Effects of threat and failure on concern for others

JOURNAL

OF

RESEARCH

IN

PERSONALITY

12, 350-360 (1978)

Effects of Threat and Failure on Concern

for Others

JAMES E. CRANDALL University

of Idaho

A state measure of social interest or concern for others was developed from an existing trait measure. The state measure was significantly correlated with the trait scale and with volunteering to help others in need. Replicating previous research on the relationship between affect and altruistic behavior, social interest was significantly correlated with affective arousal in three studies comprising a total of 259 subjects. Failure on an ego-involving task and the anticipation of a midterm examination both resulted in significant reductions in social interest. Results supported the hypothesis that negative affect resulting from personal threat typically produces increased concern for self along with decreased concern for the interests of others, thereby resulting in reductions of altruistic behavior. The potential relevance of social interest to relationships between stressful conditions and other aspects of interpersonal behavior was discussed.

Recent research indicates that successful experiences tend to elicit more altruistic behaviors such as helpfulness and generosity than do failure experiences (Berkowitz & Connor, 1966; Isen, 1970; Isen, Horn, & Rosenhan, 1973). Other pleasant experiences, such as receiving cookies or finding a dime, have been found to promote helping behaviors (Isen & Levine, 1972), whereas loud noise reduced altruism (Mathews & Canon, 1975). Affective arousal has been proposed as an important mediator between situational variables, such as success and failure, and altruistic behavior (Aderman, 1972; Krebs, 1970; Moore, Underwood, & Rosenhan, 1973). According to this hypothesis, positive affect tends to increase the probability of altruism, whereas negative affect has the opposite effect. Support for the hypothesis has been obtained by several studies using different manipulations of affect (Aderman, 1972; Moore et al., 1973; Rosenhan, Underwood, & Moore, 1974). Although it is not surprising, and perhaps even intuitively reasonable that positive and negative affect should have opposite effects on altruism, Requests for reprints should be sent to James E. Crandall, Department of Psychology, University of Idaho, Moscow, Idaho 83843. 350 0092-6566/78/0123-0350$02.00/O Copyright All rights

@ 1978 by Academic Press, Inc. of reproduction in any form reserved

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we may well ask why this should occur. There seems to be a conceptual gap here, as noted also by Isen (1970). There have been few attempts to systematically relate the empirical findings to any theoretical base. One explanation for the influence of affect upon altruism has been provided by Rosenhan et al. (1974) in their suggestion that positive affect tends to reduce psychological distance, making one feel good about others as well as oneself. They referred to Tomkins’ (1962) proposition that positive affect produces sociophilia, whereas negative affect leads to sociophobia. In a somewhat similar vein, Berkowitz (1972) has presented evidence supporting the hypothesis that conditions which increase selfconcern decrease altruistic behavior. A potentially useful elaboration and theoretical underpinning for these proposals may be found in Adler’s (1956) theory. Social interest, or interest and concern for others and their welfare, was one of Adler’s central concepts, with widespread implications for the development and functioning of many aspects of personality. Experiences involving personal threat and insecurity were held to restrict the development and expression of social interest. Under such conditions, the individual is apt to withdraw attention and interest in others, and become more concerned with self. Feelings of security and well-being were conceived as beneficial to the development and expression of social interest. Before concluding that manipulations of affect influence feelings of concern for others, and that the latter are responsible for changes in altruistic behavior, it is necessary to note the often observed disparity between behavior and attitudes that may occur under certain conditions. In fact, there appears to be considerable skepticism concerning the possibility of finding meaningful relationships between dispositional variables and altruistic behavior (cf. McGovern, 1976). It has been demonstrated that altruistic-appearing behavior certainly may occur as a result of a variety of factors having nothing to do with empathy or genuine concern for others (Berkowitz, 1972). The main objective of the present research was to determine whether or not dispositional variables involving feelings and attitudes concerning others are related to altruistic behavior and, if so, to examine their relationship to positive and negative affective arousal. It is hypothesized that concern for others is enhanced by most positive affective experiences and decreased by negative affect resulting from threat to self-esteem. It was necessary to first develop a state measure of social interest or concern for others. Use of the measure in investigating the effects of different affective conditions upon feelings for others could then help explicate the underlying basis of relationships between success, failure, or other manipulations of affect, and overt helping behaviors. Also, information on the determinants of social interest should be of value outside of the

