Self-Regulation Flashcards
SELF-REGULATION
what is the loose definition of self-regulation
the process by which people direct their thoughts and behaviours to achieve their goals
what is ‘a fajita needs to be adopted and managed, its more than a meal’’s definition of self-regulation?
Fujita, 2011- the general process by which people adopt and manage various goals and standards for their thoughts, feelings and behaviour to ensure that these goals are met
what does the Fujita paper basically say
that self-control is more than the inhibition of impulses
what two types of things can self regulation measure
feelings like anger and also behaviours like exercise
what is the difference between self-control and self-regulation
Self-control, the process of advancing distal over proximal motivations when two are competing.
Its a type of self-regulation, not all self-reg includes self control
what other ways can we use to use self-control
things like choosing 2 equally appealing modules, you aren’t inhibiting any goal because both work towards the end goal. you are just regulating which is the most appropriate
‘off krose I ate those ice-creams every night because I bought them’
Krose, 2019- said that people with good self-reg have created adaptive routines to make it easier to behave in accordance with long-term goals. They don’t buy the biscuits at the supermarket so they don’t even have the choice to eat them
‘when the biscuits come out, im hoff! doesnt work for some’
Imhoff et al., 2014= got people to rate their self-control, those who rated themselves higher were actually the ones more likely to give into temptations. But this shows that they did have good self-regulation because they were aware that they had low self-control so would usually use adaptive routines to avoid being exposed to the temptation in the first place.
‘if i’d intervened in phillip hoffman, he kotabeen here still/
Hoffman and Kotabe, 2012- defined two types of self-control.
Anticipatory- preventative self control. Not buying the biscuits
Momentary- interventive self control. Resisting the temptation when it is present
‘milast self-control is gone when love island starts’
Milyavskaya et al., 2019- defined two more different types of self-control
State self-control- depletes throughout the day and varies over time
Trait self-control- the actual self-control abilities of an individual
why do we care about self regulation?
‘hoffman writes in his diary about wanting drugs 75% of the time’
Because its so bloody common!
Hoffman et al., 2011- gave people electronic notebooks and asked them to report if they had any desires, and how strong they were, every time it beeped.
Results: people had a desire 75% of the time.
50% of the time, they conflicted with long term goals
42% of the time, they resisted it
what were the most common desires
eat, sleep, toilet, phone, leisure activity
what was Baumeister’s book called and what did he say in it
‘Losing Control’ said that lack of self-control is the fall of society and results in all the bad stuff like divorce, violence, lack of exercise
what was Krose’s point about cheese and wine
that the underlying processes behind success and failure are completely different. French people eating a lot of cheese and wine doesn’t represent bad self-regulation because they aren’t obese so actually represents good self-reg.
Successful self-reg can be down to adaptive routines rather than increase effort
‘john probs cheated at school’
Vohns and Schooler, 2008- found that what you tell people about free will has a huge effects on their behaviour.
2 groups read an essay that argued free will isnt real or read a neutral essay
then did a task which allowed them to cheat without the experimenter knowing
found that those who read the essay explaining free will wasnt real were more likely to cheat
why is this relevant
self-regulation is important to the debate over free will, do we have control over out actions
what are some conscious ways to self-regulate
routines, rewards, weighing up long term consequences, adding rewards if the current goal seems to much
CYBERNETIC MODELS
Who coined control theory
William Powers, used engineering principles to explain human behaviour
Who made it accessible
Carver and Scheier.
outline control theory by carver and sheier
You have a reference value which is what you decide is your goal.
You have the input function which is your current state.
