Motivation and Emotion最新文献

Frequent and intense experiences of boredom may lead to negative consequences. Enhancing sustained attention has been suggested as a potential strategy for mitigating boredom. We investigated the effectiveness of a four-week intervention to improve attention levels in daily activities and alleviate boredom. In this quasi-experiment, 73 adults were allocated to either the intervention group (n = 32), which participated in a four-session online attention training program, or the no-intervention control group (n = 41). Data were collected through baseline and post-intervention questionnaires, as well as experience sampling over a 28-day period. In line with our hypotheses, multilevel modeling results indicated that attention levels in the intervention group increased throughout the training compared to the control group. Additionally, we observed a decrease in state boredom levels and a significant between-group difference in post-intervention boredom proneness. We found that the attention training program was effective in boosting attention levels and reducing boredom experiences and boredom proneness among healthy adults.

Social behaviors are guided in part by motivational and emotional responses to affective facial expressions. In daily life, facial expressions communicate varying degrees social reward signals (happiness), social threat signals (anger), or social reward-threat conflict signals (co-occurring happiness and anger). Thus, motivational and emotional responses must be sensitive to variations in social signal intensity to effectively guide social behavior. We recently developed a novel social approach-avoidance paradigm (SAAP), which uses morphed facial expressions to assess sensitivity to linear increases in social reward and/or social threat intensity. Prior to large-scale studies validating the test quality of the SAAP, however, it is necessary to first establish the psychometric properties and generalizability of these sensitivity metrics. In Study 1, we independently replicated SAAP task effects and demonstrated that motivational and emotional sensitivity measures exhibit strong psychometric properties and robust individual variability. In Study 2, we demonstrated that more complex social judgements (e.g., trustworthiness) are also sensitive to linear increases in social signal intensity, which differs across judgements. Although future research in larger samples will be needed to establish the test quality of the SAAP, these preliminary findings suggest that the SAAP exhibits adequate psychometric properties to justify this type of large-scale individual differences research.

Vocational indecision has been found to be either a predictor or a consequence of academic motivation, but no study has examined whether the two processes share reciprocal links. Three academic motivation orientations have been found to contribute to these two processes: autonomous (i.e., going to school for the pleasure to learn or for the personally valued reasons), controlled (i.e., going to school to alleviate internal or external pressures) and amotivation (i.e., going to school without purpose). The goal of the present study was to test reciprocal and longitudinal links between each of these three motivation orientations and vocational indecision. This longitudinal study used a sample of 584 secondary school students (55% girls) surveyed annually over a 4-year period, where the effect of vocational indecision on each academic motivation orientation and the effect of each academic motivation on vocational indecision were estimated simultaneously. These links were tested both at interindividual (i.e., students are compared with each other) and intraindividual levels (i.e., students are compared to themselves). Results of cross-lagged models indicate that vocational indecision was negatively predicted by autonomous academic motivation but not vice versa, and that this link appeared only at the intraindividual level. Also, vocational indecision simultaneously predicted and was predicted by controlled academic motivation and academic amotivation at both levels. These results suggest that guidance counsellors could support the emergence and maintenance of autonomous motivation in students, to help them make a vocational decision. Also, the scope of their action could extend to school retention, as actions taken to support vocational decision-making could affect students’ motivation to engage or stay in school.

While social communication and interaction deficits are inherent in autism spectrum disorder (ASD), the evidence regarding difficulties in basic and moral emotion recognition remains inconclusive. Previous research has predominantly focused on the recognition of basic emotions, using stimuli that lack context and overlooking the influence of alexithymia and interoceptive awareness traits. This study sought to investigate the recognition of contextualized basic and moral emotions, as well as the subjective experience of the second ones in adults with ASD (n = 32) and neurotypical peers (n = 33). We also examined its relationship with alexithymia and interoceptive awareness traits. Basic emotion recognition was assessed using a task incorporating facial and body cues in congruent and incongruent contexts. In addition, we used a modified version of the Moral Sentiment Task to examine recognition and subjective experience of self-conscious (guilt and embarrassment) and other-oriented (pity and indignation) moral emotions. Self-report scales were used to collect data on alexithymia and interoceptive awareness traits. Adults with ASD exhibited lower performance in recognizing contextual basic and moral emotions compared to neurotypical individuals. However, neither alexithymia traits nor interoceptive awareness were associated with the recognition of contextual basic or moral emotions. These findings contribute to a better understanding of social deficits in ASD, highlighting the potential benefit of developing new diagnostic assessments and non-pharmacological intervention targets.

Research has demonstrated that lay beliefs about emotions (i.e., whether they are viewed as malleable or fixed) may shape important outcomes in educational performance. Given the prominent role of emotions in learning and goal setting, the present study examined whether emotion beliefs moderated (1) the relationship between the experience of academic emotions and grades and (2) the relationship between academic emotions and shifts in goal setting. Undergraduate students (N =329) enrolled in an introductory psychology course reported on their emotions and goal orientations across two waves of data collection which took place before and after their first two exams. Multiple regression analyses revealed that emotion beliefs moderated the relationship between academic emotions and changes in goal orientation across the semester. Specifically, greater experience of negative outcome-related emotions was associated with decreases in mastery- and performance-avoidance goal orientations among individuals who tended to view emotions as more malleable. On the other hand, for students who felt their emotions were more fixed, change in avoidance goals was not influenced by negative outcome emotions. Our results point to the added benefit in students viewing emotions as malleable, as this perspective may lead to students disengaging less with course material (i.e., decreasing avoidance goal orientations) after learning experiences marked by negative emotions. Overall, our findings provide preliminary support for the inclusion of emotion beliefs in models of academic achievement.

Projective tests, which were thought to provide key insights concerning motivation, have largely disappeared from personality psychology. Participants in the present studies (total N = 924) were presented with a Revised Animal Preference Test (RAPT) that quantifies desires to be predator animals in a reliable manner. Drawing from several literatures, including the psychopathy literature, it was hypothesized that higher levels of predator self-identification would be linked to higher levels of fearlessness as well as lower levels of negative emotionality. Consistent with this analysis, participants wishing to be predator (relative to prey) animals scored lower in neuroticism (Study 1), responded to physical threat scenarios in a fearless manner (Study 2), and exhibited lower levels of emotionality in their daily lives (Study 3). The RAPT appears to assess motivations that are linked with callous-unemotional functioning. The findings can be extended, however, and future directions are highlighted.

Silence shared between partners is a rich and understudied feature of romantic relationships. Within relationships, silence may be experienced in meaningfully different ways as a function of the motivations underlying it. These internally rich experiences may affect partners differently than silence that occurs spontaneously (i.e., without intentional initiation). In four studies, we tested the motives of silence and corresponding affect and relationship quality, operationalized through psychological need satisfactions and inclusion of other into self. Studies relied on complementary methods to explore the phenomenon of silence, namely cross-sectional, daily diary, and experimental designs. Findings across studies showed that intrinsically motivated silence was felt with more positive affect and less negative affect, and that relationships were closer and more need satisfying during intrinsically motivated moments of silence. Introjected and externally motivated silences, on the other hand, were often linked to more negative affect and lower relational outcomes. Spontaneous moments of silence were not consistently linked to affect or need satisfaction.