Making things happen : a model of proactive motivation

Being proactive is about making things happen, anticipating and preventing problems, and seizing opportunities. It involves self-initiated efforts to bring about change in the work environment and/or oneself to achieve a different future. The authors develop existing perspectives on this topic by identifying proactivity as a goal-driven process involving both the setting of a proactive goal (proactive goal generation) and striving to achieve that proactive goal (proactive goal striving). The authors identify a range of proactive goals that individuals can pursue in organizations. These vary on two dimensions: the future they aim to bring about (achieving a better personal fit within one’s work environment, improving the organization’s internal functioning, or enhancing the organization’s strategic fit with its environment) and whether the self or situation is being changed. The authors then identify “can do,” “reason to,” and “energized to” motivational states that prompt proactive goal generation and sustain goal striving. Can do motivation arises from perceptions of self-efficacy, control, and (low) cost. Reason to motivation relates to why someone is proactive, including reasons flowing from intrinsic, integrated, and identified motivation. Energized to motivation refers to activated positive affective states that prompt proactive goal processes. The authors suggest more distal antecedents, including individual differences (e.g., personality, values, knowledge and ability) as well as contextual variations in leadership, work design, and interpersonal climate, that influence the proactive motivational states and thereby boost or inhibit proactive goal processes. Finally, the authors summarize priorities for future researc

Affective Match: Leader Emotional Displays, Follower Positive Affect, and Follower Performance

Leader emotions may play an important role in leadership effectiveness. Extending this earlier research on leader emotional displays and leadership effectiveness, we propose that the “affective match†between follower positive affect (PA) and leaders’ emotional displays moderates the effectiveness of leader emotional displays. Leader display of emotions has more positive effects on follower behavior if the match between the valence of leader emotion and follower PA is strong rather than weak. Support for this hypothesis was found in two experiments. The congruency between leader emotional displays and follower PA determined follower task performance and extra-role compliance. Results from the second experiment indicated that this effect is due to the affective aspects of leader behavior and not to the valence of the content of the message.Emotions;Leadership Effectiveness;Positive Affect

Affective coherence: Affect as embodied evidence in attitude, advertising and art

For the first time, this volume brings together these varied developments under one umbrella and furnishes a comprehensive overview of this intellectual ..

The science of psychoanalysis

For psychoanalysis to qualify as scientific psychology, it needs to generate data that can evidentially support theoretical claims. Its methods, therefore, must at least be capable of correcting for biases produced in the data during the process of generating it; and we must be able to use the data in sound forms of inference and reasoning. Critics of psychoanalysis have claimed that it fails on both counts, and thus whatever warrant its claims have derive from other sources. In this article, I discuss three key objections, and then consider their implications together with recent developments in the generation and testing of psychoanalytic theory. The first and most famous is that of ‘suggestion’; if it sticks, clinical data may be biased in a way that renders all inferences from them unreliable. The second, sometimes confused with the first, questions whether the data are or can be used to provide genuine tests of theoretical hypotheses. The third will require us to consider the question of how psychology can reliably infer motives from behavior. I argue that the clinical method of psychoanalysis is defensible against these objections in relation to the psychodynamic model of mind, but not wider metapsychological and etiological claims. Nevertheless, the claim of psychoanalysis to be a science would be strengthened if awareness of the methodological pitfalls and means to avoid them, and alternative theories and their evidence bases, were more widespread. This may require changes in the education of psychoanalysts

Negativity Bias in Investors’ Reactions to Board of Directors’ Risk Oversight Disclosure

