Positive Self-descriptions Research Articles

DISCURSIVE CONSTRUCTION OF IDENTITY IN NIGERIAN NEWSPAPER REPORTS ON PIPELINE VANDALISM

Scholarly works on pipeline vandalism have paid extensive attention to empirical questions of causes and consequences. But there remains a dearth of studies on the representation of the acts of vandalism in newspapers, which is necessary for evaluating what message about the problem is being disseminated to the citizens and how that could contribute to resolving the problem or sustaining it. This paper examines the identity construction for critical social actors in Nigerian newspaper reports on pipeline vandalism. Sixteen –news samples were purposively selected from three newspapers: The Tide, New Waves, and The Guardian published between 2015 and 2019. Theoretically, the study is anchored on a combination of Fina’s (2011) identity process and van Dijk’s (1995, 2006a, 2006b) in-group/out-group description. The analysis involved accounting for the deployment of group self-schemata (van Dijk, 1995, 2005) and ideological strategies (van Dijk, 2006) in realising the three identity processes of indexing, positioning, and local occasioning established by Fina (2011). The study finds that through a combination of media identity ascription and social actors’ positive-self description in the news reports, each of the major stakeholders in the conflict assumes an identity of innocence and responsible entity while shifting the blame to others. It concludes therefore that this could be responsible for the difficulty in ending the conflict.

Narrative composition of Russian public diplomacy: content analysis of the Facebook engagement of Russia’s embassy in Japan

ABSTRACT The article contributes to the discussion of Russia’s public diplomacy efforts to transmit and diffuse certain narratives to foreign audiences online. Utilizing the case of understudied Russia’s public diplomacy strategies concerning Asian countries, the study analyzes what narratives Russia’s embassy projected to the Japanese public from 2013 to 2019. The findings demonstrate that although the embassy gives preference to positive self-description over active advocacy, it constructs Russia’s image through history-dependent narratives. This practice is unlikely to contribute to the understanding of modern Russia, which its political elites are striving for. The study contributes to the overall understanding of the narrative composition that Russia constructs as a part of its public diplomacy efforts. The article also brings together elements of qualitative and quantitative methodology to conduct a content analysis of narratives online, which paves the way for further investigation of social media public diplomacy practices.

How Self-Appraisal Is Mediated by the Brain.

Self-appraisal is a process that leads to the formation of self-esteem, which contributes to subjective well-being and mental health. Neuroimaging studies link self-esteem with the activity of the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC), right temporoparietal junction (rTPJ), posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), anterior insula (AIns), and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. It is not known, however, how the process of self-appraisal itself is mediated by the brain and how different nodes of the self-appraisal network interact with each other. In this study, we used multilevel mediation analysis of functional MRI data recorded during the trait adjective judgment task, treating the emotional valence of adjectives as the predictor, behavioral response as the dependent variable, and brain activity as the mediator. The mediation effect was revealed in the rTPJ. Dynamic causal modeling showed that positive self-descriptions trigger communication within the network, with the rTPJ exerting the strongest excitatory output and MPFC receiving the strongest excitatory input. rAIns receives the strongest inhibitory input and sends exclusively inhibitory connections to other regions pointing out to its role in the processing of negative self-descriptions. Analysis of individual differences showed that in some individuals, self-appraisal is mostly driven by the endorsement of positive self-descriptions and is accompanied by increased activation and communication between rTPJ, MPFC, and PCC. In others, self-appraisal is driven by the rejection of negative self-descriptions and is accompanied by increased activation of rAIns and inhibition of PCC and MPFC. Membership of these groups was predicted by different personality variables. This evidence uncovers different mechanisms of positive self-bias, which may contribute to different facets of self-esteem and are associated with different personality profiles.

