The Effects of Mindset on Behavior: Self-Regulation in Deliberative and Implemental Frames of Mind

The interpersonal effects of emotional expressions with both and single valences on work-related satisfaction: an examination of emotions and perceived openness as mediators

ABSTRACTWork-related satisfaction has critical benefits. To predict work-related satisfaction, we investigated how a counterpart's expressions of emotional complexity (both positive and negative emotions), positive emotions, and negative emotions influenced a perceiver's work-related satisfaction during discussions over different work-relevant ideas. We conducted a three-wave coworker survey (N = 529) and an experiment with a confederate as a task partner (N = 378). The results consistently showed significant positive impacts of a counterpart's emotional complexity and positive emotion expressions on a perceiver's work-related satisfaction by enhancing the perceiver's positive emotions and evaluation of the counterpart's openness. Conversely, a counterpart's negative emotion expression significantly decreased a perceiver's work-related satisfaction by reducing perceived counterpart openness. We also did not find a perceiver's negative emotion as a significant mediator of the associations between the three emotional expressions and work-related satisfaction. Therefore, our investigation highlights similar positive effects of emotional complexity and positive emotion expressions and suggests that an expression of both positive and negative emotions promotes satisfaction by enhancing positive emotions and openness perception.

Analyzing the impact of agile mindset adoption on software development teams productivity during COVID-19

Purpose

The objective of the study is to analyze the impact of the adoption of the Agile Mindset on the productivity of Agile software development teams in IT enterprises during COVID-19.

Design/methodology/approach

A web-based survey is performed with voluntary participants working with the Agile software development professionals with a specific focus on IT enterprises around Pune, India. For this the initial exploratory literature review was performed, to explore the team's behaviors and their response to the crises like the Covid-19 pandemic. Data is collected from the targeted population using the random sampling method. A questionnaire is designed with the help of a five-point Likert scale. All the respondents were analyzed based on their behaviors shown and how adopting to Agile mindset has impacted their productivity during the pandemic. Collected data would be then analyzed using the Smart PLS-SEM methodology.

Findings

Findings of the study show that Agile software development teams adopting to Agile mindset are better at responding to crisis and quick to adapt to change as teams adopting the Agile mindset is likely to sustain or even improve their productivity during the crises like Covid-19 pandemic. Adapting to an Agile mindset is important for Agile software development teams during a crisis as a response to changes in the working as well as environmental conditions. This study also shows that by adopting an Agile mindset, development teams are better at responding to the crisis eventually improving productivity.

Research limitations/implications

Research limitations for this study-scope of the study could be extended to the larger population across geographies to have improved insights Productivity Factors like- Efforts Efficiency, Backlog-management Index (BMI), and Weighted Average Productivity (VWP) for team members can be included. More behavioral factors for Agile Mindset can be considered.

Practical implications

Agile software development teams are characterized by collaboration and responsibility. Recent enforcement of pandemic precautionary measures has enforced Agile software development teams to work remotely and maintain social distancing while in the office. It was challenging for most of the working people to adjust to the new working conditions (Yang et al., 2021) However, in IT organizations, adopting the Agile mindset has ensured continuous software deliveries, took ownership, and quickly adapted to the volatile situations, ultimately resulting into the growth in the productivity unlike to that of other sectors of the economy.

Social implications

In this study, we have analyzed the hypotheses with statistical significance in association with constructs that are in sync with the available literature. Adopting the Agile mindset values has positively impacted the team's behavior resulting in productivity improvement even in the distributed working locations in pandemic situations.

Originality/value

The study highlights that adopting to Agile mindset has positively impacted an Agile software development team's productivity during the Covid-19 pandemic. As environmental conditions during Covid-19 were uncertain and ambiguous and teams were working in distributed and disconnected ways, many researchers have believed that it would have affected the overall productivity. This was turned true for most of the sectors of the economy, however, Agile software development teams have shown positive trends in their productivity, as they have adopted the Agile mindset values and principles, during crises.

Don’t give up? It’s a little complicated: Action Crisis Moderates Consequences of goal support

Social support for goals can be beneficial for goal pursuit, but often has unintended negative consequences for the recipient. We propose that action crisis—the state in which an individual is considering disengaging from a goal they are currently pursuing—may result in people experiencing more ambivalent reactions to goal support. Drawing on both experimental and longitudinal methods, we show that action crisis increases negative consequences of goal support, but does not reduce positive consequences of goal support. In Study 1, we experimentally manipulated goal phase (action crisis, deliberative, or implemental) and had participants imagine support or neutral interactions. In Study 2, we measured experiences of action crisis and receipt of goal support in first-year pre-health students over the course of the academic year. Action crisis predicted more negative appraisals of support, but did not impact positive appraisals of support. Similarly, action crisis predicted more negative emotions and depressive symptoms among people who received goal support, but did not impact positive emotions. These results suggest that action crisis increases the extent to which support is received as a “mixed blessing”.

