Andrew Marshall

What is Transactional Analysis?

Published on 05/28/2024 by Andrew Marshall2 Comments

Introduction

Transactional analysis is a psychoanalytic theory and method of therapy wherein social interactions (or “transactions”) are analysed to determine the ego state of the communicator (whether parent-like, childlike, or adult-like) as a basis for understanding behaviour. In transactional analysis, the communicator is taught to alter the ego state as a way to solve emotional problems. The method deviates from Freudian psychoanalysis, which focuses on increasing awareness of the contents of subconsciously held ideas. Eric Berne developed the concept and paradigm of transactional analysis in the late 1950s (refer to reachback and afterburn).

Brief History

Eric Berne presented Transactional Analysis to the world as a phenomenological approach, supplementing Freud’s philosophical construct with observable data. His theory built on the science of Wilder Penfield and René Spitz along with the neo-psychoanalytic thought of people such as Paul Federn, Edoardo Weiss, and Erik Erikson. By moving to an interpersonal motivational theory, he placed it both in opposition to the psychoanalytic traditions of his day and within what would become the psychoanalytic traditions of the future. From Berne, transactional analysts have inherited a determination to create an accessible and user-friendly system, an understanding of script or life-plan, ego states, transactions, and a theory of groups.

Berne’s theory was based on the ideas of Freud but with distinct differences. Freudian psychotherapists focused on client personalities. Berne believed that insight could be better discovered by analysing a client’s social transactions. Berne mapped interpersonal relationships to three ego-states of the individuals involved: the Parent, Adult, and Child state. He then investigated communications between individuals based on the current state of each. He called these interpersonal interactions transactions and used the label games to refer to certain patterns of transactions which popped up repeatedly in everyday life in every human interaction.

The origins of transactional analysis can be traced to the first five of Berne’s six articles on intuition, which he began writing in 1949. Even at this early juncture and while still working to become a psychoanalyst, his writings challenged Freudian concepts of the unconscious.

In 1956, after 15 years of psychoanalytic training, Berne was refused admission to the San Francisco Psychoanalytic Institute as a fully-fledged psychoanalyst. He interpreted the request for several more years of training as a rejection and decided to walk away from psychoanalysis. Before the end of the year, he had written two seminal papers, both published in 1957.

In the first article, Intuition V: The Ego Image, Berne referenced P. Federn, E. Kahn, and H. Silberer, and indicated how he arrived at the concept of ego states, including his idea of separating “adult” from “child”.
The second paper, Ego States in Psychotherapy, was based on material presented earlier that year at the Psychiatric Clinic, Mt. Zion Hospital, San Francisco, and at the Langley Porter Neuropsychiatric Clinic, UCSF School of Medicine. In that second article, he developed the tripartite scheme used today (Parent, Adult, and Child), introduced the three-circle method of diagramming it, showed how to sketch contaminations, labelled the theory, “structural analysis”, and termed it “a new psychotherapeutic approach”.

A few months later, he wrote a third article, titled “Transactional Analysis: A New and Effective Method of Group Therapy”, which was presented by invitation at the 1957 Western Regional Meeting of the American Group Psychotherapy Association of Los Angeles. With the publication of this paper in the 1958 issue of the American Journal of Psychotherapy, Berne’s new method of diagnosis and treatment, transactional analysis, became a permanent part of the psychotherapeutic literature. In addition to restating his concepts of ego states and structural analysis, the 1958 paper added the important new features of transactional analysis proper (i.e. the analysis of transactions), games, and scripts.

His seminar group from the 1950s developed the term transactional analysis (TA) to describe therapies based on his work. By 1964, this expanded into the International Transactional Analysis Association. While still largely ignored by the psychoanalytic community, many therapists have put his ideas in practice.

In the early 1960s, he published both technical and popular accounts of his conclusions. His first full-length book on TA was published in 1961, titled Transactional Analysis in Psychotherapy. Structures and Dynamics of Organisations and Groups (1963) examined the same analysis in a broader context than one-on-one interaction.

Overview

TA (Transactional Analysis) is not only post-Freudian, but, according to its founder’s wishes, consciously extra-Freudian. That is to say that, while it has its roots in psychoanalysis, since Berne was a psychoanalytically-trained psychiatrist, it was designed as a dissenting branch of psychoanalysis in that it put its emphasis on transactional rather than “psycho-” analysis.

With its focus on transactions, TA shifted the attention from internal psychological dynamics to the dynamics contained in people’s interactions. Rather than believing that increasing awareness of the contents of unconsciously held ideas was the therapeutic path, TA concentrated on the content of people’s interactions with each other. Changing these interactions was TA’s path to solving emotional problems.

TA also differs from Freudian analysis in explaining that an individual’s final emotional state is the result of inner dialogue between different parts of the psyche, as opposed to the Freudian hypothesis that imagery is the overriding determinant of inner emotional state. (For example, depression may be due to ongoing critical verbal messages from the inner Parent to the inner Child.) Berne believed that it is relatively easy to identify these inner dialogues and that the ability to do so is parentally suppressed in early childhood.

In addition, Berne believed in making a commitment to “curing” his clients, rather than just understanding them. To that end he introduced one of the most important aspects of TA: the contract—an agreement entered into by both client and therapist to pursue specific changes that the client desires.

Revising Freud’s concept of the human psyche as composed of the id, ego, and super-ego, Berne postulated in addition three “ego states” – the Parent, Adult, and Child states—which were largely shaped through childhood experiences. These three are all part of Freud’s ego; none represent the id or the superego.

Unhealthy childhood experiences can lead to being pathologically fixated in the Child and Parent ego states, bringing discomfort to an individual and/or others in a variety of forms, including many types of mental illness.

Berne considered how individuals interact with one another, and how the ego states affect each set of transactions. Unproductive or counterproductive transactions were considered to be signs of ego state problems. Analysing these transactions according to the person’s individual developmental history would enable the person to “get better”. Berne thought that virtually everyone has something problematic about their ego states and that negative behaviour would not be addressed by “treating” only the problematic individual.

Berne identified a typology of common counterproductive social interactions, identifying these as “games”.

Berne presented his theories in two popular books on transactional analysis: Games People Play (1964) and What Do You Say After You Say Hello? (1975).

By the 1970s, because of TA’s non-technical and non-threatening jargon and model of the human psyche, many of its terms and concepts were adopted by eclectic therapists as part of their individual approaches to psychotherapy. It also served well as a therapy model for groups of patients, or marital/family counselees, where interpersonal (rather than intrapersonal) disturbances were the focus of treatment.

TA’s popularity in the US waned in the 1970s. The more dedicated TA purists banded together in 1964 with Berne to form a research and professional accrediting body, the International Transactional Analysis Association, or ITAA.

Fifty Years Later

Within the framework of transactional analysis, more recent transactional analysts have developed different and overlapping theories of transactional analysis: cognitive, behavioural, relational, redecision, integrative, constructivist, narrative, body-work, positive psychological, personality adaptational, self-reparenting, psychodynamic and neuroconstructivist.

Some transactional analysts highlight the many things they have in common with cognitive behavioural therapy: the use of contracts with clear goals, the attention to cognitive distortions (called “adult decontamination” or “child deconfusion”), the focus on the client’s conscious attitudes and behaviours and the use of “strokes”.

Cognitive-based transactional analysts use ego state identification to identify communication distortions and teach different functional options in the dynamics of communication. Some make additional contracts for more profound work involving life plans or scripts or with unconscious processes, including those which manifest in the client-therapist relationship as transference and countertransference, and define themselves as psychodynamic or relational transactional analysts. Some highlight the study and promotion of subjective well-being and optimal human functioning rather than pathology and so identify with positive psychology. Some are increasingly influenced by current research in attachment, mother-infant interaction and by the implications of interpersonal neurobiology and non-linear dynamic systems.

Outline

Transactional analysis integrates the theories of psychology and psychotherapy because it has elements of psychoanalytic, humanist and cognitive ideas.

According to the International Transactional Analysis Association, TA “is a theory of personality and a systematic psychotherapy for personal growth and personal change.”

As a theory of personality, TA describes how people are structured psychologically. It uses what is perhaps its best known model, the ego-state (Parent-Adult-Child) model, to do this. The same model helps explain how people function and express their personality in their behaviour.
As Berne set up his psychology, there are four life positions that a person can hold, and holding a particular psychological position has profound implications for how an individual operationalizes his or her life. The positions are stated as:
- I’m OK and you are OK. This is the healthiest position about life and it means that I feel good about myself and that I feel good about others and their competence.
- I’m OK and you are not OK. In this position I feel good about myself but I see others as damaged or less than me and this is usually not healthy.
- I’m not OK and you are OK. In this position the person sees him/herself as the weak partner in relationships as the others in life are definitely better than the self. The person who holds this position will unconsciously accept abuse as OK.
- I’m not OK and you are not OK. This is the worst position to be in as it means that I believe that I am in a terrible state and the rest of the world is as bad. Consequently, there is no hope for any ultimate supports.
It is a theory of communication that can be extended to the analysis of systems and organisations.
It offers a theory for child development by explaining how our adult patterns of life originated in childhood. This explanation is based on the idea of a “Life (or Childhood) Script”: the assumption that we continue to re-play childhood strategies, even when this results in pain or defeat. Thus it claims to offer a theory of psychopathology.
In practical application, it can be used in the diagnosis and treatment of many types of psychological disorders and provides a method of therapy for individuals, couples, families and groups.
Outside the therapeutic field, it has been used in education to help teachers remain in clear communication at an appropriate level, in counselling and consultancy, in management and communications training and by other bodies.

Philosophy

People are OK; thus each person has validity, importance, equality of respect.
Positive reinforcement increases feelings of being OK.
All people have a basic lovable core and a desire for positive growth.
Everyone (with only few exceptions, such as the severely brain-damaged) has the capacity to think.
All of the many facets of an individual have a positive value for them in some way.
People decide their story and destiny, therefore these decisions can be changed.
All emotional difficulties are curable.

Freedom from historical maladaptations embedded in the childhood script is required in order to become free of inappropriate, inauthentic and displaced emotions which are not a fair and honest reflection of here-and-now life (such as echoes of childhood suffering, pity-me and other mind games, compulsive behaviour and repetitive dysfunctional life patterns). The aim of change under TA is to move toward autonomy (freedom from childhood script), spontaneity, intimacy, problem solving as opposed to avoidance or passivity, cure as an ideal rather than merely making progress and learning new choices.

Ego-State or Parent–Adult–Child (PAC) Models

Many of the core TA models and concepts can be categorised into

Structural analysis – analysis of the individual psyche.
Transactional analysis proper – analysis of interpersonal transactions based on structural analysis of the individuals involved in the transaction.
Game analysis – repeating sequences of transactions that lead to a result subconsciously agreed to by the parties involved in the game.
Script analysis – a life plan that may involve long-term involvement in particular games in order to reach the life pay-off of the individual.

