Research shows that goal-relevant objects are rated positively, which results from their functionality towards the aim. In previous studies these objects were always external to the agent. However, relevant knowledge of self is also potentially accessible during goal pursuit, as self-esteem is an indicator of aim’s feasibility. In two experimental studies we tested whether goal activation affects temporal changes in automatic evaluations of personality traits related to the dimensions of agency and communion. We administered affect misattribution procedure where participants rated (...) neutral Chinese hexagrams proceeded by words describing traits. The list of words comprised agentic and communal traits. The rating took place twice - before and after introducing a manual task. In the first study, goal activation led to slightly more positive implicit evaluations of agentic and more negative evaluation of communal traits, which is consistent with empirical data on self-perception depending on agentic knowledge rather than communal one. In the second study we showed that goal activation led to changes only for promotion-, but not prevention-oriented individuals, which is explained by motivation strength. The results indicate that valuation of traits changes temporarily along with goal pursuit. (shrink)

A long tradition of psychological research has explored the distinction between characteristics that are part of the self and those that lie outside of it. Recently, a surge of research has begun examining a further distinction. Even among characteristics that are internal to the self, people pick out a subset as belonging to the true self. These factors are judged as making people who they really are, deep down. In this paper, we introduce the concept of the true self and (...) identify features that distinguish people’s understanding of the true self from their understanding of the self more generally. In particular, we consider recent findings that the true self is perceived as positive and moral, and that this tendency is actor-observer invariant and cross-culturally stable. We then explore possible explanations for these findings and discuss their implications for a variety of issues in psychology. (shrink)

In this paper we consider the impact of digitally altered images on individuals’ body satisfaction and beauty aspirations. Drawing on current psychological literature we consider interventions designed to increase knowledge about the ubiquity and unreality of digital images and, in the form of labelling, provide information to the consumer. Such interventions are intended to address the negative consequences of unrealistic beauty ideals. However, contrary to expectations, such initiatives may not be effective, especially in the long-term, and may even be counter-productive. (...) We seek to understand this phenomenon of our continued aspiration for beauty ideals we know to be unreal and even impossible. We draw on our respective disciplines to offer psychological and philosophical accounts for why this might be. We conclude that beauty ideals are deeply embedded in our aspirations, practices, and in our constructions of ourselves. Given this, it is not surprising that simply increasing knowledge, or providing information, will be insufficient to challenge them. (shrink)

Interoception can be broadly defined as the sense of signals originating within the body. As such, interoception is critical for our sense of embodiment, motivation, and well-being. And yet, despite its importance, interoception remains poorly understood within modern science. This paper reviews interdisciplinary perspectives on interoception, with the goal of presenting a unified perspective from diverse fields such as neuroscience, clinical practice, and contemplative studies. It is hoped that this integrative effort will advance our understanding of how interoception determines well-being, (...) and identify the central challenges to such understanding. To this end, we introduce an expanded taxonomy of interoceptive processes, arguing that many of these processes can be understood through an emerging predictive coding model for mind–body integration. The model, which describes the tension between expected and felt body sensation, parallels contemplative theories, and implicates interoception in a variety of affective and psychosomatic disorders. We conclude that maladaptive construal of bodily sensations may lie at the heart of many contemporary maladies, and that contemplative practices may attenuate these interpretative biases, restoring a person’s sense of presence and agency in the world. (shrink)

Goal-setting has become a popular and effective motivational tool, utilized by practitioners and substantiated with decades of empirical research. However, the potential for goal-setting to enhance performance may come at the cost of ethical behavior. I propose a theoretical model linking attributes of goals and goal-setting practices to unethical behavior through two psychological mechanisms – ethical recognition and moral disengagement; and addressing the moderating role of individual differences (e.g., goal-commitment and conscientiousness), as well as the broader organizational ethical context.

