Geraldine Downey
Biographic Data
| ID | 3819741 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Geraldine Downey |
| GIVEN NAMES | Geraldine |
| FAMILY NAME | Downey |
| SIGNATURE | DOWNEY G |
| AFFILIATIONS | Columbia University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-8304-6439 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 37 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 509 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 37 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1987 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2020 |
| H-INDEX | 11 |
The Dynamic Ecology of Rejection and Acceptance: Mental Health Implications
Pretty Pressure” From Peers, Parents, and the Media: A Longitudinal Study of Appearance‐Based Rejection Sensitivity
Drawing from the tripartite sociocultural model of body image, the researchers examined whether direct messages and modeling from peers, parents, and media were concurrently and prospectively associated with appearance-based rejection sensitivity (appearance-RS) in young adolescents (M age = 12.0 years). Appearance-RS was higher among those who concurrently reported more appearance-related teasing and pressure by peers, more parent teasing, and g…
A Dyadic Perspective on Speech Accommodation and Social Connection: Both Partners' Rejection Sensitivity Matters
Findings from confederate paradigms predict that mimicry is an adaptive route to social connection for rejection‐sensitive individuals ( L akin, C hartrand, & A rkin, 2008). However, dyadic perspectives predict that whether mimicry leads to perceived connection depends on the rejection sensitivity ( RS ) of both partners in an interaction. We investigated these predictions in 50 college women who completed a dyadic cooperative task in which membe…
Relational Victimization, Loneliness and Depressive Symptoms: Indirect Associations Via Self and Peer Reports of Rejection Sensitivity
Learning biases underlying individual differences in sensitivity to social rejection
People vary greatly in their dispositions to anxiously expect, readily perceive, and strongly react to social rejection (rejection sensitivity [RS]) with implications for social functioning and health. Here, we examined how RS influences learning about social threat. Using a classical fear conditioning task, we established that high compared to low individuals displayed a resistance to extinction of the conditioned response to angry faces, but no…
After all I have done for you: Self-silencing accommodations fuel women's post-rejection hostility
What I see when I think it's about me: People low in rejection-sensitivity downplay cues of rejection in self-relevant interpersonal situations
Gauging one's impression on a potential mate is challenging. There is a need to make reasonably accurate inferences from subtle, dynamic facial expressions and to maintain motivation to connect despite the risk of rejection. The interpersonal optimism of people low in rejection sensitivity (RS), people who confidently expect acceptance rather than anxiously expect rejection, as do their high RS counterparts, suggests that they may strategically u…
Gender-based rejection sensitivity and academic self-silencing in women
Building on prior work on rejection sensitivity, we propose a social-cognitive model of gender-based rejection sensitivity (Gender RS) to account for individual differences in how women perceive and cope with gender-based evaluative threats in competitive, historically male institutions. Study 1 develops a measure of Gender RS, defined as anxious expectations of gender-based rejection. Studies 2-5 support the central predictions of the model: Gen…
Group-Value Ambiguity: Understanding the Effects of Academic Feedback on Minority Students' Self-Esteem
The authors applied insights from the group-value theory of procedural justice to investigate minority students' disengagement of self-esteem from academic outcomes. African American college students completed the race-based rejection sensitivity (RS-race) questionnaire. The students were asked to write a position essay on a current topic. They were randomly assigned to complete a demographic form in which they disclosed or did not disclose their…
Rejection Sensitivity and the Rejection–Hostility Link in Romantic Relationships
Rejection sensitivity is the disposition to anxiously expect, readily perceive, and intensely react to rejection. In response to perceived social exclusion, highly rejection sensitive people react with increased hostile feelings toward others and are more likely to show reactive aggression than less rejection sensitive people in the same situation. This paper summarizes work on rejection sensitivity that has provided evidence for the link between…
Paying to belong: When does rejection trigger ingratiation
