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Methodology for Establishing a Community-Wide Life Laboratory for Capturing Unobtrusive and Continuous Remote Activity and Health Data
Published on: July 27, 2018
The simple life: on the benefits of low self-complexity
Allen R McConnell1, Laura M Strain, Christina M Brown
1Department of Psychology, Miami University, Oxford, OH 45056, USA. mcconnar@muohio.edu
Abstract:
This article examines the spillover amplification hypothesis, which proposes that because people lower in self-complexity experience stronger responses to life events they will show relatively better well-being in the presence of positive factors (e.g., better social support) and relatively poorer well-being in the presence of negative factors (e.g., a history of negative experiences). Across three studies, support for spillover amplification was found. Specifically, people lower in self-complexity revealed greater self-esteem, less depression, and fewer illnesses when they had greater social support (Study 1) and more desirable personality characteristics (Study 2), yet they had poorer well-being if they had a history of many negative life events (Study 3). Thus, how one's self-concept is represented in memory moderates the relationship between many well-established factors and well-being.
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