Conscientiousness, procrastination, and person-task characteristics in job searching by unemployed adults

The study examined the job-search intentions and subsequent behavior of 32 unemployed males and 32 unemployed females, median age of 43 years, in relation to conscientiousness and the lower-order trait procrastination and to rated person-task characteristics of importance, pleasantness, and competence regarding 14 job-search activities. At Time 1, conscientiousness was positively related to each of the person-task characteristics and to intentions to engage in the composite of job-search activities; trait procrastination was not. At Time 2, two weeks later, trait procrastination predicted self-reported job-search behaviors, controlling for initial intentions, with pro-crastinators exhibiting less job-search activity in the two week interim, compared to nonprocrastinators. Both conscientiousness and trait procrastination were related to a direct self-report measure of dilatory behavior. The three person-task characteristics were found to mediate the relation of conscientiousness to job-search intentions and to dilatory behavior. In addition, perceived task pleasantness moderated the relation of conscientiousness to job-search behavior, controlling for intentions, such that higher levels of conscientiousness were associated with increases in behavior only under conditions of low task pleasantness. Discussion centered on the prominent role of the person-task characteristics and on the place of conscientiousness and trait procrastination in predicting intentions and behavior.     

How can the impact of implementation intentions as a behaviour change intervention be improved?

Interventions requesting individuals to form implementation intentions, specific plans regarding how and when to enact behaviour, have been shown to be effective in changing a wide range of health, social, and organisational behaviours. A small proportion of studies have sought to identify, within full-factorial designs, under what circumstances and for whom implementation intention-based interventions are most effective. This review covers this issue. A number of potential moderators of the effects of implementation intentions on behaviour were identified (intentions, motivation type, collaboration, plan reminders, goal type, plan type, conscientiousness, perfectionism, procrastination, stress). Of these, the strength of one's intentions have been tested, and supported, most often as a moderator of implementation intention effects. For some of these moderators (e.g., conscientiousness, goal difficulty) the results were contradictory but for others the results were more consistent (e.g., motivation type, plan reminders). Additional moderators might be identified by comparing effects of implementation intentions across studies.     

Committing to implementation intentions: Attention and memory effects for selected situational cues

Two studies tested whether forming implementation intentions (Gollwitzer, Am Psychol 54:493?C503 in 1999) results in a heightened activation of specified situational cues. Going beyond prior studies, participants of the present studies specified these opportunities on their own (i.e., the action cues were not assigned by the experimenter), and activation level was assessed by attraction of attention and recall performance rather than lexical decisions. In Study 1, situational cues associated with the where and when to act on an everyday life goal attracted more attention than non-specified cues when presented to the non-attended channel in a dichotic listening task. In Study 2, the recall of specified cues was better than that of non-specified cues both 15?min after forming implementation intentions and after a delay of 2?days. Importantly, goal commitment and implementation intention commitment moderated this effect.     

To plan or not to plan? Goal achievement or interrupting the performance of mundane behaviors

The present experiment investigated cognitive and behavioral effects of planning (i.e. forming implementation intentions) on goal pursuit during the performance of mundane behaviors. Participants received the goal to collect a coupon halfway the hall from the lab to the cafeteria. Later, they were also given the task to go from the lab to the cafeteria. Thus participants had to attain a new goal by interrupting a mundane behavior. Some participants enriched their goal with implementation intentions, others did not. Results showed that participants who formed implementation intentions were more effective in goal pursuit than the control group. Importantly, the data suggest that the effects of planning on goal completion are mediated by a heightened mental accessibility of environmental cues related to the goal completion task. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Self-regulation of priming effects on behavior

In three experiments, we tested whether people can protect their ongoing goal pursuits from antagonistic priming effects by using if-then plans (i.e., implementation intentions). In Experiment 1, concept priming did not influence lexical decision time for a critical stimulus when participants had formed if-then plans to make fast responses to that stimulus. In Experiment 2, participants who were primed with a prosocial goal allowed a confederate who asked for help to interrupt their work on a focal task for a longer time if they had merely formed goal intentions to perform well than if they had also formed implementation intentions for concentrating on the task. In Experiment 3, priming the goal of being fast increased driving speed and errors for participants who had formed mere goal intentions to drive only as fast as safety allowed or who had formed no goal intentions, whereas the driving of participants who had formed such goal intentions as well as implementation intentions showed no such priming effects. Our findings indicate that implementation intentions are an effective self-regulatory tool for shielding actions from disruptive concept- or goal-priming effects.     

