Laura A. King

Linguistic styles : Language use as an individual difference

Can language use reflect personality style? Studies examined the reliability, factor structure, and validity of written language using a word-based, computerized text analysis program. Daily diaries from 15 substance abuse inpatients, daily writing assignments from 35 students, and journal abstracts from 40 social psychologists demonstrated good internal consistency for over 36 language dimensions. Analyses of the best 15 language dimensions from essays by 838 students yielded 4 factors that replicated across written samples from another 381 students. Finally, linguistic profiles from writing samples were compared with Thematic Apperception Test coding, self-reports, and behavioral measures from 79 students and with self-reports of a 5-factor measure and health markers from more than 1,200 students. Despite modest effect sizes, the data suggest that linguistic style is an independent and meaningful way of exploring personality.

Why positive psychology is necessary.

The authors provide a definition of positive psychology and suggest that psychologists should try to cultivate a more appreciative perspective on human nature. Examples are given of a negative bias that seems to pervade much of theoretical psychology, which may limit psychologists understanding of typical and successful human functioning. Finally, a preview of the articles in the special section is given.

What Makes a Life Good

Two studies examined folk concepts of the good life. Samples of college students (N = 104) and community adults (N = 264) were shown a career survey ostensibly completed by a person rating his or her occupation. After reading the survey, participants judged the desirability and moral goodness of the respondents life, as a function of the amount of happiness, meaning in life, and wealth experienced. Results revealed significant effects of happiness and meaning on ratings of desirability and moral goodness. In the college sample, individuals high on all 3 independent variables were judged as likely to go to heaven. In the adult sample, wealth was also related to higher desirability. Results suggest a general perception that meaning in life and happiness are essential to the folk concept of the good life, whereas money is relatively unimportant.

The Hard Road to the Good Life: The Happy, Mature Person

The purpose of this article is to examine how two aspects of the good life, happiness and maturity, are reflected in the stories that people tell about their lives. This article highlights the ways that ego development may change the meaning and experience of happiness. When happy people tell stories of life transition, they are more likely to use foreshadowing and happy endings. When mature people tell such stories, they tend to include mention of their active struggle with their life changes. The stories of happy, mature individuals are examined to illustrate how negative life experiences and difficult times may be accommodated into the good life.

Psychological, physical, and interpersonal correlates of emotional expressiveness, conflict, and control

This article examines the relations between emotional expression, conflict over expression, and emotional control and psychological and physical distress. Fifty married couples completed two mail‐in surveys containing the Emotional Expressiveness Questionnaire (EEQ), the Ambivalence Over Emotional Expression Questionnaire (AEQ), and the Emotional Control Questionnaire (ECQ), as well as measures of psychological and physical well‐being. They also made expressiveness and well‐being ratings of their spouses. AEQ and ECQ scores were significantly positively correlated with measures of psychological distress and questionnaire measures of physical discomfort. In addition, AEQ scores for items dealing explicitly with anger predicted visits to health‐care provider for illness. EEQ scores did not predict either psychological distress or physical symptoms. AEQ scores were also positively correlated with spouses symptoms and alcohol use. Wives expressiveness ratings for their husbands were negatively correlated with a number of indices of psychological distress, while husbands ratings of wives expressiveness were positively correlated with measures of distress. Generally, expressiveness, inhibition, and conflict over expression in one spouse did not consistently predict well‐being of the other. Implications of these findings for future research in the area of emotion and illness as well as in relationship satisfaction are discussed.

