Beliefs about abstraction: Low-level and high-level construal signal different lay theories.

Construal level theory identifies abstraction as the key process that guides the pursuit of distant goals and expands the scope of regulation beyond the here and now (Liberman & Trope, 2008; Trope et al., 2021). While low-level (concrete) construals are concrete representations that foster a narrow view on the immediate circumstances and allow people to focus on a small subset of concerns, high-level (abstract) construals enable people to consider variability and change by taking more distant targets into account. In the present research, we investigate how people associate construal level with lay theories and, in particular, how this association manifests in the inferences they draw about others. In line with predictions, results across eight experiments (N = 1,110) show that people associate high-level construal with growth theories and low-level construal with fixed theories. Moreover, Studies 4 and 5 demonstrate that construal level can selectively influence a candidate's employability, depending on the hiring company's organizational mindset. Overall, this research points out the importance of investigating people's beliefs about abstraction, as it highlights how low-level and high-level construals can communicate distinct traits, characteristics, or intentions to peers. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Striving for Excellence Sometimes Hinders High Achievers: Performance-Approach Goals Deplete Arithmetical Performance in Students with High Working Memory Capacity.

We tested whether the goal to attain normative superiority over other students, referred to as performance-approach goals, is particularly distractive for high-Working Memory Capacity (WMC) students-that is, those who are used to being high achievers. Indeed, WMC is positively related to high-order cognitive performance and academic success, a record of success that confers benefits on high-WMC as compared to low-WMC students. We tested whether such benefits may turn out to be a burden under performance-approach goal pursuit. Indeed, for high achievers, aiming to rise above others may represent an opportunity to reaffirm their positive status-a stake susceptible to trigger disruptive outcome concerns that interfere with task processing. Results revealed that with performance-approach goals-as compared to goals with no emphasis on social comparison-the higher the students' WMC, the lower their performance at a complex arithmetic task (Experiment 1). Crucially, this pattern appeared to be driven by uncertainty regarding the chances to outclass others (Experiment 2). Moreover, an accessibility measure suggested the mediational role played by status-related concerns in the observed disruption of performance. We discuss why high-stake situations can paradoxically lead high-achievers to sub-optimally perform when high-order cognitive performance is at play.

Performance-approach goals deplete working memory and impair cognitive performance.

Although longitudinal studies have consistently shown the positive impact of performance-approach goals (i.e., the desire to demonstrate one's abilities and outperform others) on academic success, they might allow some strategic behaviors such as cheating and surface studying, leaving open the question of the sheer impact of performance-approach goals on cognitive performance. We argued that the pressure to outperform others might generate outcome concerns and thus deplete working memory resources available for the activity, thereby hindering cognitive performance. Three studies carried out in a laboratory context confirmed this hypothesis. During a demanding cognitive task, performance-approach goal manipulation hampered performance (Experiment 1) by generating distractive concerns that drew on the limited verbal component of working memory (Experiment 2). Moreover, this interference was shown to be specifically due to the activation of performance-approach goal-related thoughts during the task solving (Experiment 3). Together, the present results highlight the distractive consequence of performance-approach goals on cognitive performance, suggesting that cognitive resource allocation is divided among the storage, processing, and retrieval of task-relevant information and the activation of normative goal-attainment concerns.