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context of altruism since social interest may influence a variety of interpersonal relations in many ways other than helping behavior. A further possible benefit to be derived here is that a paper and pencil measure may be useful in situations where observations of overt behaviors would not be feasible, e.g., when testing groups rather than single individuals. STUDY I Development of a State Measure of Social Interest A recently developed measure of social interest, the Social Interest Scale (SIS), provided a basis for developing a state measure that would be sensitive to transitory fluctuations in social interest. The SIS was designed as a measure of cognitive, emotional, and behavioral aspects of concern for others. Besides being validated by objective measures of cooperation, altruism, and peer ratings, the scale has been found to be related to a number of relevant values, attitudes, and feelings concerning others (Crandall, 1975, 1977; Crandall & Harris, 1976). Relevant to the present research, social interest scores have been found to be adversely affected by prior stressful conditions of relatively long duration. Scores on the SIS were negatively related to unpleasant early experiences (Crandall & Reimanis, 1976). In a second study (Crandall & Lehman, in press), the Holmes and Rahe (1967) Social Readjustment Rating Scale was used as a measure of recent stressful life experiences. The occurrence of stress, as indexed by this measure, has been found to be related to the onset of both physical disease and psychological symptoms (Rahe, 1972; Vinokur & Selzer, 1975). Social interest scores showed a significant negative correlation (- .3 1) with the amount of stressful life experiences reported for the previous 12 months. Unfortunately the SIS is not an appropriate tool for assessing shortterm changes in social interest that may occur in response to success, failure, or other single and brief experiences. The scale was developed as a trait measure and has shown a test-retest reliability, over five weeks, of .82. Consequently, the SIS was adapted to provide a related state measure. Scale Format

The Nowlis (1965) Mood Adjective Check List (MACL) was modified to provide measures of both affect and social interest. The original form of the MACL was designed to assess 11 different kinds of affect, each represented by three adjectives which subjects are required to rate to describe their feelings at the moment. In the interests of brevity and relevance, only four of the mood dimensions were used here: elation, surgency, anxiety, and sadness.

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Adjectives representing social interest were taken from the SIS. The latter consists of 15 pairs of trait descriptive adjectives with each pair comprising one trait that is relevant to social interest and one that is not. The nine social interest adjectives with the highest item-to-total correlations were incorporated in the MACL. The adjectives were as follows: considerate, cooperative, generous, helpful, patient, respectful, sympathetic, tolerant, and trustworthy. Subjects used S-point rating scales to describe their feelings in regard to each item on the MACL. Scores on the nine social interest items, referred to as the State Social Interest Scale (SSIS), can range from 9 to 45. Relationship of State and Trait Measures of Social Interest The MACL, incorporating the SSIS, was given to 84 undergraduates along with the SIS and a number of other questionnaires in counterbalanced order. The correlation between the state and trait measures of social interest was .47, p < .OOl (two-tailed tests were used throughout). This compares favorably with typical correlations between the state and trait measures of a variable found by others (e.g., Spielberger, Gorsuch. & Lushene, 1970). Relationship

of the SSIS to Altruistic

Behavior

To examine the relationship of the SSIS to overt, altruistic behavior, a procedure similar to one involved in validating the SIS (Crandall & Harris, 1976) was used. All subjects were given an opportunity to donate at least one hour a week for the remainder of the school year to a local organization responsible for channeling such assistance into various charitable agencies and programs. The 25 subjects who volunteered for these assignments scored significantly higher on the SSIS than the subjects who declined [t (82) = 3.02, p < .Ol]. Relationships

