Act local but don’t think too global: The impact of ecological goal level on behavior

ABSTRACT

Growing awareness of humanity’s impact on the environment raises the question of how best to encourage pro-environmental actions. Numerous campaigns have been created to convince people to adopt environmentally friendly everyday behaviors, with varying success. The difficulty may be due, at least in part, to the huge gap between these small individual actions and the high-level goals, such as “saving the planet,” often used as incentives. We tested this hypothesis via four experiments. Studies 1 and 2 showed that high-level goals were less effective than low-level goals in promoting paper- and energy-saving behaviors. Study 3 showed that high-level goals engender lower perceived outcome expectancy and higher perception of cumulative effort. Study 4 showed that outcome expectancy mediates the direct effect of goal level on intention.     

Performance,incentives, and needs for autonomy,competence, and relatedness: a meta-analysis

Although self-determination theory (SDT) is one of the most widely cited theories of human motivation and function, critics have questioned the practical utility of its three needs (i.e., autonomy, competence, and relatedness) in performance contexts. We conduct a meta-analysis (k = 108, N = 30,648) to explore the magnitude and boundary conditions of need satisfaction and performance. As expected, autonomy (ρ = .28), competence (ρ = .37), and relatedness (ρ = .25) predict performance. Incentivization per se has little impact on need-satisfaction: instead, the need satisfaction → performance relationship is moderated by incentive salience. Consistent with a crowding-out hypothesis, need satisfaction matters less to performance when incentives are directly salient (ρ = .22) and more when indirectly salient (ρ = .45). Our meta-analysis demonstrates that indirectly salient incentives and need-satisfaction are indeed compatible, providing a direct response to criticisms of SDT in performance contexts. Additional unexpected findings and future directions are discussed.     

Capitalism and the Banality of Desire

ABSTRACT

This paper elaborates on Todd McGowan’s perspicacious, psychoanalytic explanation of capitalism’s resilience, due to its formidable ideological insinuation into the banal micro-desires of consumers. I outline his contention that capitalism’s false promise of future satisfaction is subverted by the psychical change indicated by Freud’s re-evaluation of the desire/satisfaction relationship. This is elaborated on via Lacan’s claim, somewhat underplayed in McGowan’s reflections, that desire is essentially narcissistic. Lacan’s claim raises the stakes of capitalism’s psychic appeal, but also indicates how Lacanian psychoanalysis offers a point of intervention. I briefly point to the consistency between Lacan’s conception of the actualized subject and Deleuze’s and Guattari’s articulation of desire in terms of “the process” and the complex metaphor of “desiring machines”. I finally turn to ?i?ek’s conception of the developing world as “the place of rupture” and a major fault line internal to capitalism that threatens to disrupt its operation.     

Students’ Need Satisfaction Profiles: Similarity and Change over the Course of a University Semester

Self-determination theory positions the satisfaction of students’ needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness as important determinants of various educational outcomes. In this study, we identify subpopulations of students characterized by distinct configurations of need satisfaction in the educational context, and assess the extent to which the nature of these configurations, and students’ individual profiles, remain stable over the course of a university semester. We also examine the role of perfectionism in the prediction of profile membership, and how these profiles relate to a variety of educational outcomes. A total of 521 first-year undergraduate university students completed our measures at the beginning and end of a university semester. We identified five need satisfaction profiles, which remained unchanged over the course of the study. Students characterized by higher levels of self-oriented perfectionism were more likely to be a member of a profile characterized by high levels of relatedness and global needs satisfaction associated with average levels of competence need satisfaction (“Globally Satisfied and Highly Connected” profile) relative to the other ones, and into the “Globally Satisfied” profile relative to the “Globally Dissatisfied, Highly Connected, and Competence Deficient” profile. Finally, the “Globally Dissatisfied, Highly Connected, and Competence Deficient” profile was associated with the least desirable outcomes (the lowest levels of students’ interest toward their studies, satisfaction, and attendance, and the highest levels of dropout intentions).     