Predictive Roles of Thinking Styles in Coping Strategies Among Mainland Postgraduate Students in Hong Kong

The primary objective of the present research was to explore the statistical predictive power of thinking styles in coping strategies beyond demographic factors. One hundred and forty-eight mainland postgraduate students were administered to the Thinking Styles Inventory-Revised II (TSI-R2) and the Coping Orientation to Problems Experienced (COPE) Revised. Results indicated that Type I thinking styles primarily predicted adaptive coping strategies, while Type II thinking styles positively contributed to maladaptive coping strategies. Results in the present research were largely in the expected directions beyond the influence of demographic factors. Furthermore, thinking styles varied as a function of age, gender, gender-role orientation, and marital status. Implications for postgraduate students, academics, university administrators, and the limitations of the research, are discussed.

Lack of reassurance after unexpected positive health risk feedback - an analysis of temporal dynamics

INTRODUCTION

How do people receive unexpected positive health risk information? While common motivational accounts predict acceptance, consistency accounts such as the cue-adaptive reasoning account (CARA) predict a 'lack of reassurance'.

OBJECTIVES

We therefore tested (1) whether people prefer striving for positivity or retaining a sense of self-consistency ('lack of reassurance'), and (2) if there are systematic differences in short- and long-term reception, which would indicate temporal dynamics in processing.

METHODS

As part of a longitudinal cohort study, participants of a community health screening (N = 1,055) received their actual cholesterol readings. Feedback reception was assessed immediately, at one month and six months.

RESULTS

Processing trajectories for unexpected positive feedback showed a significant 'lack of reassurance' effect over time compared with expected positive feedback, while unexpected negative feedback was less threatening than expected negative feedback.

CONCLUSIONS

The perseverance of this 'lack of reassurance' over time indicates that striving for consistency in self-views is a robust phenomenon, even if it means forfeiting a better view of one's own health.

Emotion emphasis effects in moral judgment are moderated by mindsets

In two studies, emotion emphasis effects on moral judgment are demonstrated. The studies indicate that emphasizing negative consequences in trolley-type dilemmas with emotional language produces more utilitarian responses if such emphasis is on the consequences of the deontological option, and more deontological responses if it is on the consequences of the utilitarian option. This effect was moderated by action-phase related mindsets. Individuals in an implemental mindset were less susceptible to the emotion emphasis effect than individuals in a deliberative mindset (Studies 1, 2). By also using an eye-tracking task in Study 2, we demonstrated that our implemental mindset participants’ visual attention was more focused—in particular on goal-directed means—than that of the deliberative mindset participants.

Simple and rationale-providing SMS reminders to promote accelerometer use: a within-trial randomised trial comparing persuasive messages

BACKGROUND

Literature on persuasion suggests compliance increases when requests are accompanied with a reason (i.e. the "because-heuristic"). The reliability of outcomes in physical activity research is dependent on sufficient accelerometer wear-time. This study tested whether SMS reminders-especially those that provided a rationale-are associated with increased accelerometer wear-time.

METHODS

We conducted a within-trial partially randomised controlled trial during baseline data collection in a school-based physical activity intervention trial. Of 375 participants (mean age = 18.1), 280 (75%) opted to receive daily SMS reminders to wear their accelerometers. These 280 participants were then randomised to receive either succinct reminders or reminders including a rationale. Data was analyzed across groups using both frequentist and Bayesian methods.

RESULTS

No differences in total accelerometer wear minutes were detected between the succinct reminder group (Mdn = 4909, IQR = 3429-5857) and the rationale group (Mdn = 4808, IQR = 3571-5743); W = 8860, p = 0.65, CI95 = - 280.90-447.20. Similarly, we found no differences in wear time between participants receiving SMS reminders (Mdn = 4859, IQR = 3527-5808) and those not receiving them (Mdn = 5067, IQR = 3201-5885); W = 10,642.5, p = 0.77, CI95 = - 424.20-305.30. Bayesian ANOVA favored a model of equal weartime means, over one of unequal means, by a Bayes Factor of 12.05. Accumulated days of valid accelerometer wear data did not differ either. Equivalence testing indicated rejection of effects more extreme than a Cohen's d (standardised mean difference) of ±~0.3.

