Experience‐What is it?

The author takes a renewed look at the constitutive aspects of experience, looking at it as process rather than contents. Recently more psychoanalytic voices are discernible that argue for the complexity and multi-leveled nature of inner experience. Yet the predominant and preeminent psychoanalytic voice has traditionally emphasized the linearity and single-factored nature of experience and all that is based on it: development, object relations, psychopathology, and treatment. The author offers an understanding of experience as stemming from the operation of two contiguous, ongoing modalities of processing internal and external input, and reflecting two polarities of the subject-object experience: of separateness and instrumentality, and of oneness and ongoing being. Such a conceptual reframing of experience harbors multiple implications for understanding subjectivity and inter-subjectivity, inter-relatedness as well as single-person psychology, and the all-important role of an experiential 'goodness-of-fit' in the analytic situation and elsewhere.     

Goal pursuit in young adulthood: The role of personality and motivation in goal appraisal trajectories across 6 years

The aim of this longitudinal study was to examine changes in the appraisals of personal goals during young adulthood, and to investigate personality and motivation as predictors of goal appraisals. Israeli young adults (N = 284, 46% female) were assessed four times during ages 23–29 and reported on their goal appraisals (goal investment, goal momentum and goal stress), personality (efficacy and self-criticism) and motivation (autonomous motivation, controlled motivation, amotivation). The results showed mean stability for goal investment and momentum, whereas goal stress declined. Efficacy predicted higher goal investment and momentum 6 years later, while self-criticism accounted for individual differences in goal stress. Autonomous motivation predicted higher goal investment and momentum, while amotivation related to higher goal stress.     

Composition and consistency of the desired affective state: The role of personality and motivation

Using longitudinal and experience sampling designs, the consistency and composition, and personality and motivational predictors, of the desired affective state are explored. Findings indicate that, while the desired affect is relatively malleable throughout one semester, it is relatively stable throughout 1 week. Personality and motivations/goals were related to the content of the desired affective state. Extraversion, neuroticism, agreeableness, and conscientiousness were related to the content of the desired affective state. In addition, higher-order goals predicted the content of the desired affective state. Our results suggest that the content of the desired affective state may be largely dependent on personality, motivation, and, potentially, an interaction between personality and motivation.     

Attentional modulation of a figural aftereffect.

Evidence is reported that indicates that adaptation of the Schroder staircase is affected by attention. In previous work it has been shown that if subjects adapt to an unambiguous staircase, responses to an ambiguous test figure are biased towards the opposing perspective. In the current work, subjects adapted to superimposed upright and inverted Schroder staircases. Both staircases were centered on a common fixation point and were of different sizes and colors. Attention to each staircase was controlled by asking subjects to detect color changes in the line segments that defined one or the other staircase. Responses to an ambiguous test figure depended on which of the adapting staircases was attended.     

Learning from successful and failed experience: the moderating role of kind of after-event review

The claim that appropriate "after-event review (AER)" may increase the relative value of drawing lessons from successes, as compared with failures, was examined in the present study. The study was a laboratory experiment in which the effect of type of AER (failure-focused, success-focused, failure- and success-focused, and no AER review) on performance improvement and causal attributions was tested under conditions of earlier success and earlier failure. In general, 2 results were demonstrated: (a) Drawing lessons from successful experience is feasible, and its effectiveness is contingent upon the type of AER. More specifically, after successful events, the most effective review is that of wrong actions, whereas after failed events, any kind of event review (correct or wrong actions) is effective. (b) AERs elicit more internal (as opposed to external) and specific (as opposed to general) attributions. These 2 classifications moderate the effect of AERs on task performance.     

Outcome value and early warning indications as determinants of willingness to learn from experience

In this study of willingness to learn from experience, it was hypothesized that managers would show a negative outcomes bias, that is, a stronger tendency to initiate "learning-from-experience" processes after negative outcomes than after positive outcomes. Another aim of the study was to explore the impact of the existence of early warning signals about decision outcomes on the magnitude of the negative outcome bias. Eighty-three managers were asked to read vignettes describing a managerial decision and its outcomes. The outcomes were either positive or negative, and in half of the cases early warning signals existed that made it possible to predict potential negative outcomes while in the other half there were no such signals. The managers were asked to evaluate the need for a learning-from-experience process in general and to rate the degree to which several specific learning processes should be instituted in each of the scenarios. As hypothesized, a negative-outcome bias was found. The more negative the outcomes described, the stronger the managers' inclination to recommend a more intensive learning process. Similarly, a need to ensure control and follow-up procedures was reported mostly after negative outcomes. The existence of early warning signals before the decision was taken did not influence the motivation to learn. Theoretical implications regarding the impact of negative outcomes in general and implications for understanding learning from experience processes in particular are discussed.