The Role of a “Happy Personality” in the Relationship of Subjective Social Status and Domain-Specific Satisfaction in China

Most scholars have focused on group differences in overall life satisfaction, and little research has explored group differences in domain-specific satisfaction. This study investigated the variation in the effects of subjective social status on domain-specific satisfaction across personality styles (combined extraversion and neuroticism) in a sample of 1120 female and 745 male Chinese. Participants completed a questionnaire comprising demographics factors, MacArthur Scale, BFI personality scale and self-rated domain-specific satisfaction with interpersonal, health, political, financial, environmental, environmental, and cultural. The findings revealed that subjective social status positively, extraversion positively, and neuroticism negatively predicted six domain-specific satisfactions. Additionally, the results of the hierarchical regression analysis confirmed that the moderating roles of personality traits, but neither extraversion nor neuroticism alone moderated the effects of subjective social status on six domains of life satisfaction. Higher subjective social status related to a substantial increase in domainspecific satisfaction with health, political and environmental for respondents with high extraversion and low neuroticism. Taking together, from the “bottom-up” perspectives, these findings provide support to extend Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory to explain the relationship between subjective social status and domain-specific satisfaction.

     

That's easy for you to say: action identification and speech fluency

Action identification theory holds that an action can be identified by the performer in different ways, and that these various act identities differ in their appropriateness for maintaining the action effectively. Optimal action identification exists when a personally easy action is identified in relatively high-level terms (i.e., the action's effects and implications) or a personally difficult action is identified in relatively low-level terms (i.e., the action's mechanical details). To test the optimality hypothesis with respect to speech fluency, subjects were asked to deliver a speech to either an easy-to-persuade audience or a difficult-to-persuade audience and induced to think about the action in either high-level or low-level terms. As predicted, subjects made fewer speech errors and felt more satisfied with their performance when the task was personally easy and identified at high level and when the task was personally difficult and identified at low level. Optimal action identification made things easier for them to say.     

Self-determination at work: Understanding the role of leader-member exchange

Integrating self-determination theory (SDT) and leader-member exchange (LMX) theory, we explore the role of the leader in facilitating employee self-determination. We test a model of the linkages between employees’ leader-member exchanges, psychological need satisfaction (i.e., satisfaction of autonomy, competence, and relatedness needs), autonomous motivation, and attitudinal outcomes. We posit that high-quality leader-member exchanges facilitate satisfaction of employees’ fundamental psychological needs, which, in turn, enhance autonomous motivation and outcomes. Results for 283 working professionals supported this notion. Structural equation modeling indicated that the employee’s perception of the quality of the LMX was positively related to satisfaction of the needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness. Satisfaction of competence and autonomy needs was positively related to autonomous motivation, which, in turn, was associated with higher levels of job satisfaction, affective organizational commitment, and subjective vitality. Our findings accentuate the role of leader-employee relationships in creating self-determination at work, and reinforce the importance of self-determination for employee attitudes and well-being. Limitations, implications, and directions for future research are discussed.     

个性化工作协议对员工主动性职业行为和创造力的影响

个性化工作协议是员工和组织通过谈判协商, 自愿达成的非标准化工作协议。基于自我决定理论, 本文探讨了个性化工作协议对员工主动性职业行为和创造力的影响机制及其边界条件。通过分析230对“员工-主管”匹配数据, 本研究发现：个性化工作协议增强了员工基本心理需求满足(能力需求、自主需求和关系需求), 促进了主动性职业行为和创造力, 其中能力需求满足中介了个性化工作协议对主动性职业行为和创造力的影响; 此外, 较高水平的工作负荷不仅增强了个性化工作协议对员工能力需求/自主需求满足的促进作用, 也增强了个性化工作协议通过提升能力需求满足, 进而提升员工主动性职业行为和创造力的中介效应。     

