TY - GEN A1 - Wolff, Wanja A1 - Brand, Ralf A1 - Baumgarten, Franz A1 - Lösel, Johanna A1 - Ziegler, Matthias T1 - Modeling students’ instrumental (mis-)use of substances to enhance cognitive performance BT - Neuroenhancement in the light of Job Demands-Resources Theory N2 - Background: Healthy university students have been shown to use psychoactive substances, expecting them to be functional means for enhancing their cognitive capacity, sometimes over and above an essentially proficient level. This behavior called Neuroenhancement (NE) has not yet been integrated into a behavioral theory that is able to predict performance. Job Demands Resources (JD-R) Theory for example assumes that strain (e.g. burnout) will occur and influence performance when job demands are high and job resources are limited at the same time. The aim of this study is to investigate whether or not university students’ self-reported NE can be integrated into JD-R Theory’s comprehensive approach to psychological health and performance. Methods: 1,007 students (23.56 ± 3.83 years old, 637 female) participated in an online survey. Lifestyle drug, prescription drug, and illicit substance NE together with the complete set of JD-R variables (demands, burnout, resources, motivation, and performance) were measured. Path models were used in order to test our data’s fit to hypothesized main effects and interactions. Results: JD-R Theory could successfully be applied to describe the situation of university students. NE was mainly associated with the JD-R Theory’s health impairment process: Lifestyle drug NE (p < .05) as well as prescription drug NE (p < .001) is associated with higher burnout scores, and lifestyle drug NE aggravates the study demands-burnout interaction. In addition, prescription drug NE mitigates the protective influence of resources on burnout and on motivation. Conclusion: According to our results, the uninformed trying of NE (i.e., without medical supervision) might result in strain. Increased strain is related to decreased performance. From a public health perspective, intervention strategies should address these costs of non-supervised NE. With regard to future research we propose to model NE as a means to reach an end (i.e. performance enhancement) rather than a target behavior itself. This is necessary to provide a deeper understanding of the behavioral roots and consequences of the phenomenon. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 362 KW - Neuroenhancement KW - study demands KW - burnout KW - Job Demands Resources Theory KW - students Y1 - 2017 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-401441 SN - 1866-8364 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Wolff, Wanja A1 - Baumgarten, Franz A1 - Brand, Ralf T1 - Reduced self-control leads to disregard of an unfamiliar behavioral option BT - an experimental approach to the study of neuroenhancement N2 - Background: Neuroenhancement (NE), the use of psychoactive substances in order to enhance a healthy individual's cognitive functioning from a proficient to an even higher level, is prevalent in student populations. According to the strength model of self-control, people fail to self-regulate and fall back on their dominant behavioral response when finite self-control resources are depleted. An experiment was conducted to test the hypothesis that ego-depletion will prevent students who are unfamiliar with NE from trying it. Findings: 130 undergraduates, who denied having tried NE before (43% female, mean age = 22.76 +/- 4.15 years old), were randomly assigned to either an ego-depletion or a control condition. The dependent variable was taking an "energy-stick" (a legal nutritional supplement, containing low doses of caffeine, taurine and vitamin B), offered as a potential means of enhancing performance on the bogus concentration task that followed. Logistic regression analysis showed that ego-depleted participants were three times less likely to take the substance, OR = 0.37, p = .01. Conclusion: This experiment found that trying NE for the first time was more likely if an individual's cognitive capacities were not depleted. This means that mental exhaustion is not predictive for NE in students for whom NE is not the dominant response. Trying NE for the first time is therefore more likely to occur as a thoughtful attempt at self-regulation than as an automatic behavioral response in stressful situations. We therefore recommend targeting interventions at this inter-individual difference. Students without previous reinforcing NE experience should be provided with information about the possible negative health outcomes of NE. Reconfiguring structural aspects in the academic environment (e.g. lessening workloads) might help to deter current users. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 358 KW - Neuroenhancement KW - Self-control KW - Ego-depletion KW - Prevention Y1 - 2017 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-401386 ER -