Gráinne M Fitzsimons
Biographic Data
| ID | 104593 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Gráinne M Fitzsimons |
| GIVEN NAMES | Gráinne M |
| FAMILY NAME | Fitzsimons |
| SIGNATURE | FITZSIMONS G M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Duke University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 27 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 381 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 27 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2002 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 9 |
Tying the value of goals to social class
Although everyone strives toward valued goals, we suggest that not everyone will be perceived as doing so equally. In this research, we examine the tendency to use social class as a cue to understand the importance of others' goals. Six studies find evidence of a goal-value bias: Observers perceive goals across a variety of domains as more valuable to higher class than to lower class individuals (Studies 1-6). These perceptions do not appear to r…
For Better or for Worse? Outsourcing Self-Regulation and Goal Pursuit
In recent years, there has been increasing interest in how close relationships can impact personal goal pursuit. Extensive research on social support has shown that support often facilitates goal pursuit. However, Fitzsimons and Finkel found that perceived partner support may actually undermine motivation and decrease goal pursuit intentions. In this article, we report three well-powered studies ( N = 850) that investigated the conditions under w…
Coke vs. Pepsi: Brand Compatibility, Relationship Power, and Life Satisfaction
Individuals often evaluate, purchase, and consume brands in the presence of others, including close others. Yet relatively little is known about the role brand preferences play in relationships. In the present research, the authors explore how the novel concept of brand compatibility, defined as the extent to which individuals have similar brand preferences (e.g., both partners prefer the same brand of soda), influences life satisfaction. The aut…
Lean in messages increase attributions of women’s responsibility for gender inequality
states that women can tackle gender inequality themselves by overcoming the "internal barriers" (e.g., lack of confidence and ambition) that prevent success. We sought to explore the consequences of this type of women's empowerment ideology. Study 1 found that perceptions of women's ability to solve inequality were associated with attributions of women's responsibility to do so. Studies 2, 3, 5a, and 5b experimentally manipulated exposure to wome…
Power and the pursuit of a partner’s goals
We investigated how power dynamics in close relationships influence the tendency to devote resources to the pursuit of goals valued by relationship partners, hypothesizing that low (vs. high) power in relationships would lead individuals to center their individual goal pursuit around the goals of their partners. We study 2 related phenomena: partner goal prioritization, whereby individuals pursue goals on behalf of their partners, and partner goa…
Transactive goal dynamics.
Transactive goal dynamics (TGD) theory conceptualizes 2 or more interdependent people as 1 single self-regulating system. Six tenets describe the nature of goal interdependence, predict its emergence, predict when it will lead to positive goal outcomes during and after the relationship, and predict the consequences for the relationship. Both partners in a TGD system possess and pursue self-oriented, partner-oriented, and system-oriented goals, an…
Close relationships and self-regulation: How relationship satisfaction facilitates momentary goal pursuit
In the new millennium, scholars have built a robust intersection between close-relationships research and self-regulation research. However, virtually no work has investigated how the most basic and broad indicator of relationship quality, relationship satisfaction, affects self-regulation and vice versa. In the present research, we show that higher relationship satisfaction promotes a motivational mind-set that is conducive for effective self-re…
The burden of responsibility: Interpersonal costs of high self-control
The psychological literature on self-control has illustrated the many benefits experienced by people with high self-control, who are more successful both personally and interpersonally. In the current research, we explore the possibility that having high self-control also may have some interpersonal costs, leading individuals to become burdened by others' reliance. In Studies 1 and 2, we examined the effects of actors' self-control on observers' …
Motivated misperception: Self-regulatory resources affect goal appraisals
The Manhattan effect: When relationship commitment fails to promote support for partners’ interests
Research on close relationships has frequently contrasted one's own interests with the interests of the partner or the relationship and has tended to view the partner's and the relationship's interests as inherently aligned. The present article demonstrated that relationship commitment typically causes people to support their partner's personal interests but that this effect gets weaker to the extent that those interests misalign or even threaten…