At any given time, a person experiences and manifests his or her personality through a mixture of behaviours, thoughts, and feelings. Typically, according to TA, there are three ego-states that people consistently use:

Parent (“exteropsyche”): a state in which people behave, feel, and think in response to an unconscious mimicking of how their parents (or other parental figures) acted, or how they interpreted their parent’s actions. For example, a person may shout at someone out of frustration because they learned from an influential figure in childhood the lesson that this seemed to be a way of relating that worked.
Adult (“neopsyche”): a state of the ego which is most like an artificially intelligent system processing information and making predictions about major emotions that could affect its operation. Learning to strengthen the Adult is a goal of TA. While people are in the Adult ego state, they are directed towards an objective appraisal of reality.
Child (“archaeopsyche”): a state in which people behave, feel, and think similarly to how they did in childhood. For example, a person who receives a poor evaluation at work may respond by looking at the floor and crying or pouting, as when scolded as a child. Conversely, a person who receives a good evaluation may respond with a broad smile and a joyful gesture of thanks. The Child is the source of emotions, creation, recreation, spontaneity, and intimacy.

Berne differentiated his Parent, Adult, and Child ego states from actual adults, parents, and children, by using capital letters when describing them. These ego states may or may not represent the relationships that they act out. For example, in the workplace, an adult supervisor may take on the Parent role, and scold an adult employee as though he were a Child. Or a child, using the Parent ego-state, could scold her actual parent as though the parent were a Child.

Within each of these ego states are subdivisions. Thus Parental figures are often either:

more nurturing (permission-giving, security-giving) or
more criticising (comparing to family traditions and ideals in generally negative ways);

Childhood behaviours are either

more natural (free) or
more adapted to others.

These subdivisions categorise individuals’ patterns of behaviour, feelings, and ways of thinking, which can be functional (beneficial or positive) or dysfunctional/counterproductive (negative).

Berne states that there are four types of diagnosis of ego states. They are: “behavioural” diagnosis, “social” diagnosis, “historical” diagnosis, and “phenomenological” diagnosis. A complete diagnosis would include all four types. It has subsequently been demonstrated that there is a fifth type of diagnosis, namely “contextual”, because the same behaviour will be diagnosed differently according to the context of the behaviour.

Ego states do not correspond directly to Sigmund Freud’s ego, superego, and id, although there are obvious parallels: Superego/Parent; Ego/Adult; Id/Child. Ego states are consistent for each person, and (argue TA practitioners) are more observable than the components of Freud’s model. In other words, the ego state from which someone is communicating is evident in their behaviour, manner and expression.

Emotional Blackmail

Emotional blackmail is a term coined by psychotherapist Dr. Susan Forward, about controlling people in relationships and the theory that fear, obligation, and guilt (FOG) are the transactional dynamics at play between the controller and the person being controlled. Understanding these dynamics are useful to anyone trying to extricate from the controlling behaviour of another person, and deal with their own compulsions to do things that are uncomfortable, undesirable, burdensome, or self-sacrificing for others.

Forward and Frazier identify four blackmail types each with their own mental manipulation style:

Type	Example
Punisher’s Threat	Eat the food I cooked for you or I will hurt you.
Self-Punisher’s Threat	Eat the food I cooked for you or I will hurt myself.
Sufferer’s THreat	Eat the food I cooked for you. I was saving it for myself. I wonder what will happen now.
Tantaliser’s Threat	Eat the food I cooked for you and you may get a really yummy desert.

There are different levels of demands – demands that are of little consequence, demands that involve important issues or personal integrity, demands that affect major life decisions, and/or demands that are dangerous or illegal.

Effectiveness

A 1995 research article by the staff of Consumer Reports, with Martin Seligman as consultant, assessed that psychotherapy conducted by a group of Transactional Analysts is more effective than that of groups of psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, marriage counsellors, and physicians; and that psychotherapy lasting more than six months is 40% more effective than that lasting less than six months.

A 2010 review found 50 studies on transactional analysis that concluded it had a positive effect, and 10 where no positive effect was found. No studies that concluded a negative effect were found.

Criticism

The three major limitations of Berne’s work are:

Berne’s emphasis on structural explanation (rather than on those derived from an energy theory).
His failure to develop a script reversal technique which would satisfy his own criteria of conciseness and theoretical consistency.
An apparent dependence upon content analysis.

In Popular Culture

When Will Hunting from the movie Good Will Hunting is being choked by Sean Maguire, you can see the spine of the book I’m OK, You’re OK in the bookcase that Will is being pinned against.

Thomas Harris’s successful popular work from the late 1960s, I’m OK, You’re OK, is largely based on transactional analysis. A fundamental divergence, however, between Harris and Berne is that Berne postulates that everyone starts life in the “I’m OK” position, whereas Harris believes that life starts out “I’m not OK, you’re OK”.

New Age author James Redfield has acknowledged Harris and Berne as important influences in his best-seller The Celestine Prophecy (1993). The protagonists in the novel survive by striving (and succeeding) in escaping from “control dramas” that resemble the games of TA.

Singer/songwriter Warren Zevon mentions transactional analysis in his 1980 song “Gorilla, You’re a Desperado” from the album Bad Luck Streak in Dancing School.

Singer-songwriter Joe South’s 1968 song, “Games People Play”, was based directly on transactional-analytic concepts and Berne’s book of the same name.

TA makes an appearance in Antonio Campos’ 2016 biographical drama Christine, a film covering the events that led TV journalist Christine Chubbuck to die by suicide on TV. She is brought to a transactional analysis therapy session by a colleague, where they introduce her to the “Yes, But…” technique.

Singer John Denver references transactional analysis in his autobiography. His wife at the time, Annie Denver, was getting into the movement. John says he tried it but found it wanting.

Eric Berne’s Games People Play was featured prominently on an episode of Mad Men. The book was seen in Season 4, Episode 11, titled “Chinese Wall”. The approximate time period for this episode is September 1965. By late September 1965, Games People Play had been on the New York Times non-fiction bestseller list for nine weeks already.

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What is Reachback (in Psychotherapy)?

Published on 05/27/2024 by Andrew Marshall1 Comment

Introduction

Reachback is a psychological term coined by Eric Berne. Reachback, in Berne’s lexicon, is the period of time during which an impending event begins to influence an individual’s behaviour, including their level of stress.

Berne’s Formulation

Berne, the founder of transactional analysis, coined the term in his book What Do You Say After You Say Hello?. He considered that reachback “is most dramatically seen in people with phobias whose whole functioning may be disturbed for days ahead at the prospect of getting into a feared situation, such as a medical examination or a journey.”

For instance, a person expecting to take a trip on Monday starts getting irritable and worried on Friday. He may start trying to clear his overflowing inbox, cut short his evening relaxation, start preparing and packing for the trip, worry about what clothes to take, and so on. However, “for people who have unusual difficulties with anticipatory stress, the reach-back of an event such as a major vacation trip or a wedding may be several weeks.”

Berne differentiates reachback from forward planning, which is done to mitigate negative effects such as reachback.

The flip side of reachback is afterburn, which is defined as the effect a past atypical event continues to have on a person’s schedule, activities and mental state even after it is materially over. Berne considered that “each person has a sort of standard ‘reachback time’ and ‘afterburn time’ for various kinds of situations […] domestic quarrels, examination or hearings, work deadlines, travel, visits from or to relatives, etc.”

Prevention

Following William Osler’s prescription for equable living day-by-day, Berne explained that “living day by day means living a well-planned and organized life, and sleeping well between each day, so that the day ends without reachback, since tomorrow is well planned, and begins without afterburn, since yesterday was well-organized”.

Defence Usage

Reachback is also used in the US Department of Defence as the process of obtaining products, services, applications, forces, equipment, or material from organisations that are not forward deployed.

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What is Afterburn (in Psychotherapy)?

Published on 05/27/202405/27/2024 by Andrew Marshall1 Comment

Introduction

Afterburn is a psychological term coined by Eric Berne, who defined it as “the period of time before a past event is assimilated”.

Berne’s Formulation

Eric Berne, the founding father of transactional analysis, used the term “afterburn” to indicate the effect an atypical past event continues to exert on a person’s daily schedule, activities and mental state even after it is over: to “those occasions when it disturbs normal patterns for an appreciable period, rather than being assimilated into them or excluded from them by repression and other psychological mechanisms”.

For Berne, afterburn is the flip side of reachback, which is the effect that the event, thanks to the stress of anticipation, has on the person’s life before it. He considered that “in most cases one or the other can be tolerated without serious consequences. It can be dangerous for almost anyone, however, if the after-burn of the last event overlaps with the reach-back from the next … this is a good definition of overwork”.

Remedies

Berne considered that “dreaming is probably the normal mechanism for adjusting after-burn and reach-back”, but that sex and holidays were also useful remedies. “Most normal after-burns and reach-backs run their courses in about six days, so that a two-week vacation allows the superficial after-burns to burn out, after which there are a few days of carefree living. …For the assimilation of more chronic after-burns and deeper, repressed reach-backs, however, a vacation of at least six weeks is probably necessary.”

Other Views

In terms of exam stress management, “afterburn is the time needed after the exam to… set it to rest”, a period of “afterburn time… [with] a host of unexpressed feelings and incomplete tasks”.

“Referring to soldiers recently returned from Iraq, Sara Corbett described this type of delayed reaction as ‘psychological afterburn’… [quoting soldiers who spoke of it to the effect of:] ‘My body’s here, but my mind is there.'”

With respect to therapy, some consider that “you are not ending well when you find that you are thinking about the person’s problems after sessions. This is called afterburn”. Others however see opportunity in such occasions: “You’re sorting out your countertransference, you’re owning your projections, you’re separating out you from the family”—in short, one is usefully employing “those lagging emotions that afterburn following a session”.

Goffman

Erving Goffman has a related but rather different usage of the term “to refer to a sotto voce comment, one meant not to be a ratified part of an encounter, an afterburn … a remonstrance conveyed collusively by virtue of the fact that its targets are in the process of leaving the field”.

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What is Meant by “Fake It Till You Make It”?

Published on 05/24/2024 by Andrew Marshall2 Comments

Introduction

“Fake it till you make it” (or “Fake it until you make it”) is an aphorism that suggests that by imitating confidence, competence, and an optimistic mindset, a person can realise those qualities in their real life and achieve the results they seek.

The phrase is first attested some time before 1973. The earliest reference to a similar phrase occurs in the Simon & Garfunkel song “Fakin’ It”, released in 1968 as a single and also on their Bookends album. Simon sings, “And I know I’m fakin’ it, I’m not really makin’ it.”

Similar advice has been offered by a number of writers over time:

Action seems to follow feeling, but really action and feeling go together; and by regulating the action, which is under the more direct control of the will, we can indirectly regulate the feeling, which is not. Thus the sovereign voluntary path to cheerfulness, if our spontaneous cheerfulness be lost, is to sit up cheerfully, to look round cheerfully, and to act and speak as if cheerfulness were already there. If such conduct does not make you soon feel cheerful, nothing else on that occasion can. So to feel brave, act as if we were brave, use all our will to that end, and a courage-fit will very likely replace the fit of fear. ( William James, “The Gospel of Relaxation”, On Vital Reserves, 1922).

In the law of attraction movement, “act as if you already have it”, or simply “act as if”, is a central concept:

How do you get yourself to a point of believing? Start make-believing. Be like a child, and make-believe. Act as if you have it already. As you make-believe, you will begin to believe you have received. ( Rhonda Byrne, The Secret, 2006).

In Psychology

In the 1920s, Alfred Adler developed a therapeutic technique that he called “acting as if”, asserting that “if you want a quality, act as if you already have it”. This strategy gave his clients an opportunity to practice alternatives to dysfunctional behaviours. Adler’s method is still used today and is often described as role play.

