Brian Mullen

The effectiveness of attention and rejection as coping styles: A meta-analysis of temporal differences

The purpose of this study was to conduct a meta-analysis [16] of research comparing the effects on physical adaptation of two cognitive strategies for coping with stressors: attention and rejection. Attention refers to focusing attention on the stressor and/or on ones rejection to it; rejection refers to focusing attention away from the stressor and/or ones reaction to it. For studies examining the immediate effects of attention and rejection, rejection produced better physical adaptation (i.e. fewer symptoms, reduced physiological responses) than attention. For studies looking at the long term effects of attention and rejection, attention produced better physical adaptation than rejection. Mechanisms which could produce these effects, and their implications, are discussed.

Group Cohesiveness and Quality of Decision Making An Integration of Tests of the Groupthink Hypothesis

This article reports the results of a meta-analytic integration of the effects of group cohesiveness on quality of decision making in groups. Overall, there was no significant effect of cohesiveness on the quality of group decisions. However, more cohesive groups rendered poorer quality decisions when additional antecedent conditions of groupthink were present (directive leadership). In addition, the component of cohesiveness that appears to be critical for the emergence of groupthink is interpersonal attraction: Cohesiveness impaired decision quality more as the operationalization of cohesiveness entailed more interpersonal attraction, and less as the operationalization entailed more commitment to task or group pride. Finally, more cohesive groups did render poorer quality decisions as group size increased. Discussion considers the implications of these resultsforfuture research on the relaion between cohesiveness and quality of decision making in particular, and on groupthink in general.

Cross-Racial Facial Identification: A Social Cognitive Integration

A meta-analytic integration of the cross-racialfacial identification effect is reported. The results indicate a significant, weak-to-moderate tendency for individuals to be more accurate in the recognition off aces of in-group members than those of out-group members. There is a trend for this effect to be stronger among White subjects than Black subjects. In addition, predictors exhibited different patterns for Black subjects and White subjects. Specifically, greater depth of processing engaged by experimental instructions in these studies strengthened the effect for White subjects and weakened it for Black subjects. Similarly, the cross-racial facial identification effect increased as a function of the duration of exposure to the target faces for White subjects but decreased as a function of duration of exposure for Black subjects. These results are explained in terms of recent theoretical developments concerning intergroup phenomena, particularly in terms of mechanisms of cognitive representations of in-groups and out-groups.

The effects of democratic leadership on group member satisfaction : An integration

Previous research highlights one of the paradoxes of different leadership styles: Group members may be more satisfied with democratic leadership, or group members may be more satisfied with autocratic leadership. A meta-analytic integration of research evidence addressing this paradox revealed that there was, in general, a significant, small tendency for groups experiencing democratic leadership to be more satisfied than groups experiencing autocratic leadership. However, these effects were moderated by several variables, including the reality of the groups, the size of the groups, the gender composition of the groups, and the potency of leadership style. These moderating variables may be important given the recent push toward adoption of democratic decision making in organizations. The discussion considers theoretical accounts for these effects of leadership style on member satisfaction.

Cumulative Meta-Analysis: A Consideration of Indicators of Sufficiency and Stability

This article considers the application of cumulative meta-analysis, defined as the procedure of performing a (new) meta-analysis at every point during the history of a research domain. Two distinct facets of cumulative knowledge are identified: sufficiency (“Are additional studies needed to establish the existence of the phenomenon?”) and stability (“Will additional studies change the aggregate picture of the phenomenon?”). These two facets of cumulative knowledge define the purpose of the present effort: How can we determine whether a cumulative meta-analytic database has achieved sufficiency and stability? The authors delineate indicators of sufficiency and stability that might be derived from cumulative meta-analyses and explore the use of these indicators in a set of previously published meta-analytic databases. Discussion explores both retrospective and prospective implications of this approach to cumulative knowledge and compares the implications of this approach to cumulative knowledge with alternative views of social psychology as history.

