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Holding a Silver Lining Theory: When Negative Attributes Heighten Performance
Alexandra Wesnousky, Gabriele Oettingen & Peter Gollwitzer, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, March 2015, Pages 15-22
Abstract:
Holding a lay theory that a negative personal attribute is associated with a positive attribute (i.e., a silver lining theory), may increase effortful performance in the domain of the positive attribute. In Study 1, individuals readily generated personal silver lining theories when prompted to consider a negative attribute, and the majority of individuals endorsed them for themselves. In Studies 2 and 3, we investigated how believing in a silver lining theory affected performance using the specific silver lining theory that impulsivity was associated with creativity. In both a college (Study 2) and an online sample (Study 3), individuals induced to believe that they were impulsive and then given the specific silver lining theory that impulsivity was related to creativity showed greater effort-based creativity than those for whom the silver lining theory was refuted. In Study 4, individuals made to believe that they were impulsive and given the silver lining theory performed more creatively than those who received no information about a silver lining theory, indicating that the silver lining theory increased performance relative to baseline. Silver lining lay theories may allow people to compensate for a negative attribute by promoting effortful behavior in the domain of a positive attribute believed to be linked to that negative attribute.
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Eating and inflicting pain out of boredom
Remco Havermans et al., Appetite, February 2015, Pages 52-57
Abstract:
In the present study it was investigated whether boredom promotes eating and if so, whether this effect likely reflects an increased drive for rewarding stimulation (positive reinforcement) or more plainly the drive to escape boredom (negative reinforcement). In the latter case, the valence of the stimulation should not matter and people might even be willing to look for negative stimulation, for instance to hurt oneself, just to escape boredom. In two parallel experiments, it was tested whether induced boredom promotes the consumption of chocolate (Experiment 1) and whether participants likewise are more inclined to self-administer electrocutaneous stimuli (Experiment 2). In both experiments, a total of 30 participants attended two separate sessions watching a documentary for 1 hour (neutral condition) and a monotonous repetition of a single clip from the same documentary for 1 hour (boring condition), in balanced order. During Experiment 1, participants had free access to M&Ms and during Experiment 2 participants could freely self-administer brief electrical shocks. It was found that participants ate more M&Ms when bored but also that they more readily self-administered electrical shocks when bored. It is concluded that eating when bored is not driven by an increased desire for satisfying incentive stimulation, but mainly by the drive to escape monotony.
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Pardon the Interruption: Goal Proximity, Perceived Spare Time, and Impatience
Ji Hoon Jhang & John Lynch, Journal of Consumer Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
There is no worse time to be interrupted than right now. Being close to attaining a goal to complete a focal task increases the attractiveness of that task compared to an interrupting task (study 1), makes people less willing to take on some otherwise attractive interruption than if they were farther away from completion (studies 2, 3, and 4), and causes them to perceive that in that moment they have little spare time (studies 3 and 4). Consumers immersed in goal pursuit are affected by local progress on an individual subgoal that supports an overarching goal even if this has no effect on the timing of attaining the overarching goal. Observers do not appreciate the motivating power of proximity to completing subgoals, and this leads them to mispredict the behavior of others (study 5).
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Vikram Chib, Shinsuke Shimojo & John O'Doherty, Journal of Neuroscience, 5 November 2014, Pages 14833-14844
Abstract:
There is a nuanced interplay between the provision of monetary incentives and behavioral performance. Individuals' performance typically increases with increasing incentives only up to a point, after which larger incentives may result in decreases in performance, a phenomenon known as "choking." We investigated the influence of incentive framing on choking effects in humans: in one condition, participants performed a skilled motor task to obtain potential monetary gains; in another, participants performed the same task to avoid losing a monetary amount. In both the gain and loss frame, the degree of participants' behavioral loss aversion was correlated with their susceptibility to choking effects. However, the effects were markedly different in the gain and loss frames: individuals with higher loss aversion were susceptible to choking for large prospective gains and not susceptible to choking for large prospective losses, whereas individuals with low loss aversion choked for large prospective losses but not for large prospective gains. Activity in the ventral striatum was predictive of performance decrements in both the gain and loss frames. Moreover, a mediation analysis revealed that behavioral loss aversion hindered performance via the influence of ventral striatal activity on motor performance. Our findings indicate that the framing of an incentive has a profound effect on an individual's susceptibility to choking effects, which is contingent on their loss aversion. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the ventral striatum serves as an interface between incentive-driven motivation and instrumental action, regardless of whether incentives are framed in terms of potential losses or gains.
