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Unconditional Regard Buffers Children's Negative Self-Feelings
Pediatrics
Abstract
Background:
Unconditional regard refers to the feeling that one is accepted and valued by others without conditions. Psychological theory suggests that experiences of unconditional regard lead children to feel that they are valuable despite setbacks. We hypothesized that reflecting on experiences of unconditional regard would buffer children's negative self-feelings (eg, shame, insecurity, powerlessness) in the face of setbacks. To test this hypothesis, we randomized children to reflect on experiences of unconditional regard or other experiences, and examined their response to an academic setback 3 weeks later.
Methods:
Participants (11-15 years old) were randomly assigned to reflect for 15 minutes on experiences of unconditional regard (n = 91), conditional regard (n = 80), or other social experiences (n = 76). Research personnel, teachers, and classmates remained blind to condition assignment. Three weeks later, after receiving their course grades, children reported their self-feelings. Course grades were obtained from school records. Receiving low course grades represents a salient and painful real-world setback for children.
Results:
Replicating previous research, children who received lower grades experienced more negative self-feelings (P < .001). As predicted, this well-established relationship was significantly attenuated among children who had reflected, 3 weeks previously, on experiences of unconditional regard (Ps < .03). Reflecting on unconditional regard specifically reduced negative self-feelings after low grades (P = .01), not after average or high grades (Ps > .17).
Conclusions:
Reflecting on unconditional regard buffered children's selves against the adverse impact of an academic setback over an extended period of time. Unconditional regard may thus be an important psychological lever to reduce negative self-feelings in youth.
... One other field experimental study asked secondary school students to imagine a situation in which they experienced unconditional regard (i.e., regard provided regardless of students' behavior or performance), conditional regard, or another social event. This study found that lower grades (received three weeks after the manipulation) only resulted in more negative feelings for students who had not imagined unconditional regard (Brummelman et al., 2014). ...
... Building on extant research (e.g., Assor et al., 2004;Assor & Tal, 2012;Baldwin & Sinclair, 1996;Brummelman et al., 2014), we designed an experiment to investigate the moderating role of CNR and CPR in the effect of performance on students' selfesteem, affect and eagerness to learn. In the experiment, psychology freshmen were led to believe that they succeeded or failed on a digit span task (using manipulated false performance scores). ...
... Also, failing students were less eager to learn than successful students. More importantly and in line with our hypotheses based on indirect evidence from previous research (e.g., Baldwin & Sinclair, 1996;Brummelman et al., 2014), we found that conditional regard magnifies success-and failureinduced changes in positive affect. When the regard of the experimenter was conditional, students who experienced success showed an increase in positive affect, whereas no significant change occurred when regard was not related to performance. ...
Conditional regard refers to regard dependent upon the receiver's fulfillment of certain expectations. Using an experimental design, we examined the effect of conditional negative and positive regard on well-being and eagerness to learn in university freshmen (N = 131). Participants experienced either failure or success followed by conditional vs. unconditional regard. As expected, success and failure had opposite effects on well-being and eagerness to learn. More importantly, there was an increase in positive affect following success in the context of conditional regard, but not in the context of unconditional regard. Additionally, the decrease in positive affect following failure was more pronounced when accompanied by conditional as compared to unconditional regard. Conditional regard thus magnified the impact of success versus failure on students' emotional experiences.
... Recently, research on parental unconditional acceptance is emerging, with emphasis on parents providing non-judgmental warmth, love and affection to their children no matter whether their children act fairly or competently (Ellis & Bernard, 2006). A randomized controlled experiment revealed that unconditional acceptance can buffer children's negative feelings of shame, insecurity, and powerlessness in face of academic setback (Brummelman et al., 2014). In fact, parental unconditional acceptance could provide a safe and non-judgmental context for children to confront their mistakes and weaknesses resiliently instead of being trapped in self-handicapping strategies to defend their egos Schimel et al., 2001). ...
... Many parents share similar wishes, struggles and vulnerabilities. The endorsement of common humanity may elicit a sense of caring that facilitates parents' acceptance towards themselves and their children (Bögels & Restifo, 2014). ...
Studies around the world revealed that children's performance is a significant source of parents’ self-worth. This phenomenon is particularly salient among Chinese parents because of the emphasis on interdependent self-construal in a face culture. With child-based worth, many parents feel compelled to use conditional regard to minimize children's failure and maximize success. Yet, parental conditional regard is notorious for its undermining effects on children's well-being. This study aimed to investigate the antecedents and consequences of parental unconditional acceptance to children, an antidote to parental conditional regard. We conducted a priming experiment with 145 parents randomly assigned to child-based worth or unconditional self-acceptance conditions. Results showed that child-based worth was an inhibitive factor, whereas unconditional self-acceptance was a facilitative factor to parents’ provision of unconditional acceptance to children. Parents primed with unconditional self-acceptance had more intention to provide unconditional acceptance to their children, and in turn had more authoritative responses to their children's undesirable behavior. Our findings have practical implications for parent education.
... Whereas school burnout is associated with adverse academic outcomes across different age periods, adolescence may be a key developmental stage in which school burnout risks are particularly salient (Madigan & Curran, 2021). First, adolescence is generally marked by an increased vulnerability to feelings of insecurity and self-worth concerns (Brummelman et al., 2014;Orth et al., 2010). Second, the transition into secondary education often signifies a move into a more competitive, rigid and less supportive environment (Evans et al., 2018), and is often accompanied with a general decline in students' school engagement (Scherrer & Preckel, 2019). ...
... Findings from this study indicate that academic self-worth contingency might be another relevant target for interventions dealing with school burnout. Of note, an experimental study has shown that having early adolescents to reflect on previous experiences of unconditional regard subsequently reduced their susceptibility to negative self-feelings after receiving low course grades (Brummelman et al., 2014). Future research could further develop interventions targeting early adolescents' academic contingency of self-worth, as a key predictor of school burnout. ...
Whereas both the family and school environment have been suggested to affect school burnout risks, the role of conditionally regarding parenting or teaching, in which affection is granted conditional on student achievement, in the development of school burnout has not yet been examined. This longitudinal study investigated students’ academic contingent self-esteem and parental and teacher conditional regard as antecedents of school burnout. The study sample consisted of Flemish early adolescents (n = 3409; Mage = 12.4 years (SD = 0.49) at the first measurement occasion; 50.3% males), which were surveyed twice (start of Grade 7 and Grade 8). Using Latent Change Modeling, academic contingent self-esteem was found to predict school burnout. Parental and teacher conditional regard both contributed to school burnout, partly through academic contingent self-esteem. Whereas negative conditional regard had the strongest implications for school burnout, positive conditional regard contributed most strongly to contingent self-esteem. Associations were systematically found both at the between-student level (i.e., high levels of antecedents were related to high levels of school burnout) and at the within-student level (i.e., increases in antecedents over time were related to concomitant increases in school burnout). These findings emphasize that communicating conditional approval to adolescents may increase school burnout risks, thus jeopardizing their healthy academic development.
... Adolescents with affectionate, warm, and supportive parents have better overall well-being, including feeling more relaxed, contented, valued, and resilient (Lim et al., 2015;Polcari et al., 2014). Moreover, parental unconditional positive regard helps reduce children's negative self-feelings whereas conditional positive regards predict maladaptive coping, contingent self-esteem, and depressive symptoms (Assor & Tal, 2012;Brummelman et al., 2014;Haines & Schutte, 2022). ...
