A need basis for values: Associations between the need for cognitive closure and value priorities

Personal values and academic achievement

Using data from two studies, we investigate the role of basic values in predicting academic achievement. We focus on self-direction and conformity, two-value domains that have been neglected or understudied in earlier research on academic success. In line with the refined value theory, we split self-direction into independence of thought and of action, and conformity into compliance with rules and formal obligations (Rules), and avoidance of upsetting others (Interpersonal). We obtained grades as measures of academic achievement in two samples of Italian high-school students. In Study 1 (n = 234), we measured values with the PVQ-40 and academic motivation. In Study 2 (n = 215), we measured values with the PVQ-RR and both attendance rates and classroom conduct. Results: Both self-direction-thought and conformity-rules correlated with higher grades. These two values related to grades through a different path. Self-direction thought promoted grades through autonomous forms of academic motivation. Conformity rules promoted grades through better teachers' evaluations of students' classroom behaviour. Self-direction-action and conformity-interpersonal were unrelated to grades. Regarding the other values, hedonism and stimulation related negatively to grades. Theoretical and practical implications of results are discussed.

Personal Values Across Cultures

Values play an outsized role in the visions, critiques, and discussions of politics, religion, education, and family life. Despite all the attention values receive in everyday discourse, their systematic study took hold in mainstream psychology only in the 1990s. This review discusses the nature of values and presents the main contemporary value theories, focusing on the theory of basic personal values. We review evidence for the content and the structure of conflict and compatibility among values found across cultures. We discuss the assumptions underlying the many instruments developed to measure values. We then consider the origins of value priorities and their stability or change over time. The remainder of the review presents the evidence for the ways personal values relate to personality traits, subjective well-being, and the implications of value differences for religiosity, prejudice, pro- and antisocial behavior, political and environmental behavior, and creativity, concluding with a discussion of mechanisms that link values to behavior. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Psychology, Volume 73 is January 2022. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

The Temporal Reciprocity of Values and Beliefs: A Longitudinal Study within a Major Life Transition

Values and beliefs (or social axioms) are important personality constructs, but little previous work has examined the relationship between the two, and none has examined their real–life longitudinal effects on one another. Major life transitions—such as moving to a new culture—can challenge existing values and beliefs and therefore provide a particularly useful context for the analysis of value and belief change. The main aim of this research was to examine whether values may predict theoretically meaningful belief change and vice versa. Polish migrants participated in the study shortly after their arrival in the UK and at two, subsequent, nine–month intervals ( N = 172). Cross–lagged effects suggested reciprocal effects of values and beliefs, depending on the value involved. Findings are discussed in light of current debates over personality change, as well as the broader impact of significant life transitions on personality. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The Role of Psychological Factors in Older Adults' Readiness to Use eHealth Technology: Cross-Sectional Questionnaire Study

BACKGROUND

Information and communication technology (ICT) use among older adults has been on the rise in recent years. However, the predictors and mechanisms behind older adults' acceptance and use of ICT are not clear.

OBJECTIVE

This study aimed to systematically describe ICT usage among Czech older adults and to evaluate the factors influencing their ICT use and readiness to use digital technology to promote health (eHealth readiness). The primary focus was on psychological factors and the role of persons close to older adults.

METHODS

The research utilized cross-sectional survey data from a quota-based sample of Czech older adults (>50 years) and persons close to them further referred to as close persons (N=250 dyads). A structural equation modeling framework was used to evaluate relationships between psychological factors, ICT use, and eHealth readiness.

RESULTS

Czech older adults' use of ICT is low with the exception of cell phone usage (cell phone usage by 173/250, 69.2%; other devices used by 50/250, 20.0% of older adults or less). Apart from age (β=-.21; P<.001), eHealth readiness was predicted by ICT use (β=.65; P<.001). eHealth readiness was also indirectly affected by the need for cognitive closure (NFCC): individuals with a high need for closure perceived more barriers to ICT (β=.23; P=.01) and more reported barriers were linked to lower ICT usage (β=-.21; P=.001). The expected positive relationships between eHealth readiness of persons close to older adults and ICT use and eHealth readiness of older adults were not significant, but the total effect of eHealth readiness of persons close to older adults on eHealth readiness of older adults was positive and significant (β=.18; P=.01), indicating some level of influence of persons close to them on older adults' attitudes and behaviors.

CONCLUSIONS

This study provided the first systematic examination of Czech older adults' ICT usage and eHealth readiness. Novel predictors (NFCC and close persons' variables) were evaluated and yielded actionable results. More research is needed to clarify the role of persons close to older adults.

