Developing College Student Motivation to Lead with Expressive Writi

The purpose of the present study was to examine whether expressive writing regarding the topic of life goals can enhance college students’ motivation to lead and important attributes for good leadership (i.e., adaptive attribution for failure and low selfcriticism). Participants (N = 90) were randomly assigned to an experimental condition (expressive writing on positive emotion topic; n = 48) or a control condition (writing on an emotionally neutral topic; n = 42). After completing expressive writing exercises, students in the experimental condition scored higher on measures of intrinsic motivation to lead (i.e., affectiveidentity motivation) and adaptive attribution of failure and scored lower on a measure of selfcriticism compared to those in a control condition

Developing College Student Motivation to Lead with

Expressive Writing

YoonJung Cho1)

(Sungshin University)

AbstractThe purpose of the present study was to examine whether expressive writingregarding the topic of life goals can enhance college students’ motivation to lead andimportant attributes for good leadership (i.e., adaptive attribution for failure and lowself-criticism) Participants (N = 90) were randomly assigned to an experimentalcondition (expressive writing on positive emotion topic; n = 48) or a control condition(writing on an emotionally neutral topic; n = 42) After completing expressive writingexercises, students in the experimental condition scored higher on measures ofintrinsic motivation to lead (i.e., affective-identity motivation) and adaptive attribution offailure and scored lower on a measure of self-criticism compared to those in acontrol condition

Keywords: motivation to lead, leadership, expressive writing, college student, life

goals

1) Corresponding Author: choyj@sungshin.ac.kr

교육연구논총 http://dx.doi.org/10.18612/cnujes.2015.36.3.169CNU Journal of Educational Studies

한 학생들은 통제 집단에 할당된 학생들 보다 높은 수준의 내재적 리더십 동기, 실패에 대한적응적 귀인, 낮은 수준의 자기 비판을 보여 주었다

주제어: 리더십 동기, 리더십, 자기표현식 작문, 생애 목표

Ⅰ Introduction

Success of society, organizations, and community depends on good leadership(Sternberg, 2007) and there is growing recognition of the importance of developingleadership ability and promoting desirable patterns of leadership motivation of futureleaders (e.g., Bennis, 2007; Miles, 2005; Ritchie & Hammond, 2005) Educating futureleaders requires motivating today’s college students to make a meaningful contribution

to community and work with others to address challenging problems As such, moreattention is warranted to develop educational programs and interventions and examine1) 교신 저자: choyj@sungshin.ac.kr

their effectiveness on enhancing leadership motivation Previous studies have shownthat there is a wide range of factors associated with individuals’ motivation to assumeleadership roles (Amit, Lisak, Popper, & Gal, 2007; Chan, 1999; Chan & Drasgow,2001) Individuals tend to endorse different types of motivation to lead depending onvarious reasons and purposes they have for leading others Some are motivated tolead out of intrinsic enjoyment of leading others, while others are motivated to leadbecause of social duty or extrinsic benefits Given that these different types ofmotivation to lead are likely to be associated with quality and outcomes of leadership,

it is very important not only to increase the general level of motivation to lead, butalso to promote more adaptive types of motivation to lead

Most studies on motivation to lead utilized survey research method to identifyfactors related to motivation to lead while little studies investigated how to enhanceleadership motivation through educational intervention The present study will focus

on expressive writing intervention as a way to foster adaptive types of motivation tolead Recent examples of studies investigating the use of expressive writing ineducational settings show evidence of: 1 significant improvements in negative affect,grades, and attendance (Horn, Pössel, & Hautzinger, 2011); 2 reduced mathtest-related anxiety and improved test scores among college students (Park, Ramirez

