The study of self within psychology has been limited in a number of ways. Two sets of empirical studies extended the study of self beyond traditional trait-based self-perception. In the first set of studies, seven hundred and eighty-nine adults listed their multiple “self-aspects” that represent meaningful elements of their lives and completed trait ratings for each of their self-aspects. The similarity between trait responses for the different self-aspects indicated the degree of “self-complexity” for a participant, as well as the degree of “self-integration.” Results replicated previous findings indicating that lower self-complexity is associated with higher well-being, and that network-based approaches for measuring self-complexity were more strongly with well-being. Finally, participants who completed the same task 3 weeks later demonstrated an increase in self-integration. Broadly, the results demonstrate that network-based approaches are an effective metric for studying the structure of the self and that future work may have success using networks to inform identity-based interventions. In the second set of studies, five hundred and ninety-four adults completed studies about personal identity and morality. Participants imagined that some trait about someone had changed and were asked to indicate the degree to which the trait change would change the person’s identity. Comparisons of interest examined the degree to which moral trait changes led to more perceived identity change than non-moral trait changes and the degree to which imagining changes to oneself versus to another person yielded differences in perceived identity change. Results replicated previous work indicating that morals lead to most perceived identity change and find that changes to self yielded large perceived identity change than changes to a friend. Moreover, neuroimaging work revealed that thinking about identity change for both targets recruits regions of the cortical midline and that thinking about moral trait words does not recruit any regions compared to thinking about non-moral trait words, challenging previous assumptions about the nature of self-perception and personal identity. Results from both sets of studies were integrated with philosophical and translational perspectives to consider the overall contributions to real-world, self-control issues and broader questions about the nature of the self.

This study evaluated one important dimension of nonprofit self-regulation, the relationship between the Iowa Register of Accountability and voluntary website disclosure by Iowa nonprofits. The purpose of this study was to assess the effectiveness of self-regulation in Iowa to improve accountability as measured by voluntary website disclosure and transparency. As part of the study, an instrument was developed to reliably measure nonprofit website disclosure and transparency. The disclosure score ratings from Iowa Register of Accountability nonprofit organizations were compared to those not listed on the Register. Other factors relevant to disclosure and transparency (e.g. the method to become listed on the Iowa Register of Accountability and the type and number of organization staff members who received training) were also tested. Results indicated that nonprofit organizations listed on the Iowa Register of Accountability were more likely to have active websites and to voluntarily disclose recommended information on their websites than those Iowa nonprofits that have not sought or achieved listing on the Register. In particular, the Register group had statistically higher mean disclosure scores in four areas (Key Staff, Strategic Plan, Annual Reports, and Audit and Financial Statements) compared to the Non-Register group. Contrary to expectations, the method to become listed on the Iowa register of Accountability and the type and number of staff members who received training were not related to higher disclosure scores. The important finding of this research is that nonprofit organizations listed on the Iowa Register of Accountability were more likely to voluntarily disclose recommended information on their websites than those Iowa nonprofits that have not sought or achieved listing on the Register. Recommendations are made in terms of ways to improve nonprofit website disclosure and transparency by enhancing and expanding training opportunities. A major contribution of this study for future research in the field was the development of a disclosure scoring instrument to assess and compare website disclosure and transparency.

