Anagram Task Research Articles

God, Can I Give Up?: The Diverging Effects of God-Related Thoughts on Task Persistence in Chinese Buddhists and Taoists

ABSTRACT Previous research has indicated that religiosity and engagement in faith practices are associated with increased task persistence. However, in this study, we sought to challenge this long-standing assumption by demonstrating that priming God-related concepts can actually lead to reduced task persistence in Taoism, a religion emphasizing passivity, calmness, and inaction. To investigate this theoretical perspective, we conducted two experimental studies using different behavioral measures of task persistence (anagram task and mirror-tracing task) and diverse religious priming techniques (the scrambled-sentence task and religious reading task). In Study 1, when Chinese Taoists were first reminded of God and then completed an unsolvable anagram task purported to measure the maturation of verbal abilities, they exhibited lower levels of task persistence than those in the neutral prime condition. In Study 2, we found that Taoist participants exposed to God-related primes spent less time on tracing a difficult geometric figures, indicating lower levels of task persistence. Across two studies, we replicated prior findings that exposure to God representations increased task persistence in Chinese Buddhists, who belong to a non-Abraham religious group. These results provided the first experimental evidence that activating thoughts of God may have divergent effects on task persistence in members of different religions.

Honesty-humility negatively correlates with dishonesty in romantic relationships.

Despite the clear existing theoretical links, ours is the first direct systematic series of studies investigating a potential negative association between Honesty-Humility and general dishonesty in romantic relationships. Eleven preregistered online studies with community samples were run (total N = 5,677). For a first test of our hypothesis, we conducted a series of seven cross-sectional studies based on self-reports; these studies used different methodological approaches to assess relationship-based dishonesty (i.e., closed-ended self-report scales, scenarios, and direct frequency measures). This was followed by one diary study and three studies that base their assessment on more behavioral measurements of relationship-based dishonesty (e.g., a dice roll task and an anagram task). In line with our hypothesis, all studies reliably revealed that participants higher in Honesty-Humility reported less relationship-based dishonesty. The classification of the found results to past research and the general relevance of the Honesty-Humility factor for romantic relationships are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Women in their mid-follicular phase outcompete hormonal contraceptive users, an effect partially explained by relatively greater progesterone and cortisol reactivity to competition

Early evidence suggests that hormonal contraceptive (HC) use alters psychological functioning and competitive behavior. Yet, there is limited data on endocrine models for explaining how HC use affects these outcomes. In this pre-registered and open-data study, we test if HC users and naturally cycling (NC) females in their low (mid-follicular) and high (mid-luteal) progesterone phase differ in competitive persistence and whether progesterone and cortisol reactivity mediate of this effect. HC users (N = 73) in the active hormone-exposure phase and NC participants in the mid-follicular (N = 69) or mid-luteal (N = 72) phase completed two behavioral measures of competitive persistence, holding up a weight for time followed by attempting to solve an unsolvable anagram. Participants also completed measures of handgrip strength and self-reported competitiveness as well as gave saliva samples before and after the tasks for hormone assay. Results showed that NC-follicular group had greater competitive persistence in the weight-holding task compared to both NC-luteal (d = 0.38) and HC use (d = 0.43) groups independent of physical strength and self-reported competitiveness covariates. Although anagram task performance showed similar trends for group differences, analyses for this task were inconclusive. Baseline progesterone did not mediate the effect of cycle phase group on competitive persistence. HC users showed relatively blunted cortisol and progesterone reactivity, and this effect partially mediated the difference in competitive persistence between HC users and the NC-follicular group. In sum, results suggest that HC use could downregulate competitive behavior at least partly by dampening cortisol-progesterone reactivity. These findings offer a new endocrine model for understanding HC use and cycle phase effects on motivational and energetic outcomes required for optimal performance in competitive contexts.

