Self-awareness and emotional intensity

The heavy-tailed valence hypothesis: the human capacity for vast variation in pleasure/pain and how to test it

Introduction

Wellbeing policy analysis is often criticized for requiring a cardinal interpretation of measurement scales, such as ranking happiness on an integer scale from 0-10. The commonly-used scales also implicitly constrain the human capacity for experience, typically that our most intense experiences can only be at most ten times more intense than our mildest experiences. This paper presents the alternative "heavy-tailed valence" (HTV) hypothesis: the notion that the accessible human capacity for emotional experiences of pleasure and pain spans a minimum of two orders of magnitude.

Methods

We specify five testable predictions of the HTV hypothesis. A pilot survey of adults aged 21-64 (n = 97) then tested two predictions, asking respondents to comment on the most painful and most pleasurable experiences they can recall, alongside the second most painful and pleasurable experiences.

Results

The results find tentative support for the hypothesis. For instance, over half of respondents said their most intense experiences were at least twice as intense as the second most intense, implying a wide capacity overall. Simulations further demonstrate that survey responses are more consistent with underlying heavy-tailed distributions of experience than a "constrained valence" psychology.

Discussion

A synthesis of these results with prior findings suggests a "kinked" scale, such that a wide range of felt experience is compressed in reports at the high end of intensity scales, even if reports at lower intensities behave more cardinally. We present a discussion of three stylized facts that support HTV and six against, lessons for a future survey, practical guidelines for existing analyses, and implications for current policy. We argue for a dramatic increase in societal ambition. Even in high average income countries, the HTV hypothesis suggests we remain far further below our wellbeing potential than a surface reading of the data might suggest.

Evaluation of Before Operational Stress: A Program to Support Mental Health and Proactive Psychological Protection in Public Safety Personnel

Public safety personnel (PSP; e.g., communications officials, corrections workers, firefighters, paramedics, and police officers) are at risk of developing mental health problems due to experiencing potentially psychologically traumatic events during their career. Research examining evidence-based treatments for psychological injuries resulting from operational duties (also known as operational stress injuries) has not yielded robust results that would indicate ongoing interventions as the best solution for managing PSP mental health injuries; as such, proactive psychological interventions designed to bolster resilience are being considered potentially beneficial for mitigating the impact of occupational stress on PSP. Despite the growing popularity of resilience programs, most are delivered in a single session after an event deemed particularly problematic with no follow-up. Longer interventions may better support sustained resiliency, mitigate the impact of operational stress, and increase positive PSP workplace outcomes. The current article introduces the Before Operational Stress (BOS) program, which was designed for delivery early in a PSP career to enhance self-awareness and healthy relationships. The year-long program is derived from cognitive behavior therapy and group therapeutic techniques to meet program objectives. The current BOS program evaluation demonstrated small, statistically significant improvements in symptoms of PTSD, quality of life, stigma, and perceived social support from baseline (Time 1) to 6 months (Time 4). There were also non-significant improvements observed in symptoms of depression, anxiety, stress, alcohol use, as well as in emotional regulation and resilience. Qualitative results indicated participants positively perceived the BOS program, with participants reporting specific improvements in self-awareness, avoidant behaviors, and relationships with family and colleagues. The BOS program content (e.g., functional disconnection and functional reconnection) and processes (e.g., psychoeducation within a supportive learning structure; mutually empowering group interactions) appear unique relative to other PSP resilience programs, with promising initial results in support of PSP mental health. Recommendations for future research and program development are provided.

I'm so touched! Self-touch increases attitude extremity via self-focused attention

In everyday life, people often engage in behaviors like chin touching, hand clasping, and arm crossing. Such self-touching behaviors have been found to emerge under emotional stress and while performing tasks requiring concentration and focus. In contrast to work examining antecedents of self-touch, the current research experimentally investigates the causal outcomes of self-touch, specifically its influence on evaluative cognitions such as attitudes toward external objects and events. Four studies support the prediction that both instructed and spontaneous self-touch enhance focus on the self, resulting in greater attitude extremity toward evaluated targets. A last study demonstrates that people do not have a fully accurate understanding of the influence of self-touch on consequential outcomes such as self-focus and attitude extremity. Thus, this common behavior may incidentally influence a wide variety of judgments.

