The Humanistic Approach PDF

3 12 The Humanistic Approach Relevant Research Self-Disclosure Loneliness Self-Esteem Solitude DNY59/E+/Getty Images Summary Copyright 2019 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may...

3 12 The Humanistic Approach Relevant Research Self-Disclosure Loneliness Self-Esteem Solitude DNY59/E+/Getty Images Summary Copyright 2019 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. Self-Disclosure 281 T “Facts are always friendly. Every bit of evidence one can acquire, in any area, leads one that much closer to what is true.” Carl Rogers he rapid growth of humanistic psychology a half a century ago was in part a reaction against the research-oriented approaches that had come to dominate psychology in American universities. Humanistic psychologists argued that people cannot be reduced to a set of numbers. Scores on a battery of personality tests don’t capture a person’s inner strength, feelings, and character. Most important, finding a person’s place along a trait continuum erases that person’s uniqueness and individuality. As the name implies, the third force in psychology was developed to attend to the “human” element lost in number-crunching approaches. However, this strength also proves to be one of humanistic psychology’s weaknesses. Critics sometimes refer to the approach as “soft” psychology. Flowery descriptions of a person’s unique character are fine, but it’s often difficult to translate these descriptions into testable hypotheses. Clinical observations and intuitive feelings may provide insights into personality and the therapy process, but they cannot replace reliable assessment procedures. This is not to say that humanistic psychologists don’t conduct research. On the contrary, Carl Rogers continually evaluated the effectiveness of person-centered therapy, as do many other humanistic therapists (Cain & ­Seeman, 2002). But on the whole, advocates of the humanistic perspective have probably generated less empirical research than psychologists from the other approaches covered in this book. Nonetheless, Rogers, Maslow, and other humanistic psychologists introduced a number of intriguing hypotheses and concepts that have led to extensive empirical work. Although the original investigations on some of these topics were conducted by humanistic psychologists, in most cases more extensive empirical research was done by investigators outside the humanistic circle. A good example of this is research on self-disclosure, the first topic we’ll explore in this chapter. Rogers and other therapists argued that the act of revealing personal information has important psychological consequences. This notion stimulated decades of research, although most of this work has been conducted by psychologists who probably would shun the “humanistic” label. Research on the other three topics we’ll examine in this chapter—loneliness, self-esteem, and solitude—also was inspired in part by humanistic writers but largely conducted by more empirically oriented academic psychologists. Of course, there is some irony in this situation. The cold, empirical approach to understanding personality once rejected by many humanistic psychologists has popularized many of the concepts central to the humanistic perspective. Self-Disclosure I magine you are with someone you don’t know very well but who seems to be a pleasant person. You both have time to kill, so you begin to talk. The conversation starts casually with a discussion about the classes you’re taking. However, soon this person mentions some difficulties she’s having with her parents. You find yourself talking about similar experiences you have had. Before the conversation is over, you learn quite a lot about this individual—problems with her family, with dating, and with her self-confidence. You reveal that you, too, sometimes have difficulty with relationships. Perhaps you tell this person about an embarrassing dating situation you’ve been in. When the conversation ends, you feel good about her and maybe even about yourself. Copyright 2019 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. 282 Chapter 12 / The Humanistic Approach Jerry Burger/Santa Clara University Most of us have participated in similar conversations. If you think back to your own experience, you may recall that the conversation began with relatively impersonal topics and gradually worked toward more private information. Most likely, the conversation was anything but one-sided. You and this other person probably took turns sharing information about yourselves. And it’s quite possible you left the conversation feeling good about your new acquaintance and perceiving that he or she also felt good about you. This may well have been the first step toward a long-­ lasting friendship. People engage in self-disclosure when they reveal intimate information about themselves to another person. The discloser considers the information personal, and the choice of whom to disclose to is selective. Many humanistic psychologists argue that self-disclosure is important for personal growth and happiness because it is only through disclosure to others that we can truly come to know ourselves. Putting feelings into words allows us to understand those feelings in a way that simply thinking about emotions cannot. Of course, this is far from the way most people act. We often go to great lengths to keep others from finding out about bad habits or parts of our character they might not like. But Rogers argued that all this deception simply results in more to worry about and creates an ever-present fear that the real you might be revealed. Self-disclosure plays a key role in the development of personal relationships. However, researchers find that this is rarely one-sided. Instead, relationships develop as each person reveals intimate information about him- or herself at roughly the same level of intimacy. Copyright 2019 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. Self-Disclosure 283 Self-disclosure also plays a role in psychotherapy (Farber, 2006). Many humanistic psychologists argue that clients benefit most when they engage in an open exchange of thoughts and feelings with the therapist. When clients feel free to explore their true feelings, they move closer to understanding and becoming their true selves. But a therapeutic relationship is not one-sided. Rogers maintained that appropriate self-­ disclosure by the therapist is also beneficial. Disclosing therapists create an atmosphere of trust and elicit more disclosure from clients. Researchers often find that a therapist’s disclosure can be beneficial (Henretty, Currier, Berman, & Levitt, 2014), but many psychologists are concerned about potential harm to the therapeutic process when therapists talk about themselves. Although many therapists today choose to reveal information about themselves on selected topics (Jeffrey & Austin, 2007), the appropriate level of self-disclosure for therapists remains a matter of debate (Barnett, 2011; Gibson, 2012; Zur, Williams, Lehavot, & Knapp, 2009). Disclosure Reciprocity If you are like me, you have had the unfortunate experience of being stuck on a plane or a bus sitting next to a stranger who wanted to tell you all about his or her life. During a recent plane trip, the woman next to me described her relationship with her husband, problems in raising her child, and her opinions on drugs, sex education, and abortion— all without a single bit of encouragement or comparable disclosure from me. What is notable about this “stranger on the bus” phenomenon is that it violates society’s rules for the way social interaction is supposed to progress. Like many social behaviors, the way we reveal information about ourselves is governed by a set of unstated but widely understood rules. One of these social rules is known as disclosure reciprocity. According to this rule, people involved in a get-acquainted conversation reveal information about themselves at roughly the same level of intimacy—I reveal personal information to you as long as you continue to match that level of intimacy with personal information about yourself. Investigators have demonstrated the rule of disclosure reciprocity in laboratory studies (Dindia, 2002). When participants engage in conversations with someone they do not know, they typically begin with safe topics like favorite movies or foods. But they soon moved to more personal areas, such as problems with their parents or ways in which they feel inadequate. Most important, participants tend to match their partners’ intimacy levels. If one person reveals something intimate, the other person usually responds with a similarly intimate disclosure. Researchers find that children as young as 8 years of age seem to understand and follow the reciprocity rule (Cohn & Strassberg, 1983). Why do we reciprocate disclosure intimacy? One reason is that self-disclosure leads to feelings of attraction and trust (Derlega, Winstead, & Greene, 2008). We tend to like and trust people who disclose to us, and we tend to disclose to people we like and trust (Collins & Miller, 1994). Moreover, both sides of this process are needed if the relationship is to go anywhere (Laurenceau, Feldman Barrett, & Pietromonaco, 1998; Reis & Patrick, 1996). Back-and-forth disclosure leads to more liking than simply disclosing personal information to another person or hearing another person self-disclose (Sprecher & Treger, 2015; Sprecher, Treger, & Wondra, 2013; Sprecher, Treger, Wondra, Hilaire, & Wallpe, 2013). Copyright 2019 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. 284 Chapter 12 / The Humanistic Approach In short, self-disclosure can be a powerful tactic for making new friends (Schug, Yuki, & Maddux, 2010). One team of researchers asked incoming college freshmen how willing they were to reveal to others negative emotions like anxiety, fear, and sadness (Graham, Huang, Clark, & Helgeson, 2008). Students who were willing to disclose their emotions developed more and more intimate social relationships during their first semester on campus than students who were reluctant to reveal personal information about themselves. Self-Disclosure Among Friends and Romantic Partners If you apply the disclosure reciprocity rule to a recent conversation you’ve had with a close friend, you may find that it doesn’t always work. It’s quite possible that one of you did most of the talking while the other one just listened. When a friend calls and says “I need to talk,” we usually don’t interrupt with personal examples of our own. Consistent with these observations, researchers find the reciprocity rule doesn’t always apply to good friends. After a certain level of intimacy is reached in a relationship, we feel free to disclose to friends without requiring reciprocal disclosure (Derlega, Wilson, & Chaikin, 1976). One researcher found the highest level of disclosure reciprocity among people who knew each other somewhat but who were still in the process of developing their relationship (Won-Doornink, 1985). Apparently these individuals had made a commitment to learn more about each other, but they didn’t know each other well enough to assume that the trust would be there without some sign of assurance. However, these findings do not mean that strangers disclose more to each other than friends. On the contrary, friends are much more likely to talk about such intimate topics as their relationships, self-concepts, and sexual experiences (Bauminger, Finzi-Dottan, Chason, & Har-Even, 2008). One team of researchers recorded (with permission) and analyzed the telephone conversations of female college students (Hornstein & Truesdell, 1988). The students shared significantly more intimate information when they interacted with friends than when they spoke on the phone with someone they identified as only an acquaintance. Conversations among good friends also include many noticeable signs of intimacy that are lacking in conversations with strangers (Hornstein, 1985). These signs include the use of familiar terms, laughing at similar points, and understanding when to speak and when the conversation is coming to an end. Studies with couples in long-term romantic relationships find similar disclosure effects. As with good friends, married couples do not feel the need to reciprocate their partner’s disclosure during every conversation (Morton, 1978). In addition, the amount of self-disclosure in a marriage is a strong predictor of relationship satisfaction (Farber & Sohn, 2007; Harvey & Omarzu, 1997; Sprecher & Hendrick, 2004). The more couples talk to one another about what’s personal and important to them, the better each of them feels about the marriage. Moreover, concealing personal information from a romantic partner is associated with less satisfaction and a reduced commitment to the relationship (Uysal, Lin, Knee, & Bush, 2012). Finally, people who disclose a lot do not necessarily have more success at romance. Researchers find that couples in good relationships selectively chose one another to disclose to rather than being high disclosers generally (Prager, 1986). Copyright 2019 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. Self-Disclosure 285 Disclosing Men and Disclosing Women