Individual Differences in Work Motivation: Further Explorations of a Trait Framework

Empirical evidence on the conceptual and construct validity of the motivational trait taxonomy proposed by Kanfer and Heggestad is presented. 228 adults completed a shortened form of the Motivational Trait Questionnaire (MTQ), along with a battery of personality and ability measures. Relationships of the MTQ with personality measures show evidence of convergent and discriminant validity for trait constructs of Personal Mastery, Competitive Excellence, and Motivation Related to Anxiety. In addition, MTQ scale scores were generally unrelated to composite measures of fluid and crystallised intelligence. Examination of age differences showed a pattern of developmental decline in the achievement trait complex, but not the anxiety complex.     

Technological and medical advances: implications for health psychology.

Behavioral telehealth, health informatics, organ and tissue transplantation, and genetics are among the areas that have been affected by advances in technology and medicine. These areas illustrate the opportunities and the challenges that new developments can pose to health psychologists. Each area is discussed with respect to implications for practice, research, public policy, and education and training: recommendations are provided.     

Choice latency as a cue for children’s subjective confidence in the correctness of their answers

Research with adults indicates that confidence in the correctness of an answer decreases as a function of the amount of time it takes to reach that answer, suggesting that people use response latency as a mnemonic cue for subjective confidence. Experiment 1 extended investigation to 2nd, 3rd and 5th graders. When children chose the answer to general knowledge questions, their confidence in the answer was inversely related to choice latency. However, the strength of the relationship increased with grade, suggesting increased reliance with age on the feedback from task performance. The validity of latency as a cue for the accuracy of the answer also increased with age, possibly contributing to the observed age increase in the extent to which confidence judgment discriminated between correct and wrong answers. Whereas these results illustrate the dependence of metacognitive monitoring on the feedback from control operations, Experiments 2 and 3 examined the idea that control‐based monitoring affects subsequent control operations. When children were free to choose which answers to volunteer under a payoff schedule that emphasized accuracy, they tended to volunteer high‐confidence answers more than low‐confidence answers (Experiment 2) and more short‐latency answers than long‐latency answers (Experiment 3). The latter tendency was again stronger for older than for younger children. The results are discussed in terms of the intricate relationships between monitoring and control processes.     

Perceived Norms,Outcome Expectancies,and Collegiate Drinking: Examining the Mediating Role of Drinking Motives

The authors examined the mediational role of drinking motives in explaining the associations among psychosocial antecedents and collegiate drinking. Results indicated that drinking motives partially mediated the relationships between outcome expectancies, perceived norms, alcohol use intensity, and alcohol‐related negative consequences.     

Selection,optimization, and compensation strategies: Interactive effects on daily work engagement

The theory of selective optimization with compensation (SOC) proposes that the “orchestrated” use of three distinct action regulation strategies (selection, optimization, and compensation) leads to positive employee outcomes. Previous research examined overall scores and additive models (i.e., main effects) of SOC strategies instead of interaction models in which SOC strategies mutually enhance each other's effects. Thus, a central assumption of SOC theory remains untested. In addition, most research on SOC strategies has been cross-sectional, assuming that employees' use of SOC strategies is stable over time. We conducted a quantitative diary study across nine work days (N = 77; 514 daily entries) to investigate interactive effects of daily SOC strategies on daily work engagement. Results showed that optimization and compensation, but not selection, had positive main effects on work engagement. Moreover, a significant three-way interaction effect indicated that the relationship between selection and work engagement was positive only when both optimization and compensation were high, whereas the relationship was negative when optimization was low and compensation was high. We discuss implications for future research and practice regarding the use of SOC strategies at work.     

Assuring me that it is as ‘Good as New’ just makes me think about how someone else used it. Examining consumer reaction toward marketer‐provided information about secondhand goods

The current study explores consumer reaction to marketer‐provided information regarding secondhand products. Contamination fears and repugnance have not been addressed at length in consumer research. This study seeks to understand why consumers react negatively to used goods from a perspective of the Accessibility and Diagnosticity of information, addressing the issue of consumer reaction elicited by information about contamination of those goods by others. Specifically, it looks at the process of information processing in consumer reaction to marketer‐provided information, assuring them that secondhand goods are as good as new. Two studies were done to determine the difference in consumer reaction to information about a pair of pants between three conditions: used pants, used pants with assurance that they are as good as new and new pants. Results find that consumers may react negatively to positive marketer‐provided information, even if they believe it. Even though marketer‐provided information can persuade consumers to believe that a secondhand product is as good as new, consumer reaction is more negative than if consumers saw no such information. Negative emotions revolving around perceived contamination are elicited by this information that influences consumer reaction seemingly independent of beliefs about used goods. These results have implications for understanding the impact of information processing on consumer reaction to secondhand goods and to marketing communications in general. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Effortful processing deficits in children with reading and/or attention disorders

Three groups of educationally troublesome boys were contrasted with adequate students on several tasks tapping effortful processing. The nonhyperactive reading disabled (RD) group differed both from controls and two attention deficit disorder (ADD) groups, one with and one without hyperactivity (H), on aspects of a memory task involving acoustic and semantic associations. All three clinical groups differed from controls in memory for low-imagery as opposed to high-imagery words and in computational efficiency. A stepwise regression analysis to predict reading grade level showed age and WISC-R IQ to account for 38% of the variance with an additional 28% explained by the effortful task variables (multiple R = .83). It is theorized here that attentional disorder impedes automatization of number facts; and, inasmuch as RD children receive adverse attention ratings, even if not considered hyperactive, they, as well as ADD and H/ADD boys, exhibit this deficiency.