“I will show you how great I am”: motivation from negative expectations

In three studies, I examined the psychological state of being energized by negative expectations of others. Although there is a large body of psychological literature available on the effects of expectancy beliefs that elicit behaviors consistent with those beliefs, relatively little attention has been paid to situations where expectancy beliefs bring about a host of behaviors that goes against the expectations. Using Asians/Asian Americans as my target demographic, I tested the general hypothesis that Asians/Asian Americans will be more likely to respond to insult or derogatory treatment in a productive way through increased effort, in a phenomena I have called the “I will show you” effect. Meta-analysis of effect sizes across three studies showed that there was a marginal effect of culture x insult interaction (z = 1.86, p = .06, r = .07) where Asian Americans showed a significant effect of insult manipulation in performance boost (z = 3.07, p = .002). This effect was not found among Anglo Americans (z = .40, p = .69). More research is needed in narrowing the gap between what does (or does not) stand in the way of translating the insult-based motivational script into an actual performance boost. The small effect among Asian Americans observed in the current research suggests that further investigation of this population of interest would prove fruitful in such endeavor.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Psychology

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2017

Author dc:creator

• Kim, Emily S

Contributors dc:contributor

• Cohen, Dov
• Albarracín, Dolores
• Fraley, Chris
• Kim, Young-Hoon
• Pomerantz, Eva

• Culture
• Motivation
• Feedback
• Expectations

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2017 Emily Kim

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/98127

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/98127