“Faking it till you make it” is a psychological tool discussed in neuroscientific research. A 1988 experiment by Fritz Strack claimed to show that mood can be improved by holding a pen between the user’s teeth to force a smile, but a posterior experiment failed to replicate it, due to which Strack was awarded the Ig Nobel Prize for psychology in 2019. A later 2022 study about strategies to counter emotional distress found forced smiling not more effective than forced neutral expressions and other strategies of emotional regulation.

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What is Emotion Work?

Published on 05/23/2024 by Andrew MarshallLeave a comment

Introduction

Emotion work is understood as the art of trying to change in degree or quality an emotion or feeling.

Emotion work may be defined as the management of one’s own feelings, or work done in an effort to maintain a relationship; there is dispute as to whether emotion work is only work done regulating one’s own emotion, or extends to performing the emotional work for others.

Hochschild

Arlie Russell Hochschild, who introduced the term in 1979, distinguished emotion work – unpaid emotional work that a person undertakes in private life – from emotional labour: emotional work done in a paid work setting. Emotion work has use value and occurs in situations in which people choose to regulate their emotions for their own non-compensated benefit (e.g. in their interactions with family and friends). By contrast, emotional labour has exchange value because it is traded and performed for a wage.

In a later development, Hochschild distinguished between two broad types of emotion work, and among three techniques of emotion work. The two broad types involve evocation and suppression of emotion, while the three techniques of emotion work that Hochschild describes are cognitive, bodily and expressive.

However, the concept (if not the term) has been traced back as far as Aristotle: as Aristotle saw, the problem is not with emotionality, but with the appropriateness of emotion and its expression.

Examples

Examples of emotion work include showing affection, apologizing after an argument, bringing up problems that need to be addressed in an intimate relationship or any kind of interpersonal relationship, and making sure the household runs smoothly.

Emotion work also involves the orientation of self/others to accord with accepted norms of emotional expression: emotion work is often performed by family members and friends, who put pressure on individuals to conform to emotional norms. Arguably, then, an individual’s ultimate obeisance and/or resistance to aspects of emotion regimes are made visible in their emotion work.

Cultural norms often imply that emotion work is reserved for females. There is certainly evidence to the effect that the emotional management that women and men do is asymmetric; and that in general, women come into a marriage groomed for the role of emotional manager.

Criticism

The social theorist Victor Jeleniewski Seidler argues that women’s emotion work is merely another demonstration of false consciousness under patriarchy, and that emotion work, as a concept, has been adopted, adapted or criticised to such an extent that it is in danger of becoming a “catch-all-cliché”.

More broadly, the concept of emotion work has itself been criticised as a wide over-simplification of mental processes such as repression and denial which continually occur in everyday life.

Literary Analogues

Rousseau in The New Heloise suggests that the attempt to master instrumentally one’s affective life always results in a weakening and eventually the fragmentation of one’s identity, even if the emotion work is performed at the demand of ethical principles.

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What is Cognitive Imitation?

Published on 05/22/2024 by Andrew MarshallLeave a comment

Introduction

Cognitive imitation is a form of social learning, and a subtype of imitation. Cognitive imitation is contrasted with motor and vocal or oral imitation. As with all forms of imitation, cognitive imitation involves learning and copying specific rules or responses done by another. The principal difference between motor and cognitive imitation is the type of rule (and stimulus) that is learned and copied by the observer. So, whereas in the typical imitation learning experiment subjects must copy novel actions on objects or novel sequences of specific actions (novel motor imitation), in a novel cognitive imitation paradigm subjects have to copy novel rules, independently of specific actions or movement patterns.

The following example illustrates the difference between cognitive and motor-spatial imitation: Imagine someone overlooking someone’s shoulder and stealing their automated teller machine (ATM) password. As with all forms of imitation, the individual learns and successfully reproduces the observed sequence. The observer in our example, like most of us, presumably knows how to operate an ATM (namely, that you have to push X number of buttons on the ATM screen in a specific sequence), so the specific motor responses of touching the screen isn’t what the thief is learning. Instead, the thief could learn two types of abstract rules. On the one hand, the thief can learn a spatial rule: touch item in the top right, followed by item on the top left, then the item in the middle of the screen, and finally the one on lower right. This would be an example of motor-spatial imitation because the thief’s response is guided by an abstract motor-spatial rule. On the other, the thief could ignore the spatial patterning of the observed responses and instead focus on the particular items that were touched, generating an abstract numerical rule, independently of where they are in space: 3-1-5-9. This would constitute an example of cognitive imitation because the individuals is copying an abstract serial rule without copying specific motor-responses. In this example, the thief’s responses match those he observed only because the numbers are in the same location. If the numbers were in a different location—that is, if the numbers on the ATM’s keypad were scrambled with every attempt to enter a password—the thief would, nonetheless, reproduce the target password because they learned a cognitive (i.e. an abstract, item-specific serial rule), rather than a spatial rule (i.e. an observable motor-spatial pattern).

In Rhesus Monkeys

The term “cognitive imitation” was first introduced by Subiaul and his colleagues (Subiaul, Cantlon, et al., 2004), defining it as “a type of observational learning in which a naïve student copies an expert’s use of a rule”. To isolate cognitive from motor imitation, Subiaul and colleagues trained two rhesus macaques to respond, in a prescribed order, to different sets of photographs that were displayed simultaneously on a touch-sensitive monitor. Because the position of the photographs varied randomly from trial to trial, sequences could not be learned by motor imitation. Both monkeys learned new sequences more rapidly after observing an expert execute those sequences than when they had to learn new sequences entirely by trial and error. A mircro-analysis of each monkeys’ performance showed that each monkey learned the order of two of the four photographs faster than baseline levels. A second experiment ruled out social facilitation as an explanation for this result. A third experiment, however, demonstrated that monkeys did not learn when the computer highlighted each picture in the correct sequence in the absence of a monkey (“ghost control”).

Dissociating Cognitive and Motor-Spatial Imitation

Subiaul and colleagues, using two computerised tasks that measure the learning of two abstract rules: cognitive—item-based—rules (e.g. apple-boy-cat;) and motor-spatial-based rules (e.g. up-down-right) have shown that there are important dissociations between the imitation of these two types of rules. Specifically, results have shown that while 3-year-olds successfully imitate item-specific rules (i.e. cognitive imitation), these same 3-year-olds fail to imitate motor-spatial rules (i.e. motor-spatial imitation). This dissociation isn’t because there’s something inherently harder about learning spatial versus cognitive rules. Follow-up studies have shown that 3-year-olds easily learn new spatial rules by trial and error, correctly recalling such rules after a 30s delay, (Exp. 2). This result excludes the possibility that 3-year-olds’ motor-spatial imitation problems are due to difficulty learning (i.e. encoding and recalling) novel spatial rules in general. In another study, 3-year-olds observed a model correctly touch the first item (e.g. Top Right) in the sequence, but then skip the middle item (e.g. Top Left picture) and, instead, touch the last item in the sequence (e.g. Bottom Left picture), resulting in an error, marked as unintentional by the model who said, “Whoops! That’s not right!”. This is a goal emulation learning condition, as the child had to copy the model’s intended goal (Top-Right, Bottom-Left, Top-Left), rather than the observed (incorrect) response (Top-Right, Top-Left), similar to Meltzoff’s “re-enactment” paradigm. When given an opportunity to respond, 3-year-olds generated the intended (i.e. correct) sequence (Exp. 3.) 3-year-old’s success in the goal emulation condition excludes the possibility that 3-year-olds’ motor-spatial imitation problem is due to difficulty vicariously learning (i.e. because of a lack of interest, failure to attend, problems inferring goals, etc.) a novel spatial rule from a model. Children’s success in the goal emulation condition shows that social learning may be achieved by social reasoning (inferring goals) and causal inferences (error detection), independently of any domain-specific imitation learning mechanism.

To further explore this dissociation between cognitive- and motor-spatial imitation Subiaul and colleagues conducted a large-scale cross-sectional, within-subject study with pre-schoolers (2–6 years) using the same two tasks: cognitive (item-specific) and motor-spatial (spatial-specific). Results showed that children’s cognitive imitation performance did not predict their motor-spatial imitation learning, and vice versa. Importantly, while age predicted improved cognitive and motor-spatial imitation performance, children’s ability to individually learn each type of rule via trial and error did not predict their ability to imitate those same rules.

Subiaul and colleagues have argued that these results are consistent with the hypothesis that imitation learning is domain-specific, not domain-general. A critical caveat may be that the imitation of NOVEL rules and responses is domain-specific while the imitation of FAMILIAR responses is likely to be mediated by domain-general, non-specialised mechanisms, as Heyes and others have argued.

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What is Social Rejection?

Published on 05/15/2024 by Andrew MarshallLeave a comment

Introduction

Social rejection occurs when an individual is deliberately excluded from a social relationship or social interaction. The topic includes interpersonal rejection (or peer rejection), romantic rejection, and familial estrangement. A person can be rejected or shunned by individuals or an entire group of people. Furthermore, rejection can be either active by bullying, teasing, or ridiculing, or passive by ignoring a person, or giving the “silent treatment”. The experience of being rejected is subjective for the recipient, and it can be perceived when it is not actually present. The word “ostracism” is also commonly used to denote a process of social exclusion (in Ancient Greece, ostracism was a form of temporary banishment following a people’s vote).

Although humans are social beings, some level of rejection is an inevitable part of life. Nevertheless, rejection can become a problem when it is prolonged or consistent, when the relationship is important, or when the individual is highly sensitive to rejection. Rejection by an entire group of people can have especially negative effects, particularly when it results in social isolation.

The experience of rejection can lead to a number of adverse psychological consequences such as loneliness, low self-esteem, aggression, and depression. It can also lead to feelings of insecurity and a heightened sensitivity to future rejection.

Need for Acceptance

Social rejection may be emotionally painful, due to the social nature of human beings, as well as the essential need for social interaction between other humans. Abraham Maslow and other theorists have suggested that the need for love and belongingness is a fundamental human motivation. According to Maslow, all humans, even introverts, need to be able to give and receive affection to be psychologically healthy.

Psychologists believe that simple contact or social interaction with others is not enough to fulfil this need. Instead, people have a strong motivational drive to form and maintain caring interpersonal relationships. People need both stable relationships and satisfying interactions with the people in those relationships. If either of these two ingredients is missing, people will begin to feel lonely and unhappy. Thus, rejection is a significant threat. In fact, the majority of human anxieties appear to reflect concerns over social exclusion.

Being a member of a group is also important for social identity, which is a key component of the self-concept. Mark Leary of Duke University has suggested that the main purpose of self-esteem is to monitor social relations and detect social rejection. In this view, self-esteem is a sociometer which activates negative emotions when signs of exclusion appear.

Social psychological research confirms the motivational basis of the need for acceptance. Specifically, fear of rejection leads to conformity to peer pressure (sometimes called normative influence, cf. informational influence), and compliance to the demands of others. The need for affiliation and social interaction appears to be particularly strong under stress.

In Childhood

Peer rejection has been measured using sociometry and other rating methods. Studies typically show that some children are popular, receiving generally high ratings, many children are in the middle, with moderate ratings, and a minority of children are rejected, showing generally low ratings. One measure of rejection asks children to list peers they like and dislike. Rejected children receive few “like” nominations and many “dislike” nominations. Children classified as neglected receive few nominations of either type.

