Come on, give it to me baby: Self-esteem, narcissism, and endorsing sexual coercion following social rejection

Endorsement and acceptance of sexually coercive strategies as a means to an end contributes to the global problem of sexual victimization. The current research tests how personality traits that make people sensitive to rejection (i.e., self-esteem) and predisposed to non-communal attitudes (i.e., narcissism) interact with a situational factor—perceived social rejection—to predict when people endorse the use of sexual coercion. This work also explores whether different facets of narcissism better predict endorsement of coercion than others. Participants in two online studies (Ntotal = 740), completed background measures including the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale and the Narcissistic Admiration and Rivalry Questionnaire. Next, participants were randomly assigned to write about a recent incident of rejection or acceptance by a close other. Finally, endorsement of sexual coercion was measured using a questionnaire (adapted from Shackelford & Goetz, 2004). Consistent with predictions, across two studies, single (but not romantically attached) people with high narcissism and low self-esteem were more likely to endorse sexual coercion following reminders of rejection by close others. Our findings demonstrate that personality and situational factors interact to predict endorsement of sexual coercion, and that focusing on either alone might obscure the path to understanding the “whos” and “whens” of sexual assault

Implicitly imprinting the past on the present: Automatic partner attitudes and the transition to parenthood

A new model is proposed to explain how automatic partner attitudes affect how couples cope with major life transitions. The Automatic Partner Attitudes in Transition (APAT) model assumes that people simultaneously possess contextualized automatic attitudes toward their partner that can differ substantively in valence pre- and post-transition. It further assumes that evaluatively inconsistent pre- and post-transition automatic partner attitudes elicit heightened behavioral angst or uncertainty, self-protective behavior in response to risk, and relationship distress. A longitudinal study of the transition to first parenthood supported the model. People with evaluatively inconsistent automatic partner attitudes, whether more negative pre-transition and positive post-transition, or more positive pre-transition and negative post-transition, exhibited heightened evidence of cardiovascular threat discussing conflicts, increased self-protective behavior in response to parenting-related transgressions in daily interaction, and steeper declines in relationship well-being in the year following the transition to parenthood

Facing the Facets: No Association Between Dispositional Mindfulness Facets and Positive Momentary Stress Responses During Active Stressors

Mindfulness has been associated with enhanced coping with stress. However, it remains unclear how dispositional mindfulness impacts the nature and valence of experiences during active stressors. Across 1,001 total participants, we used cardiovascular responses from the biopsychosocial model of challenge/threat to assess the degree to which individuals cared about a stressor in the moment and had a positive versus negative psychological experience. Although we found a small association between mindfulness—particularly the acting with awareness facet—and responses consistent with caring more about the stressor(i.e., greater task engagement), we found no evidence that mindfulness was associated with exhibiting a more positive psychological response (i.e., greater challenge)during the stressor. Despite no differences in the valence of momentary experiences as a function of mindfulness, individuals higher in mindfulness self-reported more positive experiences afterward. These findings suggest that dispositional mindfulness may benefit responses to active stressors only after they have passed

Lovers in a dangerous time: Ecologically motivated relationship safety regulation

The proposed model of ecologically motivated relationship safety regulation posits that close relationships offer symbolic safety when natural ecologically-based threats activate the need for self-preservation. The model makes the twin assumptions that (1) natural ecological threats motivate people in unreliable relationships to perceive their relationships as bastions of safety, but (2) that their personal capacities for resilience in the face of threat constrain such motivated perceptions. Two internal meta-analyses of 4 correlational/cross-sectional and 5 experimental studies (Ntotal=5,030) using different methods and conceptualizations of natural ecological threats (acute and chronic pain; pathogenic transmission) supported the hypotheses. People in less satisfying relationships symbolically defended against natural ecological threats by affirming the available safety in their close relationships when they were high in self-esteem (i.e., high in personal resiliency), but not when they were low in self-esteem. However, people in highly satisfying relationships did not defend against natural ecological threats, likely because they already felt safe in their relationships

Pursuing Safety in Social Connection Regulates the Risk-Regulation, Social-Safety and Behavioral-Immune Systems

