Self-regulatory Aspects of Positive Illusions

描述（由申请人提供）：拟议的调查解决了“什么是心理健康的人？”这一问题，并对比了两种理论传统的预测：积极幻觉传统认为，适度的积极自我增强幻觉促进心理健康、社会功能和对压力的保护性生物反应，而另一种观点认为，自我增强反映了一种持久的人格特征，其特征是自我欺骗的神经质，对社会关系的负面影响，以及对压力的更大的自主反应。我们假设自我提升的适应性取决于它是在私人的还是在公共的负责任的环境中表现出来；论自我提升模式（直接或间接）以及社会文化规范。主要研究招募了160名参与者，其中大约一半是亚裔美国人，一半是欧裔美国人，研究内容包括：心理和身体健康评估；关于与心理健康相关的生活领域功能的访谈；以及交感神经（SNS）、下丘脑-垂体-肾上腺皮质（HPA）轴和细胞因子对一系列实验室应激挑战的反应。数据集还包括同行评价和朋友对每个参与者的评价。主要研究的后续部分将评估自我提升对心理功能、他人看法和健康的长期影响。访谈的问卷调查和协议分析将能够检验关于直接与间接自我增强以及应对压力的生物反应的相互作用的假设。第二项研究操纵直接和间接的自我肯定，并检查对心理和生物应激反应的影响。鉴于样本的文化多样性，拟议的分析考察了心理健康预测因素和参数的文化差异及其与生物和健康措施的关系。这项研究的总体目标是提供一个关于心理健康、社会关系和对压力的生物反应是如何相互关联的综合理解，以及这些相互关系是否跨文化延伸。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The proposed investigations address the question, "What is a mentally healthy person?" and contrast the predictions of two theoretical traditions: the positive illusions tradition, which proposes that mildly positive self-enhancing illusions foster mental health, social functioning, and protective biological responses to stress, versus the viewpoint that self-enhancement reflects an enduring personality profile marked by self-deceptive neuroticism, a negative impact on social relationships, and greater autonomic responses to stress. We hypothesize that the adaptiveness of self-enhancement depends on whether it is private or manifest in public accountable circumstances; on mode of self-enhancement (direct or indirect); and on sociocultural norms. The main study enrolls 160 participants, approximately half of whom are Asian-American and half of whom are of European-American origin and includes: assessments of mental and physical health; an interview about functioning in life domains related to mental health; and sympathetic (SNS), hypothalamic-pituitary adrenocortical (HPA) axis, and cytokine responses to a series of laboratory stress challenges. The data set also includes peer evaluations and evaluations by friends on each participant. A follow-up component on the main study will provide assessments of the longer-term impact of self-enhancement on psychological functioning, perceptions by others, and health. Questionnaires and protocol analyses of the interviews will enable tests of hypotheses concerning direct versus indirect self-enhancement and the interplay of coping with biological responses to stress. A second study manipulates direct and indirect self-affirmation and examines the impact on psychological and biological stress responses. Given the cultural diversity of the sample, the proposed analyses examine cultural differences in predictors and parameters of mental health and their relation to biological and health measures as well. The overall goal of the research is to provide an integrative understanding of how mental health, social relations, and biological responses to stress are interrelated and whether those interrelations extend across cultures.