Perceiving low self‐esteem in close others impedes capitalization and undermines the relationship
Disclosing positive experiences to others (i.e., “capitalization”) is associated with personal and interpersonal benefits (Gable & Reis, 2010). Unfortunately, people who perceive low self‐esteem ( LSE ) in close others are reluctant to capitalize, holding back from those they expect will be unsupportive (MacGregor & Holmes, 2011). In Study 1, we extend previous findings by demonstrating the importance of the type of experience disclosed; particip…
Act with authority: Romantic desire at the nexus of power possessed and power perceived
When local processing increases the appeal of healthy options
Managing motivational conflict: How self-esteem and executive resources influence self-regulatory responses to risk
This article explores how self-esteem and executive resources interact to determine responses to motivational conflict. One correlational and 3 experimental studies investigated the hypothesis that high and low self-esteem people undertake different self-regulatory strategies in "risky" situations that afford opportunity to pursue competing goals and that carrying out these strategies requires executive resources. When such resources are availabl…
Divergent effects of activating thoughts of God on self-regulation
Despite the cultural ubiquity of ideas and images related to God, relatively little is known about the effects of exposure to God representations on behavior. Specific depictions of God differ across religions, but common to most is that God is (a) an omnipotent, controlling force and (b) an omniscient, all-knowing being. Given these 2 characteristic features, how might exposure to the concept of God influence behavior? Leveraging classic and rec…
On the Dangers of Pulling a Fast One: Advertisement Disclaimer Speed, Brand Trust, and Purchase Intention
Two experiments demonstrated that fast (vs. normal-paced) end-of-advertisement disclaimers undermine consumers’ purchase intention toward untrusted brands (both trust-unknown and not-trusted brands), but that disclaimer speed has no effect on consumers’ purchase intention toward trusted brands. The differential effects of disclaimer speed for untrusted versus trusted brands were not due to differences in consumers’ familiarity with the brands (ex…
The Effects of Self‐Regulatory Strength, Content, and Strategies on Close Relationships
This article reviews the growing literature on the effects of self‐regulatory strength (how much self‐regulatory ability people have), self‐regulatory content (the goals toward which people self‐regulate), and self‐regulatory strategies (the manner in which people self‐regulate) on close relationships. The extant literature indicates that close relationships benefit when relationship partners (a) have greater versus less self‐regulatory strength,…
Social disadvantage and the self-regulatory function of justice beliefs
Five studies support the hypothesis that beliefs in societal fairness offer a self-regulatory benefit for members of socially disadvantaged groups. Specifically, members of disadvantaged groups are more likely than members of advantaged groups to calibrate their pursuit of long-term goals to their beliefs about societal fairness. In Study 1, low socioeconomic status (SES) undergraduate students who believed more strongly in societal fairness show…
The regulatory function of self-esteem: Testing the epistemic and acceptance signaling systems
The authors draw on sociometer theory (e.g., Leary, 2004) and self-verification theory (e.g., Swann, 1997) to propose an expanded model of the regulatory function of self-esteem. The model suggests that people not only possess an acceptance signaling system that indicates whether relational value is high or low but also possess an epistemic signaling system that indicates whether social feedback is consistent or inconsistent with chronic perceive…
Vicarious goal satiation
Shifting closeness: Interpersonal effects of personal goal progress
In this article, we examine how the shifting motivational priority of personal goals affects relationship closeness. We hypothesize that people will draw closer to significant others who are instrumental (vs. noninstrumental) for a goal that has not been progressing well-a goal that is thus high in motivational priority. Once the goal has progressed successfully, we predict that people will cease to draw closer to instrumental others. Five studie…
When self-protection overreaches: Relationship-specific threat activates domain-general avoidance motivation
How goal instrumentality shapes relationship evaluations
Findings from 6 experiments support the hypothesis that relationship evaluations and behavioral tendencies are goal dependent, reflecting the instrumentality of significant others for the self's progress toward currently active goals. Experiments 1 and 3 found that active goals can automatically bring to mind significant others who are instrumental for the activated goal, heightening their accessibility relative to noninstrumental others. Experim…
Automatic Effects of Brand Exposure on Motivated Behavior: "How Apple Makes You "Think Different
