A backup plan for life? Alternative Life paths facilitate disengagement in an action crisis

IF 1.7 3区心理学 Q3 PSYCHOLOGY, EXPERIMENTAL

Motivation and Emotion Pub Date : 2023-12-20 DOI:10.1007/s11031-023-10052-z

Christopher Mlynski, Swantje Mueller, Christopher M. Napolitano, Veronika Job

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Abstract

While there is anecdotal evidence and some scientific support for the value of having multiple paths to reach one’s life goals, recent work concerning backup plans argues that their mere availability undermines commitment to and performance in the originally chosen path. In this paper, we evaluated this phenomenon amongst college students (N = 345) entering their first term with an already available family-based alternative life path. As expected, entering into college with an available family-based alternative life path led to a decrease in study commitment over the first semester and indirectly predicted lower end-of-semester grades through this reduction in commitment. However, results indicate that this only occurred when students reported experiencing an action crisis at the end of their first semester. If students did not report having an action crisis, an available family-based alternative life path did not influence study commitment and predicted a higher end-of-semester GPA. Ultimately, findings highlight the major role action crisis plays in the influence an alternative life path has on path trajectory.

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生活的备用计划？替代性人生道路有助于脱离行动危机

虽然有轶事证据和一些科学依据证明了拥有多条道路来实现人生目标的价值，但最近有关后备计划的研究却认为，后备计划的存在会削弱对最初所选道路的承诺和表现。在本文中，我们评估了大学生（人数=345）在进入第一个学期时的这种现象，他们已经有了一条以家庭为基础的可供选择的人生道路。不出所料，在进入大学时，如果选择了以家庭为基础的另一种生活方式，那么在第一学期的学习投入就会减少，并通过这种投入的减少间接地预测了学期末成绩的下降。然而，研究结果表明，只有当学生报告说在第一学期末经历了行动危机时，这种情况才会发生。如果学生没有报告经历过行动危机，那么以家庭为基础的可供选择的生活道路并不会影响学生的学习承诺，反而会预示着更高的学期末 GPA。最终，研究结果凸显了行动危机在替代性人生道路对人生轨迹的影响中所起的重要作用。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Motivation and Emotion Multiple-

CiteScore

5.40

自引率

4.20%

发文量

期刊介绍： Motivation and Emotion publishes articles on human motivational and emotional phenomena that make theoretical advances by linking empirical findings to underlying processes. Submissions should focus on key problems in motivation and emotion, and, if using non-human participants, should contribute to theories concerning human behavior. Articles should be explanatory rather than merely descriptive, providing the data necessary to understand the origins of motivation and emotion, to explicate why, how, and under what conditions motivational and emotional states change, and to document that these processes are important to human functioning.A range of methodological approaches are welcome, with methodological rigor as the key criterion. Manuscripts that rely exclusively on self-report data are appropriate, but published articles tend to be those that rely on objective measures (e.g., behavioral observations, psychophysiological responses, reaction times, brain activity, and performance or achievement indicators) either singly or combination with self-report data.The journal generally does not publish scale development and validation articles. However, it is open to articles that focus on the post-validation contribution that a new measure can make. Scale development and validation work therefore may be submitted if it is used as a necessary prerequisite to follow-up studies that demonstrate the importance of the new scale in making a theoretical advance.