Thinking About the Joneses
07 Dec 2018-Vol. 25, Iss: 3, pp 83-95
TL;DR: The authors found that social comparison and rumination are associated with lower levels of subjective well-being, and that an intervention to change the appraisal of social comparison situations would change the mood of participants.
Abstract: . Social comparison and rumination are associated with lower levels of subjective well-being. We expected that an intervention to change the appraisal of social comparison situations would ...
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TL;DR: All prices quoted are in USD, per person, based on double occupancy and do not include air transportation costs (unless otherwise stated) and valid until October 1, 2015.
Abstract: TUSCANY All prices quoted are in USD, per person, based on double occupancy and do not include air transportation costs (unless otherwise stated) and valid until October 1, 2015. Please contact us for current pricing and information. Single prices are available upon request (limited availability).
83 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigated the relationship between mindfulness and eudaimonic well-being in Thai contexts and explored the mediating roles of rumination and emotion dysregulation on this relationship.
Abstract: Mindfulness has been widely studied in Western psychology for reducing psychological distress. However, several scholars noted that in the East, where the concept originated, mindfulness may be understood differently. In Eastern cultures such as Thailand, mindfulness is not only employed to deal with suffering but also to promote well-being. To the best of our knowledge, no studies have been undertaken to evaluate the relationship between traditional mindfulness and eudaimonic well-being in Eastern contexts. In the present study, we investigated the relationships between mindfulness and eudaimonic well-being in Thai contexts. We also explored the mediating roles of rumination and emotion dysregulation on this relationship. Data were collected from 312 Thai undergraduates who completed a measure of Eudaimonic Well-Being, the Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory, the Rumination-Reflection Questionnaire, and the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale. Results largely supported our hypotheses. Mindfulness was found to have a positive and direct association with eudaimonic well-being. Rumination and emotion dysregulation partially mediated this association. Additionally, both rumination and emotion dysregulation had negative and direct association with eudaimonic well-being. The findings highlight the positive influences of mindfulness on well-being. The benefits of mindfulness for improvement of eudaimonic well-being through reducing rumination and emotion dysfunction are discussed.
4 citations
TL;DR: The link between status and self-esteem remains theoretically and empirically controversial as discussed by the authors, and several hypotheses derived from it have been proposed, such as sociometric status, education, income, occupation, and respect, admiration, importance.
Abstract: The link between status and self-esteem remains theoretically and empirically controversial. To help clarify it, we proposed an integrated account of status and self-esteem, and tested several hypotheses derived from it. We distinguished between two types of status: socioeconomic status (SES; education, income, occupation) and sociometric status (SMS; respect, admiration, importance). We then examined how they related to one another and to self-esteem across five studies (N = 2,018). As hypothesized, in Studies 1–2 (cross-sectional), SES and SMS correlated positively with one another, and both correlated positively with self-esteem; yet SMS predicted self-esteem more strongly than SES did. Moreover, SMS mediated the link between SES and self-esteem, and this statistical model fit the data better than an alternative model where SMS and SES reversed roles. Studies 3–5 demonstrated causal links experimentally. In Study 3, manipulating SES to be higher (vs. lower) led to higher (vs. lower) SMS and state self-esteem, with SMS again statistically mediating the impact of SES on state self-esteem. In Study 4, manipulating SMS to be higher (vs. lower) led to higher (vs. lower) state self-esteem. Finally, in Study 5, manipulating SMS showed that it causally mediated the link between SES and state self-esteem. Our findings also persisted across multiple measurement formats and after controlling for the Big Five personality traits. They point to SMS being a more powerful and proximate predictor of self-esteem than SES, thereby illuminating the link between status and self-esteem, and adding to a growing literature on the psychology of status.
4 citations
TL;DR: The authors conducted two experiments, examining whether such comparison cues can lead to envy and lower self-esteem, and found that such cues can potentially lead to depression and self-deletion.
Abstract: Social networking sites such as Instagram provide users with numerous social comparison cues, potentially leading to envy and lower self-esteem. We conducted two experiments, examining whether such...
3 citations
Cites background from "Thinking About the Joneses"
...Yet, as SCO constitutes a rather stable trait, it may be quite difficult to change people’s tendency to “think about the Joneses” (Weber & Hagmayer, 2018)....