& Beilock, 2014); and, 3 significantly higher test scores (MCAT and LSAT, but notGRE or PCAT) and significantly lower pre-exam depressive symptoms for studentstaking graduate school entrance exams (Frattaroli, Thomas, & Lyubomirsky, 2011).Particularly relevant for the present study are theoretical reasons for hypothesizingthat expressive writing can help students write narratives about their future careersthat engages them in self-directed dialogical learning and creation of career identities(Meijers & Lengelle, 2012; Lengelle & Meijers, 2014) Follow-up empirical studiesprovide evidence that expressive writing can be successfully used as a means ofpromoting the formation of narrative career identities that offers college students asense of meaning and direction (Lengelle, Meijers, Poell, & Post, 2013) These studiesindicate that expressive writing can be effective in promoting a wide range ofaffective, motivational, and cognitive outcomes In the current study we examined thepotential benefits of an expressive writing intervention focusing on broader life goalsincrease college students’ motivation for leadership and attributes thought to beimportant for good leadership—adaptive attribution for failure and low self-criticism

1 Expressive writing, life goals, and Motivation to lead

Recently, Fitzgerald and Schutte (2010) found that an expressive writingintervention increased self-efficacy for transformational leadership among managers Inmany domains, higher levels of self-efficacy are related to higher levels of motivation.Thus, expressive writing also holds promise as a low-cost intervention for increasingmotivation for leadership To assess whether it is possible to increase studentmotivation to lead using an expressive writing intervention, we used future life goals(Markus & Nurius, 1986) as the writing topic for an expressive writing intervention.For many people, a vision of the best possible version of themselves entails seeingthemselves making significant, positive contributions to the lives of others—animportant characteristic of people who are perceived as good or outstanding leaders.The life goals topic is a well-known construct from the social psychologicalliterature—also traditionally referred to as the “best possible self” condition or BPS(e.g., Markus & Nurius, 1986) The rationale for choosing the topic of life goals isthat motivation is goal driven (Elliot, 2005) so life goals may play a crucial role inpromoting motivation to lead Given prior research showing that the best possible self(BPS) positively influences motivation and behavior, envisioning one’s “best possibleself” by following the directions for imagining or writing about future life goals wasexpected to improve motivation to lead The best possible self (BPS) is thought to be

a motivating life goal inasmuch as it characterizes a future representation of thedesired self (Cross & Markus, 1991; Markus & Nurius, 1986) Envisioning one’s “bestpossible self” has been shown to increase intrinsic motivation and optimism, whichtend to predict psychological and physical well-being (Meevissen, Peters, & Alberts,2011; Peters, Flink, Boersma, & Linton, 2010)

In the present study, participants wrote about their life goals in a series ofexpressive writing exercises Expressive writing traditionally has focused on paststress or trauma and numerous studies have provided evidence of the psychologicaland health benefits associated with expressive writing about traumatic life experiences(e.g., Cameron & Nicholls, 1998; Lepore, Greenberg, Bruno, & Smyth, 2002;Pennebaker, 1999; Sloan & Marx, 2004; Smyth, 1998) Two meta-analyses (Frattaroli,2006; Frisina, Borod, & Lepore, 2004) also concluded that expressive writing isassociated with psychological and health benefits Benefits associated with expressivewriting include improved immune system functioning (Pennebaker, Kiecolt-Glaser, &

Glaser, 1988), reduced absences from work (Francis & Pennebaker, 1992), andimproved grade point average among college students (Lumley & Provenzano, 2003).Instead of focusing on a negative past experience (i.e., post trauma) as anexpressive writing topic, King (2001) adopted future life goals as an expressivewriting topic in her study and found that participants who engaged in expressivewriting about life goals found the task to be significantly less upsetting than thosewho wrote about past trauma Writing about achieving one’s life goals can promotephysical and psychological benefits associated with expressive writing about traumawithout the “emotional costs” (King, 2001, p 804) Research has shown that engaging

in expressive writing activities about positive images of oneself for 20 minutes perday for three days is associated with psychological well-being and health (Harrist,Carlozzi, McGovern, & Harrist, 2007; King, 2001)

