Progress-focused

  Sometimes, maybe even often, it is possible to see something positive in adversity. The setback is not just something we have to survive or overcome. We can then see it as a harbinger for growth or a positive breakthrough.

  Growth mindset interventions can sometimes have a enormous positive impact in lives. That shifting from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset can lead to meaningful changes in the lives of individuals is something I've seen up close several times in my own environment. In a recent book there is an impressive example of such a strong positive impact. Here are the words of the founder of mindset theory, Carol Dweck :

Research in self-determination theory has shown that individuals who are autonomously motivated make more progress and feel better. Research has also shown that autonomy support by parents, teachers or supervisors increases the autonomous motivation of children, students and employees respectively. That sounds logical and simple. But there is a little more to the interplay between these variables. New research by Levine et al. (2020) shows that an upward spiral occurs between autonomous motivation and autonomy support.

Who still wants to have a leadership role in a large organization in these complex times? The role of leaders seems quite challenging. To begin with, organizations themselves are often extremely complex. As a leader within organizations, you are faced with all kinds of problems, differences of opinion and diverse interests. As a leader, how can you ever have the information, knowledge and skills to bridge these contradictions and to find solutions to these problems? In addition to that, consider the environments in which organizations have to operate. These are also characterized by enormous complexity, change and uncertainty. As a leader in all this turbulence, how can you ever know for sure which way the organization should go? Doesn't being a leader require almost superhuman energy, capabilities, and social skills? 

Traditionally, philosophers have studied wisdom. But within psychology, this subject has received relatively little attention until recently, especially when compared to a subject like intelligence. But this has changed in recent years. There has been more consensus on what we mean by wisdom, to what extent it occurs in humans and what it correlates with. Grossmann & Brienza (2018) describe in a new article how wisdom can make a unique contribution to solving the complex issues of our time.  

Intelligence is relatively important in both psychology and Western societies. Two Canadian psychologists have pointed out the importance of other aspects of our cognitive functioning that they consider to be just as important and have wrongly received less attention. One is Keith Stanovich who argues for much more attention to rationality. The other is Igor Grossmann who points out the great importance of wise reasoning. In two new articles that he co-wrote with colleagues, he explains what wise reasoning is, why it is so important and how we can teach it. 

The " Pyramid of Maslow " is one of the more famous ideas in psychology. Abraham Maslow formulated the basis for this idea in his publications " A Theory of Motivation " (1943) and Motivation and Personality (1954).  In short, this idea implies that people have hierarchically ordered basic needs that are essential for healthy development. This idea has proved intuitively appealing as it has become very popular within and outside of psychology. That it is popular in psychology is shown by the fact that it is hardly missing in any introductory psychology handbook. That it has become popular outside of psychology is shown, among other things, by the fact that a joke in which WiFi has been added as a new basic need to the  Maslow pyramid is immediately understood by almost everyone. It is therefore not surprising that we regularly receive questions about how Maslow's pyramid differs from the now dominant motivation theory within psychology, the self-determination...

The recently published Handbook of Wise Interventions (Walton & Crum, Eds., 2020) provides an overview of wise interventions through contributions from leading researchers. These are brief interventions based on social psychological research that lead to shifts in the way people understand themselves, others and social situations. These other ways of thinking can help make progress in a variety of contexts. Think of school performance, health, well-being and personal relationships. The effects of these types of interventions can sometimes lead to long-term improvements ( read why ). 

The relatively new scientific discipline of implementation science aims to bridge the gap between science and practice. Soicher et al., 2020 wrote an introduction to implementation science for higher education. Below I briefly summarize their paper. 

The illusion of understanding is our tendency to overestimate how well we understand things. This illusion, also known as "knowledge illusion" and "illusion of explanatory depth," occurs in all of us.  The book The Knowledge Illusion by cognitive scientists Steven Sloman & Philip Fernbach is devoted entirely to this cognitive bias. Below I explain what this illusion entails and why it is important to know about it. 

People don't always behave the same. One situation evokes something different in us than the other. That's why we behave differently in different situations. But which aspects of our personality are relatively stable and which are relatively situation-dependent? And which characteristics of situations mainly evoke differences in how we behave? A new study sheds some light on these questions. 

Does autonomy-supportive teaching also work in other cultures than Western cultures? Researchers Yu et al. (2016) conducted a longitudinal study of the effects of autonomy support among Chinese students transitioning from primary to secondary education (N = 236). The study lasted 18 months. The researchers administered questionnaires at 4 times: in the autumn of the 1st class (T1), in the spring of the 1st class (T2), in the autumn of the 2nd class (T3) and in the spring of the 2nd class ( T4).  Content of the questionnaires  These questionnaires related to  Teacher Autonomy Support (TAS), experienced autonomy support by teachers. Scale consisting of 5 items.  Basic psychological needs satisfaction (BPNS), fulfillment of basic psychological needs. Scale consisting of 18 items.  School engagement . Scale consisting of 15 items.  Anxiety and depression . Scale consisting of 8 items.  Expectations  Based on the self-determination theory, the rese...

  A new study ( Sheldon et al., 2020 ) combines the self-concordance theory with the attribution theory. 

  Student engagement plays an important role in achieving good school performance. Traditionally, researchers have assumed that there are three ways in which students can be engaged (behavioral, emotional and cognitive). In two longitudinal studies, Reeve et al. (2020 ) show that student engagement needs to be redefined in two ways.