Interaction of irrational beliefs with goal pursuit

Journal of Rational-Emotive & Cognitive-Behavior Therapy Volume 8, Number 3, Fall 1990

INTERACTION OF IRRATIONAL BELIEFS WITH GOAL PURSUIT

Frank W. Wicker Gail Brown

Anastasia S. Hagen Wayne Boring

James A. Wiehe University of Texas at Austin

ABSTRACT: 152 subjects reported affective and cognitive reactions at several stages of pursuing a hypothetical goal related to the taking of a classroom test, then gave Anxious Overconcern and High Self-expectations ratings from Jones' Irrational Belief Test. Subject groups differed in kinds of goals set; e.g., easy vs. difficult. Affective and attributional correlates of the irrational beliefs appeared maladaptive, but differed as a function of difficulty and phase of pursuit of the hypothetical goal. These results supported a contextual model in which irrational beliefs are general cognitive structures which interact with other internal and/or external factors to influence reactions in particular situations. Motivational variables--such as type of goal pursued and number of steps taken in pursuit of it--appear to be important among such factors. The study thus points to growing complexity in our knowledge of how B functions in the ABC paradigm.

Frank W. Wicker is Professor of Educational Psychology in the Department of Educational Psy- chology, The University of Texas at Austin. His research interests are focused on the cognitive bases of motivation and emotion.

Gail Brown is a graduate student in the program in Cognition, Learning, and Instruction in the Department of Educational Psychology, University of Texas at Austin. Her primary research interests relate to theoretical explorations of motivation and emotion.

Anastasia S. Hagen is a graduate student in the program in Cognition, Learning, and Instruc- tion. She is especially interested in motivation as it pertains to learning and instruction.

Wayne Boring is a graduate student in the program in Cognition, Learning, and Instruction. He is interested in cognitive approaches to the understanding of animal behaviors.

James A. Wiehe is also a graduate student in the program in Cognition, Learning, and In- struction. He combines interests in cognitive, motivation, and the psychology of music.

Requests for reprints should be sent to Frank W. Wicker, Department of Educational Psychol- ogy, University of Texas, Austin, Texas 78712.

147 �9 1990 Human Sciences Press

148 Journal of Rational-Emotive & Cognitive-Behavior Therapy

Jones' Irrational Belief Test (IBT) has been one of the more widely used measures (Smith, 1982) of irrational beliefs proposed by Ellis (1962) to contribute to emotional pathology. In support of Ellis' views and of the construct validity of the test, several studies have shown an association between IBT scores and psychopathology (e.g., LaPointe & Crandell, 1980; Craighead, 1979). A study by Wicker, Richardson, and Lambert (1985) also suggested that the IBT is correlated with several independent maladaptive patterns, and that such patterns involve not just beliefs, but also clusters of related affects, values, motives, and personality characteristics. That study contributed to support for the construct validity of the IBT; it also suggested, however, that more fine-grained exploration will be needed to (a) understand more pre- cisely what psychological processes are being tapped by that instrument and (b) to describe more fully the dynamic by which irrational beliefs are associated with undesirable affective and behavioral outcomes.

The assumption that irrational-belief scores reflect broad and enduring cognitive structures rather than specific self-statements (Smith, 1982), is consistent with the finding that they were related to a variety of specific beliefs, motives, affects, and values in the Wicker et al. study. This structural assumption would also imply that the role of irrational belief may depend on interactions with several contextual factors. Grieger's (1986) contextual elaboration of the ABC model, for example, proposes that the situation-specific thoughts that cause emotional, behavioral, and cognitive reactions are to be distinguished from the more abstract, less articulated, cognitive systems that under- lie these thoughts; thoughts are stimulated by perceived activating events and molded by abstract cognitive systems. An important possibility is that the stimulation by perceived events and the shaping by abstract systems are not two independent processes, but that it is their interaction that influences outcomes. According to a general contextual view, it will not be enough to describe the correlates of a particular irrational belief in the abstract. Full knowledge will require a description of such correlates while systematically varying perceived situational factors; i.e., a description of how "situational" and "disposi- tional" factors interact (Kendrick & Funder, 1988). Considerable research will be required, therefore, for "more precise delineations of what constitutes the B's [and how they function] in the ABC paradigm" (Grieger, 1986, p. 60).

