Sociotropy

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Sociotropy is a personality trait characterized by excessive investment in interpersonal relationships and usually studied in the field of social psychology. [1]

Contents

People with sociotropy tend to have a strong need for social acceptance, which causes them to be overly nurturant towards people who they do not have close relationships with. [2] Sociotropy can be seen as the opposite of autonomy, because those with sociotropy are concerned with interpersonal relationships, whereas those with autonomy are more concerned with independence and do not care so much for others. [1] Sociotropy has been correlated with feminine sex-role orientation in many research experiments. [3]

Sociotropy is notable in that it interacts with interpersonal stress or traumatic experience to influence subsequent depression. [4] [5] [ clarification needed ]

Sociotropy-Autonomy Scale

The Sociotropy-Autonomy Scale (SAS) was introduced by Aaron T. Beck as a means of assessing two cognitive-personality constructs hypothesized as risk factors in depression. The scale focuses on the two personality traits of Sociotropy (social dependency) and Autonomy (satisfying independency). The development of the SAS was gathered through patient self-reports and patient records collected from therapists. Using psychometrics, from the sample of 378 psychiatric patients questions were placed into a two-factor structure where the final pool of items was 60-109. [6] From there each 30 items generated three factors for sociotropy: Concern About Disapproval, Attachment/Concern About Separation, and Pleasing Others; and three for autonomy: Individualistic or Autonomous Achievement, Mobility/Freedom from Control of Others, and Preference for Solitude. The SAS has 60 items rated on a 5-point scale (ranging from 0 to 4). Scores are then totaled separately on each dimension. The scale has been modified since its development. The current SAS decomposes Sociotropy into two factors (neediness and connectedness). Neediness is associated with the symptoms of depression—and connectedness is a sensitivity towards others, and associated with valuing relationships.

Since the development of the SAS, many other measures of personality constructs have been developed to assess other personality traits with some overlapping with the SAS, but examining for different traits.

Self-control

Sociotropic individuals react differently when faced with situations that involve self-control. [2] Sociotropic individuals consume more food, or try to match a peer's eating habits when they believe doing so makes the peer more comfortable. [7] This is often hypothesized as being a result of the individual attempting to achieve social approval and avoid social rejection. The social pressure and dependence can cause a loss of self-control in an individual, especially if they are unaware of their desire for social acceptance.

Depression

Much research on Sociotropy focuses on links between personality and the risk for depression. People who are very dependent are classified as sociotropic individuals, and are more prone to depression as they seek to sustain their low self-esteem by establishing secure interpersonal relationships. [8] Sociotropic individuals are heavily invested into their relationships with other people and have higher desires for acceptance, support, understanding, and guidance—which is problematic when relationships fail. People who are sociotropic and going through failed relationships are likely to become depressed due to intensified feelings of abandonment and loss. Researchers have a hard time figuring out exactly how much personality affects risk for depression, as it is hard to isolate traits for research, though they conclude that a person can either be sociotropic or independent, but not both.

Research

Sociotropy has been linked to other personality traits such as introversion and lack of assertion. Lack of assertion has been hypothesized to be due to the need to please others to build interpersonal relationships. Individuals who are sociotropic avoid confrontation to prevent abandonment. [9]

Along the lines of lack of assertion there has also been research studying the connection between sociotropy and shyness. The characteristic interpersonal dependence and fear of social rejection are also attributes of shyness. Research shows that many items from the SAS relate to dimensions of dependence and preoccupations for receiving approval of others, which is problematic in interpersonal relationships for people who are shy. Individuals who are shy and sociotropic have internal conflicts to want to avoid others as well as having strong motives to approach people. [10] The results from such research concludes that sociotropy predicts other symptoms of discomfort in assertive situations and in conversations.

Research on the subject also seems to connect a link between higher levels of anxiety and sociotropy. Putting excessive amounts of energy into dependent relationships increases anxiety. The behavioral disposition that causes an individual to depend on others for personal satisfaction can also have an effect on their anxiety levels. [1] The research concluded that anxiety and sociotropy are positively correlated in many situations such as social evaluation, physical danger, and ambiguous situations. Sociotropy and anxiety are present in these situations because they are social by definition, and therefore associated with emphasis on social relationships that are characteristic of sociotropic individuals.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shyness</span> Feeling of apprehension, discomfort or awkwardness in the presence of other people

