The Diversifying Experience Model: Taking a Broader Conceptual View of the Multiculturalism–Creativity Link

We examine the multiculturalism–creativity link from the perspective of diversifying experiences research. Multicultural experiences can be construed as diversifying experiences—highly unusual and unexpected events or situations (e.g., unusual educational experiences, early life adversity) that push individuals outside the frameworks of their ordinary everyday lives, forcing them to embrace new and uncommon ideas. Our review identifies a range of diversifying experiences (e.g., multicultural exposure, unexpected adversity, violations of expectations) that have been found to influence creativity. We introduce the Diversifying Experience Model (DEM), where we argue for a curvilinear relationship between diversifying experiences and creativity, whereby creativity improves as a result of moderate (but not low or high) levels of diversifying experiences. We also propose adaptive personal resources as the key moderator, and threat and challenge appraisals as the key mediators of the diversifying experience–creativity relation. When adaptive resources are high, moderate diversifying experiences are appraised primarily as a challenge, facilitating creativity, whereas when adaptive resources are low, moderate diversifying experiences are appraised primarily as a threat, derailing creativity. This broad and parsimonious theoretical framework can help clarify and expand research on when and why various diversifying experiences (including multicultural experiences) facilitate creativity.

[The influence of meaning making following stressful life experiences on change of self-concept]

As interest in meaning making following stressful life experiences continues to grow, it is important to clarify the features and functions of the meaning- making process. We examined the influence of meaning making following stressful life experiences on change of self-concept. In two studies, university students selected their most stressful life experience and completed the Assimilation and Accommodation of Meaning Making Scale. In Study 1, 235 university students also completed questionnaires regarding post-traumatic growth and positive change of the sense of identity following their stressful life experience. The results of covariance structure analysis indicated that accommodation promoted a positive change of self-concept. In Study 2, 199 university students completed questionnaires regarding change of self-concept and emotion as a positive or negative change following stressful life experiences. The results of covariance structure analysis indicated that accommodation promoted a positive change, similar to the results of Study 1. In addition, accommodation also promoted negative change. However, assimilation did not promote positive change but did restrain negative change.

Perinatal attachment in naturally pregnant and infertility-treated pregnant women in Taiwan

AIM

This article is a report of a study of the differences in maternal-foetal attachment and maternal-infant attachment among naturally pregnant and infertility-treated pregnant women in Taiwan.

BACKGROUND

Studies have shown that infertility treatment is likely to make up an increasing proportion in the coming years. As these experiences are unique, the attachment relationship may be affected.

METHOD

The research data were collected from two obstetrics clinics which were located in central Taiwan. In 2008, all participants (n = 125) were asked to fill out the prenatal questionnaires at the beginning of the study and were followed up with postnatal questionnaires that were mailed to them 1-2 months after labour (n = 110). We used chi-square tests for categorical and t- tests for continuous variables. Multivariate analysis of variances was then performed, and changes in the maternal-foetal attachment and maternal-infant attachment Scales were assessed.

FINDINGS

Women who became pregnant after fertility treatment had higher maternal-foetus and maternal-infant attachment scores, and this result was statistically significant; pregnancy mode and level of education are the main factors that have a significant effect on maternal-foetus attachment; and pregnancy mode and participation in prenatal education have a main effect on maternal-infant attachment.

CONCLUSION

Development of a specific support group for mothers, such as a group for prenatal education, and providing useful resources for pregnant women with a lower level of education are involved in the future research studies for therapeutic intervention.

Personality development: continuity and change over the life course

The development of personality across the human life course may be observed from three different standpoints: the person as actor (behaving), agent (striving), and author (narrating). Evident even in infancy, broad differences in social action patterns foreshadow the long-term developmental elaboration of early temperament into adult dispositional traits. Research on personal strivings and other motivational constructs provides a second perspective on personality, one that becomes psychologically salient in childhood with the consolidation of an agentic self and the articulation of more-or-less stable goals. Layered over traits and goals, internalized life stories begin to emerge in adolescence and young adulthood, as the person authors a narrative identity to make meaning out of life. The review traces the development of traits, goals, and life stories from infancy through late adulthood and ends by considering their interplay at five developmental milestones: age 2, the transition to adolescence, emerging adulthood, midlife, and old age.

Narrative and the Cultural Psychology of Identity

This article presents a tripartite model of identity that integrates cognitive, social, and cultural levels of analysis in a multimethod framework. With a focus on content, structure, and process, identity is defined as ideology cognized through the individual engagement with discourse, made manifest in a personal narrative constructed and reconstructed across the life course, and scripted in and through social interaction and social practice. This approach to the study of identity challenges personality and social psychologists to consider a cultural psychology framework that focuses on the relationship between master narratives and personal narratives of identity, recognizes the value of a developmental perspective, and uses ethnographic and idiographic methods. Research in personality and social psychology that either explicitly or implicitly relies on the model is reviewed.

Praise for regret: People value regret above other negative emotions

What do people think about the emotion of regret? Recent demonstrations of the psychological benefits of regret have been framed against an assumption that most people find regret to be aversive, both when experienced but also when recalled later. Two studies explored lay evaluations of regret experiences, revealing them to be largely favorable rather than unfavorable. Study 1 demonstrated that regret, but not other negative emotions, was dominated by positive more than negative evaluations. In both studies 1 and 2, although participants saw a great deal of benefit from their negative emotions, regret stood out as particularly beneficial. Indeed, in study 2, regret was seen to be the most beneficial of 12 negative emotions on all five functions of: making sense of past experiences, facilitating approach behaviors, facilitating avoidance behaviors, gaining insights into the self, and in preserving social harmony. Moreover, in study 2, individuals made self-serving ascriptions of regret, reporting greater regret experiences for themselves than for others. In short, people value their regrets substantially more than they do other negative emotions.