Feeling loved by one's caregiver is essential for individual flourishing (i.e., high levels of psychological well‐being in multiple dimensions). Although similar constructs are found to benefit adolescent well‐being, research that directly tests parental love as a feeling from the recipient's perspective is rare. Historically, parental love has been measured using single‐assessment methods and assumed to be a stable, trait‐like characteristic; yet, like any feeling, it may fluctuate in meaningful ways on a day‐to‐day basis—the implications of which are unknown. Using a sample of 150 adolescents (59.3% female; ages 14–16), this study estimated level (person's mean level across days) and instability (fluctuations across days) of feeling loved by a caregiver across 21 days for each adolescent, and then examined their prospective effects on adolescent flourishing 1 year later. After controlling for demographics (adolescent age, gender, family income, and parent's sex) and variable baseline levels, feeling more loved by one's caregiver in daily life significantly predicted higher levels of flourishing in two global measures 1 year later. Moreover, level and instability of feeling loved by one's caregiver played different roles for different dimensions of flourishing: higher levels significantly predicted higher levels of autonomy, purpose in life, and personal growth, whereas higher instability significantly predicted lower levels of positive relations with others and environmental mastery. Findings emphasized the importance of considering daily dynamics of feeling loved by one's caregiver and demonstrated that level (of feeling loved) is particularly important for intrapersonal aspects while instability is particularly important for interpersonal aspects of flourishing.
Research Highlights
Adolescents feeling more loved by their caregiver in daily life had higher levels of overall flourishing 1 year later.
Level (of feeling loved) is particularly important for intrapersonal aspects of adolescent flourishing, including autonomy, purpose in life, and personal growth.
Stability (of feeling loved) is particularly important for interpersonal aspects of adolescent flourishing, including positive relations with others and environmental mastery.
... Research indicates this perception can lower selfesteem and trigger depressive symptoms. 31 Hence, it is crucial to introduce family counselling and education to prevent children from internalising these harmful perceptions. ...
Background
Children affected by tethered cord syndrome (TCS) encounter multifaceted challenges encompassing educational, familial and social spheres, underscoring the significance of a holistic comprehension of their subjective emotional well‐being and life encounters. Nonetheless, healthcare professionals tend to prioritise the physical functionality of the afflicted individuals throughout the treatment and rehabilitation process, often neglecting the emotional experiences and requirements of these children as they transition into posthospitalization phases.
Aim
To advance the subjective experiences and perceptions of children with TCS upon reintegration into their families, educational institutions and wider societal contexts subsequent to their discharge from medical facilities.
Methods
The study was conducted at the Children's Hospital in Zhejiang. Twelve children aged 8–15 with TCS were included in the study. The research design used an interpretative qualitative approach, utilising semi‐structured interviews as the primary data collection method. Data analysis was performed using reflexive thematic analysis, facilitating a comprehensive exploration of emerging themes and patterns.
Results
Four major themes (and seven subthemes) were identified from the findings: (1) growing pains (a shameful secret, distance between ideal and reality); (2) inappropriate expressions of familial affection (knowing is not understanding, unspeakable guilt); (3) social estrangement (uncomfortable distinctions, familiar stranger) and (4) striving for independence and consistency.
Conclusions
Children affected by TCS exhibit internal sensitivity and challenges in self‐development, family dynamics and social interactions. They aspire to attain a future characterised by independence and freedom, akin to that of their typically developing peers. These findings can help health professionals, families and educators gain a deeper understanding of what it takes to be a child with TCS, and the findings can also serve as a platform for interventions that seek to promote self‐expression in these children so that they can experience life as a meaningful and positive process.
Patient or Public Contribution
This study received support from children with TCS and their guardians during data collection, as well as from the head nurse of the unit. Coresearchers also contributed to design, data collection, analysis and writing.
... Existing research underscores that this selfperception of 'burden' can precipitate reductions in self-esteem and even depressive symptoms. 31 This emphasizes the salience of implementing familial psychoeducation and counseling interventions to circumvent the internalization of such harmful self-perceptions by the children. ...
Tethered cord syndrome in pediatric patients manifests as an intricate interplay of complications permeating educational, familial, and societal contexts, underscoring the necessity of a comprehensive understanding of their subjective emotional states and life experiences. However, the healthcare sector often exhibits a skewed focus on the physical functionality of the afflicted pediatric patients throughout their treatment and post-treatment phases, frequently neglecting the emotional dimensions of their experience. As such, there is a pressing need to enhance our understanding of the lived experiences and perceptions of pediatric patients with tethered cord syndrome upon their reintroduction into familial, educational, and broader societal environments post-discharge. This study was executed at the Children's Hospital in Zhejiang, incorporating twelve tethered cord syndrome-affected participants aged between 8 to 15 years. An interpretative qualitative research design was employed, employing semi-structured interviews as the chief data acquisition tool. Reflexive thematic analysis was utilized for data evaluation, enabling an exhaustive scrutiny of emerging thematic patterns. Four major themes (and seven sub-themes) were identified from the findings: (1) growing pains (a shameful secret, distance between ideal and reality); (2) inappropriate expressions of familial affection (knowing is not understanding, unspeakable guilt); (3) social estrangement (uncomfortable distinctions, familiar stranger); (4) striving for independence and consistency. Pediatric patients with tethered cord syndrome display intrinsic sensitivity and face complexities in personal growth, familial relationships, and social interactions. Their aspirations revolve around future independence and freedom, similar to their developmentally typical counterparts. The findings of this study offer critical insights for healthcare providers, families, and educators, fostering a deeper comprehension of the experiences and challenges faced by children with tethered cord syndrome. Furthermore, the results serve as a foundation for potential interventions promoting self-expression and enabling these patients to perceive life as a meaningful and positive journey.
... Together with other findings pointing to the potential harm of conditional regard and other controlling practices (e.g., Assor et al., 2014;Assor & Tal, 2012;, these results suggest that it could be important for early prevention programs to include the practice of CR as one of the topics they address. Given findings suggesting that mothers' use of CR may be motivated by their own self-worth difficulties (e.g., Israeli-Halevi et al., 2015), it appears that in addressing these issues, programs would do well to focus also on the self-experiences and perceptions that drive mothers to use the practices of CR and achievementoriented controlling behaviour (e.g., Grolnick & Seal, 2008), and perhaps also on enhancing mothers' capacity to provide unconditional regard (Brummelman et al., 2014). ...
Based on Self-Determination theory, we examined three hypotheses: (1) mothers’ achievement-oriented controlling behaviour towards their toddlers predicts children’s helpless coping with failure three years later, (2) mothers’ prenatal orientation to use conditional regard (CR) to promote children’s achievements predicts postnatal controlling behaviour, and (3) the effects of mothers’ prenatal CR-orientation and postnatal controlling behaviour emerge also after controlling for the effects of infants’ temperament disposition towards frustration-reactivity. A four-wave study assessed expectant mothers’ CR-orientation (n = 290), their 8-month-old infants’ frustration-reactivity (n = 184), mothers’ controlling behaviour with their 18-month olds (n = 201), and children’s helpless coping with unsolvable puzzles at 54–60 months (n = 200). No systematic attrition effects were detected. Results supported the hypotheses, and, in addition, suggested that prenatal CR-orientation has an indirect effect on preschoolers’ helplessness, via mothers’ postnatal controlling behaviour. The findings suggest that mothers’ achievement-oriented prenatal CR-orientation and postnatal controlling behaviour may be risk factors that can be addressed in early prevention programs.
