Heather Orom

What underlies appraisals? Experimentally testing a Knowledge-and-Appraisal Model of Personality Architecture among smokers contemplating high-risk situations.

We tested a theoretical model of personality structures underlying patterns of intra-individual variability in contextualized appraisals. The KAPA (Knowledge-and-Appraisal Personality Architecture) model was tested experimentally among smokers appraising their efficacy to resist the urge to smoke in high-risk situations. In a novel design, we assessed self-knowledge and situational beliefs idiographically and employed cognitive priming to manipulate the accessibility of self-knowledge experimentally. The results confirmed the unique KAPA-model prediction that priming would affect appraisals in a contextualized manner. Priming positively valenced self-knowledge enhanced self-efficacy appraisals specifically within that subset of situations that were relevant to the primed knowledge. The results were consistent with the hypothesis that systems of self- and situational knowledge underlie consistency and variability in appraisals.

Using a knowledge-and-appraisal model of personality architecture to understand consistency and variability in smokers' self-efficacy appraisals in high-risk situations.

The present research used idiographic methods for identifying intraindividual, cross-contextual patterns of consistency and variability in self-efficacy appraisal among smokers. Building on a knowledge-andappraisal model of personality architecture, the authors assessed (a) schematic self-knowledge, (b) beliefs about the relevance of high-risk smoking-related situations to those schematic attributes, and (c) appraisals of self-efficacy for smoking avoidance in specific contexts. The idiographic assessments of situational and self-knowledge robustly predicted patterns of intraindividual consistency and variability in self-efficacy appraisal. A response-time measure revealed that speed in making positive self-appraisals varied systematically across schema-relevant contexts. Results speak to the fields need for assessment strategies to detect, and theoretical models to explain, within-person, across-context variations in self-efficacy for avoiding addictive behaviors.