Impact of Child and Parent Motivation on Social Skills Training Outcome

This study explores child and parent motivation at the start of a social skills training group program and its relationship with treatment outcome. A total of 59 children (aged 7–12) participated. Parents were more aware of, distressed by, and motivated to change the presenting problem than were their children. Greater parent awareness of their child’s difficulty making and keeping friends and perceived importance of their child learning ways to make and keep more friends significantly predicted more improved social skills. Increasing parents’ awareness and perceived importance of treating the presenting problem at the start of therapy may increase treatment effectiveness.     

Age differences in financial decision making: The benefits of more experience and less negative emotions

The emerging literature on aging and decision making posits that decision‐making competence changes with age, as a result of age differences in various cognitive and noncognitive individual‐differences characteristics. In a national life‐span sample from the United Kingdom (N = 926), we examined age differences in financial decisions, including performance measures of sunk cost and credit card repayment decisions, and self‐report measures of money management and financial decision outcomes. Participants also completed four individual‐differences characteristics that have been proposed as relevant to financial decision making, including two cognitive ones (numeracy and experience‐based knowledge) and two noncognitive ones (negative emotions about financial decisions). First, we examined how age was related to the four financial decision‐making measures and the four individual‐differences characteristics. Older age was correlated to better scores on each of the four financial decision‐making measures, more experience‐based knowledge, less negative emotions about financial decisions, whereas numeracy and motivation were not significantly correlated with age. Second, we found that considering both the two cognitive and the two noncognitive individual‐differences characteristics increased predictions of financial decision making, as compared with considering either alone. Third, we examined how these four individual‐differences characteristics contributed to age differences in financial decision making. Older adults' higher levels of experience‐based knowledge and lower levels of negative emotions seemed to especially benefit their financial decision making. We discuss implications for theories on aging and decision making, as well as for interventions targeting financial decisions.     

The Essentialized Self: Implications for Motivation and Self‐Regulation

Persuasion attempts are more likely to stick and less likely to be counterargued if they fit the ways people naturally make sense of themselves and their world. One way to do that is to yoke persuasion to the social categories people experience as “true” and “natural.” Gelman and Echelbarger's (2019) integrative review of essentialism outlines the emergence of essentialism in children's reasoning. Connecting their discussion with identity‐based motivation theory (D. Oyserman, 2015) and a culture‐as‐situated cognition (D. Oyserman, 2017) perspective, this commentary addresses how an essentialized self can facilitate or impair motivation and self‐regulation and potentiate or undermine persuasive efforts.     

Personality,Motivation, and Internet Gaming Disorder: Conceptualizing the Gamer

Using a group correlational design and path analysis, the authors examined the relationships among personality, motivation, and internet gaming disorder (IGD). Findings showed that significant predictors of IGD included male gender, neurotic and introverted personality traits, and motivation related to achievement.     

Servant leadership and follower voice: the roles of follower felt responsibility for constructive change and avoidance-approach motivation

Our study contributes to research exploring the differential antecedents of employee promotive and prohibitive voice. We first examined the mediating role of employee felt responsibility for constructive change (FRCC) in the positive relationship between servant leadership and their prohibitive and promotive voice. We then tested the differential moderating effects of employee dispositional avoidance-approach orientation, where the indirect effect of servant leadership on prohibitive voice is weakened for the high avoidance-motivated, and the indirect effect of servant leadership on promotive voice is weakened for the high approach-motivated. To test our hypotheses, multi-source data were collected from 231 supervisor-supervisee dyads working in a range of companies and sectors in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. As predicted, employee FRCC mediates the positive relationship between servant leadership and prohibitive voice and these indirect effects are significantly weaker for the high avoidance-motivated. We did not observe the predicted weakening effects of high approach-motivation on the indirect relationship between servant leadership and promotive voice. It seems servant leaders may be less influential for those avoidance-motivated individuals already predisposed to enact prohibitive forms of voice, such as voicing concerns about harmful organizational processes and practices. Implications for social exchange and role theories, and managerial practice, are discussed.     

