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This chapter proposes the development of a compound personality trait termed “goal propensity”. Motivation is a key determinant of performance in virtually all contexts, and personality has long been viewed as an important influence on motivation. Despite the long history of exploring how personality influences motivation, we do not have a clear understanding of the linkage between individual differences in personality and work motivation or the tools to reliably and accurately predict individual differences in motivation. Advances in our understanding of personality and the convergence of motivation theories around models of self-regulation present the opportunity to achieve that understanding and predictive efficacy. Goal propensity would be a theoretically derived trait that would explain the role of personality in self-regulation models of motivation as well as allow the prediction of tendencies to engage in self-regulation. This chapter provides the rationale for the development of this construct, articulates the nature of the proposed goal propensity construct, and explores the value of such a construct for theory, future research, and human resource practice.

Performance feedback about whether responses are correct or incorrect provides valuable information to help guide learning. Although feedback itself has no extrinsic value, it can produce subjective feelings similar to “rewards” and “punishments.” Therefore, feedback can play both an informative and a motivational role. Over the past decade, researchers have identified a neural circuit that processes reward value and promotes reinforcement learning, involving target regions of dopaminergic input (e.g., striatum and ventromedial prefrontal cortex). Importantly, this circuit is engaged by performance feedback even in the absence of reward. Recent research suggests that feedback-related brain activity can be modulated by motivational context, such as whether feedback reflects goal achievement, whether learners are oriented toward the informative versus evaluative aspect of feedback, and whether individual learners are motivated to perform well relative to their peers. This body of research suggests that the brain responds flexibly to feedback, based on the learner’s goals.

This chapter introduces a conceptual framework which links consumers' demographic characteristics with their attitudes toward major shopping area attributes (the push/pull factors), as well as their motivations toward cross-border shopping. It is built on the extant literature of outshopping, cross-border shopping, and consumer switching behavior. It has been tested with data collected from 485 Hong Kong residents. A nonparametric approach will be used to analyze the data. Findings of this study show that “age” and “education” characteristics are good indicators for most of the macrofactors (shopping area attributes). As for microfactors (motivational factors), “age” and “gender” are the best indicators. Results of this study also confirm previous findings that demographic characteristics of consumers affect their cross-border shopping behavior. Low prices on products and good services are the most important pull-factor attracting cross-border shopping. It further reveals that a higher percentage of cross-border shoppers are from lower income families, having only secondary education level, and in the age category of 30–49. Implications for retailers, governments, and tourism-related institutions are discussed.

Cognitive evaluation theory (CET; Deci, 1975), SDT's first mini-theory, was built from research on the dynamic interplay between external events (e.g., rewards, choice) and people's task interest or enjoyment – that is, intrinsic motivation (IM). At the time, this research was quite controversial, as operant theory (Skinner, 1971) had dominated the psychological landscape. The central assumption of operant theory was that reinforcement contingencies in the environment control behavior, which precluded the existence of inherently satisfying activities performed for non-separable outcomes. During this time, Deci proposed that people – by nature – possess intrinsic motivation (IM), which can manifest as engagement in curiosity-based behaviors, discovery of new perspectives, and seeking out optimal challenges (see also Harlow, 1953; White, 1959). IM thus represents a manifestation of the organismic growth tendency and is readily observed in infants' and toddlers' exploratory behavior and play. Operationally, an intrinsically motivated activity is performed for its own sake – that is, the behavior is experienced as inherently satisfying. From an attributional perspective (deCharms, 1968), such behaviors have an internal perceived locus of causality, as people perceive their behavior as emanating from their sense of self, rather than from experiences of control or coercion.

Organizational change is endemic and can be disruptive for leaders' emotions and subsequent behaviors. While many studies focus on employees' reactions to change, there are few that focus on leader responses to change. The focus of our study is on leaders. In this chapter, we outline a qualitative study examining a leader's emotion regulation during organizational change. The aim of our research is to better understand the emotions leaders experience during organizational change and what emotion regulation strategies they enact to support positive outcomes.

Data were collected through interviews with 25 middle and senior management who were involved in organizational change at the time of interviews. The day reconstruction method was used to evoke and more accurately capture leaders' memories of an emerging or actual change event, the emotions they experienced, and the emotional regulation strategies utilized. Conceptualizing the change as a disruptive affective event, we asked participants to recall scenarios related to the change that triggered an emotional response and drew on the process model of emotion regulation (Gross, 1998a) to interpret these data. To round off the interviews, we captured the leader's personal outcomes from the emotion regulation strategies enacted.

Based on the data, leaders managing organizational change processes described the experience as a series of disruptive affective events that were more often associated with experiences of negatively valanced emotions (compared to positive emotions). Further, leaders were most likely to respond to these affective disruptions with the specific emotion regulation strategy of suppression (i.e., masking negative feelings with neutral or positive affective displays). A major reason leaders report responding with suppression is to maintain their professionalism, even if this undermines their health and well-being.

Qualitative research seeking to understand a leader's emotion experiences during organizational change is rare. These findings provide a more nuanced understanding of the affective nature of leaders' experiences and responses when managing the disruptive processes of change. This knowledge can assist organizations to develop processes and tools to support leaders dealing with the emotional realities of change to enable better outcomes for themselves and their followers.

This chapter begins with a brief history of the ways in which alcohol has been ingrained in American culture since the arrival of European settlers and their enslavement of African people. The chapter then addresses important aspects of alcohol and other drug use among college students. Because of the popularity of alcohol and cannabis among college students, they occupy the primary focus of the chapter, although other psychoactive drugs are briefly discussed as well. The chapter draws from data collected by the Healthy Minds Study, the Center for Collegiate Mental Health (CCMH) and the American College Health Association (ACHA) in describing the prevalence of alcohol and cannabis use among college students, as well as trends in the use of both substances. The reasons college students drink and use cannabis are explored, as are the many consequences, including academic, legal, physical and interpersonal. The chapter examines a number of prevention strategies that colleges have used to minimize the negative consequences of substance use, including large-scale scare tactics, educational efforts and norming campaigns, as well as individually tailored programs; the effectiveness of each is reviewed.

In the global world we live in, organizations have become progressively complex. “C” organizations have been replaced by “I” organizations, implying that we have moved from organizations permeated by a command, control, and compartmentalization orientation, to organizations distinguished by cultural signifiers such as interaction, information, and innovation. Effective teamwork will be essential to make these complex, highly diverse, increasingly virtual structures work.

Given the complexity of teamwork, this chapter discusses some of its benefits and drawbacks. Particular attention is given to possible team killers. Given the darker side of teams, a group coaching intervention technique is presented to resolve this daunting challenge. Taking this approach will help the members of a team to take control of their key team functions: setting direction, creating alignment throughout the organization, and building the commitment of everyone needed to accomplish organizational objectives.

To explore this intervention technique, the notion of the clinical paradigm is introduced, meaning using a psychodynamic-systemic lens that focuses not only on what is directly observable, but also on out-of-awareness behavior. The five premises that characterize the paradigm are described. It is suggested that applying the clinical paradigm within group coaching setting helps to tease out the central interpersonal role in which executives consciously and unconsciously cast themselves. It also helps explore the complementary roles they take on in an executive role constellation, creating tipping points for change. In addition, a number of other intervention techniques are introduced that help foster change.