Since emotion is closely related to a person's current situation with regard to the pursuit of goals (Fridja, 1988; Heckhausen, Schmalt, &

F. W. Wicker, G. Brown, A. S. Hagen, W. Boring, and J. A. Wiehe 149

Schneider, 1985), characteristics of the goals being pursued are poten- t ially very important among the contextual factors that can be examined; also important is a person's current state of progress in the course of pursuing such goals (Klinger, 1977). The goal characteristics chosen for this research include one which has been shown to have a strong influence on outcomes of research on goal setting: the difficulty of the goal being pursued (Locke, Shaw, Saari, & Latham, 1981). To explore the effects of goal characteristics, we used a variation of analogue, role-playing techniques. Subjects rated affective and cognitive reactions at several different points in time as they pursued a hypo- the t ica l -d i f f icu l t or easy--classroom goal. We examined how such reported reactions were related to two scales of the IBT at each combina- tion of goal characteristic and temporal phase in the imagined goal sequence.

METHOD

Subjects

Complete data were obtained from 152 subjects. They participated to fulfill a course requirement in an introductory psychology course.

Procedure

Subjects were instructed to form images of several phases of a hypothetical situation, and to indicate their reactions to each phase on seven-point rat ing scales in a booklet. They were to imagine that they were really in the situation described in the booklet and to make their images "as vivid and lifelike" as possible. The phases were (1) "sitting in class and the teacher announces that there will be an in-class test tha t will take place in one week," (2) "just sitting down to begin studying for the test," (3) "in the midst of studying for the test," (4) "just finished studying for the test," (5) "taking the test," and (6) "the test has been returned." Imaginary settings were used rather than actual ones in this study in order to achieve feasibility in systematic manipu- lation of contextual variables. Results will hopefully be meaningful, however, under the assumption that it is essentially the setting as perceived that influences reactions.

Affective reactions were measured with the Nowlis-Green Mood Ad- jective Check List, modified by use of a seven-point numerical scale


rather then the original four-point letter scale. Subjects rated the extent to which each of 33 adjectives applied to them. From this, 11 mood scores were derived for each phase, based on factor analyses by Nowlis (1970), with three adjectives defining each of the 11 mood factors. The factors are Aggression (essentially anger or irritation), Anxi- ety, Surgency (playfulness), Elation, Concentration, Fatigue, Social affection ("affectionate," "kindly," "warmhearted"), Regret (essentially, sadness), Skepticism, Egotism ("boastful," "egotistic," "self-centered"), and Vigor (roughly, activation or arousal). We also added three adjectives ("pressured," "imposed upon," and "coerced") to define a score for "extrinsicness" of motivation called Pressure. Other ratings following the mood-scale ratings included attributional judgments on seven- point scales of the extent to which subjects expected performance to depend on (a) ability, (b) effort, (c) luck, or (d) test difficulty. Ratings were given at each of the six phases.

Finally, subjects worked with an instrument which consisted of all the items of the Anxious Overconcern and the High Self-expectations scales of Jones' Irrational Belief Test. Jones defined High Self-expectations as "the idea that one should be thoroughly competent, adequate, and achieving in all possible respects if one is to consider oneself worthwhile." Anxious Overconcern was defined as "the idea that if something is or may be dangerous or fearsome, one should be terribly concerned about it and should keep dwelling on the possibility of its occurring" (Wicker, Richardson, & Lambert, 1985, p.162). Only these two factors, which our previous research had suggested are especially related to goal pursuit and affective reactions, were included in order to achieve a manageable focus when we examined relationships over a number of different conditions.

