Driven
Bullseye! How Power Improves Motor Performance
Pascal Burgmer & Birte Englich
Social Psychological and Personality Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Power makes people think, feel, and behave in ways that help them to maintain and increase power. Thus far, the mechanisms underlying power's beneficial effects on goal pursuit have been investigated predominantly on a cognitive level. The present research tested whether power influences goal pursuit in an even more fundamental way, namely by improving actual behavior on motor-based tasks. Furthermore, we suggest that this effect is produced by changes in perceptual goal representation. Consistent with our assumptions, Experiment 1 found that individuals primed with high-power outperformed control participants on a golf-putting task. In Experiment 2, individuals receiving a high-power prime outperformed individuals receiving a low-power prime on a dart-throwing task. Moreover, high-power primed participants represented the focal goal (a dart board) in greater goal-relevant detail, which mediated the effect of power on motor performance. Taken together, these findings suggest that power shapes performance in more fundamental ways than previously assumed.
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The Lure of Authority: Motivation and Incentive Effects of Power
Ernst Fehr, Holger Herz & Tom Wilkening
American Economic Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
Authority and power permeate political, social, and economic life, but there is limited empirical knowledge about the motivational origins and consequences of authority. We study the motivation and incentive effects of authority experimentally in an authority-delegation game. Individuals exhibit a tendency to retain authority even when its delegation is in their material interest - suggesting that the authority allocation has non-pecuniary consequences for utility. Authority also leads to a substantial overprovision of effort by the controlling party, while a large percentage of subordinates under-provide effort despite pecuniary incentives to the contrary. Authority thus has important motivational consequences that exacerbate the inefficiencies arising from suboptimal delegation choices.
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Katherine Milkman
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, November 2012, Pages 163-176
Abstract:
This paper examines the effect of uncertainty about the future on whether individuals select want options (e.g., junk foods, lowbrow films) or instead exert self-control and select should options (e.g., healthy foods, highbrow films). Consistent with the ego-depletion literature, which suggests that self-control resembles an exhaustible muscle, coping with uncertainty about what the future may bring reduces self-control resources and increases individuals' tendency to favor want options over should options. These results persist when real uncertainty is induced, when the salience of naturally-arising uncertainty is heightened and when individuals are able to make choices contingent upon the outcomes of uncertain events. Overall, this work suggests that reducing uncertainty in a decision maker's environment may have important spillover effects, leading to less impulsive choices.
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Adolescent Expectations of Early Death Predict Adult Risk Behaviors
Quynh Nguyen et al.
PLoS ONE, August 2012
Abstract:
Only a handful of public health studies have investigated expectations of early death among adolescents. Associations have been found between these expectations and risk behaviors in adolescence. However, these beliefs may not only predict worse adolescent outcomes, but worse trajectories in health with ties to negative outcomes that endure into young adulthood. The objectives of this study were to investigate perceived chances of living to age 35 (Perceived Survival Expectations, PSE) as a predictor of suicidal ideation, suicide attempt and substance use in young adulthood. We examined the predictive capacity of PSE on future suicidal ideation/attempt after accounting for sociodemographics, depressive symptoms, and history of suicide among family and friends to more fully assess its unique contribution to suicide risk. We investigated the influence of PSE on legal and illegal substance use and varying levels of substance use. We utilized the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) initiated in 1994-95 among 20,745 adolescents in grades 7-12 with follow-up interviews in 1996 (Wave II), 2001-02 (Wave III) and 2008 (Wave IV; ages 24-32). Compared to those who were almost certain of living to age 35, perceiving a 50-50 or less chance of living to age 35 at Waves I or III predicted suicide attempt and ideation as well as regular substance use (i.e., exceeding daily limits for moderate drinking; smoking ≥ a pack/day; and using illicit substances other than marijuana at least weekly) at Wave IV. Associations between PSE and detrimental adult outcomes were particularly strong for those reporting persistently low PSE at both Waves I and III. Low PSE at Wave I or Wave III was also related to a doubling and tripling, respectively, of death rates in young adulthood. Long-term and wide-ranging ties between PSE and detrimental outcomes suggest these expectations may contribute to identifying at-risk youth.
