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POSITIVE AFFECT AND OTHER-FOCUSED ATTENTION

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PORTIA S. DYRENFORTH

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POSITIVE AFFECT AND OTHER-FOCUSED ATTENTION
By

Portia S. Dyrenforth

A THESIS
Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulﬁllment of the requirements
for the degree of
MASTERS OF ARTS
Department of Psychology

2006

ABSTRACT

POSITIVE AFFECT AND OTHER-FOCUSED ATTENTION

By

Portia S. Dyrenforth

Theories of positive emotion suggest that people who feel good are more likely to
seek out, participate in, and succeed in social interactions. However, experimental
attempts to establish the mechanisms responsible for the association between positive
affect and social interaction have been less clear. The current study tested whether other-
focused attention can be a mechanism to help explain the social beneﬁts experienced by
happy people. A number of measures of focus of attention were used to test whether
positive affect was associated with increased other-focus. Poor convergent validity across
the various measures of self— and other-focus prohibited strong interpretations regarding
this hypothesis. However, happiness was associated with signiﬁcantly more statements
that were about friends, about family members, or social in nature. In all, better measures
of other-focus are needed to adequately test whether it can account for why positive

affect leads to more successful social interaction.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Tables ..................................................................................................................... iv
Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 1
Study 1 — Online Manipulated Attention .......................................................................... 16
Study 2 — Online Trait ....................................................................................................... 29
Study 3 — Laboratory Manipulated Affect ........................................................................ 33
General Discussion ........................................................................................................... 37
References ......................................................................................................................... 45
Tables ................................................................................................................................ 50
Appendices ........................................................................................................................ 61

iii

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1 — Intercorrelations Between Measures of Self-focus (Study 1) ........................... 50
Table 2 — Intercorrelations Between Measures of Other-focus (Study 1) ........................ 51
Table 3 — Analysis of Variance for Attention Manipulation ............................................ 52
Table 4 — Associations Between Affect and Focus of Attention (Study 1) ...................... 53
Table 5 — Reliabilities of Scales ........................................................................................ 54
Table 6 — Intercorrelations Between Measures of Self-focus (Study 2) ........................... 55
Table 7 -— Intercorrelations Between Measures of Other-focus (Study 2) ........................ 56
Table 8 — Associations Between Affect and Focus of Attention (Study 2) ...................... 57

Table 9 —Associations Between Affect and Attention Controlling for Extraversion ...... 58
Table 10 — Intercorrelations Between Measures of Self-focus (Study 3) ........................ 59

Table 11 — Intercorrelations Between Measures of Other-focus (Study 3) ..................... 60

iv

Positive Affect and Other-focused Attention

Imagine a woman walking through the produce department at the local
supermarket and greeting an old friend. Further suppose that the ﬁ’iend acts quieter than
usual and perhaps a bit distracted because he just received some bad news. What
characteristics of the woman or of the situation might inﬂuence whether she notices the
friend’s atypical behavior (and therefore makes inquiries that could lead her to discover
the cause of his distress)? One factor that could inﬂuence how much attention the
woman directs toward her friend is her mood. If the woman happened to be in a great
mood, she might direct more attention toward her friend and be more likely to notice and
react to his unusual behavior. Conversely, if the woman just ﬁnished a tiring day at the
ofﬁce, she might be more likely to miss the cues of her friend’s distress and walk away
from the interaction without realizing anything was amiss. The objective situation and
the ﬁ'iend’s behavior are the same. However, the social information that the woman
perceives and the social outcomes resulting from the interaction may be different
depending on her mood.

This scenario serves as just one example of how affect might inﬂuence and shape
social behavior. Research examining positive mood has found that happiness inﬂuences
a variety of interpersonal behaviors, thoughts, and judgments (e. g. Isen, 1987). Several
theorists believe that people who feel good are more likely to seek out, participate in, and
succeed in social interactions (e.g., Lyubormirsky, King, & Diener, 2005). Correlational
evidence that happy people experience positive outcomes in economic, health, and
satisfaction domains is often used to support this claim. However, experimental attempts

to establish the mechanisms underlying the connection between positive affect and

beneﬁcial social outcomes have proven less deﬁnitive. If happiness does increases other-
focus, it might help to explain the associations between happiness and beneﬁcial social
outcomes.

Positive Affect, Social Interest and Social Activity

An association between positive emotions and social engagement has been found
in a number of studies using a variety of research methods. For instance, personality
research provides considerable evidence that positive affect is associated with the trait of
extraversion (see Diener & Lucas, 1999 for a review). A meta-analysis of 47 samples
provides an average correlation of .37, making the association between pleasant affect
and extraversion one of the most consistent ﬁndings reported in the personality literature
(Lucas & Fujita, 2000).

In addition to stable individual differences, there is strong correlational evidence
that positive emotion and social engagement are related over time. Watson and Clark
used daily diary methods to assess affect and various types of social activities. In a series
of studies they found that that the amount of time participants spent in social activities
was moderately correlated with the amount of positive affect experienced (Clark &
Watson, 1988; Watson, 1988).

As well as participating in more social activity, happy people are also more
socially interested. Crandall and Kytonen (1980) described the link between social
interest and well-being in a review of four cross-sectional studies. Social interest
(assessed by a forced choice values measure [Social Interest Scale, Crandall, 1975] and
an open-ended sentence completion task) was associated with higher levels of well being

for both university and older adult samples. Additional support for a relation between

positive emotion and interest in social information comes from a study in which
psychiatric patients were asked to complete a measure of positive and negative affect
(PANAS) and read a brief scenario describing people at a social gathering. After reading
the scenario, patients were asked to indicate their interest in obtaining more information
about the people described. Patients with higher positive affect scores reported more
interest in obtaining information regarding the social, intellectual, and personality
characteristics of the individuals described (Kuiper, McKee, Kazarian, & Olinger, 2000).
These correlational studies show an association between positive mood and social
interest but can not address the direction of the effects. Unfortunately, experimental
evidence on this t0pic has been somewhat sparse. One study using mood inductions
found that participants in an elated mood show signiﬁcantly more self-reported interest in
social activities compared with neutral subjects (Cunningham, 1988b). Two experiments
have also tested this association using behavioral measures of social interest. In the ﬁrst,
Isen (1970) found that participants in a positive mood were more likely to initiate
conversation with a confederate and were signiﬁcantly more likely to choose to work
with another person rather than alone on the next study task. Cunningham (1988a) found
that participants induced to feel elation showed higher levels of communication and self-
disclosure with a confederate relative to participants in a depressed mood. Although no
neutral mood condition was included in this design, self reported affect was correlated
with total communication (r=.35, p<.01; Cunningham, 1988a). Finally, a study
examining helping behavior found that participants induced to feel positive were more

willing to help on a social task that required interacting with peers. In contrast, affect

was unrelated to helping on an equivalent non-social task (Cunningham, Shaffer, Barbee,
Wolf, & Kelley, 1990).

Taken together, these studies provide converging evidence that happiness, social
engagement, and social interest are related. However, these few studies provide the bulk
of the evidence available. Additional searches of the literature for evidence replicating an
increase in social interest or engagement during positive mood turned up only an
unpublished manuscript showing that participants induced to feel happy disclosed more
personal information and performed in a “more poised, skilled, and rewarding manner”
(Forgas & Gunawardene, 2000). Even more important than the limited experimental
evidence, the mechanisms by which positive affect inﬂuences social interest and
engagement are not entirely clear. To help clarify how positive affect inﬂuences these
social outcomes, it is useful to consider current theories of the function and outcomes of
emotion.

Theories of Positive Affect and Broadening of Attention

Theories of emotion have often relied on the idea that each speciﬁc emotion
elicits a particular set of behaviors. These sets of behaviors, often called action
tendencies, are believed to help the organism respond appropriately to the eliciting
situation. For example, the specific action tendency elicited by anger is the urge to
attack. According to this view, emotions are evolutionarily adaptive because they help to
initiate the actions that are most likely to help the organism survive (e. g. fear initiates the
urge to escape from danger). Irnportantly, this approach suggests that experiencing a
particular emotion narrows the range of accessible thoughts and actions thus making a

speciﬁc set of behaviors more likely (see Fredrickson, 2001).

Although speciﬁc action tendencies are helpful in explaining the ﬁmction of
negative emotion, theorists have struggled to ﬁnd or describe what speciﬁc action
tendencies are elicited by positive emotions (Fredrickson & Levenson, 1998).
Fredrickson (2001) suggested that this difﬁculty may result from the nature of positive
emotion itself. Speciﬁc positive emotions are less distinguishable ﬁ'om one another than
are negative emotions. For example, there are numerous facial expressions (e. g. disgust,
fear, anger, sadness) and physiological outcomes (e. g. arousal, lethargy) associated with
discrete negative emotions. In contrast, positive emotions tend to be less discrete, each
resulting in generally positive but undifferentiated presentations such as smiling
(F redrickson, 1998). Therefore, the theories developed to explain how discrete negative
emotions narrow response tendencies are not sufﬁcient to explain the functions and
outcomes of more diffuse positive mood states.

Several different theories have been developed that speciﬁcally address the
functions and outcomes of positive affect (e. g. Carver, 2003; F redrickson, 1998, 2001;
Isen, 1970, 1987). Although these theories differ in their focus and explanatory
mechanisms, they consistently suggest that positive affect leads to more expansive and
ﬂexible patterns of thinking and behaving. This broadened thinking is incorporated into
many explanations of the function and outcomes of positive emotion.

Isen and her colleagues conducted many of the pioneering empirical studies that
demonstrated broadened cognition during the experience of positive affect. Those
studies showed that individuals experiencing positive emotion tend to exhibit more
inclusive, creative, and open-minded patterns of thinking (Clark & Isen, 1982; Isen,

1987; Moore & Isen, 1990). Isen and her colleagues argued that these changes in social

behavior are mediated by cognitive changes that result from positive mood.
Neuropsychological evidence suggests that these cognitive changes result from increased
brain dopamine levels experienced during positive affect (Ashby, Isen and Turken, 1999).
Building in part on Isen’s work, Fredrickson developed a general theory to
explain the functions and etiology of positive mood states. Her theory, the broaden-and-
build theory of positive emotion (Fredrickson, 1998, 2001) is based on the idea that
positive emotions lead to a broadened style of thinking and behaving. Fredrickson’s
theory expands the cognitive effects of positive emotion to describe consequences of
broadened thinking for physical, intellectual, and social outcomes. In an analog to the
speciﬁc action tendencies posited to narrow attention during negative emotion,
Fredrickson argued that positive emotions generate more general “momentary thought-
action repertoires” that encourage approach behavior and the seeking out of new
experiences during positive emotions. In contrast to the narrowed behavior tendencies
experienced during negative emotion, the diffuse and blended nature of positive emotions
is reﬂected in the wide variety of behaviors that positive feelings can elicit. An important
implication of the broaden-and-build theory is that the broadened thinking and
experiences elicited by positive emotion eventually and cumulatively produce durable
resources that engender positive future outcomes. The emotion of “joy”, for instance, is
posited to lead to playfulness, which over time can serve to strengthen and build
relationships. Using a variety of positive mood induction techniques, Fredrickson has
demonstrated the broadening effects of positive emotion on visual spatial tasks and self-

report measures (Fredrickson & Branigan, 2005).

