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Attentional involvement and intrinsic motivation
Abstract
The current study used the Experience Sampling Method to examine attentional involvement—the degree to which one’s attention is devoted to moment-to-moment activity—as a potential mediator of two previously identified relationships within the field of intrinsic motivation: (1) the positive relationship between a balance of challenges and skills and enjoyment, and (2) the positive relationship between competence valuation and enjoyment. Multilevel, within-person analyses indicated attentional involvement fully mediated both relationships. Implications of the findings for intrinsic motivation processes are discussed.
... When the concept of flow is extended to apply to the full range of experience, it has questionable discriminant validity over pre-existing constructs in surrounding fields. Within the field of intrinsic motivation, dozens of studies have examined a state-level construct called task involvement (e.g., Harackiewicz et al., 1987;Harackiewicz, 1994, 1996;Tauer and Harackiewicz, 2004;Abuhamdeh and Csikszentmihalyi, 2012a), which represents the degree to which an individual concentrates on and becomes absorbed in an activity. Research on task involvement predates the first operationalizations of flow as a continuous construct, and appears to have been influenced by Csikszentmihalyi's work on optimal experience (Harackiewicz and Sansone, 1991). ...
... Kawabata and Evans (2016), noting the inability of most commonly used flow scales to differentiate flow experiences from non-flow experiences (e.g., the Flow State Scale, Jackson and Marsh, 1996; the Flow Short Scale, Rheinberg et al.,3 The difficulty this presents is one reason why, in my own empirical work on goal-directed engagement, despite my longstanding interest in flow, I've resisted operationalizing flow altogether, instead opting to measure experience in a more piecemeal fashion using lower-level constructs that can be meaningfully applied to the full range of conscious experience (e.g., Abuhamdeh and Csikszentmihalyi, 2012a;Abuhamdeh et al., 2015). 2003), proposed a remedy. ...
... The task involvement construct nicely captures the central cognitive feature of flow. In contrast to flow, however, task involvement is a purely cognitive phenomenon representing the degree of attentional involvement in an activity; it is not inherently enjoyable and motivating in concept, though it often predicts both (Abuhamdeh and Csikszentmihalyi, 2012a). ...
The “flow” experience (Csikszentmihalyi, 1975) has been the focus of a large body of empirical work spanning more than four decades. Nevertheless, advancement in understanding – beyond what Csikszentmihalyi uncovered during his initial breakthrough in 1975 – has been modest. In this conceptual analysis, it is argued that progress within the field has been impeded by a lack of consistency in how flow is operationalized, and that this inconsistency in part reflects an underlying confusion regarding what flow is. Flow operationalizations from papers published within the past 5 years are reviewed. Across the 42 reviewed studies, flow was operationalized in 24 distinct ways. Three specific points of inconsistency are then highlighted: (1) inconsistences in operationalizing flow as a continuous versus discrete construct, (2) inconsistencies in operationalizing flow as inherently enjoyable (i.e., “autotelic”) or not, and (3) inconsistencies in operationalizing flow as dependent on versus distinct from the task characteristics proposed to elicit it (i.e., the conditions/antecedents). After tracing the origins of these discrepancies, the author argues that, in the interest of conceptual intelligibility, flow should be conceptualized and operationalized exclusively as a discrete, highly enjoyable, “optimal” state of consciousness, and that this state should be clearly distinguished from the conditions proposed to elicit it. He suggests that more mundane instances of goal-directed engagement are better conceived and operationalized as variations in task involvement rather than variations in flow. Additional ways to achieve greater conceptual and operational consistency within the field are suggested.
... We addressed this issue in the present study, seeking to understand how effortless attention is associated with optimal experience in Portuguese adolescents' daily lives. Considering the relationship between effortless attention and the other flow-related variables present in the current study, some studies have confirmed the influence of challengeskill perception on attentional processes (Abuhamdeh & Csikszentmihalyi, 2012), particularly that challenge-skill perception is associated with effortless attention (Csikszentmihalyi & Nakamura, 2010). Other studies have found that higher levels of negative affect decreased levels of attention in students (Larson, 1988) and that positive affect broadened attentional capacities (Fredrickson & Branigan, 2005). ...
... Our findings on the multilevel mediation processes estimated from cross-sectional associations provided preliminary evidence for the idea that effortless attention is a significant mediator of the different associations between individual predictors (challenge-skill perception and positive and negative affect) and optimal experience (i.e., hypotheses 7, 8, and 9, respectively), adding knowledge to previous studies (Abuhamdeh & Csikszentmihalyi, 2012;Fredrickson & Branigan, 2005;Ull en, de Manzano, Theorell, & Harmat, 2010). It is interesting to note the existence of a between-person effect and a within-person effect, showing that the mediation mechanism for the predictors of challenge-skill perception and negative affect varied between adolescents and throughout each adolescent's experiential moments. ...
... Specifically, studies should go beyond cross-sectional multilevel mediation, testing mediational processes with time-lagged multilevel mediation models, to provide stronger evidence for indirect effects and the directionality of the processes (Cain, Zhang, & Bergeman, 2018). Researchers should also include a motivational dimension of subjective experience in their models, as the literature shows that intrinsic motivation is related to attentional resources (Abuhamdeh & Csikszentmihalyi, 2012), and these factors work together with cognitive and emotional dimensions to attain an optimal state of functioning (Freire, 2011). ...
This study investigated how the internal psychological states (i.e., challenge–skill perception, positive and negative affect, and effortless attention) and contextual features (i.e., activity and company) of momentary experiences relate to optimal experience in adolescents’ lives. Data were collected from 245 Portuguese adolescents (14–19 years old, 63% female) by using the experience sampling method. Multilevel modeling revealed that challenge–skill and positive affect were positively associated with optimal experience, while negative affect was negatively associated with optimal experience. Effortless attention mediated the associations between internal states and optimal experience, while activity and company only moderated some of these associations. These findings will inform practitioners about the factors that should be addressed in interventions with adolescents to promote optimal experiences in their lives.
... The nature of educational activities makes it questionable to directly apply the theory to L2 learning. Specifically, it has been suggested that the condition of flow, the optimal challenge, may not be applicable to work-related and educational activities, because these activities oftentimes are performed out of obligation, and these are not likely to be intrinsically motivating (Abuhamdeh & Csikszentmihalyi, 2012a). Given the different nature of educational activities compared to other daily activities from which flow theory was originated (e.g., rock climbing, playing musical instruments), it seems desirable, as an initial step, to apply the theory to flow-enhancing L2 activities, where the activity itself serves as a goal and poses little or no performance anxiety. ...
... This could be partly because of the discrepancy between educational activities and other daily activities where flow theory was born out. As flow theory was developed as an attempt to pursue activities that are not extrinsically rewarding, activities that the theory was based upon were autotelic in nature where performance itself serves as a goal, as in the cases of rock climbing, art making, and playing chess (Abuhamdeh & Csikszentmihalyi, 2012a). Thus, how optimal challenge works in educational activities is an empirical question. ...
... This was included because many education-based studies have shown that exceeding skill level compared to difficulty level facilitates positive experience in academic tasks (Abuhamdeh & Csikszentmihalyi, 2012a;Cho, 2018). Next, the degree of (im)balance between challenge and skill was included, which was operationalized via the gap between challenge and skill. ...
... merging of action and awareness (Nakamura & Csikszentmihalyi, 2002) to whom may be added a tenth characteristic (10) attentional-involvement (Abuhamdeh & Csikszentmihalyi, 2012a). Hamari and Koivisto (2014) have suggested that flow should be regarded as divided between the conditions for reaching the flow and the psychological outputs that follow from reaching the optimal experience. ...
... The attentional involvement was found to be a mediating variable for the relationship between optimal challenge and enjoyment, and the relationship between competence valuation and enjoyment. Using Experience Sampling Method, Abuhamdeh and Csikszentmihalyi (2012a) have examined the relationship between challenge and enjoyment on undergraduate students. The measure comprised questions concerning enjoyment (e.g., were you enjoying yourself?), ...
... Further, the attentional involvement fully mediated the relationship between competence valuation and enjoyment, accounting for 80% of the total effect. This means that when attentional involvement increases, a big part of attentional resources are devoted towards the task, and features of activity engagement therefore can be experienced more fully (Abuhamdeh & Csikszentmihalyi, 2012a). This finding highlights the importance of attentional involvement in intrinsic motivation processes. ...
Flow is a well-known concept in the fields of positive and applied psychology. Examination of a large body of flow literature suggests there is a need for a conceptual model rooted in a cognitive approach to explain how this psychological phenomenon works. In this paper, we propose the Flow Engine Framework, a theoretical model explaining dynamic interactions between rearranged flow components and fundamental cognitive processes. Using an IPO framework (Inputs – Processes – Outputs) including a feedback process, we organize flow characteristics into three logically related categories: inputs (requirements for flow), mediating and moderating cognitive processes (attentional and motivational mechanisms) and outputs (subjective and objective outcomes), describing the process of the flow. Comparing flow with an engine, inputs are depicted as flow-fuel, core processes cylinder strokes and outputs as power created to provide motion.
... When perceived challenges are optimally matched with perceived skill and competency, subjective enjoyment is maximized, resulting in a state of coherence, which is definitive of flow (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990;Engeser & Rheinberg, 2008). The ratios needed to experience flow in a similar or dissimilar activity may vary considerably at different times and places within a person's life (Abuhamdeh & Csikszentmihalyi, 2012). Outdoor adventures in nature provide opportunities to experience flow. ...
... When the challenges are deemed to be greater than the individual's skills and ability to meet them successfully, the subjective result is anxiety (Moneta & Csikszentmihalyi, 1996). Past research has confirmed these relationships and supports the positive relationship between optimal enjoyment with perceived skills and competence valuation as key indicators of flow (Abuhamdeh & Csikszentmihalyi, 2012;Harackiewicz & Manderlink, 1984;Moneta & Csikszentmihalyi, 1996;Tauer & Harackiewicz, 1999). Moneta and Csikszentmihalyi (1996) investigated "The Effects of Perceived Challenges and Skills on the Quality of Subjective Experiences" (1996) in the daily lives of a group of 208 adolescents as an effort to validate the fundamental ideas of flow theory, which "postulates that the 'space' for optimization of experience is itself purely experiential, private, and constructed over 'perceived' challenges and skills" (Moneta & Csikszentmihalyi, 1996, p. 293). ...
... Intrinsic motivation is associated with the phenomenon of flow (Abuhamdeh & Csikszentmihalyi, 2012). Intrinsic behaviors are driven by the sense of internal reward and satisfaction that comes from engaging in an activity, which also serves to reinforce interest and desire for further participation (Csikszentmihalyi, 1975). ...
... Research on online flow models and in e-learning environments showed that focused attention is a direct antecedent of flow and has a significant effect on determining students' flow level (Esteban-Millat, Martínez-López, Huertas-García, Meseguer, & Rodríguez-Ardura, 2014;Novak, Hoffman, & Yiu-Fai Yung, 2000;Shin, 2006). Abuhamdeh and Csikszentmihalyi (2012) found that attentional involvement (amount of attention devoted to moment-to-moment activity) mediates the relationship between the balance of challenges/skills and enjoyment. They suggest that attentional processes could be the central feature of flow experiences. ...
... Some studies assess the amount of attention/concentration participants have in the moment of performing the activity, using real-time measures (e.g. Abuhamdeh & Csikszentmihalyi, 2012) and others attend to the capacity to control attention in a specific context/activity, using retrospective questionnaires (e.g. Esteban-Millat et al., 2014). ...
... Nevertheless, there are some studies that point to some directions about the subject. For example, Abuhamdeh and Csikszentmihalyi (2012) showed that 20% of the variance of attention involvement in daily life (attention/concentration felt during the performance of the activity) resided at the between-level person. The authors suggested the existence of personal characteristics that influence this attentional involvement. ...
A investigação tem demonstrado que as experiências ótimas promovem o desenvolvimento positivo. Sendo a adolescência marcada pela experimentação e definição de interesses, é também um perÃodo crucial para a ocorrência de experiências ótimas na vida diária, concretamente, a experiência de Flow. Os adolescentes estão mais propensos a procurar desafios e desenvolver novas competências nos vários contextos, emergindo assim a possibilidade de experienciarem Flow e desenvolverem vidas bem-sucedidas. O presente artigo apresenta uma revisão dos principais resultados da investigação acerca dos fatores individuais e contextuais associados à experiência de Flow e do impacto desta na vida dos adolescentes. Especificamente, o artigo discute as possÃveis relações entre o Controlo Atencional, a Regulação Emocional e a experiência de Flow, e a importância destes para o desenvolvimento positivo dos adolescentes. Adotando uma perspetiva social e ecológica, o artigo apresenta conclusões e sugere novas linhas de investigação futura acerca dos preditores da experiência de Flow.