Environmental attitudes, knowledge, intentions and behaviors among college students

College students (N = 90) reported their pro-environment behaviors as well as their pro-environment intentions, their explicit and implicit attitudes about the environment, and their knowledge about environmental issues. Intentions and knowledge significantly and independently predicted behavior. Environmental knowledge was not significantly related to attitudes. Implicit and explicit attitudes were significantly but only moderately related. Only explicit attitudes, however, were strongly related to intentions, and intentions completely mediated the influence of explicit attitudes on behavior. Men were found to be more knowledgeable than women about environmental issues; older students had more favorable implicit and explicit environmental attitudes. This research suggests that knowledge about the environment and explicit attitudes influence behavior through different pathways, which may have implications for interventions seeking to increase environmentally friendly behavior.     

Self-Regulating Interest: The Moderating Role of Hardiness and Conscientiousness

Sansone, Weir, Harpster, and Morgan (1992) found that individuals intentionally regulated their interest in an activity when they had both the need (the task was boring) and a reason to exert the effort (an ostensible health benefit). The present study examined Hardiness and Conscientiousness as moderators of this self-regulatory process when individuals had the option of quitting in addition to the options of persisting and of engaging in interest-enhancing strategies. Undergraduates performed a boring copying activity under instructions to stop when they felt they could evaluate the task. Half were told that their evaluations would help researchers develop good jobs for others (Benefit). Results indicated high hardy individuals copied more letters when they were provided the additional Benefit information, and this effect was mediated through their attempt to make the task more interesting. High conscientious individuals persisted longer than individuals lower in conscientiousness independently of the benefit manipulation or strategy use. Implications of individual differences in self-regulation of motivation are discussed.     

损失-收益框架下责任感对建议采纳的影响

实验1和实验2分别探讨了在损失-收益框架下特质责任感和状态责任感对建议采纳的影响。结果发现：（1）无论是特质责任感还是状态责任感,高责任感的个体比低责任感个体更倾向于采纳他人建议。（2）收益框架下的个体比损失框架下的个体更愿意采纳他人建议。（3）无论是特质责任感还是状态责任感,高责任感的个体对他人建议的采纳程度不受框架的影响,而低责任感个体在收益框架下比在损失框架下的建议采纳程度高。     

The Volitional and Strategic Effects of Planning on Task Performance and Goal Commitment

This study integrates action-control theory and goal-setting theory research on planning by examining whether the volitional (e.g., implementation intention and implemental mind-set) and intellectual (e.g., strategic) benefits of planning have independent and interactive effects on performance and goal commitment. Results show that individuals who formed implementation intentions performed better than individuals who did not form implementation intentions, even after controlling for strategy variables. In addition, the volitional and strategy variables interacted to predict performance, suggesting that the volitional benefits of planning depend, in part, on strategy quality. Although the implemental mind-set and implementation intention manipulations did not influence goal commitment, strategy quality was positively related to goal commitment.     

The Compensatory Role of Implementation Intentions for Young Adults with Low Working Memory Capacity

Many factors improve prospective memory performance both inside and outside of the laboratory, including the detailed planning of the situational cue and intended action (i.e., implementation intentions). In the current study, we obtained measures of working memory capacity and laboratory event‐based prospective memory performance in college‐aged adults. Half of our participants formed an implementation intention in the prospective memory task. Because of evidence that implementation intentions increase the encoding/retrieval efficiency of the prospective memory, it was predicted that forming an implementation intention would serve as a compensatory strategy for those with low working memory ability. Our results supported this hypothesis in that working memory capacity no longer correlated with prospective memory performance when participants employed an implementation intention encoding strategy. These findings suggest that implementation intentions may be an effective way for individuals with low working memory capacity to improve their performance in an attentionally demanding prospective memory task. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Relative Effects of Abstract Versus Concrete Processing on Proactivity in Depression

