Roese Neal J, Olson James M
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, London, Ontario, Canada
University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada.
Perspect Psychol Sci. 2007 Jun;2(2):124-41. doi: 10.1111/j.1745-6916.2007.00033.x.
Self-serving judgments, in which the self is viewed more favorably than other people, are ubiquitous. Their dynamic variation within individuals may be explained in terms of the regulation of affect. Self-serving judgments produce positive emotions, and threat increases self-serving judgments (a compensatory pattern that restores affect to a set point or baseline). Perceived mutability is a key moderator of these judgments; low mutability (i.e., the circumstance is closed to modification) triggers a cognitive response aimed at affect regulation, whereas high mutability (i.e., the circumstance is open to further modification) activates direct behavioral remediation. Threats often require immediate response, whereas positive events do not. Because of this brief temporal window, an active mechanism is needed to restore negative (but not positive) affective shifts back to a set point. Without this active reset, an earlier threat would make the individual less vigilant toward a new threat. Thus, when people are sad, they aim to return their mood to baseline, often via self-serving judgments. We argue that asymmetric homeostasis enables optimal vigilance, which establishes a coherent theoretical account of the role of self-serving judgments in affect regulation.
自利判断普遍存在，即个体对自己的评价比对他人更有利。个体内部自利判断的动态变化可以从情感调节的角度来解释。自利判断会产生积极情绪，而威胁会增加自利判断（一种将情感恢复到设定点或基线的补偿模式）。感知到的可变性是这些判断的关键调节因素；低可变性（即情况难以改变）会引发旨在调节情感的认知反应，而高可变性（即情况易于进一步改变）则会激活直接的行为补救措施。威胁通常需要立即做出反应，而积极事件则不需要。由于这个短暂的时间窗口，需要一种主动机制将负面（而非正面）情感转变恢复到设定点。没有这种主动重置，先前的威胁会使个体对新威胁的警惕性降低。因此，当人们悲伤时，他们往往通过自利判断来使情绪恢复到基线。我们认为，不对称稳态能够实现最佳警惕性，这为自利判断在情感调节中的作用建立了一个连贯的理论解释。