Writing About Past Failures Attenuates Cortisol Responses and Sustained Attention Deficits Following Psychosocial Stress

Acute stress can harm performance. Paradoxically, writing about stressful events—such as past failures—has been shown to improve cognitive functioning and performance, especially in tasks that require sustained attention. Yet, there is little physiological evidence for whether writing about past failures or other negative events improves performance by reducing stress. In this experiment, we studied the effects of an acute psychosocial stressor, the Trier Social Stress Test, on attentional performance and salivary cortisol release in humans. Additionally, we investigated whether an expressive writing task could reduce the detrimental effects of stress, both on performance and physiological response. We found that when individuals were asked to write about a past failure before experiencing a stressor, they exhibited attenuated stress responses. Moreover, those who wrote about a past failure before being exposed to stress also exhibited better behavioral performance. Our results suggest that writing about a previous failure may allow an individual to experience a new stressor as less stressful, reducing its physiological and behavioral effects.

Initial elevation bias in subjective reports

People's reports of their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are used in many fields of biomedical and social science. When these states have been studied over time, researchers have often observed an unpredicted and puzzling decrease with repeated assessment. When noted, this pattern has been called an "attenuation effect," suggesting that the effect is due to bias in later reports. However, the pattern could also be consistent with an initial elevation bias. We present systematic, experimental investigations of this effect in four field studies (study 1: n = 870; study 2: n = 246; study 3: n = 870; study 4: n = 141). Findings show clear support for an initial elevation bias rather than a later decline. This bias is larger for reports of internal states than for behaviors and for negative mental states and physical symptoms than for positive states. We encourage increased awareness and investigation of this initial elevation bias in all research using subjective reports.

Self-Awareness and the Emotional Consequences of Self-Discrepancies

Several self theories explore the effects of discrepant self-beliefs on motivation and emotion. This research intersected two self theories: self-discrepancy theory and objective self-awareness theory. Self-discrepancy theory predicts that ideal and ought discrepancies cause different negative emotions; objective self-awareness theory predicts that high self-awareness will strengthen the relationship between self-discrepancies and emotions. People (N =112) completed measures of self-discrepancies and emotions (dejection, agitation, positive affect, and negative affect). Self-focused attention was manipulated with a large mirror. When self-awareness was low, self-discrepancies had weak, nonsignificant relations to emotion. When self-awareness was high, however, self-discrepancies strongly predicted emotional experience. These effects were general—ideal and ought discrepancies affected emotions because of their substantial shared variance, not their unique variance. Implications for theories of self-discrepancies and emotions are considered.

Self-Awareness, Self-Evaluation, and Creativity

The present research examined when self-evaluation influences creativity. Based on objective self-awareness theory, the authors predicted that feeling able to improve would buffer against the detrimental effects of self-evaluation on creativity. Two experiments manipulated self-evaluation (varying self-awareness, Study 1; providing objective performance standards, Study 2) and perceived ability to improve potential failure on the creativity task. Self-evaluation reduced creativity (generating remote associates, finding unusual uses for a knife) in both experiments, but only when people did not expect to improve. When people felt able to improve, self-evaluation did not affect creativity. Connections between self-motives, creativity, and defensiveness are discussed.

Alcohol Myopia Revisited: Clarifying Aggression and Other Acts of Disinhibition Through a Distorted Lens

The alcohol myopia model (AMM; Steele & Josephs, 1990) is reviewed in light of its unique ability to account for a variety of alcohol and nonalcohol-related disinhibited behaviors, particularly aggression. The AMM posits that alcohol has a narrowing, or a "myopic," effect on one's ability to attend to competing instigatory and inhibitory cues. Disinhibited behavior is presumed to occur when attention is directed toward salient provocative or instigatory cues rather than inhibitory cues. AMM research is reviewed with regard to stress and anxiety, risky sexual behavior, drinking and driving, suicide, disinhibited eating, smoking, and alcohol-related aggression. The AMM is also expanded by proposing five key mechanisms (i.e., negative affect, angry affect, hostile cognitive rumination, self-awareness, and empathy) that are likely to explain how the model is specifically involved in the alcohol-aggression relation. Finally, a number of public health interventions, extrapolated from the AMM, are proposed to stimulate future research directed at reducing the prevalence of alcohol-related violence.

