Terror Management Theory posits that when individuals are faced with their own mortality, they use several defense mechanisms to reduce the existential anxiety caused by the thought of their own death. In this paper, we examined one such mechanism: Control attributions. To do so, we ran an experiment (n = 140) in which we manipulated mortality salience and type of failure (relevant vs. irreleva...

iSTART is an intelligent tutoring system designed to provide self-explanation instruction and practice to improve students’ comprehension of complex, challenging text. This study examined the effects of extended game-based practice within the system as well as the effects of two metacognitive supports implemented within this practice. High school students (n = 234) were either assigned to an iS...

Behavioral choice alters one's preference rather than simply reflecting it. This effect to fit preferences with past choice, is known as "choice-induced preference change." After making a choice between two equally attractive options, one tends to rate the chosen option better than they initially did and/or the unchosen option worse. The present study examined how behavioral choice changes subs...

BACKGROUND Educational attainment is associated with many life outcomes, including income, occupation and many health and lifestyle variables. Many researchers use it as a control variable in epidemiological and other social scientific studies, often without specifying exactly what environmental effects or set of personal characteristics is being controlled. Other researchers assume that geneti...

Relevant others (e.g., fellow group members) influence how goals and goal-directed behaviors are construed and valued. In turn, according to the “expectancy × value” model of motivated behavioral choice, people engage in goal-directed behaviors when they expect success and ascribe high values to a certain task. In this pilot study, we combine predictions from a social psychological goal perspec...