Organizational citizenship behavior and performance evaluations: exploring the impact of task interdependence

The influence of task interdependence on the importance attributed to organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) in evaluations of employee performance was investigated in 3 studies. In Study 1,238 undergraduates were exposed to a task interdependence manipulation and a unit-level performance manipulation and provided citizenship ratings. In Study 2,148 master of business administration students were exposed to a task interdependence manipulation and then rated the importance of OCB in their evaluations of employee performance. In Study 3,130 managers rated the task interdependence in their unit of principal responsibility and the importance of OCB in their overall evaluations of employee performance. The results suggest task interdependence may affect the importance attributed to OCB by evaluators. Implications of these results are explored.     

Implicit and self-attributed achievement motives: concordance and predictive validity

As a complement to the literature on the discriminant validity of implicit and self-attributed motives, this study explored two issues that point to convergences: moderation of concordance between implicit and self-attributed achievement motives, and the role of the two types of motive as antecedents of achievement goals. Significant positive correlations were found between implicit and self-attributed need for achievement and between implicit and self-attributed fear of failure. Individuals higher in self-determination were more concordant in implicit and self-attributed need for achievement. Implicit and self-attributed achievement motives predicted achievement goals in a similar manner, and structural equation modeling yielded good fit for a conceptually parsimonious latent motive model. It is suggested that implicit and self-attributed motives converge in some respects (yet diverge in others), and implications for theory are discussed.     

Attachment and exploration in adulthood

In the present work, the relationship between attachment and exploration in adulthood is examined from both theoretical and empirical standpoints. Theoretically, attachment theory's exploration system is linked to R. W. White's (1959) concept of effectance motivation, and to the motive and goals constructs that are central to the achievement motivation literature. Empirically, 4 studies are presented that document a link between adult attachment (operationalized using categorical, continuous, and dimensional measures) and achievement motives (need for achievement and fear of failure) and achievement goals (mastery-approach, mastery-avoidance, performance-approach, performance-avoidance, and approach relative to avoidance personal strivings). Mediational analyses establish the role of challenge construal, threat construal, and competence valuation in accounting for the observed relationships.     

The effect of midazolam on conscious,controlled processing: Evidence from the process-dissociation procedure

The benzodiazepine midazolam produces a dense anterograde amnesia. Recent findings (see, e.g., Hirshman, Passannante, & Arndt, 2001) have demonstrated that midazolam produces larger impairments on explicit memory tests such as free recall and recognition memory than on implicit memory tests such as perceptual identification and free association. Such findings suggest that midazolam impairs conscious, controlled memory processes. In the present experiments, we used Jacoby's (1991, 1998) process-dissociation procedure to examine this hypothesis. Our results demonstrate that midazolam increases the production of old items on the exclusion task and reduces the production of old items on the inclusion task. Moreover, generation effects, hypothesized to arise from conscious processes, are reduced by midazolam on both tasks. Analyses using both independence and redundancy models of the process-dissociation procedure confirm the conclusion that midazolam impairs conscious memory processes.     

Behavioral activation and inhibition in everyday life

Joint effects of daily events and dispositional sensitivities to cues of reward and punishment on daily positive affect (PA) and negative affect (NA) were examined in 3 diary studies. Study 1 showed that positive events were strongly related to PA but not NA, whereas negative events were strongly related to NA but not PA. Studies 2 and 3 examined how the dispositional sensitivities of independent appetitive and aversive motivational systems, the Behavioral Activation System (BAS) and the Behavioral Inhibition System (BIS), moderated these relationships. Participants in Study 2 with higher BAS sensitivity reported more PA on average; those with more sensitive BIS reported more NA. Also, BIS moderated reactions to negative events, such that higher BIS sensitivity magnified reactions to negative events. Study 3 replicated these findings and showed that BAS predisposed people to experience more positive events. Results demonstrate the value of distinguishing within-person and between-person effects to clarify the functionally independent processes by which dispositional sensitivities influence affect.     

