Illness-specific catastrophic thinking and overperception in asthma.

Objective: This study investigated the role of illness-specific catastrophic thinking in symptom perception in asthma. Design and Main Outcome Measures: A total sample of 72 patients with intermittent to moderate persistent asthma completed the Catastrophizing about Asthma Scale and completed the Asthma Symptom Checklist to measure retrospective symptom reporting. In addition, symptoms were concurrently assessed during different respiratory challenges eliciting mild and ambiguous versus salient and pronounced symptoms. Results: Catastrophic thinking in general, when patients are not having an exacerbation, is related to an increase in emotional symptoms, especially in ambiguous situations where respiratory difficulties could occur. Catastrophic thinking during exacerbations is related to an increase in emotional symptoms as well as in respiratory symptoms during respiratory challenges. Conclusion: These strong relationships between catastrophic thinking and increased perception of asthma symptoms suggest a link between illness-specific catastrophic thinking and overperception. Consequently, catastrophic thoughts are an important target for psychological interventions in support of drug treatment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-consciousness and self-assessment.

Investigated the effect of self-consciousness on Ss' tendencies to seek out or avoid ability-diagnostic information by giving 30 male and 44 female undergraduates bogus feedback on task performance, initially indicating that they had either moderately high or low levels of "surgency" (an ability with which they were relatively unfamiliar). Ss were allowed to choose the composition of a 2nd surgency task by selecting test items from among several categories. For some items, but not others, performance norms were ostensibly available, allowing Ss to evaluate the adequacy of their performance on those items. Results show that private self-consciousness interacted with initial outcome so that seeking norms (after success) and avoidance of norms (after failure) occurred only among Ss who were relatively high in private self-consciousness (as measured several weeks earlier by a self-consciousness scale). (41 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The idealized self and the situated self as predictors of employee work behaviors.

This article presents a model integrating research on idealized and situated selves. Our key premise is that identity-relevant behaviors are most likely to occur in the workplace when identities are psychologically central and activating forces make those identities salient. Analysis of matched data from 278 employees, supervisors, and organizational records generally supported our model. Helping identity and industrious work identity were positively associated with related role behaviors only when time-based occupancy in the role of organization member was high. Industrious work identity was positively associated with role behaviors only when reflected appraisals from coworkers were consistent with that identity. In contrast, reflected appraisal of helping identity had an independent relationship with identity-relevant role behaviors. Results demonstrate the importance of theory linking the idealized self and the situated self to understanding identity relations with work performances. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The self as a mediator between personality and adjustment.

The self can be conceptualized as a mediating agent that translates personality into situated goal-directed activities and adaptation. This research used a level-of-analysis approach to link personality dimensions (Level 1) to self-systems (Level II) and to teacher ratings of adjustment in African American, Mexican American, and European American students (N?=?317). The authors hypothesized that links among aspects of self-esteem and teacher ratings of adjustment would be domain specific, and those links to dimensions of the 5-factor model would reflect the domain specificity. Structural equation modeling corroborated hypotheses about domain specificity in links between adjustment and 5-factor dimensions. Results were discussed in terms of levels of analysis for personality structure, personality development, and age-related adaptations to social contexts. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-consciousness and the processing of self-relevant information.

Three experiments were conducted to examine cognitive processes involved in self-conscious behavior. According to Hull and Levy (1979), self-consciousness is associated with processes involved in self-referent encoding. The present studies advance the more specific hypothesis that self-consciousness is involved with the aspect of self-reference associated with the activation of knowledge about the self. Experiment 1 used a self-reference paradigm and found that self-consciousness increased the extent to which a manipulation of accessible self-knowledge influenced self-referent encoding. Experiment 2 used a self-perception paradigm and found that self-consciousness increased the extent to which a manipulation of accessible self-knowledge affected subsequent self-perception. Experiment 3 used a correlational design to demonstrate how cognitive processes associated with self-reference may mediate self-conscious behavior. Individual differences in self-referent encoding were associated with individual differences in self-consciousness; both variables were associated with increased affective reactions to self-relevant feedback; and partialing out individual differences in self-referent encoding eliminated the effects of self-consciousness. These results are discussed in terms of their implications for reconciling various theories of self-consciousness. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The obese child as a social being and developing self.

The social and emotional concomitants of childhood obesity are discussed. The extant empirical literature is reviewed and placed in the context of relevant social-psychological and developmental theory. Implications for treatment are also outlined. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Suicide as escape from self.

Suicide is analyzed in terms of motivations to escape from aversive self-awareness. The causal chain begins with events that fall severely short of standards and expectations. These failures are attributed internally, which makes self-awareness painful. Awareness of the self's inadequacies generates negative affect, and the individual therefore desires to escape from self-awareness and the associated affect. The person tries to achieve a state of cognitive deconstruction (constricted temporal focus, concrete thinking, immediate or proximal goals, cognitive rigidity, and rejection of meaning), which helps prevent meaningful self-awareness and emotion. The deconstructed state brings irrationality and disinhibition, making drastic measures seem acceptable. Suicide can be seen as an ultimate step in the effort to escape from self and world. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Depression as the search for the lost self.

Explores depression as a narcissistic disturbance in which the self is unconsciously expected to accomplish grandiose expectations and is regarded as a failure when it does not. These omnipotent fantasies include the prevention of object loss and triumph over death. In the later years, difficulties in maintaining self-esteem can predispose a person to depression since aging unavoidably involves dwindling opportunities, failing health, and loss of loved ones. A psychotherapeutic approach is outlined, focusing on the treatment of depression as a search for the lost self in which the development of healthy narcissism is seen as activating arrested or inhibited ego functions. The development of a positive cathexis of the self is seen as a safeguard against the self-destruction implicit in deep depression. This psychotherapeutic approach is demonstrated in a clinical vignette of a suicidally depressed woman in her 60's. (18 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's causal attributions to self and other as a function of outcome and task.

In this study, we tested three hypotheses. First, children do not attribute their positive outcomes more to internal causes and their negative outcomes more to external causes. Second, children attribute the outcomes of others more to internal causes on an academic task than they do on a leisure task. Third, children attribute their own outcomes to external causes and another's outcomes to internal causes. To test these hypotheses, we had children attribute their own or another's positive or negative outcomes on academic, social, and leisure tasks to ability, effort, task difficulty, and luck. The results indicated that children attributed their positive outcomes more to ability, effort, and luck than they did their negative outcomes. This effect did not depend on the person to whom they made attributions. Thus, the results for type of outcome and self or other were not as hypothesized. The results for type of task were as hypothesized. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The self as a memory system: Powerful, but ordinary.

This article provides a research model of the process by which personal and social knowledge serves as a nucleus around which new knowledge is easily accumulated. In 4 experiments, Ss produced friends' names and then constructed sentences, each including a name together with an assigned (target) noun. Unexpected recall tests showed greatly superior memory for target nouns used in sentences with own friends' (self-generated) names vs. nouns used in sentences with others' friends' (other-generated) names. This "self-generation" effect was robustly observed across several procedural variations. Computer simulations of Experiments 3 and 4 supported the assumption that the self-generation procedure's effect on free recall of target nouns is mediated by retrieval of the self-generated names with which the nouns are sentence-paired. Together with other recent findings, these results indicate that powerful mnemonic effects associated with the self can be understood in terms of familiar, ordinary memory processes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-consciousness, self-attention, and social interaction.

Conducted 2 experiments with a total of 128 female undergraduates to test the effects of self-focused attention on positive and negative social interactions. In Study 1 the behavior of dispositionally high and low publicly self-conscious women (as measured by the Self-Consciousness Scale) was examined in an interpersonal situation involving rejection by a group. It was hypothesized that persons high in self-consciousness, being more aware of how they are perceived by others, would be more sensitive and react more negatively to the rejection than those low in self-consciousness. The predictions were confirmed. In Study 2, female Ss were presented with favorable or unfavorable feedback in the context of an interview, and self-attention was experimentally manipulated by exposing half the Ss to their images in a mirror. Self-awareness increases the negative response to the negative evaluation and tended to increase the positivity of the positive evaluation. The implications of self-awareness theory for the social self and social interaction are discussed. (38 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relational schemas and the developing self: Perceptions of mother and of self as joint predictors of early adolescents' self-esteem.

This 1-year longitudinal study examined early adolescents' (N=278, age 11-13 years) perceptions of their mother's behavior (affection, knowledge of child's activities, and psychological control) and of how they react to their mother (trust in mother, defiance, and debilitation) as predictors of self-esteem among peers. Perceived maternal affection predicted self-esteem for girls; perceived psychological control forecast lower self-esteem for boys. Perceptions of self as untrusting, defiant, or debilitated led to lower self-esteem. Furthermore, perceived maternal behavior interacted with perceived self-reactions to predict self-esteem: Perceived debilitation led to reduced self-esteem only under high perceived maternal psychological control; perceived defiance predicted lower self-esteem only under low perceived maternal knowledge. The prediction of self-esteem is clearly enhanced when perceived self-reactions are included along with perceived maternal behavior as predictors. Combinations of perceived maternal behavior and perceived self-reactions--relational schemas--warrant increased attention as possible influences on the developing self. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The self as a mnemonic device: The role of internal cues.

Two studies with 48 undergraduates examined the contention that the self-reference effect occurs because the self provides a set of organized internal cues in the form of personal experiences that can mediate recall. The 2 properties—constructibility and associability of internal cues—are also important to the self-reference effect. S-generated cues composed of personal experiences representing the internal self were compared with cues composed of names of body parts representing the external self (Exp I). The body-part cues were more easily reconstructed by Ss at recall than were personal-experience cues. Nevertheless, trait words were better recalled after being related to personal experiences, because trait words and personal experiences were easily associated. In Exp II, concrete nouns were presented rather than trait words, and no difference in recall using the 2 types of cues was found. This occurred because concrete nouns can be easily associated with either personal experiences or body parts. (30 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Instigative aggression as a function of past experience and target characteristics.

