Quantifying self‐motives: Functional links between dispositional desires

Previous research has sought to establish the existence, or gauge the relative strength, of key self‐evaluation motives (i.e., self‐enhancement, self‐verification, self‐assessment, self‐improvement). Here, we attempted, across five samples, to quantify individual differences in self‐motive strength and explore their empirical ramifications. We devised brief self‐report indices for each self‐motive and checked their factor structure, reliability, and validity. We found that self‐enhancement covaried mainly with self‐verification, and that self‐assessment covaried mainly with self‐improvement, thus validating key hypotheses regarding their functional links. Moreover, self‐enhancement and self‐verification covaried with positive personality traits, as well as with preferences for receiving positive feedback and perceptions of its accuracy. In sum, self‐reported variations in dispositional self‐motive strength form theoretically meaningful patterns. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Many roads lead to Rome: Self‐regulatory strategies and their effects on self‐control

In a self‐control conflict, people face a dilemma between a current goal (e.g., to exercise regularly) and competing impulses, habits, or desires (e.g., to stay on the couch and continue watching TV). To resolve such conflicts in favor of their goals, individuals may capitalize on a variety of self‐regulatory strategies. In this article, we review recent research on the self‐regulatory strategies people use in their daily lives, research on the effectiveness of these strategies, and research on the consequences of self‐regulatory strategy use on well‐being. We furthermore take both an individual‐differences and a situational perspective by linking strategy use to individual differences between people (e.g., in self‐control) and by emphasizing that strategy effectiveness likely depends on situational context (e.g., on current demands). Finally, we introduce ideas and potential future research questions revolving around the role of individual differences in regulatory flexibility (including context‐sensitivity) for determining a person's self‐regulatory success.     

Sociocultural antecedents of academic motivation and achievement: Role of values and achievement motives in achievement goals and academic performance

With a view to understand the influence of culture on achievement motivation, the study aimed to test the hypothesized mediating role of individual‐oriented and social‐oriented achievement motives in linking value orientations (e.g. achievement, security, conformity, hedonism) to achievement goals (i.e. mastery‐approach, mastery‐avoidance, performance‐approach, and performance‐avoidance goals) as predictors of English and mathematics achievements. These hypothesized relationships were tested in the one‐path analytic model with a sample of Indonesian high‐school students (n = 356; 46% girls, M age = 16.20 years). The findings showed that security and conformity values positively predicted social‐oriented achievement motive; self‐direction values positively predicted individual‐oriented achievement motive; and hedonism values negatively predicted both achievement motive orientations. Both individual‐oriented and social‐oriented achievement motives positively predicted mastery‐approach and performance‐approach goals. Interestingly, social‐oriented achievement motive also positively predicted mastery‐avoidance and performance‐avoidance goals, which in turn, negatively predicted English and mathematic achievement. There was also some evidence for the direct effects of values on performance‐approach goals and achievement. Taken together, the findings evinced the relevance of achievement goal constructs to Indonesian students and the psychometric properties of the Indonesian version of the Achievement Goals Questionnaire for further use in Indonesia. The study concludes that the meanings of academic motivation and achievement should be seen from a sociocultural perspective relevant to the context in which they are being studied.     

Enhancing feedback and improving feedback: subjective perceptions,psychological consequences,behavioral outcomes

Three experiments examined subjective perceptions, psychological consequences, and behavioral outcomes of enhancing versus improving feedback. Across experiments, feedback delivery and assessment were sequential (i.e., at each testing juncture) or cumulative (i.e., at the end of the testing session). Although enhancing feedback was seen as more satisfying than useful, and improving feedback was not seen as more useful than satisfying, perceptions differed as a function of short‐term versus long‐term feedback delivery and assessment. Overall, however, enhancing feedback was more impactful psychologically and behaviorally. Enhancing feedback engendered greater success consistency, overall satisfaction and usefulness, optimism, state self‐esteem, perceived ability, and test persistence intentions; improving feedback, on the other hand, engendered greater state improvement. The findings provide fodder for theory development and applications.     