Shyness is the feeling of apprehension, lack of comfort, or awkwardness especially when a person is around other people. This commonly occurs in new situations or with unfamiliar people; a shy person may simply opt to avoid these situations. Although shyness can be a characteristic of people who have low self-esteem, the primary defining characteristic of shyness is a fear of what other people will think of a person's behavior. This fear of negative reactions such as being mocked, humiliated or patronized, criticized or rejected can cause a shy person to retreat. Stronger forms of shyness can be referred to as social anxiety or social phobia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Avoidant personality disorder</span> Personality disorder

Avoidant personality disorder (AvPD) or Anxious personality disorder is a Cluster C personality disorder characterized by excessive social anxiety and inhibition, fear of intimacy, severe feelings of inadequacy and inferiority, and an overreliance on avoidance of feared stimuli as a maladaptive coping method. Those affected typically display a pattern of extreme sensitivity to negative evaluation and rejection, a belief that one is socially inept or personally unappealing to others, and avoidance of social interaction despite a strong desire for it. It appears to affect an approximately equal number of men and women.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Perfectionism (psychology)</span> Personality trait

Perfectionism, in psychology, is a broad personality trait characterized by a person's concern with striving for flawlessness and perfection and is accompanied by critical self-evaluations and concerns regarding others' evaluations. It is best conceptualized as a multidimensional and multilayered personality characteristic, and initially some psychologists thought that there were many positive and negative aspects.

Self-criticism involves how an individual evaluates oneself. Self-criticism in psychology is typically studied and discussed as a negative personality trait in which a person has a disrupted self-identity. The opposite of self-criticism would be someone who has a coherent, comprehensive, and generally positive self-identity. Self-criticism is often associated with major depressive disorder. Some theorists define self-criticism as a mark of a certain type of depression, and in general people with depression tend to be more self critical than those without depression. People with depression are typically higher on self-criticism than people without depression, and even after depressive episodes they will continue to display self-critical personalities. Much of the scientific focus on self-criticism is because of its association with depression.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Social rejection</span> Deliberate exclusion of an individual from social relationship or social interaction

Social rejection occurs when an individual is deliberately excluded from a social relationship or social interaction. The topic includes interpersonal rejection, romantic rejection, and familial estrangement. A person can be rejected or shunned by individuals or an entire group of people. Furthermore, rejection can be either active by bullying, teasing, or ridiculing, or passive by ignoring a person, or giving the "silent treatment". The experience of being rejected is subjective for the recipient, and it can be perceived when it is not actually present. The word "ostracism" is also commonly used to denote a process of social exclusion.

Social inhibition is a conscious or subconscious avoidance of a situation or social interaction. With a high level of social inhibition, situations are avoided because of the possibility of others disapproving of their feelings or expressions. Social inhibition is related to behavior, appearance, social interactions, or a subject matter for discussion. Related processes that deal with social inhibition are social evaluation concerns, anxiety in social interaction, social avoidance, and withdrawal. Also related are components such as cognitive brain patterns, anxious apprehension during social interactions, and internalizing problems. It also describes those who suppress anger, restrict social behavior, withdraw in the face of novelty, and have a long latency to interact with strangers. Individuals can also have a low level of social inhibition, but certain situations may generally cause people to be more or less inhibited. Social inhibition can sometimes be reduced by the short-term use of drugs including alcohol or benzodiazepines. Major signs of social inhibition in children are cessation of play, long latencies to approaching the unfamiliar person, signs of fear and negative affect, and security seeking. Also in high level cases of social inhibition, other social disorders can emerge through development, such as social anxiety disorder and social phobia.

Personality development encompasses the dynamic construction and deconstruction of integrative characteristics that distinguish an individual in terms of interpersonal behavioral traits. Personality development is ever-changing and subject to contextual factors and life-altering experiences. Personality development is also dimensional in description and subjective in nature. That is, personality development can be seen as a continuum varying in degrees of intensity and change. It is subjective in nature because its conceptualization is rooted in social norms of expected behavior, self-expression, and personal growth. The dominant viewpoint in personality psychology indicates that personality emerges early and continues to develop across one's lifespan. Adult personality traits are believed to have a basis in infant temperament, meaning that individual differences in disposition and behavior appear early in life, potentially before language of conscious self-representation develop. The Five Factor Model of personality maps onto the dimensions of childhood temperament. This suggests that individual differences in levels of the corresponding personality traits are present from young ages.