Visual awareness and the levels of processing hypothesis: A critical review

Does a visual percept emerge to consciousness in a graded manner (i.e. evolving through increasing degrees of clarity), or according to a dichotomous, “all-or-none” pattern (i.e. abruptly transitioning from unawareness to awareness)? The level of processing hypothesis (LoP; B. Windey and A. Cleeremans, 2015) recently proposed a theoretical framework where the transition from unaware to aware visual experience is graded for low-level stimulus representations (i.e. stimulus “energy” or “feature” levels) whereas it is dichotomous for high-level (i.e. the perception of “letters”, “words” or “meaning”) stimulus perception. Here, we will critically review current behavioral and brain-based evidence on the LoP hypothesis and discuss potential challenges (such as differences in LoP conceptualizations, awareness scale related issues, attentional confounds and divergences on experimental factors or statistical analyses) which might be of use for future research within the field. Overall, the LoP hypothesis is a recent and promising proposal that attempts to integrate divergent evidence on the graded vs. dichotomous emergence of awareness debate. Whereas current evidence validates some of the assumptions proposed by the LoP account, there is still much work to do on both methodological and experimental levels. Future neuroimaging studies might help to disentangle the current complex pattern of results found in LoP studies and, importantly, shed some light on the ongoing debate about the search for the Neural Correlates of Consciousness (NCC).     

You are my happiness: Socially enriched happiness belief predicts life satisfaction,especially among the poor

ABSTRACT

What three words come to your mind in response to “happiness”? Using a free-association task [cf. Nelson, D. L., McEvoy, C. L., & Dennis, S. (2000). What is free association and what does it measure? Memory and Cognition, 28, 887–899], this research finds that the number of social words (e.g. family, love) provided in link to happiness predicts people’s actual life satisfaction level. However, this association was significantly moderated by the person’s self-perceived financial state. The contingency between holding a socially-oriented belief about happiness and experienced life satisfaction was significant among members of low socioeconomic status (SES), but not among the high SES group. This pattern was replicated across two divergent samples (Asian college students, Study 1; American adults, Study 2), regardless of one’s extraversion level (Studies 1, 2) and availability of social support (number of friends, Study 2). Given the overlapping function of money and social relationships (instrumental in promoting survival), believing in the social nature of happiness seems to be more central in the life satisfaction of those with less financial resource.     

The multisensory base of bodily coupling in face-to-face social interactions: Contrasting the case of autism with the Möbius syndrome

The perennial question of how we understand others’ emotions and mental states has undertaken an “interactive turn,” emphasizing the crucial role of low-level bodily coupling and second-personal engagements with others as opposed to the individualistic procedure of mental state attribution or “mindreading.” This raises the important question of what counts as foundational for socio-emotional understanding: high-level mentalistic abilities, low-level bodily coupling, or an integrative combination of both? Recent findings on face-based emotion-recognition in individuals with Möbius syndrome (MS) – a rare form of congenital facial paralysis which prevents facial mimicry – cast doubt on the idea that bodily coupling is the foundational component for socio-emotional understanding. Here we argue that the MS case does not pose a threat to the idea that low-level bodily coupling processes are foundational for social cognition. Rather, despite their lack of automatic facial mirroring, MS patients might benefit from spared multisensory integration processing which allows them to establish alternative channels of bodily coupling via different sensory modalities. We contrast MS- and autistic persons’ lack of automatic facial mimicry and argue that this comparison might help us to shed light on the constitutive and foundational role of low-level bodily coupling for socio-emotional understanding.     

The psychological construal of health behaviors

IntroductionIn order to optimize the effectiveness of behavior change interventions, we need to understand how the construal level – how we mentally represent or construe events or behaviors – influences health-related choices.ObjectiveTo examine the impact of mental construal on health decisions. Based on the Construal Level Theory, we predicted that people would give more weight to “cognitive considerations” when making a choice after being primed with the high-level perspective, whereas they would give higher weights to “sensory considerations” after being primed with the low-level perspective.MethodIn the first experiment, ninety-nine participants were primed with either high-level or low-level perspective across decision scenarios about vaccination and physical safety. The second experiment investigated nutrition decisions, which asked seventy participants to taste food that either had no label or was labelled “organic”. Organic label should prime high-level construal as it implies outcomes (e.g., product quality and healthiness) that are more distant in time and uncertain, in contrast with sensory dimensions (e.g. taste and appearance), which are immediately present. Participants rated cognitive and sensory considerations as well as action intentions.ResultsThe first study revealed that after the priming with the high-level construal, cognitive considerations became more important than sensory considerations in predicting protective action intentions, whereas after priming with the low-level construal, sensory considerations became more important. The second study revealed that only sensory considerations predicted decisions to consume the non-labelled product and only the cognitive score predicted decisions to consume the organic-labelled product.ConclusionWe demonstrated a moderating effect of construal-level mindset in health-protective decisions. We also discuss the implications for health promotion and policy, such as optimizing the effectiveness of behavior change interventions.     

