Shared and unique features of epistemic emotions: Awe, surprise, curiosity, interest, confusion, and boredom.

Epistemic emotions are hardly ever studied together, making it difficult to predict what features are shared versus unique to each emotion. To address this, we conducted two autobiographical recall experiments. We compared awe, surprise, curiosity, interest, confusion, and boredom in terms of elicitors, subjective experience components, and action tendencies. Ratings were analyzed using network analyses, to describe the central features for the whole group of epistemic emotions. In addition, ratings were compared per emotion, to identify key features for each individual emotion. Results showed that valence, arousal, coping potential, and avoidance are central features of all epistemic emotions. Awe, surprise, and interest were relatively positive emotions, which together with curiosity, were associated with arousal, high coping potential, and approach. Confusion and boredom were relatively negative emotions, which were associated with low arousal, low coping potential, and avoidance. Further analyses revealed unique features of (groups of) emotions. For example, awe was associated with exceeded expectancies, while surprise was associated with both exceeded and disconfirmed expectancies. Moreover, curiosity and confusion were associated with having (too) little information, while awe and interest were associated with having sufficient information. All emotions except boredom were associated with exploration, but this was particularly high for curiosity and interest. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Awe arises in reaction to exceeded rather than disconfirmed expectancies.

Awe is a fascinating emotion, associated with positive consequences such as greater prosociality, generosity, and epistemic openness. Unfortunately, in spite of the weighty consequences of awe, the exact way in which it arises, and what it entails, is still a puzzle. Particularly puzzling is the question of whether awe is the result of expectancy violation. While awe is thought to arise in reaction to expectancy-violating objects or events, classical expectancy violations (e.g., a red queen of spades playing card) do not tend to cause awe. To shed light on this problem, we distinguished two types of expectancy violations-those that disconfirm and those that exceed one's expectancies-and we investigated whether awe is more likely to arise in reaction to one versus the other. We also looked at what appraisals constitute and are most important to the awe experience and how they structurally interact. To do this, we utilized network analysis and mapped out the network structure of appraisals linked to awe and to expectancy violations. Across two experimental studies (N = 823), we demonstrated that awe arises in reaction to exceeded (rather than disconfirmed) expectancies and that appraisals linked to exceeded expectancies (vastness and uniqueness) are central to awe, while appraisals linked to disconfirmed expectancies (uncertainty and inconsistency) are peripheral to the awe experience. Taken together, our investigation sheds new light on psychologists' understanding of expectancy violations and reveals when and how awe arises and what it entails. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Novelty seeking is linked to openness and extraversion, and can lead to greater creative performance.

OBJECTIVE: Novelty seeking (the tendency to explore things novel and unfamiliar) has been extensively researched in the clinical and health domains, but its effects on creative performance are largely unknown. We examined whether creativity-related personality traits (openness to experience and extraversion) are associated with novelty seeking, and whether novelty seeking is linked to, and facilitates, creativity. METHOD: In Study 1a (N = 230; Mage = 20; 64% females) and Study 1b (N = 421; Mage = 19; 65% females), we measured extraversion, openness to experience, novelty seeking, and divergent thinking. To provide causal evidence for the relation between novelty seeking and creativity, in Study 2 (N = 147; Mage = 27; 75% females), we manipulated people's motivation to seek novelty and then measured subsequent divergent thinking. RESULTS: In Studies 1a and 1b, we demonstrated that trait novelty seeking is associated with openness and extraversion, on the one hand, and divergent thinking on the other. In Study 2, the novelty seeking manipulation led to greater divergent thinking. CONCLUSIONS: We conclude that novelty seeking is linked to openness to experience and extraversion, and that it can lead to greater divergent thinking.

Impression management and achievement motivation: Investigating substantive links.

In this research, we investigate impression management (IM) as a substantive personality variable by linking it to differentiated achievement motivation constructs, namely achievement motives (workmastery, competitiveness, fear of failure) and achievement goals (mastery-approach, mastery-avoidance, performance-approach, performance-avoidance). Study 1 revealed that IM was a positive predictor of workmastery and a negative predictor of competitiveness (with and without self-deceptive enhancement (SDE) controlled). Studies 2a and 2b revealed that IM was a positive predictor of mastery-approach goals and mastery-avoidance goals (without and, in Study 2b, with SDE controlled). These findings highlight the value of conceptualising and utilising IM as a personality variable in its own right and shed light on the nature of the achievement motive and achievement goal constructs.