Not long ago, my wife made an interesting observation about one of my male friends. “He interacts with people like a woman,” she said. I immediately understood her point. My friend’s voice is deep and masculine, and he doesn’t use feminine hand gestures. But he often fills our conversations with revealing information about his thoughts and feelings. This sharing of intimate information wouldn’t be noteworthy, my wife continued, if my friend were a woman. It just struck her as unusual for a man. Consistent with my wife’s observations, investigators find that women typically disclose more intimately and to more people than do men (Dindia & Allen, 1992). Moreover, this gender difference is expected by and perhaps reinforced by society. Participants in one study read about someone who was either highly disclosing or not very disclosing about personal problems (Derlega & Chaikin, 1976). Half the participants thought they were reading about a man, and half thought the person was a woman. The participants who thought they were reading about a female rated that person better adjusted when she was disclosing. However, when they thought the discloser was a male, revealing personal information was seen as a sign of poor ­psychological adjustment. Other studies suggest at least a few exceptions to this rule. The freedom women feel to disclose may be limited by the nature of what they are talking about. Highly disclosing women in one study were liked more when they talked about their parents or about their sexual attitudes. However, women who disclosed about personal aggressiveness were liked less (Kleinke & Kahn, 1980). Similarly, self-disclosing men are seen as well-adjusted as long as they talk about masculine topics (Cunningham, Strassberg, & Haan, 1986). In other words, men and women are more likely to be accepted when they disclose within the appropriate societal roles for their gender. For men this usually means withholding information; for women it means being open and disclosing, but only on topics society deems appropriate. The result is an unfortunate limitation on personal expression. Disclosing Traumatic Experiences Students participating in a psychology experiment some years ago were asked to write anonymously about an upsetting or traumatic experience they once had, something they may have kept inside for years and told to no one (Pennebaker & Beall, 1986). One of the interesting findings from this and other studies like it is that nearly every participant is able to identify a secret trauma (Pennebaker, 1989, 2000). People write about personal failures and humiliations, illegal activities, drug and alcohol problems, and experiences with sexual abuse. They often express guilt over regrettable actions or great sadness about a personal loss. About a quarter of the participants cry. The students in this particular study wrote about themselves for 15 minutes each night for four consecutive November nights. Other students assigned to a control condition were instructed to spend this same amount of time writing about relatively trivial topics (e.g., a description of their living room). What impact did this writing exercise have on the students? Measures of blood pressure and self-reported mood indicated that writing about a traumatic experience led to more stress and a more negative mood immediately after the disclosure. However, the investigators contacted the students again in May, 6 months after they had Copyright 2019 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. 286 Chapter 12 / The Humanistic Approach Assessing Your Own Personality Disclosure and Concealment Indicate the extent to which you agree with each of the following statements. Use a 5-point scale to indicate your response, with 1 = Strongly disagree and 5 = Strongly agree. 1. When I feel upset, I usually confide in my friends. 2. I prefer not to talk about my problems. 3. When something unpleasant happens to me, I often look for someone to talk to. 4. I typically don’t discuss things that upset me. 5. When I feel depressed or sad, I tend to keep those feelings to myself. 6. I try to find people to talk with about my problems. 7. When I am in a bad mood, I talk about it with my friends. 8. If I have a bad day, the last thing I want to do is talk about it. 9. I rarely look for people to talk with when I am having a problem. 10. When I’m distressed, I don’t tell anyone. 11. I usually seek out someone to talk to when I am in a bad mood. 12. I am willing to tell others my distressing thoughts. To score, reverse the answer values for items 2, 4, 5, 8, 9, and 10 (that is, 1 = 5, 2 = 4, etc.). Then add all 12 answer values together. High scores indicate a tendency to disclose distressing experiences to others, whereas low scores ­indicate a tendency to conceal information about distressing events. You can compare your score with norms from an undergraduate student sample (Kahn & Hessling, 2001). Men in this sample had a mean score of 36.33 (standard d ­ eviation = 8.98), and women had a mean score of 42.21 (standard deviation = 9.16). Scale: The Distress Disclosure Index Source: From Kahn, J. H., & Hessling, R. M. (2001). Measuring the tendency to conceal versus disclose psychological distress. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 20, 41–65. Copyright 2001 Guilford Publications, Inc. Reprinted by permission. written about their experiences. Students were asked about their health during the 6 months and about how many days they had been restricted because of an illness during this period. In addition, the number of visits each student had made to the campus health center was recorded. Some of the differences between the two groups are shown in Figure 12.2. ­Students in the trivial topic group showed a significant increase in the number of days they were restricted by illness and the number of visits they made to the health center. But this was not the case for the students who had written about their traumatic secrets. Similarly, only the disclosing students showed a decrease in the number of illnesses. In other words, although writing about their problems created some mild, short-term discomfort, it appears that the act of disclosing, even in the relatively mild form used in this study, improved the health of the already healthy college students. Copyright 2019 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. Self-Disclosure 287 Visits to Health Center 1.5 Figure 12.1 Mean Number of Visits to the Health Center as a Function of Experimental Condition Source: From Pennebaker and Beall (1986). 