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Purpose in life and use of preventive health care services
Eric Kim, Victor Strecher & Carol Ryff, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 18 November 2014, Pages 16331-16336
Abstract:
Purpose in life has been linked with better health (mental and physical) and health behaviors, but its link with patterns of health care use are understudied. We hypothesized that people with higher purpose would be more proactive in taking care of their health, as indicated by a higher likelihood of using preventive health care services. We also hypothesized that people with higher purpose would spend fewer nights in the hospital. Participants (n = 7,168) were drawn from the Health and Retirement Study, a nationally representative panel study of American adults over the age of 50, and tracked for 6 y. After adjusting for sociodemographic factors, each unit increase in purpose (on a six-point scale) was associated with a higher likelihood that people would obtain a cholesterol test [odds ratio (OR) = 1.18, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.08-1.29] or colonoscopy (OR = 1.06, 95% CI = 0.99-1.14). Furthermore, females were more likely to receive a mammogram/X-ray (OR = 1.27, 95% CI = 1.16-1.39) or pap smear (OR = 1.16, 95% CI = 1.06-1.28), and males were more likely to receive a prostate examination (OR = 1.31, 95% CI = 1.18-1.45). Each unit increase in purpose was also associated with 17% fewer nights spent in the hospital (rate ratio = 0.83, 95% CI = 0.77-0.89). An increasing number of randomized controlled trials show that purpose in life can be raised. Therefore, with additional research, findings from this study may inform the development of new strategies that increase the use of preventive health care services, offset the burden of rising health care costs, and enhance the quality of life among people moving into the ranks of our aging society.
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Loss of Control Stimulates Approach Motivation
Katharine Greenaway et al., Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, January 2015, Pages 235-241
Abstract:
The present research introduces a framework for understanding motivational reactions to control deprivation. Two experiments demonstrated that loss of control can stimulate approach motivation. Loss of control led to greater approach motivation in terms of enhanced motivation to achieve goals (Experiment 1) and greater self-reported high approach affect (Experiment 1 & 2). Experiment 2 additionally revealed that the effect of control deprivation on approach motivation was eliminated when participants misattributed their arousal to an external source. Overall, the findings demonstrate that loss of control can stimulate approach motivation as part of an adaptive motivational system aimed at coping with perceived lack of control.
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Asymmetric frontal cortical activity predicts effort expenditure for reward
David Hughes et al., Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, forthcoming
Abstract:
An extensive literature shows that greater left, relative to right, frontal cortical activity (LFA) is involved in approach-motivated affective states, and reflects stable individual differences in approach motivation. However, relatively few studies have linked LFA to behavioral indices of approach motivation. In this study, we examine the relation between LFA and effort expenditure for reward, a behavioral index of approach motivation. LFA was calculated for 51 right-handed participants (55% female) using power spectral analysis of electroencephalogram (EEG) recorded at rest. Participants also completed the Effort Expenditure for Rewards Task (EEfRT; Treadway, Buckholtz, Schwartzman, Lambert, & Zald, 2009), which presents a series of trials requiring a choice between a low-reward low-effort task and a high-reward high-effort task. We found that individuals with greater resting LFA were more willing to expend greater effort in the pursuit of larger rewards, particularly when reward delivery was less likely. Our findings offer a more nuanced understanding of the motivational significance of LFA, in terms of processes that mitigate the effort- and uncertainty- related costs of pursuing rewarding goals.
