Making Pledges More Powerful: Effects on Pro-Environmental Beliefs and Conservation Behavior

We developed pledges that capitalized on several self-related properties (e.g., freedom of choice, actual-ought self-discrepancies, foot-in-door technique) and manipulated two experimental factors: pledge beneficiary and pledge audience. In two studies, participants received a recycling pledge based on a random assignment in a 2 (Beneficiaries: Nature vs. Self) × 2 (Audience: Ingroup vs. Outgroup) design. Afterwards, we assessed their pro-environmental beliefs and provided them with a behavioral opportunity to support conservation (i.e., recycling debriefing forms in Study 1, writing letters to congresspeople regarding an environmental policy in Study 2). In both studies, an interaction between beneficiaries and audience was observed, showing that a recycling pledge framed as benefitting nature and sponsored by a social ingroup led to more progressive environmental beliefs. In Study 2, individuals in the same condition (i.e., the nature-ingroup pledge) wrote more persuasive letters (longer and more sophisticated letters) supporting pro-environmental legislation. Implications for constructing effective pledges and for leveraging the self to promote pro-environmental action are discussed.

Self Discrepancy pada Roleplayer K-Pop pada Komunitas Entertaiment ‘X’ di Twitter

Roleplay is defined as an activity where someone parodies their idol. A roleplayer plays a character of his own. In this game everyone does not know the real identity of each, so someone must make their own character. In this community there are several players who use male sex characters even though in the real world he is a woman. Most of them are aged 18-24 years with jobs as students and private employees. Roleplayer in this study has been playing in this community for more than five years and the original self is very different from the virtual self. In these conditions, there is a mismatch of perceptions between Actual Self, Ideal Self, Ought Self and Virtual Self, this is referred to as Self Discrepancy (Higgins, 2000). This research uses descriptive analysis method to find out how Self Discrepancy in K-Pop Rollayer in the Entertiment Community 'x'. The measurement tool uses a questionnaire (SDQ) Self Discrepancies Quitionnaire on 28 roleplay players. The results showed that as many as 64.2% of subjects experienced high self discrepancy and 30% did not experience self discrepancy. Abstrak. Roleplay diartikan sebagai kegiatan dimana seseorang memparodikan idola mereka. Seorang roleplayer ada yang memainkan karakter buatannya sendiri. Dalam permainan tersebut setiap orang tidak mengetahui identitas asli masing-masing, sehingga seseorang harus membuat karakternya sendiri. Pada komunitas ini terdapat beberapa pemain yang menggunakan karakter berjenis kelamin laki-laki padahal di dunia nyata ia seorang perempuan. Kebanyakan dari mereka berusia 18-24 tahun dengan pekerjaan sebagai mahasiswa dan pegawai swasta. Roleplayer pada penelitian ini telah bermain di komunitas ini lebih dari lima tahun dan diri asli yang sangat berbeda dengan diri virtualnya. Dalam kondisi tersebut terjadi ketidakcocokan persepsi antara Actual Self, Ideal Self, Ought Self dan Virtual Self, hal ini disebut sebagai Self Discrepancy (Higgins, 2000). Penelitian ini menggunakan metode analisis deskriptif untuk mengetahui bagaimana Self Discrepancy pada Roleplayer K-Pop di komunitas Entertaiment ‘x’. Alat ukurnya menggunakan kuisioner (SDQ) Self Discrepancies Quitionnaire pada 28 pemain roleplay. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa sebanyak 64.2% subjek mengalami self discrepancy tinggi dan 30% tidak mengalami self discrepancy.

Higher Education’s Marketization Impact on EFL Instructor Moral Stress, Identity, and Agency

Higher educational institutions (HEIs) have experienced a dramatic reconceptualization as academia strives to align its organizational design and civic mission with the societal notion that education is obliged to prioritize quantifiable results. The traditionalistic ethos that knowledge is acquired through reason and the pursuit of critical inquiry has been supplanted by a marketized ideology that education is a transactional process. The latter notion fails to foster the development of students’ core competencies. The resulting commodification of education has repurposed HEIs from serving a public good to serving a private good and has impacted institutional policies, program offerings, curriculum design, pedagogy, and instructor and student assessment. English foreign language (EFL) programs face immense pressure to conform to external idealized beliefs concerning appropriate course design and implementation. Such pressure limits instructors’ ability to perform their tasks efficiently. The burden of cultural and institutional constraints and unmanageable expectations has led to myriads of professional and moral stresses that negatively affect EFL instructors’ identity and agency in their occupation. This article explores the marketization of universities and its subsequent impact on EFL instructors. Demands from various stakeholders create moral stress for instructors; influence instructor identity through shaping the perceived, actual, and external ought self; and produce damaging consequences related to diminished instructor agency in the classroom.

Self-concept, post-traumatic self-appraisals and post-traumatic psychological adjustment: what are the relationships?