Children lose confidence in their potential to “be scientists,” but not in their capacity to “do science”

Over the course of middle childhood, children's interest and beliefs about their own capacities for success in science often decline. This pernicious decline is especially evident among underrepresented groups, including girls, members of some racial and ethnic minorities, and children from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. The present research (N = 306, ages 6–11) found that while children lose interest and feelings of efficacy about their potential to “be scientists” across middle childhood, they maintain more robust interest and efficacy about “doing science.” These patterns were confirmed in both longitudinal and cross‐sectional analyses; effects were stable or increased across time and age. Mediation analyses revealed that the positive effect of action framing is partially accounted for by children's views that the group of people who do science is more inclusive than the category of scientists. These findings suggest that using action‐focused language to encourage children in science is more inclusive and may lead to more science engagement across middle childhood than language that emphasizes scientists as an identity category. Implications for educational practices will be discussed.     

负期望条件下的末期效应：情绪动机诱发风险寻求

风险决策中, 末期效应指“个体在重复多轮决策任务的末尾冒险倾向升高”的现象, 但其内在机制尚不明确。三个研究的结果发现, 在实验室环境和自然环境下, 不同期望(负期望值和等期望值)条件下被试在最后一轮的投资均会显著增加, 末期效应稳定出现, 且不受到最后一轮决策前被试所拥有的代币数量的影响。即, 就算在风险选项收益更小的情况下, 被试也会倾向于在最后一轮选择高风险选项, 且这一效应是参照点独立的, 这说明末期效应的出现是源于对情绪满足感的追求。未来研究可从这一点切入, 进一步研究情绪影响风险决策过程的机制。     

自主安全动机与安全绩效的多水平模型

自主安全动机对安全绩效的积极作用已引起研究者的关注, 但自主动机与安全绩效多水平的作用机制还未得到深入研究。结合自我决定理论与多水平动机过程, 个体与团队自主安全动机通过安全目标, 进而影响安全绩效; 在安全工作情境中通过对自主支持、工作重塑的干预促进自主安全动机。研究拟结合认知测量和问卷测量, 通过纵向研究、实验、准实验研究等方法探讨上述问题。研究结果一方面可拓展自我决定理论与安全绩效的研究; 另一方面为安全管理实践, 尤其是安全培训提供理论依据, 对高风险企业安全绩效的改善有积极的现实意义。     

利用无意识目标启动降低个体的冲动购买行为：个体目标状态的调节作用

冲动购买会给个体和社会带来诸多不良影响,而探讨如何降低冲动购买的研究报道却很少。此外,仅有的少数研究都是从提升自我控制能力的角度来开展,其干预方法具有一定的局限性。本研究从提升自我控制的动机角度出发,考察利用无意识目标启动能否降低冲动购买,并考察其适用条件。研究发现,无意识目标启动可以显著降低有省钱目标个体的冲动购买行为,而对无省钱目标个体的冲动购买行为没有显著影响。本研究结果提示,无意识目标启动有希望成为一种简单、便捷的降低冲动购买行为的有效干预方式,特别是对有省钱目标的个体而言。     

主人公的动机水平对句子理解中心理模拟的影响

通过两个实验, 考察了主人公的动机水平对句子理解中读者的心理模拟的影响。实验1采用移动窗口技术, 记录读者阅读句子中目的地词语的时间; 实验2采用视觉情景眼动范式, 主试播放描述运动的句子, 同时呈现相应的情境图片, 记录读者扫描图片中主人公、路径和目的地的时间。实验结果表明：(1)主人公的动机水平影响读者对目的地词语的阅读时间, 主人公的动机水平越高, 读者的阅读时间就越短; (2)读者对情景图片的扫描受主人公的动机水平影响, 主人公的动机水平越高, 读者对路径区域的扫描时间就越短, 对目的地区域的扫描时间就越长。两个实验均表明, 在句子的实时加工中, 读者可以通过再入情境, 遵循先内后外的顺序, 先模拟主人公的动机水平, 继而模拟主人公的动作, 从而影响对句子的注视和理解。研究结果支持语言加工的具身认知观。