A third relevant theory regarding attention and positive emotions is Carver’s
(2003) model of the function of affect. Carver suggested that positive feelings serve as a
sigral that things are going better than necessary. In reaction to this signal, an individual
feeling positive emotion is thought to decrease effort or “coast” in the current domain and
to shift attention and effort to other domains. Essentially, Carver’s model argues that the
experience of pleasure serves as a one that things are going well and that attention can be
transferred to something else. This kind of switching of attention to different domains
might lead to broadened attention by making individuals more likely to notice and pay
attention to things they otherwise would have missed.

A central theme across each of these theories is that positive affect broadens
attention. However, it is still unclear exactly what this broadened attention does to create
positive outcomes. One possible answer is that broadened attention focuses attention on
things other than the self. An important category of things outside the self is other
people. Therefore, the broadening of attention resulting from positive emotion could lead
to increased attention toward others. If this proves to be the case, other-focus might help
to explain the beneﬁcial social outcomes that are associated with positive affect.

Positive Aﬂect, Social Memory and Perception

The literature reviewed above suggests that positive affect leads to broadened
attention. It does not address directly whether the experience of positive affect increases
other-focus. Although other-focus has not previously been tested as a direct outcome of
positive affect, there is some evidence in the literature showing that positive affect

improves performance on tasks requiring other-focused attention. For example, Isen and

others have argued that happiness improves performance and efﬁciency on tasks
involving social judgments and insight.

A study conducted by Isen (1970) suggests that positive affect may increase
attention to and memory for others in the environment. In a paper investigating helping
behavior, Isen described the “warm glow of success”. She predicted that following a
success experience people would behave more generously and be more attentive to the
social environment compared to people who experienced failure. Participants were given
success or failure feedback after taking a “test of perceptual-motor skills” and then given
the opportunity to donate to charity. During the study session a confederate entered the
room and performed a series of scripted actions before leaving. Afterward, participants
were asked to recall everything they could about the confederate and her actions in the
room. In addition, participants completed a recognition test that included a list of the
confederate’s scripted actions along with three false options. The success group showed
signiﬁcantly greater recall than the failure condition participants. In addition, on both the
recall and recognition tasks, the success condition had (nonsigniﬁcantly) higher scores
than the control condition (Success M=27.10, SD=7.39; Control M=22.10, SD=5.97).

In addition to these attention and memory effects, positive emotion appears to
increase the accuracy with which social information is perceived and interpreted. One
example of this can be found in a study examining the ability of individuals to make
social judgments based on limited information. Ambady and Gray (2002) asked
participants to view a series of short (IS-second) silent video clips depicting opposite-sex
dyads that were either a) involved in a romantic relationship, b) platonic ﬁiends, or c)

strangers. Following each clip participants were asked to judge the relationship status of

each couple. Participants in the happy and neutral mood conditions were signiﬁcantly
more accurate in their judgments of relationship status than were sad mood participants.
In addition, happy participants were signiﬁcantly faster at completing the judgments than
were control participants who were signiﬁcantly faster than the sad mood participants.
The authors suggest that interpreting nonverbal stimuli is an automatic process that is
impeded by the more deliberative processing style exhibited during sadness. Although
the authors were not speciﬁcally interested in the effects of positive affect, they use the
same line of reasoning to suggest that increased use of heuristics and automatic
processing during positive mood may result in improved performance in the automatic
processes needed for this social judgment task. In fact, a planned contrast found that
happy participants were signiﬁcantly more efﬁcient (deﬁned as a composite of accuracy
and latency) in making relationship judgments than were neutral or negative mood
participants (Ambady & Gray, 2002). It is also possible that the improved efﬁciency was
due to the happy participants’ high level of other-focus which may have facilitated
performance on a task demanding judgments of social stimuli.

Beyond making simple judgments of videotaped stimuli, everyday life requires
individuals to understand and respond to the desires of other people during interactions.
Camevale and Isen (1986) examined how mood impacted participants’ knowledge of
their partner’s preferences in a dyadic negotiation task. Participants induced to feel either
neutral or positive affect were asked to reach agreement with a partner on a bargaining
task. After ﬁnishing negotiation, participants were asked to guess the negotiation
preferences of their partner. Positive affect was found to be signiﬁcantly associated with

improved insight into partner preferences (Camevale & Isen, 1986). Unfortunately, the

data presented in the article prevent making a strong interpretation of this ﬁnding because
the partner preference ratings were multiplied by a conﬁdence rating. However, the
authors’ assertion that positive mood increases social insight is further bolstered by
additional evidence from a different study conducted in a naturalistic setting. When
asked to report on conditions in the organization in which they worked, individuals
higher in positive affectivity were more accurate in their perceptions of the social
network structure than people lower in positive affectivity (Casciaro, Carley &
Krackhardt, 1999). This ﬁnding, along with the evidence presented that being happy
improves memory and insight for social information, strengthens the prediction that
positive affect should lead to increased attention directed toward others.

Evidence that happy people show improved memory and insight for social
information suggests that broadening may speciﬁcally result in increased attention toward
others. However, the evidence reviewed thus far has not directly addressed how attention
is affected by mood. The next section highlights several lines of research examining the
intersection of affect and attention.

Self-focus and Aﬂect

The idea that mood inﬂuences the amount of attention directed to internal versus
external stimuli is not new. In fact, there is considerable research documenting a relation
between negative affect and self-focus. Before addressing new questions regarding
other-focused attention, it is useful to review the theories and evidence for the better-
understood construct of self-focus.

Self-focus has been deﬁned as attention directed inward toward one’s own

thoughts and feelings (Carver & Scheier, 1981). High levels of self-focus have been

10

associated with higher levels of depression (Pyszczynski, Holt, & Greenberg, 1987;
Wood, Saltzberg, & Goldsamt, 1990), lower levels of life satisfaction (Exner, 1973), and
even momentary experiences of negativeaffect (for a review see Mor & Winquist, 2002).
The negative affect and self-focus relation appears robust across a variety of methods.
Estimates of the magnitude of this effect were provided by a recent meta-analysis
including both correlational (N=149, d=.51) and experimental (N=72, d=.44) data sets
(Mor & Winquist, 2002).

Two primary arguments have been used to explain the association between
negative emotions and self-focus: self-regulatory models and “signal” models. Self-
regulatory models assume that negative mood occurs in response to a loss or a problem.
This, in turn, initiates a series of regulatory processes that are thought to draw attention
inward in order to deal with the cause of the problem (Pyszcynski et al., 1987; Wood et
al., 1990). A related theory of depression, the self-regulatory perseveration theory
describes a depressive self-focusing style. Pyszczynski et a1. (1987) argue that self-focus
results from the detection of a discrepancy between an individual’s current state and the
individual’s desired standard. In order to remedy this discrepancy, a self-regulation
process is activated that requires focusing on the self. Pyszcynski et a1. argue that
depression results from becoming caught in this self-regulatory pattern which leaves the
individual stuck in a self-focused state.

A second group of models explaining the association between affect and self-
focus regard mood as a signal, and suggest that attention is drawn inward in search of an
explanation for that signal (Wood et al., 1990; Salovey & Rodin, 1985). These ideas are

based on the assumption that distinctive or unusual events capture attention. The

11

experience of negative affect (a departure from baseline) therefore draws attention to the
self. Unlike self-regulatory models, signal theories would therefore predict that any
mood (positive or negative) would elicit self-focus.

Self-focus and Positive Emotion

In light of the growing evidence that self-focus increases during negative affect,
several researchers began to question how positive affect impacts self-focused attention.
“Signal” theories for mood effects suggest that positive affect increases self-focus
because it draws attention inward in search of an explanation for emotion. Conversely,
other theories argue that positive mood should decrease self-focus if it serves as an
indication that the circumstances are safe or satisfying. Although the evidence regarding
positive emotion and attention is somewhat sparse, a few relevant studies provide
preliminary evidence.

In one study testing the signal theories, participants vividly imagined a situation
that was happy, sad, or neutral (Salovey, 1992). Following this mood induction, self-
focus was assessed using the Linguistic Implications Form (LIF). The LIF generates self-
focus scores by measuring the number of ﬁrst person singular words chosen to complete
a series of English sentences. Salovey found that both positive and negative mood
participants were more self-focused than controls. However, the results have since been
questioned because the imagery mood induction used was more self-involving for both
positive and negative conditions (Green & Sedikides, 2000).

Green and his colleagues addressed this and other methodological concerns in a
study designed to speciﬁcally test how self-focus is affected by mood (Green, Sedikides,

Saltzberg, Wood & Forzano, 2003). The authors used a within-subject design to test for

12

differences between neutral and induced positive mood conditions. Self-focus was
measured by coding the content of a free-response thought sample. For 2.5 minutes
participants were asked to write down everything that came to mind. The open-ended
nature of thought listings addressed criticisms of past studies that demand characteristics
were a concern (Sedikides, 1992; Wood et al., 1990). Each thought listed by participants
was coded as either self-focused or not self-focused and a self-focus ratio was computed.
Participants induced to feel positive mood showed signiﬁcantly less-self-focus than
during neutral mood (d=.67). Although initial evidence was somewhat mixed (a few
studies found no difference between neutral and positive mood conditions) the best
evidence provided in the literature suggests that happy moods decrease self-focused
attention (Wood et al., 1990). Unfortunately, the data presented do not speciﬁcally
address whether this indicates a corresponding increase in attention directed toward
others. The current research attempts to clarify this issue.
Measurement of Self-focused Attention

In order to test the theories describing an association between negative affect and
self-focus, researchers needed to develop methods of measuring self-focused attention. A
series of measures were developed based on the idea that focus of attention will be
reﬂected in an individual’s verbal productions. For example, currently-depressed college
students use the word “I” more than never-depressed participants when writing an essay
(Rude, Gortner, & Pennebaker, 2004).

Some of the earliest evidence regarding self-focus and language use comes from
studies using the Self Focus Sentence Completion test (SFSC, Exner, 1973), a test

developed to measure egocentricity. The SFSC asked participants to complete a series of

13

sentence stems such as “It’s fun to daydream about...” and “I like. . .”. Responses were
coded as self-focused, externally focused or neutral. Self-focus scores were computed by
subtracting the number of externally focused statements from the number of self-focused
statements.

