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Disordered environments prompt mere goal pursuit
... People have a strong need to perceive their environment as orderly and structured and to escape disorderliness and randomness (Fennis & Wiebenga, 2015;Heintzelman et al., 2013;Johnson, Martin, Brooksgunn, & Petrill, 2008;O'Brien, 2014). However, little work has examined the impact of orderly/disorderly environmental variations on global versus local processing-that is, whether individuals exposed to different orderly or disorderly environments attend to the forest or the trees differently. ...
... In addition, numerous studies have demonstrated that people have a fundamental need to view the world as an ordered and structured place composed of predictable cause-and-effect relations (Fennis & Wiebenga, 2015;Heine, Proulx, & Vohs, 2006;Kay, Whitson, Gaucher, & Galinsky, 2010;Landau et al., 2004); that is, maintaining a sense of order or structure might be ingrained in our nature. Recently, in a series of lab and field experiments, Fennis and Wiebenga (2015) found that the need for order was higher for participants in the disordered environment condition than for participants in the ordered environment condition. ...
... In addition, numerous studies have demonstrated that people have a fundamental need to view the world as an ordered and structured place composed of predictable cause-and-effect relations (Fennis & Wiebenga, 2015;Heine, Proulx, & Vohs, 2006;Kay, Whitson, Gaucher, & Galinsky, 2010;Landau et al., 2004); that is, maintaining a sense of order or structure might be ingrained in our nature. Recently, in a series of lab and field experiments, Fennis and Wiebenga (2015) found that the need for order was higher for participants in the disordered environment condition than for participants in the ordered environment condition. Some studies have proposed that the Personal Need for Structure (PNS) Scale can serve as a valid operationalization of people's differences in their chronic desire for simple structure (Rietzschel, De Dreu, & Nijstad, 2007;Shi, Wang, & Chen, 2009). ...
People attend to the same event or object by using a global or local processing style across different environments. Different physical environmental conditions, such as orderliness and disorderliness, activate different psychological states and produce different kinds of outcomes. However, previous work has rarely examined whether individuals exposed to different orderly or disorderly environments attend to the “global” or the “local” differently. Thus, in the current study, we conducted three behavioral experiments to directly examine the impact of disorder versus order cues on people's types of perceptual and conceptual processing (global vs. local). We asked participants to perform a typical Kimchi–Palmer figures task or a categorization task: with pre‐primed disorderly or orderly physical environmental pictures (Experiment 1), with basic visual pictures (Experiment 2), and imagining a real environment (Experiment 3). The results revealed that in any of the above operations, orderly experience led to global perceptual processing, whereas disorderly experience led to local perceptual processing. This difference in processing style was not influenced by the participants’ daily habits or their preference for the need for structure. However, this difference in perceptual processing style did not spill over to the conceptual processing style. These findings provide direct evidence of the effects of disorderliness versus orderliness on global versus local perceptual and conceptual processing and imply that environmental orderliness or disorderliness may functionally affect cognitive processing (i.e., how we see and think about events and objects). Thus, the findings creatively bridge several lines of research and shed light on a basic cognitive mechanism responsible for perceptions of order/disorder.
... As a consequence, this growing participation is both a cause and a consequence of development (Bronfenbrenner, 1986); interactions must occur on a regular basis and over prolonged periods of time (Bronfenbrenner and Evans, 2000;Coley et al., 2015;Berry et al., 2016). The lack of routines and structure in the home has been found to be negatively associated with psychological adjustment in children, family satisfaction, and school performance (Fiese, 2006;Flouri, 2009;Fennis and Wiebenga, 2015). ...
... Maxwell (2009) argued that a school with high levels of noise, overcrowding, confusion, changes in teachers or classmates, poor-quality infrastructure, or an absence of routines might negatively affect children's development. In spaces with quality deprivations, it is common for both children and teachers to experience overcrowding, due to density, temperature, and lighting (Maxwell, 2006); a student or teacher may then feel overcrowded when he or she observes that his or her ability to control interaction with others is affected or when others interfere with his or her ability to perform an activity such as reading and studied conversation (Fennis and Wiebenga, 2015). ...
Microsystems are described as contexts formed by a subject, their roles, their interactions, and a specific physical space and time, such as housing and the school environment. Although several studies suggest the importance of studying this type of environment and its repercussion on children’s development, in a Latin American context, few studies integrate the interaction of two primary settings in the development of executive functioning. The present study explores the effects of the quality of housing and school environments on the perception of stress, decision making, and planning among children. A total of 114 children (43% girls and 57% boys, Mage = 10.57) from a primary school located in a community classified as poor participated in the study. The following was measured: the environmental quality of classrooms, housing, stress, and executive functioning of children. The results reveal a model linking environmental quality levels in children’s homes and schools and executive functioning. We also obtain a mediating role of stress between microsystems and performance, finding a deficit in executive performance when children experienced higher levels of stress as a result of poor environmental quality both in their homes and in their schools.
... Aligned with findings about children with special educational needs (Singh et al., 2020), many parents drew attention to the elevated risk of their children living with pre-existing vulnerabilities such as autism spectrum disorder, through disconnection from specialist care systems, unpredictability of daily routines, and challenges to positive parenting. The interrelated nature of these impacts is echoed in earlier research which links lack of routine and structure, particularly in the home environment, to negative outcomes in psychological adjustment, school performance, and family cohesion (Fennis & Wiebenga, 2015;Fiese, 2006;Flouri, 2009). ...
Background
The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and associated public health restrictions created unprecedented challenges for parents and their young dependent children. While psycho-social impacts of natural disasters on families are well studied, a typography of parent specific concerns in the COVID-19 context was yet to be articulated.