Societies and social scientists have long held the belief that exclusion induces ingratiation and conformity, an idea in contradiction to robust empirical evidence linking rejection with hostility and aggression. The classic literatures on ingratiation and conformity help resolve this contradiction by identifying circumstances under which rejection may trigger efforts to ingratiate. Jointly, findings from these literatures suggest that when peopl…
Rejection sensitivity and disruption of attention by social threat cues
Rejection sensitivity and executive control: Joint predictors of borderline personality features
Distinguishing institutional identification from academic goal pursuit: Interactive effects of ethnic identification and race-based rejection sensitivity
We examined the interactive effects of ethnic identification (EI) and race-based rejection sensitivity (RS-race) on institutional outcomes among African American college students. We distinguished between effects on institutional identification on the one hand and academic goal pursuit (e.g., staying in school, grade point average [GPA]) on the other. Supporting the utility of this distinction, we found that EI and RS-race interacted to predict t…
Persons in Context: Building a Science of the Individual
Social Causes and Consequences of Rejection Sensitivity
Predictions from the Rejection Sensitivity (RS) model concerning the social causes and consequences of RS were examined in a longitudinal study of 150 middle school students. Peer nominations of rejection, self‐report measures of anxious and angry rejection expectations, and social anxiety, social withdrawal, and loneliness were assessed at two time points. Results indicate that peer rejection at Time 1 predicted an increase in anxious and angry …
Rejection Sensitivity and the Defensive Motivational System: Insights From the Startle Response to Rejection Cues
Rejection sensitivity (RS) is the disposition to anxiously expect, readily perceive, and intensely react to rejection. This study used the startle probe paradigm to test whether the affect-based defensive motivational system is automatically activated by rejection cues in people who are high in RS. Stimuli were representational paintings depicting rejection (by Hopper) and acceptance (by Renoir), as well as nonrepresentational paintings of either…
He Said, She Said: A Quasi-Signal Detection Analysis of Daily Interactions Between Close Relationship Partners
In everyday life, close relationship partners enact behaviors through which they may influence each other. To understand how these exchanges affect partners, previous research has emphasized the enactors' reports, the receivers' perceptions, or the congruence of the two. We developed a strategy based on classic signal detection theory that combined elements from these three approaches in a naturalistic daily experience study. Members of 58 hetero…
Sensitivity to status-based rejection: Implications for African American students' college experience
Rejection sensitivity and male violence in romantic relationships
Rejection sensitivity is the disposition to anxiously expect, readily perceive, and intensely react to rejection by significant others. A model of the role of this disposition in male violence toward romantic partners is proposed. Specifically, it is proposed that rejection sensitivity is a vulnerability factor for two distinct maladaptive styles of coping with intimate relationships. Rejection‐sensitive men may attempt to prevent anticipated rej…
Regulating the interpersonal self: Strategic self-regulation for coping with rejection sensitivity
People high in rejection sensitivity (RS) anxiously expect rejection and are at risk for interpersonal and personal distress. Two studies examined the role of self-regulation through strategic attention deployment in moderating the link between RS and maladaptive outcomes. Self-regulation was assessed by the delay of gratification (DG) paradigm in childhood. In Study 1, preschoolers from the Stanford University community who participated in the D…
Anger Transmission from Mother to Child: A Comparison of Mothers in Chronic Pain and Well Mothers
Geraldine Downey, Valerie Purdie, Rebecca Schaffer-Neitz, Anger Transmission from Mother to Child: A Comparison of Mothers in Chronic Pain and Well Mothers, Journal of Marriage and Family, Vol. 61, No. 1 (Feb., 1999), pp. 62-73
Rejection Sensitivity and Children's Interpersonal Difficulties
Some children respond to social rejection in ways that undermine their relationships, whereas others respond with more equanimity. This article reports 3 studies that test the proposition that rejection sensitivity—the disposition to defensively (i.e., anxiously or angrily) expect, readily perceive, and overreact to social rejection—helps explain individual differences in response to social rejection. Data were from urban, minority (primarily His…
The self-fulfilling prophecy in close relationships: Rejection sensitivity and rejection by romantic partners