Numerous models of academic advising address the complex nature of student retention and attrition. Most tend to ignore the subtleties of implementing motivational and self-regulatory changes associated with academic advising. This present study investigates the learning experiences of university students and their use of academic advising. The research incorporates an educational model as its primary investigative lens, namely Hirsch's (2001) multiple intervention model. The study further examined critical areas of learning and advising, specifically motivation, self-regulation, academic difficulty, and academic achievement.This research was conducted at a New Zealand university and comprised of three studies. In the first study, 14 participants were interviewed about their academic problems, readiness for study and use of learning and study strategies. In the second, a total of 317 participants completed a demographic survey and two questionnaires measuring aspects of motivation and self-regulation. In the third study, 147 participants completed follow-up self-report questionnaires. The mixed-paradigm analyses were twofold. Study 1 utilised a meaning-centred approach to classifying and understanding the interview responses. Studies 2 and 3 incorporated multivariate and categorical statistical procedures.Interview narratives from Study 1 suggested that students experiencing academic difficulty tended to voice more problems, to be less ready for study and to be more avoidance oriented than students not experiencing academic difficulty. In Study 2 students indicating low motivation levels for study had more self-perceived problems in the areas of concentration, self-monitoring, use of educational materials and developing time management than students with higher motivation levels. In addition, students with academic difficulty appeared to have more problems with motivation and use of study material than students with no evidence of academic difficulty. Students' motivation levels tended to vary over time indicating that students may perceive their rationale for study as an unfixed or malleable entity. Student attitude at the beginning of the academic semester significantly predicted grade outcome. Motivation and self-regulation response measures obtained immediately prior to the examination period, however, were unable to predict end-of-semester grade averages. In Study 3 completion of short group-based study skills programmes appears to have a link with end of semester grade average, but there were no significant shifts in measures of motivation and self-regulation. Students accessing one-to-one academic advising services were usually students with higher levels of motivation for study. The use of one-to-one academic counselling, however, was not determined by academic difficulty.Overall, the studies contribute a systematic and integrative process of investigating the area of academic advising. The research highlights the importance of goal orientations and students' initial perceptions about the value of their course of study in relation to academic achievement and in reference to the seeking of academic assistance from academic advising services. The findings suggest that although Hirsch's (2001) model provides a valuable framework to investigate ways students study and learn, it requires additional refinement especially in areas of categorisation and application before it can be confidently endorsed. The findings also indicate that academic advisory services provide a valuable service for students in terms of academic achievement, but further research is required in the areas of cultivating motivation and self-regulation changes, and especially in the area of affect development. Finally, the study confirms the worth of mixed-paradigm research and the need for more in depth research in the multifaceted world of academic advising.

This project evaluated the effect of religious symbols on self-control and self-monitoring. Based on psychological priming research and evidence demonstrating a correlation between religious conviction and self-control, it was hypothesized that exposure to subtle religious primes would increase self-control and self-monitoring. Assuming religious primes increased both variables, it was also hypothesized that self-monitoring would mediate the effect of the religious primes on self-control. In line with study hypotheses, exposure to religious primes did increase self-control, however no support was found for the effect of the religious primes on self-monitoring. As a result, a mediational model could not be tested. Study implications and directions for future research are discussed.

Recent work suggests that the links between religious belief and behavior with a variety of positive outcomes (e.g., longer life, more marital satisfaction, scholastic achievement, better health behaviors) may be partially explained by religious belief systems' ability to foster self-control and self-regulation. The current investigation sought to explore this hypothesis by determining if induction of religious cognition (through a supraliminal religious prime) could increase behavioral self-control, operationalized as performance on a maintained grip task. Using 118 participants, the author tested whether nonconscious exposure to religious content would increase the amount of time that participants were willing to physically persist at two rounds of the maintained grip task as compared to a control group. A within-subjects trial-by-prime interaction was found (the prime appeared to cause participants to persist at the task for less time during the first trial, but not the second) and a between-subjects sex-by-prime interaction was found (on average, men given the religious prime held their grip for less time than did men in the control group, whereas no differences were found between women). Findings are discussed in terms of the link between religion and self-control and future directions are suggested.

For the past twenty years, environmental organizations have been the main force in Taiwan¡¦s environmental movement. Meanwhile, the institutionalization of environmental organizations had placed them in a dilemma of organizational sustaining and mission pursuing. To continue its influence on public policy and environmental awareness, environmental organizations need to perform harder and better. In recent years, the government has cast environmental organizations in more roles, as well as allowed them to play a more important role in policy consulting. Many environmental organizations have thus become intermediate social institutions and should be held accountable. Moreover, since all environmental organizations have ecology as its stakeholder and many organizations are advocacy-orientated, their process performance needs to be evaluated in the accountability procedure. From a self-regulation perspective, environmental organizations should also develop behavioral norms for self-governance to earn social recognition and trust. In practice, however, laws concerning the accountability of environmental organizations or other NPOs are not well formulated. The intent of this study is mainly to develop an accountability framework workable for self-assessment in environmental organizations. Taking a broad perspective, accountability is here defined as ¡§accounts for the results and process of organizational activities are provided, by which nonprofit organizations are responsive to expectations generated within and outside the organization so as to gain legitimacy in society.¡¨ Synthesizing large literature on theoretical, practical accountability and role expectancy on environmental organizations, the framework, based on institutional theory, was constructed to evaluate accountability in ¡§regulative¡¨, ¡§normative¡¨, ¡§cognitive¡¨ and ¡§organizational characteristics¡¨ dimensions, totally consisting of 92 items. Survey data from the leaders of environmental organizations were collected to examine the evaluative framework¡¦s feasibility by their assessing each item¡¦s reasonability, acceptability, practicability, and importance. As a result, 45 priority items out of 92 were selected, which identify the evaluative contents for an ¡§accountable¡¨ environmental organization, and can be taken as a useful checklist in future to scrutinize organizations¡¦ accountability and performance. Moreover, additional results from in-depth interviewing environmental organizations¡¦ leaders showed that they generally regard regulative accountability as acceptable, normative accountability as reasonable but difficult to achieve, and cognitive accountability as important in delineate organizations¡¦ mission and identity as well as adapting themselves to the society. Among the major findings of this studyare that environmental organizations accept their social responsibility and acknowledge the benefit of performance evaluation, but organizations and the society know little about the concept of accountability. These organizations also believed that the present social institutions and organizational conditions are unhelpful or even harmful for them to take accountability actions. These reasons incline environmental organizations to agree to more external regulation than self-regulation. In the meantime, the above situations mostly hinder launching accountability and performance evaluation in organizations. To drive self-regulation in environmental organizations, institutional building is suggested; that is to couple organizations¡¦ performance evaluation and advancement with self-assessment by expanding knowledge on accountability among the society and making institutional incentives available.

