Expectations Versus Fantasies and Vaccine Hesitancy: How Suffering From COVID-19 Versus Suffering From Vaccines Interact.

BACKGROUND: Previous research on COVID-19 vaccination highlights future thoughts associated with possible Coronavirus infection and vaccine side effects as key predictors of vaccine hesitancy. Yet, research has focused on independent contributions of such future thoughts, neglecting their interactive aspects. PURPOSE: We examined whether thoughts about two possible COVID-related futures (suffering from COVID-19 and vaccine side effects) interactively predict vaccine hesitancy and vaccination behavior among unvaccinated and vaccinated people. Importantly, we compared two forms of future thinking: beliefs or expectations (likelihood judgments) versus fantasies (free thoughts and images describing future events). METHODS: In Study 1, we conducted a longitudinal study with an unvaccinated group (N = 210). We assessed expectations versus fantasies about the two COVID-related futures as predictors. As outcome variables, we measured vaccine hesitancy, and 9 weeks later we assessed information seeking and vaccine uptake. Study 2 was a cross-sectional study comparing vaccine hesitancy of an unvaccinated group (N = 307) to that of a vaccinated group (N = 311). RESULTS: Study 1 found that more negative fantasies about COVID-19 impact and less negative fantasies about vaccine side effects interactively predicted lower vaccine hesitancy and more vaccine-related behaviors among unvaccinated people; no such interaction was observed between respective expectations. Study 2 replicated these results of Study 1. Additionally, for vaccinated people, low expectations of negative COVID-19 impact and high expectations of negative vaccine impact interactively predicted higher vaccine hesitancy, whereas no such interaction was observed for respective fantasies. CONCLUSIONS: Research on vaccine hesitancy should explore interactions between future thinking about disease and about vaccine side effects. Importantly, there is much to be gained by distinguishing expectations versus fantasies: vaccination interventions aiming to boost vaccine uptake among unvaccinated people should tap into their negative future fantasies regarding both disease and vaccine side effects.

In two correlational studies, we investigated the relationship between future thoughts about two possible COVID-related futures­suffering from COVID-19 and vaccine side effects­and vaccine hesitancy. Prior research has emphasized thoughts about these potential risks as significant predictors of vaccine hesitancy but has focused on their independent contributions, neglecting their interactive nature. Our research examined the interaction between the thoughts about disease and those about vaccine side effects, highlighting the two forms of future thinking: expectations (likelihood judgments) and fantasies (free-flowing thoughts and images describing a future event). In a longitudinal study (Study 1) with an unvaccinated group, we found that more negative fantasies about COVID-19 disease and less negative fantasies about vaccine side effects interactively predicted lower vaccine hesitancy and more vaccination behavior. There was no interaction between the expectations. Study 2, a cross-sectional study comparing another unvaccinated sample to a vaccinated sample, revealed a divergent pattern in the two groups; negative fantasies, not expectations, interactively predicted vaccine hesitancy among unvaccinated people while expectations, not fantasies, did so among vaccinated people. The research suggests the importance of considering interactions between future thoughts about disease and vaccine side effects in understanding vaccine hesitancy and distinguishing expectations and fantasies.

Depressive symptoms, task choice, and effort: The moderating effect of personal control on cardiac response.

Dysphoric individuals perceive mental tasks as more demanding and show increased cardiovascular responses during the performance of easy cognitive tasks. Recent research on action shielding indicates that providing individuals with personal control over their tasks can mitigate the effects of manipulated affective states on cardiovascular responses reflecting effort. We investigated whether the shielding effect of personal choice also applies to the effect of dispositional negative mood on effort. N = 125 university students with high (dysphoric) versus low (nondysphoric) depressive symptoms engaged in an easy cognitive task either by personal choice or external assignment. As expected, dysphoric individuals showed significantly stronger cardiac PEP reactivity during task performance when the task was externally assigned. Most importantly, this dysphoria effect disappeared when participants could ostensibly personally choose their task. Our findings show that the previously observed shielding effect of personal action choice against incidental affective stimulation also applies to dispositional negative affect.

Noise annoys-But personal choice can attenuate noise effects on cardiac response reflecting effort.

Since personal choice fosters commitment and shields action execution against potentially conflicting influences, two laboratory experiments with university students (N = 228) tested whether engaging in action by personal choice versus external assignment of task characteristics moderates the effect of irrelevant acoustic noise on cardiovascular responses reflecting effort. Participants who could personally choose the stimulus color of moderately difficult cognitive tasks were expected to be shielded against the irrelevant noise. By contrast, when the stimulus color was externally assigned, we predicted receptivity for the irrelevant noise to be high. As expected, in both experiments, participants in the assigned color condition showed stronger cardiac pre-ejection period reactivity during task performance when exposed to noise than when working in silence. On the contrary, participants who could choose the stimulus color were shielded against the noise effect on effort. These findings conceptually replicate and extend research on the action shielding effect by personal choice and hold practical implications for occupational health.