This study investigates how disclosure of the board of directors’ leadership and role in risk oversight (BODs oversight disclosure) influences investors’ judgments when information on risk exposures is disclosed. The theoretical lens through which we examine this issue involves negativity bias. Sixty-two stock market investors who engage in the evaluation and/or investment of stocks on a regular or professional basis participated in our study. Our results reveal that the addition of BODs oversight disclosure (positive information) does not carry significant weight on investor judgments (i.e., attractiveness and investment) when financial statement disclosures indicate a high level of operational and financial risk exposures (negative information). In contrast, under the condition of a low level of risk exposures, BODs oversight disclosure causes investors to assess higher risk in terms of worry, catastrophic potentials and unfamiliarity about risk information and, in turn, make less favorable investor judgments. Our findings add to the literature on negativity bias and contribute to the debate on the usefulness of disclosures about risk

The Moderating Effect of Judge’s Instructions on Victim Impact Testimony in Capital Cases

In this study, we addressed whether victim impact instructions served as a legal safeguard in a capital case involving victim impact testimony. We hypothesized that specific victim impact instructions would moderate the relation between victim impact testimony and death penalty recommendations. One hundred sixty-six participants viewed a simulated videotaped trial in which a victim impact statement was delivered in different emotional conditions. Judge’s instructions were varied as either general instructions or with the addition of specific victim impact instructions. Participant-jurors who heard specific victim impact instructions were less likely to recommend death compared to participants who heard general jury instructions. The value of victim impact instructions as a legal safeguard in capital trials is discussed

Five Seconds to the Ad: How Program-Induced Mood Affects Ad Countdown Effects

The study examines what effects a five second countdown warning will have on consumer’s attitudes towards the advertisement depending on the main program content. This study builds upon several theoretical models concerning program-induced moods in relation to viewer’s judgment to commercial advertisements. Findings from two studies suggest that program-induced mood systematically influences attitude toward the inserted ad with (vs. without) a five-second countdown: for the negative-affect program, attitude toward the ad was more positive when the ad was preceded by the countdown than when the ad was not preceded by the countdown. However, for the positive-affect program, attitude toward the ad was more negative when the ad was preceded by the countdown than when the ad was not preceded by the countdown. A similar interaction was found with purchase intent

Facial expressions depicting compassionate and critical emotions: the development and validation of a new emotional face stimulus set

Attachment with altruistic others requires the ability to appropriately process affiliative and kind facial cues. Yet there is no stimulus set available to investigate such processes. Here, we developed a stimulus set depicting compassionate and critical facial expressions, and validated its effectiveness using well-established visual-probe methodology. In Study 1, 62 participants rated photographs of actors displaying compassionate/kind and critical faces on strength of emotion type. This produced a new stimulus set based on N = 31 actors, whose facial expressions were reliably distinguished as compassionate, critical and neutral. In Study 2, 70 participants completed a visual-probe task measuring attentional orientation to critical and compassionate/kind faces. This revealed that participants lower in self-criticism demonstrated enhanced attention to compassionate/kind faces whereas those higher in self-criticism showed no bias. To sum, the new stimulus set produced interpretable findings using visual-probe methodology and is the first to include higher order, complex positive affect displays

The Effects of Discrete Emotions on Risky Decision Making

Contrary to the dominant view that generally equates feelings with poor thinking, converging evidence indicates that decisions – including those involving risk – are influenced by affective experiences. Research, however, is limited to studies on undifferentiated, global positive versus negative mood states; less is known about the influence of discrete emotions. The purpose of this research was to extend the affect-cognition literature by (a) examining the effects of discrete emotions varying along the dimensions of valence and arousal, and (b) identifying the systematic ways that discrete emotions underlie risky decision making. We used a set of emotion-laden IAPS images to elicit and compare the impact of incidental emotions on risky decision making. One hundred and twenty-two undergraduate students were randomly assigned to one of the four affective conditions: excitement, contentment, fear, and sadness. Following the emotion induction procedure, participants completed the Choice Dilemmas Questionnaire (CDQ) to assess their risk-taking propensity. Results indicated an interaction effect between valence and arousal for positive emotions, such that excited participants were significantly more risky in their decision making compared to contented participants. The discussion focuses on the theoretical and practical health implications of these findings. We recommend that future research capitalize on the insights gained from emotion research and use it favorably to improve decision making under risk