Nicholas Christenfeld
Biographic Data
| ID | 206290 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Nicholas Christenfeld |
| GIVEN NAMES | Nicholas |
| FAMILY NAME | Christenfeld |
| SIGNATURE | CHRISTENFELD N |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of California San Diego |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 20 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 65 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 20 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1991 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2017 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Incremental mindsets and the reduced forgiveness of chronic failures
Seeing the other side
Emotion
There have been roughly as many theories of emotion as there have been people thinking about the topic. Despite several millennia of investigation, there is still little agreement about what constitutes an emotion, how many emotions there are, and whether such a number is even meaningful. One important and abiding distinction between various theories of emotion is that between the mentalist and the organic traditions. The organic tradition largel…
The Immediate and Delayed Cardiovascular Benefits of Forgiving
BACKGROUND: The putative health benefits of forgiveness may include long-term buffering against cardiovascular reactivity associated with rumination. Although studies show short-term benefits of adopting a forgiving perspective, it is uncertain whether this perspective protects against repeated future rumination on offenses, which may be necessary for long-term health benefits. Also unclear is whether forgiveness offers unique benefits beyond sim…
The Role of Angry Rumination and Distraction in Blood Pressure Recovery From Emotional Arousal
Objective: Cardiovascular recovery of prestress baseline blood pressure has been implicated as a possible additional determinant of sustained blood pressure elevation. We hypothesize that angry ruminations may slow the recovery process. Method: A within-subjects design was used in which resting baseline blood pressure and heart rate measurements were assessed on 60 subjects, who then took part in two anger-recall tasks. After each task, subjects …
Positive and negative opinion modeling: The influence of another's similarity and dissimilarity
Positive and Negative Opinion Modeling: The Influence of Another's Similarity and Dissimilarity
Modeling research that has focused on the effects of observing similar others appears to have underestimated the influence of observing dissimilar others. Two experiments demonstrated that observing a model express liking for a piece of music induced more favorable opinions of the music (positive modeling) when the model was similar to the participant observer in relevant opinions, and more negative opinions (negative modeling) when the model was…
The broad applicability of memory bias and its coexistence with the planning fallacy: Reply to Griffin and Buehler (2005)
People chronically underestimate how long tasks will take. In their original article, the present authors (M. M. Roy, N. J. S. Christenfeld, & C. R. M. McKenzie, suggested a simple, broadly applicable explanation: Biased predictions result from biased memories. In their comment article, D. Griffin and R. Buehler suggested that in many domains in which this memory-bias account appears to out-predict their own account, theirs actually makes no pred…
Underestimating the Duration of Future Events: Memory Incorrectly Used or Memory Bias
People frequently underestimate how long it will take them to complete a task. The prevailing view is that during the prediction process, people incorrectly use their memories of how long similar tasks have taken in the past because they take an overly optimistic outlook. A variety of evidence is reviewed in this article that points to a different, although not mutually exclusive, explanation: People base predictions of future duration on their m…
Risk Factors, Confounding, and the Illusion of Statistical Control
When experimental designs are premature, impractical, or impossible, researchers must rely on statistical methods to adjust for potentially confounding effects. Such procedures, however, are quite fallible. We examine several errors that often follow the use of statistical adjustment. The first is inferring a factor is causal because it predicts an outcome even after "statistical control" for other factors. This inference is fallacious when (as u…
Toward a Causal Model of Cardiovascular Responses to Stress and the Development of Cardiovascular Disease
OBJECTIVE: Cardiovascular reactivity is hypothesized to mediate the relationship between stress and cardiovascular disease. We describe three considerations that are crucial for a causal model of cardiovascular responses to stress: the need for laboratory-life generalizability, the role of interactions between environmental exposures and individual response predispositions, and the importance of the duration of both stressor exposure and cardiova…