Three primary theoretical models have been offered to explain the psychologicalmechanism accounting for benefits associated with expressive writing, but definitiveevidence for any one model is lacking (Frattaroli, 2006)

An early theoretical explanation of the benefits associated with expressive writingderived from an inhibition model of psychological functioning in which the inhibition

of thoughts and feelings was seen a source of harmful stress Emotional disclosure ofinhibited thoughts and feelings was thought to lead to catharsis, relieve stress, andthereby improve psychological and physical health outcomes (Frattaroli, 2006)

When subsequent research showed that the inhibition model could not account forall of the benefits associated with expressive writing (e.g., writing about imaginarytrauma; Greenberg, Wortman, & Stone, 1996), Pennebaker (1993) concluded that a

mechanism underlying expressive writing He based this notion on qualitativeresponses from participants who indicated that they perceived insight rather thancatharsis as the more important factor in their writing experience Results fromstudies showing that participants who used more insight and causation words in theirwriting seemed to confirm this explanation

A self-regulation model was offered to explain findings that seemed unaccountedfor by the inhibition model or the cognitive-processing model For example, one studythat explicitly focused on a self-regulation exercise (i.e., identifying problems andcoming up with solutions) (Cameron & Nicholls, 1998) demonstrated that aself-regulation writing exercise was associated with the same health benefits as

typical expressive writing.

To-date there is not a consensus in the research literature about what underlyingmechanism accounts for the benefits associated with expressive writing (Frattaroli,2006) The present study was not designed to test the mechanism(s) underlyingexpressive writing Instead, we aimed to offer empirical evidence regarding whetherexpressive writing on future life goals is beneficial in promoting desirable types ofleadership motivation

1 Affective-identity MTL refers to leadership motivation derived from intrinsicenjoyment of the experience of leading Affective-identity MTL is related togood leadership skills, extroverted personality, leadership experience, and highleadership self-efficacy

2 Social-normative MTL refers to leadership motivation derived from the desire to

be a leader for social esteem or to fulfill social norms or obligations Individualshigh in social-normative motivation are motivated by duty and socialresponsibility They tend to be accepting of social hierarchies and less concernedwith social equality than their peers

3 Calculative MTL refers to leadership motivation derived from self-interest toattain the benefits associated with being a leader Individuals who score high incalculative motivation are motivated to lead by expectations of obtainingprivileges, rewards, or power Leadership experience and leadership self-efficacy

are relatively unimportant to those with calculative motives for leadership.Prior studies have shown that three types of Motivation to Lead (MTL) areconceptually distinct and independent in terms of concepts and functions (Chan, 1999;Chan & Drasgow, 2001) The MTL model (Chan & Drasgow, 2001) posits thatmotivation to lead affects leaders’ (and emerging leaders’) decisions to acceptleadership roles and responsibilities, to participate in leadership training and education,and leaders’ intensity of effort and persistence Given that individuals tend to endorsevarious types of motivation to lead, it is also important to promote desirable forms ofleadership motivation Students who have a positive outlook on accomplishing futurelife goals through emotional writing exercises may be more likely to develop intrinsicmotivation to lead (i.e., affective-identity motivation) as opposed to being motivatedout of social norms or duty (i.e., social-normative motivation) or self-interest motives(i.e., calculative motivation) The purpose of this study was to assess whether anexpressive writing intervention can increase specific types of college students’motivation to lead and assess the impact of the intervention on importantcharacteristics of good leadership such as adaptive attribution for failure andself-criticism.