According to Karen Bierman of Pennsylvania State University, most children who are rejected by their peers display one or more of the following behavior patterns:

Low rates of prosocial behaviour, e.g. taking turns, sharing.
High rates of aggressive or disruptive behaviour.
High rates of inattentive, immature, or impulsive behaviour.
High rates of social anxiety.

Bierman states that well-liked children show social savvy and know when and how to join play groups. Children who are at risk for rejection are more likely to barge in disruptively, or hang back without joining at all. Aggressive children who are athletic or have good social skills are likely to be accepted by peers, and they may become ringleaders in the harassment of less skilled children. Minority children, children with disabilities, or children who have unusual characteristics or behaviour may face greater risks of rejection. Depending on the norms of the peer group, sometimes even minor differences among children lead to rejection or neglect. Children who are less outgoing or simply prefer solitary play are less likely to be rejected than children who are socially inhibited and show signs of insecurity or anxiety.

Peer rejection, once established, tends to be stable over time, and thus difficult for a child to overcome. Researchers have found that active rejection is more stable, more harmful, and more likely to persist after a child transfers to another school, than simple neglect. One reason for this is that peer groups establish reputational biases that act as stereotypes and influence subsequent social interaction. Thus, even when rejected and popular children show similar behaviour and accomplishments, popular children are treated much more favourably.

Rejected children are likely to have lower self-esteem, and to be at greater risk for internalising problems like depression. Some rejected children display externalising behaviour and show aggression rather than depression. The research is largely correlational, but there is evidence of reciprocal effects. This means that children with problems are more likely to be rejected, and this rejection then leads to even greater problems for them. Chronic peer rejection may lead to a negative developmental cycle that worsens with time.

Rejected children are more likely to be bullied and to have fewer friends than popular children, but these conditions are not always present. For example, some popular children do not have close friends, whereas some rejected children do. Peer rejection is believed to be less damaging for children with at least one close friend.

An analysis of 15 school shootings between 1995 and 2001 found that peer rejection was present in all but two of the cases (87%). The documented rejection experiences included both acute and chronic rejection and frequently took the form of ostracism, bullying, and romantic rejection. The authors stated that although it is likely that the rejection experiences contributed to the school shootings, other factors were also present, such as depression, poor impulse control, and other psychopathology.

There are programs available for helping children who suffer from social rejection. One large scale review of 79 controlled studies found that social skills training is very effective (r = 0.40 effect size), with a 70% success rate, compared to 30% success in control groups. There was a decline in effectiveness over time, however, with follow-up studies showing a somewhat smaller effect size (r = 0.35).

In the Laboratory

Laboratory research has found that even short-term rejection from strangers can have powerful (if temporary) effects on an individual. In several social psychology experiments, people chosen at random to receive messages of social exclusion become more aggressive, more willing to cheat, less willing to help others, and more likely to pursue short-term over long-term goals. Rejection appears to lead very rapidly to self-defeating and antisocial behaviour.

Researchers have also investigated how the brain responds to social rejection. One study found that the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex is active when people are experiencing both physical pain and “social pain,” in response to social rejection. A subsequent experiment, also using fMRI neuroimaging, found that three regions become active when people are exposed to images depicting rejection themes. These areas are the posterior cingulate cortex, the parahippocampal gyrus, and the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex. Furthermore, individuals who are high in rejection sensitivity (see below) show less activity in the left prefrontal cortex and the right dorsal superior frontal gyrus, which may indicate less ability to regulate emotional responses to rejection.

An experiment performed in 2007 at the University of California at Berkeley found that individuals with a combination of low self-esteem and low attentional control are more likely to exhibit eye-blink startle responses while viewing rejection themed images. These findings indicate that people who feel bad about themselves are especially vulnerable to rejection, but that people can also control and regulate their emotional reactions.

A study at Miami University indicated that individuals who recently experienced social rejection were better than both accepted and control participants in their ability to discriminate between real and fake smiles. Though both accepted and control participants were better than chance (they did not differ from each other), rejected participants were much better at this task, nearing 80% accuracy. This study is noteworthy in that it is one of the few cases of a positive or adaptive consequence of social rejection.

Ball Toss/Cyberball Experiments

A common experimental technique is the “ball toss” paradigm, which was developed by Kip Williams and his colleagues at Purdue University. This procedure involves a group of three people tossing a ball back and forth. Unbeknownst to the actual participant, two members of the group are working for the experimenter and following a pre-arranged script. In a typical experiment, half of the subjects will be excluded from the activity after a few tosses and never get the ball again. Only a few minutes of this treatment are sufficient to produce negative emotions in the target, including anger and sadness. This effect occurs regardless of self-esteem and other personality differences.

Gender differences have been found in these experiments. In one study, women showed greater nonverbal engagement whereas men disengaged faster and showed face-saving techniques, such as pretending to be uninterested. The researchers concluded that women seek to regain a sense of belonging whereas men are more interested in regaining self-esteem.

A computerised version of the task known as “cyberball” has also been developed and leads to similar results. Cyberball is a virtual ball toss game where the participant is led to believe they are playing with two other participants sitting at computers elsewhere who can toss the ball to either player. The participant is included in the game for the first few minutes, but then excluded by the other players for the remaining three minutes. A significant advantage of the Cyberball software is its openness; Williams made the software available to all researchers. In the software, the researcher can adjust the order of throwing the balls, the user’s avatar, the background, the availability of chat, the introductory message and much other information. In addition, researchers can obtain the programme’s latest version by visiting the official website of CYBERBALL 5.0.

This simple and short time period of ostracism has been found to produce significant increases to self-reported levels of anger and sadness, as well as lowering levels of the four needs. These effects have been found even when the participant is ostracised by out-group members, when the out-group member is identified as a despised person such as someone in the Ku Klux Klan, when they know the source of the ostracism is just a computer, and even when being ostracised means they will be financially rewarded and being included would incur a financial cost. People feel rejected even when they know they are playing only against the computer. A recent set of experiments using cyberball demonstrated that rejection impairs willpower or self-regulation. Specifically, people who are rejected are more likely to eat cookies and less likely to drink an unpleasant tasting beverage that they are told is good for them. These experiments also showed that the negative effects of rejection last longer in individuals who are high in social anxiety.

Life-Alone Paradigm

Another mainstream research method is the Life Alone Paradigm, which was first developed by Twenge and other scholars to evoke feelings of rejection by informing subjects of false test results. In contrast to ball toss and cyberball, it focuses on future rejection, i.e. the experience of rejection that participants may potentially experience in the future. Specifically, at the beginning of the experiment, participants complete a personality scale (in the original method, the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire). They are then informed of their results based on their experimental group rather than the real results. Participants in the rejected group will be told that their test results indicate that they will be alone in the future, regardless of their current state of life. Participants in the accepted group will be told they will have a fulfilling relationship. In the control group, participants were told they would encounter some accidences. In this way, the participants’ sense of rejection is awakened to take the subsequent measurement. After the experiment, the researcher will explain the results to the participants and apologise.

Scholars point out that this method may cause more harm to the subjects. For example, the participants will likely experience a more severe effect on executive functioning during the test. Therefore, this method faces more significant issue with research ethics and harms than other rejection experiments. Consequently, researchers should use this test with caution in experiments and pay attention to the subjects’ reaction afterwards.

Psychology of Ostracism

Most of the research on the psychology of ostracism has been conducted by the social psychologist Kip Williams. He and his colleagues have devised a model of ostracism which provides a framework to show the complexity in the varieties of ostracism and the processes of its effects. There he theorises that ostracism can potentially be so harmful that humans have evolved an efficient warning system to immediately detect and respond to it.

In the animal kingdom as well as in primitive human societies, ostracism can lead to death due to the lack of protection benefits and access to sufficient food resources from the group. Living apart from the whole of society also means not having a mate, so being able to detect ostracism would be a highly adaptive response to ensure survival and continuation of the genetic line.

Temporal Need-Threat Model

The predominant theoretical model of social rejection is the temporal-need threat model proposed by Williams and his colleagues, in which the process of social exclusion is divided into three stages:

Reflexive;
Reflective; and
Resignation.

The reflexive stage happens when social rejection first occurs. It is an immediate effect happened on individuals. Then, the reflective stage enters when the individual starts to reflect and cope with social rejection. Finally, if the rejection last for the long term and the individual cannot successfully cope with it, the social rejection would turn to the resignation stage, where the individual is likely to suffer from severe depression and helplessness. These will likely push the individual into suicide or other extreme behaviour.

Reflexive Stage

The reflexive stage is the first stage of social rejection and refers to the period immediately after social exclusion has occurred. During this stage, Williams proposed that ostracism uniquely poses a threat to four fundamental human needs; the need to belong, the need for control in social situations, the need to maintain high levels of self-esteem, and the need to have a sense of a meaningful existence. When social rejection is related to the individual’s social relationships, the individual’s need for belonging and self-esteem is threatened; when it is not associated with it, it is primarily a threat to a sense of control and meaningful existence.

Another challenge that individuals need to face at this stage is the sense of pain. Previous scholars have used neurobiological methods to find that social exclusion, whether intentional or unintentional, evokes pain in individuals. Specifically, neurobiological evidence suggests that social exclusion increases the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) activation. This brain region, in turn, is associated with physiological pain in individuals. Notably, the right ventral prefrontal cortex (RVPFC) is also further activated when individuals find that social rejection is intentional; this brain region is associated with the regulation of pain perception, implying that pain perception decreases when individuals understand the source of this social rejection. Further research suggests that personal traits or environmental factors do not affect this pain.

Thus, people are motivated to remove this pain with behaviours aimed at reducing the likelihood of others ostracising them any further and increasing their inclusionary status.

Reflective Stage

In the reflective stage, individuals begin to think about and try to cope with social rejection. In the need-threat model, their response is referred to as need fortification, i.e. the creation of interventions that respond to the needs they are threatened by in the reflective stage. Specifically, when individuals’ self-esteem and sense of belonging are threatened, they will try to integrate more into the group. As a result, these rejected individuals develop more pro-social behaviours, such as helping others and giving gifts. In contrast, when their sense of control and meaning is threatened, they show more antisocial behaviour, such as verbal abuse, fighting, etc., to prove they are essential.

Resignation Stage

When individuals have been in social rejection for a long time and cannot improve their situation through effective coping, they move to the third stage, resignation, in which they do not try to change the problem they are facing but choose to accept it. In Zadro’s interview study, in which she interviewed 28 respondents in a state of chronic rejection, she found that the respondents were depressed, self-deprecating and helpless. This social rejection can significantly impact the physical and psychological health of the individual.

Controversy

The controversy over temporal need-threat model has focused on whether it enhances or reduces people’s perception of pain. DeWall and Baumeister’s research suggests that individuals experience a reduction in pain after rejection, a phenomenon they refer to as emotional numbness, which contradicts Williams et al.’s theory that social rejection enhances pain perception. In this regard, Williams suggests that this phenomenon is likely due to differences in the paradigm used in the study, as when using a long-term paradigm such as Life-Alone, individuals do not feel the possibility of rejoining the group, thus creating emotional numbness. This is further supported by Bernstein and Claypool, who found that in separate cyberball and life-alone experiments, stronger stimuli of rejection, such as life-alone, protected people through emotional numbness. In contrast, in the case of minor rejection, such as that in cyberball, the individual’s system detects the rejection cue and draws attention to it through a sense of pain.

