Avi Besser
Biographic Data
| ID | 648962 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Avi Besser |
| GIVEN NAMES | Avi |
| FAMILY NAME | Besser |
| SIGNATURE | BESSER A |
| AFFILIATIONS | Sapir College |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-0294-3315 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 46 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 28 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 46 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2000 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Contingencies of self-worth across adulthood
How Personality Shapes Emotional Reactions to Explicit, Implicit, and Positive Media Images of Terror? An Experimental Investigation
This study investigates the public health consequences of media exposure to terrorism by examining individuals' emotional responses to photographs from the October 7th terror attack, assessing how such imagery interacts with personality traits to influence emotional states. The research aims to explore how these reactions are moderated by personality traits-specifically the Big Five. A diverse sample comprising Israeli Jews (final sample N = 826)…
The Association Between Adult Attachment Patterns, Attachment to Group and Mental Health in Israel Following the October 7th Attack: The Role of Emotion Regulation Strategies
We examined the associations between attachment anxiety, attachment avoidance, and attachment to group (to Israel) and mental health scores. The study used a community sample of 434 participants in response to the October 7th attack on Israel. Additionally, we explored the potential mechanisms linking these attachment patterns to mental health scores. We focused on emotion regulation strategies, such as task-focused, emotion-focused, and distance…
Fragile Egos and Broken Hearts: Narcissistic and Borderline Personality Traits Predict Reactions to Potential Infidelity
We examined the connections that narcissistic and borderline personality traits had with hypothetical responses to romantic infidelity in a sample of Israeli community members (N = 997). We distinguished between four forms of narcissism: extraverted narcissism (characterized by assertive self-enhancement), antagonistic narcissism (characterized by defensiveness and hostility), neurotic narcissism (characterized by emotional distress), and communa…
Sharing Your Husband: Adult Attachment Styles and Emotional Responses of Israeli Bedouin-Arab Women to Potential Polygynous Marriage
Polygynous marriage is prevalent among Israel's Bedouin-Arab community, despite being explicitly banned by state law. Cultural traditions and customs permit men to take multiple wives, and Islamic teachings do not prohibit the practice. The impact of polygyny is significant, affecting women, children, and society as a whole in various ways. We examined the connections that attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance had with hypothetical response…
When a man sounds like a woman: The consequences of puberphonia for perceived romantic desirability and attractiveness for relationships
Who Wants to (Digitally) Live Forever? The Connections That Narcissism Has with Motives for Digital Immortality and the Desire for Digital Avatars
We examined the role that death anxiety (for self and others) and motivation for digital immortality played in the associations that narcissistic personality traits had with the desire for digital avatars (of self and others) in a sample of Israeli community members (N = 1041). We distinguished between four forms of narcissism: extraverted narcissism (characterized by assertive self-enhancement), antagonistic narcissism (characterized by defensiv…
Adaptability to a sudden transition to online learning during the Covid-19 pandemic: Understanding the challenges for students.
This cross-sectional study investigated the associations among adaptability to the pandemic, personality, and levels of learning experiences (affective, cognitive, and behavioral) among higher education students required to adapt to an abrupt transition to synchronous online learning due to the global COVID-19 pandemic A sample of 1,217 college students from Israel completed an online questionnaire after transitioning to synchronous online learni…
Narcissism and Exercise Addiction: The Mediating Roles of Exercise-Related Motives
The present research examined whether the associations that narcissistic personality features had with exercise addiction were mediated by particular motives for engaging in exercise in a large Israeli community sample ( N = 2629). The results revealed that each aspect of narcissism was positively associated with exercise addiction. Narcissistic admiration and narcissistic rivalry had similar positive indirect associations with exercise addiction…
Personality, Cognition, and Adaptability to the Covid-19 Pandemic: Associations with Loneliness, Distress, and Positive and Negative Mood States
The social worldviews of Israelis and attitudes toward peace with the Palestinians: The mediating roles of ideological attitudes and perceptions of threat
A negative halo effect for stuttering? The consequences of stuttering for romantic desirability are mediated by perceptions of personality traits, self-esteem, and intelligence