... When parents express such unconditional regard, children feel more connected to their true selves (Harter et al., 1996) and have higher as well as more stable self-esteem (Kernis et al., 2000). Extending these findings, in a randomized intervention, children were invited to reflect on times when they were accepted and valued by others unconditionally (Brummelman et al., 2014). Three weeks later, children received their first report card of the school year. ...
With the rise of individualism since the 1960s, Western parents have become increasingly concerned with raising children’s self-esteem. This is understandable, given the benefits of self-esteem for children’s psychological health. However, parents’ well-intentioned attempts to raise self-esteem, such as inflated praise, may inadvertently breed narcissism. How, then, can parents raise self-esteem without breeding narcissism? Here, we propose a tripartite model of self-regard, which holds that the development of self-esteem without narcissism can be cultivated through realistic feedback (rather than inflated praise), focus on growth (rather than on outperforming others), and unconditional regard (rather than regard that is conditional). We review evidence in support of these practices and outline promising research directions. The tripartite model integrates existing research, stimulates theory development, and identifies leverage points for intervention concurrently to raise self-esteem and curtail narcissism from a young age.
... So, we want to empower young people, and we believe that once we give them reliable information and provide them room to discuss these issues, they can make their own choices. These approaches have been found effective in buffering the at-risk youth's negative self-image, cultivating a trusting relationship between the practitioner and the youth, and engaging the youth in healthy activities (Brummelman et al., 2014;Lee, 2013;Shea, & Jackson, 2015). ...
Background: High-risk youth are often defined in occupational therapy terminology as adolescents and young adults who
experience personal, contextual, or environmental barriers to effective participation in healthy, age-appropriate
occupations. Without assistance for participation, these youth may acquiesce to daily routines of unhealthy risk-taking or
isolation, failing to achieve developmental milestones needed for successful transition to adulthood. There are known
therapeutic services targeting this population, but occupational therapy involvements have been sparsely documented.
Method: Having been affiliated with a community-based occupational therapy program serving high-risk youth for many
years in the US, the principal investigator of the study used a sabbatical opportunity to explore services provided to highrisk youth in Hong Kong (HK). This paper reports preliminary findings obtained from an exploratory study of analyzing
transcripts of 13 one-on-one interviews with service providers in HK.
Results: Two major themes are discussed in this paper: the prevalent behavioral risks among high-risk youth as perceived
by the service providers and the intervention approaches used by the service providers with the high-risk youth
population in HK.
Conclusion: Reflecting on the preliminary outcome of the study, the authors suggest that occupational therapy may
contribute to mitigating youths’ risk factors through ecological occupational engagement.
... Egosystem motivation should be temporarily deactivated by anything that shifts people's focus of attention away from others' judgments of the self. For example, reminders that inclusion and status are unconditional rather than contingent should deactivate egosystem motivation (Brummelman et al., 2014;Schimel, Arndt, Pyszczynski, & Greenberg, 2001). ...
... p0070 Egosystem motivation should be temporarily deactivated by anything that shifts people's focus of attention away from others' judgments of the self. For example, reminders that inclusion and status are unconditional rather than contingent should deactivate egosystem motivation (Brummelman et al., 2014;Schimel, Arndt, Pyszczynski, & Greenberg, 2001). p0075 We propose that, like the self-preservation system, the egosystem can be adaptive in the short-term but costly in the long-term. ...
... Such negative self-feelings, in turn, increase students' risk for later depression and anxiety (Sowislo & Orth 2013). Brummelman et al. (2014a) designed a 15minute intervention to prevent secondary-school students from seeing failure as a threat to their self-worth. Students reflected on times when they were accepted and valued by others unconditionally. ...
During early childhood, individuals with high sensitivity to early programming adjust their phenotype in a way that is expected to be adaptive in their later environment. These adaptations are hypothesized to result in resilience in environments that match the early environment. As appraisal style is a putative target of adaptive programming, early experiences could be a distal cause of resilience.
... Such negative self-feelings, in turn, increase students' risk for later depression and anxiety (Sowislo & Orth 2013). Brummelman et al. (2014a) designed a 15minute intervention to prevent secondary-school students from seeing failure as a threat to their self-worth. Students reflected on times when they were accepted and valued by others unconditionally. ...
From a behavioural biologist's point of view, we argue: (1) The study of resilience in animals should not be restricted to neuronal mechanisms. Rather, questions of ontogeny, function, and evolution also should be addressed to achieve a comprehensive understanding. (2) Implementing new paradigms from animal welfare research in studies of resilience would allow an assessment of appraisal styles in animals.
... Such negative self-feelings, in turn, increase students' risk for later depression and anxiety (Sowislo & Orth 2013). Brummelman et al. (2014a) designed a 15minute intervention to prevent secondary-school students from seeing failure as a threat to their self-worth. Students reflected on times when they were accepted and valued by others unconditionally. ...
The well-replicated observation that many people maintain mental health despite exposure to severe psychological or physical adversity has ignited interest in the mechanisms that protect against stress-related mental illness. Focusing on resilience rather than pathophysiology in many ways represents a paradigm shift in clinical-psychological and psychiatric research that has great potential for the development of new prevention and treatment strategies. More recently, research into resilience also arrived in the neurobiological community, posing nontrivial questions about ecological validity and translatability. Drawing on concepts and findings from transdiagnostic psychiatry, emotion research, and behavioral and cognitive neuroscience, we propose a unified theoretical framework for the neuroscientific study of general resilience mechanisms. The framework is applicable to both animal and human research and supports the design and interpretation of translational studies. The theory emphasizes the causal role of stimulus appraisal (evaluation) processes in the generation of emotional responses, including responses to potential stressors. On this basis, it posits that a positive (non-negative) appraisal style is the key mechanism that protects against the detrimental effects of stress and mediates the effects of other known resilience factors. Appraisal style is shaped by three classes of cognitive processes – positive situation classification, reappraisal, and interference inhibition – that can be investigated at the neural level. Prospects for the future development of resilience research are discussed.
... Such negative self-feelings, in turn, increase students' risk for later depression and anxiety (Sowislo & Orth 2013). Brummelman et al. (2014a) designed a 15minute intervention to prevent secondary-school students from seeing failure as a threat to their self-worth. Students reflected on times when they were accepted and valued by others unconditionally. ...
We are delighted by the broad, intense, and fruitful discussion in reaction to our target article. A major point we take from the many comments is a prevailing feeling in the research community that we need significantly and urgently to advance resilience research, both by sharpening concepts and theories and by conducting empirical studies at a much larger scale and with a much more extended and sophisticated methodological arsenal than is the case currently. This advancement can be achieved only in a concerted international collaborative effort. In our response, we try to argue that an explicitly atheoretical, purely observational definition of resilience and a transdiagnostic, quantitative study framework can provide a suitable basis for empirically testing different competing resilience theories (sects. R1, R2, R6, R7). We are confident that it should be possible to unite resilience researchers from different schools, including from sociology and social psychology, behind such a pragmatic and theoretically neutral research strategy. In sections R3 to R5, we further specify and explain the positive appraisal style theory of resilience (PASTOR). We defend PASTOR as a comparatively parsimonious and translational theory that makes sufficiently concrete predictions to be evaluated empirically.