Objective
Using a bioecological systems framework, we adopted a mixed-methods research design to examine parents’ core concerns about the impacts of the pandemic on themselves and their children, testing for differences in concern foci of mothers compared with fathers.
Method
Data were drawn from the Australian Temperament Project Generation 3 (ATPG3) study, a prospective study of children born to a 40-year population-based cohort. During enforced COVID-19 lockdown restrictions between May to September 2020, ATPG3 parents (n = 516) were surveyed about their own and their children’s functioning in the context of the pandemic. Subject of qualitative content analysis, parents (n = 192) experiencing wellbeing concerns offered additional free-text responses about the nature of stress impacting themselves and their child/ren.
Results
Parents reported far-reaching impacts for themselves and their children across multiple bioecological systems. Core concerns were for emotional rather than physical health, specifically, for parents this was represented by increased levels of anxiety and stress, and for children, these impacts were notable from a developmental perspective. Greater frequency of parenting related concern was expressed by mothers in comparison to fathers.
Conclusions
Findings demonstrate the complex and interrelated nature of multi-systemic and gendered stressors impacting parents during the pandemic, and importantly point to modifiable risk factors which may inform early risk detection efforts.
... The organization of shelf displays has gained popularity as an area of study in retail (Chae and Zhu, 2014;Coskun et al., 2020;Roose and Vermeir, 2023). Retailers design the arrangement of retail assortments to provide a multisensory shopping experience for consumers (Doucé et al., 2014;Fennis and Wiebenga, 2015;Roose and Vermeir, 2023). Negative experiences with disorganized stores have been reported by 70% of consumers, and over 60% have left a store due to messy shelves (Verdon, 2023). ...
Contemporary retail studies have tended to discover how the organization of displays can evoke increased consumer attention. This paper assumes that there are conditions in retail that make the organization of exhibitions unfeasible. Thus, the purpose is to examine how disorganization cues shelf displays foster surprise through information search and the implications of that process for visualizing low-price signals. In three studies (two in the laboratory and one in the field), empirical evidence is presented that disorganization cues can generate an increase in information search generated by cognitive processing, increased emotional surprise manifested levels via schema discrepancy, and perception of low-price provoked by the attempt to reduce the risk of choice.
... The vision is limited to a few meters without the possibility of framing objects close to the position of a horizon (Šikl & Šimeček, 2014). Some studies point to the effect of a decrease in job satisfaction and psychological well-being and an increase in stress in workers operating in spaces with limited access to outdoor (Arias & Otto, 2011;Clément & Reschke, 2008), in particular in these professionals (Aylott & Mitchell, 1998;Fennis & Wiebenga, 2015). Job satisfaction (JS), understood as an attitude towards work, and psychological wellbeing (PWB) are two variables that are highly associated with motivation, engagement, performance, productivity, quality of life at work, turnover intention, among other outcomes (e.g., Munir & Rahman, 2016;Platis, Reklitis, & Zimeras, 2015;Wen, Gu, & Wen, 2019, see also . ...
This study has as main objective to observe the difference in job satisfaction, psychological well-being and perceived confinement of commercial workers due to solar exposure in the work space. For this purpose, a quasi-experimental design of non-equivalent groups with a unifactorial design of three conditions was carried out: null exposure (internal shopping stores); indirect exposure (street stores) and direct exposure (fairs and street markets). Participants, out of a total of 184 answered a self-reported questionnaire applied at the workplace. The results showed that the participants in the direct exposure work places present superior mean values in the variables compared to the other conditions’ participants. Perceived confinement has a predictive effect on job satisfaction and on psychological well-being, which meets what was expected.
... positive or negative) of responses that an ordered environment can induce, some studies have revealed specific effects of visual order. For example, Fennis and Wiebenga (2015) found that goal-pursuit responses, prompted by the need to reassert perceptions of order, were triggered by a disordered environment. In another line of research, Chae and Zhu (2014) found that disorganised environments threaten individuals' sense of personal control, which result in self-regulatory failure. ...
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of a fashion store’s visual complexity on
consumers’ behaviour. Considering environmental order and individuals’ sensation-seeking tendencies, the
authors examine the effect of visually complex fashion stores on consumers in a more conclusive way to
address the inconsistent effect found in the previous literature.
Design/methodology/approach – This study features a 3 (visual complexity level: low, medium, high) ×
2 (environmental order condition: low, high) between subjects design, with individual sensation-seeking
tendency included as a moderator. Using this design, an online survey was administered to 188 participants in
South Korea.
Findings – The results indicate that there is a three-way interaction, where the interaction effect of visual
complexity and environmental order is moderated by individuals’ sensation-seeking tendency. The effect of visual
complexity on approach behaviours had an inverted U-shape in the low-order condition, while had a positive linear
shape in the high-order condition, and the interaction effect was significant only for high-sensation seekers.
Practical implications – The findings assist practitioners in establishing strategies for visualmerchandising
and store design within fashion stores. It is suggested that retailers consider environmental order when
organising a large amount of varied merchandise in a complex environment. Store managers must adjust the
complexity and environmental order to meet the optimal stimulation level of their target consumers.
Originality/value – This study strengthens the literature on visual complexity by applying the concept to
the retail environment. The results provide a significant contribution to the literature because they show how
individual-level and store-level variables interact to influence consumer behaviour.
... Being in a state of uncertainty is fundamentally uncomfortable and potentially dangerous (Higgins, 2011). Thus, when confronted with anxiety and uncertainty, individuals search for clear goals and contingencies to guide behavior and increase control and certainty (Fennis & Wiebenga, 2015;Sherif & Harvey, 1952), and they invoke a variety of direct and indirect strategies to achieve this aim (Higgins, 2011;Kay, Sullivan, & Landau, 2015). We propose that one such tactic would be to experience anger when given the opportunity. ...