A few years later, Davis and Brock (1975) developed a measure that allowed self-
focus to be assessed without the need to code open-ended responses. Using a cover-story
that the study measured “sensitivity to foreign languages” the researchers presented
participants with a series of sentences written in unfamiliar languages. Each pronoun in
the foreign sentences was underlined. Participants were given a list of word choices and
asked to go through the sentences and select the best word for each underlined foreign
word. The word choice Options were all English pronouns (I, we, me, us, my, our, he,
his, him, it, she, her, they, them, and you). Self-focus was assessed by the relative
frequency of ﬁrst person pronouns used. This measure of self-focus has been used and
adapted a number of times (e. g. Dijksterhuis & VanKnippenberg, 2000). One such
variation was the Linguistic Implications Form (LIF) developed by Wegner and Guiliano
(1980, 1983). In the LIF, a cover-story was presented telling the participants that prior
research showed that things people say are often redundant and words in a sentence can
often be guessed using the rest of the sentence. Participants were then given a series of
sentences written in English, each containing one blank with several word choices to
complete the sentence. For each sentence, participants were asked to select the most
appropriate word. For each of the critical items one Option was a ﬁrst-person singular
pronoun. Self-focus scores were again calculated as the number of ﬁrst person singular

words that participants selected.

14

Many researchers have used these measures to assess self-focused attention.
However, the relative merits of each have not been compared, as generally only one
measure is used in each particular study. It is assumed that the same underlying construct
(self-focus) is being assessed because each of these measures draws on the same
assumption that focus of attention is reﬂected in individual’s word choices. The current
study provides a unique comparison of the relative merits of each method by
administering multiple measures to the same sample. In addition, it extends the use of
this paradigm to the study of other-focused attention.

Overview

The current project includes three studies that examine the association between
other-focused attention and positive affect. Drawing upon research regarding basic
theories of positive emotion, and ﬁndings on the social outcomes associated with
happiness, it was predicted that other-focused attention increases during positive affect.
Building on theories that suggest that positive affect broadens attention, linguistic
measures of other-focus were used to test whether this broadening of attention results in
increased attention toward objects and concerns beyond the self. In particular, the studies
were designed to test whether attention to people (a particularly important category of the
stimuli available in the social environments in which humans live) increases with positive
affect. The current project aims to test whether positive affect is associated with
increased other-focus. If it does, other-focus could serve as an important explanation for
why positive affect leads to beneﬁcial social outcomes. If evidence suggests that happy

people are more aware of and responsive to those around them due to increased other-

15

focus, it would follow that happy people should be better able to negotiate and succeed in
social situations and relationships.

In order to create measures of other-focus, several methods of measuring self-
focus were adapted to assess attention toward others. Study 1 tests the validity of these
measures to assess other-focus. Study 2 provides a test of whether trait level positive
affect is associated with higher levels of other-focus. Finally, Study 3 includes a
laboratory mood induction to assess whether participants induced to feel positive affect
show higher levels of other-focus than do neutral mood participants.

An additional goal was to gain a better understanding of the measurement of self-
focused attention. Previous research has typically included only one measure of self-
focus per study, making comparisons of efficacy and convergent validity impossible.
The current studies each included several measures of self-focus in addition to the newly
adapted other-focus measures. The inclusion of these scales permitted a test of whether
the association between self-focus and negative affect replicated, as well as an
examination of the relative merits of different scales used previously in the literature.

Study 1- Online Manipulated Attention

Study 1 was designed to address three questions regarding measurement. First,
although the different self-focus measures have been previously validated using self-
focus manipulations (for review see Mor & Winquist, 2002), and are generally thought to
measure the same construct, they have not previously been administered and compared in
the same study. The current study compares the efﬁcacy and convergence of existing
measures. Second, Study 1 served to test whether this series of measures originally

designed to assess self-focus could be adapted and used to measure other-focused

16

attention. The linguistic measures seemed to be ideal for this purpose but it was
necessary to evaluate their efﬁcacy in this new context. Third, Study 1 tests the validity
of the newly adapted measures by inducing other-focus with an attentional focus
manipulation. This provides a test of whether scores on the linguistic measures
accurately reﬂect other-focused attention. Finally, the inclusion of a trait affect scale
allowed an initial examination of the associations between affect and focus of attention.
Method

Participants

Participants (11 = 155) were recruited from the undergraduate psychology
research website at Michigan State University in exchange for partial class credit. Data
from 9 participants were discarded because they logged off the experiment before
completing the study measures. Five additional participants were excluded because they
had previously completed a study containing similar measures. Results reported
represent data from 141 participants (77 in the self-focus condition and 63 in the other-
focus condition) who completed the full study measures.
Procedure

All study materials were completed online and participation was anonymous.
Participants were informed that the researcher was interested in intuitive language use
and understanding. Instructions asked participants to complete a series of questionnaires
and activities related to writing and understanding written language.
The ﬁrst activity in the study materials was an induction of attentional focus.

Participants were assigned to write two short essays about either self-focused or other-

focused topics. The instructions in the self-focus condition indicated that participants

17

should, “Think about what you were like when you were in high school. Spend a minute
thinking about yourself at that time. Then, write a description of yourself in high school.
You can describe anything about yourself (what you were like, things you enjoyed doing,
etc.)”. After completing this essay, participants in the self-focus condition read
additional instructions asking them to, “. . .think about yourself now. Think for a few
moments about what you are like. Then write a short description of yourself.”
Participants in the other-focus condition completed a similar set of essays. However,
participants in the other-focus condition were instructed to, “think about someone you
knew when you were in high school,” and write about that person. The second essay in
the other-focus condition had participants think about and describe, “someone you know
now”. (See Appendix 1 for question wording and full instructions.)

Following this induction, participants were presented with the measures of focus
of attention. First they completed the Linguistic Implications Form and the sentence
completion task. Next, the self-report measures (PSC and other—focus questionnaire) and
foreign language task were administered. Finally, participants completed an adjective
rating affect scale. Upon completion of the study measures, participants read an
educational description of the study goals and were given an opportunity to ask questions
or address any concerns with the experimenter.

Measures

Self—focus - Private Self-Consciousness Scale. The private self-consciousness

scale developed by F enigstein et a1. (1975) was administered in a version adapted to

measure momentary self-consciousness. The scale contains ten items such as, “Right

18

now, I’m trying to ﬁgure myself out”, and “I’m attentive to my inner feelings right now”.
See items 1-10 of Appendix 2 for full measure. (a = .70)

Other-focus Questionnaire. The items from the private self-consciousness scale
(Fenigstein et al., 1975) were adapted to create a self-report measure of attention directed
toward others. Participants completed the other-focused scale that included items such
as, “I’m attentive to how other people feel”, and “I’m alert to changes in other peoples’
mood”. In addition, two items created to directly assess other-focused attention were also
included. These face valid items were, “I tend to pay attention to other people around
me” and “I know more about those around me than most people”. Responses to the
twelve items were averaged to create a score for each participant. See items 11-25 of
Appendix 2 for full measure. (a = .82)

Linguistic Implications Form - Self-focus. An adapted version of the Linguistic
Implications Form (Wegner & Guiliano, 1980, 1983) served as one linguistic measure of
attentional focus. Instructions informed participants that prior research had found that
statements are often redundant and that words in a sentence can frequently be guessed
using the rest of the sentence. A series of sentences were presented, each containing one
blank space. Participants were asked to indicate which of three word choices would best
complete each sentence. The current version was adapted such that each item included
one option that was an externally focused pronoun or possessive adjective (e. g. she, they,
his). The percentage of word choices refening to the self or others were calculated to
measure attentional focus. Three types of self-focus scores were calculated and analyzed
to represent the percentage of responses that were a) ﬁrst person singular, b) ﬁrst person

plural, or 0) either ﬁrst person singular or plural. Because previous research has not

19

included or addressed the distinction between ﬁrst person singular (e. g. 1, me) and ﬁrst
person plural (e. g. we, us) no speciﬁc predictions were made regarding these categories.
(a = .45)

Linguistic Implications Form - Other-focus. Using the same word choice data,
other-focus scores were calculated as the percentage of externally focused words
selected. See Appendix 3 for full measure. (a = .34)

Foreign Language Task — Self-focus. Following the procedures in Dijksterhuis
and VanKnippenberg (2000), participants were told via computer that previous research
has shown that while reading a foreign language people are sometimes able to guess the
correct pronoun from languages they do not understand. They were told that although
this has been observed for Romance languages the current study was investigating
whether it is also true for more unfamiliar languages. Participants were then shown two
passages written in unfamiliar languages with blank spaces in each sentence. Three word
choices were provided for each blank and participants selected the word they believed
most appropriate. Filler items included verbs or nouns, however on the eight critical
items participants were asked to select from three pronouns. An example item included
the options “us”, “it”, and “them” as choices to complete the foreign sentence. Self-focus
scores were computed as the percentage of self-focused words (ﬁrst person pronouns)
selected to complete the foreign passage. (As there was only one ﬁrst person plural
pronoun option, no distinction was made between scores for different types of self-focus.)
(a = .17)

Foreign Language Task — Other-focus. Other-focused responding was computed

as the percentage of externally focused (e. g. “them”) words chosen to complete the

20

critical items. A foreign language “thing” category score was also computed to represent
the percentage of words selected that referred to objects or non-human targets (e. g. “it”).
See Appendix 4 for full measure. (a = .05)

Sentence Completion — Self-focus. The Self Focus Sentence Completion (Exner,
1973) task was shortened and adapted to measure other-focused attention. Participants
were asked to complete a list of sentence stems. The responses were then scored using
the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count software (LIWC; Pennebaker, Francis, & Booth,
2003) to assess the percentage of self-focused sentence completions. Example items
include, “It’s fun to daydream about: _” and “My mother: _”. Composite scores
were created for each participant by averaging the results of the linguistic analysis
software for each of the ﬁfteen sentence completion items. In order to obtain more
detailed information regarding the focus of attention, separate variables were created to
index the percentage of text referring to 1St person singular, 1St person plural, or a
combination of the two. See Appendix 5 for full measure.

Sentence Completion - Other-focus. The sentence completion responses were
also scored using the same software to create a rating of the percentage of extemally-
focused sentence completions. Separate scores were calculated for the percentage of text
referring to other people (other), social content (social), and communication (comm). In
addition, the software tabulated the percentage of text referencing friends (friend), family
(family), or humans in general (human).

Thought Listing — Self-focus. The ﬁnal self—focus measure asked participants to
write down “anything that comes to mind” for a period of 2.5 minutes. (See Appendix 6

for full instructions.) The results of this free-response writing were analyzed for other-

21

focused references using linguistic analysis software (LIW C; Pennebaker et al., 2003).
Similar to the sentence completion task, three self-focus variables were tabulated.
Separate categories for 1St person singular, lSt person plural, and a combination of the two
permitted a more nuanced analysis of self-focused attention and its associations with
affect.