Comparator- is what detects the discrepancy between input function and reference value
Output function- action that needs to be taken to reduce discrepancy
Impact on the environment- when there is no longer a discrepancy
Also have disturbances
what makes control theory get complicated
these reference values are usually smaller goals that are part of a larger goal
what types of control theory loops are there
negative feedback loops which are discrepancy reducing loops and can also have discrepancy enlarging loops. which are goals framed in avoidance
what is a key point about the way control loops are organised
control loops are hierarchically organised, the output from one loop is the input for the next. basically achieving one goal is usually the new input value (current state) for the next goal. specific goals feed into bigger ones
how else can goals be organised
can also be organised horizontally. avoiding one goal results in approaching the next one. this idea of inhibitory links, have to cut down on things to achieve other things, goals can facilitate the next (socialise less means can study more)
what 2 predictions can we use to judge whether this is a useful framework for self-regulation
1) Substantial discrepancies increase goal directed behaviour (big discrepancies mean you try harder to shrink them)
2) No discrepancy (or positive discrepancy) leads to coasting, down-regulating the behaviour
Evidence for these predictions. ‘lifes too full of goals’
Fulford et al., 2010- people identified 3 goals and then 3 times a day for 21 days they recorder
1) how much effort they’d put in so far that day
2) how much closer they were since the last recording
3) how much closer do you expect to be by the next
Results- more effort was put into the goals if there was a bigger discrepancy between current and reference value.
But- this was only in the people who had recorded an intention to get closer to goal that day. those who had unexpectedly got closer to their goal without intending, ended up coasting.
what does this suggest
we only need to put in effort when there’s a discrepancy
Evidence for the fact that big discrepancies don’t always lead to more effortful goal-directed behaviour. ‘fuck it, i’ll just do it to louro- or just give up’
The Multiple Goal Pursuit model-
Says that there are 2 things that determine how much effort we put into a goal.
1) discrepancies (as fulford says)
2) expectations about how likely you are to achieve the goal
Louro says that when you’re close to achieving the goal, fulford theory still stands. you coast of step up efforts.
But, being far away from the goal has the opposite effect- you decide that the goal is unattainable and you give up.
what does the multiple goal pursuit model claim signals whether a goal is attainable or not
emotions
what was louro, pieters and zeelenburg’s study into this idea, procedure
They asked people to imagine they were athletes and then they manipulated goal proximity and perceived progress.
Goal proximity-
- Things aren’t going well. you only got a good time 20% of the time
- Things are going well. you achieved a good time 95% of the time
Perceived progress-
- You achieved a bad time in your most recent 12 trials
- You achieved a winning time in all your 12 trials
Then they introduced alternative goal of a part-time, sought after job. A goal conflict decision introduced
what were the results
Distal goal and bad progress- they gave up and took the job, reducing efforts
Close goal and good progress- they were so on track that they took the job- coasted
Distal goal but with good progress- they didn’t take the job because they wanted to step up the efforts
What ate the 2 ways to reduce goal discrepancy with this in mind
can either try harder and step up efforts, or you can revise the goal= downward goal revision
‘most students won’t become champions and lords, have to be born into that’
Champion and Lord, 1982- measured students grades and their predicted grades
Found that when they fell short of expectations they increased efforts but if they had consistent discrepancies they revised the goal, went for lower goals.
study into the nature of goal revision. ‘serena williams, dodgeball’
Williams, Donovan and Dodge, 2000= found that athletes set goals that are higher than their previous performances 67% of the time. Continuous upward goal revision
what did Bandura say about upward goal revision
that following success, individuals create further discrepancies by setting new, higher goals. success doesnt give lasting satisfaction
why is this a problem with control theory
control theory doesnt articulate how and why upward goal revision or abandonment happens. its just about how we achieve goals
what did Wang and Mukhopadhyay add to control theory
Test-operate-test model- they added the ‘goal calibrator’ which gives you the option to modify, abandon or upwards goal revision the next goal
CRITICAL POINTS FOR CONTROL THEORY-
‘jolly chang and lord’
Johnson, Chang and Lord 2006- said that although the relevance of control theory is disputable, it has provided a meta-framework to incorporate other’s perspectives
own critical point of it
Carver and Scheier assume that the reference value is always static
to recap. what things have been added by who to the control theory
Louro, Pieters and Zeelenburg, added the multiple goal pursuit model
Wang and Mukhopadhyay added the goal calibrator
ROLE OF AFFECT IN CYBERNETIC MODELS
What about cybernetic models is investigated in this lecture
How does a person know there is a discrepancy? Is there an automatic process which tells us?
