Pumped
Implicit energy loss: Embodied dryness cues influence vitality and depletion
Idit Shalev
Journal of Consumer Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Consumers have long recognized that thirst motivates beverage consumption, however little is known of the consequences of dryness-related cues and experienced energy. Based on the embodied cognition view (Landau et al., 2010; Meier et al., 2012) and motivational perspective for energy (Clarkson, 2010; Inzlicht & Schmeichel, 2012), four studies examined the idea that activation of different levels of the dryness-thirst metaphor (e.g., semantic primes, visual images, or physical thirst) will influence perceived energy. In Study 1, participants primed with dryness-related concepts reported greater physical thirst and tiredness and lower subjective vitality. In Study 2, participants who were physically thirsty were less persistent in investing effort in an unsolvable anagrams task. In Study 3, images of arid land influenced time preference regarding when to begin preparation to make a monetary investment. Finally, in Studies 4a and 4b, exposure to the names of dryness-related products influenced impressions of the vitality of a target person. Overall, the findings suggest that physical or conceptual dryness-related cues influence perceived energy and may have consequences on consumer behavior.
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Behavioral Sensitivity to Reward Is Reduced for Far Objects
David O'Connor et al.
Psychological Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Many studies have demonstrated that people will adjust their behavioral response to a reward on the basis of the time taken to receive the reward. Yet despite growing evidence that time and space are not mentally independent, there has been no examination of whether spatial distance may also affect the way people respond to rewarding objects. We examined speeded binary decisions about objects associated with high, low, or no reward for correct responses. Using a 3-D display, we varied perceived spatial distance so that objects appeared at distances near to or far from participants. Both the speed and the accuracy of responses were better for high-reward objects compared with low- and no-reward objects, but this difference occurred only when the objects appeared at near distance to participants. These results demonstrate that when people respond to rewarding objects, they show sensitivity to spatial-distance information even if the information is irrelevant to the task.
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Inflating and deflating the self: Sustaining motivational concerns through self-evaluation
Abigail Scholer, Yuka Ozaki & Tory Higgins
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
The ways in which individuals think and feel about themselves play a significant role in guiding behavior across many domains in life. The current studies investigate how individuals may shift the positivity of self-evaluations in order to sustain their chronic or momentary motivational concerns. Specifically, we propose that more positive self-evaluations support eagerness that sustains promotion-focused concerns with advancement, whereas less positive self-evaluations support vigilance that sustains prevention-focused concerns with safety. The current studies provide evidence that self-evaluation inflation is associated with promotion concerns whereas self-evaluation deflation is associated with prevention concerns, whether regulatory focus is situationally manipulated (Studies 1, 2b, and 3) or measured as a chronic individual difference (Study 2a). Following regulatory focus primes, individuals in a promotion focus showed relatively greater accessibility of positive versus negative self-knowledge compared to individuals in a prevention focus (Study 1). In an ongoing performance situation, participants in a promotion focus reported higher self-esteem than participants in a prevention focus (Studies 2a and 2b). Finally, individuals in a promotion focus persisted longer on an anagram task when given an opportunity to focus on their strengths versus weaknesses, which was not the case for individuals in a prevention focus (Study 3). Across studies, the predicted interactions were consistently obtained, although sometimes the effects were stronger for promotion or prevention motivation. We discuss implications for existing models of the motives underlying self-evaluation.
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Too much of a good thing: Curvilinear effect of positive affect on proactive behaviors
Chak Fu Lam, Gretchen Spreitzer & Charlotte Fritz
Journal of Organizational Behavior, forthcoming
Abstract:
Current organizational theory and research affirm the beneficial effects of experiencing positive affect at work. In recent years, researchers have begun to question the popular notion that the more positive affect at work, the better - that more positive affect is desirable for work-related outcomes. In this article, we propose a rationale for why more positive affect may not be better for proactive behaviors at work. Findings from two field studies using two unique data sources demonstrate support for our hypothesis, suggesting that intermediate levels of positive affect are most beneficial for proactive behaviors.