of the SSIS to Positive

and Negative

Affect

The SSIS was correlated with Nowlis’ scales for elation, surgency, anxiety, and sadness. As expected on the basis of both Adler’s theory and the previously discussed research on altruism, the SSIS correlated positively, and significantly, with both measures of positive affect (see Table 1). Contrary to expectations, the SSIS showed nonsignificant correlations with the negative affect scales. However, it is interesting to note that anxiety and sadness also failed to show significant negative correlations with elation and surgency.

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JAMES E. CRANDALL TABLE 1 CORRELATIONS AMONG SOCIAL INTEREST AND AFFECT SCALES Measures SSIS-elation SSIS-surgency SSIS-anxiety SSIS-sadness Elation-surgency Elation-anxiety Elation-sadness Surgency-anxiety Surgency-sadness Anxiety-sadness

Study I (n = 84)

Study II (n = loo)

Study III (n = 75)

.46*** .26* .03 -.12 .42*** -.12 -.Ol -.15 .06 .61***

.45*** .32** -.14 -.18 .54***

.4l?*** ..54*** - .34** -.32** .69*

- .30** -.20* -.23* -.23* .38***

- .32** -.34** - .37**

- .36** .42***

* p < .05. ** p < .Ol. *** p < .ool.

STUDY II Effects of Ego-Involving Success, Threat, and Failure on Social Interest The preliminary research indicated satisfactory relationships between the state measure of social interest and the more thoroughly validated trait measure, positive affect, and altruistic behavior. One purpose of the present study was to use the SSIS to replicate the findings of recent research concerning the differential effects of success and failure on altruism (Berkowitz & Connor, 1966; Isen, 1970; Isen et al., 1973). Successful replication could be viewed as providing further validation for the scale as well as indicating that the earlier research was indeed dealing with dispositional variables concerning underlying feelings for the concerns of others. The study also investigated the effects of threat on social interest. Since threat should increase concern for self, it was hypothesized that the anticipation of possible failure in an ego-involving situation would lead to a reduction of social interest, though to a smaller degree than actual failure. Method Subjects. One hundred and six students from an introductory psychology class participated for course credit. Six were eliminated because they failed to meet the performance criterion for the success group, leaving 25 subjects in each experimental condition: success, failure, threat, and control. Subjects were assigned randomly to conditions, with the restric-

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tion of maintaining equal proportions of males and females among the groups. There were 60 males and 40 females. Procedure.The success and failure groups were tested together in groups of four to eight. They were instructed that the purpose of the experiment was to learn more about the relation between creativity and intelligence. A form of the unusual uses test was administered as a measure of creativity or originality. To induce feelings of success or failure, an anagrams task was introduced as a test of problem-solving ability and flexibility of thinking. Subjects were told that the anagrams test had been developed at the University of Michigan, and that considerable normative data were available. To increase ego-involvement in the task, each list of anagrams was entitled “Univ. of Michigan, Form #17, Cl-PSA.” The success group was given a list of 17 anagrams. To prevent anyone from finishing too soon, two of the anagrams were insoluble. The failure group was given a list of I5 anagrams, only 7 of which were soluble. Average performance on these lists from a pilot study was 13.09 and 4.88 solutions, respectively. Both groups were given 7 min to work on the anagrams. To enhance feelings of success and failure in the respective groups, the experimenter announced, after calling time, “In case you are interested in how you did, the average performance for this list, for college students, is nine correct solutions.” Subjects were then given the MACL. including the SSIS, and debriefed. The threat group was given the same introduction, along with the information that they would be able to find out their scores on creativity and intelligence before they left. They were then given the MACL but no other tests. The control group received the MACL along with some other questionnaires. To reduce any threat from general psychological testing they were told that the purpose was simply to gain more information on some new questionnaires that were being developed.

