How communication goals determine when audience tuning biases memory

After tuning their message to suit their audience's attitude, communicators' own memories for the original information (e.g., a target person's behaviors) often reflect the biased view expressed in their message--producing an audience-congruent memory bias. Exploring the motivational circumstances of message production, the authors investigated whether this bias depends on the goals driving audience tuning. In 4 experiments, the memory bias was found to a greater extent when audience tuning served the creation of a shared reality than when it served alternative, nonshared reality goals (being polite toward a stigmatized-group audience; obtaining incentives; being entertaining; complying with a blatant demand). In addition, the authors found that these effects were mediated by the epistemic trust in the audience-congruent view but not by the rehearsal or accurate retrieval of the original input information, the ability to discriminate between the original and the message information, or a contrast away from extremely tuned messages. The central role of epistemic trust, a measure of the communicators' experience of shared reality, was supported in meta-analyses across the experiments.     

Never quite good enough: The paradox of sticky developmental relationships for elite university graduates

Drawing on the mentoring, education, and social psychology literatures, this longitudinal study examines how the persistence of developmental relationships from an elite graduate school influences subjective career outcomes during early career. Participants (n = 136) were surveyed about their developmental networks—a group of individuals who take an active interest in and action to advance a focal individual’s career—and subjective career outcomes over the 10 years (1996-2006) post graduation. Results show that although receiving mentoring from one’s entire developmental network was positively related to career-related self-efficacy and perceptions of career success, this was not the case for ties retained from graduate school. Continuing to receive mentoring support from developers from graduate school and further, from peers from graduate school, was negatively related to perceptions of career success. These findings offer insight into the dynamics and potentially negative consequences of developmental networks and highlight the significance of social comparison during early career.     

Making message recipients "feel right": how nonverbal cues can increase persuasion

Nonverbal cues are an inherent component of most persuasive appeals. We use regulatory-fit theory as a framework for understanding the effect of nonverbal cues on a message's effectiveness, and as a foundation for developing a new persuasion technique. We propose that when the nonverbal cues of a message source sustain the motivational orientation of the recipient, the recipient experiences regulatory fit and feels right, and that this experience influences the message's effectiveness. Experimental results support these predictions. Participants experiencing regulatory fit (promotion-focus participants viewing messages delivered in an eager nonverbal style, prevention-focus participants viewing messages delivered in a vigilant nonverbal style) had more positive attitudes toward a message's topic and greater intentions to behave in accordance with its recommendation than did participants experiencing nonfit. Feeling right was also greater for participants experiencing fit than for those experiencing nonfit and was associated with greater message effectiveness. Regulatory-fit theory provides a framework for making precise predictions about when and for whom a nonverbal cue will affect persuasion.     

“On the Move” or “Staying Put”: Locomotion,Need for Closure,and Reactions to Organizational Change1

Four studies conducted in various organizations in Italy, employing contemporaneous and longitudinal designs, tested hypotheses relating 2 personality constructs—need for cognitive closure ( Kruglanski & Webster, 1996 ) and locomotion tendency ( Higgins, Kruglanski, & Pierro, 2003 ; Kruglanski et al., 2000 )—to individuals’ ability to successfully cope with organizational change. Across diverse organizational settings, populations studied, types of organizational change implemented, and measures of coping with change, we found that need for closure was negatively related, and locomotion tendency was positively related, to coping with change. We also found that the negative relation between need for closure and coping was attenuated where organizational climate is supportive of change, and that degree of successful coping with change determines post‐change work attitudes.     

Shared Reality: Experiencing Commonality With Others' Inner States About the World

ABSTRACT— Humans have a fundamental need to experience a shared reality with others. We present a new conceptualization of shared reality based on four conditions. We posit (a) that shared reality involves a (subjectively perceived) commonality of individuals' inner states (not just observable behaviors); (b) that shared reality is about some target referent; (c) that for a shared reality to occur, the commonality of inner states must be appropriately motivated; and (d) that shared reality involves the experience of a successful connection to other people's inner states. In reviewing relevant evidence, we emphasize research on the saying-is-believing effect , which illustrates the creation of shared reality in interpersonal communication. We discuss why shared reality provides a better explanation of the findings from saying-is-believing studies than do other formulations. Finally, we examine relations between our conceptualization of shared reality and related constructs (including empathy, perspective taking, theory of mind, common ground, embodied synchrony, and socially distributed knowledge) and indicate how our approach may promote a comprehensive and differentiated understanding of social-sharing phenomena.     