Are different countries equally green with envy? A comparison of the everyday concept of envy in the United States, Spain, and Germany.

Using a prototype approach to emotion concepts, we mapped the internal structure and content of the everyday concept of envy (as used in the United States) and its translation equivalents of envidia in Spanish and Neid in German. In Study 1 (total N = 415), the features of the concept of envy, envidia, and Neid were generated via an open-ended questionnaire. In Study 2 (total N = 404), participants rated the degree of typicality of the constitutive features on a forced-choice questionnaire. The prototype analysis of envy, supplemented with network analyses, revealed that the largest connected set of features of envy, envidia, and Neid shared a group of central features, including features related to success or to people with a better appearance. Still, envy, envidia, and Neid did differ with respect to their constituent peripheral features as well as the density of their networks, their structure, and the betweenness centrality of the nodes. These results suggest that a prototype approach combined with network analysis is a convenient approach for studying the internal structure of everyday emotion concepts and the degree of overlap with respect to the translation equivalents in different countries.

I've been thinkin' bout you: socially distant relationship pursuit during COVID-19.

The COVID-19 pandemic has radically altered everyday interactions, potentially disrupting the process of romantic relationship formation. Prior research suggests that threats to the basic psychological need for relatedness, along with negative mental imagery, can lead to an obsessive preoccupation with a romantic interest. The present research examines how the relatedness-threatening nature of the pandemic may similarly facilitate problematic relationship behaviors. Two studies-a small-scale natural experiment with measurements before and during the pandemic (Study 1) and a daily diary study (Study 2)-investigated how relatedness frustration and negative fantasies predict presumptuous romantic intentions. In Study 1 these threats unexpectedly corresponded to reduced presumptuous romantic intentions, though no such main effect was present in Study 2. Replicating prior experimental work, in both studies, more negative fantasies about a romantic target predicted greater presumptuous romantic intentions. Study 2 also revealed that at the between-person level the combinatory effect of relatedness frustration and negative fantasies led to greater intentions. At the within-person level, this combinatory effect led unexpectedly to reduced intentions. Finally, there was substantial heterogeneity in the within-person effect of COVID-induced relatedness frustration: although frustration stoked intentions for some individuals, for others it reduced intentions. This work suggests that for many, the early social ramifications of COVID-19 reduced motivation to presumptuously pursue romantic relationships. Yet, certain individuals, particularly those with more negative fantasies, are more prone to pursue presumptuously amidst the pandemic.

The benefit of no choice: goal-directed plans enhance perceptual processing.

Choosing among different options is costly. Typically, response times are slower if participants can choose between several alternatives (free-choice) compared to when a stimulus determines a single correct response (forced-choice). This performance difference is commonly attributed to additional cognitive processing in free-choice tasks, which require time-consuming decisions between response options. Alternatively, the forced-choice advantage might result from facilitated perceptual processing, a prediction derived from the framework of implementation intentions. This hypothesis was tested in three experiments. Experiments 1 and 2 were PRP experiments and showed the expected underadditive interaction of the SOA manipulation and task type, pointing to a pre-central perceptual origin of the performance difference. Using the additive-factors logic, Experiment 3 further supported this view. We discuss the findings in the light of alternative accounts and offer potential mechanisms underlying performance differences in forced- and free-choice tasks.

Mechanisms of motivation-cognition interaction: challenges and opportunities.

Recent years have seen a rejuvenation of interest in studies of motivation-cognition interactions arising from many different areas of psychology and neuroscience. The present issue of Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience provides a sampling of some of the latest research from a number of these different areas. In this introductory article, we provide an overview of the current state of the field, in terms of key research developments and candidate neural mechanisms receiving focused investigation as potential sources of motivation-cognition interaction. However, our primary goal is conceptual: to highlight the distinct perspectives taken by different research areas, in terms of how motivation is defined, the relevant dimensions and dissociations that are emphasized, and the theoretical questions being targeted. Together, these distinctions present both challenges and opportunities for efforts aiming toward a more unified and cross-disciplinary approach. We identify a set of pressing research questions calling for this sort of cross-disciplinary approach, with the explicit goal of encouraging integrative and collaborative investigations directed toward them.

Mental contrasting promotes effective self-regulation for the benefits of groups.