Certain emotional processes “bypass the will” and even awareness, whereas others arise due to the deliberative evaluation of objects, states, and events. It is important to differentiate between the automatic versus reflective origins of emotional processes, and sensory versus conceptual bases of diverse negative and positive emotions. A taxonomy of emotions based on different origins is presented. This taxonomy distinguishes between negative and positive automatic versus reflective emotions. The automatic emotions are connected with the (a) homeostatic and (b) hedonistic regulatory (...) mechanisms. The reflective emotions—uniquely human—are described in reference to deliberative processes and appraisals based on two types of conceptual and verbalized evaluative standards: (a) ideal self-standards and (b) general, axiological standards of good and evil. (shrink)

Three experiments investigated the relationship between subjective experience and attentional lapses during sustained attention. These experiments employed two measures of subjective experience to examine how differences in awareness correspond to variations in both task performance and psycho-physiological measures . This series of experiments examine these phenomena during the Sustained Attention to Response Task . The results suggest we can dissociate between two components of subjective experience during sustained attention: task unrelated thought which corresponds to an absent minded disengagement from the (...) task and a pre-occupation with one's task performance that seems to be best conceptualised as a strategic attempt to deploy attentional resources in response to a perception of environmental demands which exceed ones ability to perform the task. The implications of these findings for our understanding of how awareness is maintained on task relevant material during periods of sustained attention are discussed. (shrink)

Research has paid scant attention to reparative behavior to compensate for unintended wrongdoing or to the role of emotions in doing the right thing. We propose a new approach to investigating reparative behavior by looking at moral emotions and psychological proximity. In this study, we compare the effects of moral emotions (guilt and shame) on the level of compensation for financial harm. We also investigate the role of transgressors’ perceived psychological proximity to the victims of wrongdoing. Our hypotheses were tested (...) through a scenario based questionnaire on a sample of 261 participants. Analyses indicate that (1) guilt has a stronger effect on the level of compensation than shame; (2) psychological proximity influences the level of guilt, shame, and compensation; and (3) shame interacts with psychological proximity to predict compensation, whereas guilt mediates the relationship between psychological proximity and compensation. (shrink)

How does shame differ from guilt? Empirical psychology has recently offered distinct and seemingly incompatible answers to this question. This article brings together four prominent answers into a cohesive whole. These are that (a) shame differs from guilt in being a social emotion; (b) shame, in contrast to guilt, affects the whole self; (c) shame is linked with ideals, whereas guilt concerns prohibitions and (d) shame is oriented towards the self, guilt towards others. After presenting the relevant empirical evidence, we (...) defend specific interpretations of each of these answers and argue that they are related to four different dimensions of the emotions. This not only allows us to overcome the conclusion that the above criteria are either unrelated or conflicting with one another, it also allows us to tell apart what is constitutive from what is typical of them. -/- . (shrink)

Ethical theories and theories of the person constrain each other, in that a proposition about the person may be a reason for or against an ethical proposition, and conversely. An important class of such propositions about the person concern the boundaries of the person. These boundaries enclose a person 's defining properties, which constitute his identity. A person 's identity may partly determine and partly be determined by his ethical judgments. An equilibrium between one's identity and one's ethical judgments is (...) the counterpart, at the personal level, of the philosophical ideal of reflective equilibrium between a theory of the person and an ethical theory. (shrink)

Background: Subgenual cingulate cortex (SCC) responses to self-blaming emotion-evoking stimuli were previously found in individuals prone to self-blame with and without a history of major depressive disorder (MDD). This suggested SCC activation reflects self-blaming emotions such as guilt, which are central to models of MDD vulnerability. -/- Method: Here, we re-examined these hypotheses in an independent larger sample. A total of 109 medication-free participants (70 with remitted MDD and 39 healthy controls) underwent fMRI whilst judging self- and other-blaming emotion-evoking statements. (...) They also completed validated questionnaires of proneness to self-blaming emotions including those related to internal (autonomy) and external (sociotropy) evaluation, which were subjected to factor analysis. -/- Results: An interaction between group (remitted MDD v. Control) and condition (self- v. other-blame) was observed in the right SCC (BA24). This was due to higher SCC signal for self-blame in remitted MDD and higher other-blame-selective activation in Control participants. Across the whole sample, extracted SCC activation cluster averages for self- v. other-blame were predicted by a regression model which included the reliable components derived from our factor analysis of measures of proneness to self-blaming emotions. Interestingly, this prediction was solely driven by autonomy/self-criticism, and adaptive guilt factors, with no effect of sociotropy/dependency. -/- Conclusions: Despite confirming the prediction of SCC activation in self-blame-prone individuals and those vulnerable to MDD, our results suggest that SCC activation reflects blame irrespective of where it is directed rather than selective for self. We speculate that self-critical individuals have more extended SCC representations for blame in the context of self-agency. (shrink)