“Who identifies with which group?” The motive‐feature match principle and its limitations

The functional approach to identification suggests that people with a particular motive tend to identify with groups that fulfill this motive. Thus, identification should be strongest when individual motives and group features match. The present paper explores the predictive power of this motive‐feature match principle. Participants judged themselves on five motives (self‐esteem, distinctiveness, belongingness, uncertainty reduction, and power), rated several groups on features relevant to fulfillment of these motives (e.g., the group's power as to the power motive), and indicated their identification with each group. Although the most predicted Motive x Feature interactions on identification emerged, the overall fit between data and predictions was moderate. The reductionist nature of the motive‐feature match principle is discussed. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Self‐Doubt

The need for understanding serves as a theme throughout social and personality psychology. It is reflected in people’s striving toward a shared, social construction of reality (e.g., conformity, uniformity) that runs through so much of the history of theory and research in the field. Stemming from this core motivation, the literature is peppered with illustrations of the preeminence of certainty as a goal (e.g., clarity, consistency, consonance, and related constructs) and the ultimate objective of cultural consensus. Yet, the role of doubt in the form of shaky certainty about the basis for beliefs in attitudes – or doubts about one’s self‐esteem or self‐concept – has increasingly taken center stage. This review takes the self‐competence element (vs. self‐liking element) of self‐worth judgments as its focus and provides an integration of individual difference approaches and experimental investigations of self‐doubt. Long neglected, self‐doubt increasingly appears critical for understanding some of the surprising, ironic, and self‐defeating cognitive, emotional, and behavioral findings seen in the achievement realm.     

Future‐oriented emotions: conceptualization and behavioral effects

We distinguish between two kinds of future‐oriented emotions (anticipatory and anticipated) and investigate their behavioral effects. Anticipatory emotions are currently experienced due to the prospect of a future event (e.g., hope or fear). Anticipated emotions, on the other hand, are expected to be experienced in the future if certain events do or do not occur (e.g., anticipated joy or regret). We discuss the theoretical differences between the two types of future‐oriented emotions and examine their role in motivating goal‐directed behavior. The results of a longitudinal study (n = 472) and a separate control group analysis (n = 340) provide consistent support for the convergent and discriminant validity of positive/negative anticipatory and anticipated emotions and their independent influence on goal‐directed behavior. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Self–other differences in multiattribute decision making: Compensatory versus noncompensatory decision strategies

When making decisions where options involve multiple attributes, a person can choose to use a compensatory, utility maximizing strategy, which involves consideration and integration of all available attributes. Alternatively, a person can choose a noncompensatory strategy that extracts only the most important and reliable attributes. The present research examined whether other‐oriented decisions would involve greater reliance on a noncompensatory, lexicographic decision strategy than self‐oriented decisions. In three studies (Mturk workers and college students), the difference in other‐oriented versus self‐oriented decisions in a medical decision context was explained by a subsample of participants that chose the death minimizing operation on all 10 decisions (Study 1) and a subsample of participants who self‐reported that they used a strategy that minimized the chance of death on every decision (i.e., a lexicographic mortality heuristic; Study 2). In Study 2, tests of mediation found that self‐reported use of the mortality heuristic completely accounted for the self–other effect on decisions. In Study 3, participants were more likely to report prospectively that they would adopt the mortality heuristic when making decisions for others than for themselves, suggesting that participants were not mistakenly inferring a lexicographic decision strategy from their past behavior. The results suggest that self–other effects in multiattribute choice involve differential use of compensatory versus noncompensatory decision strategies and that beyond this group difference, individual differences in the use of these strategies also exist within self‐oriented and other‐oriented decisions.     

