“In the two laboratory studies, participants were asked to complete a personality assessment and were then led to have either positive, negative, or no expectations about the results. Participants’ affective (emotional) state was assessed prior to—and directly after—hearing a negative (in the case of study 1a) or positive (in the case of study 1b) outcome. In the field study, participants were undergraduate introductory psychology students who were asked about their expectations of their performance in an upcoming exam. Then, a day after the exam, positive and negative emotion were assessed. Taken together, the results of these three studies suggest that anticipating bad outcomes may be an ineffective path to positive emotion.”
Locate and read the article
Golub, S. A., Gilbert, D. T., & Wilson, T. D. (2009). Anticipating one’s troubles: The costs and benefits of negative expectations. Emotion, 9, 227–281. doi:10.1037/a0014716
Then, after reading the article, answer the following:
- For each of the studies, how did Golub, Gilbert, and Wilson (2009) operationally define the positive expectations?
- How did they operationally define affect?
- In experiments 1a and 1b, what were the independent variable(s)? What where the dependent variable(s)?
- This article includes three different studies. What are the advantages to using multiple methods?
- On what basis did the authors conclude, “Our studies suggest that the affective benefits of negative expectations may be more elusive than their costs” (p. 280)?
- Evaluate the external validity of the 2 experiments and field study conducted by Golub, Gilbert, & Wilson (2009)
- How good do you think was the internal validity of this research?”
