Classroom research on achievement goals has revealed that performance-approach goals (goals to outperform others) positively predict exam performance whereas performance-avoidance goals (goals not to perform more poorly than others) negatively predict it. Because prior classroom research has primarily utilized multiple-choice exam performance, the…

In a 2x2x2 factorial design, 3rd year Romanian psychology students (N = 94) were assigned into 2 groups according to the extent to which they acknowledged an epistemic dependence (low vs. high) toward their professor. They then compared the competence of 3rd year students to that of 1st year or 5th year students. Finally, they were exposed to a…

An experimental study investigated the influence of informational dependence on information appropriation as a function of epistemic authority's styles. In a 2x2 design, university students were informed that acknowledging epistemic dependence was related either to academic success or to academic failure, and were exposed to controversial…

This study (N=75) examined the influence dynamics that take place between two competent individuals presenting divergent solutions for a cognitive task. The hypothesis was that such settings (i.e., conflict of competencies) are unlikely to have a positive effect on intellectual performance because of the representation of the task, and that an…

It is argued that an epistemic authority would induce greater influence in transmitting knowledge to students when there is a correspondence between the (authoritarian vs. democratic) style of the authority and students' perceptions of their relation to the authority (high vs. low epistemic dependence). In two studies it was predicted, and found,…

An experiment examined the conditions under which an expert source induces less competent targets to adopt a point of view contradicting their own in a context of information transmission. In a 2x2 factorial design participants (N=86) were either 1st year or 4th year university students, and the style of the message delivered by the epistemic…