CONCLUSIONS

This study casts doubt on the effectiveness of using the because-heuristic via SMS messaging, to promote accelerometer wear time among youth. The because-heuristic might be limited to face-to-face communication and situations where no intention for or commitment to the behavior has yet been made. Other explanations for null effects include non-reading of messages, and reminder messages undermining the self-reminding strategies which would occur naturally in the absence of reminders.

TRIAL REGISTRATION

DRKS DRKS00007721 . Registered 14.04.2015. Retrospectively registered.

Causality in the Theory of Planned Behavior

The theory of planned behavior proposes that behavior is predicted by behavioral intention which is, in turn, predicted by three base components: attitudes toward the behavior, subjective norms regarding the behavior, and perceived control over the behavior. Implied within this theory is that each of the three base components influence intentions, solely in that direction. However, despite being one of the most widely used theories in many areas of psychology and health sciences, few studies have tested this basic premise. Might causal influence also flow in a reverse-causal direction from intentions back to the base components? This causal sequence was tested and supported by a correlational study, a lab-based experiment, and a quasi-experimental field study. This demonstration of reverse-causal relations from intentions to the base components suggests that the theory of planned behavior should be modified to include reciprocal causal relations.

Personal Conflict Impairs Performance on an Unrelated Self-Control Task: Lingering Costs of Uncertainty and Conflict

People have the ability to make important choices in their lives, but deliberating about these choices can have costs. The present study was designed to test the hypothesis that writing about conflicted personal goals and values (conflict condition) would impair self-control on an unrelated subsequent task as compared to writing about clear personal goals and values (clarity condition). Personal conflict activates the behavioral inhibition system (BIS; Hirsh, Mar, & Peterson, 2012), which may make it harder for participants to successfully execute self-control. In this large (N=337), pre-registered study participants in the conflict condition performed worse on anagrams than participants in the clarity condition, and the effect of condition on anagram performance was mediated by a subjective uncertainty measure of BIS activation. This suggests that BIS activation leads to poor self-control. Moreover, given that conflict is inherent in the exercise of self-control, results point to BIS activation as a mechanism for why initial acts of self-control impair self-control on subsequent, unrelated tasks.

Linguistic Evidence for the Failure Mindset as a Predictor of Life Span Longevity

BACKGROUND

When people think that their efforts will fail to achieve positive outcomes, they sometimes give up their efforts after control, which can have negative health consequences.

PURPOSE

Problematic orientations of this type, such as pessimism, helplessness, or fatalism, seem likely to be associated with a cognitive mindset marked by higher levels of accessibility for failure words or concepts. Thus, the purpose of the present research was to determine whether there are individual differences in the frequency with which people think about failure, which in turn are likely to impact health across large spans of time.

METHODS

Following self-regulatory theories of health and the learned helplessness tradition, two archival studies (total n = 197) scored texts (books or speeches) for their use of failure words, a category within the Harvard IV dictionary of the General Inquirer.

RESULTS

People who used failure words more frequently exhibited shorter subsequent life spans, and this relationship remained significant when controlling for birth year. Furthermore, study 2 implicated behavioral factors. For example, the failure/longevity relationship was numerically stronger among people whose causes of death appeared to be preventable rather than non-preventable.

CONCLUSIONS

These results significantly extend our knowledge of the personality/longevity relationship while highlighting the value of individual differences in word usage as predictors of health and mortality.

The Process of Disengagement From Personal Goals: Reciprocal Influences Between the Experience of Action Crisis and Appraisals of Goal Desirability and Attainability

To date, it is not well understood how individuals disengage from goals. A recent approach suggests that disengagement is often preceded by an action crisis, a motivational conflict in which the individual is torn between holding on to and letting go of a personal goal. We postulate that a dynamic interplay between the experience of action crisis and appraisals of goal desirability and attainability shapes the disengagement process from personal goals. In two longitudinal studies ( N = 364), an action crisis in the goal to complete a university degree predicted devaluations of its desirability and attainability, and reversely, low goal attainability (but not desirability) predicted an increase in action crisis. Moreover, studies provided first evidence that devaluing goal desirability might be functional for well-being in an action crisis. Studies strengthen the view that disengagement is shaped by reciprocal processes between the experience of action crisis and changes in goal appraisal.

Mindsets Affect Risk Perception and Risk-Taking Behavior

Abstract. In two experiments, we investigated the downstream consequences of activating deliberative versus implemental mindsets on risk perception (Experiment 1) and risk-taking behavior (Experiment 2). We hypothesized that participants in an implemental versus deliberative mindset arrive at more optimistic judgments about their own risks of experiencing negative life events, compared to other peoples’ risks. The results of Experiment 1 confirm this hypothesis and reveal perceived controllability as an important moderator. Experiment 2 further augments these findings by demonstrating that participants in a deliberative mindset show less risk-taking behavior than participants in an implemental mindset using a behavioral risk task. Implications for research on mindset theory of action phases and mindset-dependent effects on risk perception and risk-taking behavior are discussed.