Results Effectiveness of manipulation of success, threat, and failure. Six subjects in the success group solved eight or fewer anagrams. Since this was less than the announced average, they presumably did not experience success and were therefore dropped from the analysis. For the remaining subjects, average performance was 12.60 solutions for the success.group and 4.48 for the failure group. As a check upon the effectiveness of the manipulations of affect, analyses of variance showed significant differences among the groups for elation, surgency, and anxiety (see Table 2). However, Tukey’s test revealed that all the significant pair-wise comparisons involved the failure group. The other three groups did not differ from each other. The experiment apparently was not successful in influencing emotional states through the attempted manipulations of success and threat. Effects of success, threat, andfailure upon social interest. As shown in Table 2, the four conditions resulted in significant differences in social interest. As expected, mean SSIS scores were highest for the success group and progressively lower for control, threat, and failure groups. Again using the Tukey test, the only significant (p < .05) differences

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TABLE

2

MEAN SOCIAL INTEREST AND AFFECT SCORES, STUDY II Group Threat Failure Success Control

SSIS 30.16 28.52ab 32.72” 32.04” 4.32%

F

Note. test. * p ** p *** p

Elation 7.92a 5.%ak 8&P 8.32’ 6.08***

Surgency 8.80 7.32a 8.64 9.648 4.07*

Anxiety 6.28” 8.68abc 6.52b 5.92c 5.34**

Sadness 5.16 6.52 6.04 5.84 1.04

Means with common superscripts differed significantly at the .05 level, by Tukey’s ‘c .OI. -c ,005. < .ool.

between groups involved the failure group. In view of the affect data it is perhaps not surprising that success did not lead to more social interest, or threat to less social interest, compared to the control group. Relationships of social interest to positive and negative affect. Since the correlations among the SSIS and the measures of affect did not differ significantly among the four groups, the correlations for the combined groups are shown in Table 1. The SSIS correlated in the expected direction with each of the four MACL scales, though again only the correlations with elation and surgency were significant. STUDY III Effects of Naturally Occurring Threat on Social Interest Although in the previous experiment threat resulted in less social interest than either success or control conditions, the differences were not significant. The affect scores suggested that anticipation of tests of creativity and problem-solving ability did not constitute a significant threat condition. Rather than attempt a different laboratory manipulation of threat, it was decided to measure social interest in a more natural stress situation. The MACL was given to an undergraduate psychology class during a regular class period and about two weeks later immediately before the midterm exam. The procedure was essentially the same as has been used in validating state measures of anxiety (Spielberger et al., 1970; Zuckerman, 1960). Method Administration of the MACL during a normal class period involved 33 students. It was emphasized that participation was voluntary, and that names were not desired on the MACL answer sheet. The voluntary nature of the study was again stressed when the MACL and the midterm exam were passed out. Students who were willing to complete the MACL were requested to do so before taking the exam. They were cautioned not to overreact to the scale

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items (i.e., not to try to give “good” results), but to be as objective as possible in rating their feelings at that moment. All 33 of the students from the first testing session were present for the midterm, plus an additional nine students. Since they were instructed not to write their names on the MACL, it was not possible to match scores from the two conditions. Consequently the data were analyzed by the independent groups r-test, rather than the more powerful dependent groups r-test that would have been possible with matched scores. This reduction in statistical power seemed to be a reasonable trade-off for the increased candor that would presumably result from anonymity of MACL responses.