Implications of rejection sensitivity for intimate relationships
Implications of rejection sensitivity for intimate relationships
The self-fulfilling prophecy in close relationships: Rejection sensitivity and rejection by romantic partners
Regulating the interpersonal self: Strategic self-regulation for coping with rejection sensitivity
People high in rejection sensitivity (RS) anxiously expect rejection and are at risk for interpersonal and personal distress. Two studies examined the role of self-regulation through strategic attention deployment in moderating the link between RS and maladaptive outcomes. Self-regulation was assessed by the delay of gratification (DG) paradigm in childhood. In Study 1, preschoolers from the Stanford University community who participated in the D…
Social Causes and Consequences of Rejection Sensitivity
Predictions from the Rejection Sensitivity (RS) model concerning the social causes and consequences of RS were examined in a longitudinal study of 150 middle school students. Peer nominations of rejection, self‐report measures of anxious and angry rejection expectations, and social anxiety, social withdrawal, and loneliness were assessed at two time points. Results indicate that peer rejection at Time 1 predicted an increase in anxious and angry …
Distinguishing institutional identification from academic goal pursuit: Interactive effects of ethnic identification and race-based rejection sensitivity
We examined the interactive effects of ethnic identification (EI) and race-based rejection sensitivity (RS-race) on institutional outcomes among African American college students. We distinguished between effects on institutional identification on the one hand and academic goal pursuit (e.g., staying in school, grade point average [GPA]) on the other. Supporting the utility of this distinction, we found that EI and RS-race interacted to predict t…
Personal Efficacy, Income, and Family Transitions: A Longitudinal Study of Women Heading Households
The gender discrepancy in feelings of personal efficacy has been implicated in the greater vulnerability of women to psychological distress. Previous research shows that men's sense of efficacy is related to their earnings. This study, using data from the University of Michigan's Panel Study of Income Dynamics, examines the income efficacy relationship for women heading households, placing it in the context of work and family roles. We consider t…
Paying to belong: When does rejection trigger ingratiation
Societies and social scientists have long held the belief that exclusion induces ingratiation and conformity, an idea in contradiction to robust empirical evidence linking rejection with hostility and aggression. The classic literatures on ingratiation and conformity help resolve this contradiction by identifying circumstances under which rejection may trigger efforts to ingratiate. Jointly, findings from these literatures suggest that when peopl…
Gender-based rejection sensitivity and academic self-silencing in women
Building on prior work on rejection sensitivity, we propose a social-cognitive model of gender-based rejection sensitivity (Gender RS) to account for individual differences in how women perceive and cope with gender-based evaluative threats in competitive, historically male institutions. Study 1 develops a measure of Gender RS, defined as anxious expectations of gender-based rejection. Studies 2-5 support the central predictions of the model: Gen…
Rejection sensitivity and disruption of attention by social threat cues
Social cognition and adjustment in children at risk for psychopathology
This study tested two models of how social cognition affects the link between child adjustment and two family risk factors, maltreatment and parental psychopathology. The mediation model proposed that social cognition mediates the link between the risk factors and maladjustment. The compensation model proposed that social cognition compensates for the risk factors. Social cognitive measures were social problem-solving competency and hostile attri…
Reconsidering the attribution-adjustment relation following a major negative event: Coping with the loss of a child
Women with Multiple Roles: Role-Compatibility Perceptions, Satisfaction, and Mental Health
Anger Transmission from Mother to Child: A Comparison of Mothers in Chronic Pain and Well Mothers
Geraldine Downey, Valerie Purdie, Rebecca Schaffer-Neitz, Anger Transmission from Mother to Child: A Comparison of Mothers in Chronic Pain and Well Mothers, Journal of Marriage and Family, Vol. 61, No. 1 (Feb., 1999), pp. 62-73
Rejection sensitivity and executive control: Joint predictors of borderline personality features
The onset of suicidal ideation in childhood and adolescence
Relational Victimization, Loneliness and Depressive Symptoms: Indirect Associations Via Self and Peer Reports of Rejection Sensitivity
