Liking for Action and the Vertical/Horizontal Dimension of Culture in Nineteen Nations: Valuing Equality over Hierarchy Promotes Positivity Towards Action.

The question of who should act, and how often, is critical for cultures and the regulation of social behavior. The vertical/horizontal dimension of culture describes the relative valuing of hierarchy versus equality. In a horizontal culture valuing equality, responsibility for action is more widely distributed than in a vertical culture valuing hierarchy.

On Priming Action: Conclusions from a Meta-Analysis of the Behavioral Effects of Incidentally-Presented Words.

This paper presents a summary of the conclusions drawn from a meta-analysis of the behavioral impact of presenting words connected to an action or a goal representation (Weingarten ., 2016). The average and distribution of 352 effect sizes from 133 studies (84 reports) revealed a small behavioral priming effect ( = 0.

From primed concepts to action: A meta-analysis of the behavioral effects of incidentally presented words.

A meta-analysis assessed the behavioral impact of and psychological processes associated with presenting words connected to an action or a goal representation. The average and distribution of 352 effect sizes (analyzed using fixed-effects and random-effects models) was obtained from 133 studies (84 reports) in which word primes were incidentally presented to participants, with a nonopposite control group, before measuring a behavioral dependent variable. Findings revealed a small behavioral priming effect (dFE = 0.

Appealing to fear: A meta-analysis of fear appeal effectiveness and theories.

Fear appeals are a polarizing issue, with proponents confident in their efficacy and opponents confident that they backfire. We present the results of a comprehensive meta-analysis investigating fear appeals' effectiveness for influencing attitudes, intentions, and behaviors. We tested predictions from a large number of theories, the majority of which have never been tested meta-analytically until now.

Liking More Means Doing More: Dispositional Attitudes Predict Patterns of General Action.

Dispositional attitudes are an individual difference in the tendency to form positive versus negative attitudes. As positive (negative) attitudes promote active (inactive) responses to stimuli, we predicted that dispositional attitudes would be positively correlated with patterns of general action. In Study 1, participants reported all activities they engaged in during a 1-week period using a structured time use survey.

Neuroticism and attitudes toward action in 19 countries.

Although individuals scoring high on Neuroticism tend to avoid taking action when faced with challenges, Neuroticism is also characterized by impulsivity. To explore cognitive biases related to this costly behavior pattern, we tested whether individuals who rated themselves as higher in Neuroticism would evaluate the general concepts of action and inaction as, respectively, more negative and positive. We further investigated whether anxiety and depression would mediate and individualism-collectivism would moderate these relations in a large international sample.

Timescale halo: average-speed targets elicit more positive and less negative attributions than slow or fast targets.

Research on the timescale bias has found that observers perceive more capacity for mind in targets moving at an average speed, relative to slow or fast moving targets. The present research revisited the timescale bias as a type of halo effect, where normal-speed people elicit positive evaluations and abnormal-speed (slow and fast) people elicit negative evaluations. In two studies, participants viewed videos of people walking at a slow, average, or fast speed.

Being Active and Impulsive: The Role of Goals for Action and Inaction in Self-Control.

Although self-control often requires behavioral inaction (i.e., a piece of cake), the process of inhibiting impulsive behavior is commonly characterized as cognitively active (i.

Complete unconscious control: using (in)action primes to demonstrate completely unconscious activation of inhibitory control mechanisms.

Although robust evidence indicates that action initiation can occur unconsciously and unintentionally, the literature on action inhibition suggests that inhibition requires both conscious thought and intentionality. In prior research demonstrating automatic inhibition in response to unconsciously processed stimuli, the unconscious stimuli had previously been consciously associated with an inhibitory response within the context of the experiment, and participants had consciously formed a goal to activate inhibition processes when presented with the stimuli (because task instructions required participants to engage in inhibition when the stimuli occurred). Therefore, prior work suggests that some amount of conscious thought and intentionality are required for inhibitory control.

Motivating Exercise: The Interactive Effect of General Action Goals and Past Behavior on Physical Activity.

Although exercise is recognized as a powerful tool to combat obesity, remarkably few US adults pursue adequate amounts of exercise, with one major impediment being a lack of motivation for active behaviors. Recent empirical work has demonstrated that behavior can be guided by goals to be generally active or inactive. In the present paper, an experiment is presented in which participants played or observed a video game, were primed with action or inaction goals, and practiced a stretching exercise for as long as desired.

Attitudes without objects: evidence for a dispositional attitude, its measurement, and its consequences.

We hypothesized that individuals may differ in the dispositional tendency to have positive vs. negative attitudes, a trait termed the dispositional attitude. Across 4 studies, we developed a 16-item Dispositional Attitude Measure (DAM) and investigated its internal consistency, test-retest reliability, factor structure, convergent validity, discriminant validity, and predictive validity.

Neuroscience and the soul: competing explanations for the human experience.

The development of fMRI techniques has generated a boom of neuroscience research across the psychological sciences, and revealed neural correlates for many psychological phenomena seen as central to the human experience (e.g., morality, agency).

General Action and Inaction Goals: Their Behavioral, Cognitive, and Affective Origins and Influences.

Since the 1970s, researchers on motivation and behavior have taken the stance that important human behaviors are determined by specific attitudes, intentions, and goals. In the present article, we review evidence suggesting that, in addition to specific motivational constructs, general goals of action and inaction are also vital determinants of many important human behaviors. This research examines the effects of these goals on motor behavior, cognitive performance, and political participation.