Fallon Goodman

George Washington University | GW · Department of Psychology

Judgments about the self compared to internalized standards are central to theoretical frameworks of social anxiety. Yet, empirical research on social comparisons-how people view themselves relative to others-and social anxiety is sparse. This research program examines the nature of everyday social comparisons in the context of social anxiety acros...

Quality contact with other people serves as a reliable mood enhancement strategy. We wondered if the emotional benefits of socializing are present even for those with a psychological disorder defined by social distress and avoidance: social anxiety disorder (SAD). We conducted two ecological momentary assessment (EMA) studies and analyzed 7,243 tot...

People with anxiety disorders tend to make decisions on the basis of avoiding threat rather than obtaining rewards. Despite a robust literature examining approach-avoidance motivation, less is known about goal pursuit. The present study examined the content, motives, consequences, and daily correlates of strivings among adults diagnosed with social...

In an earlier paper (Goodman et al., 2018), we found that two models of subjective well-being demonstrated substantial overlap, with correlations between .85-.98. We concluded that these two models do not capture distinct types of well-being – a conclusion consistent with a growing list of studies that have found high correlations between various m...

Objective: We examined how personality strengths prospectively predict reactions to negative life events. Method: Participants were 797 community adults from 42 countries. At five points over the course of one year, participants completed a series of questionnaires measuring seven personality strengths (hope, grit, meaning in life, curiosity, gr...

Objective: Improvement in emotion regulation is a proposed transdiagnostic mechanism of change. However, treatment research is limited by disorder-specific investigations that assess a narrow number of emotion regulation strategies. Moreover, most assess pre-to-post-treatment change without examining short-term changes throughout psychotherapy that...

Theoretically, purpose serves as a basic dimension of healthy psychological functioning and an important protective factor from psychopathology. Theory alone, however, is insufficient to answer critical questions about human behavior and functioning; we require empirical evidence that explores the parameters of purpose with respect to measurement,...

People with social anxiety disorder (SAD) experience less positive affect (PA) and more negative affect (NA) than the general population, a pattern more similar to depression than other anxiety disorders. There is a dearth of research assessing whether PA is targeted effectively during treatment, even though this is an important emotional aspect fo...

Introduction: Social anxiety is associated with elevated suicidal ideation (SI). One potential explanation is that socially anxious persons experience frequent interpersonal stressors that elicit SI. Longitudinal designs with temporal ordering are needed to adequately test this hypothesis. Therefore, this study leveraged a longitudinal design comb...

Loneliness is a rising global problem just as digital communication platforms have afforded people greater opportunities to interact. This paradox suggests that increased opportunities for social interactions may be insufficient for relieving loneliness. Using daily diary methodology, we examined how features of social interactions—type and perceiv...

Much of the scientific work on emotion regulation has examined strategies in isolation. Now that we have a better understanding of emotion regulatory strategy use and frequency, there is an opportunity to explore new psychological territory. As a starting point, we illustrate how a highly touted strategy, cognitive reappraisal, supercharges a criti...

Emotion regulation (ER) strategies have been linked to emotional well-being. However, most studies on this topic have been conducted on Western samples. Furthermore, related studies that have been conducted with non-Western samples have examined the emotional consequences of a limited range of strategies. This paper aimed to replicate and extend pr...

Background: Stress generation theory suggests that people engage in certain behaviors that causally generate "dependent" stressful life events. Stress generation has primarily been studied in the context of depression with limited consideration of anxiety. People with social anxiety exhibit maladaptive social and regulatory behaviors that may uniq...

Much of the scientific work on emotion regulation has examined strategies in isolation. Now that we have a better understanding of emotion regulatory strategy use and frequency, there is an opportunity to explore new psychological territory. As a starting point, we illustrate how a highly touted strategy, cognitive reappraisal, supercharges a criti...

Research using psychophysiological methods holds great promise for refining clinical assessment, identifying risk factors, and informing treatment. Unfortunately, unique methodological features of existing approaches limit inclusive research participation and, consequently, generalizability. In this brief overview and commentary, we provide a snaps...

Background Most people who survive suicide attempts neither re-attempt suicide nor die by suicide. Research on suicide attempt survivors has primarily focused on negative endpoints (e.g., increased suicide risk) rather than positive outcomes. One important outcome is psychological well-being (PWB), defined as positive functioning across emotional,...

Bisexual, pansexual, and queer (bi+) individuals are at increased risk for depression and anxiety. These disparities are hypothesized to be due to the unique, minority-specific stressors that they experience. Prior research supports that bi+ stressors are associated with depression and anxiety, but nearly all studies have been cross-sectional, limi...

People with social anxiety disorder (SAD) are at increased risk for alcohol-related problems. Most research exploring social anxiety and alcohol use has examined negative drinking consequences, with less consideration of positive consequences—namely positive social experiences—that may reinforce alcohol use. In this daily diary study, we examined h...

Much has been discovered about well-being since 1998, when positive psychology entered the lexicon. Among the wide range of areas in positive psychology, in this commentary we discuss recent discoveries on (1) distinctions between meaning in life, a sense of purpose, and happiness, (2) psychological or personality strengths and the benefits of part...

