Rozprawy doktorskie na temat „Cognitive appraisal theory”

The program of research reported here was concerned with what makes difficult face-to-face communication in work settings difficult. A framework for analysing this problem was developed by bringing together the disparate literatures of communications theory and cognitive appraisal theory. The framework identified the outcome of an instance of face-to-face communication at work as a function of features of the situation, the appraisal that the worker makes in the situation, and the response strategies selected for dealing with the situation. The research program was directed to operationalising these constructs and studying their interrelationship. The first two studies reported in the thesis (Studies 1 and 2) revealed the types of communication encounters that are most difficult to manage at work, and offered insight into why these situations are difficult. Qualitative and quantitative data were gathered and the quantitative data analysed using multidimensional scaling techniques. The results provided a taxonomy of difficult communication situations in the workplace. The next two studies (Studies 3 and 4) focused on the development of measures of primary and secondary appraisal, and on a taxonomy of response strategies applicable to work settings. A new measure of primary appraisal was developed from qualitative data pertaining specifically to the domain of difficult communication contexts. Principal components analysis was used in the development of the response strategies instrument. Study 5, the final study, reported the results of the application of cognitive appraisal theory to the context of difficult communication at work. In this study, the theory was applied to four difficult communication situations identified in Study 1, and the relationships among appraisal, response strategy, and outcome were investigated using principal components analysis and, subsequently, hierarchical regression analysis. The results indicated that, as the appraisal of the context varies, so too does the choice of response strategy, lending support to the transactional model. Appraisal contributes significantly to response strategy choice and to the outcome of the situation over and above that offered by response strategies alone. In addition, the findings revealed that appraisal of the situation differ across situations and according to the status of the other person in the encounter. The findings of the series of studies reported here point to the value of viewing difficult communication situations in the workplace in terms of the interrelated constructs of situations, appraisals, strategies rather than, as more commonly, in terms of characteristics of ‘difficult’ persons. Some situations are inherently more difficult than others, appraisals alter the difficulty level of situations, and the availability of response strategies influence outcome. Appraisal is, however, a construct of central importance, in much the same way it is in the research context from which it was appropriated, viz stress research. Appraisal contributes significantly to choice of response strategy and directly to outcome over an above the contribution of response strategy. The research program was not without its shortcomings, among them the reliance on retrospective reports of participants about their behaviour, and these need to be addressed in future research. The findings as they stand do, however, point to more useful ways of conceptualising difficult situations at work and devising methods of intervention that will ensure better outcomes, in a significant area of life in the modern workplace.

The program of research reported here was concerned with what makes difficult face-to-face communication in work settings difficult. A framework for analysing this problem was developed by bringing together the disparate literatures of communications theory and cognitive appraisal theory. The framework identified the outcome of an instance of face-to-face communication at work as a function of features of the situation, the appraisal that the worker makes in the situation, and the response strategies selected for dealing with the situation. The research program was directed to operationalising these constructs and studying their interrelationship. The first two studies reported in the thesis (Studies 1 and 2) revealed the types of communication encounters that are most difficult to manage at work, and offered insight into why these situations are difficult. Qualitative and quantitative data were gathered and the quantitative data analysed using multidimensional scaling techniques. The results provided a taxonomy of difficult communication situations in the workplace. The next two studies (Studies 3 and 4) focused on the development of measures of primary and secondary appraisal, and on a taxonomy of response strategies applicable to work settings. A new measure of primary appraisal was developed from qualitative data pertaining specifically to the domain of difficult communication contexts. Principal components analysis was used in the development of the response strategies instrument. Study 5, the final study, reported the results of the application of cognitive appraisal theory to the context of difficult communication at work. In this study, the theory was applied to four difficult communication situations identified in Study 1, and the relationships among appraisal, response strategy, and outcome were investigated using principal components analysis and, subsequently, hierarchical regression analysis. The results indicated that, as the appraisal of the context varies, so too does the choice of response strategy, lending support to the transactional model. Appraisal contributes significantly to response strategy choice and to the outcome of the situation over and above that offered by response strategies alone. In addition, the findings revealed that appraisal of the situation differ across situations and according to the status of the other person in the encounter. The findings of the series of studies reported here point to the value of viewing difficult communication situations in the workplace in terms of the interrelated constructs of situations, appraisals, strategies rather than, as more commonly, in terms of characteristics of ‘difficult’ persons. Some situations are inherently more difficult than others, appraisals alter the difficulty level of situations, and the availability of response strategies influence outcome. Appraisal is, however, a construct of central importance, in much the same way it is in the research context from which it was appropriated, viz stress research. Appraisal contributes significantly to choice of response strategy and directly to outcome over an above the contribution of response strategy. The research program was not without its shortcomings, among them the reliance on retrospective reports of participants about their behaviour, and these need to be addressed in future research. The findings as they stand do, however, point to more useful ways of conceptualising difficult situations at work and devising methods of intervention that will ensure better outcomes, in a significant area of life in the modern workplace.
Thesis (PhD Doctorate)
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
School of Applied Psychology
Faculty of Health Sciences
Full Text

