The differential effects of intrinsic and identified motivation on well-being and performance: Prospective, experimental, and implicit approaches to self-determination theory.

Self-determination theory research has demonstrated that intrinsic and identified self-regulations are associated with successful adaptation. However, few distinctions are typically made between these regulations and their outcomes. In the present studies, the associations between intrinsic and identified motivations and outcomes of psychological well-being and academic performance are compared in educational settings. In Study 1, intrinsic self-regulation predicted psychological well-being, independent of academic performance. In contrast, identified regulation predicted academic performance. Additionally, the more that students demonstrated an identified academic regulation, the more that their psychological well-being was contingent on performance. In Study 2a, priming intrinsic self-regulation led to greater psychological well-being 10 days later. In Study 2b, an implicit measure of identified regulation predicted academic performance 6 weeks later. Results indicate the need to address important distinctions between intrinsic and identified regulations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Don't hide your happiness! Positive emotion dissociation, social connectedness, and psychological functioning.

It is now clear that positive emotion leads to enhanced psychological functioning. What is less clear, however, is just why this is so. Drawing on a social-functional perspective, we argue that positive emotional behavior that accurately signals to others the individual's internal state will enhance social connectedness. Positive emotional behavior that does not accurately signal a person's experience—such as a smile that is not felt—may impede social connectedness and, in turn, psychological functioning. This perspective suggests that (a) the degree to which experience and behavior are dissociated during positive emotional episodes, over and above level of positive behavior, should predict worse psychological functioning and (b) the effect of dissociation should be mediated by social connectedness. To test these hypotheses, we conducted a short-term prospective longitudinal study, with a baseline assessment of depressive symptoms and well-being at Time 1. Six months later, at Time 2, we used a novel within-individual laboratory paradigm to measure the degree to which positive emotional behavior was dissociated from (vs. coherent with) a participant's positive emotional experience. We also assessed level of positive behavior and experience. Then, another 6 months later, we assessed social connectedness as a mediator and depressive symptoms and well-being as outcomes at Time 3. Even when controlling for baseline functioning and for level of positive emotion behavior and experience, we found that greater positive experience–behavior dissociation at Time 2 predicted higher levels of depressive symptoms and lower levels of well-being at Time 3. As predicted, these associations were mediated by social connectedness. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Intervention effects of information and self-regulation on eating fruits and vegetables over two years.

Objective: This study tested whether an intervention that combined information with self-regulation strategies had a better effect on eating fruits and vegetables than an information-only intervention. Design: Women between age 30 and 50 (N = 255) participated in a 24-month randomized controlled trial comparing two brief interventions: All participants received the same information intervention; participants in the information plus self-regulation group additionally learned a self-regulation technique that integrates mental contrasting with implementation intentions. Main outcome measures: Participants reported in daily diaries how many servings of fruits and vegetables they ate per day during 1 week at baseline, and in the first week, 1, 2, 4, and 24 months after intervention. Results: Participants in both groups ate more fruits and vegetables (0.47 to 1.00 daily servings) than at baseline during the first 4 months after intervention. Two years later, participants in the information plus self-regulation group maintained the higher intake, whereas participants in the information group returned to baseline levels. Conclusion: Adding self-regulation training to an information intervention increased its effectiveness for long-term behavior change. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Promoter analysis of RPE65, the gene encoding a 61-kDa retinal pigment epithelium-specific protein