Self-regulation is essential for maintaining harmonious social connections and sustaining groups, yet little research has examined how individuals regulate their actions for the benefits of groups and which self-regulatory strategies promote effective self-regulation (active engagement and disengagement) in group contexts. In three experiments, focusing on identity groups (family and friends in Study 1) and two distinct functional groups (workplace teams in Study 2; sports teams in Study 3), we investigated whether mental contrasting of a desired future with the obstacle of reality, compared to indulging in the desired future, facilitates expectancy-dependent contributions for the benefits of groups. We assessed participants' expectancies of successfully contributing to their groups and varied the mode of thought (mental contrasting vs. indulging). Contributions to groups were measured 1 week (Studies 1 and 2) and 3 weeks later (Study 3). Results showed that mental contrasting guided people to align their actions with expectancy levels; the higher their expectancy, the more people contributed to their groups. In contrast, indulging resulted in insensitivity to expectancy levels. Our findings suggest the potential applicability of the mental contrasting strategy for promoting effective self-regulation in various group settings and provide insights into designing interventions to enhance individuals' engagement in groups.

The power of personal control: Task choice attenuates the effect of implicit sadness on sympathetically mediated cardiac response.

Implicitly processed pictures of facial expressions of emotions have been found to systematically influence sympathetically mediated cardiovascular reactivity during task performance. According to the Implicit-Affect-Primes-Effort model, this happens because different affect primes activate the concepts of performance ease versus performance difficulty. Grounded in a recent action shielding model, our laboratory experiment (N = 129 university students) tested whether engaging in action by personal choice can immunize against those implicit affective influences on effort. Participants worked on an objectively difficult cognitive task, which was either externally assigned or ostensibly personally chosen. As predicted, participants in the assigned task condition showed weaker cardiac pre-ejection period reactivity during task performance, reflecting disengagement, when they were primed with sadness than when they were exposed to anger primes. Most relevant, this affect prime effect disappeared when participants could ostensibly choose their task themselves. These findings replicate previous research on implicit affect's impact on sympathetically mediated cardiac response and extend the literature on action shielding by personal choice effects to implicit affective influences on action execution.

Personal task choice attenuates implicit happiness effects on effort: A study on cardiovascular response.

Research on the Implicit-Affect-Primes-Effort model (Gendolla, 2012) found that priming happiness or anger in challenging tasks results in stronger sympathetically mediated cardiovascular responses, reflecting effort, than priming sadness or fear. Recent studies on action shielding revealed that personal task choice can attenuate affective influences on action execution (e.g., Gendolla et al., 2021). The present experiment tested if this action shielding effect also applies to affect primes' influences on cardiovascular response. Participants (N = 136) worked on a cognitive task with integrated briefly flashed and backward masked facial expressions of sadness vs. happiness. Half of the participants could ostensibly choose whether they wanted to work on an attention or on a memory task, while the other half was assigned to one task. Our findings revealed effects on cardiac pre-ejection period (PEP), which align with the expected outcomes for a task of unfixed difficulty where participants establish their own performance standard. Most importantly, task choice shielded against the implicit affective influence on PEP that was evident when the task was externally assigned. Effects on systolic blood pressure (SBP) reactivity largely corresponded to those of PEP.

The self-regulation of face touching - a preregistered experiment testing if-then plans as a means to promote COVID-19 prevention.

Objective: Reducing face touching could help slow COVID-19's spread. We tested whether implementation intentions, a simple-to-use behaviour change intervention, reduce face-touching behaviour effectively.Design: In this pre-registered online study, we utilised a novel way to collect behavioural data during a pandemic. We obtained video recordings of 156 adults while performing three engaging tasks for four minutes each. After the baseline task, participants formed the goal to avoid touching their faces; some participants also formed implementation intentions, targeting either the frequency or duration of face touching.Main Outcome Measures: The 468 videos were rated by two independent raters for face touching frequency and duration.Results: Face touching was widespread. Compared to the baseline, there was a slight reduction in the frequency of face touching after the experimental manipulations. We observed a significant decrease in the length of face touching only for participants with duration-focused implementation intentions.Conclusion: While implementation intentions have effectively downregulated other unwanted behaviours, they did not reduce the frequency of face-touching behaviour. Still, duration-focused implementation intentions appear to be a promising strategy for face-touching behaviour change. This highlights the need for further optimisation and field research to test the effectiveness of implementation intentions in everyday life contexts.

More direction but less freedom? How task rules affect intrinsic motivation.