The research investigated consumers' decision-making process during pre-adoption and consumption stages of consumer-based technologies via the context of mobile apps. In an attempt to integrate consumer resistance in predicting the end-decisions to adopt/not adopt or continue/discontinue the use of a technology, the study presented some interesting findings. Employing the theoretical framework of cognitive appraisal theory, the study integrated the TAM, paradoxes of technology, and coping strategies to propose and empirically validate a process-based model of decision-making.Data were collected via a self-administered web-based survey. Two versions of the questionnaire were used to elicit consumers' responses from adopters and non-adopters of mobile apps. A total of 646 smartphone owners responded to the survey, of which, 375 respondents had downloaded apps in the past and 271 respondents had not downloaded any apps. The proposed hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling.Results demonstrated that most part of the TAM3 framework is replicable in a consumer-based setting. Additional findings provided evidence for the strong role of goal relevance in the TAM framework. The study also supported the effect of perceived usefulness and perceived ease-of-use on different technology paradoxes. The factor structure of the technology paradoxes suggested three distinct dimensions. Consumers' evaluation of control, freedom, newness, assimilation, and fulfillment of need as derived from the use of mobile apps was captured by Perceived Benefits. The construct, Perceived Apprehension, comprised of consumers' assessment of the chaos, enslavement, obsolesce, isolation, and creation of needs as a result of using mobile apps. Finally, the factor, Perceived Obscurity, investigated the confusion and/or ambiguity within individuals by measuring their perceived inefficiency and incompetence in using mobile apps.Most importantly, separate investigations of the pre-adoption and consumption stages highlighted consumers' use of varying degrees of resistance as influenced by their appraisal of the technology. The non-adopters resisted the use of mobile apps by either being indifferent towards it or postponing the decision to adopt. The adopters of mobile apps were also found to reject its use by distancing, abandoning, or neglecting the apps. The role of positive coping investigated the positive behavioral tendencies employed by consumers to overcome the challenges of using mobile apps. Managerial implications are discussed.

The increasing evidence of the organizational demands encountered by sports performers provides a fertile ground for research. There is now a requirement to move beyond describing the organizational stressors that performers encounter in order to understand the complex appraisal and coping processes that athletes engage in when experiencing organizational stress. This thesis aimed to conduct a detailed examination of these processes in high-level sport performers. Chapter 2 describes a narrative review of the extant appraisal literature that has examined the roles of situational and personal influences on appraising. In order to generate a detailed understanding of this literature, the review includes findings from the general, occupational, organizational, and sport psychology literatures. This review was instrumental in determining the direction of the research described in later chapters. Chapter 3 aimed to narrow the focus of the thesis to organizational stress transactions in sport performers and therefore, describes a diary study that explored swimmers appraisals of organizational stressors. The findings of this study provided insight into the complex process of appraisal and suggested that appraisals are related to the situational property of the stressor encountered. In addition, the results pointed to the importance of exploring the coping strategies that athletes use to manage organizational stressors in future research. Chapter 4 describes a narrative review of the literature that has examined athletes ways of coping with organizational stressors. Due to the limited sport psychology research in this area and in order to extend current knowledge in sport, prominent findings from the organizational and occupational psychology domains were considered. Chapter 5 was designed to extend the findings of Chapter 3 and the existing literature by examining the coping strategies that swimmers use in response to organizational stressors. This chapter highlighted the complexity of coping and suggested that appraisal mechanisms are linked to the coping family employed. Chapter 6 aimed to take a more complete approach to examining organizational stress transactions by exploring various components of stress transactions. The study presented in this chapter suggested that the appraisal an athlete makes is influential in determining the performance outcome that they will experience. Collectively, the chapters described above highlighted appraising as the pivotal element in stress transactions and established a rationale for the cognitive-behavioral based intervention that is described in Chapter 7. The study presented in Chapter 7 aimed to alleviate some of the negative outcomes of organizational stress by optimizing sport performers appraisals. The findings suggested that cognitive restructuring was a useful technique for achieving this aim. The program of research presented in this thesis suggests that appraising is the pivotal element of organizational stress transactions in sport and that appraising can be optimized in order to alleviate the negative emotional and performance outcomes of maladaptive appraisals. In addition, the research highlights the importance of considering the situational properties of stressors, the complexity of coping, and the relationships between components of stress transactions in future research. Further, the findings presented within this thesis suggest that future research should aim to make methodological and measurement advances and examine, in detail, performers appraisal and coping processes.