The Perfect Mix: Regulatory Complementarity and the Speed-Accuracy Balance in Group Performance

ABSTRACT— In this research, we varied the composition of 4-member groups. One third of the groups consisted exclusively of "locomotors," individuals predominantly oriented toward action. Another third of the groups consisted exclusively of "assessors," individuals predominantly oriented toward evaluation. The final third of the groups consisted of a mix of locomotors and assessors. We found that the groups containing only locomotors were faster than the groups containing only assessors, and the groups containing only assessors were more accurate than the groups containing only locomotors. The groups containing a mix of assessors and locomotors were as fast as the groups containing only locomotors and as accurate as the groups containing only assessors. These results echo findings at the individual level of analysis, and suggest that the testing and action components of operating systems independently contribute to performance both intra- and interpersonally.     

Priming the ant or the grasshopper in people's mind: How regulatory mode affects inter‐temporal choices

The present study examined the influence of two regulatory mode concerns—a locomotion concern with movement from state to state and an assessment concern with making comparisons—on choices between immediate and delayed (from 2 to 6 weeks) money rewards. Regulatory mode orientation was induced by means of a priming procedure. We predicted that the choices in the assessment condition would be less impulsive and more far‐sighted than those in the locomotion condition. After taking into account the effects of amount of early reward, length of delay and increase in delayed reward—all of which were in the direction of previous studies—this regulatory mode prediction was supported. Our findings suggest that it might be possible to induce more far‐sighted (or economically rational) inter‐temporal choices by means of instructions that induce an assessment orientation independent of stable inter‐individual differences in discount rate. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Strategies of self‐regulation in goal attainment versus goal maintenance

We propose that there exists an important difference between attainment and maintenance in terms of the goal pursuit strategies for which they call. Specifically, we propose that goal attainment calls for the use of eager approach strategies, whereas goal maintenance calls for the use of vigilant avoidance strategies. We distinguish between attainment versus maintenance as two different goal pursuit conditions on the one hand, and promotion versus prevention focus as two different self‐regulatory concerns on the other hand. We then use insights from Regulatory Fit Theory to make predictions concerning the interactive effects of these two motivational dimensions on outcome valuations. Consistent with our proposal about attainment and maintenance, we found that participants in a promotion focus valued the outcome of an attainment task more than did participants in a prevention focus, whereas the opposite was true for a maintenance task. Implications for maintenance‐related phenomena such as belief perseverance effects are subsequently discussed. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Self-discrepancies and emotional vulnerability: how magnitude, accessibility, and type of discrepancy influence affect

Two studies examined whether the type of emotional change experienced by individuals is influenced by the magnitude and accessibility of the different types of self-discrepancies they possess. In both studies, subjects filled out a measure of self-discrepancy a few weeks prior to the experimental session. Subjects were asked to list up to 10 attributes each for different self-states--their actual self, their ideal self (their own or others' hopes and goals for them), and their ought self (their own or others' beliefs about their duty and obligations). Magnitude of self-discrepancy was calculated by comparing the attributes in the actual self to the attributes in either the ideal self or the ought self, with the total number of attribute pairs that matched being subtracted from the total number of attribute pairs that mismatched. In Study 1, subjects were asked to imagine either a positive event or a negative event and were then given a mood measure and a writing-speed task. Subjects with a predominant actual:ideal discrepancy felt more dejected (e.g., sad) and wrote more slowly in the negative event condition than in the positive event condition, whereas subjects with a predominant actual:ought discrepancy, if anything, felt more agitated (e.g., afraid) and wrote more quickly in the negative event condition. In Study 2, subjects were selected who were either high in both kinds of discrepancies or low in both. Half of the subjects in each group were asked to discuss their own and their parents' hopes and goals for them (ideal priming), and the other half were asked to discuss their own and their parents' beliefs concerning their duty and obligations (ought priming). For high-discrepancy subjects, but not low-discrepancy subjects, ideal priming increased their dejection whereas ought priming increased their agitation. The implications of these findings for identifying cognitive-motivational factors that may serve as vulnerability markers for emotional problems is discussed.