Can positive events and positive emotions reduce the impact of a stressful event in people with depression? In previous research, studies have found that positive events and positive affect (PA) that co-occur with daily stressors can reduce – or offset – the emotional impact of the stressors. However, this effect has not been examined in people wit...

Emotion dysregulation is a transdiagnostic feature of mood and anxiety disorders, and improvement in emotion regulation skills is a mechanism of many evidence-based psychotherapies. However, research is limited by a narrow focus on two emotion regulation strategies and reliance on global questionnaires that preclude assessment of change throughout...

Background Emotion regulation flexibility is a person's tendency to shift their use of emotion regulation strategies in response to contextual demands. A lack of flexibility is thought to underlie affective disorders, yet conceptualizations of “flexibility” vary widely, and few studies have empirically assessed flexibility. In this study, we outlin...

Clinical affective science has generated a large body of work on the regulatory strategies that people use to manage their emotions. Seminal meta-analyses have linked the frequency of using certain strategies with poor mental health outcomes. Certain strategies are considered risk factors for developing particular disorders and/or mechanisms that i...

Much is known about the types of strategies people use to regulate emotions. Less is known about individual differences that influence emotion regulation strategy selection. In this study, we tested the moderating role of negative emotion differentiation (NED; i.e., the ability to label and describe subtle differences among negative emotions) on th...

Background The extent to which a person believes they can change or control their own emotions is associated with trait-level symptoms of mood and anxiety-related psychopathology.Method The present study examined how this belief relates to momentary and daily self-reports of affect, emotion regulation tendencies, and perceived effectiveness of emot...

Psychological flexibility is the tendency to respond to situations in ways that facilitate valued goal pursuit. Psychological flexibility is particularly useful when challenges arise during goal pursuit that produce distress. In acceptance and commitment therapy, psychological flexibility is considered the pinnacle of emotional health and well-bein...

Approximately 15-20% of adult women in the United States have been sexually assaulted. Given the high prevalence of sexual assault, it becomes increasingly important to understand immediate responses to sexual assault. A lack of information prior to sexual assaults contributes to a literature that is unable to showcase the presence and amount of ch...

Several decades of research on well-being has resulted in a plethora of measurement models created by psychological scientists. In this review, we synthesize the measurement of well-being literature and present a hierarchical framework that subsumes many of the existing models. We outline the rationale and empirical evidence behind five hierarchica...

Psychological flexibility (PF), defined as the ability to pursue valued life aims despite the presence of distress, is a fundamental contributor to health (Kashdan & Rottenberg, 2010). Existing measures of PF have failed to consider the valued goals that give context for why people are willing to manage distress. Using 4 independent samples and 3 f...

Curiosity is a fundamental human motivation that influences learning, the acquisition of knowledge, and life fulfillment. Our ability to understand the benefits (and costs) of being a curious person hinges on adequate assessment. Synthesizing decades of prior research, our goal was to improve a well-validated, multi-dimensional measure of curiosity...

This study examines relationships between emotion beliefs and emotion regulation strategy use among people with social anxiety disorder (SAD) and a psychologically healthy control group. Using experience-sampling methodology, we tested group differences in 2 types of emotion beliefs (emotion control values and emotion malleability beliefs) and whet...

Understanding how individuals with varying levels of social anxiety respond to daily positive events is important. Psychological processes that increase positive emotions are being widely used as strategies to not only enhance well-being but also reduce the symptoms and impairment tied to negative emotional dispositions and conditions, including ex...

People with social anxiety disorder (SAD) display maladaptive attitudes towards emotions. In this experience-sampling study, we explored the extent to which people with SAD viewed anxiety and pain as an impediment to pursuing personal strivings and deriving meaning in life. Participants were adults diagnosed with SAD and a control comparison group...

Curiosity is a fundamental human motive that is beginning to garner closer attention by researchers and practitioners interested in workplace functioning. Recent work suggests that rather than designating someone as possessing curiosity or not, there is benefit in detailing the various elements of curiosity. To date, there is no research on how mul...

One potential factor that could influence how individuals with at least moderate symptoms of depression cope with upsetting events in their daily lives is the beliefs that these individuals hold about whether emotions are malleable or fixed. The current study adopted an experience sampling approach to examine how the beliefs about emotion’s malleab...

Curiosity is a fundamental human motivation that influences learning, the acquisition of knowledge, and life fulfillment. Our ability to understand the benefits (and costs) of being a curious person hinges on adequate assessment. Synthesizing decades of prior research, our goal was to improve a well-validated, multi-dimensional measure of curiosity...

Approximately 15-20% of adult women in the United States have been sexually assaulted. To our knowledge, there are no studies capturing prior functioning and near immediate psychological reactions of sexual assault survivors. In the present study, each night over the course of three weeks, we asked college students to report on their sexual activit...

Abstract: Although hospitality is a valued social and cultural phenomenon, it has been largely overlooked in the psychology research literature. Our studies are designed to advance the understanding of hospitality by creating a brief measure of it that can be used across cultures. In Study 1, we employed a large sample of Americans to create and be...

