Jürgen Beckmann

Intentional action and action slips.

The main assumption in this article is that actions are guided by mentally represented intentions. Intentions are subdivided into goal intentions and their contingent instrumental intentions

Altering information to gain action control: Functional aspects of human information processing in decision making

In recent approaches to social judgment, information distortion has been discussed primarily as a violation of individual rationality, due to unintentionally occurring biases. In contrast to this view, it is argued that frequently individuals make purposive use of selective changes in information processing in order to avoid indecisiveness. In this sense, selective changes in information processing may be considered a functional requirement of a volitional process which protects the current intention (or tentative decision) from being replaced by competing behavioral tendencies. On the basis of J. Kuhls theory of action control (1981, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 40, 155–170; 1982, in W. Hacker, W. Volpert, & M. von Cranach, Eds., Cognitive and Motivational Aspects of Action, Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1984, in B. A. Maher, Progress in Experimental Personality Research, Vol. 13, New York: Academic Press) it was predicted that subjects having a high score on the action-control scale (i.e., action-oriented subjects) should show a stronger tendency to increase the attractiveness rating of a tentatively preferred decision during the process of decision making than subjects scoring low on that scale (i.e., state-oriented subjects). To test this assumption, students searching for an apartment were offered 16 apartments along with a list containing information about the alternatives. The subjects had to rate the attractiveness of each apartment twice before they were asked to indicate which apartments they would like to rent. The results confirmed the predictions. It was found that action-oriented subjects increased the divergence of their attractiveness ratings from the first to the second point of evaluation, whereas state-oriented subjects did not.

Self-regulation and Recovery: Approaching an Understanding of the Process of Recovery From Stress.

Stress has been studied extensively in psychology. Only recently, however, has research started to address the question of how individuals manage to recover from stress. Recovery from stress is analyzed as a process of self-regulation. Several individual difference variables which affect the efficiency of self-regulation have been integrated into a structured model of the recovery process. Such variables are action versus state orientation (a tendency to ruminate, e.g., about a past experience) and volitional components, such as self-determination, self-motivation, emotion control, rumination, and self-discipline. Some of these components are assumed to promote recovery from stress, whereas others are assumed to further the perseverance of stress. The model was supported by the empirical findings of three independent studies (Study 1, N = 58; Study 2, N = 221; Study 3, N=105). Kuhls Action Control Scale measured action versus state orientation. Volitional components were assessed with Kuhl and Fuhrmanns Volitional Components Questionnaire. The amounts of experienced stress and recovery from stress was assessed with Kellmann and Kalluss Recovery-Stress Questionnaire. As hypothesized in the model, the disposition towards action versus state orientation was a more distant determinant of the recovery from stress and perseverance of stress. The volitional components are more proximal determinants in the recovery process. Action orientation promotes recovery from stress via adequate volitional skills, e.g., self-determination, self-motivation, emotion control, whereas state orientation furthers a perseverance of stress through rumination and self-discipline.

Historical Perspectives in the Study of Action Control

In his summary of a socio-genetic theory of voluntary regulation, Leontiev (1932) describes a strategy the Chinese mailman used to avoid getting distracted while delivering an urgent telegram. “He organizes his own behavior, creating for himself additional stimuli. He hangs a number of subjects — a piece of coal, a pen, and some pepper on the end of a short rod. This he keeps before his eyes on the road. This will remind him that he must fly like a bird, run as if he was stepping on hot coals or had burnt himself with pepper” (Leontiev, 1932, p. 57). This example illustrates a strategy of voluntary regulation which presumably facilitates cognition-behavior consistency. Whether or not a cognition suggesting a certain action results in its enactment depends on the actor’s ability to apply appropriate self-regulatory strategies.

Dissonance and Action Control

Imagine that you have bought a car which you expect to drive faster than 120 miles per hour. After breaking it in you try to reach the car’s top speed and find that it is less than 120 miles per hour. Selling the car would cause financial loss, so you have to keep it. Will you be dissatisfied with the car from now on and think you made a wrong decision each time you drive it? Fortunately, there are certain cognitive strategies which allow you to enjoy driving the car after this experience of inconsistency between your expectation about the car’s top speed and its actual performance. You may search for positive information, for example that 110 miles per hour is still much faster than most other cars can do; that your car is safer and more comfortable than other cars, etc. Such cognitive operations will reduce the discontent you felt when experiencing the inconsistency between the car’s actual speed and your expectation about it.

Action Versus State Orientation and Self-Control Performance After Depletion

Three studies investigated the role of action versus state orientation in how people deal with depletion of self-control resources. Action-oriented persons were expected to continue allocating resources and hence to perform better than state-oriented persons who were expected to conserve strength. Consistent with this, action-oriented persons performed better on the d2 test of attention than state-oriented persons after a strenuous physical exercise (Study 1), showed higher acuity on the critical fusion frequency test after a test of vigilance (Study 2), and performed better on the Stroop test after a depleting sensorimotor task (Study 3). No differences emerged between action- and state-oriented persons in their initial performance and in a non-depleting context. The impact of depletion on subsequent performance is thus not fixed, but moderated by personality.