This article first examines whether brand exposure elicits automatic behavioral effects as does exposure to social primes. Results support the translation of these effects: participants primed with Apple logos behave more creatively than IBM primed and controls; Disney-primed participants behave more honestly than E!-primed participants and controls. Second, this article investigates the hypothesis that exposure to goal-relevant brands (i.e., tho…
Self-esteem and the Dual Processing of Interpersonal Contingencies
Social cognitive research has shown that individuals with low self-esteem exhibit contingency expectations involving interpersonal acceptance and rejection (e.g., If I fail, then I will be rejected). We examined whether the processing differences between low and high self-esteem individuals would be evident in their most spontaneous reactions, or only in relatively deliberate responses. A lexical decision task measured people's reaction times to …
Thinking of you: Nonconscious pursuit of interpersonal goals associated with relationship partners
The mere psychological presence of relationship partners was hypothesized to trigger interpersonal goals that are then pursued nonconsciously. Qualitative data suggested that people tend to pursue different interpersonal goals within different types of relationships (e.g., mother, best friend, coworker). In several studies, priming participants' relationship representations produced goal-directed behavior (achievement, helping, understanding) in …
Can You See the Real Me? Activation and Expression of the “True Self” on the Internet
Those who feel better able to express their “true selves” in Internet rather than face‐to‐face interaction settings are more likely to form close relationships with people met on the Internet (McKenna, Green, & Gleason, this issue). Building on these correlational findings from survey data, we conducted three laboratory experiments to directly test the hypothesized causal role of differential self‐expression in Internet relationship formation. Ex…
Automatic Effects of Brand Exposure on Motivated Behavior: "How Apple Makes You "Think Different
This article first examines whether brand exposure elicits automatic behavioral effects as does exposure to social primes. Results support the translation of these effects: participants primed with Apple logos behave more creatively than IBM primed and controls; Disney-primed participants behave more honestly than E!-primed participants and controls. Second, this article investigates the hypothesis that exposure to goal-relevant brands (i.e., tho…
Social disadvantage and the self-regulatory function of justice beliefs
Five studies support the hypothesis that beliefs in societal fairness offer a self-regulatory benefit for members of socially disadvantaged groups. Specifically, members of disadvantaged groups are more likely than members of advantaged groups to calibrate their pursuit of long-term goals to their beliefs about societal fairness. In Study 1, low socioeconomic status (SES) undergraduate students who believed more strongly in societal fairness show…
How goal instrumentality shapes relationship evaluations
Findings from 6 experiments support the hypothesis that relationship evaluations and behavioral tendencies are goal dependent, reflecting the instrumentality of significant others for the self's progress toward currently active goals. Experiments 1 and 3 found that active goals can automatically bring to mind significant others who are instrumental for the activated goal, heightening their accessibility relative to noninstrumental others. Experim…
Divergent effects of activating thoughts of God on self-regulation
Despite the cultural ubiquity of ideas and images related to God, relatively little is known about the effects of exposure to God representations on behavior. Specific depictions of God differ across religions, but common to most is that God is (a) an omnipotent, controlling force and (b) an omniscient, all-knowing being. Given these 2 characteristic features, how might exposure to the concept of God influence behavior? Leveraging classic and rec…
Shifting closeness: Interpersonal effects of personal goal progress
In this article, we examine how the shifting motivational priority of personal goals affects relationship closeness. We hypothesize that people will draw closer to significant others who are instrumental (vs. noninstrumental) for a goal that has not been progressing well-a goal that is thus high in motivational priority. Once the goal has progressed successfully, we predict that people will cease to draw closer to instrumental others. Five studie…
Lean in messages increase attributions of women’s responsibility for gender inequality
states that women can tackle gender inequality themselves by overcoming the "internal barriers" (e.g., lack of confidence and ambition) that prevent success. We sought to explore the consequences of this type of women's empowerment ideology. Study 1 found that perceptions of women's ability to solve inequality were associated with attributions of women's responsibility to do so. Studies 2, 3, 5a, and 5b experimentally manipulated exposure to wome…
Close relationships and self-regulation: How relationship satisfaction facilitates momentary goal pursuit
