Year: 2013
Type: dissertation
Abstract: Past research on identity-based motivation theory (Oyserman, 2007;2009) has shown that people given an interpretation of difficulty as importance outperform those given an interpretation of difficulty as impossibility or those given no interpretation on school tasks (Smith, Novin, Elmore, & Oyserman, under review).Paul, Smith, and Oyserman (2013) suggested that working memory may be a mechanism underlying these effects.The current research aims to explore whether other components of executive functioning, namely shifting and inhibition, act as additional contributors to interpretation of difficulty effects.College students were randomized to one of three conditions (interpretation of difficulty as importance, interpretation of difficulty as impossibility, or no interpretation control) and worked on a measure of shifting (Study 1) and a measure of inhibition (Study 2).Across studies, we found no significant differences on our measures.Implications are discussed.
Author: Mo Zhang
Language: English
Subfield: Developmental and Educational Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W80286472