Low levels of proactivity are characteristic of individuals with depression. Two studies were conducted to compare the relative effects of abstract versus concrete processing on proactivity in high dysphoric individuals. In Study 1, participants read information about an upcoming research study and were then randomly allocated to a writing task that induced them to think about participating in that study in either an abstract (e.g., Why you would participate in the study?; n = 25) or concrete (e.g., How you will participate in the study?; n = 25) way. Participants were then asked to indicate whether they would sign up to the study. As expected, more participants indicated that they would take part in the study in the concrete condition (76%) than in the abstract condition (36%). In Study 2, high dysphoric participants were asked to identify their ideal part-time job and were then randomly allocated to a writing task that induced them to think about applying for the job in an abstract (n = 26) or concrete (n = 25) way. There was no difference between conditions in self-reported intentions of proactivity. However, significantly more participants in the concrete condition opted to look at an employment assistance website and returned to the lab to collect a job application package. Overall, these findings suggest that abstract processing could contribute to low levels of proactivity in depression, and that facilitating the use of concrete processing could help to alleviate this problem. Our results also point to the need for greater conceptual clarification of the distinction between concrete processing about proactive behavior and implementation intentions (identifying specific steps for completing an action/goal).     

Implementation Intentions Improve Prospective Memory and Inhibition Performances in Older Adults: The Role of Visualization

Implementation intentions have been shown to be a very effective strategy in improving prospective memory in older adults. However, their efficacy in improving inhibition has never been assessed in aging. We thus examined the efficacy of implementation intentions in a prospective memory task and an inhibition task in 87 older participants. Following a crossover design, half of the participants were instructed to form an implementation intention in the prospective memory task, the other half in the inhibition task. The moderating role of working memory, visualization and verbalization habits, and impulsivity were also assessed. Regression analyses revealed that for both tasks, participants benefited from implementation intentions but only if they were used to using visual strategies in daily life. The efficacy of implementation intentions was not moderated by working memory, impulsivity, or the use of verbal strategies in everyday life. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Less is more: The effect of multiple implementation intentions targeting unhealthy snacking habits

Implementation intentions have been shown to effectively change counter‐intentional habits. Research has, however, almost solely been concerned with the effectiveness of a single plan. In the present research, we investigated the behavioral and cognitive implications of making multiple implementation intentions targeting unhealthy snacking habits and its underlying processes, linking multiple habitual snacking cues to healthy alternatives. Study 1 revealed that formulating multiple implementation intentions was not effective in decreasing unhealthy snacking, whereas formulating a single plan successfully induced behavior change. By using a lexical decision task in Study 2, it was found that when making a single plan, but not multiple plans, the healthy alternative became cognitively more accessible in response to a critical cue prime than the habitual response. However, when making additional plans in an unrelated domain, the negative effects of making multiple plans were absent. In sum, the current findings suggest that formulating multiple implementation intentions is ineffective when changing unwanted behavior. These reduced effects of multiple implementation intentions do not occur when making the plan but are rather due to interference in the enacting phase of the planning process. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Implementation intentions and imagery: individual and combined effects on prospective memory among young adults

Prospective memory (PM) has been found to benefit from implementation intentions (i.e., “when I see X, I will do Y”). However, to date, it is unclear whether implementation intentions must incorporate imagery in order to produce a positive effect on PM, or whether the verbal statement alone is sufficient. It is also equivocal whether the use of visual imagery alone improves PM, absent an intentional statement. The present study investigated the individual influences of implementation intentions and imagery, as well as their combined effect, on PM. A total of 64 undergraduates were placed into one of four instructional conditions—read-only, implementation intention, imagery, or combined—and were then tested on a laboratory PM task. The results revealed that participants in the implementation intention, imagery, and combined groups completed significantly more PM tasks than did participants in the read-only group, but they did not differ from one another. Combining implementation intentions and imagery, however, did not improve PM performance over either strategy alone. Additionally, the implementation intention and imagery groups outperformed the read-only group on a secondary ongoing digit detection task. The results of this study suggest that implementation intentions do not require imagery to be effective in improving PM, and that imagery alone has positive effects on PM. Finally, the results of the ongoing digit detection task suggest that the use of implementation intentions and imagery might provide for automatic identification and processing of environmental cues.     

The conscientious retiree: The relationship between conscientiousness,retirement, and volunteering

The current study examined the relationship between conscientiousness, work status, and volunteering utilizing two large samples, the St. Louis Personality and Aging Network (SPAN) and the Health and Retirement Study (HRS). It was hypothesized that conscientious adults who were retired would be more likely to volunteer because, after retirement, they gain a substantial amount of free time, while losing an outlet for their industrious and achievement-striving tendencies. Cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses revealed that conscientious, retired individuals were more likely to volunteer than conscientious, working individuals. Further analyses revealed that facets of conscientiousness provide differential information from the general trait. These findings indicate that volunteering during retirement fills an important niche for high-striving, conscientious individuals.     

