Does inconsistency always lead to negative affect? The influence of need for closure on affective reactions to cognitive inconsistency

We present an experiment showing that need for closure (NFC)—defined as the epistemic desire for certainty—can moderate individuals' affective reactions to cognitive inconsistency. Informed by Kruglanski and colleagues' new theory, that cognitive inconsistency elicits negative affect particularly under certain circumstances, we find that NFC (i.e. the desire for certain, stable and unambiguous knowledge) influences the strength of consistency effects and resulting negative affect. More specifically, we find that individuals who are high on NFC experience more negative affect upon encountering an inconsistent (vs. consistent) cognition. However, when individuals are low on NFC, inconsistency is irrelevant, and their affect depends on whether the ultimate outcome of the cognition is positive or negative. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of this research.     

Managing organizational commitment: Insights from longitudinal research

This article summarizes what is known about the active management of affective organizational commitment (AOC) through a review of 58 studies employing longitudinal research designs. The review yields six broad categories of antecedents that have empirically demonstrated effects on AOC: socialization practices, organizational changes, human resource practices, interpersonal relations, employee–organizational relations, and a residual “other” category. Insights from the review include (a) that perceptions of personal attachment to the organization are among the most substantiated (but tenuous) strategies for enhancing AOC, (b) that theorizing and research efforts have focused almost exclusively on achieving high levels of AOC, and (c) organizations have been reticent to address situations when AOC is low. Implications and recommendations for the theoretical, research and practical advancement of AOC are offered.     

An anxiety-induced bias in the perception of a bistable point-light walker

Human sensitivity for social cues is exquisite, as illustrated by the ease with which simplified point-light movements invoke social and emotional responses. Compared to faces, these biological motion stimuli only recently started to be used to explore questions regarding social cognition and anxiety. We presented human point-light walkers that could be perceived as facing towards or facing away from the observer, and tested whether participants with high social anxiety would perceive these bistable stimuli differently, because this type of stimuli has particular relevance for them. The results showed that observers with high social anxiety tended to see walkers as facing away more frequently than those with low social anxiety. This may mean that high socially anxious observers are biased towards the more positive perceptual alternative because they are motivated to protect themselves against threatening social experiences, but we also explore alternative explanations. The findings are in line with the evidence for a positivity bias in perception, also called wishful seeing, but in contrast with the attentional negativity bias often found in social anxiety. We discuss reasons for this divergence and possible limitations of the current study.     

Affective Priming of Alcohol Schema in Coping and Enhancement Motivated Drinkers

This study investigated whether Coping Motivated and Enhancement Motivated drinkers differ in their degree of semantic activation of alcohol concepts on a primed Stroop colour-naming task following exposure to negative and positive affect primes, respectively. Participants were 48 undergraduates (not necessarily problem drinkers) who had elevated scores on the Coping Motivated or Enhancement Motivated subscale of the Drinking Motives Questionnaire - Revised. The Stroop task involved negative, positive and neutral primes that preceded alcohol and no-alcohol target words. As hypothesized, Coping Motivated drinkers showed semantic activation of alcohol concepts following exposure to negative but not neutral primes. Also as hypothesized, Enhancement Motivated drinkers showed semantic activation of alcohol concepts following exposure to positive but not negative primes. Unexpectedly, semantic activation of alcohol concepts was also observed among Coping Motivated drinkers following positive primes and among Enhancement Motivated drinkers following neutral primes. Theoretical implications are discussed, as are implications for improving cognitive behavioral interventions for problem drinkers.     

Associations between empathy and altruistic sharing behavior in Chinese adults

Previous research has shown that affective empathy, rather than cognitive empathy, significantly predicts people’s altruistic sharing behavior in economic games. However, most of these studies were conducted in Western populations. There might be cultural differences in the relations between empathy and altruism due to different levels of empathy between Western and Asian individuals. In this study, we measured different aspects of empathy in Chinese adults as well as their allocation offers in the dictator and ultimatum games. We found that cognitive empathy, but not affective empathy, was a significant predictor of adults’ altruistic sharing behavior in the two economic games. Subjective family income was also revealed to be a significant predictor of individuals’ altruism in the ultimatum game, such that people with lower subjective family income tended to be more generous. Potential implications of our findings are discussed.     

Need for Cognition and Affective Orientation as Predictors of Sales Performance: An Investigation of Main and Interaction Effects

Two constructs—need for cognition (NFC) and affective orientation (AO)—might be helpful in explaining and ultimately predicting two measures of sales performance: a self-rated behavioral measure and an objective sales measure. Specifically, we hypothesize (1) a positive relationship between NFC and sales performance; (2) a positive relationship between AO and sales performance; and (3) a positive interaction effect between NFC and AO on sales performance. The results of this study revealed both NFC and AO correlated with self-rated behavioral performance but only NFC correlated with both performance measures; suggesting that need for cognition may be the more influential of the two for sales organizations concerned with selling behaviors as well as sales outcomes. The hypothesized interaction effect was not supported.