scholarly journals Confiding Secrets and Well-Being

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Slepian ◽  
Edythe Moulton-Tetlock
Keyword(s):  
Social Support ◽  
Real World ◽  
Experimental Studies ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Mind Wandering ◽  
Current Work ◽  
Coping Efficacy ◽  
Empirical Examination ◽  
The Way

How does confiding secrets relate to well-being? The current work presents the first empirical examination of mechanisms by which confiding diverse real-world secrets to known others predicts well-being. We examined over 800 participants with more than 10,000 secrets in total, finding that confiding a secret does not predict reduced instances of concealment. Rather, confiding a secret predicts higher well-being through perceived coping efficacy. Correlational and experimental studies find that through confiding a secret, people feel they obtain social support and are more capable in coping with the secret. Additionally, through perceived coping efficacy, confiding a secret predicts less frequent mind wandering to the secret. Confiding predicts higher well-being through changing the way and how often people think about their secret.

scholarly journals Confiding Secrets and Well-Being

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 472-484 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael L. Slepian ◽  
Edythe Moulton-Tetlock
Keyword(s):  
Social Support ◽  
Real World ◽  
Experimental Studies ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Mind Wandering ◽  
Current Work ◽  
Coping Efficacy ◽  
Empirical Examination ◽  
The Way

How does confiding secrets relate to well-being? The current work presents the first empirical examination of mechanisms by which confiding diverse real-world secrets to known others predicts well-being. We examined over 800 participants with more than 10,000 secrets in total, finding that confiding a secret does not predict reduced instances of concealment. Rather, confiding a secret predicts higher well-being through perceived coping efficacy. Correlational and experimental studies find that through confiding a secret, people feel they obtain social support and are more capable in coping with the secret. Additionally, through perceived coping efficacy, confiding a secret predicts less frequent mind wandering to the secret. Confiding predicts higher well-being through changing the way and how often people think about their secret.

Thinking Through Secrets: Rethinking the Role of Thought Suppression in Secrecy

2020 ◽  
Vol 46 (10) ◽  
pp. 1411-1427 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael L. Slepian ◽  
Katharine H. Greenaway ◽  
E. J. Masicampo
Keyword(s):  
Real World ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Mind Wandering ◽  
Common View ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Temporal Focus ◽  
Ironic Process ◽  
The Relationship

Having secrets on the mind is associated with lower well-being, and a common view of secrets is that people work to suppress and avoid them—but might people actually want to think about their secrets? Four studies examining more than 11,000 real-world secrets found that the answer depends on the importance of the secret: People generally seek to engage with thoughts of significant secrets and seek to suppress thoughts of trivial secrets. Inconsistent with an ironic process account, adopting the strategy to suppress thoughts of a secret was not related to a tendency to think about the secret. Instead, adopting the strategy to engage with thoughts of a secret was related the tendency to think about the secret. Moreover, the temporal focus of one’s thoughts moderated the relationship between mind-wandering to the secret and well-being, with a focus on the past exacerbating a harmful link. These results suggest that people do not universally seek to suppress their secrets; they also seek to engage with them, although not always effectively.

The Way to Console May Depend on the Goal: Experimental Studies of Social Support

2001 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leonard M. Horowitz ◽  
Elena N. Krasnoperova ◽  
Deborah G. Tatar ◽  
Mikkel B. Hansen ◽  
Eric A. Person ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Support ◽  
Experimental Studies ◽  
The Way

scholarly journals Tears Trigger the Intention to Offer Social Support: A Systematic Investigation of the Interpersonal Effects of Emotional Crying Across 41 Countries

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janis Zickfeld ◽  
Niels van de Ven ◽  
Olivia Pich ◽  
Thomas W. Schubert ◽  
Jana Berkessel ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Support ◽  
Experimental Studies ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Systematic Investigation ◽  
Empathic Concern ◽  
Subjective Well Being ◽  
Moderating Variables ◽  
Country Level ◽  
Interpersonal Effects ◽  
Limited Generalizability

Tearful crying is a ubiquitous and likely uniquely human phenomenon. The persistence of this behavior throughout adulthood has fascinated and puzzled many researchers. Scholars have argued that emotional tears serve an attachment function: Tears are thought to act as a social glue by triggering social support intentions. Initial experimental studies supported this proposition across several methodologies, but these were typically conducted almost exclusively on participants from North America and Europe, resulting in limited generalizability. The present research examined the tears-social support intentions effect and possible mediating and moderating variables in a fully pre-registered study across 7,007 participants (24,886 ratings) and 41 countries spanning all populated continents. Each participant was presented with four pictures out of 100 possible targets with or without tears digitally added. We confirmed our main prediction, with an overall effect size of d = .49 [.43, .55] for the intention to support tearful individuals. This effect was mediated by perceiving the crying target as warmer and more helpless, feeling more connected, as well as feeling more empathic concern for the crier, but not by an increase in personal distress. The effect was moderated by the situational valence, identifying the target as part of one’s group, and trait empathic concern. A neutral situation, high trait empathic concern, and low identification increased the effect. We observed a high amount of heterogeneity across countries that was, via split-half validation, best explained by country-level GDP per capita and subjective well-being with stronger effect sizes for countries scoring high on these measures.