... However, other scholars outside the direct realm of the undermining effect research have provided some additional insights into the psychological and neural processes underlying intrinsic motivation (see, e.g., Abuhamdeh et al., 2015;Abuhamdeh & Csikszentmihalyi, 2012a, 2012bChen et al., 2001;Elliot & Harackiewicz, 1994;Hidi, 2016;Hidi & Renninger, 2006;Isen & Reeve, 2005;Kruglanski et al., 2018;Lee & Reeve, 2017;Reeve, 1989;Reeve et al., 2003;Renninger & Stephanie Su, 2012;Thomas & Velthouse, 1990). For example, via three experiments, Reeve et al. (2003) showed that the internal perceived locus of causality and volition are the most focal and valid indicators of self-determination, while perceived choice is not. ...
... Other more recently explored psychological processes in the field of intrinsic motivation research include outcome uncertainty and suspense (Abuhamdeh et al., 2015), the type of intrinsically motivating activity (goal-directed vs. non-goal directed), immersion in the activity (Abuhamdeh & Csikszentmihalyi, 2012a, 2012b, positive affect (Isen & Reeve, 2005), and dimensions of situational interest (Chen et al., 2001), to name but a few. For example, Abuhamdeh et al. (2015) explored the role of outcome uncertainty (i.e., winning a game by a small vs. a large margin) and feelings of suspense as possible psychological processes underlying intrinsic motivation. ...
In my thesis, I examine the effects of extrinsic rewards on intrinsic motivation in two different contexts (laboratory & work). My study focuses on answering the following two questions:
1. Under what reward contingencies and populations will extrinsic rewards have a negative effect, no effect, or positive effect on intrinsic motivation in controlled laboratory experiments? What is the magnitude of the effect?
2. What is the association between extrinsic rewards and intrinsic motivation in organizational settings? How strong is this association?
A systematic search of published studies from seven electronic databases was carried out to answer these questions. Altogether, 158 peer-reviewed journal articles met the inclusion criteria. Three primary meta-analyses using a random-effects model and a hierarchical analysis framework were followed through. Following Deci et al.’s (1999a) steps, the analysis proceeded from a higher level of analysis examining the effect of all rewards on intrinsic motivation to more specified levels of analysis using reward type and reward contingency as moderators.
Two meta-analyses focused on examining the causal impact of extrinsic rewards on intrinsic motivation by synthesizing the evidence from 142 randomized controlled laboratory experiments (125 published articles). Separate meta-analyses were performed for the two measures of intrinsic motivation: free-choice intrinsic motivation (i.e., free-choice behavior) and self-reported interest/enjoyment. The third primary meta-analysis synthesized the evidence from observational studies conducted in work settings. The goal was to examine the relationship between extrinsic reward and self-reported intrinsic work motivation. Altogether, 42 independent samples from 35 published articles were used in the analyses.
... Inspiration involves being in the moment, and at the same time losing that moment. When a person is inspired they are in a special zone-others have described similar constructs, such as "flow" by Csikszentmihalyi and colleagues (Abuhamdeh & Csikszentmihalyi, 2012;Csikszentmihalyi, 1997;Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000), "peak experience" by Maslow (1964Maslow ( , 1968, "mental stillness" by Hart (1993) and "a moment of extreme happiness; a feeling of lightness and freedom; a sense of harmony with the whole world; moments which are totally absorbing and which feel important: these phrases characterize transcendent experience" (Williams & Harvey, 2001, p. 249). Inspiration may also be associated with spiritual experiences; for example, during a wilderness trip, participants indicated that the setting and social interaction combined to produce spiritual inspiration (Fredrickson & Anderson, 1999). ...
... • having high attentional involvement, as in "finding flow" (Abuhamdeh & Csikszentmihalyi, 2012;Csikszentmihalyi, 1997;Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000). ...
Inspiration has been an under-studied phenomenon in the interpretation field. This paper presents the results of a systematic literature review of psychological literature related to inspiration, revealing nine characteristics of inspiration. Of particular interest was the contrasting meanings of inspiration as inspired by and inspired to, and that inspiration is transmissible, positive, individual, transcendent, unexpected, and holistic, and requires receptivity, which may be cultivated. Each characteristic was related to the field of interpretation in practice. After this review of the literature, we propose that giving consideration to inspiration-based interpretation may provide useful insights for practice as a constructivist approach to interpretation. Further exploration into the topic is warranted.
... It also runs counter to Csikszentmihalyi's (1975Csikszentmihalyi's ( , 1990 flow theory that challenging tasks can stimulate learner interest, attention, and control. These contrasts resonate with the argument that even appropriate task challenge may be insufficient for flow (Abuhamdeh & Csikszentmihalyi, 2012a). Specifically, learners' intrinsic interest in a task is influenced by, among other factors, the relevance of the task (Shernoff et al., 2003), task contents (Poupore, 2014), and learning environment (Wu, 2003). ...
... Contrary to Csikszentmihalyi's (1975Csikszentmihalyi's ( , 1990) emphasis on high challenge and high skill in flow experience, some studies have shown evidence of easier tasks being more facilitative to flow experience in certain contexts. Abuhamdeh and Csikszentmihalyi (2012a) noted that school-related or work-related activities are generally performed out of obligation rather than voluntarily, and in these less intrinsically driven learning contexts, individuals tend to enjoy relatively easier tasks more than challenging ones (Day & Bamford, 1998;Graef et al., 1983). Lambert, Chapman, and Lurie (2013) showed that high skill-challenge compatibility was associated only with cognitive efficiency dimensions in flow such as ease of concentration, but other affective and motivation dimensions of flow, including enjoyment, happiness, and intrinsic motivation, were related to the control condition, where skills exceeded challenges (i.e., moderate challenge and high skills). ...
Despite an increased awareness of language learner performance in task-based instruction, little is known about how learners perceive and respond to different task factors. This study investigates the effects of task complexity and modality on (a) learners’ perception of task difficulty, skill, and its balance, and on (b) learners’ task experience. It adopts Csikszentmihalyi's (1975) construct of flow, characterized by interest, attention, and control. It further examines how difficulty–skill balance predicts flow experience. In a repeated measures design, 141 learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) performed 4 argumentative tasks that differed in task complexity (+/– elements) and modality (speaking vs. writing), and completed a questionnaire asking about their perception of task difficulty, skills, and task experience. A repeated measures multivariate analysis of variance showed that, although both task complexity and modality affected learner perception of task difficulty, only modality influenced perceived skill and flow; writing provided more favorable task experiences regarding the difficulty–skill balance and flow. Furthermore, difficulty–skill balance significantly predicted flow experience, but the condition seems insufficient for affecting flow.
... (1) The first dimension of experience value is enjoyment. Enjoyment results when a person has satisfied a need and received the unexpected (Abuhamdeh and Csikszentmihalyi, 2012). Enjoyment relates to experiencing a good time (See-To et al., 2012). ...
... An escapist experience is exciting and enjoyable (Mehmetoglu and Engen, 2011). It allows an individual to be completely absorbed in an experience, to the point of forgetting oneself (Hosany and Witham, 2010;Abuhamdeh and Csikszentmihalyi, 2012). Tourism provides a number of different escapist experiences, ranging from guided tours, free walks, events and wine and food tastings (Capitello et al., 2013), to sky-diving, rollercoaster rides and visits to aqua parks (Frochot and Batat, 2013). ...
Purpose
Globally, guesthouses provide an important source of accommodation to visitors and tourists. Surprisingly, research into this sector is rather sparse. The purpose of this paper is to examine the dimensions of experience value, determine guests’ perceptions of experience value, analyse the influences of various profile variables on experience value, and investigate the relationship between experience value, satisfaction, and customer behavioural intentions regarding guesthouses in Ghana.
Design/methodology/approach
A quantitative research design was followed. A total of 541 useable questionnaires were received from 650 guests conveniently selected from 51 guesthouses in Ghana. The guesthouses were selected by means of stratified random sampling.
Findings
The results of the study reveal that atmospherics, enjoyment, entertainment, escape, efficiency, excellence and economic value measure guests’ perceptions of experience value. Atmospherics and economic value attracted the highest positive rating while escape had the most negative rating. In addition, the study showed that there is a strong positive relationship between experience value, satisfaction and behavioural intention.
Research limitations/implications
The first limitation relates to the sample. Only the major city from each of four regions was selected for the study. These regions include Accra, Koforidua, Cape Coast and Kumasi. Future research should investigate perceived value provided by guesthouses in the remaining six regions of the country in the quest to generalise the findings. Lastly, the study derived the experience value dimensions from the literature and verified these. While this is not regarded as a limitation, future research could investigate further dimensions of experience value such as novelty, nostalgia and social interaction.
Practical implications
Guesthouse managers could use the outcome of this study as a form of differentiation. Second, managers should take note of the positive relationships between experience value, satisfaction and respondents’ intentions to return to the guesthouse and tell others about their experiences (behavioural intentions). This can strengthen the organisation’s competitive position within the accommodation industry. Finally, the research resulted in a fairly simple instrument guesthouse managers can use to assess their guests’ perceptions of value provided by the guesthouse. It is recommended that guesthouse managers measure guests’ perceptions of value on a regular basis.
Originality/value
Theoretical implications and recommendations following the empirical findings and recommendations are provided. First, defining the concept of value is complex. While the underlying foundation of value as benefits relative to sacrifices (Zeithaml, 1988) remains relevant, affective forms of value should also be considered. This suggests that organisations that focus only on providing benefits may be at a competitive disadvantage. Second, experience value is multidimensional. Seven dimensions, namely atmospherics, enjoyment, entertainment, escape, efficiency, excellence and economic value were shown to contribute to the guesthouse experience. These included emotional factors in addition to the conventional functional factors.
... In our view, flow may offer a wider understanding of the processes at play in gamification process, as it includes, but is not limited to, intrinsic motivation. Flow was modelled as relying both on motivational and attentional processes (Abuhamdeh and Csikszentmihalyi 2012;Dietrich 2004;Simlesa et al. 2018). Furthermore, the resulting flow experience also inherently includes positive affective states as well as task achievement. ...
Gamification can be seen as the intentional use of game design elements in non-game tasks, in order to produce psychological outcomes likely to influence behaviour and/or performance. In this respect, we hypothesize that gamification would produce measurable effects on user performance, that this positive impact would be mediated by specific motivational and attentional processes such as flow and that gamification would moderate the social comparison process. In three experimental studies, we examine the effects of gamified electronic brainstorming interfaces on fluency, uniqueness and flow. The first study mainly focuses on time pressure, the second on performance standard and the third one introduces social comparison. The results highlight some effects of the gamified conditions on brainstorming performance, but no or negative effects on flow. All three studies are congruent in that gamification did not occur as a psychological process, which questions popular design trends observed in a number of sectors.
... The term of flow is often used interchangeably with that of 'absorption', and it refers to a particular kind of high-quality engagement, where individuals lose themselves in an activity (e.g. Abuhamdeh & Csikszentmihalyi, 2012b). ...