Opposing effects of income inequality on health: The role of perceived competitiveness and avoidance/approach motivation

Income inequality is commonly posited to elevate concerns about social status that undermine psychological health, but the empirical evidence is inconsistent. Here we propose that these inconsistencies conceal opposing processes: Income inequality prompts perceived competitiveness, which can both negatively predict psychological health via avoidance motivation and positively predict psychological health via approach motivation. First, we conducted a two-year longitudinal study (1,700+ participants from 500+ county identifiers) and provided support for our opposing processes model. Second, we conducted three pre-preregistered studies using an experimental-causal-chain design. We sequentially showed that induced income inequality increased perceived competitiveness (Study 2a; 444 participants), induced perceived competitiveness increased avoidance and approach motivation (Study 2b; 1,018 participants), and induced avoidance/approach motivation decreased/increased psychological health (Study 2c; 562 participants). These findings suggest that scholars should shift from studying the main effects of income inequality on psychological health to studying the psychological processes involved in the inequality-health relation.     

Goal striving, need satisfaction, and longitudinal well-being: the self-concordance model

An integrative model of the conative process, which has important ramifications for psychological need satisfaction and hence for individuals' well-being, is presented. The self-concordance of goals (i.e., their consistency with the person's developing interests and core values) plays a dual role in the model. First, those pursuing self-concordant goals put more sustained effort into achieving those goals and thus are more likely to attain them. Second, those who attain self-concordant goals reap greater well-being benefits from their attainment. Attainment-to-well-being effects are mediated by need satisfaction, i.e., daily activity-based experiences of autonomy, competence, and relatedness that accumulate during the period of striving. The model is shown to provide a satisfactory fit to 3 longitudinal data sets and to be independent of the effects of self-efficacy, implementation intentions, avoidance framing, and life skills.     

Dynamics of 1:2 Coordination: Temporal Scaling, Latent 1:1, and Bistability

The simplest interlimb multifrequency coordination of 1:2 can be performed at different speeds and in at least two different styles or modes. The effects of speed and mode (in-phase or antiphase) were evaluated in a bimanual 1:2 rhythmic task in which participants (N = 8) oscillated hand-held pendulums with identical or different uncoupled frequencies. A motion equation in relative phase that captures the asymmetries of components and task predicted the 1:2 coordination equilibria resulting from temporal scaling. According to the experimental results, both coordination modes proved to be equally stable. More detailed analyses of individual trials showed signs that the more fundamental 1:1 coordination intruded into the 1:2 coordination.     

The Benefits of Following Your Pride: Authentic Pride Promotes Achievement

Although the emotion authentic pride has been posited to promote achievement, it remains unclear precisely how this works. Here, we tested whether authentic pride promotes adaptive downstream achievement outcomes by motivating individuals to engage in appropriate behavioral responses to success and failure. In two longitudinal studies (N = 1,132), we measured pride emotional responses to a prior performance and subsequent changes in achievement‐oriented behavior and performance outcomes among (a) adults training for long‐distance running races and (b) undergraduates completing class exams. Authentic pride shifted in direct response to achievement outcomes, such that those who performed well felt greater pride. Furthermore, individuals who felt low authentic pride responded to these feelings by changing their achievement behavior in a functional manner. In Studies 2a, 2b, and 2c, we found that pride‐driven behavioral changes led to improved future performance among low performers. In these studies we also demonstrated that the effect of authentic pride on achievement is independent of that of self‐efficacy, which in fact works in an opposite manner. Taken together, these results suggest that authentic pride functions as a barometer of achievement, promoting behavioral responses that lead to improved performance.     

I Lost It in the Lights: The Effects of Predictable and Variable Intermittent Vision on Unimanual Catching

In this study, 2 competing views of interceptive action were examined by assessing the influence of variability in the interval between visual samples in a unimanual ball-catching task. Subjects were required to catch tennis balls projected over a distance of 14 m, under conditions of intermittent vision in which the between-sample intervals were either predictable or unpredictable. Results indicated that, although performance was best with shorter between-sample intervals, the temporal predictability of samples did not reliably affect catching performance. This suggests that between-sample retinal expansion provides sufficient information for the timing of the interceptive act.