Cognitive exhaustion and solving cognitive problems:testing the moderating effect model of dispositional optimism
Subject Areas : روان درمانگریHosein Zare 1 , Ali Khodaei 2 , Omid Shokri 3
1 - PhD
Payame Noor University
2 - PhD Candidate
Payame Noor University
3 - Shahid Beheshti University
Keywords: cognitive exhaustion model, dispositional optimism, solving cognitive problems, moderating effects model,
Abstract :
he aim of the present study was to investigate the moderating effect of dispositional optimism in the relationship between cognitive exhaustion and solving cognitive problems. Three hundred university students completed the Life Orientation Test- Revised (LOT-R, Schier, Carver & Bridges, 1994). Forty students whose scores on the dispositional optimism were two standard deviations above or below the mean score were selected and randomly assigned into four groups each including ten participants. In the first phase of the experiment, experimental and control groups confronted with uncontrollable and controllable discriminative tasks, respectively. In the second phase of the experiment, all participants in the problem solving situation, replied to the anagram task. The data were analyzed using the two-way between subjects analysis of variance. The results indicated that there was a significant main effect of group and dispositional optimism but there was no significant interaction between group and dispositional optimism. Therefore, the relationship between cognitive exhaustion and solving cognitive problems was not moderated by dispositional optimism. These findings suggested the role of cognitive exhaustion variability and dispositional optimism in predicting problem solving and that the causal relation between cognitive exhaustion and problem solving is not a function of dispositional optimism variation.