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References
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TL;DR: G*Power 3 provides improved effect size calculators and graphic options, supports both distribution-based and design-based input modes, and offers all types of power analyses in which users might be interested.
Abstract: G*Power (Erdfelder, Faul, & Buchner, 1996) was designed as a general stand-alone power analysis program for statistical tests commonly used in social and behavioral research. G*Power 3 is a major extension of, and improvement over, the previous versions. It runs on widely used computer platforms (i.e., Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Mac OS X 10.4) and covers many different statistical tests of thet, F, and χ2 test families. In addition, it includes power analyses forz tests and some exact tests. G*Power 3 provides improved effect size calculators and graphic options, supports both distribution-based and design-based input modes, and offers all types of power analyses in which users might be interested. Like its predecessors, G*Power 3 is free.
40,195 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors pointed out that there is a strong functional tie between opinions and abilities in humans and that the ability evaluation of an individual can be expressed as a comparison of the performance of a particular ability with other abilities.
Abstract: Hypothesis I: There exists, in the human organism, a drive to evaluate his opinions and his abilities. While opinions and abilities may, at first glance, seem to be quite different things, there is a close functional tie between them. They act together in the manner in which they affect behavior. A person’s cognition (his opinions and beliefs) about the situation in which he exists and his appraisals of what he is capable of doing (his evaluation of his abilities) will together have bearing on his behavior. The holding of incorrect opinions and/or inaccurate appraisals of one’s abilities can be punishing or even fatal in many situations. It is necessary, before we proceed, to clarify the distinction between opinions and evaluations of abilities since at first glance it may seem that one’s evaluation of one’s own ability is an opinion about it. Abilities are of course manifested only through performance which is assumed to depend upon the particular ability. The clarity of the manifestation or performance can vary from instances where there is no clear ordering criterion of the ability to instances where the performance which reflects the ability can be clearly ordered. In the former case, the evaluation of the ability does function like other opinions which are not directly testable in “objective reality’. For example, a person’s evaluation of his ability to write poetry will depend to a large extent on the opinions which others have of his ability to write poetry. In cases where the criterion is unambiguous and can be clearly ordered, this furnishes an objective reality for the evaluation of one’s ability so that it depends less on the opinions of other persons and depends more on actual comparison of one’s performance with the performance of others. Thus, if a person evaluates his running ability, he will do so by comparing his time to run some distance with the times that other persons have taken. In the following pages, when we talk about evaluating an ability, we shall mean specifically the evaluation of that ability in situations where the performance is unambiguous and is known. Most situations in real life will, of course, present situations which are a mixture of opinion and ability evaluation. In a previous article (7) the author posited the existence of a drive to determine whether or not one’s opinions were “correct”. We are here stating that this same drive also produces behavior in people oriented toward obtaining an accurate appraisal of their abilities. The behavioral implication of the existence of such a drive is that we would expect to observe behaviour on the part of persons which enables them to ascertain whether or not their opinions are correct and also behavior which enables them accurately to evaluate their abilities. It is consequently
16,927 citations
"Thinking About the Joneses" refers background in this paper
...Festinger (1954) suggested that the self-perception of persons is partially based on relative information....
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...Festinger (1954) suggested that people prefer to socially compare to similar others, in order to gain most information and to make the most accurate judgments....
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Posted Content•
TL;DR: Wilson's (1967) review of the area of subjective well-being (SWB) advanced several conclusions regarding those who report high levels of "happiness". A number of his conclusions have been overturned: youth and modest aspirations no longer are seen as prerequisites of SWB.
Abstract: W. Wilson's (1967) review of the area of subjective well-being (SWB) advanced several conclusions regarding those who report high levels of "happiness". A number of his conclusions have been overturned: youth and modest aspirations no longer are seen as prerequisites of SWB. E. Diener's (1984) review placed greater emphasis on theories that stressed psychological factors. In the current article, the authors review current evidence for Wilson's conclusions and discuss modern theories of SWB that stress dispositional influences, adaptation, goals, and coping strategies. The next steps in the evolution of the field are to comprehend the interaction of psychological factors with life circumstances in producing SWB, to understand the causal pathways leading to happiness, understand the processes underlying adaptation to events, and develop theories that explain why certain variables differentially influence the different components of SWV (life satisfaction, pleasant affect, and unpleasant affect).