Thought Listing — Other-focus. The linguistic analysis software was also used to
create scores representing the percentage of other-focused text for the free-response
writing passages. As with the software analysis of the sentence completion task, scores
were created to represent the percentage of writing dedicated to various other-focused
categories. (The speciﬁc categories assessed were references to others, social processes,
communication, references to friends, family and to humans in general.)

Trait Aﬂect. The Intensity and Time Affect Survey (Diener, Smith, & F uj ita,
2003) was used to measure trait affect. This measure asked participants to indicate the
degree to which they generally feel a series of adjectives using a ﬁve-point scale. The
four-item positive affect scale includes the items, “joy”, “happiness”, “contentment” and
“pride”. Negative affect was assessed by the items “sadness”, “unhappiness”,
“depression”, and “loneliness”. See Appendix 7 for full measure. (or = .79 joy, (1 =87
sad).

Results

Convergence of Measures - Self-focus. Previous research has used a variety of
self-report and linguistic measures to assess self-focused attention. If each of the
measures of self-focus accurately capture attention directed inward to the self then there

should be high correlations between the scores for each of the self-focus measures. To

22

interpret these intercorrelations it is helpful to consider the self-focus measures as falling
into three broad categories; self-report, forced choice linguistic measures, and open-
ended measures. Measures within each category share methodological characteristics
and should be expected to show greater convergence than measures drawn from
categories that use different methods. The Private Self Consciousness scale is the lone
self-focus measure in the self-report category. The Linguistic Implications Form and
foreign language translation task share similar response options and may be thought of as
forced choice linguistic measures of self-focus. Finally, the sentence completion task and
thought listing task are both comprised of open-ended responses that are coded for self-
or other-focused content.

An examination of Table 1 indicates that the foreign language task and sentence
completion task, for which participant writing is coded for self-focus, were signiﬁcantly
correlated (r = .26, p<.01). However, the convergence of the two forced choice linguistic
measures (which also share method variance) was less strong. The linguistic implications
scale and the foreign language task, showed a correlation of only r = .16 (ns).

Across categories, there was little evidence of convergence. The self-report
measure of self-focus did not signiﬁcantly correlate with any of the linguistic measures of
self-focus (correlations ranged from -.06 for the foreign language task to .14 for the
sentence completion task). In fact, the only signiﬁcant association between categories of
measures was between the Linguistic Implications Form and sentence completion task (r
=.26, p<.01). Most of the other intercorrelations between self-focus measures were quite
low, often approaching zero. (For the full table of intercorrelations between self-focus

measures see Table l.)

23

Convergence of Measures - Other-focus. Again, if the various measures of other-
focus are valid, there should be strong associations between scores on the various scales.
However, as with the self-focus measures on which they were based, the other-focus
scales did not show strong convergent validity. The only exceptions were for measures
assessed using similar methods. For example, other-focus scores on the forced choice
linguistic procedures (Linguistic Implications Form and foreign language task) were
moderately correlated (r = .21, p<.01). The open-ended measures also showed
convergence, with references to friends on the sentence completion and thought-listing
tasks correlated r = .25 (p<.05). The associations between other-focus scores were much
lower on scales that did not share similar methods. The self-report measure of other-
focus did not signiﬁcantly correlate with the linguistic measures of other-focus except
one subscale of the thought listing task (rs ranged from -.12 to .18). Overall there was
little evidence of consistency in the way that participants scored on the various measures
designed to assess other-focused attention. See Table 2 for full correlation matrix.

Manipulation Check — Attentional Focus Induction. Although convergent validity
evidence was weak, it is still possible to assess whether any measures were responsive to
the attentional focus manipulation. Participants were asked to write two essays
describing themselves (one describing him/her in high school, and one describing him/her
in the present). The purpose of this exercise was to focus attention inward and away
from other people. The text of the essays was analyzed using linguistic analysis software
(LIW C, Pennebaker et al., 2001). This software produces summary output detailing the
percentage of text referring to self- and other-focused topics. For instance, the software

analyzes a writing segment and generates percentages of text refening to lSt person

24

(singular and/or plural), 2nd person, and 3ml person pronouns. In addition, the software
generates summary scores for categories such as social processes (social) and
communication by analyzing an extensive dictionary of relevant words. As an example,
there are 314 words that are included in the “social” category including terms such as
“talk”, “share”, and “converse”. This summary data allowed a direct comparison of the
percentage of statements referring to the self and the percentage of statements referring to
others.

A series of one-way ANOVAS was performed to compare the degree of self- and
other-focused statements in the attentional induction essays. As predicted, participants in
the other-focused condition wrote essays with signiﬁcantly more statements about others
(self .09%, other .83%, F(1,139)=7.950, p<.01), communication (self .09%, other 1.43%,
F(l, 139)=14.88, p<.01), friends (self 1.36%, other 23.56% F(l, 139)=248.60, p<.01),
and family (self 236%, other 3.31%, F(1,139)=4.04, p<.05).

However, a more careful examination of the attention-induction essays revealed that
they may not have worked as planned. Although the manipulation was intended to focus
attention inward to the self, many participants in the self-focus condition chose to write
about themselves in the context of a social network and in reference to other people as
well as themselves. In fact, participants in the self-focus condition wrote more
statements that were classiﬁed as 1St person plural than participants in the other-focus
condition (self 25.8%, other 6.8%, F(1,139) = 215.15, p <.01). This unexpected result
indicates that rather than focusing attention inward, many participants in the self-focus
condition described themselves as part of a larger social group. The failure of the

attentional focus manipulation is further underscored by evidence that participants in the

25

other-focused condition wrote essays with more self-referent statements than participants
in the self-focus condition (self .09%. other 1.43%, F(1,139)=14.88, p<.01).

Only one signiﬁcant difference across condition was found for all of the attention
measures. On the sentence completion task, participants in the self-focus condition used
signiﬁcantly more sentences with IS” person plural references (F (l, 139) = 6.13, p < .05).
This reﬂects the same pattern found in the manipulation essay analyses, where
participants in the self-focus condition were more likely to make references to “we”,
“us”, and to themselves as a part of a larger social group. No signiﬁcant differences were
found across conditions for the other-focus measures (Other-focus questionnaire,
Linguistic Implications Form, foreign language translation task, sentence completion
task, and thought listing, see Table 3 for full results).i

Self-focus and Negative Aﬂect. As reviewed earlier, an extensive body of
research has been dedicated to the idea that negative affect and self-focused attention
have reciprocal inﬂuences. This effect was replicated using the Private Self
Consciousness (PSC) scale, a self-report measure of self-focused attention. Negative
affect was signiﬁcantly associated with scores on the self consciousness scale (r = .34,
p<.05), an effect size that is comparable to previous ﬁndings (Mor & Winquist, 2002,
Table 4). However, none of the linguistic measures of self-focus in this study were
systematically associated with trait negative affect. The failure to replicate the negative
affect/self-focus association using linguistic measures is of concern, as previous studies
using the linguistic measures have reported reliable associations with self-focused

attention.

26

Self-focused Attention and Positive Affect. As reviewed earlier, there has been
debate as to whether positive emotion elicits self-focus attention, or whether negative
emotion is unique in its inward focusing effects. Results from the current study provide
no evidence that positive affect is associated with self-focus. Table 4 shows that the
measures of self-focus showed low associations with positive affect with correlations
ranging from -.13 to .10 for the various self-focus measures. Even the self-report
measure of self-focus (PSC) showed no association with positive affect (r = -.08, p>.05).

Other-focus and Trait Aﬂect. Based on theories of positive affect and the relation
between affect and attention, it was predicted that positive affect would be associated
with higher levels of other-focused attention. The attention manipulation did not appear
to inﬂuence participants’ mood as there were no signiﬁcant differences across attention
condition for positive (Self-focus M = 3.42, SD = .78; Other-focus M =3.42, SD = .74) or
negative (Self-focus M = 2.38, SD = .95; Other—focus M = 2.54, SD = .96) trait affect.
Somewhat unexpectedly, high levels of negative affect were associated with higher
scores on the Other-focus Questionnaire (r =.25, p<.01). However, affect was not
systematically related to any of the linguistic measures of other-focus assessed with most
correlations close to zero. See Table 4 for full data.

Discussion

The results of Study I raise a number of concerns regarding measurement of self-
focus and other-focus. Intercorrelations between the various linguistic measures of self-
focus were low. This lack of convergence raises the question of what exactly is being

measured by each. The same measurement issues seem to plague the newly adapted

27

measures of linguistic other-focus, as they suffered from similarly low levels of
convergent validity.

Consistent with the weak evidence for convergent validity, the attention scores
were not responsive to the attention-focus manipulation. It was predicted that individuals
induced to focus attention toward others would respond to the linguistic measures with a
higher percentage of other-focused statements than a group induced to focus attention
inward. A review of the essays suggested that writing self-focused essays failed to
isolate attention toward the self. Many of the participants in the self-focus condition
wrote about themselves within a social context. Statements such as “I had a really close
group of ﬁiends...” or “I was really outgoing and got along with mostly everyone” were
common. In light of these ﬁndings, this study does not provide the strong test of validity
for the newly adapted measures of other-focus that was originally intended. These
concerns strongly limit the conclusions that can be drawn from this study regarding the
efﬁcacy of these other-focus measures for measuring attention directed toward others.

However, even though the attention manipulation did not work, it is still possible
to test the association with affect. The results regarding the association between affect
and focus of attention were mixed. Scores on the self-report measure of self—focus (PSC)
were correlated with negative affect, a replication of the long accepted association
between self-focus and negative affect. However, none of the linguistic measures of self-
focus was systematically associated with affect. Contrary to the prediction, the various
measures of other-focus were also not associated with affect. It is unclear whether the
failure to ﬁnd differences on the linguistic measures of other-focus is a true null-result or

the result of problems with measurement.

28

Study 2 - Online Trait

Study 2 was designed to assess whether trait positive affect was associated with
stable other-focus and did not require an attention induction. Study 2 also included a
larger sample of participants so that the associations between measures of attention and
affect could be examined with more reliable estimates.

Method

Participants

Undergraduates from the Michigan State University psychology research pool
participated in exchange for partial class credit. Analyses reported represent those
participants who completed the online measures and were not familiar with the study
materials from a previous study (11 = 247). (Although a total of 262 logged onto the
study website, data for 15 participants were excluded because participants indicated they
had previously completed a related study.)
Procedure

The same materials and procedures used in Study 1 were administered online for
Study 2. All procedures were the same except the initial attentional-focus induction was
not included. This permitted a test of the association between general trait affect and trait
focus of attention.
Measures

Participants completed the same measures of trait affect, self-focus, and other-
focus used in Study 1. Self-focus was assessed using the Private Self-Consciousness
Scale, the Linguistic Implications Form, the foreign language translation task and the

thought listing task. Other-focus scores were also calculated for the Other-focus

29

Questionnaire, Linguistic Implications Form, foreign language translation task and
thought listing task. See Table 5 for reliability estimates in this sample.

