Psychopathy is often associated with aggressive behavior, the lack of empathy, and shallow affect. It is debated whether these characteristics are the result of a specific impairment of emotion processing or a general attentional neglect of goal-irrelevant information. Even though there is strong evidence for a crucial role of attentional focus, some studies confound attentional focus with explicit learning instructions. This ignores situations of automatic, implicit processing in which emotional information is selectively attended, but no active control processes are involved to compensate for an impairment in encoding emotional information effectively. This study was designed to separate selective attention toward emotional or nonemotional information from the effect of implicit and explicit learning processes. The online study (N = 429) examined selective attention toward emotional and nonemotional information in relation to psychopathic traits, under conditions of implicit and explicit learning. With regard to psychopathy as a unitary construct assessed via the PPI-R-40, we found no evidence for reduced learning from emotional information under implicit or explicit learning conditions. However, individuals scoring high on the Coldheartedness facet of psychopathy showed impaired implicit but not explicit learning from affective information, even when the information was in the current focus of attention. This suggests that Coldheartedness is associated with impaired implicit affective processing but that this impairment can be compensated under explicit, intentional task processing

The effects of playing violent video games are well-documented; however, relatively little research has investigated why much of the world’s population plays these games. We present a novel theory to explain the motivational pull of violent video games: the integrative motivational theory of violent video games (IMT-VVG). Violent video games resonate with players because they offer opportunities to fulfill psychological needs and motivations for obtaining status, feeling dominant, and feeling like a high-quality intimate partner. Violent video games may also provide psychological protection against the fear of death by allowing players to inure themselves to dangerous situations. They may also allow for the expression and regulation of anger. Unlike traditional play fighting, violent video games can be played by nearly everyone regardless of physical capacities. Thus, a much broader swathe of humanity can experience these effects of violent video games. The IMT-VVG explains potential negative effects elicited by violent video game play such as the tendency for sexism in some male gamers. Individual differences contribute to the motivation to play violent video games; people more likely to play are from low status groups, desire to maintain their high status through dominance, and have a strong interest in sex. Future directions informed by the IMT-VVG may investigate possible prosocial effects of violent video games (e.g., leadership, helping team members) and whether violent video games can be beneficial to people from low status groups (e.g., increasing agency)

According to symbolic self completion theory, individuals strive for their aspired-to identity goals by accumulating symbols that indicate the possession of that very identity. If individuals lack such symbols, lose them, or fail to acquire them, a state of identity goal incompleteness is triggered that motivates identity goal-directed behavior (i.e., acquiring new identity symbols). We add to this framework an empirical investigation of the interplay between two identity goals, addressing the question: Will individuals who are incomplete regarding one identity goal be more or less likely to engage in symbolization behavior toward a second identity goal if no opportunity to strive for the first (incomplete) identity goal is at hand? We identify in two experiments the overlap between the two identity goals as a moderator variable determining to what degree individuals who are incomplete in one identity goal engage in behavior related to the other identity goal. Two experiments with working parents were conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. In both experiments, incompleteness (vs. a control condition) regarding the participants' professional identity goal was induced, and overlap between the professional and parent identity goals was measured. We found that overlap regarding moral values (Study 1) and basic motives (Study 2) between the parent and professional identity goals was a positive predictor of parenting-related behavior in the incomplete, but not the control, condition. Incomplete participants with relatively low overlap were less likely, while incomplete participants with relatively high overlap were more likely, to engage in parenting-related behavior. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved)

Risk-taking is traditionally explained through outcome-value expectancy models. Recently, however, it has been demonstrated that immediate versus delayed feedback increases risk-taking independently of expected value. The current work takes a novel approach to investigate behavioral motivation in different risk-taking contexts, building on recent progress in identifying the reinforcing impact of actioneffectiveness. Participants performed 1 of 2 different versions of the Balloon Analogue Risk task (BART) in which an action increases (Experiment 1 and 2) or decreases (Experiment 3) the risk of losing real money. Importantly, action-effectiveness was subtly manipulated. In 3 experiments, we found that action-effectiveness reinforces action tendency in both risk-taking contexts. In addition, the reinforcing effect was independent of participants’ explicit knowledge regarding the action-effectiveness manipulation and their deliberate expectancy-based risk strategy. Overall, the findings strongly suggest that action-effectiveness motivates action and not risk-taking per SE Accordingly, the findings shed light on the BART suggesting that in this task, higher scores could be due to higher motivation for action and not necessarily to more risk-taking

The purpose of this study was to identify predictors of rule compliance regarding private gatherings during the 2020 Christmas holidays in the province of Quebec (Canada), where gatherings were ruled as illegal, with few exceptions. We used the self-determination theory framework to predict rule compliance as a function of autonomous, controlled-approach and controlled-avoidance motivations. Moreover, we measured psychological distress among participants as well as anxiety of COVID-19 exposure. Motivation and psychological distress measures were taken a couple of days prior to the holiday period, whereas rule compliance was measured approximately 10 days later, in early January. A total of 1332 individuals filled the first online survey and 627 completed the follow-up measure. The factorial structure of the motivational instrument was supported. Rule compliance was predicted positively by autonomous motivation, but negatively by controlled-avoidance motivation. Controlled approach was not a significant predictor of rule compliance. These results show that approach and avoidance orientations in controlled motivation have distinct predictive power, which has implications for policy-enforcing by governments. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved)