Publikationsserver
Expectations do not need to be accurate to be maintained: Valence and need for cognitive closure predict expectation update vs. persistence
Expectations about us and our environment serve to successfully anticipate the future, make accurate predictions, and guide behavior and decisions. However, when expectations are not accurate, individuals need to resolve or minimize incongruence. Coping is especially important when expectations a...
Saved in:
| Main Authors: | , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Philipps-Universität Marburg
2023
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | PDF Full Text |
| Tags: |
Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|
| Summary: | Expectations about us and our environment serve to successfully anticipate the
future, make accurate predictions, and guide behavior and decisions. However,
when expectations are not accurate, individuals need to resolve or minimize
incongruence. Coping is especially important when expectations affect important
domains such as students’ academic self-concept. Whether expectations are
adjusted after expectation violation (accommodation), maintained by denying the
discrepancy (immunization), or whether individuals modify behavior to minimize the
likelihood of future expectation violations (assimilation) depends on situational and
dispositional predictors. In our experiment, we examined valence of expectation
violation (positive vs. negative) as a situational predictor together with need for
cognitive closure (NCC) as a dispositional predictor with N = 297 participants in a
word riddle study. MANCOVA revealed that students tended to assimilate and
accommodate more strongly after worse-than-expected achievement, and also
NCC promoted both stronger accommodation and assimilation. NCC interacted
with the valence of expectation violation: individuals with high NCC reported more
assimilation and accommodation only after worse-than-expected achievement.
The results replicate and extend previous findings: individuals do not always strive
to have the most accurate expectations possible. Instead, both affective (valence)
and cognitive (NCC) predictors appear to affect which coping strategy is preferred
by the individual. |
|---|---|
| Item Description: | Gefördert durch den Open-Access-Publikationsfonds der UB Marburg. |
| DOI: | 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1127328 |