Thinking About Distant Future Self Leads to Better Current Task Performance Through Higher Future Self-Appraisals

Abstract. People tend to appraise their distant future self better than their near future self ( future self-enhancement effect). An open question is whether this tendency has implications for current performance. In two sets of experiments ( N = 554), after envisioning their near or distant future, participants made future self-appraisals and performed an anagram task. We observed that future self-enhancement effect leads to better task performance, regardless of whether the future self was appraised in an absolute (Experiment 1a) or comparative (Experiment 1b) way. Experiment 2a additionally revealed that future self-enhancement effect might facilitate better task performance through increased current self-evaluations. In each study, future self-enhancement effect suppressed the negative, direct impact of envisioning one’s distant (vs. near) future on task performance.

People Cheat on Task Performance When They Feel Bored: The Mediating Role of State Self-Efficacy.

It is unclear whether the state of boredom is related to morality. The present study investigated how state boredom influenced cheating behaviors on task performance. In Study 1 (N = 104), participants were induced to feel bored, and then reported whether they had finished an anagram task (two sentences in the task were unsolvable). The results found that people with higher boredom showed more cheating behaviors than those with lower boredom on task performance. In Study 2 (N = 139), participants completed the Multidimensional State Boredom Scale, and then completed the same anagram task as in Study 1, as well as a state self-efficacy scale. The results revealed that state self-efficacy mediated the effect of state boredom on cheating behaviors on task performance. In other words, a higher level of state boredom leads to a lower level of state self-efficacy, and the lower state self-efficacy then results in more cheating behaviors. The present study provides empirical evidence that state boredom has its moral function through state self-efficacy.

Stepping Back to See What Matters: Reducing Diagnosticity Neglect in Social Comparison

People frequently compare themselves to others, and these comparisons have important affective and organizational consequences. Social comparisons differ in their diagnosticity—the degree to which they are attributable to features of the person versus the situation. While logic suggests people should give more credence to diagnostic than nondiagnostic comparisons, research shows they may overlook diagnosticity when comparing themselves to others. This tendency, which we call “diagnosticity neglect,” can lead them to draw inaccurate conclusions about themselves. Here we test whether psychological distancing strategies can mitigate diagnosticity neglect. Because diagnosticity neglect may come from people’s tendency to overestimate the self-relevance of social information, adopting a distanced perspective may increase the salience of causal sources outside the self, thereby reducing diagnosticity neglect. Four experiments (three preregistered, total N = 4,008) test and support this prediction. Experiment 1 shows that people exhibit less diagnosticity neglect when imagining participating in an anagrams task than when actually doing so. Experiment 2 shows that people who are prompted to take a distanced (versus immersed) perspective exhibit less diagnosticity neglect in response to a poorly attended birthday, and Experiment 3 suggests this effect is mediated by internal versus external attribution. Experiment 4 shows that this observation also holds for favorable comparisons. Overall, this research highlights interventions that may provide people a more balanced understanding of where they stand relative to others.

Success and Failure Influence Hopeful Thinking in Polish Women and Men Differently

In Snyder’ theory the construct of hope is central to successful goal attainment. The present studies aimed to examine whether the experience of success versus failure in goal pursuits influence state hope, as was found in previous research. In Study 1, the participants completed a scale assessing current hopeful thoughts, and recall and describe successful, or unsuccessful goal pursuits. Then they again completed the state hope scale. In Study 2, the participants were instructed to complete two measures, assessing current hopeful thinking, and self-esteem. Then, they performed anagram tasks—representing easy, mixed, or difficult levels of difficulty, in which they respectively succeed, perform neutrally, or fail, or were assigned to control condition (the participants were sitting only). Next, they filled in the same two scales. In Study 1, state hope increased in the respondents who recalled successful goal pursuits, and decreased in those who recalled unsuccessful goal pursuits. However, this effect was moderated by gender: thinking about success increases state hope only in men, whereas thinking about failures decreases state hope just in women. In Study 2, those who experience failure experienced a decrease in state hope. However, such an effect was found only in women.