1 0.5 Before Study After Study Trivial Topics Condition Traumatic Topics Condition The health benefits of disclosing traumatic experiences have been found in numerous subsequent investigations using this same basic procedure (Frattaroli, 2006; Frisina, Borod, & Lepore, 2004; Kelly & McKillop, 1996). Putting into words what has been kept under wraps for sometimes years consistently leads to improvements in physical health. Moreover, the benefits are found regardless of whether the disclosure is handwritten or typed or even if the information is disclosed orally (Frattaroli, 2006; Harrist, Carlozzi, McGovern, & Harrist, 2007). Participants also need not disclose about something as emotionally intense as a personal trauma. One team of investigators asked freshmen to write about the problems and emotions they encountered leaving home and adjusting to college (Pennebaker, Colder, & Sharp, 1990). Students who wrote about these thoughts and feelings for three consecutive nights made fewer visits to the health center over the next several months than those who wrote about trivial topics. Similar effects are found in research conducted outside the laboratory. One team of researchers contacted people who had lost a spouse either through an accidental death or because of suicide (Pennebaker & O’Heeron, 1984). The investigators asked how often the participants had discussed the experience with friends and about the participants’ health since the death. They found that the more people had talked about the tragedy, the fewer health problems they had. Another study found that World War II Holocaust survivors who spoke openly about their ordeal were in better health than those who were less willing to disclose about the experience (Finkelstein & Levy, 2006). But the value of disclosure is not limited to physical health. Writing about previously undisclosed experiences also leads to better emotional and psychological well-being several months later (Frattaroli, 2006). College students in one study Copyright 2019 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. 288 Chapter 12 / The Humanistic Approach were less emotionally upset about taking graduate school entrance exams when they wrote about their feelings concerning the upcoming exam (Frattaroli, Thomas, & ­Lyubomirsky, 2011). These students also scored higher on the tests than a group of test-takers who had written about neutral topics. Freshmen in another study who wrote about the problems they faced adjusting to college had higher grade point averages their first semester than students who wrote about trivial topics (Cameron & ­Nicholls, 1998). Perhaps not surprisingly, people who typically conceal unpleasant personal information are more likely to experience depression and a lower sense of well-being than those who tend to be more open (Garrison & Kahn, 2010; Kahn & Garrison, 2009; Larson, Chastain, Hoyt, & Ayzenberg, 2015; Uysal, Lin, & Knee, 2010). But why does disclosure, even when written anonymously, result in better physical and psychological health? One reason is that actively inhibiting thoughts and feelings about unpleasant experiences requires a great deal of psychological and physiological work (Pennebaker, 1989). The impact of this stress is both immediate and long term. One investigation found an increase in immune system strength immediately after participants wrote about traumatic experiences (Petrie, Booth, & Pennebaker, 1998). Another study found participants slept better in the days following their disclosure (Mosher & Danoff-Burg, 2006). Expressing thoughts and feelings also provides disclosers insight into their feelings that they might not have recognized otherwise, and this insight makes it easier to take steps to move beyond the experience (Kelly, Klusas, von Weiss, & Kenny, 2001; King, 2001; Langens & Schuler, 2007; Park, Ayduk, & Kross, 2016; Smyth, True, & Souto, 2001). As Rogers and other humanistic theorists suggested, putting feelings into words allows us to “see” our emotions and thereby deal with them more effectively. Undergraduates in one study were asked to write about traumatic experiences during three 20-minute sessions (Hemenover, 2003). Three months later, these students scored higher on measures of mastery, personal growth, and self-acceptance than students who had written about trivial topics. Finally, examples of beneficial self-disclosure can be found all around us. People often turn to friends, bartenders, and clergy members when they need to talk about their problems. Some people keep diaries and others write letters they never intend to mail. Increasingly people disclose all kinds of personal shortcomings and ordeals on anonymous websites. The benefits of disclosing secrets can also be seen in psychotherapy (Cepeda-Benito & Short, 1998; Kelly, 1998; Kelly & Archer, 1995). Talking or writing about disturbing experiences may be an important step in working through trauma (Janoff-Bulman, 1992). Providing clients with an opportunity to openly discuss emotions, and thereby turning vague emotional images into coherent thoughts, is probably one reason psychotherapy works for some people (Donnelly & Murray, 1991; Murray, Lamnin, & Carver, 1989; Segal & Murray, 1993). Loneliness In 1985, a national survey asked Americans adults about the people with whom they discuss “matters important to you.” The respondents reported an average of 2.94 friends and family members who they considered personal confidants. But when the investigators asked the same question in a survey two decades later, the number Copyright 2019 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. 289 Jerry Burger/Santa Clara University Loneliness Loneliness is a common problem on college campuses, but some people are more prone to bouts of loneliness than others. had dropped to 2.08 (McPherson, Smith-Lovin, & Brashears, 2006). In other words, the typical American went from having three close friends to only two. During this same time, the number who said they had no one to discuss important matters with rose from 10% to 24.6% of the population. The findings highlight an observation made by many social observers, that is, that loneliness seems to be on the rise in our society. Loneliness has been a concern of humanistic psychologists from the outset (­Rogers, 1970). Some observers describe humanistic psychology’s rise in popularity in the 1960s as an antidote to feelings of alienation and social isolation that had begun to creep into many American lives (Buhler & Allen, 1972). People faced with an increasingly dehumanized, mechanistic society welcomed the humanists’ emphasis on the individual with his or her unique potential. But loneliness is not the same as isolation. Some of the loneliest individuals are surrounded by people most of the day. Rather, loneliness concerns our perception of how much social interaction we have and the quality of our interactions. As one team of investigators explained, “Loneliness occurs when a person’s network of social relationships is smaller or less satisfying than the person desires” (Peplau, ­Russell, & Heim, 1979, p. 55, italics added). You can have very little contact with people, but if you are satisfied with that contact, you won’t feel lonely. On the other hand, you may have many friends, yet still feel a need for more or deeper friendships and thus become lonely. Thinking of loneliness in terms of personal satisfaction with one’s social relationships helps explain why some people who live in virtual isolation find the solitude Copyright 2019 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. 