Fired up
Effects of individualist and collectivist group norms and choice on intrinsic motivation
Martin Hagger, Panagiotis Rentzelas & Nikos Chatzisarantis
Motivation and Emotion, April 2014, Pages 215-223
Abstract:
Previous research suggests that the positive effect of personal choice on intrinsic motivation is dependent on the extent to which the pervading cultural norm endorses individualism or collectivism (Iyengar and Lepper in J Pers Soc Psychol 76:349–366, 1999). The present study tested effects of personal choice on intrinsic motivation under situationally-induced individualist and collectivist group norms. An organizational role-play scenario was used to manipulate individualist and collectivist group norms in participants from a homogenous cultural background. Participants then completed an anagram task under conditions of personal choice or when the task was either assigned to them by an in-group (company director) or out-group (experimenter) social agent. Consistent with hypotheses, when the group norm prescribed individualism participants in the personal choice condition exhibited greater intrinsic motivation. When the group norm prescribed collectivism, participants’ assigned to the task by the company director were more intrinsically motivated. The implications of results for theories of intrinsic motivation are discussed.
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Dying to Win? Olympic Gold Medals and Longevity
Adam Leive
University of Pennsylvania Working Paper, March 2014
Abstract:
This paper investigates how status affects health by comparing mortality between Gold medalists in Olympic Track and Field and other finalists. Due to the nature of Olympic competition, analyzing performance on a single day provides a way to cut through potential endogeneity between status and health. I first document that an athlete’s longevity is affected by whether he wins or loses and then detail mechanisms driving the results. Winning on a team confers a survival advantage, with evidence that higher mortality among losers may be due to poor performance relative to one’s teammates. However, winning an individual event is associated with an earlier death. By analyzing the best performances of each athlete before the Olympics, I demonstrate that an athlete’s performance relative to his expectations partly explains the earlier death of winners in individual events: on average, Olympic Gold medalists expected to win, but losers exceeded their expectations. Conversely, athletes considered “favorites” but who fail to win die earlier than other athletes who also lost. My results are robust to estimating a range of parametric and semi-parametric survival models that make different assumptions about unobserved heterogeneity. My central estimates imply lifespan differentials of a year or more between winners and losers. The findings point to the importance of expectations, relative performance, surprise, and disappointment in affecting health, which are not highlighted by standard models of health capital, but are consistent with reference-dependent utility. I also discuss potential implications for employment contracts in terms of a trade-off between ex post health and ex ante incentives for productivity.
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The mnemonic mover: Nostalgia regulates avoidance and approach motivation
Elena Stephan et al.
Emotion, forthcoming
Abstract:
In light of its role in maintaining psychological equanimity, we proposed that nostalgia — a self-relevant, social, and predominantly positive emotion — regulates avoidance and approach motivation. We advanced a model in which (a) avoidance motivation triggers nostalgia and (b) nostalgia, in turn, increases approach motivation. As a result, nostalgia counteracts the negative impact of avoidance motivation on approach motivation. Five methodologically diverse studies supported this regulatory model. Study 1 used a cross-sectional design and showed that avoidance motivation was positively associated with nostalgia. Nostalgia, in turn, was positively associated with approach motivation. In Study 2, an experimental induction of avoidance motivation increased nostalgia. Nostalgia then predicted increased approach motivation. Studies 3–5 tested the causal effect of nostalgia on approach motivation and behavior. These studies demonstrated that experimental nostalgia inductions strengthened approach motivation (Study 3) and approach behavior as manifested in reduced seating distance (Study 4) and increased helping (Study 5). The findings shed light on nostalgia’s role in regulating the human motivation system.
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Motivated Misperception: Self-Regulatory Resources Affect Goal Appraisals
Michelle vanDellen et al.
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, July 2014, Pages 118–124
Abstract:
Three studies examine how self-regulatory resources affect goal appraisals, finding support for the hypothesis that when low in self-regulatory resources, individuals endorse statements that rationalize either inaction or less effortful goal pursuit. Study 1 examines appraisals of self-set personal goals, finding that resource-depleted participants describe their goals as less urgent and less consequential. Study 2 examines reappraisals of weight loss goals, replicating the effects of Study 1. Finally, Study 3 examines this reappraisal process in the context of a broader societal goal of environmental conservation. This work contributes a new perspective to the large literature on resource depletion by demonstrating that depletion alters cognition in ways that may excuse the well-documented decrease in behavioral pursuit that arises from resource depletion.
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Academic and emotional functioning in middle school: The role of implicit theories
Carissa Romero et al.
Emotion, April 2014, Pages 227-234
Abstract:
Adolescents face many academic and emotional challenges in middle school, but notable differences are evident in how well they adapt. What predicts adolescents’ academic and emotional outcomes during this period? One important factor might be adolescents’ implicit theories about whether intelligence and emotions can change. The current study examines how these theories affect academic and emotional outcomes. One hundred fifteen students completed surveys throughout middle school, and their grades and course selections were obtained from school records. Students who believed that intelligence could be developed earned higher grades and were more likely to move to advanced math courses over time. Students who believed that emotions could be controlled reported fewer depressive symptoms and, if they began middle school with lower well-being, were more likely to feel better over time. These findings illustrate the power of adolescents’ implicit theories, suggesting exciting new pathways for intervention.