In the new millennium, scholars have built a robust intersection between close-relationships research and self-regulation research. However, virtually no work has investigated how the most basic and broad indicator of relationship quality, relationship satisfaction, affects self-regulation and vice versa. In the present research, we show that higher relationship satisfaction promotes a motivational mind-set that is conducive for effective self-re…
When self-protection overreaches: Relationship-specific threat activates domain-general avoidance motivation
Vicarious goal satiation
Power and the pursuit of a partner’s goals
We investigated how power dynamics in close relationships influence the tendency to devote resources to the pursuit of goals valued by relationship partners, hypothesizing that low (vs. high) power in relationships would lead individuals to center their individual goal pursuit around the goals of their partners. We study 2 related phenomena: partner goal prioritization, whereby individuals pursue goals on behalf of their partners, and partner goa…
Managing motivational conflict: How self-esteem and executive resources influence self-regulatory responses to risk
This article explores how self-esteem and executive resources interact to determine responses to motivational conflict. One correlational and 3 experimental studies investigated the hypothesis that high and low self-esteem people undertake different self-regulatory strategies in "risky" situations that afford opportunity to pursue competing goals and that carrying out these strategies requires executive resources. When such resources are availabl…
The regulatory function of self-esteem: Testing the epistemic and acceptance signaling systems
The authors draw on sociometer theory (e.g., Leary, 2004) and self-verification theory (e.g., Swann, 1997) to propose an expanded model of the regulatory function of self-esteem. The model suggests that people not only possess an acceptance signaling system that indicates whether relational value is high or low but also possess an epistemic signaling system that indicates whether social feedback is consistent or inconsistent with chronic perceive…
The burden of responsibility: Interpersonal costs of high self-control
The psychological literature on self-control has illustrated the many benefits experienced by people with high self-control, who are more successful both personally and interpersonally. In the current research, we explore the possibility that having high self-control also may have some interpersonal costs, leading individuals to become burdened by others' reliance. In Studies 1 and 2, we examined the effects of actors' self-control on observers' …
The Manhattan effect: When relationship commitment fails to promote support for partners’ interests
Research on close relationships has frequently contrasted one's own interests with the interests of the partner or the relationship and has tended to view the partner's and the relationship's interests as inherently aligned. The present article demonstrated that relationship commitment typically causes people to support their partner's personal interests but that this effect gets weaker to the extent that those interests misalign or even threaten…
Coke vs. Pepsi: Brand Compatibility, Relationship Power, and Life Satisfaction
Individuals often evaluate, purchase, and consume brands in the presence of others, including close others. Yet relatively little is known about the role brand preferences play in relationships. In the present research, the authors explore how the novel concept of brand compatibility, defined as the extent to which individuals have similar brand preferences (e.g., both partners prefer the same brand of soda), influences life satisfaction. The aut…
On the Dangers of Pulling a Fast One: Advertisement Disclaimer Speed, Brand Trust, and Purchase Intention
Two experiments demonstrated that fast (vs. normal-paced) end-of-advertisement disclaimers undermine consumers’ purchase intention toward untrusted brands (both trust-unknown and not-trusted brands), but that disclaimer speed has no effect on consumers’ purchase intention toward trusted brands. The differential effects of disclaimer speed for untrusted versus trusted brands were not due to differences in consumers’ familiarity with the brands (ex…
Motivated misperception: Self-regulatory resources affect goal appraisals
Act with authority: Romantic desire at the nexus of power possessed and power perceived
Can You See the Real Me? Activation and Expression of the “True Self” on the Internet
Those who feel better able to express their “true selves” in Internet rather than face‐to‐face interaction settings are more likely to form close relationships with people met on the Internet (McKenna, Green, & Gleason, this issue). Building on these correlational findings from survey data, we conducted three laboratory experiments to directly test the hypothesized causal role of differential self‐expression in Internet relationship formation. Ex…
Thinking of you: Nonconscious pursuit of interpersonal goals associated with relationship partners
