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Implicit achievement motive limits the impact of task difficulty on effort-related cardiovascular response
Abstract
In contrast to the motive literature, motivational intensity theory predicts that the implicit achievement motive (nAch) should only exert an indirect impact on effort by limiting the impact of task difficulty. To contrast these two views, sixty-eight participants with a low or high nAch performed an easy or difficult arithmetic task. Effort was assessed using cardiac pre-ejection period (PEP). Supporting motivational intensity theory’s view, PEP response was low in both easy-task conditions but stronger in the high-nAch group than in the low-nAch group in the difficult task. These findings suggest that nAch exerts an indirect effect on effort investment by setting the maximally justified effort instead of directly determining the amount of effort that is invested to satisfy the motive.
... As discussed, individuals tend to use more active coping strategies to tackle their problems and utilize available resources (Au et al., 2012). Mazeres et al. (2019) found that there is a positive association between negotiable fate and intention to perform active coping behaviors, such as increased acceptance and positive interpretation of the event (Au et al., 2012;Au & Savani, 2019) as individuals recognize the constraints they have faced. In the educational context, when students navigate with constraints (i.e., exercising personal agency to develop realistic goals) (Au & Savani, 2019), students are more likely to engage by continuously participating in academic activities (Skinner & Pitzer, 2012). ...
... These findings are consistent with previous negotiable fate literature. Individuals are more likely to perform active coping strategies when negotiating with life constraints (Au et al., 2012;Au & Savani, 2019;Mazeres et al., 2019). Contradicting our predictions, the results found a negative association between For indirect effects, results demonstrated that fear of failure did not significantly mediate the relation between negotiable fate and engagement (b = -0.007, ...
... Furthermore, the results were consistent with the negotiable fate literature and Hope Theory. For instance, more active coping strategies were used when individuals attempted to solve the problems with available resources (Au et al., 2012;Mazeres et al., 2019). In educational context, students are more likely to engage by continuously participating in academic activities, creating less negative rumination, and enjoying interaction with peers. ...
Studies concerning students’ ability to deal with everyday academic challenges (‘academic buoyancy’) and adjust to changes (‘adaptability’) were investigated in educational research over the last two decades (e.g., Martin & Marsh, Journal of School Psychology, 46:53–83, 2008; Martin et al., Journal of Educational Psychology, 105:728–746, 2013). However, how students deal with challenges imposed by fate has not been well-studied. Other than students’ abilities, students’ belief plays an important role in dealing with the academic adversity that fate imposes. The present study harnessed the Hope Theory to examine (1) the relation between negotiable and achievement motivation (hope for success and fear of failure), (2) the relation between achievement motivation and engagement, and (3) the mediation effect of achievement motivation in the relation between negotiable fate and engagement. University students in Hong Kong (n = 339) responded to an online cross-sectional survey. Mediation analyses demonstrated that the relation between negotiable fate and engagement was mediated by hope for success but not by fear of failure. In addition, hope for success only mediated cognitive engagement and affective engagement. The relation between negotiable fate and behavioral engagement was not mediated by hope for success and fear of failure. The findings contribute to the literature on the negotiable fate-engagement theoretical relation in educational research. Also, practical insights were discussed to manage student cognitive and affective engagement with negotiable fate and hope for success under fate constraints.
... If task difficulty was low or high, systolic blood pressure response was weak and did not differ as a function of motive strength. The most recent evidence comes from a study by Mazeres et al. (2019) who examined the impact of the implicit achievement motive on myocardial sympathetic activity in a mental arithmetic task with two fixed difficulty levels. They found that preejection period, systolic blood pressure, and diastolic blood pressures responses were low and did not differ as a function of achievement motive strength if the task was easy. ...
... All participants worked on a mental arithmetic task similar to the tasks used by LaGory et al. (2011) and Mazeres et al. (2019). Each task consisted of 10 trials, and each trial started with a fixation cross that was presented for 500 ms and followed by the presentation of several digits that participants had to mentally add up. ...
... The arithmetic mean of both raters' PEP values was used for the analysis (ICC[2, 1] = 0.93; Shrout and Fleiss, 1979). Following preceding work on motivational intensity theory (e.g., Mazeres et al., 2019), the values obtained during the last 4 min (ω t s > 0.96) were averaged to obtain baseline scores and the values of the first 6 min of task performance (ω t s > 0.97) were averaged to obtain task scores. Change scores were then calculated to quantify cardiovascular reactivity by subtracting baseline scores from task scores (Llabre et al., 1991). ...
