Reactive Approach Motivation RAM a psychological science concept

Reactive Approach Motivation (RAM ; McGregor, 2006) refers to the way people deal with anxiety producing threats by becoming extremely zealous, which reduces the anxiety caused by the threat.

The zealous pursuit focuses on an ideal that offers hope and strength, bolsters values and convictions. People are motivated to become closed minded. They may increase religious fervor or political extremism depending on their value system.

RAM is based on the neuropsychology of anxiety. Anxiety rises in situations of uncertainty. RAM proposes that people deal with anxious uncertainty by ardently pursuing meaningful goals. When anxious, people become more vigilant and prepare for fight or flight responses.

Example

People with travel plans during the 2020 Coronavirus pandemic anxiously searched online for information about the virus, government announcements, and travel news. Many zealously warned of the growing extent of the flu. Others tried to encourage people with religious messages. Some sought financial safety by selling their shares in businesses. Others focused on repeating messages about washing hands and avoiding social contact. Even the hand washing was couched in religious language as "Holy Hygiene."

Related concepts /  posts

Terror Management Theory

Meaning Maintenance Model



Reference

McGregor, I. (2006). Offensive defensiveness: Toward an integrative neuroscience of compensatory zeal after mortality salience, personal uncertainty, and other poignant self-threats. Psychological Inquiry, 17(4), 299–308. https://doi.org/10.1080/10478400701366977

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Meaning Maintenance Model MMM Psychological Science

The Meaning Maintenance Model (MMM) hypothesizes that people are motivated to respond to experiences that violate their expectations by restoring meaning. MMM is associated with Heine, Proulx, and Vohs (2006).

Meaning occurs when people connect their experiences in memory. We understand the concept of a healthy meal when we mentally connect the various foods that our culture teaches us belong together to form a healthy meal. We may laugh when a cartoonist violates the concept of a healthy meal by picturing different kinds of chocolates. The concept, healthy meal, is a unit of meaning. Psychologists have referred to these mental concepts as schema.

The concept of meaning may be traced to existential philosophers such as Soren Kierkegaard, Martin Heidegger, and Albert Camus. Psychological scientists examine meaning by looking at the way people link experiences.  Frederic Bartlett (1886-1969) was an English psychologist at Cambridge University who developed schema theory. Schema are mental organizations of knowledge gained from experience within one's culture. 

Larger organizational sets are called worldviews. Worldviews organize many schema into an orientation to life. Some writers refer to worldviews as meaning frameworks. Outside of psychology, some disciplines write about seeing the world through different lenses.

Meaning can be violated when a new experience cannot be explained or understood as a part of a person's existing schema. On a larger scale, the experience does not make sense in terms of a person's worldview. When faced with experiences that do not "make sense," people work to restore meaning. Sometimes this work can impact other aspects of thinking, which seem unrelated to the experience.

Examples

For years, Europeans only saw white swans, but black swans exist. An easy modification of a schema for "swan" adds the knowledge that swans can be either black or white. 

Some cultures have schema for the way women and men ought to dress and behave. When people violate the expectations, those with traditional schema work to make sense of the new experience. 

A common example of a worldview is a person's religion, which includes a large set of schema about God or supernatural beings and how the supernatural and natural worlds interact. When significant experiences violate one's understanding of the way the world works, people seek answers from their religious leaders, modify their beliefs, change their religion, or give up on religion altogether.

Following is a quote from the abstract by Heine and his colleagues (2006). See their article for details on the model.

"The meaning maintenance model (MMM) proposes that people have a need for meaning; that is, a need to perceive events through a prism of mental representations of expected relations that organizes their perceptions of the world. When people's sense of meaning is threatened, they reaffirm alternative representations as a way to regain meaning-a process termed fluid compensation. According to the model, people can reaffirm meaning in domains that are different from the domain in which the threat occurred. Evidence for fluid compensation can be observed following a variety of psychological threats, including most especially threats to the self, such as self-esteem threats, feelings of uncertainty, interpersonal rejection, and mortality salience. People respond to these diverse threats in highly similar ways, which suggests that a range of psychological motivations are expressions of a singular impulse to generate and maintain a sense of meaning."