The Role of Rumination in Recovery from Reactivity: Cardiovascular Consequences of Emotional States
Objective While most investigations of the link between blood pressure responses and later disease have focused on acute reactivity during stressful tasks, there is some theoretical and empirical reason to believe that examining recovery and later re-creations of BP responses may also be useful. Two experiments explored situational determinants of sustained BP elevations, examining whether the extent of recovery and the ability to later mentally …
Exposure to New York City as a Risk Factor for Heart Attack Mortality
OBJECTIVE: If New York City (NYC) residents' unusually high rate of ischemic heart disease (IHD) results from chronic exposure to that city, there might also be an effect of acute exposure among visitors to NYC. We explored this possibility and also whether IHD is reduced among NYC residents dying away from the city. METHODS: Using all US death certificates for 1985-1994, we examined (correcting for age, race, and sex) IHD deaths in three groups:…
Gender, Social Support, and Cardiovascular Responses to Stress
OBJECTIVE: Laboratory research indicates that the presence of a supportive other can reduce physiological responses to a stressor. Whether there are gender differences, either on the part of the provider or the recipient, in this social support effect is explored. Such differences might shed some light on the frequent epidemiological reports of gender differences in social support and health. METHODS: Male and female subjects gave an impromptu sp…
Gender, Race, and Performance Expectations of College Students
Women often have low performance expectations for themselves but expect other women to succeed. We found minority students think not only that they will do worse than other minority group members, but also that their group will do poorly. Low individual and group success expectations make the results for minorities doubly troubling
Social Support Effects on Cardiovascular Reactivity: Is a Stranger as Effective as a Friend
OBJECTIVE: We investigated whether the effects on cardiovascular reactivity of social support from an audience member depend only on the behavior of that person or also depend on the relationship between the audience and the actor. That is, is there any added reduction in physiological response if the person who is nodding and smiling supportively is also a friend? METHOD: Ninety subjects gave a speech to an observer. In two of the conditions, th…
Anxiety, alcohol, aphasia, and ums
Although several studies have documented a link between anxiety and filled pauses (ums, ers, and uhs), numerous failures make it impossible to believe that the two are linked in any simple way. This article suggests anxiety may increase ums not when it makes the speech task harder but when it causes the speaker to pay attention to the speech. Two experiments examined this idea. One manipulated evaluation apprehension, and the other manipulated se…
Options and UMS
Most people who have speculated about the causes of ums in speech (also known as filled pauses) have suggested that they are produced when the speaker is confronted with a challenging choice. This idea, in spite of its intuitive appeal and theoretical usefulness, has never been directly tested. The present experiment manipulates the complexity of options facing a speaker by having subjects describe mazes with a varying number of alternate possibl…
Speech disfluency and the structure of knowledge
It is generally accepted that filled pauses and urn) indicate time out while the speaker searches for the next word or phrase. It is hypothesized that the more options, the more likely that a speaker will say uh. The academic disciplines differ in the extent to which their subject matter and mode of thought require a speaker to choose among options. The more formal, structured, and factual the discipline, the fewer the options. It follows that le…
Filled pauses and gestures: It's not coincidence
Speech disfluency and the structure of knowledge
It is generally accepted that filled pauses and urn) indicate time out while the speaker searches for the next word or phrase. It is hypothesized that the more options, the more likely that a speaker will say uh. The academic disciplines differ in the extent to which their subject matter and mode of thought require a speaker to choose among options. The more formal, structured, and factual the discipline, the fewer the options. It follows that le…
Underestimating the Duration of Future Events: Memory Incorrectly Used or Memory Bias
People frequently underestimate how long it will take them to complete a task. The prevailing view is that during the prediction process, people incorrectly use their memories of how long similar tasks have taken in the past because they take an overly optimistic outlook. A variety of evidence is reviewed in this article that points to a different, although not mutually exclusive, explanation: People base predictions of future duration on their m…
Seeing the other side
Anxiety, alcohol, aphasia, and ums