What Can Political Psychology Learn from Implicit Measures? Empirical Evidence and New Directions

Implicit measures have become very popular in virtually all areas of basic and applied psychology. However, there are empirical and theoretical arguments that might raise doubts about their usefulness in research on political attitudes. Based on a review of relevant evidence, we argue that implicit measures can be useful to identify distal sources of political preferences in domains where self‐presentation may bias self‐reports (e.g., influence of racial attitudes on voting decisions). In addition, implicit measures of proximal political attitudes can contribute to the prediction of future political decisions by virtue of their capability to predict biases in the processing of decision‐relevant information (e.g., prediction of voting behavior of undecided voters). These conclusions are supported by research showing that implicit measures predict real‐world political behavior over and above explicit measures. The reviewed findings suggest that implicit measures may serve as a useful supplement to improve the prediction of election outcomes. Open questions and potential directions for future research are discussed.     

To please or to neglect your partner? Attachment avoidance and relationship‐driven self‐improvement

Self‐improvement is a potential resource in sustaining relationships. A series of 2 studies with Hong Kong Chinese college samples sought to examine whether attribute‐specific, reflected regard from the partner determines self‐improvement efforts on those attributes and whether attachment avoidance moderates the association. These studies measured self‐improvement effort by retrospective self‐report (Study 1) and evaluation of objects pertinent to attribute‐specific self‐improvement goals (i.e., related self‐help books; Study 2). In general, the results showed that individuals improved their personal qualities when they perceived these qualities as relatively less favorably regarded by their partner. Moreover, attachment avoidance weakened such an association. The role of attachment avoidance in relationship‐driven self‐improvement seems to reflect strategic preference rather than a downplaying of relationship importance.     

Memory as a Self‐Protective Mechanism

The autobiographical memory literature has established that people remember poorly unpleasant, relative to pleasant, life events. We complemented this literature with a theoretical model – the mnemic neglect model – and an experimental paradigm that exerts tight control over the to‐be‐remembered material. Participants recall poorly self‐threatening feedback compared to self‐affirming or other‐relevant feedback – a phenomenon we labeled mnemic neglect. The phenomenon is motivational: it is in the service of self‐protection. The phenomenon is also flexible. Participants can switch from self‐protection (e.g. avoiding negative feedback) to an alternative goal (e.g. striving for feedback with improvement potential), when circumstances call for it such as when the feedback is provided by a close other rather than a stranger. Finally, self‐threatening feedback may be forgotten, but it is not lost: the mnemic neglect effect is not obtained in recognition recall.     

Moderating effects of gender and age on the relationship between self‐esteem and life satisfaction in mainland Chinese

Previous studies indicated that not only individual self‐esteem (e.g., Diener & Diener, 1995; Neto, 1993) but also collective self‐esteem (e.g., Crocker, Luhtanen, Blaine, & Broadnax, 1994; Zhang & Leung, 1999) contributed to prediction of life satisfaction. When the effects of individual and collective self‐esteems on life satisfaction have been demonstrated, a further question in life satisfaction research is that whether the relationship between self‐esteem and life satisfaction is subject to the influence of boundary conditions. The present investigation focused on moderating effects of gender and age on the relationship between self‐esteem and life satisfaction in Chinese people. Participants were 1347 Mainland Chinese (aged from 14 to 88 years, 52.3% female) from three generations. They finished the General Life Satisfaction Scale (Leung & Leung, 1992), Life Domain Satisfaction Scale (revised from Michalos, 1985), Self‐Esteem Scale (Rosenberg, 1965) and Collective Self‐Esteem Scale (Luhtanen & Crocker, 1992). Hierarchical regression analysis indicated that the relationship between collective self‐esteem and general life satisfaction was stronger for the male participants than for the female participants. The effect of individual self‐esteem on life domain satisfaction was stronger in the male group than in the female group. The effect of individual self‐esteem on life domain satisfaction was stronger in the older people than in the younger people. However the effect of collective self‐esteem on life domain satisfaction was stronger in the younger people than in the older people. These results might reflect life task differences and social expectation differences between male and female, younger and older people. Additional research is needed with other types of samples, especially with samples from some individualist cultures to see whether the results could generalize to these cultures.     