The restaurant industry is a highly customer-driven field. Therefore, it is imperative that restaurateurs consider customer expectations with regard to restaurant menus. The purpose of this experimental study is to examine the effects of menu format (i.e., paper or digital) and amount of nutritional information (i.e., extensive, brief, or none) on customer perceptions of the effectiveness, perceived ease of use, and information quality of the menu. Furthermore, this research intends to test the effect of these three menu attributes on the outcomes of value and satisfaction in order to assess the competitive advantage of one format over the other. The Cognitive Appraisal and Information Processing Theories provide structure to the proposed conceptual framework and give credence to the findings. This study also fills gaps in the present research by not only ameliorating weaknesses of extant studies, but also by examining several different aspects of restaurant menus simultaneously within a single study.

As consumers or customers, when we go into a shop and buy a product or, these days, when we buy something online, we expect not only the product itself to be fit for purpose but we also expect that we, the customers, get good customer service. If we get good or excellent customer service, we leave the shop feeling satisfied and positive in some way. How do shops, online or otherwise, or any other organisations, such as banks, hospitals or universities help to ensure that their employees deliver the appropriate customer service? It is still the main challenge. Thus, there are instances when a customer does not get the service that they deserve, or believe that they deserve. A happy, satisfied customer may perhaps tell others and thus encourage others to buy or go to that particular shop or organisation thus benefiting the business (new customers, who will spend money). However, there is evidence that an angry, upset dissatisfied customer will almost certainly tell five, or perhaps more, people of their bad experience. This is, clearly, bad for the business in question. No wonder, then, that businesses want, and need, to ensure that they have happy, satisfied customers and not dissatisfied or grudgeholders. Given the importance of customer satisfaction to businesses/organisations, the literature in this area demonstrates that there is still much to further understand about not only customer satisfaction but, importantly, customer dissatisfaction. Dissatisfaction can be short and easily forgotten and it might be argued that this might not negatively affect a business/organisation too much in terms of future business. However, if a customer experiences or believes that they have suffered a great deal of negative emotions such as anger, fear, disappointment, betrayal and/or disgust, as well as perhaps telling many people, potential future customers about their bad experience they may well, also, take more direct action in the form of either making a formal complaint to the business/organisation, or perhaps retaliating in some way either immediately or at the nearest opportunity. Such a customer may hold a grudge against the business/organisation which is not only bad for the customer for their mental health (holding a grudge is negative) but is also bad for the business/organisation, too. Unfortunately, despite vital advances in dissatisfaction and complaining behaviour research, the psychological cognitive-emotive process underlying consumers’ coping behaviour have been neglected in the literature, as major work on this issue did not take into account the different negative emotions responsible for grudge and their impact on the grudgeholding coping responses. Dealing with those customers who are more than dissatisfied is time consuming for a business/organisation. Time is money. It is therefore important that, if businesses/organisations are to better understand their customers’ feeling and thinking to be able to predict their behaviours in order to make them happy returners instead of angry revengers. Therefore, it is essential to understand the experiences of grudgeholding customers through a process model and to look closely at issues related to grudgeholding, including the wide range of retaliatory behaviours. These might well vary according to factors such as the cost of the product (dissatisfaction might be greater for a goods or service costing a lot of money compared to something costing very little) but it may also vary according to individual characteristics of the customers themselves. Gender also plays its part, perhaps, that is, men and women may possibly think, feel and behave differently when it comes to holding grudge or retaliating as always controversial disputes exist in terms of gender differences. For example, females complain and spread the word more aligning with their communal stereotypical nature, and males like bargains and shop to win according to their agentic stereotypical nature. There is a need to further explore the consumer grudgeholding behaviour and why emotion is an important factor when talking about grudgeholding, the behaviours undertaken by those who hold a grudge and the impact of grudges on businesses/organisations if businesses/organisations are to better deal with their customers. Therefore, a cognitive-emotive process model is developed based mainly on cognitive appraisal theory to better understand consumers grudgeholding through deeper insight on their cognitions and emotions. The model is designed due to the lack of attention to the role of emotion in the dissatisfying marketplace experience. The model presents cognitive appraisal as the key element in the evaluation of grudgeholding consumer stress and aggression. Stressful appraisal outcomes are posited to elicit emotive reactions that, in combination with cognitive appraisal, impact the type of coping strategy used by the grudgeholder. Two coping strategies (problem focused and emotion focused) are recognized and discussed. Key propositions are presented to answer some questions about consumer grudgeholding behaviours such as (causes of grudge, product or service involved, the cost, the emotions generated, the coping behaviours like complaining and word-of-mouth, the corrective actions, the current emotions, the purchase intentions and future behaviours). To achieve the aims of this study, the research described in this thesis adopts the positivist research, quantitative research approach. According to the exploratory nature of this research, self-administered questionnaires are used for data generation. Closed and open-ended questions (specifically propping questions) were both used in the research as a way of motivating the respondent’s memory to retrieve a previous experience and recall actions and behaviours. Using both closed and open-ended questions provides the research with expected and unexpected answers. The research used non-probability sampling; namely, convenience sampling consisted of 786 responses to undergraduates and postgraduates British students whose age groups range from 18 to 39.The survey data were subsequently edited, coded and entered in SPSS 20 for analysis. The ultimate contribution of this study stems from explaining the consumer grudgeholding phenomenon by designing a cognitive-emotive process model that takes the role of consumer’s emotion into account. The findings revealed that emotion made a critical difference, especially anger. Gender gap was relatively small between the young British males and females. Angry females shared their negative experiences with others more than angry males. Besides, females shop to love and males shop to win.

