Coping with expectation violations in education: the role of optimism bias and need for cognitive closure

• Autores: Larissa Henss, Martin Pinquart
• Localización: European Journal of Psychology of Education, ISSN-e 1878-5174, ISSN 0256-2928, Vol. 39, Nº 3, 2024, págs. 2303-2323
• Idioma: inglés
• DOI: 10.1007/s10212-023-00783-5
• Enlaces
  • Texto completo
• Resumen

  • Although most individuals experience expectation violations in their educational years, individuals’ coping strategies differ depending on situational and dispositional characteristics with potentially decisive influence on educational outcomes. As a situational characteristic, optimism bias indicates that individuals tend to update their expectations after unexpected positive feedback and to maintain their expectations after unexpected negative feedback. As a dispositional characteristic, a higher need for cognitive closure (NCC) indicates that individuals tend to both update (accommodation) and try to confirm expectations (assimilation) after unexpected negative feedback. To better understand mechanisms behind optimism bias and context-dependent effects of NCC in an educational context, we included controllability (attribution of success/failure to internal or external causes) and self-enhancement (amplifying positive self-relevant aspects) in an experimental case vignettes study. Our sample of n = 249 students was divided into four experimental groups (high/low controllability × positive/negative valence) and read four different case vignettes referring to expectation violations in an educational context. MANCOVA revealed that individuals updated their expectations after unexpected positive feedback only with stronger (vs. weaker) self-enhancement and that individuals maintained their expectations after unexpected negative feedback in controllable (vs. uncontrollable) situations. Furthermore, interindividual differences in NCC interacted with controllability in predicting expectation update. We conclude that considering the influences of controllability and self-enhancement, we can better understand and evaluate the adaptivity of the optimism bias and context-dependent effects of NCC in an educational context.