Examined third-party-instigated aggression by manipulating the provocativeness of the same or a new target in Part 2 of a task. Effects of previous experience with aggression (i.e., interacting with partners supportive of or disapproving of aggression in Part 1) were also examined. Ss were 80 female undergraduates. Although the provocativeness of the target accounted for the most variance in the amount of aggression expressed, when the target in Part 2 was new, prior experience influenced aggression. Results are discussed in terms of an interactional model of behavior. The clearer the current situational demands (i.e., known, predictable target) were, the less the influence of past aggressive experience on continued aggression; the more ambiguous the current situation (i.e., new, unpredictable target) was, the more the influence of past aggressive experience on continued aggression. (14 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sexual overperception: Power, mating motives, and biases in social judgment.

Results from 4 experiments suggest that power motivates heightened perceptions and expectations of sexual interest from subordinates. Having power over a member of the opposite sex activated sexual concepts that persisted across a temporal delay, indicating the activation of a mating goal (Study 1). Having power increased participants' expectations of sexual interest from a subordinate (Study 2) but only when a mating goal was attainable (i.e., when the subordinate was romantically available; Study 3). In a face-to-face interaction between 2 participants, power heightened perceptions of sexual interest and sexualized behavior among participants with chronically active mating goals (i.e., sexually unrestricted individuals; Study 4). Tests of mediation demonstrated that sexual overperception mediated power's effect on sexually tinged behavior. Through its capacity to induce goal pursuit, power can activate mating goals that sexualize interactions between men and women. This research demonstrates one route through which power might lead to sexual harassment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Motion prediction as a function of target speed and duration of presentation.

This study investigated the ability of Ss to predict the future position of a moving target after the target disappeared. Target speed, duration of target exposure, and S's mode of responding to the visible target were varied. The performance measure was the absolute deviation from the correct target position at the end of 9 sec., converted to error relative to target speed. Results show: (a) no significant differences resulting from mode of response (tracking vs. monitoring), order of presentation, duration of presentation, or speed-duration interaction; (b) significant learning effect from session to session (p     

The emerging role of glutamate as a new pharmacologic target.

Neurotransmitters serve as functional substrates for receptor signaling, as well as dynamic mediators of psychotropic drug activity. Identifying dysregulations in specific neurotransmitter systems has greatly contributed to increased understanding of the pathophysiology of various disorders. Several primary neurotransmitters have received the greatest attention as they relate to neuropsychiatric disorders--namely, acetylcholine, and the biogenic monoamines (norepinephrine, dopamine, and serotonin). In addition to these 'classic' neurotransmitters, various amino acids, such as gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), glutamate, aspartate, and glycine, have also been identified as having neurotransmitter properties within the central nervous system (CNS). The excitatory amino acid glutamate, the most prevalent neurotransmitter in the CNS and a primary mediator of excitatory synaptic transmission, has begun receiving attention. Clinicians will benefit from this overview of glutamate's neurobiology, pharmacological activity, and suspected involvement in the pathophysiology of various disease states. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Radar target detection as a function of search area and viewing distance.

The detection task employed a 9?-in. plan position indicator (PPI) and simulated targets. 30 Army trainees served as Ss. Each S performed the 9 combinations of viewing distance, (a) 6 ins., (b) 12 ins., (c) 18 ins., and, search area, (a) whole scope, (b) ? scope, and (c) –1–1??-diameter circle within the whole scope. A Treatments X Treatments X Subjects analysis of variance indicated significant main and interaction effects: as viewing distance increases, detection performance is degraded; as search area increases, detection performance is degraded; optimum viewing distance when searching the whole scope is approximately 12 ins., while optimum viewing distance for a small area (–1–1??-in. diameter) within a larger area is 6 ins. or less. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Visual target location as a function of number and kind of competing signals.

Using 20 college students, the influence of hue and shape on ability of operators to correctly describe location of objects, reflected on radar picture tubes, was studied. Variables included number of target signals, values of hue-shape combinations, number of signals, and the distribution of this competition between the hue and shape dimensions. The number of targets had by far the greatest effect on task time. Hue rather than shape is the critical factor. (15 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Prejudice as self-image maintenance: Affirming the self through derogating others.

The authors argue that self-image maintenance processes play an important role in stereotyping and prejudice. Three studies demonstrated that when individuals evaluated a member of a stereotyped group, they were less likely to evaluate that person negatively if their self-images had been bolstered through a self-affirmation procedure, and they were more likely to evaluate that person stereotypically if their self-images had been threatened by negative feedback. Moreover, among those individuals whose self-image had been threatened, derogating a stereotyped target mediated an increase in their self-esteem. The authors suggest that stereotyping and prejudice may be a common means to maintain one's self-image, and they discuss the role of self-image-maintenance processes in the context of motivational, sociocultural, and cognitive approaches to stereotyping and prejudice. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)