Stuttering is a disorder in oral communication that is often accompanied by negative stereotypes and social stigma. The primary goal of the present study was to examine whether opposite-sex perceivers rated the romantic desirability of targets who stuttered differently than targets who did not stutter. We were also interested in examining whether perceptions of the target (i.e., extraversion, emotional stability, self-esteem, and intelligence) wo…
Marital satisfaction and trauma-related symptoms among injured survivors of terror attacks and their spouses
This study examined the relationships between marital satisfaction and trauma-related symptoms (i.e., post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, and anxiety) among 105 couples of injured survivors of terror attacks and their spouses ( N = 210). Structural equation modeling and the actor-partner interdependence model were used to test the interdependence relationship between survivors' and spouses' marital satisfaction and trauma-related symptoms…
Bidirectional associations between hope, optimism and social support, and trauma-related symptoms among survivors of terrorism and their spouses
Would you like fries with that? The roles of servers’ personality traits and job performance in the tipping behavior of customers
Dispositional optimism and self–esteem as competing predictors of acute symptoms of generalized anxiety disorders and dissociative experiences among civilians exposed to war trauma
Although previous studies have rarely examined predictors of acute emotional responses to war trauma, this "natural laboratory" study aimed to examine the role that individual differences in dispositional optimism and self-esteem play in the development of acute symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) and dissociative experiences. A sample of 140 female adults exposed to missile and rocket fire during an eruption of violence in the Middle …
A Longitudinal Cross-Lagged Study of the Role of Parental Self-Criticism, Dependency, Depression, and Parenting Stress in the Development of Child Negative Affectivity
Parental self-criticism and dependency, referring to maladaptive expressions of self-definition issues and relatedness, respectively, confer vulnerability to psychopathology in the transition to parenthood, in part through their association with stress generation. This prospective study is the first to study the intergenerational transmission of vulnerability to distress associated with these stress-generation effects from first-time parents to o…
Intrapersonal Resilience Moderates the Association Between Exposure-Severity and PTSD Symptoms Among Civilians Exposed to the 2014 Israel–Gaza Conflict
Among civilians exposed to war trauma, the development of acute anxiety symptoms has been found to be positively associated with the severity of the traumatic exposure but negatively associated with intrapersonal resilience (optimism, hope, and self-esteem). No study to date has examined whether intrapersonal resilience plays a moderating role in the development of acute anxiety among individuals as they are exposed to trauma. This “natural labor…
How Will I Love You? Self-Esteem Instability Moderates the Association Between Self-Esteem Level and Romantic Love Styles
The purpose of the present study was to examine whether fragile self-esteem was associated with romantic love styles. This was accomplished by examining the associations that each romantic love style had with self-esteem level and self-esteem instability among 385 undergraduates. The results of the present study show that self-esteem instability moderated the associations that self-esteem level had with Eros (love style dominated by passion) and …
Stress and affective experiences: The importance of dark personality features
An empirical exploration of the dynamics of anorexia nervosa: Representations of self, mother, and father
Extensive clinical reports and a few empirical investigations indicate that a disrupted relationship with mother and a distorted sense of self are central to Anorexia Nervosa (AN). The present study explores these observations further using the Differentiation–Relatedness Scale (D–RS) to compare AN patients’ descriptions of mother, father, and self with those of matched general psychiatric (PC) and nonclinical controls (NC). Results indicate that…
The Status‐Signaling Property of Self‐Esteem: The Role of Self‐Reported Self‐Esteem and Perceived Self‐Esteem in Personality Judgments
OBJECTIVE: The provision of information appears to be an important feature of self-esteem. The present studies examined whether self-esteem possesses a status-signaling property such that an individual's level of self-esteem is associated with how the individual is perceived by others. METHOD: In Study 1, trained judges watched brief videos of 157 participants and rated targets as having higher levels of self-esteem when the targets were believed…
Self-esteem and Evaluations of Targets with Ostensibly Different Levels of Self-worth
Individuals with high self-esteem are often perceived to be desirable romantic partners. The aim of the present study was to examine the moderating effect of the self-esteem of participants on their evaluations of opposite-gender targets with randomly assigned self-esteem designations on dimensions that are relevant for selecting relationship partners, their willingness to engage in particular types of uncommitted relational activities with these…
Positive Personality Features and Stress among First-year University Students: Implications for Psychological Distress, Functional Impairment, and Self-esteem
