The delusion of the disappearing self? Attachment avoidance and the experience of externally invisible self-loss in romantic relationships.

All of us experience self-change in relationships, but our subjective experiences of change may not always align with external metrics of such change. We hypothesized that people with higher attachment avoidance are more likely to experience self-change as a loss, which in turn predicts lower relationship commitment. We further hypothesized, however, that there would be a disparity in perceptions, such that avoidant people will experience self-loss that external metrics-including their own behaviors and ratings from third-party coders-do not detect. Results from four studies, which employed a variety of cross-sectional (Studies 1 and 4) and longitudinal (Studies 2 and 3) methods, demonstrated that higher attachment avoidance predicted greater experienced loss of self, which in turn predicted lower commitment. Studies 2-4 also revealed evidence for the hypothesized disparity in perceptions: Avoidantly attached individuals' experience of greater self-loss failed to emerge when using a variety of external metrics of self-loss, producing Avoidance × Loss Type (experienced vs. external metric) interaction effects. These studies suggest that avoidantly attached people, who tend to be vigilant to autonomy threats in relationships, experience relationship-linked changes as losses, even though external metrics fail to detect such loss. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Who are "We"? Couple Identity Clarity and Romantic Relationship Commitment.

This research introduces the construct of couple identity clarity-the extent to which an individual, as one of two partners in a romantic relationship, believes that the two of them know who they are as a couple. Cross-sectional (Studies 1-2), experimental (Study 3), and longitudinal (Study 4) studies supported the hypothesis that couple identity clarity is associated with higher commitment. Moreover, higher couple identity clarity, although related to actual agreement between partners on their identity as a couple, predicted commitment above and beyond agreement (Study 2)-as well as predicted reduced likelihood of relationship dissolution over a 9-month period (Study 4). Exploratory analyses revealed that successful conflict resolution may enhance couple identity clarity, in turn predicting commitment (Study 4). These studies highlight the importance of people's understanding of who they are as a couple and how this understanding shapes relationship persistence.

Nursing delegation and medication administration in assisted living.

Assisted living (AL) residences are residential long-term care settings that provide housing, 24-hour oversight, personal care services, health-related services, or a combination of these on an as-needed basis. Most residents require some assistance with activities of daily living and instrumental activities of daily living, such as medication management. A resident plan of care (ie, service agreement) is developed to address the health and psychosocial needs of the resident. The amount and type of care provided, and the individual who provides that care, vary on the basis of state regulations and what services are provided within the facility. Some states require that an RN hold a leadership position to oversee medication management and other aspects of care within the facility. A licensed practical nurse/licensed vocational nurse can supervise the day-to-day direct care within the facility. The majority of direct care in AL settings is provided by direct care workers (DCWs), including certified nursing assistants or unlicensed providers. The scope of practice of a DCW varies by state and the legal structure within that state. In some states, the DCW is exempt from the nurse practice act, and in some states, the DCW may practice within a specific scope such as being a medication aide. In most states, however, the DCW scope of practice is conscribed, in part, by the delegation of responsibilities (such as medication administration) by a supervising RN. The issue of RN delegation has become the subject of ongoing discussion for AL residents, facilities, and regulators and for the nursing profession. The purpose of this article is to review delegation in AL and to provide recommendations for future practice and research in this area.

Implicit Maternal Intuition Confidence Is Associated With Maternal Well-Being Across Cultures.

The transition to motherhood involves the experience of each individual mother and child, as well as the burden of cultural expectations. Social desirability demands may impede self reports of difficulties during the transition to motherhood when using traditional explicit measures. One core component of maternal role attainment is a mother's confidence in her own intuitive knowledge of her child. This brief report presents two studies that examine a "low technology" implicit measure of maternal intuition confidence that is based within a more general decision confidence paradigm. Study 1 examined the association of both implicit and explicit maternal intuition confidence with depressive symptoms, life satisfaction, and maternal identity satisfaction in a United States sample of mothers. The implicit measure contributed to variance in each of the outcome measures, above and beyond an explicit measure. Study 2 explored the association of implicit maternal intuition confidence with life satisfaction and maternal identity satisfaction in Brazil, China, India, the United States and the United Kingdom. Across all samples, implicit maternal intuition confidence was significantly associated with satisfaction with life. However, it was significantly associated with maternal identity satisfaction only in the two individualistic countries (the United States and the United Kingdom), but not in the three collectivist countries.

Where do you end and I begin? Evidence for anticipatory, motivated self-other integration between relationship partners.

