Frustration-aggression hypothesis reconsidered: The role of significance quest.

One of the oldest scientific theories of human aggression is the frustration-aggression hypothesis, advanced in 1939. Although this theory has received considerable empirical support and is alive and well today, its underlying mechanisms have not been adequately explored. In this article, we examine major findings and concepts from extant psychological research on hostile aggression and offer an integrative conception: aggression is a primordial means for establishing one's sense of significance and mattering, thus addressing a fundamental social-psychological need. Our functional portrayal of aggression as a means to significance yields four testable hypotheses: (1) frustration will elicit hostile aggression proportionately to the extent that the frustrated goal serves the individual's need for significance, (2) the impulse to aggress in response to significance loss will be enhanced in conditions that limit the individual's ability to reflect and engage in extensive information processing (that may bring up alternative, socially condoned means to significance), (3) significance-reducing frustration will elicit hostile aggression unless the impulse to aggress is substituted by a nonaggressive means of significance restoration, (4) apart from significance loss, an opportunity for significance gain can increase the impulse to aggress. These hypotheses are supported by extant data as well as novel research findings in real-world contexts. They have important implications for understanding human aggression and the conditions under which it is likely to be manifested and reduced.

The role of fear, closeness, and norms in shaping help towards war refugees.

The paper investigates the psychological factors associated with the unprecedented assistance that Poles have offered refugees from Ukraine since the outset of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Building on social identity theory, and examining the current social context in Poland, we focus on three social identity dimensions, i.e., a feeling of closeness towards refugees from Ukraine, anticipatory fears (of a Russian invasion), and a community norm of helping. These three dimensions predict collective helping resulting from a sense of a common fate and a feeling of togetherness with Ukrainians. We tested this hypothesis in a study (N = 1066) conducted between 11 and 17 March 2022. Participants were asked about their helping activities during the previous week; they also responded to questions on different measures of social identity processes. The results support our expectations, revealing that closeness, anticipatory fears, and social norms are associated with two forms of help: benevolent and activist. The results of the study contribute to the discussion on social identity processes underlying offers of help to people fleeing from war-zones. Thus, they enhance our understanding of the role of citizens in terms of their contribution to helping refugees, and can be used to improve responses to other humanitarian crises.

Says Who? Credibility Effects in Self-Verification Strivings.

Research shows that people prefer self-consistent over self-discrepant feedback-the self-verification effect. It is not clear, however, whether the effect stems from striving for self-verification or from the preference for subjectively accurate information. We argue that people prefer self-verifying feedback because they find it to be more accurate than self-discrepant feedback. We thus experimentally manipulated feedback credibility by providing information on its source: a student (control condition) or an experienced psychologist (experimental condition). In line with our expectations, the results of two preregistered studies with 342 adults showed that people preferred self-verifying feedback only in the control condition. In the experimental condition, the effect disappeared (or reversed, in Study 1). Study 2 showed that individual differences in credibility (epistemic authority) ascribed to the self and to psychologists matter as well. These findings suggest that feedback credibility, rather than the desire for self-verification, often drives the self-verification effect.

The psychology of getting busy: Multitasking as a consequence of goal activation.

With the constantly increasing popularity of human multitasking, it is crucial to know why people engage in simultaneous task performance or switch between unfinished tasks. In the present article, we propose that multitasking behavior occurs when people have multiple active goals; the greater their number, the greater the degree of multitasking. The number of currently considered goals is reduced where one goal's significance overrides the others, reducing the degree of multitasking. We tested these hypotheses in a series of six studies in which we manipulated either goal activation or goal importance and investigated how this affected the degree of multitasking. The results showed that the more active goals participants actively entertained, the more likely they were to plan to engage in multitasking (Studies 1 and 5), and the more often they switched between tasks (Study 2). They also multitasked more under high interruption condition assumed to activate more goals than low interruption condition (Study 3). Further, we demonstrated that the degree of multitasking was significantly decreased by reducing the number of simultaneously considered goals, either via increasing the relative importance of one of the goals (Study 4) or via inducing greater commitment to one of the goals through a mental contrasting procedure (Study 5). Study 6, carried out in an academic context, additionally showed that the importance of a class-related goal negatively predicted media multitasking in class. The results thus show that goal activation is the underlying mechanism that explains why people multitask. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Why Do We Need Media Multitasking? A Self-Regulatory Perspective.

In the digital world of today, multitasking with media is inevitable. Research shows, for instance, that American youths spend on average 7.5 h every day with media, and 29% of that time is spent processing different forms of media simultaneously (Uncapher et al., 2017). Despite numerous studies, however, there is no consensus on whether media multitasking is effective or not. In the current paper, we review existing literature and propose that in order to ascertain whether media multitasking is effective, it is important to determine (1) which goal/s are used as a reference point (e.g., acquiring new knowledge, obtaining the highest number of points in a task, being active on social media); (2) whether a person's intentions and subjective feelings or objective performance are considered (e.g., simultaneous media use might feel productive, yet objective performance might deteriorate); and finally (3) whether the short- or long-term consequences of media multitasking are considered (e.g., media multitasking might help attain one's present goals yet be conducive to a cognitive strategy that leads to lesser attentional shielding of goals). Depending on these differentiations, media multitasking can be seen as both a strategic behavior undertaken to accomplish one's goals and as a self-regulatory failure. The article integrates various findings from the areas of cognitive psychology, psychology of motivation, and human-computer interaction.

On the psychology of extremism: How motivational imbalance breeds intemperance.

We present a psychological model of extremism based on the concept of motivational imbalance whereby a given need gains dominance and overrides other basic concerns. In contrast, moderation results from a motivational balance wherein individuals' different needs are equitably attended to. Importantly, under moderation the different needs constrain individuals' behaviors in prohibiting actions that serve some needs yet undermine others. Those constraints are relaxed under motivational imbalance where the dominant need crowds out alternative needs. As a consequence, the constraints that the latter needs exercise upon behavior are relaxed, permitting previously avoided activities to take place. Because enactment of these behaviors sacrifices common concerns, most people avoid them, hence their designation as extreme. The state of need imbalance has motivational, cognitive, behavioral, affective and social consequences. These pertain to a variety of different extremisms that share the same psychological core: extreme diets, extreme sports, extreme infatuations, diverse addictions, as well as violent extremism. Evidence for the present model cuts across different domains of psychological phenomena, levels of behavioral analysis and phylogeny. We consider the model's implications for further research and explore the tradeoffs between extremism and moderation. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Helping when the desire is low: Expectancy as a booster.

One might assume that the desire to help (here described as Want) is the essential driver of helping declarations and/or behaviors. However, even if desire to help (Want) is low, intention to help may still occur if the expectancy regarding the perceived effectiveness of helping is high. We tested these predictions in a set of three experimental studies. In all three, we measured the desire to help (Want) and the Expectancy that the aid would be impactful for the victim; in addition, we manipulated Expectancy in Study 3. In Studies 1 and 3, we measured the participants' declaration to help while in Study 2, their helping behavior was examined. In all three studies, we used variations of the same story about a victim. The results supported our hypothesis. Thus, the studies help to tease apart the determinants of helping under conditions of lowered desire to do so, an issue of great importance in public policymaking.

Habitual Behavior Is Goal-Driven.

We address the relation between goal-driven and habitual behaviors. Whereas in recent years the two have been juxtaposed, we suggest that habitual behavior is in fact goal-driven. To support this view, we show that habitual behavior is sensitive to changes in goal properties (reward contingencies), namely goal value and its expectancy of attainment. Whereas adjustment to these properties may be slower for habitual (or overlearned) than for nonhabitual behavior, this is likely due to the routinized (or automatic) nature of such behavior, characterized as it is by reduced attention to its consequences. Furthermore, we show that habitual behavior's prolonged persistence despite its manifest detachment from the original goal likely stems from its attachment to a different goal. Thus, there is no need to postulate purposeless behavior. The view that habitual behavior is goal-driven offers an integrative account of a considerable body of evidence and is consistent with a functional account of psychological processes.

Cognitive mechanisms in violent extremism.

This paper considers the cognitive underpinnings of violent extremism. We conceptualize extremism as stemming from a motivational imbalance in which a given need "crowds out" other needs and liberates behavior from their constraints. In the case of violent extremism, the dominant need in question is the quest for personal significance and the liberated behavior is aggression employed as means to the attainment of significance. The cognitive mechanisms that enable this process are ones of learning and inference, knowledge activation, selective attention, and inhibition. These are discussed via examples from relevant research.

Motivation to comply with task rules and multitasking performance: The role of need for cognitive closure and goal importance.

In three studies, we examined the role task rules play in multitasking performance. We postulated that rules should be especially important for individuals highly motivated to have structure and clear answers, i.e., those high on need for cognitive closure (NFC). High NFC should thus be related to greater compliance with task rules. Specifically, given high goal importance, NFC should be more strongly related to a multitasking strategy when multitasking is imposed by the rules, and to a mono-tasking strategy when monotasking is imposed by the rules. This should translate into better multitasking or mono-tasking performance, depending on condition. Overall, the results were supportive as NFC was related to a more mono-tasking strategy in the mono-tasking condition (Studies 1 and 2 only) and more dual-tasking strategy in the dual-tasking condition (Studies 1-3). This translated into respective differences in performance. The effects were significant only when goal importance was high (Study 1) and held when cognitive ability was controlled for (Study 2).

"When the going gets tough, the tough get going": Motivation towards closure and effort investment in the performance of cognitive tasks.

Previous studies have demonstrated that the need for closure (NFC), which refers to an individual's aversion toward uncertainty and the desire to quickly reduce it, leads to reluctance to invest effort in judgments and decision making. However, we argue that NFC may lead to either an increase or a decrease in effort depending on the availability of easy vs. difficult means to achieve closure and perceived importance of the task goal. We found that when closure could be achieved via both less and more demanding means, NFC was associated with decreased effort unless the task was perceived as important (Study 1). However, when attaining closure was possible via demanding means only, NFC was associated with increased effort, regardless of the task importance (Study 2). Moreover, NFC was related to choosing a more instrumental strategy for the goal of closure, even if this strategy required effort (Study 3). The results are discussed in the light of cognitive energetics theory.