The Meaning Maintenance Model has been proposed as an alternative to Terror Management Theory.

Heine, S., Proulx, T., & Vohs, K. (2006). The Meaning Maintenance Model: On the coherence of social motivation. Personality and Social Psychological Review, 10, 88-111.

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Mortality Salience

Mortality salience (MS) is a concept in Terror Management Theory (TMT). Mortality salience refers to a person's awareness that their death is inevitable. Mortality Salience occurs when something reminds a person of their mortality--the fact that their life will end. In response to MS, people use or create anxiety buffers.

See also
Terror Management Theory 

Anxiety Buffer

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Anxiety Buffer

An anxiety buffer is a concept in Terror Management Theory. When faced with reminders of death (mortality salience), people develop ways to manage the resulting anxiety. People buffer themselves in different ways according to those values that are highly meaningful to them and those available when under threat. 

Religion is one of the most common and nearly universal ways people buffer themselves against this type of anxiety.

See also

Terror Management Theory (TMT)

Meaning Maintenance Model (MMM)

Reactive Approach Motivation (RAM)

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Terror Management Theory

Terror Management Theory (TMT) was proposed by psychological scientists Jeff Greenberg, Sheldon Solomon, and Tom Pyszczynski. 

The theory posits that people manage the terror inherent in their awareness of their own death by investing in that which is more durable. They experience conflict between the instinctual urge to live and the reality of death.

Research findings indicate that when people are reminded of their mortality (Mortality Salience, MS), they create or use an anxiety buffer. Becoming a part of a meaningful group helps cope with death awareness.

Many religious teachings guide people to "life after life," which in itself is a phrase that omits the more common, "life after death." Others find meaning in their children and grandchildren, the possessions they leave behind, and contributions to their nations.

Terror Management Theory is related to self-esteem. Many people assess their self-esteem or self-worth by a comparison to their culture's way of defining worth.

Here is a quote from the theorists' 2015 summary of research.


Terror management theory posits that human awareness of the inevitability of death exerts a profound influence on diverse aspects of human thought, emotion, motivation, and behavior. People manage the potential for anxiety that results from this awareness by maintaining: (1) faith in the absolute validity of their cultural worldviews and (2) self-esteem by living up to the standards of value that are part of their worldviews. In this chapter, we take stock of the past 30 years of research and conceptual development inspired by this theory. After a brief review of evidence supporting the theory's fundamental propositions, we discuss extensions of the theory to shed light on: (1) the psychological mechanisms through which thoughts of death affect subsequent thought and behavior; (2) how the anxiety-buffering systems develop over childhood and beyond; (3) how awareness of death influenced the evolution of mind, culture, morality, and religion; (4) how death concerns lead people to distance from their physical bodies and seek solace in concepts of mind and spirit; and (5) the role of death concerns in maladaptive and pathological behavior. (Abstract)


One recent root of TMT can be found in the book, The Denial of Death by cultural anthropologist, Ernest Becker. Becker draws on earlier work about death anxiety. See my review (Sutton, 2015) for quotes from Becker's book and applications to religion.

References

Pyszczynski, T., Greenberg, J., Solomon, S., Arndt, J., & Schimel, J. (2004). Why Do People Need Self-Esteem? A Theoretical and Empirical Review. Psychological Bulletin, 130(3), 435–468. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.130.3.435

Pyszczynski, T., Solomon, S. & Greenberg, J. (2015). Thirty Years of Terror

Management Theory: From Genesis to Revelation. In J. M. Olson & M. P. Zarna (Eds). Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 52, 1-70. 

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Psychology of crisscrossing

Crisscrossing refers to people who are viewed as being members of more than one group. The group may be a recognized social group (e.g., religious, political) or a social category of people (e.g., ethnic, age, gender categories).

