Psychological flexibility as a fundamental aspect of health

In the paper

“high resting CVC has been associated with greater resiliency in the face of daily life stressors (Fabes & Eisenberg, 1997) and with improved coping with in the midst of social relationship conflicts (Gyurak & Ayduk, 2008).”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Fabes & Eisenberg, 1997 source
• Partly supported

  The Abstract reports better emotion control and less hostility during romantic-partner conflicts among highly rejection-sensitive participants with high resting RSA. The Discussion says RSA was not significantly associated with either outcome in the whole sample, so the claim is too broad without that population qualifier. The daily-life-stressors clause is attributed to Fabes and Eisenberg, not to this paper. (LLM, conf=0.88)

  cites Gyurak & Ayduk, 2008 sourceExperimental — accuracy not yet measured

In the paper

“This is problematic because (1) accessible behavior cues often are irrelevant to extrapolating about a person’s personality, (2) other relevant information is often unavailable that could provide insight, and (3) when forming judgments, we often inflate the value of information at our disposal and over extend this information at the expense of attending to personal and situational variability (F”

What the sources say

• Partly supported

  Split into 2 atoms — 1 confirmed, 1 partially supported, 0 disputed, 0 misattributed, 0 unverifiable. Expand the claim to see per-atom verdicts.

  cites Funder, 1995 sourceExperimental — accuracy not yet measured
• ?Not matched

  Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.

  cites Gilovich, Griffin, & Kahneman, 2002

In the paper

“To date, attempts to measure psychological flexibility have often been limited to global self-report scales (e.g., Acceptance and Action Questionnaire) or more specific questions about the believability of unpleasant thoughts or the willingness to take action in the direction of central interests and values despite the presence of unpleasant thoughts and feelings (Hayes et al., 2006).”

What the sources say

• Supported

  In “Research on ACT” (pp. 10, 13), the paper describes the AAQ as a general measure of psychological flexibility and says the range of ACT-process measures was still limited and largely assessed through self-report. It also describes measurement of the believability of negative thoughts (“Experimental psychopathology and ACT component studies,” p. 14) and identifies values-based action in the presence of difficult experiences as a measured process (“Research on ACT,” p. 10). (LLM, conf=0.86)

  cites Hayes et al., 2006 source

In the paper

“during business negotiations, people in a positive mood are more likely to listen to arguments, carefully consider them, and compromise to obtain a desirable outcome for both parties, whereas people in more neutral states were more likely to end the bargaining period without agreement (Carnevale & Isen, 1986).”

What the sources say

• Partly supported

  The Outcome of the Negotiation section (page unavailable) reports higher joint outcomes for negotiators in the positive-affect condition, especially when they could see one another. The Verbal Process Measures section reports more cooperative tactics and priority-information exchange in that face-to-face condition, but does not establish that participants listened to and carefully considered arguments. The paper distinguishes mutually beneficial integrative solutions from compromise and does not report that control-condition negotiators more often ended without agreement. (LLM, conf=0.88)

  cites Carnevale & Isen, 1986 sourceExperimental — accuracy not yet measured

In the paper

“After a laboratory induction of positive emotions, people demonstrate an expanded attentional field, greater working memory, enhanced creativity, and increased openness to new knowledge and perspectives.”

What the sources say

• Partly supported

  In the sections on cognition and action (page unavailable), the paper reports that induced positive affect improved creative-test performance and describes broader, more flexible thinking. Its discussion of attention calls the evidence preliminary and says positive-versus-neutral experiments had not been conducted. The paper discusses memory and openness to new ideas, but does not report greater working memory or experimentally demonstrated openness after an induction. (LLM, conf=0.89)

  cites Fredrickson, 1998 sourceExperimental — accuracy not yet measured

In the paper

“We will argue that another key ingredient to psychological health—one that complements traditional perspectives—is psychological flexibility.”

In the paper

“Although psychological flexibility makes a major contribution to daily well-being and lasting psychological health, this construct has been a dark horse in (positive) psychology.”