A new goal-systems model is proposed to help explain when individuals will protect themselves against the risks inherent to social connection. This model assumes that people satisfy the goal to feel included in safe social connections—connections where they are valued and protected rather than at risk of being harmed—by devaluing rejecting friends, trusting in expectancy–consistent relationships, and avoiding infectious strangers. In the hypothesized goal system, frustrating the fundamental goal to feel safe in social connection sensitizes regulatory systems that afford safety from the risk of being interpersonally rejected (i.e., the risk-regulation system), existentially uncertain (i.e., the social-safety system), or physically infected (i.e., the behavioral-immune system). Conversely, fulfilling the fundamental goal to feel safe in social connection desensitizes these self-protective systems. A 3-week experimental daily diary study (N = 555) tested the model hypotheses. We intervened to fulfill the goal to feel safe in social connection by repeatedly conditioning experimental participants to associate their romantic partners with highly positive, approachable words and images. We then tracked how vigilantly experimental versus control participants protected themselves when they encountered social rejection, unexpected behavior, or contagious illness in everyday life. Multilevel analyses revealed that the intervention lessoned self-protective defenses against each of these risks for participants who ordinarily felt most vulnerable to them. The findings provide the first evidence that the fundamental goal to feel safe in social connection can co-opt the risk-regulation, social-safety, and behavioral-immune systems as independent means for its pursuit

Looking for Safety in all the Right Places: When Threatening Political Reality Strengthens Family Relationship Bonds

Elections and pandemics highlight how much one’s safety depends on fellow community members, a realization that is especially threatening when the collective perceives political realities inconsistent with one’s own. Two longitudinal studies examined how people restored safety to social bonds when everyday experience suggested that fellow community members inhabited inconsistent realities. We operationalized consensus political realities through the negativity of daily, nation-wide social media posts mentioning President Trump (Studies 1 and 2), and the risks of depending on fellow community members through the pending transition to a divided Congress during the 2018 election season (Study 1), and escalating daily U.S. COVID-19 infections (Study 2). On days that revealed people could not count on fellow community members to perceive the same reality of President Trump’s stewardship they perceived, being at greater risk from the judgment and behavior of the collective community motivated people to find greater happiness in their family relationships

A Moth to a Flame? Fulfilling Connectedness Needs Through Romantic Relationships Protects Conspiracy Theorists Against COVID-19 Misinformation

Conspiracy theorists’ unpopular opinions likely make them more apprehensive about interactions with others, frustrating their need to belong. Therefore, they may be susceptible to believing misinformation because evidence that others share their beliefs provides “social proof” that they can expect interactions with others to be positive and rewarding. The present research examined whether alternatively fulfilling the need for social connection through romantic relationships could protect conspiracy theorists against COVID-19 misinformation. In a 3-week daily diary study (N = 555), experimental participants implicitly learned to associate their romantic partners with positive experiences (by repeatedly pairing their partner with highly positive and approachable stimuli, McNulty et al., 2017). We then assessed how much participants trusted individuals they might normally distrust, as a manipulation check, and how much participants tuned their daily personal beliefs and behavior to match the U.S. public's daily susceptibility to COVID-19 misinformation. Participants high on conspiratorial thinking trusted fellow community members more in the experimental than control condition. Participants high on conspiratorial thinking in the experimental condition were also less likely to treat the U.S. public's greater daily susceptibility to COVID-19 misinformation as proof that they could discount the virus. The present findings suggest that rewarding romantic connections might be leveraged to limit conspiracy theorists’ susceptibility to believing public skepticism about COVID-19

Clever girl: Benevolent sexism and cardiovascular threat

Benevolent sexism is a double-edged sword that uses praise to maintain gender inequality, which consequently makes women feel less efficacious, agentic and competent. This study investigated whether benevolently sexist feedback that was supportive could result in cardiovascular responses indicative of threat (lower cardiac output/higher total peripheral resistance). Women received either supportive non-sexist or supportive yet benevolent sexist feedback from a male evaluator following practice trials on a verbal reasoning test. As expected, women receiving benevolent sexist feedback exhibited cardiovascular threat during a subsequent test, relative to women receiving non-sexist feedback. There was no support for an alternative hypothesis that benevolent sexist feedback would lead to cardiovascular responses consistent with disengaging from the task altogether (i.e., lower heart rate and ventricular contractility). These findings illustrate that the consequences of benevolent sexism can occur spontaneously, while women are engaged with a task, and when the sexist feedback is intended as supportive