The literatures on close relationships and subjective well‐being have received enormous attention in personality and social psychology over the last two decades. However, despite the well‐known link between the quality of social relationships and subjective well‐being, these two research traditions have developed relatively independent of one other. Research on felt understanding and misunderstanding attempts to integrate these two related but relatively distinct literatures. To this end, the current review summarizes major recent findings on the antecedents and consequences of felt understanding and misunderstanding and highlights important cultural and individual differences in the processes involving felt understanding and misunderstanding.
In this brief reply, we explore the ways in which a psychological theory of ideology as motivated social cognition (e.g., Jost, Glaser, Kruglanski, & Sulloway, 2003a, 2003b can explain several distinct but related empirical phenomena, including why (a) epistemic and existential needs to reduce uncertainty and threat would be positively associated with social or cultural conservatism in virtually all societal contexts and yet be associated with support for either capitalism or socialism, depending upon the local context; (b) conservatives eventually come to support policy positions that were once considered to be liberal or progressive; (c) liberals are more likely than conservatives to exhibit cognitive complexity and engage in "value trade-offs" between equality and freedom; and (d) time pressure and cognitive load produce "conservative shifts" in political opinion, even among liberal respondents. By clarifying the similarities and differences between the two core dimensions of Left-Right ideology (i.e., advocating vs. resisting social change and rejecting vs. accepting inequality) and highlighting the role of status quo acceptance in conservative ideology, we hope to demonstrate that a psychological theory of LeftRight differences can account for contextual variability in the contents of political attitudes.
Frequent residential moves in childhood may be stressful. Because introverts find making new friends in a new town more difficult than extraverts, the authors predicted that residential moves would be more negatively associated with well-being among introverts than among extraverts. To test this hypothesis, the authors collected salivary cortisol samples from morning to evening for two consecutive days, in addition to self-reports of well-being. In general, the authors found support for this prediction among European American participants but not for African Americans or Asian Americans. Extraversion seems to buffer the stress of residential moves among European Americans, whereas it does not seem to play as important a role to this end among African and Asian Americans.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.