290 Chapter 12 / The Humanistic Approach I N T H E NE WS Loneliness as a Public Health Issue P ervasive loneliness in our society is obviously a concern of mental health professionals. But researchers find that loneliness also contributes to a large number of physical ­illnesses, including diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. As a result, loneliness shortens lives and adds billions of dollars each year to health care costs. One estimate ranked loneliness as high a risk factor for death as smoking (Shulevitz, 2013). Psychologists also are concerned about the impact of loneliness on depression and suicide (Douthat, 2013). The suicide rate in the United States has been rising for more than a decade, and today suicide is responsible for more deaths in this country than automobile accidents. These observations lead some people to suggest that we should start thinking of loneliness as more than a personal problem. They argue that it may be time to see loneliness as a significant public health issue. And just as a number of policies have been implemented to reduce smoking and its impact on the nation’s health and health care resources, we need to develop programs and policies to reduce the toll that loneliness takes on the well-being of our population. Of particular concern is the finding that loneliness is becoming widespread among the elderly. In the United States, one in three citizens over 65 live alone, and one half of those over 85 are alone (Hafner, 2016). An AARP survey found that one out of every three Americans of age 45 and older reported that they felt chronically lonely (AARP, 2010). This number was a jump from only one in five who reported these feelings in a survey taken a decade earlier. Some groups were found to be particularly vulnerable to loneliness. For example, more than half of the respondents who had never been married fell into the chronically lonely category. When we pair these findings with the fact that the percentage of the population falling into the elderly category will grow substantially over the next few decades, the possibility of a public health ­crisis becomes very real. One potential avenue for decreasing loneliness is the Internet, which allows people to stay in touch even when they cannot engage in face-to-face contact. But how much the Internet can help the problem remains an open question. Only 17% of the lonely people in the AARP survey felt that the Internet made it easier for them to share personal information, and 13% of these respondents felt that keeping in touch with people through the Internet actually resulted in fewer deep personal relationships. Policy makers are just beginning to address the problem of loneliness at an institutional level. In some schools, teachers are being trained to look for signs of loneliness, particularly among students who are vulnerable to isolation because of differences with their classmates. Recently, as part of a $50 million project designed to improve interactions among soldiers and to reduce the risk of suicide and post-traumatic stress disorder, the United States Army has begun to train platoon leaders to identify loneliness symptoms in their troops (Shulevitz, 2013). In Great Britain, government agencies have introduced an array of programs to address the problem of loneliness. These programs include organized activities, hotlines, and training fire brigade members to look for signs of social isolation when inspecting homes (Hafner, 2016). Whether these programs will have a significant impact on the rates of loneliness and its psychological and physical consequences remains to be seen, although there are some indications that loneliness may not be a much of a problem on college campuses as it once was (Clark, Loxton, & Tobin, 2015). What seems certain is loneliness is a prevalent and serious problem in our society, and one that is not likely to go away any time soon. 290 Copyright 2019 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. Loneliness 291 enjoyable, whereas other individuals surrounded by people feel lonely. I commonly hear college students complain that, although they have a lot of acquaintances and people to hang around with, they don’t have many real friends. For these students, the unmet need to interact with that special person in an intimate and honest way can create intense feelings of being alone. Loneliness is often a result of the circumstances people find themselves in, such as moving to a new city or attending a new school. Moreover, the kinds of relationships we desire change as we pass through the life cycle (Green, Richardson, Lago, & Schatten-Jones, 2001; Pinquart & Sorensen, 2001). Young adults often require a larger number of friends to fend off loneliness, whereas older adults prefer fewer but closer friends. The causes and consequences of loneliness also vary as a function of culture (Anderson, 1999). The absence of an intimate friend or romantic partner often contributes to loneliness in Western societies. In fact, when people in individualistic cultures think of loneliness, they often imagine someone without a spouse or romantic partner. However, this source of loneliness is less common in Asian cultures, which emphasize associations with family members and the community (Rokach, 1998). On the other hand, because collectivist cultures emphasize one’s place in a larger social network, feeling alone in these cultures is more likely to lower a person’s sense of well-being (Goodwin, Cook, & Yung, 2001). Chronically Lonely People Although feelings of loneliness come and go as circumstances change, loneliness can also be thought of as a personality trait (Cramer, Ofosu, & Barry, 2000; Maes, K ­ limstra, Van