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The Fresh Start Effect: Temporal Landmarks Motivate Aspirational Behavior
Hengchen Dai, Katherine Milkman & Jason Riis
University of Pennsylvania Working Paper, August 2013
Abstract:
The popularity of New Year's resolutions suggests that people are more likely to tackle their goals immediately following salient temporal landmarks. If true, this little-researched phenomenon has the potential to help people overcome important willpower problems that often limit goal attainment. Across three archival field studies, we provide evidence of a "fresh start effect". We show that Google searches for the term "diet" (Study 1), gym visits (Study 2), and commitments to pursue goals (Study 3) all increase following temporal landmarks (e.g., the outset of a new week, month, year, or semester; a birthday; a holiday). We propose that these landmarks demarcate the passage of time, creating many new mental accounting periods each year, which relegate past imperfections to a previous period, induce people to take a big-picture view of their lives, and thus motivate aspirational behaviors.
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Stereotype threat can reduce older adults' memory errors
Sarah Barber & Mara Mather
Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, October 2013, Pages 1888-1895
Abstract:
Stereotype threat often incurs the cost of reducing the amount of information that older adults accurately recall. In the current research, we tested whether stereotype threat can also benefit memory. According to the regulatory focus account of stereotype threat, threat induces a prevention focus in which people become concerned with avoiding errors of commission and are sensitive to the presence or absence of losses within their environment. Because of this, we predicted that stereotype threat might reduce older adults' memory errors. Results were consistent with this prediction. Older adults under stereotype threat had lower intrusion rates during free-recall tests (Experiments 1 and 2). They also reduced their false alarms and adopted more conservative response criteria during a recognition test (Experiment 2). Thus, stereotype threat can decrease older adults' false memories, albeit at the cost of fewer veridical memories, as well.
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Musical agency reduces perceived exertion during strenuous physical performance
Thomas Hans Fritz et al.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 29 October 2013, Pages 17784-17789
Abstract:
Music is known to be capable of reducing perceived exertion during strenuous physical activity. The current interpretation of this modulating effect of music is that music may be perceived as a diversion from unpleasant proprioceptive sensations that go along with exhaustion. Here we investigated the effects of music on perceived exertion during a physically strenuous task, varying musical agency, a task that relies on the experience of body proprioception, rather than simply diverting from it. For this we measured psychologically indicated exertion during physical workout with and without musical agency while simultaneously acquiring metabolic values with spirometry. Results showed that musical agency significantly decreased perceived exertion during workout, indicating that musical agency may actually facilitate physically strenuous activities. This indicates that the positive effect of music on perceived exertion cannot always be explained by an effect of diversion from proprioceptive feedback. Furthermore, this finding suggests that the down-modulating effect of musical agency on perceived exertion may be a previously unacknowledged driving force for the development of music in humans: making music makes strenuous physical activities less exhausting.
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How Far to the Road Not Taken? The Effect of Psychological Distance on Counterfactual Direction
SoYon Rim & Amy Summerville
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, forthcoming
Abstract:
Upward and downward counterfactuals serve the distinct motivational functions of self-improvement and self-enhancement, respectively. Drawing on construal level theory, which contends that increasing psychological distance from an event leads people to focus on high-level, self-improvement versus low-level, self-enhancement goals, we propose that distance will alter counterfactual direction in a way that satisfies these distinct motives. We found that people generated more downward counterfactuals about recent versus distant past events, while they tended to generate more upward counterfactuals about distant versus recent past events (Experiment 1). Consistent results were obtained for social distance (Experiment 2). Experiment 3 demonstrated that distance affects the direction of open-ended counterfactual thoughts. Finally, Experiment 4 explored a potential mechanism, demonstrating that manipulating temporal distance produced changes in participants' self-improvement versus self-enhancement motivations when responding to negative events. Future directions and broader implications for self-control, social support, empathy, and learning are discussed.
