Nonconscious goal pursuit and the surmounting of physical and social obstacles

The ability to overcome obstacles is widely regarded as a sign of motivation. Building on recent research on nonconscious goal pursuit, two experiments are presented that test whether activating the goal of helping outside people's awareness by exposure to social stereotypes causes them to overcome physical and social obstacles. Experiment 1 established that although overall participants were less inclined to pick up a tissue that was accidentally dropped on the floor by the experimenter when this tissue was dirty instead of clean, they were able to overcome their aversion toward picking up the physical object when they were primed with the mental representation of a social group (e.g., nurse) containing the goal of helping. Results were replicated in Experiment 2, in which participants had to overcome a social obstacle by providing feedback to a student of a negatively evaluated ethnic minority group, and explanations in terms of demand characteristics and mood were excluded. Implications for the literature on nonconscious goal pursuit are briefly discussed. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Can Ego-Depletion Be Helpful? Testing the Process Model Implication That Ego-Depletion Reduces Irrational Persistence

The present research investigated the effect of state self-control on irrational persistence, which refers to pursuing a course of action beyond when the effort can no longer be justified given the cost of persisting and/or probability of success. In 3 studies, ego-depletion reduced the level of irrational persistence displayed by participants. In Study 1, ego-depleted participants were less tolerant of ineffective default computer settings that wasted their time. In Study 2, ego-depleted participants solved more anagrams than nondepleted participants when given only a limited amount of time to solve anagrams that ranged from easy to difficult and skipping was allowed. Study 3 conceptually replicate the effect of Study 2 but produced a smaller effect size.     

An asymmetry between memory encoding and retrieval. Revelation, generation, and transfer-appropriate processing

Transfer-appropriate-processing accounts of memory emphasize the similarity of encoding and retrieval processes, and imply that experimental manipulations should have similar effects on encoding and retrieval. Exceptions to this expectation are thus of great interest, but extant exceptions (produced by studies using divided attention, alcohol, and benzodiazepines) are debatable, single dissociations between encoding and retrieval. The present experiments demonstrate a reversed dissociation, in which the same variable produced opposite effects when implemented at encoding and retrieval. At encoding, participants either solved anagrams of study words or read intact study words. At retrieval, participants likewise solved anagrams or read intact words prior to making recognition memory judgments. Compared with reading intact words, solving anagrams at encoding enhanced later recognition accuracy, whereas solving anagrams at test impaired accuracy. These results were obtained with old/new decisions (Experiment 1) and with confidence ratings (Experiment 2).     

The effect of aversive consequences upon persistent behavior

It was hypothesized that if a behavior is freely engaged in with the expectancy that an aversive consequence will follow, the intrinsic motivation to perform that behavior will increase when the aversive consequence is no longer present. Subjects either worked on a list of anagrams while receiving electric shock on a VR schedule, while being threatened by electric shock, or in the absence of shock. The experimenter then left the subject alone for 10 minutes with a new list of anagrams. Subjects in the shock condition solved more anagrams on the posttest than subjects in the threat-of-shock and noshock conditions. Subjects in both the shock condition and the threat-of-shock condition reported that they spent more of their free time on the anagrams than subjects in the no-shock condition.     

Failure to replicate the Mehta and Zhu (2009) color-priming effect on anagram solution times

Mehta and Zhu (Science, 323, 1226–1229, 2009) hypothesized that the color red induces avoidance motivation and that the color blue induces approach motivation. In one experiment, they reported that anagrams of avoidance motivation words were solved more quickly on red backgrounds and that approach motivation anagrams were solved more quickly on blue backgrounds. Reported here is a direct replication of that experiment, using the same anagrams, instructions, and colors, with more than triple the number of participants used in the original study. The results did not show the Mehta and Zhu color-priming effects, even though statistical power was sufficient to detect the effect. The results call into question the existence of their color-priming effect on the solution of anagrams.     

The effect of superstitious belief on performance following an unsolvable problem

Two experiments investigated the hypothesis that performance is not impaired following instances of uncontrollability when superstitious beliefs are invoked. In Experiment 1, undergraduates worked on an anagrams task following exposure to either a solvable or unsolvable word puzzle. Level of superstitious belief was assessed using Tobacyk, 1988 revised Paranormal Belief Scale. Following the unsolvable problem, students with a high level of superstitious belief solved more anagrams than students with a low level of superstitious belief. In Experiment 2, level of superstitious belief was assessed both before and after working on a solvable or unsolvable puzzle. Reported level of superstitious belief increased following exposure to unsolvable, but not solvable problems. These studies support the hypothesis that participants invoke superstitious beliefs during instances of uncontrollability, which may prevent or interrupt subsequent performance impairment.     

