Lile Jia

When Perception Is More Than Reality: The Effects of Perceived Versus Actual Resource Depletion on Self-Regulatory Behavior

Considerable research demonstrates that the depletion of self-regulatory resources impairs performance on subsequent tasks that demand these resources. The current research sought to assess the impact of perceived resource depletion on subsequent task performance at both high and low levels of actual depletion. The authors manipulated perceived resource depletion by having participants 1st complete a depleting or nondepleting task before being presented with feedback that did or did not provide a situational attribution for their internal state. Participants then persisted at a problem-solving task (Experiments 1-2), completed an attention-regulation task (Experiment 3), or responded to a persuasive message (Experiment 4). The findings consistently demonstrated that individuals who perceived themselves as less (vs. more) depleted, whether high or low in actual depletion, were more successful at subsequent self-regulation. Thus, perceived regulatory depletion can impact subsequent task performance-and this impact can be independent of ones actual state of depletion.

Beyond Anti-Muslim Sentiment Opposing the Ground Zero Mosque as a Means to Pursuing a Stronger America

Americans’ opposition toward building an Islamic community center at Ground Zero has been attributed solely to a general anti-Muslim sentiment. We hypothesized that some Americans’ negative reaction was also due to their motivation to symbolically pursue a positive U.S. group identity, which had suffered from a concurrent economic and political downturn. Indeed, when participants perceived that the United States was suffering from lowered international status, those who identified strongly with the country, as evidenced especially by a high respect or deference for group symbols, reported a stronger opposition to the “Ground Zero mosque” than participants who identified weakly with the country did. Furthermore, participants who identified strongly with the country also showed a greater preference for buildings that were symbolically congruent than for buildings that were symbolically incongruent with the significance of Ground Zero, and they represented Ground Zero with a larger symbolic size. These findings suggest that identifying group members’ underlying motivations provides unusual insights for understanding intergroup conflict.

Gratitude facilitates behavioral mimicry.

Recent theorists argue that gratitude, besides encouraging social exchange, serves an important function of relationship building. However, there is a lack of research exploring the specific behaviors through which gratitude promotes relationship building. Given that behavioral mimicry serves important affiliative needs, we explored whether gratitude promotes behavioral mimicry. We found that participants who received intentional help later mimicked the behavioral mannerisms of their benefactor. This mimicry tendency was not extended to a nonbenefactor. In contrast, participants who ended up with the same positive outcome, but believed that it was attributable to chance, did not exhibit a reliable level of mimicry. Our results suggest that nonconscious behavioral mimicry might be a subtle but important first step through which gratitude promotes communal relationships.

Putting the Freeze on Priming The Role of Need for Cognitive Closure on the Prime-Norm Dynamic

Past research has indicated that individuals with a high need for cognitive closure (NFCC) are more susceptible to priming effects in norm-absent contexts. We proposed that in norm-present contexts, whereby normative information competes with priming in affecting individuals’ understanding of the social environment, the opposite pattern would occur. In Study 1, low- rather than high-NFCC individuals showed greater prime-consistent behavior in a context with a strong norm to comply. In Study 2, when both priming and normative information were manipulated, priming dictated low-NFCC individuals’ behaviors, whereas norms guided high-NFCC individuals’ behavior. In Study 3, the effect of a single priming manipulation was observed in two consecutive contexts. While high-NFCC individuals, compared with low-NFCC ones, were less prime-consistent in the norm-present context, they were more influenced by the same priming manipulation in the norm-absent context. Our findings underscore the importance of NFCC in people’s selection of environmental cues to guide self-regulation.

How to Have Your Cake and Eat It Too: Strategic Indulgence in Big-Time Collegiate Sports Among Academically Successful Students

Past research on academic success emphasizes the need to avoid pleasurable nonacademic activities. In the context of enjoying big-time collegiate sports, we examined the notion that students, especially academically successful ones, may strategically indulge in sports games to resolve the conflict with academic pursuit. After confirming that high- (vs. low-) grade point average (GPA) students indeed found game-related activities less disruptive (Npilot = 325), we proceeded to study whether strategic indulgence or single-minded avoidance was their preferred means to resolve the game–study conflict. High- (vs. low-) GPA students exhibited three features of strategic indulgence. They were more sensitive to the goodness of the opportunity to partake in collegiate sports (NStudy1 = 216), engaged in compensatory planning to study on nongame days (NSudy2 = 409), and actively engaged and enjoyed the game-related activities (Nstudy3 = 530). These results suggest that understanding strategic indulgence in tempting activities would enrich our knowledge of long-term goal pursuit.

Positive Emotion, Appraisal, and the Role of Appraisal Overlap in Positive Emotion Co-Occurrence.

Appraisal research has traditionally focused on negative emotions but has not addressed issues concerning the relationships between several positive emotions and appraisals in daily life and the extent to which co-occurrence of positive emotions can be explained by overlap in appraisals. Driven by a priori hypotheses on appraisal-emotion relationships, this study investigated 12 positive emotions and 13 appraisal dimensions using Ecological Momentary Assessment. The results provide strong evidence that positive emotions and appraisals correlate significantly in daily life. Importantly, we found that the positive emotions’ overlap on theoretically relevant, as compared to irrelevant, appraisals was stronger and more predictive of their co-occurrence. Furthermore, appraisal overlap on theoretically relevant appraisals predicted the co-occurrence of positive emotions even when the appraisal of pleasantness was excluded, indicating that positive emotions do not co-occur just by virtue of their shared valence. Our findings affirmed and refined the appraisal profiles of positive emotions and underscore the importance of appraisals in accounting for the commonality and differences among positive emotions.

Motivational Tuning in Response to Ego Depletion

Past research has investigated ego depletion primarily in goal-absent contexts. We argue that the effect of depletion is more nuanced in goal-present contexts, whereby a long-term goal is highly salient. Specifically, we propose that individuals can recruit a motivational tuning process to adaptively respond to the state of depletion. Essentially, depletion should be able to trigger a prioritization mind-set, which subsequently leads individuals to abandon the pursuit of a low-commitment goal but protect the pursuit of a high-commitment goal. Goal abandonment and goal protection should engender corresponding shifts in one’s goal evaluation and goal pursuit behavior. Finally, the motivational tuning process is more effective among those who are more successful in pursuing the particular goal. We review past literature consistent with the framework and more recent evidence directly testing the predictions of the framework. Our framework highlights the role of depletion as a potential trigger for adaptive self-regulatory processes.