The mere psychological presence of relationship partners was hypothesized to trigger interpersonal goals that are then pursued nonconsciously. Qualitative data suggested that people tend to pursue different interpersonal goals within different types of relationships (e.g., mother, best friend, coworker). In several studies, priming participants' relationship representations produced goal-directed behavior (achievement, helping, understanding) in …
Self-esteem and the Dual Processing of Interpersonal Contingencies
Social cognitive research has shown that individuals with low self-esteem exhibit contingency expectations involving interpersonal acceptance and rejection (e.g., If I fail, then I will be rejected). We examined whether the processing differences between low and high self-esteem individuals would be evident in their most spontaneous reactions, or only in relatively deliberate responses. A lexical decision task measured people's reaction times to …
How goal instrumentality shapes relationship evaluations
Findings from 6 experiments support the hypothesis that relationship evaluations and behavioral tendencies are goal dependent, reflecting the instrumentality of significant others for the self's progress toward currently active goals. Experiments 1 and 3 found that active goals can automatically bring to mind significant others who are instrumental for the activated goal, heightening their accessibility relative to noninstrumental others. Experim…
Automatic Effects of Brand Exposure on Motivated Behavior: "How Apple Makes You "Think Different
This article first examines whether brand exposure elicits automatic behavioral effects as does exposure to social primes. Results support the translation of these effects: participants primed with Apple logos behave more creatively than IBM primed and controls; Disney-primed participants behave more honestly than E!-primed participants and controls. Second, this article investigates the hypothesis that exposure to goal-relevant brands (i.e., tho…
When self-protection overreaches: Relationship-specific threat activates domain-general avoidance motivation
The regulatory function of self-esteem: Testing the epistemic and acceptance signaling systems
The authors draw on sociometer theory (e.g., Leary, 2004) and self-verification theory (e.g., Swann, 1997) to propose an expanded model of the regulatory function of self-esteem. The model suggests that people not only possess an acceptance signaling system that indicates whether relational value is high or low but also possess an epistemic signaling system that indicates whether social feedback is consistent or inconsistent with chronic perceive…
Vicarious goal satiation
Shifting closeness: Interpersonal effects of personal goal progress
In this article, we examine how the shifting motivational priority of personal goals affects relationship closeness. We hypothesize that people will draw closer to significant others who are instrumental (vs. noninstrumental) for a goal that has not been progressing well-a goal that is thus high in motivational priority. Once the goal has progressed successfully, we predict that people will cease to draw closer to instrumental others. Five studie…
The Effects of Self‐Regulatory Strength, Content, and Strategies on Close Relationships
This article reviews the growing literature on the effects of self‐regulatory strength (how much self‐regulatory ability people have), self‐regulatory content (the goals toward which people self‐regulate), and self‐regulatory strategies (the manner in which people self‐regulate) on close relationships. The extant literature indicates that close relationships benefit when relationship partners (a) have greater versus less self‐regulatory strength,…
Social disadvantage and the self-regulatory function of justice beliefs
Five studies support the hypothesis that beliefs in societal fairness offer a self-regulatory benefit for members of socially disadvantaged groups. Specifically, members of disadvantaged groups are more likely than members of advantaged groups to calibrate their pursuit of long-term goals to their beliefs about societal fairness. In Study 1, low socioeconomic status (SES) undergraduate students who believed more strongly in societal fairness show…
Act with authority: Romantic desire at the nexus of power possessed and power perceived
When local processing increases the appeal of healthy options
Managing motivational conflict: How self-esteem and executive resources influence self-regulatory responses to risk
This article explores how self-esteem and executive resources interact to determine responses to motivational conflict. One correlational and 3 experimental studies investigated the hypothesis that high and low self-esteem people undertake different self-regulatory strategies in "risky" situations that afford opportunity to pursue competing goals and that carrying out these strategies requires executive resources. When such resources are availabl…
Divergent effects of activating thoughts of God on self-regulation
Despite the cultural ubiquity of ideas and images related to God, relatively little is known about the effects of exposure to God representations on behavior. Specific depictions of God differ across religions, but common to most is that God is (a) an omnipotent, controlling force and (b) an omniscient, all-knowing being. Given these 2 characteristic features, how might exposure to the concept of God influence behavior? Leveraging classic and rec…