An Integrated Review of Recent Research on the Relationships Between Religious Belief, Political Ideology, Authoritarianism, and Prejudice

Religious ideology and extremism have had an increasing influence on political agendas in the United States and much of the developed world in the past 60 years, with right-wing ideology becoming more prevalent this decade. This article serves as a review of studies investigating the correlations between political ideology, religiosity, right-wing authoritarianism, ingroups/outgroups, and prejudice in an attempt to describe and understand the well-established links between these dimensions. We discuss several group-level theories including Terror Management Theory, Social Identity Theory, Realistic Group Conflict Theory among others to frame the intercorrelations of these constructs in an effort to better understand the underlying mechanisms that drive individuals to embody religious and political beliefs. We then discuss individual-level cognitive and psychological differences such as intelligence, cognitive flexibility, and specific biological and neurological limitations of brain function that may influence people to adopt certain religious and political beliefs. Through a more comprehensive understanding of the underlying mechanisms of religious and political extremism, we may be better equipped to assuage the fear and denigration that is associated with many of these beliefs.

The determinants and performance consequences of CEO strategic advice seeking

Leveraging insights from research on strategic leadership, this article theorizes that CEOs’ personal characteristics predict the extent to which CEOs seek strategic advice from executives at other organizations. Further, seeking strategic advice from executives at other organizations is argued to improve organizational performance. The hypotheses are tested with survey data from 287 CEOs of nonprofit agencies in Florida and archival data on organizational performance. Results indicate that CEOs with longer organizational tenure and a higher need for cognitive closure (NFCC) seek less advice from executives at other organizations. Results also show that organizations with CEOs that seek more strategic advice have better performance. These findings contribute to the strategic leadership literature in two general ways. First, through the lens of upper echelons theory, the study highlights three attributes of CEOs that help to explain their advice-seeking behavior: CEO age, CEO organizational tenure, and CEO NFCC. Second, grounded in network theory, the study draws attention to the beneficial effect of CEO advice seeking on organizational performance (i.e. growth in financial donations).

The interrelationships among job satisfaction, work–home interference and psychological contract breach

This study aims to expand the literature on work–home interference, job satisfaction and psychological contracts. Using a two-wave panel survey, this study tests an explanatory model using data collected from 414 employees of three Egypt-based organizations. Consistent with the developed hypotheses, the results indicate a reciprocal negative relationship between employees’ work–home interference and job satisfaction. Moreover, psychological contract breach is negatively associated with job satisfaction. Furthermore, a moderating role of psychological contract breach in the relationship between work–home interference and job satisfaction is supported. In other words, a higher level of psychological contract breach intensifies the negative impact of work–home interference on job satisfaction. Implications for theory, research and practice and directions for future research with cultural emphasis are discussed.

Biological and cognitive underpinnings of religious fundamentalism

Beliefs profoundly affect people's lives, but their cognitive and neural pathways are poorly understood. Although previous research has identified the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) as critical to representing religious beliefs, the means by which vmPFC enables religious belief is uncertain. We hypothesized that the vmPFC represents diverse religious beliefs and that a vmPFC lesion would be associated with religious fundamentalism, or the narrowing of religious beliefs. To test this prediction, we assessed religious adherence with a widely-used religious fundamentalism scale in a large sample of 119 patients with penetrating traumatic brain injury (pTBI). If the vmPFC is crucial to modulating diverse personal religious beliefs, we predicted that pTBI patients with lesions to the vmPFC would exhibit greater fundamentalism, and that this would be modulated by cognitive flexibility and trait openness. Instead, we found that participants with dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) lesions have fundamentalist beliefs similar to patients with vmPFC lesions and that the effect of a dlPFC lesion on fundamentalism was significantly mediated by decreased cognitive flexibility and openness. These findings indicate that cognitive flexibility and openness are necessary for flexible and adaptive religious commitment, and that such diversity of religious thought is dependent on dlPFC functionality.

Cognitive Structuring and Its Cognitive-Motivational Determinants as an Explanatory Framework of the Fear-Then-Relief Social Influence Strategy

According to the fear-then-relief technique of social influence, people who experience anxiety whose source is abruptly withdrawn usually respond positively to various requests and commands addressed to them. This effect is usually explained by the fact that fear invokes a specific program of action, and that when the source of this emotion is suddenly and unexpectedly removed, the program is no longer operative, but the person has not yet invoked a new program. This specific state of disorientation makes compliance more likely. In this paper, an alternative explanation of the fear-then-relief effect is offered. It is assumed that the rapid change of emotions is associated with feelings of uncertainty and confusion. The positive response to the request is a form of coping with uncertainty. In line with this reasoning, while individuals with a high need for closure (NFC) should comply with a request after a fear-then-relief situation, low NFC individuals who are less threatened by uncertainty should not. This assumption was confirmed in the experiment.