Perceiving Social Pressure not to Feel Negative is Linked to a More Negative Self-concept

The current cultural standard in western societies expects people to be happy and not sad. While the pursuit of positive emotion is strongly encouraged in modern societal discourse, occasionally feeling negative is easily considered maladaptive or abnormal. It is in our human nature to comply with social expectations, and the extent to which we are able to do so has important consequences for how we view or present ourselves, generally referred to as our self-concept. Here, we investigate how the perception of the societal norm to avoid negative emotions relates to people’s self-concept. In an online survey (n = 98), we assessed people’s perceived social expectancies not to experience feelings such as anxiety or depression. We evaluated the emotional quality of participants’ self-concept via an open-response 15-statements task in which they freely described themselves, and from which we extracted the positive and negative emotion words using the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count software. We found that people’s perceived social expectancies not to experience negative affect related to more negative and less positive self-descriptions. Furthermore, multiple linear regression revealed that this association was independent of people’s desire to socially conform, but a function of their actual emotion/symptom levels. Together, these findings further support the premise that today’s societal standard to avoid negative affect is unattainable, inevitably disclosing discrepancies between people’s actual occasional negative feelings and the desired emotion norm. Because this process is associated with negative self-evaluations, this may lead to an ironic amplification of these unwanted negative states.

The self-identified positive attributes and favourite activities of children on the autism spectrum

BackgroundWhen autism is viewed through a deficit lens the strengths, positive attributes and interests of individuals on the spectrum can be overshadowed. A strengths-based focus counteracts the deficit view that is traditionally associated with developmental disabilites. More strength-based research is needed in the field to shift the emphasis from difficulties, to the positive attributes and interests of individuls on the autism spectrum. MethodEighty-three children on the autism spectrum (aged 8 to 15 years) responded to the following questions: “What do you like most about yourself?”, “What are you absolutely best at?” and “What do you enjoy the most?” ResultsSimilar responses were collated into themes within the data using content analysis. When asked “What do you like most about yourself?” a good friend or person to be around (n = 15; 18.5 %) and I am good at particular things (n = 14; 16.8 %) were the most common themes. Children identified that they were “absolutely best at” physical activity (n = 20; 24 %) and maths/science (n = 13; 15.6 %). Overall, technology and gaming (n = 42; 50.6 %) and social interaction were the most endorsed themes (n = 29; 34.9 %) in response to “What do you enjoy most?” ConclusionsSelf-report studies provide individuals on the autism spectrum with a much-needed opportunity to express and share their attributes, strengths and interests with others, adding their voice to the literature. Further work is needed to explore the impact of such positive self-descriptions on an individual’s positive sense of self and self-confidence.

Self-Perceptions and Factors Associated With Being Put Down at School Among Middle and High School Students.

This study assessed the prevalence of verbally being put down by others and intrapersonal and normative factors associated with being put down by others among middle and high school students. Students (N = 1,027) completed the Adolescent Health Risk Behavior Survey. Over 16% of participants reported being put down at school. Students who identified with the negative words confused, unattractive, dull, and careless and identified less with the positive words popular, smart, considerate, cool, and self-confident reported being put down by others. High school students were less likely to be put down. As students scored higher on the Negative Self-Description Scale, their odds of being put down increased. As students scored higher on the Positive Self-Description Scale, their odds of being put down decreased. Students who perceived their friends drinking alcohol regularly were less likely to be put down. Strategies to enhance self-perceptions to raise self-awareness and form healthy/positive identities are needed.

Socially Desirable Responding

This article investigated the dimensionality, measurement invariance, and cross-cultural variations of social desirability. A total of 3,471 university students from 20 countries completed an adapted version of the Marlowe–Crowne scale. A two-dimensional structure was revealed in the pooled sample, distinguishing enhancement (endorsement of positive self-description) and denial (rejection of negative self-description). The factor structure was supported in most countries; medium-sized item bias was found in two denial items. In a multilevel analysis, we found that (a) there was more cross-cultural variation in denial than enhancement; (b) females tended to score higher on enhancement whereas males tended to score higher on denial; (c) the Human Development Index, an indicator of country socioeconomic development, was the best (negative) predictor of denial; and (d) both enhancement and denial seemed to be associated with country-level values and personality pertinent to “fitting in.” We conclude that social desirability has a positive and a negative impression management dimension that are meaningfully associated with country-level characteristics, and we argue that social desirability is better interpreted as culturally regulated response amplification.