Children are born naturally curious and eager to learn, but as they go through school this inner motivation to learn diminishes. Yet children’s inner motivation to learn is essential to deep learning, positive attitudes to school and wellbeing. Self-Determination Theory suggests that supporting children’s need for autonomy – that is to say the feeling that actions stem from internal sources rather than being imposed externally – is essential to supporting inner motivational resources. This thesis is concerned with how teachers may be able to support children’s autonomy and inner motivation in the early Primary classroom in England and how we may be able to capture changes in children’s inner motivation in those settings. It is divided into two parts. In Part I, I used interpretive methods to understand teachers’ attempts to provide greater opportunities for children’s autonomy in Year 1 classrooms through a professional development programme. This programme was developed by a team of researchers at the PEDAL centre using a Community of Practice model and involved nine teachers in trying out strategies to support children’s autonomy. Through stories of change, I show that teachers’ use and interpretations of the strategies varied, and this was affected by the teachers’ school context and their own beliefs. Through thematic analysis, I show that the classrooms in the study functioned as ecosystems of teacher control, which was itself under pressure from top-down directions through governmental policies and institutions as well as senior leaders. This resulted in a teaching mindset focused on strict learning objectives which left little space for children to take ownership of their learning. Despite this, teachers were sometimes able to provide pockets of space for children’s autonomy, though these took diverse forms. The extent of these spaces for autonomy depended on individual school and classroom contexts. The proposed model – pockets of space within an ecosystem of teacher control – explains the tensions between teachers’ need for control in the classroom and opportunities for children’s autonomy, as well as areas where teachers’ attempts to increase children’s autonomy were successful. In particular, I show that teachers needed to provide support and stimulation as well as space in order to support both autonomy and inner motivation. Part II is concerned with measuring inner motivation for research purposes and in particular for future evaluations of the above professional development programme. This research focuses on the validity and reliability of an existing instrument, the Leuven Involvement Scale (LIS). This instrument aims to capture a form of engagement in learning activities that is related to inner motivation. The studies in Part II investigate the reliability and stability of the instrument, as well as factors associated with variation in engagement using multilevel modelling. I found that the LIS can be reliable as long as raters share a common understanding of different child behaviours in the classroom. In addition, I found that engagement varied hugely from one moment to the next, with very little variation between children. What little variation existed between children was explained by the association between engagement and aspects of children’s self-regulatory capacities, namely effortful control and negative emotions, measured through the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) and Child Behaviour Questionnaire (CBQ). However, overall this research suggests that it is the individual moment that matters, rather than characteristics of the children. To better understand the influence of contextual factors, I investigated the association of activity setting (whether children are in teacher-directed, independent or free choice situations) with engagement. Children were significantly more engaged in free choice settings compared to whole class teacher-directed settings. However, there was a large amount of remaining variation and I discuss the implications this has for the role of teachers in supporting children’s engagement. Overall, this thesis makes a contribution towards our understanding of children’s autonomy and inner motivation in the classroom and teaching practices that support it, as well as how we may be able to study it in classroom contexts.
... ey tend to think that others will understand their innovative behaviors and their even risktaking behaviors. Ford [30] proposed that safety signals are one of the essential situation variables related to innovation. e higher the knowledge worker's level of psychological safety, the higher the level of innovative behavior. ...
Nowadays, many high-tech SMEs have gradually focused on innovation-orientation and have adopted various measures to create an organizational climate, stimulate knowledge workers’ enthusiasm for innovation, and promote individual innovation behavior, but met with little success. Based on the stimulus organism response (SOR) model, the objective of this study is to explore the mediating factors that affect knowledge workers’ innovative work behavior, and construct a three-level model of the external environment, psychological factors, and individual behavior. This study selected 575 valid samples from 24 high-tech SMEs in Zhongguancun, which is a technology hub in Haidian District, Beijing, China. Through the convenience sampling method, This study analyze the data and perform structural equation modeling (SEM) using AMOS 23.0. The external environment (i.e., organizational climate, innovation orientation) and psychological factors (i.e., intrinsic motivation, psychological safety) have a significant positive impact on innovative work behavior. Psychological factors have the most significant impact on innovative work behavior. Besides, psychological factors also mediate the relationship between the external environment and innovative work behavior. The findings indicated that high-tech SMEs need to formulate scientific innovation-orientation when implementing strategies, and continue to shape a harmonious and equal organizational climate. Furthermore, high-tech SMEs should encourage knowledge workers to speak the truth, express different voices, and stimulate work enthusiasm to improve psychological safety and intrinsic motivation, thereby enhancing knowledge workers’ innovative work behavior.
... High information requires more effort because it has a greater uncertainty 68,69 . In contrast, excessive predictability in musical pieces can induce a lack of interest and attention in the process because they offer no new information [70][71][72] , which can explain the observations in the emotional responses associated with pieces with a single instrument, corresponding to Cluster 3. ...
There is a lack of clarity on whether pigs can emotionally respond to musical stimulation and whether that response is related to music structure. Qualitative Behavioral Assessment (QBA) was used to evaluate effects of 16 distinct musical pieces (in terms of harmonic structure) on emotional responses in nursery pigs (n = 30) during four periods: “habituation”, “treatments”, “breaks” and “final”. Data were evaluated using Principal component analysis (PCA). Two principal components (PC) were considered in the analysis: PC1, characterized as a positive emotions index, included the emotional responses content, playful, sociable, and happy, whereas PC2, characterized as a negative emotions index, included fearful, inquisitive, and uneasy with positive loadings, and relaxed and calm with negative loadings. Musical stimulation (treatment) increased (P < 0.01) both emotional indices, compared to other periods and this response was influenced by harmonic characteristics of the music. We concluded that pigs have a wide variety of emotional responses, with different affective states related to the music structure used, providing evidence of its potential use as environmental enrichment for this species.
... Transcendence is a core characteristic of inspiration (Hart, 1998;Jennings, 2012;Thrash & Elliot, 2004;Thrash et al., 2010). The experience of transcendence has, as a characteristic, the feeling of being in the moment and at the same time a feeling of timelessness (Abuhamdeh & Csikszentmihalyi, 2012.) Inspiration is positive. ...
While the idea of inspiration spans the history of the field, inspiration as a topic has been an under-studied phenomenon in the interpretation field. Thirty-three professional interpreters from 21 agencies across North America participated in dialog on the topic of inspiration in interpretation through Internet-based World Café sessions. The dialog was rich and thoughtful, and revealed that these interpreters believed that inspiration is the goal of interpretation and that the nine characteristics of inspiration identified in the literature and reviewed in our prior publication were relevant to interpretation: that inspiration is two-sided, transmissible, positive, individual, transcendent, unexpected, holistic, requires receptivity, and receptivity may be cultivated. Identified barriers to using an inspiration-based approach in interpretation included meeting the needs of agencies, and particularly the agency’s needs for quantitative measurements of attendance and impacts.
... High information requires more effort because it has a greater uncertainty 68,69 . In contrast, excessive predictability in musical pieces can induce a lack of interest and attention in the process because they offer no new information [70][71][72] , which can explain the observations in the emotional responses associated with pieces with a single instrument, corresponding to Cluster 3. ...
There is a lack of clarity on whether pigs can emotionally respond to musical stimulation and whether that response is related to music types. Qualitative Behavioral Assessment (QBA) was used to evaluate effects of 16 distinct musical pieces (in terms of harmony and vertical density) on emotional responses in nursery pigs (n=30) during four periods: “habituation,” “treatments,” “breaks,” and “final.” Data were evaluated using Principal component analysis (PCA). Two principal components (PC) were considered in the analysis: PC1, characterized as a positive emotions index, included the terms content, playful, sociable, and happy, whereas PC2, characterized as a negative emotions index, included fearful, inquisitive, and uneasy with positive loadings, and relaxed and calm with negative loadings. Musical stimulation (treatment) increased (P < 0.01) both emotional indices, compared to other periods and this response was influenced by the compositional characteristics of the music. We concluded that pigs have a wide variety of emotional responses, with different affective states related to the type of music used, providing evidence of its potential use as environmental enrichment for the species.
... This concurs with Csikszentmihalyi's theory (1975Csikszentmihalyi's theory ( , 1990) that learner interest, attention, and control can be provoked by challenging tasks. These agreements soften the controversy of the inadequacy of suitable task challenges for flow (Abuhamdeh & Csikszentmihalyi, 2012a); among other elements, the task pertinence (Shernoff et al., 2003), task essences (Poupore, 2014), and learning atmosphere (Wu, 2003) affect learners' basic interest in a task. Therefore, like this study, adequately various environments to influence learner interest may not have been constructed by the acceptance of equal kinds of decisionmaking/ argumentative tasks with the same task forms and essences (Cho, 2018). ...
Regardless of the appreciation of language learners' achievement in task-based language teaching, not much has been hinged upon learners' perception and reception of various elements. This study examined task complexity and modality effects on Iranian English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) learners' comprehension of task difficulty, competencies, and difficulty-skill balance as well as the learners' task experience. The Flow Outlook features were also applied to investigate how difficulty-skill balance anticipated flow experience. Via a repeated-measures design, and with a focus on task complexity (simple vs. complex) and task modality (written vs. spoken), 49 EFL learners carried out four argumentative tasks (two simple written and spoken vs. two complex written and spoken tasks); then, they ticked the flow questionnaire to gauge their perception of task difficulty, competence, and task experience. Repeated-measures MANOVA revealed that although task complexity influenced task difficulty and difficulty-skill balance significantly, the skill was not affected significantly; task modality influenced task difficulty and skill significantly while difficulty-skill balance received no significant effect. The follow-up post hoc test indicated that complexity and modality significantly influenced flow, attention, and control, but not interest. Linear regression revealed difficulty-skill balance was a predictor for learners' flow experience for both writing tasks and simple speaking tasks but not for complex speaking tasks. Pedagogically, the findings of this research may have some implications for English language teachers, learners, and materials developers.
... Interestingly, "…motivation research has paid attention to the first two dimensions but neglected (or treated superficially) the time dimension" (Ployhart, 2008, p. 19), even though there is some evidence to suggest that motivation changes across time. For example, attentional involvement fluctuates throughout the workday given perceived ability to handle challenges (Abuhamdeh & Csikszentmihalyi, 2012), engagement and effort fluctuate across days given novelty and challenge perceptions (Fisher & Noble, 2004;Vujčić, Oerlemans, & Bakker, 2017), and engagement fluctuates across weeks given the degree to which one feels self-efficacious or optimistic (Bakker & Sanz-Vergel, 2013). However, it is unclear whether there is any meaningful trend in these fluctuations across time, and thus, the matter of motivational persistence remains elusive. ...
Employee performance is commonly investigated as a static, one-time snapshot of prior employee behaviors. For the studies that do acknowledge that performance fluctuates over time, the timeframe decision is disconnected from theoretical underpinnings. To make this connection clearer, we draw on entrainment theory and investigate trajectories in motivation and performance across the 5-day workweek. We hypothesize that both motivational control (i.e., staying on course and sustaining effort in pursuit of goals through the redirection of attention) and performance have a declining trajectory across the workweek. Drawing on self-determination theory, we also hypothesize that trait-based mindfulness (i.e., nonjudgmental present moment attention and awareness) negatively relates to the downward trajectory in performance across the workweek via its effect on the trajectory of motivational control. Finally, we take a trait activation theory perspective, hypothesizing that mindfulness is relevant as an indirect influence on performance trajectories through motivational control trajectories only when job demands are high. We test our model using 151 full-time employees in a medical device company. We collected data from participants twice daily across the 5-day workweek. We then use these daily scores to create between-person (e.g., person-centric) trajectories to investigate the proposed relationships. The hypotheses are generally supported. There is a downward trajectory of both motivational control and performance across the workweek. Furthermore, job demands conditionally moderate the indirect effect of mindfulness on performance trajectories through motivational control trajectories. Theoretical and practical implications specific to dynamic motivation and performance, entrainment, and mindfulness literature are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).
... The possibility that attentional involvement mediates the relationship between a balance of challenges and skills and enjoyment was examined in an experience sampling study of US college students (Abuhamdeh and Csikszentmihalyi, 2012a). Multilevel, within-person analyses indicated that (1) as expected, there was a greater balance of challenges and skills associated with greater enjoyment, and (2) this positive relationship was fully mediated by attentional involvement. ...
Flow theory (Csikszentmihalyi, Beyond boredom and anxiety: Experiencing flow in work and play. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, 1975) and cognitive evaluation theory (Deci and Ryan, Intrinsic motivation and self-determination in human behaviour. Plenum, New York, 1985) have each inspired a large body of research dedicated to understanding why we enjoy doing what we enjoy doing. Although both theories ostensibly address the same category of behavior—namely, intrinsically motivated behavior—there have been few serious efforts to reconcile these two theories. This is the purpose of the current chapter. After a review and assessment of relevant empirical findings, I suggest that the two theories are most applicable to different types of behavior, distinguished by their state-level motivational orientations. Furthermore, whereas CET appears to be more applicable to understanding the process of developing intrinsic motivation, flow theory appears the more useful framework for understanding variations in enjoyment once intrinsic motivation for an activity has been firmly established.
... Another feature of flow which is likely to contribute to its enjoyable, intrinsicallyrewarding nature is the deep attentional involvement which is so characteristic of it. The intensive allocation of attentional resources towards the task at hand allows the features of the activity that evoke interest (i.e. the "collative properties" of stimuli, Berlyne, 1960) to be experienced more fully and appreciated to a greater degree than they otherwise would be, whether these are the aesthetic properties of a painting or the intellectual properties of a chess problem (Abuhamdeh & Csikszentmihalyi, 2012a). ...