Enemyship is an important but understudied interpersonal phenomenon. Prior research on this topic has focused on enemyship’s cognitive, control-maintenance function following a threat. The present studies advance theory and research by showing the role of emotion, particularly anger, in this process. Using appraisal theory as a framework, we draw on recent research into approach and avoidance motivational dynamics during threat. We propose an interaction between anxiety-inducing threat and enemy-directed anger on perceptions of control and certainty, and motivation. More specifically, we expect that when an anxiety-inducing threat is present, perceptions of control and certainty will be significantly higher when enemy-directed anger is also present than when it is not. Additionally, we sought to demonstrate the consequences of these processes for motivation. Perhaps counterintuitively, we propose that individuals who experience anger at an enemy following an anxiety-inducing control threat will experience a boost in motivation, an effect mediated by perceptions of control and certainty. We find support for our moderated mediation model across three studies with undergraduate and working adults (Total N = 673).
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to understand the effect of store messiness and human crowding on shoppers' competitive behaviours, in-store hoarding and in-store hiding, through the mediating effect of perceived scarcity and perceived competition.
Design/methodology/approach
2 (store messiness: messy × tidy) × 2 (human crowding: high × low) between-subject factorial experiment was conducted online to manipulate retail store atmospheric factors. A total of 154 responses were collected through Amazon MTurk. The hypotheses were analysed using ANOVA and PROCESS (Hayes, 2013) procedure.
Findings
Results suggest that store messiness and human crowding within a fast-fashion store lead to perception of scarcity and competition that further affects competitive behaviours. When consumers experience store messiness, they are likely to hide merchandise in store, thus making it inaccessible for other consumers. Further, when they experience human crowding in the store, they feel that the products will be gone immediately so they have a tendency to hoard them.
Research limitations/implications
This study examined the effects of scarcity perception by studying the case of fast-fashion retailers; generalizability needs to be established across different contexts.
Practical implications
Retailers by manipulating human crowding and store messiness can create a perception of scarcity in their stores, thus enhancing sales. However, they should also pay attention to deviant behaviours such as in-store hoarding and in-store hiding as these behaviours may decrease the store sales.
Originality/value
This research contributed to the retailing literature by finding a significant relationship between human crowding, store messiness and competitive behaviours through perceived scarcity and competition.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of disorderly environment on consumers’ preferences for boundaries and the mediating effect of personal control in this process.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors examined hypotheses in two studies. In Study 1, the authors measured environmental orderliness, preference for boundaries and other control variables like positive and negative emotions. In Study 2, the authors primed participants’ concept of environmental orderliness and measured personal control as well as the same variables in Study 1.
Findings
Consumers in disorderly environments prefer bounded logos more compared to those in orderly environments. Personal control mediates the effect of chaotic physical environment on the preference for boundaries. Compared with the counterparts in the orderly environment, consumers in the disorderly environment have a lack of personal control, thus giving the preference to logos with boundaries.
Research limitations/implications
This paper discusses the mechanism of the process that the disorderly environment triggers the individual’s preference for bounded design, which enriches the research related to physical environment in the field of consumer behavior. However, it fails to examine the influence of disorderly environment on the preference for real bounded products and did not discuss the invisible boundary.
Originality/value
The impact of the disorderly environment on consumers’ boundary preferences, which the research focuses on, has further deepened the understanding of the boundaries, and to some extent, the authors filled the research gap in this field.
Many factors affect the store patronage decision, e.g. location, service levels, pricing policies, merchandise assortment, store environment and store image, but very little research has considered stress as a determinant. This is despite the increase in dual income families and longer working hours which are making general shopping a more stressful activity for many families because of time pressure and lack of response by retailers. This exploratory research confirms grocery shopping to be stressful, but time pressure was mentioned as only one factor causing shopping stress; other factors included: crowd density, staff attitude and training, store layout/relocation, impulse purchasing pressure, location, product assortment, music, and lighting. The article concludes by proposing a shopping stress curve for future examination.
Studies that combine moderation and mediation are prevalent in basic and applied psychology research. Typically, these studies are framed in terms of moderated mediation or mediated moderation, both of which involve similar analytical approaches. Unfortunately, these approaches have important shortcomings that conceal the nature of the moderated and the mediated effects under investigation. This article presents a general analytical framework for combining moderation and mediation that integrates moderated regression analysis and path analysis. This framework clarifies how moderator variables influence the paths that constitute the direct, indirect, and total effects of mediated models. The authors empirically illustrate this framework and give step-by-step instructions for estimation and interpretation. They summarize the advantages of their framework over current approaches, explain how it subsumes moderated mediation and mediated moderation, and describe how it can accommodate additional moderator and mediator variables, curvilinear relationships, and structural equation models with latent variables.
This paper examines how ambient noise, an important environmental variable, can affect creativity. Results from five experiments demonstrate that a moderate (70 dB) versus low (50 dB) level of ambient noise enhances performance on creative tasks and increases the buying likelihood of innovative products. A high level of noise (85 dB), on the other hand, hurts creativity. Process measures reveal that a moderate (vs. low) level of noise increases processing difficulty, inducing a higher construal level and thus promoting abstract processing, which subsequently leads to higher creativity. A high level of noise, however, reduces the extent of information processing and thus impairs creativity.
This article examines the influence of environmental orderliness on consumers' self-regulation. It is proposed that a disorganized environment threatens the individual's sense of personal control. Because experiencing this control threat depletes resources, individuals exposed to a disorganized (vs. organized) environment are more likely to exhibit self-regulatory failure in subsequent tasks. The results from four studies provide support for this hypothesis. Further, they offer evidence of the underlying process by demonstrating that a perceived threat to control mediates the effect of environmental orderliness on self-regulation, and that providing individuals with an opportunity to recoup their resources mitigates this effect. This research has crucial practical implications concerning public health and consumer well-being.