Personality — Big Five factors of personality. A twenty item measure designed to
assess the Five Factor model of personality (Donnellan, Oswald, Baird, & Lucas, 2006)
was also included to allow analyses controlling for relevant personality traits. See
Appendix 8 for full measure.

Results

Convergence of measures - Self-focus. The various measures of self-focus again
showed surprisingly little convergence. The two forced-choice linguistic measures
showed the highest correlations, with a correlation of .20 between the Linguistic
Implications Form and the foreign language task (p<.05). Despite shared method
variance, the two open-ended measures of self-focus (sentence completion and thought
listing) only correlated .12 (ns).

The self-report measure (PSC) was not signiﬁcantly correlated with any of the
linguistic measures of self-focus, with associations ranging from r = -.06 to r = .10. As in
Study 1, the foreign language task and sentence completion task were signiﬁcantly
correlated (r = .14, p<.05) although the magnitude of the association was smaller (r = .26
in Study 1). Of note, the relatively high associations between the Linguistic Implications
Form and sentence completion task in study lwere not replicated. Once again, the
remaining associations between the various measures of self-focus were low with many
approaching zero. See Table 6 for full intercorrelation data.

Convergence of measures - Other-focus. The intercorrelations between the

measures of other-focused attention also showed relatively low levels of convergent

30

validity. The forced choice linguistic measures showed some convergence, with a
signiﬁcant correlation between other-focused word choices on the foreign language task
and 3rd person word choices on the LIE (r = .16, p<.05). The open-ended measures of
other-focus also revealed some convergence, as the number of references to friends,
family, communication, and social words in the sentence completion responses were
signiﬁcantly correlated to the corresponding categories for the thought listing task. (See
Table 7 for complete data.) Looking at measures across different categories of
measurement revealed small correlations between self-reported other-focus and the
sentence completion task. Correlations ranged from .17 to .20 (p<.05). Self-reported
other-focus was not associated with any of the other linguistic measures of other-focus
and the remaining intercorrelations showed little evidence of convergent validity.

Trait aﬂect. Participants responded to adjective ratings about how they generally
feel. The mean for positive affect was 3.58 (SD = .63). The mean for the negative affect
scale was 2.21 (SD = .76). Table 9 displays the associations between affect and focus of
attention. Replicating previous reports and the results of Study 1, higher levels of private
self-consciousness were associated with greater negative affect (r = .23, p < .01).
However, there was no evidence of a relation between positive affect and scores on the
Private Self-Consciousness scale (r = -.O3, p = .64). The newly constructed other-focus
questionnaire, which included the face-valid items assessing other focus, did not show
any signiﬁcant associations with affect. The correlation between positive affect and
other-focus was in the predicted direction, but it did not reach signiﬁcance (r = .11, ns).

Negative affect showed almost zero association with the other-focus questionnaire (r =

.04, ns).

31

Turning to the linguistic measures of other-focus, there were some mixed results

regarding associations with affect. The forced choice linguistic measures (Linguistic

Implications Form and foreign language task) showed no associations between affect and
other-focus. Neither negative nor positive affect was signiﬁcantly associated with other-
focused responses on these measures. For the open-ended other-focus measures (thought
listing and sentence completion tasks) participant responses were analyzed using the
LIWC software and a composite-score was computed for each individual on several
categories relating to self— and other-focus. There were no systematic associations found
between the content of sentence completions and negative affect. Scores of trait positive
affect were correlated with the percentage of statements considered social (r = .14, p <
.05), regarding friends (r = .14, p <05), and regarding family (r = .13, p < .05). On the
thought listing task, none of the attentional focus subscales were associated with positive
affect. The percentage of statements regarding communication (e. g. talk, share,
converse) was signiﬁcantly associated with negative affect (r = .13, p < .05), although the
dependability of this ﬁnding is questionable in light of the large number of small and
almost-zero correlations between affect and various linguistic markers of other-focus.

Personality. Before interpreting the small but signiﬁcant associations between

affect and focus of attention, it seemed prudent to consider whether these results were
due to other fundamental individual differences rather than the attention differences
under examination. In particular, it seemed important to account for the fact that
individuals high in the trait of extraversion are likely to report high levels of positive
affect (Lucas & F ujita, 2000) and might also be likely to include high levels of social

content in their open-ended responses, regardless of mood. Therefore, the analyses for

32

Study 2 were repeated while partialling individuals’ level of extraversion. These partial
correlations show the same pattern of associations previously reported, but the magnitude
is smaller. See Table 9 for full data. For example, in the sentence completion task the
association between positive affect and statements of a social nature drops from r = .14 to
r = .10 when extraversion is included as a control variable. After accounting for
extraversion scores, no associations between affect and sentence-completion content
remained signiﬁcant in this sample.ii
Discussion

Study 2 employed a larger sample and provided additional evidence of low
convergent validity across measures of self-focus and other-focus. Despite these
concerns, the sample once again replicated the signiﬁcant association between self-
reported self-focus and negative affect. In contrast, the linguistic measures of self-focus
showed no associations with either positive or negative affect. Linguistic measures of
other-focus also showed little association with affect. The only exceptions appeared in
small correlations between positive affect and a few subscales of other-focus for the
sentence completion and thought listing tasks. Controlling for extraversion further
reduced the magnitude of these associations.

Study 3 - Laboratory Manipulated Affect

The results of Studies 1 and 2 do not provide support for the convergent validity
of the newly adapted measures of other-focus. Despite these concerns, a return to the
literature suggests that many of the studies of self-focus on which this work is based have
successfully used mood inductions to evaluate effects on focus of attention. Before

discarding the adapted measures of other-focus, Study 3 administered the linguistic

33

measures in a laboratory context to examine the effects of state affect on other-focused
attention. In order to assess the impact of temporary positive moods on other-focused
attention, Study 3 used experimental mood inductions before assessing focus of attention.
Participants induced to feel either positive or neutral affect completed the same measures
of self-focus and other-focus used in Studies 1 and 2. This experiment allowed a direct
test of the causal effect of positive affect on other-focus.
Method

Participants

Participants were undergraduates at Michigan State University that took part in
the study in exchange for partial class credit through the Psychology department subject
pool. 106 participants signed up for and attended experimental sessions. However, upon
questioning, 21 participants acknowledged that they had previously completed a study
with similar measures. Data from these participants were discarded. The results reported
reﬂect data from 85 individuals. The ﬁnal sample included 42 participants in the positive
mood condition and 43 neutral mood participants.
Procedure

Participants arrived at the laboratory and gave informed consent. Next, they were
directed to individual computers on which all the study materials were presented. Mood
condition was randomly assigned using a random number generator. The computer
administered all study materials including the mood manipulation videos, instructions,
and the study measures.

Positive and neutral mood were elicited using previously tested movie selections

that have been found to induce positive affect or neutral mood. Participants in the

34

positive mood condition viewed a clip from Bill Cosby’s stand-up comedy act.
Participants in the neutral control condition watched a stock report clip of the same
length.iii At the completion of the experiment, participants were provided with an
education sheet explaining the research goals and thanked for their participation.
Measures

Focus of Attention. Participants completed the same measures of self-focus and
other-focus used in Studies 1 and 2. Self-focus was assessed using the Private Self-
Consciousness Scale, Linguistic Implications Form, the foreign language translation task,
sentence completion, and the thought listing task. Other-focus scores were again
calculated for each of these measures. Reliability estimates for this sample are provided
in Table 5.

State Affect. State affect was measured after completion of the other study
measures. Participants rated the degree to which they felt a series of affective adjectives
right now. Positive affect adjectives included “happy” and “pleasant” (a = .74).
Negative affect adjectives included “sad” and “unpleasant” (a =.76). (See Appendix 9
for full measure.)

Results

Convergence of Measures — Self-focus. The various measures of self-focus
showed intercorrelations similar to those found in Studies 1 and 2. Once again, self-
reports of self-focus were uncorrelated with the linguistic measures of self-focus and the
linguistic measures showed little convergence. (See Table 10 for full correlation matrix.)

Convergence of Measures — Other-focus. Again, there was little evidence of

convergent validity for other-focus. Intercorrelations between measures were small and

35

similar to those in Studies 1 and 2. (See Table 11 for full correlation matrix split by
mood condition.)

Manipulation Check — Mood Induction. Participants completed the affect scale
only after completing all of the experimental measures. This delay in administering the
state affect scale was chosen to reduce the chances that the induced positive mood would
dissipate prior to completing the critical study measures, and to avoid any potential
demand characteristics. This delay, however, also meant that the affect scale could not
serve as a direct manipulation check as it is possible that real differences in mood across
the experimental groups during the study period would not be captured by an affect
measure at the conclusion of the experiment. There were no differences in positive mood
reported by participants on the state affect scale based on mood induction condition F (1 ,
83) = .05, ns. The mean for the positive mood condition was 3.04 (SD = .74) whereas the
neutral mood condition had an average positive affect score of 3.07 (SD = .72).
Likewise, there were no signiﬁcant differences in negative mood reported by condition
F(1, 83) = .62, ns. The mean for negative mood was 1.81 (SD = .77) for the positive
mood condition and 1.93 (SD = .64) for the neutral mood condition.

Self-focus and Affect. The only measure of self-focus that was different across
mood conditions was the self-report measure of private self consciousness. Participants
in the neutral affect group showed higher levels of self consciousness than participants
induced to feel positive mood F (1,83) = 4.05, p < .05; d = .43 (Positive mood M=3.17,
SD=.63, Neutral mood M=3.43, SD=.56). It is interesting to note this effect seems to be

driven by a decrease in reported self-focus for participants in a positive mood, a result

36

often hinted at in the literature examining negative affect but seldom tested with a neutral
mood condition.

Other-focused Attention and A jfect. Neither self-reports, nor linguistic measures
of other-focus showed differences across mood conditions. A series of ANOVAS
comparing scores on the Linguistic hnplication Form, foreigr language task, sentence
completion task, thought listing, and other-focus questionnaire indicated no signiﬁcant
differences between goups. In addition, correlations between reported state affect and
scores on the other-focus measures were low and nonsigiiﬁcant.

General Discussion

Theories of positive emotion suggest that being happy is associated with a variety
of cognitive broadening effects. Correlational evidence supports the assertion that being
happy is associated with increased interest and engagement in social activities. However,
the processes underlying the association between broadening and beneﬁcial outcomes are
not yet understood. In fact, there is surprisingly little experimental evidence regarding
the social effects of positive emotion. The current series of studies attempted to test one
potential mechanism by which happiness might lead to beneﬁcial social outcomes.

Based on research examining self-focus, it was predicted that increased other-focus
would be evident and measurable in the linguistic productions of happy individuals.

