Emotional and self-evaluative effects of social comparison information in later life: how are they moderated by collective self-esteem?

This study examined how the emotional and self-evaluative effects of social comparison in 162 community-dwelling older people were moderated by individual differences in their collective self-esteem (CSE), a trait that reflects valuing and identifying with reference groups. In our experimental simulation, administered 6 years after participants' CSE was measured, those with higher CSE reported significantly more positive emotions and self-evaluations only after downward comparison (i.e., with a worse-off peer), and significantly more negative emotions only after upward comparison (i.e., with a better-off peer). These findings contradict the possibility that an adaptive advantage of high CSE might result from the propensity to identify strategically with upward comparison targets. However, contrast with downward targets presents a viable alternative explanation for this advantage.     

Primary- and secondary-control strategies in later life: predicting hospital outcomes in men and women.

Community-dwelling individuals (n = 143, 73-98 years old) were assessed to consider if their use of task-specific control strategies predicted hospital outcomes in the subsequent 2 years. The authors were interested in whether men and women facing health-induced task restrictions benefited equally from the use of primary- and secondary-control strategies. Gender interacted with primary-control strategies; men's more frequent use of these proactive strategies generally related to fewer hospital admissions. Gender also interacted with secondary-control strategies; women's more frequent use of compensatory (self-protective) strategies corresponded to fewer hospital admissions and shorter hospital stay durations. Taken together, our findings suggest that men benefit by adopting certain primary-control strategies and women benefit by adopting certain compensatory secondary-control strategies.     

Attributional Retraining: reducing the likelihood of failure

Failing a course is an acutely negative event for first-year university students, and a major contributor to high attrition rates at North American universities. Despite its prevalence, course failure receives relatively little research attention. What can be done to reduce course failure and help first-year students remain in university? This study examined the efficacy of an Attributional Retraining treatment intervention to reduce course failure in an Introductory Psychology course. Attributional Retraining is designed to restructure students’ causal explanations of poor performance by encouraging controllable attributions such as effort and strategy in place of immutable causes such as academic ability or intelligence. Relative to students in the control group, first-year students who received Attributional Retraining were less likely to fail the Introductory Psychology course (14.6% vs. 6.4%). This finding emerged beyond the effects of several well-established predictors of academic outcomes including student background characteristics (i.e., age, gender, and past academic performance) and learning environment variables (student registration status and participation in a first-year orientation program), suggesting the utility of Attributional Retraining for students with varying backgrounds and in different educational contexts. To the extent that Attributional Retraining is effective, inexpensive, and relatively easy to administer it may be a viable option for inclusion in orientation programs designed to reduce course failure and attrition among first-year university students.     

A five-year study of older adults' health incongruence: consistency, functional changes and subsequent survival

In later life, optimistic health appraisals promote well-being and survival, whereas pessimistic appraisals can be harmful. This study contrasted subjective health (SH) appraisals with objective health (OH) to identify realists, whose ratings were congruent (SH?=?OH), distinguishing them from health pessimists (SH??OH) with incongruent ratings. Health congruence and functional well-being of 757 older adults were assessed via two interviews conducted 5 years apart. We examined consistency in health congruence, and among those with persistent OH, we examined 5-year functional well-being changes that corresponded with SH shifts and determined whether SH shifts predicted 30-month survival. Most realists remained realists; health optimists and pessimists tended to become realists. Increased health optimism corresponded with enhanced functioning; increased pessimism corresponded with decreased functioning. Among realists, increasingly positive SH predicted survival. Findings have implications for quality and length of life among older adults with chronic health conditions.     

Motivation-focused thinking: Buffering against stress-related physical symptoms and depressive symptomology

Developmental transitions are experienced throughout the life course and necessitate adapting to consequential and unpredictable changes that can undermine health. Our six-month study (n = 239) explored whether selective secondary control striving (motivation-focused thinking) protects against the elevated levels of stress and depressive symptoms increasingly common to young adults navigating the challenging school-to-university transition. Path analyses supplemented with tests of moderated mediation revealed that, for young adults who face challenging obstacles to goal attainment, selective secondary control indirectly reduced long-term stress-related physical and depressive symptoms through selective primary control and previously unexamined measures of discrete emotions. Results advance the existing literature by demonstrating that (a) selective secondary control has health benefits for vulnerable young adults and (b) these benefits are largely a consequence of the process variables proposed in Heckhausen et al.’s (2010) theory.     