Nussbaum’s Capabilities and Self-Determination Theory’s Basic Psychological Needs: Relating Some Fundamentals of Human Wellness

Research and theory concerning the nature and sources of well-being has been undertaken through varied approaches. Two such approaches are the capability approach and self-determination theory (SDT), both of which have postulated specific factors deemed necessary for human well-being and flourishing. In two studies we examine the relations between capabilities and well-being indicators, as well as the mediating role of basic psychological need satisfaction in these relations. Results indicate that both capabilities and SDT’s basic psychological needs are substantially associated with well-being, and that SDT’s basic needs partially mediate the relation between capabilities and indicators of wellness.     

Children’s Life Satisfaction: Developmental Trajectories and Environmental and Personality Predictors

Life satisfaction is a key indicator of children’s healthy development. Although the developmental changes of life satisfaction during adolescence have been investigated, the developmental trajectories of life satisfaction and related predictors during childhood remain unclear. Thus, the current study aimed to identify the developmental trajectories of life satisfaction covering the period from middle to late childhood as well as to examine the predictive roles of environmental factors (i.e., family dysfunction and basic psychological needs satisfaction at school), personality factors (i.e., neuroticism and extraversion), and their interactions in these developmental trajectories. An accelerated longitudinal design was used with Chinese elementary school students (N?=?1069, 45.8% girls, M _age?=?9.43, SD?=?0.95) of 3 cohorts (grade 3, grade 4, and grade 5) on 4 occasions at 6-month intervals. Growth mixture modeling analyses revealed three distinct trajectories of life satisfaction: “High-Stable” (88.8%), “High-Decreasing” (6.8%), and “Low-Increasing” (4.4%). Multivariate logistic regression analyses revealed that family dysfunction and neuroticism served as risk factors for adverse developmental trajectories of life satisfaction; whereas basic psychological needs satisfaction at school served as a protective factor. Furthermore, the interaction between family dysfunction and extraversion suggested that higher levels of extraversion buffered children against the negative effect of family dysfunction on the development of life satisfaction. The identification of three heterogeneous trajectory groups of children’s life satisfaction and key personality and environmental predictors associated with the trajectories suggests that specific interventions need to be tailored to the unique characteristics of the relevant trajectory groups.

     

Do Some People Need Autonomy More Than Others? Implicit Dispositions Toward Autonomy Moderate the Effects of Felt Autonomy on Well‐Being

The present studies examined whether implicit or explicit autonomy dispositions moderate the relationship between felt autonomy and well‐being. Study 1 (N = 187 undergraduate students) presents an initial test of the moderator hypothesis by predicting flow experience from the interaction of autonomy need satisfaction and autonomy dispositions. Study 2 (N = 127 physically inactive persons) used vignettes involving an autonomy (un)supportive coach to test a moderated mediation model in which perceived coach autonomy support leads to well‐being through basic need satisfaction. Again, the effects of need satisfaction on well‐being were hypothesized to be moderated by an implicit autonomy disposition. Study 1 showed that individuals with a strong implicit autonomy (but not power or achievement) motive disposition derived more flow experience from felt autonomy than individuals with a weak implicit autonomy disposition. Study 2 revealed that perceived autonomy support from sports coaches, which we experimentally induced with a vignette method, leads to autonomy satisfaction, leading in turn to positive effects on well‐being. This indirect effect held at high and average but not low implicit autonomy disposition. The results indicate that the degree to which people benefit from autonomy need satisfaction depends on their implicit disposition toward autonomy.     