What does Carver say about this
Emotions trigger psychological states which signal the discrepancy to us
what is the overarching theme of this lecture
There is lots of good evidence to say that emotions signal discrepancies to us, but what about whether this DRIVES a change in discrepancy reducing behaviour
what was added to control theory when the effect of affect was taken into consideration
a second ‘meta-monitoring’ loop which measures the rate of discrepancy reduction in the main loop= and its output function is affect!
what was said about rate of discrepancy vs size
you don’t feel bad about massive discrepancies as long as your progress is good. the rate of them means a lot more than the size
what is the specificity of affective feedback
Carver- says that we experiences different affective stats when approaching or avoiding a goal. positive for both but
- if making progress towards achieving an exciting goal- elation and eagerness
- if successfully avoiding something unpleasant- calmness and relief.
sum up the meta-monitoring loop
constantly compares desired progress with actual progress rate. this is what signals affect and thats what signals behaviour!
so what 2 things do we need to know about the meta-monitoring loop
whether it actually makes us feel worse when there are discrepancies in progress
whether this feeling worse actually changes our behaviour
‘people moperly over WAT goal’ Evidence for discrepancies making us feel bad
Moberly and Watkins. 103 people recorded their negative affect and most salient goal
- what is the goal
- is it important
- extent to which you’re completing it
- how do you feel (anxiety, sadness, irritation)
Results- people recorded feeling worse when they aren’t successfully achieving their important goals.
‘carver- cope. lawrence- wasnt my ideal self. big discrep.’
Carver, Lawrence and Scheier- used self theory to get people to describe their ideal, ought and feared selves, and then to decide how close they are to each trait. creates discrepancy
discrepancies should predict negative affect which they also measured.
results showed that discrep between idea and current or ought and current= depressed
discrep between feard and current- happiness
does rate of progress always cause positive affect?
‘fanning myself in the sun with a becks would be a sick second goal’
Phan and Beck- showed that the nature of your next goal, has an effect on how rate of progress makes you feel.
had participants do 2 simulated work tasks.
first they did a contract task and indicated either fast or slow progress
then they were told they would fo a hiring task next which was described as either fun and exciting or boring and annoying
results- they only reported positive affect if the hiring task was described as exciting
recap- what are the 3 studies that can be used for evidence about the affective consequence of rates of progress
Moberly and Watkins- feel shit if not making prog towards important goals
Carver, lawrence and scheier- self-discrepancy theory
Phan and Beck- only pos affect if next goal is appealing
now we know that progress drive affect, we need to know if affect drives behaviour. ‘ruchi for the ball’
Mizruchi, 1991- analysed data between 1947-1988 basketball games, results showed that if they won a previous game, they were more likely to lose, and vice versa
good and bad thing about this study
good- uses real world examples
bad- doesn’t account for competition standard, also most of the evidence doesn’t fit with the idea of coasting or complacency
what did Baumeister say about negative affect
usually, unpleasant emotional states cause self-regulation to break down
Evidence for negative affect driving behaviour= ‘story sounds horrifically enticing, baboom chush’
Tice, Bratslavsky and Baumeister- manipulated people’s mood with a horrible story about a child dying or a nice one about them being saved, then gave them cheesy goldfish as a ‘taste test’
results- those with negative story ate way more goldfish. the negative affect doesnt even need to be about your goals or progress specifically, general bad mood still affects them
a study that did look into negative affect specifically to do with goals- ‘need rennies after eating loads of shit’
Reynolds and Webb 2018- participants asked to reflect on all the good or all the bad stuff they had eaten over the week. then they were asked about their progress and their intentions to eat healthily over the week.
results: after a manipulation check which found that the different conditions did change the way they felt about their progress, it was found that the positive group did have more intentions to eat healthily
how does this dispute control theory
control theory postulates that when in negative progress you would step up efforts, but actually you find the opposite. control theory didnt account for the role of affect
what did Baumeister, Vohs, DeWall, and Zhang (2007) say about emotions
it isnt emotions that directly cause behaviour, its the feedback that emotions provide that informs us. emotions let us know what things will feel like if it happens again. therefore, it is anticipated emotions that drive us to do/not do something
so according to baumeister, why does negative affect make us avoid things more?
because you know how bad you’ll feel if you fail again, so you then want to AVOID that negative feeling by not trying anymore
my critical point
this is emotion-based coping, what about those who use anticipated emotion to actually try avoid the negative feelings of failure again
Brown and McConnell study into anticipated and discrepancy based- emotions.