Popularity Resurgence

There has been recent research into the function of popularity on development, specifically how a transition from ostracisation to popularity can potentially reverse the deleterious effects of being socially ostracised. While various theories have been put forth regarding what skills or attributes confer an advantage at obtaining popularity, it appears that individuals who were once popular and subsequently experienced a transient ostracisation are often able to employ the same skills that led to their initial popularity to bring about a popularity resurgence.

Romantic

In contrast to the study of childhood rejection, which primarily examines rejection by a group of peers, some researchers focus on the phenomenon of a single individual rejecting another in the context of a romantic relationship. In both teenagers and adults, romantic rejection occurs when a person refuses the romantic advances of another, ignores/avoids or is repulsed by someone who is romantically interested in them, or unilaterally ends an existing relationship. The state of unrequited love is a common experience in youth, but mutual love becomes more typical as people get older.

Romantic rejection is a painful, emotional experience that appears to trigger a response in the caudate nucleus of the brain, and associated dopamine and cortisol activity. Subjectively, rejected individuals experience a range of negative emotions, including frustration, intense anger, jealousy, hate, and eventually, resignation, despair, and possible long-term depression. However, there have been cases where individuals go back and forth between depression and anger.

Rejection Sensitivity

Karen Horney was the first theorist to discuss the phenomenon of rejection sensitivity. She suggested that it is a component of the neurotic personality, and that it is a tendency to feel deep anxiety and humiliation at the slightest rebuff. Simply being made to wait, for example, could be viewed as a rejection and met with extreme anger and hostility.

Albert Mehrabian developed an early questionnaire measure of rejection sensitivity. Mehrabian suggested that sensitive individuals are reluctant to express opinions, tend to avoid arguments or controversial discussions, are reluctant to make requests or impose on others, are easily hurt by negative feedback from others, and tend to rely too much on familiar others and situations so as to avoid rejection.

A more recent (1996) definition of rejection sensitivity is the tendency to “anxiously expect, readily perceive, and overreact” to social rejection. People differ in their readiness to perceive and react to rejection. The causes of individual differences in rejection sensitivity are not well understood. Because of the association between rejection sensitivity and neuroticism, there is a likely genetic predisposition. Rejection sensitive dysphoria, while not a formal diagnosis, is also a common symptom of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), estimated to affect a majority of people with ADHD. Others posit that rejection sensitivity stems from early attachment relationships and parental rejection; also peer rejection is thought to play a role. Bullying, an extreme form of peer rejection, is likely connected to later rejection sensitivity. However, there is no conclusive evidence for any of these theories.

Health

Social rejection has a large effect on a person’s health. Baumeister and Leary originally suggested that an unsatisfied need to belong would inevitably lead to problems in behaviour as well as mental and physical health. Corroboration of these assumptions about behaviour deficits were seen by John Bowlby in his research. Numerous studies have found that being socially rejected leads to an increase in levels of anxiety. Additionally, the level of depression a person feels as well as the amount they care about their social relationships is directly proportional to the level of rejection they perceive. Rejection affects the emotional health and well being of a person as well. Overall, experiments show that those who have been rejected will suffer from more negative emotions and have fewer positive emotions than those who have been accepted or those who were in neutral or control conditions.

In addition to the emotional response to rejection, there is a large effect on physical health as well. Having poor relationships and being more frequently rejected is predictive of mortality. Also, as long as a decade after the marriage ends, divorced women have higher rates of illness than their non-married or currently married counterparts. In the case of a family estrangement, a core part of the mother’s identity may be betrayed by the rejection of an adult child. The chance for reconciliation, however slight, results in an inability to attain closure. The resulting emotional state and societal stigma from the estrangement may harm psychological and physical health of the parent through end of life.

The immune system tends to be harmed when a person experiences social rejection. This can cause severe problems for those with diseases such as HIV. One study by Cole, Kemeny, and Taylor investigated the differences in the disease progression of HIV positive gay men who were sensitive to rejection compared to those who were not considered rejection sensitive. The study, which took place over nine years, indicated significantly faster rate of low T helper cells, therefore leading to an earlier AIDS diagnosis. They also found that those patients who were more sensitive to rejection died from the disease an average of 2 years earlier than their non-rejection sensitive counterparts.

Other aspects of health are also affected by rejection. Both systolic and diastolic blood pressure increase upon imagining a rejection scenario. Those who are socially rejected have an increased likelihood of suffering from tuberculosis, as well as suicide. Rejection and isolation were found to affect levels of pain following an operation as well as other physical forms of pain. Social rejection may cause a reduction in intelligence. MacDonald and Leary theorise that rejection and exclusion cause physical pain because that pain is a warning sign to support human survival. As humans developed into social creatures, social interactions and relationships became necessary for survival, and the physical pain systems already existed within the human body.

In Popular Culture

Artistic depictions of rejection occur in a variety of art forms. One genre of film that most frequently depicts rejection is romantic comedies. In the film He’s Just Not That Into You, the main characters deal with the challenges of reading and misreading human behaviour. This presents a fear of rejection in romantic relationships as reflected in this quote by the character Mary, “And now you have to go around checking all these different portals just to get rejected by seven different technologies. It’s exhausting.”

Social rejection is also depicted in theatrical plays and musicals. For example, the film Hairspray shares the story of Tracy Turnblad, an overweight 15-year-old dancer set in the 1960s. Tracy and her mother are faced with overcoming society’s expectations regarding weight and physical appearances.

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article < https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_rejection >; it is used under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License (CC-BY-SA). You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the CC-BY-SA.

What is Social Comparison Theory?

Published on 05/14/2024 by Andrew MarshallLeave a comment

Introduction

Social comparison theory, initially proposed by social psychologist Leon Festinger in 1954, centres on the belief that individuals drive to gain accurate self-evaluations. The theory explains how individuals evaluate their opinions and abilities by comparing themselves to others to reduce uncertainty in these domains and learn how to define the self. Comparing oneself to others socially is a form of measurement and self-assessment to identify where an individual stands according to their own set of standards and emotions about themselves.

Following the initial theory, research began to focus on social comparison as a way of self-enhancement, introducing the concepts of downward and upward comparisons and expanding the motivations of social comparisons. Social comparison can be traced back to the pivotal paper by Herbert Hyman, back in 1942. Hyman revealed the assessment of one’s own status is dependent on the group with whom one compares oneself. The social comparison theory is the belief that media influence, social status, and other forms of competitiveness can affect our self-esteem and mood. This can affect individuals’ outlook on themselves and how they fit in with others.

Leon Festinger

Leon Festinger was an American psychologist who developed the concept of social comparison theory. Festinger was born in New York City on 08 May 1919. Festinger was interested in science, which led him to pursue a career in psychology. He received his bachelor’s degree from City College and went on to Iowa State University for his master’s degree and Ph.D., which he received in 1942. Leon Festinger made his mark in social psychology by teaching the importance of scientific experimentation while challenging the influence of behaviourism and its effects.

Festinger put forward many hypotheses about social comparison theory. First, he explained that humans always examine their own views and capabilities in comparison with other people and have the urge to evaluate themselves accordingly. In addition, he argued that these comparisons tend to decrease as the difference between oneself and the other individual with whom one compares oneself begins to increase. He also thought that people have a desire to achieve greater abilities, but there are social constraints that make it difficult to achieve this, and this is often not sufficiently reflected in society’s views.

He continued with the idea that ending comparisons between oneself and others would lead to hostility and disdain of ideas. Their hypothesis also stated that making a change in the importance of a comparison group would increase the pressure to conform to that group. However, he added that if the person, image, or comparison group is very different from the evaluator, the tendency to narrow the range of comparability will become stronger (Festinger, 1954). Lastly, he hypothesized that the comparers’ tendencies would be influenced by their distance from the comparison group’s mode, with those who are closer to the mode having higher tendencies to change and those who are farther away having less (Festinger, 1954).

Initial Framework

In the theory, Festinger provided nine main hypotheses:

First, he stated that humans have a basic drive to evaluate their opinions and abilities and that people evaluate themselves through objective, non-social means (Hypothesis I).
Second, Festinger stated that if objective, non-social means were not available, people would evaluate their opinions and abilities by comparison to other people (Hypothesis II).
Next, he hypothesized that the tendency to compare oneself to another person decreases as the difference between their opinions and abilities becomes more divergent. In other words, if someone is much different from you, you are less likely to compare yourself to that person (Hypothesis III).
He next hypothesized that there is a unidirectional drive upward in the case of abilities, which is largely absent in opinions. This drive refers to the value that is placed on doing better and better. (Hypothesis IV).
Next, Festinger hypothesizes that non-social restraints make it difficult or even impossible to change one’s ability. These restraints are mainly absent for opinions. People can change their thoughts when they want to. Still, no matter how motivated individuals may be to improve their ability, other elements may make this impossible (Hypothesis V).
Festinger hypothesizes that the cessation of comparison with others is accompanied by hostility or derogation to the extent that continued comparison with those persons implies unpleasant consequences (Hypothesis VI)
Next, any factors that increase the importance of some particular group as a comparison group from some specific opinion or ability will increase the pressure toward uniformity concerning that ability or opinion within that group. Suppose discrepancies arise between the evaluator and the comparison group. In that case, there is a tendency to reduce the divergence by either attempting to persuade others or changing their personal views to attain uniformity. However, the importance, relevance, and attraction to a comparison group that affects the original motivation for comparison mediate the pressures towards uniformity (Hypothesis VII).
His following hypothesis states that if persons divergent from one’s own opinion or ability are perceived as different from oneself on attributes consistent with the divergence, the tendency to narrow the range of comparability becomes stronger (Hypothesis VIII).
Lastly, Festinger hypothesized that when there is a range of opinions or abilities in a group, the relative strength of the three manifestations of pressures toward uniformity will be different for those who are close to the group’s mode than those who are distant from the mode. Those close to the mode will have stronger tendencies to change the positions of others, weaker tendencies to narrow the range of comparison, and even weaker tendencies to change their own opinions (Hypothesis IX).[1]

Theoretical Advances

Since its inception, the initial framework has undergone several advances. Key among these are developments in understanding the motivations that underlie social comparisons and the particular types of social comparisons that are made. Motives that are relevant to social comparison include self-enhancement, maintenance of a positive self-evaluation, components of attributions and validation, and the avoidance of closure. While there have been changes in Festinger’s original concept, many fundamental aspects remain, including the prevalence of the tendency towards social comparison and the general process that is social comparison.

Compare and Contrast Self-Evaluation to Self-Enhancement

According to Thorton and Arrowood, self-evaluation is one of the functions of social comparison. This is one process that underlies how an individual engages in social comparison. Each individual’s specific goals will influence how they engage in social comparison. For self-evaluation, people tend to choose a similar comparison target. Specifically, they are most interested in choosing a target who shares some distinctive characteristic with themselves. They also think that knowing the truth about themselves is salutary. Research suggests that most people believe that choosing a similar target helps ensure the accuracy of the self-evaluation. However, individuals do not always act as unbiased self-evaluators and accurate self-evaluations may not be the primary goal of social comparison. There have been many studies and they have shown that American women tend to be dissatisfied with their looks, they either rate themselves “too plain, old, pimply, fat, hairy, tall” and so much more. Women are much more sensitive than men, especially with it having to do with their physical appearance. Due to media digitally altering women’s appearance from the width of their torso or arms to the softness of their complexion creates the ideal that thin and flawless is the only acceptable way to look. This leads to diet culture, excessive exercise, and had led to many eating disorders. This form of social comparison can cause harm and can affect the development of the way someone sees themselves.