den Noortgate, & Goossens, 2015; Rubenstein & Shaver, 1980; ­Russell, Peplau, & Cutrona, 1980; Schmidt & Sermat, 1983). That is, although everyone feels lonely on occasion, some people are highly vulnerable to feelings of loneliness and seem to chronically suffer from not having enough close friends. Like other p ­ ersonality variables, vulnerability to loneliness is relatively stable over time (Segrin, 1999; Weeks, Michela, Peplau, & Bragg, 1980). Correlations between measures of loneliness and other personality variables paint a drab and sullen picture of chronically lonely people (Ernst & Cacioppo, 1999). High scores on loneliness scales are related to higher levels of social anxiety and self-­ consciousness and lower levels of self-esteem and assertiveness (Bruch, Kaflowitz, & Pearl, 1988; Lim, Rodebaugh, Zyphur, & Gleeson, 2016; Solano & Koester, 1989). Lonely people are more likely to be introverted, anxious, and sensitive to rejection (Russell et al., 1980) and more likely to suffer from depression (Vanhalst, Luyckx, Teppers, & Goossens, 2012; Wei, Russell, & Zakalik, 2005). High loneliness scores also are associated with pessimism and negative mood (Cacioppo et al., 2006). Not surprisingly, lonely people have more than their share of social difficulties (Heinrich & Gullone, 2006). They become nervous in social situations, and this nervousness interferes with their ability to carry on pleasant conversations (Knowles, Lucas, Baumeister, & Gardner, 2015). Lonely people have a hard time trusting other people (Rotenberg et al., 2010 ) and are often uncomfortable when others open up to them (Rotenberg, 1997). Chronically lonely people have fewer enjoyable social encounters and more unpleasant social encounters than nonlonely people (Wolf & Davis, 2014). They spend less time with friends, date less frequently, attend fewer Copyright 2019 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. 292 Chapter 12 / The Humanistic Approach parties, and have fewer close friends (Archibald, Bartholomew, & Marx, 1995). Acquaintances of lonely people confirm the accuracy of these self-assessments (Luhmann, Bohn, Holtmann, Koch, & Eid, 2016). College students say their relationships with lonely people are noticeably less intimate than they are with nonlonely people (Williams & Solano, 1983). In addition to the emotional and social toll that comes with feeling alone, a growing body of research indicates that loneliness also may be hazardous to your health (Cacioppo & Patrick, 2008; Cacioppo, Capitanio, & Cacioppo, 2014; Cohen & ­Janicki-Deverts, 2009; Whisman, 2010). Compared to those who have few social contacts, people with a large and diverse social network have a decreased risk of cancer recurrence (Helgeson, Cohen, & Fritz, 1998), stroke (Rutledge et al., 2008), and heart disease (Kop et al., 2005). Lonely people also are more likely to experience pain and fatigue than nonlonely people (Jaremka et al., 2014; Wolf & Davis, 2014). Healthy adults in one study were—with permission—deliberately exposed to a cold virus (Cohen, Doyle, Turner, Alper, & Skoner, 2003). Researchers found that the more social the participants, the less likely they were to come down with a cold. Lonely students in another study had a poorer antibody response to receiving a flu shot than did nonlonely students (Pressman, Cohen, Miller, Barkin, Rabin, & Treanor, 2005). Given these findings, it should not be surprising that people with large social networks live longer than those who are socially isolated and lonely (Holt-Lundstad, Smith, Baker, Harris, & Stephenson, 2015; Newall, Chipperfield, Bailis, & Stewart, 2013). But why does loneliness affect health? As shown in Table 12.1, researchers have identified five possible pathways (Hawkley & Cacioppo, 2007). First, lonely people often have poorer health habits than nonlonely people. Most noteworthy, they tend to be less active physically (Hawkley, Thisted, & Cacioppo, 2009; Newall et al., 2013; Shankar, McMunn, Banks, & Steptoe, 2011). Whereas nonlonely people are out hiking, dancing, or golfing with friends, lonely people are staying home watching TV. This lack of activity combined with a poorer diet also makes lonely people more prone to obesity than nonlonely individuals (Lauder, Mummery, Jones, & Caperchione, 2006). Lonely people are more likely to smoke (Lauder et al., 2006), and loneliness has been tied to increased alcohol consumption (Arpin, Mohr, & Brannan, 2015). Table 12.1 Pathways Between Loneliness and Health Health Behaviors Lonely people have poorer health habits. Stress Exposure Lonely people experience more chronic stressors. Coping Styles  Lonely people use less effective coping strategies when dealing with stress. Stress Physiology Lonely people experience unhealthy changes in physiology. Recuperation  Lonely people are less able to rely on natural restorative processes that improve health. Source: Adapted from Hawkley and Cacioppo (2007). Copyright 2019 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. Loneliness 293 Second, lonely people have more stress in their lives than nonlonely individuals (Wolf & Davis, 2014). They also experience stress in more areas of their lives (e.g., financial, social, employment) than do those who are not lonely (Hawkley, Burleson, Berntson, & Cacioppo, 2003). Third, lonely people do not cope with stress as well as nonlonely people (­ Vanhalst et al., 2012). Seeking emotional support from friends when times are rough is an effective coping strategy. However, lonely individuals lack a network of friends they can turn to when feeling overwhelmed and helpless. Instead, they are more likely than most people to engage in less effective withdrawal strategies (Cacioppo et al., 2000). Fourth, the excessive amount of stress experienced by lonely people leads to changes in physiological conditions that eventually lead to poorer health (Jaremka et al., 2013). In particular, loneliness is associated with high blood pressure (Hawkley, Masi, Berry, & Cacioppo, 2006). Fifth, loneliness interferes with some of the body’s natural restorative processes. Most noteworthy, lonely people sleep less well than nonlonely people (Cacioppo, Hawkley, Berntson et al., 2002; Hawkley, Preacher, & Cacioppo, 2010). In short, a lifetime of chronic loneliness can grind away at a person’s health. The Causes of Loneliness What is it about lonely people that continually frustrates their need for meaningful social contact? Researchers have identified two characteristics that seem to contribute to chronic loneliness—negative expectations and poorly developed social skills. Lonely people often enter a social