The transition to college has often been treated as a period that creates considerable stress in the lives of students and it has been found to increase their distress and lower their self-esteem. The purpose of the present study was to examine whether the positive personality features of optimism, hope, and happiness were associated with the levels of psychological distress (i.e., perceived stress, depressive symptoms, and anxiety), functional i…
The relationships between defenses and experiences of depression: An exploratory study
This study examined the relationships between defenses and depressive expe-riences. Two questionnaires, in counterbalanced order, were administered to a community sample of 205 adults: the Depressive Experiences Questionnaire
Perceptions of early relationships during the transition to motherhood: The mediating role of social support
Perceptions of the availability of social support were assumed to mediate the association between the future mother's perceptions of early relationships and positive postpartum outcomes. We explored the idea that pregnant women's perceptions of early caretaking relationships as optimal associate with the perceived availability of, and satisfaction with, social support, which in turn, were assumed to affect postpartum depressive symptomatology, th…
Bidirectional associations between hope, optimism and social support, and trauma-related symptoms among survivors of terrorism and their spouses
The effects of insecure attachment orientations and perceived social support on posttraumatic stress and depressive symptoms among civilians exposed to the 2009 Israel–Gaza war: A follow-up Cross-Lagg…
The influence of pathological narcissism on emotional and motivational responses to negative events: The roles of visibility and concern about humiliation
Bridging the gap between attachment and object relations theories: A study of the transition to motherhood
An empirical study of the relations between assessments of adult attachment styles and object representations was performed in the context of first‐time mothers' emotional ties to their unborn babies. We assumed that, while conceptualizations of attachment behaviour and internal working models grasp the early basic patterns of interpersonal relationships and affect regulation, object representations indicate current transformations of these patte…
Stress and affective experiences: The importance of dark personality features
Marital satisfaction and trauma-related symptoms among injured survivors of terror attacks and their spouses
This study examined the relationships between marital satisfaction and trauma-related symptoms (i.e., post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, and anxiety) among 105 couples of injured survivors of terror attacks and their spouses ( N = 210). Structural equation modeling and the actor-partner interdependence model were used to test the interdependence relationship between survivors' and spouses' marital satisfaction and trauma-related symptoms…
Would you like fries with that? The roles of servers’ personality traits and job performance in the tipping behavior of customers
Two maternal representations: A study of Israeli adopted children.
Using an object relations perspective, the representations of birth and adopted mothers in a sample of 52 nonreferred adoptees were studied. To better understand the specific effects of adoption on the construction of 2 maternal representations, birth and adoptive mammal representation of adopted children was compared with that of nonadopted children. In addition, the effect of incongruous representations of birth and adoptive mothers on adoptees…
Two maternal representations: A study of Israeli adopted children
Adult attachment styles, early relationships, antenatal attachment, and perceptions of infant temperament: A study of first‐time mothers
We explored the relative contributions of first‐time mothers’romantic attachment styles and early relations with their own mothers to the prediction of infant temperamental difficulty. A mediating role for mother's attachment to the unborn baby was assumed. In a prospective longitudinal study of 115 mothers of healthy babies, a structural model was delineated according to a conception of maternally reported infant temperament as a reflection of b…
Bridging the gap between attachment and object relations theories: A study of the transition to motherhood
An empirical study of the relations between assessments of adult attachment styles and object representations was performed in the context of first‐time mothers' emotional ties to their unborn babies. We assumed that, while conceptualizations of attachment behaviour and internal working models grasp the early basic patterns of interpersonal relationships and affect regulation, object representations indicate current transformations of these patte…
Validation of a New Scale for Measuring Problematic Internet Use: Implications for Pre-employment Screening
The current study introduced a theory-driven, multidimensional measure of problematic Internet use: the Online Cognition Scale (OCS). Undergraduate students (n = 211) in an industrial/organizational psychology course completed the OCS, along with measures of procrastination, rejection sensitivity, loneliness, depression, and impulsivity. A confirmatory factor analysis indicated that problematic Internet use consists of four dimensions: diminished…
