Psychological Homeostasis and Environmental Control via Preemptive and Reparative Narrative-Specificity

Abstract

Sedikides (this issue) provides a comprehensive and compelling model detailing the adaptive nature of self-protection and self-enhancement as the drivers of psychological homeostasis. We consider through two examples that psychological homeostasis is adaptive, in part, because it promotes environmental control. The examples entail the role of specificity, which Sedikides incorporates in his Proposition 4 suggesting that broader (i.e., global) threats are harder to defend than specific (i.e., narrower) threats. We expand this proposition by considering specificity in regard to narratives, with the first exampling concerning what Sedikides refers to as a preemptive narrative and the second a reparative narrative.