Assistive Hearing Technologies Among Students With Hearing Impairment: Factors That Promote Satisfaction

Hearing technology can play an essential part in the education of deaf and hard-of-hearing children in inclusive schools. Few studies have examined these children's experiences with this technology. This article explores factors pertaining to children's use of and attitudes toward hearing technologies, such as hearing aids, cochlear implants, teacher-worn microphones, and student-worn microphones. The study included 153 deaf and hard-of-hearing students. All students communicated orally and were in inclusive schools from grades 5-10. The results suggest that males view hearing technology more positively than do females. Having severe hearing loss also promoted positive attitudes toward hearing aids and cochlear implants, but not toward microphones. The students with positive self-descriptions tended to be more satisfied with hearing aids or cochlear implants than the students with negative self-descriptions. The main factors promoting the use of hearing aids were severe hearing loss, positive attitudes toward hearing aids, and the sound quality of hearing aids.

The Interactional Organization of Self-praise

This article contributes to a social psychological understanding of identity by identifying some features of the interactional organization of self-praise. Early conversation analytic work on the epistemics of self-assessment and constraints against self-praise has shown that praising oneself is an interactionally delicate matter that may leave one vulnerable to “unfavorable character assessment” or accusations of bragging (Pomerantz 1978:89). Drawing on data examples from a range of settings, this article develops Pomerantz’s work and examines the role of reported third-party compliments (e.g., “she . . . said ‘you look really lovely’”) in objectifying self-praise. Analyzing instances in which speakers initiate repair on their self-descriptions in favor of reported third-party compliments, I provide evidence of practices suggesting a norm against direct self-praise and an interactional preference for embedding positive self-descriptions within a third-party attribution. I consider the implications of these analyses for a social psychological understanding of identity and its measurement.

The Association Between Negative Self-Descriptions and Depressive Symptomology: Does Culture Make a Difference?

Research findings that depressed Americans endorse more negative self-related adjectives than controls may be related to a shared self-enhancement cultural frame. This study examines the relationship between negative core self-descriptors and depressive symptoms in 79 Japanese and 50 American women. Americans had more positive self-descriptions and core self-descriptors; however, there were no cultural group differences in number of negative self-descriptors or core self-descriptors. There was a significant correlation between negative core self-descriptor and Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) for Americans only, explaining 10.6% of the BDI variance. Analysis of variance revealed that there was significant BDI group differences for American negative core self-descriptor only. Theoretical possibilities are discussed.

The communicated self..

This study explored the influence of social identity and social context on achievement in a counterstereotypical domain. A group of 114 inner-city African American and Mexican American 12-year-old students completed Kuhn and McPartland's (1954) 20-statement ‘Who Am I’ questionnaire and Rosenberg's (1965) self-esteem scale. Analysis of self-descriptions revealed that success in a counterstereotypical domain (e.g., academic achievement) at age 18 was predicted by a more elaborated self-concept, a more elaborated self-schema within the counterstereotypical domain, and more positive self-descriptions. A more individuated self-description was marginally related to success. Results suggest that opportunities to communicate within a variety of contexts may permit the development of a more complex and adaptable self-concept and thereby facilitate achievement in a counterstereotypical domain. Notably, self-esteem did not predict success.