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Implicit need for achievement predicts attenuated cortisol responses to difficult tasks
Oliver Schultheiss, Uta Wiemers & Oliver Wolf
Journal of Research in Personality, February 2014, Pages 84-92
Abstract:
The present research tested the hypothesis that the implicit need for achievement (n Achievement) predicts attenuated cortisol (C) responses to difficult tasks, because it represents a propensity to view difficulty as a cue to mastery reward. In two studies, n Achievement was assessed through content-coding of imaginative stories and salivary C was assessed both at baseline and post-task. In Study 1 (N = 108 US students), n Achievement predicted an attenuated C response to a one-on-one competition in the laboratory, regardless of whether participants won or lost. In Study 2 (N = 62 German students), n Achievement predicted an attenuated C response to the Trier Social Stress Test (Kirschbaum, Pirke, & Hellhammer, 1993), but not to a non-stressful control task. In Study 2 only, the attenuating effect of n Achievement was moderated by gender, with only men showing the effect. Across both studies, the average effect size of the association between n Achievement and C responses to difficult tasks was r = -.28. These findings point to a role of n Achievement in emotion regulation.
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Daytime light exposure and feelings of vitality: Results of a field study during regular weekdays
K.C.H.J. Smolders, Y.A.W. de Kort & S.M. van den Berg
Journal of Environmental Psychology, December 2013, Pages 270-279
Abstract:
In the current study, we investigated daily light exposure and its relation with vitality in everyday settings on an hour-to-hour basis. The method consisted of experience sampling combined with continuous light measurement and a sleep diary during three consecutive days. Data collection was distributed over a full year. Results revealed substantial inter- and intra-individual differences in hourly light exposure. The amount of light experienced was significantly related to vitality, indicating that persons who were exposed to more light experienced more vitality, over and above the variance explained by person characteristics, time of day, activity patterns and sleep duration during the previous night. This relationship was more pronounced in the morning, during the darker months of the year and when participants had experienced relatively low vitality during the previous hour. Overall, the results provide support for acute effects of light exposure on feelings of vitality during daytime, even in everyday life.
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Latent Toxoplasma gondii infection leads to improved action control
Ann-Kathrin Stock et al.
Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, forthcoming
Abstract:
The parasite Toxoplasma gondii has been found to manipulate the behavior of its secondary hosts to increase its own dissemination which is commonly believed to be to the detriment of the host (manipulation hypothesis). The manipulation correlates with an up-regulation of dopaminergic neurotransmission. In humans, different pathologies have been associated with Toxoplasma gondii infections but most latently infected humans do not seem to display overt impairments. Since a dopamine plus does not necessarily bear exclusively negative consequences in humans, we investigated potential positive consequences of latent toxoplasmosis (and the presumed boosting of dopaminergic neurotransmission) on human cognition and behavior. For this purpose, we focused on action cascading which has been shown to be modulated by dopamine. Based on behavioral and neurophysiological (EEG) data obtained by means of a stop-change paradigm, we were able to demonstrate that healthy young humans can actually benefit from latent Toxoplasma gondii infection as regards their performance in this task (as indicated by faster response times and a smaller P3 component). The data shows that a latent infection which is assumed to affect the dopaminergic system can lead to paradoxical improvements of cognitive control processes in humans.
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Effort denial in self-deception
Philip Fernbach, York Hagmayer & Steven Sloman Organizational
Behavior and Human Decision Processes, January 2014, Pages 1-8
Abstract:
We propose a mixed belief model of self-deception. According to the theory, people distribute belief over two possible causal paths to an action, one where the action is freely chosen and one where it is due to factors outside of conscious control. Self-deceivers take advantage of uncertainty about the influence of each path on their behavior, and shift weight between them in a self-serving way. This allows them to change their behavior to provide positive evidence and deny doing so, enabling diagnostic inference to a desired trait. In Experiment 1, women changed their pain tolerance to provide positive evidence about the future quality of their skin, but judgments of effort claimed the opposite. This "effort denial" suggests that participants' mental representation of their behavior was dissociated from their actual behavior, facilitating self-deception. Experiment 2 replicated the pattern in a hidden picture task where search performance was purportedly linked to self-control.