Perceiving similarity between oneself and one's romantic partner benefits both the individual and the relationship and can arise from multiple pathways that draw either the partner closer to the self or the self closer to the partner. The current research focuses on the latter. The authors investigate novel circumstances under which the self-concepts of individuals in romantic relationships may intertwine. Although self-other integration typically grows from the depth of shared experiences between relationship partners, the current research proposes a secondary pathway through which self-other integration may occur: Specifically, motivation to draw close to a romantic partner may be sufficient to evoke self-other integration even in the absence of shared experience. In 6 studies, the authors explored this anticipatory self-other integration pathway, using both current and potential romantic partners. The results supported the hypotheses by demonstrating that self-other integration can occur in an anticipatory fashion with the appropriate motivation.

Motivations for prevention or promotion following social exclusion: being rejected versus being ignored.

Social exclusion evokes powerful motivations and emotions. The present studies examined how these motivations and emotions might differ following exclusion that is explicit, active, and direct (i.e., when one is rejected) versus implicit, passive, and indirect (i.e., when one is ignored). It was hypothesized that being rejected should produce a sense of social loss and lead to more prevention-focused responses, including withdrawal from social contact, thoughts about actions one should not have taken, and increased feelings of agitation. In contrast, being ignored should produce a sense of failure to achieve social gain and lead to more promotion-focused responses, including reengagement in social contact, thoughts about actions one should have taken, and increased feelings of dejection. These hypotheses were supported across 4 studies in which people recalled or underwent experiences of being rejected or ignored. Past research on active versus passive exclusion is reexamined and found to be consistent with these hypotheses as well.

Affect processing and positive syndrome schizotypy in cannabis users.

While cannabis is associated with positive syndrome schizophrenia (SZ), it is unclear whether cannabinoids are also related to negative symptoms such as affective blunting. We examined whether cannabis use is associated with schizotypy and utilized event-related potentials (ERPs) to assess affect processing. Cannabis users demonstrated increased P300 amplitudes for unpleasant trait words, and demonstrated higher positive syndrome schizotypy which correlated with levels of cannabis use. The cannabis group also exhibited lower negative syndrome schizotypy. The lack of blunted responses during the affect ERP and decreased negative subscale schizotypy scores provide evidence that the endocannabinoid theory of schizophrenia may be primarily relevant in relation to positive syndrome SZ.

Benefits of membership: the activation and amplification of group identities in response to social rejection.

Groups vary in the range of benefits they provide to members, but one potential benefit of membership is a confirmation of individuals' sense of belonging to a larger social whole. The current studies present an exploration of this potential benefit by examining the activation and amplification of group identities and memberships following rejection. Results demonstrate that rejected participants exhibited heightened activation of group constructs, social identities, and idiosyncratic group memberships (Studies 1 and 2) and judged their own groups to be more entitative (meaningful and cohesive) than other groups (Study 3) as compared to controls. Moreover, heightened activation of group constructs and entitative group memberships after rejection was associated with higher self-esteem (Studies 1 and 2) and more positive mood (Study 4). The potential use of group identity activation and amplification as an indirect belonging regulation strategy is discussed within the context of a broader belonging regulation model.

You Can't See the Real Me: Attachment Avoidance, Self-Verification, and Self-Concept Clarity.

Attachment shapes people's experiences in their close relationships and their self-views. Although attachment avoidance and anxiety both undermine relationships, past research has primarily emphasized detrimental effects of anxiety on the self-concept. However, as partners can help people maintain stable self-views, avoidant individuals' negative views of others might place them at risk for self-concept confusion. We hypothesized that avoidance would predict lower self-concept clarity and that less self-verification from partners would mediate this association. Attachment avoidance was associated with lower self-concept clarity (Studies 1-5), an effect that was mediated by low self-verification (Studies 2-3). The association between avoidance and self-verification was mediated by less self-disclosure and less trust in partner feedback (Study 4). Longitudinally, avoidance predicted changes in self-verification, which in turn predicted changes in self-concept clarity (Study 5). Thus, avoidant individuals' reluctance to trust or become too close to others may result in hidden costs to the self-concept.

"You've Changed": Low Self-Concept Clarity Predicts Lack of Support for Partner Change.

People often pursue self-change, and having a romantic partner who supports these changes increases relationship satisfaction. However, most existing research focuses only on the experience of the person who is changing. What predicts whether people support their partner's change? People with low self-concept clarity resist self-change, so we hypothesized that they would be unsupportive of their partner's changes. People with low self-concept clarity did not support their partner's change (Study 1a), because they thought they would have to change, too (Study 1b). Low self-concept clarity predicted failing to support a partner's change, but not vice versa (Studies 2 and 3), and only for larger changes (Study 3). Not supporting a partner's change predicted decreases in relationship quality for both members of the couple (Studies 2 and 3). This research underscores the role of partners in self-change, suggesting that failing to support a partner's change may stem from self-concept confusion.

The role of the self-concept and the social context in determining the behavior of power holders: self-construal in intergroup versus dyadic dispute resolution negotiations.

In this work, the authors explored how a person's view of himself or herself might determine his or her use of power in a complex dispute resolution negotiation. In 3 studies of asymmetric power in negotiations, the authors demonstrated that the impact of power on motivation and behavior is moderated by both a person's self-view and the social context. In Study 1, the results revealed that in a one-on-one dispute, powerful individuals primed to hold an interdependent (as opposed to independent) self-construal are more generous in resolving their disputes with low-powered opponents. Study 2 replicated this finding but revealed a different pattern in intergroup disputes, in which powerful interdependent teams of negotiators are actually less generous than are independent teams. Study 3 provided a conceptual replication of Study 2, with the use of chronic measures of self-construal and self-reported measures of behavior. Results suggest that an interdependent self-construal may lead to a more benevolent use of power in dyadic conflicts but more exploitive uses of power in intergroup conflicts. Implications for the understanding of power and self-construal are discussed.

On the outside looking in: loneliness and social monitoring.

The skill-deficit view of loneliness posits that unskilled social interactions block lonely individuals from social inclusion. The current studies examine loneliness in relation to social attention and perception processes thought to be important for socially skilled behavior. Two studies investigate the association between social monitoring (attention to social information and cues) and self-reported loneliness and number of close social ties. In Study 1, higher levels of loneliness are related to increased rather than decreased incidental social memory. In Study 2, individuals with fewer reported friends show heightened decoding of social cues in faces and voices. Results of these studies suggest that the attentional and perceptual building blocks of socially skilled behavior remain intact, and perhaps enhanced, in lonely individuals. Implications for recent models of belonging regulation and theories of loneliness are discussed.

Choking under social pressure: social monitoring among the lonely.

Lonely individuals may decode social cues well but have difficulty putting such skills to use precisely when they need them--in social situations. In four studies, we examined whether lonely people choke under social pressure by asking participants to complete social sensitivity tasks framed as diagnostic of social skills or nonsocial skills. Across studies, lonely participants performed worse than nonlonely participants on social sensitivity tasks framed as tests of social aptitude, but they performed just as well or better than the nonlonely when the same tasks were framed as tests of academic aptitude. Mediational analyses in Study 3 and misattribution effects in Study 4 indicate that anxiety plays an important role in this choking effect. This research suggests that lonely individuals may not need to acquire social skills to escape loneliness; instead, they must learn to cope with performance anxiety in interpersonal interactions.

Putative targets of CNS melanocortin receptor activity.

Chronic antagonism of hypothalamic melanocortin receptors, primarily melanocortin-4 receptor (MC4R), is the molecular basis for "agouti obesity syndrome," whereas suppression of MC4R gene activity due to genetic mutations induces obesity in both rodents and humans. However, little is known about the neurocircuitry of MC4R-mediated control of energy balance, the regulation of MC4R gene expression, or how suppression of MC4R activity leads to differential expression of potential downstream central nervous system (CNS) targets or effectors of melanocortin signaling. This paper focuses on strategies for mapping CNS melanocortin circuits using transgenic mouse models for conditional expression of MC4R and MC3R as well as progress in characterizing the murine MC4R promoter. Additionally, preliminary studies that focus on putative targets of melanocortinergic signaling will include a discussion of CD81, a gene identified using the polymerase chain reaction-based method of suppression subtractive hybridization. CD81, first described as TAPA-1 (target of antiproliferative antibody), is a member of the tetraspanin family of cell surface proteins believed to function in cell-cell adhesion, signal transduction, and possibly neuronal plasticity. Elevated expression of CD81 mRNA in hypothalamic regions of obese yellow mice suggests that loss of MC4R activity may lead to altered neuronal function via modulation of the cell surface protein CD81.

When you and I are "we," you are not threatening: the role of self-expansion in social comparison.