To address these questions, it was ﬁrst necessary to investigate the validity of
existing measures of self-focus and to adapt these measures as indicators of other-focus.
Previous research examining self-focus has seldom examined the efficacy or convergence
of the various measures. Each participant in the current set of studies completed one self-

report and four linguistic measures of self-focus. Although commonly conceptualized as

37

measuring a single underlying construct, there was surprisingly little overlap across
scores on the various measures of self-focus. In fact, even when using the combined
sample of 388 participants, only a few of the correlations between measures of self-focus
reached statistical levels of signiﬁcance. Even the strongest associations tended to be
small, ranging around r = .10. In fact, none were larger than the .19 correlation between
the Foreign Language Translation and Linguistic Implications Form, two measures likely
to share a geat deal of method variance.

In light of such low intercorrelations, it is necessary to reconsider what each
measure is actually tapping into, and which measure (if any) is a valid indicator of self-
focus. Although the answers to these questions are not immediately clear, they have
serious implications for both the current hypotheses and for previous research utilizing
these measures of self-focus. If the various measures of self-focus are not actually
assessing the same construct but all come to similar conclusions regarding self-focus and
negative affect perhaps some third variable is responsible for the previous ﬁndings.

The low convergent validity across measures limited the conclusions that could be
drawn regarding the current hypotheses. However, it was still possible to examine the
association between affect and attention. Studies 1 and 2 replicated the relation between
negative affect and self-reported self-focus. However, this association was consistent
only for the self-report (PSC) measure of self-focus. None of the linguistic measures of
self-focus showed meaningful associations with negative affect. This seems surprising
because of the large body of research demonstrating this effect as robust. The 149
correlational studies included in a meta-analysis led to an estimate of d = .51. The most

common self-report measure of self-focus used in these studies were the measures used in

38

the current project (the self consciousness scale of which the PSC is a part, and sentence
completion tasks). It is possible that the adaptations to the linguistic measures desigred
to assess other-focus could be responsible for these ﬁndings that diverge from the
previous body of research.

Despite the limitations posed by poor convergent validity, the large samples of
participants completing multiple measures of attentional focus provided additional
evidence regarding the processes by which emotion and self-focus are related. As
reviewed, there is a discrepancy between the predictions proposed by signal theories and
self-regulatory explanations for the association between affect and attention. Signal
theories suggest that any emotion, positive or negative, should draw attention inward in
search of the cause of the feeling. Self-regulatory theories predict that only negative
affect should increase self-focus as attention is drawn inward by affect indicating a
problem. Across three studies, negative emotion, but not positive emotion elicited self-
focus assessed by self-report. This supports Green and colleagues (2003) argument for
emotion regulation theories as an explanation for the affect and attention relation.

The goals of the current studies were to build on the theories and procedures
developed to study self-focus in order to investigate other-focused attention. Perhaps not
surprisingly, the newly created other-focus scales based on the existing self-focus
measures showed low convergent validity. The associations between self-reported other-
focus and the four linguistic measures of other-focus were small and inconsistent.
Despite the low levels of convergent validity, there were some small indications that
positive emotion is associated with increased social language usage. For example,

several of the sentence completion subscales revealed increased social language for

39

participants with higher positive affect. However, the overall pattern of results is not
sufticient to make strong claims of support for increased other-focus during positive
affect.

There are two potentially compelling explanations for the unclear results for
other-focus. First, it is possible that there are no meaningful individual differences in
other-focused attention. Second, the failure to ﬁnd clear patterns for other-focus may be
the result of problems with instrumentation and measurement. Either of these two
explanations have implications for theories that suggest positive emotion should increase
other-focus.

First, it would be difﬁcult to argue that other-focus is associated with positive
emotion if there were no meaningful individual differences in other-focused attention.
There is clear evidence of meaningful individual differences in positive emotion.
Therefore, if other-focus and positive affect are related then a person with high trait
positive affect should show correspondingly high levels of trait other-focus. Similarly,
individuals low in trait positive affect should show lower mean levels of other-focused
attention. Because levels of trait positive affect vary across people, evidence that other-
focus does not vary is incompatible with the idea that the two constructs are
systematically related.

At ﬁrst glance, the idea that there are no meaningful individual differences in
other-focus might also seem to conﬂict with the established effects for a seemingly
similar construct, self-focus. However upon further consideration, it is possible that
other-focus is a more complicated and less comparable phenomenon than originally

considered. Deﬁning self-focused attention is fairly straightforward. Popular

40

conceptualizations describe self-focus as limited to attention directed inward. In contrast,
a precise deﬁnition for other-focused attention is much more difﬁcult to construct. The
amorphous nature of other-focused attention becomes most clear when an attempt is
made to identify the boundary conditions for the construct. Is other-focus limited strictly
to other people in the environment, or would attention toward other situational
characteristics also be considered other-focus? Theories of positive emotion emphasize
general broadening of cogrition and do not offer much guidance as to whether attention
toward other people represents a unique phenomenon or simply a category of targets for
the more general mechanism. Future examinations of this topic will require more careful
considerations of this distinction in order to clarify the processes involved. It will be
particularly important to explain why social outcomes are related to positive affect in
such a robust way.

A second possible explanation for the current ﬁndings is that differences in other-
focused attention exist but can not be reliably assessed using the adapted measures of
linguistic attention. The lack of convergence across self-report and linguistic measures of
self-focus underscores the need to think more carefully about what exactly these scales
are assessing. If the current measures are not appropriately measuring other-focused
attention then no ﬁrm conclusions can be drawn regarding the current hypothesis.

In fact, similar to the results for self-focus, there was little evidence that the newly
adapted measures of other-focus measure a single underlying construct. The linguistic
measures of other-focus (Linguistic Implications Form, foreigr language task, sentence
completion task, and thought listing) all suffered from low reliability. This no doubt

accounts for some of the lack of convergence shown for scores on these different

41

measures of other-focus. Although there was some convergence between the sentence
completion and thought-listing tasks, even that overlap was small considering the
similarity of the methods. Correlations between the scores for less similar methods of
assessing other-focus (e. g. LIF and thought-listing) were extremely small and provided
no support for convergent validity.

Theories that suggest that positive emotion broadens attention and cogrition are
not threatened by the instrumentation explanations for the current results. If problems
with instrumentation and measurement are responsible for the lack of associations
between affect and attention, theories suggesting positive affect increases interest and
engagement in social activity remain untested. In this case, the hypotheses regarding
positive emotions’ inﬂuence on social outcomes are neither conﬁrmed nor negated by the
current evidence.

Before drawing any ﬁnal conclusions regarding the current evidence, it is worth
considering whether any unique characteristics of the current studies might be
responsible for the lack of correspondence across measures of self-focus. Studies 1 and 2
were conducted online and materials for Study 3 were completed on a computer, in
contrast to the paper and pencil administrations used in previous assessments of self-
focus. Although there is no obvious reason to suspect this change would inﬂuence
linguistic markers of self-focus, it is possible that computer administration could have
introduced additional error variance that would attenuate the associations of interest.
Another change from previous methodology was the inclusion of multiple measures of
self-focus within one study session. This design was important as it permitted a

comparison of the efﬁcacy of various linguistic measures. However, it is possible that

42

the inclusion of similar measures could have led participants to respond differently due to
fatigue or frustration with completing many similar items. Finally, it is possible that the
adaptations made to the original self-focus measures in order to assess other-focus
inﬂuenced the way in which participants responded across the different measures of self-
focus.

Summary

These results, as with all null results, are somewhat difficult to interpret. The
clearest implication of the current evidence is that strong measures must be developed
and evaluated before hypothesis testing can begin. Although self-focus research has
gained support using linguistic measures of attention, it is now clear that there are major
inconsistencies in how different researchers and methods measure the construct. Future
research attempting to address these theoretical questions will ﬁrst have to identify valid
and reliable methods of assessing the constructs of interest. In fact, the difﬁculty of
measuring these processes may be reﬂected in the sparse experimental evidence available
regarding these questions. The correlational evidence for an association between social
activity and positive emotion is strong, but there is very little published experimental
evidence on the subject.

Until better methods of assessing other-focus can be developed, it may be more
fruitful to focus on more direct effects of positive affect on behavior and/or outcomes.
By gaining a better understanding of the nature of social beneﬁts (6. g. health,
occupational gains, etc.) related to positive emotion, more precise predictions regarding

the process by which it occurs may be generated. If this is the case, questions regarding

43

the potential mediator of other-focused attention may best be delayed until improved

methods or more precise predictions are possible.

44

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48

 

’ The failure of the attention manipulation meant that there were no meaningful differences between
conditions. Therefore for clarity, Tables 2-4 present data for all participants collapsed across condition.

An examination of the same results split by condition revealed the same patterns of association and resulted
in the same conclusions.

" Studies 1 and 2 utilized similar methods and many of the same measures. This provided an opportunity
to examine the associations of interest with a larger sample (n = 388) by combining the results ﬁ'om both
online studies (Study 1 and Study 2, see Table 5 for reliability estimates of this sample.) In general the
ﬁndings of this combined sample were similar to those of Study 2. However, in a few instances the
increased sample size led correlations of similar magnitude to reach accepted levels of signiﬁcance. For
instance, positive affect remained signiﬁcantly associated with increased sentence completions of a social
nature (r = .11, p < .05) or about family (r = .17, p < .01) even when controlling for extraversion. See
Table 9 for a complete comparison of the associations between affect and the attention measures, both
before and after controlling for extraversion.

”’ Upon completion of the video segment, the computer prompted participants to conﬁrm that the video
played successﬁrlly before continuing to the next activity. At the end of each session the experimenter
asked participants if they had any questions or any problems with the study materials. A few participants
alerted experimenters that the video was “jumpy” when it played. Unfortunately, a larger number (34 in
positive condition, 27 in neutral condition) clicked “no” when asked if the video played correctly. It is
unclear what impact this may have had on the mood effects of the video, and because so few participants
indicated a problem in the debrieﬁng with experimenters it is also unclear what the participants were
refening to when they clicked “no” on this question but did not indicate a problem to the experimenter.