Crisscrossing helps reduce some forms of discrimination aimed at people who are members of an outgroup or low prestige category.

A member of a disparaged outgroup may become appreciated if the person is also a member of a socially valued group such as medical doctors or military heroes.

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Psychology of Stereotypes

A stereotype is a cognition composed of generalized images, beliefs, and feelings about the characteristics of members of a group or a socially constructed category.

Stereotypes typically rely on salient features based on experience with group members or shared by those in one's culture. Stereotypes usually ignore the variety of features true of people in a group.

Stereotypes are usually negative but positive stereotypes exist. It is very difficult to change a stereotype.

Group stereotypes
Group stereotypes are those cognitions that consider all members of a recognized group to have the same characteristics. Commonly recognized groups can include religions (e.g., Christians, Jews, Muslims), political parties (e.g., Republicans, Democrats), organizations (e.g., Red Cross, ACLU), businesses, and nations (e.g., Americans, Germans), Race (e.g., Blacks, Whites), Ethnicity (e.g., Mexican American, Native American).

People may hold separate stereotypes about the people in various subgroups (e.g., Catholics, Methodists).

Socially constructed category stereotypes
Socially constructed category stereotypes are stereotypes that people apply to categories of people, which may be based on one or a few features. Social categories often include demographic characteristics like age categories (seniors, adolescents), gender categories (women, men, gays, lesbians), ethnic categories (e.g, Whites, Blacks, Caucasians, Native Americans), social values (liberals, conservatives).

Research on stereotypes

Research on stereotypes is relevant to understanding intergroup behavior. Tajfel (1982) adopts the definition of stereotype offered by Stallybrass (1977).

"…an over-simplified mental image of (usually) some category of person, institution or event which is shared, in essential features, by large numbers of people... Stereotypes are commonly, but not necessarily, accompanied by prejudice, i.e. by a favorable or unfavorable predisposition toward any member of the category in question ("p .601).

Stereotypes develop from salient characteristics, which then become an available heuristic assumed to apply to a group as a whole. People can become category prototypes. Leaders in politics, organizations, or religion are seen as holding representative views and traits of their groups.

A solo status phenomenon occurs when a person or a few people stand out as different from the rest of the group. Their characteristics then become exaggerated in both positive and negative ways. For example, a black worker in a group of white workers or a woman in a men’s work group.

Research on illusory correlations is also relevant to stereotyping. When a minority perform a behavior, there is an assumption that all members of the minority perform the same behavior.

Books on Stereotypes

Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do 

Books on Social Psychology

Social Psychology by Sommers

References

Stallybrass, O. (1977). Stereotype. In The Fontana dictionary of modern thought, A. Bullock, O. Stallybrass (Eds.)., p. 601. London: Fontana/Collins.

See the 2000 edition of  The New Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought

Tajfel, H. (1982). Social psychology of intergroup relations. Annual Review of Psychology, 33, 1-39.

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Psychology of "triggers"

In psychology, triggers are events that elicit a response. Clinicians often focus on helping people recognize triggers or events that appear to produce a distressing response as if they had stepped on a mine that triggered an explosion.

People, places, films, songs, smells, words, and many other stimuli can trigger a response or a chain of responses. Some trigger-response pairs are innate like cringing in response to loud noises. But the relatively benign triggers may come to elicit extreme responses following traumatic experiences. For example, my mother was trapped under the stairs when a bomb exploded near our house. She remained hyper-reactive to fireworks, thunder, and gun shots throughout her life.

Although the concept of triggers is often associated with recognizing and coping with events that are upsetting. A different perspective would be to view triggers as those stimuli that routinely elicit a response or chain of responses. In high school, a few of us knew what questions to ask to get a particular teacher off topic, which we often did just to make class more interesting.