Ever since Csikszentmihalyi’s earliest work on flow, he has conceived of flow as a form of enjoyment. Nevertheless, alternative views have arisen, most influentially Martin Seligman’s view of flow as devoid of emotions. In the first part of this chapter, these two contrasting views are clarified and then evaluated. While Csikszentmihalyi’s view, with some adjustment, may be reconciled with current scientific understanding of emotions, Seligman’s is based on a premise which conflicts with appraisal theorists view that the elicitation of emotions is often automatic (especially within the context of well-rehearsed activities) and need not consume significant attentional resources. The common misconception of flow as devoid of emotions is then traced to three sources: (1) a failure to differentiate between experiencing an emotion and the awareness of experiencing it, (2) incorrectly assuming that the enjoyment experienced during flow is of the “happy-smiley” type, and (3) Csikszentmihalyi’s unconventional usage of the term “pleasure” in his writings. Potential explanations for the enjoyable, intrinsically-motivating nature of flow are then suggested.
... The experience sampling method has been used in studying flow in different contexts: self-expansion in couples (Graham, 2008), experience at work (Fullagar and Kelloway, 2009), peak experience in the Grand Canyon (Panter, 2017), during sport (Jackson, 2000), and in virtual reality (Gaggioli, 2012). This method has also been used in studying different forms of focused attention or mindfulness (Easterlin and Cardea, 1998;Abuhamdeh and Csikszentmihalyi, 2012;Smallwood et al., 2012). Experience Sampling reports acceptable levels of internal consistency and test-retest reliability, but researchers recommend using other measures to corroborate the results and ensure validity (Csikszentmihalyi and Larson, 2014). ...
Self-transcendence has been characterized as a decrease in self-saliency (ego disillusionment) and increased connection, and has been growing in research interest in the past decade. Several measures have been developed and published with some degree of psychometric validity and reliability. However, to date, there has been no review systematically describing, contrasting, and evaluating the different methodological approaches toward measuring self-transcendence including questionnaires, neurological and physiological measures, and qualitative methods. To address this gap, we conducted a review to describe existing methods of measuring self-transcendence, evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of these methods, and discuss research avenues to advance assessment of self-transcendence, including recommendations for suitability of methods given research contexts.
... As a secondary analysis, we were interested in the relationship between mothers' enjoyment and SB as well as PA. The rationale for this arises from attentional involvement through the suggestion that a given task (exercising with the child by using the movement-to-music video program) is associated with positive experiences, and focused attention is intrinsically rewarded [17,18]. In addition, mother-child interactions and communication may benefit from shared musical activities [19], and thus increase the enjoyment and amount of exercises. ...
Background
Parental support and participation in physical activity (PA) with children and parents’ acting as a role model for less sedentary behaviors (SB) are critical factors for children’s healthier lifestyle. The purpose of the study was to assess the relationship between mothers’ enjoyment and participants’ sedentary behavior (SB) and physical activity (PA) as a secondary analysis of a randomized controlled trial (RCT) using data from Moving Sound RCT in the Pirkanmaa area of Finland.
Methods
The participants were 108 mother–child dyads (child age 5–7 years) who completed the eight-week exercise intervention using a movement-to-music video program in their homes. Mothers’ enjoyment was examined using a modified version of the enjoyment in sport questionnaire. The proportion of SB, standing, light PA, moderate-to-vigorous PA, and Total PA were derived from accelerometers at baseline and during the final week of the intervention. Analyses were performed using linear mixed-effect models for (1) intervention and control groups, (2) groups based on mothers’ enjoyment.
Results
The results highlighted that mothers’ enjoyment of exercise with their children was overall high. Although there was no difference between the intervention and control groups, mothers in the intervention group increased their enjoyment during the intervention (p = 0.007). With mothers’ higher enjoyment at baseline, children’s light PA increased (p < 0.001), and with mothers’ lower enjoyment, children’s SB increased (p = 0.010). Further, if mothers’ enjoyment decreased during the study, their own LPA increased (p = 0.049), and their children’s SB increased (p = 0.013). If mothers’ enjoyment remained stable, children’s light PA (p = 0.002) and Total PA (p = 0.034) increased.
Conclusions
In this RCT, no differences were found between the intervention and control groups or groups based on mothers’ enjoyment, possibly due to the low power of the study. However, mothers’ enjoyment of exercise with their children increased within the intervention group, and mothers’ enjoyment influenced children’s SB and PA. For future studies, it would be essential to focus on children’s enjoyment and factors behind the behavior change.
Trial registration
The study is registered at ClinicalTrials.gov, registration number NTC02270138, on October 2, 2014.
... The second dimension, entertainment, refers to activities that are gratifying and aims at engaging the customer (Hosany & Witham 2010;Pine & Gilmore 1998). Escape, the third proposed dimension, captures opportunities provided by the organisation that can help the customer forget about normal daily activities (Abuhamdeh & Csikszentmihalyi 2012). Atmospherics represents the fourth dimension of experience value and includes interior architectural design and decorations, comfortable room temperature, an appropriate lighting system, music, low levels of noise, size and shape of equipment, and furnishings (Bitner 1992). ...
This research suggests that experience quality and experience value be combined into a single multi-dimensional construct, termed experience composite worth. It briefly describes customer experience, experience quality and experience value and the overlap in the dimensions used in outlining experience quality and experience value. Pearson’s product moment correlation performed on a dataset describing the guesthouse experience in Ghana showed strong positive correlations between 11 dimensions proposed to measure the experience. A confirmatory factor analysis indicated the existence of a single latent factor, namely experience composite worth. Experience composite worth is described as the customer’s perception of the trade-off between the tangible, intangible and emotional benefits and sacrifices associated with the complex combination of the characteristics, elements and dimensions of unique experiences co-created by the customer across a series of functional and experiential interactions with all aspects of the organisation. Experience composite worth can therefore result from, and be impacted by, all touch points spanning the customer’s journey. This study creates opportunities for much further research into the proposed concept of experience composite worth, its components, measurement and impact on customer satisfaction and behaviour.
... Intrinsic motivation involves engaging in an activity for the sake of the activity itself, while extrinsic motivation involves engaging in an activity as a means to an end (Abuhamdeh & Csikszentmihalyi, 2009). Additionally, intrinsic motivation involves optimal challenges, those that are neither too easy nor too difficult, for the behavior to increase enjoyment and motivation (Abuhamdeh & Csikszentmihalyi, 2012). ...
Student perceived engagement and student perceived learning are important concepts in today’s higher education classroom environment. Examining engagement from the students’ perspective is an important aspect to understand more about this multidimensional construct as a tool for active learning. A survey was administered to undergraduate business students to gain insight into multiple factors influencing perceived engagement. Students felt that engagement was enhanced by discussion of current events, positive instructor demeanor, and putting effort into course content. The survey revealed four groups of variables: student connection, pedagogical methods, classroom environment, and student motivation. Multidimensionality of this construct was supported, as well as the need to understand engagement from the learners’ perspective.
... (Abuhamdeh & Csikszentmihalyi, 2012a;Keller & Bless, 2008). These findings support the proposal that the balance between perceived challenge and skill is an antecedent of flow (Carli, Delle Fave, & Massimini, 1988;Csikszentmihalyi & Csikszentmihalyi, 1988). ...
Flow is the state of full attention to the task at hand. It is typically studied in daily life, as people engage deeply in activities such as art, sports, and leisure, and typically its affective characteristics are emphasized. This research investigates flow in the laboratory, focusing on its cognitive characteristics. Participants completed different versions of the Trail Making test, a measure of executive function, that made parametrically increasing demands on attention. As predicted, more participants were in the flow state when attentional demands were moderate than when they were low or high. This was revealed by conventional survey measures indicating a balance between the perceived challenge of the task and the perceived skill of participants. Critically, this was also evidenced by a new operational measure of time distortion, defined as the difference between people’s subjective estimates of their task completion times and the objective, experimenter-recorded times. Participants experienced downward time distortion—the feeling of time flying—when attentional demands were moderate. These findings demonstrate for the first time the causal role of attentional demands in inducing the flow state. They set the stage for future studies of flow and time distortion using attention-demanding cognitive tasks, and of the association between time perception and creative thinking.
... Second, retrospective self-reports, as per studies conducted outside the lab, may be capturing positive memory traces of flow derived from its overall autotelic nature ( Csikszentmihalyi, 1975 ) rather than the essence of its constituent characteristics. Relatedly, the deep concentration and attention to detail that is required during gaming tasks may themselves conceivably drive the observed reduction in positive mood, compared with tasks which require a broader attention to their autotelic nature ( Abuhamdeh and Csikszentmihalyi, 2012 ). The current discrepant findings may therefore be explained by its measurement of flow alongside the demands of the task, in contrast with other research which has captured retrospective measures of general gaming experiences outside a specified context or time-frame (e.g., Kaye and Bryce, 2014 ). ...
Although research extols the positive effects of social gaming, the dynamic processes underlying these effects remain unclear. In a hitherto unused approach in this field, we utilised a Smartphone App to model the effect of in-vivo flow and gaming context on positive mood. We also explored individual-level factors including demographic gaming variables (average hours per week playing, gamer-type, preferred type of play) and Big-5 personality traits. Data was obtained from 41 gamers producing a total of 2796 data-points. Multi-level modelling revealed positive mood was associated with in-vivo reports of flow in gameplay, current context and individual-level variance in the number of hours typically spent engaged in playing per week. Specifically, in-vivo positive mood was higher for players when playing online with friends (relative to those playing solo). Higher reports of flow were, nonetheless, associated with decreases in positive mood. Finally, players who indicated playing less frequently experienced higher positive mood, relative to those who played more. These findings support and extend previous work which explores the emotional affordances of gaming and highlight the importance of obtaining situated measures of experiences. They demonstrate that positive mood in gaming is not static, but changeable depending on one’s current gaming environment and flow.
... Although a significant body of research has demonstrated the positive effects of challenging tasks or activities on intrinsic motivation, limited research has examined the subjective experience of an individual's perceptions of how challenged he or she is whilst engaged with mobile technology (Cox, Cairns, Shah, & Carroll, 2012;Kim, Kim, & Wachter, 2013). Research has shown perceived challenge to be a critical factor in supporting intrinsic motivation (Abuhamdeh & Csikszentmihalyi, 2012a;Abuhamdeh, Csikszentmihalyi, & Jalal, 2015). The extent to which an individual feels challenged in a mobile app learning activity may depend, in part, upon the nature of the interactivity experienced by the individual user and by the mobile learning environment created by the app itself (Hamari et al., 2016). ...
By integrating a motivational perspective into the Technology Acceptance Model, the goal of this study is to empirically test the causal relationship of intrinsic mo-tivational factors on students' behavioral intention to use (BIU) a mobile applica-tion for learning. Background Although the Technology Acceptance Model is a significant model, it largely re-mains incomplete as it does not take into consideration the motivation factors and/or outside influences in the adoption of new technology. Methodology A Mobile Application Motivation Instrument (MAMI) was developed from a comprehensive review of literature on intrinsic motivation and verified using a formalized card sorting procedure. Four intrinsic motivation scales were devel-oped: perceived competence (COM), perceived challenge (CHA), perceived choice (CHO), and perceived interest (INT). Consequently, a scale to assess stu-dents' behavioral intention (BIU) to use mobile applications was developed using existing scales from prior TAM instruments. Contribution Incorporating the motivational factors into TAM may provide better explanation and prediction of student acceptance and usage of mobile applications. A poten-tial contribution of this study is the development of a reliable and valid instru-ment that could be further used by a growing community of researchers, instruc-tional designers, and instructors. Findings Data were collected from 193 participants to test the causal relationship of perceived competence (COM), perceived challenge (CHA), perceived choice (CHO), and perceived interest (INT) on students' behavioral inten-tion to use (BIU) a mobile application, using a structural equation model-ing approach. The structural path model indicated that perceived compe-Intrinsic Motivation Factors to Use a Mobile Application for Learning 144 tence (COM), perceived challenge (CHA), perceived choice (CHO), and perceived interest (INT) had a significant influence on students' behavioral intention to use (BIU) a mobile application for learning. Implications of this study are important for researchers and educational practitioners. Future Research One environmental dimension, understudied but with likely implications for in-trinsic motivation, is the social environment.
... Each trait has ten items. A review of previous studies (e.g., Abuhamdeh & Csikszentmihalyi, 2012;Elliot et al., 2000;Igbaria, Iivari & Maragahh, 1995) reveals that intrinsic motivation is often conceptualized as enjoyment, and the measures of intrinsic cyber entrepreneurial motivation in this study were adapted from perceived enjoyment (Igbaria et al., 1995) and measured by four items (i.e., enjoyable, pleasant, fun, and exciting). Extrinsic cyber entrepreneurial motivation was measured by three items that depict the inherent nature of extrinsic motivation: instrumentality. ...