Conditions

Four goal conditions defined a 2 X 2 factorial design with goal difficulty and goal specificity as between-subject factors. Subjects in the low~specific condition were asked to imagine that they had decided to set the definite goal of making a C on the test, "a goal which will be moderately easy for you to obtain." Those in the high~specific condition were to imagine that their definite goal was the "extremely difficult" goal of an A. Those in the low~indefinite condition were asked to imagine that they were not considering a specific goal for the test and were not concerned to make a high grade on it. Those in the high~indefinite


condition imagined that they were not considering a definite goal for the test, but wanted to do the "best you can" on it. To help establish a uniform frame of reference, these instructions were preceded in all conditions by the statement: "In terms of the difficulty of this particular course for you, imagine one in which it would be extremely difficult to make an A, but moderately easy to get a C." In phase 6, subjects were to imagine that they had received a C on the test (in easy-goal conditions), or an A (in difficult-goal conditions).

RESULTS

Of primary concern are the correlations of IBT scores with other measures as a function of treatment conditions (goal type or phase). Table 1 shows correlations of Anxious Overconcern with each mood score, separately for Easy and for Difficult goals. Anxious Overconcern had significant correlations with two of the four attribution ratings; these are also in Table 1. It can be seen that this IBT score had a more positive relationship to each of the mood scores with Easy goals than with Difficult goals. In ten cases the correlation is significantly different for the two kinds of goal at p < .05 by one-tailed test, and in seven cases there is a significant correlations (at p < .05) for one type of goal but not the other. Specifically, Anxious Overconcern is negatively related to Surgency and Elation for Difficult but not for Easy goals, whereas it is positively related to Aggression, Fatigue, Regret, Skepti- cism, and Pressure for Easy but not for Difficult goals. Anxious Over- concern does seem to be related to Anxiety and to Difficulty attributions regardless of goal type, but otherwise relationships between the irrational belief and affective reactions are clearly different for Easy and for Difficult goals. These differences are apparently not artifacts of differences in means between the two goal types, because there were no significant or substantial pre-outcome differences in mean scores on any mood scale (see Wicker, Brown, Hagen, Boring, and Wiehe, 1990), yet the correlational differences in Table 1 were at least as strong in pre-outcome as in post-outcome phases. Therefore, there is a significant tendency for high Anxiously Overconcerned raters to report less Elation and Surgency than other raters with difficult goals but to report more Pressure, Skepticism, Regret, Fatigue, and Aggres- sion than others with easy goals.

Correlations with High Self-expectations for Difficult and for Easy

152 Journa l of Rat ional -Emot ive & Cogni t ive-Behavior Therapy

Table 1

Corre la t ions o f the A n x i o u s O v e r c o n c e r n Sca le w i th Other M e a s u r e s as a F u n c t i o n o f Goal Dif f icul ty , a n d S i g n i f i c a n c e

o f D i f f e r e n c e B e t w e e n T h e s e Corre la t ions

Easy Goal Difficult Goal Significance of r r Difference

1. Aggression .29* .01 <.05 2. Anxiety .45** .33** - - 3. Surgency .07 - .27* <.05 4. Elation .02 - .25* <.05 5. Concentration .16 - .03 - - 6. Fatigue .37** .09 <.05 7. Social Affection .10 - .18 <.05 8. Regret .47** .14 <.05 9. Skepticism .39** .08 <.05

10. Egotism .12 - .16 <.05 11. Vigor .04 - .16 12. Pressure .31"* .00 <.05 13. Luck Attribution .22' - .05 <.05 14. Difficulty Attribution .29* .31"* - -

'p < .10 *p < .05 **p < .01

goals are shown in Table 2. Although there are fewer significant differences in correlation between the two types of goal in this table, it can be seen that again the correlation is more positive with Easy goals in all but one of the rows in the table. Like Anxious Overconcern, High Self-expectation is significantly correlated with Fatigue, Regret, Skepticism, and Pressure with Easy goals but not with Difficult goals.

Correlations were also examined separately by phase; all mood scales or attribution ratings which were significantly correlated with Anxious Overconcern in at least one phase are shown in Table 3. There were several measures, such as Anxiety, Regret, Skepticism, Difficulty attribution, and perhaps Fatigue, which were fairly consis-


Table 2

Correlat ions of the High Sel f -expectat ions Scale with Other Measures as a Funct ion of Goal Difficulty, and Signif icance

of Dif ferences B e t w e e n These Correlations

Easy Goal Difficult Goal Significance of r r Difference

1. Aggression .20' .06 - - 2. Anxie ty .31"* .16 - - 3. Surgency .01 - . 1 0 - - 4. Ela t ion .01 - . 1 2 - - 5. Concent ra t ion .14 - . 0 8 - - 6. Fa t igue .30** .12 - - 7. Social Affection .03 - . 2 1 - - 8. Regre t .35** - . 0 6 <.01 9. Skept icism .34** .03 <.05

10. Egot ism .18 .07 - - 11. Vigor - . 1 2 .00 - - 12. Pressure .28* .02 - - 13. Abil i ty At t r ibut ion .25* - . 0 6 <.05

'p < .10 *p < .05 **p < .01

t en t ly re la ted to this i r ra t ional belief across all phases. Others, however, such as Aggression, Surgency, Pressure, and Luck at t r ibut ion, seemed to re la te to this belief only in ear ly phases; the relat ionship was reported to dissipate over time. Concentra t ion re la ted to this be- l ief only in the phase of hav ing finished studying, as if those h igh in Anxious Overconcern, but not those low in it, found it difficult to re lax the i r concentra t ion on the task when the study period was supposedly over. It appears, then, tha t the relat ionship of the i r ra t ional belief to affective and a t t r ibu t iona l factors was perceived as depending on the stage of the goal-pursui t process as well as on the na tu re of the goal.

For both IBT scales, correlat ions seemed not to vary wi th goal clar- i ty beyond chance fluctuations.

154 Journal of Rational-Emotive & Cognitive,Behavior Therapy

Table 3

Correlat ions of the A n x i o u s Overconcern Scale wi th Other Measures as a Funct ion of P h a s e of Goal Pursui t

Phase

1 2 3 4 5 6 Test Begin Immersed Finish Taking Test

Measures Announced to Study in Studying Studying Test Returned

Anxiety Regret Skepticism Difficulty

attribution Fatigue Aggression Surgency Pressure Luck

attribution Concentration

.30** .37** .30** .26** .30** .20*

.37** .26** .27** .24** .29** .17"

.28** .26** .16" .18" .20** .18"

.34** .21" .20* .26** .28** .14'

.32** .13 .22** .09 .17" .26**

.26** .19" .19" .13 .08 .10

.16" - .07 - .07 --.10 - .01 --.03

.23** .13 .10 .15' .08 .13

.17" .14' .07 .08 .05 .04

.04 - .02 .02 .16" .00 - .03

'p < .10 *p < .05 **p < .01

DISCUSSION

First, results suggest that Anxious Overconcern and High Self-expectations are associated with negative consequences--in academic test-preparation settings as well as interpersonal and clinical ones. Anxious Overconcern was--under certain conditions--related positively to six negative moods and negatively to two positive moods. That finding might reflect, in part, the affective wording of some Anx- ious Overconcern items in the IBT (Zemore & Elgard, 1979; Wicker, Richardson & Lambert, 1985). However, maladaptive correlates were also suggested in its relationships to the measures of causal attribution, which are not affective in wording. Anxious Overconcern was related to attributions of task difficulty and luck, which tend to be external in locus, rather than to ability or effort attributions, which tend to be internal (Weiner, 1986). Such external attributions may


contribute to lack of felt controllability and failure to take respon- sibility in a situation. Likewise, High Self-expectation was related to five of the negative affective reactions. In one condition it was related to "internal" ability attributions, but not to effort at tr ibutions--which are also internal but more often associated with belief in changeabil- i ty and controllability of outcomes.

Thus general maladaptive correlates of the irrational beliefs were suggested. However, the data also suggested that these correlates depend on specific contextual factors, such as what kind of goal is being pursued and what stage one has reached in its pursuit. That finding seems consistent with the view that irrational beliefs are generalized, long-term cognitive structures which will have a greater probability of being translated into specific self statements in some motivational or situational contexts than in others (Smith, 1982). Even a belief such as Anxious Overconcern, which is virtually defined in terms of temporal stability--i .e. , as the belief that "one should keep dwelling on the possibility" of fearful consequences--was rated as affecting some feelings only in the early phases of goal pursuit. Initial associations with feelings of pressure, annoyance, and loss of playfulness dropped out with increasing immersion or progress in imagined pursuit of the goal. The same pattern occurred with luck attributions; it is as if reductions in the affective consequences of Anxious Overconcern reflect a decrease in felt helplessness as material was mastered in the process of preparing for and taking the test.

