Staying active
Aaron Kay et al.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, forthcoming
Abstract:
A recurring observation of experimental psychologists is that people prefer, seek out, and even selectively “see” structure in their social and natural environments. Structure-seeking has been observed across a wide range of phenomena — from the detection of patterns in random arrays to affinities for order-providing political, religious, social, and scientific worldviews — and is exacerbated under psychological threat. Why are people motivated for structure? An intriguing, but untested, explanation holds that perceiving structure, even in domains unrelated to one’s current behavioral context, can facilitate willingness to take goal-directed actions. Supporting this, in 5 studies, reminders of structure in nature or society increase willingness to engage in goal pursuit.
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Ian McGregor, Mike Prentice & Kyle Nash
Journal of Social Issues, September 2013, Pages 537–563
Abstract:
Reactive Approach Motivation (RAM) theory proposes that the personal uncertainty arising from motivational conflict causes anxiety, and that anxiety draws people to extremes because extremes activate approach-motivated states that automatically downregulate anxiety. Five new studies consolidate existing evidence for the RAM view of uncertainty-related threats and reactive extremism. In Studies 1–3, religious, idealistic, and RAM reactions after agentic, communal, and mortality threats were most extreme when threat-relevant goals had been implicitly primed to create motivational conflict. In Study 4 uncertainty predicted extreme reactions only if goal conflict had been experimentally manipulated. In Study 5 personal uncertainty uniquely predicted lifestyle extremes among undergraduates whose educational goals were conflicted by a labor disruption at their university. Results converge on the conclusion that uncertainty-related threats cause defensively extreme RAM reactions only if they arouse personal uncertainty about active goals. Results suggest that policies and programs to support the prosocial and/or nonextreme goals, ideals, and identifications of at-risk people would reduce their motivation for antisocial extremism.
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Testosterone and temperament traits in men: Longitudinal analysis
Ilmari Määttänen et al.
Psychoneuroendocrinology, October 2013, Pages 2243–2248
Abstract:
Testosterone is the main male hormone that has been associated with various behavioral traits in humans and other animals. We investigated whether levels of total testosterone, free testosterone, and sex hormone binding globulin were associated with temperament traits in a population-based sample of Finnish men at two measurement times taken 6 years apart (n = 686 in year 2001, n = 727 in year 2007). Temperament was assessed using the Temperament and Character Inventory that consists of four temperament traits: novelty seeking, harm avoidance, reward dependence, and persistence. Higher levels of total and free testosterone were associated with higher novelty seeking (standardized B = 0.103, p < 0.001). This association was also observed in a longitudinal within-person analysis (B = 0.084, p = 0.008), suggesting that the association is not confounded by stable between-individual differences in other characteristics. Within-individual variation in total testosterone was associated with higher reward dependence, and higher levels of free testosterone were marginally associated with higher reward dependence. Reward dependence reflects the importance of social rewards to an individual. These results provide additional evidence for the stable and time-varying associations between testosterone and temperament in humans.
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What a feeling! Touching sexually laden stimuli makes women seek rewards
Anouk Festjens, Sabrina Bruyneel & Siegfried Dewitte
Journal of Consumer Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
We argue that women's previously documented unresponsiveness to sexual primes when making economic decisions may be a consequence of the specific types of primes that have been used (i.e., visual primes). In three studies we show that presenting women with tactile sexual cues does influence their decisions about economic rewards. Similar to the effect found in men, the first study demonstrates that touching a pair of boxer shorts leads to a craving for monetary rewards in women. In the second study it is shown that touching a pair of boxers makes women less loss averse for both money and food. The third study explicitly focuses on the relative effectiveness of tactile versus visual sexual cues in altering women's economic decisions, and reveals that women's willingness-to-pay for economic rewards increases only when the sexual cue is tactile. We suggest that touching (vs. seeing) sexually laden stimuli prompts pre-programmed consummatory Pavlovian responses that promote approaching economic rewards.
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Mental Contrasting and Transfer of Energization
Timur Sevincer, Daniel Busatta & Gabriele Oettingen
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, forthcoming
Abstract:
Mental contrasting a desired future with present reality is a self-regulation strategy that fosters energization in line with a person’s expectations of successfully attaining the desired future. We investigated whether physiological energization (measured by systolic blood pressure) elicited by mental contrasting a desired future of solving a given task transfers to effort in an unrelated task. As predicted, mental contrasting a desired future of excelling in an intelligence test (Study 1) and of writing an excellent essay (Study 2) triggered changes in energization that translated into physical effort in squeezing a handgrip (Study 1) and translated into mental effort in writing a get-well letter (Study 2). Results suggest that mental contrasting of solving one task triggers energization that may fuel effort for performing an unrelated task. Implications for intervention research are discussed.
