Psychology
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Item Addressing Follower Motivation Within the Kelley Typology of Followership Using Significance Quest Theory(2022) Forgo, Emily Elizabeth; Hanges, Paul J; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This thesis sought to build upon the Kelley typology of followership by examining the motivational factors that affect follower behavior in follower-leader interactions that the original theory did not explore. The motivational mechanism I argued accounted for differences in follower behavior was Significance Quest theory. This thesis examined whether the interaction between the activation of an individual’s significance quest and the closeness to a network perceived as valuable to them would influence follower behavior. Additional factors, such as narratives valued by the network and regulatory focus orientation, are also explored. Partial support was found for two hypotheses. Implications and future directions of these findings are discussed.Item The Way to Go: Considering Goals and Planned Behavior(2022) Factor, Adam; Kruglanski, Arie; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The Theory of Planned Behavior offers a parsimonious and useful basis by which attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control predict behavioral intentions and behavior. Often employed in fields across the social sciences, this model is highly influential for its relatively strong predictions and simple parsimony. On the other hand, there remain many limitations to the theory and directions for future improvement. Based on emerging theoretical work arguing for a new integrative TPB framework, three studies tested the impact of goal context on the TPB’s predictions. The first study examined two hypothetical scenarios in which goals relevant to a particular behavior were manipulated, finding that goals did impact the relationship between attitudes and behavioral intentions in one vignette but not the other. A second study found evidence that goal activation (in the form of an upcoming deadline) affected some of the TPB’s predictions, and that accounting for goal activation improved the overall utility of the model. Finally, a third study assessed the TPB variables for participant-generated behaviors. There was some evidence that commitment to goals and conflict between them helps predict behavior over time and may affect the relationship between intentions and behavior.Item "I Want You to Want Me": Implications of the Desire to Be Sexually Valued for Psychological Functioning and Romantic Relationships(2021) Teneva, Nadya; Lemay, Edward; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)People often want to be seen as sexually appealing and desirable sexual partners. I refer to this tendency as the desire to be sexually valued, and I propose that it can differ between people and have effects on functioning within romantic relationships. I expected this desire to be psychologically important for cognition, well-being and behavior within relationships. I hypothesized that this desire would be associated with psychological well- being through biasing perceptions that one is sexually desired by their partner and exacerbating reactivity to sexual rejection. Furthermore, I proposed that this desire can refer to evaluations by others in general, or it may be targeted toward a specific person such as one’s romantic partner. I expected the desire to be sexually valued to be associated with behavioral tendencies within romantic relationships, including initiation of sexual activity and a number of other behaviors targeted at increasing sexual value. Moreover, I hypothesized that people who desire to be sexually valued might adopt a communal sexual motivation towards their partners, a motivation to meet their partner’s sexual needs, which can, in turn, be associated with their own and their partner’s higher sexual and relationship satisfaction. Three studies were utilized to test these hypotheses. Study 1 and Study 3 were dyadic studies, and Study 1 included a daily diary component. Study 2 was a self-report study including only people involved in romantic relationships. Results suggested that the desire to be sexually valued exacerbated the effects of daily, but not chronic, sexual rejection on some relationship outcomes. Further, this desire was associated with wishful thinking within romantic relationships, but the strength and nature of these effects depended on participants’ attachment anxiety in Study 1. The desire to be sexually valued by one’s partner predicted increased sexual communal strength toward that partner as well as engagement in a number of behaviors aimed at increasing one’s sexual value. Finally, this desire was indirectly associated with relationship quality through perceptions of being valued by partners, suggesting that wishful thinking may explain some of its relationship benefits. Implications are discussed.Item The Development and Validation of a Hierarchical Multiple-Goal Pursuit Model(2019) Samuelson, Hannah Leigh; Grand, James A; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Individuals are faced with multiple goals in life, at work, and across these realms every day. Organizational psychologists have begun to address how individuals prioritize goals over time using computational modeling and simulation (e.g., Vancouver et al., 2010). However, they have focused on situations in which an individual must neglect one goal to prioritize another with certainty about the consequences of their actions. Further, the impact of higher-level motivations (e.g., values, identities), on more proximal goal choices remains to be incorporated into dynamic theories of goal pursuit. The current project advances this work by developing a hierarchical multiple-goal pursuit model (HMGPM), which proposes a hierarchical goal system based on Kruglanski and colleagues’ (2002) goal systems theory. The HMGPM specifies qualitatively different levels in this system – means, tasks, and distal goals – and describes the mechanism by which they influence one another via instrumentality. A computational model is specified and subsequently simulated in a virtual experiment. Specifically, contexts are examined in which two tasks can be simultaneously pursued or prioritized one over one another under varying goal network structures and means instrumentality certainties. Specific conditions are then replicated in an empirical repeated-measures experiment in which participants act as university advisors and make schedules for hypothetical students. Simulation and lab study results revealed 1) when individuals have multiple tasks, they prefer a multifinal means that simultaneously accomplishes both, 2) when individuals have a single task, a multifinal means may be less appealing despite its instrumentality, and 3) uncertainty may further drive individuals to maximize their overall likelihood of progress using a multifinal means. Comparisons of the simulation and lab study results revealed 1) the process by which individuals choose means may not simply be driven by a utility-maximization rule at each decision point, and 2) individuals may discount a multifinal means’ instrumentality via a different mechanism than previously theorized (e.g., Zhang et al., 2007). In sum, the current project advances our understanding of how individuals make choices between their many possible actions depending those actions’ consequences, and their ability to predict those consequences, for their multiple goals.Item