Emotional awareness and psychological needs
Cognition & Emotion
Issue:
Volume 19, Number 8 / December 2005
Pages:
1140 - 1157
URL:
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Emotional awareness and psychological needs
Mügé Dizén , Howard Berenbaum , John G. Kerns
A1 University of Illinois at Urbana�Champaign, USA
Abstract:
This study examined whether individual differences in two dimensions of emotional awareness (i.e., clarity of emotions, attention to emotions) are associated with individual differences in idiographic personal needs and the processing of one's psychological needs. Two types of idiographic personal needs were examined (i.e., psychologically minded, self�focused). Need processing was measured in response to nine scenarios designed to activate six different psychological needs (i.e., achievement, friendship, independence, control, respect, physical safety). There was some evidence of emotional awareness being associated with the types of needs people generated. There was strong evidence of attention to, and clarity of, emotions being associated with need processing (i.e., need activation intensity, need activation consistency, need differentiation, need processing style).