... Such negative self-feelings, in turn, increase students' risk for later depression and anxiety (Sowislo & Orth 2013). Brummelman et al. (2014a) designed a 15minute intervention to prevent secondary-school students from seeing failure as a threat to their self-worth. Students reflected on times when they were accepted and valued by others unconditionally. ...
We propose that the fundamental mechanism underlying resilience is the integration of novel or negative experiences into internal schemata. This process requires a switch from reactive to predictive control modes, from the brain's salience network to the default mode network. Reappraisal, among other mechanisms, is suggested to facilitate this process.
... Such negative self-feelings, in turn, increase students' risk for later depression and anxiety (Sowislo & Orth 2013). Brummelman et al. (2014a) designed a 15minute intervention to prevent secondary-school students from seeing failure as a threat to their self-worth. Students reflected on times when they were accepted and valued by others unconditionally. ...
The authors provide an original and integrative framework for understanding the complex array of factors that contribute to resilience. Their faith in the uniform benefits of positive appraisals neglects the potential costs of overly positive appraisals, however. As a result, their theory may have difficulty capturing the complexity of appraisal's role in determining resilience.
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@article{BBS:9933476,author = {Mancini,Anthony D.},title = {Are positive appraisals always adaptive?},journal = {Behavioral and Brain Sciences},volume = {38},month = {1},year = {2015},issn = {1469-1825},doi = {10.1017/S0140525X14001630},URL = {http://journals.cambridge.org/article_S0140525X14001630},}
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Are positive appraisals always adaptive?
Anthony D. Mancini (2015).
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 38 , January 2015e113
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?aid=9933476
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Are positive appraisals always adaptive?
Anthony D. Mancini
(2015)
Behavioral and Brain Sciences,
,
Volume 38,
January 2015e113
http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0140525X14001630
Anthony D. Mancini
(2015).
Are positive appraisals always adaptive?.
Behavioral and Brain Sciences,
38,
e113
doi:10.1017/S0140525X14001630
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... Such negative self-feelings, in turn, increase students' risk for later depression and anxiety (Sowislo & Orth 2013). Brummelman et al. (2014a) designed a 15minute intervention to prevent secondary-school students from seeing failure as a threat to their self-worth. Students reflected on times when they were accepted and valued by others unconditionally. ...
In their paper, Kalisch et al. make an important attempt to create a unifying theoretical framework for the neuroscientific study of general resilience mechanisms. We suggest that such attempts can benefit tremendously by incorporating the recently emerging network approaches that enable the characterization of complex brain network architecture and dynamics, in both health and disease.
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@article{BBS:9933464,author = {Levit-Binnun,Nava and Golland,Yulia},title = {Adding network approaches to a neurobiological framework of resilience},journal = {Behavioral and Brain Sciences},volume = {38},month = {1},year = {2015},issn = {1469-1825},doi = {10.1017/S0140525X14001617},URL = {http://journals.cambridge.org/article_S0140525X14001617},}
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Adding network approaches to a neurobiological framework of resilience
Nava Levit-Binnun and Yulia Golland (2015).
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 38 , January 2015e111
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Adding network approaches to a neurobiological framework of resilience
Nava Levit-Binnun
and Yulia Golland
(2015)
Behavioral and Brain Sciences,
,
Volume 38,
January 2015e111
http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0140525X14001617
Nava Levit-Binnun
and Yulia Golland
(2015).
Adding network approaches to a neurobiological framework of resilience.
Behavioral and Brain Sciences,
38,
e111
doi:10.1017/S0140525X14001617
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... Such negative self-feelings, in turn, increase students' risk for later depression and anxiety (Sowislo & Orth 2013). Brummelman et al. (2014a) designed a 15minute intervention to prevent secondary-school students from seeing failure as a threat to their self-worth. Students reflected on times when they were accepted and valued by others unconditionally. ...
Developing prospective models of resilience using the translational and transdiagnostic framework proposed in the target article is a challenging endeavor and will require large-scale data sets with dense intraindividual temporal sampling and innovative analytic methods.
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@article{BBS:9933396,author = {Chang,Luke J. and Reddan,Marianne and Ashar,Yoni K. and Eisenbarth,Hedwig and Wager,Tor D.},title = {The challenges of forecasting resilience},journal = {Behavioral and Brain Sciences},volume = {38},month = {1},year = {2015},issn = {1469-1825},doi = {10.1017/S0140525X14001496},URL = {http://journals.cambridge.org/article_S0140525X14001496},}
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The challenges of forecasting resilience
Luke J. Chang,Marianne Reddan,Yoni K. Ashar,Hedwig Eisenbarth and Tor D. Wager (2015).
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 38 , January 2015e98
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?aid=9933396
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The challenges of forecasting resilience
Luke J. Chang,
Marianne Reddan,
Yoni K. Ashar,
Hedwig Eisenbarth
and Tor D. Wager
(2015)
Behavioral and Brain Sciences,
,
Volume 38,
January 2015e98
http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0140525X14001496
Luke J. Chang,
Marianne Reddan,
Yoni K. Ashar,
Hedwig Eisenbarth
and Tor D. Wager
(2015).
The challenges of forecasting resilience.
Behavioral and Brain Sciences,
38,
e98
doi:10.1017/S0140525X14001496
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... Such negative self-feelings, in turn, increase students' risk for later depression and anxiety (Sowislo & Orth 2013). Brummelman et al. (2014a) designed a 15minute intervention to prevent secondary-school students from seeing failure as a threat to their self-worth. Students reflected on times when they were accepted and valued by others unconditionally. ...
Kalisch and colleagues highlight coping potential (CP) as a principle resilience mechanism during event engagement. We complement this discussion by exploring generative implicit CP self-models, arguably emerging during “resting-state,” subsequent and prior to events. Resting-state affords a propitious environment for Bayesian learning, wherein appraisals/reappraisals may update active inferential CP self-models, which then mediate appraisal style organization and resilience factor valuation.
... Such negative self-feelings, in turn, increase students' risk for later depression and anxiety (Sowislo & Orth 2013). Brummelman et al. (2014a) designed a 15minute intervention to prevent secondary-school students from seeing failure as a threat to their self-worth. Students reflected on times when they were accepted and valued by others unconditionally. ...
Kalisch and colleagues highlight coping potential (CP) as a principle resilience mechanism during event engagement. We complement this discussion by exploring generative implicit CP self-models, arguably
emerging during “resting-state,” subsequent and prior to events. Resting-state affords a propitious environment for Bayesian learning, wherein appraisals/reappraisals may update active inferential CP self-models, which then mediate appraisal style organization and resilience factor valuation.
Causal evidence exists for self-efficacy improvements and for goal setting which are the main interests for this chapter. A student’s confidence has recently been demonstrated to be a strong predictor of achievement. When students experience low self-efficacy, teachers need to look to research demonstrating the effects of types of praise, use of self-talk, autonomy support, giving students choices, types of performance feedback, and increasing students’ sense of belonging. Goal setting is related to self-efficacy. Goal setting affects motivation to learn. Social goals influence decision-making. Educators need to consider the relationship of social goal orientations toward developing social competence. They need to consider the effect of learning goals, and process goals, which include plans for reaching goals. An interesting group of studies involves teaching a metacognitive strategy to bring a student’s wishes for her/himself in the future, closer to the present in order to influence action toward reaching those goals.
