Incidental choice over the features of a task provides both control and personalization. Previous accounts of the tendency of choice to enhance task confidence have emphasized the importance of perceived control. The authors reexamined the enhancement effect to determine whether personalization is equally important. The results of two studies revealed that only choices reflecting personal preferences increased confidence in the task outcome (Study 1) and boosted performance-related self-esteem (Study 2). These findings point to the importance of self-identity expression for understanding the judgmental effects of choice.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Anand, P. G. , & Ross, S. M. (1987). Using computer-assisted instruction to personalize arithmetic materials for elementary school children. Journal of Educational Psychology, 79, 72-78.
2.
Bakan, D. (1966). The duality of human existence: Isolation and communion in Western man. Boston: Beacon.
3.
Bandura, A. (1990). Conclusion: Reflections on nonability determinants of competence. In R. J. Sternberg & J. Kolligian, Jr. (Eds.), Competence considered (pp. 315-362). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
4.
Bandura, A. (1992). Exercise of personal agency through the self-efficacy mechanism. In R. Schwarzer (Ed.), Self-efficacy: Thought control of action (pp. 3-38). Washington, DC: Hemisphere.
5.
Bardwell, R. (1984). The development and motivational function of expectations. American Educational Research Journal, 21, 461-472.
6.
Bernard, L. C. , Hutchison, S., Lavin, A., & Pennington, P. (1996). Ego-strength, hardiness, self-esteem, self-efficacy, optimism, and maladjustment: Health-related personality constructs and the Big Five model of personality. Assessment, 3, 115-131.
7.
Blanton, H. , Pelham, B. W., DeHart, T., & Carvallo, M. (2001). Over-confidence as dissonance reduction. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 37, 373-385.
8.
Bornstein, R. F. , & D’Agostino, P. R. (1992). Stimulus recognition and the more exposure effect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63, 545-552.
9.
Brewer, M. B. (1991). The social self: On being the same and different at the same time. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 17, 475-482.
10.
Burger, J. M. (1987). Increased performance with increased personal control: A self-presentational interpretation. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 23, 350-360.
11.
Burger, J. M. (1989). Negative reactions to increases in perceived personal control. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 56, 246-256.
12.
Burger, J. M. , & Cooper, H. M. (1979). The desirability of control. Motivation and Emotion, 3, 381-393.
13.
Chan, F. , Karbowski, J., Monty, R. A., & Perlmuter, L. C. (1986). Performance as a source of perceived control. Motivation and Emotion, 10, 59-70.
14.
Cordova, D. I. , & Lepper, M. R. (1996). Intrinsic motivation and the process of learning: Beneficial effects of contextualization, personalization, and choice. Journal of Educational Psychology, 88, 715-730.
15.
Deci, E. L. , Connell, J. P., & Ryan, R. M. (1989). Self-determination in a work organization. Journal of Applied Psychology, 4, 580-590.
16.
Deci, E. L. , & Ryan, R. M. (1985). Intrinsic motivation and self-determination in human behavior. New York: Plenum.
17.
Deci, E. L. , Schwartz, A. J., Sheinman, L., & Ryan, R. M. (1981). An instrument to assess adults’ orientations toward control versus autonomy with children: Reflections on intrinsic motivation and perceived competence. Journal of Educational Psychology, 73, 642-650.
18.
Edmundson, P. (1990). Meeting the needs of maladjusted children with specific learning difficulties. Maladjustment and Therapeutic Education, 5, 35-42.
19.
Emecheta, B. (1979). The slave girl. London: Collins/Fontana Books.
20.
Grush, J. E. (1976). Attitude formation and mere exposure phenomena: A nonartifactual explanation of empirical findings. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 33, 281-290.
21.
Guisinger, S. , & Blatt, S. J. (1994). Individuality and relatedness: Evolution of a fundamental dialectic. American Psychologist, 49, 104-111.
22.
Guthrie, J. T. , Cox, K. E., Anderson, E., Harris, K., Mazzoni, S., & Rach, L. (1998). Principles of integrated instruction for engagement in reading. Educational Psychology Review, 10, 177-199.
23.
Harvey, J. H. , & Harris, B. (1975). Determinants of perceived choice and the relationship between perceived choice and expectancy about feelings of internal control. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 31, 101-106.
24.
Harvey, J. H. , & Johnson, S. (1973). Determinants of the perception of choice. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 9, 164-179.
25.
Heatherton, T. F. , & Polivy, J. (1991). Development and validation of a scale for measuring state self-esteem. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 60, 895-910.
26.
Henry, R. A. (1994). The effects of choice and incentives on the overestimation of future performance. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 57, 210-225.
27.
Henry, R. A. , & Sniezek, J. A. (1993). Situational factors affecting judgments of future performance. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 54, 104-132.
28.
Jellison, J. M. , & Harvey, J. H. (1973). Determinants of perceived choice and the relationship between perceived choice and perceived competence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 28, 376-382.
29.
Kniveton, B. H. (1998). Underachieving boys: A case for working harder or boosting self-confidence?Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties, 3, 23-28.
30.
Langer, E. J. (1975). The illusion of control. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 32, 311-328.