Older (but not younger) preschoolers understand that knowledge differs between people and across time

We examined 3‐ to 5‐year‐olds' understanding of general knowledge (e.g., knowing that clocks tell time) by investigating whether (1) they recognize that their own general knowledge has changed over time (i.e., they knew less as babies than they know now), and (2) such intraindividual knowledge differences are easier/harder to understand than interindividual differences (i.e., Do preschoolers understand that a baby knows less than they do?). Forty‐eight 3‐ to 5‐year‐olds answered questions about their current general knowledge (‘self‐now’), the general knowledge of a 6‐month‐old (‘baby‐now’), and their own general knowledge at 6 months (‘self‐past’). All age groups were significantly above chance on the self‐now questions, but only 5‐year‐olds were significantly above chance on the self‐past and baby‐now questions. Moreover, children's performance on the baby‐now and self‐past questions did not differ. Our findings suggest that younger preschoolers do not fully appreciate that their past knowledge differs from their current knowledge, and that others may have less knowledge than they do. We situate these findings within the research on knowledge understanding, more specifically, and cognitive development, more broadly.     

Lay perceptions of interrogation techniques: Identifying the role of Belief in a Just World and Right Wing Authoritarianism

False confessions due to overtly coercive interrogation techniques have led to the development of more ethically‐minded alternative techniques. Several studies have surveyed the public about their perceptions of confession‐oriented techniques (e.g., Leo & Liu, 2009 ), although none have examined the use of information gathering and strategic interviewing techniques or individual differences in such perceptions. Thus, the current study assessed public perceptions of a wide variety of techniques by recruiting a total of 332 participants. Results indicated that our participants would rather risk releasing a guilty person than convicting an innocent. Overall, confession‐oriented techniques were rated the least acceptable and effective across participants. However, perceptions of these techniques varied as a function of Belief in a Just World (BJW; Lipkus, 1991 ) and Right Wing Authoritarianism (RWA; Zakrisson, 2005 ). Specifically, those higher in these two individual differences found confession‐oriented techniques to be both more acceptable and effective than those scoring lower on these measures. The results speak to the importance of individual differences and the potential for such differences to bias juror decision‐making when interrogation evidence is at stake.     

Mnemic neglect: Selective amnesia of one’s faults

The mnemic neglect model predicts and accounts for selective memory for social feedback as a function of various feedback properties. At the heart of the model is the mnemic neglect effect (MNE), defined as inferior recall for self-threatening feedback compared to other kinds of feedback. The effect emerges both in mundane realism and minimal feedback settings. The effect is presumed to occur in the service of self-protection motivation. Mnemic neglect is pronounced when the feedback poses high levels of self-threat (i.e., can detect accurately one’s weakness), but is lost when self-threat is averted via a self-affirmation manipulation. Mnemic neglect is caused by self-threatening feedback being processed shallowly and in ways that separate it from stored (positive) self-knowledge. The emergence of mnemic neglect is qualified by situational moderators (extent to which one considers their self-conceptions modifiable, receives feedback from a close source, or is primed with improvement-related constructs) and individual differences moderators (anxiety, dysphoria, or defensive pessimism). Finally, the MNE is present in recall, but absent in recognition. Output interference cannot explain this disparity in results, but an inhibitory repression account (e.g., experiential avoidance) can: Repressors show enhanced mnemic neglect. The findings advance research on memory, motivation, and the self.     

Explicit thoughts of security activate implicit self‐doubt in anxiously attached participants

People high in attachment‐related anxiety experience greater anxieties and ambivalence (e.g., M. Mikulincer, P. R. Shaver, N. Bar‐On, & T. Ein‐Dor, 2010 ) when feelings of relationship security are activated. The current research suggests that anxiously attached people also experience a decrease in implicit feelings of self‐worth. Across two studies participants high (vs. low) in attachment anxiety reported more negative implicit self‐evaluations after thinking about a time they felt loved and cared for by a close other. Study 2 further revealed that more negative implicit self‐evaluations are not a function of differences in the type of events recalled by high anxiety participants. These latter results suggest that security‐enhancing thoughts automatically activate a negative association with the self that is not consciously reflected in participants' written responses.     

