Research Seminar
Capturing the dynamics underlying individual differences in situation selection/avoidance signaturesSofie FrederickxKU Leuven | |
| Abstract: | People are actively involved in the selection and avoidance of the situations they face during everyday life. Moreover, such selection/avoidance behavior is subject to sizeable individual differences. Yet, to a large extent this phenomenon has been underinvestigated, and studies that have addressed the topic anyhow have been set up outside an overarching conceptual framework. In this talk, we examine the dynamics underlying individual differences in situation selection in terms of various kinds of cognitive/affective forecasts. For this purpose, we set up a study making use of the day reconstruction method. In particular, during five consecutive days, we asked participants at the end of each day how often they encountered each situation out of a broad set of situations. Furthermore, participants had to rate each of these situations with respect to four cognitive/affective forecast variables, namely expectations of: (1) positive affect, (2) self-efficacy, (3) interpersonal approval, and (4) goal attainment. From the resulting data, first individual differences in selection behavior were unveiled by inducing a set of person types each of which had a distinctive selection/avoidance signature (i.e., selection profile over situations). Subsequently, we studied individual differences in the relation between situations and cognitive/affective forecasts as well as in the relation between cognitive/affective forecasts and selection behavior to capture the dynamics underlying individual differences in selection/avoidance signatures. |
| Date: | Tue May 25, 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm |
| Place: | room 02.51 (Department of Psychology, Tiensestraat 102, 3000 Leuven) |