Prolonged unemployment is associated with control loss and personal as well as social disengagement.

OBJECTIVE AND BACKGROUND: The need for control is a fundamental human motivation, that when deprived can lead to broad and substantial changes in human behavior. We aimed to assess the consequences of control deprivation in a real-life situation that poses a severe threat to personal control: a prolonged unemployment. METHOD: Using a sample N = 1055 of unemployed (n = 748) versus working (n = 307) individuals, we examined predictions derived from two models of reactions to control deprivation: control-regaining and disengagement/withdrawal. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: We found that length unemployment is correlated with a psychological state strongly interfering with psychological as well as social functioning. While control-regaining models of responding to lack of control have received virtually no support from our findings, our results provide evidence that long-term unemployed individuals are more disengaged than working individuals. They are more apathetic, less likely to engage in control-regaining efforts and in active forms of construing one's own future.

What do we manipulate when reminding people of (not) having control? In search of construct validity.

The construct of personal control is crucial for understanding a variety of human behaviors. Perceived lack of control affects performance and psychological well-being in diverse contexts - educational, organizational, clinical, and social. Thus, it is important to know to what extent we can rely on the established experimental manipulations of (lack of) control. In this article, we examine the construct validity of recall-based manipulations of control (or lack thereof). Using existing datasets (Study 1a and 1b: N = 627 and N = 454, respectively) we performed content-based analyses of control experiences induced by two different procedures (free recall and positive events recall). The results indicate low comparability between high and low control conditions in terms of the emotionality of a recalled event, the domain and sphere of control, amongst other differences. In an experimental study that included three types of recall-based control manipulations (Study 2: N = 506), we found that the conditions differed not only in emotionality but also in a generalized sense of control. This suggests that different aspects of personal control can be activated, and other constructs evoked, depending on the experimental procedure. We discuss potential sources of variability between control manipulation procedures and propose improvements in practices when using experimental manipulations of sense of control and other psychological constructs.

Walk This Way: Ingroup Norms Determine Voting Intentions for Those Who Lack Sociopolitical Control.

Even though taking part in elections is one of the most direct tools to influence the sociopolitical system, many people choose not to vote. Research shows that this problem is especially prevalent among those citizens who do not believe they have control over social and political issues, but the question remains as to what could encourage their voting behavior. We predicted that individuals who experience low levels of control can be more susceptible to ingroup norms regarding participation in political elections than those with a high sense of sociopolitical control (SPC). Across six studies, we found consistent support for this hypothesis. Specifically, people who experience decreased SPC were more likely to vote when descriptive norms (measured or manipulated) were conducive to voting. The results have important theoretical and applied implications, illuminating the boundary conditions under which people deprived of control can still be motivated to participate in a political sphere.

Political change as group-based control: Threat to personal control reduces the support for traditional political parties.

People desire agentic representations of their personal and collective selves, such as their own nation. When national agency is put into question, this should increase their inclination to restore it, particularly when they simultaneously lack perceptions of personal control. In this article, we test this hypothesis of group-based control in the context of political elections occurring during socio-economic crises. We propose that people who are reminded of low (vs. high) personal control will have an increased tendency to reject traditional political parties that stand for the maintenance of a non-agentic political system. We experimentally manipulated the salience of low vs. high personal control in five studies and measured participants' intentions to support traditional and new political parties. Across four of five studies, in line with the predictions, low personal control reduced support for the main traditional conservative party (e.g., Partido Popular (PP) in Spain, the Republicans in France). These results appeared in contexts of national economic and/or political crisis, and were most pronounced when low (vs. high) national agency was made salient in Studies 4 and 5. The findings support the notion that rejecting the stability of the national political system can serve as a means to maintain a sense of control through the collective self.

Helplessness experience and intentional (un-)binding: Control deprivation disrupts the implicit sense of agency.

Prolonged deprivation of personal control induces cognitive, motivational, and affective impairments that can lead to learned helplessness syndrome. Research on cognitive mechanisms involved in responding to uncontrollable events reveals a critical role of lack of contingency between one's action and outcomes. However, the impact of experienced uncontrollability on individuals' sense of self-agency has not been explored yet. This research examined how prolonged control deprivation affects implicit sense of agency. We exposed participants to action-outcome noncontingency of varying lengths and measured implicit sense of self-agency manifested in intentional binding. In 2 studies (N = 133 and N = 354, respectively), we found that control deprivation decreased the intentional binding effect, and that the relationship appeared to be monotonic: the longer the control deprivation, the smaller the intentional binding effect. Moreover, in the condition of prolonged control deprivation, no intentional binding was observed at all: Participants evaluated the time elapsing between the action and the effect as if both occurred separately. Our finding suggests that long-term exposure to uncontrollability has detrimental effects on the ability to detect consequences of one's actions, the basis of implicit self-agency. The implications of our results for the theory of control deprivation and sense of agency are thoroughly discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Subjective status and perceived legitimacy across countries.

The relationships between subjective status and perceived legitimacy are important for understanding the extent to which people with low status are complicit in their oppression. We use novel data from 66 samples and 30 countries (N = 12,788) and find that people with higher status see the social system as more legitimate than those with lower status, but there is variation across people and countries. The association between subjective status and perceived legitimacy was never negative at any levels of eight moderator variables, although the positive association was sometimes reduced. Although not always consistent with hypotheses, group identification, self-esteem, and beliefs in social mobility were all associated with perceived legitimacy among people who have low subjective status. These findings enrich our understanding of the relationship between social status and legitimacy.

Self-image threat decreases stereotyping: The role of motivation toward closure.

Some prior research indicated that self-image threat may lead people to stereotyping and prejudiced evaluations of others. Other studies found that self-image threat may promote less stereotypical thinking and unprejudiced behavior. In a series of three studies, we demonstrate that self-image threat may lead to either more or less stereotypical perception of the outgroup depending on the level of the individuals` motivation toward closure (NFC). The results reveal that when individuals high (vs. low) in NFC perceived a member of an outgroup, they are less likely to use stereotypical traits if their self-image had been threatened by negative feedback (Study 1) or if they had imagined an example of their own immoral activity (Studies 2 and 3). Moreover, our results demonstrate that the fear of invalidity resulting from self-image threat induction is responsible for the foregoing effects (Study 3). These results are discussed in light of theories of motivational readiness and lay epistemics.

Electrocortical indices of attention correlate with the need for closure.

Need for closure (NFC), defined as a desire for a quick and unambiguous answer to a question and an aversion to uncertainty, usually leads to a more structured, persistent, and rigid cognitive style. We suggested that this cognitive characteristic could be related to differences in a simple sensory gating control mechanism as reflected in event-related potentials (N1 component). We expected that the higher an individual's NFC, the more attention he/she would allocate to the selected stimuli or the feature of the stimuli, which is manifested in an increased N1 component. We tested this assumption in two experiments where NFC was measured by a scale and event-related potentials were recorded during the Stroop task and the Visual Distractor task. In line with the hypotheses, we found that NFC was associated with amplified processing of stimuli at an early sensory stage, which was evidenced in an increased N1 component. We suggested that this early sensory gating mechanism protects high NFC individuals against anxiety-producing uncertainty.

When need for closure leads to positive attitudes towards a negatively stereotyped outgroup.

The study examined the relationship between epistemic motivation, which is the need for closure (NFC), and positive attitudes towards a negatively stereotyped outgroup (i.e., Gypsies). Although extensive research has revealed that NFC is related to derogatory behavioural tendencies and negative emotions towards stereotyped groups, it is proposed that NFC may also be linked to positive attitudes towards outgroups. It is predicted, however, that this would be true only when NFC is accompanied by a low ability to achieve closure (AAC). It is argued that low AAC impairs the construction of schema and their effective application. Therefore, NFC in individuals with low AAC may lead them to correct their initial tendency to use stereotypes and, as a consequence, to evaluate a negatively stereotyped outgroup in a positive way. In this research, low AAC was assessed by a scale (Study 1) and experimentally induced (Study 2). In both studies, we measured positive attitudes towards Gypsies. The results of the studies supported our prediction that NFC is positively related to positive attitudes towards Gypsies when AAC is low.

