Frei, A., Erenay, N., Dittmann, V. & Graf, M. (2005). Paedophilia on the internet: A study of 33 convicted offenders in the Canton of Lucerne. Swiss Medical Weekly, 135, 488-494.

Background: The connection between the consumption of pornography and “contact-crimes” is unclear. The Internet has facilitated the mass consumption of pornography in general and specifically illegal pornography such as child pornography. In 1999, the owners of “Landslide Production Inc.”, an international provider of child-pornography in the USA were arrested and the credit-card-numbers of their clients were put at the disposal of the law enforcement agencies of the countries concerned.
Methods: Roughly 1300 Swiss citizens were subsequently arrested in the course of the nationwide action “Genesis”. In the canton of Lucerne33 men were identified. The police-files of these men were screened for psychosocial, criminological and psychosexual data.
Results: Most of these middle-aged men held comparatively elevated professional positions, only ten were married, eleven had never had an intimate relationship to a woman, and only thirteen of them had children. Only one of them had a relevant criminal record. The level of abuse depicted in the illegal material was high, all but one consumed pornography from other fields of sexual deviation. The personal statements of the offenders in general were hardly reliable, in three cases, however, the diagnosis of sexual deviation could be established from the files. The estimated time some of the offenders must have spent online in order to retrieve the material allows the diagnosis of Pathological Internet-Use.
Conclusions: Deviant sexual fantasies seem to be widespread also among men otherwise not registered for any offences. The consumption of even particularly disgusting material may not be a specific risk factor for “contact” crimes.

http://www.smw.ch/docs/pdf200x/2005/33/smw-11095.pdf

I’m not sure what category this would be placed in – maybe “paedophilia” and “Internet Use” under Social Psychology?

Urry, H.L., van Reekum, C.M., Johnstone, T., Kalin, N.H., Thurow, M.E., Schaefer, H.S., Jackson, C.A., Frye, C.J., Greischar, L.L., Alexander, A.L., & Davidson, R.J. (2006). Amygdala and ventromedial prefrontal cortex are inversely coupled during regulation of negative affect and predict the diurnal pattern of cortisol secretion among older adults. Journal of Neuroscience, 26, 4415-4425.

Among younger adults, the ability to willfully regulate negative affect, enabling effective responses to stressful experiences, engages regions of prefrontal cortex (PFC) and the amygdala. Because regions of PFC and the amygdala are known to influence the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, here we test whether PFC and amygdala responses during emotion regulation predict the diurnal pattern of salivary cortisol secretion. We also test whether PFC and amygdala regions are engaged during emotion regulation in older (62- to 64-year-old) rather than younger individuals. We measured brain activity using functional magnetic resonance imaging as participants regulated (increased or decreased) their affective responses or attended to negative picture stimuli. We also collected saliva samples for 1 week at home for cortisol assay. Consistent with previous work in younger samples, increasing negative affect resulted in ventral lateral, dorsolateral, and dorsomedial regions of PFC and amygdala activation. In contrast to previous work, decreasing negative affect did not produce the predicted robust pattern of higher PFC and lower amygdala activation. Individuals demonstrating the predicted effect (decrease

Ryff, C.D., Love, G.D., Urry, H.L., Muller, D.H., Rosenkranz, M.A., Friedman, E., Davidson, R.J., & Singer, B. (2006). Psychological well-being and ill-being: Do they have distinct or mirrored biological correlates? Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, 75, 85-95.

Background: Increasingly, researchers attend to both positive and negative aspects of mental health. Such dis-
tinctions call for clarifi cation of whether psychological well-being and ill-being comprise opposite ends of a bi-
polar continuum, or are best construed as separate, independent dimensions of mental health. Biology can help resolve this query – bipolarity predicts ‘mirrored’ biological correlates (i.e. well-being and ill-being correlate similarly with biomarkers, but show opposite directional signs), whereas independence predicts ‘distinct’
biological correlates (i.e. well-being and ill-being have different biological signatures). Methods: Multiple as-
pects of psychological well-being (eudaimonic, hedonic) and ill-being (depression, anxiety, anger) were assessed
in a sample of aging women (n = 135, mean age = 74) on whom diverse neuroendocrine (salivary cortisol, epi-
nephrine, norepinephrine, DHEA-S) and cardiovascular factors (weight, waist-hip ratio, systolic and diastolic
blood pressure, HDL cholesterol, total/HDL cholesterol, glycosylated hemoglobin) were also measured. Results:
Measures of psychological well-being and ill-being were signifi cantly linked with numerous biomarkers, with
some associations being more strongly evident for respondents aged 75+. Outcomes for seven biomarkers
supported the distinct hypothesis, while findings for only two biomarkers supported the mirrored hypothesis.
Conclusion : This research adds to the growing literature on how psychological well-being and mental maladjust-
ment are instantiated in biology. Population-based in-quiries and challenge studies constitute important future
directions.

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Urry, H. L., Nitschke, J. B., Dolski, I., Jackson, D. C., Dalton, K. M., Mueller, C. J., Rosenkranz, M. A., Ryff, C. D., Singer, B. H., & Davidson, R. J. (2004). Making a life worth living: Neural correlates of well-being. Psychological Science, 15, 367-372.

Despite the vast literature that has implicated asymmetric activation of the prefrontal cortex in approach-with-drawal motivation and emotion, no published reports have directly explored the neural correlates of well-being. Eighty-four right-handed adults (ages 57–60) completed self-report measures of eudaimonic well-being, hedonic well-being, and positive affect prior to resting electroencephalography. As hypothesized, greater left than right superior frontal activation was associated with higher levels of both forms of well-being. Hemisphere-specific analyses documented the importance of goal-directed approach tendencies beyond those captured by approach-related positive affect for eudaimonic but not for hedonic well-being. Appropriately engaging sources of appetitive motivation, characteristic of higher left than right baseline levels of pre-frontal activation, may encourage the experience of well-being.