Work on physiological and other behavioral correlates of motives often assumes that motives exert a direct effect on behavior once activated. Motivational intensity theory, however, suggests that this does not always apply. In the context of task engagement, motive strength should exert a direct effect on myocardial beta-adrenergic activity if task difficulty is unclear, but not if task difficulty is known. The presented study tested this prediction for the impact of the explicit achievement motive on myocardial beta-adrenergic activity—assessed as pre-ejection period (PEP) reactivity during task performance. Seventy-eight participants performed one of two versions of a mental arithmetic task. After having completed the achievement motive scale of the Personality Research Form, participants were either informed about the difficulty of the task or not before working on it. Participants' PEP reactivity during task performance provided evidence for the predicted moderating impact of clarity of task difficulty: PEP reactivity increased with increasing achievement motive strength if task difficulty was unclear, but not if it was clear. These findings demonstrate that the explicit achievement motive impact on myocardial beta-adrenergic activity is moderated by clarity of task difficulty and suggest that motive strength does not always translate into direct effects on physiology and behavior.
... Therefore, under this specific condition, effort should directly depend on success importance. Supporting this idea, numerous studies have shown that certain factors-such as incentive value or motives (Mazeres et al., 2019Richter et al., 2021)-can determine success importance and thus directly influence effort under the condition that task difficulty is unclear. Only individuals suffering from depressive symptoms did not show this direct effect of success importance on effort intensity (e.g., Brinkmann et al., 2009;Brinkmann & Franzen, 2013;Franzen & Brinkmann, 2015. ...
... We expected personal choice especially to increase commitment (Brehm, 1956(Brehm, , 1962-the willingness to attain a goal (Locke et al., 1988)-which should render success important. However, as success importance only directly determines resource mobilization when difficulty is unclear (Mazeres et al., 2019Richter et al., 2021;), we expected participants in the Chosen Color condition to mobilize higher resources than those in the Assigned Color condition when task difficulty was unclear. This is what we have found for cardiac PEP reactivity-a reliable and valid measure of actual effort intensity (Kelsey, 2012;Wright, 1996). ...
This experiment investigated how the personal choice of task characteristics influences resource mobilization assessed as effort-related cardiac response during a task of clearly low vs. unclear (but also low) difficulty. We expected that the personal choice of the color of memory task stimuli would justify higher effort during task performance than external color assignment. Applying the logic of motivational intensity theory (MIT; Brehm et al., 1983; Brehm & Self, 1989), we further predicted that the personal choice of the stimuli’s color would directly lead to higher effort intensity than external color assignment when task difficulty was unclear but not when the task difficulty was clear. When task difficulty was low and clear, we expected actual effort to be low in general, because high resources are not necessary for a clearly easy task. Results were as expected: when task difficulty was unclear, participants who had personally chosen the stimuli’s color showed significantly stronger cardiac pre-ejection period reactivity, reflecting higher effort, than those in the other three conditions. These findings provide first evidence that personal choice justifies relatively high effort and further support the principles of MIT regarding the critical role of task difficulty for resource mobilization.
... Apesar dessas limitações, medidas projetivas têm sido ainda utilizadas como forma de acesso ao motivo de realização implícito ou nível de realização (e.g. Mazeres, Brinkmann, & Richter, 2019). ...
... ou nível de realização (e.g.Mazeres et al., 2019).Outros instrumentos, de caráter objetivo, foram desenvolvidos com base em autorrelatos e escalas para medir o nível de realização e utilizados até hoje como, por exemplo, o Achievement Motivation Inventory (Byrne et al., 2004), o Achievement Motivation Profile (Friedland et al., 1996) e o Unified Motive Scales (e.g. Stussi et al., 2019). ...