Counter-Stereotypes and Feminism Promote Leadership Aspirations in Highly Identified Women.

Although women who highly identify with other women are more susceptible to stereotype threat effects, women's identification might associate with greater leadership aspirations contingent on (1) counter-stereotype salience and (2) feminist identification. When gender counter-stereotypes are salient, women's identification should associate with greater leadership aspiration regardless of feminism, while when gender stereotypes are salient, women's identification would predict greater leadership aspirations contingent on a high level of feminist identification. In our study US-based women (N = 208) attended to gender stereotypic (vs. counter-stereotypic) content. We measured identification with women and identification with feminism, and, following the manipulation, leadership aspirations in an imagined work scenario. The interaction between identification with women, identification with feminism, and attention to stereotypes (vs. counter-stereotypes) significantly predicted leadership aspirations. In the counter-stereotypic condition women's identification associated with greater leadership aspirations regardless of feminist identification. In the stereotypic condition women's identification predicted leadership aspirations only at high levels of feminist identification. We conclude that salient counter-stereotypes and a strong identification with feminism may help high women identifiers increase their leadership aspirations.

Temperament and self-based correlates of cooperative, competitive and individualistic learning preferences.

People vary in the extent to which they prefer cooperative, competitive or individualistic achievement tasks. In this research, we conducted two studies designed to investigate correlates and possible roots of these social interdependence orientations, namely approach and avoidance temperament, general self-efficacy, implicit theories of intelligence, and contingencies of self-worth based in others' approval, competition and academic competence. The results indicated that approach temperament, general self-efficacy and incremental theory were positively related, and entity theory was negatively related to cooperative preferences (|r| range from .11 to .41); approach temperament, general self-efficacy, competition contingencies and academic competence contingencies were positively related to competitive preferences (|r| range from .16 to .46); and avoidance temperament, entity theory, competitive contingencies and academic competence contingencies were positively related, and incremental theory was negatively related to individualistic preferences (|r| range from .09 to .15). The findings are discussed with regard to the meaning of each of the three social interdependence orientations, cultural differences among the observed relations and implications for practitioners.

How Multiple Social Identities Are Related to Creativity.

The present research examined whether possessing multiple social identities (i.e., groups relevant to one's sense of self) is associated with creativity. In Study 1, the more identities individuals reported having, the more names they generated for a new commercial product (i.e., greater idea fluency). In Study 2, multiple identities were associated with greater fluency and originality (mediated by cognitive flexibility, but not by persistence). Study 3 validated these findings using a highly powered sample. We again found that multiple identities increase fluency and originality, and that flexibility (but not persistence) mediated the effect on originality. Study 3 also ruled out several alternative explanations (self-affirmation, novelty seeking, and generalized persistence). Across all studies, the findings were robust to controlling for personality, and there was no evidence of a curvilinear relationship between multiple identities and creativity. These results suggest that possessing multiple social identities is associated with enhanced creativity via cognitive flexibility.

Whether Social Schema Violations Help or Hurt Creativity Depends on Need for Structure.

Although people and events that disconfirm observers' expectancies can increase their creativity, sometimes such social schema violations increase observers' rigidity of thought and undermine creative cognition. Here we examined whether individual differences in the extent to which people prefer structure and predictability determine whether social schema violations facilitate or hamper creativity. Participants in Study 1 formed impressions of a schema-inconsistent female mechanic (vs. a schema-consistent male mechanic). Following schema-inconsistent rather than -consistent information, participants low (high) in need for structure showed better (impeded) creative performance. Participants in Study 2 memorized a series of images in which individuals were placed on a schema-inconsistent (vs. consistent) background (e.g., an Eskimo on the desert vs. on a snowy landscape). Following schema-inconsistent imagery, participants low (high) in need for structure increased (decreased) divergent thinking.