Individuals may also seek self-enhancement, or to improve their self-esteem. They may interpret, distort, or ignore the information gained by social comparison to see themselves more positively and further their self-enhancement goals. People also seek self-enhancement because holding favourable illusions about themselves is gratifying. They will also choose to make upward (comparing themselves to someone better off) or downward (comparing themselves to someone worse off) comparisons, depending on which strategy will further their self-enhancement goals. Specifically, when an individual believes that their ability in a specific area is low, they will avoid making upward social comparisons in that area. Unlike self-evaluation goals, people engaging in social comparison with the goal of self-enhancement may not seek out a similar target. In fact, if a target’s similarity is seen as a threat due to the target outperforming the individual on some dimension, the individual may downplay the similarity of the target to themselves. This notion ties closely to the phenomena in psychology introduced also by Leon Festinger himself as it relates to the diminishing of cognitive dissonance. This dissonance causes a psychological uncomfortableness that motivates a person to remove the dissonance. The more dissonance there is, the greater sense of pressure to remove the dissonance and uncomfortableness caused by it. One does not want to perceive oneself in a way that would downplay one’s original belief upon which one’s self-esteem is based and therefore in order to reduce the cognitive dissonance, one is willing to change the cognitive representation of the other person whom one compares oneself to, such that one’s own belief about oneself remains intact. This effectively leads to the comparison of apples to oranges or psychological denial.

Article

When individuals engage in self-comparisons, a complex interplay of psychological and motivational factors comes into play, driving them to become more competitive. one of the key mechanisms at play is the motivation for self-improvement. For instance, in an academic setting, students compare themselves to peers who consistently achieve higher grades can spark a sense of determination and desire to excel in school. Moreover, the comparison to those perceived as superior serves as a powerful catalyst for personal growth and development. when individuals benchmark themselves against someone they view as highly successful, whether in their professional career or personal achievements, it triggers a process of emulation. the desire to achieve a comparable level of success becomes a driving force, propelling individuals to set higher goals, strive for excellence, and continuously evolve to reach the standards set by their role models. The process of self-comparison is deeply ingrained in human nature, and it serves as a fundamental aspect of our social and psychological development. While comparing ourselves to others can offer valuable insights and motivation, the way we engage in this process can vary widely, influencing our self-perception and overall well-being. the interplay between self-comparison, self-enhancement, and positive self-evaluation highlights the complexity of human psychology. While these cognitive processes can contribute to resilience and self-confidence, they also carry the risk of distorting reality and fostering an unrealistic self-image. striking a balance between acknowledging personal strengths and weaknesses, learning from others, and maintaining a healthy level of self-awareness is essential for overall psychological well-being.

Later advances in theory led to self-enhancement being one of the four self-evaluation motives, along with self-assessment, self-verification, and self-improvement.

Upward and Downward Social Comparisons

Wills introduced the concept of downward comparison in 1981. Downward social comparison is a defensive tendency that is used as a means of self-evaluation. When a person looks to another individual or group that they consider to be worse off than themselves in order to feel better about their personal situation, they are making a downward social comparison. Research has suggested that social comparisons with others who are better off or superior, or upward comparisons, can lower self-regard, whereas downward comparisons can elevate self-regard. Downward comparison theory emphasizes the positive effects of comparisons in increasing one’s subjective well-being. For example, it has been found that breast cancer patients made the majority of comparisons with patients less fortunate than themselves. Ashby found similar results in his experiment showing, downward comparison in people subjected to distress from a physical illness such as heart disease or cancer. They also see those who recover from the same illness, and the study found that patients tended to be more optimistic about their own recovery.

Although social comparison research has suggested that upward comparisons can lower self-regard, Collins indicates that this is not always the case. Individuals make upward comparisons, whether consciously or subconsciously when they compare themselves with an individual or comparison group that they perceive as superior or better than themselves in order to improve their views of self or to create a more positive perception of their personal reality. Upward social comparisons are made to self-evaluate and self-improve in the hopes that self-enhancement will also occur. In an upward social comparison, people want to believe themselves to be part of the elite or superior and make comparisons highlighting the similarities between themselves and the comparison group, unlike a downward social comparison, where similarities between individuals or groups are disassociated.

It has also been suggested that upward comparisons may provide an inspiration to improve, and in one study, it was found that while breast cancer patients made more downward comparisons, they showed a preference for information about more fortunate others.

Another study indicated that people who were dieting often used upward social comparisons by posting pictures of thinner people on their refrigerators. These pictures served not only as a reminder of an individual’s current weight but also as an inspiration for a goal to be reached. In simple terms, downward social comparisons are more likely to make us feel better about ourselves, while upward social comparisons are more likely to motivate us to achieve more or reach higher.

The influence of social media on self-comparisons adds another layer of discussion. social media platforms, with their curated content and highlight reels, often become arenas for people to engage in upward social comparisons. The contrast streams of carefully crafted images and updates create an environment where people feel compelled to showcase the positive aspects of their lives, contributing to the phenomenon of self-preservation. The pressure to maintain a favourable online image can intensify the desire for upward social comparisons, as individuals strive to present themselves in the best possible light. the fear of missing out (FOMO) becomes a significant factor in this context. seeing peers enjoying seemingly enriching experiences, luxurious lifestyles, or achieving notable milestones can trigger anxiety and a sense of inadequacy in those making comparisons. Research has indeed indicated a correlation between upward social comparison on social media and negative well-being. people who frequently engage in comparing their lives to the seemingly superior lives of others may experience heightened levels of stress, dissatisfaction, and even symptoms of social media addiction. the constant exposure to idealised representations can create unrealistic standards, fostering a perpetual cycle of discontent. Moreover, the addictive nature of social media platforms, driven by the need for validation through likes and comments, further amplifies the impact of upward social comparison.

Moderators of Social Comparison

Aspinwall and Taylor looked at mood, self-esteem, and threat as moderators that drive individuals to choose to make upward or downward social comparisons. Downward comparisons in cases where individuals had experienced a threat to their self-esteem produced more favourable self-evaluations.

High Self-Esteem and Social Comparison

Aspinwall and Taylor found that upward social comparisons were good in circumstances where the individuals making the comparisons had high self-esteem because these types of comparisons provided them with more motivation and hope than downward social comparisons. However, if these individuals had experienced a recent threat or setback to their self-esteem, they reported that upward comparisons resulted in a more negative affect than downward comparisons. positive self-evaluation, a related concept, involves people assessing themselves in a more positive light than external or objective criteria. This cognitive bias can manifest in various ways, such as perceiving oneself as more competent, attractive, or virtuous than others perceive them. positive self-evaluation is a different process that goes beyond comparison and involves introspection, critical analysis, and reflection on one’s strengths, weaknesses, and progress in specific areas.

Low Self-Esteem and social Comparison

However, people with low self-esteem or people who are experiencing some sort of threat in their life (such as doing poorly in school, or suffering from an illness) tend to favour downward comparisons over upward comparisons. People with low self-esteem and negative affect improve their mood by making downward comparisons. Their mood does not improve as much as it would if they had high self-esteem. Even for people with low self-esteem, these downward social comparisons do improve their negative mood and allow them to feel hope and motivation for their future. However, these feelings of hope could deter them from succeeding due to the harshness with which they judge themselves for their successes and failures. Lower self-esteem can lead an individual to have higher standards for themselves but may never achieve them due to the judgment they receive from within.

Affect/Mood and its Effect on Social Comparison

Individuals who have a negative mood improve their mood by making upward social comparisons, regardless of their level of self-esteem. In addition, both individuals with high self-esteem and low self-esteem who are in a positive mood elevate their mood further by making upward comparisons. However, for those who have recently experienced a threat to their self-esteem or a setback in their life, making upward social comparisons instead of downward social comparisons results in a more negative effect. Self-esteem and the existence of a threat or setback in an individual’s life are two moderators of their response to upward or downward comparisons.

Competitiveness

Because individuals are driven upwards in the case of abilities, social comparisons can drive competition among peers. In this regard, a comparison’s psychological significance depends on an individual’s social status and the context in which their abilities are being evaluated. One interesting psychological phenomenon related to self-comparison is the concept of self-enhancement. This occurs when people, consciously or unconsciously, focus on the weaknesses or shortcomings of others as a means of boosting their self-esteem. by highlighting the flaws of others, people can create a comparative context where they perceive themselves in a more favourable light. this self-enhancement strategy is often driven by the fundamental human desire to maintain a positive self-image and preserve one’s sense of worth.

Social Status

Competitiveness resulting from social comparisons may be greater in relation to higher social status because individuals with more status have more to lose. In one study, students in a classroom were presented with a bonus point programme where, based on chance, some students’ grades would increase and others would remain the same. Although students could not lose by this programme, higher-status individuals were more likely to object to the programme and report a perceived distributive injustice. It was suggested that this was a cognitive manifestation of an aversion to downward mobility, which has more psychological significance when an individual has more status.

Proximity to a Standard

When individuals are evaluated where meaningful standards exist, such as in an academic classroom where students are ranked, then competitiveness increases as proximity to a standard of performance increases. When the only meaningful standard is the top, then high-ranking individuals are most competitive with their peers, and individuals at low and intermediate ranks are equally competitive. However, when both high and low rankings hold significance, then individuals at high and low ranks are equally competitive and are both more competitive than individuals at intermediate ranks.

Models of Social Comparison

Several models have been introduced to social comparison, including the self-evaluation maintenance model (SEM), proxy model, the triadic model and the three-selves model.

Self-Evaluation Maintenance Model

The SEM model proposes that we make comparisons to maintain or enhance our self-evaluations, focusing on the antagonistic processes of comparison and reflection. Abraham Tesser has researched self-evaluation dynamics that have taken several forms. A self-evaluation maintenance (SEM) model of social behaviour focuses on the consequences of another person’s outstanding performance on one’s own self-evaluation. It sketches out some conditions under which the other’s good performance bolsters self-evaluation, i.e. “basking in reflected glory”, and conditions under which it threatens self-evaluation through a comparison process.

Proxy Model

The proxy model anticipates the success of something that is unfamiliar. The model proposes that if a person is successful or familiar with a task, then he or she would also be successful at a new, similar task. The proxy is evaluated based on ability and is concerned with the question, “Can I do X?” A proxy’s comparison is based on previous attributes. The opinion of the comparer and whether the proxy exerted maximum effort on a preliminary task are variables influencing his or her opinion.

Triadic Model

The Triadic Model builds on the attribution elements of social comparison, proposing that opinions of social comparison are best considered in terms of 3 different evaluative questions: preference assessment (i.e. “Do I like X?”), belief assessment (i.e. “Is X correct?”), and preference prediction (i.e. “Will I like X?”). In the Triadic Model, the most meaningful comparisons are with a person who has already experienced a proxy and exhibits consistency in related attributes or past preferences.