This article reviews research on counterfactual, social, and temporal comparisons and proposes a Reflection and Evaluation Model (REM) as an organizing framework. At the heart of the model is the assertion that 2 psychologically distinct modes of mental simulation operate during comparative thinking: reflection, an experiential (“as if”) mode of thinking characterized by vividly simulating that information about the comparison standard is true of, or part of, the self; and evaluation, an evaluative mode of thinking characterized by the use of (...) information about the standard as a reference point against which to evaluate one’s present standing. Reflection occurs when information about the standard is included in one’s self-construal, and evaluation occurs when such information is excluded. The result of reflection is that standard–consistent cognitions about the self become highly accessible, thereby yielding affective assimilation; whereas the result of evaluation is that comparison information is used as a standard against which one’s present standing is evaluated, thereby yielding affective contrast. The resulting affect leads to either an increase or decrease in behavioral persistence as a function of the type of task with which one is engaged, and a combination of comparison-derived causal inferences and regulatory focus strategies direct one toward adopting specific future action plans. (shrink)

In recent years, a greater focus has been placed on the influential power of domain-general psychological properties in second language acquisition and learning. The investigations of these properties, such as grit, academic procrastination and enjoyment etc. have been extensively conducted and are well-documented. Notwithstanding the surge of academic inquiry, the link between psychopathological notions and second language learning has not been adequately established and thoroughly scrutinized. The current study, therefore, aims to broaden the spectrum of second language research and explore (...) the impact of social phobia on willingness to communicate in the second language context. Meanwhile, this research introduces the self-construct, particularly the ideal L2 self to further examine and elucidate the impact. 173 qualified Chinese speakers of L2 English participated in the study. By conducting correlation analysis, regression analysis and structural equation modelling analysis, it was revealed that social phobia had a significant negative impact on L2 willingness to communicate in social situations of meetings and public speaking. Ideal L2 self acted as a complete mediating role in the impact. Pedagogical implications and future directions were proposed and discussed. (shrink)

The current study uses a two-wave longitudinal survey to explores the influence mechanism of the family environment on adolescents’ academic achievement. The family environment is measured by parents and children’s reports, including family atmosphere, parent–child interaction, and family rules, to reveal the mediating effect of adolescents’ positive or negative peers between the family environment and academic achievement, and whether the gap between self- and parental educational expectation plays a moderating effect. This study uses the data of the China Education Panel (...) Study ; the survey samples include 9,449 eighth-grade students, establishing a multilevel moderated mediating effect model. The results showed the family environment and peer interaction quality can positively predict adolescents’ academic achievement. Using the KHB test, peer interaction quality plays a partial mediating role in the process of family environment positively affecting academic achievement, and the mediating ratio is 27.5%. The educational expectation gap moderates the effect of the family environment on academic achievement and also on peer interaction quality. Therefore, from the perspective of environment and important others, to correctly grasp the academic achievement of junior high school students in the process of socialization, it is necessary to recognize that the family environment, peer interaction quality, and educational expectation gap play an important role. (shrink)