Daily Goals, Life Goals, and Worst Fears: Means, Ends, and Subjective Well-Being

This study addressed the relations among personal strivings (daily goals) and future life goals and worst fears. Eighty undergraduate participants (62 women, 18 men) listed their daily goals, their ultimate life goals, and their worst fears, and completed questionnaire measures of subjective well-being. Daily goals were content-analyzed for relevance to attaining life goals or avoiding worst fears. Daily goals that were instrumental to life goals or that avoided worst fears were rated as more important but also more difficult by participants. Working on daily goals avoiding ones worst fears was negatively related to measures of subjective well-being, controlling for daily goal progress, difficulty, ambivalence, and importance. Working on daily goals that were instrumental to ones life goals only weakly predicted well-being. The avoidance of worst fears interacted with daily goal appraisals such that individuals who experienced little progress at daily goals that served to avoid their worst case scenario experienced the lowest levels of subjective well-being. In addition, progress at daily goals that were relevant to accomplishing ones life goals was significantly more strongly related to subjective well-being than progress at daily goals that were unrelated to ones life goals. Results indicate that daily goals are used to enact life goals and avoid worst fears and that these means--end relations have implications for well-being.

The structure of inhibition

Abstract Inhibition is emerging as a central construct in both the literature on personality and health and the literature on the structure of personality. This study explored the structure of several questionnaire measures of inhibition by subjecting data from a number of scales to exploratory factor analyses. Combined samples of 155 students and noncollege adults completed a number of measures of inhibitory constructs such as self-control, emotional control, defensiveness, and obsessional thinking. A two-factor solution was reported for measures of behavioral and emotional control, with measures of defensiveness loading on the same factor as a number of measures of constraint and self-control. In a second analysis, including measures of ruminative thinking, three factors emerged pertaining to behavioral and emotional control and rumination. Behavioral inhibition correlated negatively with rumination but was uncorrelated with emotional inhibition. Emotional inhibition and rumination were positively correlated. The implications of these findings for research in the area of inhibition and well-being are discussed.

Personal striving differentiation and affective reactivity.

Examined the relation between affective reactivity (intensity and variability of mood) and cognitive differentiation through the personal striving (Emmons, 1986) framework in order to test the hypothesis that affective reactivity underlies differentiation. 88 Ss in 2 samples listed 15 of their personal strivings and rated them with respect to 3 measures of striving differentiation (interdependence, dissimilarity, and plans for accomplishing each). Experience-sampling and daily mood ratings were used to assess affect intensity and affect variability over a 3-week period. Emotionally reactive Ss possessed a more differentiated striving system. However, they generated fewer plans for accomplishing each striving than did less reactive Ss. Results are interpreted in terms of Larsen and Dieners (1987) arousal regulation theory of affect intensity and Linvilles (1982, 1985) self-complexity/affect-extremity model.

Reconstructing Life Goals After the Birth of a Child With Down Syndrome: Finding Happiness and Growing

Parents of children with Down Syndrome (DS; N = 87) wrote about current goals and goals they had before they learned their child would have DS (lost goals) and completed measures of salience of the narrative, subjective well-being (SWB), and stress-related growth. Independent raters scored the narratives on levels of elaboration. We conducted a follow-up study 2 years later (N = 42)) using the SWB and stress-related growth measures. There was an association between investing in current goals and heightened SWB, whereas salience of lost goals related weakly to reduced SWB. However, in the follow-up study, there was an association between investing in lost goals and increased stress-related growth. These results suggest that hopes for the future enhance SWB, whereas over time considering loss relates to increased feelings of personal growth. Growth and well-being may be independent of each other.

Ambivalence over emotional expression and reading emotions in situations and faces.

Three studies explored the relation of ambivalence over emotional expression (AE) and emotional expressiveness (EE) to reading the emotions of others. In Study 1 (N = 340, 110 men), AE positively correlated and EE negatively correlated with self-reported confusion in reading others emotions. In Studies 2 and 3, participants wrote descriptions of the emotions likely to be felt by a person in an emotional scenario or in a slide of a universal facial expression. Descriptions were content analyzed for emotion words. Results revealed significant AE x EE interactions. In both studies, inexpressive ambivalent individuals used emotion words of the opposite valence of that implied in the scenes or expressions. Implications for social relationships are discussed.