Childbearing depressive symptomatology in high–risk pregnancies: The roles of working models and social support
Guided by both attachment and social support theories, the authors conducted a longitudinal investigation exploring the concomitant effects of perceptions of spouse support (anticipated and received spouse support) and internal working models of attachment (positive–self and positive–other), on childbearing depressive symptomatology. Distinct main and interaction effects for attachment dimensions and perceived support variables were hypothesized …
Perceptions of early relationships during the transition to motherhood: The mediating role of social support
Perceptions of the availability of social support were assumed to mediate the association between the future mother's perceptions of early relationships and positive postpartum outcomes. We explored the idea that pregnant women's perceptions of early caretaking relationships as optimal associate with the perceived availability of, and satisfaction with, social support, which in turn, were assumed to affect postpartum depressive symptomatology, th…
A Multisource Approach to Self‐Critical Vulnerability to Depression: The Moderating Role of Attachment
The present study investigated the effects of self‐criticism, dependency, and attachment variables in depression among couples. We utilized a multisource design that involved self‐reports and spouse reports of personality and depression. This approach enabled us to explore the patterns of relations between self‐reported and the spouse's report of the partner's view of self‐criticism, dependency, and attachment dimensions, as well as the contribut…
Self- And Best-Friend Assessments of Personality Vulnerability and Defenses in the Prediction of Depression
The associations are explored between personality vulnerability and the use of defense mechanisms in the prediction of depression. A nonclinical community sample of 187 respondents and their same-sex best friends reported on participants' personality vulnerability factors (Self-criticism, Dependency and Efficacy), defense mechanisms (Mature, Immature and Emotion-avoiding), and depression (Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale: CES-D…
Perfectionism, Ego Defense Styles, and Depression: A Comparison of Self‐Reports Versus Informant Ratings
The present study examined the associations among perfectionism, defense styles, and depression in an Israeli community sample of young adults. This study involved a comparison of self‐reports and informant ratings on all measures. A community sample of 210 pairs of same‐sex best friends from Israel completed the Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale, the Defense Styles Questionnaire – 40, and a depression measure. Analyses confirmed that socially…
Interpersonal Relatedness and Self-Definition in Late Adulthood Depression: Personality Predispositions, and Protective Factors
This study addresses depression in late adulthood within the context of Blatt's (1974; 1991) theory of development and vulnerabilities to depression. Participants were a sample of 237 Israeli community-dwelling old adults (age 65–75) in good health and functioning well. The authors assumed that in this developmental period, normally beset with questions about self-identity and interpersonal relatedness, the associations among Self-criticism, the …
Mother and Self‐Representations: Investigating Associations With Symptomatic Behavior and Academic Competence in Middle Childhood
This article reports two studies examining the content and structural aspects of maternal and self‐representations in middle childhood in two prospective studies of 9 to 11‐year‐old children, their stability over time and interrelations, and their contribution to symptomatology and academic functioning. In Study 1 ( N =169), content and structural dimensions of participants' open‐ended narratives of self and mother were assessed, and their factor…
Identity consolidation and internalizing and externalizing problem behaviors in early adolescence
Externalizing and internalizing problems as measured on the Youth Self Report (YSR; Achenbach, 1991a) among early adolescent boys and girls were related to the conceptual level (CL; Blatt, Chevron, Quinlan, Schaffer, & Wein, 1988) with which children described their mothers and fathers. Scoring of these descriptions using the Children’s version (CORI; Waniel, Besser, & Priel, 2006) of the Object Relations Inventory (ORI; Blatt et al., 1988) indic…
Systematic empirical investigation of vulnerability to postpartum depression from a psychodynamic perspective: Commentary on issues raised by Blum (2007)
In a recent paper, Lawrence Blum (2007) identified emotional conflicts in three areas typical in postpartum depression: (1) dependency, (2) aggression, and (3) motherhood. In this commentary, the authors consider agreements and disagreements with Blum's views on the psychodynalmics of postpartum depression. In contrast to Blum's assertion, a theoretically derived extensive empirical psychoanalytic database exists which confirms and extends Blum's…
Self‐ and maternal representations, relatedness patterns, and problem behavior in middle childhood