Audience Perceptions of Politicians' Self-Presentational Behaviors Concerning Their Own Abilities

Effects of self-presentational behaviors of 2 German politicians during an election campaign were analyzed. Six scenes from interviews with the politicians were presented to 43 German students, who qualitatively evaluated the politicians' performances. The participants did not perceive behaviors such as interrupting journalists, brushing off criticism, reacting with countercriticism, and attacking the opponent personally as indicators of strength but interpreted them as signs of aggression and arrogance. On the other hand, the participants associated calm reactions to criticism, focused attacks on the opponent, and explanations of opinions and plans with self-assurance and competence. Although the participants evaluated overt positive self-description negatively, they evaluated indirect self-enhancement positively. The participants' party affiliations were largely unrelated to their evaluations.

Culture and Spontaneous Self-Concept Among Filipino College Students

Responses of 157 Filipino college students to the Twenty Statements Test (TST) were analyzed for content and compared with earlier responses to the TST by U.S. and Hong Kong Chinese college students. Despite the supposedly collectivist nature of the Filipino culture, far fewer Filipino students than U.S. and Hong Kong Chinese students described themselves in terms of social roles. Contrary to theoretical claims, the Filipinos made greater use of the global identity category than did either the U.S. or Hong Kong Chinese students. Evidence also supported the cross-cultural validity of 4 of the Big Five (McCrae & Costa, 1988) personality traits. However, there are questions about the relevance of Openness to Experience to any of these three cultures. Moreover, the finding that the Filipino respondents reported a higher percentage of positive self-descriptions than did either the U.S. or Chinese respondents indicated that such differences cannot be explained in terms of the individualism-collectivism dimension.

Illness self-schemas in depressed and nondepressed rheumatoid arthritis patients.

This study examined the hypothesized illness self-schemas construct in persons with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Biases in self-description, information processing, and schema-consistent illness behavior were examined in depressed and nondepressed persons with RA and compared with those of depressed and nondepressed controls. Major findings revealed that RA-depressed subjects exhibited pervasively negative self-description and biased processing of negative illness-related information. RA-nondepressed subjects demonstrated a bias for positive self-description and enhanced processing of positive illness-related information. Using regression analysis, the illness self-schema construct predicted unique variance in self-reported functional disability. Findings are reviewed in the context of previous research on self-schemas, chronic pain, and cognitive variables in chronic illness. Potential clinical implications and directions for future research are discussed. The illness self-schema construct has significant heuristic value which could guide further research on the psychosocial adjustment of individuals with chronic illnesses.

The puzzle of negative self-views: An exploration using the schema concept.

People with negative self-views seem to behave more predictably than people with positive self-views. To explain this puzzle, the authors conceptualized a self-view as a schema and postulated that negative self-views are more tightly organized schemas than are positive self-views. Studies 1a and 1b demonstrated that the elements of a negative self-view are more tightly interconnected than those of a positive self-view. Studies 2-6 demonstrated and examined a consequence of this principle, namely, that negative self-descriptions are more consistent than positive self-descriptions. For people with negative self-views, different contexts evoke the same tight schema, producing more consistent self-descriptions. This explanation integrates several findings about the self and has important implications for personality theory and assessment

The Effects of Positive Self-Descriptions on Impressions

Evidence is presented suggesting that a speaker who makes positive self-descriptions will be perceived differently as a function of the conversation context of his or her remarks. Subjects read a transcript of a conversation between two persons; one of whom made positive self-statements about his (Replication 1) or her (Replication 2) intellectual prowess. Impressions of the target were positive when these statements were made in response to specific questions or were made in the context of positive self-statements by the other. However, when the target simply took advantage of the topic of the conversation to make positive statements about the self, impressions of the target were much more negative. These effects were greater for subjects high in public self-consciousness, and this finding is used to argue that such subjects are more sensitive to the implicit rules of social interaction.