Production of Sentential Negation in German and Italian Non-fluent Aphasia

The ability of persons with non-fluent aphasia (PWAs) to produce sentential negation has been investigated in several languages, but only in small samples. Accounts of (morpho)syntactic impairment in PWAs have emphasized various factors, such as whether the negative marker blocks or interferes with verb movement, the position of the Negation Phrase in the syntactic hierarchy or the interpretability of negation. This study investigates the ability of German- and Italian-speaking PWAs to construct negative sentences, as well as the role of verbal working memory (WM) capacity and education in task performance and production of sentential negation. German and Italian differ in the syntactic properties of the negative markers that are relevant here (nicht and non, respectively). A sentence anagram task tapping into the construction of negative and affirmative declarative sentences was administered to 9 German- and 7 Italian-speaking PWAs, and to 14 German- and 11 Italian-speaking age- and education-matched healthy volunteers. We fitted generalized linear mixed-effects models to the datasets. There was no significant difference between negative and affirmative sentences in either group of PWAs. There was a main effect of verbal WM capacity on task performance, but no interaction between verbal WM capacity and production of negative vs. affirmative sentences. Education did not affect task performance. The results are discussed in light of different linguistically-informed accounts of (morpho)syntactic impairment in non-fluent aphasia.

Perfectionistic self-presentation, coping, and affective response during laboratory performance

ABSTRACT Background and Objectives The impact of trait perfectionism on coping and affective response has been well-documented in laboratory performances, and yet little is known about the role played by perfectionistic self-presentation in performances beyond the effects of trait perfectionism. Design We aimed to address this knowledge gap by examining the relationships between perfectionistic self-presentation, maladaptive emotion-focused coping, and affective response to laboratory problem-solving tasks. Methods A group of 130 undergraduates attempted challenging, time-limited arithmetic and anagram tasks. Upon task completion, participants’ scores were announced along with their mistakes. Additionally, participants completed measures assessing their positive and negative affect before and after lab performance, as well as coping strategies utilized during performance. Results Participants with elevated perfectionistic self-presentation experienced greater levels of negative affect and maladaptive emotion-focused coping. Moreover, nondisclosure of imperfection emerged as a significant predictor of lowered positive affect from pre- to post-performance after controlling for self-oriented perfectionism and socially prescribed perfectionism. Path analysis indicated that both nondisplay of imperfection and nondisclosure of imperfection exerted an indirect effect on post-performance negative affect via maladaptive emotion-focused coping. Conclusions Our findings highlight the unique contribution of perfectionistic self-presentation beyond trait perfectionism in performance settings and suggest a need for future research.

Perfectionistic concerns and psychological distress: The role of spontaneous emotion regulation during college students' experience with failure.

Perfectionistic concerns are associated with various forms of distress, and research has shown that maladaptive emotion regulation mediates this relation. To our knowledge, this mediation process has not been studied in the lab when an individual experiences distress in the moment. This study was designed to determine (a) whether spontaneous emotion regulation mediates the relation between an experimentally induced experience of failure and distress and (b) whether perfectionistic concerns moderate this indirect effect. College students (N = 165) completed self-reports of perfectionistic concerns and past-week affect. They then completed one of the two anagram tasks that induced either a high degree of failure or a low degree of failure. Finally, spontaneous emotion regulation during the anagram task and post-task affect was measured. Spontaneous use of cognitive reappraisal mediated a positive indirect effect in the association between manipulated degree of failure and post-task negative affect at high levels of perfectionistic concerns but not at low levels. Moreover, spontaneous use of rumination mediated (a) a positive indirect effect for post-task negative affect and (b) a negative indirect effect for post-task positive affect at low levels of perfectionistic concerns but not at high levels. These findings suggest there is value in perfectionism research addressing the process of regulating emotions as it unfolds in the moment a person experiences failure. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Does framing an assignment as involving one or multiple components influence subjective experiences of attentional engagement?