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Not Motivated to Act During Goal Pursuit: Powerlessness Blocks Motivation Transfer in Goal Systems
Anna Steidle, Lioba Werth & Christine Gockel
Basic and Applied Social Psychology, September/October 2013, Pages 477-486
Abstract:
The current research investigates a motivational mechanism that contributes to the inferior goal striving and attainment of powerless individuals: the transfer of motivation from goals to means. We expected that this mechanism would work effectively only in powerful individuals. The results of an experiment and a field study confirmed our assumptions. The more motivated powerful people were to attain the goals, the more they engaged in self-determined action and, in turn, the more positively they experienced goal-related activities. No such relation was found for their powerless counterparts. Implications for power research and goal systems theory are discussed.
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An Expanded Self is a More Capable Self: The Association between Self-concept Size and Self-efficacy
Brent A. Mattingly & Gary Lewandowski
Self and Identity, November/December 2013, Pages 621-634
Abstract:
The self-expansion model states that an expanded self-concept is associated with an increased sense of self-efficacy. We conducted four studies (three correlational, one experimental) to test this central tenet of the self-expansion model in a non-relational context. Results indicate that self-concept size (Studies 1 and 2) and subjective sense of self-concept (Study 3) were positively associated with greater self-efficacy. In Study 4, individuals who were randomly assigned to physically expand a representation of their self-concept reported greater self-efficacy at resolving potential problems than those who contracted a self-representation or left it unchanged. Taken together, these four studies provide the first empirical evidence that expanded self-concepts lead to greater self-efficacy.
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Engineering academic performance with selective retrieval: The benefits of implied ability
Eric Fuller, Rusty McIntyre & David Oberleitner
Journal of Applied Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Research on retrieval fluency suggests that, under different recall constraints, recalling past failures might be as effective as past successes for engineering task performance. In the current study, students recalling three instances of academic success correctly answered more items on a knowledge task than those recalling nine instances. Other students, asked to recall nine instances of failure, answered more items correctly than those recalling three failures and more than those recalling nine successes. This pattern was partially mediated by the assessments of one's ability as compared with other students. The results are interpreted as extending previous research in retrieval fluency by suggesting that the ease of retrieving task-related instances informs individuals about their comparative ability that, in turn, influences performance.
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Aligning Task Control With Desire for Control: Implications for Performance
Alex Ramsey & Paul Etcheverry
Basic and Applied Social Psychology, September/October 2013, Pages 467-476
Abstract:
The current study examined whether matches between task control and participants' desire for control over their environment lead to better task performance than mismatches. Work control and desire for control were manipulated, and participants engaged in timed tasks. As predicted, performance was higher in cases of match, even when task control and desire for control were low. Task control and desire for control may predict work performance in combination, highlighting the importance of person–environment fit theory for both selection and work design. By manipulating desire for control, our research also explores the potentially state-dependent quality of this individual difference variable.
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Back to the Future: Nostalgia Increases Optimism
Wing-Yee Cheung et al.
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, November 2013, Pages 1484-1496
Abstract:
This research examined the proposition that nostalgia is not simply a past-oriented emotion, but its scope extends into the future, and, in particular, a positive future. We adopted a convergent validation approach, using multiple methods to assess the relation between nostalgia and optimism. Study 1 tested whether nostalgic narratives entail traces of optimism; indeed, nostalgic (compared with ordinary) narratives contained more expressions of optimism. Study 2 manipulated nostalgia through the recollection of nostalgic (vs. ordinary) events, and showed that nostalgia boosts optimism. Study 3 demonstrated that the effect of nostalgia (induced with nomothetically relevant songs) on optimism is mediated by self-esteem. Finally, Study 4 established that nostalgia (induced with idiographically relevant lyrics) fosters social connectedness, which subsequently increases self-esteem, which then boosts optimism. The nostalgic experience is inherently optimistic and paints a subjectively rosier future.
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The Role of Competence in the Effects of Choice on Motivation
Erika Patall, Breana Sylvester & Cheon-woo Han
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, January 2014, Pages 27–44
Abstract:
Four experiments explored whether initial perceptions of task competence influence preference for having task choices and the effects of choice provision on motivation and performance. In Study 1, participants read a series of scenarios and expressed the greatest preference for choosing on tasks they would be most competent. Across three additional studies, the provision of choice generally enhanced motivation when initial perceptions of task competence were high, but diminished motivation when perceived competence was low. Results were relatively consistent whether initial perceived competence was measured (Study 2) or manipulated by contextual variables (i.e. task difficulty in Study 3 and competence feedback in Study 4). Results also suggested that the conditional effect of choice on intrinsic motivation was mediated by post-choosing perceptions of competence (Study 2, 3, and 4), though the relationship between perceived competence and intrinsic motivation also appeared to be reciprocal (Study 4). Further, results suggested that choice may conditionally influence both willingness to engage in the target task in the future (Study 2, 3, and 4) and task performance indirectly via intrinsic motivation (Study 3 and 4). The implications of these findings and directions for future research are discussed.