Background:Cognitive models of post-traumatic psychological adjustment have implicated both self-concept and self-appraisals in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Two studies investigated the relationship between self-concept and trauma-related self-appraisals, and whether culture influenced this relationship.Method:In Study 1, a student sample (Asian n = 41, British n = 34) who self-identified as having been through a trauma or extremely stressful event completed measures of self-concept, trauma-related self-appraisals and trauma-related distress. Study 2 extended this by asking Asian (n = 47) and British (n = 48) trauma survivors with and without PTSD to complete the same self measures as those administered in Study 1.Results:Study 1 found that overall for the British group, disruptions in self-concept (i.e. self-discrepancies and trauma-themed self-concept) correlated significantly with negative self, world and self-blame appraisals and depression. However, the same was not found in the Asian group. Study 2 found that pan-culturally those with PTSD had greater self-discrepancies and trauma-defined self-concept than those without PTSD. Additionally, pan-culturally, trauma-defined self-concept correlated significantly with negative self appraisals and depression; ideal self-discrepancies correlated significantly with negative self-appraisals across cultures and depression for the British group; while ought self-discrepancies correlated significantly with negative world appraisals for the Asian group and negative self and self-blame appraisals for the British. Lastly, negative self, world and self-blame appraisals correlated with symptoms of depression.Conclusions:Taken together, the findings relay the important associations between appraisals, self-concept and post-traumatic psychological adjustment.

THE ROLE OF SELF-DISCREPANCY IN GENERATING FUTURE ANXIETY AMONG UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

Purpose of the study: The current study examines the level of self-perception (realism, idealism, and duty) among Yarmouk University students. It also identifies the level of their self-discrepancy and its relation to future anxiety and explores the differences regarding the level of these self-discrepancies and the future anxiety according to the variables of specialization, the level of the study, and GPA. The study argues that while there is a significant statistical negative relationship between the level of future anxiety and the actual self among university students there is no significant statistical correlation between the level of future anxiety and the ideal self and the ought self. Methodology: The study was conducted on a sample of (200) university students of the Faculty of Education at Yarmouk University. Higgins’ (1987) scale which consists of (30) paragraphs and the scale of future anxiety which consists of (27) paragraphs were applied to the study sample using the descriptive correlational approach. Main Findings: There were no significant statistical differences regarding the level of self-discrepancy (real/ideal) and (real/due) due to the variables of specialization, the level of study, and the GPA. Also, there were no significant differences regarding the level of future anxiety among Yarmouk University students according to the variables of specialization, the level of study, and the GPA. Yet, there was a statistically significant negative relationship between the level of future anxiety and the actual self. Applications of this study: Universities across the globe, such as Yarmouk University and the University of Jordan, may find it significant to know that university students have a moderate level of self-perception and do not have a correspondence between the characteristics of the self in its three dimensions. Thus, such universities may need to think of establishing certain training and counseling programs that aim at developing the students' perception of themselves and their understanding of the self. Novelty/Originality of this study: Considering that a few Arabic studies address future anxiety among university students who will graduate and impact their local communities, the paper points at the need for establishing certain counseling courses that help university students better understand themselves and decide their needs accordingly.

The Mediation Model of Actual Ought Self Discrepancy between Attachment Anxiety and Codependence

In this study, it was aimed to investigate the mediating role of actual-ought self-discrepancy between attachment anxiety and codependence among a group of international university students in Turkey who are fluent in English. Considering the high intensity of agitation-related emotions in individuals with codependence, it is hypothesized that discrepancies between actual and ought to self-states scores are mediating the relationship between preoccupied-anxious attachment style and codependence scores. Data were collected between March and May 2016 from 67 (34 females, 33 males) university students with at least one dysfunctional significant other. They were recruited via e-mails and web-based online survey applications. The age range of the participants is between 18 and 25 (M=21, SD=2.074). In addition to a short socio-demographic information form, three self-report instruments were administered to participants: The Revised Adult Attachment Scale (RAAS), the Self Concept Questionnaire – Conventional Constructs (SCQ-CC), and the Codependent Questionnaire (CdQ). Regression and mediation analyses were utilized, and it was found that actual-ought self-discrepancies scores to mediate the relationship between preoccupied-anxious attachment and codependence scores. The results of the study are expected to have important implications for clinical interventions and prevention programs in addressing the attachment insecurities and emotion regulation difficulties of the individuals with codependence.

Theoretical Overview

Chapter 2 introduces the theory underlying self-system therapy (SST). The terminology and concepts of SST are clarified for therapists and their clients. Self-regulation is a motivational process involving ongoing comparisons between the actual self (i.e., the person I am) and the ideal self (i.e., the person I want to be) or ought self (i.e., the person I should be). Self-beliefs are characteristics that define the actual self, and self-guides are characteristics that define the ideal and ought selves. SST’s core concepts include self-discrepancy and regulatory focus, and the chapter discusses how those concepts relate to goal pursuit, self-evaluation, characteristic orientations, and depression.