Long-standing social problems such as poor achievement, personal and intergroup conflict, bad health, and unhappiness can seem like permanent features of the social landscape. We describe an approach to such problems rooted in basic theory and research in social psychology. This approach emphasizes subjective meaning-making—working hypotheses people draw about themselves, other people, and social situations; how deleterious meanings can arise from social and cultural contexts; how interventions to change meanings can help people flourish; and how initial change can become embedded to alter the course of people’s lives. We further describe how this approach relates to and complements other prominent approaches to social reform, which emphasize not subjective meaning-making but objective change in situations or in the habits and skills of individuals. In so doing, we provide a comprehensive theoretical review and organization of a psychologically informed approach to social problems, one that encompasses a wide-range of interventions and applies to diverse problem areas.
We argue that social psychology has unique potential for advancing understanding of resilience. An exciting development that illustrates this is the emergence of
social-psychological interventions
– brief, stealthy, and psychologically precise interventions – that can yield broad and lasting benefits by targeting key resilience mechanisms. Such interventions provide a causal test of resilience mechanisms and bring about positive change in people's lives.
Three studies examined the possibility that being liked intrinsically by others - for who one is - reduces self-esteem defense, whereas being liked for what one has achieved does not. All 3 studies contrasted the effects on self-esteem defense of liking based on intrinsic or achievement-related aspects of self. Study 1 showed that thoughts of being liked intrinsically reduced defensive bias toward downward social comparison. Study 2 demonstrated that being liked for intrinsic aspects of self reduced participants' tendency to defensively distance themselves from a negatively portrayed other. Study 3 revealed that being liked for intrinsic aspects of self encouraged a preference for upward over downward counterfactuals for a negative event. In all 3 studies, similar reductions in defensiveness were not found when liking was based on achievements. Discussion focuses on implications for understanding the functional value of different bases of self-worth.
Although most individuals pass through adolescence without excessively high levels of "storm and stress," many do experience difficulty. Why? Is there something unique about this developmental period that puts adolescents at risk for difficulty? This article focuses on this question and advances the hypothesis that some of the negative psychological changes associated with adolescent development result from a mismatch between the needs of developing adolescents and the opportunities afforded them by their social environments. It provides examples of how this mismatch develops in the school and in the home and how it is linked to negative age-related changes in early adolescents' motivation and self-perceptions. Ways in which more developmentally appropriate social environments can be created are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Previous studies revealed that low self-esteem is prospectively associated with depression. However, self-esteem has been shown to change over time. We thus hypothesized that not only level but also change in self-esteem affect depression. Using data from a 23-year longitudinal study (N = 1,527), we therefore examined the prospective effects of global and domain-specific self-esteem (physical attractiveness, academic competence) level and change on depressive symptoms 2 decades later. Self-esteem was assessed annually from age 12 to 16, and depression was assessed at age 16 and 35. Results from latent growth curve analyses demonstrated that both level and change in self-esteem served as predictors for adult depression. Individuals who entered adolescence with low self-esteem, and/or whose self-esteem declined further during the adolescent years, were more likely to exhibit symptoms of depression 2 decades later as adults; this pattern held both for global and domain-specific self-esteem. These findings highlight the importance of adolescent self-esteem development for mental health outcomes in adulthood. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved).
The present study examined the development of self-esteem in a sample of emerging adults (N = 295) followed longitudinally over 4 years of college. Six waves of self-esteem data were available. Participants also rated, at the end of their 4th year, the degree to which they thought their self-esteem had changed during college. Rank-order stability was high across all waves of data (Mdn disattenuated correlation = .87). On average, self-esteem levels dropped substantially during the 1st semester (d = -.68), rebounded by the end of the 1st year (d = .73), and then gradually increased over the next 3 years, producing a small (d = .16) but significant mean-level increase in self-esteem from the beginning to the end of college. Individuals who received good grades in college tended to show larger increases in self-esteem. In contrast, individuals who entered college with unrealistically high expectations about their academic achievement tended to show smaller increases in self-esteem, despite beginning college with relatively high self-esteem. With regard to perceived change, 67% reported that their self-esteem increased during college, whereas 12% reported that it declined; these perceptions tended to correspond with actual increases and decreases in their self-esteem scale scores (β = .56). Overall, the findings support the perspective that self-esteem, like other personality characteristics, can change in systematic ways while exhibiting continuity over time. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved).
Recent randomized experiments have found that seemingly “small” social-psychological interventions in education—that is, brief exercises that target students’ thoughts, feelings, and beliefs in and about school—can lead to large gains in student achievement and sharply reduce achievement gaps even months and years later. These interventions do not teach students academic content but instead target students’ psychology, such as their beliefs that they have the potential to improve their intelligence or that they belong and are valued in school. When social-psychological interventions have lasting effects, it can seem surprising and even “magical,” leading people either to think of them as quick fixes to complicated problems or to consider them unworthy of serious consideration. The present article discourages both responses. It reviews the theoretical basis of several prominent social-psychological interventions and emphasizes that they have lasting effects because they target students’ subjective experiences in school, because they use persuasive yet stealthy methods for conveying psychological ideas, and because they tap into recursive processes present in educational environments. By understanding psychological interventions as powerful but context-dependent tools, educational researchers will be better equipped to take them to scale. This review concludes by discussing challenges to scaling psychological interventions and how these challenges may be overcome.
Two studies showed that the link between how much students base their self-worth on academics and their math performance depends on whether their identification with math was statistically controlled and whether the task measured ability or not. Study 1 showed that, when math identification was uncontrolled and the task was ability-diagnostic, basing self-worth on academics was unrelated to the students' math performance. When math identification was controlled, however, the more students based self-worth on academics the worse their math performance. Study 2 showed that, when math identification was uncontrolled and the task was ability non-diagnostic, the more students based self-worth on academics the better their math performance. When math identification was controlled, however, students' level of basing self-worth on academics was unrelated to math performance. These results held for females and males even when gender was made salient. In both studies, higher math identification linked to better math performance.
In this article, we conceptualize the sense of attachment security as an inner resource and present theory and research on the broaden and build cycle of attachment security generated by the actual or symbolic encounter with external or internalized loving and caring relationship partners. We also propose that the body of research stimulated by attachment theory offers productive hints about interventions that might increase positive experiences and prosocial behavior by bolstering a person's sense of security. On this basis, we review recent experimental studies showing how interventions designed to increase attachment security have beneficial effects on mental health, prosocial behavior, and intergroup relations, and discuss unaddressed issues concerning the mechanism underlying the beneficial effects of these interventions, the temporal course of these effects, and their interaction with countervailing forces.