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Jackson, D.C., Mueller, C., Dolski, I., Dalton, K., Nitschke, J.B., Urry, H.L., Rosenkranz, M.A., Ryff, C., Singer, B., & Davidson, R.J. (2003). Now you feel it, now you don’t: Frontal EEG asymmetry and individual differences in emotion regulation. Psychological Science 14, 612-617.

Recent theoretical accounts of emotion regulation assign an important role in this process to the prefrontal cortex, yet there is little relevant data available to support this hypothesis. The current study assessed the relation between individual differences in asymmetric prefrontal activation and an objective measure of uninstructed emotion regulation. Forty-seven participants 57 to 60 years old viewed emotionally arousing and neutral visual stimuli while eye-blink startle data were collected. Startle probes were also presented after picture presentation to capture the persistence or attenuation of affect following the offset of an emotional stimulus. Subjects with greater relative left-sided anterior activation in scalp-recorded brain electrical signals displayed attenuated startle magnitude after the offset of negative stimuli. This relation between resting frontal activation and recovery following an aversive event supports the idea of a frontally mediated mechanism involved in one form of automatic emotion regulation.

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Allen, J. J. B., Urry, H. L., Hitt, S. K., Coan, J. A. (2004). The stability of resting frontal electroencephalographic asymmetry in depression. Psychophysiology, 41, 269-280.

Although resting frontal electroencephalographic (EEG) alpha asymmetry has been shown to be a stable measure over time in nonclinical populations, its reliability and stability in clinically depressed individuals has not been fully
investigated. The internal consistency and test–retest stability of resting EEG alpha (8–13 Hz) asymmetry were examined in 30 women diagnosed with major depression at 4-week intervals for 8 or 16 weeks. Asymmetry scores
generally displayed good internal consistency and exhibited modest stability over the 8- and 16-week assessment
intervals. Changes in asymmetry scores over this interval were not significantly related to changes in clinical state.
These findings suggest that resting EEG alpha asymmetry can be reliably assessed in clinically depressed populations. Furthermore, intraclass correlation stability estimates suggest that although some traitlike aspects of alpha asymmetry exist in depressed individuals, there is also evidence of changes in asymmetry across assessment occasions that are not closely linked to changes in depressive severity.

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Kashdan, T. B., & McKnight, P. E. (2010). The darker side of social anxiety: When aggressive impulsivity prevails over shy inhibition. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 19, 47-50.

The majority of definitions, research studies, and treatment programs that focus on social anxiety characterize the prototypical person with the disorder as shy, submissive, inhibited, and risk averse. This stereotype, however, has been challenged recently. Specifically, a subset of people with social anxiety who are aggressive, impulsive novelty seekers deviate from that prototype. People with this atypical profile show greater functional impairment and are less likely to complete or fare well in treatment compared with inhibited socially anxious people. The difference between these two groups of people with social anxiety cannot be explained by the severity, type, or number of social fears, nor by co-occurring anxiety and mood disorders. Conclusions about the nature, course, and treatment of social anxiety may be compromised by not attending to diverse behaviors and self-regulatory styles. These concerns may be compounded in neurobiological and clinical studies of people with social anxiety problems that rely on smaller samples to make claims about brain patterns and the efficacy of particular treatments.

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Kashdan, T. B., & Rottenberg, J. (2010). Psychological flexibility as a fundamental aspect of health. Clinical Psychology Review, 30, 865-878.

Traditionally, positive emotions and thoughts, strengths, and the satisfaction of basic psychological needs for belonging, competence, and autonomy have been seen as the cornerstones of psychological health. Without disputing their importance, these foci fail to capture many of the fluctuating, conflicting forces that are readily apparent when people navigate the environment and social world. In this paper, we review literature to offer evidence for the prominence of psychological flexibility in understanding psychological health. Thus far, the importance of psychological flexibility has been obscured by the isolation and disconnection of research conducted on this topic. Psychological flexibility spans a wide range of human abilities to: recognize and adapt to various situational demands; shift mindsets or behavioral repertoires when these strategies compromise personal or social functioning; maintain balance among important life domains; and be aware, open, and committed to behaviors that are congruent with deeply held values. In many forms of psychopathology, these flexibility processes are absent. In hopes of creating a more coherent understanding, we synthesize work in emotion regulation, mindfulness and acceptance, social and personality psychology, and neuropsychology. Basic research findings provide insight into the nature, correlates, and consequences of psychological flexibility and applied research provides details on promising interventions. Throughout, we emphasize dynamic approaches that might capture this fluid construct in the real-world.

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Kashdan, T. B., Ferssizidis, P., Collins, R. L., & Muraven, M. (2010). Emotion differentiation as resilience against excessive alcohol use: An ecological momentary assessment in underage social drinkers. Psychological Science, 21, 1341-1347.

Some people are adept at using discrete emotion categories (anxious, angry, sad) to capture their felt experience; other people merely communicate how good or bad they feel. We theorized that people who are better at describing their emotions might be less likely to self-medicate with alcohol. During a 3-week period, 106 underage social drinkers used handheld computers to self-monitor alcohol intake. From participants’ reported experiences during random prompts, we created an individual difference measure of emotion differentiation. Results from a 30-day timeline follow-back revealed that people with intense negative emotions consumed less alcohol if they were better at describing emotions and less reliant on global descriptions. Results from ecological momentary assessment procedures revealed that people with intense negative emotions prior to drinking episodes consumed less alcohol if they were better at describing emotions. These findings provide support for a novel methodology and dimension for understanding the influence of emotions on substance-use patterns.

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McCullough, M. E., Kimeldorf, M. B., & Cohen, A. D. (2008). An adaptation for altruism? The social causes, social effects, and social evolution of gratitude. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 17, 281-284.

ABSTRACT—People feel grateful when they have benefited from someone’s costly, intentional, voluntary effort on
their behalf. Experiencing gratitude motivates beneficiaries to repay their benefactors and to extend generosity
to third parties. Expressions of gratitude also reinforce benefactors for their generosity. These social features
distinguish gratitude from related emotions such as happiness and feelings of indebtedness. Evolutionary theories
propose that gratitude is an adaptation for reciprocal altruism (the sequential exchange of costly benefits between
nonrelatives) and, perhaps, upstream reciprocity (a pay-it-forward style distribution of an unearned benefit to a
third party after one has received a benefit from another benefactor). Gratitude therefore may have played a
unique role in human social evolution. Robert Trivers, have apprehended the importance of gratitude
for creating and sustaining positive social relations (Bartlett & DeSteno, 2006; Harpham, 2004; McCullough, Kilpatrick, Emmons, & Larson, 2001). Oddly, though, psychological science largely neglected gratitude until the 21st century. Fortunately, recent research has explored gratitude’s distinct social causes and effects. These studies may help to shed light on gratitude’s evolutionary history.

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Bono, G. & McCullough M. E. (2006). Positive responses to benefit and harm: Bringing forgiveness and gratitude into cognitive psychotherapy. Journal of Cognitive Psychotherapy, 20, 147-158.

Forgiveness and gratitude represent positive psychological responses to interpersonal harms and benefits that individuals have experienced. In the present article we first provide a brief review of the research that has shown forgiveness and gratitude to be related to various measures of physical and psychological well-being. We then review the empirical findings regarding the cognitive and affective substrates of forgiveness and gratitude. We also offer a selective review of some of the interventions that appear to be effective in encouraging forgiveness
and gratitude. To conclude, we suggest some ways in which the insights from the basic research on promoting forgiveness and gratitude might be meaningfully integrated into cognitive psychotherapy.

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Polak, E., & McCullough, M. E. (2006). Is gratitude an alternative to materialism? Journal of Happiness Studies, 7, 343-360.

ABSTRACT. Materialistic strivings have been implicated as a cause of unhappiness. Gratitude, on the other hand – both in its manifestations as a chronic affective trait and as a more temporary emotional experience – may be
a cause of happiness. In the present paper we review the empirical research on the relationships among materialism, gratitude, and well-being. We present new correlational data on the gratitude–materialism relationship and propose that gratitude may have the potential to reduce materialistic strivings and consequently diminish the negative effects of materialistic strivings on psy- chological well-being. We conclude with some recommendations for future research on the relationships among gratitude, materialism, and well-being.

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McCullough, M. E., Tsang, J., & Emmons, R. A. (2004). Gratitude in intermediate affective terrain: Links of grateful moods to individual differences and daily emotional experience. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 86, 295-309.

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Kendler, K., Liu, X., Gardner, C. O., McCullough, M. E., & Prescott, C. A. (2003). Dimensions of religiosity and their relationship to lifetime psychiatric and substance abuse disorders. American Journal of Psychiatry, 160, 496-503.

Objective: The role of religion in mental illness remains understudied. Most prior investigations of this relationship have used measures of religiosity that do not reflect its complexity and/or have examined a small number of psychiatric outcomes. This study used data from a general population sample to clarify the dimensions of religiosity and the relationships of these dimensions to risk for lifetime psychiatric and substance use disorders. Method: Responses to 78 items assessing various aspects of broadly defined religiosity were obtained from 2,616 male and female twins from a general population registry. The association between the resulting religiosity dimensions and the lifetime risk for nine disorders assessed at personal interview was evaluated by logistic regression. Of these disorders, five were internalizing (major depression, phobias, generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, and bulimia nervosa), and four were externalizing (nicotine dependence, alcohol dependence, drug abuse or dependence, and adult antisocial behavior). Results: Seven factors were identified: general religiosity, social religiosity, involved God, forgiveness, God as judge, unvengefulness, and thankfulness. Two factors were associated with reduced risk for both internalizing and externalizing disorders (social religiosity and thankfulness), four factors with reduced risk for externalizing disorders only (general religiosity, involved God, forgiveness, and God as judge), and one factor with reduced risk for internalizing disorders only (unvengefulness). Conclusions: Religiosity is a complex, multidimensional construct with substantial associations with lifetime psychopathology. Some dimensions of religiosity are related to reduced risk specifically for internalizing disorders, and others to reduced risk specifically for externalizing disorders, while still others are less specific in their associations. These results do not address the nature of the causal link between religiosity and risk for illness.

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McCullough, M. E., Kilpatrick, S. D., Emmons, R. A., & Larson, D. B. (2001). Is gratitude a moral affect? Psychological Bulletin, 127, 249-266.

Williams, L. E., Huang, J. Y., & Bargh, J. A. (2000). The scaffolded mind: Higher mental processes are grounded in early experience of the physical world. European Journal of Social Psychology. 39, 1257–1267.