In the study of psychology, neuroticism has been considered a fundamental personality trait. In the Big Five approach to personality trait theory, individuals with high scores for neuroticism are more likely than average to be moody and to experience such feelings as anxiety, worry, fear, anger, frustration, envy, jealousy, pessimism, guilt, depressed mood, and loneliness. Such people are thought to respond worse to stressors and are more likely to interpret ordinary situations, such as minor frustrations, as appearing hopelessly difficult. The responses can include maladaptive behaviors, such as dissociation, procrastination, substance use, etc., which aids in relieving the negative emotions and generating positive ones.

Social anxiety is the anxiety and fear specifically linked to being in social settings. Some categories of disorders associated with social anxiety include anxiety disorders, mood disorders, autism spectrum disorders, eating disorders, and substance use disorders. Individuals with higher levels of social anxiety often avert their gazes, show fewer facial expressions, and show difficulty with initiating and maintaining a conversation. Social anxiety commonly manifests itself in the teenage years and can be persistent throughout life; however, people who experience problems in their daily functioning for an extended period of time can develop social anxiety disorder. Trait social anxiety, the stable tendency to experience this anxiety, can be distinguished from state anxiety, the momentary response to a particular social stimulus. Half of the individuals with any social fears meet the criteria for social anxiety disorder. Age, culture, and gender impact the severity of this disorder. The function of social anxiety is to increase arousal and attention to social interactions, inhibit unwanted social behavior, and motivate preparation for future social situations.

The Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), created by Aaron T. Beck and other colleagues, is a 21-question multiple-choice self-report inventory that is used for measuring the severity of anxiety in adolescents and adults ages 17 and older. The questions used in this measure ask about common symptoms of anxiety that the subject has had during the past week. It is designed for individuals who are of 17 years of age or older and takes 5 to 10 minutes to complete. Several studies have found the Beck Anxiety Inventory to be an accurate measure of anxiety symptoms in children and adults.

Positive affectivity (PA) is a human characteristic that describes how much people experience positive affects ; and as a consequence how they interact with others and with their surroundings.

In psychology, grandiosity is a sense of superiority, uniqueness, or invulnerability that is unrealistic and not based on personal capability. It may be expressed by exaggerated beliefs regarding one's abilities, the belief that few other people have anything in common with oneself, and that one can only be understood by a few, very special people. The personality trait of grandiosity is principally associated with narcissistic personality disorder (NPD), but also is a feature in the occurrence and expression of antisocial personality disorder, and the manic and hypomanic episodes of bipolar disorder.

Asociality refers to the lack of motivation to engage in social interaction, or a preference for solitary activities. Asociality may be associated with avolition, but it can, moreover, be a manifestation of limited opportunities for social relationships. Developmental psychologists use the synonyms nonsocial, unsocial, and social uninterest. Asociality is distinct from, but not mutually exclusive to, anti-social behavior. A degree of asociality is routinely observed in introverts, while extreme asociality is observed in people with a variety of clinical conditions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Social anxiety disorder</span> Anxiety disorder associated with social situations

Social anxiety disorder (SAD), also known as social phobia, is an anxiety disorder characterized by sentiments of fear and anxiety in social situations, causing considerable distress and impairing ability to function in at least some aspects of daily life. These fears can be triggered by perceived or actual scrutiny from others. Individuals with social anxiety disorder fear negative evaluations from other people.

Meta-mood is a term used by psychologists to refer to an individual's awareness of their emotions. The term was first utilized by John D. Mayer and Peter Salovey who believed the experience of mood involved "direct" and "indirect" components. While the direct level refers to the simple appearance of mood - happiness, fear, anger, sadness, and surprise, the indirect level, or the meta-mood experience, does not solely consist of the emotions experienced by an individual in the moment. Rather, it is a reflective state which involves additional thoughts and feelings about the mood itself. "I shouldn’t feel this way" or "I am thinking of ways to improve my mood" are examples of reflective thoughts during a meta-mood experience.

An addictive personality refers to a hypothesized set of personality traits that make an individual predisposed to developing addictions. This hypothesis states that there may be common personality traits observable in people suffering from addiction; however, the lack of a universally agreed upon definition has marked the research surrounding addictive personality. Addiction is a fairly broad term; it is most often associated with substance use disorders, but it can also be extended to cover a number of other compulsive behaviors, including sex, internet, television, gambling, food, and shopping. Within these categories of addiction a common diagnostic scale involves tolerance, withdrawal, and cravings. This is a fairly contentious topic, with many experts suggesting the term be retired due to a lack of cumulative evidence supporting the existence of addictive personality. It has been claimed that characteristics of personality attributed to addictive personality do not predict addiction, but rather can be the result of addiction. However, different personality traits have been linked to various types of addictive behaviors, suggesting that individual addictions may be associated with different personality profiles. The strongest consensus is that genetic factors play the largest role in determining a predisposition for addictive behaviors. Even then, however, genes play different roles in different types of addictions. Forty to seventy percent of the population variance in the expression of addictions can be explained by genetic factors.

