Erin M. O'Mara

Benevolent cognitions as a strategy of relationship maintenance: "Don't sweat the small stuff"....But it is not all small stuff.

To maintain intimate relationships in the face of negative experiences, many recommend cognitive strategies that minimize the implications of those experiences for global evaluations of the relationship. But are such strategies always adaptive? Suggesting otherwise, 2 longitudinal studies spanning the 1st 4 years of 251 new marriages revealed that the effects of benevolent cognitions on relationship development depended on the initial levels of negativity in the relationship. Cross-sectionally, the tendency to make positive attributions or otherwise disengage global evaluations of the relationship from negative experiences was associated with higher levels of satisfaction in marriages characterized by more frequent negative behavior and more severe problems. Longitudinally, in contrast, such strategies only demonstrated benefits to healthier marriages, whereas they predicted steeper declines in satisfaction among spouses in more troubled marriages by allowing marital problems to worsen over time. These findings highlight the limits of purely cognitive theories of relationship maintenance and suggest that widely recommended strategies for improving relationships may harm vulnerable couples by weakening their motivations to address their problems directly.

Does self-enhancement facilitate task performance?

Self-enhancement is a pervasive motivation that manifests broadly to promote and protect the positivity of the self. Research suggests that self-enhancement is associated with improved task performance. Untested, however, is whether that association is causal. The present research experimentally manipulated self-enhancement to examine its causal effect on task performance. Participants in 5 experiments were randomly assigned to self-enhance or not before completing a creativity task (Experiments 1–4) or pain-inducing cold-pressor task (Experiment 5). Results indicate that self-enhancing (but not self-effacing) on a dimension relevant (but not irrelevant) to the task facilitated performance. Furthermore, the data were consistent with the possibility that the performance facilitating effect of self-enhancement was mediated through task-relevant self-efficacy.

Do Autonomous Individuals Strive for Self-Positivity? Examining the Role of Autonomy in the Expression of Self-Enhancement

In an effort to further understand factors that influence the expression of self-enhancement, two studies explored the association between autonomy motivation and self-enhancement motivation. We hypothesized that autonomy is positively associated with approach-oriented self-enhancement strategies and negatively associated with avoidance-oriented self-enhancement strategies, and that self-enhancement would mediate the association between autonomy and psychological well-being. In Study 1, participants completed a measure of self-enhancement strategies and a measure of autonomy. Autonomy was positively associated with approach-oriented—but negatively associated with avoidance-oriented—self-enhancement strategies. In Study 2, participants completed the same measures of autonomy and self-enhancement, plus measures of psychological well-being. In addition to replicating the findings of Study 1, the mediation analyses suggested that autonomy was positively associated with psychological well-being through approach-oriented self-enhancement, and negatively associated with psychological well-being through avoidance-oriented self-enhancement.

Who Gets Blamed After a Collective Tragedy? The Role of Distress, Identification With Victims, and Time

Belief in a just world theory (BJWT) restoration strategies were longitudinally examined after the September 11 terrorist attacks. Analyses examined the influence of terrorism-related distress, identification with victims, and the passage of time on levels of group- and individual-level blame. Initial levels of distress were associated with less blaming of the U.S. (group-level blame) but positively related to derogating victim compensation 5 months later. Psychological distancing from the victims increased individual-level blame, while prolonged identification with victims appeared to dampen this response. These results extend our understanding of BJWT by showing the importance of temporal variation in justice-restoring strategies in a dramatic real-world loss.

Change in drawing placement: A measure of change in mood state reflective of hemispheric lateralization of emotion

HIGHLIGHTSPositive and negative affect preferentially activate left and right frontal cortex.Novel mood induction protocol of game and script used to alter affect from baseline.Mood change evaluated subjectively and objectively with PANAS and drawing placement.Winners’ drawings moved to the right and losers’ drawings moved to the left.Winners had decrease in negative affect and losers had decrease in positive affect. ABSTRACT The Valence Hypothesis of cerebral lateralization of emotion suggests greater right hemisphere activation during negative mood and greater left hemisphere activation during positive mood. This can manifest as visual field attentional bias. Here, study participants completed an assessment of current mood state (PANAS) and made a drawing (Drawing 1). To induce positive or negative mood, participants played a game; then, the winner read a script depicting a positive interpersonal interaction and the loser read a script depicting a negative interpersonal interaction. Participants then drew a second picture (Drawing 2) and completed the PANAS. We hypothesized that the game outcome would change current mood state and hemispheric activation, which would be reflected in drawing placement. The placement of Drawing 2 moved right for winners and left for losers. Winners experienced a greater increase in positive affect from Time 1 to Time 2 than losers and had decreased negative affect from Time 1. Losers had decreased positive affect from Time 1 and had a greater increase in negative affect from Time 1 to Time 2 than winners. Our results suggest that change in current mood state may be objectively observed by evaluating hemispatial bias reflective of brain hemispheric activation with drawings.