Cathy McFarland

The impact of motivation on temporal comparisons : Coping with traumatic events by perceiving personal growth

Four studies were conducted to investigate the impact of self-enhancement motivation on the temporal comparisons of victims of stressful life events. Study 1 revealed that (a) victims were more likely than acquaintances of victims to report greater improvement in their personal attributes after traumatic life events than after mild negative life events and (b) victims perceived improvement by derogating their pre-event attributes. In Studies 2 and 3, an experimental approach was used to study the impact of threatening experiences on perceptions of personal growth, and similar findings were obtained. Study 4 confirmed that threatening self-relevant feelings play a causal role in prompting self-enhancing temporal comparisons. Taken together, the findings of these studies support the view that perceptions of personal improvement reflect, at least in part, motivated illusions that are designed to help people cope with threatening life experiences.

Intensity Bias in Affective Forecasting: The Role of Temporal Focus

In five studies, university students predicted their affective reactions to a wide variety of positive and negative future events. In Studies 1 to 3, participants also reported the affective reactions they experienced when the target event occurred. As hypothesized, they tended to anticipate more intense reactions than they actually experienced. In Studies 3 to 5, a cognitive determinant of this “intensity bias” was examined. It was hypothesized that people anticipate stronger affective reactions when they focus narrowly on an upcoming event in a manner that neglects past experience and less intense reactions when they consider a set of relevant previous experiences. Evidence from thought-listing measures as well as an experimental manipulation of temporal focus supported this hypothesis.

The impact of negative affect on autobiographical memory: The role of self-focused attention to moods.

Five studies examined how self-focused attention affects the impact of negative moods on autobiographical memory. It was proposed that self-focused attention to moods may increase the likelihood of both mood-congruent recall and mood-incongruent recall and that the type of recall effect that occurs will depend on the manner in which people focus on their moods. In these studies, participants were led to experience negative or neutral moods, exposed to a manipulation designed to affect some aspect of their attention to their moods, and then asked to report memories. This research revealed that when people adopt a reflective orientation to their moods, they are more likely to engage in mood-incongruent recall; in contrast, when they adopt a ruminative orientation to their moods, they are more likely to engage in mood-congruent recall. Thus, the way in which people focus on their moods moderates the relation between mood and memory.

Counterfactual Thinking and Social Perception: Thinking about What Might Have Been

Publisher Summary The chapter examines the influence of norms dominated by postcomputed representations on perceptions of social events. The aim is to simply encourage consideration of the role that counterfactual thinking plays in the process. To accomplish this, show that peoples reactions to social events that evoke the same precomputed representations will vary if those events evoke different postcomputed counterfactual representations. The chapter focuses on three factors that influence the relation between the target event and the postcomputed representations it evokes. These factors are (1) the ease with which actions leading to the event can be undone mentally, (2) the ease with which the event itself can be undone mentally, and (3) the ease with which the event can be replicated mentally. Reality is also compared to the postcomputed representations that are neither consciously nor unconsciously held prior to an event but are generated post hoc by the event itself.

The Relation between Current Impressions and Memories of Self and Dating Partners

The purpose of the present study was to examine the association between naturally occurring changes in peoples impressions and their recollections of themselves, close others, and their relationship. It was reasoned that (a) reconstructing the past consists primarily of characterizing it as similar to, or different from, the present; (b) people employ implicit theories of personal stability to make this judgment; and (c) when these theories imply stability, people may overestimate the similarity between the past and the present. In an initial session, subjects rated themselves, their dating partner, and their relationship on dimensions that people expect to be stable over time. Two months later, subjects made current evaluations on the same dimensions and recalled their earlier ratings. Subjects whose impressions became more favorable over time recalled more positive evaluations than they had provided originally, and those whose impressions became less favorable recalled more negative evaluations. Finally, subjects recalled their causal attributions for their partners behavior as being more consistent with their current impressions than was the case. In general, subjects overestimated the similarity between the present and the past.

