Impression management and achievement motivation: Investigating substantive links

In this research, we investigate impression management (IM) as a substantive personality variable by linking it to differentiated achievement motivation constructs, namely achievement motives (workmastery, competitiveness, fear of failure) and achievement goals (mastery‐approach, mastery‐avoidance, performance‐approach, performance‐avoidance). Study 1 revealed that IM was a positive predictor of workmastery and a negative predictor of competitiveness (with and without self‐deceptive enhancement (SDE) controlled). Studies 2a and 2b revealed that IM was a positive predictor of mastery‐approach goals and mastery‐avoidance goals (without and, in Study 2b, with SDE controlled). These findings highlight the value of conceptualising and utilising IM as a personality variable in its own right and shed light on the nature of the achievement motive and achievement goal constructs.     

The ideal self at play: the appeal of video games that let you be all you can be

Video games constitute a popular form of entertainment that allows millions of people to adopt virtual identities. In our research, we explored the idea that the appeal of games is due in part to their ability to provide players with novel experiences that let them "try on" ideal aspects of their selves that might not find expression in everyday life. We found that video games were most intrinsically motivating and had the greatest influence on emotions when players' experiences of themselves during play were congruent with players' conceptions of their ideal selves. Additionally, we found that high levels of immersion in gaming environments, as well as large discrepancies between players' actual-self and ideal-self characteristics, magnified the link between intrinsic motivation and the experience of ideal-self characteristics during play.     

Time-specific Errors in Growth Curve Modeling: Type-1 Error Inflation and a Possible Solution with Mixed-Effects Models

Growth curve modeling (GCM) has been one of the most popular statistical methods to examine participants’ growth trajectories using longitudinal data. In spite of the popularity of GCM, little attention has been paid to the possible influence of time-specific errors, which influence all participants at each timepoint. In this article, we demonstrate that the failure to take into account such time-specific errors in GCM produces considerable inflation of type-1 error rates in statistical tests of fixed effects (e.g., coefficients for the linear and quadratic terms). We propose a GCM that appropriately incorporates time-specific errors using mixed-effects models to address the problem. We also provide an applied example to illustrate that GCM with and without time-specific errors would lead to different substantive conclusions about the true growth trajectories. Comparisons with other models in longitudinal data analysis and potential issues of model misspecification are discussed.     

Money enhances memory consolidation--but only for boring material

Money’s ability to enhance memory has received increased attention in recent research. However, previous studies have not directly addressed the time-dependent nature of monetary effects on memory, which are suggested to exist by research in cognitive neuroscience, and the possible detrimental effects of monetary rewards on learning interesting material, as indicated by studies in motivational psychology. By utilizing a trivia question paradigm, the current study incorporated these perspectives and examined the effect of monetary rewards on immediate and delayed memory performance for answers to uninteresting and interesting questions. Results showed that monetary rewards promote memory performance only after a delay. In addition, the memory enhancement effect of monetary rewards was only observed for uninteresting questions. These results are consistent with both the hippocampus-dependent memory consolidation model of reward learning and previous findings documenting the ineffectiveness of monetary rewards on tasks that have intrinsic value.     

Metacognition and proofreading: the roles of aging,motivation, and interest

The current study examined younger and older adults’ error detection accuracy, prediction calibration, and postdiction calibration on a proofreading task, to determine if age-related differences would be present in this type of common error detection task. Participants were given text passages, and were first asked to predict the percentage of errors they would detect in the passage. They then read the passage and circled errors (which varied in complexity and locality), and made postdictions regarding their performance, before repeating this with another passage and answering a comprehension test of both passages. There were no age-related differences in error detection accuracy, text comprehension, or metacognitive calibration, though participants in both age groups were overconfident overall in their metacognitive judgments. Both groups gave similar ratings of motivation to complete the task. The older adults rated the passages as more interesting than younger adults did, although this level of interest did not appear to influence error-detection performance. The age equivalence in both proofreading ability and calibration suggests that the ability to proofread text passages and the associated metacognitive monitoring used in judging one’s own performance are maintained in aging. These age-related similarities persisted when younger adults completed the proofreading tasks on a computer screen, rather than with paper and pencil. The findings provide novel insights regarding the influence that cognitive aging may have on metacognitive accuracy and text processing in an everyday task.     