In the paper

“This helps explain why less ego-resilient children demonstrated stronger physiological reactions (HPA axis activity) when observed in a home environment characterized by negative interactions with parents, whereas ego-resilient children showed evidence of biological resilience (Smeekens, Risksen-Walraven, & Bakel, 2007).”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Smeekens, Risksen-Walraven, & Bakel, 2007 source

In the paper

“More importantly, the 30% of people demonstrating coping flexibility were better adjusted on a daily basis and showed less anxiety and depressive symptoms over a 1-week period than people demonstrating more rigid adherence to particular coping strategies, regardless of whether they were problem- or emotion-focused, active- or passive-focused.”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Cheng, 2001 source

In the paper

“Ironically, by being flexible and living in service of our deepest values instead of being narrowly focused on achieving happiness, we end up experiencing more frequent joy and meaning in life and less distress; we end up with greater vitality and degrees of freedom for how to live each moment (Hayes et al., 1999, 2004).”

What the sources say

• ?Not matched

  Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.

  cites Hayes et al., 1999
• ?Not matched

  Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.

  cites Hayes et al., 2004

In the paper

“When the fear of being rejected is prominent, people are more likely to concede to angry bargainers at the negotiation table; when the fear of being rejected is removed from the equation, people are less likely to concede benefits to angry bargainers (Van Dijk, Van Kleef, Steinel, & Van Beest, 2008).”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Van Dijk, Van Kleef, Steinel, & Van Beest, 2008 source

In the paper

“Contexts in which people seek to increase unpleasant or decrease pleasant emotions are surprisingly frequent.”

In the paper

“These findings are supplemented by experimental studies showing that when induced with physical pain via a cold pressor task, people with greater flexibility show greater endurance, pain tolerance, and a more rapid rate of recovery to baseline distress levels (Feldner et al., 2006).”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Feldner et al., 2006 source

In the paper

“When people feel they possess less bargaining power, angry opponents gain a better outcome, even compared with people in a positive mood; when people feel they possess more power, angry opponents consistently fare worse in negotiations (Van Kleef & Côté, 2007).”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Van Kleef & Côté, 2007 source

In the paper

“In particular, adolescents at a conformist stage could be easily discriminated by those at more autonomous stages based on ego-resilience; adults at increasing stages of identity development could also be discerned by greater ego-resilience and none of these effects could be explained by general intelligence (Westenberg & Block, 1993).”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Westenberg & Block, 1993 source

In the paper

“Although causality cannot be determined, flexibility appears to move people from extrinsic motivated actions toward self-determination and the related health benefits (Deci & Ryan, 2000).”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Deci & Ryan, 2000 source

In the paper

“most of this work is correlational. That is, most of the time we cannot tell whether high CVC causes and organizes other elements of flexibility or whether high CVC is an effect of these other forms of flexibility.”

In the paper

“it is clear that psychological flexibility is reduced in many forms of psychopathology but it is less clear whether this inflexibility is an antecedent or a consequence of psychopathology”

In the paper

“we consider three critical factors that influence the likelihood of being psychologically flexible and gaining access to its benefits:: executive functioning, default mental states, and personality configurations.”

In the paper

“depression, with this disorder associated with lower resting CVC (Rottenberg, 2007), and less dynamic CVC response to laboratory stressors (Rottenberg, Clift, Bolden, & Salomon, 2007).”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Rottenberg, 2007 source
• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Rottenberg, Clift, Bolden, & Salomon, 2007 source

In the paper

“Not only is a ruminative response style inflexible in that it involves habitual application of circular, looping thoughts, it also represents a passive, inactive mode that displaces more active engagement with the environment; engagement that could potentially relieve depressed mood.”

In the paper

“in naturalistic settings, depressed individuals display unresponsive facial expressive and gaze behavior (Ellgring, 1989), a pattern that disrupts social interactions (see Rottenberg & Gotlib, 2004).”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Ellgring, 1989
• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Rottenberg & Gotlib, 2004 source

In the paper

“Over the course of three weeks in people’s natural environment, on days when time is allocated in a manner consistent with desired aims, well-being increases accordingly, and on days when time deviates from this balance, well-being is compromised.”

What the sources say

• ?Not matched

  Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.

  cites Sheldon, Cummins, & Khamble, in press

In the paper

“As we will highlight below, a signal feature of many disorders is that a person’s fluid transactions with the environment break down and responses become stereotyped and invariable.”

In the paper

“one commonality involves psychological inflexibility with respect to responses involving fear and anxiety.”

In the paper

“executive control allows a person to re-focus or rapidly shift cognitive sets and thereby shift attention, which is a critical element of self-control and goal-directed behavior (Goldberg, 2001; Lyon & Krasnegor, 1995).”