The present study investigated the association between children’s representations of their mothers’ and teachers’ reports of children’s problem behavior. The research team conducted semistructured narrative interviews with a community sample of 203 Israeli 9‐ to 11‐year‐old children. Ten months later, researchers collected teachers’ reports of children’s internalizing and externalizing problems. This study investigated whether children’s self‐rep…
Emotional Responses to a Romantic Partner's Imaginary Rejection: The Roles of Attachment Anxiety, Covert Narcissism, and Self‐Evaluation
These studies tested the associations between responses to an induced imaginary romantic rejection and individual differences on dimensions of attachment and covert narcissism. In Study 1 ( N =125), we examined the associations between attachment dimensions and emotional responses to a vignette depicting a scenario of romantic rejection, as measured by self‐reported negative mood states, expressions of anger, somatic symptoms, and self‐evaluation…
Maltreated Children's Representations of Mother and an Additional Caregiver: A Longitudinal Study
In the current longitudinal investigation, we explored the continuity of and changes in the mental representations of the mother and an additional caregiver among forty‐five 9‐ to 11‐year‐old children who had been severely maltreated and subsequently placed in long‐term residential care as well as the relationships between the content and structure of these representations and teacher's assessments of the child's externalizing and internalizing s…
Grandiose Narcissism Versus Vulnerable Narcissism in Threatening Situations: Emotional Reactions to Achievement Failure and Interpersonal Rejection
This study compared grandiose narcissism and vulnerable narcissism in terms of emotional reactions to threats involving achievement failure and interpersonal rejection. It was hypothesized that grandiose narcissism is associated with vulnerability to achievement setbacks. In contrast, vulnerable narcissism involves sensitivity to shaming interpersonal experiences. A randomized experimental 2-wave design was used with a community sample of 448 par…
The effects of insecure attachment orientations and perceived social support on posttraumatic stress and depressive symptoms among civilians exposed to the 2009 Israel–Gaza war: A follow-up Cross-Lagg…
The influence of pathological narcissism on emotional and motivational responses to negative events: The roles of visibility and concern about humiliation
The relationships between defenses and experiences of depression: An exploratory study
This study examined the relationships between defenses and depressive expe-riences. Two questionnaires, in counterbalanced order, were administered to a community sample of 205 adults: the Depressive Experiences Questionnaire
When home isn't a safe haven: Insecure attachment orientations, perceived social support, and PTSD symptoms among Israeli evacuees under missile threat
This study examined a theoretically based mediation model including intensity of trauma exposure, adult attachment, perceived social support, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms. The sample consisted of 135 Israeli students who were evacuated from a college campus located near the Israel–Gaza border in response to increased missile fire in the area. An Internet-based data collection procedure was used to survey the evacuees, who rem…
Positive Personality Features and Stress among First-year University Students: Implications for Psychological Distress, Functional Impairment, and Self-esteem
The transition to college has often been treated as a period that creates considerable stress in the lives of students and it has been found to increase their distress and lower their self-esteem. The purpose of the present study was to examine whether the positive personality features of optimism, hope, and happiness were associated with the levels of psychological distress (i.e., perceived stress, depressive symptoms, and anxiety), functional i…
An empirical exploration of the dynamics of anorexia nervosa: Representations of self, mother, and father
Extensive clinical reports and a few empirical investigations indicate that a disrupted relationship with mother and a distorted sense of self are central to Anorexia Nervosa (AN). The present study explores these observations further using the Differentiation–Relatedness Scale (D–RS) to compare AN patients’ descriptions of mother, father, and self with those of matched general psychiatric (PC) and nonclinical controls (NC). Results indicate that…
The Status‐Signaling Property of Self‐Esteem: The Role of Self‐Reported Self‐Esteem and Perceived Self‐Esteem in Personality Judgments
OBJECTIVE: The provision of information appears to be an important feature of self-esteem. The present studies examined whether self-esteem possesses a status-signaling property such that an individual's level of self-esteem is associated with how the individual is perceived by others. METHOD: In Study 1, trained judges watched brief videos of 157 participants and rated targets as having higher levels of self-esteem when the targets were believed…
Psychology (44 works) · Social Psychology (33 works) · Developmental psychology (27 works) · Clinical Psychology (21 works) · Attachment and Relationship Dynamics (18 works) · Personality (16 works) · Social Psychology (15 works) · Personality Traits and Psychology (11 works) · Psychotherapist (11 works) · Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development (10 works)