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is characterized by recurrent unwanted intrusive thoughts that evoke enormous distress and contribute to functional impairment. Cognitive theories of OCD posit that appraisals about the significance of thoughts are critical in the development and persistence of obsessions. In his theory; Rachman (1997) suggests that appraisals of unwanted thoughts distinguish clinical obsessions from normal intrusive thoughts; thoughts appraised as important and personally significant will be upsetting and recur. Moreover, cognitive theories propose that appraisals motivate thought suppression, which results in a paradoxical increase in the frequency of thoughts. This dissertation project was designed to examine several key tenets of Rachman's (1997) cognitive theory of obsessions. First, if appraisals of unwanted intrusive thoughts are relevant to OCD, a positive relationship should exist between appraisals and OCD symptomatology. To explore this hypothesis, nonclinical participants in Studies 1 and 2 read four vignettes, each portraying a prototypical obsession of aggressive, sexual, blasphemous, and racist themes, and indicated their appraisals about the personal significance of the intrusive thoughts. Questionnaires assessing obsessive-compulsive (OC) symptoms, OC beliefs, and depression were also administered. Results revealed that appraisals of the intrusive thoughts were related to subclinical OC symptoms and OC beliefs. Moreover, there was evidence that appraisals varied according to thought content and thought frequency. Second, the cognitive theory of obsessions implicates thought suppression in the development and persistence of obsessions. The purpose of Study 3 was to investigate whether the effects of thought suppression would differ depending on the personal meaning of the target thought. Sixty high religious and 60 low religious participants were randomly assigned to suppress or not suppress a blasphemous target thought. Number of thought recurrences, thought control effort, anxiety, and mood were assessed. Results revealed that appraisals of personal meaning, when combined with thought control effort, were associated with negative mood and increased anxiety. There was also partial support that thought suppression had differential effects on target thought frequency according to the personal meaning of the target thought. The implications of this research are discussed with a focus on the proposed role of appraisals in the development of intrusive thoughts.
Arts, Faculty of
Psychology, Department of
Graduate

The Mechanistic Theory of Human Cognition (MTHC) is currently one of the most influential fundamental theories in the field of cognitive science. The main idea is to provide an account of what human neuro-cognitive complex mechanisms are and how to explain them. The theory proposes an ambitious revolutionary unified view of human cognition that can provide foundations and theoretical unification within cognitive science and between cognitive science and relevant portions of neuroscience. However, this proposal faces many challenges. The central objective of this work is to make a theoretical critical appraisal of MTHC. I critically analyse and evaluate whether MTHC provides a unifying account of human cognition and its explanation for cognitive science. I argue that MTHC provides a significant theoretical contribution for the field; however, it cannot offer the ambitious revolutionary integration that some of its most influential advocates promise.

