Nine- and twelve-month-old infants relate emotions to people's actions

Under investigation was whether 9- to 12-month-olds appreciate that a person's expression of pleasure when gazing toward an object is consistent with that person's subsequent handling of the object. Infants were randomly assigned to an experimental and control group. In the experimental group infants during the pretrials saw a Happy or an Unhappy person saying either “Oh I like objects” or, “I don't like objects”, respectively, while looking at an abstract object. In the habituation phase, infants saw an actor holding the abstract object, but the emotional expression of the actor was obscured. In the posttrial, infants were alternately presented with either the Happy or the Unhappy actor holding the object. In the control group, infants received the same three phase procedure, except that no object was present during the pre- and habituation trials. Analyses comparing the between-subjects variables revealed that infants in the Experimental group looked significantly longer at the Unhappy actor than infants in the Control group but less long at the Happy actor. This study is the first to compare positive and negative emotions and to show that infants as young as 9 months use these emotions to make inferences about people's subsequent actions on objects.     

Intrinsic motivation and sustained art activity among male fine and applied artists

Studies of fine artists (e.g., painters, sculptors, photographers) indicate that many experience intrinsic motivation. However, questions can be raised about whether intrinsic motivation can be sustained over time. Because economic support for art is sporadic, meager, or nonexistent, many fine artists shift from one unrelated job to another—exhibiting a fluid career pattern. Such a career pattern would be difficult to withstand for any prolonged period of time because of economic uncertainties, familial pressures, and social status. The present study compared the responses of fine artists in fluid careers (n = 6) with those of applied artists in stable careers (n = 6) regarding whether and why they produce art (at the start of mid‐life). Both groups were queried 18–20 years after attending art school together. A content analysis and chi‐square test revealed that the fine artists were significantly more likely than the applied artists to offer intrinsic motives as an explanation for why they produced art. Theories of intrinsic motivation were utilized to account for the sustained activity. The results suggest fruitful directions for future research.     

Goal Internalization and Outcome Expectancy in Adolescent Anxiety

Anxiety has been conceptualized in terms of increased avoidance motivation and higher expectancies of undesirable outcomes. However, anxiety research has hitherto not examined an important qualitative aspect of motivation: the degree to which reasons for goal pursuit are experienced as controlling and originating outside the core self. We asked 70 adolescents (34 boys, 36 girls; aged 16–18 years) to list their important approach and avoidance goals, and rate the extent to which they pursued each goal for intrinsic, identified, introjected and external reasons. Participants also rated goal importance, expectancies for goal outcomes, and completed an anxious symptom measure. Broadly in line with predictions, anxiety was significantly associated with introjected reasons for pursuing approach goals and external reasons for pursuing avoidance goals but not with autonomous reasons for goal pursuit. As predicted, anxiety was significantly associated with heightened expectancies of undesirable avoidance goal outcomes, but not with expectancies for desirable approach goal outcomes. Results suggest that the salient role of avoidance-based motivation in anxiety extends to introjected reasons underlying approach goal pursuit. Our findings point to the theoretical and clinical importance of addressing controlled reasons for goal pursuit in adolescent anxiety.