Got people to complete a task which they said would measure their social skills.
measure how they felt, and how they expected to feel if they did poorly.
ppt did task and was given false negative feedback
again measured experienced and anticipated emotions.
measures how long they practiced for the second test
results:
current mood (experienced emotions) and effort= ppts practiced less the worse their mood was
anticipated emotions and effort= the worse they expected to feel, they would practice more.
basically, its anticipated emotions that drive self-regulatory behaviour, not experienced emotions. experienced emotions just inform anticipated ones
EGO DEPLETION-
what does control theory assume which ego-depletion goes against
it assumes that people are always willing and able to reduce their discrepancies. what about if you’ve already exerted self-control throughout the day
‘big bitches more trifle’
Baumeister, Bratslavsky, Muraven and Tice 1998-
Told people they could either eat the cookies or the radishes, tempting smell always there. Eating the radishes used self control.
Then gave people a series of unsolvable tasks.
Results- cookie people tried 18.9 mins and radish people tried for 8.35 mins
Critical point to this
This study literally suggests that resisting food for 10 mins halves your ability to try at tasks. If this was true, surely we would always be depleted.
This could have been caused by a lift in mood, also the ones who gave up quicker were also the correct ones- maybe they were the clever ones
define ego-depletion
a temporary reduction in the selfs capacity or willingness to engage in volitional action, caused by prior exercise of volition
‘Muraven, Tice and Baumeister, 1998- study
people had to squeeze a hand grip- good measure of self control/stamina
then shown a horrible video and either instructed
- let is affect you, really get into it
- just watch it
- really try not to let it affect you
then do hand grip task again.
results- it wasnt just negative mood that decreases performance, it was the up or down regulation of their emotions.
evaluation of this study
individual differences, randomisation problems. how do we know that squeezing thing is even a good measure of self-control
who came up with the limited strength model and what is it
Muraven, Tice and Baumeister- the idea that we have a finite amount of self-control and using some depletes you temporarily
who kicked off this whole controversy into ego-depletion with a supportive meta-analysis ‘wood got involved for the start but then was like na fuck this lol’
Hagger, Wood, Stiff and Chatzisarantis in 2010- they published a meta-analysis showing that out of 198 studies, only 47 showed non-significant results. suggests medium to large effect of self-control on subsequent self control
also found that-
- length of depleting task
- complexity of depleting task
created more of an ego-depletion effect
and that-
- gap between 2 taks
creates less of an ego-depletion effect
and that-
- nature of depleting task
- nature of dependence task
makes no difference
who first came back to them in 2013, and kicked off the feud. ‘the kind of thing beyonce would defo do’
Carter and McCullough-
published a commentary saying that Hagger et al were only using published results, file drawer issue, the effects were ‘too incredible’ and it is statistically impossible that this could be an effect representative of the whole population
how did hagger and chatzisarantis respond in 2014
said that we do need to sort out the file drawer problem but if the effect size is 0 like you say, why don’t we find any studies with the opposite effect? saying that self-control improves subsequent self-control
Carter 2015
did his own meta-analysis, included published and unpublished results. he still found effects but he said that the problem is our tests of self-control are all so different so he only used studies with procedures that have been used 10 times or more. he found small effects but said it was influenced by studies with small sample sizes finding big effects. concluded there isnt much evidence for ego-depletion
in 2016, who broke up the feud and jumped on the side of hagger and chatzisarantis
Cunningham and Baumeister- said that Carter’s meta-analysis had some questionable decisions and that meta-analysis actually do take into account small study size thing, so actually there is an ego depletion affect
what was Hagger and Chatzisarantis replication report and when did they publish it
Hagger and Chatzisarantis 2016- gave to 23 labs. used a sequential task paradigm. Participants had to respond to the letter E but only if it was next to or one away from a vowel. Control group just had to respond to letter E. The did an interference task which also used self-control
Results: whichever task they did first had no effect on their performance of the second one
what did Baumeister obvs have to say about this
Baumeister said they were silly to choose a new task, and that it wasnt depleting enough as it didn’t cause fatigue..
‘might be savaning carter’s job’
Savani and Job 2017- found that in indian participants, they performed better on self-control if after doing a strenuous task instead of a strenuous one.
