Theses and Dissertations from UMD

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New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a give thesis/dissertation in DRUM

More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.

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    MULTIFINAL NO MORE: DEACTIVATION OF THE BACKGROUND GOAL CAUSES (PRICE) DEVALUATION OF MULTIFINAL MEANS
    (2010) Schultz, Jeremy; Kruglanski, Arie W; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Motivation has been of interest to psychological researchers going back as far a Kurt Lewin (1936), but recent advances using the "New Look" in motivation paradigm have led to an explosion of research over the past fifteen years. One such new theory, goal systems theory (Kruglanski et al., 2002), predicts that multifinal means will lose their advantaged valuation over unifinal mean when the background goal they facilitate is deactivated. Seven studies sought to provide evidence that this will occur whether the goal is deactivated due to loss of desirability, loss of attainability, or due to attainment of the goal. Evidence was obtained suggesting that goal attainment does in fact deactivate the goal and eliminate the valuation advantage, although evidence obtained from testing the the mechanism of goal desirability was not supportive of the theory. The evidence for the role of goal unattainability deactivating the goal and eliminating the overvaluation was mixed, suggesting a potentially more complex mechanism than had been theorized. These studies provide insight not only on a basic psychological process, but to illustrate potential applications in consumer and financial markets as well.
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    Cognitive and Motivational Parameters in Motivated Biases in Human Judgment
    (2009) Chen, Xiaoyan; Kruglanski, Arie W.; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Motivational and cognitive factors can determine the extent and direction of information processing in judgment. When biasing motives are present, information can be distorted and judgment biased. The extent of this bias can be determined by the nature of the information, the relative magnitude of competing goals, and the individual's cognitive resources. Studies 1, 2 and 3 explored the effect of resource depletion on motivated distortions in judgment. Studies 4 and 5 examined the role of relative goal magnitude (of a biasing goal vs. a specific judgment goal) in the phenomena. I departed from the assumption that human knowledge is malleable, and that its alteration in a motivationally desirable direction may vary in difficulty across instances. It was assumed that overcoming the difficulty requires cognitive and/or motivational resources hence under certain circumstances resource-depletion should diminish individuals' ability to motivationally bias judgments. I also hypothesized when information is clear-cut (rather than ambiguous) making distortion difficult, a sufficient amount of biasing motivation could overcome the "reality constraints," holding the cognitive resources constant. In my first two studies participants' resources were depleted either via complex or simple presentational format of the information given (Study 1), or via engagement in a fatiguing prior activity (Study 2). In the third study (Study 3), I measured participants' stable cognitive capacity as a proxy for their available cognitive resources. All three studies provided supportive evidence for the hypothesis that motivated distortion is resource dependent. In Study 4 I manipulated the relative goal magnitude by experimentally increasing goal importance for either an academic success goal in line with the specific judgment task or a social wellbeing goal as the biasing goal. In Study 5 I altered relative goal magnitude through enhancing either a neutral goal or health concerns as the biasing goal. In both Study 4 and 5, orthogonal to the relative goal magnitude manipulation, stimulus ambiguity was made either high or low. Findings from Study 4 and 5 supported the hypothesis that sufficient magnitude of biasing goal could overcome distortion difficulty even in highly constraining circumstances.