Mechanical Turk (MTurk), an online labor market created by Amazon, has recently become popular among social scientists as a source of survey and experimental data. The workers who populate this market have been assessed on dimensions that are universally relevant to understanding whether, why, and when they should be recruited as research participants. We discuss the characteristics of MTurk as a participant pool for psychology and other social sciences, highlighting the traits of the MTurk samples, why people become MTurk workers and research participants, and how data quality on MTurk compares to that from other pools and depends on controllable and uncontrollable factors.
People are motivated to perceive themselves as having control over their lives. Consequently, they respond to events and cognitions that reduce control with compensatory strategies for restoring perceived control to baseline levels. Prior theory and research have documented 3 such strategies: bolstering personal agency, affiliating with external systems perceived to be acting on the self's behalf, and affirming clear contingencies between actions and outcomes within the context of reduced control (here termed specific structure). We propose a 4th strategy: affirming nonspecific structure, or seeking out and preferring simple, clear, and consistent interpretations of the social and physical environments. Formulating this claim suggests that people will respond to reduced control by affirming structured interpretations that are unrelated to the control-reducing condition, and even those that entail otherwise adverse outcomes (e.g., pessimistic health prospects). Section 1 lays the conceptual foundation for our review, situating the proposed phenomenon in the literatures on control motivation and threat-compensation mechanisms. Section 2 reviews studies that have demonstrated that trait and state variations in perceived control predict a wide range of epistemic structuring tendencies, including pattern recognition and causal reasoning. We posit that these tendencies reflect a common desire for a structured understanding of one's environment. Accordingly, a new meta-analysis spanning the reviewed studies (k = 55) revealed that control reduction predicts nonspecific structure affirmation with a moderate effect size (r = .25). Section 3 reviews research on individual differences and situational moderators of this effect. The discussion addresses the interplay of compensatory control strategies and practical implications. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).
Claims that attributions and their related behaviors may reflect a type of perceived control that is generally overlooked. People attempt to gain control by bringing the environment into line with their wishes (primary control) and by bringing themselves into line with environmental forces (secondary control). Four manifestations of secondary control are considered: (a) Attributions to severely limited ability can serve to enhance predictive control and protect against disappointment; (b) attributions to chance can reflect illusory control, since people often construe chance as a personal characteristic akin to an ability ("luck"); (c) attributions to powerful others permit vicarious control when the individual identifies with these others; and (d) the preceding attributions may foster interpretive control, in which the individual seeks to understand and derive meaning from otherwise uncontrollable events in order to accept them. (5½ p ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Latent state–trait theory (LSTT) considers the fact that measurement does not take place in a situational vacuum. LSTT decomposes any observed variable into a latent state component and a measurement error component, and any latent state into a latent trait component and a latent state residual representing situational influence and/or interactional influences. Furthermore, it provides more precise reliability estimates than common coefficients. This article introduces the basic concepts of LSTT, discusses its usefulness for public opinion research, and applies LST models to panel data on political efficacy from the 2009 German Longitudinal Election Study. The findings show that internal efficacy is a rather trait-like disposition and external efficacy is significantly due to situational and/or interactional influences.
We examine the trade-offs associated with using Amazon.com's Mechanical Turk (MTurk) interface for subject recruitment. We first describe MTurk and its promise as a vehicle for performing low-cost and easy-to-field experiments. We then assess the internal and external validity of experiments performed using MTurk, employing a framework that can be used to evaluate other subject pools. We first investigate the characteristics of samples drawn from the MTurk population. We show that respondents recruited in this manner are often more representative of the U.S. population than in-person convenience samples—the modal sample in published experimental political science—but less representative than subjects in Internet-based panels or national probability samples. Finally, we replicate important published experimental work using MTurk samples.
The authors explore the interplay between consumers' progress levels toward attaining a goal and the perceived velocity in progressing toward the goal to determine consumers' motivation for further goal pursuit. The authors propose that when progress toward attaining a goal is low, consumers are primarily concerned about the question "Can I get there?" Thus, a high (vs. low) perceived velocity in progressing suggests greater expectations of goal attainment, resulting in greater motivation for pursuing the goal. However, when consumers have achieved sufficient progress and are approaching the end point, their attainment of the goal is relatively secured, so they become more concerned about the question "When will I get there?" and focus more on whether they are effectively reducing the remaining discrepancy so that they can attain the goal quickly. In this case, a low (vs. high) perceived velocity in progressing elicits greater motivation because it suggests that continued effort is needed to ensure a speedy attainment. Empirical evidence from lab and field experiments supports this hypothesis.
Lacking control causes illusory pattern perception, but does culture influence the patterns people perceive? Different cultural contexts invite distinct types of control, with people from Western cultures emphasizing primary control methods (i.e., personal agency) and people from East Asian cultures emphasizing secondary control methods (i.e., adjustment to surroundings). Four experiments suggest that cultural differences in primary versus secondary control orientation shape the patterns people perceive within horoscopes. When lacking (vs. possessing) control, Westerners are relatively more likely to rely on horoscopes that help them understand themselves, whereas East Asians are relatively more likely to rely on horoscopes that help them understand others. The authors isolate underlying mechanisms, demonstrating that, following loss of control, people high on primary control rely on self-focused horoscopes and people high on secondary control rely on horoscopes about friends. Thus, cultural differences in primary versus secondary control create unique signatures in pattern perception.
