A hypothesized need to form and maintain strong, stable interpersonal relationships is evaluated in light of the empirical literature. The need is for frequent, nonaversive interactions within an ongoing relational bond. Consistent with the belongingness hypothesis, people form social attachments readily under most conditions and resist the dissolution of existing bonds. Belongingness appears to have multiple and strong effects on emotional patterns and on cognitive processes. Lack of attachments is linked to a variety of ill effects on health, adjustment, and well-being. Other evidence, such as that concerning satiation, substitution, and behavioral consequences, is likewise consistent with the hypothesized motivation. Several seeming counterexamples turned out not to disconfirm the hypothesis. Existing evidence supports the hypothesis that the need to belong is a powerful, fundamental, and extremely pervasive motivation.

The need to belong: Desire for interpersonal attachments as a fundamental human motivation.

In this article, the author describes a new theoretical perspective on positive emotions and situates this new perspective within the emerging field of positive psychology. The broaden-and-build theory posits that experiences of positive emotions broaden people's momentary thought-action repertoires, which in turn serves to build their enduring personal resources, ranging from physical and intellectual resources to social and psychological resources. Preliminary empirical evidence supporting the broaden-and-build theory is reviewed, and open empirical questions that remain to be tested are identified. The theory and findings suggest that the capacity to experience positive emotions may be a fundamental human strength central to the study of human flourishing.

http://www.elaborer.org/cours/A13/lectures/Fredrickson2001.pdf

The role of positive emotions in positive psychology. The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions.

Co-Planar Stereotaxic Atlas of the Human Brain—3-Dimensional Proportional System: An Approach to Cerebral Imaging, J. Talairach, P. Tournoux. Georg Thieme Verlag, New York (1988), 122 pp., 130 figs. DM 268

http://gosling.psy.utexas.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/JRP-03-tipi.pdf

A very brief measure of the Big-Five personality domains

Behavioral scientists routinely publish broad claims about human psychology and behavior in the world's top journals based on samples drawn entirely from Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) societies. Researchers - often implicitly - assume that either there is little variation across human populations, or that these "standard subjects" are as representative of the species as any other population. Are these assumptions justified? Here, our review of the comparative database from across the behavioral sciences suggests both that there is substantial variability in experimental results across populations and that WEIRD subjects are particularly unusual compared with the rest of the species - frequent outliers. The domains reviewed include visual perception, fairness, cooperation, spatial reasoning, categorization and inferential induction, moral reasoning, reasoning styles, self-concepts and related motivations, and the heritability of IQ. The findings suggest that members of WEIRD societies, including young children, are among the least representative populations one could find for generalizing about humans. Many of these findings involve domains that are associated with fundamental aspects of psychology, motivation, and behavior - hence, there are no obvious a priori grounds for claiming that a particular behavioral phenomenon is universal based on sampling from a single subpopulation. Overall, these empirical patterns suggests that we need to be less cavalier in addressing questions of human nature on the basis of data drawn from this particularly thin, and rather unusual, slice of humanity. We close by proposing ways to structurally re-organize the behavioral sciences to best tackle these challenges.

/pdf/the-weirdest-people-in-the-world-480wr4m3kb.pdf

The WEIRDest People in the World

In this paper we review the self-expansion model in the context of close relationships, focusing primarily on work in the last 20 years, considering throughout variation in our samples across cultures and other demographics—both in existing studies and in potential implications for future research. The self-expansion model has two key principles. The first half of the paper focuses on the motivational principle: The model theorizes that people have a fundamental desire to expand the self—that is, to increase their self-efficacy, perspectives, competence, and resources, and this often occurs through relationships in general. The second half of the paper focuses on the inclusion-of-other-in-the-self principle, in that a major means of self-expansion is through close relationships, when one’s partner’s identities, perspectives, skills, and resources become to some extent “included in the self” as also one’s own. For each principle we briefly describe its foundational research support and then explore the extensive, significant work of the last 20 years substantially expanding and deepening the implications of the model. The majority (although with some interesting exceptions) of studies have fallen short of testing the universal breadth of the model. As we review the research, we consider where the studies were conducted and with what kinds of populations. Where there are data from diverse populations, the overall pattern of results are generally similar. However, there were individual differences found within the populations studied, such as in attachment style, that affected the operation of both principles. Since there are well known differences in the distribution of such individual differences across populations of many types, it is quite likely that while the basic patterns may not differ, future research will show different degrees of operation in different populations.

Self-expansion motivation and inclusion of others in self: An updated review

People Differ in their Sensitivity to the Environment: An Integrated Theory, Measurement and Empirical Evidence

Past behavioral research has examined relationship infidelity as a potential outcome of focusing on attractive alternative partners when already in a relationship. The extent to which individuals find such alternatives attractive has been shown to be associated with various factors in the relationship, including self-expansion. However, no previous research has tested the role of self-expansion experimentally. This paper presents two experiments that directly manipulate self-expansion to determine the effect of self-expansion on responses to attractive alternative partners. Participants primed to experience a higher need for self-expansion had better memory for attractive alternatives with self-expanding traits dissimilar to their partner’s versus attractive alternatives with self-expanding traits similar to their partner’s. Additionally, , participants primed with self-expansion (via a video of their partner discussing ways in which life with one another is exciting, novel, and challenging), had less fMRI BOLD response to attractive alternatives of the opposite sex in regions associated with perception of attractive faces (anterior cingulate and medial prefrontal cortex) relative to when they were primed with love (via a video of their partner discussing times they felt strong feelings of love for one another), or neutral content (via a video of their partner discussing some times in which they engage in mundane, routine activities together). The magnitude of this effect in the ACC correlated with relationship closeness as measured by the inclusion of the other in the self scale .

/pdf/manipulation-of-self-expansion-alters-responses-to-hfa0s4ynn6.pdf

Manipulation of Self-Expansion Alters Responses to Attractive Alternative Partners.

Behavior, the Brain, and the Social Psychology of Close Relationships

Sensory processing sensitivity (SPS) is a trait associated with enhanced responsivity to environmental stimuli and the tendency to pause before acting. However, qualitative data suggest that SPS may be associated with sensation seeking (SS), a trait characterized by the seeking of novel and intense experiences. Thus, this online study examined SPS and SS among 214 individuals (mean age, 30), using the Highly Sensitive Person Scale (the standard SPS measure), a standard measure of sensation seeking (ZKA-PQ); and the newly developed Sensation-Seeking Scale for Highly Sensitive Persons (SSS/HSP). We also measured risk-taking, impulsivity, and neuroticism, as control variables. Results showed that SPS (controlling or not controlling for neuroticism) was moderately negatively correlated with the ZKA-PQ, risk-taking and impulsivity; but positively associated with negative urgency—the tendency to act impulsively due to negative affect. Also, the validity of the SSS/HSP was supported, as it showed a strong positive correlation with standard measures of SS and risk-taking, a moderate association with impulsivity, and (as it was designed to do) a near zero correlation with SPS. In conclusion, although some individuals with SPS may express high SS, the two traits are largely separate; and the SSS/HSP is a reliable measure of SS, having items better-suited for the highly sensitive. 

Arthur Aron

Papers

Self-expansion motivation and inclusion of others in self: An updated review

People Differ in their Sensitivity to the Environment: An Integrated Theory, Measurement and Empirical Evidence

Manipulation of Self-Expansion Alters Responses to Attractive Alternative Partners.

Behavior, the Brain, and the Social Psychology of Close Relationships

Sensory Processing Sensitivity and its Relation to Sensation Seeking