Latest Dolores Albarracín Stories

Those motivated to actively change bad habits may be setting themselves up for failure, a new study suggests. The study, described in an article in the journal Motivation and Emotion, found that people primed with words suggesting action were more likely than others to make impulsive decisions that undermined their long-term goals. In contrast, those primed to “rest,” to “stop” or to be inactive found it easier to avoid impulsive decisions. “Popular views of self-control...

People don't really care what they're doing "” just as long as they are doing something. That's one of the findings summarized in a new review article published in Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.When psychologists think about why people do what they do, they tend to look for specific goals, attitudes, and motivations. But they may be missing something more general "“ people like to be doing something. These broader...

Can you help you? Recent research by University of Illinois Professor Dolores Albarracin and Visiting Assistant Professor Ibrahim Senay, along with Kenji Noguchi, Assistant Professor at Southern Mississippi University, has shown that those who ask themselves whether they will perform a task generally do better than those who tell themselves that they will.Little research exists in the area of self-talk, although we are aware of an inner voice in ourselves and in literature. From children's...

University of Illinois researchers suggest weight-loss campaigns that promote exercise may result in people eating more. Study leader Dolores Albarracin said people who viewed posters suggesting that they join a gym or take a walk ate more food after looking at the posters than people who saw similarly designed posters prompting them to make friends or be in a group, the researchers found. Subliminal words about activity had a similar effect on study participants, Albarracin said in a...