3 Important Attributes for Good Leadership: Attribution for failure and self-criticism

Leadership scholars and researchers are concerned about the ways in which leadersattribute meaning to their own actions and the actions of followers and theimplications of these attributions for leadership outcomes For example, a recent studyinvestigated the role of narcissism in leadership and found that a sense of entitlementpredicted unethical decision-making and self-promotion at the expense of others(Tamborski, Brown, & Chowning, 2012) The self-serving bias is the tendency tomake internal attributions for success and external attributions for failure (i.e., blamefailures on external sources) The research literature indicates that leaders aresusceptible to the self-serving bias and when leaders blame followers for failures andtake credit for success this causes problems in the leader-follower relationship(Martinko, Harvey, & Douglas, 2007) Adaptive attribution for failure may mitigatesome of these leadership problems because it reflects a belief that one is able to

control challenging situations and a tendency to accept responsibility for mistakes.While it is important for leaders to accept responsibility for mistakes, a concern isthat high levels of self-criticism may undermine motivation to lead Research indicatesthat high self-criticism (i.e., self-anger resulting from perceived under-performance orfrustration at not getting desired results) tends to undermine self-concept (Carver,Voie, Kuhl, & Ganellen, 1988) Thus, we believe that good leaders are expected tohave relatively high levels of affective-identity MTL, relatively high levels of adaptiveattribution for failure, and moderate or low levels of self-criticism and recent researchshowed that university students in a life goals expressive writing condition displayedless self-criticism compared to participants in a control condition (Troop, Chilcot,Hutchings, & Varnaite, 2013).

4 Purpose and hypotheses

The purpose of this research study was to investigate the effect of an expressivewriting intervention on leadership motivation, adaptive attribution for failure, andself-criticism The present study will contribute to the literature by focusing onpositive writing topics such as future life goals as a way to examine thepsychological benefits of expressive writing intervention, while numerous previousstudies that provided evidence of the psychological and health benefits associated withexpressive used negative writing topics such as past traumatic life experiences as thewriting topic (e.g., Lepore, Greenberg, Bruno, & Smyth, 2002; Pennebaker, 1999; Sloan

& Marx, 2004) In addition, given that few studies have focused on leadershipmotivation as a beneficial psychological outcome of expressive writing intervention,this study will offer a valuable evidence about whether college students’ motivation tolead can be changed in an adaptive fashion by expressive writing intervention

Hypothesis 1 (within group: pre- and post- intervention measures comparison)

After completing the expressive writing interventions with a focus

on future life goals, participants will score higher on a measure ofaffective-identity motivation to lead than they did prior to theexpressive writing intervention In contrast, their social-normativeand calculative motivation to lead will remain unaffected

Hypothesis 2 (between group: control vs experimental group comparison) Compared

to the participants in the control condition, those in the expressive

writing intervention condition will have higher levels ofaffective-identity motivation to lead and lower levels ofsocial-normative and calculative motivation to lead (whenpre-intervention measure scores are controlled for).

Hypothesis 3 (within group: pre- and post- intervention measures comparison)

After completing the expressive writing intervention, participants willscore higher on a measure of controllable attribution and lower on ameasure of self-criticism than they did prior to expressive writing.Hypothesis 4 (between group: control vs experimental group comparison)

Participants in the expressive writing intervention condition willscore higher on a measure of controllable attribution for failure andlower on a measure of self-criticism than those in the controlcondition (when pre-intervention measure scores are controlled for)

II Method

1 Participants

Participants in this study (N = 90) were students enrolled in a large, Midwesternstate university Gender of the participants was self-reported as 24 men and 64women (2 not reported), ranging in age from 18 to 52 years (M = 22.30, SD = 4.49).Participant classification included freshmen (n = 3), sophomores (n = 21), juniors (n =38), and seniors (n = 26) Ethnicity was reported as Caucasian (n =60), NativeAmerican (n =4), African-American (n = 3), Asian/Pacific Islander (n = 2), and Other(n = 2) Current cumulative grade point average (GPA) ranged from 2.00 to 4.00 (M =3.16, SD = 0.48)

three consecutive writing sessions Reliability and correlation coefficients are displayed