PT: O presente trabalho Teve por objetivo a caracterização e correlação dos Estados de Ânimo presentes, os níveis de Motivo de Realização e as Metas de Realização de atletas brasileiros de alto rendimento no período pré-competitivo, comparando-os em função do gênero e do tipo de modalidade esportiva (individual ou coletiva) praticada. Também foi analisado como tais aspectos se dão ao longo de um período competitivo, considerando desde o último treino antes da competição até sua partida final, em uma equipe masculina de uma modalidade coletiva. Dessa forma, o Estudo 1 mostra a adaptação transcultural e a validação da Ray-Lynn AO Scale ao contexto esportivo brasileiro, o Estudo 2 mostra a adaptação transcultural e a validação da 3×2 Achievement Goal Questionnaire for Sport ao contexto esportivo brasileiro, o Estudo 3 apresenta a caracterização e as relações entre Motivo de realização, Metas de Realização e Estados de Ânimo pré-competitivos de atletas em função do gênero e do tipo de modalidade esportiva praticada e o Estudo 4 apresenta a caracterização e as relações entre Motivo de Realização, Metas de Realização e Estados de Ânimo pré-competitivos de atletas de uma modalidade coletiva ao longo de um período competitivo.Os resultados mostram que o processo de adaptação transcultural e a validação da Ray-Lynn AO Scale ao contexto esportivo brasileiro sofreu alterações em sua estrutura fatorial original, tendo itens sido retirados e erros de diferentes fatores correlacionados, não se apresentando como uma medida confiável de Motivo de Realização mesmo após as modificações. O processo de adaptação transcultural e a validação do 3×2 Achievement Goal Questionnaire for Sport ao contexto esportivo brasileiro o legitima como forma de acesso às metas de realização de atletas brasileiros, com um estrutura fatorial ajustada, restando melhorar sua confiabilidade (quatro de seis fatores atingiram o critério adotado pelo estudo). A caracterização do Motivo de Realização, Meta de Realização e Estados de Ânimo presentes mostra que, em geral, atletas brasileiros tem alto grau de Motivo de Realização, são orientados à demonstrar competência perante os requisitos da tarefa e apresentam Estados de Ânimo ligado à esperança e interesse na pré-competição. As correlações entre estes aspectos mostram especificidades das relações encontradas em relação ao gênero dos atletas e tipo de modalidade esportiva. A análise destas relações ao longo da sequência de treinos e jogos mostraram que os processos motivacionais analisados não sofreram alterações durante este período, mas os Estados de Ânimo presentes sim. Os resultados sobre relações entre Motivação e Emoção no contexto esportivo brasileiro e suas implicações metodológicas, conceituais e práticas dos enunciados encontrados são discutidas.
EN: The aim of the present thesis was to characterize and correlate the present Mood States, Achievement Motivation level and the Achievement Goals of high-performance Brazilian athletes in the pre-competitive period, comparing them according to gender and type of sport (individual or collective) practiced. It was also analyzed how such aspects occur over a competitive period, considering from the last training before the competition until its final match, in a men's team of a collective modality. Thus, Study 1 shows the cross-cultural adaptation and validation of the Ray-Lynn AO Scale to the Brazilian sports context, Study 2 shows the cross-cultural adaptation and validation of the 3×2 Achievement Goal Questionnaire for Sport to the Brazilian sports context, Study 3 presents the characterization and the relationships between Achievement Motivation, Achievement Goals and pre-competitive Mood States of athletes according to the gender and type of sport practiced and Study 4 presents the characterization and the relationships between Achievement Motivation, Achievement Goals and pre-competitive Mood States of athletes from a collective sport over a competitive period. The results show that the process of cross-cultural adaptation and the validation of the Ray-Lynn AO Scale to the Brazilian sports context has undergone changes in its original factorial structure, with removed items and correlated errors of different factors, do not present as a reliable measure of Achievement Motivation even after modifications. The process of cross-cultural adaptation and the validation of the 3×2 Achievement Goal Questionnaire for Sport to the Brazilian sports context legitimizes it as a way to access the Achievement Goals of Brazilian athletes, with an adjusted factorial structure, remaining to improve its reliability (four out of six factors reached the criterion adopted by the study). The characterization of the Achievement Motivation, Achievement Goals and pre-competitive Mood States shows that, in general, Brazilian athletes have a high degree of Achievement Motivation, are oriented to demonstrate competence to the requirements of the task and shows present Mood States linked to hope and interest in pre-competition. The correlations between these aspects shows specificities of the relationships found in relation to the athletes' gender and type of sports. The analysis of these relationships throughout the sequence of training and matches showed that the motivational processes analyzed did not change during this period, but the present Mood States did. The results about the relationship between Motivation and Emotion in the Brazilian sports context and its methodological, conceptual and practical implications of the novel statements are discussed.
