An Enumerative Review and a Meta-Analysis of Primed Goal Effects on Organizational Behavior

A live discussion experiment was designed to test the effects of highly empathic (vs. moderately empathic) listening on solitude experiences. Participants were assigned to three conditions in which they: 1) Discussed a negative personal experience with a confederate (ostensibly another participant) exhibiting highly empathic listening; 2) Discussed an experience with a confederate exhibiting moderately empathic listening; or, 3) Engaged in a positive reframing exercise. Building on previous listening theory (Weinstein et al., 2022) and research (Itzchakov & Weinstein, 2021; Itzchakov, Weinstein, et al., 2022). We then assessed the two posited mechanisms of autonomy and relatedness and tested the expectations to be in solitude. All participants were instructed to spend ten minutes alone, phones off, and distractions stored away. While highly empathic listening enhanced participants’ (i.e. speakers) autonomy and relatedness need satisfaction compared to the other two conditions and predicted initial increases in self- and social-connection, it did not subsequently improve solitude experiences, with no direct effects found predicting self-connection, peaceful affect, loneliness, or self-insight. Indirect effects linked empathic listening to self-connection and self-insight through autonomy satisfaction. While empathic listening fosters immediate psychological need satisfaction in social contexts, deeper listening interventions may be necessary to improve subsequent solitude periods.

Theoretical work on attitudinal ambivalence suggests that anticipated regret may play a role in causing awareness of contradictions that subsequently induce a feeling of an evaluative conflict. In the present paper we empirically examined how the anticipation of regret relates to the association between the simultaneous pre- sence of contradictory cognitions and emotions (objective ambivalence), and the evaluative conflict associated with it (subjective ambivalence), in the context of decision-making. Across three studies (Ns = 204,127,244), manipulating both objective ambivalence and regret, we consistently found that when a dichotomous ambiva- lent choice had to be made, (objectively) ambivalent attitude holders for whom feelings of anticipated regret were made salient reported higher levels of subjective-attitude ambivalence than participants in the other conditions. Moreover, in Studies 2 and 3 we found that the effect of anticipated regret on subjective ambivalence had consequences on information processing. Specifically, anticipating regret made ambivalent participants search for attitude-congruent information. This effect was mediated by the increase in subjective ambivalence. This work provides the first empirical evidence for the role of regret in the association between objective-and- subjective attitude ambivalence, and its consequences.