| Abstract: | ![]()
To induce different types of thinking, 151 undergraduates were given either positive or negative self-referent statements about competence in either an achievement or a social interaction situation and were asked to recall an experience in which they had had the thoughts conveyed by these statements. They then completed an anagrams task that was described as a measure of intelligence and verbal ability. Before doing the anagrams, half the Ss in each condition predicted how well they might perform, whereas the other half performed the task without generating predictions. Negative thinkers tended to perform better than positive thinkers when either (a) Ss' thoughts were achievement-related and they did not predict their performance on the anagrams task before engaging in it, or (b) Ss' thoughts pertained to social relations and they did predict their performance on the anagrams task. In no case did positive thinking lead to significantly better performance than negative thinking. Results suggest that the effects of positive and negative thinking were mediated by the influence of these different types of thinking on the motivation to perform well on the achievement task. (21 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved) |