This supports Carter’s suggestion that there is no effect, like when Hagger and Chatzisarantis said that we should be seeing studies which show the opposite effect.
who suggests a way we can take this further ‘imma just freeze this debate cos y’all dumb’
Frieises et al., 2019- the manipulations in a study need to be successful at actually manipulating the construct of interest.
who else said something about whats wrong with work into ego-depletion ‘he just lurkin and then pops up at the end to criticise’
Lurquin and Miyake- tasks in ego-depletion research haven’t been effective measures of self-control
AUTOMATICITY-
what are we looking at in this lecture
evidence that primes can influence behaviour outside conscious awareness
why does ego-depletion lead us nicely on to looking at this
ego-depletion suggests that we ration our self-control, suggesting that lots of what we do occurs without it. so what else is driving our behaviour?
what is it suggested to be
E N V I R O N M E N T A L C U E S
what did John Bargh say about it
if our ability to exercise conscious, intentional control is limited, then moment-to-moment life must occur through non-conscious means
what are the 4 criteria for an automatic process
1) lack of awareness
2) lack of intention
3) lack of control
4) efficiency
explain the 3 types of lack of awareness
1) unaware of the stimulus itself- whatever is driving your behaviour (a red light)
2) aware of the stimulus but unaware way you’ve interpreted it (meet someone but don’t realise you’ve categorised them)
3) unaware of the effect it has on your behaviour- aware of stim and way you categorise but not how it effects you
explain lack of intention
you don’t have to deliberate on automatic behaviours. you have every intention to stop at a red light you just don’t consciously decide to.
perhaps better defined as lack of deliberation?
explain lack of control
automatic processes cannot be consciously changed or controlled. you could be aware of an automatic behaviour but that doesnt mean its easy to control. prejudice example works well here
explain efficiency
processes that dont require much attentional or cognitive resources. usually test if a process is ‘efficient’ using dual-task paradigms because if something is efficient you will be able to do it at the same time as something else
‘barge, shove and burrow’ study into effects of priming on behaviour
Bargh, Chen and Burrows, 1996- primed people with polite or rude words using a scrambled sentence task. then staged a convo with them and a confederate and saw how long it took participants to interrupt.
results: people primed with rudeness interrupted more quickly.
they are clearly aware of the stimulus, but not the way its effecting their behaviour. funnel debriefing showed they had no suspicions of the aim, so its an automatic process
what is the question when it comes to this study
could they have controlled the effect of the cues if they tried? the only way to do this would be if they were aware they were being manipulated
what was Bargh, Chen and Burrows second experiment in 1996
they did a scrambled sentence task to prime old or young and then measured speed that people walked away, found that participants walked slower if primed with old words
who was the first to argue against barge’s studies that say we have no free will and are just effected massively by our environment
Doyen 2012, replicated Bargh’s study using an electronic timer and failed to replicate findings. They said it was experimenter effects that changed behaviour. Did a study where some experimenters were told that old primes= slow walking and others not told that they found that they had slower gestures when not blind and thats what made participants walk slower. it was just social mimicry
how did barge react to doyen’s 2012 paper
said that doyen was incompetent and had made too many methodological changes such as telling people to ‘walk straight down the hall’ instead of ‘leave in the most natural way’
‘heeryey heeryey this makes the most sense of the whole course’
Gilder and Heerey, 2018- said that experimenter beliefs can hugely affect social priming. showed this by doing 4 experiments with the experimenters being blind or not blind, and even the participants picked up on differences between them.
critical point for this
well, even if it is the experimenter beliefs- these are arguably still primes!
what did Macrae and Johnson 1998 add to the debate
That cues are over-ridden by conscious goals. If someone is in a rush, the elderly primes make no difference.
How does priming work ‘people can be coershed to do things’
Loersch and Payne, 2011- The situated interference model.
1) Priming makes related info highly accessible
2) Accessible info becomes misattributed to the natural response. We believe that’s what we’d always do
3) Misattributed content is used when environment creates opportunity to do so
AUTOMATIC SELF REGULATION
What does control theory call superliminal primes
‘disturbances’ in the model
what does the idea of automaticity mean for self regulation specifically
evidence says that the environment can influence your behaviour in congruent and incongruent ways towards your goals. this could mean that goal striving can happen automatically if in the right environment.