Line-bisectioning and obstacle avoidance: Evidence for separate strategies

Previous studies have frequently applied a combination of line-bisection tasks (in which participants indicate the middle of a line) and obstacle avoidance tasks (in which participants move their hand between two obstacles) with the aim of revealing perception–action dissociations in certain neurological disorders, such as visual form agnosia and optic ataxia. However, valid conclusions about the underlying processing pathways can only be drawn if participants apply the same strategy in both tasks (i.e. finding the middle between the obstacles). Yet, this assumption has never been tested directly. In this experiment, we investigated whether participants perform obstacle avoidance and line-bisectioning using similar strategies by manipulating the position of the obstacles and the start position of the hand relative to the obstacles. Our results indicate that the lateral hand position during obstacle avoidance does not only vary as a function of obstacle location but also strongly depends on the start position. Moreover, participants showed increased sensitivity to obstacle shifts occurring closer to the hand's start position. In contrast, during line-bisectioning the sensitivity to obstacles shifts was unaffected by the hand's start position. The findings suggest that during obstacle-avoidance the need to keep a safe distance from the obstacles is balanced with the requirement to minimise energetic demands. In contrast, the main intention during line-bisectioning is to move to the perceived midpoint as accurately as possible. The fact that very different constraints underlie trajectory planning in both tasks implies that caution has to be taken when interpreting differences in performance levels.     

Goals and responses to failure: Knowing when to hold them and when to fold them

The ability to disengage from hopeless situations is critical to goal attainment and effective self-regulation. Two experiments investigated the effects of striving to attain success (approach goals) versus striving to avoid failure (avoidance goals) on persistence. Participants completed anagrams designed so that less persistence during an initial set of unsolvable anagrams was beneficial. In Study 1, participants reported how motivated they were by approach and avoidance goals. In Study 2, participants were primed to set approach or avoidance goals. Participants with avoidance goals persisted longer during failure, with more intense and enduring emotional distress, than those with approach goals. Greater anger predicted spending more time on subsequent unsolvable anagrams and accounted for differences in persistence. The results suggest that people with approach goals are better able to identify when they should disengage during failure, and disengage more completely, than people with avoidance goals. An earlier version of this article was presented at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology conference, Palm Springs, CA, January, 2006.     

Source-monitoring judgments about anagrams and their solutions: Evidence for the role of cognitive operations information in memory

Generating solutions to anagrams leads to a memory advantage for those solutions, with generated words remembered better than words simply read. However, an additional advantage is not typically found for solutions to difficult anagrams relative to solutions to easy ones, presenting a challenge for the cognitive effort explanation of the generation effect. In the present series of experiments, the effect of manipulating anagram difficulty is explored further by introducing two new source-monitoring judgments. These studies demonstrate that when attention is directed at test to the operations activated during encoding (by way of source-monitoring judgments focused on solving vs. constructing anagrams), a source advantage is observed for difficult anagrams. However, when attention is directed to the anagrams themselves, asking participants to remember the kinds of anagrams generated or solved (based on kind of rule rather than subjective impressions of difficulty), a similar source advantage is not observed. The present studies bring a new perspective to the investigation of difficulty manipulations on memory for problem solving by illustrating the impact of a shift in focus from the effort mediating cognitive operations to specifics about the cognitive operations themselves.     

Vicariously Learned Helplessness: The Role of Perceived Dominance and Prestige of a Model

Prior research has examined the relationship between various model characteristics (e.g., age, competence, similarity) and the likelihood that the observers will experience vicariously learned helplessness. However, no research in this area has investigated dominance as a relevant model characteristic. This study explored whether the vicarious acquisition of learned helplessness could be mediated by the perceived dominance of a model. Participants observed a model attempting to solve anagrams. Across participant groups, the model displayed either dominant or nondominant characteristics and was either successful or unsuccessful at solving the anagrams. The characteristics displayed by the model significantly affected observers’ ratings of his dominance and prestige. After viewing the model, participants attempted to solve 40 anagrams. When the dominant model was successful, observers solved significantly more anagrams than when he was unsuccessful. This effect was not found when the model was nondominant.     