Three-Selves Model

The three-selves model proposes that social comparison theory is a combination of two different theories. One theory is developed around motivation and the factors that influence the type of social comparison information people seek from their environment, and the second is about self-evaluation and the factors that influence the effects of social comparisons on the judgments of self. While there has been much research in the area of comparison motives, there has been little in the area of comparative evaluation. Explaining that the self is conceived as interrelated conceptions accessible depending upon current judgement context and taking a cue from Social Cognitive Theory, this model examines the Assimilation effect and distinguishes three classes of working Self-concept ideas: individual selves, possible selves and collective selves.

Media Influence

The influence of media has been found to play a large role in social comparisons. Researchers examining the social effects of the media have found that in most cases, women tend to engage in upward social comparisons, measuring themselves against some form of societal ideal with a target other, which results in more negative feelings about the self. Social comparisons have become a relevant mechanism for learning about appearance-related social expectations among peers and for evaluating the self in terms of those standards. Although men do make upward comparisons, research finds that more women make upward comparisons and are comparing themselves with unrealistically high standards presented in the media. As women are shown more mainstream media images of powerful, successful, and thin women, they perceive the “ideal” to be the norm for societal views of attractiveness.

Self-perceived similarities with role models on social media can also affect self-esteem for both men and women. Having more self-perceived similarities with a role model can help increase self-esteem, while having less can decrease self-esteem. Social comparison with peers on social media can also lead to feelings of self-pity or satisfaction. The desire for social comparison can cause FoMO and compulsive checking of social media sites.

Over the years, Instagram has become one of the largest social media platforms, mainly among the younger generations. With the growing popularity, individuals worry that this platform may lead to significant emotional burdens, including stress, anxiety, or well-being. A 2020 cross-sectional online survey study in Singapore empirically tested the pathway that linked Instagram to social anxiety. The findings demonstrated that using Instagram would not directly increase social anxiety, but it would instead affect social comparison and self-esteem. There should be continuous research on the underlying impacts of social media on emotional security and help educators design better programmes to support the ongoing positive growth of wellness during this digital era.

When looking at social media platforms, studies have been conducted to analyse the interaction between social networking sites and the upward comparisons viewers can make when viewing their content. Looking specifically at Instagram, a study conducted at the University of Florida in 2021 examined students’ emotions when looking at posts on the platform. The participants in the study assessed themselves more negatively after being presented with this content and felt worse about themselves, which the researchers were able to conclude were similar to the emotions felt when an individual upwardly compared themselves within Social Comparison Theory.

Another emerging media platform is fitness-tracking apps. Shanghai Jiaotong University and East China University of Science and Technology conducted a study in 2018 looking at these apps and Social Comparison theory. They found within their research that people who use these apps could be affected by upward social comparison. Individuals who upwardly compared themselves to other individuals using the app were less likely to want to keep using it.

Teens often feel inferior when looking at their peers’ posts with high achievements and many friends, leading them to have upward comparisons. In contrast, when Teens look at their peers’ posts with fewer friends and achievements, they make downward comparisons. In 2019, Newport Academy conducted a longitudinal survey of 219 first-year students at a university, showing compelling results on the correlation between social media and the theory of social comparison. The researchers’ results indicated that the different social media comparisons imply that some comparisons are more favourable than others. This, overall, may affect a teen’s identity development. Most comparisons can cause negative introspection and personal distress. In contrast, others regard it as an opinion that increases others’ well-being. When teens feel empowered, they can express their vulnerable views, supporting identity formation. More research concludes the influence of parents can also help reduce the negative impact of social media comparison. Parents’ support and unconditional love mitigate anguish associated with teen social comparison.

studies have shed light on the dynamic of social comparison on Instagram, especially among women. The pursuit of likes and comments becomes a quantifiable metric for assessing social approval and attractiveness. The number of likes a post receives and the nature of the comments can, in some cases, be internalised as a reflection of one’s personal appearance and overall appeal. This quantification of online validation can create tangible and, at times, unhealthy links between social media engagement and self-esteem. for women, in particular, Instagram can be a platform for implicit competition, where the number of followers, the aesthetic quality of posts, and the overall engagement metrics contribute to a sense of social standing. The pressure to conform to beauty standards perpetuated on the platform can fuel an ongoing cycle of comparison, influencing self-perception and self-worth. Additionally, the emphasis on curated edited images on Instagram can contribute to a distorted sense of reality. women find themselves comparing their everyday lives to the carefully constructed and filtered snapshots presented by others, potentially leading to feelings of inadequacy and the perpetuation of unrealistic beauty standards.

Criticisms

Many criticisms arose regarding Festinger’s similarity hypothesis. Deutsch and Krauss argued that people seek out dissimilar others in their comparisons, maintaining that this is important for providing valuable self-knowledge, as demonstrated in research. Ambiguity also circulated about the critical dimensions for similarity. Goethals and Darley clarified the role of similarity, suggesting that people prefer to compare those who are similar on related attributes such as opinions, characteristics or abilities to increase confidence for value judgements. However, those dissimilar in related attributes are preferred when validating one’s beliefs.

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What is Emptiness?

Published on 05/13/2024 by Andrew MarshallLeave a comment

Introduction

Emptiness as a human condition is a sense of generalised boredom, social alienation, nihilism and apathy. Feelings of emptiness often accompany dysthymia, depression, loneliness, anhedonia, despair, or other mental/emotional disorders, including schizoid personality disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, schizotypal personality disorder and borderline personality disorder. A sense of emptiness is also part of a natural process of grief, as resulting death of a loved one, or other significant changes. The particular meanings of “emptiness” vary with the particular context and the religious or cultural tradition in which it is used.

While Christianity and Western sociologists and psychologists view a state of emptiness as a negative, unwanted condition, in some Eastern philosophies such as Buddhist philosophy and Taoism, emptiness (Śūnyatā) represents seeing through the illusion of independent self-nature.

In Western Culture

Sociology, Philosophy, and Psychology

In the West, feeling “empty” is often viewed as a negative condition. Psychologist Clive Hazell, for example, attributes feelings of emptiness to problematic family backgrounds with abusive relationships and mistreatment. He claims that some people who are facing a sense of emptiness try to resolve their painful feelings by becoming addicted to a drug or obsessive activity (be it compulsive sex, gambling or work) or engaging in “frenzied action” or violence. In sociology, a sense of emptiness is associated with social alienation of the individual. This sense of alienation may be suppressed while working, due to the routine nature of work tasks, but during leisure hours or during the weekend, people may feel a sense of “existential vacuum” and emptiness.

In political philosophy, emptiness is associated with nihilism. Literary critic Georg Lukács (born in 1885) argued against the “spiritual emptiness and moral inadequacy of capitalism”, and argued in favour of communism as an “entirely new type of civilization, one that promised a fresh start and an opportunity to lead a meaningful and purposeful life.”

The concept of “emptiness” was important to a “certain type of existentialist philosophy and some forms of the Death of God movement”. Existentialism, the “philosophic movement that gives voice to the sense of alienation and despair”, comes from “man’s recognition of his fundamental aloneness in an indifferent universe”. People whose response to the sense of emptiness and aloneness is to give excuses live in bad faith; “people who face the emptiness and accept responsibility aim to live ‘authentic’ lives”. Existentialists argue that “man lives in alienation from God, from nature, from other men, from his own true self.” Crowded into cities, working in mindless jobs, and entertained by light mass media, we “live on the surface of life”, so that even “people who seemingly have ‘everything’ feel empty, uneasy, discontented.”

In cultures where a sense of emptiness is seen as a negative psychological condition, it is often associated with depression. As such, many of the same treatments are proposed: psychotherapy, group therapy, or other types of counselling. As well, people who feel empty may be advised to keep busy and maintain a regular schedule of work and social activities. Other solutions which have been proposed to reduce a sense of emptiness are getting a pet or trying Animal-Assisted Therapy; getting involved in spirituality such as meditation or religious rituals and service; volunteering to fill time and bring social contact; doing social interactions, such as community activities, clubs, or outings; or finding a hobby or recreational activity to regain their interest in life.

Christianity

In Austrian philosopher/educator Rudolf Steiner’s (1861–1925) thinking, spiritual emptiness was a major problem in the educated European middle class. In his 1919 lectures he argued that European culture became “empty of spirit” and “ignorant of the needs, the conditions, that are essential for the life of the spirit”. People experienced a “spiritual emptiness” and their thinking became marked by a “lazy passivity” due to the “absence of will from the life of thought”. In modern Europe, Steiner claimed that people would “allow their thoughts to take possession of them”, and these thoughts were increasingly filled with abstraction and “pure, natural scientific thinking”. The educated middle classes began to think in a way that was “devoid of spirit”, with their minds becoming “dimmer and darker”, and increasing empty of spirit.

Louis Dupré, a professor of philosophy at Yale University, argues that the “spiritual emptiness of our time is a symptom of its religious poverty”. He claims that “many people never experience any emptiness: they are too busy to feel much absence of any kind”; they only realize their spiritual emptiness if “painful personal experiences — the death of a loved one, the collapse of a marriage, the alienation of a child, the failure of a business” shock them into reassessing their sense of meaning.

Spiritual emptiness has been associated with juvenile violence. In John C. Thomas’ 1999 book How Juvenile Violence Begins: Spiritual Emptiness, he argues that youth in impoverished indigenous communities who feel empty may turn to fighting and aggressive crime to fill their sense of meaninglessness. In Cornell University professor James Garbarino’s 1999 book Lost Boys: Why Our Sons Turn Violent and How We Can Save Them, he argues that “neglect, shame, spiritual emptiness, alienation, anger and access to guns are a few of the elements common to violent boys”. A professor of human development, Garbarino claims that violent boys have an “alienation from positive role models” and “a spiritual emptiness that spawns despair”. These youth are seduced by the violent fantasy of the US gun culture, which provides negative role models of tough, aggressive men who use power to get what they want. He claims that boys can be helped by giving them “a sense of purpose” and “spiritual anchors” that can “anchor boys in empathy and socially engaged moral thinking”.

Spiritual emptiness is often connected with addiction, especially by Christian-influenced addiction organisations and counsellors. Bill Wilson, the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, argued that one of the impacts of alcoholism was causing a spiritual emptiness in heavy drinkers. In Abraham J. Twerski’s 1997 book Addictive Thinking: Understanding Self-Deception, he argues that when people feel spiritually empty, they often turn to addictive behaviors to fill the inner void. In contrast to having an empty stomach, which is a clear feeling, having spiritual emptiness is hard to identify, so it fills humans with a “vague unrest”. While people may try to resolve this emptiness by obsessively having sex, overeating, or taking drugs or alcohol, these addictions only give temporary satisfaction. When a person facing a crisis due to feeling spiritually empty is able to stop one addiction, such as compulsive sex, they often just trade it in for another addictive behaviour, such as gambling or overeating.

Fiction, Film, Design and Visual Arts

A number of novelists and filmmakers have depicted emptiness. The concept of “emptiness” was important to a “good deal of 19th–20th century Western imaginative literature”. Novelist Franz Kafka depicted a meaningless bizarre world in The Trial and the existentialist French authors sketched a world cut off from purpose or reason in Jean-Paul Sartre’s La Nausée and Albert Camus’ L’étranger. Existentialism influenced 20th century poet T.S. Eliot, whose poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” describes an “anti-hero or alienated soul, running away from or confronting the emptiness of his or her existence”. Professor Gordon Bigelow argues that the existentialist theme of “spiritual barrenness is commonplace in literature of the 20th century”, which in addition to Eliot includes Ernest Hemingway, Faulkner, Steinbeck and Anderson.

