3. Explaining impulsivity and failure to behave prosocially

2019 ◽  
pp. 43-59
Author(s):  
Essi Viding
Keyword(s):  
Social Relationships ◽  
Antisocial Behaviour ◽  
Life Choices ◽  
Behavioural Profile

Lack of empathy for distress helps explain why psychopaths have no difficulty in engaging in premeditated hurtful and antisocial behaviour. But it does not fully explain the behavioural profile of individuals with psychopathy. Why do psychopaths often make foolish life choices that are likely to result in serious repercussions to them? Why don’t they worry about other people’s happiness and establish loving relationships? ‘Explaining impulsivity and failure to behave prosocially’ considers why individuals with psychopathy make poor, impulsive decisions, even if there is a strong likelihood of reprisal and why psychopaths are able to get excited about material rewards, but do not find social relationships rewarding and motivating in the same way as the rest of us do.

The Process of Exiting Vegetarianism: An Exploratory Study

2012 ◽  
Vol 73 (4) ◽  
pp. 163-168 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth Menzies ◽  
Judy Sheeshka
Keyword(s):  
Social Relationships ◽  
Animal Rights ◽  
Comparison Group ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Life Changes ◽  
Life Choices ◽  
Major Life ◽  
Convenience Sample ◽  
A Value ◽  
Central Food

Purpose: The experience, reasons, and contexts associated with leaving vegetarianism were explored. Methods: Interviews were conducted with a convenience sample of 19 ex-vegetarians and 15 continuing vegetarians. Results: Exiting vegetarianism is similar to the process of leaving other important individual identities, including exiting diets containing meat. It is a process, not an event, and partially a response to inconvenience, particularly when the person's table companions were not vegetarians. Major life changes and declines in self-perceived health provided occasions to reassess life choices, including the vegetarian commitment. Ex-vegetarians interpreted their vegetarianism as a transition to a new, healthier diet. Including a comparison group of continuing vegetarians revealed that the ex-vegetarians were more likely to have become vegetarians as a result of concern about the well-being of animals and the environment, not animal rights, a value more difficult to compromise. Conclusions: Exiting processes show the five central food values of taste, health, time, cost, and social relationships undermine people's commitment to a diet chosen largely for moral reasons.

Social Motives Predict Loneliness During a Developmental Transition

2017 ◽  
Vol 76 (4) ◽  
pp. 145-153 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jana Nikitin ◽  
Alexandra M. Freund
Keyword(s):  
Social Relationships ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Social Avoidance ◽  
Social Approach ◽  
Social Motives ◽  
Developmental Transitions ◽  
Avoidance Motivation ◽  
Negative Effect ◽  
Low Levels

Abstract. Establishing new social relationships is important for mastering developmental transitions in young adulthood. In a 2-year longitudinal study with four measurement occasions (T1: n = 245, T2: n = 96, T3: n = 103, T4: n = 85), we investigated the role of social motives in college students’ mastery of the transition of moving out of the parental home, using loneliness as an indicator of poor adjustment to the transition. Students with strong social approach motivation reported stable and low levels of loneliness. In contrast, students with strong social avoidance motivation reported high levels of loneliness. However, this effect dissipated relatively quickly as most of the young adults adapted to the transition over a period of several weeks. The present study also provides evidence for an interaction between social approach and social avoidance motives: Social approach motives buffered the negative effect on social well-being of social avoidance motives. These results illustrate the importance of social approach and social avoidance motives and their interplay during developmental transitions.

Being Drunk to Have Fun or to Forget Problems?

2010 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 46-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emmanuel Kuntsche ◽  
Ronald Knibbe ◽  
Rutger Engels ◽  
Gerhard Gmel
Keyword(s):  
Social Relationships ◽  
Convergent Validity ◽  
Structural Equation ◽  
Risk Groups ◽  
Drinking Motives ◽  
Equation Modeling ◽  
Cluster Analyses ◽  
High Concordance ◽  
Nationally Representative ◽  
Risky Single Occasion Drinking

Prevention programs in adolescence are particularly effective if they target homogeneous risk groups of adolescents who share a combination of particular needs and problems. The present work aims to identify and classify risky single-occasion drinking (RSOD) adolescents according to their motivation to engage in drinking. An easy-to-use coding procedure was developed. It was validated by means of cluster analyses and structural equation modeling based on two randomly selected subsamples of a nationally representative sample of 2,449 12- to 18-year-old RSOD students in Switzerland. Results revealed that the coding procedure classified RSOD adolescents as either enhancement drinkers or coping drinkers. The high concordance (Sample A: κ = .88, Sample B: κ = .90) with the results of the cluster analyses demonstrated the convergent validity of the coding classification. The fact that enhancement drinkers in both subsamples were found to go out more frequently in the evenings and to have more satisfactory social relationships, as well as a higher proportion of drinking peers and a lower likelihood to drink at home than coping drinkers demonstrates the concurrent validity of the classification. To conclude, the coding procedure appears to be a valid, reliable, and easy-to-use tool that can help better adapt prevention activities to adolescent risky drinking motives.

