Self-regulatory Aspects of Positive Illusions

描述（由申请人提供）：拟议的调查解决的问题，“什么是精神健康的人？对比两种理论传统的预测：积极幻想传统，它提出轻度积极的自我增强幻想促进心理健康，社会功能和对压力的保护性生物反应，与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，以及对压力的更大自主反应。我们假设，自我增强的适应性取决于它是否是私人的或明显的公共责任的情况下，对自我增强的模式（直接或间接）;和社会文化规范。主要研究招募了160名参与者，其中大约一半是亚裔美国人，一半是欧洲裔美国人，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压力挑战的反应。该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。对访谈的记录和协议分析将使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得以检验。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，拟议的分析研究文化差异的预测和心理健康的参数和它们的关系，以及生物和健康措施。这项研究的总体目标是提供一个综合性的理解心理健康，社会关系和生物反应压力是如何相互关联的，以及这些相互关系是否跨越文化。

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.