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This article explores the links between implicit self-esteem and the automatic self (D. L. Paulhus, 1993). Across 4 studies, name letter evaluations were positively biased, confirming that implicit self-esteem is generally positive (A. G. Greenwald & M. R. Banaji, 1995). Study 1 found that this name letter bias was stable over a 4-week period. Study 2 found that positive bias for name letters and positive bias for birth date numbers were correlated and that both biases became inhibited when participants were induced to respond in a deliberative manner. Studies 3-4 found that implicit self-evaluations corresponded with self-reported self-evaluations, but only when participants were evaluating themselves very quickly (Study 3) or under cognitive load (Study 4). Together, these findings support the notion that implicit self-esteem phenomena are driven by self-evaluations that are activated automatically and without conscious self-reflection.

The authors propose that volitional action is supported by intuitive affect regulation, defined as flexible, efficient, and nonrepressive control of own affective states. Intuitive affect regulation should be most apparent among action-oriented individuals under demanding conditions. Consistent with this, a demanding context led action-oriented individuals to down-regulate negative affect in self-reports (Study 1), in an affective Simon task (Study 2), and in a face discrimination task (Study 3). In line with the idea that intuitive affect regulation is guided by top-down self-regulation processes, intuitive affect regulation in a face discrimination task was mediated by increases in self-accessibility (Study 3). No parallel effects emerged among action-oriented participants in a nondemanding context or among state-oriented participants.

Drawing from self-affirmation theory (C. M. Steele, 1988) and L. L. A. Tesser's (1989, 1996) theory of ruminative thinking, the authors hypothesized that people stop ruminating about a frustrated goal when they can affirm an important aspect of the self. In 3 experiments participants were given failure feedback on an alleged IQ test. Failure feedback led to increased rumination (i.e., accessibility of goal-related thoughts) compared with no-failure conditions (Studies 1 and 2). Rumination was reduced when participants could self-affirm after failure (Studies 1 and 2) or before failure (Study 3). In Study 3, self-affirmation led to increased positive affect on a disguised mood test and more positive name letter evaluations. Moreover, the obtained increase in positive affect mediated the effect of self-affirmation on rumination. It is concluded that self-affirmation may be an effective way to stop ruminative thinking.

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Although psychotherapy and antidepressant medication are efficacious in the treatment of depressive and anxiety disorders, it is not known whether they are equally efficacious for all types of disorders, and whether all types of psychotherapy and antidepressants are equally efficacious for each disorder. We conducted a meta-analysis of studies in which psychotherapy and antidepressant medication were directly compared in the treatment of depressive and anxiety disorders. Systematic searches in bibliographical databases resulted in 67 randomized trials, including 5,993 patients that met inclusion criteria, 40 studies focusing on depressive disorders and 27 focusing on anxiety disorders. The overall effect size indicating the difference between psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy after treatment in all disorders was g50.02 (95% CI: 20.07 to 0.10), which was not statistically significant. Pharmacotherapy was significantly more efficacious than psychotherapy in dysthymia (g50.30), and psychotherapy was significantly more efficacious than pharmacotherapy in obsessive-compulsive disorder (g50.64). Furthermore, pharmacotherapy was significantly more efficacious than non-directive counseling (g50.33), and psychotherapy was significantly more efficacious than pharmacotherapy with tricyclic antidepressants (g50.21). These results remained significant when we controlled for other characteristics of the studies in multivariate meta-regression analysis, except for the differential effects in dysthymia, which were no longer statistically significant.

The present research examined whether and how loading working memory can attenuate negative mood. In three experiments, participants were exposed to neutral, weakly negative, or strongly negative pictures followed by a task and a mood scale. Working memory demands were varied by manipulating task presence (Study 1), complexity (Study 2), and predictability (Study 3). Participants in all three experiments reported less negative moods in negative trials with high compared to low working memory demand. Working memory demands did not affect mood in the neutral trials. When working memory demands were high, participants no longer reported more negative moods in response to strongly negative pictures than to weakly negative pictures. These findings suggest that loading working memory prevents mood-congruent processing, and thereby promotes distraction from negative moods.