It has long been a staple of psychological theory that early life experiences significantly shape the adult’s understanding of and reactions to the social world. Here we consider how early concept development along with evolved motives operating early in life can come to exert a passive, unconscious influence on the human adult’s higher-order goal pursuits, judgments, and actions. In particular, we focus on concepts and goal structures specialized for interacting with the physical environment (e.g., distance cues, temperature, cleanliness, and self-protection), which emerge early and automatically as a natural part of human development and evolution. It is proposed that via the process of scaffolding, these early sensorimotor experiences serve as the foundation for the later development of more abstract concepts and goals. Experiments using priming methodologies reveal the extent to which these early concepts serve as the analogical basis for more abstract psychological concepts, such that we come easily and naturally to speak of close relationships, warm personalities, moral purity, and psychological pain. Taken together, this research demonstrates the extent to which such foundational concepts are capable of influencing people’s information processing, affective judgments, and goal pursuit, oftentimes outside of their intention or awareness.

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Williams, L. E., & Bargh, J. A. (2008). Keeping one’s distance: The influence of spatial distance cues on affect and evaluation. Psychological Science, 19, 302-308.

Current conceptualizations of psychological distance (e.g., construal-level theory) refer to the degree of overlap between the self and some other person, place, or point in time. We propose a complementary view in which
perceptual and motor representations of physical distance influence people’s thoughts and feelings without reference to the self, extending research and theory on the effects of distance into domains where construal-level theory is silent. Across four experiments, participants were primed with either spatial closeness or spatial distance by plotting an assigned set of points on a Cartesian coordinate plane. Compared with the closeness prime, the distance prime produced greater enjoyment of media depicting embarrassment (Study 1), less emotional distress from violent media (Study 2), lower estimates of the number of calories in unhealthy food (Study 3), and weaker reports of emo- tional attachments to family members and hometowns (Study 4). These results support a broader conceptualization of distance-mediated effects on judgment and affect.

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Williams, L. E., & Bargh, J. A. (2008). Experiencing physical warmth promotes interpersonal warmth. Science, 322, 606-607.

“Warmth” is the most powerful personality trait in social judgment, and attachment theorists have stressed the importance of warm physical contact with caregivers during infancy for healthy relationships in adulthood. Intriguingly, recent research in humans points to the involvement of the insula in the processing of both physical temperature and interpersonal warmth (trust) information. Accordingly, we hypothesized that experiences of physical warmth (or coldness) would increase feelings of interpersonal warmth (or coldness), without the person’s awareness of this influence. In study 1, participants who briefly held a cup of hot (versus iced) coffee judged a target person as having a “warmer” personality (generous, caring); in study 2, participants holding a hot (versus cold) therapeutic pad were more likely to choose a gift for a friend instead of for themselves.

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Huang, J. Y., & Bargh, J. A. (2008). Peak of desire: Activating the mating goal changes life-stage preferences across living kinds. Psychological Science, 19, 573-578.

In three studies, we explored the existence of an evolved sensitivity to the peak that would be consistent with the evolutionary origins of many basic human preferences. Activating the evolved motive of mating activates related adaptive mechanisms, including a general sensitivity to cues of growth and decay associated with determining mate value in human courtship. These studies show that priming the mating goal also activates an evaluative bias that influences how people evaluate cues of growth. Specifically, living kinds that are immature or past their prime are devalued, whereas living kinds that are at their peak become increasingly valued. Study 1 establishes this goal-driven effect for human stimuli indirectly related to the mating goal. Studies 2 and 3 establish that the evaluative bias produced by the activated mating goal extends to living kinds, but not artifacts.

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Harris, J. L., Bargh, J. A., & Brownell, K. D. (2009). Priming effects of television food advertising on eating behavior. Health Psychology, 28, 404-413.

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Fitzsimons, G. M., & Bargh, J. A. (2003). Thinking of you: Nonconscious pursuit of interpersonal goals associated with relationship partners. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84, 148-164.

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Bargh, J. A., & Morsella, E. (2008). The unconscious mind. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 3, 73-79.

The unconscious mind is still viewed by many psychological scientists as the shadow of a ‘‘real’’ conscious mind, though there now exists substantial evidence that the unconscious is not identifiably less flexible, complex, controlling, deliberative, or action-oriented than is its counterpart. This ‘‘conscious-centric’’ bias is due in
part to the operational definition within cognitive psychology that equates unconscious with subliminal. We re-
view the evidence challenging this restricted view of the unconscious emerging from contemporary social cognition
research, which has traditionally defined the unconscious in terms of its unintentional nature; this research has
demonstrated the existence of several independent unconscious behavioral guidance systems: perceptual, evaluative, and motivational. From this perspective, it is concluded that in both phylogeny and ontogeny, actions of
an unconscious mind precede the arrival of a conscious mind—that action precedes reflection.

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Bargh, J. A., Gollwitzer, P. M., Lee-Chai, A. Y., Barndollar, K., & Troetschel, R. (2001). The automated will: Nonconscious activation and pursuit of behavioral goals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81, 1014-1027.

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Bargh, J. A., Chen, M., & Burrows, L. (1996). Automaticity of social behavior: Direct effects of trait construct and stereotype activation on action. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71, 230-244.

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Bargh, J. A., & Chartrand, T. L. (1999). The unbearable automaticity of being. American Psychologist, 54, 462-479.

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Bargh, J. A. (2006). What have we been priming all these years? On the development, mechanisms, and ecology of nonconscious social behavior. European Journal of Social Psychology, 36, 147-168.

Priming or nonconscious activation of social knowledge structures has produced a plethora of rather amazing findings over the past 25 years: priming a single social concept such as aggressive can have multiple effects across a wide array of psychological systems, such as perception, motivation, behavior, and evaluation. But we may have reached childhood’s end, so to speak, and need now to move on to research questions such as how these multiple effects of single primes occur (the generation problem); next, how these multiple simultaneous priming influences in the environment get distilled into nonconscious social action that has to happen serially, in real time (the reduction problem). It is suggested that models of complex conceptual structures (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980), language use in real-life conversational settings (Clark, 1996), and speech production (Dell, 1986) might hold the key for solving these two important ‘second-generation’ research problems.

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Berkowitz, L, & LePage, A. (1967). Weapons as Aggression-Eliciting Stimuli. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 7, 202-207.

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Zimbardo, P. (2004). A Situationist Perspective on the Psychology of Evil: Understanding how Good People are Transformed into Perpetrators. In Miller, A. G. (Ed.) pp 21-50, The Social Psychology of Good and Evil, New York: Guilford.

I endorse a situationist perspective on the ways in which anti-social behavior by individuals, and of violence sanctioned by nations, is best understood, treated and prevented. This view has both influenced and been informed by a body of social psychological research and theory. It contrasts with the traditional dispositional perspective to explaining the whys of evil behavior. The search for internal determinants of anti-social behavior locates evil within individual predispositions – genetic “bad seeds,” personality traits, pathological risk factors, and other organismic variables. The situationist approach is to the dispositional as public health models of disease are to medical models. It follows basic principles of Lewinian theory that propel situational determinants of behavior to a foreground well beyond being merely extenuating background circumstances. Unique to this situationist approach is using experimental laboratory and field research as demonstrations of vital phenomena that other approaches only analyze verbally or rely on archival or correlational data for answers. The basic paradigm to be presented illustrates the relative ease with which “ordinary,” good men and women are induced into behaving in evil ways by turning on or off one or another social situational variable.

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Eagly, A, & Steffen, V. J. (1986). Gender and Aggressive Behavior: A Meta-analytic Review of the Social Psychological Literature. Psychological Bulletin, 100, 309-330.

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Berkowitz, L. (1989). The Frustration-Aggression Hypothesis: An Examination and Reformulation. Psychological Bulletin, 106, 59-73.

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Niemiec, C. P., Brown, K. W., Kashdan, T. B., Cozzolino, P. J., Breen, W., Levesque, C., & Ryan, R. M. (2010). Being present in the face of existential threat: The role of trait mindfulness in reducing defensive responses to mortality salience. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 99, 344-365.

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Aron, A., Steele, J., Kashdan, T.B., & Perez, M. (2006). When similars don’t attract: Tests of a prediction from the self-expansion model. Personal Relationships, 13, 387-396.

This study tested the hypothesis from the self-expansion model that the usual effect of greater attraction to a similar (vs. dissimilar) stranger will be reduced or reversed when a person is given information that a relationship would be likely to develop (i.e., that they would be very likely to get along) with the other person. The study employed the ‘‘bogus stranger’’ paradigm and focused on similarity/dissimilarity of interests in the context of attraction to a same-gender other. The effect for similarity under conditions in which no information is given about relationship likelihood replicated the usual pattern of greater attraction to similars. However, as predicted, a significant similarity by information interaction demonstrated that this effect was significantly reduced (and slightly reversed) when participants had been given information that the partner will like self. In analyses for each gender separately, both of these effects were significant only for men, suggesting that the focus on interest similarity may have been less relevant for women.

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Kashdan, T. B., Uswatte, G., & Julian, T. (2006). Gratitude and hedonic and eudaimonic well-being in Vietnam War veterans. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 44, 177-199.

Little information exists on the contribution of psychological strengths to well-being in persons with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Data from other populations suggest that gratitude, defined as the positive experience of thankfulness for being the recipient of personal benefits, may have salutary effects on everyday functioning. We investigated whether dispositional gratitude predicted daily hedonic and eudaimonic well-being in combat veterans with and without PTSD.We also examined associations between daily gratitude and daily well-being across time. Veterans with PTSD, compared to those without PTSD, exhibited significantly lower dispositional gratitude; no differences were found on daily gratitude. Dispositional gratitude predicted greater daily positive affect, percentage of pleasant days over the assessment period, daily intrinsically motivating activity, and daily self-esteem over and above effects attributable to PTSD severity and dispositional negative and positive affect in the PTSD group but not the non-PTSD group. Daily gratitude was uniquely associated with each dimension of daily well-being in both groups. Although preliminary, these results provide support for the further investigation of gratitude in trauma survivors.

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Kashdan, T. B., Julian, T., Merritt , K., & Uswatte, G. (2006). Social anxiety and posttraumatic stress in combat veterans: Relations to well-being and character strengths. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 44, 561-583.

There are few studies examining the relationship between psychopathology and positive experiences and traits. Although initial studies suggest persons with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are at increased risk for excessive social anxiety, there have been no studies to date evaluating how these conditions might interact to affect positive experiences and traits. Using self-report scales, informant ratings, and experience sampling methodologies, we examined the association of social anxiety with well-being and character strengths in veterans with and without PTSD. Controlling for PTSD and trait negative affect, social anxiety was negatively related to global ratings of well-being and character strengths. Social anxiety also accounted for incremental variance in day-to-day well-being (i.e., daily affect balance, percentage of pleasant days, positive social activity, self-esteem, gratitude) over a 14-day assessment period. Although veterans with PTSD reported lower levels of global and daily well-being and character strengths than veterans without PTSD, a diagnosis of PTSD failed to exhibit unique relationships with these constructs. Building on a growing body of work, these data suggest that social anxiety is uniquely associated with disturbances in positive experiences, events, and traits. Our findings support the value of directly addressing social anxiety in the study and treatment of PTSD.

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Kashdan, T. B., & Steger, M. (2006). Expanding the topography of social anxiety: An experience sampling assessment of positive emotions and events, and emotion suppression. Psychological Science, 17, 120-128.