People with high (HSEs) and low self-esteem (LSEs) often react differently to interpersonal risk. When concerns about their relationship are salient, HSEs seek connection with their partners to quell feelings of vulnerability whereas LSEs distance themselves from their partners to minimize the impact of potential rejection. In the present research, I investigate the extent to which these regulatory dynamics reflect executive-based processes that govern broader regulatory responses. In Studies 1 and 2, HSEs exhibited stronger approach goals (i.e., a greater tendency to pursue rewards and ignore risks) in non-social domains when faced with interpersonal risk whereas LSEs inhibited approach goals and made more conservative decisions. In Studies 3 and 4, I demonstrated that HSEs’ and LSEs’ divergent regulatory responses to risk were contingent on executive control. When participants were cognitively busy, HSEs were less likely to bolster relationship evaluations in the face of interpersonal risk whereas LSEs were more likely to do so. Finally, Study 5 demonstrated that these global regulatory strategies govern HSEs’ and LSEs’ responses to non-interpersonal risk as well. HSEs were more willing to engage in risky social comparison following failure than they were when they received neutral feedback about their performance, whereas LSEs were less willing to compare themselves with others after failure. These effects did not emerge when cognitive resources were depleted. Taken together, the results suggest that HSEs’ and LSEs’ self-regulatory responses to risk are broader and more controlled than previously theorized.

Individuals who are members of stigmatized groups, such as lesbians, gays, and bisexuals, have cognitive deficits in situations that are threatening or hostile to the group in question. Stereotype threat and stigma threat research suggests these cognitive deficits occur in people who identify with stigmatized groups as a result of anxiety. Yet regulating impulses may also create cognitive deficits because it is effortful and diminishes the ability to perform cognitive tasks. This study investigates whether the regulation of undesired sexual impulses causes cognitive deficits in threatening situations even in people who do not identify with a stigmatized group. An implicit measure of sexual attraction to the same gender was administered to participants who self-identified as heterosexual (n = 317). Sexual impulses were primed by asking participants to write about an attractive person of the same or opposite sex or a neutral object. An interaction was found between implicit same sex attraction and the salience of same sex attraction in predicting self-control performance. Participants with a higher level of implicit same sex attraction performed worse on a self-control task after writing about the attractiveness of a same sex person. People with implicit same sex attraction who identify as heterosexual may have more difficulty with tasks requiring self-control or regulatory abilities as well as worse performance outcomes in work and school settings.

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Today, many privacy abuses can be traced to the lack of organization policies governing the conduct of the personnel who are in charge of managing the information systems. IT professionals, who are the most important gatekeepers to the information privacy practices, have the oversight responsibility for information privacy since they have the most extensive knowledge of their organization¡¦s systems and data. In this research, we have studied the impact of managerial policies concerning ethical codes and rewards/penalty perception on IS professionals¡¦ self-regulation capacity against privacy abuses. Specificially, based upon the Moment-of-Truth model and paradigm of self-regulation, we investigated how IS professionals¡¦ ethical judgment, subjective norm, privacy self-efficacy and intention may reciprocally interact with their business environment that was characterized by its use of ethical codes and the rewards/penalty system. We first proposed an ethical dicision model based on the paradigm of self-regulation and validated the appropriateness of this model for studying information privacy. We then demonstrated how the perception of the rewards/penalty may impact the ethical judgment, subjective norm, privacy self-efficay, and ethical intention. We discovered that the rewards/penalty perception had a moderating effect on the relationship between ethical judgment and intention, and that the ethical codes had the moderating effect on the relationship between privacy self-efficacy and intention.