Mind-Body Practices and Self-Enhancement: Direct Replications of Gebauer et al.’s (2018) Experiments 1 and 2

Mind-body practices such as yoga and meditation are often believed to instill a “quiet ego,” entailing less self-enhancement. In two experiments, however, Gebauer et al. (2018) demonstrated that mind-body practices may actually increase self-enhancement, particularly because such practices become self-central bases for self-esteem. We conducted preregistered replications of both of Gebauer et al.’s experiments. Experiment 1 was a field study of Canadian yoga students ( N = 97), and Experiment 2 was a multiwave meditation intervention among Canadian university students ( N = 300). Our results supported Gebauer et al.’s original conclusions that mind-body practices increase self-enhancement. Although the self-centrality effects were not clearly replicated in either experiment, we found evidence that measurement and sampling differences may explain this discrepancy. Moreover, an integrative data analysis of the original and the replication data strongly supported all of Gebauer et al.’s conclusions. In short, we provide new evidence against the ego-quieting perspective and in support of the self-centrality interpretation of mind-body practices.

Other-Focused Approach to Teaching. The Effect of Ethical Leadership and Quiet Ego on Work Engagement and the Mediating Role of Compassion Satisfaction

Recent revisions of the Job Demands Resources (JDR) model acknowledged the importance of personal and organizational dimensions enriching job resources’ effect on work engagement. Consistently, this paper addresses the role of compassion satisfaction, as a job resource, on teacher work engagement, given the saliency of caring in teaching as a helping profession. Furthermore, quiet ego, as a personal dimension, and ethical leadership, as an organizational dimension, are studied as antecedents of compassion satisfaction. Overall, the study verifies with a Structural Equation Model whether and how compassion satisfaction mediates the relationships among work engagement, quiet ego, and ethical leadership. One hundred and eighty-eight Italian teachers took part in the study by completing four scales: the Ethical Leadership Scale, the Quiet Ego scale, the Professional Quality Of Life Questionnaire, and the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale—ultra-short version. The final model showed a good fit to the data: χ2(48) = 75.399, p = 0.007, CFI = 0.979, TLI = 0.971, RMSEA = 0.055 (90% CI = 0.029–0.078, p = 0.342), SRMR = 0.039. Findings showed that teachers’ compassion satisfaction is strongly related to their engagement at school, confirming that teachers’ care toward their students is an important resource supporting their engagement. Furthermore, compassion satisfaction totally mediates the relationship between quiet ego and work engagement (bDIRECT = ns, bINDIRECT = 0.327, p = 0.000). Such mediating path confirms recent expansions of the JDR model about the role of personal resources on job resources and, consequently, on work engagement and confirms the Conservation of Resources theory, stating that personal resources impact work outcomes. At the same time, compassion satisfaction does not mediate the relationship between ethical leadership and work engagement, so that ethical school leaders directly impact teachers’ work engagement. A possible reason for this finding relies on ethical leadership’s role in promoting higher school life participation as a community. More theoretical and practical implications are described in the paper.

Transformative Self-Regulation and the Quiet Ego

This chapter examines how the transformative self facilitates long-term self-regulation. Most research on self-regulation targets the immediate moment (referred to here as micro self-regulation) or personal events that last weeks or months (meso self-regulation). In contrast, the transformative self functions as a tool for macro self-regulation in one’s attempt to shape one’s life over time (for which evolving life stories are especially well suited). Hedonic, transformative self-regulation comes in the forms of realistic optimism, self-improvement motivation, cybernetic feedback motives, intentional self-development, and the flexible pursuit of goals. Eudaimonic, transformative self-regulation is especially helpful for adaptation to life’s difficulties and is found in dual-process models of adaptation to loss and potential trauma. These dual processes aim to regulate and balance both affect and meaning-making. The quiet ego represents a synthesis of these forms of self-regulation, balancing detached awareness (e.g., mindfulness), inclusive identity (e.g., interdependence, compassion), perspective-taking (e.g., value perspectivity), and growth-mindedness.

Authenticity, Self-Actualizing, and Self-Authorship

The transformative self aims toward authenticity and self-actualizing, which this chapter addresses from a developmental perspective. Two forms of authenticity are distinguished. Essentialist authenticity defines the true self as solely a matter of self-discovery and being true to one’s inborn traits or perceived soul. Existentialist authenticity also values self-discovery but emphasizes self-invention and being true to one’s values. Essentialist authenticity does not necessitate moral concerns, but existentialist authenticity does. The chapter argues that authenticity emerges not only via the matching principle of authenticity (matching actions with some true self) but also via the poiesis principle (the humane, self-making processes and perspectivity of a quiet ego). Youthful authenticity emphasizes independence and identity consolidation, whereas mature authenticity emphasizes interdependent self-actualizing. The chapter then examines self-actualization as maturely authentic self-understanding. Finally, the chapter reframes Maslow’s hierarchy of needs to correct common oversimplifications of belongingness and esteem in light of the developing, transformative self.

Jealousy Incarnate: Quiet Ego, Competitive Desire, and the Fictional Intelligence of Long-Term Mating in a Romantic K-Drama

In this paper, we analyze a K-drama aired by the Korean TV network SBS in 2016, Jealousy Incarnate, as a case study of the application of the Tie-Up Theory to a romantic narrative as a form of simulation of human mating processes with social cognition valence. We find that this case provides us with an example of a mating process where the choice of the male partner by the female lead character does not privilege the one that should be preferable on the basis of the standard prediction of the experimental research on human mating. This discrepancy is a signal of a basic limitation of experimental research, that highlights the subjects’ preferences for abstract potential partners but is not able to fully account for the mechanisms that lead to the choice of a specific partner in a specific mating interaction. We argue that the narrative simulation viewpoint provides insights that are complementary to those of experimental research, and that a more comprehensive theoretical approach, such as the one offered by the Tie-Up Theory, may be helpful to account for both perspectives.

Why Does Awe Have Prosocial Effects? New Perspectives on Awe and the Small Self

Awe is an emotional response to stimuli that are perceived to be vast (e.g., tall trees, sunsets) and that defy accommodation by existing mental structures. Curiously, awe has prosocial effects despite often being elicited by nonsocial stimuli. The prevailing explanation for why awe has prosocial effects is that awe reduces attention to self-oriented concerns (i.e., awe makes the self small), thereby making more attention available for other-oriented concerns. However, several questions remain unaddressed by the current formulation of this small-self hypothesis. How are awe researchers defining the self, and what implications might their theory of selfhood have for understanding the “smallness” of the self? Building on theories regarding psychological selfhood, we propose that awe may interact with the self not just in terms of attentional focus but rather at multiple layers of selfhood. We further reinterpret the small self using the notion of the quiet ego from personality psychology. Linking awe to an enriched model of the self provided by personality psychology may be fruitful for explaining a range of phenomena and motivating future research.