Bias and Accuracy in Close Relationships: An Integrative Review

Intimates typically are positively biased in their relationship evaluations. Given this fact, how can intimates regulate their esteem needs about their relationships and still function effectively, without risking later regret and disappointment? We address this issue by first reviewing work showing that because bias and accuracy are independent, they can co-exist. We next show how bias and accuracy are subject to different evaluative motives, relationship evaluations, and situations. It is argued that the pursuit of important goals is a time when people are motivated to feel good about their relationships. This is a time when relationship judgments are positively biased and relatively inaccurate. However, important choice points in the relationship are times when people are motivated to both accurately understand their relationships and to feel good about their relationships. These dual needs can be simultaneously met by becoming more accurate in epistemic-related relationship judgments while being more positively biased in esteem-related relationship judgments.

The Role of Deliberative Versus Implemental Mindsets in Time Prediction and Task Accomplishment

The Model of Action Phases ( Gollwitzer, 1990 , 2012 ) distinguishes an implemental mindset evoked by planning goal-directed actions, from a deliberative mindset evoked by pondering pros/cons of adopting a particular goal. The present research demonstrates that mindsets affect time predictions. In Study 1 (N = 151), participants in an implemental mindset made shorter time predictions with respect to completing personal goals than participants in a deliberative mindset. In Study 2 (N = 78), we tested a mediating mechanism for the mindset effect by varying the motivation to return a report. The mindset effect was replicated in the low- but not in the high-motivation condition with participants in an implemental mindset returning the report earlier, and being as accurate in their predictions as participants in a deliberative mindset. Results indicate that an implemental (vs. deliberative) mindset increases motivation and therefore leads to shorter, but equally biased time predictions.

Some extended psychological benefits of challenging social stereotypes: Decreased dehumanization and a reduced reliance on heuristic thinking

One way to promote equality is to encourage people to generate counterstereotypic role models. In two experiments, we demonstrate that such interventions have much broader benefits than previously thought—reducing a reliance on heuristic thinking and decreasing tendencies to dehumanize outgroups. In Experiment 1, participants who thought about a gender counterstereotype (e.g., a female mechanic) demonstrated a generalized decrease in dehumanization towards a range of unrelated target groups (including asylum seekers and the homeless). In Experiment 2 we replicated these findings using alternative targets and measures of dehumanization. Furthermore, we found the effect was mediated by a reduced reliance on heuristic thinking. The findings suggest educational initiatives that aim to challenge social stereotypes may not only have societal benefits (generalized tolerance), but also tangible benefits for individuals (enhanced cognitive flexibility).

Better Know When (Not) to Think Twice

Before approaching situations, individuals frequently imagine “what would happen, if . . . .” Such prefactual thought can promote confidence and facilitate behavior preparation when the upcoming situation can benefit from forethought, but it also delays action. The present research tested how social power predicts prefactual thought when its benefits are clear versus ambiguous. Power enhances flexible behavior adaptation and action tendencies—presumably without much forethought. We therefore proposed that power diminishes prefactual thought, unless the situation suggests that such thought is adaptive (i.e., could benefit performance). Power-holders indeed generated less prefactuals than the powerless (Experiments 1 and 2), but only if benefits for performance were ambiguous rather than clear (Experiment 3). These findings indicate that social context factors related to confidence affect prefactual thought, and that power-holders’ flexible adaptation to the situation sometimes elicits inaction (i.e., prefactual thought) rather than spontaneous action.

Visual Attention and Goal Pursuit

Mindset theory suggests that a deliberative mindset entails openness to information in one’s environment, whereas an implemental mindset entails filtering of information. We hypothesized that this open- versus closed-mindedness influences individuals’ breadth of visual attention. In Studies 1 and 2, we induced an implemental or deliberative mindset, and measured breadth of attention using participants’ length estimates of x-winged Müller-Lyer figures. Both studies demonstrate a narrower breadth of attention in the implemental mindset than in the deliberative mindset. In Study 3, we manipulated participants’ mindsets and measured the breadth of attention by tracking eye movements during scene perception. Implemental mindset participants focused on foreground objects, whereas deliberative mindset participants attended more evenly to the entire scene. Our findings imply that deliberative versus implemental mindsets already operate at the level of visual attention.