Bargh et al., 2011- basic ideas behind this
goals can be triggered and run to completion outside awareness, achieving desired outcomes without any act of intervention, intention or guidance.
is this the same as effortful goal striving
no, it runs parallel, not instead of
what did Huxley say
that various automatic systems are constantly helping our conscious ones
describe the automotive model
Bargh 2001-
1) Environmental features can automatically activate goals
( seeing oven- make food cue activated )
2) Once goals activated it can automatically influence behaviours
( put stuff on hob, thinking about other things )
underlying way that this works
we have mental representations of things that can become associated together. goal representations can get associated with environmental cues in this same way.
environmental effects goal-directed behaviour. and it is these goal representations which mediate cues and behaviour
BARGH- 1995, study into how environment features activate goals automatically.
Showed how associating sex and power can lead to priming sexual aggression.
procedure: gave people the attractiveness of sexual aggression scale, to test whether they had the goal in question (to be sexually aggressive). then primed primed words to do with power like authority, influence, or neutral words.
then did a fake visual illusion task but actually asked them to rate attractiveness of the person they were matched with.
prediction: priming them with power would increase the attractiveness rating.
cue of power- activates sexual aggression- changes behaviour
what were the results
those who were low in sexual aggression were not effected by the priming. those high in sexual aggression rated people as more attractive when primed with power
problems with this experiment?
those who weren’t primed with power and were sexually aggression rated as attractive as those who weren’t sexually aggression. this shows that NOT being primed with power is DEACTIVATING the goal to be sexually aggressive, because without it its the same as non-sexually aggressive people.
maybe attractiveness isnt a good measure of sexual aggression.
do automatically activated goals activate behaviour in the same way as conscious ones? study that shows that priming effects behaviour
Hamilton, Katz and Leirer 1980- people read traits about a person and were either instructed to remember them, or to ‘form an impression’
those who formed an impression remembered more of the traits in a surprise memory test
who took this further by showing that the same effect can be seen when the goals are subliminally primed
Chartrand and Bargh 1996- did the same study but added a scrambled sentence task to activate either just remembering, or forming an impression.
results- depending on which goal was subliminally primes, they remembered more in the impression goal condition
why is this different to the studies with the old and young or rude and polite ones?
because these studies show that goal striving can be automatic, the main loop of control theory can go automatically. environmental cues can not only disturb goals, it can create them!
what is the difference between perceptual and motivational effects
primes can activate perceptual representations of actual things (old person) and that effects behaviour
primes can also activate motivational representations (an actual goal) which can also effect behaviour
how do we know if we have primed a PERCEPTUAL or a MOTIVATIONAL effect
perceptual priming DECAYS over time and motivational INCREASES over time.
Who found evidence for this ‘gap between birth and now;
Atkinson and Birch 1970- motivation priming effects increase until the goal is satisfied. the desire to achieve something gets stronger as time goes on
evidence- if we prime something (activate a goal) and then leave a delay, the effects get larger after a motivational one or smaller after a perceptual one
what was Bargh’s 2001 study into this
Tried to dissociate the 2 processes by proving a goal was motivational.
Procedure- primed achievement or neutral (using word searches with related words)
The participants either did a filler task (to create delay) or they didnt.
They then did more word searches (an opportunity to achieve)
results- if no delay, there is only a small difference in efforts to achieve between the primed and not primed ppl. But, if you prime achievement and have a delay, they work much harder than the unprimed people.
this shows that motivational effects do not decay!
explain 5 of the other ways to defined motivational effects- ‘i will forster this goal’
Forster et al.,
1) involves value
2) involves post-attainment decrease in motivation
3) involves inhibiting conflicting goals
4) involves self control
5) moderated by equifinality and multifinality
what is equifinality and multifinality
equifinality- multiple ways to achieve goals
multifinality- same means serves multiple goals
IMPLEMENTATION INTENTIONS 1
what is the difference between motivation and volition
motivation: what you intend to do. controlled by PBC, SN and A. things that determine how much effort you put in
volitional: post-intentional. processes that turn intention into action
how does Ajzen define behavioural intentions
motivational factors that influence a behaviour an indicate how much effort people are willing to exert to achieve it
how do intentions actually affect our behaviour? Armitage and Connor study into the int-behav relationship
found an r=.47 correlation between int and behaviour
how much variance in behaviour is explained by intentions
22%
who coined the term intention behaviour gap. the 3 reasons people fail to bridge it?
