dimensionality of judgments decreases. Often, this increase in extremity re-
sults in greater polarization of affect. For example Paulhus and Levitt (1987)
showed that presentation of emotionally charged distractor words leads to
higher endorsement of positive trait descriptors, but decreases in the endorse-
ment of negative ones.
One aspect closely related to increasing affect extremity is a polarization of
the interpersonal world, or a decrease in the ability to represent the self and
others in terms of reciprocal relationships among individuals who have differ-
ent though similarly valuable perspectives. Thus decreases in reflective control
have been linked to a higher likelihood to engage in stereotypic thinking—a
form of thinking that denies reciprocity of perspectives. Similarly, a large num-
ber of studies suggest that threats to one’s sense of security, such as reminders
of one’s mortality, often are related to a number of distortions in the interper-
sonal realm such as ingroup–outgroup polarization, stereotyping of members
of other ideological, ethnic, and religious groups (see Pyszczynki et al., 2000).
In a similar fashion, threats to individuals’ attachment security (see Mikulincer
& Horesh, 1999; Mikulincer & Shaver, 2001) are likely to engage in stereotypes
and disruption of emphathic responses. Such aspects of the degradation of
cognitive complexity have been termed pseudospeciation by Erikson (1984),
suggesting that they deny that different ideological, religious, cultural, or racial
groups share in the same common human heritage.
From a more modern emotion-theoretical perspective, such narrowing
makes good adaptive sense, since strong arousal usually is the result of situa-
tions that pose a threat to the well-being or even survival of the self. As Selye
pointed out long ago (e.g., Selye, 1978), such situations stimulate defensive
emergency responses in which the individual’s resources are focused on the
immediate and self-relevant task of restoring equilibrium and securing sur-
vival. In that precise sense, all of the previous constitute defensive re-
sponses—that is, responses that, even though they are locally adaptive, nev-
ertheless involve a restricted range of cognition–emotion integrations.
Yet note that another solution is possible. Rather than opting for optimi-
zation, the individual may become concerned with understanding and figur-
ing out or maintaining a differentiated and fairly objective picture of reality.
For example, he or she may turn to a careful analysis of the different possible
causes that may be related to activation in an attempt to reduce its level to
more bearable levels. In that case, the individual may not be able to reduce
levels of activation to relatively comfortable levels. In other words, he or she
may fail to achieve integration by remaining stuck in a cycle of ruminative at-
tempts to reduce activation. Such emphasis on objective and veridical repre-
sentation of reality is often related to higher levels of negative affect and
depression (Taylor & Brown, 1988). They also can represent a form of degra-
dation since it hinders positive integration.
254 LABOUVIE-VIEF AND GONZÁLEZ