Results The threat of a midterm exam was considerably more effective than the attempted manipulation of threat used in the previous study. As shown in Table 3, subjects showed significantly less elation and surgency, and more anxiety prior to the exam than during the normal class period. As hypothesized, the threat, tension, or heightened self-concern induced by the imminent exam also produced a significant reduction in social interest. Correlations of social interest and the affect scales are shown in Table 1. Although the SSIS correlated significantly with each of the affect scales, the correlations were again larger for positive affect scales than for negative affect. DISCUSSION

The SSIS, as a state measure of social interest, showed reasonable validity in terms of its correlations with the original trait measure and with altruistic behavior. These results anchor the scale directly to overt behavior and indirectly, through correlation with the SIS, to cognitive and emotional aspects of concern for others. The correlations of the SSIS with self-reports of affect, and the adverse effects of ego-involved failure upon the SSIS replicated earlier studies concerning the relationship between affect and altruism. With regard to the previous research, these results supported the hypothesis that affect influences overt helping behavior by changing underlying dispositions toward others.

MEAN Group Regular Preexam t

class

* p < .Ol. ** p < .005. *** D < ,001.

SOCIAL SSIS 26.13 22.95 3.19**

INTEREST

TABLE 3 AND AFFECT

Elation 1.62 5.13 4.38***

Surgency 8.40 6.57 2.80*

SCORES,

STUDY Anxiety 5.19 7.68 4.23***

III Sadness 5.22 6.18 1.24

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Since empathy has often been considered to be a major component of social interest (Ansbacher, 1968), the results were consistent with Aronfreed’s (1970) position that empathy is an important determinant of altruistic behavior. It should also be noted in this regard that the SIS has shown a significant correlation with Mehrabian and Epstein’s (1972) measure of empathy (Crandall & Harris, 1976). Congruent with Berkowitz’ (1972) finding that anticipated evaluations of self reduced helping behaviors, the last study indicated that the threat of a midterm exam reduced social interest. Since it is possible that not all students were threatened by the exam (indeed some might have responded in a more positive way to the challenge), an alternative explanation might be that it was simply an increase in ego-involvement that produced the decrease in social interest. However, the significant changes in affect that accompanied the anticipation of the exam, and the finding that exams typically produce a significant increase in anxiety (Spielberger et al., 1970; Zuckerman, 1960)> appear to support the threat interpretation. The present approach, based on Adlerian theory, does not assume that all forms of negative affect will decrease altruism. For example, a negative mood state resulting from empathy with others in distress would be expected to increase social interest and thereby lead to increased altruism, as has been found by Aderman and Berkowitz (1970), and Cialdini, Darby, and Vincent (1973). In a similar vein, there may be some forms of positive affect, such as hostile humor, which typically decrease social interest. Further research will be needed to clarify the relationships between different kinds of affect and social interest. The utility of the concept of social interest, and its proposed relation to affect, extends beyond relevance for an understanding of altruism. If concern for others is influenced by affect the results of this should be observable in other aspects of interpersonal behavior. For example, social interest has implications for amount of attention directed to others, quality and intensity of interpersonal interaction, appreciation of different forms of humor, eye contact, tendency to be attracted to others, etc. Although not designed to investigate social interest, as such, recent studies have found that unpleasant conditions result in several changes in behavior that are indicative of low social interest. Isen (1970) found that failure resulted not only in decreased helping, but also in less ability to recall details about others and a lower frequency of initiating conversations. Unpleasantly high temperatures and overcrowding, resulting in negative affect, have been found to produce decreased attraction to others (Griffitt & Veitch, 1971). The positive relationship between social interest and interpersonal attraction has been empirically verified elsewhere (Crandall, 1977). Such results, along with the present research and studies