Mindsets, informed consent, and research

Study after study shows that subjects regularly overestimate the likelihood of gaining therapeutic benefit from a clinical trial. But more study is needed on why that mistake is common, and what it says about informed consent. Subjects may think about research differently at different phases in their participation.

Tolerance by surprise: evidence for a generalized reduction in prejudice and increased egalitarianism through novel category combination

Prejudices towards different groups are interrelated, but research has yet to find a way to promote tolerance towards multiple outgroups. We devise, develop and implement a new cognitive intervention for achieving generalized tolerance based on scientific studies of social categorization. In five laboratory experiments and one field study the intervention led to a reduction of prejudice towards multiple outgroups (elderly, disabled, asylum seekers, HIV patients, gay men), and fostered generalized tolerance and egalitarian beliefs. Importantly, these effects persisted outside the laboratory in a context marked by a history of violent ethnic conflict, increasing trust and reconciliatory tendencies towards multiple ethnic groups in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. We discuss the implications of these findings for intervention strategies focused on reducing conflict and promoting peaceful intergroup relations.

Wishful Information Preference

When pursuing set goals or intentions, people prefer to acquire information about the pros rather than the cons of their goal pursuit. Little is known about information preferences at earlier stages, when people are not yet serious about pursuing a given future. In the present three studies, positive fantasies that depicted an idealized desired future—compared with fantasies that questioned whether the future would be so ideal—created a preference for pros over cons, just like set goals or intentions have been shown to do. Positive fantasies created a stronger preference for pros versus cons when people were not serious about pursuing an imagined future or had just foregone an opportunity to do so. Results suggest that before people are engaged in serious pursuits, positive fantasies spur the selective acquisition of pro information, which may lead to poor decisions even if the acquired information is carefully deliberated on later.

Interactivity and reward-related neural activation during a serious videogame

This study sought to determine whether playing a “serious” interactive digital game (IDG) – the Re-Mission videogame for cancer patients – activates mesolimbic neural circuits associated with incentive motivation, and if so, whether such effects stem from the participatory aspects of interactive gameplay, or from the complex sensory/perceptual engagement generated by its dynamic event-stream. Healthy undergraduates were randomized to groups in which they were scanned with functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI) as they either actively played Re-Mission or as they passively observed a gameplay audio-visual stream generated by a yoked active group subject. Onset of interactive game play robustly activated mesolimbic projection regions including the caudate nucleus and nucleus accumbens, as well as a subregion of the parahippocampal gyrus. During interactive gameplay, subjects showed extended activation of the thalamus, anterior insula, putamen, and motor-related regions, accompanied by decreased activation in parietal and medial prefrontal cortex. Offset of interactive gameplay activated the anterior insula and anterior cingulate. Between-group comparisons of within-subject contrasts confirmed that mesolimbic activation was significantly more pronounced in the active playgroup than in the passive exposure control group. Individual difference analyses also found the magnitude of parahippocampal activation following gameplay onset to correlate with positive attitudes toward chemotherapy assessed both at the end of the scanning session and at an unannounced one-month follow-up. These findings suggest that IDG-induced activation of reward-related mesolimbic neural circuits stems primarily from participatory engagement in gameplay (interactivity), rather than from the effects of vivid and dynamic sensory stimulation.

On conceptualizing self-control as more than the effortful inhibition of impulses

The notion that self-control entails effortful inhibition of impulses dominates prevailing psychological models of self-control. This article describes some of the conceptual and empirical limitations of defining self-control as the effortful inhibition of impulses. The present article instead advocates for a dual-motive conceptualization, which describes self-control as the process of advancing distal rather than proximal motivations when the two compete. Effortful impulse inhibition in this model represents only one of many means by which people promote their self-control efforts. Adopting a dual-motive approach offers new insight and proposes several new research directions. This article discusses these implications and calls for psychologists to reconsider the way self-control is currently understood.

Is There a Budget Fallacy? The Role of Savings Goals in the Prediction of Personal Spending

The authors extend research and theory on self prediction into the realm of personal financial behavior. Four studies examined people’s ability to predict their future personal spending and the findings supported the two main hypotheses. First, participants tended to underestimate their future spending. They predicted spending substantially less money in the coming week than they actually spent or than they remembered spending in the previous week. Second, the prediction bias stemmed from people’s savings goals—defined as the general desire to save money or minimize future spending—at the time of prediction. Participants who reported (Studies 2 and 3) or were induced to experience (Study 4) a stronger savings goal predicted they would spend less money. However, savings goals were not related to actual spending and thus contributed to the bias in prediction.