Foregone and forethought: Motivation in the context of past and future alternatives

Johannes Seehusen

Foregone and forethought: Motivation in the context of past and future alternatives

Johannes Seehusen

Interpersonal behaviour

Onderzoeksoutput

682 Downloads (Pure)

Samenvatting

De beste profeet voor de toekomst is het verleden beweerde de Britse dichter Lord Byron. Zijn inzicht zou zeker goed nieuws betekenen voor diegene die een gelukkig en succesvol verleden hebben. Voor degenen onder ons die in het verleden faalden of ongelukkig waren, zou dit echter een duister voorspelling zijn. Gelukkig is de realiteit niet zo eenvoudig. In feite is er waarschijnlijk geen enkele persoon, die niet zowel succes als nederlagen kent. Hoe we onze toekomst tegemoet zien, wordt daarom op zijn minst gedeeltelijk bepaald door de vraag hoe we omgaan met onze successen en hoe we herstellen van onze mislukkingen. Dit is het onderwerp van dit proefschrift. Een resultaat van ons onderzoek kan het buffet effect worden genoemd: personen die bij een buffet een salade kiezen tenzij er veel minder gezonde alternatieven beschikbaar zijn, zullen zich beter voelen dan mensen die salade bestellen bij een saladebar. Dit verhoogde gevoel van succesvolle zelfbeheersing leidt vervolgens tot extra motivatie voor zelfbeheersing. Een andere onderzoekslijn keek naar mislukkingen en vergeleek mensen die nederlagen zien als gedragspatronen of als uitzonderingen, dus afwijkingen van patronen. Het blijkt dat alleen mensen die nederlagen als uitzonderingen ervaren, vinden dat mislukkingen atypisch voor hen zijn en dus gemotiveerd raken om de nederlagen weer goed te maken. Onze derde onderzoekslijn is het verwachte buffet effect: mensen die verwachten dat een ongezonde pizza op het buffet hun voornemen om gezond te eten in gevaar brengt, kiezen eerder voor een salade dan degenen die zich niet op deze verlijding voorbereiden.

Originele taal-2	English
Kwalificatie	Doctor of Philosophy
Toekennende instantie	Rijksuniversiteit Groningen
Begeleider(s)/adviseur	Spears, Russell, Supervisor Epstude, Kai, Co-supervisor
Datum van toekenning	11-dec.-2017
Plaats van publicatie	[Groningen]
Uitgever	University of Groningen
Gedrukte ISBN's	978-94-034-0307-6
Elektronische ISBN's	978-94-034-0306-9
Status	Published - 2017

Toegang tot document

Title and contentsFinal publisher's version, 107 KB
Chapter 1Final publisher's version, 71,7 KB
Chapter 2Final publisher's version, 103 KB
Chapter 3Final publisher's version, 122 KB
Chapter 4Final publisher's version, 114 KB
Chapter 5Final publisher's version, 68,2 KB
AppendicesFinal publisher's version, 110 KB
Complete thesisFinal publisher's version, 685 KB
PropositionsFinal publisher's version, 616 KB

Handle.net

Permanente koppeling

Citeer dit

@phdthesis{9fe6d9e2bb934ba28099bd745d164e64,

title = "Foregone and forethought: Motivation in the context of past and future alternatives",

abstract = "The best prophet of the future is the past, as the British poet Lord Byron once asserted. His insight would certainly mean good news for all of us who have a happy and successful past. For those of us, who lived through failures and unhappiness, however, this would be a dark foreboding. Fortunately, reality is not so clear-cut. In fact, there is probably not a single person, who doesn{\textquoteright}t know both success and failure. How we face our future is therefore at least partially determined by whether we prosper from our successes and recover from our failures. This is the topic of this dissertation. One result of our research might be called the buffet effect: persons who choose a salad from a buffet with many less healthy alternatives will feel better about themselves than people who order salad from a salad bar. This elevated feeling of successful self-restraint then translates into extra motivation for restraint in the future. Another line of research looked at failure and compared people who perceive failure as behavioral patterns or as exceptions, thus deviations from patterns. We find that only people who perceive failure as exceptions feel that failing is untypical for them and therefore motivate themselves to make up for it. Our third line of research would be the anticipated buffet effect: people who anticipate that a greasy pizza at the buffet is endangering their plan of eating healthily are more likely to have a salad than those who don{\textquoteright}t.",

author = "Johannes Seehusen",

year = "2017",

language = "English",

isbn = "978-94-034-0307-6",

series = "Dissertatiereeks Kurt Lewin Instituut",

publisher = "University of Groningen",

number = "13",

school = "University of Groningen",

}

TY - BOOK

T1 - Foregone and forethought

T2 - Motivation in the context of past and future alternatives

AU - Seehusen, Johannes

PY - 2017

Y1 - 2017

N2 - The best prophet of the future is the past, as the British poet Lord Byron once asserted. His insight would certainly mean good news for all of us who have a happy and successful past. For those of us, who lived through failures and unhappiness, however, this would be a dark foreboding. Fortunately, reality is not so clear-cut. In fact, there is probably not a single person, who doesn’t know both success and failure. How we face our future is therefore at least partially determined by whether we prosper from our successes and recover from our failures. This is the topic of this dissertation. One result of our research might be called the buffet effect: persons who choose a salad from a buffet with many less healthy alternatives will feel better about themselves than people who order salad from a salad bar. This elevated feeling of successful self-restraint then translates into extra motivation for restraint in the future. Another line of research looked at failure and compared people who perceive failure as behavioral patterns or as exceptions, thus deviations from patterns. We find that only people who perceive failure as exceptions feel that failing is untypical for them and therefore motivate themselves to make up for it. Our third line of research would be the anticipated buffet effect: people who anticipate that a greasy pizza at the buffet is endangering their plan of eating healthily are more likely to have a salad than those who don’t.

AB - The best prophet of the future is the past, as the British poet Lord Byron once asserted. His insight would certainly mean good news for all of us who have a happy and successful past. For those of us, who lived through failures and unhappiness, however, this would be a dark foreboding. Fortunately, reality is not so clear-cut. In fact, there is probably not a single person, who doesn’t know both success and failure. How we face our future is therefore at least partially determined by whether we prosper from our successes and recover from our failures. This is the topic of this dissertation. One result of our research might be called the buffet effect: persons who choose a salad from a buffet with many less healthy alternatives will feel better about themselves than people who order salad from a salad bar. This elevated feeling of successful self-restraint then translates into extra motivation for restraint in the future. Another line of research looked at failure and compared people who perceive failure as behavioral patterns or as exceptions, thus deviations from patterns. We find that only people who perceive failure as exceptions feel that failing is untypical for them and therefore motivate themselves to make up for it. Our third line of research would be the anticipated buffet effect: people who anticipate that a greasy pizza at the buffet is endangering their plan of eating healthily are more likely to have a salad than those who don’t.

M3 - Thesis fully internal (DIV)

SN - 978-94-034-0307-6

T3 - Dissertatiereeks Kurt Lewin Instituut

PB - University of Groningen

CY - [Groningen]

ER -

Foregone and forethought: Motivation in the context of past and future alternatives

Samenvatting

Toegang tot document

Handle.net

Vingerafdruk

Citeer dit