For decades, researchers and practitioners have theorized psychological disorder and health as opposite ends of a single continuum. We offer a more nuanced, data driven examination into the various ways that people with psychological disorders experience well-being. We review research on the positive emotions, meaning and purpose in life, and socia...

Understanding how individuals with varying levels of social anxiety respond to daily positive events is important. Psychological processes that increase positive emotions are being widely used as strategies to not only enhance well-being but reduce the symptoms and impairment tied to negative emotional dispositions and conditions, including excessi...

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Following the advent of modern positive psychology, there has been a surge of empirical research on strengths and a call for incorporating strengths into clinical models of psychopathology. In this review, we conceptualize strengths as a subset of personality traits and dissect the criteria used to define strengths. In hopes of improving theoretica...

Curiosity is a fundamental human motive that is beginning to garner closer attention by researchers and practitioners interested in workplace functioning. Recent work suggests that rather than designating someone as possessing curiosity, there is benefit in detailing the various elements of curiosity. To date, there is no research on how multiple d...

A monolithic view of curiosity is insufficient to understand how that quality drives success and fulfillment in work and life. To discover and leverage talent and to form groups that are greater than the sum of their parts, a more nuanced approach is needed.

Objective: Researchers conceptualize grit as the combination of two facets: perseverance of effort and consistency of interests toward long‐term goals. We tested the reliability of grit facet scores across the globe and examined how differently each grit facet related to well‐being and personality strengths. Method: An international sample of 7,617...

We compared Seligman’s PERMA model of well-being with Diener’s model of subjective well-being (SWB) to determine if the newer PERMA captured a type of well-being unique from the older SWB. Participants were 517 adults who completed self-report measures of SWB, PERMA, and VIA character strengths. Results from four analytic techniques suggest the fac...

Most research on the link between social anxiety and alcohol consumption has examined problematic outcomes without consideration of potential adaptive functions. Alcohol is an anxiolytic that has the short-term benefit of reducing anxiety; consumption may act as a social lubricant that facilitates higher quality social interactions. Using experienc...

Sex is rarely discussed in theories of well-being and rarely empirically examined using methods other than cross-sectional surveys. In the present study, a daily diary approach was used (for 21 days with 152 adults) to explore the relationship between the presence and quality of sexual episodes and well-being (positive affect, negative affect, mean...

Wise interventions are short, targeted interventions that aim to alter a specific aspect of a person’s daily functioning in order to help them flourish. In the context of well-being scholarship, wise interventions can promote growth in knowledge and personal well-being, and data suggests that increases in resilience promote academic excellence. In...

Progress in clinical science, theory, and practice requires the integration of advances from multiple fields of psychology, but much integration remains to be done. The current article seeks to address the specific gap that exists between basic social psychological theories and the implementation of related therapeutic techniques. We propose severa...

The emerging fields of positive psychology and positive organizational scholarship (POS) contribute new perspectives and approaches for leadership education and leadership development in higher education. While there are emerging empirical studies in these new fields, little connection has been made to the intellectual and practical applications fo...

A large international sample was used to test whether hedonia (the experience of positive emotional states and satisfaction of desires) and eudaimonia (the presence of meaning and development of one's potentials) represent 1 overarching well-being construct or 2 related dimensions. A latent correlation of .96 presents negligible evidence for the di...

Why do people experience anger? Most of our knowledge on anger-triggering events is based on the study of reactions at a single time point in a person's life. Little research has examined how people experience anger in their daily life over time. In this study, we conducted a comprehensive examination of the situational determinants of anger over t...

Whereas traditional sports psychology interventions emphasize controlling or reducing distress, mindfulness-based interventions teach tolerance and acceptance of negative thoughts, feelings, and emotions. In the present pilot study, an entire men’s Division I athletic team (n=13) provided voluntary consent and participated in a brief mindfulness-ba...

Experiential avoidance (EA) is a regulatory strategy characterised by efforts to control or avoid unpleasant thoughts, feelings and bodily sensations. Most studies of EA have used trait measures without considering the effects of EA on psychological functioning in naturalistic settings. To address this gap, we used daily diary methodology to examin...

Prior research found that greater trait curiosity, fewer depressive symptoms, and being a woman increase the likelihood that a person will start a gratitude intervention on their own. Yet, little is known as to why these individual differences lead to self-initiation. In the present study, we examined motivational mechanisms that might account for...

Experiential avoidance (EA), the tendency to avoid internal, unwanted thoughts and feelings, is hypothesized to be a risk factor for social anxiety. Existing studies of experiential avoidance rely on trait measures with minimal contextual consideration. In two studies, we examined the association between experiential avoidance and anxiety within re...

Prior research has found that perceiving positive responses from others following self-disclosures enhances social bonds and plays a role in the maintenance of romantic relationships. We sought to extend this effect by exploring perceived responsiveness to good news in the context of initial social interactions with a stranger. In this study, unacq...

Gratitude interventions tend to be effective at increasing well-being, yet they are not commonly initiated and completed. Prior experimental evidence suggests that provision of social support (i.e., supportive and encouraging statements) increases the effectiveness of positive psychological interventions. The type of support, however, may different...