Derivation of Gain in a Hierarchical Multiple-Goal Pursuit Model(2017) Samuelson, Hannah; Grand, James A; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The motivational sciences in organizational psychology have recently focused on goal pursuit as a dynamic process, using computational modeling as a methodological tool. This has resulted in a detailed specification of certain components of the goal-pursuit process, leaving others vague. The current research sheds light on one of these underspecified pieces, gain, through the development of the hierarchical multiple-goal pursuit model (HMGPM). The HMGPM proposes that gain, or a goal’s subjectively evaluated importance, is a function of the importance of higher-order goals to which it is connected in an individual’s goal network, and the strength of those connections. Through computational modeling and simulation, the HMGPM is shown to produce theoretically-plausible patterns of goal choice, replicate previous empirical findings, and advance new topics of future research. The usefulness of the HMGPM as a theory-building tool that integrates organizational and social psychological perspectives of motivation is discussed.Item Distress and risk behavior in borderline personality disorder: Motivation and self-efficacy for emotion regulation(2014) Matusiewicz, Alexis Katherine; Lejuez, Carl W; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a persistent psychological disorder characterized by pervasive emotional difficulties, unstable relationships, identity disturbance and high rates of engagement in self-damaging risk behavior. Prominent theoretical perspectives on BPD suggest that the primary motivational basis for risk behavior is the regulation of negative emotional states. The goal of this study was to test several of the hypotheses suggested by emotion regulation models of risk behavior, using a rigorous experimental design. Specifically, we sought to demonstrate the causal effect of distress on risk behavior among individuals with and without BPD, and to examine motivational and self-regulatory mediators of: a) the relationship between emotion and engagement in risk behavior; and b) the relationship between BPD and distress-induced change in risk behavior. To this end, participants with and without BPD provided ratings of emotion, motivation for emotion regulation and risk behavior in the context of induced calm and distress, and completed a self-report measure of trait self-efficacy for emotion regulation. Results provide partial support for the study hypotheses. Only women with BPD showed an increase in risk behavior in the distress condition, and distress-induced change in risk behavior was predicted by both the intensity of emotion regulation goals and self-efficacy for emotion regulation. Findings support the perspective that risk behavior is enacted strategically in response to negative emotions and associated motivational states. For those with BPD, distress-induced risk behavior may reflect a type of emotion-regulatory resourcefulness that becomes maladaptive when used inflexibly or to the exclusion of other strategies.Item The Psychology of Martyrdom(2013) Bélanger, Jocelyn; Kruglanski, Arie W; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In recent decades, social scientists' interest for the topic of self-sacrifice has been accentuated by the growing incidence of suicide attacks around the world. The present set of twelve studies aimed to investigate the psychological underpinnings of the readiness to self-sacrifice by (1) creating a new tool to quantitatively assess individuals' propensity toward self-sacrifice (Studies 1-7), (2) investigating the motivational forces potentiating self-sacrifice (Studies 8-10), and (3) finding ways of redirecting these forces in a peaceful direction (Studies 11 and 12). Beyond creating a psychometrically sound measure of self-sacrifice, present research guided by the quest for significance theory (Kruglanski, Chen, Dechesne, Fishman, & Orehek, 2009) indicated that individuals' motivation to self-sacrifice is augmented when their sense of personal worth is lowered. In addition, results indicated that when the quest for personal significance is activated in conjunction with hostile ideologies, individuals are more likely to relinquish their physical and emotional well-being to harm others.Item The Augmentation Effect: When Cost Enhances the Perceived Benefit of Extreme Means(2011) Klein, Kristen; Kruglanski, Arie W; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In the present research, I introduce a new type of means under goal systems theory (Kruglanski et al., 2002): a costly means, which is instrumental to a focal goal but detrimental to alternative goal(s). An attributional inference similar to the augmentation effect (Kelley, 1971) may occur for costly means, suggesting that because they are detrimental to alternative goal(s), they must be especially instrumental to a focal goal. Moreover, individuals under high (vs. low) commitment to this focal goal may perceive a costly means as less extreme. Findings from Study 1 provide evidence for both hypotheses, and Study 2 showed that alternative goal primes lead to perceptions of costly means as more extreme. These findings recommend the integration of rational choice and goal systems theories, provide evidence for the augmentation effect as a heuristic tool, and highlight potential interventions to combat extremist cognition and behavior.Item What Matters Most? The Effects of Goal Commitment Claiming Discrimination(2007-06-18) Haley Ottenbreit, Alison LeaAnne; Stangor, Charles G; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Three studies explored the possibility that goal activation and goal commitment influenced attributions to discrimination. I hypothesized that some goals would lead to greater claiming of discrimination, while others would lead to less claiming of discrimination, and that this effect would be enhanced as commitment to the goal increased. I found some preliminary evidence supporting this hypothesis. In Study 1, when participants were more committed to being well liked, they reported discrimination less than when less committed to the goal. In Study 2, when participants were more committed to maintaining self-esteem, they claimed discrimination more than when less committed to the goal. Study 3 provided less conclusive evidence to support my hypothesis. Finally, I found that in conditions where participants claimed discrimination more or were expected to claim discrimination more, they also reported greater self-esteem, less anxiety, and less depression.Item Motivated Bias as Perceived Means Instrumentality(2007-05-31) Chen, Xiaoyan; Kruglanski, Arie W.; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)A general model is introduced to account for the multiple findings from different lines of research related to the phenomena of motivated biases. Parameters and specific implications of the model are discussed with brief review of relevant empirical research. Of main focus of this paper is the parameter "residual cognitive resources". It is hypothesized that since biases can be difficult thus resource demanding, when residual cognitive resources are scares rather than ample there should be less bias. It is also hypothesized that residual resources should interact with the relative magnitude of the focal accuracy judgment goal versus directional background goal to determine the extent of motivated biases. Two current studies supporting these hypotheses are presented.