49

Table 1

Intercorrelations Between Measures of Self-focus (Study 1)

 

 

LIF PSC FLANG Thought SC
lst s lst pl 5 & pl I We Self I We
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
1. LIF 1St singular
2. LIF 1St plural -.65‘
3. LIF 1st 5 & pl .52** .31**
4. PSC .02 .06 .10
5. FLANG -.02 .16 .15 -.06
6. Thought - I -.01 .06 .06 -.03 .10
7. Thought - we -.01 -.06 -.09 -.05 -.09 -.22**
8. Thought - self -.01 .04 .03 -.04 .07 .92 .16*
9. SC-I .11 .07 .21* .12 .25** .13 -.09 .10
10. SC - we -.09 .12 .02 .13 .07 .06 .13 .11 -.13
11. SC - self .10 .09 .22* .14 .26** .14 -.O7 .11 .99 .00

* p<.05 ** p<.Ol

Note:

LIF Linguistic Implications Form

PSC Private Self Consciousness (self-reported self-focus)
F LANG Foreign Language Translation Task

Thought Thought Listing Open-ended Response

SC Sentence Completion Task

50

 

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Table 3

Analysis of Variance for Attention Manipulation (Study 1)

 

 

Source Self Self Self Other F
M SD M SD
Self-focus
Private Self-Consciousness (PSC) 3.37 .59 3.30 .55 .45
1St sing. .42 .12 .44 .17 .59
Linguistic Implications Form 1St pl. .33 .12 .32 .13 .16
(LIF) 1St s. or pl. .74 .13 .75 .11 .26
1St sing. .25 .15 .24 .15 .17
Foreigr Language Task 1St pl. .08 .08 .09 .10 .29
(FLANG) 1St s. or pl. .40 .20 .41 .22 .15
1St sing. 7.03 2.61 7.85 3.34 2.39
Sentence Completion Task 1St pl. .14 .40 .15 .42 .01
(SC) 1St s. or pl. 7.18 2.66 8.00 3.55 2.47
1St sing. 10.63 3.54 10.63 3.54 .14
Thought listing 1St pl. .87 1.75 .87 1.75 6.13*
(Thought) 1St s. or pl. 11.50 3.54 11.50 3.54 .33
Other-focus
Other-focus questionnaire 3.47 .62 3.44 .57 .03
Linguistic Implications Form Other .26 .12 .25 .11 .26
Foreigr Language Task Other .31 .19 .31 .16 .00
Thing .32 .18 .32 .19 .00
Other .43 .63 .48 .79 .21
Social 5.30 3.52 5.40 3.70 .03
Sentence Completion Task Comm. .55 .90 .62 .94 .23
Friends .89 1.16 .72 1.09 .82
Family .81 1.55 .60 1.04 .87
Humans 1.55 2.07 1.96 2.09 1.39
Other 1.68 2.61 2.16 3.24 .95
Social 6.40 5.44 5.93 4.50 .30
Thought listing Comm. 1 .04 1 .60 .92 1.42 .24
Friends .83 1.36 .77 1.16 .07
Family .75 1.50 .63 1.78 .27
Humans .49 .70 .42 .78 .37

df1,139, p<.05

52

Table 4

Associations Between Affect and Focus of Attention (Study 1)

 

 

 

Joy Sad
Self-Focus
lst sing .05 -.02
LIF lst pl -.10 .05
lst s & pl -.05 .04
PSC -.08 .34**
FLANG lst s & pl -.05 -.00
I .02 -.07
Thought listing task We .10 .05
Self .06 -.05
I .02 .01
Sentence Completion Task We -.13 .12
Self .00 .03
Other-Focus
LIF 3rd .05 -.04
Other-focus questionnaire other .03 .25**
other .08 -.03
FLANG thing —.03 .03
Other -.03 .12
Social -.03 .05
. . Comm -.08 -.12
Thought Lrstrng Task Friends .02 .02
Family .07 .03
Humans -.15 .12
Other -.01 -.12
Social .12 .05
. Comm .05 .03
Sentence Completion Task Friends .08 .02
Family .22** -.08
Humans .09 .03
* p<.05 **p<.01
Note:
LIF Linguistic Implications Form
PS C Private Self Consciousness (self-reported self-focus)
FLANG Foreign Language Translation Task
Thought Thought Listing Open-ended Response

53

Table 5

Reliability of Scales (Studies 2, 1&2 combined, and 3)

 

 

 

Scale Coefﬁcient Alpha
Studies 1 & 2
Study 2 combined Study 3

Private Self Consciousness .65 .67 .79
Other-Focus Questionnaire .81 .82 .80
FLANG - Self .17 .17 .03
FLANG-Other .13 .10 .10
LIF — Self .52 .50 .54
LIF - Other .51 .46 .50
SC - I .36 .36 .23
SC - We -.10
SC - Self .34 .34 .24
SC - Other .31 .26
SC - Social .42 .39 .07
SC - Comm .75 .67 .16
SC - Friends .17 .08 .00
SC - Family .23 .34 .19
SC - Humans .07 .05 .16
Extraversion .73 .73 .80
Ageeableness .72 .74 .65
Conscientiousness .72 .71 .80
Neuroticism .53 .61 .71
Intellect/Imagination .47 .54 .55
Trait Positive Affect .74 .36
Trait Negative Affect .83 .85

Note:

FLANG Foreign Language Translation Task

LIF Linguistic Implications Form

Thought Thought Listing Open-ended Response

SC Sentence Completion Task

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56

Table 8

Associations Between Affect and Focus of Attention (Study 2 and 1&2 combined)

 

 

 

 

Studies 1 & 2
Study 2 combined
Joy Sad Joy Sad
Self-Focus
lst sing .01 .03 .02 .01
LIF lst pl .1 1 -.06 .02 -.Ol
lst s & pl -.1 1 -.02 .05 .00
PSC -.03 .23M -.06 .28**
FLANG lst s & pl .05 -.02 .01 -.01
I -.08 -.06 -.05 -.O6
Thought We .09 -.O4 .10 -.00
Self -.05 -.O7 -.01 -.O6
- I .06 .03 .04 .03
Sentence Completion We -.02 .04 -.06 .07
Self .06 .03 .03 .04
Other-Focus
LIF 3rd -.11 .02 -.05 -.oo
Other-focus questionnaire other .13** .05 .09 .13**
other -.03 .02 .02 -.OO
FLANG thing -.02 .01 -.02 .01
Other .05 .03 .00 .08
Social .03 .08 -.OO .01
Comm -.O3 .13* -.05 .04
Thought Friends .10 -.O6 .05 -.01
Family .03 -.08 .05 —.03
Humans -.O7 .1 1 -.08 .10
Other .00 .09 .01 .01
Social .14* .03 .13** .03
Sentence Completion Comm '02 '09 '03 '06
Friends .15* -.10 -.12* -.05
Family .13* -.06 .17** -.O7
Humans .02 .01 .05 .02
* p<.05 **p<.01
Note:
LIF Linguistic Implications Form
PSC Private Self Consciousness (self-reported self-focus)
FLANG Foreign Language Translation Task
Thought Thought Listing Open-ended Response
SC Sentence Completion Task

57

Table 9

Associations Between Affect and Focus of Attention Controlling for Extraversion

(Studies 1 & 2 Combined)

 

 

 

 

Original Correlation
Correlation partialing E
Joy Sad Joy Sad
Self-Focus
lst sing .02 .01 .01 .02
LIF lst pl .02 -.01 .04 -.02
lst s & pl .05 .00 .05 .00
PSC -.06 .28** -.05 .29M
F LANG lst s & pl .01 -.01 -.01 -.01
I -.05 -.O6 -.02 -.08
Thought We .10 -.00 .09 -.03
Self -.01 -.06 .02 -.09
I .04 .03 .04 .03
Sentence Completion We -.06 .07 -.06 .05
Self .03 .04 .03 .03
Other-Focus
LIF 3rd -.05 -.00 -.05 -.oo
Other-focus questionnaire other .09 .13 ** .04 .18"
other .02 -.OO .04 -.02
FLANG thing -.02 .01 -.01 .02
Other .00 .08 -.04 .1 1*
Social -.00 .01 -.O6 .09
Comm -.05 .04 -. 10* .07
Thought Friends .05 -.01 .02 -.02
Family .05 -.03 .07 -.05
Humans -.08 .10 -.11* .12*
Other .01 .01 .01 .01
Social .l3** .03 .11* .04
Sentence Completion Comm '03 '06 '03 '07
Fnends -. 12* -.05 .08 -.05
Family .17** -.07 .17** -.O7
Humans .05 .02 .05 .02
* p<.05 **p<.01
Note:
LIF Linguistic Implications Form
PSC Private Self Consciousness (self-reported self-jbcus)
F LANG Foreign Language Translation Task
Thought Thought Listing Open-ended Response
SC Sentence Completion Task

58

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Appendix 1 — Attentional focus induction

Participant Instructions:

In the spaces provided please write descriptions of the following topics. Really think
about and try to get a sense of the person/thing/time that you are describing. There are no
right or wrong answers. Just try to think about the subject and then write a description
that you believe ﬁts.

Other-focus condition

1.) Think about someone you knew when you were in high school. Spend a minute
thinking about this person at that time. Then, write a description of this person.
You can describe anything about this person (what s/he was like, what s/he
enjoyed doing, etc.).

2.) Next, think of someone you know now. It can be anyone (a ﬁ'iend, a coworker, a
family member, etc.) Think for a few moments about this individual. Then write
a short description of the person.

Control condition (self)

1.) Think about what you were like when you were in high school. Spend a minute
thinking about yourself at that time. Then, write a description of yourself in high
school. You can describe anything about yourself (what you were like, things
you enjoyed doing, etc.)

2.) Next, think about yourself now. Think for a few moments about what you are
like. Then write a short description of yourself.

61

Appendix 2 - Private Self Consciousness and Other-focus Questionnaire
(adapted/expanded from Fenigstein et al., 1975)

Participant Instructions:
Please use the scale below to indicate how you feel right now.

1 2 3 4 5
Extremely Uncharacteristic Extremely Characteristic

_S_tate version of Private Self-Consciousness Scale (Fenigstein et al., 1972

 

1.) Right now, I’m trying to ﬁgure myself out.

2.) Right now, I’m not very aware of myself.

3.) Right now, I am reﬂecting about myself.

4.) I’m often the subject of my own fantasies.

5.) Right now, I am scrutinizing myself.

6.) I’m attentive to my inner feelings right now.

7.) Right now, I’m examining my motives.

8.) Right now, I have the feeling that I’m off somewhere watching myself.

9.) Right now, I’m alert to changes in my mood.

10.) Right now, I’m aware of the way my mind works as I work through a
problem.

gamed version to measure Other-focus

11.) I like trying to ﬁgure other people out.

12.) I’m not very aware of other people.

13.) I reﬂect about other people a lot.

14.) Other people are often the subject of my thoughts.

15.) I don’t like to scrutinize other people.

16.) I’m attentive to how other people feel.

17.) I’m like examining other peoples’ motives.

18.) I sometimes have the feeling that I’m off somewhere watching other
people.

19.) I’m alert to changes in other peoples’ mood.

20.) I’m aware of the way other peoples’ minds work when they think through
a problem.

21.) I tend to pay attention to other people around me.

I know more about those around me than most people.

62

Appendix 3 - Adapted Linguistic Implications Form

This measure of other-focus is adapted from Wegner and Guiliano’s (1983) measure of
self-focused attention. Scores will be calculated by summing the number of other-
focused pronouns selected such that higher scores mean more other-focus. (Word
choices that will count as other-focused are underlined.)