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The Progress Bias in Goal Pursuit: When One Step Forward Seems Larger than One Step Back
Margaret Campbell & Caleb Warren, Journal of Consumer Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
Consumers often pursue goals (e.g., losing weight) where the chance of attaining the goal increases with some behaviors (e.g., exercise) but decreases with others (e.g., eating). Although goal monitoring is known to be a critical step in self-control for successful goal pursuit, little research investigates whether consumers accurately monitor goal progress. Seven experiments demonstrate that consumers tend to show a progress bias in goal monitoring, perceiving that goal-consistent behaviors (e.g., saving $45) help progress more than goal-inconsistent behaviors of the equivalent size (e.g., spending $45) hurt it. Expectations of goal attainment moderate the progress bias; reducing the expectation that the goal will be reached reduces the tendency to perceive goal-consistent behaviors to have a larger impact on goal progress than equivalent goal-inconsistent behaviors. A study on exercise and eating shows that although the progress bias can increase initial goal persistence, it can also lead to premature goal release due to poor calibration of overall progress.
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The Interactive Effect of Positive Inequity and Regulatory Focus on Work Performance
Zhi Liu & Joel Brockner, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, March 2015, Pages 111-116
Abstract:
The present study examined how the work performance of promotion-focused people and prevention-focused people was affected by two different forms of positive inequity: overpayment and having a job. After completing an initial task, participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: (1) an Overpayment condition in which participants were told that they would receive greater payment than the other participant (who was actually a confederate) for doing the same work, (2) a Having a Job condition in which participants were assigned to have a job while the other participant (the confederate) was dismissed prematurely without compensation, and (3) a control condition in which participants and the confederate were treated equitably. Relative to their prevention-focused counterparts, promotion-focused participants performed better in both the Overpayment and the Having a Job conditions than in the control condition. Theoretical implications are discussed.
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Talking About Behaviors in the Passive Voice Increases Task Performance
Ibrahim Senay, Muhammet Usak & Pavol Prokop, Applied Cognitive Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Self-talk can help people redirect their attention focused on themselves to the tasks they are working on with important consequences for their task performance. Across four experiments and two different types of languages, Turkish and Slovak, people describing their own behaviors to themselves, as well as merely reading or writing sentences depicting some fictitious events, in the passive (vs. the active) voice performed better on various tasks of motor and verbal performance. The effect was present to the extent that people maintained their control over task-distracting thoughts or felt more responsible for their task success/failure. In sum, talking about task behaviors in the passive voice may increase the perceived role of task-related factors while decreasing the role of agent-related factors in achieving task success, whereby the task focus, hence performance, increases. The results are important for understanding the role of self-talk in performance with implications for changing important outcomes.
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Shoshana Dobrow Riza & Daniel Heller, Journal of Applied Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
While making early career decisions in which pursuing what one loves and earning a secure living are at odds with one another, when and why will the intrinsic considerations prevail over the extrinsic considerations? We posit that a key factor in resolving this dilemma in favor of the intrinsic side of the career is the sense of calling, a consuming, meaningful passion people experience toward the domain. We test the connection between early callings (in adolescence) and later career pursuit (in adulthood) and the mediating role of perceived and actual abilities (in young adulthood) in a career context in which the intrinsic and extrinsic sides of a career can clash: the path to become a professional musician. In an 11-year 5-wave longitudinal study of 450 amateur high school musicians progressing from adolescence to adulthood, we found that regardless of their actual musical ability, people with stronger early callings were likely to perceive their abilities more favorably, which led them to pursue music professionally. Our findings thus indicate an intriguing pattern in which the experience of stronger early callings led to greater perceived ability that was not reflected in greater actual ability. Perceived ability, rather than objective ability as assessed by awards won in music competitions, led to subsequent career pursuit. We discuss implications for theory and research on the nature and consequences of calling, as well as for career decision making, both in general and in challenging career contexts in particular.
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Social exclusion causes a shift toward prevention motivation
Jina Park & Roy Baumeister, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, January 2015, Pages 153-159
Abstract:
Four studies demonstrated that social exclusion caused a shift from promotion toward prevention motivation. Lonely individuals reported stronger prevention motivation and weaker promotion motivation than non-lonely individuals (Study 1). Those who either recalled an experience of social exclusion or were ostracized during an on-line ball tossing game reported stronger prevention motivation and generated fewer goal-promoting strategies (Studies 2 and 3) than those who were not excluded. Last, a hypothetical scenario of social exclusion caused a conservative response bias, whereas a scenario of social acceptance yielded a risky response bias in a recognition task (Study 4).