in Table 1

Motivation to lead. The Motivation to Lead (MTL) Scale was used as ameasure of motivation to lead in the present study A validation study andexploratory and confirmatory factor analysis of the MTL Scale involving 624university and post-degree specialization Italian students found evidence supporting itsuse as a research instrument in social, personality and organizational psychology(Bobbio & Rattazzi, 2006) The MTL model was also tested with a sample of 402subjects from the Israel Defense Forces and confirmed the existence of the threemotivational factors identified by Chan (Amit, Lisak, Popper, & Gal, 2007) TheMotivation to Lead Scale (Chan & Drasgow, 2001) measures affective-identity MTL(e.g., “I am the type of person who likes to be in charge of others.”),social-normative MTL (e.g., “I feel that I have a duty to lead others if I am asked.”),and calculative MTL (e.g., “I am only interested to lead a group if there are clearadvantages for me.”) Each subscale contained 9 items with a 7-point Likert scaleranging from 1=Strongly Disagree to 7=Strongly Agree Separate scores for eachsubscale were utilized in subsequent analyses Results from our data indicated goodinternal consistency of the three subscales (all Cronbach’s alphas ranging from 78 to.90)

Adaptive attribution for failure Adaptive attribution for failure refers to thebelief that an individual can control challenging and unsuccessful situations It wasassessed with the 3 items adapted from the Causal Dimension Scale II (McAuley,Duncan, & Russell, 1992) to evaluate the degree to which participants attribute failure

to something personally controllable Sample item includes “My unsuccessfulperformance is caused by something that I can regulate.” A 9-point Likert scale withhigher numbers indicating controllable attribution for failure was used as a responseformat Internal consistencies for the sample were 83 for pre-test and 78 forpost-test

Self-criticism. Self-criticism was assessed with the items drawn from theAttitude toward Self-Revised (ATS-R) (Carver et al., 1988) with a specific focus onthe extent to which participants were critical of themselves Self-criticism scaleincluded three items tapping into self-anger resulting from perceivedunder-performance or frustration at not getting desired results The sample itemincluded “I get angry with myself if my efforts don't lead to the results I wanted.”

The measure used a 7-point Likert scale with 1 being ‘Strongly Disagree” and 7being “Strongly Agree” The Cronbach’s alpha for the current sample was 80 forpre-test and 82 for post-test.

3 Procedure

An expressive writing intervention requires an environment in which participantscan focus, gather thoughts, and write with minimal distractions An online interventionmay be particularly susceptible to environmental stimuli in dorm rooms, apartments, orother places while taking the survey In order to minimize environmental distractionsthat could have interrupted the procedure and compromised study integrity,participants were asked to meet research team members at a computer lab on threeconsecutive days at a scheduled time In the expressive writing paradigm, moststudies have participants write for 15 to 20 minutes for three to five sessions (Baikie

& Wilhelm, 2005) Pennebaker (2000) recommends writing for at least 15 minutes andfor at least three sessions Although participants may benefit from writing more often

or for longer periods time, one appealing aspect of expressive writing is that it is arelatively brief form of intervention However, short writing sessions of less than 15minutes and fewer than three sessions may not be helpful because there is notadequate time for participants to engage in the cognitive processing necessary todevelop the insight and understanding about their writing topic associated withbenefits (Frattaroli, 2006) Research team members presented informed consentinformation, assigned participants to writing groups, and helped participants access thestudy website Participants were randomly assigned to an experimental condition (n =48) or a control condition (n = 41)

Participants were asked to participate in a writing exercise on each of 3consecutive days They were asked to write assigned writing topics for 20 minuteseach time Participants in the experimental condition were instructed to write abouttheir future life goals The participants assigned to the future life goals condition wereinstructed, “Think about your life in the future Imagine that everything has gone aswell as it possibly could You have worked hard and succeeded at accomplishing all

of your life goals Think of this as the realization of all your life dreams Do notworry about spelling, punctuation and grammar; please express yourself as freely aspossible Tell about your deepest thoughts and feelings and important people in your