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N A Kuiper

Publications and source records attributed to N A Kuiper.

7 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1997

Cognitive content specificity in selective attention across four domains of maladjustment.

This research provided a rigorous examination of content-specific selective attention effects across the maladjustment domains of depression, anxiety, bulimia, and Type A behaviour. Study 1 utilized a self-referent endorsement task to obtain a set of empirically validated stimulus adjectives related to each maladjustment domain for use in the attentional paradigm in Study 2. Moreover, Study 1 provided some initial support for content-specificity proposals at the self-schema level Self-descriptive ratings in Study 1 indicated that depressed individuals uniquely identified themselves with adjectives relating to hopelessness, loss and failure. In contrast, the unique self-descriptive adjectives of anxious individuals centered on themes of social threat. Bulimics, in turn, endorsed unique self-descriptors relating to food and weight issues, whereas Type A self-descriptions were uniquely associated with achievement concerns. Content-specificity effects for selective attention were obtained in Study 2 for three of the four domains of interest (i.e. depression anxiety, and bulimia). Using a modified probe detection task, and very stringent criteria for group classification, it was found that individuals in each of these three groups selectively attended to personal adjectives that were hypothesized to be of specific relevance to their underlying cognitive concerns. Limited content-specificity effects were obtained for an incidental recognition measure, with only the depressed and bulimic groups showing enhanced memory performance for personal adjectives uniquely related to their dominant self-views. These findings are discussed in terms of various content-specificity distinctions across the four domains of maladjustment, including possible implications for the expression of differential behaviours for each domain.

Adult↗
PubMed1997

Individual differences in the experience of emotions.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the important role of individual difference factors in the experience of emotion. We begin by describing several commonalties across two major approaches to the study of emotion, namely, the neuropsychological and cognitive perspectives. Both approaches provide some degree of support for the role of individual differences and cognitive factors in the experience of emotion. This paper builds on these commonalities by reviewing personality and psychopathology findings that indicate the contribution of both positive and negative personality characteristics (e.g., extraversion, optimism vs. neuroticism, trait anxiety) to the types of cognitive appraisals and emotional responses exhibited by different individuals. A self-schema model of emotion is presented as a means of integrating more fully this individual differences perspective with a theory of emotion. In this model, self-schema content provides the basis for individual differences in underlying core themes and self-evaluative beliefs. The model describes how self-schema content distinctions across individuals may have a differential impact on the initial processing of an event, evaluation of this event with respect to the self, and emotional and behavioral output. Several examples are then presented to illustrate the increased predictability afforded by this individual differences-based self-schema model of emotion. The application of this model to treatment and prevention issues in clinical and health psychology is also briefly considered. Finally, the model is integrated with other theoretical perspectives on emotion by describing a number of additional research and theoretical implications. Emphasis is placed on the need for further clarification of both cognitive and emotional components of an individual differences perspective on the study of emotions.

Cognition↗
PubMed1986

Global perceived stress level as a moderator of the relationship between negative life events and depression.

The present research investigated the proposal that global perceived stress level moderates the degree of relationship between negative life events and depression. Accordingly, subjects in this study completed the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), the Life Experiences Survey (LES), and the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS). The PSS provides a measure of global perceived stress level, or the general tendency to view one's life as being unpredictable, out of control, and overwhelming. Consistent with past research, the findings revealed an increase in depression level as negative life change scores increased. Of special importance, however, was the finding that global level of stress significantly moderated the relationship between depression and negative life events. For those low on perceived stress, negative life changes had only a minimal impact on depression level. In contrast, for those high on perceived stress, the relationship was more pronounced. These findings were then discussed with regard to the possible role of cognitive appraisals in enhancing the symptoms of psychopathology experienced by individuals high on global level of perceived stress.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1982

Depressed and nondepressed content self-reference in mild depressives.

The present research investigated the extent to which mild depressives and normals differed in their self-referent processing of personal information. In Experiment 1, these subjects made two types of ratings on depressed (e.g., bleak, dismal) and nondepressed (e.g., loyal, organized) content personal adjectives. Half of the adjectives in each content category were rated for a semantic attribute (Does this word have a specific meaning or relate to a specific situation?), whereas half were rated for degree of self-reference (Does this word describe you?). These ratings were followed immediately by an incidental recall task, in which subjects recalled as many of the adjectives as possible. Consistent with predictions generated from a content-specific self-schema model, normals displayed superior recall for self-referenced nondepressed content adjectives, when compared to recall for self-referenced depressed content adjectives and recall for semantic ratings (both depressed and nondepressed content). In contrast, mild depressives exhibited enhanced self-referent recall for both types of content, when compared to their recall for semantic adjectives. This finding suggested that mild depressives utilize a self-schema which incorporates both depressed and nondepressed content. Experiment 2 explored this suggestion further by substituting an other-referent rating task (Does this word describe Pierre Trudeau?) for the semantic judgment used in Experiment 1. Again, consistent with a content-specific self-schema model, normals displayed superior recall only for self-referenced nondepressed adjectives. Mild depressives, however, showed enhanced self-referent recall, relative to other-referent recall, only for depressed content adjectives. For nondepressed content, mild depressives did not distinguish between the self- and other-referent conditions. This finding hinted that the nondepressed component of the mild depressive's self-schema may operate at a somewhat reduced effectiveness, but only when required to differentiate between self and others.

Adult↗
PubMed1978

Depression and causal attributions for success and failure.

The present study investigated the effects of depression on causal attributions for success and failure. Specifically, female university students were separated into depressed and nondepressed groups on the basis of Costello--Comrey Depression Scale scores, and then received either 20%, 55%, or 80% reinforcement on a word association task. Following the task, attributions were made for outcome using the four factors of effort, ability, task difficulty, and luck. In accord with predictions generated from a self-serving biases hypothesis, nondepressives made internal (ability, effort) attributions for a successful outcome (80% reinforcement) and external attributions (luck, task difficulty) for a failure outcome (20% reinforcement). As predicted from consideration of the self-blame component of depression, the attributions made by depressives for a failure outcome were personal or internal. Contrary to expectations, depressives also made internal attributions for a successful outcome. The findings for depressives were discussed in relation to the recently revised learned helplessness model of depression, which incorporates causal attributions. For nondepressives, the findings were considered in terms of the self-serving biases hypothesis.

Achievement↗
PubMed1977

Self-reference and the encoding of personal information.

The degree to which the self is implicated in processing personal information was investigated. Subjects rated adjectives on four tasks designed to force varying kinds of encoding: structural, phonemic, semantic, and self-reference. In two experiments, incidental recall of the rated words indicated that adjectives rates under the self-reference task were recalled the best. These results indicate that self-reference is a rich and powerful encoding process. As an aspect of the human information-processing system, the self appears to function as a superordinate schema that is deeply involved in the processing, interpretation, and memory of personal information.

Adult↗