Their Sanity
Reminder avoidance: Why people hesitate to disclose their insecurities to friends
Soo Kim, Peggy Liu & Kate Min
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:P
People seek and receive support from friends through self-disclosure. However, when self-disclosures reveal personal insecurities, do people rely on friends as an audience as they normally do? This research demonstrates that they do not. Five preregistered studies show that disclosers exhibit a weaker preference for friends as an audience when disclosures involve revealing personal insecurities than when they involve revealing other neutral or negative personal information. This effect is observed despite that the only alternative audience available to disclosers in these studies is a stranger. We theorize that such an effect occurs because disclosers anticipate stronger pain associated with being reminded of disclosed contents when their disclosures involve personal insecurities than other types of information and, thus, wish to avoid such reminders from happening. Our findings support this theorizing: (a) Disclosers' weaker preference for friends as an audience for insecurity-provoking (vs. noninsecurity-provoking) disclosure is mediated by how painful they anticipate reminders of disclosed contents to be and (b) disclosers' preference for a particular audience is diminished when the perceived likelihood of disclosed-content reminders associated with that audience is enhanced. An additional preregistered exploratory content-analysis study shows that when disclosing personal insecurities, people disclose less and are less intimate in what they disclose when they imagine a friend (vs. a stranger) as an audience. Altogether, disclosers are ironically found to open up less to friends about personal insecurities - self-aspects that may particularly benefit from friends' support - than about other topics, due to their avoidance of potentially painful disclosed-content reminders.
Placebos without deception reduce self-report and neural measures of emotional distress
Darwin Guevarra et al.
Nature Communications, July 2020
Abstract:
Several recent studies suggest that placebos administered without deception (i.e., non-deceptive placebos) can help people manage a variety of highly distressing clinical disorders and nonclinical impairments. However, whether non-deceptive placebos represent genuine psychobiological effects is unknown. Here we address this issue by demonstrating across two experiments that during a highly arousing negative picture viewing task, non-deceptive placebos reduce both a self-report and neural measure of emotional distress, the late positive potential. These results show that non-deceptive placebo effects are not merely a product of response bias. Additionally, they provide insight into the neural time course of non-deceptive placebo effects on emotional distress and the psychological mechanisms that explain how they function.
Social comparison and state-trait dynamics: Viewing image-conscious Instagram accounts affects college students' mood and anxiety
Madison Kohler, Imani Turner & Gregory Webster
Psychology of Popular Media, forthcoming
Abstract:
The present experiment examined the extent to which appearance-focused accounts on Instagram (a photo-sharing social media platform) negatively influence people's moods and anxiety levels. Undergraduates at the University of Florida (N = 81, ages 18-30 years, M = 19.07, SD = 1.56) were randomly assigned to scroll through Instagram accounts with either image-conscious photos (fitness, model, and beauty-blogging accounts) or control photos (food, nature, and home-decor accounts). Before (Time 1) and after (Time 2) the experimental manipulation, participants completed state-based mood and anxiety measures and a one-time measure of trait anxiety. Controlling for Time 1 measures, regression results showed that viewing photos from image-conscious accounts related to decreased positive mood and increased negative mood and anxiety at Time 2. Exploratory analyses showed that people with lower trait anxiety were especially susceptible to feeling more state anxiety after viewing image-conscious photos. These findings advance theory by suggesting that state-trait anxiety dynamics are important to understanding how people react to viewing image-conscious Instagram accounts. Further, a social comparison theory of viewing image-conscious photos online should integrate information about people's short-term reactions (states and moods) and long-term predispositions (traits and individual differences).
Enhanced emotional response to both negative and positive images in post-traumatic stress disorder: Evidence from pupillometry
Aimee Mckinnon, Nicola Gray & Robert Snowden
Biological Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is characterised by alterations in the function of the autonomic nervous system. However, it is unclear if this dysfunction is threat-related or related to arousing stimuli in general. Pupillometry offers a simple non-invasive measure of ANS activity that can separate parasympathetic and sympathetic arousal. Participants viewed images with emotional or neutral content: 20 met diagnostic criteria for PTSD, 28 were trauma-exposed (but with no PTSD), and 17 were controls. Initial pupil constriction (a marker of parasympathetic function) was reduced for the PTSD group, while dilation due to the emotional content of the image (a marker of sympathetic activity) was greater in the PTSD group. Individuals with PTSD demonstrated enhanced physiological arousal to both threat-related and positive images. The results suggest reduced parasympathetic arousal and increased sympathetic arousal in the autonomic nervous system, which has been linked to a range of adverse health outcomes in PTSD.