With the growth of the e-commerce industry, developing a better understanding of what drives students’ cyber entrepreneurial intention has become an important issue for academics and practitioners. This study explores the determinants of students’ cyber entrepreneurship intention by investigating the relationships between the Big Five personality traits, intrinsic/extrinsic cyber entrepreneurial motivation, and cyber entrepreneurial intention. Structural equation modeling is employed to analyze data gathered from 450 final-year undergraduates. The results indicate that both intrinsic and extrinsic cyber entrepreneurial motivations positively influence cyber entrepreneurial intention. Besides, conscientiousness, openness to experience, and agreeableness positively affect intrinsic cyber entrepreneurial motivation while extraversion, conscientiousness, and neuroticism positively affect extrinsic cyber entrepreneurial motivation. Disciplinary difference (IT-related vs. non-IT-related) moderates the effect of extrinsic cyber entrepreneurial motivation on cyber entrepreneurial intention. By incorporating both personality traits and motivations into the analysis of cyber entrepreneurial intention, this study provides several important theoretical and practical implications for promoting cyber entrepreneurship.
... Nurture refers to caregiving, characterized by soothing, protecting, teaching and generally ensuring wellbeing of another [3]. Play, meanwhile, refers to intrinsically-motivated absorption, known as Csikszentmihalyi's flow [4]. Nurturing play therefore combines nurture and play concepts, such as when a parent plays with their child, or a pet owner plays with their pet. ...
Workplace stress is an ongoing concern for individuals, employers and communities, calling for innovative interventions. Benefits of play therapy, animal-assisted activities, and nurturing are well documented, yet workplaces restrictions often prevent novel solutions from being applied. To overcome these restrictions while taking advantage of recent research, we introduce a human-computer-animal interactive (HCAI) nurturing play system, minimising workplace disruption through alternative stress alleviation approaches. Our proposed system connects workers with remote rescued dogs in nurturing play interactions, while promoting dog wellbeing. Through NurturePlay, this paper invites further consideration of how interactive technology design may facilitate workplace stress alleviation through remote nurturing play with animals. We seek feedback of our proposed system through this work-in-progress before actual implementation.
... Moreover, Gruber (1986) stated that individual interests and behaviors are essential for the development of a gifted or talented individual; and that each personal resource is needed in order to cope with the difficulties along their development. Gruber also underlines the importance of the moment and the social and historical time, as well as do Abuhamdeh & Csikszentmihalyi (2012). Renzulli (2005) recognized that we might not consider giftedness as an absolute concept. ...
This theoretical review aims to integrate state-of-the-art learning motivation theoretical concepts within the context of gifted and talent development models for native children living in Latin America and the Caribbean sociocultural diverse societies. Motivation as a determinant factor and a promoter of gifted achievement is analyzed. Also the relation between motivation, outstanding performance and underachievement is discussed and tendencies found in social-emotional development of the gifted linked to motivation are explored. Final remarks are given on the significant role of motivation in the achievement of gifted and talented children living under diverse socio-cultural influences that bias their performance on standardized measures. Recommendations highlight the importance of further research, in order to reach a convergence of theoretical and practical elements needed to promote Latin American children's talent.
... More recently, Abuhamdeh and Csikszentmihalyi (2012a) demonstrated that the inverted U-shaped relationship between challenge and enjoyment differs from the one between challenge and attentional involvement (i.e., a central aspect of flow): enjoyment is optimal under lower challenge conditions than attentional involvement. Furthermore, Abuhamdeh and Csikszentmihalyi (2012b, Study 1) replicated this relationship between challenge and enjoyment for an intrinsic, goal-directed activity like chess: Experienced chess players most enjoyed chess games in which they held a slight advantage over their opponents (as assessed by relative performance scores, controlling for relative skill levels). ...
According to flow theory, skill-demand balance is optimal for flow. Experimentally, balance has been tested only against strong overload and strong boredom. We assessed flow and enjoyment as distinct experiences and expected that they (a) are not optimized by constant balance, (b) experimentally dissociate, and (c) are supported by different personality traits. Beyond a constant balance condition (“balance”), we realized two dynamic pacing conditions where demands fluctuated through short breaks: one condition without overload (“dynamic medium”) and another with slight overload (“dynamic high”). Consistent with assumptions, constant balance was not optimal for flow (balance ≤ dynamic medium < dynamic high) and enjoyment (balance ≤ dynamic high < dynamic medium). Action orientation enabled high flow even under the suboptimal condition of balance. Sensation seeking increased enjoyment under the suboptimal but arousing dynamic high condition. We discuss dynamic changes in positive affect (seeking and mastering challenge) as an integral part of flow.
... When challenges are balanced by skills, attention is heightened and allows the person to enjoy the experience of being fully engaged in an activity (Abuhamdeh & Csikszentmihalyi, 2012). Like children engrossed in play, this attitude in adults is optimum for learning and creativity. ...
For plant identification in school biology, many digital and analogue identification methods have been developed to make this demanding and little motivating process more student-orientated. In this experimental field study, we examine two empirically developed tools: the digital identification app “ID-Logics’ and the paper-based key, generated by the online platform ‘Eikes Baumschule’. In line with Self-Determination Theory (SDT), an evaluation study with 251 students was conducted to investigate the effect of both tools on students’ intrinsic motivation. The results of the study were unexpected, as the different media regarding the SDT did not present themselves as projected: While both tools influence students’ intrinsic motivation positively, each displays specific effects regarding enjoyment, perceived competence, and perceived autonomy. Taking these effects into account, each tool under investigation offers different advantages and disadvantages for plant identification in the field. The resulting opportunities and challenges, for plant identification, of both tools are discussed critically against the background of SDT, and future directions for research on intrinsic motivation in the context of species identification are mapped. Furthermore, this study shed light on the process of species identification and thus indicates recommendations for practical use in biology lessons.
The article describes the theoretical premises and the logic of the emergence of the Flow concept and its development in almost half of the century. The article presents an overview of the current state of arts in Flow theory being developed by M. Csikszentmihalyi and his followers. Different models of Flow are described, main directions of Flow research are analyzed, an overview of research methods and techniques are highlighted, including qualitative (interviews) and quantitative methods (questionnaires, experience sampling method (ESM). The possibilities and directions of further development of the Flow ideas and research, including interdisciplinary ones, are discussed. The ideas and concepts of representatives of modern Russian psychology, most close to the ideas of M. Csikszentmihalyi and their contribution to flow understanding are listed.
Exercise is beneficial for physical and psychological health, yet the majority of Australian adults are not sufficiently active to gain health benefits. Novel methods are needed to enhance the experience of exercise and ultimately exercise participation. The present study examined performance and psychological experiences during a (non-immersive) virtual reality cycling task that incorporated affective feedback. Female participants (N = 137, university students) received either positive, negative, or neutral virtual feedback while cycling on a stationary bicycle in a virtual reality laboratory environment under the instruction to maintain at least 70% of their maximal heart rate for as long as possible (or up to 30 minutes). Participants also responded to measures of affect, motivation, enjoyment, and competitiveness. Data were analysed with ANOVA's performed with feedback groups and trait competitiveness for the psychological and performance dependent measures. Results showed that positive feedback elicited greater interest and enjoyment during the task than neutral and negative feedback. In addition, perceived competence was greater with positive feedback than for neutral and negative feedback in low competitive participants. The type of feedback did not affect performance (cycling persistence, perceived exertion, and effort). The findings indicate the potential importance of providing positive virtual feedback and considering the interaction of individual difference factors, specifically competitiveness, to enhance virtual exercise experiences.
Purpose
The potential displeasure (e.g. strain, uncertainty and lack of control) involved in the process of obtaining eudaimonic outcomes (e.g. becoming healthier or more knowledgeable) may turn consumers away from a transformative service or hinder their coproduction. This paper aims to propose a service design that could overcome this conflict.
Design/methodology/approach
To allow for concrete discussions of service design, the proposed design is developed in the context of a specific transformative service: the higher educational service.
Findings
It is possible to transform the relationship between hedonic and eudaimonic outcomes from conflicting to complementary goals by replacing passive pleasure that is irrelevant or in conflict with eudaimonic well-being with active pleasure that is complementary to eudaimonic well-being. To facilitate simultaneous attainment of active pleasure and eudaimonic well-being, the transformative service provider needs to structure the elements of the service to create the conditions for the optimal experience to occur.
Research limitations/implications
The proposed design is extendable to other human service contexts.
Originality/value
To the best of the author’s knowledge, this research is the first that shows how a transformative service can be effectively designed to overcome the potential conflict between its eudaimonic versus hedonic outcomes, such that the service will be well received by consumers while remain faithful to its transformative goal.
The purpose of this thesis is to examine the nature of the immersion
process, the process through which consumers become immersed, in the
context of managed visitor attractions. This is a nascent research topic
that has received limited attention from tourism scholars and this thesis
is, therefore, explorative in nature, seeking to pursue the following
overarching research aims:
Aim 1: Explore the underlying structures and mechanisms of the
process leading to the state of immersion in the context of
managed visitor attractions
Aim 2: Explore how context and contextual conditions might
influence the immersion process
These aims are explored through the three papers which constitute this
thesis. Each paper presents an empirical case study based on the
procedures of grounded theory (Strauss & Corbin, 1990) conducted in
the context of experience products offered within managed visitor
attractions. Each of the three case studies employed a qualitative
approach to the data collection, utilizing a combination of semistructured
in-depth interviews and observations. In line with the
grounded theory logic, the findings generated in each study were
expanded on and further developed through each consecutive case study,
turning this thesis into a multiple-case study.
Through this multiple-case study, an empirically grounded, contextually
bound model of the immersion process gradually emerged. The model
demonstrates that, in the context of managed visitor attractions, the
immersion process consists of three stages: involvement triggers,
involvement worlds, and the state of immersion. Each stage was
connected to increasingly higher levels of involvement (engagement,
engrossment, and transcending involvement respectively) and visitors
were found to fluctuate between them in a dynamic fashion. Combined,
this can be described as the underlying structure of the immersion
process. The structure appeared to be held together by four mechanisms,
as the findings showed that the visitors played an important role as cocreators
of stimuli, that involvement was a key force driving the
immersion process forward, and that the visitors’ progression through
the process was moderated by the visitors’ individual (cognitive,
behavioral, and affective) responses, which were in turn influenced by
several antecedent factors including experience design factors, social
factors, personal factors, and the visitors’ appraisals.
These core characteristics of the immersion process (structure and
mechanisms) were consistently identified across each of the three case
studies. This does not, however, imply that contextual differences were
irrelevant to the immersion process, instead, contextual conditions
influenced which “involvement triggers” and “involvement worlds” the
visitors could access, the type of individual responses that were recorded,
and which antecedents influenced these responses.
The findings provide novel insights into the nature of the immersion
process in the context of experience products offered within managed
visitor attractions. Thus, contributing to expand the limited body of
research that exists on the immersion process in tourism-related
visitation contexts.
The potential of e-commerce is vast in supporting consumption-driven Indonesian economics. E-commerce has also become the leading marketing platform for SMEs during the Covid-19 pandemic. Although supported by growing and dynamic e-commerce start-up ecosystem, Indonesian e-commerce still has several weaknesses in retaining their loyal consumers, such as less effective and innovative banner blindness due to consumer avoidance of e-commerce advertisements. In the other side, unique value proposition is needed when Indonesian e-commerce market gets saturated due to fierce competition and low barrier for new competitors. Hence, an effective marketing strategy is essential to increase brand engagement of e-commerce consumers with gamification. This study aims to examine the effect of gameful experience (GAMEX) and game design of e-commerce advergames on self-brand connections that motivate purchases, which were previously studied separately by researchers. By including the brand engagement variable as a mediation on this effect, this study also examine the emotional and cognitive engagement on self-brand connections resulted by experiential marketing. This experimental study employed quantitative approach to 250 frequent e-commerce users. The results shows a positive and significant effect of gameful experience and game design elements on self-brand connection mediated by brand engagement. This study is expected to make a practical contribution to e-commerce marketers and UX designers, identify and recommend experimental qualities in e-commerce advergame design to engage loyal customers which influence their purchasing intention that directly supports the business sustainability of SMEs in e-commerce platform.