Task rules restrict freedom by definition, but do they necessarily harm intrinsic motivation? We examine how task rules for an open-ended writing activity affect intrinsic motivation, or enjoyment, with one's sense of direction and psychological freedom as potential mechanisms. Results from three online experiments (Experiment 1, Experiments 3a and 3b; N = 1,176), conducted with both undergraduate student and adult (Amazon MTurk and Prolific) samples, suggest that task rules may indirectly increase enjoyment by enhancing direction (indirect effect: ß's range [0.09, 0.17], p's < .05), yet at the same time, indirectly decrease enjoyment by reducing freedom (indirect effect: ß's range [-0.31, -0.07], p's < .05). Results from a fourth online experiment (Experiment 2; student sample; N = 121) address a potential alternative explanation, finding that only the task rules, not mere examples, were sufficient to increase direction (rules present: d = 0.55, p = .04; examples: d = 0.25, p = .48) and reduce freedom (rules present: d = 0.78, p < .001; examples: d = 0.22, p = .31). Theoretical and empirical connections are made to self-determination theory and flow theory. Further research is needed to delineate situational and personal factors that may moderate these effects. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Can personal task choice shield against fear and anger prime effects on effort? A study on cardiac response.

This experiment tested whether personal task choice can shield against implicit affective influences on sympathetically mediated cardiovascular response, reflecting effort. Participants were N = 121 healthy university students who completed a moderately difficult memory task with integrated briefly flashed and masked fear vs. anger primes. Half of the participants believed they could choose between an attention and a memory task, while the other half was automatically assigned to the task. Replicating previous research, we expected an influence of the affect primes on effort when the task was externally assigned. By contrast, when participants were given a task choice, we predicted strong action shielding and thus a weak implicit affect effect on resource mobilization. As expected, participants in the assigned task condition showed stronger cardiac pre-ejection period reactivity when exposed to fear primes than when processing anger primes. Importantly, this affect prime effect disappeared when participants could ostensibly choose the task. These findings add to other recent evidence for action shielding by personal task choice and importantly extend this effect to implicit affective influences on cardiac reactivity during task performance.

Furnishing hypnotic instructions with implementation intentions enhances hypnotic responsiveness.

Forming implementation intentions has been consistently shown to be a powerful self-regulatory strategy. As the self-regulation of thoughts is important for the experience of involuntariness in the hypnotic context, investigating the effectiveness of implementation intentions on the suppression of thoughts was the focus of the present study. Participants were randomly assigned to one of four conditions (hypnotic instruction plus implementation intention, hypnotic instruction, implementation intention, and control condition). Results showed that participants who received information included in the "Carleton Skill Training Program" and in addition formed implementation intentions improved their hypnotic responsiveness as compared to all of the other three groups on measures of objective responding and involuntary responding. Thus, in line with the nonstate or cognitive social-psychological view of hypnosis stating that an individual's hypnotic suggestibility is not dispositional but modifiable, our results suggest that hypnotic responsiveness can be heightened by furnishing hypnotic instructions with ad hoc implementation intentions.

The specificity of prospective memory costs.

A current issue in the field of prospective memory (i.e., memory for intentions) is the extent to which intentions interfere with ongoing activities. A question of interest is whether this interference is specific to stimuli that are relevant to the intention or whether interference is more general in its influence. Participants performed a lexical decision task (LDT) with an embedded prospective memory (PM) task in which they had to remember to press a computer key if a pre-specified target appeared (e.g., GIRL). Results demonstrated a consistent pattern of results. Increased reaction time costs were observed on trials where there was a match between PM targets and non-target ongoing stimuli. That is, when a prospective memory target was a word, then reaction time costs were observed on non-target word LDT trials and there were no costs on non-target nonword trials. Similarly, if a PM target was a nonword (e.g., UEBL) then costs were observed on non-target nonword LDT trials relative to non-target word trials. Evidence from three experiments suggests that task interference is specific to the type of stimulus (word or nonword) that is relevant to the intention. We refer to this finding as a Stimulus Specific Interference Effect (SSIE).

Collective action control by goals and plans: applying a self-regulation perspective to group performance.

In celebration of the 125th anniversary of The American Journal of Psychology, this article discusses a seminal publication by Marjorie Shaw (1932) on small group performance in the rational solution of complex problems. We then propose an approach for the effective regulation of group goal striving based on the collective action control perspective. From this perspective, group performance might be hindered by a collective intention-behavior gap: Groups fail to act on their intentions despite being strongly committed to the collective goal, knowing what the necessary actions are, and being capable of performing them. To reduce this gap, we suggest specific if-then plans (implementation intentions) in which groups specify when, where, and how to act toward their collective goal as an easily applicable self-regulation strategy to automate collective action control. Studies in which implementation intentions improved group performance in hidden profile, escalation of commitment, and cooperation task paradigms are reported and discussed.