On the Dangers of Pulling a Fast One: Advertisement Disclaimer Speed, Brand Trust, and Purchase Intention
Two experiments demonstrated that fast (vs. normal-paced) end-of-advertisement disclaimers undermine consumers’ purchase intention toward untrusted brands (both trust-unknown and not-trusted brands), but that disclaimer speed has no effect on consumers’ purchase intention toward trusted brands. The differential effects of disclaimer speed for untrusted versus trusted brands were not due to differences in consumers’ familiarity with the brands (ex…
Perceiving low self‐esteem in close others impedes capitalization and undermines the relationship
Disclosing positive experiences to others (i.e., “capitalization”) is associated with personal and interpersonal benefits (Gable & Reis, 2010). Unfortunately, people who perceive low self‐esteem ( LSE ) in close others are reluctant to capitalize, holding back from those they expect will be unsupportive (MacGregor & Holmes, 2011). In Study 1, we extend previous findings by demonstrating the importance of the type of experience disclosed; particip…
Motivated misperception: Self-regulatory resources affect goal appraisals
The Manhattan effect: When relationship commitment fails to promote support for partners’ interests
Research on close relationships has frequently contrasted one's own interests with the interests of the partner or the relationship and has tended to view the partner's and the relationship's interests as inherently aligned. The present article demonstrated that relationship commitment typically causes people to support their partner's personal interests but that this effect gets weaker to the extent that those interests misalign or even threaten…
Transactive goal dynamics.
Transactive goal dynamics (TGD) theory conceptualizes 2 or more interdependent people as 1 single self-regulating system. Six tenets describe the nature of goal interdependence, predict its emergence, predict when it will lead to positive goal outcomes during and after the relationship, and predict the consequences for the relationship. Both partners in a TGD system possess and pursue self-oriented, partner-oriented, and system-oriented goals, an…
Close relationships and self-regulation: How relationship satisfaction facilitates momentary goal pursuit
In the new millennium, scholars have built a robust intersection between close-relationships research and self-regulation research. However, virtually no work has investigated how the most basic and broad indicator of relationship quality, relationship satisfaction, affects self-regulation and vice versa. In the present research, we show that higher relationship satisfaction promotes a motivational mind-set that is conducive for effective self-re…
The burden of responsibility: Interpersonal costs of high self-control
The psychological literature on self-control has illustrated the many benefits experienced by people with high self-control, who are more successful both personally and interpersonally. In the current research, we explore the possibility that having high self-control also may have some interpersonal costs, leading individuals to become burdened by others' reliance. In Studies 1 and 2, we examined the effects of actors' self-control on observers' …
Power and the pursuit of a partner’s goals
We investigated how power dynamics in close relationships influence the tendency to devote resources to the pursuit of goals valued by relationship partners, hypothesizing that low (vs. high) power in relationships would lead individuals to center their individual goal pursuit around the goals of their partners. We study 2 related phenomena: partner goal prioritization, whereby individuals pursue goals on behalf of their partners, and partner goa…
Coke vs. Pepsi: Brand Compatibility, Relationship Power, and Life Satisfaction
Individuals often evaluate, purchase, and consume brands in the presence of others, including close others. Yet relatively little is known about the role brand preferences play in relationships. In the present research, the authors explore how the novel concept of brand compatibility, defined as the extent to which individuals have similar brand preferences (e.g., both partners prefer the same brand of soda), influences life satisfaction. The aut…
Lean in messages increase attributions of women’s responsibility for gender inequality
states that women can tackle gender inequality themselves by overcoming the "internal barriers" (e.g., lack of confidence and ambition) that prevent success. We sought to explore the consequences of this type of women's empowerment ideology. Study 1 found that perceptions of women's ability to solve inequality were associated with attributions of women's responsibility to do so. Studies 2, 3, 5a, and 5b experimentally manipulated exposure to wome…
Psychology (27 works) · Social Psychology (25 works) · Behavioral Health and Interventions (14 works) · Social and Intergroup Psychology (12 works) · Attachment and Relationship Dynamics (11 works) · Goal pursuit (10 works) · Interpersonal communication (9 works) · Social Psychology (9 works) · Cultural Differences and Values (8 works) · Cognitive psychology (7 works)