People are frequently challenged by goals that demand effort and persistence. As a consequence, philosophers, psychologists, economists, and others have studied the factors that enhance task motivation. Using a sample of undergraduate students and a sample of working adults, we demonstrate that the manner in which an incentive is framed has implications for individuals' task motivation. In both samples we find that individuals are less motivated when an incentive is framed as a means to accrue a gain (positive framing) as compared with when the same incentive is framed as a means to avoid a loss (negative framing). Further, we provide evidence for the role of the negativity bias in this effect, and highlight specific populations for whom positive framing may be least motivating. Interestingly, we find that people's intuitions about when they will be more motivated show the opposite pattern, with people predicting that positively framed incentives will be more motivating than negatively framed incentives. We identify a lay belief in the positive correlation between enjoyment and task motivation as one possible factor contributing to the disparity between predicted and actual motivation as a result of the framing of the incentive. We conclude with a discussion of the managerial implications for these findings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved).
Every year thousands of dollars are spent on psychics who claim to "know" the future. The present research questions why, despite no evidence that humans are able to psychically predict the future, do people persist in holding irrational beliefs about precognition? We argue that believing the future is predictable increases one's own perceived ability to exert control over future events. As a result, belief in precognition should be particularly strong when people most desire control-that is, when they lack it. In Experiment 1 (N = 87), people who were experimentally induced to feel low in control reported greater belief in precognition than people who felt high in control. Experiment 2 (N = 53) investigated whether belief in precognition increases perceived control. Consistent with this notion, providing scientific evidence that precognition is possible increased feelings of control relative to providing scientific evidence that precognition was not possible. Experiment 3 (N = 132) revealed that when control is low, believing in precognition helps people to feel in control once more. Prediction therefore acts as a compensatory mechanism in times of low control. The present research provides new insights into the psychological functions of seemingly irrational beliefs, like belief in psychic abilities.
The present research explored the nonconscious motivational influence of self-symbols. In line with recent findings on the motivational influence of positive affect, we hypothesized that positive affect associated with self-symbols may boost motivation. In Study I people drank more of a beverage when the brand name contained name letters. Study 2 emphasized central aspects of motivation, and tested the role of implicit self-esteem. High self-esteem people persisted longer and performed better on a name letter task than low self-esteem people. Study 3 further confirmed these results, testing persistence on an unsolvable puzzle. These findings are explained by the association of self-symbols with positive affect for high self-esteem people. Implications are discussed for the role of self in motivation.
The present research shows that belief in progress helps to alleviate the aversive experience of low levels of control. When control is low, believing in progress provides people with the promise of future control in a broader sense. In Experiments 1 and 2, participants lacking control disagreed more with an essay on the illusory nature of human progress. Experiment 3 corroborated these findings in a field study comparing airplane passengers with a nonairborne control group. Experiment 4 assessed belief in progress more directly and showed an increased willingness to invest in specific fields of progress-oriented research when personal control was low. Moreover, participants lacking control showed an increased preference for hightech solutions to combat environmental problems and believed more firmly in scientific and moral progress.
Latent state–trait (LST) theory is a generalization of classical test theory designed to take account of the fact that psychological measurement does not take place in a situational vacuum. The basic concepts of latent state–trait theory (LST theory) are introduced. The core of LST theory consists of two decompositions: (a) the decomposition of any observed score into latent state and measurement error, and (b) the decomposition of any latent state into latent trait and latent state residual representing situational and/or interaction effects. Latent states and latent traits are defined as special conditional expectations. A score on a latent state variable is defined as the expectation of an observable variable Yik given a person in a situation whereas a score on a latent trait variable is the expectation of Yik given a person. The theory also comprises the definition of consistency, occasion specificity, reliability, and stability coefficients. An overview of different models of LST theory is given. It is shown how different research questions of personality psychology can be and have been analysed within the LST framework and why research in personality and individual differences can profit from LST theory and methodology. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Many factors affect the store patronage decision, e.g. location, service levels, pricing policies, merchandise assortment, store environment and store image, but very little research has considered stress as a determinant. This is despite the increase in dual income families and longer working hours which are making general shopping a more stressful activity for many families because of time pressure and lack of response by retailers. This exploratory research confirms grocery shopping to be stressful, but time pressure was mentioned as only one factor causing shopping stress; other factors included: crowd density, staff attitude and training, store layout/relocation, impulse purchasing pressure, location, product assortment, music, and lighting. The article concludes by proposing a shopping stress curve for future examination.
Proposes a solution to the person–situation debate, that argues that not only errors of measurement but also situational effects and effects of the interaction between persons and situations contaminate psychological assessments of traits. The solution is based on a general theory defining states and traits, and consistency, occasion specificity, reliability, and stability coefficients. This theory relies on 2 decompositions: (1) the decomposition of any observed score into a latent state and a measurement error component, and (2) the decomposition of any latent state into a latent trait and a latent state residual. This conceptualizes the view that most psychological attributes have both state and trait components. Several sets of assumptions are presented which lead to different simultaneous equation models. States and traits are simultaneously represented as latent variables in these models. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
In the present research, the authors examined contextual variations in automatic attitudes. Using 2 measures of automatic attitudes, the authors demonstrated that evaluative responses differ qualitatively as perceivers focus on different aspects of a target's social group membership (e.g., race or gender). Contextual variations in automatic attitudes were obtained when the manipulation involved overt categorization (Experiments 1-3) as well as more subtle contextual cues, such as category distinctiveness (Experiments 4-5). Furthermore, participants were shown to be unable to predict such contextual influences on automatic attitudes (Experiment 3). Taken together, these experiments support the idea of automatic attitudes being continuous, online constructions that are inherently flexible and contextually appropriate, despite being outside conscious control.
