Veronika Brandstätter
A Cost-Benefit Analysis of Goal-Striving and Disengagement from Goals
Authors
Veronika Brandstätter (University of Zurich)
Commitment to and disengagement from goals are an important issue in motivation psychology since both are important aspects of successful goal-striving. Models of goal-striving posit that after a goal has been formed, volitional mechanisms are triggered that support successful goal-striving. Little is known, however, about the disengagement from goals as it is implicitly assumed that self-regulatory processes support goal-striving until the goal is reached. However, goal-striving is sometimes hampered by severe setbacks leaving the individual stuck between the conflicting tendencies of further striving for the goal or disengaging from it. This “action crisis” is the focus of the present theoretical analysis. On the basis of a cost-benefit model of goal-striving and disengagement (Brandstätter, 2003) several studies have analyzed the antecedent conditions for action crises and their effect on cognition as well as well-being. It was found that (a) state in comparison to action orientation is associated with a higher risk of undergoing an action crisis, (b) in an action crisis, persons deliberate more on the costs and benefits for continuing or disengaging from the goal than persons not in an action crisis, and (c) experiencing an action crisis is associated with reduced emotional and physical well-being. The results are interpreted to mean that the concept of an action crisis is helpful for a better understanding of issues related to goal disengagement and self-regulation.
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Ralph E. Schmidt
When White Bears Kick Off a Snowball: Suppression Spreads Beyond the Target Thought
Authors
Ralph E. Schmidt (University of Geneva)
Guido H.E. Gendolla (University of Geneva )
A considerable body of evidence suggests that thought suppression may be a counter-productive strategy of mental control: as a consequence of suppression attempts, a rebound of target thought frequency tends in fact to occur (Wenzlaff & Wegner, 2000). To date, research into thought suppression has almost exclusively focused on target thought frequency?possible collateral effects on semantically related contents have not been directly addressed. The aim of the present experiment was to explore such side-effects of thought suppression. Sixty-six students verbalized their stream of consciousness during three sessions of five minutes. Before the second session, participants were shown a photograph of three white bears for one minute. Half of the participants were then instructed to try not to think of the white bears. Before the third session, «suppressors» were told that from now on, they were free to think of what they wanted. Quantitative content analysis conducted on transcripts of the tape-recorded stream-of-consciousness sessions and follow-up analyses of variance revealed not only the classic rebound of the target thought, but also a rebound of elements belonging to two semantically related fields: winter and animals. These findings challenge existing accounts of thought suppression and offer an experimental parallel to snowball-effects observed in the clinical area: anxiety-prone individuals are, for example, known to avoid ever-increasing arrays of fear-provoking cues.
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Guido Gendolla
Self-focused attention and the self-regulation of motivational intensity
Authors
Guido Gendolla (University of Geneva)
Michael Richter (University of Geneva)
Paul J. Silvia (University of North Carolina, Greensboro)
Self-focused attention can foster resource mobilization for instrumental behavior by inducing a state of self-evaluation (Duval & Wicklund, 1972). Extending this idea, an application of motivational intensity theory (Brehm et al., 1983; Wright, 1996) to tasks that involve performers’ self has predicted that self-evaluation increases the importance of success and thus justifies the mobilization of relatively high resources when task difficulty is unfixed (“do-your-best”) or high (Gendolla, 2004). Two experiments manipulated (1) self-evaluation by means of self-focused attention and (2) task difficulty in the context of a computer-based letter detection task. Resource mobilization was assessed as cardiovascular reactivity. Experiment 1 (N = 65) used a 2 (self-focus: yes vs. no) x 2 (task difficulty: unfixed vs. easy) design. In support of the predictions, results showed significantly stronger systolic blood pressure (SBP) reactivity during task performance in the self-focus/unfixed cell than in the remaining three conditions. Task performance corresponded to this pattern. Experiment 2 (N = 60) manipulated self-focus (yes vs. no) and three levels of task difficulty (unfixed vs. difficult vs. extremely difficult). As expected, SBP reactivity during task performance was stronger in the self-focus/unfixed and self-focus/difficult cells than in the remaining conditions. The results show that task difficulty is an important moderator of self-focus effects on effort mobilization.
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Pascal Gygax
Generically intended, but specifically interpreted: When beauticians, musicians and mechanics are all men.
Authors
Pascal Gygax (University of Fribourg)
Ute Gabriel (Norwegian University of Science and Technology)
In gender marked languages, such as French, German or Norwegian, to refer to a group of people of both sexes, to persons of unknown sex, or where the sex is irrelevant, the masculine form is used and is supposed to be interpreted as a generic form (e.g., les musiciens in French). Proponents of feminist linguistics doubt that the masculine form can be used in a way that abstracts from the gender of its referents (i.e., in a generic way) and claim that the use of the masculine evokes concepts of men thus eliminating women as referents.
The influence of stereotype and grammar (the masculine intended as generic) on the representation of gender in language was investigated using a sentence continuation evaluation paradigm. The first sentence introduced a role name (e.g. The spies came out…) and the second sentence contained explicit information about the gender of one of more of the characters (e. g. …one of the women…). The experiment was conducted in English, French, German and Norwegian. In contrast to English, stereotypicality of role names had no influence on readers’ male biased representations in French and German, where interpretations were dominated by the masculinity of the masculine (allegedly) intended as generic. In Norwegian, when a stereotype was available, readers formed a representation based on it, as in English, whereas when no stereotype was available, readers’ mental representation was based on grammar, hence was male biased, as in French and German.
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Joanna Minn
Willingness to forgive: The impact of perspective
Authors
Joanna Minn (University of Geneva)
Nisa Agostinho Camelo (University of Geneva)
Sarah Baraket (University of Geneva)
Géraldine Celardin (University of Geneva)
Vanessa Henggeler (University of Geneva)
Daniel Grühn (University of Geneva)
Why do we forgive some people’s transgressions and others’ not? One reason might be the perspective taken on a transgression; that is, whether we focus on the perpetrator’s motive or on the victim’s suffering. Specifically, are people more willing to forgive someone when focusing on the actor and less willing to forgive when focusing on the victim? To test this question, we asked 25 young (aged 20 to 30) and 25 older adults (aged 60 to 80) to indicate the degree of severity and forgiveness they feel for two transgressions: an extremely severe transgression (sexual abuse) and a moderately severe transgression (abortion). For both situations, we created two vignettes: one from the perspective of the actor and one from the perspective of the victim. Vignettes were counterbalanced across participants. The data from half of the sample provided initial support for our hypothesis. Despite the fact that participants perceived transgressions from an actor- and victim-perspective similarly severe (p = .73, eta-square < .01), their willingness to forgive was highly influenced by the perspective (p < .01, eta-square = .46). Participants were more willing to forgive when transgressions were presented from the perspective of the actor rather when presented from the perspective of the victim. The influence of age and implications of these findings are discussed.
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