Emotional intelligence in teams: Development and initial validation of the short version of the Workgroup Emotional Intelligence Profile (WEIP-S)

Research reveals that emotional intelligence is an important factor in predicting performance in teams. In this article, we initially outline a theoretical model for examining emotional intelligence in teams. Using this model, we test a short version (16 items) of the self-report Workgroup Emotional Intelligence Profile (WEIP). Evidence from three studies supports this model. Two samples of 620 and 217 employees support the hypothesized structure of the WEIP-S. Four distinct constructs were derived: Awareness of own emotions; Management of own emotions; Awareness of others' emotions; and Management of others' emotions. The WEIP-Short Version (WEIP-S) scale, therefore, is based on abilities that are vital during the interaction of team members. Data from 99 employees provide evidence of test–retest stability for the WEIP-S across three time periods. Limitations and potential uses in management research for this short-version scale are discussed.

Emotional intelligence in teams: Development and initial validation of the short version of the Workgroup Emotional Intelligence Profile (WEIP-S)

Research reveals that emotional intelligence is an important factor in predicting performance in teams. In this article, we initially outline a theoretical model for examining emotional intelligence in teams. Using this model, we test a short version (16 items) of the self-report Workgroup Emotional Intelligence Profile (WEIP). Evidence from three studies supports this model. Two samples of 620 and 217 employees support the hypothesized structure of the WEIP-S. Four distinct constructs were derived: Awareness of own emotions; Management of own emotions; Awareness of others' emotions; and Management of others' emotions. The WEIP-Short Version (WEIP-S) scale, therefore, is based on abilities that are vital during the interaction of team members. Data from 99 employees provide evidence of test–retest stability for the WEIP-S across three time periods. Limitations and potential uses in management research for this short-version scale are discussed.

Self-Awareness Without Awareness? Implicit Self-Focused Attention and Behavioral Self-Regulation

Objective self-awareness theory contends that focusing attention on the self initiates an automatic comparison of self to standards. To gain evidence for automatic self-standard comparison processes, two experiments manipulated attention to self with subliminal first-name priming. People completed a computer-based parity task after being instructed that the standard was to be fast or to be accurate. Subliminal first name priming increased behavioral adherence to the explicit standard. When told to be fast, self-focused people made more mistakes and had faster response times; when told to be accurate, self-focused people made fewer mistakes. A manipulation of conscious self-awareness (via a mirror) had the same self-regulatory effects. The findings suggest that comparing self to standards can occur automatically and that it is attention to self, not awareness of the self per se, that evokes self-evaluation.

A heuristic model of enactive compassion

PURPOSE OF REVIEW

This article is an investigation of the possibility that compassion is not a discrete feature but an emergent and contingent process that is at its base enactive. Compassion must be primed through the cultivation of various factors. This article endeavors to identify interdependent components of compassion. This is particularly relevant for those in the end-of-life care professions, wherein compassion is an essential factor in the care of those suffering from a catastrophic illness or injury. The Halifax Model of Compassion is presented here as a new vision of compassion with particular relevance for the training of compassion in clinicians.

RECENT FINDINGS

Compassion is generally valued as a prosocial mental quality. The factors that foster compassion are not well understood, and the essential components of compassion have not been sufficiently delineated. Neuroscience research on compassion has only recently begun, and there is little clinical research on the role of compassion in end-of-life care.

SUMMARY

Compassion is in general seen as having two main components: the affective feeling of caring for one who is suffering and the motivation to relieve suffering. This definition of compassion might impose limitations and will, therefore, have consequences on how one trains compassion in clinicians and others. It is the author's premise that compassion is dispositionally enactive (the interactions between living organisms and their environments, i.e., the propensity toward perception-action in relation to one's surrounds), and it is a process that is contingent and emergent.

Self-Focused Attention, Perspective-Taking, and False Consensus

A quasi-experimental study examined the effects of self-focused attention on acknowledging or ignoring others’ perspectives. University students scoring high vs. low in private and public self-focus estimated the opinion of a fellow student. For these estimates, a relevant cue for the fellow student’s most probable opinion was provided or not. The results replicate earlier studies that have demonstrated that attention focused on the self enhances perspective-taking and reduces egocentrism when a cue for others’ perspectives is provided: High private self-focus (self-awareness) turned out to further perspective-taking and, thus, to reduce egocentrism under the critical condition of a cue being presented for the other’s perspective. These results, as well as earlier research, contradict findings by Fenigstein and Abrams (1993) , which were interpreted as showing that self-focus enhances egocentrism in a false consensus paradigm.

