Written Emotional Expression and Emotional Well-Being: The Moderating Role of Fear of Rejection

Abstract

Empirical research shows that individuals high in fear of

Potential benefits of expressive writing for male college students with varying degrees of restrictive emotionality.

“…Finally, in a recent expressive writing study (Langens & Schuler, 2005), participants high in the fear of social rejection who wrote about upsetting experiences reported lower levels of negative mood than control participants. However, the expressive writing intervention did not have a significant influence on negative mood for participants low in the fear of rejection.…”

Testing the convergent and discriminant validity of three implicit motive measures: PSE, OMT, and MMG

“…Gable (2006) found hope of affiliation to be related with less loneliness and fear of rejection as associated with more loneliness. Further studies showed that MMG motives moderate the relationship between challenge-skill-balance and flow experience (Schüler 2007) and moderate the effects of an emotional writing intervention on well-being (Langens and Schüler 2005). For further evidence for MMG validity see Langens and Schmalt (2009) and Sokolowski et al (2000).…”

“…However, the hope and fear components were not differentiated in these studies. Thus, if researchers are interested in hope and fear, the MMG (which easily assesses hope and fear components by summing up agreements to corresponding items) (for studies approving MMG validity with regard to hope and fear, see for example, Gable 2006;Langens and Schmalt 2002;Langens and Schüler 2005;Puca et al 2006;Schüler 2007) or the OMT (which allows to distinguish into hope and fear components) might be the methods of choice.…”

Dealing with a ‘hidden stressor’: emotional disclosure as a coping strategy to overcome the negative effects of motive incongruence on health

“…life stress, trauma). Thus, it works well for students who struggle to get adjusted to college (Pennebaker, Colder, & Sharp, 1990;Pennebaker & Francis, 1996), for individuals high in fear of failure (Langens & Schüler, 2005), for homeless people (deVicente, Munoz, Perez, & Santos-Olmo, 2004) and for many clinical populations, as for example, patients with post-traumatic stress disorder (e.g. Bernard, Jackson, & Jones, 2006;Sloan, Marx, & Epstein, 2005), roimatoid arthritis (Kelley, Lumley, & Leisen, 1997), chronic pain (Norman, Lumley, Dooley, & Diamond, 2004) or cancer (Zakowski, Ramati, Morton, Johnston, & Flanigan, 2004).…”