The increased use of sophisticated mobile devices opens up new possibilities and challenges for language teachers and learners, which has led to an increasing need to consider issues relating to mobile technologies specifically. To date, there is no comprehensive book-length treatment of issues relating to mobile-assisted language learning (MALL). This book fills that gap, providing a resource for present and future language teachers, and for graduate students of applied linguistics and TESOL, to understand how mobile devices can best be used for language teaching. It is founded on existing research, practice and theory, and offers a balanced perspective, based on the author's own experiences with mobile learning - considering the limitations of such an approach, as well as the benefits. Written in a practical and approachable tone, it provides a much-needed guide to MALL, and its fascinating insights promote further debate within the field.
This article presents how the concept of skill-challenge balance — derived from Csíkszentmihályi’s theory of Flow — can provide a key factor in the delivery and teaching of the Meisner technique as well as other actor training methods.
The American acting practitioner Sanford Meisner’s foundational actor training focuses on the redirection of attention, to keep the actor present and less self-conscious. His exercises are presented in a way that encourages external attention to be sustained by using a logical step-by-step process and gradually increasing the difficulty – either when the students’ skills develop or when the exercise becomes automated.
The article offers evidence that different attentional networks are activated depending on how much attention is directed to task, which rests on the challenge-skill balance being continually adjusted for the actor to sustain task-focus and avoid mind wandering. This demonstrates that finding the balance between skill and challenge in relation to task, while layering the exercises in an extended developmental training-process, is integral to the Meisner method.
As an acting tutor, the concept of skill-challenge balance has greatly influenced my own practice, as well as solidified the importance of the teacher’s ability to acknowledge the student’s understanding and growth. By focusing on the individual and the personal aspect of the skill-challenge balance, highlights not only the importance of seeing this balance as something fluid – needing constant re-evaluation and adaptation – but also as a something that should be adhered to in any forms of vocational teaching and development. .
This study aims to explore and understand the substantive area of parental decision-making and its main concern to develop a theory of parental behavior towards children health in an everyday life context in Asian developing countries, which are characterized by unstructured and uncertain healthcare systems. We employed classic grounded theory method and analyzed data collected in Vietnam from 34 interviews with parents and pharmacy staff and six health-related themes of a parental online forum. We observed patterns of behaviors that under the conditions of high-level uncertainties and mistrust in multiple social relationships, living the social norms and role identity, parents in Asian developing countries extend their lay selves into the informal reasoning of medication. Health care services and medications are not just products or services but a process in which parents immerse themselves to build their experience. We propose a novel theory of parental immersion of the lay self into medication reasoning. We defined the construct of immersing the lay self as the devotion of parents’ mentality and the occupancy of parents’ centrality to the health care of children. We argue that consumer immersion does not necessarily happen in extraordinary hedonic settings, but it is also embedded in the everyday life experience of parents and reflected through various social contracts and interactions in Asian developing countries. Our proposed theory provides a greater understanding of parental health behaviors of immersion regarding children’s health and medications in developing countries. The construct of lay self immersion expands the concept of healthcare involvement and requires further studies and conceptualization from a broader view of consumer involvement.
The current study explored whether deep listening’s (DL) supra-instinctive attitude to music can increase mortality awareness (MA) through flow state occurrence (FSO), after controlling for music commitment. Additionally, the researcher investigates flow states’ extent of measurable success in amplifying the positive aspects of mortality awareness, thereby evidencing posttraumatic growth. The study used a mixed-factorial design with 31 participants taking part in one of three conditions (music listening, neutral acoustic stimulation, silence) in randomized rota order. All participants completed various psychometrics before and after measuring their music attitudes, multidimensional MA, and state flow (Coutinho and Scherer 2017; Levasseur, McDermott, and Lafreniereas 2015; Werner, Swope and Heide 1995). Results indicate that DL did not significantly trigger flow state occurrence, heightened MA, or positive mortality awareness. The results are discussed in light of implications with emphasis on the flow composites to be modified for optimal results and in light of DL-induced FSO’s access to sensations uncoupling one from the physicality of the body.
Bu çalışmanın amacı, Ramazan etkinlikleri bağlamında nostalji eğilimi faktörlerini ortaya koyarak, bu faktörlerin katılım davranışları ve demografik özelliklere göre farklılaşma durumunu ve akış deneyimi, etkinlik tatmini, boş zaman tatmini, yaşam tatmini ve mutluluk üzerindeki etkisini incelemektir. Bu doğrultuda araştırma, kolayda örnekleme yöntemi ile Eskişehir Özdilek Alışveriş Merkezi'nde düzenlenen Ramazan etkinliklerine katılan 228 kişi ile gerçekleştirilmiştir. Elde edilen veriler SPSS23 programında analiz edilmiştir. Faktör analizinde; nostalji eğilimine ilişkin kişisel nostalji, hatıra duyumsama, geçmiş özlemi, canlandırılmış nostalji ve kaçış olarak beş faktör ortaya çıkmıştır. Yapılan regresyon analizi sonucunda, nostalji eğilimi faktörlerinin etkinlik tatmini, boş zaman tatmini ve yaşam tatmini üzerinde bir etkisi olduğu görülürken, akış deneyimi ve mutluluk üzerinde etkisi olmadığı tespit edilmiştir. Ayrıca, faktörlerin farklılaşma durumlarına ilişkin t-testi ve ANOVA'dan yararlanılmıştır.
A B S T R A C T
The aim of this study is to examine the factors of nostalgia proneness in the context of Ramadan activities and to examine the differentiation status of these factors according to demographic characteristics and their impact on flow experience, activity satisfaction, leisure satisfaction, life satisfaction and happiness. In this direction, the research was carried out with 228 people participating in the Ramadan activities organized by Eskisehir Ozdilek Shopping Center with convenience sampling method. The obtained data were analyzed in the SPSS23 program. In the factor analysis, five factors have emerged; personal nostalgia, memory sensation, past longing, virtual nostalgia and escape. As a result of the regression analysis, it was found that the factors of nostalgia proneness had an effect on activity satisfaction, leisure satisfaction and life satisfaction while it did not have any effect on flow experience and happiness. In addition, the t-test and the ANOVA on the differentiation of the factors were used.
While there is a growing interest in immersive experiences and visitor immersion within the tourism industry, there is still a deficiency of empirical research focusing on how visitors become immersed. This study explores the subjective nature of the immersion process by focusing on the moderating role of individual responses and the influence of antecedent factors in the process. Empirical evidence for the purpose of this study was collected through a combination of field observations and group interviews with guests visiting an Escape Room in Norway. Six individual responses that appeared to moderate the individual visitors’ immersion process were identified in the study; including affective, behavioral, and cognitive responses. Findings further indicated that these responses were influenced by personal, external and social antecedents, as well as by the visitors’ own appraisal of the core features of the experience product. The findings presented in this article shed light on the individual nature of the immersion process and the factors that moderate the visitors’ progression towards a state of immersion.
Music ranks among the greatest human pleasures. It consistently engages the reward system, and converging evidence implies it exploits predictions to do so. Both prediction confirmations and errors are essential for understanding one's environment, and music offers many of each as it manipulates interacting patterns across multiple timescales. Learning models suggest that a balance of these outcomes, i.e., intermediate complexity, optimizes the reduction of uncertainty to rewarding and pleasurable effect. Yet evidence of a similar pattern in music is mixed, hampered by arbitrary measures of complexity. In the present studies, we applied a well-validated information-theoretic model of auditory expectation to systematically measure two key aspects of musical complexity: predictability (operationalized as information content, IC), and uncertainty (entropy). In Study 1, we evaluated how these properties affect musical preferences in 43 male and female participants; in Study 2, we replicated Study 1 in an independent sample of 27 people and assessed the contribution of veridical predictability by presenting the same stimuli seven times. Both studies revealed significant quadratic effects of IC and entropy on liking that outperformed linear effects, indicating reliable preferences for music of intermediate complexity. An interaction between IC and entropy further suggested preferences for more predictability during more uncertain contexts, which would facilitate uncertainty reduction. Repeating stimuli decreased liking ratings but did not disrupt the preference for intermediate complexity. Together, these findings support long-hypothesized optimal zones of predictability and uncertainty in musical pleasure with formal modeling, relating the pleasure of music listening to the intrinsic reward of learning.
The author studied 33 professional interpreters from 21 heritage tourist agencies across North America via dialogue through Internet-based World Café focus groups. Her work on education and tourism is groundbreaking in its approach, which is only partly based on education delivery. The overarching framework is one of environmental sustainability and tourism but blends the study of the politics of tourism, economic sustainability, cultural studies, and history. She discusses the importance of inspiration and heritage tourism with a focus on the foundational characteristics: inspiration is contagious, positive, individual, transcendent, unexpected, and holistic; and requires receptivity, which may be cultivated. The role of provocation and the ability of interpreters to meet their agencies’ requirements, particularly the need for measurement and research emerged as central foci.
The purpose of this study is to identify the relationships between AI education characteristics and psychological capital, psychological capital and flow, AI characteristics and flow through meditating effect of psychological capital in the digital convergence society. There are three AI characteristics: correctness, usefulness, easy of use. This empirical study was examined by 282 questionnaires to the three universities that teach accounting information system. It was performed by three-step method of the hierarchical regression analysis for the multiple regression analysis and parameter using the SPSS 22.0. The results and implications by analysis are as follows. First, AI characteristics and psychological capital have statistically significant positive influence. From AI attribute, correctness was established as the most important element. Second, psychological capital positively(+) influences flow. It allowed for the developed in flow. Third, psychological capital was shown as the major meditative variable between AI characteristics and flow. Through these, this paper suggests to reinforce self-efficacy, hope, resilience, optimism.
Flow theory (Csikszentmihalyi, Beyond boredom and anxiety: Experiencing flow in work and play. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, 1975) and cognitive evaluation theory (Deci and Ryan, Intrinsic motivation and self-determination in human behaviour. Plenum, New York, 1985) have each inspired a large body of research dedicated to understanding why we enjoy doing what we enjoy doing. Although both theories ostensibly address the same category of behavior—namely, intrinsically motivated behavior—there have been few serious efforts to reconcile these two theories. In this chapter, I attempt to clarify the relationship between them. Based on a review of relevant empirical findings, I suggest the two theories hold greatest explanatory potential for distinct behaviors, distinguished by their state-level motivational orientations. Furthermore, whereas CET appears to be most applicable to understanding the process of developing intrinsic motivation, flow theory appears the more useful framework for understanding variations in enjoyment once intrinsic motivation for an activity has been established.
To ascertain their readiness to be discharged from care, secure forensic mental health service users are often given restricted access to their local communities. However, this can be stressful for the service user and expose the public to potential risks. Therefore, new research was undertaken to explore whether a computer-based serious game could enable service users to explore their responses to community based risk situations in a safe environment. Creating a serious game for use in a secure forensic mental health setting is itself both novel and problematic, and the initial research sought to test the feasibility and acceptance of the game. This paper reports first results from working with service users to develop a prototype game that accurately describes their experiences and expectations to lay the foundations for a clinically effective tool and achieve acceptance.
A Monte Carlo study compared 14 methods to test the statistical significance of the intervening variable effect. An intervening variable (mediator) transmits the effect of an independent variable to a dependent variable. The commonly used R. M. Baron and D. A. Kenny (1986) approach has low statistical power. Two methods based on the distribution of the product and 2 difference-in-coefficients methods have the most accurate Type I error rates and greatest statistical power except in 1 important case in which Type I error rates are too high. The best balance of Type I error and statistical power across all cases is the test of the joint significance of the two effects comprising the intervening variable effect.
Conducted a field experiment with 3-5 yr old nursery school children to test the "overjustification" hypothesis suggested by self-perception theory (i.e., intrinsic interest in an activity may be decreased by inducing him to engage in that activity as an explicit means to some extrinsic goal). 51 Ss who showed intrinsic interest in a target activity during baseline observations were exposed to 1 of 3 conditions: in the expected-award condition, Ss agreed to engage in the target activity in order to obtain an extrinsic reward; in the unexpected-award condition, Ss had no knowledge of the reward until after they had finished with the activity; and in the no-award condition, Ss neither expected nor received the reward. Results support the prediction that Ss in the expected-award condition would show less subsequent intrinsic interest in the target activity than Ss in the other 2 conditions. (25 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
In this article, we attempt to distinguish between the properties of moderator and mediator variables at a number of levels. First, we seek to make theorists and researchers aware of the importance of not using the terms moderator and mediator interchangeably by carefully elaborating, both conceptually and strategically, the many ways in which moderators and mediators differ. We then go beyond this largely pedagogical function and delineate the conceptual and strategic implications of making use of such distinctions with regard to a wide range of phenomena, including control and stress, attitudes, and personality traits. We also provide a specific compendium of analytic procedures appropriate for making the most effective use of the moderator and mediator distinction, both separately and in terms of a broader causal system that includes both moderators and mediators. (46 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
This study assessed the effects of competition on intrinsic motivation and perceptions of competence. Using Church's (1968) reward conceptualization of competition, the competency aspect of competition was made salient by offering a Best Performance Award to tournament winners. Subjects were randomly assigned to conditions of winning or losing the competition. Results revealed that subjects not winning the competition perceived themselves as less competent and displayed less intrinsic motivation than subjects winning the competition. These findings corroborate predictions based on Deci and Ryan's (1985) cognitive evaluation theory, which explains the psychological processes underlying changes in intrinsic motivation that occur in competitive situations.