Across two studies, we explored whether framing an assignment as involving either multitasking or single-tasking (Srna et al. Psychol Sci 29(12):1942-1955, 2018) leads to differences in both subjective ratings of attentional engagement (i.e., depth of concentration and attentional control) and performance during the assignment. In Experiment 1, we manipulated task framing in the context of an assignment in which participants (Ncollected = 238) simultaneously completed a word-search and an anagram task (Srna et al. Psychol Sci 29(12):1942-1955, 2018). While we replicated prior findings that participants who receive multitasking instructions perform better than those who receive single-tasking instructions, we did not find any influence of task framing on participants' subjective evaluations of their attentional engagement. Exploratory analyses, however, revealed that regardless of group assignment, those who believed they were multitasking reported greater levels of attentional engagement than those who believed they were single-tasking. In Experiment 2 (Ncollected = 238), task framing was varied in the context of the 2-back task (Kirchner J Exp Psychol 55(4): 352, 1958). Unexpectedly, we found that, relative to participants who received single-tasking instructions, those who received multitasking instructions reported exerting less attentional control over their thoughts and showed a greater number of incorrect responses to non-target trials on the 2-back. Taken together, the results do not support a straightforward conclusion regarding the influence of task framing on either subjective reports of attentional engagement or task performance. Nevertheless, they provide insight into our understanding of the role of task framing in contexts ranging from commonly performed real-world tasks to typical laboratory tasks.

“Don’t Give Up!”

Abstract. The determination exhibited by players is a valuable quality in other contexts that require persistence. Research suggests that competitive and difficult video game play may acclimate players to arduous challenges and steel them against later hardships. Participants played competitively (one-on-one) or cooperatively with a non-player character (two-on-two) against non-player character opponents of varying difficulty (e.g., easy, moderate, or hard) in Super Smash Bros. Subsequent persistence was measured by time spent on an anagram task that included unsolvable items. Results suggest that video game competitiveness is necessary to facilitate subsequent persistence. However, the difficulty of opponents did not influence players’ subsequent persistence, even when withstanding the most competence-thwarting game play against hard opponents. The current study suggests that competitive play, in general, sufficiently jumpstarts persistent behaviors in players and that, instead of players cultivating persistence by enduring frustrating game play, they may be invigorated or enticed to attain goals when challenged.

Pre-stimulus brain oscillations predict insight versus analytic problem-solving in an anagram task

There are two general strategies for solving a problem. Insight is the sudden realization of a novel idea or problem solution accompanied by an “aha” experience. Analysis occurs in a conscious, deliberate fashion without an “aha” experience. Previous research has shown that brain activity during a preparatory period immediately before a problem is presented can predict whether the subsequently presented problem will be solved by insight or by analysis. Those prior studies used a type of brief verbal problem called compound remote associates (CRA). To determine whether prestimulus activity predicts subsequent insight versus analytic solving for other types of problems, the present study used an anagram task. We examined high-density electroencephalograms (EEGs) immediately preceding the presentation of anagrams and found that during the 2-s prestimulus interval there was greater beta-band activity recorded over right central-parietal cortex prior to analytic solving compared with insightful solving. EEG source reconstruction showed that this activity originated in left mid-cingulate cortex (MCC) and the right postcentral gyrus. In contrast to prior work, we found no evidence of a significant interaction between insight-related prestimulus brain activity and positive mood, although positive mood was associated with greater activity in anterior cingulate cortex and with a larger number of insight solutions. The present MCC results suggest that participants’ anagram-solving strategies may be influenced by allostasis, that is, the estimation and marshalling of neurocognitive resources required to cope with an expected task. Specifically, when a participant adequately prepares for an upcoming problem, then MCC activity is high, enabling solution by resource-intensive analytic processing. Alternatively, when preparation is insufficient for analytic processing, then MCC activity is low and subsequent solving occurs by low-demand insight processing. The current findings and explanatory model differ from those of previous studies that used a CRA task, suggesting the possibility of complex interactions between task-type and procedure-type in determining the nature of prestimulus preparation. Future research examining such interactions may yield results that benefit educators who teach students problem-solving strategies.

