Previous research on information avoidance has revealed that people choose to avoid negative health information, but that this effect is interrupted by self-affirmation (Howell & Shepperd, 2013). The current study aimed to contribute to the field’s understanding of the conditions under which self-affirmation reduces information avoidance by using a unique affirmation: secure attachment figures. I hypothesized that activating a secure attachment would serve as the affirmation necessary for participants to choose to view their risk information for a fictitious enzyme deficiency. However, when given a choice, participants in both the experimental and control conditions chose to view this information. At best, these results demonstrate that psychological resources of a social nature were effective in protecting people from undesirable health risk information. At worst, they present a failure to replicate previous research. Explanations for why the results were unexpected and future modifications to the paradigm are discussed.

Group commitments such as partisanship and religion can bias the way individuals seek information and weigh evidence. This psychological process can lead to distorted views of reality and polarization between opposing social groups. Substantial research confirms the existence and persistence of numerous identity-driven divides in society, but means of attenuating them remain elusive. However, because identity-protective cognition is driven by a need to maintain global and not domain specific integrity, researchers have found that affirming an unrelated core aspect of the self can eliminate the need for ego defense and result in more evenhanded evaluation. This study proposes a competing intervention. Individuals possess numerous social identities that contextually vary in relative prominence; therefore a different means to unbiased cognition may be to make many social identities salient simultaneously, reducing influence of any potentially threatened identity. This may also reduce selective exposure to congenial information, which has not been found with affirmation. This study also advances research on the phenomenon of selective exposure by considering individuals’ interpersonal networks in information search. Because networks are not static, and are instead contextually activated, inducing a more complex representational structure of the self may broaden the set of contacts from whom individuals seek information. The bias-mitigative potential of self-affirmation and social identity complexity is examined here in a series of dispute contexts — two partisan, one religious — over a mining spill, an advanced biofuels mandate, and gene editing technology. Results from the three experiments (total N = 1,257) show modest support for social identity complexity reducing group-alignment of beliefs, behavior, and information search, while affirmation failed to reduce, and in some cases increased, group alignment.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:32:48Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2009-02-02Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T20:24:08Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 yazlle_scl_dr_assis.pdf: 724707 bytes, checksum: 93a76ce0b5b422ed1f8fb2811aa1a567 (MD5) / Com o objetivo geral de contribuir para a história, teoria e crítica da literatura infantil brasileira, proponho-me, nesta tese, a realizar um estudo da representação da criança enquanto personagem da literatura infantil de Ana Maria Machado. De um ponto de vista teórico, adota-se a concepção lingüística dialógica de Bakhtin, afinada com a proposta estética da literatura infantil, “como aquela que também pode ser lida pela criança”. Do ponto de vista da infância, adota-se a visão sociológica de caráter marxista de Walter Benjamin, bem como de seus discípulos no Brasil, que concebem a criança como um ser histórico, cultural e social, capaz de quebrar com o “adultocentrismo”, na medida em que cria e transforma seu próprio discurso. De acordo com essas concepções teóricas, conclui-se que a personagem-criança representada em toda a literatura infantil de Ana Maria Machado é aquela que se auto-afirma pela sua subjetividade, ou seja, pela maneira de explorar seu mundo exterior em consonância com seu mundo interior, baseada na reflexão sobre si mesma e sobre seu mundo circundante. / With the general purpose of contributing for the Brazilian juvenile literature’s history, theory and criticism, I intend in this thesis to make a study of the child’s representation as a character of Ana Maria Machado juvenile literature. From a theorist point of view, it is adopted the dialogical linguistic conception of Bakhtin, according to the esthetical purpose of juvenile literature as “that one which can be read by children”. From the childhood point of view, it is adopted the Marxist sociological view of Walter Benjamin as well as his disciples in Brazil who understand a child as a historical, cultural and social being able of break with the “adultcentism” when creates an transforms his or her own speech. According to the theorist conceptions, it is concluded that the children-character represented in all the juvenile literature of Ana Maria Machado are those ones who affirm themselves by their subjectivity, in other words, by the manner of explore their external world in consonance with their internal world based on the reflection about themselves and their surrounding world.

