Date

2014

Document Type

Thesis

Degree

Master of Science

Department

Psychology

First Adviser

Burke, Christopher T.

Abstract

While several studies have shown that support receipt in self-relevant domains may bring about increases in distress by delivering inefficacy cues to the recipient (e.g., Bolger & Amarel, 2007; Burke & Goren, under revision), results also indicate that some individuals are still able to experience benefits of support receipt in self-relevant domains (Burke & Perndorfer, in prep.). The purpose of the present research was to examine whether self-complexity, which has been shown to moderate the relationship between stress and health and well-being, moderates reactivity to support receipt in self-relevant domains. Study 1 (N = 77) attempted to expand past research on self-complexity by introducing measures of the purported cognitive mechanisms by which self-complexity results in affective consequences. Study 2 (N = 77) examined whether self-complexity moderates reactivity to support receipt in self-relevant domains. The results of the analyses did not support the hypothesis that participants low or high in self-complexity react differently to either failure feedback or support receipt in self-relevant domains. While the studies were unable to replicate past studies of self-complexity or provide support for self-complexity moderating reactivity to support receipt, we believe that the novel measures and modified procedures described in this research are contributions to both the self-complexity and social support literature.

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