Although several studies have documented a link between anxiety and filled pauses (ums, ers, and uhs), numerous failures make it impossible to believe that the two are linked in any simple way. This article suggests anxiety may increase ums not when it makes the speech task harder but when it causes the speaker to pay attention to the speech. Two experiments examined this idea. One manipulated evaluation apprehension, and the other manipulated se…
Options and UMS
Most people who have speculated about the causes of ums in speech (also known as filled pauses) have suggested that they are produced when the speaker is confronted with a challenging choice. This idea, in spite of its intuitive appeal and theoretical usefulness, has never been directly tested. The present experiment manipulates the complexity of options facing a speaker by having subjects describe mazes with a varying number of alternate possibl…
Incremental mindsets and the reduced forgiveness of chronic failures
Filled pauses and gestures: It's not coincidence
Gender, Race, and Performance Expectations of College Students
Women often have low performance expectations for themselves but expect other women to succeed. We found minority students think not only that they will do worse than other minority group members, but also that their group will do poorly. Low individual and group success expectations make the results for minorities doubly troubling
Speech disfluency and the structure of knowledge
It is generally accepted that filled pauses and urn) indicate time out while the speaker searches for the next word or phrase. It is hypothesized that the more options, the more likely that a speaker will say uh. The academic disciplines differ in the extent to which their subject matter and mode of thought require a speaker to choose among options. The more formal, structured, and factual the discipline, the fewer the options. It follows that le…
Filled pauses and gestures: It's not coincidence
Options and UMS
Most people who have speculated about the causes of ums in speech (also known as filled pauses) have suggested that they are produced when the speaker is confronted with a challenging choice. This idea, in spite of its intuitive appeal and theoretical usefulness, has never been directly tested. The present experiment manipulates the complexity of options facing a speaker by having subjects describe mazes with a varying number of alternate possibl…
Anxiety, alcohol, aphasia, and ums
Although several studies have documented a link between anxiety and filled pauses (ums, ers, and uhs), numerous failures make it impossible to believe that the two are linked in any simple way. This article suggests anxiety may increase ums not when it makes the speech task harder but when it causes the speaker to pay attention to the speech. Two experiments examined this idea. One manipulated evaluation apprehension, and the other manipulated se…
Social Support Effects on Cardiovascular Reactivity: Is a Stranger as Effective as a Friend
OBJECTIVE: We investigated whether the effects on cardiovascular reactivity of social support from an audience member depend only on the behavior of that person or also depend on the relationship between the audience and the actor. That is, is there any added reduction in physiological response if the person who is nodding and smiling supportively is also a friend? METHOD: Ninety subjects gave a speech to an observer. In two of the conditions, th…
Exposure to New York City as a Risk Factor for Heart Attack Mortality
OBJECTIVE: If New York City (NYC) residents' unusually high rate of ischemic heart disease (IHD) results from chronic exposure to that city, there might also be an effect of acute exposure among visitors to NYC. We explored this possibility and also whether IHD is reduced among NYC residents dying away from the city. METHODS: Using all US death certificates for 1985-1994, we examined (correcting for age, race, and sex) IHD deaths in three groups:…
Gender, Social Support, and Cardiovascular Responses to Stress
OBJECTIVE: Laboratory research indicates that the presence of a supportive other can reduce physiological responses to a stressor. Whether there are gender differences, either on the part of the provider or the recipient, in this social support effect is explored. Such differences might shed some light on the frequent epidemiological reports of gender differences in social support and health. METHODS: Male and female subjects gave an impromptu sp…
Gender, Race, and Performance Expectations of College Students
Women often have low performance expectations for themselves but expect other women to succeed. We found minority students think not only that they will do worse than other minority group members, but also that their group will do poorly. Low individual and group success expectations make the results for minorities doubly troubling
The Role of Rumination in Recovery from Reactivity: Cardiovascular Consequences of Emotional States