Subjects were assigned to competition or no-competition groups. Competition subjects received information about their rival (establishing an expectancy for success or failure) or did not. Competition enhanced intrinsic interest for achievement-oriented individuals but undermined it for low achiever. The effects of competition also depended on the availability and valence of opponent information. An expectancy increased interest for high achievers but lowered it for low achier. Path models clarified the motivational processes mediating these effects. Both the personality characteristics of competing individuals and information about their opponents seem critical in determining intrinsic interest in this interpersonal competitive context.
Over the past several years, researchers have used data from the experience sampling method to operationalize flow and non-flow experiences in people's daily lives, including leisure, as indicated by the theory of optimal experiences (Csikszentmihalyi & Csikszentmihalyi, 1988). The challenge-skill ratio that is central to that theory has been found to explain only a small portion of the variance of measures of subjective experience (e.g., affect, arousal). The purposes of the present study were to review potential factors that may limit the percentage of variance explained in studies of the flow phenomenon, propose alternative methods of analysis, and compare the explanatory power of the different approaches to analysis. Findings are reported from two separate data sets. The discussion focuses on considerations for future analyses of ESM data and the refinement of the theory of optimal experiences.
The objective of this study was to conduct empirical comparisons between two models of optimal experience within an on-site whitewater kayaking setting using a modification of the Experience Sampling Method. Four concerns are examined: (1) differences in explanatory power between the four channel flow model and the Adventure Experience Paradigm, (2) convergent validity among measures used to determine conditions within these models, (3) differences among measures of perceived challenge and risk between test times of Class I-V river difficulty, and (4) differences among measures of perceived skill and competence between test times of Class I-V river difficulty. Questionnaires were administered in the Cheat River Canyon in West Virginia to 52 whitewater kayakers at eight sites of various levels of river difficulty. Data were analyzed at the experience level, rather than between subjects, using 409 experience sampling observations. Hypothesis testing, performed with statistical analyses (stepwise regression, correlations, and repeated measures ANOVA), suggested that the explanatory powers of the four channel flow model and Adventure Experience Paradigm were similar and indicated support for convergent and ecological validity of measures used to determine conditions within each of the two models.
Effects on intrinsic motivation of three elements of the competitive situation (viz., competitive set, competitive outcome, and inter-personal context) were explored. Participants solved puzzles with a same-sex confederate under one of five experimental inductions, and intrinsic motivation was assessed by subsequent free-choice behavior and self-reports of interest/enjoyment. As predicted by cognitive evaluation theory, competitive outcome(viz., winning vs. losing) and interpersonal context (viz., pressured vs. nonpressured) affected intrinsic motivation. Path analyses showed that (a) winning (relative to losing) increased intrinsic motivation by enhancing perceived competence and (b) a pressured (relative to nonpressured) interpersonal context decreased intrinsic motivation by diminishing perceived self-determination. Further, competence valuation-the importance one places on doing well-related positively to perceived competence, perceived self-determination, and intrinsic motivation.
Six climbers were monitored during an expedition in the Himalaya, comprising 13 days of traveling and 26 days of mountaineering. The aim was the investigation of the quality of experienceand risk perception associated with high-altitude rock climbing. By means of experience sampling method, participants provided on-line repeated self-reports about activities carriedout, and the associated quality of the experience, in terms of mood, intrinsic motivation, potency, confidence, engagement, and risk assessment. The experience fluctuation model wasapplied to identify experiential profiles on the basis of the perception of environmental challenges and personal skills. When both challenges and skills were positive, flow experience wasreported. In particular, we found that the opportunity for experiencing flow can motivate climbers to take part in a risky expedition. The results showed that risk played a minor role in climbing,in line with a goal-directed approach to risk seeking. These findings have two implications: (a) Studies on motivation in sport should distinguish between risk and search for challenges andopportunities for action, especially in dealing with extreme sports; (b) In the recreational domain, outdoor programs, among other things, should aim at providing opportunities for flowand personal development.
Tested the validity of the psychological processes proposed by E. L. Deci and R. M. Ryan's (1980) cognitive evaluation theory when the information aspect of the situation is salient. Specifically, whether the effects of verbal feedback on intrinsic motivation are mediated by perceived competence was examined. 115 male undergraduates participated in a 1st phase wherein their intrinsic motivation and perceived competence toward an interesting motor task, the stabilometer, was assessed. 84 Ss who reported at least a moderate level of intrinsic motivation toward the task returned for the 2nd phase of the study in which they were subjected to conditions of either positive, negative, or no verbal feedback of performance. Intrinsic motivation and perceived competence were again assessed. One-way ANOVA showed that positive feedback increased while negative feedback decreased both intrinsic motivation and perceived competence. Results of a path analysis conducted with verbal feedback, perceived competence, and intrinsic motivation supported (1) the mediating effects of perceived competence on intrinsic motivation and (2) cognitive evaluation theory. (33 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Conducted 2 laboratory and 1 field experiment with 24, 24, and 8 undergraduates to investigate the effects of external rewards on intrinsic motivation to perform an activity. In each experiment, Ss performed an activity during 3 different periods, and observations relevant to their motivation were made. External rewards were given to the experimental Ss during the 2nd period only, while the control Ss received no rewards. Results indicate that (a) when money was used as an external reward, intrinsic motivation tended to decrease; whereas (b) when verbal reinforcement and positive feedback were used, intrinsic motivation tended to increase. Discrepant findings in the literature are reconciled using a new theoretical framework which employs a cognitive approach and concentrates on the nature of the external reward. (26 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
93 high school students were offered performance or task-contingent rewards or no reward for doing hidden-figures puzzles. Ss offered performance-contingent rewards all received positive feedback concerning performance, and half the Ss in task-contingent and no-reward conditions received the same positive feedback. Performance-contingent rewards were found to undermine intrinsic motivation more than task-contingent ones, which produced decrements relative to control conditions of no reward, supporting E. Deci's (1972, 1975) control model. Positive feedback enhanced intrinsic motivation; this effect was independent of reward effects. A recall measure indicated that Ss receiving performance-contingent rewards remembered fewer performance-irrelevant details about the task, suggesting that rewards may affect the process of task involvement as well as its motivational outcomes. (14 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Here is the reference for this chapter.
MacKinnon, D. P., Cheong, J., Pirlott, A. G. (2012) In Cooper, H., Camic, P. M., Long, D. L., Panter, A. T., Rindskopf, D., Sher, K. J. (Eds.) (2012). APA handbook of research methods in psychology, Vol 2: Research designs: Quantitative, qualitative, neuropsychological, and biological., (pp. 313-331). Washington, DC, US: American Psychological Association.
The present study examined the effects of competitive outcome—either a win or a loss—on intrinsic motivation. Winning was hypothesized to facilitate both performance and intrinsic motivation. Fifty-four participants, 29 females and 25 males, competed against a same-gender confederate in a puzzle-solving contest. Following the competition, participants'' intrinsic motivation was surreptitiously measured by the amount of time spent playing with the puzzle while alone. Results showed that winning facilitated both actual competitive performance and intrinsic motivation relative to losing. The importance of considering the outcome when predicting intrinsic motivation after competition is discussed.
We explored the effects on intrinsic motivation and ego-involved persistence of winning versus losing a competitively contingent reward and, for losers, the additional effects of receiving either positive performance feedback or performance-contingent rewards. Winners were more intrinsically motivated than losers. Losers given an explicit normative standard who received positive feedback for meeting the standard were more intrinsically motivated than losers who did not receive the additional standard and feedback. Losers who received a performance-contingent reward for reaching the same explicit standard displayed less intrinsic motivation behaviorally assessed than did losers who got positive feedback, but the two groups did not differ on self-reported enjoyment. Effects on enjoyment were mediated by perceived competence, but effects on free-choice behavior were not. People who lost the competition showed more ego-involved persistence than people who won or did not compete.
Autobiographical Memory and the Validity of Retrospective Reports presents the collaborative efforts of cognitive psychologists and research methodologists in the area of autobiographical memory. The editors have included an esteemed group of researchers whose work covers a wide range of issues related to autobiographical memory and the validity of retrospective reports, reflecting the diverse traditions in cognitive psychology and survey research. The first part of the book provides different theoretical perspectives on retrospective reports, along with supporting experimental evidence. The second part of this volume focuses specifically on retrospective reports of behaviors, including recall of the frequency and intensity of physical pain, of the number of cigarettes smoked, of dietary habits, and of child support payments. The following sections address the cognitive processes involved in event dating and time estimation, and a discussion of the differences between self and proxy reports. The final part extends the discussion of autobiographical memories in different directions, including the impact of autobiographical memories on individuals' assessment of their current life, the assessment of social change on the basis of retrospective reports, and the issue of collective memories. This book, an indispensable and timely resource for researchers and students of cognitive psychology as well as to survey methodologists and statisticians, demonstrates the considerable progress made in understanding the cognitive dynamics of retrospective reports.
This is the first book to explore the cognitive science of effortless attention and action. Attention and action are generally understood to require effort, and the expectation is that under normal circumstances effort increases to meet rising demand. Sometimes, however, attention and action seem to flow effortlessly despite high demand. Effortless attention and action have been documented across a range of normal activities--from rock climbing to chess playing--and yet fundamental questions about the cognitive science of effortlessness have gone largely unasked.
This book draws from the disciplines of cognitive psychology, neurophysiology, behavioral psychology, genetics, philosophy, and cross-cultural studies. Starting from the premise that the phenomena of effortless attention and action provide an opportunity to test current models of attention and action, leading researchers from around the world examine topics including effort as a cognitive resource, the role of effort in decision making, the neurophysiology of effortless attention and action, the role of automaticity in effortless action, expert performance in effortless action, and the neurophysiology and benefits of attentional training.
Contributors: Joshua M. Ackerman, James H. Austin, John A. Bargh, Roy F. Baumeister, Sian L. Beilock, Chris Blais, Matthew M. Botvinick, Brian Bruya, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Marci S. DeCaro, Arne Dietrich, Yuri Dormashev, László Harmat, Bernhard Hommel, Rebecca Lewthwaite, Örjan de Manzano, Joseph T. McGuire, Brian P. Meier, Arlen C. Moller, Jeanne Nakamura, Evgeny N. Osin, Michael I. Posner, Mary K. Rothbart, M. R. Rueda, Brandon J. Schmeichel, Edward Slingerland, Oliver Stoll, Yiyuan Tang, Töres Theorell, Fredrik Ullén, Robert D. Wall, Gabriele Wulf.
I: Background.- 1. An Introduction.- 2. Conceptualizations of Intrinsic Motivation and Self-Determination.- II: Self-Determination Theory.- 3. Cognitive Evaluation Theory: Perceived Causality and Perceived Competence.- 4. Cognitive Evaluation Theory: Interpersonal Communication and Intrapersonal Regulation.- 5. Toward an Organismic Integration Theory: Motivation and Development.- 6. Causality Orientations Theory: Personality Influences on Motivation.- III: Alternative Approaches.- 7. Operant and Attributional Theories.- 8. Information-Processing Theories.- IV: Applications and Implications.- 9. Education.- 10. Psychotherapy.- 11. Work.- 12. Sports.- References.- Author Index.