It is apparently not just that an abstract belief is more likely to be aroused in some contexts than in others, however, but also that it may be aroused with different consequences in the two contexts. Thus it was indicated that Anxious Overconcern has affective consequences with both difficult and easy goals, but the effect with easy goals is primarily to increase negative affect, whereas with difficult goals the effect is more often to decrease positive affect (a result which adds to previous support for independence of positive and negative affect; Di- ener & Emmons, 1984). Perhaps, with easy goals, threats to self esteem by non-attainment are more salient than enhancement of self esteem by a t t a inment - -and this effect may be magnified by Anxious Overconcern--whereas, with difficult goals, enhancement of self esteem by at ta inment is more salient than threats to self esteem by non- a t t a inment - -bu t this effect is dampened by Anxious Overconcern. If so, it can be said that the world view is affecting perceptions of the activating event, but this process is also interacting with qualities of the event itself.


It is also possible that relationships depend, not only on type of goal and stage of goal pursuit, but on an interaction between these two contextual factors. For example, the mood scale of Pressure correlated with Anxious Overconcern .22 (p < .10), .15, .10, .39 (p < .01), .17, and .29 (p < .05) over the six phases of goal pursuit with easy goals; the corresponding correlations with difficult goals were .27 (p < .05), .08, .06, - .14, - .08, and - .18. Thus in the "test-first-announced" phase Pressure was related to Anxious Overconcern with both easy and difficult goals, a result that might be expected if a feeling of "must" or "have to do it" is a component of this irrational belief. However, this correlation tended to reverse (become negative) after study phases with difficult goals, although it tended to remain positive across phases with easy goals. It is possible that, with difficult goals, subjects higher in Anxious Overconcern would study more thoroughly and thus feel less residual Pressure after the study period, whereas that would not happen with easy goals. Thus, it is possible that this scale is tap- ping rational as well as irrational aspects of this belief, in that it is arguably rational to prepare for difficult tasks so thoroughly that one does not later feel residual pressure. When the task is easier, however, the belief may be associated with counterproductive feelings of pressure after the preparation phase.

Conclusions must be tempered, of course, because of the analogue methodology used here. To the extent that ratings were based on re- cent memories of studying for actual tests, they may reflect memory bias. To the extent that they were not memory-based, they may be biased by a priori expectations or perceptions (though this is perhaps reduced by the fact that only single, specific situations were the object of each rating; Hurlburt & Melancon, 1987). A rating bias which would fully explain our results, however, would have to entail a con- figuration of expectations about how patterns of relationships between goal-pursuit and mood interact with abstract, general beliefs--not just a simple response bias. An expectation that is that complex but with- out basis in reality would itself be a phenomenon to be explained, and (because emotions are cognitively based) could help create an emotional reality even if it had not reflected one. Thus, even though conclusions must be tentative until confirmed with other methodologies, it seems most parsimonious to propose that our results reflect some actual context-sensitivity of relationships.

Clearly, the question of how B functions in the ABC paradigm does have a complex answer (Grieger, 1986). The current data provide some tentative support for a state conception of irrational beliefs, and they


help elaborate the hypothesis t ha t the effects of beliefs are not auto- mat ic but depend on the media t ing and/or in te rac t ing effect of other variables. While these other var iables surely do not dictate choice of beliefs, par t icu la r beliefs are more sal ient in some contexts t han in others and the i r consequences may also vary with context. If each belief is, in fact, " in terwoven wi th processes typically discussed in the terminology of motivat ion, emotion, values, and personal i ty characteristics" (Wicker, Richardson, & Lambert , 1985, p. 166), then it would be useful to have more studies t ha t focus on how i r ra t ional beliefs in terac t wi th mot ivat ional variables and mot ivat ion-re la ted situa- t ional variables.

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Interaction of irrational beliefs with goal pursuit