Instructions:

It has often been found that what people say contains a certain amount of redundancy.
For example, you might hear only a part of a conversation going on across the room at a
party, but still be able to ﬁll in the blanks because much of the information in the
conversation is repetitious. To research this phenomenon, we are collecting some
judgments of standard passages--brief phrases, sentences, and the like--to ﬁnd out how
redundant they are. This exercise is concerned with the use of pronouns.

Your task is to look at each of the following passages and try to ﬁll in the blank in each
one. In each blank there are several possible pronouns that may make sense in the
sentence. Please circle the word that makes the most sense to you. Fill in w blank.
Even if you have to guess on some or many of the passages, go ahead and make your best
guess for each one. Please try to ﬁll in the most likely word (by circling that word in each
sentence.)

1. All of (our, my, Qze_ir) answers matched the ones in the back of the book.

2. At ﬁrst it didn't seem to make any difference, but by later that night the noise from the
party was entirely too loud to allow (h_er, me, us) to sleep.

3 . The salesman tried to persuade (me, hm, us) to buy a set of encyclopedias.

4. The noise got to (us, gm me) before long.

5. (Our, ﬁg, My) idea of fun is sitting at home and listening to music.

6. The sun went in just when (we, m I) decided to go outside.

7. Please don't do this to (125.1, us, me); it is just not fair.

8. It was (ﬁgs, our, my) understanding that the deadline for the paper had been delayed
one week.

9. Except for (me, us, h_er), everyone failed the test.

10. As a result of (our, my, h_is_) suggestions, a minor revision in the policy has occurred.
11. (11g, We, I) spent so much time on the initial planning that it seemed impossible to
ﬁnish before the deadline.

12. It rained so hard that all of (our, my, M) clothes got soaked.

13. For the past two or three months, (I, we, th_ey) have had reports of squabbling and
dissatisfaction among the workers in the ofﬁce.

14. According to (our, my, her) notes, only ﬁve of the original seven laws are still in
existence.

15. Someone stopped (m me, us) to get directions to the stadium.

16. (We, lie, I) waited by the phone for the doctor to return the call.

17. The cashier charged (ﬁg; us, me) too little for the groceries.

18. The mosquitoes didn't even bother (£1112, us, me).

19. Dinner was waiting on the table when (h_e, I, we) came back from the store.

20. It isn't easy to get lost in this town, but somehow (I, we, ﬂy) managed it.

63

Appendix 4 - Foreign Language Translation Measure (based on paradigm by Davis
& Brock, 1978; Dijksterhuis & VanKnippenberg, 2000)

Instructions:

Previous research has found that intuition helps people to determine what word belongs
in a passage, even when they are not familiar with the language being used. Previous
research has been conducted with Romance language but we now want to ﬁnd out if this
skill extends to additional non-Western languages.

A list of options will appear for each blank space in the passage. Please select the word
that you think is most appropriate to complete the sentence. If you are not sure about
which word is best, make your best guess. We will ask you to report your conﬁdence in
these answers after you complete the entire passage. (** indicates critical item)

'Oku 'uhinga 'a e lea Ha'a ki he _ﬂ)_ fototehina '0 ha Hou'eiki pe Nopele 'o kau ai mo e Hou'eiki
k0 ia, pea 'oku ai honau 'Ulumotu'a/Taki 'a ia ko e angamaheni ko e lahi taha _QL kinautolu, pea
'oku ai mo e Kainga 'o e Ha'a taki taha 'a ia k0 e _(3)_ mo e kau matapule pea mo honau ngaahi
fototehina. 'Oku ai 'a e kau matapule/Kainga 'o e Ha'a mo e _(4)_ kotoa pé. _(_5_)_ pehé ko e lea
Ha'a ne fa'angaue'aki pé ki he Hou'eiki Tangata pea mo e lau fatongia hangé k0 e Ha'a Tufunga,
ka 'oku ki'i tu'u ﬁhi 'eni he _(6)_ a e Ha'a ia ne tupu mai mei he Hou'eiki Faﬁne, hangé ko e Ha'a
Faleﬁsi ko e tupu mai mei he Tu'i Tonga Feﬁne ko Sinaitakala I ne ta'ane mo e 'eiki _(ZL mei
Fisi ko Tapu'osi, _(_8_)_ k0 e Ha'a 'Uluakimata ne fa'a pehé k0 e Ha'a ia '0 e kau Tamaha mo e
Tamatauhala 'a ia ne nau mei feﬁne _(_9)_ pea pehé he lau 'e (10) k0 e hako 'o 'Uluakimata.

Word choices:

1) Run, swim, be 6) Door, rock, glass

2) Table, apple, towel 7) She, me, it"

3) It, they, ours" 8) Something, nothing, anything
4) If, and, grow 9) Us, it, them"

5) I, someone, something" 10) Tall, grab, ﬂat

Mika Komppula on vaitéksessaéin tutkinut uusien aerosolihiukkasten muodostumista (11 )
niiden kasvua sellaiseen kokoon, (12) ne voivat toimia pilvipisaroiden tiivistymisytiminii.
Véiitéis paljastaa ensirmnéiistéi (13) kokeellisesti sen, ettéi ilmakehéisséi muodostuneet
pienhiukkaset vaikuttavat selkeasti pilvipisaroiden syntyrniseen. Tutkittaessa (l4) ilmassa
Lapissa hiukkasten aktivoitumista pilvipisaroiksi havaittiin pienimpienkin hiukkasten vaikutukset
pilven muodostukseen merkittaviksi. Pilvipisaroiden lukuméiaréin havaittiin (15) olevan
verrannollinen hiukkasten méiéiréian, eli (16) enemméin hiukkasia, sita enemman on myc'is
pilvipisaroita. Mikéili pisaroiden muodostumiseen on kaytettéivisséi sama maara vesihr'iyryéi,
hiukkasten ja (l7) kautta pisaramaéiréin liséiys pienentéiéi pisaroiden keskimiiéiréiistéi kokoa. Tami

(18) voi vaikuttaa véihentéivasti sademéiéiriin ja lisatﬁ pilvisyyttéi, mika edelleen vahentéiéi maan
pinnalle paéisevéin auringon (l9) maaraa. Maailmanlaajuisesti mama tulokset tarkoittavat sitii,
ettéi pienhiukkasten tuotto vaikuttaa merkittéivéisti (20) pilvipisaroihin ja siten maapallon
lampr'itilaan.

11) Mountain, think, he 16) Glad, round, well

12) Hers, my, lots" 17) Plenty, scarce, searching

13) If, is, will be 18) Mine, object, theirs"

14) Have, can, are 19) When, talk, ﬁght

15) She, it, I" 20) Anything, myself, himself”

64

Appendix 5 - Sentence Completion Stems from Self Focus Sentence Completion
(Exner, 1973)

This measure is adapted from Exner, 1973 and will be coded according to the revised
coding scheme described in Crandall & Kytonen, 1980. Responses referring to other
people are scored as other-focused (0), responses refening to the self are scored as Self-
focus (S), and responses not meeting either criteria are scored as neutral (N). Analyses
will evaluate both speciﬁcally other-focused (0) responses as well as a composite of
externally focused responses (0 and N) to evaluate non-self-focused attention.

Instructions:

Next we would like you to write some sentences of your own. For each of the sentence
stems below, please make up an ending to the sentence. You can write about anything
you wish, but try to use complete sentences in your response.

1) I think:

2) It’s fun to daydream about:
3) My father:

4) If only I could:

5) It’s hardest for me:

6) I wish:

7) As a child I:

8) Others:

9) Friends:

10) I would like most to be photographed:
1 1) My mother:

12) I wonder:

13) I always wanted:

14) Someday I:

15) I like:

65

Appendix 6 — Instructions for Thought Listing Task

The ﬁnal other-focus measure will ask participants to write down “anything that comes to
mind” for a period of 2.5 minutes. The results of this free-response writing will be
analyzed for other-focused references and a ratio of other-focused thoughts relative to
total thoughts will be computed (Green et al., 2003; Wood et al., 1990).

Instructions:

In this ﬁnal writing task you will be given space to write for 2 1/2 minutes. The computer
will notify you when time is up so please continue writing until that occurs. There are no
right or wrong answers, we would just like you to write anything that comes to mind.

In the space below, please write about anything that comes to mind. The computer will
inform you when you should move to the next activity.

66

Appendix 7 — Intensity and Time Affect Survey - ITAS (Diener, Smith & Fujita)

Next, we want to know how the participant feels in general, that is on average. To what
extent does the participant experience each of the following emotions in general?

1 = Very slightly or not at all
2 = A little

3 = Moderately
4=QMmaMt

5 = Extremely

1. Affection 15. Anxiety

2. Joy 16. Disgust

3. Fear 17. Regret

4. Anger 18. Unhappiness
5. Shame 19. Fondness

6. Sadness 20. Pride

7. Love 21. Nervous

8. Happiness 22. Rage

9. Worry 23. Embarrassment
10. Irritation 44. Depression
11. Guilt

12. Loneliness

13. Caring

l4. Contentment

67

Appendix 8 — Personality (Donnellan, Oswald, Baird & Lucas, 2006)

Participant Instructions:

Below there are phrases describing people’s behavior. Please use the rating scale below
to describe how accurately each statement describes you. Describe yourself as you
generally are now, not as you wish to be in the future. Describe yourself as you honestly
see yourself, in relation to other people you know of the same sex as you are, and roughly
your same age. So that you can describe yourself in an honest manner, your responses
will be kept in absolute conﬁdence. Please read each statement carefully, and then select
appropriate number on the scale.

SCALE:

1 — Very Inaccurate

2 — Moderately Inaccurate

3 — Neither Inaccurate nor Accurate
4 — Moderately Accurate

5 — Very Accurate

1.) Am the life of the party.

2.) Sympathize with others’ feelings.

3.) Get chores done right away.

4.) Have frequent mood swings.

5.) Have a vivid imagination.

6.) Don’t talk a lot. R

7.) Am not interested in other people’s problems. R
8.) Often forget to put things back in their proper place. R
9.) Am relaxed most of the time. R

10.) Am not interested in abstract ideas. R

11.) Talk to a lot of different people at parties.

12.) Feel others’ emotions.

13.) Like order.

14.) Get upset easily.

15.) Have difﬁculty understanding abstract ideas. R
16.) Keep in the background. R

17.) Am not really interested in others. R

18.) Make a mess of things. R

19.) Seldom feel blue. R

20.) Do not have a good imagination. R

68

Appendix 9 — State affect

Next, we have some questions about how you feel right now. Please use the scale below
to indicate how you feel right now.

1 = I do not feel it

2 = I feel it very slightly
3 = I feel it moderately
4 = I feel it strongly

5 = I feel it very strongly

Pleasant
Unpleasant
Awake
Calm
Sad
Excited
Irritated
Alert
Happy
Energetic
Bored

“prﬂg‘MPP’PT‘

HO

69

   

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