Communication scientists routinely ask questions about causal relationships. Whether it is examining the persuasive impact of public service announcements on attitudes and behavior, determining the impact of viewing political debates on political knowledge or voter turnout, or assessing whether success in achieving one's Internet browsing goals prompts greater interest in e-commerce, communication scholars frequently conduct research to answer questions about cause. Data analysis usually focuses on examining if the putative causal variable, whether manipulated or measured, is related to the outcome using a linear model such as analysis of variance or linear regression. In many arenas of research, such analyses, when accompanied by good research design, are sufficient to answer the question as to whether variation in X causes variation in Y. But deeper understanding accrues when researchers investigate the process by which a given effect is produced. Although it might be interesting and even important to discover, for mechanisms ...
this chapter compares responses to the Experience Sampling Method from a sample of American students in the Chicago area studied by Csikszentmihalyi and Larson (1984) and a sample of Italian students from a classical lyceum in Milan
the purpose of the comparison is to ascertain whether and to what extent respondents in these two cultures report similar experiences across their daily life in terms of the flow theory as operationalized by the challenge/skill ratio
given the importance of the high school in the lives of these two groups of adolescents, the chapter also focuses on studying
the U.S. sample consisted of equal numbers of 14-, 15-, 16-, and 17-year-olds / the Italian one was made up of students between 16 and 18 years of age (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
This important handbook provides a comprehensive, authoritative review of achievement motivation and establishes the concept of competence as an organizing framework for the field. The editors synthesize diverse perspectives on why and how individuals are motivated in school, work, sports, and other settings. Written by leading investigators, chapters reexamine central constructs in achievement motivation; explore the impact of developmental, contextual, and sociocultural factors; and analyze the role of self-regulatory processes. Focusing on the ways in which achievement is motivated by the desire to experience competence and avoid experiencing incompetence, the volume integrates disparate theories and findings and sets forth a coherent agenda for future research.
This research investigated the strategic use of competence valuation in achievement settings and examined the consequences of implementing this self-enhancement strategy for intrinsic motivation. In two studies, participants reported higher competence valuation following positive feedback; in turn, competence valuation was positively related to intrinsic motivation. Competence valuation mediated the direct relationship between feedback and intrinsic motivation, and this mediation was independent of perceived competence, which also served a mediational function. Study 2 identified the specific nature of the observed effects. Participants receiving positive feedback reported higher competence valuation (and perceived competence), which led to enhanced intrinsic motivation; the reciprocal processes were not operative for those receiving negative feedback.
The concept of school engagement has attracted increasing attention as representing a possible antidote to declining academic motivation and achievement. Engagement is presumed to be malleable, responsive to contextual features, and amenable to environmental change. Researchers describe behavioral, emotional, and cognitive engagement and recommend studying engagement as a multifaceted construct. This article reviews definitions, measures, precursors, and outcomes of engagement; discusses limitations in the existing research; and suggests improvements. The authors conclude that, although much has been learned, the potential contribution of the concept of school engagement to research on student experience has yet to be realized. They call for richer characterizations of how students behave, feel, and think—research that could aid in the development of finely tuned interventions
The question of motivation — of what makes people behave the way they do — has always been a primary concern. Since Thorndike's Law of Effect was published in 1911, the reasons for and the prediction of human (and animal) behaviour has been extensively researched. The purpose of this paper is to expand motivational research by applying a newly developed research technology to an area of human behaviour that has so far not been studied systematically, namely, everyday experiences. Specifically, we are interested in exploring two basic questions about motivation: 1. how often do people describe their everyday experiences as being free and intrinsically motivating; and 2. what is the relationship between intrinsically rewarding experiences and psychological well-being, or the overall sense of satisfaction with one's life?
To test Harackiewicz and Sansone's prediction that task-specific target goals would enhance intrinsic motivation when they were congruent with higher order purpose goals, we varied performance and mastery-oriented target goals in neutral and performance-oriented purpose goal contexts and included a no-goals control group. Results provided strong support across three measures of intrinsic motivation, indicating that performance target goals undermined interest relative to mastery target goals in a neutral context but that performance target goals enhanced intrinsic motivation relative to mastery target goals in performance purpose goal contexts. Process analyses revealed that competence valuation and task involvement mediated these effects.
This paper is about the logic of interpreting recursive causal theories in sociology. We review the distinction between associations and effects and discuss the decomposition of effects into direct and indirect components. We then describe a general method for decomposing effects into their components by the systematic application of ordinary least squares regression. The method involves successive computation of reduced-form equations, beginning with an equation containing only exogenous variables, then computing equations which add intervening variables in sequence from cause to effect. This generates all the information required to decompose effects into their various direct and indirect parts. This method is a substitute for the often more cumbersome computation of indirect effects from the structural coefficients (direct effects) of the causal model. Finally, we present a way of summarizing this information in tabular form and illustrate the procedures using an empirical example.
To test Harackiewicz and Sansone's (1991) process model of intrinsic motivation in a competitive context, we examined the effects of competition and achievement orientation on intrinsic motivation. In Study 1, participants received positive or negative feedback regarding their performance in competitive and noncompetitive conditions, and we found that achievement orientation moderated the effects of competition. Individuals high in achievement orientation enjoyed a word game more in competition than those low in achievement orientation across conditions of positive and negative feedback. We also examined the effects of performance feedback and found positive effects of interpersonal (outcome) and intrapersonal feedback that were independent of competitive context. In Study 2, we found that achievement orientation moderated the effects of competition, even in the absence of outcome feedback. Mediational analyses identified competence valuation, perceived challenge, eagerness, and positive affect as mediators of competition and feedback effects on intrinsic motivation.
Three studies investigated three potential psychological antecedents of flow in sport-goals, competence, and confidence. These studies examined tennis players competing in a weekend tournament, basketball players in college activity classes, and golf regulars. The first study had the participants rate flow characteristics, whereas the second and third studies used the experience sampling method to measure flow. In a learning environment (basketball activity classes), students inflow experienced greater enjoyment, satisfaction, concentration, and control than their counterparts in boredom, apathy, or anxiety. In a competitive environment (tennis tournament and golf), athletes inflow or boredom states had a better quality of experience than individuals in apathy or anxiety states. These results suggest that contextual differences influence why an athlete perceives a situation as optimal. The psychological antecedents of flow for sport participants remain unidentified, as neither goals, competence, nor confidence predicted the flow experience.
In order to examine the hypothesis that children derive maximum pleasure from optimally challenging tasks, sixth graders were given anagram problems at 4 difficulty levels. The results suggested that a curvilinear model may best describe the relationship between pleasure and task difficulty for correctly solved items where the subject has no choice of the problems to be solved. Active choice of optimally challenging items was also assessed in a second phase of the study, where half of the subjects were instructed that the task was a game and half were instructed that it was a school-type task for which they would receive letter grades. Under the game condition children chose and verbalized their preference for optimally challenging problems. Those children working for grades chose significantly easier anagrams to perform. Not only did the latter subjects respond below their optimal level, but they manifested less pleasure and verbalized more anxiety. The findings are discussed in terms of the need to refine existing models of the relationship between task difficulty and pleasure as well as to consider the effects which such extrinsic motivators as grades may have on attenuating intrinsic motivation.
Most studies of intrinsic motivation under reward and evaluative contingencies have used social comparison criteria to evaluate subjects' performance. In those studies evaluation tended to reduce intrinsic interest. This study contrasted normative evaluation against a more task-focused evaluation of subjects' performance on an interesting word game and examined the role of achievement motivation in moderating reactions to performance evaluation. Focus differences were implemented under conditions of performance-contingent reward, anticipated evaluation, and control conditions in which subjects received performance feedback at task conclusion. We predicted that evaluation would reduce interest relative to reward and feedback control groups under a normative focus but not under a task focus and also that a process of competence valuation (Harackiewicz & Manderlink, 1984) would mediate the effects of reward and achievement on interest, especially in normative conditions. The data conformed to these expectations with one exception: Evaluation under a task focus increased intrinsic interest. These results were interpreted in the context of a general model that considers the separate effects of situational contingencies, personality factors, performance and motivational processes, and evaluative outcomes on intrinsic motivation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Describes the Experience Sampling Method (ESM), a research procedure that consists of asking individuals to provide systematic self-reports at random occasions during the waking hours of a normal week. Files created from sets of these self-reports from a sample of individuals become an archival file of daily experience. The ESM obtains information about the private as well as the public aspects of individuals' lives, secures data about behavioral and intrapsychic aspects of daily activity, and obtains reports about people's experiences as they occur, thereby minimizing the effects of reliance on memory and reconstruction. (51 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
In this experiment, we examined the relation between content of praise, type of involvement, and intrinsic motivation. College students were introduced to a hidden-figure task in either an ego-involving (i.e., testlike) or task-involving (i.e., gamelike) manner and then received either ability-focused, effort-focused, or no praise for their performance. As predicted, task involvement increased intrinsic motivation relative to ego involvement, and ability praise increased intrinsic motivation relative to effort praise or no praise. Furthermore, praise and involvement interacted so that subjects who received effort praise were relatively more intrinsically motivated under task-involving than ego-involving conditions, whereas those who received ability praise were relatively more motivated under ego-involving than task-involving conditions. Also, the higher levels of intrinsic motivation were accompanied by a choice of higher level of challenge and better performance at a related but more complex task. Finally, a significant Sex × Praise interaction was found, reflecting that women tended to display more intrinsic motivation in the no-praise condition than in the two praise conditions, whereas men showed the reverse pattern. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Achievement behavior is defined as behavior directed at developing or demonstrating high rather than low ability. Ability can be conceived either with reference to the individual's own past performance or knowledge, a context in which gains in mastery indicate competence, or as capacity relative to that of others, a context in which a gain in mastery alone does not indicate high ability. To demonstrate high capacity, one must achieve more with equal effort or use less effort than do others for an equal performance. The conditions under which these different conceptions of ability function as individuals' goals and the nature of subjective experience in each case are specified. Different predictions of task choice and performance are derived and tested for each case using data from previously published studies. The effects of task and ego involvement, task choice, and self-perceptions are discussed. (125 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Flow is a state of peak enjoyment, energetic focus, and creative concentration experienced by people engaged in adult play, which has become the basis of a highly creative approach to living. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
The Experience Sampling Method was employed to collect data from a sample of 35 sixth-form college students over a period of one week. This methodology involved the subjects answering questions printed in a diary on receipt of signals from a pre-programmed watch. They also completed a package of questionnaires related to psychological well-being. The aim of the study was to investigate whether the experience of situations where high challenge is matched by skill (termed ‘flow’) can be classed as ‘optimal experience’. The results showed that the positive poles of subjective experience tended to cluster in ‘control’ (skills exceeding moderate challenge) rather than flow. However, more optimal experience (considered as high enjoyment) occurred in flow than expected. In addition, optimal experience in flow was characterized by high cognitive involvement. Subjects who experienced flow as optimal experience were found to score significantly higher on measures of psychological well-being than those who did not experience flow as highly enjoyable. The implications are discussed with respect to college students' quality of life and educational experiences.
Recent studies have demonstrated that positive verbal feedback enhances males' intrinsic motivation for a task, while decreasing that of females. This result has been attributed to differential socialization forces which make the controlling aspects of rewards more salient for females as opposed to males, for whom the informational aspects are prepotent. A weakness in this conclusion stems from the use of a masculine sex-linked task in prior experiments, producing a result which may be due to gender congruence/incongruence rather than to socialization differences. Two laboratory experiments were performed to examine the effects of verbal praise on intrinsic motivation, controlling for sex-typing of the experimental activity. Experiment I found that verbal praise increased females' and males' intrinsic motivation on both a feminine and masculine task, and intrinsic motivation was higher for sex-appropriate than sex-inappropriate tasks. The sexes did not show a differential pattern of response to praise. In Experiment 2, verbal praise also enhanced sex-role traditional females' intrinsic motivation on the same activity used in prior research. These results suggest that socialization content has changed sufficiently to make concerns about competence and self-determination equally salient for females and males.
The process by which competence feedback affects intrinsic motivation has not typically been examined in conjunction with effects of other information that may be conveyed in feedback. As such, it is difficult to determine the degree to which the proposed mechanisms are tied to the competence information in feedback. When Sansone (1986, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 918–931) separated feedback into components satisfying curiosity (task feedback) or signifying competence (positive normative feedback), each enhanced subsequent interest in the task. The present study investigated two possible explanations: whether an insufficiently autonomy-supportive context prevented a stronger relationship between perceived competence and interest and, secondly, whether competence feedback more strongly affected previously identified processes (perceived competence, competence valuation, performance pressure, and perceived autonomy) which have both positive and negative implications for interest. Although positive normative feedback enhanced perceived competence, perceived competence was not related to interest, and this relationship did not change as the degree of autonomy support varied. Furthermore, the results suggest that competence information can affect interest through several processes simultaneously, such that when perceived competence is not relevant, other processes (i.e., competence valuation and perceived autonomy) are. In addition, there may be unique contributions of other kinds of information present in feedback (e.g., task feedback). The implications for process models of intrinsic motivation are discussed.