The relation between social anxiety and hedonic activity remains poorly understood. From a self-regulatory
perspective, we hypothesized that socially anxious individuals experience diminished positive experiences
and events on days when they are unable to manage socially anxious feelings adequately. In this 21-day experience-sampling study, we constructed daily measures of social anxiety and emotion regulation. Greater dispositional social anxiety was associated with less positive affect and fewer positive events in everyday life. Among individuals defined as socially anxious from their scores on a global self-report measure of social anxiety, the number of positive events was lowest on days when they both were more socially anxious and tended to suppress emotions and highest on days when they were less socially anxious and more accepting of emotional experiences. Irrespective of dispositional social anxiety, participants reported the most intense positive emotions on the days when they were both least socially anxious and most accepting of emotional experiences. Possible clinical implications are discussed.

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Kashdan, T.B., & Breen, W.E. (2007). Materialism and diminished well-being: Experiential avoidance as a mediating mechanism. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 26, 521-539.

Being preoccupied with the pursuit of money, wealth, and material possessions arguably fails as a strategy to increase pleasure and meaning in life. However, little is known about the mechanisms that explain the inverse relation between materialism and well-being. The current study tested the hypothesis that experiential avoidance mediates associations between materialistic values and diminished emotional well-being, meaning in life, self-determination, and gratitude. Results indicated that people with stronger materialistic values reported more negative emotions and less relatedness, autonomy, competence, gratitude, and meaning in life. As expected, experiential avoidance fully mediated all associations between materialistic values and each dimension of well-being. Emotional disturbances such as social anxiety and depressive symptoms failed to account for these findings after accounting for shared variance with experiential avoidance. The results are discussed in the context of alternative, more fulfilling routes to well-being.

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Kashdan, T. B. & Yuen, M. (2007). Whether highly curious students thrive academically depends on the learning environment of their school: A study of Hong Kong adolescents. Motivation and Emotion, 31, 260-270.

The present study tested whether the perceived academic values of a school moderate whether highly curious students thrive academically. We investigated the interactive effects of curiosity and school quality on academic success for 484 Hong Kong high school students. Chinese versions of the Curiosity and Exploration Inventory, Subjective Happiness Scale, and Rosenberg Self-Esteem scales were administered and shown to have acceptable measurement properties. We obtained Hong Kong Certificate of Education Examination (HKCEE) scores (national achievement tests) from participating schools. Results yielded Trait Curiosity · Perceived School Quality interactions in predicting HKCEE scores and school grades. Adolescents with greater trait curiosity in more challenging schools had the greatest academic success; adolescents with greater trait curiosity in less challenging schools had the least academic success. Findings were not attributable to subjective happiness or self-esteem and alternative models involving these positive attributes were not supported. Results suggest that the benefits of curiosity are activated by student beliefs that the school environment supports their values about growth and learning; these benefits can be disabled by perceived person-environment mismatches.

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Kashdan, T. B. & Steger, M. F. (2007). Curiosity and pathways to well-being and meaning in life: Traits, states, and everyday behaviors. Motivation and Emotion, 31, 159-173.

This study examined curiosity as a mechanism for achieving and maintaining high levels of well-being
and meaning in life. Of primary interest was whether people high in trait curiosity derive greater well-being on
days when they are more curious. We also tested whether trait and daily curiosity led to greater, sustainable wellbeing. Predictions were tested using trait measures and 21 daily diary reports from 97 college students. We found that on days when they are more curious, people high in trait curiosity reported more frequent growth-oriented behaviors, and greater presence of meaning, search for meaning, and life satisfaction. Greater trait curiosity and greater curiosity on a given day also predicted greater persistence of meaning in life from one day into the next. People with greater trait curiosity reported more frequent hedonistic events but they were associated with less pleasure compared to the experiences of people with less trait curiosity. The benefits of hedonistic events did not last beyond the day of their occurrence. As evidence of construct specificity, curiosity effects were not attributable to Big Five personality traits or daily positive or negative mood. Our results provide support for curiosity as an ingredient in the development of well-being and meaning in life. The pattern of findings casts doubt on some distinctions drawn between eudaimonia and hedonic well-being traditions.

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Kashdan, T. B., & Roberts, J. E. (2004). Trait and state curiosity in the genesis of intimacy: Differentiation from related constructs. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 23, 792-816.

We examined the roles of curiosity, social anxiety, and positive affect (PA) and negative affect (NA) in the development of interpersonal closeness. A reciprocal self–disclosure task was used wherein participants and trained confederates asked and answered questions escalating in personal and emotional depth (mimicking closeness–development). Relationships between curiosity and relationship outcomes were examined using regression analyses. Controlling for trait measures of social anxiety, PA, and NA, trait curiosity predicted greater partner ratings of attraction and closeness. Social anxiety moderated the relationship between trait curiosity and self–ratings of attraction such that curiosity was associated with greater attraction among those low in social anxiety compared to those high in social anxiety. In contrast, trait PA was related to greater self–ratings of attraction but had no relationship with partners’ ratings. Trait curiosity predicted positive relationship outcomes as a function of state curiosity generated during the interaction, even after controlling for state PA.