Low self-esteem and depression are strongly related, but there is not yet consistent evidence on the nature of the relation. Whereas the vulnerability model states that low self-esteem contributes to depression, the scar model states that depression erodes self-esteem. Furthermore, it is unknown whether the models are specific for depression or whether they are also valid for anxiety. We evaluated the vulnerability and scar models of low self-esteem and depression, and low self-esteem and anxiety, by meta-analyzing the available longitudinal data (covering 77 studies on depression and 18 studies on anxiety). The mean age of the samples ranged from childhood to old age. In the analyses, we used a random-effects model and examined prospective effects between the variables, controlling for prior levels of the predicted variables. For depression, the findings supported the vulnerability model: The effect of self-esteem on depression (β = -.16) was significantly stronger than the effect of depression on self-esteem (β = -.08). In contrast, the effects between low self-esteem and anxiety were relatively balanced: Self-esteem predicted anxiety with β = -.10, and anxiety predicted self-esteem with β = -.08. Moderator analyses were conducted for the effect of low self-esteem on depression; these suggested that the effect is not significantly influenced by gender, age, measures of self-esteem and depression, or time lag between assessments. If future research supports the hypothesized causality of the vulnerability effect of low self-esteem on depression, interventions aimed at increasing self-esteem might be useful in reducing the risk of depression. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).
The achievement motivation and stereotype threat theories both predict that students who base their self-worth on academics tend to underperform on ability tests. However, the former theory maintains that students in general risk underperformance, whereas the latter maintains that negatively-stereotyped students—but not positively-stereotyped students—risk underperformance. The current research supports the achievement motivation approach. In Study 1, as positively-stereotyped students increased in basing self-worth on academics, the worse their test performance in a performance-goal setting; no relationship existed between basing self-worth on academics and performance in a learning-goal setting. Study 2 replicated this finding among positively- and negatively-stereotyped students. Discussion revisits the assumption that students either base their self-worth on academics and are motivated or they disengage and risk underachievement. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved) (journal abstract)
Although several psychological theories predict that members of stigmatized groups should have low global self-esteem, empirical research typically does not support this prediction. It is proposed here that this discrepancy may be explained by considering the ways in which membership in a stigmatized group may protect the self-concept. It is proposed that members of stigmatized groups may (a) attribute negative feedback to prejudice against their group, (b) compare their outcomes with those of the ingroup, rather than with the relatively advantaged outgroup, and (c) selectively devalue those dimensions on which their group fares poorly and value those dimensions on which their group excels. Evidence for each of these processes and their consequences for self-esteem and motivation is reviewed. Factors that moderate the use of these strategies and implications of this analysis for treatment of stigmas are also discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
A brief intervention aimed at buttressing college freshmen's sense of social belonging in school was tested in a randomized controlled trial (N = 92), and its academic and health-related consequences over 3 years are reported. The intervention aimed to lessen psychological perceptions of threat on campus by framing social adversity as common and transient. It used subtle attitude-change strategies to lead participants to self-generate the intervention message. The intervention was expected to be particularly beneficial to African-American students (N = 49), a stereotyped and socially marginalized group in academics, and less so to European-American students (N = 43). Consistent with these expectations, over the 3-year observation period the intervention raised African Americans' grade-point average (GPA) relative to multiple control groups and halved the minority achievement gap. This performance boost was mediated by the effect of the intervention on subjective construal: It prevented students from seeing adversity on campus as an indictment of their belonging. Additionally, the intervention improved African Americans' self-reported health and well-being and reduced their reported number of doctor visits 3 years postintervention. Senior-year surveys indicated no awareness among participants of the intervention's impact. The results suggest that social belonging is a psychological lever where targeted intervention can have broad consequences that lessen inequalities in achievement and health.
The authors examined age differences in shame, guilt, and 2 forms of pride (authentic and hubristic) from age 13 years to age 89 years, using cross-sectional data from 2,611 individuals. Shame decreased from adolescence into middle adulthood, reaching a nadir around age 50 years, and then increased in old age. Guilt increased from adolescence into old age, reaching a plateau at about age 70 years. Authentic pride increased from adolescence into old age, whereas hubristic pride decreased from adolescence into middle adulthood, reaching a minimum around age 65 years, and then increased in old age. On average, women reported experiencing more shame and guilt; Blacks reported experiencing less shame and Asians more hubristic pride than other ethnicities. Across the life span, shame and hubristic pride tended to be negatively related to psychological well-being, and shame-free guilt and authentic pride showed positive relations with well-being. Overall, the findings support the maturity principle of personality development and suggest that as people age they become more prone to experiencing psychologically adaptive self-conscious emotions, such as guilt and authentic pride, and less prone to experiencing psychologically maladaptive ones, such as shame and hubristic pride.
Some contemporary theorists contend that the desire for self-enhancement is prepotent and more powerful than rival motives such as self-verification. If so, then even people with negative self-views will embrace positive evaluations. The authors tested this proposition by conducting a meta-analytic review of the relevant literature. The data provided ample evidence of self-enhancement strivings but little evidence of its prepotency. Instead, the evidence suggested that both motives are influential but control different response classes. In addition, other motives may sometimes come into play. For example, when rejection risk is high, people seem to abandon self-verification strivings, apparently in an effort to gratify their desire for communion. However, when rejection risk is low, as is the case in many secure marital relationships, people prefer self-verifying evaluations. The authors conclude that future researchers should broaden the bandwidth of their explanatory frameworks to include motives other than self-enhancement.
People's expectations of acceptance often come to create the acceptance or rejection they anticipate. The authors tested the hypothesis that interpersonal warmth is the behavioral key to this acceptance prophecy: If people expect acceptance, they will behave warmly, which in turn will lead other people to accept them; if they expect rejection, they will behave coldly, which will lead to less acceptance. A correlational study and an experiment supported this model. Study 1 confirmed that participants' warm and friendly behavior was a robust mediator of the acceptance prophecy compared to four plausible alternative explanations. Study 2 demonstrated that situational cues that reduced the risk of rejection also increased socially pessimistic participants' warmth and thus improved their social outcomes.
A general theory of domain identification is used to describe achievement barriers still faced by women in advanced quantitative areas and by African Americans in school. The theory assumes that sustained school success requires identification with school and its subdomains; that societal pressures on these groups (e.g., economic disadvantage, gender roles) can frustrate this identification; and that in school domains where these groups are negatively stereotyped, those who have become domain identified face the further barrier of stereotype threat, the threat that others’ judgments or their own actions will negatively stereotype them in the domain. Research shows that this threat dramatically depresses the standardized test performance of women and African Americans who are in the academic vanguard of their groups (offering a new interpretation of group differences in standardized test performance), that it causes disidentification with school, and that practices that reduce this threat can reduce these negative effects.
Three studies examined the possibility that being liked intrinsically by others--for who one is--reduces self-esteem defense, whereas being liked for what one has achieved does not. All 3 studies contrasted the effects on self-esteem defense of liking based on intrinsic or achievement-related aspects of self. Study 1 showed that thoughts of being liked intrinsically reduced defensive bias toward downward social comparison. Study 2 demonstrated that being liked for intrinsic aspects of self reduced participants' tendency to defensively distance themselves from a negatively portrayed other. Study 3 revealed that being liked for intrinsic aspects of self encouraged a preference for upward over downward counterfactuals for a negative event. In all 3 studies, similar reductions in defensiveness were not found when liking was based on achievements. Discussion focuses on implications for understanding the functional value of different bases of self-worth.
The mere psychological presence of relationship partners was hypothesized to trigger interpersonal goals that are then pursued nonconsciously. Qualitative data suggested that people tend to pursue different interpersonal goals within different types of relationships (e.g., mother, best friend, coworker). In several studies, priming participants' relationship representations produced goal-directed behavior (achievement, helping, understanding) in line with the previously assessed goal content of those representations. These findings support the hypothesis that interpersonal goals are component features of relationship representations and that mere activation of those representations, even in the partner's physical absence, causes the goals to become active and to guide behavior nonconsciously within the current situation.