situation with the expectation that this encounter, like so many before, will not go well (Goswick & Jones, 1981; Hanley-Dunn, M ­ axwell, & Santos, 1985; Jones, Freemon, & Goswick, 1981; Jones, Sansone, & Helm, 1983; Levin & Stokes, 1986). In one study, lonely and nonlonely college students were asked to participate in a series of group activities with three other students (­ Christensen & Kashy, 1998). The students discussed and solved problems together for 30 minutes. Then they were separated and asked to rate the other members of the group in terms of their intelligence, friendliness, and so on. The participants also rated themselves on these dimensions and guessed what kind of ratings they would receive from the other group members. The researchers found that lonely participants evaluated themselves less favorably than they evaluated the other group members. Moreover, the lonely participants expected that the other three members of the group also would rate them poorly. However, they were wrong. Despite their low expectations for how the other students would see them, the lonely students were evaluated no differently from anyone else—with one exception. The lonely students actually were perceived as being friendlier than most of the people in the group. Another study found that when chronically lonely teenagers were included in a social activity, they tended to explain it away (e.g., “I was invited by coincidence”), yet they fully blamed themselves when they were excluded (e.g., “I’m not really a nice person to hang out with”) (Vanhalst et al., 2015). These negative expectations can be poisonous for developing friendships or romantic relationships. Because they doubt a new acquaintance would enjoy talking with them, lonely people often show little interest in getting to know other people and are quick to end conversations and move on to something else. This observation Copyright 2019 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. 294 Chapter 12 / The Humanistic Approach helps explain why loneliness is a problem for many students on crowded college campuses (Cutrona, 1982). With so many potential friends around, there is little reason to seek out and nurture a relationship with someone who appears to be unfriendly. Chronically lonely people also tend to have poorly developed social skills. That is, they struggle to carry on a pleasant conversation, and they don’t know how to rescue a social encounter when things start to drag. As a result, these individuals may become trapped in a cycle of loneliness (Segrin, 1999; Segrin & Flora, 2000; Vitkus & Horowitz, 1987). The best way to learn the art of conversation is to talk with other people. Yet people who lack social skills have a difficult time making friends, which means they have fewer opportunities to develop their social skills. Consider the interaction styles one team of researchers found when they examined conversations with lonely and nonlonely individuals (Jones, Hobbs, & ­Hockenbury, 1982). Lonely participants showed relatively little interest in their partners. They asked fewer questions, often failed to comment on what the other person said, and made fewer references to the partner. Lonely participants were more likely than nonlonely participants to talk about themselves, and they often introduced new topics unrelated to their partner’s interests. Another study found lonely people were more likely to give advice to strangers and were less likely to acknowledge what the other person said (Sloan & Solano, 1984). Lonely people also fail to use self-disclosure effectively. Studies find that lonely people generally reveal less about themselves than their partners (Berg & Peplau, 1982; Sloan & Solano, 1984). In one study, lonely people selected relatively nonintimate topics to talk about in a structured get-acquainted conversation (Solano, B ­ atten, & Parish, 1982). Not surprisingly, the lonely participants’ partners reciprocated with nonintimate topics as well. Other studies find lonely people are often not aware of social rules about when and how much to disclose (Chelune, Sultan, & Williams, 1980; Solano & Koester, 1989; Wittenberg & Reis, 1986). They may disclose too much or fail to reveal enough about themselves when the other person expects it. Consequently, others may see them as weird or aloof and respond accordingly. Fortunately, efforts to help people overcome their loneliness have been promising (Cacioppo, Grippo, London, Goossens, & Cacioppo, 2015; Masi, Chen, Hawkley, & Cacioppo, 2011). Not surprisingly, many of these treatments are designed to improve social skills. Therapists working with populations particularly vulnerable to loneliness, such as elderly individuals, often do what they can to create opportunities for their clients to meet and interact with other people. Finally, some treatments help lonely people understand how they sometimes sabotage potential friendships with negative expectations and inaccurate interpretations of what others think of them. Self-Esteem I f there is a single concept that threads its way through the writings of the humanistic psychologists, it may be how people feel about themselves. A central goal of Rogerian psychotherapy is to get clients to accept and appreciate themselves for who they are. Maslow wrote about the need for self-respect and the need to be content with who we are and what we do with our lives. In short, humanistic psychologists are concerned about our self-esteem. Copyright 2019 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. Self-Esteem 295 Most researchers draw a distinction between self-esteem and self-concept. Your self-concept is the cumulation of what you see as your personal characteristics—that is, the kind of person you believe yourself to be. Self-esteem refers to your evaluation of your self-concept. In essence, do you like this person? Researchers face several challenges when trying to identify and measure self-­esteem. One problem is that the way we feel about ourselves can change from one situation to the next. Most people get a little down on themselves when they act in ways they know they shouldn’t, and most of us can’t help but think well of ourselves when someone heaps praise on us for a job well done (Heatherton & Polivy, 1991). However, these fluctuations in feelings should not be confused with self-esteem. Rather, psychologists often refer to these ups and downs as feelings of self-worth (Brown & Dutton, 1995). In contrast, self-esteem has to do with relatively stable self-­evaluations (Orth & Robins, 2014). As with other personality variables, researchers find some people