A variety of events can elicit pleasant, neutral, or unpleasant reactions. And, the same event may affect different people in different ways. A beach scene with ocean waves may trigger pleasant memories, a smile, and good feelings in some, but remind others of some horrible event. In fact, depending on context, the same stimulus may be perceived as pleasant in one context but obnoxious in another. Certain words are accepted as pleasant teasing from a friend but may trigger anger when coming from a stranger.

Powerful triggers can affect many aspects of our core self. Using the SCOPES model, we can think of a hypothetical response set of a person who survived a mass shooting in church.

Potential triggers could be someone who looked like the shooter, the sounds of gun shots, people who look like those who did not survive, news stories or movies of similar events, and churches.

SCOPES	Hypothetical responses to a trigger of surviving a mass shooting in church
Spiritual	Cry for help. Anger with God.
Cognition	Recurrent images of the horrid event
Overt Behavior	Tensing muscles, closing eyes as if to avoid the image
Physical	Increased heart rate
Emotion	Fear, anger
Social context	Response worsens in church setting

Psychotherapists have helped people recognize triggers of distressing responses and reduce the impact.

Developing life enhancing characteristics may help "trigger" positive rather than negative responses.

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Hope Theory

C.R. Snyder and his colleagues are credited with the development of hope theory.  Goals are the key cognitive component of hope theory. Goals organize the mind’s processes leading to the achievement of a goal. Hope is a motivational state that arises from thoughts about pathways thinking and agency thinking in the pursuit of a goal.

Hope theory has two major components: Pathways Thinking, and Agentic Thinking. 

Pathways Thinking refers to a person’s thoughts about ways to reach a goal. True hope relies on a person’s ability to generate at least one realistic way to reach a goal. People with high levels of hope are skilled at finding more than one pathway to a goal.

Agency or Agentic Thinking is a strong belief in one’s capacity to reach a goal. The primary example of agency thinking is the statement, “I can do this.” This is especially true when some barrier arises.

Pathways thinking and agentic thinking interact to strengthen each other when a person’s mind is engaged in the process of sequencing action toward a goal.

Snyder and his colleagues developed measures of hope. See the Adult Hope Scale for more information including Snyder’s classic book on the Psychology of Hope.

Hope is a significant variable in the Psychology of Religion as well. For example, Christians focus on hope embodied in Jesus during Christmas and Easter.

Hope is also a significant contributor to positive outcomes in psychotherapy (Sutton, Kelly, Worthington, Griffin, & Dinwiddie, 2018).

C.R. Snyder (Charles Richard "Rick" Snyder) was a psychological scientist at the University of Kansas (1944-2006).

Links

Adult Hope Scale

The Paradox of Hope at Advent

References

Sutton, G. W., Jordan, K., & Worthington, E.L., Jr. (2014). Spirituality, hope, compassion, and forgiveness: Contributions of Pentecostal spirituality to godly love. Journal of Psychology and Christianity, 33, 212-226

Sutton, G. W., Kelly, H., Worthington, E. L. Jr., Griffin, B. J., & Dinwiddie, C. (2018) Satisfaction with Christian psychotherapy and well-being: Contributions of hope, personality, and spirituality. Spirituality in Clinical Practice, 5 (1), 8-24. doi: 10.1037/scp0000145         Academia Link       ResearchGate Link

Reference for using scales in research:

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Geoffrey W. Sutton, PhD is Emeritus Professor of Psychology. He retired from a clinical practice and was credentialed in clinical neuropsychology and psychopharmacology. His website is  www.suttong.com

 

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Psychology of Forgiveness

There are several definitions of forgiveness. At a basic level, forgiveness refers to the completion of a process of “letting go” of all the negative feelings experienced when one person is hurt by the actions or words of another person. 

As in the classic moral story about a debtor asking forgiveness for a debt he could not repay (Luke 7:40-50), forgiveness balances the scales of justice by cancelling the debt owed by an offender toward the person who suffered because of the offender's offense. 