Objective While most investigations of the link between blood pressure responses and later disease have focused on acute reactivity during stressful tasks, there is some theoretical and empirical reason to believe that examining recovery and later re-creations of BP responses may also be useful. Two experiments explored situational determinants of sustained BP elevations, examining whether the extent of recovery and the ability to later mentally …
Toward a Causal Model of Cardiovascular Responses to Stress and the Development of Cardiovascular Disease
OBJECTIVE: Cardiovascular reactivity is hypothesized to mediate the relationship between stress and cardiovascular disease. We describe three considerations that are crucial for a causal model of cardiovascular responses to stress: the need for laboratory-life generalizability, the role of interactions between environmental exposures and individual response predispositions, and the importance of the duration of both stressor exposure and cardiova…
Risk Factors, Confounding, and the Illusion of Statistical Control
When experimental designs are premature, impractical, or impossible, researchers must rely on statistical methods to adjust for potentially confounding effects. Such procedures, however, are quite fallible. We examine several errors that often follow the use of statistical adjustment. The first is inferring a factor is causal because it predicts an outcome even after "statistical control" for other factors. This inference is fallacious when (as u…
The broad applicability of memory bias and its coexistence with the planning fallacy: Reply to Griffin and Buehler (2005)
People chronically underestimate how long tasks will take. In their original article, the present authors (M. M. Roy, N. J. S. Christenfeld, & C. R. M. McKenzie, suggested a simple, broadly applicable explanation: Biased predictions result from biased memories. In their comment article, D. Griffin and R. Buehler suggested that in many domains in which this memory-bias account appears to out-predict their own account, theirs actually makes no pred…
Underestimating the Duration of Future Events: Memory Incorrectly Used or Memory Bias
People frequently underestimate how long it will take them to complete a task. The prevailing view is that during the prediction process, people incorrectly use their memories of how long similar tasks have taken in the past because they take an overly optimistic outlook. A variety of evidence is reviewed in this article that points to a different, although not mutually exclusive, explanation: People base predictions of future duration on their m…
The Role of Angry Rumination and Distraction in Blood Pressure Recovery From Emotional Arousal
Objective: Cardiovascular recovery of prestress baseline blood pressure has been implicated as a possible additional determinant of sustained blood pressure elevation. We hypothesize that angry ruminations may slow the recovery process. Method: A within-subjects design was used in which resting baseline blood pressure and heart rate measurements were assessed on 60 subjects, who then took part in two anger-recall tasks. After each task, subjects …
Positive and negative opinion modeling: The influence of another's similarity and dissimilarity
Positive and Negative Opinion Modeling: The Influence of Another's Similarity and Dissimilarity
Modeling research that has focused on the effects of observing similar others appears to have underestimated the influence of observing dissimilar others. Two experiments demonstrated that observing a model express liking for a piece of music induced more favorable opinions of the music (positive modeling) when the model was similar to the participant observer in relevant opinions, and more negative opinions (negative modeling) when the model was…
Emotion
There have been roughly as many theories of emotion as there have been people thinking about the topic. Despite several millennia of investigation, there is still little agreement about what constitutes an emotion, how many emotions there are, and whether such a number is even meaningful. One important and abiding distinction between various theories of emotion is that between the mentalist and the organic traditions. The organic tradition largel…
The Immediate and Delayed Cardiovascular Benefits of Forgiving
BACKGROUND: The putative health benefits of forgiveness may include long-term buffering against cardiovascular reactivity associated with rumination. Although studies show short-term benefits of adopting a forgiving perspective, it is uncertain whether this perspective protects against repeated future rumination on offenses, which may be necessary for long-term health benefits. Also unclear is whether forgiveness offers unique benefits beyond sim…
Seeing the other side
Incremental mindsets and the reduced forgiveness of chronic failures
Psychology (19 works) · Social Psychology (12 works) · Cognitive psychology (9 works) · Medicine (9 works) · Internal Medicine (8 works) · Internal Medicine (8 works) · Clinical Psychology (6 works) · Blood pressure (5 works) · Cognition (5 works) · Artificial Intelligence (4 works)