This study investigates the nature of academic work in contemporary academia, which is set in an under-researched context, Vietnam. The research context is unique in its blending between long and rich cultural values and Western ideologies in management. The study examines how Vietnamese academics practice their academic roles in response to the interactions of those two domains. -/- Avoiding the approach of seeking for evidence of negative impacts of managerial controls on aspects of academic life as commonly used in the (...) existing literature, this study focuses on analysing the complexities in relationships of individual academics with management and other actors including managers, colleagues, students and scholar community. This approach is advanced in understanding both social and individual meanings in academic work as well as the social and cultural values which shape their perception of academic roles. -/- The research enquiry of producing an insight into academics’ work life and experience in contemporary academia informs a qualitative and interpretive research. The findings suggest that the application of managerial controls is less challenged whilst highly accepted in Vietnamese higher education as a context under the influence of Confucianism. The evidence of academics’ compliance and collective actions underpinned by Vietnamese cultural values in this study offers to reconsider the discrepancy of the nature of these phenomena in the belief of the West and the East. The study’s exploration of being an academic as multi-layered meanings expanding from within and outside of university roles proposes academics’ potential strengths in coping with insecurity and ambiguity at work. It then sharpens the suggestion that contemporary management in higher education needs to be mindful of the emotional-related and meaningful nature of academic profession for the best outcomes of both individual work and organisational aims rather than relying on either soft or hard controls. (shrink)

Much of early western research has focused on identity. A primed identity can inhibit the priming of other alternative identities, and also negatively affect the intention to purchase products related to those alternative identities. In western culture, individuals operate within a cultural framework that makes them more likely to prioritize their own goals and less likely to rely on environmental factors when evaluating others. Individuals are more likely to choose products that fit their primed identity. In this study, we suggest (...) that in collectivist Chinese culture, individuals may give priority to group-level goals and attach more importance to situational factors when evaluating others. Therefore, a primed identity may not necessarily inhibit the priming of alternative identities. In this research, we examine the association between a focal identity and alternative identities, with particular emphasis on the accessibility, discrepancies, and effects on purchase intention of alternative identities. We also examine the intent to purchase products related to the alternative identity vs. the focal identity, developing a model with which to explore this construct. We test four hypotheses through experiments using an online questionnaire and analyzing the resulting data using statistical product service solutions 22.0 and the PROCESS macro modeling tool. The results are as follows: First, the association between a focal identity and alternative identity has a positive impact on the accessibility of the alternative identity. The clearer the alternative identity is, the greater the impact of the association between the focal identity and alternative identity on the latter’s accessibility. Second, the accessibility of the alternative identity has a positive impact on the intent to purchase alternative identity vs. focal identity-related products. The greater the discrepancy between the focal identity and the alternative identity, the greater the impact on the intent to purchase alternative identity vs. focal identity-related products. The results of this study confirmed the interaction between identity association and the clarity of the alternative identity, as well as the influence of the accessibility of the alternative identity on the intent to purchase alternative identity vs. focal identity-related products. We contribute to the development of a theory on intention to purchase identity-related products. (shrink)

This study contributes to existing research on polymedia by probing into what we call academic polymedia, investigating the constant availability of interpersonal, professional, and social media for constructing scholarly personas. Drawing on the technobiographical narratives of a group of Hong Kong bilingual academics, we analyze academics’ perceptions of their media choices as situated in their professional polymedia environments. In particular, we examine how choices between public and private media shape academic persona development, and the way polymedia engagement impacts the participants’ (...) language choice for academic purposes. This study sheds light on existing research on workplace discourse and identity in sociolinguistics by offering a polymedia dimension that draws on people’s media ideology in developing their professional identities. (shrink)

This study investigated the mediating roles of self-acceptance and self-esteem in the relationship between body image dissatisfaction and impulse buying, and tested the moderating effect of gender on the relationships. A sample of 374 college students and graduate students participated in the study. Results revealed that body image dissatisfaction positively associated with impulse buying; self-esteem plays a mediating role between body image dissatisfaction and impulsive buying; a serial indirect pathway emerged; the mediation path from self-acceptance to self-esteem was stronger for (...) female than that from male. The results underscore the importance of identifying the mechanisms that moderate the mediated path between body image dissatisfaction and impulse buying among students. These findings point to the potential implications about how to reduce impulse buying through improving body image satisfaction. (shrink)