Film adaptations of a number of existentialist novels capture the bleak sense of emptiness espoused by Sartre and Camus. This theme of emptiness has also been used in modern screenplays. Mark Romanek’s 1985 film Static tells the surreal story of a struggling inventor and crucifix factory worker named Ernie who feels spiritually empty because he is saddened by his parents’ death in an accident. Screenwriter Michael Tolkin’s 1994 film The New Age examines “cultural hipness and spiritual emptiness”, creating a “dark, ambitious, unsettling” film that depicts a fashionable LA couple who “are miserable in the midst of their sterile plenty”, and whose souls are stunted by their lives of empty sex, consumption, and distractions. The 1999 film American Beauty examines the spiritual emptiness of life in the US suburbs. In Wes Anderson’s 2007 film The Darjeeling Limited, three brothers who “suffer from spiritual emptiness” and then “self-medicate themselves through sex, social withdrawal, and drugs.” The 2008 film The Informers is a Hollywood drama film written by Bret Easton Ellis and Nicholas Jarecki and directed by Gregor Jordan. The film is based on Ellis’ 1994 collection of short stories of the same name. The film, which is set amidst the decadence of the early 1980s, depicts an assortment of socially alienated, mainly well-off characters who numb their sense of emptiness with casual sex, alcohol, and drugs.

Contemporary architecture critic Herbert Muschamp argues that “horror vacui” (which is Latin for “fear of emptiness”) is a key principle of design. He claims that it has become an obsessive quality that is the “driving force in contemporary American taste”. Muschamp states that “along with the commercial interests that exploit this interest, it is the major factor now shaping attitudes toward public spaces, urban spaces, and even suburban sprawl.”

Films that depict nothingness, shadows and vagueness, either in a visual sense or a moral sense are appreciated in genres such as film noir. As well, travellers and artists are often intrigued by and attracted to vast empty spaces, such as open deserts, barren wastelands or salt flats, and the open sea.

In visual arts emptiness and absence were recognised as phenomena that characterise not only particular works of art (e.g. Yves Klein) but also as a more general tendency within the history of modern art and aesthetics. Following Davor Džalto’s argument on the modern concept of art, the gradual elimination of particular elements that traditionally characterised visual arts, which results in emptiness, is the most important phenomenon within the history and theory of art over the past two hundred years.

In Eastern Cultures

Buddhism

The Buddhist term emptiness (Skt. śūnyatā) refers specifically to the idea that everything is dependently originated, including the causes and conditions themselves, and even the principle of causality itself. It is not nihilism, nor is it meditating on nothingness. Instead, it refers to the absence (emptiness) of inherent existence. Buddhapalita says:

What is the reality of things just as it is? It is the absence of essence. Unskilled persons whose eye of intelligence is obscured by the darkness of delusion conceive of an essence of things and then generate attachment and hostility with regard to them. (Buddhapālita-mula-madhyamaka-vrtti P5242,73.5.6-74.1.2).

In an interview, the Dalai Lama stated that tantric meditation can be used for “heightening your own realization of emptiness or mind of enlightenment”. In Buddhist philosophy, attaining a realisation of emptiness of inherent existence is key to the permanent cessation of suffering, i.e. liberation.

Even while an ordinary being, if upon hearing of emptiness great joy arises within again and again, the eyes moisten with tears of great joy, and the hairs of the body stand on end, such a person has the seed of the mind of a complete Buddha; He is a vessel for teachings on thatness, and ultimate truth should be taught to him. After that, good qualities will grow in him. ( Chandrakirti, Guide to the Middle Way, vv. 6:4-5).

The Dalai Lama argues that tantric yoga trainees need to realise the emptiness of inherent existence before they can go on to the “highest yoga tantra initiation”; realizing the emptiness of inherent existence of the mind is the “fundamental innate mind of clear light, which is the subtlest level of the mind”, where all “energy and mental processes are withdrawn or dissolved”, so that all that appears to the mind is “pure emptiness”. As well, emptiness is “linked to the creative Void, meaning that it is a state of complete receptivity and perfect enlightenment”, the merging of the “ego with its own essence”, which Buddhists call the “clear light”.

In Ven. Thubten Chodron’s 2005 interview with Lama Zopa Rinpoche, the lama noted that “ordinary beings who haven’t realized emptiness don’t see things as similar to illusions”, and one does not “realize that things are merely labeled by mind and exist by mere name”. He argues that “when we meditate on emptiness, we drop an atom bomb on this [sense of a] truly existent I” and to realize that “what appears true…isn’t true”. By this, the lama is claiming that what is thought to be real—our thoughts and feelings about people and things—”exists by being merely labeled”. He argues that meditators who attain knowledge of a state of emptiness are able to realise that their thoughts are merely illusions from labelling by the mind.

Taoism

In Taoism, attaining a state of emptiness is viewed as a state of stillness and placidity which is the “mirror of the universe” and the “pure mind”. The Tao Te Ching claims that emptiness is related to the “Tao, the Great Principle, the Creator and Sustainer of everything in the universe”. It is argued that it is the “state of mind of the Taoist disciple who follows the Tao”, who has successfully emptied the mind “of all wishes and ideas not fitted with the Tao’s Movement”. For a person who attains a state of emptiness, the “still mind of the sage is the mirror of heaven and earth, the glass of all things”, a state of “vacancy, stillness, placidity, tastelessness, quietude, silence, and non-action” which is the “perfection of the Tao and its characteristics, the “mirror of the universe” and the “pure mind”.

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article < https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emptiness >; it is used under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License (CC-BY-SA). You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the CC-BY-SA.

What is Self-Concealment?

Published on 05/09/2024 by Andrew MarshallLeave a comment

Introduction

Self-concealment is a psychological construct defined as “a predisposition to actively conceal from others personal information that one perceives as distressing or negative”. Its opposite is self-disclosure.

The concealed personal information (thoughts, feelings, actions, or events) is highly intimate, negative in valence and has three characteristics: it is a subset of private information, can be consciously accessed, and is actively concealed from others. Self-concealment significantly contributes to negative psychological health.

Historical Context

Secrets and secret keeping have been a longstanding interest of psychologists and psychotherapists. Jourard’s work on self-disclosure and Pennebaker’s research on the health benefits of disclosing traumatic events and secrets set the stage for the conceptualisation and measurement of self-concealment.

Jourard’s research pointed to the conclusion that stress and illness result not only from low self-disclosure, but more so from the intentional avoidance of being known by another person. In a later line of research, Pennebaker and his colleagues examined the confiding-illness relation or the inhibition-disease link and found that not expressing thoughts and feelings about traumatic events is associated with long-term health effects. Pennebaker attributed the unwillingness to disclose distressing personal information to either circumstances or individual differences. The self-concealment construct, and the scale for its measurement, the Self-Concealment Scale, were introduced to permit assessment and conceptualisation of individual differences on this personality dimension.

Psychological Effects

Self-concealment uniquely and significantly contributes to the prediction of anxiety, depression, and physical symptoms. Subsequent research has examined the effects of self-concealment on subjective well-being and coping, finding that high self-concealment is associated with psychological distress and self-reported physical symptoms, anxiety and depression, shyness, negative self-esteem, loneliness, rumination, trait social anxiety, social anxiety, and self-silencing, ambivalence over emotional expressiveness, maladaptive mood regulation, and acute and chronic pain.

Individuals with increased inferiority feelings have a higher tendency toward self-concealment, which in turn results in an increase in loneliness and a decrease in happiness.

Research

Theoretical models offered to explain the consistent finding of negative health effects for self-concealment include:

An inhibition model developed by Pennebaker, which would attribute these effects to the physiological work that is a consequence of the behavioural inhibition accompanying the self-concealment process.
A preoccupation model based on the work of Wegner that sees the thought suppression associated with self-concealment as ironically leading to intrusive thoughts and even greater preoccupation with distressing personal information, which in turn leads to poor well-being.
Self-perception theory, which argues that behaviour influences attitudes – the self-concealing person observes his or her own concealing behaviour and concludes that there must be a good reason for the behaviour, leading to negative characterological self-attributions that fit with this conclusion (e.g. “I must be bad because I am concealing this aspect of myself”).
Self-determination theory, which explains the negative health effects of self-concealment as the consequence of the frustration of the individual’s basic needs of autonomy, relatedness, and competence.

Kelly offers a comprehensive review of several explanatory models and the evidence supporting each of them, concluding that a genetic component shared by high self-concealers might make them both more prone to self-conceal and more vulnerable to physical and psychological problems.

Research studies have focused on the relation of self-concealment to attachment orientations, help seeking and attitudes toward counselling, desire for greater (physical) interpersonal distance, stigma, distress disclosure, lying behaviour and authenticity, and psychotherapy process.

Research also focuses on self-concealment in specific populations: LGBT, multicultural, and adolescents, families, and romantic partners.

A recent review of 137 studies using the Self-Concealment Scale presented a working model for the antecedents of self-concealment and the mechanisms of action for its health effects. The authors conceptualise self-concealment as a “complex trait-like motivational construct where high levels of SC motivation energize a range of goal-directed behaviours (e.g. keeping secrets, behavioural avoidance, lying) and dysfunctional strategies for the regulation of emotions (e.g. expressive suppression) which serve to conceal negative or distressing personal information.” These mechanisms are seen as then affecting health through direct and indirect pathways, and as being “energized by a conflict between urges to conceal, and reveal—a dual-motive conflict which eventually leads to adverse physiological effects and a breakdown of self-regulatory resources”.

Self-Concealment Scale

The 10-item Self-Concealment Scale (SCS) measures the degree to which a person tends to conceal personal information perceived as negative or distressing. The SCS has proven to have excellent psychometric properties (internal consistency and test-retest reliability) and unidimensionality. Representative items include: “I have an important secret that I haven’t shared with anyone”, “There are lots of things about me that I keep to myself”, “Some of my secrets have really tormented me”, “When something bad happens to me, I tend to keep it to myself”, and “My secrets are too embarrassing to share with others”.

In Marginalised Populations

Minority groups employ self-concealment to manage perceived stigma. For example, LGBT people (lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans) people, who are stigmatised (see coming out) for the characteristics inherent to their sexual identities or gender identity, employ self-concealment as a result.

Self-concealment is observed in African, Asian and Latin American international college students. For African Americans in particular their self-concealment correlates with the degree of their Afrocentric cultural values. Arab and Middle Eastern people have been documented employing the following identity negotiation strategies:

Humorous Accounting: A stigmatised minority will employ humour as a way to establish common ground.
Educational Accounting: A stigmatised minority will make an effort to educate the person questioning their stigmatised identity. This method is a common method used by Muslim women who wear hijabs in the study.
Defiant Accounting: A stigmatised minority will challenge the person questioning their identity by confronting the right to interrogate a stigmatised identity.
Cowering: A stigmatised minority will meet the demands of the person questioning their stigmatised identity due to real, or perceived fears of violence.

Self-concealment strategies can also present in those with sexual paraphilias. Research in the experiences of furies, a stigmatised group, found that they are more likely to self disclose if there is little difference in power between the furry and the individual with whom they are disclosing their identity to.

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