Browsing by Author "Shah, James Y"

Four studies were conducted to determine the process by which other people, referred to as goal defenders, may protect individual goal pursuit by inhibiting goal alternatives, specifically focusing on the way goal defenders may enhance perceptual narrowing, increase state self-control and decrease the value of alternatives. Studies 1A and 1B were conducted in one session via mTurk and used a word recognition task. Results indicate that, depending on trait level self-control capacity, participants who were primed with a goal defender remembered more goal relevant words than goal irrelevant words, while participants in the control condition exhibited the opposite pattern, demonstrating a heightened effect of perceptual narrowing for treatment participants. Study 2 was conducted in a laboratory in one session, and used a ”taste test” task to see how well participants would inhibit unhealthy foods after being primed with goal defenders. Findings pointed to an increase in state self-control for participants in the treatment group as trait inhibition increased, and a decrease in actual inhibition of temptation for treatment participants high in trait continuation. Finally, study 3 used a two-session, week-long longitudinal design on TurkPrime to gather self-report data about participants’ goal relevant behavior. Participants in the goal defender condition were more likely to see the temptation as less valuable than participants in the goal initiator condition when trait inhibition was high. Implications are discussed.

Three studies examine individuals' implicit sensitivity to the absence of motivation perceived in others and how the nature of this sensitivity is moderated by individuals' own motivational states. Using a subliminal priming paradigm, Study 1 tested a direct perception-behavior link between perceiving indifference in others and applying such indifference towards one's own pursuits. Study 2 then examined how individuals who are primed in advance with a nonconscious achievement goal show automatic counteraction to the indifference perceived in others. Using a video-based priming paradigm, Study 3 then found that such goal-driven counteraction to indifference occurred only among individuals with higher action control--those who had the ability to sustain goal pursuit after the intention to pursue it has been formed. In contrast, individuals with lower action control in Study 3 were more susceptible to indifference than all other participants, particularly when an achievement goal was made highly active in memory. These influences were found in all three studies to occur largely without participants' conscious intent or awareness.

The present research investigates how motivation to affiliate with others shapes the way people search for feedback from others for their goal pursuits and its general implications on self-regulation. I hypothesize that affiliation motivation will influence how much people seek feedback from others and to whom they turn for feedback. People with high affiliation motivation will view feedback-seeking as a potential tool for strengthening their existing social ties and forming additional ones, whereas people with low affiliation motivation will perceive great costs in feedback seeking. As such, people with high affiliation motivation will seek feedback from a broad range of sources. People with low affiliation motivation, on the other hand, will seek feedback from those most willing and able to provide it, which may often be those with whom they are already close. Four studies support these predictions by showing how affiliation motivation is associated with feedback seeking from a broad range of sources (Study 1), how affiliation motivation moderates the effect of feedback source on goal performance (Studies 2 – 3), and how affiliation motivation influences goal progress indirectly through affecting the preference for feedback source in everyday goal pursuits (Study 4).

Research has long assumed that the process of self-control involves mechanisms for overcoming temptations. Such mechanisms, however, may not necessarily be consciously deployed, and relatively little is known about how individuals’ explicit beliefs about temptations may impact their response to them. With this in mind, five studies were conducted to examine the self-regulatory impact of individuals’ general beliefs about the necessity of avoiding temptations and the potential utility of having indulged in them. These studies considered how the impact of these beliefs may themselves depend on an individual’s ability to implement self-control. Study 1 tested the connection between an individual’s decision to avoid temptations and the two beliefs on overcoming temptations – beliefs in the necessity of avoidance and in the utility of indulgence. Studies 2 and 3 examined the relationship between self-control and the general belief that the utility of indulging in temptations affects self-control related behaviors. Study 4 explored how these beliefs may impact healthy dietary choices in the face of food temptations. Finally, Study 5 employed a different task paradigm to examine how various beliefs about temptations may mitigate the negative experiences of failures in self-control. Overall, the findings indicated that a general belief in the utility of avoiding temptations may positively impact goal pursuit, especially when self-control is low. Alternatively, a belief in the value of indulging in temptations may negatively impact goal pursuit when individuals’ self-control is low. This belief, however, may mitigate the consequences of temptation indulgence for future self-control.

Previous research has largely highlighted the maladaptive consequences of holding an entity theory of intelligence and the adaptive consequences of holding an incremental theory (for reviews, see Dweck, 1999; Dweck & Leggett, 1988). This research, however, has largely ignored the role of the achievement context and how it may conflict with the goals that naturally arise from implicit theories of intelligence. The present research demonstrates that the adaptiveness of theories of intelligence may depend on the demands of the situation. Across two studies, the most adaptive motivation, affect, and use of self-regulatory resources was observed when entity theorists pursued performance goals and when incremental theorists pursued learning goals (fit). Conversely, maladaptive outcomes were observed when entity theorists pursued learning goals and when incremental theorists pursued performance goals (nonfit). For several achievement-related outcomes, however, this pattern of results was moderated by perceived competence, suggesting that fit may be most adaptive when confidence in abilities is high, and nonfit may be most adaptive when it is low. Implications for achievement motivation and goal pursuit are discussed.