Despite the growing social interest in green products, companies often find it difficult to find effective strategies to induce consumers to purchase green products or engage in other environmentally friendly behaviors. To address this situation, we examined the favorable or unfavorable effects of positive and negative message frames on consumers’ willingness to consume green products in different psychological distance contexts. Through two Studies, we found that the positive information framework played a more pronounced role in context when consumers were in (...) closer spatial distances. More importantly, we found that the emotional factors of fear and hope were intrinsic causes of this phenomenon. Correspondingly, the negative information framework played a better facilitating role in context with farther spatial distance, while shame and pride were the emotions responsible for this effect. Finally, we discuss the theoretical and managerial implications of our work, as well as its limitations and future research directions. (shrink)

In video games, identification with avatars—virtual entities or characters driven by human behavior—has been shown to serve many interpersonal and intraindividual functions but our understanding of the psychological variables that influence players' avatar choices remains incomplete. The study presented in this paper tested whether players' preferred style of avatar creation is linked to the magnitude of self-perceived discrepancies between who they are, who they aspire to be, and who they think they should be. One-hundred-and-twenty-five undergraduate gamers indicated their preferred avatar (...) creation style and completed a values measure from three different perspectives: their actual, ideal, and ought selves. The average actual/ideal values discrepancy was greater among those who preferred idealized avatars vs. those who preferred realistic avatars. The average actual/ought values discrepancy was greater among those who preferred completely different avatars vs. those who preferred realistic avatars. These results, therefore, offer additional evidence that self-discrepancy theory is a useful framework for understanding avatar preferences. (shrink)

The voluntary shift of responsibility from the producer to the consumer is one feature of self-design activities. Past research emphasizes the economic gains of such customer co-creation. However, the psychological mechanism underlying customer co-creation behavior is still not fully understood. Notably, the goal-driven self-congruence nature of customer co-creation is mostly ignored in the co-creation literature. The objective of this research is to firstly develop a conceptual understanding of how co-creation literature can be related to the self-congruence theory. Furthermore, this study (...) also extends the original self-congruence theory by arguing the differential role of actual and ideal self-congruence on the relationship between self-congruence and customers’ willingness to participate in the co-creation process. Two laboratory experiments were conducted to examine whether self-congruence plays a prominent role in motivating customers to participate in the self-design process. Specifically, both the actual self-congruence and ideal self-congruence are positively related to customers’ willingness to participate in the self-design process is hypothesized. Moreover, it is expected that product styles and different consumption situations may strengthen the relationship between actual/ideal self-congruence and customers’ willingness to participate in the self-design process. Theoretical and practical implications are also discussed. (shrink)

Two major features of emotions are their personal, interested nature and the centrality of the self-other relation. There seems to be a built-in tension between the two: this is evident, for example, in negative emotions such as envy and hate, where one person has a significant negative attitude toward another. This tension is also obvious in positive emotions, such as schadenfreude, where an individual is pleased about the other’s misfortune. Such tension may even be greater in romantic love, where the (...) lover should give special attention and status to the beloved. The tension gains further momentum when we assume that self-fulfillment is an essential feature of romantic relationships. Indeed, it seems that in many low-quality romantic relations, the tension between self-fulfillment and the needs of the beloved is real and toxic. However, in enduring profound love, which involves the personal growth of each partner, self-fulfillment is not egoistic, and the tension drives mutual thriving. (shrink)

The stakes-shifting cases suggest that pragmatic factors such as stakes play an important role in determining our intuitive judgments of whether or not S knows that p. This seems to be in conflict with intellectualism, according to which pragmatic factors in general should not be taken into account, when considering whether or not S knows that p. This paper develops a theory of judgments of knowledge status that reconciles intellectualism with our intuitive judgments regarding the stakes-shifting cases. I argue that (...) pragmatic factors affect only our epistemic perspectives, i.e., the ways in which we evaluate S’s epistemic position. Therefore, pragmatic factors only have an indirect impact on our judgments of knowledge status. (shrink)