Conflict Avoidance in Old Age

GeroPsych ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 61-70 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lia Oberhauser ◽  
Andreas B. Neubauer ◽  
Eva-Marie Kessler
Keyword(s):  
Social Support ◽  
Perceived Social Support ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Cross Sectional Study ◽  
Conflict Avoidance ◽  
Subjective Well Being ◽  
Sectional Study ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Adult Lifespan ◽  
Set Up

Abstract. Conflict avoidance increases across the adult lifespan. This cross-sectional study looks at conflict avoidance as part of a mechanism to regulate belongingness needs ( Sheldon, 2011 ). We assumed that older adults perceive more threats to their belongingness when they contemplate their future, and that they preventively react with avoidance coping. We set up a model predicting conflict avoidance that included perceptions of future nonbelonging, termed anticipated loneliness, and other predictors including sociodemographics, indicators of subjective well-being and perceived social support (N = 331, aged 40–87). Anticipated loneliness predicted conflict avoidance above all other predictors and partially mediated the age-association of conflict avoidance. Results suggest that belongingness regulation accounts may deepen our understanding of conflict avoidance in the second half of life.

Psychometric Properties of the Spontaneous and Deliberate Mind Wandering Scales

2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (6) ◽  
pp. 878-890 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Marcusson-Clavertz ◽  
Oscar N. E. Kjell
Keyword(s):  
Anxiety Disorder ◽  
Psychometric Properties ◽  
Generalized Anxiety Disorder ◽  
Social Desirability ◽  
Cognitive Task ◽  
Experience Sampling ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Mind Wandering ◽  
Generalized Anxiety ◽  
Psychological Variables

Abstract. Thinking about task-unrelated matters (mind wandering) is related to cognition and well-being. However, the relations between mind wandering and other psychological variables may depend on whether the former commence spontaneously or deliberately. The current two studies investigated the psychometric properties of the Spontaneous and Deliberate Mind Wandering Scales (SDMWS; Carriere, Seli, & Smilek, 2013 ). Study 1 evaluated the stability of the scales over 2 weeks ( N = 284 at Time 1), whereas Study 2 ( N = 323) evaluated their relations to Generalized anxiety disorder symptoms, Openness, Social desirability, and experience-sampling reports of intentional and unintentional mind wandering during an online cognitive task. The results indicated that the SDMWS were better fitted with a two-factor than a one-factor solution, although the fit was improved with the exclusion of one item. The scales exhibited strong measurement invariance across gender and time, and moderately high test-retest reliability. Spontaneous mind wandering predicted Generalized anxiety disorder and experience-sampling reports of unintentional mind wandering, whereas Deliberate mind wandering predicted Openness and experience-sampling reports of intentional mind wandering. Furthermore, Spontaneous mind wandering showed a negative association with social desirability of weak-to-medium strength. In sum, the scales generally showed favorable psychometric properties.

Differences in the Way to Conceive Happiness Relate to Different Reactions to Negative Events

2018 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giulia Fuochi ◽  
Chiara A. Veneziani ◽  
Alberto Voci
Keyword(s):  
Positive Emotions ◽  
Satisfaction With Life ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Protective Role ◽  
Stressful Events ◽  
Interactive Effects ◽  
Negative Events ◽  
Orientations To Happiness ◽  
Specific Reactions ◽  
The Way

Abstract. This paper aimed to assess whether differences in the way to conceive happiness, measured by the Orientations to Happiness measure, were associated with specific reactions to negative events. We hypothesized that among orientations to pleasure (portraying hedonism), to meaning (representing a eudaimonic approach to life), and to engagement (derived from the experience of flow), orientation to meaning would have displayed a stronger protective role against recent negative and potentially stressful events. After providing a validation of the Italian version of the Orientations to Happiness measure (Study 1), we performed regression analyses of the three orientations on positive and negative emotions linked to a self-relevant negative event (Study 2), and moderation analyses assessing the interactive effects of orientations to happiness and stressful events on well-being indicators (Study 3). Our findings supported the hypotheses. In Study 2, meaning was associated with positive emotions characterized by a lower activation (contentment and interest) compared to the positive emotions associated with pleasure (amusement, eagerness, and happiness). In Study 3, only meaning buffered the effect of recent potentially stressful events on satisfaction with life and positive affect. Results suggest that orientation to meaning might help individuals to better react to negative events.

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