are prone to more positive self-evaluations than others. These individuals may have bad days and disappoint themselves on occasion, but in general they like themselves and feel good about who they are and what they do. Of course, we also can identify people who frequently experience negative self-evaluations. Although these low self-esteem people also have good days and feel good about much of what they do, compared to others they seem to lack a basic confidence in themselves or an appreciation for who they are. Self-Esteem and Reaction to Failure Evaluation is an unavoidable part of most of our lives. After only a few years of elementary school, most students become accustomed to having their schoolwork graded. Evaluation is commonplace in the business world; if not overtly in the form of an annual review, then implicitly in the size of one’s raise. Any type of competition, from sports to chess to gardening, brings with it the possibility of victory or defeat as we compare our abilities and accomplishments against those of others. All of this evaluation means that each of us has experienced our share of successes and failures. However, not all people react the same to evaluations. Several laboratory experiments have looked at how high and low self-esteem people respond when told they have done well or poorly on a test (Brockner, 1979; Brown & Dutton, 1995; Kernis, Brockner, & Frankel, 1989; Stake, Huff, & Zand, 1995; Tafarodi & Vu, 1997). Participants usually take a test supposedly measuring some intellectual aptitude or work on a task calling for some specific ability. Experimenters then give bogus feedback indicating that the participant has done either very well or rather poorly. Although everyone responds well when told they have succeeded, how we respond to failure often depends on our level of self-esteem. When told they have done poorly, low self-esteem people typically put in less effort on the next test and consequently don’t do well on it. In contrast, high self-esteem people work just as hard on the second test regardless of how they did on the initial test. The importance of these findings for academic settings is obvious. Consider one study that examined college students’ reactions to their grades on a midterm exam (Brockner, Derr, & Laing, 1987). The students took their first exam five weeks into the term and received their grade one week later. The investigators found that high and low self-esteem students performed almost identically on the midterm test. Copyright 2019 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. 296 Chapter 12 / The Humanistic Approach The researchers then divided the students into those who had done well on the test (received an A or a B) and those who had not done as well (received a C or lower). As shown in Figure 12.3, like the laboratory participants who received false feedback, low self-esteem students who did well on the first test continued to perform well. However, low self-esteem students who had not done well on the first test performed significantly worse on the second exam. Another study found that low self-esteem people do not have to actually experience failure to show these negative effects; rather, they only have to imagine that they have failed (Campbell & Fairey, 1985). Participants in this investigation were asked to imagine they had done well or poorly on a 25-item anagram test. Low self-esteem people who imagined failing said they expected to do poorly on a subsequent test and indeed performed more poorly on the test than low self-esteem people who first imagined they had done well. How can we explain these reactions? One possibility is that people are more likely to accept feedback consistent with their self-concept (Story, 1998; Wood, Heimpel, Manwell, & Whittington, 2009; Wood, Heimpel, Newby-Clark, & Ross, 2005). Individuals with low self-esteem may readily believe that they fail more than most people. Consequently, it is easier for them to accept feedback confirming their negative self-image than information that violates their expectations. The negative feedback reminds low self-esteem people of the low evaluations they have of themselves, which then triggers even more negative thoughts (Dutton & Brown, 1997; Tafarodi & Vu, 1997). This interpretation helps us understand why low self-esteem people perform more poorly on a task even when they just imagined what it would be like to fail. But we can also turn this question around. What is it about high self-esteem people that prevents them from becoming discouraged after failure? Why don’t they give up when they fail a test or do poorly at work? The answer appears to be that high Grade on Second Test 100 90 80 70 60 Figure 12.2 Performance on Second Test as a Function of ­SelfEsteem and Performance on First Test Source: Adapted from Brockner et al. (1987). Did Well on First Test High Self-Esteem Did Poorly on First Test Low Self-Esteem Copyright 2019 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. Self-Esteem 297 self-esteem people develop personal strategies for blunting the effects of negative feedback (van Dellen, Campbell, Hoyle, & Bradfield, 2011). Included in this arsenal is a tendency to respond to failure by focusing attention on their good qualities rather than on what they have done wrong. Whereas negative feedback causes people low in self-esteem to think about their faults and failures, this same feedback leads high self-esteem people to think about their abilities and achievements. This high self-esteem strategy for blunting the effects of failure has been demonstrated in several investigations (Buckingham, Weber, & Sypher, 2012; Dodgson & Wood, 1998; Greve & Wentura, 2003). Participants in one study received feedback indicating they had performed either well or poorly on an achievement test (Brown & Smart, 1991). They were then asked to rate themselves on a list of social attributes (e.g., sincere, kind). As shown in Figure 12.4, low self-esteem participants reacted to their failure on the achievement test by rating themselves poorly on their social skills. In contrast, high self-esteem participants actually rated themselves higher on their social attributes after failing. High self-esteem people in another study were quick to abandon a task they were having trouble with when given an opportunity to work on something they could do well (Di Paula & Campbell, 2002). It’s not that high self-esteem people are unaware of their faults and limitations; they just don’t dwell on their failures (Li, Zeigler-Hill, Luo, Yang, & Zhang, 2012). If they mess up at work, they remind themselves that they have a