OBJECTIVES: This study compared the long-term effects of complete atrioventricular junction (AVJ) ablation with those of AVJ modification in patients with medically refractory atrial fibrillation (AF). BACKGROUND: Comparisons between the long-term effects of AVJ ablation with those of AVJ modification in patients with medically refractory AF have not been systematically studied. METHODS: Sixty patients with medically refractory AF were randomly assigned to receive complete AVJ ablation with permanent pacing or AVJ modification. Subjective perception of quality of life (QOL) was assessed by a semiquantitative questionnaire before and 1 and 6 months after ablation. Cardiac performance was evaluated by echocardiography and radionuclide angiography within 24 h (baseline) and at 1 and 6 months after ablation. RESULTS: Both methods were associated with significant improvement in general QOL and a significant reduction in the frequency of major symptoms and symptoms during attacks. The frequency of hospital admission and emergency room visits and antiarrhythmic drug trials significantly decreased after ablation in both groups. However, patients after complete AVJ ablation had a significantly greater improvement in general QOL and a significantly reduced frequency of major symptoms and symptoms during attacks (including palpitation, dizziness, chest oppression, blurred vision and syncope). Left ventricular (LV) systolic function and the ability to perform activities of daily life significantly improved after ablation in patients with depressed LV function in both groups. All improvements after ablation or modification were maintained over the 6-month follow-up period. CONCLUSIONS: AVJ ablation with permanent pacing, as compared with AVJ modification, had a significantly greater ability to decrease the frequency of attacks and the extent of symptoms of AF, and the patients who received this procedure were more satisfied with their general well-being.     

Happiness is everything, or is it? Explorations on the meaning of psychological well-being.

Reigning measures of psychological well-being have little theoretical grounding, despite an extensive literature on the contours of positive functioning. Aspects of well-being derived from this literature (i.e., self-acceptance, positive relations with others, autonomy, environmental mastery, purpose in life, and personal growth) were operationalized. Three hundred and twenty-one men and women, divided among young, middle-aged, and older adults, rated themselves on these measures along with six instruments prominent in earlier studies (i.e., affect balance, life satisfaction, self-esteem, morale, locus of control, depression). Results revealed that positive relations with others, autonomy, purpose in life, and personal growth were not strongly tied to prior assessment indexes, thereby supporting the claim that key aspects of positive functioning have not been represented in the empirical arena. Furthermore, age profiles revealed a more differentiated pattern of well-being than is evident in prior research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A phase model of psychotherapy outcome: Causal mediation of change.

A 3-phase model of psychotherapy outcome is proposed that entails progressive improvement of subjectively experienced well-being, reduction in symptomatology, and enhancement of life functioning. The model also predicts that movement into a later phase of treatment depends on whether progress has been made in an earlier phase. Thus, clinical improvement in subjective well-being potentiates symptomatic improvement, and clinical reduction in symptomatic distress potentiates symptomatic improvement. A large sample of psychotherapy patients provided self-reports of subjective well-being, symptomatic distress, and life functioning before beginning individual psychotherapy and after Sessions 2, 4, and 17 when possible. Changes in well-being, symptomatic distress, and life functioning means over this period were consistent with the 3-phase model. Measures of patient status on these 3 variables were converted into dichotomous improvement–nonimprovement scores between intake and each of Sessions 2, 4, and 17. An analysis of 2?×?2 cross-classification tables generated from these dichotomous measures suggested that improvement in well-being precedes and is a probabilistically necessary condition for reduction in symptomatic distress… (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

High-maintenance interaction: Inefficient social coordination impairs self-regulation.

Tasks requiring interpersonal coordination permeate all spheres of life. Although social coordination is sometimes efficient and effortless (low maintenance), at other times it is inefficient and effortful (high maintenance). Across 5 studies, participants experienced either a high- or a low-maintenance interaction with a confederate before engaging in an individual-level task requiring self-regulation. Self-regulation was operationalized with measures of (a) preferences for a challenging task with high reward potential over an easy task with low reward potential (Study 1) and (b) task performance (anagram performance in Study 1, Graduate Record Exam performance in Studies 2 and 3, physical stamina in Study 4, and fine motor control in Study 5). Results uniformly supported the hypothesis that experiencing high-maintenance interaction impairs one's self-regulatory success on subsequent, unrelated tasks. These effects were not mediated through participants' conscious processes and emerged even with a nonconscious manipulation of high-maintenance interaction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Stability of cortical self-regulation in epilepsy patients

Biofeedback-supported self-regulation of slow cortical potentials (SCP) is increasingly being used for treatment of intractable epilepsy. However, it is unknown whether the acquired ability to regulate one's own cortical potentials remains stable over time. In this study, 18 patients with drug-resistant partial epilepsy performed 35 training sessions in which they learned to generate slow cortical potential shifts in either positive or negative direction. At the end of training, they differentiated significantly between required cortical positivity and required cortical negativity. Six months after this point, they still demonstrated an unchanged between-condition differentiation. The performance in the booster session was particularly good in trials without continuous SCP feedback. The ability to generate positive SCP shifts was related to decrease of seizure frequency during the 6 months follow-up period compared with the 3 month baseline period. This data indicate that the acquired ability of humans to regulate their cortical potentials did not decrease over a 6 month period but rather, tended to consolidate.     