The Mechanistic Theory of Human Cognition (MTHC) is currently one of the most influential fundamental theories in the field of cognitive science. The main idea is to provide an account of what human neuro-cognitive complex mechanisms are and how to explain them. The theory proposes an ambitious revolutionary unified view of human cognition that can provide foundations and theoretical unification within cognitive science and between cognitive science and relevant portions of neuroscience. However, this proposal faces many challenges. The central objective of this work is to make a theoretical critical appraisal of MTHC. I critically analyse and evaluate whether MTHC provides a unifying account of human cognition and its explanation for cognitive science. I argue that MTHC provides a significant theoretical contribution for the field; however, it cannot offer the ambitious revolutionary integration that some of its most influential advocates promise.

La problématique de cette thèse est de comprendre et d’expliquer l’influence de l’activation des composantes périphérique efférente, expressive motrice et des sentiments subjectifs de l’émotion sur la formation des attitudes et des intentions comportementales du consommateur exposé à l’annonce. Cette recherche s’inscrit dans le modèle des processus composants de l’émotion développé en neurosciences affectives. Pour tester nos hypothèses, nous avons réalisé une étude selon laquelle les épisodes émotionnels du consommateur résultent de l’évaluation cognitive et dynamique des évènements mis en scène dans l’annonce. Notre protocole expérimental est fondé sur la mesure verbale des sentiments subjectifs et sur la mesure de l’activité électrophysiologique du système nerveux autonome et du système nerveux somatique des participants exposés à 6 annonces publicitaires télévisées (3 annonces commerciales / 3 annonces sociales). Les résultats obtenus montrent que l’exposition à l’annonce suscite chez le consommateur une activation des composantes périphérique efférente, expressive motrice et des sentiments subjectifs de l’émotion. La prise en compte de l’activation de ces trois composantes permet alors d’expliquer la formation de l’attitude envers l’annonce, de l’attitude envers la marque et des intentions comportementales du consommateur. Les résultats indiquent également que les annonces ne suscitent pas systématiquement des épisodes émotionnels chez les consommateurs ; c’est la présence d’évènements pertinents dans l’annonce pour un consommateur qui déclenche un processus d’évaluation cognitif à l’origine des épisodes émotionnels
The issue of this thesis is to understand and explain the influence of the activation of peripheral efference, motor expression, and subjective feeling components on the behavioural and attitude intentions of the consumer exposed to advertising. This research belongs to the components process model which is part of the developed emotion in affective neurosciences. To test our hypotheses, we have carried out a study where the emotional episodes of the consumer result from the cognitive appraisal of salient events highlighted in the advertising. Our experimental protocol is based on the verbal measure of subjective feelings and on the measure of the electrophysiological activity of the autonomous nervous system and also the somatic nervous system of the participants exposed to six television commercials (three commercial ads/ three social ads). The achieved results show that the exposure to advertising reveals in the consumer an activation of the peripheral efference, motor expression, and subjective feeling components of emotion. The awareness of the activation of those three components leads then to explain the attitude formation towards the advertising and towards the brand as well as behavioural intentions of the consumer. The results illustrate as well that the advertising do not systematically awake emotional episodes among the consumers; it is the presence of salient events in the advertising for a consumer that triggers a cognitive appraisal process to the origin of the emotional episodes

This dissertation of a limited scope focuses on the Heads of Departments’ perceptions of the Integrated Quality Management System for teachers at selected quintile 5 Primary Schools in the East London Region of the Eastern Cape Province. It reveals the positive and negative aspects of the staff appraisal system, its implementation and purpose, as well as views on its improvement. By means of a qualitative case study and the Cognitive Evaluation Theory as theoretical framework, the researcher has determined that the Performance Measurement component of the appraisal system has a detrimental effect on the intrinsic motivation of teachers and that it should be separated from the Developmental Appraisal. Individual interviews with the Heads of Departments revealed the need for revising the assessment rubric in order for Performance Measurement to be conducted effectively.
Educational Leadership and Management
M. Ed. (Education Management)