After all I have done for you: Self-silencing accommodations fuel women's post-rejection hostility
Pretty Pressure” From Peers, Parents, and the Media: A Longitudinal Study of Appearance‐Based Rejection Sensitivity
Drawing from the tripartite sociocultural model of body image, the researchers examined whether direct messages and modeling from peers, parents, and media were concurrently and prospectively associated with appearance-based rejection sensitivity (appearance-RS) in young adolescents (M age = 12.0 years). Appearance-RS was higher among those who concurrently reported more appearance-related teasing and pressure by peers, more parent teasing, and g…
Reconsidering the attribution^adjustment relation following a major negative event: Coping with the loss of a child
Field studies have not yet conclusively established how attributions affect adjustment to unanticipated traumatic events. This may be due, in part, to the adoption of several untested assumptions in most prior research. It has usually been assumed that attributional issues are important to people who experience a traumatic event, that such concern is adaptive, and that specific attributions (e.g., self-blame) influence subsequent adjustment. Thes…
The Dynamic Ecology of Rejection and Acceptance: Mental Health Implications
Personal Efficacy, Income, and Family Transitions: A Longitudinal Study of Women Heading Households
The gender discrepancy in feelings of personal efficacy has been implicated in the greater vulnerability of women to psychological distress. Previous research shows that men's sense of efficacy is related to their earnings. This study, using data from the University of Michigan's Panel Study of Income Dynamics, examines the income efficacy relationship for women heading households, placing it in the context of work and family roles. We consider t…
The nonorthogonal nature of risk factors: Implications for research on the causes of maladjustment
The onset of suicidal ideation in childhood and adolescence
Social cognition and adjustment in children at risk for psychopathology
This study tested two models of how social cognition affects the link between child adjustment and two family risk factors, maltreatment and parental psychopathology. The mediation model proposed that social cognition mediates the link between the risk factors and maladjustment. The compensation model proposed that social cognition compensates for the risk factors. Social cognitive measures were social problem-solving competency and hostile attri…
Children of depressed parents: An integrative review
Children of depressed parents: An integrative review
This article reviews the various literatures on the adjustment of children of depressed parents, difficulties in parenting and parent-child interaction in these families, and contextual factors that may play a role in child adjustment and parent depression. First, issues arising from the recurrent, episodic, heterogeneous nature of depression are discussed. Second, studies on the adjustment of children with a depressed parent are summarized. Earl…
The effects of familial risk factors on social-cognitive abilities in children
Labor-Force Reentry Among U.S. Homemakers in Midlife: A Life-Course Analysis
Guided by a life-course perspective, this article uses data from 11 waves of the Michigan Panel Study of Income Dynamics to examine the influence of human capital, family structure, and local labor-market demand variables on the reentry into the labor force of midlife homemakers in the United States in the 1970s. By looking at two contiguous time periods, the first and last halves of the 1970s, it investigates how the influence of these factors v…
Reconsidering the attribution^adjustment relation following a major negative event: Coping with the loss of a child
Field studies have not yet conclusively established how attributions affect adjustment to unanticipated traumatic events. This may be due, in part, to the adoption of several untested assumptions in most prior research. It has usually been assumed that attributional issues are important to people who experience a traumatic event, that such concern is adaptive, and that specific attributions (e.g., self-blame) influence subsequent adjustment. Thes…
Reconsidering the attribution-adjustment relation following a major negative event: Coping with the loss of a child
Women with Multiple Roles: Role-Compatibility Perceptions, Satisfaction, and Mental Health
Social Factors and Psychopathology: Stress, Social Support, and Coping Processes
A revolution in the science of emotion has emerged in recent decades, with the potential to create a paradigm shift in decision theories. The research reveals that emotions constitute potent, pervasive, predictable, sometimes harmful and sometimes ...Read More
Implications of rejection sensitivity for intimate relationships