Using prospective data from the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study birth cohort, the authors found that adolescents with low self-esteem had poorer mental and physical health, worse economic prospects, and higher levels of criminal behavior during adulthood, compared with adolescents with high self-esteem. The long-term consequences of self-esteem could not be explained by adolescent depression, gender, or socioeconomic status. Moreover, the findings held when the outcome variables were assessed using objective measures and informant reports; therefore, the findings cannot be explained by shared method variance in self-report data. The findings suggest that low self-esteem during adolescence predicts negative real-world consequences during adulthood.
Two randomized field experiments tested a social-psychological intervention designed to improve minority student performance and increase our understanding of how psychological threat mediates performance in chronically evaluative real-world environments. We expected that the risk of confirming a negative stereotype aimed at one's group could undermine academic performance in minority students by elevating their level of psychological threat. We tested whether such psychological threat could be lessened by having students reaffirm their sense of personal adequacy or "self-integrity." The intervention, a brief in-class writing assignment, significantly improved the grades of African American students and reduced the racial achievement gap by 40%. These results suggest that the racial achievement gap, a major social concern in the United States, could be ameliorated by the use of timely and targeted social-psychological interventions.
The impact of grades on daily self-esteem, affect, and identification with major was examined in a sample of 122 male and female students majoring in engineering and psychology. Self-esteem, affect, and identification with major increased on days students received good grades and decreased on days they received poor grades; basing self-esteem on academic competence moderated the effect of bad grades. Bad grades led to greater drops in self-esteem but not more disidentification with the major for women in engineering. Instability of self-esteem predicted increases in depressive symptoms for students initially more depressed.
Longitudinal data from large cohorts of seventh grade (n = 2,778) East and West German students were collected at the start of the reunification of the school systems to evaluate how this remarkable social experiment affects self-concept formation. Multilevel modeling demonstrated a negative "big-fish-little-pond effect" (BFLPE); attending classes where class-average math achievement was higher led to lower math self-concepts. West German students attended schools that were highly stratified in relation to ability before and after the reunification, whereas East German students first attended selective schools after the reunification. Consistent with theoretical predictions based on this difference, the negative BFLPE - the negative effect of class-average achievement - was more negative in West German schools at the start of the reunification. This difference, however, was smaller by the middle of the year and had disappeared by the end of the first post-reunification school year. Whereas East and West German results both support the negative BFLPE, their differences supported theoretical predictions, extended theory, and demonstrated how changes in school policy influence the formation of academic self-concept.
Citizens complete a survey the day before a major election; a change in the survey items' grammatical structure increases turnout by 11 percentage points. People answer a single question; their romantic relationships improve over several weeks. At-risk students complete a 1-hour reading-and-writing exercise; their grades rise and their health improves for the next 3 years. Each statement may sound outlandishmore science fiction than science. Yet each represents the results of a recent study in psychological science (respectively, Bryan, Walton, Rogers, & Dweck, 2011; Marigold, Holmes, & Ross, 2007, 2010; Walton & Cohen, 2011). These studies have shown, more than one might have thought, that specific psychological processes contribute to major social problems. These processes act as levers in complex systems that give rise to social problems. Precise interventions that alter themwhat I call wise interventionscan produce significant benefits and do so over time. What are wise interventions? How do they work? And how can they help solve social problems?
G*Power (Erdfelder, Faul, & Buchner, 1996) was designed as a general stand-alone power analysis program for statistical tests commonly used in social and behavioral research. G*Power 3 is a major extension of, and improvement over, the previous versions. It runs on widely used computer platforms (i.e., Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Mac OS X 10.4) and covers many different statistical tests of the t, F, and chi2 test families. In addition, it includes power analyses for z tests and some exact tests. G*Power 3 provides improved effect size calculators and graphic options, supports both distribution-based and design-based input modes, and offers all types of power analyses in which users might be interested. Like its predecessors, G*Power 3 is free.
For the past decade, an increasing number of studies have demonstrated that when individuals write about emotional experiences, significant physical and mental health improvements follow. The basic paradigm and findings are summarized along with some boundary conditions. Although a reduction in inhibition may contribute to the disclosure phenomenon, changes in basic cognitive and linguistic processes during writing predict better health. Implications for theory and treatment are discussed.
The field of social cognitive development (SCD) has historically failed to emerge as a dominant approach in developmental psychology. We take this opportunity to articulate the assumptions, goals, and contributions of SCD with the aim of invigorating research from this perspective. We begin by describing the current landscape of social and cognitive development, suggesting what they have and have not given us. We then outline major goals of the social cognitive developmental approach and walk through examples of successful SCD research. Finally, we examine the unique potential of the social cognitive approach to cross-fertilize social and cognitive development (as well as related fields such as social psychology and neuroscience) and to answer new questions about development.
© 2008 Association for Psychological Science.
In contrast with traditional, direct techniques of persuasion (advertising, political rhetoric, etc.), self-persuasion is indirect and entails placing people in situations where they are motivated to persuade themselves to change their own attitudes or behavior. We find that where important attitudes, behavior, or lifestyle changes are concerned, self-persuasion strategies produce more powerful and more long-lasting effects than do direct techniques of persuasion. This is primarily due to the fact that in direct persuasion, members of an audience are constantly aware of the fact that someone is trying (or has tried) to influence them. In a self-persuasion situation, people are convinced that the motivation for change comes from within. In the present address, the author reviews a range of his research on self-persuasion and underscores its relevance to current societal problems. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
This chapter is organized as follows. In the first section, we offer several general observations about psychopathology in adolescence that have emerged from research over the past several decades and that motivated the development of the present heuristic approach. Rather than review research on the nature, antecedents, and developmental course of specific disorders, we emphasize overarching principles that apply across different types of psychopathology and serve as a basis for understanding what is unique about developmental psychopathology in adolescence. This discussion of broad principles is followed by a section in which we introduce a new framework for research on psychopathology in adolescence. Within this framework, the development of psychopathology in adolescence is linked to the convergence of specific biological, cognitive, and contextual factors characteristic of the adolescent decade. Following our overview of the framework, we examine several aspects of developmental and contextual change that occur in adolescence, with detailed sections on changes in brain structure and function; in arousal, motivation, and affect regulation; in the development of regulatory competence; and in the major contexts in which adolescents spend time. The chapter concludes with a call for new, interdisciplinary research that examines the interplay among neurobiological, psychological, and contextual influences on psychopathology in adolescence. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
It is generally accepted that the sense of self is constructed rather than directly perceived or experienced. The hypothesis is advanced here that people's rules of self-inference derive in large part from if-then expectancies about the contingencies of interpersonal interaction; that is, expectancies about how other people will react to one's behaviors. If so, a central type of cognitive structure contributing to self-construal is the relational schema, representing regularities in interaction. Research examining the cognitive representation of interpersonal expectancies, the activation of those representations, and the effects on self-experience is described. I occasionally play golf with my older brother. He is a better player than I, but once in a while I hit a spectacular drive--long and to the center of the fairway. As I look at my shot with admiration, growing self-confidence, and a hint of pride, he often says something along the lines of, "Great drive! That's your best shot all day! That may be the best golf shot I've ever seen you hit! Look---you're right up there by me!" I find I tend to gloat less when playing with my brother than when playing with other friends. It is generally accepted that the sense of self, including self-concepts and self-appraisals, is constructed rather than directly perceived or experienced. Over the past 4 decades, much social-cognitive research on this topic has been conducted, with an emphasis on the knowledge structures and self-evaluative processes that tend to influence people's self-construal. More recently the focus has been turning toward the question of how these cognitive processes are shaped by interpersonal contexts and various social concerns. I review some recent work that has used social-cognitive models and methods to examine the influence of internally repre-sented social information on the sense of self, 2E9. Electronic mall may be sent via the Internet to baldwin @ uwinnipeg.ca.
