with Mild Threat, was more detrimental to performance in the White condition than in the Negro condition, are consistent with the hypothesis of an inverted U shaped relationship between arousal and performance. In addition, there was evidence of an inverted U shaped function between Manifest Anxiety scale scores and 1st trial performance in the White condition. The results have implications for interpreting various types of Negro performance including scores on intellectual tests in racially mixed environments. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Interpersonal subtypes and change of interpersonal problems in the treatment of patients with generalized anxiety disorder: A pilot study.

Interpersonal problems are highly relevant to the treatment of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) patients. Previous studies using the Inventory of Interpersonal Problems identified several interpersonal subtypes in GAD patients. In this study, we wanted to replicate earlier findings of interpersonal subtypes in GAD. We investigated whether these interpersonal subtypes are characterized by different types of interpersonal problems and different levels of interpersonal distress, and we further examined whether they differed with regard to improvement of interpersonal problems after short-term treatment. This study is based on results from a randomized controlled trial that investigated short-term treatments in GAD outpatients. For secondary analysis, interpersonal subtypes were identified by cluster analysis and Inventory of Interpersonal Problems profiles were calculated for both the total sample (N = 52) and the interpersonal subtypes using the Structural Summary Method for Circumplex Data. This study confirmed previous results demonstrating the existence of interpersonal subtypes in GAD. Four interpersonal subtypes were identified: Overly Nurturant, Intrusive, Socially Avoidant, and Nonassertive. Short-term treatment significantly improved interpersonal problems (d = 0.46) within the total GAD sample. Interestingly, the effect sizes of the four clusters differed considerably (d = 0.19–1.24) and the clusters displayed different changes in the two circumplex axes Dominance and Nurturance. Our study indicates that change of interpersonal problems needs to be specifically analyzed, even within homogenous diagnostic groups. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Achievement goals and achievement emotions: Testing a model of their joint relations with academic performance.

The authors propose a theoretical model linking achievement goals and achievement emotions to academic performance. This model was tested in a prospective study with undergraduates (N = 213), using exam-specific assessments of both goals and emotions as predictors of exam performance in an introductory-level psychology course. The findings were consistent with the authors' hypotheses and supported all aspects of the proposed model. In multiple regression analysis, achievement goals (mastery, performance approach, and performance avoidance) were shown to predict discrete achievement emotions (enjoyment, boredom, anger, hope, pride, anxiety, hopelessness, and shame), achievement emotions were shown to predict performance attainment, and 7 of the 8 focal emotions were documented as mediators of the relations between achievement goals and performance attainment. All of these findings were shown to be robust when controlling for gender, social desirability, positive and negative trait affectivity, and scholastic ability. The results are discussed with regard to the underdeveloped literature on discrete achievement emotions and the need to integrate conceptual and applied work on achievement goals and achievement emotions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-construals and social anxiety among Asian American college students: Testing emotion suppression as a mediator.

Although past studies have revealed ethnic and cultural variations in social anxiety, little research addresses why these variations might arise. The present study addressed this gap by examining emotion regulation as an explanatory mechanism that may account for such differences. Drawing from a culture-specific (Kitayama, Karasawa, & Mesquita, 2004), as well as process-based (Gross, 1998) model of emotion regulation, we hypothesized that emotion suppression would mediate associations between self-construals (interdependent and independent) and social anxiety symptoms. The data analytic sample consisted of 784 self-identified Asian American college students from 20 colleges/universities in the United States. Participants completed the study measures via a confidential, online questionnaire. Structural equation modeling (SEM) analyses indicated a significant indirect effect of both types of self-construal on social anxiety through emotion suppression. Specifically, an interdependent self-construal was associated with more (whereas an independent self-construal was associated with less) emotion suppression, which in turn, was associated with higher levels of social anxiety. Clinically, these findings suggest that an individual's emotion regulation strategy could serve as a proximal target of intervention among Asian American young adults. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Achievement goals and discrete achievement emotions: A theoretical model and prospective test.

A theoretical model linking achievement goals to discrete achievement emotions is proposed. The model posits relations between the goals of the trichotomous achievement goal framework and 8 commonly experienced achievement emotions organized in a 2 (activity/outcome focus) × 2 (positive/negative valence) taxonomy. Two prospective studies tested the model in German and American college classrooms. The results were largely in line with the hypotheses. Mastery goals were positive predictors of enjoyment of learning, hope, and pride and were negative predictors of boredom and anger. Performance-approach goals were positive predictors of pride, whereas performance-avoidance goals were positive predictors of anxiety, hopelessness, and shame. The results were consistent across studies and robust when controlled for gender, GPA, social desirability, temperament, and competence expectancy. The research is discussed with regard to the underdeveloped literature on achievement emotions and with regard to the motivation and emotion research domains more broadly. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sense of coherence, coping strategies, and test anxiety as predictors of test performance among college students.