Self-concealment is a psychological construct defined as "a predisposition to actively conceal from others personal information that one perceives as distressing or negative". Its opposite is self-disclosure.

Fear of negative evaluation (FNE) or fear of failure, also known as atychiphobia, is a psychological construct reflecting "apprehension about others' evaluations, distress over negative evaluations by others, and the expectation that others would evaluate one negatively". The construct and a psychological test to measure it were defined by David Watson and Ronald Friend in 1969. FNE is related to specific personality dimensions, such as anxiousness, submissiveness, and social avoidance. People who score high on the FNE scale are highly concerned with seeking social approval or avoiding disapproval by others and may tend to avoid situations where they have to undergo evaluations. High FNE subjects are also more responsive to situational factors. This has been associated with conformity, pro-social behavior, and social anxiety.

Structure of Temperament Questionnaire (STQ) is a test to measure 12 biologically and neurochemically based individual differences.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Unmitigated communion</span>

In psychology, unmitigated communion is focusing on others while excluding an individual's self. It is opposed to unmitigated agency, which is focusing on self while excluding others. Unmitigated communion is portrayed as a way of being concerned with others excessively and placing other human beings' needs or wants before one's own. Unmitigated communion and unmitigated agency are also correlated with unusual behaviour and psychological problems.

References

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  2. 1 2 Sato, T.; Harman, B. A.; Donohoe, W. M.; Weaver, A.; Hall, W. A. (2010). "Individual differences in ego depletion: The role of sociotropy-autonomy". Motivation and Emotion. 34 (2): 205. doi:10.1007/s11031-010-9166-9. S2CID   143691350.
  3. ↑ Newman, J. L.; Gray, E. A.; Fuqua, D. R.; Choi, N. (2009). "Sociotropy, autonomy, and masculinity/femininity: Implications for vulnerability to depression". Psychological Reports. 104 (2): 549–557. doi:10.2466/pr0.104.2.549-557. PMID   19610485. S2CID   39767385.
  4. ↑ Needleman, L. D. (1999). Cognitive Case Conceptualization : A Guidebook for Practitioners. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. Retrieved December 11, 2011
  5. ↑ Kolts, R. L.; Robinson, A. M.; Tracy, J. J. (2004). "The relationship of sociotropy and autonomy to posttraumatic cognitions and PTSD symptomatology in trauma survivors". Journal of Clinical Psychology. 60 (1): 53–63. doi:10.1002/jclp.10193. PMID   14692009.
  6. ↑ Bieling, Peter J.; Beck, Aaron T.; Brown, Gregory K. (2000), "The Sociotropy–Autonomy Scale:Structure and Implications", Cognitive Therapy and Research, Kluwer Academic Publishers-Plenum Publishers, 24 (6): 763–780, doi:10.1023/A:1005599714224, S2CID   38957013
  7. ↑ Exline, Julie J.; Zell, Anne L.; Bratslavsky, Ellen; Hamilton, Michelle; Swenson, Anne (2012). "People-pleasing through eating: Sociotropy predicts greater eating in response to perceived social pressure". Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology. 31 (2): 169–193. doi:10.1521/jscp.2012.31.2.169.
  8. ↑ Coyne, James C.; Whiffen, Valerie E. (1995), "Issues in Personality as Diathesis for Depression: The Case of Sociotropy-Dependency and Autonomy-Self-Criticism", Psychological Bulletin, US: American Psychological Association, 118 (3): 358–378, doi:10.1037/0033-2909.118.3.358, PMID   7501741
  9. ↑ Sato, Toru; McCann, Doug (2007), "Sociotropy–autonomy and interpersonal problems", Depression and Anxiety, Wiley-LISS, 24 (3): 153–162, doi: 10.1002/da.20230 , PMID   16986139
  10. ↑ Bruch, Monroe A; Rivet, Kathy M.; Heimberg, Richard G.; Hunt, Anne; McIntosh, Bonnie (1999), "Shyness and Sociotropy: Additive and Interactive Relations in Predicting Interpersonal Concerns", Journal of Personality, Blackwell Publishers, 67 (2): 373–406, doi:10.1111/1467-6494.00059, PMID   10202808
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