Research and intervention in sport psychology: New perspectives for an inherent conflict

Abstract Most research publications in sport psychology are of only limited use for solving the practical problems of athletes and coaches. This paper focuses on two major problems responsible for this apparent gap between research and its application. First, most studies in applied settings are conducted for research purposes only. Second, the transfer of sport psychological knowledge gained in laboratory and field studies to actual applications is impeded by limitations due to settings, study design, artificial performance tasks, and nonathletic samples. A problem‐centered approach is proposed that could bridge this gap by integrating applied research and intervention. Action research provides an example for such a solution. This procedure enhances the acceptance of sport psychological interventions and subsequently improves their quality.

Comparison of Athletes' Proneness to Depressive Symptoms in Individual and Team Sports: Research on Psychological Mediators in Junior Elite Athletes.

Depression among elite athletes is a topic of increasing interest and public awareness. Currently, empirical data on elite athletes’ depressive symptoms are rare. Recent results indicate sport-related mechanisms and effects on depression prevalence in elite athlete samples; specific factors associated with depression include overtraining, injury, and failure in competition. One such effect is that athletes competing in individual sports were found to be more prone to depressive symptoms than athletes competing in team sports. The present study examined this effect by testing three possible, psychological mediators based on theoretical and empirical assumptions: namely, cohesion in team or training groups; perception of perfectionistic expectations from others; and negative attribution after failure. In a cross-sectional study, 199 German junior elite athletes (Mage = 14.96; SD = 1.56) participated and completed questionnaires on perfectionism, cohesion, attribution after failure, and depressive symptoms. Mediation analysis using path analysis with bootstrapping was used for data analysis. As expected, athletes in individual sports showed higher scores in depression than athletes in team sports [t(197) = 2.05; p < 0.05; d = 0.30]. Furthermore, negative attribution after failure was associated with individual sports (β = 0.27; p < 0.001), as well as with the dependent variable depression (β = 0.26; p < 0.01). Mediation hypothesis was supported by a significant indirect effect (β = 0.07; p < 0.05). Negative attribution after failure mediated the relationship between individual sports and depression scores. Neither cohesion nor perfectionism met essential criteria to serve as mediators: cohesion was not elevated in either team or individual sports, and perfectionism was positively related to team sports. The results support the assumption of previous findings on sport-specific mechanisms (here the effect between individual and team sports) contributing to depressive symptoms among elite athletes. Additionally, attribution after failure seems to play an important role in this regard and could be considered in further research and practitioners in the field of sport psychology.

Ruminative thought and the deactivation of an intention.

When do individuals manage to disengage from intentions, when do they fail to do so? It is suggested that a major reason for a failure to disengage lies in a postactional evaluation that goes astray. This is especially likely if the context does not provide cues for other activities. Cues from another activity waiting to be enacted should induce a pressure to terminate the evaluation of the performance of the past activity. They should focus this evaluation on an analysis of elements of the performance rather than self evaluation. If the focus is on self-evaluation, the susceptibility for ruminative thinking increases. In an experiment to test these assumptions, subjects (N=53) worked on an intelligence test task. Half the subjects received failure feedback on all six problems of this task. The other half received no failure feedback. Subjects’ thoughts during a waiting period following the intelligence test task were assessed. Before the beginning of the waiting period, half the subjects received cues for another test to follow. The data supported the hypothesis that cues for a new activity help subjects to stop thinking about the first task. Without cues, subjects were susceptible to falling into self-evaluation loops. In this case, subjects were unable to remove the past task from their minds until the end of the waiting period. With cues, the postactional evaluation became task-centered, promoting a disengagement from the past task.

Metaprocesses and the regulation of behavior

Within modern psychology, scientific rigor in the study of behavior has often been equated with a rejection of higher-order processes which were associated with mentalistic and introspectionistic concepts. It seems as if psychology had to wait for computer scientists to show that higher-order processes are indispensable for demonstrating complex problem-solving. Meanwhile psychologists have begun to reintroduce higher-order processes into their models (e.g., Brown, 1978; Flavell, 1976; Kluwe 1982; Reitman, 1973; Sternberg, 1979). For example, “metacognition” has become a frequently used term during recent years. Presumably, metacognitive processes monitor cognitive processes and coordinate and control them on the basis of (“metacognitive”) knowledge about various characteristics of the cognitive processes. For instance, children learn to improve their memory performance after they find out about the facilitating effects of memory checks, semantic categorization, and other higher-order cognitive processes.