Copyright and reuse:Sussex Research Online is a digital repository of the research output of the University.Copyright and all moral rights to the version of the paper presented here belong to the individual author(s) and/or other copyright owners. To the extent reasonable and practicable, the material made available in SRO has been checked for eligibility before being made available.Copies of full text items generally can be reproduced, displayed or performed and given to third parties in any format or medium for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-profit purposes without prior permission or charge, provided that the authors, title and full bibliographic details are credited, a hyperlink and/or URL is given for the original metadata page and the content is not changed in any way.Article accepted for publication in Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/xge0000175 © American Psychological Association (APA) This article may not exactly replicate the authoritative document published in the APA journal. It is not the copy of record. contrast between independence and interdependence does not adequately capture the diverse models of selfhood that prevail in different world regions. Cultural groups emphasize different ways of being both independent and interdependent, depending on individualism-collectivism, national socioeconomic development, and religious heritage. Our seven-dimensional model will allow future researchers to test more accurately the implications of cultural models of selfhood for psychological processes in diverse ecocultural contexts.Keywords: CULTURE; SELF-CONSTRUALS; INDEPENDENCE-INTERDEPENDENCE Twenty-five years ago, Markus and Kitayama (1991) published their classic article on culture and the self, proposing that people in different parts of the world tend to construe themselves in two fundamentally different ways. They argued that Western cultures are unusual in promoting an independent view of the self as bounded, unitary, stable, and separate from the social context, whereas cultures in other parts of the world emphasize an interdependent view of the self as closely connected to others, fluid, and contextually embedded. They proposed that people with independent self-construals would strive for self-expression, uniqueness, and self-actualization, basing their actions on personal thoughts, feelings, and goals. In contrast, people with interdependent self-construals would strive to fit in and maintain social harmony, basing their actions on situationally defined norms and expectations.Markus and Kitayama's (1991) proposals had a dramatic impact on social, personality and developmental psychology, challenging ethnocentric assumptions, drawing attention to cultural diversity, and providing conceptual tools for theorizing about it. Social and personality psychologists used measures and manipulations of self-construals to predict numerous outcomes: cognitive styles, well-being, self-regulation, selfesteem, communication styles, social anxiety, and pro...

We present anxiety buffer disruption theory (ABDT) and provide a review of current evidence regarding the theory. ABDT is an application of terror management theory to explain diverse reactions to traumatic events and the onset and maintenance of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). It posits that PTSD results from a disruption in one's anxiety-buffering mechanisms, which normally provide protection against anxiety in general and death anxiety in particular. The disruption of these mechanisms leaves the individual defenseless in the face of overwhelming anxiety, which leads to the major symptom clusters of PTSD: re-experiencing, hyper-arousal, and avoidance. According to ABDT, because of the disruption in their anxiety-buffering mechanisms, individuals with PTSD symptoms do not respond to mortality reminders in the defensive ways that psychologically healthier individuals do. We review four sets of studies conducted in four different cultures and with people who have experienced different types of trauma, which reveal this atypical response pattern and lend support to ABDT.

Human connection with nature is widely believed to be in decline even though empirical evidence is scarce on the magnitude and historical pattern of the change. Studying works of popular culture in English throughout the 20th century and later, we have documented a cultural shift away from nature that begins in the 1950s. Since then, references to nature have been decreasing steadily in fiction books, song lyrics, and film storylines, whereas references to the human-made environment have not. The observed temporal pattern is consistent with the explanatory role of increased virtual and indoors recreation options (e.g., television, video games) in the disconnect from nature, and it is inconsistent with a pure urbanization account. These findings are cause for concern, not only because they imply foregone physical and psychological benefits from engagement with nature, but also because cultural products are agents of socialization that can evoke curiosity, respect, and concern for the natural world.

In this article, we provide an overview of what various philosophers throughout the ages have claimed about the nature of happiness, and we discuss to what extent psychological science has been able to substantiate or refute their claims. We first address concerns raised by philosophers regarding the possibility, desirability, and justifiability of happiness and then turn to the perennial question of how to be happy. Integrating insights from great thinkers of the past with empirical findings from modern behavioral sciences, we review the conditions and causes of happiness. We conclude our discussion with some thoughts about the future of happiness studies.

In four studies, we document the development and validation of the Emotional Style Questionnaire (ESQ)-a 24-item self-report measure that captures how people vary across 6 dimensions that make up a healthy emotional life. These 6 dimensions (Outlook, Resilience, Social Intuition, Self-Awareness, Sensitivity to Context, and Attention) are based on a theoretical framework drawn from neuroscientific studies of emotion. Study 1 reports the development of the ESQ and provides initial support for the proposed factorial structure of the scale. Study 2 confirms the adequacy of the factorial structure in a second sample and establishes the construct validity of each of the 6 subscales. In Study 3, we test the relationship between the ESQ as a measure of healthy emotionality and various indicators of psychological and physical well-being. Finally, Study 4 investigates the test-retest reliability of the scale and reveals very good reliability across an interval of 4 weeks. We conclude that the ESQ is a psychometrically solid and easily implementable instrument that can be used to gauge healthy emotionality and its components in both clinical and research settings. Public Significance StatementThis study introduces the Emotional Style Questionnaire-a 24-item measure of overall emotional health-which also provides more fine-tuned information about the 6 different dimensions underlying emotional health. This easily implementable questionnaire can be used by anyone (e.g., researchers, clinicians) interested in understanding the emotional profile of a person.