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The Motivated Self: Self-Affirmation and the Better-Than-Average Effect
Corey Guenther & Elizabeth Timberlake
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, forthcoming
Abstract:
Research has shown that individuals routinely espouse "better-than-average" beliefs across a host of traits, skills, and abilities. Although some theorists take this tendency as evidence of self-enhancement motives guiding the organization and understanding of self-knowledge, others argue that better-than-average perceptions can be fully explained by nonmotivational processes. The present studies inform this controversy by exploring whether self-affirmation attenuates the magnitude of this comparative bias. Consistent with a motivational account, Studies 1 and 2 demonstrate that the better-than-average effect is reliably reduced following the affirmation of an important self-aspect. Moreover, Study 2 shows this attenuation to be primarily the product of self-ratings becoming more modest following an affirmation. Discussion focuses on potential avenues for future research as well as on the current findings' implications for understanding the role of self-enhancement in judgment and behavior.
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Kiara Timpano & Norman Schmidt
Journal of Abnormal Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Self-control is the capacity to exert control over one's behavior and is necessary for directing personal behavior toward achieving goals. Self-control has been described as operating within a resource model, and a lack of self-control has been posited as a process that may impact the development or maintenance of various forms of psychopathology. Hoarding disorder is one phenomenon wherein self-control may play a substantial role, and this investigation represents the first empirical evaluation of self-control in relation to hoarding symptoms. Across three independent studies, we found that lower levels of self-control were robustly linked to greater hoarding symptoms. Study 1 (N = 484) examined the strength of the relationship in a large nonclinical sample, and found that low levels of self-control were strongly associated with greater hoarding symptoms. This relationship remained significant despite controlling for covariates, including general depression and anxiety symptoms, specific anxiety symptomatology, and symptoms linked to impulse control deficits. These findings were replicated in Study 2 (N = 135), where we compared levels of self-control in individuals with clinical hoarding, obsessive-compulsive disorder, social anxiety disorder, and generalized anxiety disorder. Study 3 (N = 102) was an experimental investigation that considered the impact of a self-control manipulation on a behavioral index of hoarding symptoms. We found that depleting self-control resources was associated with an increase in subsequent saving behaviors. The implications of self-control for hoarding are discussed from a vulnerability standpoint.
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Brian Meier et al.
PLoS ONE, July 2012
Background: A basic premise of the recently proffered color-in-context model is that the influence of color on psychological functioning varies as a function of the psychological context in which color is perceived. Some research has examined the appetitive and aversive implications of viewing the color red in romance- and achievement-relevant contexts, respectively, but in all existing empirical work approach and avoidance behavior has been studied in separate tasks and separate experiments. Research is needed to directly test whether red influences the same behavior differently depending entirely on psychological context.
Methodology/Principal Findings: The present experiment was designed to put this premise to direct test in romance- and achievement-relevant contexts within the same experimental paradigm involving walking behavior. Our results revealed that exposure to red (but not blue) indeed has differential implications for walking behavior as a function of the context in which the color is perceived. Red increased the speed with which participants walked to an ostensible interview about dating (a romance-relevant context), but decreased the speed with which they walked to an ostensible interview about intelligence (an achievement-relevant context).
Conclusions/Significance: These results are the first direct evidence that the influence of red on psychological functioning in humans varies by psychological context. Our findings contribute to both the literature on color psychology and the broader, emerging literature on the influence of context on basic psychological processes.
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Philip Gable & Bryan Poole
Psychological Science, August 2012, Pages 879-886
Abstract:
Time flies when you're having fun, but what is it about pleasant experiences that makes time seem to go by faster? In the experiments reported here, we tested the proposal that approach motivation causes perceptual shortening of time during pleasant experiences. Relative to a neutral state or a positive state with low approach motivation (Experiment 1), a positive state with high approach motivation shortened perceptions of time. Also, individual differences in approach motivation predicted shorter perceptions of time. In Experiment 2, we manipulated approach motivation independently of the affective state and showed that increasing approach motivation caused time to be perceived as passing more quickly. In Experiment 3, we showed that positive approach motivation, as opposed to arousal, shortens perception of time by comparing a highly arousing positive state with a highly arousing negative state. Shortening of time perception in appetitive states may prolong approach-motivated behavior and increase the likelihood of acquiring appetitive objects or goals.