... On the other hand, research suggests that personality traits related to intrinsic motivation are consistently associated with general effortrelated physiological indicators such as pupil size (da Silva Castanheira et al., 2021;Sayalı et al., 2021;Unsworth et al., 2020) and preejection period reactivity (Lackner et al., 2015;Mazeres et al., 2019Mazeres et al., , 2021. Several recent studies have demonstrated a similar relationship between the oscillatory correlates of WM task processes and intrinsic motivation (Jaiswal et al., 2019;Phukhachee et al., 2019;. ...
... Furthermore, also researchers interested in individual differences emphasized the importance of considering the critical role of task difficulty when elaborating predictions about the link between specific dispositions and effort. This has been done, for instance, for the role of explicit and implicit motives (Capa et al., 2008;Mazeres et al., 2019), depressive symptoms (e.g., Brinkmann & Gendolla, 2008), extraversion (Kemper et al., 2008), and action-state orientation (Bouzidi & Gendolla, 2023c). ...
This article presents an experiment ( N = 127 university students) testing whether the previously found impact of conflict primes on effort‐related cardiac response is moderated by objective task difficulty. Recently, it has been shown that primed cognitive conflict increases cardiac pre‐ejection period (PEP) reactivity—an index of effort intensity—during the performance of relatively easy tasks. This effect could be attributed to conflict‐related negative affect. Consequently, as it has been shown for other types of negative affect, we expected conflict primes' effect to be task‐context dependent and thus to be moderated by objective task difficulty. In a between‐persons design, we manipulated conflict via embedded pictures of conflict‐related vs. non‐conflict‐related Stroop items in a memory task. We expected primed conflict to increase effort in a relatively easy version of the task but to lead to disengagement when task difficulty was objectively high. PEP reactivity corroborated our predictions. Rather than always increasing effort, cognitive conflict's effect on resource mobilization was context‐dependent and resulted in weak responses in a difficult task.
... Students can exercise personal agency to ultimately determine the outcomes within the boundaries of the constraints (Au & Savani, 2019). For example, for students who tend to negotiate with fate, their initial intention to conduct active coping behavior has been heightened as they understand the tasks well (Mazeres et al., 2019), encouraging them to conduct quality active coping behaviors. Such practices could help predict better student engagement in learning. ...
The COVID-19 pandemic has altered learning and teaching approaches in higher education. Research concerning COVID-19 revealed inconsistent results on student engagement, which is a robust predictor of academic performance in higher education. This exploratory study examines the relationship between grit and student engagement in the pandemic through the mediating role of negotiable fate. Although previous research demonstrated that grit could positively predict student engagement, there have been inconsistent findings between the two sub-factors of grit: consistency of interest (grit-CI) and perseverance of efforts (grit-PE). Besides, there is a lack of theoretical explanation of the mechanism between grit and engagement. The adaptation of negotiable fate seeks to provide one of the pathways of how grit would be associated with student engagement. To examine these hypotheses, the
present study recruited 339 undergraduate students from two universities in Hong Kong to participate in an online survey. The results showed that grit, grit-PE, and negotiable fate positively correlate with student engagement, but the path of grit-CI did not reveal any significant results. After accounting for the mediating effect of negotiable fate, grit-PE still positively correlates with student engagement, suggesting a partial mediation model. This study provides empirical evidence that grit positively predicts student engagement with the mediation of negotiable fate. However, only grit-PE was positively associated with negotiable, while grit-CI did not reveal any significant predictions on the other variables. The present study (1) extends the
understanding of the mechanism between grit and student engagement and (2) explores the mediating role of negotiable fate in this relationship in the higher education context. Theoretical and practical implications of this mediation model among grit, negotiable fate, and student engagement were discussed.
... Based on both the motivational intensity theory (Brehm & Self, 1989), postulating that effort intensity is proportional to task demand, and the ample evidence that task difficulty affects cardiovascular reactivity (Brinkmann & Gendolla, 2008;Gendolla & Krüsken, 2002;Mazeres et al., 2019;Richter, 2016;Richter et al., 2008;Silvestrini & Gendolla, 2009, 2011Wright et al., 1986Wright et al., , 2003, we expected a moderately difficult task to lead to stronger PEP and SBP reactivity than an easy task. Higher task accuracy scores indicated a successful difficulty manipulation for the1-back and 2-back task. ...