Applying the attention-allocation model to the explanation of alcohol-related aggression: implications for prevention

The primary purpose of this article is to apply the attention-allocation model (AAM; Steele and Josephs, 1990 ) to the explanation, as well as the prevention, of alcohol-related violence. The AAM contends that alcohol has a "myopic" effect on attentional capacity that presumably facilitates aggression by narrowing attentional focus on the most salient provocative cues that are naturally present in hostile situations, rather than on less salient inhibitory cues. Data are presented to demonstrate support for the AAM with regard to alcohol-related aggression. The model has also been expanded to suggest some intermediary mechanisms that may account for how distracting attention away from provocative cues might be involved in the reduction of aggression. Finally, a number of practical suggestions are put forth regarding how the AAM can be applied to the prevention of intoxicated aggression.

Telemetric monitoring in the behavior sciences

This article reviews recent advances in telemetrics, a class of wireless information systems technology that can collect and transmit a wide variety of behavioral and environmental data remotely. Telemetrics include wearable computers that weave on-body sensors into articles of clothing, ubiquitous computers that embed sensors and transmitters seamlessly into the environment, and handheld devices, such as mobile phones and personal digital assistants, that can record cognitive and affective states. Examples of telemetric applications are provided to illustrate how this technology has been used in the behavioral sciences to unobtrusively and repeatedly gather physiological, behavioral, environmental, cognitive, and affective data in natural settings. Special issues relating to privacy and confidentiality, practical considerations, and statistical and measurement challenges when telemetrics are used are also discussed.

Social cognitive neuroscience: a review of core processes

Social cognitive neuroscience examines social phenomena and processes using cognitive neuroscience research tools such as neuroimaging and neuropsychology. This review examines four broad areas of research within social cognitive neuroscience: (a) understanding others, (b) understanding oneself, (c) controlling oneself, and (d) the processes that occur at the interface of self and others. In addition, this review highlights two core-processing distinctions that can be neurocognitively identified across all of these domains. The distinction between automatic versus controlled processes has long been important to social psychological theory and can be dissociated in the neural regions contributing to social cognition. Alternatively, the differentiation between internally-focused processes that focus on one's own or another's mental interior and externally-focused processes that focus on one's own or another's visible features and actions is a new distinction. This latter distinction emerges from social cognitive neuroscience investigations rather than from existing psychological theories demonstrating that social cognitive neuroscience can both draw on and contribute to social psychological theory.

An Ontological Test of the IAT

Abstract. Extensive research has been conducted demonstrating the predictive validity and reliability of the Implicit Association Test (IAT) for a broad array of behaviors and contexts. However, less work has been done examining its underlying construct validity. This contribution focuses on examining whether a core theoretical foundation of the IAT paradigm is valid, specifically, whether the IAT effect draws on the social knowledge structure (SKS). We present four studies within different domains that show that the IAT does indeed appear to draw on the SKS. The data show that activation of the self before the categorization task enhances the predictive validity of the IAT, as one would expect if the IAT reflects the SKS. We discuss theoretical reasons for these findings, with emphasis also on underlying statistical/psychometric issues.

Paper and plastic in daily diary research: Comment on Green, Rafaeli, Bolger, Shrout, and Reis (2006)

The authors applaud A. S. Green, E. Rafaeli, N. Bolger, P. E. Shrout, and H. T. Reis's (2006) response to one-sided comparisons of paper versus electronic (plastic) diary methods and hope that it will stimulate more balanced considerations of the issues involved. The authors begin by highlighting areas of agreement and disagreement with Green et al. The authors review briefly the broader literature that has compared paper and plastic diaries, noting how recent comparisons have relied on study designs and methods that favor investigators' allegiances. The authors note some sorely needed data for the evaluation of the implications of paper versus plastic for the internal and external validity of research. To facilitate evaluation of the existing literature and assist in the design of future studies, the authors offer a balanced comparison of paper and electronic diary methods across a range of applications. Finally, the authors propose 2 study designs that offer fair comparisons of paper and plastic diary methods.

Attention and emotion: does rating emotion alter neural responses to amusing and sad films?

Functional neuroimaging of affective systems often includes subjective self-report of the affective response. Although self-report provides valuable information regarding participants' affective responses, prior studies have raised the concern that the attentional demands of reporting on affective experience may obscure neural activations reflecting more natural affective responses. In the present study, we used potent emotion-eliciting amusing and sad films, employed a novel method of continuous self-reported rating of emotion experience, and compared the impact of rating with passive viewing of amusing and sad films. Subjective rating of ongoing emotional responses did not decrease either self-reported experience of emotion or neural activations relative to passive viewing in any brain regions. Rating, relative to passive viewing, produced increased activity in anterior cingulate, insula, and several other areas associated with introspection of emotion. These results support the use of continuous emotion measures and emotionally engaging films to study the dynamics of emotional responding and suggest that there may be some contexts in which the attention to emotion induced by reporting emotion experience does not disrupt emotional responding either behaviorally or neurally.