The gray areas of romance: A measure of presumptuous romantic intentions.

To capture the attention of a romantic partner requires thoughtful selection of effective pursuit strategies. Sometimes, these strategies err on the side of caution; in other instances, pursuers can take a bolder approach to their courtship endeavors. In the present research, we developed a measure capturing the degree to which a romantic pursuer intends to take a presumptuous course of action. Across five studies (Ntotal = 2,137), we validated a 13-item self-report measure: the presumptuous romantic intentions (PRI) scale. First, we used a training set to refine item content and explore factor structures. Then, using a validation set, we confirmed a bifactor solution with one general and three auxiliary factors. We then observed test-retest reliability over periods of 3 and 4 weeks, found strict measurement invariance across both relationship status (single and partnered individuals) and across gender (women and men). We also found that PRI predicted actual presumptuous romantic behavior over the subsequent month. Finally, we established a pattern of convergent and discriminant associations with relationship measures, socioemotional outcomes, executive function, dark personality traits and more. This new measure may be of interest to researchers studying intimate relationships, partner violence, and the gray area in between. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Mental contrasting of a negative future facilitates COVID-19 preventative behaviors: two randomized controlled trials.

Objective: The present research examined whether mentally contrasting a negative, feared future (i.e., infection with the Coronavirus) with a still positive reality can promote preventative actions in the context of the pandemic. Design: In two randomized controlled trials, we varied participants' mode of thought (mental contrasting of a negative future with a positive reality versus fantasizing of a negative future). Study 2 took into account the interpersonal nature of the pandemic and manipulated the mode of thought in a vicarious manner (vicarious mental contrasting versus vicarious negative fantasizing). Main Outcome Measures: After the manipulation, we assessed participants' intentions to learn about COVID-19 (Study 1) and attention to COVID-19 information (Study 1 and 2). Three days later, we measured the amount of physical distancing (Study 1 and 2). Results: Study 1 found that mental contrasting leads to more COVID-19 preventative behaviors than mere negative fantasizing. In Study 2, we observed that vicarious mental contrasting facilitates physical distancing among people who initially showed low compliance with COVID-19 preventative behaviors and thus were in most need of a boost in preventative behavior. Conclusion: The findings suggest that mental contrasting of negative fantasies may be an effective way to encourage COVID-19 preventative behaviors.

Exploring the determinants of reinvestment decisions: Sense of personal responsibility, preferences, and loss framing.

Two potentially costly errors are common in sequential investment decisions: sticking too long to a failing course of action (escalation of commitment), and abandoning a successful course of action prematurely. Past research has mostly focused on escalation of commitment, and identified three critical determinants: personal responsibility, preferences for prior decisions, and decision framing. We demonstrate in three studies using an incentivized poker inspired task that these determinants of escalation reliably lead decision makers to keep investing even when real money is on the line. We observed in Experiments 1, 2 and 3 that reinvestments were more likely when decision makers were personally responsible for prior decisions. This likelihood was also increased when the decision makers had indicated a preference for initial investments (Experiments 2 and 3), and when outcomes were framed in terms of losses as compared to gains (Experiment 3). Both types of decision errors - escalation of commitment and prematurely abandoning a course of action - could be traced to the same set of determinants. Being personally responsible for prior decisions, having a preference for the initial investment, and loss framing did increase escalation, whereas lacking personal responsibility, having no preference for the initial investment, and gain framing increased the likelihood of prematurely opting out. Finally, personal responsibility had a negative effect on decision quality, as decision-makers were still more likely to reinvest when they were personally responsible for prior decisions, than when prior decisions were assigned optimally by an algorithm (Experiments 2 and 3).

Incidental affective influences on effort-related cardiac response: The critical role of choosing task characteristics.

This experiment tested whether personal choice vs. external assignment of task characteristics moderates the effect of incidental affective stimulation on effort-related cardiovascular response. We expected strong action shielding and low receptivity for incidental affective influences when participants could choose themselves the stimulus color of an easy memory task. By contrast, when the stimulus color was assigned, we expected weak action shielding and high receptivity. As expected, participants in the assigned color condition showed stronger cardiac pre-ejection period reactivity when exposed to sad music than when exposed to happy music during task performance. These music effects did not appear among participants who could personally choose the stimulus color. Our results replicate previous research by showing that personal choice leads to action shielding, whereas individuals remain receptive for affective influences during volition when task characteristics are assigned.