Rejection Sensitivity and Children's Interpersonal Difficulties
Some children respond to social rejection in ways that undermine their relationships, whereas others respond with more equanimity. This article reports 3 studies that test the proposition that rejection sensitivity—the disposition to defensively (i.e., anxiously or angrily) expect, readily perceive, and overreact to social rejection—helps explain individual differences in response to social rejection. Data were from urban, minority (primarily His…
The self-fulfilling prophecy in close relationships: Rejection sensitivity and rejection by romantic partners
Anger Transmission from Mother to Child: A Comparison of Mothers in Chronic Pain and Well Mothers
Geraldine Downey, Valerie Purdie, Rebecca Schaffer-Neitz, Anger Transmission from Mother to Child: A Comparison of Mothers in Chronic Pain and Well Mothers, Journal of Marriage and Family, Vol. 61, No. 1 (Feb., 1999), pp. 62-73
Rejection sensitivity and male violence in romantic relationships
Rejection sensitivity is the disposition to anxiously expect, readily perceive, and intensely react to rejection by significant others. A model of the role of this disposition in male violence toward romantic partners is proposed. Specifically, it is proposed that rejection sensitivity is a vulnerability factor for two distinct maladaptive styles of coping with intimate relationships. Rejection‐sensitive men may attempt to prevent anticipated rej…
Regulating the interpersonal self: Strategic self-regulation for coping with rejection sensitivity
People high in rejection sensitivity (RS) anxiously expect rejection and are at risk for interpersonal and personal distress. Two studies examined the role of self-regulation through strategic attention deployment in moderating the link between RS and maladaptive outcomes. Self-regulation was assessed by the delay of gratification (DG) paradigm in childhood. In Study 1, preschoolers from the Stanford University community who participated in the D…
Sensitivity to status-based rejection: Implications for African American students' college experience
He Said, She Said: A Quasi-Signal Detection Analysis of Daily Interactions Between Close Relationship Partners
In everyday life, close relationship partners enact behaviors through which they may influence each other. To understand how these exchanges affect partners, previous research has emphasized the enactors' reports, the receivers' perceptions, or the congruence of the two. We developed a strategy based on classic signal detection theory that combined elements from these three approaches in a naturalistic daily experience study. Members of 58 hetero…
Rejection Sensitivity and the Defensive Motivational System: Insights From the Startle Response to Rejection Cues
Rejection sensitivity (RS) is the disposition to anxiously expect, readily perceive, and intensely react to rejection. This study used the startle probe paradigm to test whether the affect-based defensive motivational system is automatically activated by rejection cues in people who are high in RS. Stimuli were representational paintings depicting rejection (by Hopper) and acceptance (by Renoir), as well as nonrepresentational paintings of either…
Persons in Context: Building a Science of the Individual
Social Causes and Consequences of Rejection Sensitivity
Predictions from the Rejection Sensitivity (RS) model concerning the social causes and consequences of RS were examined in a longitudinal study of 150 middle school students. Peer nominations of rejection, self‐report measures of anxious and angry rejection expectations, and social anxiety, social withdrawal, and loneliness were assessed at two time points. Results indicate that peer rejection at Time 1 predicted an increase in anxious and angry …
Rejection sensitivity and executive control: Joint predictors of borderline personality features
Distinguishing institutional identification from academic goal pursuit: Interactive effects of ethnic identification and race-based rejection sensitivity
We examined the interactive effects of ethnic identification (EI) and race-based rejection sensitivity (RS-race) on institutional outcomes among African American college students. We distinguished between effects on institutional identification on the one hand and academic goal pursuit (e.g., staying in school, grade point average [GPA]) on the other. Supporting the utility of this distinction, we found that EI and RS-race interacted to predict t…
Psychology (36 works) · Social Psychology (30 works) · Developmental psychology (26 works) · Clinical Psychology (17 works) · Attachment and Relationship Dynamics (13 works) · Social Psychology (13 works) · Death Anxiety and Social Exclusion (11 works) · Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development (10 works) · Social relation (10 works) · Social rejection (9 works)