Religiousness, Spirituality, and Psychosocial Functioning in Late Adulthood: Findings From a Longitudinal Study.

This study used longitudinal data to examine the relations among religiousness, spirituality, and 3 key domains of psychosocial functioning in late adulthood: (a) sources of well-being, (b) involvement in tasks of everyday life, and (c) generativity and wisdom. Religiousness and spirituality were operationalized as distinct but overlapping dimensions of individual difference. In late adulthood, religiousness was positively related to well-being from positive relations with others, involvement in social and community life tasks, and generativity. Spirituality was positively related to well-being from personal growth, involvement in creative and knowledge-building life tasks, and wisdom. Neither religiousness nor spirituality was associated with narcissism. The relations between religiousness, spirituality, and outcomes in late adulthood were also observed using religiousness scored in early and spirituality scored in late middle adulthood. All analyses were controlled for gender, cohort, social class, and the overlap between religiousness and spirituality. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Predictors of long-term change in functional status after coronary artery bypass graft surgery in women

A cohort of 164 women who had undergone coronary artery bypass graft surgery (CABG) was followed for one year to examine changes in functional status and determine the relative influence of clinical, psychosocial and sociodemographic factors on change in functional status outcomes between 6 and 12 months after surgery. Clinical, psychosocial, sociodemographic and preoperative functional status data were collected by written questionnaire and personal interview at the time of surgery and again at 6 and 12 months after CABG. Functional status scores improved significantly from before to 6 months after CABG. Between 6 and 12 months post-CABG 65% sustained or continued to experience improvement in physical functioning, 83% in social and leisure activities, and 54% in psychological functioning. Predictors of sustained improvement in physical functioning were being married, younger age, low 6-month functioning, having an ejection fraction of 50% or greater, and being white. The significant predictors of sustained improvement in social and leisure activities and psychological functioning were being married and low 6-month psychological functioning, respectively. These data suggest that interventions to improve long-term outcomes in women undergoing CABG should take into account not only their age, functional capacity and level of functioning at 6 months post-CABG, but also their race and marital status as potential risk factors for long-term functional status disability.     

Acquisition and retention of a letter-detection skill.

In two experiments, we examined the acquisition and retention of a letter-detection skill with a consistent-mapping procedure. In Experiment 1, subjects were trained from 0 to 4 sessions at detecting the letter H in displays containing random letters, and retesting occurred after a 1-month delay. Performance improved and in some cases became more automatic, and the performance level was maintained over the retention interval. When tested with a prose passage, the high error rate on the word THE was eliminated after training and after the retention interval, regardless of the amount of training. In Experiment 2, two subjects were given 12 sessions of training followed by a retention test 6 months later. For 1 subject there was also a retention test 15 months after acquisition. Performance improved dramatically with training, and substantial but not complete automaticity was achieved. Performance on the retention tests was close to the final acquisition level. The surprising lack of forgetting in this study was contrasted with the substantial forgetting typically found in studies of verbal learning. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Enhancing student academic and health functioning: A self-regulatory perspective.

Discusses a program of research on students' self-regulation of their academic and health functioning from initial operational definitions to training and intervention studies. This body of evidence has shown that students' use of self-regulatory processes, such as learning strategies, goal setting, self-monitoring, and self-efficacy beliefs, predict academic and health success and self-motivation. From a social cognitive perspective, students' development of self-regulation begins initially with social modeling and imitation and shifts to self-directed sources of control. Deficiencies in self-regulation are linked to student's health and academic problems. Implications for school psychologists are considered. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Plasticity of executive functioning in young and older adults: Immediate training gains, transfer, and long-term maintenance.