Acquisition of navigation by chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) in an automated fingermaze task

These experiments investigated how chimpanzees learn to navigate visual fingermazes presented on a touch monitor. The aim was to determine whether training the subjects to solve several different mazes would establish a generalized map-reading skill such that they would solve new mazes correctly on the first presentation. In experiment 1, two captive adult female chimpanzees were trained to move a visual object (a ball) with a finger over the monitor surface toward a target through a grid of obstacles that formed a maze. The task was fully automated with storage of movement paths on individual trials. Training progressed from very simple mazes with one obstacle to complex mazes with several obstacles. The subjects learned to move the ball to the target in a curved path so as to avoid obstacles and blind alleys. After training on several mazes, both subjects developed a high level of efficiency in moving the ball to the target in a path that closely approached the ideal shortest path. New mazes were then presented to determine whether the subjects had acquired a more generalized maze-solving performance. The subjects solved 65–100% of the new mazes the first time they were presented by moving the ball around obstacles to the target without making detours into blind alleys. In experiment 2, one of the chimpanzees was trained using mazes with two routes to the target. One of the routes was blocked at one of many possible locations. After training to avoid the blind alley in different mazes, new mazes were presented that also had one route blocked. The subject correctly solved 90.7% of the novel mazes. When the mazes had one short and one long open route to the target the subject preferred the shorter route. When the short route was blocked, the subject solved only 53.3% of the mazes because of the preference for the shorter route even when blocked. The overall results suggest that with the training methods used the subjects learned to solve specific mazes with a trial-and-error method. Although both subjects were able to solve many of the novel mazes they did not fully develop a more general "map-reading" skill. Accepted after revision: 30 July 2001 Electronic Publication     

Perspective taking as egocentric anchoring and adjustment

The authors propose that people adopt others' perspectives by serially adjusting from their own. As predicted, estimates of others' perceptions were consistent with one's own but differed in a manner consistent with serial adjustment (Study 1). Participants were slower to indicate that another's perception would be different from--rather than similar to--their own (Study 2). Egocentric biases increased under time pressure (Study 2) and decreased with accuracy incentives (Study 3). Egocentric biases also increased when participants were more inclined to accept plausible values encountered early in the adjustment process than when inclined to reject them (Study 4). Finally, adjustments tend to be insufficient, in part, because people stop adjusting once a plausible estimate is reached (Study 5).     

Discovery misattribution: when solving is confused with remembering

This study explored the discovery misattribution hypothesis, which posits that the experience of solving an insight problem can be confused with recognition. In Experiment 1, solutions to successfully solved anagrams were more likely to be judged as old on a recognition test than were solutions to unsolved anagrams regardless of whether they had been studied. Experiment 2 demonstrated that anagram solving can increase the proportion of "old" judgments relative to words presented outright. Experiment 3 revealed that under certain conditions, solving anagrams influences the proportion of "old" judgments to unrelated items immediately following the solved item. In Experiment 4, the effect of solving was reduced by the introduction of a delay between solving the anagrams and the recognition judgments. Finally, Experiments 5 and 6 demonstrated that anagram solving leads to an illusion of recollection.     

Controllability,coping, efficacy,and distress

The present study had two central aims: to test the ‘goodness of fit’ hypothesis and to predict coping strategies (problem versus emotion focused) based on two types of situational control (objective and perceived). An experimental design assessed the relationship between control over a stressful situation (an anagram task), and the subsequent coping strategies used to confront that situation (situational coping) as well as psychological distress (state anxiety) and coping efficacy (operationalized as the number of anagrams solved). High control participants solved more anagrams and reported less anxiety than low control participants; they also were higher on task‐oriented coping and lower on emotion‐oriented coping. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Asymmetrical hemisphere activation enhances global–local processing

Decades of research focusing on the neurophysiological underpinnings related to global–local processing of hierarchical stimuli have associated global processing with the right hemisphere and local processing with the left hemisphere. The current experiment sought to expand this research by testing the causal contributions of hemisphere activation to global–local processing. To manipulate hemisphere activation, participants engaged in contralateral hand contractions. Then, EEG activity and attentional scope were measured. Right-hand contractions caused greater relative left-cortical activity than left-hand contractions. Participants were more narrowly focused after left-hemisphere activation than after right-hemisphere activation. Moreover, N1 amplitudes to local targets in the left hemisphere were larger after left-hemisphere activation than after right-hemisphere activation. Consistent with past research investigating hemispheric asymmetry and attentional scope, the current results suggest that manipulating left (right) hemisphere activity enhanced local (global) attentional processing.     