SELF-FOCUS, GENDER, AND HABITUAL SELF-HANDICAPPING: DO THEY MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN BEHAVIORAL SELF-HANDICAPPING?

This experiment examined the effects of public self-focus on individuals' behavioral self-handicapping tendencies. When faced with a threatening evaluation, a person may choose to self-handicap behaviorally. Men, more than women, and trait self-handicappers have been shown to self-handicap behaviorally. How do situational factors such as self-focus interface with these personal characteristics to affect such actions? Self-focus of attention was expected to make the self-evaluation implications of an upcoming performance more salient and to cause the self-focused performer to self-handicap behaviorally. Persons who were low or high in habitual self-handicapping were presented with an important intellectual evaluation and were allowed to practice for the upcoming test. Results showed that men self-handicap more by practicing less when they are self-focused, but women do not self-handicap under selffocus and self-handicapping instruction conditions. The implications of these findings for understanding the antecedent conditions of self-handicapping are discussed in the context of other recent work.

Negative Mood, Self-Focused Attention, and the Experience of Physical Symptoms: The Joint Impact Hypothesis

A joint impact hypothesis on symptom experience is introduced that specifies the role of negative mood and self-focus, which have been considered independently in previous research. Accordingly, negative affect only promotes symptom experience when people simultaneously focus their attention on the self. One correlational study and 4 experiments supported this prediction: Only negative mood combined with self-focus facilitated the experience (see the self-reports in Studies 1, 2a, & 2b) and the accessibility (lexical decisions, Stroop task in Studies 3 & 4) of physical symptoms, whereas neither positive mood nor negative mood without self-focus did. Furthermore, the joint impact of negative mood and self-focused attention on momentary symptom experience remained significant after controlling for the influence of dispositional symptom reporting and neuroticism.

A self-novelty manipulation of self-focused attention for Internet and laboratory experiments

Conventional manipulations of self-focused attention are poorly suited for Internet experiments and for group-based administration. The authors present a self-novelty manipulation that effectively induces self-awareness for such contexts. In the high self-focus condition, people write about how they differ from their family and friends and from people in general. In the control conditions, people write about neutral topics or do no writing. Three experiments using different measures of self-focus (the situational self-awareness scale, a pronoun selection task, and the private self-consciousness scale) showed that the self-novelty manipulation significantly increased self-focused attention. This effect appeared in Internet-based experiments (Experiment 1) and in laboratory experiments with groups (Experiments 2 and 3). The self-novelty manipulation appears promising for self-awareness research conducted outside of conventional laboratory contexts.

Experiments important to Carver and Scheier’s self- regulation theory are not replicable

Four experiments with 45, 53, 40 and 60 participants were conducted to test an effect predicted by Carver and Scheier’s (1998) theory and which has been confirmed in four independent studies by Carver and coworkers. With favorable expectations of success, participants low in self-awareness should be less persistent (measured by time until explicitly giving up an intractable task) than participants high in self-awareness. The opposite should be true for unfavorable expectancy. Empirical evidence reported in this paper shows that various theory-consistent ways of manipulating expectancies and self-awareness as well as subtracting periods of mental disengagement from time on task did not yield this predicted interaction. It is discussed whether self-awareness theory ( Duval & Wicklund, 1972 ) can better explain the pattern of results found in the present as well as in Carver’s studies than self-regulation theory.

Self-focused attention and negative affect: a meta-analysis

This meta-analysis synthesized 226 effect sizes reflecting the relation between self-focused attention and negative affect (depression, anxiety, negative mood). The results demonstrate the multifaceted nature of self-focused attention and elucidate major controversies in the field. Overall, self-focus was associated with negative affect. Several moderators qualified this relationship. Self-focus and negative affect were more strongly related in clinical and female-dominated samples. Rumination yielded stronger effect sizes than nonruminative self-focus. Self-focus on positive self-aspects and following a positive event were related to lower negative affect. Most important, an interaction between foci of self-attention and form of negative affect was found: Private self-focus was more strongly associated with depression and generalized anxiety, whereas public self-focus was more strongly associated with social anxiety.