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End-of-Semester Syndrome: How Situational Regulatory Fit Affects Test Performance Over an Academic Semester

Year: 2012

Type: article

Abstract: Psychology researchers often avoid running participants from subject pools at the end of the semester because they are "unmotivated". We suggest that the end of the semester induces a situational prevention focus (i.e., sensitive to losses) unlike the beginning of the semester, which may induce a situational promotion focus (i.e., sensitive to gains). In two experiments, we presented participants with math problems at the beginning or end of an academic semester. End-of-semester participants performed better minimizing losses as compared to maximizing gains, while the opposite was true for beginning-of-semester participants.

Source: Basic and Applied Social Psychology

DOI: 10.1080/01973533.2012.693427

Authors: Lisa R. Grimm, Arthur B. Markman, W. Todd Maddox

Institutions: The College of New Jersey, The University of Texas at Austin

Language: English

Topic: Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics

Subfield: General Decision Sciences

Field: Decision Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

Open Access status: green

Funders: National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Mental Health

Award: Tests of neurobiologically-inspired Model of the Motivation-Learning Interface