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Murphy, D., & Stich, S. (2000). Darwin in the madhouse: evolutionary psychology and the classification of mental disorders. In P. Carruthers & A. Chamberlain (Eds.), Evolution and the human mind: Modularity, language and meta-cognition (pp. 62–92). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Recent years have witnessed a ground swell of interest in the application of evolutionary theory to issues in psychopathology (Nesse & Williams 1995, Stevens & Price 1996, McGuire & Troisi 1998). Much of this work has been aimed at finding adaptationist explanations for a variety of mental disorders ranging from phobias to
depression to schizophrenia. There has, however, been relatively little discussion of the implications that the theories proposed by evolutionary psychologists might have for the classification of mental disorders. This is the theme we propose to explore. We’ll begin, in Section 1, by providing a brief overview of the account of the mind advanced by evolutionary psychologists. In Section 2 we’ll explain why issues of taxonomy are important and why the dominant approach to the classification of mental disorders is radically and alarmingly unsatisfactory. We will also indicate why we think an alternative approach, based on theories in evolutionary psychology, is particularly promising. In Section 3 we’ll try to illustrate some of the virtues of the evolutionary psychological approach to classification. The discussion in Section 3 will highlight a quite fundamental distinction between those disorders that arise from the malfunction of a component of the mind and those that can be traced to the fact that our minds must now function in environments that are very different from the environments in which they evolved. This mismatch between the current and ancestral environments can, we maintain, give rise to serious mental disorders despite the fact that, in one important sense, there is nothing at all wrong with the people suffering the disorder. Their minds are functioning exactly as Mother Nature intended them to. In Section 4, we’ll give a brief overview of
some of the ways in which the sorts of malfunctions catalogued in Section 3 might arise, and sketch two rather different strategies for incorporating this etiologically information in a system for classifying mental disorders. Finally, in Section 5, we will explain why an evolutionary approach may lead to a quite radical revision in the classification of certain conditions. From an evolutionary perspective, we will argue, some of the disorders
recognized in standard manuals like DSM-IV may turn out not to be disorders at all. The people who have these conditions don’t have problems; they just cause problems!

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Peterson, C., Park, N., & Seligman, M. E. P. (2005). Orientations to happiness and life satisfaction: The full life versus the empty life. Journal of Happiness Studies, 6, 25–41.

Different orientations to happiness and their association with life satisfaction were investigated with 845 adults responding to Internet surveys. We measured life satisfaction and the endorsement of three different ways to be happy through pleasure, through engagement, and through meaning. Each of these three orientations individually predicted life satisfaction. People simultaneously low on all three orientations reported especially low life satisfaction. These findings point the way toward a distinction between the full life and the empty life.

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Kashdan, T. B. (2007). Social anxiety spectrum and diminished positive experiences: Theoretical synthesis and meta-analysis. Clinical Psychology Review, 27, 348-365.

Until recently, there has been limited recognition that diminished positive psychological experiences are important to understanding the nature of social anxiety. Meta-analytic techniques were used to evaluate the strength, consistency, and construct specificity of relations between the social anxiety spectrum with positive affect and curiosity. The social anxiety spectrum had significant inverse relations with positive affect (r=.36; 95% CI: .31 to .40) and curiosity (r=.24; 95% CI: .20 to – .28). Relations between social anxiety and positive affect were stronger in studies sampling from clinical populations. Specificity findings (e.g., statistically controlling for depressive symptoms and disorders) further confirmed negative associations with positive affect (r=.21; 95% CI: .16 to .26) and curiosity (r=.21; 95% CI: .08 to .32). The literature on social rank, selfpresentation concerns, self-regulatory resources, and experiential avoidance is reviewed and integrated to elaborate a framework of how, why, and when social anxiety may be inversely related to positive experiences. The specificity of theory and data to social interaction anxiety is supported by an examination of existing work on social performance/observation fears and other anxiety conditions. Overall, these findings highlight the importance of diminished positive psychological experiences in understanding excessive social anxiety.

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Kashdan, T. B., Biswas-Diener, R., & King, L. A. (2008). Reconsidering happiness: The costs of distinguishing between hedonics and eudaimonia. Journal of Positive Psychology, 3, 219-233.

In recent years, well-being researchers have distinguished between eudaimonic happiness (e.g., meaning and
purpose; taking part in activities that allow for the actualization of one’s skills, talents, and potential) and
hedonic happiness (e.g., high frequencies of positive affect, low frequencies of negative affect, and evaluating life
as satisfying). Unfortunately, this distinction (rooted in philosophy) does not necessarily translate well to science.
Among the problems of drawing too sharp a line between ‘types of happiness’ is the fact that eudaimonia is not
well-defined and lacks consistent measurement. Moreover, empirical evidence currently suggests that hedonic and
eudaimonic well-being overlap conceptually, and may represent psychological mechanisms that operate together.
In this article, we outline the problems and costs of distinguishing between two types of happiness, and provide
detailed recommendations for a research program on well-being with greater scientific precision.

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Silvia, P. J., & Kashdan, T. B. (2009). Interesting things and curious people: Exploration and engagement as transient states and enduring strengths. Social Psychology and Personality Compass, 3, 785-797.

Curiosity, interest, and intrinsic motivation are critical to the development of competence, knowledge, and expertise. Without a mechanism of intrinsic motivation, people would rarely explore new things, learn for its own sake, or engage with uncertain tasks despite feelings of confusion and anxiety. This article explores two sides of interest: momentary feelings (the emotion of interest) and enduring traits (the character strength of curiosity). Recent theories in emotion psychology can explain why and when people experience feelings of interest; recent research has illuminated the role of curiosity in cultivating knowledge, meaning in life, close relationships, and
physical and mental resilience. The problem for future research – and for social and personality psychology more generally – is how to bridge the dynamics of everyday experience with stable, lifespan aspects of personality.

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Kashdan, T.B., & McKnight, P.E. (2009). Origins of purpose in life: Refining our understanding of a life well lived. Psychological Topics, 18, 303-316.