Reviews evidence which suggests that there may be little or no direct introspective access to higher order cognitive processes. Ss are sometimes (a) unaware of the existence of a stimulus that importantly influenced a response, (b) unaware of the existence of the response, and (c) unaware that the stimulus has affected the response. It is proposed that when people attempt to report on their cognitive processes, that is, on the processes mediating the effects of a stimulus on a response, they do not do so on the basis of any true introspection. Instead, their reports are based on a priori, implicit causal theories, or judgments about the extent to which a particular stimulus is a plausible cause of a given response. This suggests that though people may not be able to observe directly their cognitive processes, they will sometimes be able to report accurately about them. Accurate reports will occur when influential stimuli are salient and are plausible causes of the responses they produce, and will not occur when stimuli are not salient or are not plausible causes. (86 ref)
The authors demonstrate that choosing one product from a set of competing alternatives can change expectations about the chosen product such that consumers can become optimistic about the product's performance, and this optimism can then fade away. In five experiments, the authors show that this phenomenon of fading optimism in products is robust across different experimental settings and product categories and is moderated by prior attitude toward the product category and ambiguity of the product's performance.
An analysis is presented of the relationships between consumers ethical beliefs, ethical ideology, Machiavellianism, political preference and the individual difference variable "need for closure". It is based on a representative survey of 286 Belgian respondents. Standard measurement tools of proven reliability and robustness are used to measure ethical beliefs (consumer ethics scale), ethical ideology (ethical positioning), Machiavellianism (Mach IV scale) and need for closure. The analysis finds the following. First, individuals with a high need for closure tend to have beliefs that are more ethical as regards possible consumer actions, and score higher on idealism and lower on Machiavellianism, than those with a low need for closure. Second, a correlation exists between political preference and ethical beliefs. Third, a significant relationship exists between ethical ideology and political preference for the two largest political parties. Fourth, individuals with a high and low need for closure have different political preferences for right-wing and left-wing parties.
Different conceptual perspectives converge to predict that if individuals are stressed, an encounter with most unthreatening natural environments will have a stress reducing or restorative influence, whereas many urban environments will hamper recuperation. Hypotheses regarding emotional, attentional and physiological aspects of stress reducing influences of nature are derived from a psycho-evolutionary theory. To investigate these hypotheses, 120 subjects first viewed a stressful movie, and then were exposed to color/sound videotapes of one of six different natural and urban settings. Data concerning stress recovery during the environmental presentations were obtained from self-ratings of affective states and a battery of physiological measures: heart period, muscle tension, skin conductance and pulse transit time, a non-invasive measure that correlates with systolic blood pressure. Findings from the physiological and verbal measures converged to indicate that recovery was faster and more complete when subjects were exposed to natural rather than urban environments. The pattern of physiological findings raised the possibility that responses to nature had a salient parasympathetic nervous system component; however, there was no evidence of pronounced parasympathetic involvement in responses to the urban settings. There were directional differences in cardiac responses to the natural vs urban settings, suggesting that attention/intake was higher during the natural exposures. However, both the stressor film and the nature settings elicited high levels of involuntary or automatic attention, which contradicts the notion that restorative influences of nature stem from involuntary attention or fascination. Findings were consistent with the predictions of the psycho-evolutionary theory that restorative influences of nature involve a shift towards a more positively-toned emotional state, positive changes in physiological activity levels, and that these changes are accompanied by sustained attention/intake. Content differences in terms of natural vs human-made properties appeared decisive in accounting for the differences in recuperation and perceptual intake.
How do people cope when they feel uninformed or unable to understand important social issues, such as the environment, energy concerns, or the economy? Do they seek out information, or do they simply ignore the threatening issue at hand? One would intuitively expect that a lack of knowledge would motivate an increased, unbiased search for information, thereby facilitating participation and engagement in these issues-especially when they are consequential, pressing, and self-relevant. However, there appears to be a discrepancy between the importance/self-relevance of social issues and people's willingness to engage with and learn about them. Leveraging the literature on system justification theory (Jost & Banaji, 1994), the authors hypothesized that, rather than motivating an increased search for information, a lack of knowledge about a specific sociopolitical issue will (a) foster feelings of dependence on the government, which will (b) increase system justification and government trust, which will (c) increase desires to avoid learning about the relevant issue when information is negative or when information valence is unknown. In other words, the authors suggest that ignorance-as a function of the system justifying tendencies it may activate-may, ironically, breed more ignorance. In the contexts of energy, environmental, and economic issues, the authors present 5 studies that (a) provide evidence for this specific psychological chain (i.e., ignorance about an issue → dependence → government trust → avoidance of information about that issue); (b) shed light on the role of threat and motivation in driving the second and third links in this chain; and (c) illustrate the unfortunate consequences of this process for individual action in those contexts that may need it most.
Evidence is reviewed which suggests that there may be little or no direct introspective access to higher order cognitive processes. Subjects are sometimes (a) unaware of the existence of a stimulus that importantly influenced a response, (b) unaware of the existence of the response, and (c) unaware that the stimulus has affected the response. It is proposed that when people attempt to report on their cognitive processes, that is, on the processes mediating the effects of a stimulus on a response, they do not do so on the basis of any true introspection. Instead, their reports are based on a priori, implicit causal theories, or judgments about the extent to which a particular stimulus is a plausible cause of a given response. This suggests that though people may not be able to observe directly their cognitive processes, they will sometimes be able to report accurately about them. Accurate reports will occur when influential stimuli are salient and are plausible causes of the responses they produce, and will not occur when stimuli are not salient or are not plausible causes.