The authors investigated immediate training gains, transfer effects, and 18-month maintenance after 5 weeks of computer-based training in updating of information in working memory in young and older subjects. Trained young and older adults improved significantly more than controls on the criterion task (letter memory), and these gains were maintained 18 months later. Transfer effects were in general limited and restricted to the young participants, who showed transfer to an untrained task that required updating (3-back). The findings demonstrate substantial and durable plasticity of executive functioning across adulthood and old age, although there appear to be age-related constraints in the ability to generalize the acquired updating skill. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Patterns of sustained attention in infancy shape the developmental trajectory of social behavior from toddlerhood through adolescence.

The current study examined the relations between individual differences in sustained attention in infancy, the temperamental trait behavioral inhibition in childhood, and social behavior in adolescence. The authors assessed 9-month-old infants using an interrupted-stimulus attention paradigm. Behavioral inhibition was subsequently assessed in the laboratory at 14 months, 24 months, 4 years, and 7 years. At age 14 years, adolescents acted out social scenarios in the presence of an unfamiliar peer as observers rated levels of social discomfort. Relative to infants with high levels of sustained attention, infants with low levels of sustained attention showed increasing behavioral inhibition throughout early childhood. Sustained attention also moderated the relation between childhood behavioral inhibition and adolescent social discomfort, such that initial levels of inhibition at 14 months predicted later adolescent social difficulties only for participants with low levels of sustained attention in infancy. These findings suggest that early individual differences in attention shape how children respond to their social environments, potentially via attention's gate-keeping role in framing a child's environment for processing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-perception and psychological well-being: The benefits of foreseeing a worse future.

This study examined whether having a negative expectation of the future may protect well-being in old age. Participants were 200 adults age 60 years or older who rated their current and future selves in the physical and social domains at 2 time points over a 12-month period. Structural equation modeling revealed that future self was positively related to well-being concurrently; yet, it was negatively related to well-being 12 months later, after the authors had controlled for symptoms and current self. Moreover, individuals who underestimated their future selves had higher well-being 12 months later than did those who overestimated their future selves. Findings are interpreted in a framework of discounting: Older adults may actively construct representations of the future that are consistent with the normative age-related declines and losses, so that the effects of these declines and losses are lessened when they actually occur. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Specific impairments in self-regulation in children exposed to alcohol prenatally

The present study utilizes a conceptual framework derived from theories of cognition to explain the pattern of behavioral and learning problems observed in subjects with fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) and fetal alcohol effects (FAE). Based on a modern interpretation of Luria's theory of self-regulation, this study used a neuropsychological test battery to compare 10 subjects (mean age = 13 years) having FAS/FAE with 10 control subjects (mean age = 12 years and 9 months). Subjects with FAS/FAE were relatively high functioning and did not significantly differ from controls with respect to receptive vocabulary. However, those with FAS/FAE exhibited greater difficulty than controls on tasks that involved the manipulation of information and goal management in working memory (e.g., Planning, Controlled Oral Word Association, etc). Both groups performed equally well on some tasks that demanded rule learning (Delayed Response) and response inhibition (Go-No-Go). The above impairments were interpreted to be reflective of selective rather than generalized disruptions of neural networks that subserve working memory.     

Involvement of the olfactory bulb in consolidation processes associated with long-term memory in rats.

In a daily training paradigm, rats were trained to discriminate between spatially distinct electrical stimulations delivered to one olfactory bulb. Xylocaine injections were used to disrupt the olfactory bulb functioning in the region close to the electrode tips for 1 hr after each training session. The treatment started either just after the session or 2 hrs later. When compared with the performance of saline-injected rats, the performance of Xylocaine-injected rats was unimpaired except when the treatment started just after the daily session. In that case, acquisition of the task was slightly altered, and retention over a 5-day period was dramatically impaired. It is concluded that, within 1 hr following training, the olfactory bulb is engaged in consolidation processes critical for long-term retention of learned olfactory cues. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)