Basic psychological needs and work motivation: A longitudinal test of directionality

Most work-related studies of self-determination theory (SDT) have focused either on satisfaction of basic psychological needs or on types of work motivation when studying motivational processes at work. The few studies that have considered both mechanisms have usually assumed that satisfaction or frustration of basic psychological needs is a prerequisite of different types of work motivation. Nevertheless, the directionality of this relation has not been explicitly tested in previous studies of the workplace. The current study explored the relations among managerial need support, basic psychological need satisfaction at work, and work motivation. It tested competing sets of hypotheses regarding the directionality of these three core constructs within SDT’s model of work motivation. A longitudinal analysis suggested that managerial need support was positively directly related to basic psychological need satisfaction but not directly related to work motivation. Further, results indicated that basic psychological need satisfaction was related to work motivation over time and not the other way around. In addition, it was found an indirect relation between in managerial need support and in work motivation through in basic psychological need satisfaction. These findings have important implications for future SDT research testing process models in the workplace.     

Wanting, having, and needing: integrating motive disposition theory and self-determination theory

Four studies explored the motivational and experiential dynamics of psychological needs, applying both self-determination theory and motive disposition theory. In all 4 studies, motive dispositions toward achievement and affiliation ("wanting" particular experiences) predicted corresponding feelings of competence and relatedness ("having" those experiences). Competence and relatedness in turn predicted well-being, again indicating that these 2 experiences may really be "needed." Illuminating how wanting gets to having, in Studies 2 and 3, participants reported greater self-concordance for motive-congruent goals, which, in longitudinal Study 3, predicted greater attainment of those goals and thus enhanced well-being. Study 4 replicated selected earlier results using an implicit as well as an explicit motive disposition measure. Supporting the presumed universality of competence and relatedness needs, in no studies did motive dispositions moderate the effects of corresponding need-satisfaction on well-being. Discussion focuses on a "sequential process" model of psychological needs that views needs as both motives that instigate and outcomes that reward behavior.     

Do implicit motives and basic psychological needs interact to predict well-being and flow? Testing a universal hypothesis and a matching hypothesis

Self-Determination Theory (Deci and Ryan in Intrinsic motivation and self-determination in human behavior. Plenum Press, New York, 1985) suggests that certain experiences, such as competence, are equally beneficial to everyone’s well-being (universal hypothesis), whereas Motive Disposition Theory (McClelland in Human motivation. Scott, Foresman, Glenview, IL, 1985) predicts that some people, such as those with a high achievement motive, should benefit particularly from such experiences (matching hypothesis). Existing research on motives as moderators of the relationship between basic need satisfaction and positive outcomes supports both these seemingly inconsistent views. Focusing on the achievement motive, we sought to resolve this inconsistency by considering the specificity of the outcome variables. When predicting domain-specific well-being and flow, the achievement motive should interact with felt competence. However, when it comes to predicting general well-being and flow, felt competence should unfold its effects without being moderated by the achievement motive. Two studies confirmed these assumptions indicating that the universal and matching hypotheses are complementary rather than mutually exclusive.     

Work Motivation in “Post-Socialist” Industrial Organizations

Abstract

This article describes a study into the needs and behavioural reaction patterns in a sample of 715 workers in Bulgarian industrial firms during the “post-Socialist” period. The findings from this study cast doubt on some popular views of the typical motivation and reactions to work in the former “Socialist society”. Our data suggest that higher order needs are dominant in the motivational hierarchy and are significant in determining work outcomes, such as satisfaction, tendency to leave, and stress. We found no evidence for a motivational stereotype characterized by a low level of work involvement, lack of initiative, obedience, etc. hypothesized by other authors. In order to gain a better understanding of work motivation, it is useful to differentiate needs from the opportunities to satisfy those same needs, as well as work motivation from behavioural reaction patterns that actualize the opportunities and relate them to personal outcomes. A specific behavioural reaction pattern seems to exist among Bulgarian workers as an adaptation reaction to the specific environment of the “(post-) Socialist” industrial organization. This pattern, identified as “egocentrism in work”, combines a high involvement in work with partial alienation, i.e. detachment from the organization and income.