Many theories of self-evaluation emphasize the power of social comparison. Simply put, an individual is thought to gain esteem whenever she or he outperforms others and to lose esteem when he or she is outperformed. The current research explored interdependent self-construal as a moderator of these effects. Two studies used a priming task to manipulate the level of self-construal and investigate effects of social comparison in dyadic (Study 1) and group situations (Study 2). Both studies demonstrated that when the target for comparison is construed as part of the self, his or her successes become cause for celebration rather than costs to esteem. Additionally, gender differences in chronic relational and collective self-construals moderated the patterns of social comparison in a form similar to that of priming relational and collective self-construals.

Getting a cue: the need to belong and enhanced sensitivity to social cues.

To successfully establish and maintain social relationships, individuals need to be sensitive to the thoughts and feelings of others. In the current studies, the authors predicted that individuals who are especially concerned with social connectedness--individuals high in the need to belong--would be particularly attentive to and accurate in decoding social cues. In Study 1, individual differences in the need to belong were found to be positively related to accuracy in identifying vocal tone and facial emotion. Study 2 examined attention to vocal tone and accuracy in a more complex social sensitivity task (an empathic accuracy task). Replicating the results of Study 1, need to belong scores predicted both attention to vocal tone and empathic accuracy. Study 3 provided evidence that the enhanced performance shown by those high in the need to belong is specific to social perception skills rather than to cognitive problem solving more generally.

How Will "I" Versus "We" Perform? An Investigation of Future Outlooks and Self-Construals.

Previous theory and research suggests that people generate predictions to prepare for an uncertain future, often basing predictions on task-relevant information like prior performance. Four studies test the hypothesis that preparation via prediction occurs more readily when interdependent (vs. independent) self-construals are salient. This hypothesis was supported when examining chronic tendencies to generate negative predictions (Study 1) and spontaneous predictions in response to task-relevant information (Studies 2, 3, and 4), as well as when self-construals were measured (Studies 1, 2, and 4) and primed (Study 3). Moreover, performance prediction occurs in conjunction with increases in task persistence, but only for individuals with interdependent self-construals. Individuals with independent self-construals tend toward preparation via prediction only when preparation is urgent. Discussion centers on the applicability of within-cultural differences in self-construal on cross-cultural investigations, and implications for future research on predictive judgments.

Remind Me Who I Am: Social Interaction Strategies for Maintaining the Threatened Self-Concept.

After failure, individuals frequently turn to others for support. The current research examined the process through which individuals utilize interpersonal relationships to stabilize threatened self-views. We may seek support to reassure us with warmth and acceptance after a self-threat, or to provide support for threatened self-knowledge. We proposed that although both types of support are likely to repair the affective consequences of a self-threat, only interacting with others who can provide evidence from the individuals' past that reconfirms a threatened self-aspect would help stabilize the self-concept. Two studies demonstrated that, for individuals who have suffered a self-threat, receiving specific evidentiary support for the threatened self-aspect was more effective at restoring confidence in both the specific self-aspect and at recovering self-concept clarity than was receiving emotional support, whether the interaction was imagined (Study 1), or offered in person (Study 2) after the threat.

When a threat to the brand is a threat to the self: the importance of brand identification and implicit self-esteem in predicting defensiveness.

This research examines how people respond when a commercial brand they identify with is threatened. Across four studies, the authors found that among participants who identified with a brand, a threat to the brand elicited the same responses as a threat to the self. Specifically, participants with low implicit self-esteem defended the brand when the self was activated, unlike their high implicit self-esteem counterparts. In addition, brand defense was reduced when individuals had the opportunity to affirm a valued aspect of their self-concept. These findings suggest that when a brand that people identify with is threatened, they may defend the brand to preserve the integrity of the self. More broadly, these findings are consistent with the notion that brands may be included into the extended self-concept, which supports William James's original ideas concerning the breadth and heterogeneity of the self.

Who am I without you? The influence of romantic breakup on the self-concept.

Romantic relationships alter the selves of the individuals within them. Partners develop shared friends and activities and even overlapping self-concepts. This intertwining of selves may leave individuals' self-concepts vulnerable to change if the relationship ends. The current research examines several different types of self-concept change that could occur after a breakup and their relation to emotional distress. Across three studies, using varied methodologies, the authors examined change in both the content (Study 1a and 1b) and the structure of the self-concept, specifically, reduced self-concept clarity (Studies 1 through 3). As predicted, individuals experienced self-concept content change and reduced self-concept clarity post-breakup. Additionally, reduced clarity uniquely predicted post-breakup emotional distress.