(Mis)estimation of the modal number of desired sexual partners.

Misperceptions of the social world can lead to actions and social policy that are detrimental to an individual's or group's well-being. Here we investigate whether misperceptions arise when participants make predictions of the modal number of ideal future sexual partners reported by heterosexual cohorts (younger cohort: 18-23 years; older cohort: 24-29 years). For both men and women and in both cohorts, the modal number of reported partners equaled 1.

What is gratitude without a benefactor? A daily diary approach.

"Gratitude" has multiple meanings. One distinction is between gratitude with and without a benefactor. This paper presents two daily diary studies examining the experience of gratitude without a benefactor.

No thanks! Autonomous interpersonal style is associated with less experience and valuing of gratitude.

Gratitude has been promoted as a beneficial emotional experience. However, gratitude is not universally experienced as positive. The current work examines whether an autonomous interpersonal style is associated with differential experience of gratitude.

How does social anger expression predict later depression symptoms? It depends on how often one is angry.

Research has suggested that there are benefits to socially sharing anger as an emotion regulation strategy. We hypothesized that these benefits may depend on the frequency with which one is experiencing anger. We used an experience sampling methodology to explore the interaction between frequency of anger and reliance on social expression of anger as a predictor of changes in depression symptoms 4 months later.

Biases in Short-Term Mood Prediction in Individuals with Depression and Anxiety Symptoms.

We used ecological momentary assessment to explore depressive and anxious biases in within-day negative and positive mood predictions. Participants ( = 120) who were higher in depression symptoms demonstrated stronger biases (i.e.

Manipulating regulatory focus in cigarette smokers.

Regulatory focus theory (RFT; Higgins, 1997) may help to address the issue of motivation in cigarette smoking cessation. RFT suggests that individuals may be motivated to approach desired end-states (e.g.

Assessment of Individual Differences in Regulatory Focus among Cigarette Smokers.

Smoking cessation programs might benefit from tailoring messages to individual differences in regulatory focus (see Higgins, 1997), but there is little evidence on the stability or convergent validity of regulatory focus measures. In two studies, smokers completed four measures of regulatory focus: (a) Regulatory Focus Questionnaire (RFQ); (b) actual-ideal and actual-ought self-discrepancies; (c) response duration in naming name ideal or ought self-guides; and (d) reaction time for lexical decisions about one's ideal or ought self-guides. Study 1 included a one-month retest.

Cultural representations of thinness in women, redux: Playboy magazine's depiction of beauty from 1979 to 1999.

Playboy's portrayal of the male ideal of feminine beauty, in terms of overall body size, percent normative weight, and waist-to-hip ratios (WHRs), was analyzed for the years 1979-1999. Trends were examined through body measurements obtained from Playboy centerfolds. Results reveal a continuation of the low body mass index (BMI) found in the Playmates by earlier studies; however, for the 21 years examined, the trend towards increasing thinness seems to have stabilized and may have begun to actually reverse.

Depressive symptoms, depression proneness, and outcome expectancies for cigarette smoking.

The high rates of cigarette smoking among depressed persons may be partially explained by increased positive expectancies for cigarette smoking among this population. In view of theoretical and empirical work on depressed people's negative views of the future, though, it would be expected that depressed smokers would hold particularly negative expectancies about the effects of cigarette smoking. The two current studies examined the relations between depression and smoking outcome expectancies in (a) a general population of adult regular smokers and (b) adult smokers seeking to quit smoking.

Metatraits and assessment of attributional style.

Some personality trait dimensions may not be equally applicable to all people. The degree of applicability of a given trait, or traitedness, is conceptually distinct from trait level. In this study, 3 ways of assessing traitedness--interitem variance (R.

No longer just a pretty face: fashion magazines' depictions of ideal female beauty from 1959 to 1999.

Objective: The print media's depiction of the ideal of feminine beauty as presented to American women was examined for the years 1959-1999.

Method: Trends were investigated through an analysis of cover models appearing on the four most popular American fashion magazines.

Results: Body size for fashion models decreased significantly during the 1980s and 1990s.