As clinical-psychological scientists and practitioners increasingly work with diverse populations of traumatized people, it becomes increasingly important to attend to cultural models that influence the ways in which people understand and describe their responses to trauma. This paper focuses on potential uses of the concept of cultural script in this domain. Originally described by cognitive psychologists in the 1980s, scripts refer to specific behavioral and experiential sequences of elements such as thoughts, memories, attention patterns, bodily sensations, sleep abnormalities, emotions and (...) affective expressions, motivation, coping attempts and ritualized behaviors that are relevant to posttraumatic adjustment. We differentiate between experiences of traumatic stress that are scripted (e.g., cultural explanations are available) versus unscripted. Further characteristics such as script tracks, the effect of script interruptions, and contextual fit of scripts with other cultural models are also described. We consider examples of traumatic stress associated with war and organized, sexualized violence from ‘Western’ and ‘non-Western’ world regions. The concluding part of this review describes a number of possibilities for methodological approaches to assessment of cultural scripts. Capturing central elements of the script(s) of trauma would aid psychological researchers and clinicians in understanding the experiences of trauma in cultural context, which could ultimately lead to better clinical service opportunities worldwide. (shrink)

Creativity is critical to organizational success. Understanding the antecedents of creativity is important. Although there is a growing body of research on how (mixed) emotions affect creativity, most of the work has focused on intrapersonal processes. We do not know whether contrasting emotions between interacting partners (i.e., interpersonal mixed emotions) have creative consequences. Building on information processing theories of emotion, our research proposes a theoretical account for why interpersonal mixed emotions matter. It hypothesized that mixed- (vs. same-) emotion interactions would (...) predict higher collective creative performance. We tested the hypothesis in two-party integrative negotiations (105 dyads). We manipulated negotiators’ emotional expressions (angry-angry, happy-happy, angry-happy dyads) and measured the extent to which they generated creative solutions that tapped into hidden integrative potential in the negotiation for a better joint gain. The results overall supported the hypothesis: i) there was some evidence that mixed-emotion dyads (i.e., angry-happy) performed better than same-emotion dyads; ii) mixed-emotion dyads, on average, achieved a high level of joint gain that exceeded the (non-creative) zero-sum threshold, whereas same-emotion dyads did not. The findings add theoretical and actionable insights into our understanding of creativity, emotion, and organization behavior. (shrink)

The present study aimed to develop effective moral educational interventions based on social psychology by using stories of moral exemplars. We tested whether motivation to engage in voluntary service as a form of moral behavior was better promoted by attainable and relevant exemplars or by unattainable and irrelevant exemplars. First, experiment 1, conducted in a lab, showed that stories of attainable exemplars more effectively promoted voluntary service activity engagement among undergraduate students compared with stories of unattainable exemplars and non-moral stories. (...) Second, experiment 2, a middle school classroom-level experiment with a quasi-experimental design, demonstrated that peer exemplars, who are perceived to be attainable and relevant to students, better promoted service engagement compared with historic figures in moral education classes. (shrink)

The deontic model of justice and ethical behavior proposes that people care about justice simply for the sake of justice. This is an important consideration for business ethics because it implies that justice and ethical behavior are naturally occurring phenomenaindependent of system controls or individual self-interest. To date, research on the deontic model and third-party reactions to injustice has focused primarily on individuals’ tendency to punish transgressors. This research has revealed that witnesses to injustice will consider sacrificing their own resources (...) if it is the only way to sanction an observed transgressor. In this paper we seek to extend this model by arguing that punishment may not be the only “deontic” reaction, and that in fact, third-party observers of injustice may engage in moral self-regulation that would lead them to conclude that the most ethical response is to do nothing. We provide preliminary evidence for our propositions using voiced cognitions data collected during a resource allocation task. Results indicate that deonance may be more complex than originally thought, and previous tests of the model conservative in nature. (shrink)