This article reports on three studies that investigated the effects of analyzing the reasons for one's feelings on subsequent attitudes and behavior. In the first two studies subjects were familiarized with attitude objects (puzzles or photographs), and half were instructed to analyze why they felt the way they did about these objects. Both self-report and behavioral measures of attitudes toward the objects were then assessed. In Study 3, subjects involved in dating relationships were or were not asked to analyze their relationship, then self-report and behavioral measures of adjustment (e.g., whether the couples were still dating several months later) were also assessed. In all three studies, subjects who explained reasons for their attitudes (reasons analysis condition) had significantly lower correlations between their attitudes and behavior than subjects who did not explain reasons for their attitudes (control condition). Evidence for the hypothesis that subjects in the reasons analysis conditions changed their attitudes in a less accurate direction is presented, and reasons why this change might take place are discussed.
Researchers are in sharp disagreement concerning the role of guilt in mental health and prosocial behavior, and on whether guilt is associated with greater religiosity. We sought to resolve diametrically opposed reports by distinguishing chronic guilt, an ongoing condition unattached to immediate events, from predispositional guilt, a personality proclivity for experiencing guilt in reaction to circumscribed precipitating events. We administered a battery of commonly used guilt and shame measures to 101 undergraduates (48 men, 53 women) as well as measures of chronic and predispositional guilt designed to hold content constant. Undergraduates also completed the Beck Depression Inventory and the Symptom Checklist 90-Revised, reported extracurricular activities including volunteer work and religious group participation, and provided other information on religiosity. Chronic guilt invariably showed stronger relations than did predispositional guilt with symptoms of depression and psychopathology. In contrast, predispositional compared to chronic guilt was more strongly associated with lowered hostility and increased volunteerism as well as participation in religious activities and religiosity.
Previous studies reporting that gay individuals are in worse mental health than heterosexuals have typically employed young or mixed-age samples, ignoring the role of age. Mental health problems may show greater agerelated improvement among gay than heterosexual men as indicated by the findings of the present study. In this study, the following indices of mental health are examined, and found to be comparable, among 86 heterosexual and 81 gay men aged 18-48: depression, suicidality, anger, anxiety, negative self-esteem, emotional instability, and lack of emotional responsiveness. Most indices show age-related effects among gay men, with less severe symptoms reported by older individuals. Among heterosexual men, effects of age are less widespread, although older men do report fewer symptoms of anger. Chronic shame and chronic guilt are related to mental health problems and a lessening in shame accounted, in part, for the age-related decline in depression among gay men. Different approaches to disclosing/concealing sexual identity are also linked with shame, guilt, and mental health among gay men.
We found mothers' history of depression and symptoms of depression among their adolescent children were both associated with the type of events that mothers made adolescents feel guilty about and with the mothers' reactions to those events. Adolescents (20 male, 23 female) described incidents in which their mothers made them feel guilty and what happened afterward. Offspring of mothers with (versus without) a history of depression more often reported guilt when not at fault and over failing to meet maternal needs; reactions did not resolve matters and involved unregulated maternal emotions. Adolescents of mothers without a depression history more often felt guilty about specific events (e.g., breaking rules, bad grades) and reactions resulted in closure (through discipline, apologies, or forgiveness). Adolescents' depressive symptoms were more severe when incidents were unresolved and involved maternal emotions and less severe when incidents were specific. In addition, maternal use of self-serving forms of guilt induction related to adolescent and parent depression.
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