31.
Langer, E. J. (1983). The psychology of control. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
32.
Lees, M. C. , & Neufeld, R. W. J. (1994). Matching the limits of clinical inference to the limits of quantitative methods: A formal appeal to practice what we consistently preach. Canadian Psychology, 35, 268-282.
33.
Leventhal, H. (1979). A perceptual-motor processing model of emotion. In P. Pliner, K. R. Blankstein, & I. M. Spigel (Eds.), Advances in the study of communication and affect: Vol. 5. Perception of emotion in self and others (pp. 1-46). New York: Plenum.
34.
Markus, H. , Cross, S., & Wurf, E. (1990). The role of the self-system in competence. In R. J. Sternberg & J. Kolligian, Jr. (Eds.), Competence considered (pp. 205-225). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
35.
Maslow, A. H. (1945). A theory of human motivation. Psychological Review, 50, 370-396.
36.
Paterson, R. J. , & Neufeld, R. W. J. (1995). What are my options? Influences of choice availability on stress and the perception of control. Journal of Research in Personality, 29, 145-167.
37.
Perlmuter, L. C. , Goldfinger, S. H., Sizer, N. R., & Monty, R. A. (1989). Choosing to improve performance. In P. S. Fry (Ed.), Psychological perspectives of helplessness and control in the elderly (pp. 395-411). Amsterdam: North-Holland.
38.
Perlmuter, L. C. , Monty, R. A., & Kimble, G. A. (1971). Effect of choice on paired-associate learning. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 91, 47-53.
39.
Perlmuter, L. C. , Scharff, K., Karsh, R., & Monty, R. A. (1980). Perceived control: A generalized state of motivation. Motivation and Emotion, 4, 35-45.
40.
Radhakrishnan, P. , Arrow, H., & Sniezek, J. A. (1996). Hoping, performing, learning, and predicting: Changes in accuracy of self-evaluations of performance. Human Performance, 9, 23-49.
41.
Reeve, J. , & Nix, G. (1997). Expressing intrinsic motivation through acts of exploration and facial displays of interest. Motivation and Emotion, 21, 237-250.
42.
Rodin, J. (1990). Control by any other name: Definitions, concepts, and processes. In J. Rodin, C. Schooler, & K. W. Schaie (Eds.), Self-directedness: Causes and effects throughout the life course (pp. 1-17). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
43.
Rodin, J. , Rennert, K., & Solomon, S. K. (1980). Intrinsic motivation for control: Fact or fiction. In A. Baum & J. E. Singer (Eds.), Advances in environment psychology: Vol. 2. Applications of personal control (pp. 131-148). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
44.
Ross, S. M. , McCormick, D., & Krisak, N. (1986). Adapting the thematic context of mathematical problems to students’ interests: Individualizing versus group-based strategies. Journal of Educational Research, 79, 245-252.
45.
Smith, G. P. (1973). Adrenal hormones and emotional behavior. In E. Stellar & J. M. Sprague (Eds.), Progress in physiological psychology (pp. 299-351). New York: Academic Press.
46.
Sniezek, J. A. , Paese, P. W., & Switzer, F. S., III. (1990). The effect of choosing on confidence in choice. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 46, 264-282.
47.
Snyder, C. R. , & Fromkin, H. L. (1980). Uniqueness: The human pursuit of difference. New York: Plenum.
48.
Stanley, K. D. , & Murphy, M. R. (1997). A comparison of general self-efficacy with self-esteem. Genetic, Social, and General Psychology Monographs, 123, 79-99.
49.
Steiner, I. D. (1970). Perceived freedom. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 5, 187-248.
50.
Steiner, I. D. , Rotermund, M., & Talaber, R. (1974). Attribution of choice to a decision maker. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 30, 553-562.
51.
Sullivan, H. S. (1953). The interpersonal theory of psychiatry. New York: Norton.
52.
Tafarodi, R. W. , Milne, A. B., & Smith, A. J. (1999). The confidence of choice: Evidence for an augmentation effect on self-perceived performance. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 25, 1405-1416.
53.
Veitch, J. A. , & Gifford, R. (1996). Choice, perceived control, and performance decrements in the physical environment. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 16, 269-276.
54.
White, R. W. (1963). Ego and reality in psychoanalytic theory: A proposal regarding independent ego energies. Psychological Issues, 3(3, Monograph 11). New York: International Universities Press.
55.
Wright, J. P. , & Wright, C. D. (1986). Personalized verbal problems: An application of the language experience approach. Journal of Educational Research, 79, 358-362.
56.
Zajonc, R. B. (1968). Attitudinal effects of mere exposure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 9, 1-27.
57.
Zillmann, D. (1983). Transfer of excitation in emotional behaviour. In J. T. Cacioppo & R. E. Petty (Eds.), Social psychophysiology: A sourcebook (pp. 215-240). New York: Guilford.
58.
Zillmann, D. (1996). Sequential dependencies in emotional experience and behavior. In R. D. Kavanaugh, B. Zimmerman, & S. Fein (Eds.), Emotion: Interdisciplinary perspectives (pp. 243-272). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
