Wing-Yee Cheung

Changing, priming, and acting on values: effects via motivational relations in a circular model.

Circular models of values and goals suggest that some motivational aims are consistent with each other, some oppose each other, and others are orthogonal to each other. The present experiments tested this idea explicitly by examining how value confrontation and priming methods influence values and value-consistent behaviors throughout the entire value system. Experiment 1 revealed that change in 1 set of social values causes motivationally compatible values to increase in importance, whereas motivationally incompatible values decrease in importance and orthogonal values remain the same. Experiment 2 found that priming security values reduced the better-than-average effect, but priming stimulation values increased it. Similarly, Experiments 3 and 4 found that priming security values increased cleanliness and decreased curiosity behaviors, whereas priming self-direction values decreased cleanliness and increased curiosity behaviors. Experiment 5 found that priming achievement values increased success at puzzle completion and decreased helpfulness to an experimenter, whereas priming with benevolence values decreased success and increased helpfulness. These results highlight the importance of circular models describing motivational interconnections between values and personal goals.

Back to the Future: Nostalgia Increases Optimism

This research examined the proposition that nostalgia is not simply a past-oriented emotion, but its scope extends into the future, and, in particular, a positive future. We adopted a convergent validation approach, using multiple methods to assess the relation between nostalgia and optimism. Study 1 tested whether nostalgic narratives entail traces of optimism; indeed, nostalgic (compared with ordinary) narratives contained more expressions of optimism. Study 2 manipulated nostalgia through the recollection of nostalgic (vs. ordinary) events, and showed that nostalgia boosts optimism. Study 3 demonstrated that the effect of nostalgia (induced with nomothetically relevant songs) on optimism is mediated by self-esteem. Finally, Study 4 established that nostalgia (induced with idiographically relevant lyrics) fosters social connectedness, which subsequently increases self-esteem, which then boosts optimism. The nostalgic experience is inherently optimistic and paints a subjectively rosier future.

The Mnemonic Mover: Nostalgia Regulates Avoidance and Approach Motivation

In light of its role in maintaining psychological equanimity, we proposed that nostalgia--a self-relevant, social, and predominantly positive emotion--regulates avoidance and approach motivation. We advanced a model in which (a) avoidance motivation triggers nostalgia and (b) nostalgia, in turn, increases approach motivation. As a result, nostalgia counteracts the negative impact of avoidance motivation on approach motivation. Five methodologically diverse studies supported this regulatory model. Study 1 used a cross-sectional design and showed that avoidance motivation was positively associated with nostalgia. Nostalgia, in turn, was positively associated with approach motivation. In Study 2, an experimental induction of avoidance motivation increased nostalgia. Nostalgia then predicted increased approach motivation. Studies 3-5 tested the causal effect of nostalgia on approach motivation and behavior. These studies demonstrated that experimental nostalgia inductions strengthened approach motivation (Study 3) and approach behavior as manifested in reduced seating distance (Study 4) and increased helping (Study 5). The findings shed light on nostalgias role in regulating the human motivation system.

Nostalgia-Evoked Inspiration Mediating Mechanisms and Motivational Implications

Six studies examined the nostalgia–inspiration link and its motivational implications. In Study 1, nostalgia proneness was positively associated with inspiration frequency and intensity. In Studies 2 and 3, the recollection of nostalgic (vs. ordinary) experiences increased both general inspiration and specific inspiration to engage in exploratory activities. In Study 4, serial mediational analyses supported a model in which nostalgia increases social connectedness, which subsequently fosters self-esteem, which then boosts inspiration. In Study 5, a rigorous evaluation of this serial mediational model (with a novel nostalgia induction controlling for positive affect) reinforced the idea that nostalgia-elicited social connectedness increases self-esteem, which then heightens inspiration. Study 6 extended the serial mediational model by demonstrating that nostalgia-evoked inspiration predicts goal pursuit (intentions to pursue an important goal). Nostalgia spawns inspiration via social connectedness and attendant self-esteem. In turn, nostalgia-evoked inspiration bolsters motivation.

Acting in solidarity: Testing an extended dual pathway model of collective action by bystander group members

We examined predictors of collective action among bystander group members in solidarity with a disadvantaged group by extending the dual pathway model of collective action, which proposes one efficacy-based and one emotion-based path to collective action (Van Zomeren, Spears, Fischer, & Leach, 2004). Based on two proposed functions of social identity performance (Klein, Spears, & Reicher, 2007), we distinguished between the efficacy of collective action at consolidating the identity of a protest movement and its efficacy at achieving social change (political efficacy). We expected identity consolidation efficacy to positively predict collective action tendencies directly and indirectly via political efficacy. We also expected collective action tendencies to be positively predicted by moral outrage and by sympathy in response to disadvantaged outgroups suffering. These hypotheses were supported in two surveys examining intentions to protest for Palestine in Britain (Study 1), and intentions to attend the June 4th vigil in Hong Kong to commemorate the Tiananmen massacre among a sample of Hong Kong citizens (Study 2). The contributions of these findings to research on the dual pathway model of collective action and the different functions of collective action are discussed.