What the sources say

• ?Not matched

  Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.

  cites Goldberg, 2001
• ?Not matched

  Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.

  cites Lyon & Krasnegor, 1995

In the paper

“the vagus nerve innervates a number of end organs that are involved in emotion and communication (i.e., larynx, facial muscles, Porges, 1995), and the vagal input to the heart can be quickly withdrawn to allow rapid mobilization of the body to meet a variety of environmental and metabolic demands; these include physical exercise, coping with negative emotion (e.g., Beauchaine, 2001; Friedman & Tha”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Porges, 1995 source
• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Beauchaine, 2001 source
• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Friedman & Thayer, 1998 source

In the paper

“Relative to participants who did not maintain the exercise routine, those who maintained the exercise regimen had higher resting CVC and better functioning on an executive functioning task (Hansen, Johnsen, Soller, Stenvik, & Thayer. 2004).”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Hansen, Johnsen, Soller, Stenvik, & Thayer. 2004 source

In the paper

“inflexibility manifests in many other forms of psychopathology whether it is severe deficits in executive function in schizophrenia (Heinrichs, 2005), poor attentional control in ADHD (Barkley, 1997), or a disinhibited response style in substance abuse (Iacono, Carlson, Taylor, Elkins, & McGue, 1999).”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Heinrichs, 2005 source
• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Barkley, 1997 source
• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Iacono, Carlson, Taylor, Elkins, & McGue, 1999 source

In the paper

“When someone is described as being psychologically flexible, they are more apt to be versatile, using top-down strategies. That is, they show an awareness of what a situation requires and an ability to organize and prioritize strategies that “fit” the situation rather than relying on dominant, default strategies (Fleeson, 2001).”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Fleeson, 2001 source

In the paper

“attributional style, which posits that persons who apply a stereotyped way of explaining the causes of personally relevant negative events (i.e., these events reflect internal, global, and stable factors) will be more likely to experience depression (Abramson, Metalsky, & Alloy, 1989).”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Abramson, Metalsky, & Alloy, 1989 source

In the paper

“Depression is a common and burdensome disorder, which features a loss of flexibility in a number of different ways.”

In the paper

“Taken together, this line of research shows the pervasiveness of rigid attention and the limitations of conscious awareness.”

In the paper

“When told the person was a job applicant, psychologists determined they were healthy; when told the person was a patient, psychologists determined they were experiencing significant distress and impairment.”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Langer & Abelson, 1974 source

In the paper

“There is other evidence that experts often attempt to adapt old templates to new situations because of inflated confidence in their abilities to the neglect of contextual information.”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Reder & Ritter, 1992 source

In the paper

“In our motivation to reach closure about a person, we free cognitive resources for other endeavors. However, we also end our search for new and potentially useful information about each situation being different (even slightly) from any other (Kashdan, 2009).”

What the sources say

• ?Not matched

  Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.

  cites Kashdan, 2009

In the paper

“People differ in their tendencies to negatively evaluate emotions such as anxiety and thoughts such as “I have difficulty making friends,” with faster categorization tendencies linked to lower well-being (Robinson, Vargas, Tamir, & Solberg, 2004).”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Robinson, Vargas, Tamir, & Solberg, 2004 source

In the paper

“this act prevents misjudgments of people and situations, and increases engagement, creativity, and the type of mindful, compassionate style of communication that is attractive and desirable to other people.”

In the paper

“a strong short-term memory capacity allows a person to mentally represent multiple aspects of a complex situation, which is important in helping the person select situationally-appropriate responses.”

In the paper

“To achieve psychological flexibility, a person must maintain a delicate balance between investing effort into our current surroundings and conserving mental energy for potentially significant future situations.”

In the paper

“Psychological flexibility also very much depends upon the precise configuration of personality traits in each individual.”

In the paper

“there is evidence that humans commonly fail to detect novel distinctions and opportunities in the immediate environment and this can erode psychological flexibility.”

In the paper

“Despite having no other task besides staring at the photograph, only 50% of participants noticed when the heads of two cowboys were switched; only 30% of all the modifications in objects, background, and people were detected (Grimes, 1996).”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Grimes, 1996

In the paper

“A weak danger cue in the environment may be prepotent, shutting down executive control, leading a person to conflate their anxious feelings as evidence of the dangerous potential that was never actualized.”

