A Meta‐Analytic Investigation of the Within‐Person Self‐Efficacy Domain: Is Self‐Efficacy a Product of Past Performance or a Driver of Future Performance?

We conducted a meta‐analysis to determine whether the within‐person self‐efficacy/performance relationship is positive, negative, or null and to compare the strength of the self‐efficacy/performance and past performance/self‐efficacy within‐person relationships. The self‐efficacy/performance within‐person corrected correlation was .23 but was weak and nonsignificant (ρ = .06) when controlling for the linear trajectory, revealing that the main effect was spurious. The past performance/self‐efficacy within‐person corrected correlation was .40 and remained positive and significant (ρ = .30) when controlling for the linear trajectory. The moderator results revealed that at the within‐person level of analysis: (a) self‐efficacy had at best a moderate, positive effect on performance and a null effect under other moderating conditions (ρ ranged from –.02 to .33); (b) the main effect of past performance on self‐efficacy was stronger than the effect of self‐efficacy on performance, even in the moderating conditions that produced the strongest self‐efficacy/performance relationship; (c) the effect of past performance on self‐efficacy ranged from moderate to strong across moderating conditions and was statistically significant across performance tasks, contextual factors, and methodological moderators (ρ ranged from .18 to .52). Overall, this suggests that self‐efficacy is primarily a product of past performance rather than the driving force affecting future performance.     

Cognitive and Affective Regulation: Scale Validation and Nomological Network Analysis

This research examined the nomological network of cognitive and affective regulation with two scales developed to operationalise these constructs within complex performance domains. Data demonstrated that cognitive and affective regulation were differentially related to self‐regulatory, affective, and achievement variables at the inter‐ and intra‐individual levels. Psychometric properties of each scale were supported via confirmatory factor analyses and multilevel modeling. Study 1 established support for internal consistency, unidimensionality, and construct validity; Study 2 cross‐validated the scales in a different performance context; and Study 3 demonstrated utility for capturing intra‐individual changes in self‐regulation and predicting performance. This research highlights the importance of examining cognitive and affective regulation at the intra‐individual level of analysis; and the new measures provide a valid tool for advancing progress in this area.     

Implicit awareness of ambiguity: a role in the development of obsessive-compulsive disorder

The cognitive-behavioral model of obsessive-compulsive disorder proposes that obsessional symptoms are the consequence of the manner in which intrusive cognitions are interpreted [e.g., Salkovskis, P. M. (1998). Cognitive-behavioral approach to understanding obsessional thinking. British Journal of Psychiatry, 173(35S), 53-63]. The present study suggests that this may be attributable to maladaptive implicit cognitive processing, a deficit that results in the explicit awareness of ambiguity in idiographic obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) stimuli. The present study examines decision-making responses of low and high OCD scorers in a non-clinical undergraduate sample. Via a computer console, participants were shown sentence statements for three levels of ambiguity. They were then presented with a propositional statement for which they had to indicate agreement or disagreement for sentences of varying ambiguity. After this, the participants indicated whether they were completely confident or unconfident as regards their previous agree-disagree decisions. Results indicate that the high compared to the low OCD scoring group had less agreement and subsequent less confidence in decisions made for sentences of varying ambiguity. Response latencies partially fitted the predicted hypotheses. Consequently, an addition to Salkovskis, Forester, and Richards' [1998. Cognitive-behavioral approach to understanding obsessional thinking. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 173(35S), 53-63] model of OCD is suggested: namely that an implicit ambiguity deficit mediates the likelihood of normally occurring intrusions developing into abnormal obsessions. Methodological limitations and future research are considered.     

Goal orientation profiles and task performance growth trajectories

Goal orientation theories were used to generate predictions regarding the moderating effect of goal orientation profiles on task performance growth trajectories. Participants were given multiple trials of practice on an air traffic control task. Analyses were conducted using growth curve modeling. As expected, individuals with high performance-approach orientation improved their task performance scores faster than their counterparts. The interaction between mastery and performance-avoid orientations moderated the performance growth curve such that individuals with high mastery and low performance-avoid orientation improved their performance at the fastest rate. The interaction between performance-approach and performance-avoid orientations also moderated the performance growth curve. Individuals with low performance-approach and high performance-avoid orientation improved their performance at the slowest rate. These findings contribute to theory and practice by elucidating how various combinations of goal orientations influence the rate of skill acquisition.

Age differences in visuospatial working memory

In two visuospatial working memory (VSWM) span experiments, older and young participants were tested under conditions of either high or low interference, using two different displays: computerized versions of a 3 x 3 matrix or the standard (randomly arrayed) Corsi block task (P. M. Corsi, 1972). Older adults' VSWM estimates were increased in the low-interference, compared with the high-interference, condition, replicating findings with verbal memory span studies. Young adults showed the opposite pattern, and together the findings suggest that typical VSWM span tasks include opposing components (interference and practice) that differentially affect young and older adults.     

Learning to de-escalate: The effects of regret in escalation of commitment

The current research investigates whether and how individuals are able to learn from one escalation situation to another, hypothesizing that post-escalation regret will reduce subsequent escalation. In Experiment 1, individuals participated in an escalation task after escalating their commitments in a first escalation situation. In Experiment 2, participants’ regret was manipulated by asking them to imagine engaging in an escalation situation. The experiments expand our theoretical and practical understanding of how to prevent escalation of commitment by demonstrating that escalation-specific regret—either experienced from an earlier escalation or primed through imagining an escalation scenario—reduced subsequent escalation in a different context. The discussion focuses on the theoretical and practical impact of regret and emotions in general in escalation of commitment.     

Fitting the child's mind to the world: adaptive norm-based coding of facial identity in 8-year-olds

In adults, facial identity is coded by opponent processes relative to an average face or norm, as evidenced by the face identity aftereffect: adapting to a face biases perception towards the opposite identity, so that a previously neutral face (e.g. the average) resembles the identity of the computationally opposite face. We investigated whether children as young as 8 use adaptive norm-based coding to represent faces, a question of interest because 8-year-olds are less accurate than adults at recognizing faces and do not show the adult neural markers of face expertise. We found comparable face identity aftereffects in 8-year-olds and adults: perception of identity in both groups shifted in the direction predicted by norm-based coding. This finding suggests that, by 8 years of age, the adaptive computational mechanisms used to code facial identity are like those of adults and hence that children's immaturities in face processing arise from another source.