William Hart

The Effects of Chronic Achievement Motivation and Achievement Primes on the Activation of Achievement and Fun Goals

This research examined the hypothesis that situational achievement cues can elicit achievement or fun goals depending on chronic differences in achievement motivation. In 4 studies, chronic differences in achievement motivation were measured, and achievement-denoting words were used to influence behavior. The effects of these variables were assessed on self-report inventories, task performance, task resumption following an interruption, and the pursuit of means relevant to achieving or having fun. Findings indicated that achievement priming (vs. control priming) activated a goal to achieve and inhibited a goal to have fun in individuals with chronically high-achievement motivation but activated a goal to have fun and inhibited a goal to achieve in individuals with chronically low-achievement motivation.

What I Was Doing Versus What I Did: Verb Aspect Influences Memory and Future Actions

This research examined whether describing past actions as ongoing using the imperfective aspect (rather than describing them as completed using the perfective aspect) promotes memory for action-relevant knowledge and reenactment of these actions in a future context. In Experiment 1, participants who used the imperfective aspect to describe their strategy on a prior interpersonal task were more likely to use this strategy on a later task than were participants who used the perfective aspect to describe their prior strategy. Experiment 2 demonstrated that describing behaviors on a task using the imperfective rather than the perfective aspect increased willingness to resume that task by improving memory for task contents. The last two experiments showed that the effects of the imperfective aspect on memory decayed over time and that the imperfective aspect facilitated performance of a future behavior only when the described past behavior was relevant to the future behavior. Thus, the effects of aspect are moderated by memory decay and are behavior-specific.

Learning About What Others Were Doing Verb Aspect and Attributions of Mundane and Criminal Intent for Past Actions

Scientists have long been interested in understanding how language shapes the way people relate to others, yet it remains unclear how formal aspects of language influence person perception. We tested whether the attribution of intentionality to a person is influenced by whether the person’s behaviors are described as what the person was doing or as what the person did (imperfective vs. perfective aspect). In three experiments, participants who read what a person was doing showed enhanced accessibility of intention-related concepts and attributed more intentionality to the person, compared with participants who read what the person did. This effect of the imperfective aspect was mediated by a more detailed set of imagined actions from which to infer the person’s intentions and was found for both mundane and criminal behaviors. Understanding the possible intentions of others is fundamental to social interaction, and our findings show that verb aspect can profoundly influence this process.

Unlocking Past Emotion Verb Use Affects Mood and Happiness

In the research reported here, I examined whether the verbs applied to descriptions of past emotional experiences influence present mood and happiness. Participants who described a positive experience using the imperfective aspect, which implies ongoing progression, subsequently reported more positive mood and greater happiness than did participants who described a positive experience using the perfective aspect, which implies completion; likewise, participants who described a negative experience using the imperfective aspect subsequently reported more negative mood and less happiness than did participants who described a negative experience using the perfective aspect. These effects were traced to enhanced memory for the described emotional experience in the imperfective condition relative to the perfective condition. The findings demonstrate how formal features of language shape both the reinstatement of past affective reactions and happiness judgments, and may have practical applications for improving subjective well-being.The following article has been retracted by the Editor and publishers of Psychological Science:Hart, W. (2013). Unlocking past emotion: Verb use affects mood and happiness. Psychological Science, 24, 19–26. doi: 10.1177/0956797612446351The retraction follows an investigation by the University of Alabama’s Office for Research Compliance. That investigation found that a former graduate student in William Hart’s lab altered the data in strategic ways. The investigation found that William Hart was unaware when the article was published that the data had been manipulated. William Hart cooperated in the investigation and agreed to this retraction.

Associating versus proposing or associating what we propose: comment on Gawronski and Bodenhausen (2006).

This commentary highlights the strengths of the associative-propositional evaluation model. It then describes problems in proposing a qualitative separation between propositional and associative processes. Propositional processes are instead described as associative. Propositions are ordered associations, whereas many other associations do not depend on the order of the involved elements. Implications of this alternative definition for the phenomenology of thought and for social psychology are discussed.

Craving Activity and Losing Objectivity Effects of General Action Concepts on Approach to Decision-Consistent Information

In light of U.S. society’s ever increasing need for activity, the authors used three experiments to examine how general action concepts, activated by subtle priming methods, influence choices to approach information that confirms a recent decision. Findings from Experiments 1 to 3 revealed that viewing action (vs. control) words prior to information selection increased selective approach to supporting information, but viewing inaction (vs. control) words reduced this bias. Experiment 3 also showed that the effect of the action words on this confirmation bias was smaller when participants were allowed to self-affirm by writing about an important personal value. In addition, the experiments found that viewing the action words caused the selection of more total information than viewing the inaction words. The authors conclude that the growing need for activity in the United States may contribute to a loss of objectivity in the way citizens gather information.

Fueling doubt and openness: Experiencing the unconscious, constructed nature of perception induces uncertainty and openness to change

This article has been retracted: please see Elsevier Policy on Article Withdrawal (http://www.elsevier.com/locate/withdrawalpolicy). The article has been retracted at the request of the Editor-in-Chief, Steven Sloman, following a request by the authors. The reason for the retraction is that the article includes fabricated or manipulated data.

How Judgments Change Following Comparison of Current and Prior Information

Although much observed judgment change is superficial and occurs without considering prior information, other forms of change also occur. Comparison between prior and new information about an issue may trigger change by influencing either or both the perceived strength and direction of the new information. In four experiments, participants formed and reported initial judgments of a policy based on favorable written information about it. Later, these participants read a second passage containing strong favorable or unfavorable information on the policy. Compared to control conditions, subtle and direct prompts to compare the initial and new information led to more judgment change in the direction of a second passage perceived to be strong. Mediation analyses indicated that comparison yielded greater perceived strength of the second passage, which in turn correlated positively with judgment change. Moreover, self-reports of comparison mediated the judgment change resulting from comparison prompts.

The political reference point: How geography shapes political identity

It is commonly assumed that how individuals identify on the political spectrum–whether liberal, conservative, or moderate–has a universal meaning when it comes to policy stances and voting behavior. But, does political identity mean the same thing from place to place? Using data collected from across the U.S. we find that even when people share the same political identity, those in “bluer” locations are more likely to support left-leaning policies and vote for Democratic candidates than those in “redder” locations. Because the meaning of political identity is inconsistent across locations, individuals who share the same political identity sometimes espouse opposing policy stances. Meanwhile, those with opposing identities sometimes endorse identical policy stances. Such findings suggest that researchers, campaigners, and pollsters must use caution when extrapolating policy preferences and voting behavior from political identity, and that animosity toward the other end of the political spectrum is sometimes misplaced.

The complex interplay between semantics and grammar in impression formation.

We sought to bridge findings showing that (a) describing a persons behavior with the perfective verb aspect (did), compared to the imperfective aspect (was doing), increases processing of semantic knowledge unrelated to the targets action such as stereotypes and (b) an increased recognition of stereotypical thoughts often promotes a judgment correction for the stereotypes. We hypothesized an interplay between grammar (verb conjugation) and semantic information (gender) in impression-formation. Participants read a resume, attributed to a male or female, for a traditionally masculine job. When the resume was written in the imperfective, people rated a male (vs. female) more positively. When the resume was in the perfective, this pattern reversed. Only these latter effects of gender were influenced by cognitive load. Further, people more quickly indicated the applicants gender in the perfective condition, suggesting an enhanced focus on gender during processing.