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linking affect and altruism, suggest that the concept of social interest is potentially useful for theoretically integrating the relationships between environmental conditions which influence affect and many aspects of interpersonal behavior. REFERENCES Aderman, D. Elation, depression, and helping behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1972, 24, 91-101. Aderman, D., & Berkowitz, L. Observational set, empathy. and helping. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1970, 14, 141-148. Adler, A. The individual psychology of Alfred Adler: A systematic presentation in selections from his writings. H. L. & R. R. Ansbacher (Eds.), New York: Basic Books, 1956. Ansbacher, H. L. The concept of social interest. Journal of Individual Psychology, 1968.24, 131-149. Aronfreed, J. The socialization of altruistic and sympathetic behavior: Some theoretical and experimental analyses. In J. Macaulay & L. Berkowitz (Eds.), A/truism and he/ping. New York: Academic Press, 1970. Berkowitz, L. Social norms, feelings, and other factors affecting helping and altruism. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology. (Vol. 6). New York: Academic Press, 1972. Berkowitz, L.. & Connor, W. H. Success, failure, and social responsibility. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 1966, 4, 664-669. Cialdini, R. B., Darby, B. L., & Vincent, J. E. Transgression and altruism: A case for hedonism. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 1973, 9, 502-516. Crandall. J. E. A scale for social interest. Journal of Individual Psycho/ogy, 1975, 31, 187-195. Crandall. J. E. Further validation of the Social Interest Scale: Peer ratings and interpersonal attraction. Journal of C/inica/ Psychology, 1977, 33, 140-142. Crandall, J. E., & Harris, M. D. Social interest, cooperation, and altruism. Journal of Individual Psychology, 1976, 32, 50-54. Crandall, J. E., & Lehman, R. E. Relationships of stressful life events to social interest, locus of control, and psychological adjustment. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology. in press. Crandall. J. E., & Reimanis, G. Relationships between social interest and time orientation, childhood memories, adjustment, and crime. Journal of Individual Psychology, 1976, 32, 203-21 I. Griffitt, W.. & Veitch, R. Hot and crowded: Influences of population density and temperature on interpersonal affective behavior. Journal ofPersonality and Social Psychology. 1971, 17, 92-98. Holmes, T. H.. & Rahe, R. H. The Social Readjustment Rating.Scale. Journal of Psychosomatic Resenrch, 1967, 11, 213-218. Isen. A. M. Success, failure, attention, and reaction to others: The warm glow of success. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1970. 15, 294-301. Isen, A. M., Horn, N., & Rosenhan, D. L. Effects of success and failure on children’s generosity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 1973. 27, 239-247. Isen, A. M., & Levine, P. F. Effect of feeling good on helping: Cookies and kindness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1972. 21, 384-388. Krebs, D. L. Altruism-An examination of the concept and a review of the literature. Psychological Bulletin, 1970, 73, 258-302.

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Mathews, K. E., Jr., & Canon, L. K. Environmental noise level as a determinant of helping behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1975, 32, 571-577. McGovern, L. P. Dispositional social anxiety and helping behavior under three conditions of threat. Journal of Personality, 1976, 44, 84-97. Mehrabian, A., & Epstein, N. A measure of emotional empathy. Journal of Personality, 1972, 40, 525-543. Moore, B. S., Underwood, B., & Rosenhan, D. L. Affect and altruism. Developmental Psychology, 1973, 8, 99-104. Nowlis, V. Research with the Mood Adjective Check List. In S. Tomkins & C. Izard (Eds.), Affect, cognition, and personality. New York: Springer, 1965. Rahe, R. H. Subjects’ recent life changes and their near-future illness susceptibility. Advances in Psychosomatic Medicine, 1972, 8, 2-19. Rosenhan, D. L., Underwood, B., & Moore, B. Affect moderates self-gratification and altruism. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1974, 30, 546-552. Spielberger, C. D., Gorsuch, R. L., & Lushene, R. E. STAI manual for the Stair-Trait Anxiety Inventory. Palo Alto: Consulting Psychologists Press, 1970. Tomkins, S. S. Affect, imagery, consciousness. (Vols. 1 and 2). New York: Springer, 1962. Vinokur, A., & Seizer, M. L. Desirable versus undesirable life events: Their relationship to stress and mental disease. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1975, 32, 329-337. Zuckerman, M. The development of an Affect Adjective Check List for the measurement of anxiety. Journal of Consulting Psychology, 1960, 24, 457-462.