Exploring the complexities of value creation: The role of engagement strength

Regulatory engagement theory (Higgins, E. T. (2006). Value from hedonic experience and engagement. Psychological Review, 113, 439–460; Higgins, E.T. &; Scholer, A.A. (2009). Engaging the consumer: The science and art of the value creation process. Journal of Consumer Psychology) proposes that engagement strength plays a critical role in the creation of value intensity. We discuss the ways in which engagement, in this model, can be distinguished from arousal, motivation to act, and experienced difficulty. We distinguish between the mechanisms and predictions made by regulatory engagement theory versus cognitive dissonance theory and a goal systems approach. We also describe the complexities and conditions under which some sources of engagement strength (e.g., regulatory fit) may relate to value creation. For instance, while regulatory fit has more typically been associated with increased engagement strength, regulatory nonfit may also sometimes increase engagement by serving as an obstacle to be overcome. We review existing evidence and highlight open questions related to the role of engagement strength in creating value.     

The consequence of refreshing for access to nonselected items in young and older adults

We examined the effect of competition on briefly thinking of just-seen items. In Experiment 1, participants saw a set of either three related or three unrelated words and then read one of the words again (repeat) or thought briefly of one of the words (refresh). Participants read the set a second time, after which they either refreshed a second word from the set or read a new word. In comparison with reading a new word, response times were slower for refreshing the second item when participants had just refreshed than when they had just repeated the first item. This increase was larger for related words than for unrelated words and for older adults than for younger adults. In Experiment 2, a negative impact of refreshing was observed when participants repeated a different word from the set. The pattern of findings suggests that the negative impact of refreshing comes from increased competition from the refreshed item, rather than from inhibition of the nonrefreshed items.     

Digital piracy: an examination of low self-control and motivation using short-term longitudinal data.

The purpose of the present study was to examine the link between low self-control, motivation, and digital piracy. This study used short-term longitudinal data (i.e., once a week for 4 weeks) from undergraduate students (n = 292) and latent trajectory analysis. The results of this study revealed that the students had significant variability in initial levels and rates of change in digital piracy. The results indicated that whether motivation was treated as a time-invariant or time-varying measure, it along with sex (i.e., being male) had a significant link with the initial levels of digital piracy and that sex and low self-control had links with the rate of change. These results are discussed, and policy implications are made.     

The Effects of Phonological Short-Term Memory and Speech Perception on Spoken Sentence Comprehension in Children: Simulating Deficits in an Experimental Design

The roles of phonological short-term memory (pSTM) and speech perception in spoken sentence comprehension were examined in an experimental design. Deficits in pSTM and speech perception were simulated through task demands while typically-developing children (N \(=\) 71) completed a sentence-picture matching task. Children performed the control, simulated pSTM deficit, simulated speech perception deficit, or simulated double deficit condition. On long sentences, the double deficit group had lower scores than the control and speech perception deficit groups, and the pSTM deficit group had lower scores than the control group and marginally lower scores than the speech perception deficit group. The pSTM and speech perception groups performed similarly to groups with real deficits in these areas, who completed the control condition. Overall, scores were lowest on noncanonical long sentences. Results show pSTM has a greater effect than speech perception on sentence comprehension, at least in the tasks employed here.     

Creating shared reality in interpersonal and intergroup communication: the role of epistemic processes and their interplay

We describe research on the creation of shared reality in communication, emphasizing the epistemic processes that allow communicators to achieve confident judgements and evaluations about a communication topic. We distinguish three epistemic inputs: (1) the communicator’s own judgement about the topic (judgement of communicator); (2) the communicator’s perception of the audience’s judgement about the topic (judgement of audience); and (3) the communicator’s message to the audience about the topic (message of communicator). We argue that the influence of each input increases with the communicator’s confidence in the validity of that input. We review a variety of empirical studies in terms of this framework. We also address barriers to shared-reality creation in intergroup communication and describe interventions that work by increasing the validity strength of judgement of an outgroup audience. We discuss the relation between the present research and other approaches to social influence and social sharing.     

How preferences for eager versus vigilant judgment strategies affect self-serving conclusions

People are often motivated to reach self-serving conclusions during judgment. This article examines how such self-serving judgment outcomes are influenced by preferences for different judgment strategies. Two studies tested how preferences for eager (promotion-oriented) versus vigilant (prevention-oriented) judgment strategies affected self-serving explanations for success or failure. Regardless of their performance, those preferring vigilant strategies selectively endorsed a few explanations above others, whereas those preferring eager strategies more evenly endorsed multiple explanations. Furthermore, although the explanations selected by those preferring vigilant strategies were indeed self-serving (emphasizing personal responsibility for success and external circumstances for failure), the more balanced endorsement of multiple explanations by those preferring eager strategies was associated with attenuated self-serving tendencies. Finally, those preferring eager strategies were also less self-serving in their generalization from explanations of current performance to predictions of future performance. The larger implications of these findings for the role of strategic preferences in judgment are discussed.     

Persistence in a Putting Task During Perceived Failure: Influence of State-attributions and Attributional Style

Dans cette étude, on a examiné l’influence de l’état des attributions et le style attributionnel (AS) sur la persistance à court‐terme d’un échec perçu à une tâche de putting. 101 élèves débutants en golf ont participéà cette recherche. Deux épreuves de 8 putts ont été interrompues chacune pendant trois minutes. Durant cette période, on a mesuré la persistance individuelle en comptant le nombre de fois que le sujet essayait de putter. L’analyse des résultats montre que le style attributionnel influence la persistance à court‐terme contrairement à l’état des attributions. Les sujets ayant un AS “fort contrôle personnel” font montre de plus de persistance que ceux ayant un AS “faible contrôle personnel”. Ces résultats confirment ceux obtenus lors de recherches antérieures sur les bénéfices motivationnels d’un style attributionnel “optimiste” dans des situations d’échec lors de la réalisation d’une tâche. Des attributions instables sont particulièrement bénéfiques aux sujets ayant un AS externe/incontrôlable. Ces derniers ont un niveau significativement plus élevé de persistance que les sujets ayant un AS externe/incontrôlable mais qui ont fait des attributions causales stables. This study investigated the influence of state‐attributions and attributional style (AS) on short‐term persistence in a putting task during perceived failure. Participants were 101 novice golf students. Two trials of eight putts each were interrupted by a 3‐minute free period during which individual persistence was measured by calculating the number of putts attempted in the free period. Analyses revealed that attributional style influenced short‐term putting persistence but state‐attributions did not. Participants with a “high personal control” AS showed greater persistence than those with a “low personal control” AS, which supports past research on the positive motivational benefits of a more “optimistic” attributional style in task failure situations. Moreover, unstable attributions were particularly protective for individuals with an external/uncontrollable AS, in that they promoted significantly higher levels of persistence than was shown by external/uncontrollable AS individuals who made stable causal attributions.