An Unclear Self Leads to Poor Mental Health: Self-Concept Confusion Mediates the Association of Loneliness with Depression

Richman, Stephanie B.; Pond, Richard S.; DeWall, C. Nathan; Kumashiro, Masaharu; Slotter, Erica B.; Luchies, Laura B.

doi:10.1521/jscp.2016.35.7.525

Cited by 31 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 56 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The results suggest that satisfactory relationships with others, especially with significant others, are a key to the validation of the true self, which consequently translates to well-being. This thesis is consistent both with the classic theoretical concepts indicating the social sources of self (Mead 1934;Wallace and Tice 2012), contemporary concepts of authenticity (Wang 2016;Schmader and Sedikides 2017) and the results of studies that demonstrate that feeling socially disconnected predicts a low level of self-concept clarity (Ayduk et al 2009;Slotter et al 2010;Richman et al 2016). Lowered authenticity as an effect of loneliness may be explained by the accompanying social rejection or exclusion, the mechanisms related to psychological defense.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 84%

“…The causal direction of the relationship between loneliness and accessibility, as well as clarity of the true self, may be indicated by data originating from both longitudinal and experimental studies. In the recently published longitudinal research by Richman et al (2016), the negative relationship between loneliness and depression was shown to be mediated by self-concept confusion over time. Then again, experimental studies have revealed that an experience of being socially rejected increases self-uncertainty (Yavuz Güzel and Şahin 2018) and causes people to avoid self-awareness (Twenge et al 2003).…”

Section: Authenticity and Lonelinessmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…However, there are reasons to believe that the mediating mechanisms can be found not only in self-esteem but also in other features of the self, such as integrity and stability of self-knowledge or ways of processing self-relevant information. For example, previous studies on the negative aspects of mental health show that self-concept clarity mediates the relationship between social disconnection and depression (Richman et al 2016). Ritchie et al (2011) also demonstrated that self-concept clarity mediates the relationship between stress (one of the examined categories involved the situation linked to being socially rejected) and well-being.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Authenticity and rumination mediate the relationship between loneliness and well-being

Borawski

2019

Curr Psychol

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In recent years, plentiful data has emerged indicating the detrimental effects of loneliness on well-being. One of the challenges for researchers dealing with this issue is to find the mechanism underlying the relationship. The present study investigated 293 adults, aged 19-40, and examined whether authenticity and rumination functioned as mediators in the relationship between loneliness and well-being (and its three domainspleasure, engagement, and meaning). The results of the study confirmed the lonelinesswell-being link and, additionally, revealed potential mechanisms explaining this relationship, which were of different character in the cases of the particular domains of well-being. As it turned out, authenticity was the sole significant mediator in the relationship between loneliness and meaning, and rumination played the role of key mediator between loneliness and pleasure. Both these mediators had their share in the indirect effects of loneliness on engagement and overall well-being. The relations revealed between loneliness and authenticity are, in turn, congruent with recent conceptualizations of authenticity, which emphasize the interpersonal sources of this variable.

show abstract

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 84%

Section: Authenticity and Lonelinessmentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Authenticity and rumination mediate the relationship between loneliness and well-being

Borawski

2019

Curr Psychol

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Self is fundamentally interpersonal ( Morf and Mischel, 2012 ). Interactions with others influence one’s sense of self-esteem, self-worth, which plays a quite important role in the definition of sense of self ( Richman et al, 2016 ). Having a good relationship with people around will fulfill one’s need of belonging and connection, which is implicitly constructed into individual’s self-concept.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lonely Individuals Do Not Show Interpersonal Self-Positivity Bias: Evidence From N400

Zhu

Gao

et al. 2018

Front. Psychol.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Self-positivity bias is one of the well-studied psychological phenomena, however, little is known about the bias in the specific dimension on social interaction, which we called herein interpersonal self-positivity bias—people tend to evaluate themselves more positively on social interactions, prefer to be included rather than to be excluded by others. In the present study, we used a modified self-reference task associated with N400 to verify such bias and explore whether impoverished social interaction (loneliness) could modulate it. Findings showed that exclusion verbs elicited larger N400 amplitudes than inclusion verbs, suggesting that most people have interpersonal self-positivity bias. However, loneliness was significantly correlated with N400 effect, showing those with high scores of loneliness had smaller differences in the N400 than those with lower scores. These findings indicated impoverished social interaction weakens interpersonal self-positivity bias; however, the underlying mechanisms need to be explored in future research.

show abstract

“…As such, we cannot confirm the causal chain by which network disagreement impacts health and well-being as mediated by self-concept clarity. While longitudinal evidence suggests that self-concept clarity predicts later well-being (Richman et al, 2016;Shin, Steger, & Henry, 2016), other evidence suggests that the relationship is reciprocal (van Dijk et al, 2014). Thus, longitudinal or experimental evidence is needed to bolster the mediational pathways explored in Study 3. which there is a lot of consensus among your social network, where people tend to hold very similar opinions?…”

Section: Limitationsmentioning

confidence: 96%

Failure to Share Reality and its Consequences for Self-Concept Clarity

Light

Goldberg

2020

Social Cognition

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Shared reality theory argues that people are motivated to perceive the world in similar ways to people around them to fulfill epistemic and relational motives. However, most research on shared reality has focused on dyads. Taking a broader perspective, disagreement with members of one's social networks may threaten shared reality, with downstream consequences for confidence in core cognitive structures, including the selfconcept. In four studies, we manipulated (Study 1) and measured (Studies 2-4) perceived disagreement within an individual's social network. Results revealed that, especially when epistemic and social motives were high, disagreeing with or perceiving disagreement in one's social network was associated with lower self-concept clarity, which mediated negative consequences for well-being. Comparing network disagreement to network diversity, we found that disagreement better explained effects on self-concept clarity. These results suggest that one's broader social network can impact attempts to share reality, with consequences for the self and well-being.

show abstract

An Unclear Self Leads to Poor Mental Health: Self-Concept Confusion Mediates the Association of Loneliness with Depression

Abstract: Past research has established that loneliness is associated with both self-concept confusion and depression. The present work ties these disparate lines of research together by demonstrating that self-concept confusion mediates the relationship

Cited by 31 publications

References 56 publications

Authenticity and rumination mediate the relationship between loneliness and well-being

Authenticity and rumination mediate the relationship between loneliness and well-being

Lonely Individuals Do Not Show Interpersonal Self-Positivity Bias: Evidence From N400

Failure to Share Reality and its Consequences for Self-Concept Clarity

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About