Limits of control: the effects of uncontrollability experiences on the efficiency of attentional control.

Two experiments were conducted to explore the effects of experiencing uncontrollability on the efficiency of attentional control. The experience of uncontrollability was induced either by unsolvable tasks (Experiment 1) or by tasks in which non-contingent feedback was provided (Experiment 2). A version of the Attentional Network Test-Interactions with an additional measure of vigilance (ANTI-V) was used to evaluate the efficiency of the attentional networks (i.e., alerting, orienting, and executive). Results of both experiments revealed a decreased efficiency of executive attention in participants who experienced stable control deprivation but no negative effects in participants who were able to restore their sense of previously deprived control. Additionally, when participants were asked to perform unsolvable tasks and did not receive feedback (Experiment 1), detrimental effects on the orienting network and vigilance were observed. The motivational and cognitive mechanisms underlying the effects of various uncontrollability experiences on conflict resolution and attentional control are discussed.

Individual differences in epistemic motivation and brain conflict monitoring activity.

It is well documented that motivation toward closure (NFC), defined as a desire for a quick and unambiguous answer to a question and an aversion to uncertainty, is linked to more structured, rigid, and persistent cognitive styles. However, the neurocognitive correlates of NFC have never been tested. Thus, using event-related potentials, we examined the hypothesis that NFC is associated with the neurocognitive process for detecting discrepancies between response tendencies and higher level intentions. We found that greater NFC is associated with lower conflict-related anterior cingulate activity, suggesting lower sensitivity to cues for altering a habitual response pattern and lower sensitivity to committing errors. This study provides evidence that high NFC acts as a bulwark against anxiety-producing uncertainty and minimizes the experience of error.

When interdependence shapes social perception: cooperation and competition moderate implicit gender stereotyping.

We examined the influence of interdependence goals on the accessibility of implicit gender stereotypical associations. Participants were asked to cooperate with or compete against a woman on a mathematical abilities task and subsequently the relative activation of positive and negative warmth and competence traits was measured using a primed categorization task. Results showed that female primes (vs. male primes) facilitated the activation of low warmth and high competence in the competition condition, whereas high warmth was activated in the cooperation condition and no differences were found for competence traits. These results are discussed referring to the stereotype content model and the compensation effect in person perception. The goal dependent nature of implicit gender stereotypes is emphasized.

Relationships between right-wing authoritarianism, terrorism threat, and attitudes towards restrictions of civil rights: a comparison among four European countries.

The present study tested the role of right-wing authoritarianism (RWA), terrorist threat, and sociopolitical 'climate' as predictors of support for governmental anti-terrorism policies and actions. Two dimensions of analysis were defined: the presence versus absence of al-Qaeda attacks, and adherence to surveillance versus anti-surveillance mainstream politics. In order to study the influence of these two contextual dimensions on the expression of attitudes, we selected four European countries that fall into these two dimensions--Poland, Belgium, Spain, and the UK. Results from our study provide support for the contention that attitudes towards restrictions of civil rights are related to RWA independently of the cultural context. Moreover, in the UK sample, we found that the threat of terrorism increases acceptance of limitations of civil liberties, but only among people who hold authoritarian beliefs. However, in Spain, the other country that experienced terrorist attacks, this moderation effect was not found which is interpreted in terms of differences in the sociopolitical climate in both countries. As predicted, we did not find such moderation effect in countries in which threat is relatively low (Poland and Belgium). The results are discussed with reference to the conceptual framework based on the importance of fear experiences, security-focused policies, as well as the specific cultural context in the study of reaction to terrorist threat.