Judgments of Self-Other Similarity Just Like Other People, Only more So

The present research explored the possibility that the false consensus and false uniqueness effects can occur simultaneously within a single context. Specifically, it was hypothesized that individuals would overestimate the number of others who would experience the same type of emotional reaction as they did and yet believe that their reactions would be stronger than those of others. Subjects were presented with two potentially aversive situations and asked (a) to choose the situation they would least prefer to be involved in, (b) to estimate the percentage of other students who would also avoid the situation, and (c) to predict their own and the average other persons emotional reactions in that situation. Subjects overestimated the number of people who would avoid the same situation they would avoid and predicted their own emotional reactions to be stronger than those of others. Implications of the findings for coping and adjustment are discussed.

Cultural Differences in Affective Forecasting: The Role of Focalism

The impact bias in affective forecasting—a tendency to overestimate the emotional consequences of future events—may not be a universal phenomenon. This prediction bias stems from a cognitive process known as focalism, whereby predictors focus attention narrowly on the upcoming target event. Three studies supported the hypothesis that East Asians, who tend to think more holistically than Westerners, would be less susceptible to focalism and, consequently, to the impact bias. In Studies 1 and 2, Euro-Canadians exhibited the impact bias for positive future events, whereas East Asians did not. A thought focus measure indicated that the cultural difference in prediction was mediated by the extent to which participants focused on the target event (i.e., focalism). In Study 3, a thought focus manipulation revealed that defocused Euro-Canadians and East Asians made equally moderate affective forecasts.

Mood acknowledgment and correction for the mood-congruency bias in social judgment

Abstract Past research has revealed a mood-congruency bias wherein people evaluate other individuals more positively when they are experiencing good moods than when they are experiencing bad moods. At times, however, people may attempt to prevent their transient mood states from biasing their evaluations of other people. It was proposed that the capacity to attend openly to one’s moods is an important precursor to such mood correction efforts. Two studies supported this hypothesis. People who were encouraged to attend to their feelings (Study 1), as well as people who are naturally inclined to acknowledge their feelings (Study 2), were more likely than their counterparts to prevent their positive and negative moods from biasing their judgments of a target person.

The impact of negative moods on self-enhancing cognitions: the role of reflective versus ruminative mood orientations.

This research program examined how self-focused attention to feelings affects the relation between mood negativity and self-enhancing thought. The primary hypothesis was that the particular manner in which people focus on their moods (reflective vs. ruminative) determines whether they reveal positive (i.e., mood-incongruent) or negative (i.e., mood-congruent) self-relevant thoughts in response to negative moods. Studies 1-4 revealed that social comparisons, temporal comparisons, and other self-enhancing cognitions (i.e., attributions, disidentification, relationship evaluations) are more likely to be mood incongruent when people adopt a reflective orientation to their negative feelings and more likely to be mood congruent when they adopt a ruminative orientation. Additionally, moods and mood orientations affected self-enhancing thoughts through the mediating influence of mood regulation goals and intentions (Studies 5 and 6).

Negative moods and the motivated remembering of past selves: the role of implicit theories of personal stability.

This research program explored how the positivity of peoples memories of their past personal attributes is influenced by their desire to cope with negative mood states. The studies tested the hypothesis that beliefs and motives regarding the stability of personality will determine whether people idealize or derogate their earlier attributes in an attempt to repair distressing feelings. When knowledge structures or motives implying personal change are activated, people should derogate their past selves in response to negative moods; in contrast, when these factors imply personal stability, people should idealize their past selves in response to negative moods. Studies 1-3, which assessed the impact of mood negativity (neutral vs. negative) and theories (or motives) regarding personal change (change vs. stability) on the positivity of peoples memories of their past attributes, supported this reasoning. Study 4 extended these findings by examining how an underlying mediating variable--mood-repair motivation--guides the effect of negative moods on recall of past selves. Implications of the results for research on temporal comparison, mood-congruent recall, and posttraumatic growth are discussed.