Effects of congruent and incongruent appetitive and aversive well-being comparisons on depression, post-traumatic stress, and self-esteem.

ABSTRACT: Background: People compare their current well-being to different comparison standards (e.g. social or temporal comparisons). These standards are considered as aversive if perceived as threatening to self-motives or appetitive if perceived as consistent with self-motives. However, it remains unknown whether the congruence (vs. incongruence) of aversive and appetitive well-being comparisons (high levels of both vs. preponderance of aversive comparisons over appetitive comparisons) is differentially related to symptoms of depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and self-esteem.Methods: We conducted response surface analysis (RSA) on data from a study with two-timepoints three months apart (N = 921). RSA tests whether the degree of (in-)congruence of two varia

SUBMITTER: Keppler EN 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11792150 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature