This dissertation examines the relationship between two social psychological theories: Social Comparison Theory (Festinger, 1954) and Construal Level Theory (Liberman & Trope, 1998). More specifically, this research assesses how a person’s level of mental abstraction (i.e., construal level) might influence the way social comparison information from individuals or aggregates is used to form self...

This set of studies examines the perceptual similarities between emotions that share either a valence or a motivational direction. Determination is a positive, approach-related emotion, whereas anger is a negative, approach-related emotion. Thus, determination and anger share a motivational direction, but are opposite in valence. An implemental mindset has previously been shown to produce high-...

Widespread historicism and rampant empiricism, two of the most common characteristics of today’s culture, acquire a particular relevance in light of the problem of the permanence of values in history. Today’s historicistic mindset does not take the form of a rigorous or precise theory, even though it derives from nineteenthand twentiethcentury historicism, whether in its idealistic, materialist...

Messages about how much our abilities can change - or "mindset" messages - affect learning, achievement, and performance interpretations. However, the neurocognitive mechanisms responsible for these effects remain unexplored. To address this gap, we assessed how a mindset induction influenced cognitive control brain activity. Participants were randomly assigned to read that intelligence was eit...

Introduction As the whole society is experiencing a notable shift from the industrial age to the information age, an urgent need for a mindset change in education has been frequently discussed during the past decades. This paper will approach the mindset change through three interconnected sections: the first section reviews the conceptualization of mindset and then gives our definition of mind...

Our research reports on an ongoing study of the impact of entrepreneurial interventions within first-year engineering courses on changes in the mindsets of engineering students. Entrepreneurial mindset in our study is operationally defined as a more growth oriented mindset versus a fixed oriented mindset. This operational definition and an accompanying mindset measurement instrument was develop...

Background Coping, the cognitive and behavioral effort required to manage the effects of stressors, is important in determining psychological stress responses (ie, the emotional, behavioral, and cognitive responses to stressors). Coping was classified into categories of emotional expression (eg, negative feelings and thoughts), emotional support seeking (eg, approaching loved ones to request en...

Mindset theory suggests that a deliberative mindset entails openness to information in one's environment, whereas an implemental mindset entails filtering of information. We hypothesized that this open- versus closed-mindedness influences individuals' breadth of visual attention. In Studies 1 and 2, we induced an implemental or deliberative mindset, and measured breadth of attention using parti...

In this paper we present the authors' experience of teaching a course in Ethics for Engineers, which has been delivered four times in three different universities in Spain and Chile. We begin by presenting the material context of the course (its place within the university program, the number of students attending, its duration, etc.), and especially the intellectual background of the participa...