General,Work-Specific,and Work-Role Conscientiousness Measures in Predicting Work Criteria: A Comparative Perspective

The current study compared general, work-specific, and work-role measures of conscientiousness as predictors of job satisfaction, organizational commitment, turnover intention, job engagement, and task performance. As expected, work-role conscientiousness yielded stronger relationships with five of the ten work-related criteria than general conscientiousness, and with six of the ten criteria than work-specific conscientiousness. More importantly, work-role conscientiousness displayed incremental validity in predicting nearly all work-related criteria, when controlling for general and work-specific conscientiousness alone or in combination. It is also worth noting that six of ten analyses found that work-role conscientiousness demonstrated greater relative importance compared to its counterparts. Finally, we found that the context in which the items were completed moderated the relationships between work-role conscientiousness and two work-related criteria (i.e., job satisfaction and organizational commitment). Together, these results suggest that researchers should consider the work-role measure of conscientiousness in the prediction of work criteria.     

Can implementation intentions help to overcome ego-depletion?

Research on ego-depletion suggests that the ability to self-regulate one’s behavior is limited: Exerting self-control on an initial task reduces performance on a subsequent task that also requires self-control. Two experiments tested whether forming implementation intentions could prevent ego-depletion and/or offset the effects of ego-depletion. Experiment 1 found that participants who formed implementation intentions during an initial ego-depleting task subsequently showed greater persistence on an unsolvable puzzles task compared to participants who did not form implementation intentions. Experiment 2 found that among participants who had been ego-depleted during an initial task, forming implementation intentions improved subsequent performance on a Stroop task to the level exhibited by non-depleted controls. Thus, implementation intentions help to enhance people’s ability to self-regulate their behavior.     

Collective action control by goals and plans: applying a self-regulation perspective to group performance

In celebration of the 125th anniversary of The American Journal of Psychology, this article discusses a seminal publication by Marjorie Shaw (1932) on small group performance in the rational solution of complex problems. We then propose an approach for the effective regulation of group goal striving based on the collective action control perspective. From this perspective, group performance might be hindered by a collective intention-behavior gap: Groups fail to act on their intentions despite being strongly committed to the collective goal, knowing what the necessary actions are, and being capable of performing them. To reduce this gap, we suggest specific if-then plans (implementation intentions) in which groups specify when, where, and how to act toward their collective goal as an easily applicable self-regulation strategy to automate collective action control. Studies in which implementation intentions improved group performance in hidden profile, escalation of commitment, and cooperation task paradigms are reported and discussed.     

Organizational commitment,turnover intentions and the influence of cultural values

The moderating influence of idiocentrism and allocentrism on the relationship between organizational commitment and turnover intentions was examined. The investigation evolved over two phases. In Study 1, emic (culture‐specific) items were generated through in‐depth interviews with Turkish employees, and the commitment scales by Meyer, Allen, and Smith (1993) were revised to make them more appropriate for the Turkish context. In Study 2, turnover intentions were predicted as a function of an individual's affective, continuance, normative commitment, and social factors, operationalized as the approval of the family. The results indicated that affective commitment was an important predictor of turnover intentions irrespective of idiocentric or allocentric values. However, normative commitment and social factors were weaker predictors for individuals who endorsed idiocentric, values and social factors were a stronger predictor for allocentrics. These findings underline the importance of a normative perspective on organizational commitment, especially for collectivistic contexts.     

Is task interference in event-based prospective memory dependent on cue presentation?

Whether having an intention produces a performance cost to ongoing activities (task interference) is central to theoretical claims regarding the mechanisms underlying cue detection in event-based prospective memory. Recent evidence suggests that task interference primarily reflects an attention allocation policy stored in memory when intentions are encoded. The present study examined whether these policies can change with ongoing task experience. In Experiment 1, task interference was more greatly reduced when expected cues were not presented than when they were. Experiment 2 replicated this effect when the importance of the prospective memory task was emphasized. In Experiment 3, task interference decreased with time, and this decrease was greater when expected cues were not presented than when they were. Cue presentation is crucial to maintenance of attention allocation policies established by task instructions. This is the first article to demonstrate changes in task interference with ongoing task experience without forewarning individuals of the relevance of upcoming ongoing task trials to intentions.