Publication Type: Paper (prepared oral presentation)
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: The main hypothesis of this paper is that an increase in state and trait anxiety will cause an increase in motivated reasoning. A situation that increases state anxiety will increase motivated reasoning, and those people who are high on trait anxiety will have higher motivated reasoning at all times. The experiment to test this hypothesis will also test the effects of anger and positive affect on motivated reasoning, but the expected results and theory involving these two emotions has not been developed yet.

The cognitive-motivational model of anxiety and motivated reasoning is based on threat. The two basic forms of motivated reasoning tested in this paper – disconfirmation bias and confirmation bias – can be thought of as the avoidance of threat. The disconfirmation bias is when someone counter-argues against an attitude-incongruent argument or avoids the threat of that argument by diminishing its threatening nature. The confirmation bias is the tendency of people to read attitude-congruent arguments rather than attitude-incongruent argument. This is the avoidance of threat because the attitude-incongruent arguments are identified as a threat and then avoided by reading the attitude-congruent information. Anxiety will lead to an increase in both of these because an increase in anxiety increases the likelihood someone will identify a stimulus as a threat. When a stimulus is identified as a threat, the person then engages in motivated reasoning to “flee” the threat. The experiment that will be discussed in the paper will be conducted in March or April.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This study proposed a model of motivation and information processing in a political campaign and tested the model with a computer-based experiment (N = 344). Combining a directional motivation (motivation to a particular candidate which is predicted by strength of party identification) and a nondirectional motivation (motivation to think about election which is predicted by the level of interest in politics) four types of voters were identified. Four types of voters are expected to show different patterns of biased information processing. Voters with strong party identification and high interest in politics were expected to show the highest degree of biased information processing. When specific information about candidates’ issue-position was presented, higher degree of biased processing was also expected. The pattern of biased information processing was examined with candidate evaluation trajectories, which consisted of candidate evaluation at 11 time-points. It was found that participants with strong party identification and high interest in politics were less likely to change the initially preferred candidate, took longer time to change the initially preferred candidate, and changed candidate evaluation more slowly in response to a series of attitudinally incongruent information about candidates than other groups of participants.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper investigates how risky products activate the appetitive and aversive motivational systems. In addition, it examines how motivational system activation, as an individual difference, modifies how people attend to risky and non risky products. The results show that risky products activate the appetitive motivational system and that this is particularly true for individuals with a highly active appetitive system (i.e. those with high positivity offset). The results further suggest that for those with a highly active aversive system (that is those with high negativity bias) there is some weak activation of the aversive system when viewing risky products. In addition, as was seen in previous research, risky products elicited more arousal (both self-reported and physiological) and were remembered better than non risky products. Finally, results also showed that those high in either positivity offset or negativity bias paid much more attention (indicated by heart rate) to risky compared to non risky products.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Much recent attention has been brought to bear on the motive to control and its role in intimate partner violence (Felson and Messner, 2001; Johnson, 1999; Outlaw, 2001). Although arguably one of the most important risk factors for violence (Johnson, 1999; Outlaw, 2001), use of current measures of ‘coercive control’ obscures potentially important distinctions between methods of control, which in other contexts are considered types of abuse in their own right. Specifically, such measures tend to include items such as whether a current partner “limits your access to the family income,” “limits your contact with family and friends,” and/or “makes you feel inadequate” (Tjaden and Thoennes, 1998). In other works, these items can easily be understood as reflecting economic, social, and emotional abuse, respectively (Miller, 1995). Although not inaccurate to conceptualize these behaviors as also reflecting strategies of coercive control, doing so may mask important differences in their relationship(s) to violence. The current study therefore disentangles the multiple types of nonviolent abuse/control to examine the effects of each on the frequency and severity of physical violence by intimate partners. Using Tjaden and Thoennes’(1998) Violence and Threats of Violence against Women and Men in the United States, 1994-1996 survey data, each type of abuse and their combinations are examined in terms of their impact on the risks of physical violence against intimate partners. Implications for research are discussed.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: One way to better understand uses of and reactions to anonymous communication is to examine the underlying motives for such behavior. The research reported here examines differences in the appropriateness of various motives for anonymous communication in the workplace and then relates that to anonymity use, satisfaction, and key individual and organizational demographics. The findings, based on a survey of adult organizational members, reveal clear differences between the motives and several distinctions in how they relate to the other variables examined in this research. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.