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Self-affirmation as a deliberate coping strategy: The moderating role of choice
Arielle Silverman, Christine Logel & Geoffrey Cohen
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Self-affirmation interventions, in which people write about personal values, show promise as a technique to help people cope with psychological threat. However, recent research shows that awareness of self-affirmation effects undermines them. We hypothesized that awareness attenuates self-affirmation effects only when completion of the affirmation is externally imposed, rather than personally chosen. In two experiments, self-affirmation effects reemerged when "affirmation-aware" participants were given a choice about either whether to affirm or not (Study 1) or simply which value to write about (Study 2). These results indicate that people can learn to actively apply self-affirmation as a tool for coping with everyday threats.
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Performance-Approach Goals Deplete Working Memory and Impair Cognitive Performance
Marie Crouzevialle & Fabrizio Butera
Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, forthcoming
Abstract:
Although longitudinal studies have consistently shown the positive impact of performance-approach goals (i.e., the desire to demonstrate one's abilities and outperform others) on academic success, they might allow some strategic behaviors such as cheating and surface studying, leaving open the question of the sheer impact of performance-approach goals on cognitive performance. We argued that the pressure to outperform others might generate outcome concerns and thus deplete working memory resources available for the activity, thereby hindering cognitive performance. Three studies carried out in a laboratory context confirmed this hypothesis. During a demanding cognitive task, performance-approach goal manipulation hampered performance (Experiment 1) by generating distractive concerns that drew on the limited verbal component of working memory (Experiment 2). Moreover, this interference was shown to be specifically due to the activation of performance-approach goal-related thoughts during the task solving (Experiment 3). Together, the present results highlight the distractive consequence of performance-approach goals on cognitive performance, suggesting that cognitive resource allocation is divided among the storage, processing, and retrieval of task-relevant information and the activation of normative goal-attainment concerns.
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A Devil On Each Shoulder: When (and Why) Greater Cognitive Capacity Impairs Self-Control?
Loran Nordgren & Eileen Chou
Social Psychological and Personality Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
This article examines how cognitive capacity influences self-control. Two studies demonstrated a cognitive capacity by visceral state interaction. Study 1 found that cognitive load impaired self-control for satiated smokers but increased self-control for craved smokers. Study 2 replicated this effect in the context of dieting. Hungry dieters who were given the opportunity to deliberate selected more unhealthy snacks compared to hungry dieters who were forced to make an immediate choice. Study 2 also demonstrated the process driving this effect. The authors found that visceral states bias information processing in ways that promote impulsive behavior, thereby turning cognition into a vehicle for impulsive action.
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Status Incentives and Performance
Haimanti Bhattacharya & Subhasish Dugar
Managerial and Decision Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
Studies in economics and management suggest that people invest effort to achieve pure status, and this investment increases in status incentives. We design field experiments to investigate these two behavioral hypotheses. We define status as the subjects' relative rank in their group based on their performance in a task. We explore two real tasks. In both of the tasks, subjects' earnings are nominal and independent of their performance; so status-seeking preference should be the sole reason for achieving higher ranks. Our results indicate that inducing higher status incentives may not necessarily improve individual performance and may depend upon the task.
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Grant Donnelly, Ravi Iyer & Ryan Howell
Journal of Economic Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Previous research has linked personality traits, material values, and money management to savings, debt, and compulsive buying. To extend previous research, four online surveys examined the Big Five personality traits and material values of those who manage their money and determined the independent effects of money management on wealth, debt, and compulsive buying. Results suggest that (a) individuals who believe that material possessions can provide happiness manage their money less and (b) highly conscientious individuals manage their money more because they have positive financial attitudes as well as a future orientation. Further, money management is significantly related to increased savings, decreased debt, and less compulsive buying even after controlling for numerous socio-demographic and dispositional variables. In the Discussion we suggest that materialists may experience a ‘pain of knowing' about their finances because money management may highlight the discouraging implications of their purchasing behavior.