Sheeran- reasons people fail to bridge
1) intention viability
2) intention activation
3) intention elaboration
what is intention viability
being overly-optimistic. cant act on some intentions because we just don’t have the opportunity of resources (times when we are depleted). other reasons-
1) lack of resources
2) out of our control, mum cooks you unhealthy dinners
3) behaviour occurs automatically- habits
explain intention activation
the presence of conflicting goals. intentions can become ‘deactivated’. the relative strength of each goal is constantly changing as we are constantly reprioritising our goals. one reaches a threshold and then becomes the most important at that time.
what are the reasons for deactivating a goal? either reprioritise or simply forget. PROSPECTIVE MEMORY- if you give people a new goal they forget about the first one in the first task
explain intention elaboration
people dont elaborate enough over HOW they will achieve the goal, perform the action
TPB says that there is a direct link between intention and behaviour, but its more likely that there are many other things.
who coined the Rubicon Model of action phases and what are they
Heckhausen and Gollwitzer 1987-
1) Pre-decisional phase
Deliberate, form intention (SB, PBS, A)
2) Preactional phase!
DECIDING WHERE, WHEN AND HOW
3) Actional phase
Behaviour initiated, maintained
4) Post-actional phase
Evaluation and reappraisal
the difference between goal intentions and implementation intentions
Goal intentions specify what one
will do
– I intend to do X!
Implementation intentions specify the when, where, and how of what one will do – If situation Y arises, then I will initiate goal-directed behaviour Z!
OG study into implementation intentions.
‘brandy butter’
Gollwitzer and Brandstatter 1997-
students asked to write a report on their christmas eve’s, either had to pick a time, place and visualise when, or just told to write report.
Results- 71% of those who had to imagine place etc did theirs within 2 days. only 32% of the control did
strengths of this study
objective measure, can’t fake stamps. gollwitzer said that the implementation intentions meant they seized the opportunity
weakness of this study
doesnt actual use the implementation intentions format.
‘michael sheeran was in that masters of sex documentory’
Sheeran and Orbell, 2000- 114 women due cervical cancer smears. all did questionnaire and one half were told they were more likely to do it if they formed an implementation intention. measure attendance over 3 months.
results- 69% control group, 93% implementation intentions group!
strength of this study
shows that using an important domain that people care about means more
problems-
the instructions could have demand effects bc they were telling them that they ‘WOULD’ be more likely to if they did the implementation intention
‘otis from sex education is all about format’
Oettinghen, Honig and Gollwitzer, 2000= wanted to test the importance of the format
goal intention condition- i will perform as many maths tests as possible on tuesdays
implementation intention condition- if it is tuesday at _pm, i will perform as many maths tests as possible
results- goal intention group did them on average 8 hours later. implementation intentions group did them on average 1 hour 40 mins late
strengths of this study
online, objective measure of when they submitted their tests. also they made sure that the groups didnt differ in commitment to the task by testing this first
what did Gollwizter and Sheeran 2006 meta-analysis find
effects of forming implementation intentions on goals is r= .67. also implementation intentions are effective across
published and unpublished reports
student and non-student samples
self report or objective measures
a wide range of behaviours
IMPLEMENTATION INTENTIONS 2
What are the 3 diff hypotheses for why implementation intentions work
1) making a plan means you are more motivated
2) people who make plans have more information
3) heightened cue accessibility and strong cue-response links
explain the hypothesis that making plans means you are more motivated.
does the fact you bother to make a plan mean you have more intention and therefore more likely to perform the behaviour?