Purpose can be characterized as a central, self-organizing life aim. Central in that when present, purpose is a predominant theme of a person’s identity. Self-organizing in that it provides a framework for systematic behavior patterns in everyday life. As a life aim, a purpose generates continual goals and targets for efforts to be devoted. A purpose provides a bedrock foundation that allows a person to be more resilient to obstacles, stress, and strain. In this paper, we outline a theoretical model of purpose development. Besides outlining various essential ingredients to creating a purpose in life, we describe three broad pathways. The first process is proactive involving effort over time and only resulting in a purpose after gradual refinement and clarification. The second process is reactive involving a transformative life event where a purpose arises and adds clarity to the person’s life. The third process is social learning – involving the formation of purpose through observation, imitation, and modeling. Our aim is to stimulate more research on this higher-level construct in the architecture of personality.

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McKnight, P. E., & Kashdan, T. B. (2009). Purpose in life as a system that creates and sustains health and well-being: An integrative, testable theory. Review of General Psychology, 13, 242-251.

Purpose—a cognitive process that defines life goals and provides personal meaning—may help explain disparate empirical social science findings. Devoting effort and making progress toward life goals provides a significant, renewable source of engagement and meaning. Purpose offers a testable, causal system that synthesizes outcomes including life expectancy, satisfaction, and mental and physical health. These outcomes may be explained best by considering the motivation of the individual—a motivation that comes from having a purpose. We provide a detailed definition with specific hypotheses derived from a synthesis of relevant findings from social, behavioral, biological, and cognitive literatures. To illustrate the uniqueness of the purpose model, we compared purpose with competing contemporary models that offer similar predictions. Addressing the structural features unique to purpose opens opportunities to build upon existing causal models of “how and why” health and well-being develop and change over time.

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Kashdan, T. B., Mishra, A., Breen, W. E., & Froh, J. J. (2009). Gender differences in gratitude: Examining appraisals, narratives, the willingness to express emotions, and changes in psychological needs. Journal of Personality, 77, 691-730.

Previous work suggests women might possess an advantage over men in experiencing and benefiting from gratitude. We examined whether women perceive and react to gratitude differently than men. In Study 1, women, compared with men, evaluated gratitude expression to be less complex, uncertain, conflicting, and more interesting and exciting. In Study 2, college students and older adults described and evaluated a recent episode when they received a gift.Women, compared with men, reported less burden and obligation and greater gratitude. Upon gift receipt, older men reported the least positive affect when their benefactors were men. In Studies 2 and 3, women endorsed higher trait gratitude compared with men. In Study 3, over 3 months, women with greater gratitude were more likely to satisfy needs to belong and feel autonomous; gratitude had the opposite effect in men. The willingness to openly express emotions partially mediated gender differences, and effects could not be attributed to global trait affect. Results demonstrated that men were less likely to feel and express gratitude, made more critical evaluations of gratitude, and derived fewer benefits. Implications for the study and therapeutic enhancement of gratitude are discussed.

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Kashdan, T.B., Breen, W.E., & Julian, T. (2010). Everyday strivings in combat veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder: Problems arise when avoidance and emotion regulation dominate. Behavior Therapy, 41, 350-363.

This research investigated whether combat veterans’ daily strivings are related to the presence of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and well-being. Veterans created a list of their most important strivings, which were content-analyzed for emotion regulation and approach or avoidance themes. It was hypothesized that veterans pursuing strivings with themes of emotion regulation or avoidance experience deleterious consequences compared with other veterans. For all veterans, devoting finite time and energy in daily life to regulating emotions was associated with less purpose, meaning, and joy compared with other strivings. Veterans with PTSD endorsed more strivings related to emotion regulation and devoted considerable effort to emotion regulation and avoidance strivings. Yet, these efforts failed to translate into any discernible benefits; veterans without PTSD derived greater joy and meaning from strivings focusing on approac- oriented behavior and themes other than emotion regulation. The presence of PTSD and a high rate of emotion regulation strivings led to the lowest global well-being and daily self-esteem during a 14-day assessment period. The presence of PTSD and a high rate of avoidance strivings also led to lower emotional well-being. Results indicate that strivings devoted to regulating emotions or avoidance efforts influence the mental health of veterans with and without PTSD. Studying personality at different levels of
analysis—traits, strivings, and life narratives—allows for a fine-grained understanding of emotional disorders.

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Kashdan, T.B., Pelham, W.E., Lang, A.R., Hoza, B., Jacob, R.G., Jennings, J.R., Blumenthal, J. D., & Gnagy, E.M. (2002). Hope and optimism as human strengths in parents of children with externalizing disorders: Stress is in the eye of the beholder. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 21, 441-468.

We examined hope as a potential resiliency factor for the daily strains of raising children with disruptive behavior disorders. In light of the motivational component of hope theory, initiating and sustaining effort toward goals (i.e., agency) , we were interested in hope’s relation to constructs addressing self-esteem, familial functioning,
and stress. Two hundred, fifty-two parents of children with externalizing disorders completed self-report questionnaires. Significant associations were found among hope and parental and familial functioning indices (e.g., warm and nurturing parenting styles, cohesive and active family environment, adaptive coping strategies). Considering their conceptual overlap, we tested the unique predictive power of hope and optimistic attributions on indices of psychological functioning. Separate regressions indicated that hope significantly predicted psychological
functioning beyond what was accounted for by social desirability, the severity of child symptoms, and optimistic attributions. Hope agency compared to hope pathways (i.e., perceived ability to generate strategies to obtain goals) accounted for the vast amount of variance in regression models. In contrast, optimistic attributions
failed to predict any of the variables of interest. Treatment and prevention strategies are suggested with an integrated focus on both the disruptive behaviors of children and parental character traits.

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Bandura, A. Ross, D., & Ross, S. A. (1961). Transmission of Aggressions through Imitation of Aggressive Models. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 63, 575-582.

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