Orientador: Benedito Antunes / Banca: Alice Vieira / Banca: Maria do Rosário Longo Mortatti / Banca: Odil José de Oliveira Filho / Banca: João Luís Cardoso Tápias Ceccantini / Resumo: Com o objetivo geral de contribuir para a história, teoria e crítica da literatura infantil brasileira, proponho-me, nesta tese, a realizar um estudo da representação da criança enquanto personagem da literatura infantil de Ana Maria Machado. De um ponto de vista teórico, adota-se a concepção lingüística dialógica de Bakhtin, afinada com a proposta estética da literatura infantil, "como aquela que também pode ser lida pela criança". Do ponto de vista da infância, adota-se a visão sociológica de caráter marxista de Walter Benjamin, bem como de seus discípulos no Brasil, que concebem a criança como um ser histórico, cultural e social, capaz de quebrar com o "adultocentrismo", na medida em que cria e transforma seu próprio discurso. De acordo com essas concepções teóricas, conclui-se que a personagem-criança representada em toda a literatura infantil de Ana Maria Machado é aquela que se auto-afirma pela sua subjetividade, ou seja, pela maneira de explorar seu mundo exterior em consonância com seu mundo interior, baseada na reflexão sobre si mesma e sobre seu mundo circundante. / Abstract: With the general purpose of contributing for the Brazilian juvenile literature's history, theory and criticism, I intend in this thesis to make a study of the child's representation as a character of Ana Maria Machado juvenile literature. From a theorist point of view, it is adopted the dialogical linguistic conception of Bakhtin, according to the esthetical purpose of juvenile literature as "that one which can be read by children". From the childhood point of view, it is adopted the Marxist sociological view of Walter Benjamin as well as his disciples in Brazil who understand a child as a historical, cultural and social being able of break with the "adultcentism" when creates an transforms his or her own speech. According to the theorist conceptions, it is concluded that the children-character represented in all the juvenile literature of Ana Maria Machado are those ones who affirm themselves by their subjectivity, in other words, by the manner of explore their external world in consonance with their internal world based on the reflection about themselves and their surrounding world. / Doutor

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This dissertation explores strategies for addressing identity-related barriers to environmental problem-solving through the lens of two social-psychological theories: self-affirmation theory and moral foundations theory. Through one theoretical review, two online experiments and one in-lab experiment I explore, integrate and test theoretically grounded strategies for reducing the defensive information processing that can exacerbate intergroup divisions in multi-stakeholder settings. The specific objectives of this dissertation are to 1) integrate self-affirmation theory and moral foundations theory into the current knowledge about collaborative conservation (Chapter 2), 2) evaluate ways of tailoring environmental communication to better reach socially and politically diverse audiences (Chapter 3), and 3) experimentally test the effectiveness of an approach, based on self-affirmation theory, to facilitate productive discussion of complex, value-laden issues in group settings. Before presenting the results of this work, I provide a broad overview of the problem of group-based divisions in environmental conflict and the theoretical underpinnings of the dissertation (Chapter 1). Finally, I summarize the results and discuss the broader implications of the research (Chapter 5). The results of this research offer initial insights into how tools grounded in these theories can most effectively be applied to help alleviate identity-based barriers to environmental problem-solving. / Doctor of Philosophy / This dissertation explores strategies for addressing identity-related barriers to environmental problem-solving through the lens of two social-psychological theories: self-affirmation theory and moral foundations theory. Through one theoretical review, two online experiments and one in-lab experiment I explore, integrate and test theoretically grounded strategies for reducing the defensive information processing that can exacerbate intergroup divisions in multi-stakeholder settings. The specific objectives of this dissertation are to 1) integrate self-affirmation theory and moral foundations theory into the current knowledge about collaborative conservation (Chapter 2), 2) evaluate ways of tailoring environmental communication to better reach socially and politically diverse audiences (Chapter 3), and 3) experimentally test the effectiveness of an approach, based on self-affirmation theory, to facilitate productive discussion of complex, value-laden issues in group settings. Before presenting the results of this work, I provide a broad overview of the problem of group-based divisions in environmental conflict and the theoretical underpinnings of the dissertation (Chapter 1). Finally, I summarize the results and discuss the broader implications of the research (Chapter 5). The results of this research offer initial insights into how tools grounded in these theories can most effectively be applied to help alleviate identity-based barriers to environmental problem-solving.

In two essays I investigate two antecedents of self-concept change in consumers: Threats to the self and the activated self-construal and its effect on goal conflict resolution. In the first essay, I explore identity strictly as consumers define themselves in terms of the possessions with which they associate. I argue that ironically the very effort to maintain self-consistency through living up to the value of materialism after facing a mortality salience threat can actually undermine consistency on the level of the extended self of highly materialistic consumers. Specifically, when faced with a mortality salience threat, the consistency of highly materialistic consumers self-concept is disrupted in which they not only detach from formerly intrinsic possessions, but also make formerly extrinsic possessions a more central part of the extended self-concept. I further argue that consumers can be protected from a disruption to self-concept consistency through the process of self-affirmation. In the second essay, I explore how the activated self-construal impacts whether consumers maximize pleasure or engage in self-presentational behavior after they have been invited to choose a gift for themselves. I demonstrate that consumers with an independent (interdependent) self-construal make more indulgent (modest) gift choices for themselves, and that this effect is driven by the activation of a goal to maximize pleasure (behave normatively appropriate). I also identify a boundary condition: When consumers are able to satisfy their activated goal before selecting a gift, the effects cease to exist. / Marketing

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