Ideological bases of institutional trust in eastern and western europe and the effect of motivated social cognition

Our study investigates the assumption that citizens expect the democratic institutional system to operate in accordance with values and norms that are deeply embedded in public thinking of their country. As individual-level trust towards the institutional system is built mainly on these norms and values, our results show that differences between Eastern and Western European public thinking lead to asymmetries regarding the bases of institutional trust. Specifically, degree of income inequalities and perceived quality of welfare services seem to be more important factors in the postsocialist region in comparison with Western Europe. Furthermore, in accordance with the approach of motivated social cognition, we could also confirm that those with a higher level of conventionality motivation lean on normative ideological elements to a greater extent when they are indicating their personal level of institutional trust.

Epistemic motivation affects the processing of negative emotional stimuli in interpersonal decisions

The present electrophysiological study investigated the role of the need for cognitive closure (NFC) in emotional processing. The NFC is conceptualized as an epistemic motive that is related to how and why people seek out information in social environments. Event-related potentials were recorded while individuals with high NFC (i.e., low epistemic motivation) or low NFC (i.e., high epistemic motivation) performed a modified Ultimatum Game, in which the emotions of happy or angry game agents were employed to predict their most likely offer. High-NFC participants more closely adhered to the decisions rules of the game than low-NFC individuals did. The electrophysiological results showed that the dispositional NFC modified early perceptual components (N170, N200, and P200). The potentials showed that high-NFC subjects had a processing bias to angry faces, whereas low-NFC individuals exhibited no such effects. These findings indicated that high-NFC individuals were more sensitive to negative emotional stimuli than low-NFC individuals in an interpersonal decision-making task.

What is best value in public sector building construction?

Although the lowest bid procurement philosophy has formed the basis of procurement in public sector building construction, for a long time it has arguably resulted in low-quality construction work. In response, construction stakeholders have sought to explore alternative procurement philosophies. One such philosophy is ‘best value’. In this study undertaken in Korea, the authors explore what is best value in public sector building construction. The literature is used to extract best value criteria that are then ranked by a selection of managers involved in procurement of public buildings. Best value was found to be categorised against six main criteria whose relative weightings vary with building type and, by implication, building functionality.

Personality Traits and Personal Values

Personality traits and personal values are important psychological characteristics, serving as important predictors of many outcomes. Yet, they are frequently studied separately, leaving the field with a limited understanding of their relationships. We review existing perspectives regarding the nature of the relationships between traits and values and provide a conceptual underpinning for understanding the strength of these relationships. Using 60 studies, we present a meta-analysis of the relationships between the Five-Factor Model (FFM) of personality traits and the Schwartz values, and demonstrate consistent and theoretically meaningful relationships. However, these relationships were not generally large, demonstrating that traits and values are distinct constructs. We find support for our premise that more cognitively based traits are more strongly related to values and more emotionally based traits are less strongly related to values. Findings also suggest that controlling for personal scale-use tendencies in values is advisable.

Religion, group threat and sacred values

Sacred or protected values have important influences on decision making, particularly in the context of intergroup disputes. Thus far, we know little about the process of a value becoming sacred or why one person may be more likely than another to hold a sacred value. We present evidence that participation in religious ritual and perceived threat to the group lead people to be more likely to consider preferences as protected or sacred values. Specifically, three studies carried out with Americans and Palestinians show: (a) that the more people participate in religious ritual the more likely they are to report a preference to be a sacred value (Studies 1–3); (b) that people claim more sacred values when they are reminded of religious ritual (Study 2); and (c) that the effect of religious ritual on the likelihood of holding a sacred value is amplified by the perception of high threat to the in-group (Study 3). We discuss implications of these findings for understanding intergroup conflicts, and suggest avenues for future research into the emergence and spread of sacred values.

Studying Values: Personal Adventure, Future Directions

This article first gives a brief overview of my adventures in developing two theories of values and the methods to measure them. First came my theory of the basic values on which individuals in all cultures differ. Then, quite unexpectedly, the opportunity arose to develop a theory of cultural values on which societies differ. As the story unfolds, I tell of failures, triumphs, and challenges. Values research has expanded in the past two decades beyond my wildest early imaginings. The second section of the article presents some ideas about future directions worth pursuing in values research. It describes competing theories and controversies as well as ways to go beyond them. I hope it will stimulate further advances in this field to which I have devoted more than 20 years.

The Dual Route to Value Change: Individual Processes and Cultural Moderators

Understanding value stability and change is essential for understanding values of both individuals and cultures.Yet theoretical thinking and empirical evidence on this topic have been scarce. In this article, the authors suggest a model outlining processes of individual value change. This model proposes that value change can occur through automatic and effortful routes. They identify five facilitators of value change (priming, adaptation, identification, consistency maintenance, and direct persuasion) and consider the moderating role of culture in each. In addition, the authors discuss the roles of culture, personal values, and traits as general moderators of value change. Evidence on the structure of value change and the effects of age on value change are also reviewed.