A Comparison of the First Factor of the MMPI and the First Factor of the EMMPI: The PSD Factor

The Experimental Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (EMMPI) consists of 566 nonpathological personality items, where each item is paired with a corresponding item in the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) such that both items have approximately the same social desirability scale values and the proportion of True responses. The results of the secondary analysis applied separately to the 21 MMPI trait scales and to the corresponding 21 EMMPI scales indicated that their first factor loadings were congruent and both correlated highly with the proportion of items in the scales keyed for socially desirable responses. It is proposed that both the EMMPI and the MMPI first factors be named the positive self description (PSD) factor.

Self-symbolizing and the neglect of others' perspectives.

In the present pair of studies interpersonal cues were set up, prompting selfdescriptions that would be in potential conflict with subjects' self-definitional needs. It was hypothesized that self-definitional needs would hinder subjects' responding to the interpersonal aspects of the situation. In both studies subjects committed to a certain self-definition (e.g., female professional, journalist, mathematician) were given feedback that their personality did or did not predispose them to be successful in their self-definitional realms. Subsequently, in a different context, subjects had to compete in expressing positive self-descriptions that were related or unrelated to their self-definitions (Experiment 1). Subjects given negative personality feedback dominated the competition, provided that the self-descriptions were related to the self-definition to which they felt committed. In Experiment 2, male subjects were asked to report on their standing in their self-definitional realms to an attractive female target person, after she had indicated a preference for either self-deprecating or self-aggrandizing self-descriptions. Subjects given positive personality feedback were more self-deprecating than subjects who received negative personality feedback, given the presence of a cue to be selfdeprecating. In addition, positive feedback subjects complied with the selfpresentational cue set by the target person in proportion to their attraction to her, whereas negative feedback subjects failed to do so. The results are discussed in terms of a recent notion of symbolic self-completion (Wicklund & Gollwitzer, 1982) and in terms of other views on the self.

Symbolic Self-Completion, Attempted Influence, and Self-Deprecation

A concept of symbolic self-completion states that people define themselves as musicians, athletes, etc. by use of indicators of attainment in those activity realms, such as possessing a prestige job, having extensive education, or whatever is recognized by others as indicating progress toward completing the self-definition. The self-completion idea postulates that when important symbols—indicators of self-definition—are lacking, the person will strive after further, alternative symbols of the self-definition. In the present research two modes of symbolizing completeness were studied: (1) attempting to influence others directly within the self-definitional area; or (2) simple self-descriptions of one's own performance, such that others would be exposed to those self-descriptions. Two correlational studies showed that the less education (Study 1) or on-the-job experience (Study 2) subjects had, the more they desired to influence others. Experimental subjects (Study 3) who were interrupted while writing a positive, self-descriptive statement manifested stronger influence attempts than did subjects who were allowed to finish. Finally, Study 4 examined self-descriptions as a self-symbolizing effort. Incompleteness was varied by means of a salience-of-past-teacher manipulation. When pressure was placed on subjects to characterize themselves negatively within their respective areas, those for whom a positive teacher was salient were the most willing to be negative. The interpretation of these findings assumes that influencing others, as well as positive self-descriptions, can further the individual's sense of having a complete self-definition.

Social desirability bias in self-monitoring data

This study examined effects of social desirability responding on self-monitoring data in the context of assertion training. Subjects were thirty women and men who were enrolled in assertion training. Measures included the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale (M-C), the Assertion Inventory, the Assertion Self-Statement Test (ASST), assertion diaries, and behavioral ratings of assertion and anxiety made by the group leaders. As predicted, high M-C scorers described themselves as more assertive than low M-C scorers. In addition, high M-C scorers identified fewer assertion-related goals, and they submitted fewer diaries with fewer entries describing their assertive behavior. Furthermore, they related the outcomes of their attempts at assertive behavior as more positive than low M-C scorers. High M-C scorers also endorsed more positive than negative self-statements on the ASST, while the reverse was true of the low scorers. In contrast to the more positive self-descriptions of high M-C scorers, the trainers rated this group as significantly less assertive than low scorers. Predicted differences in anxiety were not significant. Implications for the validity of self-monitoring data are discussed.