Pitfalls of self-reported measures of self-control: Surprising insights from extreme debtors.

Objective: We took a rare opportunity to examine whether extreme debtors have inflated assessment of their self-control capacity, potentially rendering self-reported measures ineffective as prediction tools for debt risks.

Method: The self-control profiles of extreme debtors (n = 1442), whose credit card debt amounted to more than 12 months of their income, were compared with samples of the general population (n = 505) and students from an elite university (n = 1011) on a self-reported measure, a behavioral intention measure, and an executive function measure.

Results: Extreme debtors reported the highest self-control on the self-reported measure but scored the lowest on the behavioral intention measure and executive function.

A Multilab Replication of the Ego Depletion Effect.

There is an active debate regarding whether the ego depletion effect is real. A recent preregistered experiment with the Stroop task as the depleting task and the antisaccade task as the outcome task found a medium-level effect size. In the current research, we conducted a preregistered multilab replication of that experiment.

Stunted upward mobility in a learning environment reduces the academic benefits of growth mindsets.

Does stunted upward mobility in an educational system impede beneficial psychological processes of learning? We predicted that growth mindsets of intelligence, a well-established psychological stimulant to learning, would be less potent in low-mobility, as compared to high-mobility, learning environments. An analysis of a large cross-national dataset and a longitudinal experiment accumulated converging evidence for this hypothesis. Study 1 examined data from 15-y-old students across 30 countries ( = 235,141 persons).

Conditional Love: Threat and Attitudinal Perceptions of Immigrants Depend on Their Instrumentality to Locals' Basic Psychological Needs.

Although threat perceptions are commonly used to explain attitudes toward immigrants, the psychological factors underlying threat are surprisingly understudied. Drawing from goal pursuit and self-determination theory, we examined the perceived instrumentality of immigrants as an antecedent of locals' threat and attitudinal perceptions. Through four studies ( = 1,372) with different configurations of local population segments and target immigrant groups, we investigated the impact of immigrants' instrumentality in terms of hindrances to locals' autonomy, belonging, and competence needs.

Gratitude inhibits competitive behaviour in threatening interactions.

It is well established that gratitude favours prosocial tendencies in neutral and amicable social interactions. Less is clear, however, about the role of gratitude in threatening situations that breed competitive impulses. As gratitude inhibits self-centred impulses and motivates a communal orientation, we predict and demonstrate that gratitude reduces competitive behaviour in threatening interactions.

Authentic and hubristic pride: Differential effects on delay of gratification.

Research demonstrates that there are 2 distinct facets of pride: the prosocial, achievement-oriented form of pride known as authentic pride, and the self-aggrandizing, egotistical form of pride known as hubristic pride. This research examined whether authentic pride and hubristic pride have divergent effects on delay of gratification. Support was found for the prediction that authentic pride would facilitate the ability to delay gratification, whereas hubristic pride would undermine it.

Depletion suspends the comparator mechanism in monitoring: The role of chronic self-consciousness in sequential self-regulation.

In 4 studies, we accumulated support for the prediction that depletion suspends the comparator mechanism of self-regulatory monitoring. We adopted an individual difference approach and designated chronic self-consciousness as a signature variable for the comparator mechanism. In the nondepletion condition, we found that self-consciousness predicted self-regulation by itself (Study 1), or by interacting synergistically with other motivational factors such as online goal focus (Study 2) and task motivation (Study 3).

Positive emotion, appraisal, and the role of appraisal overlap in positive emotion co-occurrence.

Appraisal research has traditionally focused on negative emotions but has not addressed issues concerning the relationships between several positive emotions and appraisals in daily life and the extent to which co-occurrence of positive emotions can be explained by overlap in appraisals. Driven by a priori hypotheses on appraisal-emotion relationships, this study investigated 12 positive emotions and 13 appraisal dimensions using Ecological Momentary Assessment. The results provide strong evidence that positive emotions and appraisals correlate significantly in daily life.

Gratitude facilitates behavioral mimicry.

Recent theorists argue that gratitude, besides encouraging social exchange, serves an important function of relationship building. However, there is a lack of research exploring the specific behaviors through which gratitude promotes relationship building. Given that behavioral mimicry serves important affiliative needs, we explored whether gratitude promotes behavioral mimicry.

Putting the Freeze on Priming: The Role of Need for Cognitive Closure on the Prime-Norm Dynamic.

Past research has indicated that individuals with a high need for cognitive closure (NFCC) are more susceptible to priming effects in norm-absent contexts. We proposed that in norm-present contexts, whereby normative information competes with priming in affecting individuals' understanding of the social environment, the opposite pattern would occur. In Study 1, low- rather than high-NFCC individuals showed greater prime-consistent behavior in a context with a strong norm to comply.

Psychological "gel" to bind individuals' goal pursuit: gratitude facilitates goal contagion.

Past research demonstrates that gratitude affects individuals' self-regulation of behavior primarily through engendering a prosocial tendency. Based on theories proposing that gratitude plays an unique role in fostering communal relationship (e.g.

Beyond anti-Muslim sentiment: opposing the Ground Zero mosque as a means to pursuing a stronger America.

Americans' opposition toward building an Islamic community center at Ground Zero has been attributed solely to a general anti-Muslim sentiment. We hypothesized that some Americans' negative reaction was also due to their motivation to symbolically pursue a positive U.S.

When perception is more than reality: the effects of perceived versus actual resource depletion on self-regulatory behavior.

Considerable research demonstrates that the depletion of self-regulatory resources impairs performance on subsequent tasks that demand these resources. The current research sought to assess the impact of perceived resource depletion on subsequent task performance at both high and low levels of actual depletion. The authors manipulated perceived resource depletion by having participants 1st complete a depleting or nondepleting task before being presented with feedback that did or did not provide a situational attribution for their internal state.