The study tested sense of coherence (SOC; Antonovsky, 1987), coping strategies, and test anxiety as predictors of test performance in 216 1st-year undergraduates. The students attended 3 obligatory courses and completed inventories assessing SOC, coping, and test anxiety during the final session of the 2nd semester; their grades on the final examination were recorded. The results showed SOC to be negatively related to test anxiety, whereas emotion-focused coping and avoidance were positively related to it. Problem-focused coping contributed positively to performance on the test, and avoidance coping adversely affected test grades. The data suggest that test anxiety is minimally associated with performance grades, and the 2 measures are related somewhat differentially to coping strategies and SOC. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Life goals and vocational choice.

Factor analyses of 56 life-goal and self-rating items were performed on separate samples of 250 male and 250 female college seniors of high ability. 7 identifiable factors were replicated in the 2 analyses: Self-Esteem and Scholarship (primarily associated with self-ratings); Personal Comfort, Prestige, and Altruism (primarily associated with life goals); and Artistic Motivation and Science-Technology (associated both with self-ratings and with life goals). Analyses of 4 life-goal factor scores using 5495 high aptitude students divided into 36 career field groups revealed great differences in the life goals of students pursuing different careers. Results with an open-ended question about life goals supported this finding. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Identifying patterns of appraising tests in first-year college students: Implications for anxiety and emotion regulation during test taking.

The authors explored patterns of appraising tests in a large sample of 1st-year college students. Cluster analysis was used to identify homogeneous groups of 1st-year students who shared similar patterns of cognitive appraisals about testing. The authors internally validated findings with an independent sample from the same population of students and examined the extent to which cluster membership differentiated undergraduates on the basis of external indicators (e.g., anxiety, emotion-regulation strategies, and achievement). The authors used 2 randomly drawn samples to conduct an initial cluster analysis (n = 1,107) and to replicate the solution on a 2nd, independent cluster and cross-classification analysis (n = 1,108). There may be 5 subtypes of test takers who differ in how they approach tests, their experience of anxiety, and how they manage problems that occur during test taking. Theoretical implications for emotion and emotion regulation, as well as practical implications for working with undergraduates who experience test anxiety, are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Expectancies for negative mood regulation, coping, and dysphoria among college students.

Participants (N?=?222) completed measures of negative mood regulation (NMR) expectancies, negative life events, coping responses, dysphoria, and somatic symptoms. After 6 to 8 wks, they completed the same questionnaires except that daily hassles in the previous month were assessed instead of negative life events. In cross-sectional analyses and with stable variance in coping and symptoms controlled, NMR expectancies were positively related to active coping and negatively related to avoidant coping and symptoms. Changes in NMR expectancies and dysphoria were correlated. Time 1 dysphoria was positively related to daily hassles at Time 2, which in turn was associated with changes in coping and dysphoria from Time 1 to Time 2. Implications for counseling and stress-management interventions are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attachment in individuals with social anxiety disorder: The relationship among adult attachment styles, social anxiety, and depression.

Despite their apparent implications for social functioning, adult attachment styles have never been specifically explored among persons with social anxiety disorder. In the current study, a cluster analysis of the Revised Adult Attachment Scale (N. L. Collins, 1996) revealed that 118 patients with social anxiety (58.6% males and 41.4% females, mean age 32.43 yrs) were best represented by anxious and secure attachment style clusters. Members of the anxious attachment cluster exhibited more severe social anxiety and avoidance, greater depression, greater impairment, and lower life satisfaction than members of the secure attachment cluster. This pattern was replicated in a separate sample of 56 patients and compared with the pattern found in 36 control participants. Social anxiety mediated the association between attachment insecurity and depression. Findings are discussed in the context of their relevance to the etiology, maintenance, and cognitive-behavioral treatment of social anxiety disorder. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mastery and performance goals predict epistemic and relational conflict regulation.

The present research examines whether mastery and performance goals predict different ways of reacting to a sociocognitive conflict with another person over materials to be learned, an issue not yet addressed by the achievement goal literature. Results from 2 studies showed that mastery goals predicted epistemic conflict regulation (a conflict regulation strategy focused on the attempt to integrate both points of view), whereas performance goals predicted relational conflict regulation (a conflict regulation strategy focused on the evaluation and affirmation of self-competence). Study 1 shows these links via direct self-report measures of conflict regulation. Study 2 shows the same links using the amount of competence reported for the self and for the other as subtle measures of conflict regulation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)