Mixed Evidence for Name Priming Effects as a Measure of Implicit Self-Esteem: A Conceptual Replication of Krause Et Al. (2012)

Krause et al. (2012) demonstrated that evaluative responses elicited by self-related primes in an affective priming task have incremental validity over explicit self-esteem in predicting self-serving biases in performance estimations and expectations in an anagram task. We conducted a conceptual replication of their experiment in which we added a behavioral and an affective outcome and presented names instead of faces as self-related primes. A heterogeneous sample (N = 96) was recruited for an online data collection. Name primes produced significantly positive and reliable priming effects, which correlated with explicit self-esteem. However, neither these priming effects nor explicit self-esteem predicted the cognitive, affective, or behavioral outcomes. Despite the lack of predictive validity of the implicit measure for affective and behavioral outcomes, the positive and reliable priming effects produced by name primes warrant the further investigation of the validity of the affective priming paradigm as a measure of implicit self-esteem.

Comparing the functional benefits of counterfactual and prefactual thinking: the content-specific and content-neutral pathways

We investigated the preparatory benefits of counterfactual and prefactual thinking towards cognitive task performance. Experiment 1 replicated the robust finding that individuals focus more on mutating internally controllable elements when thinking prefactually about their future task performance than when thinking counterfactually about a past performance. We also replicated the finding that counterfactual thinking was associated with significant performance improvement in an anagram task. However, despite their greater focus on internally controllable thoughts, individuals who generated prefactuals showed no performance improvement. In Experiment 2, we examined the relative performance-enhancing roles of counterfactuals and prefactuals in a subsequent unrelated analytical reasoning task. Only individuals who completed a counterfactual priming task performed significantly better than those in a control group did. These results corroborate extant findings of the preparatory advantage of counterfactuals. They also raise questions regarding some ways in which the preparatory functions of counterfactual and prefactual thinking have been conceptualised.

Evidence for a Behaviourally Measurable Perseverance Trait in Humans.

The aim was to create and study a possible behavioural measure for trait(s) in humans that reflect the ability and motivation to continue an unpleasant behaviour, i.e., behavioural perseverance or persistence (BP). We utilised six different tasks with 54 subjects to measure the possible BP trait(s): cold pressor task, hand grip endurance task, impossible anagram task, impossible verbal reasoning task, thread and needle task, and boring video task. The task performances formed two BP factors. Together, the two-factor solution is responsible for the common variance constituting 37.3% of the total variance in the performances i.e., performance times. Excluding the impossible anagram task, the performance in any given task was better explained by performances in the other tasks (i.e., “trait”, η2 range = 0.131–0.253) than by the rank order variable (“depletion”, i.e., getting tired from the previous tasks, η2 range = 0–0.096).

Time Course of EEG Oscillations During Creative Problem Solving

There are two general strategies for solving a problem. Insight is the sudden realization of a novel idea or problem solution accompanied by an “aha” experience. Analysis occurs in a conscious, deliberate fashion without an “aha” experience. Previous research has shown that brain activity during a preparatory period immediately before a problem is presented can predict whether the subsequently presented problem will be solved by insight or by analysis. Those prior studies used a type of brief verbal problem called compound remote associates (CRA). To determine whether prestimulus activity predicts subsequent insight versus analytic solving for other types of problems, the present study used an anagram task. We examined high-density electroencephalograms (EEGs) immediately preceding the presentation of anagrams and found that during the 2-s prestimulus interval there was greater beta-band activity recorded over right central-parietal cortex prior to analytic solving compared with insightful solving. EEG source reconstruction showed that this activity originated in left mid-cingulate cortex (MCC) and the right postcentral gyrus. In contrast to prior work, we found no evidence of a significant interaction between insight-related prestimulus brain activity and positive mood, although positive mood was associated with greater activity in anterior cingulate cortex and with a larger number of insight solutions. The present MCC results suggest that participants’ anagram-solving strategies may be influenced by allostasis, that is, the estimation and marshalling of neurocognitive resources required to cope with an expected task. Specifically, when a participant adequately prepares for an upcoming problem, then MCC activity is high, enabling solution by resource-intensive analytic processing. Alternatively, when preparation is insufficient for analytic processing, then MCC activity is low and subsequent solving occurs by low-demand insight processing. The current findings and explanatory model differ from those of previous studies that used a CRA task, suggesting the possibility of complex interactions between task-type and procedure-type in determining the nature of prestimulus preparation. Future research examining such interactions may yield results that benefit educators who teach students problem-solving strategies.

