The purpose of the present study was to examine the relative effectiveness of two different ways of operationalizing a mastery experience in an e-mail based fitness walking program. Mastery experiences are considered the best way to increase exercise self-efficacy (Bandura, 1997), which is strongly associated with regular physical activity, but little research has systematically explored how effective mastery experiences can be developed. Fifty-nine sedentary adult women were randomly assigned to a mastery experience group (n=29) that operationalized mastery experiences in a manner consistent with Bandura's social cognitive theory, or to a standard care group (n=30) that operationalized mastery experiences in a manner consistent with standard care. Both intervention conditions received the same physical activity prescription and were designed to promote equivalent levels of contact with the experimenter over the 12-week program. The effects of the program were examined on overall adherence to the program, one-mile walk test times, estimated VO2max, social cognitive outcomes, and program evaluation ratings. Both the mastery experience group and the standard care group had similar levels of adherence to the program. The mastery experience group demonstrated a significantly greater improvement in one-mile walk test time than the standard care group. Although the mastery experience group also showed a larger increase in estimated VO2max than the standard care group, this difference did not reach significance. The mastery experience group had significantly greater increases in goal-setting relative to the standard care group, but the intervention did not show any differences between the two groups on three measures of self-efficacy. In program evaluation ratings, the mastery experience group demonstrated greater satisfaction with the program than the standard care group. / Ph. D.

Using the functional approach to volunteering as a basis, I investigated the implications of volunteer motivation congruence (i.e., a match between motivations to volunteer and the satisfaction of those motivations) for work recovery and downstream work engagement. I focused on career and understanding-based volunteer motives and psychological detachment and mastery recovery experiences. This was evaluated using a cross-sectional survey with a sample (N = 119) of employees with past volunteering experience. I found that psychological detachment was higher when career motives were greater than career motive satisfaction. Agreement between motives and satisfaction for both career and understanding motivations was also found to be more important than disagreement for predicting mastery experiences. Neither recovery variable (detachment and mastery experiences) was found to predict work engagement. No hypothesized indirect effects of the work recovery variables on the relationship between volunteer congruence and work engagement were supported. Overall, the results show a novel pattern of findings that encourages future research on volunteer motivation congruence and recovery experiences. / Master of Science / Many American employees also participate in volunteer work outside of their jobs. However, it is important to investigate whether this is beneficial for recovering from work stress since volunteering may be additionally taxing. Within this study, I look at whether a match between a person’s motivations to volunteer and the satisfaction of those motivations predicts recovery from work. I additionally look at whether that work recovery subsequently predicts engagement at work. Specifically, I focused on career and understanding-based volunteer motivations. I also focused on the work recovery experiences of psychological detachment from work and mastery experiences. I looked at these relationships using results from 119 participants who took a single survey. I found that psychological detachment was higher when career motives were greater than career motive satisfaction (in other words when the career motives were left unsatisfied). Neither recovery variable (detachment and mastery experiences) was found to predict work engagement.

The social cognitive theory of Depression proposed by Rothbaum et al. (2008) integrates theory originating from the motivation, cognitive and rumination literature. Following stressors, those with vulnerable self-beliefs are predicted to adopt performance goals that aim to avoid threats to self-worth, necessitating protective mechanisms like rumination. Both the goals themselves and rumination serve to protect self-worth but are proposed to have depressogenic consequences. This theory, combined with literature on contingent self-worth and trait rumination in depression, led to an elaborated social cognitive model whereby rumination mediates the relationship between goal orientation and depression. The current study aimed to test this model. Seventy two healthy participants participated in an experimental manipulation of goal orientation prior to a difficult anagram task and rated their sadness, anxiety, and state rumination following a stressor and during a subsequent sustained attention task. The results suggested many of the hypotheses about condition differences were not supported and this may have been due to an unsuccessful task goal manipulation. However extrinsic contingent self-worth based on other’s approval was found to moderate the effect of goal orientation on task based depressive affect and rumination. For those reporting high contingent self-worth based on other’s approval, cuing a performance goal was related to significantly higher sadness and rumination following a stressor than cuing mastery goal. Findings suggest that therapy specifically focusing on assessing extrinsic contingent self-worth and associated vulnerable self-beliefs, and encouraging the adoption of mastery goals may be therapeutically beneficial in making people less reactive to stressful life events.