Temperament and self‐based correlates of cooperative,competitive and individualistic learning preferences

People vary in the extent to which they prefer cooperative, competitive or individualistic achievement tasks. In this research, we conducted two studies designed to investigate correlates and possible roots of these social interdependence orientations, namely approach and avoidance temperament, general self‐efficacy, implicit theories of intelligence, and contingencies of self‐worth based in others' approval, competition and academic competence. The results indicated that approach temperament, general self‐efficacy and incremental theory were positively related, and entity theory was negatively related to cooperative preferences (|r| range from .11 to .41); approach temperament, general self‐efficacy, competition contingencies and academic competence contingencies were positively related to competitive preferences (|r| range from .16 to .46); and avoidance temperament, entity theory, competitive contingencies and academic competence contingencies were positively related, and incremental theory was negatively related to individualistic preferences (|r| range from .09 to .15). The findings are discussed with regard to the meaning of each of the three social interdependence orientations, cultural differences among the observed relations and implications for practitioners.     

Explaining the forgetting bias effect on value judgments: The influence of memory for a past test

People often feel that information that was forgotten is less important than remembered information. Prior work has shown that participants assign higher importance to remembered information while undervaluing forgotten information. The current study examined two possible accounts of this finding. In three experiments, participants studied lists of words in which each word was randomly assigned a point value denoting the value of remembering the word. Following the presentation of each list participants engaged in a free recall test. After the presentation of all lists participants were shown each of the words they had studied and asked to recall the point value that was initially paired with each word. Experiment 1 tested a fluency-based account by presenting items for value judgments in a low-fluency or high-fluency format. Experiment 2 examined whether value judgments reflect attributions based on the familiarity of an item when value judgments are made. Finally, in Experiment 3, we evaluated whether participants believe that forgotten words are less important by having them judge whether an item was initially recalled or forgotten prior to making a value judgment. Manipulating the fluency of an item presented for judgment had no influence on value ratings (Experiment 1) and familiarity exerted a limited influence on value judgments (Experiment 2). More importantly, participants’ value judgments appeared to reflect a theory that remembered information is more valuable than forgotten information (Experiment 3). Overall, the present work suggests that individuals may apply a theory about remembering and forgetting to retrospectively assess the value of information.     

I owe you: age-related similarities and differences in associative memory for gains and losses

Older adults often experience associative memory impairments but can sometimes remember important information. The current experiments investigate potential age-related similarities and differences associate memory for gains and losses. Younger and older participants were presented with faces and associated dollar amounts, which indicated how much money the person “owed” the participant, and were later given a cued recall test for the dollar amount. Experiment 1 examined face-dollar amount pairs while Experiment 2 included negative dollar amounts to examine both gains and losses. While younger adults recalled more information relative to older adults, both groups were more accurate in recalling the correct value associated with high-value faces compared to lower-value faces and remembered gist-information about the values. However, negative values (losses) did not have a strong impact on recall among older adults versus younger adults, illustrating important associative memory differences between younger and older adults.     

How Single Older Men Reach Poverty and Its Relationship with Help-Seeking Preferences1

This study aimed to clarify patterns of poverty among single older men and examine this population's help-seeking preferences. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 83 older single men in poverty. Three main patterns of poverty were identified: lifelong, job turnover, and retirement. A common characteristic among these patterns indicated that they did not recognize their difficulties as problems. Furthermore, we identified five groups of help-receiving preferences: independent, resignation, mutual-aid, other-oriented, and seeking. Among these, the independent and resignation groups were influenced by past experiences of failing to seek help, which was characteristic of the lifelong pattern type. Furthermore, the mutual-aid and seeking groups were oriented toward positive help-seeking, which was characteristic of the job turnover and retirement pattern types. However, neither group actively sought help for social isolation or lack of social support, suggesting that it would have been challenging to establish social relationships early on in life. Thus, it is important to establish initiatives that enable older people to understand their current state and to think about their future depending on three patterns of poverty.