No abstract

In 3 experiments using 2 different paradigms, people were less likely to cheat for personal gain when a subtle change in phrasing framed such behavior as diagnostic of an undesirable identity. Participants were given the opportunity to claim money they were not entitled to at the experimenters' expense; instructions referred to cheating with either language that was designed to highlight the implications of cheating for the actor's identity (e.g., "Please don't be a cheater") or language that focused on the action (e.g., "Please don't cheat"). Participants in the "cheating" condition claimed significantly more money than did participants in the "cheater" condition, who showed no evidence of having cheated at all. This difference occurred both in a face-to-face interaction (Experiment 1) and in a private online setting (Experiments 2 and 3). These results demonstrate the power of a subtle linguistic difference to prevent even private unethical behavior by invoking people's desire to maintain a self-image as good and honest.

What can be done to reduce unhealthy eating among adolescents? It was hypothesized that aligning healthy eating with important and widely shared adolescent values would produce the needed motivation. A double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled experiment with eighth graders (total n = 536) evaluated the impact of a treatment that framed healthy eating as consistent with the adolescent values of autonomy from adult control and the pursuit of social justice. Healthy eating was suggested as a way to take a stand against manipulative and unfair practices of the food industry, such as engineering junk food to make it addictive and marketing it to young children. Compared with traditional health education materials or to a non–food-related control, this treatment led eighth graders to see healthy eating as more autonomy-assertive and social justice-oriented behavior and to forgo sugary snacks and drinks in favor of healthier options a day later in an unrelated context. Public health interventions for adolescents may be more effective when they harness the motivational power of that group’s existing strongly held values.

Three randomized experiments found that subtle linguistic cues have the power to increase voting and related behavior. The phrasing of survey items was varied to frame voting either as the enactment of a personal identity (e.g., "being a voter") or as simply a behavior (e.g., "voting"). As predicted, the personal-identity phrasing significantly increased interest in registering to vote (experiment 1) and, in two statewide elections in the United States, voter turnout as assessed by official state records (experiments 2 and 3). These results provide evidence that people are continually managing their self-concepts, seeking to assume or affirm valued personal identities. The results further demonstrate how this process can be channeled to motivate important socially relevant behavior.psychology | intervention | field experiment | language and thought W hy do people vote? Mass voting is essential to a wellfunctioning democracy, yet theorists have often pointed out that, from the standpoint of individual self-interest, voting is irrational (1-3). Just the probability of being killed in a car accident on the way to the polls far outweighs the likelihood that the average American's vote will influence the outcome of most elections.Previous research has shown that people have a strong desire to see themselves as competent, morally appropriate, and worthy of social approval (4-11). They also see voting as appropriate and socially desirable (12, 13). Thus, being the kind of person who votes may be seen as a way to build and maintain a positive image of the self-to claim a desired and socially valued identity. Accordingly, people may be more likely to vote when voting is represented as an expression of self-as symbolic of a person's fundamental character-rather than as simply a behavior.We tested this hypothesis in three randomized experiments. In the first, we investigated the reported interest in registering to vote of people who were eligible but had not yet registered to vote; in the second and third, we examined voter turnout as assessed by official state records. In each experiment, participants completed one of two versions of a brief survey. In one version, a short series of questions referred to voting using a selfrelevant noun (e.g., "How important is it to you to be a voter in the upcoming election?"); in the other, questions that were otherwise identical referred to voting using a verb (e.g., "How important is it to you to vote in the upcoming election?"). This manipulation draws on past research investigating the effects of linguistic cues on social-and self-perception (14, 15). Noun wording leads people to see attributes as more representative of a person's essential qualities. In one study, children thought that a child described as "a carrot eater" liked carrots more than a child who "eats carrots whenever she can" (14). In another study, adults rated their own preferences as stronger and more stable when induced to describe them with nouns (e.g., "I am a Shakespeare-reader") than with the related verbs (e...

Recent studies suggest that implementation planning exercises may not be as helpful for long-term, self-initiated goals as for short-term, assigned goals. Two studies used the personal goal paradigm to explore the impact of implementation plans on goal progress over time. Study 1 examined whether administering implementation plans in an autonomy supportive manner would facilitate goal progress relative to a neutral, control condition and a condition in which implementation plans were administered in a controlling manner. Study 2 examined whether combining implementation plans with a self-efficacy boosting exercise would facilitate goal progress relative to a neutral, control condition and a typical implementation condition. The results showed that implementation plans alone did not result in greater goal progress than a neutral condition but that the combination of implementation plans with either autonomy support or self-efficacy boosting resulted in significantly greater goal progress.