Joanne V. Wood

Attributions, Beliefs About Control, and Adjustment to Breast Cancer

Attributions for cancer and beliefs about control over cancer were examined for their association with adjustment to breast cancer. Although 95% of the respondents made attributions for their cancer, no particular attribution (e.g., stress, diet) was associated with better adjustment. Analyses of attributions of responsibility for the cancer to the self, environment, another person, or chance yielded only a negative relation between adjustment and blaming another person. In contrast, both the belief that one could now control ones cancer and the belief that others (e.g. the physician) could now control the cancer were significantly associated with good adjustment. Of the different types of control, cognitive control was most strongly associated with adjustment, behavior control was less strongly associated with adjustment, and information control and retrospective control were unassociated with adjustment. The theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed.

What is Social Comparison and How Should We Study it

Despite renewed vigor in the social comparison literature, little attention has been paid to methods of studying social comparison. This article examines frequently used measures and procedures in social comparison research. The question of whether a method truly captures social comparison requires a clear understanding of what social comparison is; hence a definition of social comparison is proposed, multiple ancillary processes in social comparison are identified, and definitional controversies are addressed. Then, methods are examined for how strongly they imply social comparison and for whether they capture social comparisons as they would occur naturally. It is argued that some methods may not truly capture social comparison, that some methods may be too vulnerable to alternative interpretations to be useful, and that some methods may paint an inaccurate picture of social comparison.

When Social Networking Is Not Working: Individuals With Low Self-Esteem Recognize but Do Not Reap the Benefits of Self-Disclosure on Facebook

The popular media have publicized the idea that social networking Web sites (e.g., Facebook) may enrich the interpersonal lives of people who struggle to make social connections. The opportunity that such sites provide for self-disclosure—a necessary component in the development of intimacy—could be especially beneficial for people with low self-esteem, who are normally hesitant to self-disclose and who have difficulty maintaining satisfying relationships. We suspected that posting on Facebook would reduce the perceived riskiness of self-disclosure, thus encouraging people with low self-esteem to express themselves more openly. In three studies, we examined whether such individuals see Facebook as a safe and appealing medium for self-disclosure, and whether their actual Facebook posts enabled them to reap social rewards. We found that although people with low self-esteem considered Facebook an appealing venue for self-disclosure, the low positivity and high negativity of their disclosures elicited undesirable responses from other people.

Do people with low self-esteem really want to feel better? Self-esteem differences in motivation to repair negative moods.

This research examined the hypothesis that people with low self-esteem (LSE) are less motivated than people with high self-esteem (HSE) to repair their negative moods. In Study 1, participants completed diaries in response to either a success or a failure in their everyday lives. Participants described what they intended to do next and the reasons behind those plans. After failure, fewer LSE than HSE participants expressed a goal to improve their mood. A follow-up investigation (Study 2) suggested that this difference was not due to a self-esteem difference in knowledge of mood repair strategies. In Study 3, after undergoing a negative mood induction, fewer LSE than HSE participants chose to watch a comedy video, even though both groups believed the comedy video would make them happy. Studies 4 and 5 explored possible reasons why LSE people are less motivated than HSE people to repair their negative moods.

The Cost of Lower Self-Esteem: Testing a Self- and Social-Bonds Model of Health

The authors draw upon social, personality, and health psychology to propose and test a self-and-social-bonds model of health. The model contends that lower self-esteem predicts health problems and that poor-quality social bonds explain this association. In Study 1, lower self-esteem prospectively predicted reports of health problems 2 months later, and this association was explained by subjective reports of poor social bonds. Study 2 replicated the results of Study 1 but used a longitudinal design with 6 waves of data collection, assessed self-reports of concrete health-related behaviors (i.e., number of visits to the doctor and classes missed due to illness), and measured both subjective and objective indicators of quality of social bonds (i.e., interpersonal stress and number of friends). In addition, Study 2 showed that poor-quality social bonds predicted acute drops in self-esteem over time, which in turn predicted acute decreases in quality of social bonds and, consequently, acute increases in health problems. In both studies, alternative explanations to the model were tested.

Remembering Everyday Experience Through the Prism of Self-Esteem

Two studies examined whether global self-esteem was associated with bias in memory for autobiographical experience. For 7 days, participants described specific events and made ratings of their experience (i.e., state self-esteem, positive and negative emotion, and perceived valence of the event) in response to each event. Later, participants were presented with their event descriptions and were asked to recall their experience ratings from memory. As hypothesized, higher global self-esteem predicted positive shifts in memory for experience, whereas lower global self-esteem predicted negative shifts in memory for experience. Patterns of bias were strongest for remembered state self-esteem, moderate for positive emotion, and minimal for event valence. Self-esteem did not predict bias for negative emotion. Mood at the time of recall (measured in Study 2) generally did not account for the patterns. These findings strengthen the view that self-esteem is a rich source of knowledge about the self that can influence memory for some kinds of autobiographical experience.