Self-determination theory (SDT) maintains that an understanding of human motivation requires a consideration of innate psychological needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness. We discuss the SDT concept of needs as it relates to previous need theories, emphasizing that needs specify the necessary conditions for psychological growth, integrity, and well-being. This concept of needs leads to the hypotheses that different regulatory processes underlying goal pursuits are differentially associated with effective functioning and well-being and also that different goal contents have different relations to the quality of behavior and mental health, specifically because different regulatory processes and different goal contents are associated with differing degrees of need satisfaction. Social contexts and individual differences that support satisfaction of the basic needs facilitate natural growth processes including intrinsically motivated behavior and integration of extrinsic motivations, whereas those that forestall autonomy, competence, or relatedness are associated with poorer motivation, performance, and well-being. We also discuss the relation of the psychological needs to cultural values, evolutionary processes, and other contemporary motivation theories.
We examined the idea that adolescents' perceptions of their mothers as using parental conditional positive regard (PCPR) to promote academic achievement are associated with maladaptive self feelings and coping. A study of 153 adolescents supported the hypothesis that PCPR predicts self-aggrandizement following success and self devaluation and shame following failure, which then predict compulsive over-investment. PCPR functioned as a unique predictor of maladaptive self feelings and coping also when the effects of perceived parental conditional negative regard or psychological control were controlled for. The findings suggest that the experience of one's mother as using conditional positive regard to promote achievement leads to a non-optimal self-esteem dynamics, in which people vacillate between feelings of grandiosity following success and self-derogation and shame following failure, which in turn promote a rigid and stressful mode of coping. Thus, the practice of PCPR, although seemingly benign, appears to carry significant emotional and coping costs for adolescents.
Chronically insecure individuals often behave in ways that result in the very social rejection that they most fear. We predicted that this typical self-fulfilling prophecy is not immutable. Self-affirmation may improve insecure individuals' relational security, and this improvement may allow them to express more welcoming social behavior. In a longitudinal experiment, a 15-min self-affirmation improved both the relational security and experimenter-rated social behavior of insecure participants up to 4 weeks after the initial intervention. Moreover, the extent to which self-affirmation improved insecure participants' relational security at 4 weeks predicted additional improvements in social behavior another 4 weeks after that. Our finding that insecure participants continued to reap the social benefits of self-affirmation up to 8 weeks after the initial intervention demonstrates that it is indeed possible to rewrite the self-fulfilling prophecy of social rejection.
This experiment tested whether peer approval and disapproval experiences can cause immediate change in children's state self-esteem. Children's narcissistic traits and evaluator perceived popularity were examined as potential moderators. A total of 333 preadolescents (M = 10.8 years) completed personal profiles on the Internet that were ostensibly judged by a jury consisting of popular and unpopular peers. Participants randomly received negative, neutral, or positive feedback from the jury. Next, they could examine the feedback that each individual judge gave them. As expected, peer disapproval decreased self-esteem, especially in children high in narcissism. In contrast, peer approval increased self-esteem. Moreover, disapproved children's self-esteem recovery was dependent on the extent to which they subsequently viewed positive feedback from popular judges. These findings support sociometer theory.
Previous research has repeatedly shown that writing about an important value, compared with writing about an unimportant value, reduces defensiveness in response to self-threatening information, but has not identified why. Study 1 showed that participants who wrote about an important value reported more positive other-directed feelings, such as love and connection, than participants who wrote about an unimportant value. Study 2 replicated this effect, and showed that loving and connected feelings, but not positive or negative self-directed feelings, completely accounted for the effect of a values-affirmation manipulation on smokers' acceptance of information indicating that smoking harms health. These studies, in concert with previous research, suggest that values affirmation reduces defensiveness via self-transcendence, rather than self-integrity (i.e., self-worth or self-images).
A model linking 3 perceived support variables, namely, level of support, quality of support (unconditional or conditional), and hope about future support, to false self behavior (acting in ways that are not the "real me") was hypothesized. Both parent and peer support were examined. The best fitting model for the parent and peer data revealed that perceived quality and level of parent support predict hope about future parent support, which in turn predicts false self behavior. Adolescents' motives for engaging in false self behavior were also examined. Those whose reported motives were hypothesized to be the most clinically debilitating (devaluation of the self) reported the most negative outcomes (depressed affect, low self-worth, hopelessness, and less knowledge of the true self). In contrast, adolescents citing the developmentally normative motive of role experimentation reported the most positive affect, highest self-worth, greatest hopefulness, and most knowledge of true self. Those reporting that they engaged in false self behavior to please, impress, or win the approval of parents and peers had intermediate scores on the depression, self-worth, hope, and knowledge of true self measures. Discussion focused on the potential causes and consequences of false self behavior.
To provide examples of post-hoc probing of significant moderator and mediator effects in research on children with pediatric conditions.
To demonstrate post-hoc probing of moderational effects, significant two-way interaction effects (dichotomous variable x continuous variable; continuous variable x continuous variable) were probed with regressions that included conditional moderator variables. Regression lines were plotted based on the resulting regression equations that included simple slopes and y-intercepts. To demonstrate probing of mediational effects, the significance of the indirect effect was tested (i.e., the drop in the total predictor --> outcome effect when the mediator is included in the model), using Sobel's (1988) equation for computing the standard error of the indirect effect.
All significant moderator and mediator effects are presented in figure form.
The computational examples demonstrate the importance of conducting post-hoc probes of moderational and mediational effects.
Parents' use of conditional regard as a socializing practice was hypothesized to predict their children's introjected internalization (indexed by a sense of internal compulsion), resentment toward parents, and ill-being. In Study 1, involving three generations, mothers' reports of their parents' having used conditional regard to promote academic achievement predicted (a) the mothers' poor well-being and controlling parenting attitudes, and (b) their college-aged daughters' viewing them as having used conditional regard, thus showing both negative affective consequences from and intergenerational transmission of conditional regard. Study 2 expanded on the first by using four domains, including both genders, and examining mediating processes. College students' perceptions of their mothers' and fathers' having used conditional regard in four domains (emotion control, prosocial, academic, sport) were found to relate to introjected internalization, behavioral enactment, fluctuations in self-esteem, perceived parental disapproval, and resentment of parents. Introjection mediated the link from conditional regard to behavioral enactment. The results suggest that use of conditional regard as a socializing practice can promote enactment of the desired behaviors but does so with significant affective costs.
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Geertjan Overbeek, Bram Orobio de Castro and Brad J. Bushman
Eddie Brummelman, Sander Thomaes, Gregory M. Walton, Astrid M. G. Poorthuis,
Unconditional Regard Buffers Children's Negative Self-Feelings
DOI: 10.1542/peds.2013-3698 originally published online November 3, 2014;
2014;134;1119