9,254 citations
TL;DR: Wilson's (1967) review of the area of subjective well-being (SWB) advanced several conclusions regarding those who report high levels of "happiness" A number of his conclusions have been overturned: youth and modest aspirations no longer are seen as prerequisites of SWB as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: W Wilson's (1967) review of the area of subjective well-being (SWB) advanced several conclusions regarding those who report high levels of "happiness" A number of his conclusions have been overturned: youth and modest aspirations no longer are seen as prerequisites of SWB E Diener's (1984) review placed greater emphasis on theories that stressed psychological factors In the current article, the authors review current evidence for Wilson's conclusions and discuss modern theories of SWB that stress dispositional influences, adaptation, goals, and coping strategies The next steps in the evolution of the field are to comprehend the interaction of psychological factors with life circumstances in producing SWB, to understand the causal pathways leading to happiness, understand the processes underlying adaptation to events, and develop theories that explain why certain variables differentially influence the different components of SWB (life satisfaction, pleasant affect, and unpleasant affect) In 1967, Warner Wilson presented a broad review of subjective well-being (SWB) research entitled, "Correlates of Avowed Happiness" Based on the limited data available at that time, Wilson concluded that the happy person is a "young, healthy, welleducated, well-paid, extroverted, optimistic, worry-free, religious, married person with high self-esteem, job morale, modest aspirations, of either sex and of a wide range of intelligence" (p 294) In the three decades since Wilson's review, investigations into SWB have evolved Although researchers now know a great deal more about the correlates of SWB, they are less interested in simply describing the demographic characteristics that correlate with it Instead, they focus their effort on understanding the processes that underlie happiness This trend represents a greater recognition of the central role played by people's goals, coping efforts, and dispositions In this article, we review research on several major theoretical approaches to well-being and then indicate how these theories clarify the findings on demographic correlates of SWB Throughout the review we suggest four directions that researchers should pursue in the decades ahead These are by no means the only questions left to answer, but we believe they are the most interesting issues left to resolve First, the causal direction of the correlates of happiness must be examined through more sophisticated methodologies Although the causal priority of demographic factors such as marriage and income is intuitively appealing, it is by no means certain Second, researchers must focus greater attention on the interaction between internal factors (such as personality traits) and external circumstances As we shall see, demographic factors have surprisingly small effects on SWB, but these effects may depend on the personalities of those individuals being studied Thus, future research must take Person X Situation interactions into account Third, researchers must strive to understand the processes underlying adaptation Considerable adaptation to both good and bad circumstances often occurs, yet the processes responsible for these effects are poorly understood Research that examines how habituation, coping strategies, and changing goals influence adaptation will shed much light on the processes responsible for SWB Finally, theories must be refined to make specific predictions about how input variables differentially influence the components of SWB In the past, many researchers have treated SWB as a monolithic entity, but it is now clear that there are separable components that exhibit unique patterns of relations with different variables In each section of this article we discuss progress and opportunities in these four areas
8,352 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors defined clinically significant change as the extent to which therapy moves someone outside the range of the dysfunctional population or within the ranges of the functional population, and proposed a reliable change index (RC) to determine whether the magnitude of change for a given client is statistically reliable.
Abstract: In 1984, Jacobson, Follette, and Revenstorf defined clinically significant change as the extent to which therapy moves someone outside the range of the dysfunctional population or within the range of the functional population. In the present article, ways of operationalizing this definition are described, and examples are used to show how clients can be categorized on the basis of this definition. A reliable change index (RC) is also proposed to determine whether the magnitude of change for a given client is statistically reliable. The inclusion of the RC leads to a twofold criterion for clinically significant change.
7,653 citations
"Thinking About the Joneses" refers methods or result in this paper
...As a further indicator for a statistically reliable and clinically significant change, the reliable change index (RCI; Jacobson & Truax, 1991) was computed....
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...The reliable change indices (RCI; Jacobson & Truax, 1991) corroborate these findings on the individual level....
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