Applying the value of equality unequally: effects of value instantiations that vary in typicality.

Across 4 experiments, the authors investigated the role of value instantiation in bridging the gap between abstract social values and behavior in specific situations. They predicted and found that participants engaged in more egalitarian behavior (point allocation using the minimal group paradigm) after contemplating a typical instantiation of the value of equality compared to an atypical instantiation or a control condition that simply made the value salient. This effect occurred when participants generated reasons for valuing equality in the instantiation (Experiment 1) and when participants merely read about hypothetical examples of the instantiation context (Experiments 2, 3, and 4). Results across experiments indicated that the effect of prior instantiations was not mediated by changes in the abstract value; instead, the process of applying the abstract value was crucial (Experiment 4). Together, the experiments show that the process of applying an abstract value to a specific situation can be influenced by seemingly unrelated prior episodes.

Nostalgia fosters self-continuity : Uncovering the mechanism (social connectedness) and consequence (eudaimonic well-being)

Nostalgia, a sentimental longing for ones past, is an emotion that arises from self-relevant and social memories. Nostalgia functions, in part, to foster self-continuity, that is, a sense of connection between ones past and ones present. This article examined, in 6 experiments, how nostalgia fosters self-continuity and the implications of that process for well-being. Nostalgia fosters self-continuity by augmenting social connectedness, that is, a sense of belongingness and acceptance (Experiments 1-4). Nostalgia-induced self-continuity, in turn, confers eudaimonic well-being, operationalized as subjective vitality (i.e., a feeling of aliveness and energy; Experiments 5-6). The findings clarify and expand the benefits of nostalgia for both the self-system and psychological adjustment. (PsycINFO Database Record

Cultural differences in values as self-guides

Three studies tested whether individualism–collectivism moderates the extent to which values are endorsed as ideal self-guides and ought self-guides, and the consequences for regulatory focus and emotion. Across Studies 1 and 2, individualists endorsed values that are relatively central to the self as stronger ideals than oughts, whereas collectivists endorsed them as ideals and oughts to a similar degree. Study 2 found that individualists justified central values using reasons that were more promotion focused than prevention focused, whereas collectivists used similar amount of prevention-focused and promotion-focused reasons. In Study 3, individualists felt more dejected after violating a central (vs. peripheral) value and more agitated after violating a peripheral (vs. central) value. Collectivists felt a similar amount of dejection regardless of values centrality and more agitation after violating central (vs. peripheral) values. Overall, culture has important implications for how we regulate values that are central or peripheral to our self-concept.

Uncovering the Multifaceted-Self in the Domain of Negative Traits On the Muted Expression of Negative Self-Knowledge

The multifaceted-self effect is the ascription of more traits to self than others. Consensus is that this effect occurs for positive, but not negative, traits. We propose that the effect also occurs for negative traits when they can be endorsed with low intensity (“I am a little bit lazy”), thereby circumventing self-protection concerns. In Experiment 1, the multifaceted-self effect occurred for positive, but not negative, traits on a high-intensity trait-endorsement measure. However, it occurred irrespective of trait valence on a low-intensity trait-endorsement measure. In Experiment 2, the multifaceted-self effect occurred for positive, but not negative, traits on a strong trait-endorsement measure. However, it occurred irrespective of trait valence on a diminuted trait-endorsement measure—a finding conceptually replicated in Experiment 3. In Experiment 4, participants spontaneously adopted diminutive terms (“a little bit”) when describing their negative traits. Individuals reconcile negative self-knowledge with self-protection concerns by expressing it in muted terms.

Autobiographical memory functions of nostalgia in comparison to rumination and counterfactual thinking: similarity and uniqueness

ABSTRACT We compared and contrasted nostalgia with rumination and counterfactual thinking in terms of their autobiographical memory functions. Specifically, we assessed individual differences in nostalgia, rumination, and counterfactual thinking, which we then linked to self-reported functions or uses of autobiographical memory (Self-Regard, Boredom Reduction, Death Preparation, Intimacy Maintenance, Conversation, Teach/Inform, and Bitterness Revival). We tested which memory functions are shared and which are uniquely linked to nostalgia. The commonality among nostalgia, rumination, and counterfactual thinking resides in their shared positive associations with all memory functions: individuals who evinced a stronger propensity towards past-oriented thought (as manifested in nostalgia, rumination, and counterfactual thinking) reported greater overall recruitment of memories in the service of present functioning. The uniqueness of nostalgia resides in its comparatively strong positive associations with Intimacy Maintenance, Teach/Inform, and Self-Regard and weak association with Bitterness Revival. In all, nostalgia possesses a more positive functional signature than do rumination and counterfactual thinking.