Compensating for Failure through Social Comparison

Three studies tested the hypothesis that the motive to compensate—to cast favorable light on the self after a threat to self-esteem—can lead people to seek social comparisons. Participants were high self-esteem undergraduates. In Experiment 1, participants who had failed sought more comparisons when they were allowed to compare on their strongest attributes than when they were allowed to compare on their weakest attributes. In Experiment 2, participants had a choice between comparing on a coparticipant’s “superior” or “average” dimension. Success participants selected the other’s strength for comparison, whereas failure participants selected the other’s relative weakness. In Experiment 3, failure participants were less likely to seek comparisons if they had already compensated via a self-affirmation task. These studies employed novel or rarely used measures of social comparison, and the results have implications for both the social comparison and self-esteem literatures.

Happy mood decreases self-focused attention

Research addressing the influence of happy mood on self-focused attention has yielded inconsistent results. Some studies found that happy mood decreased self-focus relative to sad mood. Other studies did not detect a significant difference between happy and neutral mood, and still other studies found that happy mood, relative to neutral mood, increased self-focus. These investigations have potential shortcomings, such as an insufficiently powerful happy mood induction and a confound between visualization mood inductions and self-focus itself. The present experiment addressed these shortcomings by inducing mood via musical selections, equalizing the approximate potency between happy and sad moods, and using a within-participants design. Relative to neutral mood, happy mood decreased self-focused attention.

The Regulatory Function of Self-Esteem: Testing the Epistemic and Acceptance Signaling Systems

The authors draw on sociometer theory (e.g., Leary, 2004) and self-verification theory (e.g., Swann, 1997) to propose an expanded model of the regulatory function of self-esteem. The model suggests that people not only possess an acceptance signaling system that indicates whether relational value is high or low but also possess an epistemic signaling system that indicates whether social feedback is consistent or inconsistent with chronic perceived relational value (i.e., global self-esteem). One correlational study and 5 experiments, with diverse operationalizations of social feedback, demonstrated that the epistemic signaling system responds to self-esteem consistent or inconsistent relational-value feedback with increases or deceases in epistemic certainty. Moreover, Studies 3-6 demonstrated that the acceptance and epistemic signaling systems respond uniquely to social feedback. Finally, Studies 5 and 6 provide evidence that the epistemic signaling system is part of a broader self-regulatory system: Self-esteem inconsistent feedback caused cognitive efforts to decrease the discrepancy between self-views and feedback and caused depleted self-regulatory capacity on a subsequent self-control task.

The Self and Social Relationships

CONTENTS: Self-related Motives Influence Close Relationships Risk Regulation in Relationships: Self-Esteem and the If-then Contingencies of Interdependent Life Sandra L. Murray On the Role of Psychological Needs in Healthy Functioning: Integrating a Self-Determination Theory Perspective with Traditional Relationship Theories Jennifer La Guardia Self-Verification in Relationships as an Adaptive Process William B. Swann, Jr., Christine Chang-Schneider, & Sarah Angulo Narcissism and Interpersonal Self-Regulation W. Keith Campbell & Jeffrey D. Green Functions of the Self in Interpersonal Relationships: What Does the Self Actually Do? Mark R. Leary Reciprocal Influences of Self and Other, I: Self-Perception and Self-Regulation Self-Perception as Interpersonal Perception David A. Kenny & Tessa V. West Self-Regulation and Close Relationships Roy F. Baumeister & Tyler F. Stillman Evolutionary Perspectives Immediate-Return Societies: What Can They Tell Us About The Self and Social Relationships in Our Society? Leonard L. Martin & Steven Shirk Evolutionary Accounts of Individual Differences in Adult Attachment Orientations Jeffry A. Simpson, Lane Beckes, & Yanna J. Weisberg Reciprocal Influences, II: Close Relationships and Changing the Self How Close Others Construct and Reconstruct Who We Are and How We Feel About Ourselves Arthur Aron, Sarah Ketay, Suzanne Riela, and Elaine N. Aron The Relational Self in Transference: Intrapersonal and Interpersonal Consequences in Everyday Social Life Serena Chen & Susan M. Andersen Changes in Working Models of the Self in Relationships: A Clinical Perspective Joanne Davila & Melissa Ramsay Miller Time for some New Tools: Toward the Application of Learning Approaches to the Study of Interpersonal Cognition Mark W. Baldwin, Jodene R. Baccus, Stephane D. M. Dandeneau, & Maya Sakellaropoulo