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Jürgen Beckmann, Peter Gröpel & Felix Ehrlenspiel
Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, forthcoming
Abstract:
When well-learned motor skills fail, such as when elderly persons fall or when athletes "choke under pressure," it is assumed that attention is directed toward the execution of the action. Research findings suggest that this controlled execution and subsequent inferior performance depend on a dominant left-hemispheric activation. In a series of 3 experiments, we tested whether increasing right-hemispheric activation by the use of hemisphere-specific priming extenuates motor skill failure. We compared the performances of a sample of experienced athletes in different sports (soccer, tae kwon do, and badminton) in a pressure-free situation with that performed under pressure. As expected, the hemisphere-specific priming extenuated a performance decrease after pressure induction when compared with a control condition. The results suggest that hemisphere-specific priming may prevent motor skill failure. It is argued that this hemispheric priming should be task dependent and can be understood as a functional regulation of the activation in the hemispheres.
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Lisa Grimm, Arthur Markman & Todd Maddox
Basic and Applied Social Psychology, July/August 2012, Pages 376-385
Abstract:
Psychology researchers often avoid running participants from subject pools at the end of the semester because they are "unmotivated." We suggest that the end of the semester induces a situational prevention focus (i.e., sensitive to losses) unlike the beginning of the semester, which may induce a situational promotion focus (i.e., sensitive to gains). In two experiments, we presented participants with math problems at the beginning or end of an academic semester. End-of-semester participants performed better minimizing losses as compared to maximizing gains, whereas the opposite was true for beginning-of-semester participants.
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Association between the HTR2B gene and the personality trait of fun seeking
Bi Zhu et al.
Personality and Individual Differences, forthcoming
Abstract:
Previous research reported that a rare serotonin receptor 2B gene (HTR2B) stop codon mutation predisposes subjects to severe impulsivity and novelty seeking. In this study, we expanded this previous work by testing six single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) within the HTR2B gene for potential associations with the behavioral inhibition system (BIS) and the three components of the behavioral approach systems (BAS: fun seeking, drive, and reward responsiveness) in a Han Chinese sample (N = 478). Association analysis for individual SNPs indicated that four of the six SNPs (i.e., rs6437000, rs10194776, rs16827801, and rs1549339) were significantly associated with BAS fun seeking (p = .0003-.0022). Haplotype-based association analysis revealed that fun seeking was positively associated with haplotype A-A-G-A for SNPs rs6437000-rs10194776-rs16827801-rs1549339 (p = .0002), which survived Bonferroni correction. Except for the association between BAS reward responsiveness and rs16827801 (p = .005), no other association was found for BAS drive, BAS reward responsiveness, or BIS. This study provides the first evidence for the involvement of the HTR2B gene in BAS fun seeking. A better understanding of the genetic basis of the BIS and BAS would allow us to develop more effective diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of impulsive behavioral problems.
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COMT val158met predicts reward responsiveness in humans
Thomas Lancaster, David Linden & Erin Heerey
Genes, Brain and Behavior, forthcoming
Abstract:
A functional variant of the catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) gene (val158met [rs4680]) is frequently implicated in decision-making and higher cognitive functions. It may achieve its effects by modulating dopamine-related decision-making and reward guided behavior. Here we demonstrate that individuals with the met/met polymorphism have greater responsiveness to reward than carriers of the val allele and that this correlates with risk seeking behavior. We assessed performance on a reward responsiveness task and the Balloon Analogue Risk Task, which measure how participants (N=70, western European, university and postgraduate students) respond to reward and take risks in the presence of available reward. Individuals with the met/met genotype (n=19) showed significantly higher reward responsiveness, F(2,64)=4.02, p =.02, and reward-seeking behavior, F(2,68)=4.52, p =.01, than did either val/met (n=25) or val/val (n=26) carriers. These results highlight a scenario in which genotype-dependent reward responsiveness shapes reward seeking, therefore suggesting a novel framework by which COMT may modulate behavior.