Life events, perceived control and illness: the role of uncertainty.

The health implications of recognizing the difference between situations that are controllable and those that are not has been noted by a variety of sources. With this notion in mind, the present study examined the relationship between perceptions of control and desirability of life events and subsequent health in a college student sample. Subjects indicated which of a list of life events had occurred to them over a three-month span and also specified how desirable each was and to what extent they were in control of its occurrence. Illness was reported for the following month. The results indicated that both undesirable uncontrollable events and undesirable events of uncertain controllability were significantly related to the occurrence of illness. Of greatest interest was the finding that the occurrence of events of uncertain controllability was more strongly related to illness than events perceived as totally uncontrollable. The results are discussed in terms of research and theory stressing the adaptative significance of the ability to discriminate controllable situations from uncontrollable ones.

“Know thyself”: Stressful life changes and the ameliorative effect of private self-consciousness

Abstract The present study was conducted to examine how private self-consciousness may ameliorate the effects of stressful life events on physical health. Subjects completed the Self-Consciousness inventory, and also answered questions about life changes and illnesses that occurred to them in the preceding 3 weeks. Subjects then returned 3 weeks later to report again on life changes and illnesses. With the use of Cross-Lagged Panel Correlation Analysis and multiple regression analysis we examined the moderating effects of private self-consciousness. The results indicated that the health of persons high in private self-consciousness was unaffected by the incidence of undesirable uncontrollable life events, but persons low in private self-consciousness became more susceptible to illness subsequent to the accumulation of such events. It is suggested that individuals high in private self-consciousness are more likely to notice their psychological and somatic reactions to stressful situations and take instrumental actions which ameliorate their reactions to stressors. Suggestions for future research and implications for prescriptive recommendations made by health practitioners are discussed.

Sufficiency and Stability of Evidence for Public Health Interventions Using Cumulative Meta-Analysis

We propose cumulative meta-analysis as the procedure of completing a new meta-analysis at each successive wave in a research database. Two facets of cumulative knowledge are considered: the first, sufficiency, refers to whether the meta-analytic database adequately demonstrates that a public health intervention works. The second, stability, refers to the shifts over time in the accruing evidence about whether a public health intervention works. We used a hypothetical data set to develop the indicators of sufficiency and stability, and then applied them to existing, published datasets. Our discussion centers on the implications of the use of this procedure in evaluating public health interventions.

Self-Awareness, Deindividuation, and Social Identity: Unraveling Theoretical Paradoxes by Filling Empirical Lacunae

In an effort to examine paradoxes involving self-awareness, deindividuation, and social identity, this article reports the results of a study that examines the effects of a range of manipulation operationalizations of self and social identity on a complement of measurement operationalizations of self and social identity. Specifically, participants completed measures of self-awareness and ethnic social identity while confronted with their mirror image, while wearing a mask, or while exposed to a family tree delineating their ethnicity. Patterns of mean levels of self-awareness and ethnic social identity are used to examine the paradox of depersonalization and deindividuation, the paradox of (a)symmetrical activation of components of identity, and the paradox of deindividuation and the search for identity. Discussion considers the limitations of this approach and considers the implications of these results for the long-standing study of the interplay between self and social identity.

Cognitive Representation in Ethnophaulisms as a Function of Group Size: The Phenomenology of Being in a Group

Two studies examined cognitive representation for minority groups of varying sizes. Cognitive representation was operationalized as the degree of complexity in the ethnophaulisms, or ethnic slurs, for these minority groups. The results of these studies confirm the prediction that prototype cognitive representations will be more prevalent for smaller groups. The relation between group size and cognitive representation could not be dismissed as an artifact of a more fundamental association between prejudice and cognitive representation. Moreover, this basic effect did not seem to vary as a function of the region of origin of these ethnic groups or membership in the groups. The Discussion section considers the implications of these results for the study of stereotyping.