Forgiveness can be a single act. People can let go of a past hurt and the accompanying distressing emotions such as strong anger. They also give up a desire to get even (revenge motivations).

Forgiveness is also a personality trait. Forgiving people have a habit of forgiving others. Sometimes this type of forgiveness is called forgivingness. Psychological scientists may also refer to this type of forgiveness as dispositional forgiveness.


Forgiveness does not require reconciliation but reconciliation may help with the process of reconciliation.


Forgiveness deals with the problem of intrapersonal pain. Forgiveness heals the inner hurts and sets hurting people free from the toxicity of holding on to hurtful memories. Constantly reviewing old hurts (nursing grudges) perpetuates inner distress.

Unforgiveness, is a state of holding onto a hurtful experience characterised by remembering the hurt and re-experiencing distressful emotions such as anger. Unforgiveness may be accompanied by thoughts of revenge. Unforgiveness is captured in ordinary language by the phrase, "holding a grudge."

Forgiveness comes with blessings of good health and well-being. Forgiveness is not a cure-all, but it often helps with aspects of depression and anxiety. We may feel less stressed and less angry when we forgive. Research indicates a reduction in cortisol levels when people forgive. Our cortisol levels are elevated when we are under stress.

Forgiveness is positively correlated with humility, hope, love and compassion.


Two psychologists have led the way in developing approaches to forgiveness that have helped many people: Robert Enright and Ev Worthington, Jr. (see references below).

Findings published by Chelsea Greer and her colleagues indicate improvement in forgiving when using a workbook.

Self-forgiveness is an important aspect of forgiveness because some people are overly self-critical about their past actions.

Reconciliation

Some theorists view Christian forgiveness as including a positive attitude toward the offender with a desire to reconcile. However, most agree that there is a danger of reconciling with offenders who continue to abuse the forgiver. Thus, even when reconciliation may be a desirable goal, forgiveness does not require reconciliation.

Reconciliation is a process of restoring a broken relationship. Reconciliation requires trust. Reconciliation works best when it is safe to reconcile. Reconciliation involves at least two parties who are committed to repair the damaged relationship.

Counselors, clergy, and psychotherapists are among those who may be trained in forgiveness interventions. Some people naturally forgive others and some learn to forgive through spiritual practices like prayer. Some benefit from reading self-help books. Others may benefit from one or more sessions with a professional.

Learn more about forgiveness in Chapter 6 of Living Well on AMAZON.






See Also, Forgiveness Books and Reviews


Learn more about forgiveness by reading these online articles

5 Beliefs about Forgiveness - Survey Data

10 Beliefs about Forgiveness and Reconciliation

Forgiveness Quotes

Forgive? Yes. Reconcile? Maybe.

Forgiveness and Psychotherapy

Sexual Harassment, Apologies, Forgiveness, and Restoration

Self-Forgiveness

Psychology of Forgiveness and Spirituality

How Forgiveness Promotes Hope


Learn more about forgiveness in these Books

Handbook of Forgiveness, Second Edition

FORGIVENESS THERAPY: AN EMPIRICAL GUIDE FOR RESOLVING

ANGER AND RESTORING HOPE

FREE OF CHARGE: GIVING AND FORGIVING IN A CULTURE STRIPPED OF GRACE   

References


Enright, R.D. & Fitzgibbons, R.P. (2015). Forgiveness therapy: An empirical guide for resolving anger and restoring hope. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.


Greer, C. L., Worthington, E. L., Jr., Lin, Y., Lavelock, C. R., & Griffin, B. J. (2014). Efficacy of a self-directed forgiveness workbook for Christian victims of within-congregation offenders. Spirituality in Clinical Practice, 1(3), 218-230.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/scp0000012


Worthington, E. L., Jr. (2006). Forgiveness and reconciliation: Theory and application. New York: Brunner-Routledge.


Worthington, E.L., Jr., (2013). Moving forward: Six steps to forgiving yourself and breaking free from the past. Colorado Springs, CO: Waterbrook. 

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