Interpersonal Stress and Poor Health

2010 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mette M. Aanes ◽  
Maurice B. Mittelmark ◽  
Jørn Hetland
Keyword(s):  
Psychological Distress ◽  
Depressive Symptoms ◽  
Social Relationships ◽  
Indirect Effects ◽  
Social Connectedness ◽  
Somatic Symptoms ◽  
Total Effect ◽  
Subjective Feeling ◽  
Interpersonal Stress ◽  
The Relationship

This paper investigated whether the lack of social connectedness, as measured by the subjective feeling of loneliness, mediates the well-known relationship between interpersonal stress and psychological distress. Furthermore, a relationship between interpersonal stress and somatic symptoms was hypothesized. The study sample included 3,268 women and 3,220 men in Western Norway. The main findings were that interpersonal stress was significantly related to psychological distress as well as to somatic symptoms, both directly and indirectly via paths mediated by loneliness. The size of the indirect effects varied, suggesting that the importance of loneliness as a possible mediator differs for depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms, and somatic symptoms. In the case of depressive symptoms, more than 75% of the total effect was mediated through loneliness, while in the case of somatic symptoms just over 40% of the total effect was mediated through loneliness. This study supports the hypotheses that social connectedness mediates a relationship between interpersonal stress and psychological distress. The study also provides the first link between interpersonal stress, as measured by the Bergen Social Relationships Scale, and somatic symptoms, extending earlier research on the relationship between interpersonal stress and psychological distress.

Extraverts Have Larger Social Network Layers

2011 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 161-169 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas V. Pollet ◽  
Sam G. B. Roberts ◽  
Robin I. M. Dunbar
Keyword(s):  
Social Network ◽  
Social Relationships ◽  
Outer Layer ◽  
Network Size ◽  
Emotional Intensity ◽  
Emotional Closeness ◽  
Network Layer ◽  
Network Layers ◽  
Social Network Size

Previous studies showed that extraversion influences social network size. However, it is unclear how extraversion affects the size of different layers of the network, and how extraversion relates to the emotional intensity of social relationships. We examined the relationships between extraversion, network size, and emotional closeness for 117 individuals. The results demonstrated that extraverts had larger networks at every layer (support clique, sympathy group, outer layer). The results were robust and were not attributable to potential confounds such as sex, though they were modest in size (raw correlations between extraversion and size of network layer, .20 < r < .23). However, extraverts were not emotionally closer to individuals in their network, even after controlling for network size. These results highlight the importance of considering not just social network size in relation to personality, but also the quality of relationships with network members.

Youth Development in Europe

2009 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 372-375 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katariina Salmela-Aro ◽  
Ingrid Schoon
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Relationship Quality ◽  
Youth Development ◽  
Social Relationships ◽  
Transition To Adulthood ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Integrative Framework ◽  
Reciprocal Interactions ◽  
The Family ◽  
Key Players

A series of six papers on “Youth Development in Europe: Transitions and Identities” has now been published in the European Psychologist throughout 2008 and 2009. The papers aim to make a conceptual contribution to the increasingly important area of productive youth development by focusing on variations and changes in the transition to adulthood and emerging identities. The papers address different aspects of an integrative framework for the study of reciprocal multiple person-environment interactions shaping the pathways to adulthood in the contexts of the family, the school, and social relationships with peers and significant others. Interactions between these key players are shaped by their embeddedness in varied neighborhoods and communities, institutional regulations, and social policies, which in turn are influenced by the wider sociohistorical and cultural context. Young people are active agents, and their development is shaped through reciprocal interactions with these contexts; thus, the developing individual both influences and is influenced by those contexts. Relationship quality and engagement in interactions appears to be a fruitful avenue for a better understanding of how young people adjust to and tackle development to productive adulthood.

Conflicting Motives in Social Relationships: The Development of Attachments

1996 ◽  
Vol 41 (7) ◽  
pp. 708-709
Author(s):  
Lauri A. Jensen-Campbell
Keyword(s):  
Social Relationships
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