We examine the trade-offs associated with using Amazon.com's Mechanical Turk (MTurk) interface for subject recruitment. We first describe MTurk and its promise as a vehicle for performing low-cost and easy-to-field experiments. We then assess the internal and external validity of experiments performed using MTurk, employing a framework that can be used to evaluate other subject pools. We first investigate the characteristics of samples drawn from the MTurk population. We show that respondents recruited in this manner are often more representative of the U.S. population than in-person convenience samples-the modal sample in published experimental political science-but less representative than subjects in Internet-based panels or national probability samples. Finally, we replicate important published experimental work using MTurk samples. © The Author 2012. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Political Methodology. All rights reserved.
A theoretical framework is outlined in which the key construct is the need for(nonspecific) cognitive closure. The need for closure is a desire for definite knowledge on some issue. It represents a dimension of stable individual differences as well as a situationally evocable state. The need for closure has widely ramifying consequences for social-cognitive phenomena at the intrapersonal, interpersonal, and group levels of analysis. Those consequences derive from 2 general tendencies, those of urgency and permanence. The urgency tendency represents an individual's inclination to attain closure as soon as possible, and the permanence tendency represents an individual's inclination to maintain it for as long as possible. Empirical evidence for present theory attests to diverse need for closure effects on fundamental social psychological phenomena, including impression formation, stereotyping, attribution, persuasion, group decision making, and language use in intergroup contexts.
Despite the great interest in Hofstede’s dimensions of national culture, some of them have not been replicated with nationally representative samples. In this study, we use 2010 European Social Survey data for 25 European countries and Israel and obtain a close replication of Hofstede’s uncertainty avoidance (r = 0.81, p < 0.001, n = 17) with strong face validity, internal reliability, and similar predictive properties to those of the original measure. The replication and our analysis elucidate the nature of uncertainty avoidance as a dimension of national culture and expose some misconceptions about it.
New brand extensions can push a brand outside its typical boundaries. In this artietingcle, the authors argue that people's acceptance of such extensions depends on their feelings of control. Across several studies, the authors demonstrate that when feelings of personal control are low, consumers and managers seek greater structure in brands and thus reject brand extensions that do not seem to fit well with the parent brand. The authors also identify important boundary conditions that illustrate when consumers are most likely to punish a brand for poor-fitting brand extensions and how the effect can be mitigated.
Although retailers know that consumers do not like cluttered stores, messy layouts are sometimes inevitable. This research examines whether diffusing pleasant scents can overcome consumers’ negative response to a messy store. Specifically, this study investigates the effect of pleasant scents (un)related to neatness on consumer evaluations of a tidy versus a messy store. An experiment with 198 respondents revealed that a pleasant scent not associated with neatness functions as a positively valenced prime, causing consumers to evaluate the products in the tidy store more positively than the products in the messy store. Additionally, when diffused in a messy store, a pleasant ambient scent has a negative effect on consumers’ product evaluation, because of a mismatch between the pleasant scent and the unpleasant messy layout. However, this negative effect can be cancelled out by diffusing a pleasant scent that is associated with neatness.
The present research examined the dynamic interplay between the framing of one's progress from an initial state toward an end state (i.e., framed as the distance traveled from the initial state to the current state -‘to-date’ versus framed as the distance left from the current state to the end state -‘to-go’) and construal level in influencing motivation in goal pursuit. In three experiments we found that both state and chronic differences in experienced construal level modulate the impact of progress framing on motivation at a specific stage in goal pursuit, i.e., when consumers are halfway between the initial and end state, but is less consequential at the initial or end stages. This modulation shows that type of framing only affected motivation of people with an abstract, but not a concrete mindset. Under these conditions, progress framed in terms of to-date produced increased motivation compared to a to-go frame. Moreover, perceived goal distance was found to mediate the impact of progress framing on motivation for individuals with an abstract, but not a concrete mindset.
Virtually all discussions and applications of statistical mediation analysis have been based on the condition that the independent variable is dichotomous or continuous, even though investigators frequently are interested in testing mediation hypotheses involving a multicategorical independent variable (such as two or more experimental conditions relative to a control group). We provide a tutorial illustrating an approach to estimation of and inference about direct, indirect, and total effects in statistical mediation analysis with a multicategorical independent variable. The approach is mathematically equivalent to analysis of (co)variance and reproduces the observed and adjusted group means while also generating effects having simple interpretations. Supplementary material available online includes extensions to this approach and Mplus, SPSS, and SAS code that implements it.
We propose that people protect the belief in a controlled, nonrandom world by imbuing their social, physical, and metaphysical environments with order and structure when their sense of personal control is threatened. We demonstrate that when personal control is threatened, people can preserve a sense of order by (a) perceiving patterns in noise or adhering to superstitions and conspiracies, (b) defending the legitimacy of the sociopolitical institutions that offer control, or (c) believing in an interventionist God. We also present evidence that these processes of compensatory control help people cope with the anxiety and discomfort that lacking personal control fuels, that it is lack of personal control specifically and not general threat or negativity that drives these processes, and that these various forms of compensatory control are ultimately substitutable for one another. Our model of compensatory control offers insight into a wide variety of phenomena, from prejudice to the idiosyncratic rituals of professional athletes to societal rituals around weddings, graduations, and funerals.
Research data on dominant work-related values patterns in 53 countries and regions are used to suggest how definitions of the quality of life are affected by national culture patterns.