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Kamila Sobol & Peter Darke
Journal of Consumer Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
The use of idealized advertising models has been heavily criticized in recent years. Existing research typically adopts a social comparison framework and shows that upward comparisons with models can lower self-esteem and affect, as well as produce maladaptive behavior. However, the alternative possibility that consumers can cope with threatening advertising models by excelling in other behavioral domains has not been examined. The present research draws on fluid compensation theory (Tesser, 2000) and shows idealized models motivate improved performance in consumer domains that fall outside that of the original comparison. These more positive coping effects operate through self-discrepancies induced by idealized models, rather than self-esteem or negative affect. Specifically, self-discrepancies motivate consumers to improve decision-making by: 1) making more optimal choices from well-specified consideration sets, and 2) better self-regulating indulgent choices. More broadly, the current research integrates and extends theories of fluid compensation and self-discrepancy, as well as provides a more complete picture of the ways in which consumers cope with idealized advertising models.
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Fluency in Future Focus: Optimizing Outcome Elaboration Strategies for Effective Self-Control
Gergana Nenkov, Kelly Haws & Min Jung (MJ) Kim
Social Psychological and Personality Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
The current research sheds new light on how individuals can best use the consideration of future outcomes as a self-control strategy to enhance their likelihood of goal attainment. Across three studies, the authors find that the effectiveness of positively versus negatively valenced outcome elaboration is dependent upon the construal level at which the potential outcomes are considered. This research demonstrates that positive outcome elaboration is more effective when it is abstract, whereas negative outcome elaboration is more effective when it is concrete. Moreover, the authors explore the process underlying these effects and demonstrate that the increased effectiveness of matching the outcomes’ valence and construal level is due to outcome elaboration fluency, as increased ease of generating outcomes that are positive and abstract or negative and concrete promotes more effective self-control.
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Rachel Tomer et al.
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, May 2014, Pages 1039-1048
Abstract:
Humans show consistent differences in the extent to which their behavior reflects a bias toward appetitive approach-related behavior or avoidance of aversive stimuli [Elliot, A. J. Approach and avoidance motivation. In A. J. Elliot (Ed.), Handbook of approach and avoidance motivation (pp. 3–14). New York: Psychology Press, 2008]. We examined the hypothesis that in healthy participants this motivational bias (assessed by self-report and by a probabilistic learning task that allows direct comparison of the relative sensitivity to reward and punishment) reflects lateralization of dopamine signaling. Using [F-18]fallypride to measure D2/D3 binding, we found that self-reported motivational bias was predicted by the asymmetry of frontal D2 binding. Similarly, striatal and frontal asymmetries in D2 dopamine receptor binding, rather than absolute binding levels, predicted individual differences in learning from reward versus punishment. These results suggest that normal variation in asymmetry of dopamine signaling may, in part, underlie human personality and cognition.
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Openness to experience and aesthetic chills: Links to heart rate sympathetic activity
Iva Čukić & Timothy Bates
Personality and Individual Differences, July 2014, Pages 152–156
Abstract:
Openness to experience has important links to cognitive processes such as creativity, and to values, such as political attitudes. The biological origins of variation in openness to experience are, however, obscure. The centrality of “aesthetic chills” to high openness suggests that sympathetic nervous system activation may play a role. Here, we tested this using the low-frequency heart rate variability power measure (LF) as biomarker of sympathetic activation, tested under baseline and stress conditions in a sample of 952 subjects, and controlling for measured confounders of age, sex, height, weight and BMI. A significant association was found between LF and openness to experience (β = 0.10, 95% CI [0.02, 0.17], p < .01). These results suggest links between openness to experience and sympathetic nervous system activity explaining, at least in part, relationships of openness to such traits as aesthetic chills.
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Daniel Gustavson et al.
Psychological Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Previous research has revealed a moderate and positive correlation between procrastination and impulsivity. However, little is known about why these two constructs are related. In the present study, we used behavior-genetics methodology to test three predictions derived from an evolutionary account that postulates that procrastination arose as a by-product of impulsivity: (a) Procrastination is heritable, (b) the two traits share considerable genetic variation, and (c) goal-management ability is an important component of this shared variation. These predictions were confirmed. First, both procrastination and impulsivity were moderately heritable (46% and 49%, respectively). Second, although the two traits were separable at the phenotypic level (r = .65), they were not separable at the genetic level (rgenetic = 1.0). Finally, variation in goal-management ability accounted for much of this shared genetic variation. These results suggest that procrastination and impulsivity are linked primarily through genetic influences on the ability to use high-priority goals to effectively regulate actions.
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Jin Youn & Kelly Goldsmith
Northwestern University Working Paper, April 2014
Abstract:
Consumers regularly experience feelings of envy; however, to date, little is known about if or how incidental feelings of envy affect subsequent, unrelated consumption decisions. The current research addresses this by examining how incidental feelings of envy influence consumers’ tendency to engage in self-improvement related behaviors. Prior research suggests that although envy generally triggers the desire for self-improvement, it is also an emotion that bears a heavy social cost. On the basis of this work, we suggest that the effects of incidental envy on one’s tendency toward self-improvement will be moderated by whether the decision context is private or public. We present three experiments that support these predictions, and conclude with a discussion of future directions suggested by this work, as well as the relevant practical implications.
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The Effects of Goal Progress Cues: An Implicit Theory Perspective
Pragya Mathur, Lauren Block & Ozge Yucel-Aybat
Journal of Consumer Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Consumers often encounter goods and services that provide cues to mark their progress. We define the term “goal progress cues” to reflect the diverse category of cues that highlight progress towards a goal. Across a series of three studies, we show that entity theorists, who rely on cues that highlight completion in order to signal their abilities to others, evaluate tasks that include these cues more favorably than those that lack these features. In contrast, incremental theorists, who focus on improving competence, are impacted only by progress cues that highlight learning. We demonstrate these findings across a variety of goal pursuit contexts that represent a mix of customer-centric (retail queues), service-oriented managerial (sales calls), and personal achievement consumer product (mazes) domains using both behavioral and self-reported measures. We conclude with a discussion about the theoretical and substantive implications of our findings.