title: End-of-semester syndrome: How situational regulatory fit affects test performance over an academic semester.
abstract: Psychology researchers often avoid running participants from subject pools at the end of the semester because they are "unmotivated". We suggest that the end of the semester induces a situational prevention focus (i.e., sensitive to losses) unlike the beginning of the semester, which may induce a situational promotion focus (i.e., sensitive to gains). In two experiments, we presented participants with math problems at the beginning or end of an academic semester. End-of-semester participants performed better minimizing losses as compared to maximizing gains, while the opposite was true for beginning-of-semester participants.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, The College of New Jersey.
authors.forename: Lisa R
authors.initials: LR
authors.lastname: Grimm
authors.forename: Arthur B
authors.initials: AB
authors.lastname: Markman
authors.forename: W Todd
authors.initials: WT
authors.lastname: Maddox