Attributional Retraining: A Motivation Treatment With Differential Psychosocial and Performance Benefits for Failure Prone Individuals in Competitive Achievement Settings

Our quasi-experimental, longitudinal treatment study examined whether Attributional Retraining (AR) facilitated adjustment among young adults (n = 324) making the challenging school-to-university transition. An AR by performance orientation group 2 × 4 design showed AR primarily benefited high-risk students: Failure-ruminators (high failure preoccupation, low perceived control) receiving AR reported higher intrinsic motivation and more adaptive attribution-related emotions than their no-AR peers. Failure-acceptors (low failure preoccupation, low perceived control) receiving AR had higher intrinsic motivation, higher grade point averages, and fewer course withdrawals than their no-AR counterparts. Thus, AR had differential benefits (emotions, achievement) for vulnerable students who were psychologically distinct.     

A motivation-enhancing treatment to sustain goal engagement during life course transitions

Although theory-driven control striving treatments may sustain motivation for individuals navigating life course transitions, their efficacy during these challenging junctures remains unexamined. In a pre-post randomized field study (n = 316), a novel control striving treatment based on Heckhausen et al.’s (Psychol Rev 117:32–60, 2010) motivational theory of life-span development was administered to young adults making the landmark transition to university. For students who faced obstacles to goal attainment, the motivation-enhancing selective secondary control (SSC) striving treatment (vs. no-treatment) increased performance by 8 % in a two-semester course (74.85 % vs. 66.68 %). Consistent with theory, the SSC treatment-performance linkage was mediated by selective secondary and selective primary control in a hypothesized causal sequence. Findings advance the literature by showing control striving treatments can improve performance for some young adults in transition by promoting adaptive changes in theoretically-derived psychological process variables.     

Cell phones and grades: examining mediation by perceived control and anxiety

Social Psychology of Education - Considerable evidence shows that cell phone use (CPU) is detrimental to students’ academic achievement. However, researchers have yet to consider whether or...     

Perceived control and emotions: interactive effects on performance in achievement settings

Individual differences in cognitions and emotions play a critical role in difficult academic situations, such as the transition into college, a period infused with uncertainty. Perceived academic control (low vs. high) and emotions (course boredom, anxiety, and enjoyment) were examined to determine how they jointly predicted 620 first-year students’ achievement and attrition over an entire academic year. It was expected that students’ emotions would moderate the effects of high perceived control on achievement (final psychology grade, cumulative GPA) and attrition (overall course credits dropped). Regression results revealed several Perceived Control  ×  Emotion interactions that supported this moderation hypothesis: negative emotions impeded the benefits of high control (i.e., boredom and anxiety predicted worse performance in high-control students); positive emotions enhanced the benefits of high control (i.e., enjoyment predicted better performance in high-control students). Conversely, achievement emotions did not predict performance among low-control students. Together, these findings indicate that for a high level of perceived control to enhance students’ academic achievement and inhibit attrition, “adaptive” levels of emotions (lower boredom, lower anxiety, or higher enjoyment) are required. Implications for maximizing academic success among both low- and high-control students are discussed.

Later life health optimism,pessimism and realism: Psychosocial contributors and health correlates

Prior research has established positive outcomes of health optimism (appraising one's health as good despite poor objective health (OH)) and negative outcomes of health pessimism (appraising health as poor despite good OH), yet little is known about their contributors. We examined the role of psychosocial factors (life event stress, depression, dispositional optimism, perceived social support) in health realism (appraising health in accordance with OH), optimism and pessimism among 489 older men and women. We then accounted for the psychosocial factors when examining multiple health correlates of health realism, optimism and pessimism. Controlling for age, gender and income, regression results indicate that depression and social support were associated with less health optimism, while dispositional optimism was associated with greater health optimism among those in poor OH. Dispositional optimism was associated with less health pessimism and life event stress was associated with greater pessimism among those in good OH. Beyond the effects of the psychosocial factors, structural equation model results indicate that health optimism was positively associated with healthy behaviours and perceived control over one's health; health pessimism was associated with poorer perceived health care management. Health optimism and pessimism have different psychosocial contributors and health correlates, validating the health congruence approach to later life well-being, health and survival.