15:00 - 16:30
Tue-P3-Poster II-4
Tue-Poster II-4
Room: P3
Measuring letting go: Assessing self-regulation on an implicit level
Tue-P3-Poster II-401
Presented by: Lisa M. Viegas
Lisa M. Viegas, Werner Greve, Christina Bermeitinger
University of Hildesheim
The ability to disengage from unattainable goals is correlated with high life satisfaction and mental health. Models of self-regulation (e.g. Brandtstädter & Renner, 1990; Heckhausen & Schulz, 1993) describe two antagonistic tendencies necessary for flexible goal adjustment: holding on to a goal (goal pursuit) and letting go of it (goal disengagement). The question of how we switch from goal pursuit to disengagement remains a theoretical and empirical challenge. What processes allow us to disengage from a once highly important goal? One hypothesis (Brandtstädter, 2001) is that the switch is initially prepared on an implicit level. A restructuring of goal-related cognitive and emotional associations should result in reduced positive valence and a weakened association with the self for goal-related concepts. The question remains how we can test this hypothesis empirically.

We present three indirect measures designed to assess two different aspects (valence of goal associations and strength of association with the self) of implicit goal (dis-)engagement. The following paradigms were used: An evaluative response priming with goal-related and neutral nouns as primes and positive and negative nouns as targets, a semantic priming with goal-related phrases as primes and me- and other-related words and non-words as targets, and a recoding free version of the IAT (IAT-RF, Rothermund et al., 2009) with nouns from two goal-related categories and me- and other-related words as targets. The application and suitability of these three instruments to assess self-regulation processes over time are discussed from a theoretical and experimental point of view.
Keywords: implicit measures, self-regulation, goal disengagement