Biomedical subjects

Constantine Sedikides

Publications and source records attributed to Constantine Sedikides.

11 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

Nostalgia: content, triggers, functions.

Seven methodologically diverse studies addressed 3 fundamental questions about nostalgia. Studies 1 and 2 examined the content of nostalgic experiences. Descriptions of nostalgic experiences typically featured the self as a protagonist in interactions with close others (e.g., friends) or in momentous events (e.g., weddings). Also, the descriptions contained more expressions of positive than negative affect and often depicted the redemption of negative life scenes by subsequent triumphs. Studies 3 and 4 examined triggers of nostalgia and revealed that nostalgia occurs in response to negative mood and the discrete affective state of loneliness. Studies 5, 6, and 7 investigated the functional utility of nostalgia and established that nostalgia bolsters social bonds, increases positive self-regard, and generates positive affect. These findings demarcate key landmarks in the hitherto uncharted research domain of nostalgia.

Adult↗

PubMed2006

Self-evaluation in a naturalistic context: the case of juvenile offenders.

The authors investigated how self-evaluation motives (self-enhancement, self-assessment, self-verification, self-improvement - and also self-diminishment and no information) shape self-knowledge preferences in male incarcerated juvenile offenders (IJOs). IJOs responded to questions on how much they would like to receive and actually received each of six types of feedback (positive, truthful, improving, consistent, negative and no feedback) from each of six sources (teachers, parents, siblings, best friend, girlfriend and behavioural specialists or psychologists). IJOs disliked negative feedback and the lack of feedback. They preferred truthful feedback to consistent feedback, and received truthful and positive feedback more frequently than improving feedback. Additionally, they received more negative or no feedback from parents than they would like. Finally, IJOs expressed a preference for receiving more improving feedback from their girlfriends than they did. The study highlights the interplay of self-evaluation motives in IJOs and opens up promising research and rehabilitation directions.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2005

Pancultural self-enhancement reloaded: a meta-analytic reply to Heine (2005).

C. Sedikides, L. Gaertner, and Y. Toguchi (2003) reported findings favoring the universality of self-enhancement. S. J. Heine (2005) challenged the authors' research on evidential and logical grounds. In response, the authors carried out 2 meta-analytic investigations. The results backed the C. Sedikides et al. (2003) theory and findings. Both Westerners and Easterners self-enhanced tactically. Westerners self-enhanced on attributes relevant to the cultural ideal of individualism, whereas Easterners self-enhanced on attributes relevant to the cultural ideal of collectivism (in both cases, because of the personal importance of the ideal). Self-enhancement motivation is universal, although its manifestations are strategically sensitive to cultural context. The authors respond to other aspects of Heine's critique by discussing why researchers should empirically validate the comparison dimension (individualistic vs. collectivistic) and defending why the better-than-average effect is a valid measure of self-enhancement.

Asia↗

PubMed2005

Executive self, self-esteem, and negative affectivity: relations at the phenotypic and genotypic level.

Complementary approaches examined the relations among executive self, self-esteem, and negative affectivity. A cross-sectional (N = 4,242) and a longitudinal (N = 158) study established that self-esteem mediated the relation between executive self and negative affectivity. A 3rd study (N = 878 twin pairs) replicated this pattern and examined genetic and environmental influences underlying all 3 phenotypes. Covariation among the 3 phenotypes reflected largely common genetic influences, although unique genetic effects explained variability in both executive self and negative affectivity. Executive self was influenced by shared environmental influences unique from those affecting self-esteem and negative affectivity. Non-shared environmental influences accounted for the majority of variance in each construct and were primarily unique to each. The unique genetic and non-shared environmental influences support the proposition that the executive self, self-esteem, and negative affectivity capture distinct and important differences between people.

Adult↗

PubMed2005

Taking on board liability-focused information. Close positive relationships as a self-bolstering resource.

Do close positive relationships function as a self-bolstering resource, armoring the self against potentially threatening information? After taking a difficult and important intellectual ability test, participants visualized a relationship that was close positive, close negative, or neutral (Experiment 1) or a relationship that was close positive, close negative, distant positive, or distant negative (Experiment 2). All participants received bogus unfavorable feedback about their performance and subsequently indicated their interest in obtaining further liability-focused information about the performance domain and the underlying intellectual ability. Participants who visualized close positive relationships expressed the highest interest in receiving such information, despite rating it as unpleasant. State self-esteem and mood did not account for this effect, although warm affect for the relational partner did. Close positive relationships function as a psychological resource that bolsters the self against feedback about a newly discovered liability to the point where receptivity to additional liability-relevant information actually increases.