• Referencias bibliográficas
  • Arens, A. K., Jansen, M., Preckel, F., Schmidt, I., & Brunner, M. (2021). The structure of academic self-concept: A methodological review...
  • Caprar, D. V., Do, B., Rynes, S. L., & Bartunek, J. M. (2016). It’s personal: An exploration of students’ (non) acceptance of management...
  • Carolan, B. V. (2017). Assessing the adaptation of adolescents’ educational expectations: Variations by gender. Social Psychology of Education,...
  • Dijksterhuis, A., Van Knippenberg, A., Kruglanski, A. W., & Schaper, C. (1996). Motivated social cognition: Need for closure effects on...
  • Domina, T., Conley, A., & Farkas, G. (2011). The link between educational expectations and effort in the college-for-all era. Sociology...
  • Dufner, M., Reitz, A. K., & Zander, L. (2015). Antecedents, consequences, and mechanisms: On the longitudinal interplay between academic...
  • Garrett, N., & Sharot, T. (2017). Optimistic update bias holds firm: Three tests of robustness following Shah et al. Consciousness and...
  • Gerdes, H., & Mallinckrodt, B. (1994). Emotional, social, and academic adjustment of college students: A longitudinal study of retention....
  • Gesualdo, C., & Pinquart, M. (2022). Predictors of coping with health-related expectation violations among University students. American...
  • Goossens, L. (2001). Global versus domain-specific statuses in identity research: A comparison of two self-report measures. Journal of Adolescence,...
  • Green, J. D., Pinter, B., & Sedikides, C. (2005). Mnemic neglect and self-threat: Trait modifiability moderates self-protection. European...
  • Gollwitzer, M., Thorwart, A., & Meissner, K. (2018). Psychological responses to violations of expectations. Frontiers in Psychology, 8,...
  • Gonçalves, T., Lemos, M. S., & Canário, C. (2019). Adaptation and validation of a measure of students’ adaptive and maladaptive ways of...
  • Hacker, D. J., Bol, L., Horgan, D. D., & Rakow, E. A. (2000). Test prediction and performance in a classroom context. Journal of Educational...
  • Hay, I., Ashman, A. F., van Kraayenoord, C. E., & Stewart, A. L. (1999). Identification of selfverification in the formation of children’s...
  • Henss, L., & Pinquart, M. (2022). Dispositional and situational predictors of coping with violated achievement expectations. Quarterly...
  • Henss, L., & Pinquart, M. (2023). Expectations do not need to be accurate to be maintained: Valence and need for cognitive closure predict...
  • Hepper, E. G., Gramzow, R. H., & Sedikides, C. (2010). Individual differences in self enhancement and self-protection strategies: An integrative...
  • Hepper, E. G., Sedikides, C., & Cai, H. (2013). Self-enhancement and self-protection strategies in China: Cultural expressions of a fundamental...
  • Hobbs, C., Vozarova, P., Sabharwal, A., Shah, P., & Button, K. (2022). Is depression associated with reduced optimistic belief updating?...
  • Jansen, L. A. (2016). The optimistic bias and illusions of control in clinical research. IRB, 38(2), 8–14. https:// www. jstor. org/ stable/...
  • Kemmelmeier, M. (2015). The closed-mindedness that wasn’t: Need for structure and expectancy-inconsistent information. Frontiers in Psychology,...
  • Kossowska, M., Orehek, E., & Kruglanski, A. W. (2010). Motivation towards closure and cognitive resources: An individual differences approach....
  • Kossowska, M., Szwed, P., & Wyczesany, M. (2019). Motivational effects on brain activity: Need for closure moderates the impact of task...
  • Krieg, D. (2013). High expectations for higher education? Perceptions of college and experiences of stress prior to and through the college...
  • Kube, T., & Glombiewski, J. A. (2021). How depressive symptoms hinder positive information processing: An experimental study on the interplay...
  • Kube, T., Kirchner, L., Rief, W., Gärtner, T., & Glombiewski, J. A. (2019). Belief updating in depression is not related to increased...
  • Kube, T., Kirchner, L., Lemmer, G., & Glombiewski, J. A. (2022). How the discrepancy between prior expectations and new information influences...
  • Kuzmanovic, B., & Rigoux, L. (2017). Valence-dependent belief updating: Computational validation. Frontiers in Psychology, 8, 1087. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01087
  • Lefebvre, G., Lebreton, M., Meyniel, F., Bourgeois-Gironde, S., & Palminteri, S. (2017). Behavioural and neural characterization of optimistic...
  • Leiner, D. J. (2019). Too fast, too straight, too weird: Non-reactive indicators for meaningless data in internet surveys. Survey Research...
  • Mendes, W. B., Blascovich, J., Hunter, S. B., Lickel, B., & Jost, J. T. (2007). Threatened by the unexpected: Physiological responses...
  • Neuberg, S. L., & Newsom, J. T. (1993). Personal need for structure: Individual differences in the desire for simpler structure. Journal...
  • Panitz, C., Endres, D., Buchholz, M., Khosrowtaj, Z., Sperl, M. F., Mueller, E. M., Schubö, A., Schütz, A. C., Teige-Mocigemba, S., &...
  • Pinquart, M., & Block, H. (2020). Coping with broken achievement-related expectations in students from elementary school: An experimental...
  • Pinquart, M., & Ebeling, M. (2020). Parental educational expectations and academic achievement in children and adolescents—A meta-analysis....
  • Pinquart, M., & Pietzsch, M. C. (2022). Change in students’ educational expectations–a meta-analysis. Journal of Educational and Developmental...
  • Rasmussen, H. N., Wrosch, C., Scheier, M. F., & Carver, C. S. (2006). Self-regulation processes and health: The importance of optimism...
  • Respondek, L., Seufert, T., Stupnisky, R., & Nett, U. E. (2017). Perceived academic control and academic emotions predict undergraduate...
  • Reynolds, J. R., & Baird, C. L. (2010). Is there a downside to shooting for the stars? Unrealized educational expectations and symptoms...
  • Rief, W., Glombiewski, J. A., Gollwitzer, M., Schubö, A., Schwarting, R., & Thorwart, A. (2015). Expectancies as core features of mental...
  • Robinson, S. A., & Lachman, M. E. (2017). Perceived control and aging: A mini-review and directions for future research. Gerontology,...
  • Roets, A., & Van Hiel, A. (2011). Allport’s prejudiced personality today: Need for closure as the motivated cognitive basis of prejudice....
  • Ruthig, J. C., Haynes, T. L., Perry, R. P., & Chipperfield, J. G. (2007). Academic optimistic bias: Implications for college student performance...
  • Ruthig, J. C., Haynes, T. L., Stupnisky, R. H., & Perry, R. P. (2009). Perceived academic control: Mediating the effects of optimism and...
  • Schlink, S., & Walther, E. (2007). Kurz und gut: Eine deutsche Kurzskala zur Erfassung des Bedürfnisses nach kognitiver Geschlossenheit....
  • Schoon, I., & Ng-Knight, T. (2017). Co-development of educational expectations and effort: Their antecedents and role as predictors of...
  • Schrackmann, M., & Oswald, M. E. (2014). How preliminary are preliminary decisions. Swiss J. Psychol., 73, 5–11. https://doi.org/10.1024/1421-0185/A000122
  • Shanahan, M. L., Fischer, I. C., & Rand, K. L. (2020). Hope, optimism, and affect as predictors and consequences of expectancies: The...
  • Sharot, T. (2011). The optimism bias. Current Biology, 21(23), R941–R945. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2011.10.030
  • Skinner, E. A., & Saxton, E. A. (2019). The development of academic coping in children and youth: A comprehensive review and critique....
  • Skinner, E., Pitzer, J., & Steele, J. (2013). Coping as part of motivational resilience in school: A multidimensional measure of families,...
  • Smith, J. S., & Wertlieb, E. C. (2005). Do first-year college students’ expectations align with their first-year experiences? NASPA Journal,...
  • Strelow, A. E., Dort, M., Schwinger, M., & Christiansen, H. (2020). Influences on pre-service teachers’ intention to use classroom management...
  • Strojny, P., Kossowska, M., & Strojny, A. (2016). Search for expectancy-inconsistent information reduces uncertainty better: The role...
  • Thompson, A. (2015). Coping with stress in undergraduate university students: Development and validation of the coping inventory for academic...
  • van Doeselaar, L., Becht, A. I., Klimstra, T. A., & Meeus, W. H. (2018). A review and integration of three key components of identity...
  • Webster, D. M., & Kruglanski, A. W. (1994). Individual differences in need for cognitive closure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,...
  • Webster, D. M., & Kruglanski, A. W. (1997). Cognitive and social consequences of the need for cognitive closure. European Review of Social...
  • Weiner, B. (1985). An attributional theory of achievement motivation and emotion. Psychological Review, 92(4), 548–573. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.92.4.548
  • Weiner, B. (2000). Intrapersonal and interpersonal theories of motivation from an attributional perspective. Educational Psychology Review,...
  • Zeidner, M. (1995). Adaptive coping with test situations: A review of the literature. Educational Psychologist, 30(3), 123–133. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15326985ep3003_3
  • Zhang, J., Miao, D., Sun, Y., Xiao, R., Ren, L., Xiao, W., & Peng, J. (2014). The impacts of attributional styles and dispositional optimism...
  • Zimmerman, B., & Schunk, D. (2006). Competence and control beliefs: Distinguishing the means and ends. Handbook of Educational Psychology,...
  • Zingoni, M., & Byron, K. (2017). How beliefs about the self influence perceptions of negative feedback and subsequent effort and learning....