TARGETING SOCIAL SKILLS DEFICITS IN AN ADOLESCENT WITH PERVASIVE DEVELOPMENTAL DISORDER

Social skills deficits are a defining feature of individuals diagnosed with autism and other pervasive developmental disorders (PDD), which can impair functioning and put the individual at higher risk for developing problem behavior (e.g., self‐injury, aggression). In the current study, an adolescent with PDD displayed inappropriate social behavior (inappropriate comments, social withdrawal, and touching others without their permission) during social interactions. An intervention using instructions, differential reinforcement, and corrective feedback successfully reduced inappropriate social behaviors.     

Self‐Image Motives and Consumer Behavior: How Sacrosanct Self‐Beliefs Sway Preferences in the Marketplace

This article reviews social cognitive research suggesting that people shape their beliefs and judgments of the social world to maintain sacrosanct beliefs of the self as a capable, lovable, and moral individual. This article then argues that consumer behavior might similarly be designed to bolster positive self‐views and then discusses the potential role played by these self‐image motives in recently documented consumer behavior phenomena (e.g., endowment, compensation, affirmation, and licensing effects). This article then articulates some questions for future research if one presumes that consumer decision making, at least in part, strives to harmonize preferences with bedrock beliefs that the self is an able and principled person.     

Behavioural Consistency Within the Prisoner's Dilemma Game: The Role of Personality and Situation

Mixed‐motive games represent situations that confront people with a conflict between cooperative and non‐cooperative alternatives. Despite this common basis, recent research has shown that the consistency of people's choices across different mixed‐motive games is rather low. The present research examined behavioural consistency within the same mixed‐motive game, by presenting participants with a series of one‐shot Prisoner's Dilemma Games. Across this set of games, payoffs were manipulated in order to intensify or weaken the conflict between self and the other party while maintaining the game's underlying structure. Our findings indicate that significant differences in choice behaviour are observed as a function of both situational (i.e. manipulations of the Prisoner's Dilemma Game's payoff structure) and personality differences (i.e. individual differences in personality and motivational traits). Moreover, our included situational variables and personality features did not interact with each other and were about equally impactful in shaping cooperation. Crucially, however, despite the significant behavioural differences across game variants, considerable consistency in choices was found as well, which suggests that the game's motivational basis reliably impacts choice behaviour in spite of situational and personality variations. We discuss implications for theorizing on mixed‐motive situations and elaborate on the question how cooperation can be promoted. © 2018 European Association of Personality Psychology     

Self‐Awareness Part 2: Neuroanatomy and Importance of Inner Speech

The present review of literature surveys two main issues related to self‐referential processes: (1) Where in the brain are these processes located, and do they correlate with brain areas uniquely specialized in self‐processing? (2) What are the empirical and theoretical links between inner speech and self‐awareness? Although initial neuroimaging attempts tended to favor a right hemispheric view of self‐awareness, more recent work shows that the brain areas which support self‐related processes are located in both hemispheres and are not uniquely activated during self‐reflective tasks. Furthermore, self‐awareness at least partially relies on internal speech. An activation of Broca’s area (which is known to sustain inner speech) is observed in a significant number of brain‐imaging studies of self‐reflection. Loss of inner speech following brain damage produces self‐awareness deficits. Inner speech most likely can internally reproduce social mechanisms leading to self‐awareness. Also, the process of self‐reflection can be seen as being a problem‐solving task, and self‐talk as being a cognitive tool the individual uses to effectively work on the task. It is noted that although a large body of knowledge already exists on self‐awareness, little is known about individual differences in dispositional self‐focus and types of self‐attention (e.g., rumination versus self‐reflection).