Affect↗

PubMed2004

Are normal narcissists psychologically healthy?: self-esteem matters.

Five studies established that normal narcissism is correlated with good psychological health. Specifically, narcissism is (a) inversely related to daily sadness and dispositional depression, (b) inversely related to daily and dispositional loneliness, (c) positively related to daily and dispositional subjective well-being as well as couple well-being, (d) inversely related to daily anxiety, and (e) inversely related to dispositional neuroticism. More important, self-esteem fully accounted for the relation between narcissism and psychological health. Thus, narcissism is beneficial for psychological health only insofar as it is associated with high self-esteem. Explanations of the main and mediational findings in terms of response or social desirability biases (e.g., defensiveness, repression, impression management) were ruled out. Supplementary analysis showed that the links among narcissism, self-esteem, and psychological health were preponderantly linear.

Adult↗

PubMed2003

On the status of self in social prediction: comment on Karniol (2003).

A challenge to mainstream notions on the status of the self in social prediction is welcome. The self-as-distinct model (R. Karniol, 2003) is thoughtful, provocative, and parsimonious, but it is also underspecified, undertested, and selective in its treatment of the evidence. More important, the model does not provide compelling answers to issues pertaining to the origins of prototypic social knowledge, the status of self-knowledge, the content of the self-representation, whether the use of self in social prediction is a logical contradiction, and whether the self's role in social prediction is amotivated.

Forecasting↗

PubMed2003

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.

Adult↗

PubMed2003

Pancultural self-enhancement.

The culture movement challenged the universality of the self-enhancement motive by proposing that the motive is pervasive in individualistic cultures (the West) but absent in collectivistic cultures (the East). The present research posited that Westerners and Easterners use different tactics to achieve the same goal: positive self-regard. Study 1 tested participants from differing cultural backgrounds (the United States vs. Japan), and Study 2 tested participants of differing self-construals (independent vs. interdependent). Americans and independents self-enhanced on individualistic attributes, whereas Japanese and interdependents self-enhanced on collectivistic attributes. Independents regarded individualistic attributes, whereas interdependents regarded collectivistic attributes, as personally important. Attribute importance mediated self-enhancement. Regardless of cultural background or self-construal, people self-enhance on personally important dimensions. Self-enhancement is a universal human motive.

Adult↗

PubMed2002

The "I," the "we," and the "when": a meta-analysis of motivational primacy in self-definition.

What is the primary motivational basis of self-definition? The authors meta-analytically assessed 3 hypotheses: (a) The individual self is motivationally primary, (b) the collective self is motivationally primary, and (c) neither self is inherently primary; instead, motivational primacy depends on which self becomes accessible through contextual features. Results identified the individual self as the primary motivational basis of self-definition. People react more strongly to threat and enhancement of the individual than the collective self. Additionally, people more readily deny threatening information and more readily accept enhancing information when it pertains to the individual rather than the collective self, regardless of contextual influences. The individual self is the psychological home base, a stable system that can react flexibly to contextual influences.

Culture↗

PubMed2002

Accountability as a deterrent to self-enhancement: the search for mechanisms.

Although self-enhancement is linked to psychological benefits, it is also associated with personal and interpersonal liabilities (e.g., excessive risk taking, social exclusion). Hence, structuring social situations that prompt people to keep their self-enhancing beliefs in check can confer personal and interpersonal advantages. The authors examined whether accountability can serve this purpose. Accountability was defined as the expectation to explain, justify, and defend one's self-evaluations (grades on an essay) to another person ("audience"). Experiment 1 showed that accountability curtails self-enhancement. Experiment 2 ruled out audience concreteness and status as explanations for this effect. Experiment 3 demonstrated that accountability-induced self-enhancement reduction is due to identifiability. Experiment 4 documented that identifiability decreases self-enhancement because of evaluation expectancy and an accompanying focus on one's weaknesses.

Affect↗