In the paper

“Support for this notion stems from work showing that a greater valuing of self-determination, curiosity, and the seeking of novelty, variety, and challenge in life is directly related to well-being, whereas a heavy focus on conformity, obedience, security, and stability is inversely related to well-being (Sagiv & Schwartz, 2000).”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Sagiv & Schwartz, 2000 source

In the paper

“If interventions to increase flexibility can be informed by strong basic science, we believe there great untapped potential to aid people suffering from pathology, as well help highly functioning people find greater efficacy and fulfillment in their daily lives.”

In the paper

“While this is a hopeful message, classic demonstrations in social psychology --Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment and Milgram’s social obedience studies—warn us that we should not underestimate the challenge for ordinary people to overcome the power of a strong situation.”

In the paper

“Clearly, some ability to delay gratification, resist impulses or urges, and control thoughts and feelings, is needed to achieve flexible behavioral routines; without these skills, a person’s behavior is at the mercy of the unpredictable push and pull of environmental forces.”

In the paper

“they show a willingness to make room for the positive and negative feelings that often arise when confronting novel, complex, uncertain, and unpredictable stimuli such that they engage rather than avoid (Kashdan & Silvia, 2009; Silvia & Kashdan, in press).”

What the sources say

• ?Not matched

  Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.

  cites Kashdan & Silvia, 2009; Silvia & Kashdan, in press

In the paper

“Four-year old boys who were most successful at exercising self-control in a delay of gratification task ended up with higher SAT scores, grades in high school, and social relationships (Mischel, Shoda, & Peake, 1988; Shoda, Mischel, & Peake, 1990).”

What the sources say

• ?Not matched

  Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.

  cites Mischel, Shoda, & Peake, 1988; Shoda, Mischel, & Peake, 1990

In the paper

“Our primary mission here was to present the many faces of flexibility – it can reflect cognitive, behavioral, emotional, and physiological channels and it can reflect activity and balance in multiple life domains.”

In the paper

“In the short-term, anxiety is avoided, in the longer term, this behavioral pattern interferes with skill development, progress, and growth.”

In the paper

“Interestingly, the intervention worked well for people ranging across the spectrum of cognitive flexibility whereas the educational program only worked with people who were the most rigid and inflexible.”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Masuda et al., 2007 source

In the paper

“This notion of living with negative thoughts while still committing to behaviors aligned with central values led to less stigma or greater flexibility about people different from themselves.”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Masuda et al., 2007 source

In the paper

“One important complexity is that self-control can be understood as a stable trait (that is related to conscientiousness) and as a state, that can be temporarily augmented or depleted.”

In the paper

“To understand these issues, we believe there is merit to returning to our earlier point that flexibility does not occur in a vacuum, instead the rest of a person’s personality configuration requires explicit acknowledgment.”

In the paper

“After all, a healthy person is someone who can manage themselves in the uncertain, unpredictable world around them, where novelty and change are the norm rather than the exception.”

In the paper

“Human beings have the potential to better tolerate and effectively use emotions, thoughts, and behavior to extract the best possible outcomes in varying situations.”

In the paper

“For instance, being in a positive emotional state does not lead to blind acceptance of out-group members to work with or form a relationship, instead out-group members are accepted when they possess relevant socially desirable qualities, while irrelevant qualities have little influence on inclusion decisions (Urada & Miller, 2000).”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Urada & Miller, 2000 source

In the paper

“This wide range of dynamic abilities forms the essence of health.”

In the paper

“To be flexible, a person needs to be open to what personal experiences and external events offer.”

In the paper

“Upon being contacted four weeks later, participants reported greater balance in their lives and objectively, there was less discrepancy between their ideal time configuration at the beginning of the intervention and what they did at the end of the month.”

What the sources say

• ?Not matched

  Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.

  cites Sheldon et al., in press

In the paper

“Furthermore, this movement toward greater balance in life predicted greater changes in satisfying needs for belonging, competence, and autonomy, and greater changes in life satisfaction.”

What the sources say

• ?Not matched

  Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.

  cites Sheldon et al., in press

In the paper

“This expansion process enables people to clarify pre-existing values and strengths, or broaden their efforts so that strengths are realized and goals and daily behaviors are linked to fundamental interests and values (Hidi & Renninger, 2006; Miller & Rollnick, 2002; Tomkins, 1962).”

What the sources say

• ?Not matched

  Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.

  cites Hidi & Renninger, 2006; Miller & Rollnick, 2002; Tomkins, 1962

In the paper

“Psychological flexibility may be a critical skill: more than ever.”