The hypothesis, which is an extension of Hull's goal reaction hypothesis, is that the goal reaction gets conditioned most strongly to the stimuli preceding it, and the other reactions in the sequence get conditioned to their stimuli, with a strength inversely proportional to their temporal or spatial remoteness from the goal reaction. Since this assumes a gradient, which is related to the goal, he calls it a goal-gradient. The shape of this gradient is shown, by reference to Yoshioka's experiment in selection of maze pathways by the rat, to be positively accelerated, and to conform to the logarithmic law. The author deduces ten actual behavior phenomena from his principle, such as choice of shorter path, order of elimination of blind alleys, relative rates of locomotion in different parts of the maze, etc. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
the purpose of this paper is to review this research [experiments in social perception and interpersonal relations] and to summarize its conclusions and implications / aim is to summarize what we have learned about the "attribution process" as it occurs in social interaction and the facts that affect its course
propositions about information patterns that form the basis for various attributions
consider . . . several types of attribution phenomena in which the attributor makes use of the information at his disposal in a highly reasonable manner
important exceptions, in which the available information is used in systematically biased and even erroneous ways
locus of effect of the covariant cause / temporal relations between cause and effect
multiple plausible causes: the discounting effect / constancy of effect / facilitative versus inhibitory causes / ambiguity as to the significance of external causes / reciprocation of harm and benefit / sincerity, veridicality, and attribution of causality / attributions as mediating variables
less rational attribution tendencies
attribution and control (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Investigated whether liking for music is related to responses to the environment in which the music is experienced and the role of musical complexity. A loudspeaker by an advice stall in a university cafeteria played new-age music of low, moderate, or high complexity; organ music of moderate complexity; or silence. 285 uni versity students completed questionnaires about liking for the atmosphere, how happy they would be to return to the cafeteria, likelihood of visiting the stall, a nd liking for the music. Liking for the music correlated with liking for the atmosphere, desire to return to the cafeteria, and reported likelihood of visiting the advice stall. More Ss visited the stall when moderate-complexity new-age rather than high-complexity, newage, or no music was playing. The music's style and complexity influenced responses to the listening situation. Variations in musical style may mediate the effect of musical complexity on responses. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
This completely rewritten classic text features many new examples, insights, and topics including mediational, categorical, and multilevel models. Substantially reorganized, this edition provides a briefer, more streamlined examination of data analysis. Noted for its model comparison approach and unified framework based on the general linear model, the book provides readers with a greater understanding of a variety of statistical procedures. This consistent framework, including consistent vocabulary and notation, is used throughout to develop fewer but more powerful model building techniques. The authors show how all analysis of variance and multiple regression can be accomplished within this framework. The model comparison approach provides several benefits: It strengthens the intuitive understanding of the material, thereby increasing the ability to successfully analyze data in the future; It provides more control in the analysis of data so that readers can apply the techniques to a broader spectrum of questions; It reduces the number of statistical techniques that must be memorized; It teaches readers how to become data analysts instead of statisticians. The book opens with an overview of data analysis. All the necessary concepts for statistical inference used throughout the book are introduced in Chapters 2 through 4. The remainder of the book builds on these models. Chapters 5-7 focus on regression analysis, followed by analysis of variance (ANOVA), mediational analyses, nonindependent or correlated errors, including multilevel modeling, and outliers and error violations. The book is appreciated by all for its detailed treatment of ANOVA, multiple regression, nonindependent observations, interactive and nonlinear models of data, and its guidance for treating outliers and other problematic aspects of data analysis. Intended for advanced undergraduate or graduate courses on data analysis, statistics, and/or quantitative methods taught in psychology, education, or other behavioral and social science departments, this book also appeals to researchers who analyze data. A protected website featuring additional examples and problems with datasets, lecture notes, PowerPoint presentations, and class-tested exam questions is available to adopters. This material uses SAS but can easily be adapted to other programs. A working knowledge of basic algebra and any multiple regression program is assumed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
How do consumers cope when it seems that they have no control over their outcomes in life? This research posits that consumers will seek greater structure in consumption—or the sense that everything is in its designated place. Moreover, it suggests that very simple boundaries in the environment offer a means for attaining this sense of structure. Several experiments demonstrate that when personal control is threatened, consumers prefer logos, products, and environments that are tangibly or intangibly bounded over those that are unbounded. This research also explores the functional and symbolic benefits that boundaries provide as representations of order and structure.
Most theories in social and political psychology stress self-interest, intergroup conflict, ethnocentrism, homophily, ingroup bias, outgroup antipathy, dominance, and resistance. System justification theory is influenced by these perspectives—including social identity and social dominance theories—but it departs from them in several respects. Advocates of system justification theory argue that (a) there is a general ideological motive to justify the existing social order, (b) this motive is at least partially responsible for the internalization of inferiority among members of disadvantaged groups, (c) it is observed most readily at an implicit, nonconscious level of awareness and (d) paradoxically, it is sometimes strongest among those who are most harmed by the status quo. This article reviews and integrates 10 years of research on 20 hypotheses derived from a system justification perspective, focusing on the phenomenon of implicit outgroup favoritism among members of disadvantaged groups (including African Americans, the elderly, and gays/lesbians) and its relation to political ideology (especially liberalism-conservatism).
Participants are not always as diligent in reading and following instructions as experimenters would like them to be. When participants fail to follow instructions, this increases noise and decreases the validity of their data. This paper presents and validates a new tool for detecting participants who are not following instructions – the Instructional manipulation check (IMC). We demonstrate how the inclusion of an IMC can increase statistical power and reliability of a dataset.
Office employees spend a lot of time inside buildings, where the physical conditions influence their well-being and indirectly influence their employers' business performance. With data from a field study conducted in the Netherlands in April to May 2003, we used path analysis to further elucidate the relationship between personal (gender and seasonality of mood shifts), building (view type, view quality, window distance, and social density), and perceived environmental conditions (light quality, and office impression) and physical and psychological discomfort, sleep quality, and environmental utility. The results show that window views, which that are rated as being more attractive, are beneficial to building occupants by reducing discomfort. However, being close to a window and rating the lighting as being of lower quality can result in thermal and glare problems (environmental utility). Reduced discomfort at work can improve sleep quality, indicating that physical conditions at work influence home life.