Webb and Sheeran- meta-analysis looking at studies where they manipulate implementation intentions and measured peoples intentions and self-efficacy
results- forming implementation intentions doesnt have a very big effect on the actual intention. so II’s dont work by changing motivation and self-efficacy
they dont work by making you want the goal more.
explain the hypothesis that more info is the reason they work
cervical cancer study- Sheeran and Orbell, maybe giving them more information was the reason that implementation intentions worked.
but- the study that Oettinghen, Honig and Gollwizter did gave people the exact same information but the format was what made the difference
explain the heightened cue accessibility part of the last hypothesis
by thinking about the opportunity, the mental representation of the situational cues that are associated with it become more accessible.
we are perceptually ready to encounter them. expectations are created by the cues
study into evidence for this ‘coupons to buy aart’
Aarts, Dijksterhuis and Midden 1999-
3 conditions
- goal intention group= told to collect coupons
- implementation intentions group= ‘every time i pass the swing door, i will collect a coupon’
- other condition- had to think about how they would spend the coupons, deep thinking but just not an implementation intentions
then they had to decide between words and non-words (some related to coupon like swing door etc) with the idea that if a cue is more accessible, you’ll respond to that being a word more quickly.
results- those who had specified in a plan, more likely to respond quickly to words than those who just had plans about spending them
unofficial evidence from Webb for heightened cue accessibility
the finding the F’s optical illusion, people usually miss them when they’re in the ‘of’s, but when you ask people to make an implementation intention about them, they pick up on them!
how did gollwitzer say this worked
not only do you specify what you’ll do, but you also tie it to a situation which becomes associated with it and acts as a cue
explain strong cue-response links
by forming an if-then, a strong association is made between opportunity and intended response, so when there is a similar opportunity, the behaviour happens automatically
evidence for strong-cue response links. study 1
Aarts and Dijksterhuis 2000- showed habitual and non habitual cyclists locations and had one half form implementation intentions specifying that they would travel to those ones by car.
Results- those who don’t cycle much chose cycling just as quickly as the habitual cyclists
Conclusion- implementation intentions can form an association as strong as habits. ‘instant habits’
who did a study to see if both these things can fully explain why implementation intentions work?
Webb and Sheeran 2008- replicated Aarts, Dijksterhuis and Midden study with the coupons that tested heightened cue accessibility but added in a strong cue-response link.
So they used a language task to measure the strength of association by adding in subliminal primes with the 3 situational cues, with the idea that you would respond more quickly to the word ‘collect’ if you had strong cue-response links.
results- participants who formed implementation intentions responded quicker to the situational cues and to the word collect.
conclusion- forming an implementation intention made them more likely to pick up the coupon and importantly, cue-response links and heightened cue accessibility were the two things that explained coupon collection in a mediation analysis
What did Gollwitzer and Shaal 1998 say about what implementation intentions create
They permit ‘strategic automaticity’ which basically means you create ‘helpful habits’, you don’t have to act or deliberate in the situation
so then why is it described as strategic if its automatic?
because its you that sets the goal.
what is the defining features of an automatic self-regulation that implementation intentions create
they are outside of lack of awareness, lack of intention, lack of control and lack of efficiency.
example of a study demonstrating lack of awareness
Bayer et al., 2009- showed that implementation intentions influence behaviour even if you show the cue subliminally
one experimenter rude and the other says you should form an implementation intention for when you next see them. then primed with the rude guys face and shown pos or neg words, respond more quickly to neg words if made a plan
example of a study demonstrating implementation intentions working with lack of efficiency
Webb and Sheeran, 2003- people had to do a really strenuous task (count down from 2000 in 7’s on one leg) or an easy one (count up to 2000 in 5’s). then either formed an implementation intention or didn’t about doing a stroop task
results- showed that without implementation intentions, ego-depletion affected performance. if you did, you were fine
shows that implementation intentions use no extra effort
example of a study that demonstrates whether implementation intentions working without intention
Sheeran, Webb and Gollwitzer 2005- demonstrated that intention is still important bc strength of goal makes a diff.
people had to make implementation intentions about studying- found that it only worked on those who actually wanted to study. showed that plans help goals but you need to have a strong goal in the first place
MY CRIT- haven’t other studies found that plans can create goals?
example of a study that demonstrates whether implementation intentions working without control
Jaudas and Gollwitzer, 2004- people formed implementation intentions over when to press a button.
but the arrows are actually misleading, so they are able to abandon the inappropriate goal and update.
this shows that implementation intentions are not without control because they are in control of changing if needed
