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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

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Selected Works

Harry M. Wallace

2015

Motivation

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

I Knew It All Along, Unless I Had To Work To Learn What I Know, Harry Wallace, Michelle Chang, Patrick Carroll, Jodi Grace Oct 2015

I Knew It All Along, Unless I Had To Work To Learn What I Know, Harry Wallace, Michelle Chang, Patrick Carroll, Jodi Grace

Harry M. Wallace

After receiving knowledge regarding some topic, people usually overestimate their prior topic knowledge. Two experiments investigated whether people would claim less prior knowledge if they worked to earn their present knowledge. In Study 1, students finishing a psychology course claimed less precourse psychology knowledge if they reported devoting more effort toward the course. In Study 2, the knew-it-all-along effect was stronger for participants who were simply given the answers to questions than for participants who studied for 20 minutes to learn the answers. Both cognitive and motivational factors can account for the observed effects of effort investment on retrospective knowledge …


The Performance Of Narcissists Rises And Falls With Perceived Opportunity For Glory, Harry Wallace, Roy Baumeister Oct 2015

The Performance Of Narcissists Rises And Falls With Perceived Opportunity For Glory, Harry Wallace, Roy Baumeister

Harry M. Wallace

Narcissists consider themselves to be exceptional performers, but past research has found no consistent relationship between narcissism and performance. The present research tested the hypothesis that the relationship between subclinical narcissism and performance is moderated by a motivational factor: perceived self-enhancement opportunity. Four experiments were conducted, each using different manipulations of self-enhancement opportunity and different performance tasks. In each study, narcissists performed better when self-enhancement opportunity was high rather than low. In contrast, the performance of participants with low narcissism was relatively unaffected by self-enhancement opportunity. Other findings suggested that narcissists' self-enhancement motivation stems more from a desire to garner …