Expectations About Initial Interaction An Examination of the Effects of Global Uncertainty

This inquiry extended uncertainty reduction theory to include actors’ uncertainty about acquaintanceship in general (global uncertainty). Study 1 involved examination of the self-reports of 139 female and 85 male participants. Results of the analysis showed that participants high in global uncertainty define initial interaction in comparatively negative ways, more frequently attempt to avoid conversations with unfamiliar targets, perform less effectively when meeting others for the first time, and develop less satisfactory long-term relationships than persons low in global uncertainty. Global uncertainty also combined with participants’ sense of the self-assuredness-awkwardness of first encounters to predict initial interaction performance. Study 2 examined the conversational performance of 48 females and 28 males who had participated in the first investigation. This analysis revealed that, during the first minute of interaction, persons high in global uncertainty engaged in comparatively low levels of question asking but relatively high levels of disclosure. High globally uncertain participants were also rated less competent by their partners than were persons low in global uncertainty. Study 3 explored the relationship between global uncertainty, communication competence, and communication apprehension. Examination of the self-reports of 63 females and 49 males showed that persons high in global uncertainty are apprehensive when meeting strangers and enact acquaintanceship episodes relatively inexpertly, although the magnitude of correlations between the constructs provide strong evidence that global uncertainty is distinguishable from both competence and apprehension. The implications of these findings are discussed.     

Construal‐level Mindsets Enhance Behavioral Persistence in Response to Incentive Valence

In this research, we find that incentive valence and construal‐level mindsets can interact to influence behavioral persistence on challenging tasks. An abstract mindset improves persistence in response to positively framed incentives whereas a concrete mindset improves persistence in response to negatively framed incentives. This interaction effect can be observed even when the cues inducing construal‐level mindsets are not related to the incentives or the incentivized tasks. Participants in our studies were either positively or negatively incentivized to solve a set of difficult anagrams, and were primed with an abstract or a concrete mindset using spatial (Study 1) and social (Study 2) cues. The participants persisted longer in response to the positively framed incentive when primed with spatially or socially remote cues. In contrast, for the negatively framed incentive, participants persisted longer when primed with spatially or socially proximal cues. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Mental contrasting instigates goal pursuit by linking obstacles of reality with instrumental behavior

The self-regulatory strategy of mental contrasting a desired future with obstacles of reality instigates goal-directed behavior when expectations of success are high and curbs goal-directed behavior when expectations are low (Oettingen, 2000). Two studies show that mental contrasting paired with high expectations of success creates strong associations between obstacles of reality and behavior instrumental to overcome these obstacles; mental contrasting paired with low expectations of success leads to weak associations. Reverse contrasting and irrelevant content control conditions did not produce expectancy-dependent associations between obstacle and instrumental behavior. Importantly, the strength of these associations mediated mental contrasting effects on goal-directed behavior (Study 2).     

When an Object Appears Unexpectedly: Object Circumvention in Adults

Obstacles often appear unexpectedly in our pathway and these require us to make immediate adjustments. Despite how regularly we encounter such situations only few studies have considered how we adjust to unexpected obstacles in the pathway that require us to walk around them. The authors considered how adults adjust to the possibility of an obstacle appearing and then also how foot placement is adjusted to circumvent an obstacle. Fifteen healthy adults walked down an 11-m walkway, initially they were told this was a clear pathway and nothing in the environment would change (no gate), they then performed a series of trials in which a gate may (gate close) or may not (gate open) partially obstruct their pathway. The authors found that mediolateral trunk velocity and acceleration was significantly increased when there was the possibility of an obstacle but before the obstacle appeared. This demonstrates an adaptive walking strategy that seems to enable healthy young adults to successfully circumvent obstacles. The authors also categorized foot placement adjustments and found that adults favored making shorter and wider steps away from the obstacle. They suggest this combination of adjustments allows participants to maintain stability while successfully circumventing the obstacle.