The Effect of Donepezil on Problem-solving Ability in Individuals With Amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment: A Pilot Study.

Clinical trials involving individuals with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) have reported mixed results for the effects of cholinesterase inhibitors on cognitive outcomes. Our previous work demonstrated that a visuospatial problem-solving task was sensitive to non-memory impairments in individuals with MCI. To determine whether the same task is also sensitive to the effects of cholinesterase inhibitors in individuals with amnestic MCI (aMCI). We gave 22 individuals with aMCI (clinical dementia rating of 0.5) and Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) scores of at least 24 the following measures at baseline and at follow-up 1 year later: Hopkins Verbal Learning Test, Boston Naming Test, Rey Complex Figures Test copying task, anagrams task, and visuospatial problem-solving task. The MMSE was also given at the 1-year follow-up. Twelve of the individuals were drug naïve, having never taken cholinesterase inhibitors before, and donepezil was initiated and titrated to 10 mg daily after baseline in an open-label manner. Ten of the individuals had already been taking donepezil, and there was no change in treatment. We compared the two groups for amount of performance change over 1 year. Individuals for whom donepezil was initiated performed significantly better on the visuospatial problem-solving task after 1 year compared with individuals who had already been taking donepezil. No difference was observed for any of the other variables. The visuospatial problem-solving task appeared to be more sensitive than memory measures to the effects of cholinesterase inhibitors in individuals with aMCI, perhaps due to the high attentional demand of the task.

Priming exploration across domains: does search in a spatial environment influence search in a cognitive environment?

Is there a general tendency to explore that connects search behaviour across different domains? Although the experimental evidence collected so far suggests an affirmative answer, this fundamental question about human behaviour remains open. A feasible way to test the domain-generality hypothesis is that of testing the so-called priming hypothesis: priming explorative behaviour in one domain should subsequently influence explorative behaviour in another domain. However, only a limited number of studies have experimentally tested this priming hypothesis, and the evidence is mixed. We tested the priming hypothesis in a registered report. We manipulated explorative behaviour in a spatial search task by randomly allocating people to search environments with resources that were either clustered together or dispersedly distributed. We hypothesized that, in a subsequent anagram task, participants who searched in clustered spatial environments would search for words in a more clustered way than participants who searched in the dispersed spatial environments. The pre-registered hypothesis was not supported. An equivalence test showed that the difference between conditions was smaller than the smallest effect size of interest (d = 0.36). Out of several exploratory analyses, we found only one inferential result in favour of priming. We discuss implications of these findings for the theory and propose future tests of the hypothesis.

Assessment of intolerance of uncertainty: Validation of a modified anagram task

Background and objectivesIntolerance of uncertainty (IU) is an individual difference factor that reflects difficulty tolerating emotional distress in the context of uncertainty and is a robust transdiagnostic risk factor for emotional disorders. A limitation of prior research on IU is the heavy reliance on self-report measures to assess this construct. The aim of the present study was to examine the validity of a brief, computerized anagram task modified to assess IU (the PACT Anagram Task; PAT). MethodsParticipants were 221 unselected undergraduate students (71% female; Mage = 19; 89% Caucasian) who completed the PAT and a series of self-report measures of convergent, discriminant, and incremental validity, and measures of anxiety and depression symptoms online for course credit. ResultsGreater PAT-Distress was positively correlated measures of convergent validity and demonstrated incremental validity in relation to self-reported IU above and beyond attentional control. None of the PAT indicators were associated with compassion or empathic concern, evidencing discriminant validity. PAT-Distress and PAT-Answers were each associated with greater worry above and beyond self-reported IU. LimitationsStudy limitations include the cross-sectional design and lack of diversity in terms of sample demographics. Furthermore, we did not examine convergence between this task and other behavioral measures of IU. ConclusionSubjective distress following completion of the PAT may serve as one indicator of IU. Further research is needed in order to replicate these results and validate the use of the PAT in clinical samples.