To better understand the impact of environmental light on processes that underlie cognitive activity, Lasauskaite and Cajochen (2018) recently proposed a theoretical model that predicts how light's correlated color temperature (CCT) affects effort. Here we tested whether the effects of CCT of light on effort-related cardiovascular response also extend to another sensory input—hearing. In two experimental blocks, participants were exposed to either low (2800 K) or high correlated color temperature (6500 K) light with an illumination level of 500 lux for 15 min before and while they performed an auditory n-back task varying in difficulty level (low difficulty/1-back vs. moderate difficulty/2-back). Mental effort was indexed as sympathetic beta-adrenergic impact on the heart, measured via cardiac pre-ejection period and systolic blood pressure. Based on the theoretical model, we hypothesized that light with a high CCT should lead to lower mental effort compared to light with a low CCT in both the low and moderate task difficulty conditions. Moreover, moderate task difficulty should lead to stronger effort compared to an easy task. The results did not show expected differences in invested effort levels between the task difficulty conditions (1-back vs. 2-back task) measured by cardiac pre-ejection period and systolic blood pressure. However, in line with our prediction, the results indicated that higher CCT of light decreased effort during an auditory memory task. Task performance was higher in easy than moderate task difficulty but was not altered by lighting conditions. Furthermore, we found no significant associations between cardiovascular reactivity and changes in mood, sleepiness, light, task, or effort ratings. Taken together, our results provide first evidence that higher CCT of light reduces the amount of effort invested during cognitive tasks for which hearing is needed. Given that this study was conducted under controlled laboratory conditions and with healthy young participants, additional research is needed to demonstrate that our results generalize to real-life applications. Nevertheless, we recommend that lower CCT of light should be avoided in learning and work contexts, as it might lead to higher effort and cardiovascular reactivity that may contribute to the development of cardiovascular health problems. Instead, we recommend higher CCT of light during daytime for wellbeing and health.
... Therefore, future studies should investigate the moderating effect of incentives on pain's impact on effort in patients with chronic pain. Moreover, we would predict that our model would generalize to other types of motivational incentive, including those which are not tangible -e.g., ego-involvement (Gendolla & Richter, 2005 or the satisfaction of psychological needs (Mazeres et al., 2019(Mazeres et al., , 2021. We expect similar findings with any kind of motivational incentive that should increase task importance. ...
Two experiments tested the combined effect of pain and monetary incentive on effort-related cardiovascular response during cognitive performance. Healthy volunteers received individually adjusted painful or nonpainful thermal stimulations during a difficult cognitive task and expected high or low monetary incentive for successful performance. Our primary cardiovascular effort measure were responses of cardiac pre-ejection period (PEP) during task performance. Based on the pain literature suggesting that pain adds supplementary demand in cognitive functioning, we predicted pain to increase subjective task difficulty. Moreover, based on motivational intensity theory, we expected this to increase effort only when high effort was justified by high monetary incentive. Correspondingly, we predicted pain to lead to low effort due to disengagement when monetary incentive was low. Effort in the nonpainful conditions was expected to fall in between these conditions. The results of both studies offered support to our predictions. Our findings provide the first evidence for the moderating effect of monetary incentive on physical pain’s impact on effort. This suggests that motivational incentives can counteract effort deficits associated with pain. Clinical implications are discussed.
... In sports, the need for achievement is apparent when it comes to surpassing oneself or experiencing positive or negative affect in reaction to (lack of) excellence. Mazeres et al. (2019) argued that success in a task that incorporates achievement incentives would be more important for individuals with a high need for achievement than for those with a low need for achievement. Like the analyses presented above, high success importance should justify high effort mobilization, leading to higher cardiovascular reactivity for difficult, unfixed, or unclear tasks. ...
Attaining sports or health goals requires not only high motivation but also the willpower to translate sport-behavior intentions into successful action. This volitional regulation calls for the mobilization of effort to overcome obstacles in the pursuit of goals. The present article provides a theoretical and empirical overview of motivation intensity theory ( Brehm & Self, 1989 ) – a conceptual framework that makes clear and testable predictions about effort mobilization in various contexts. First, we present the guiding principles of this theory and its operationalizations by measures of effort-related cardiovascular reactivity and physical handgrip force. Second, we review a selection of empirical tests of the basic assumptions of this theory and the impact of psychological moderator variables such as affect, fatigue, pain, and personality on effort mobilization. Finally, we discuss important implications of these findings for the sports and health domains and make suggestions for future research.
... The results of the study show that learners' nAch and nPow have no significant impact on a knowledge product's level of involvement. Despite the appropriate learning environment, a learners' nAch may not necessarily be impacted if a task demand is unclear [72]. Moore, Grabsch [73] show that learners' nPow is not as important in the learning stage; learners are more focused on how to be leaders. ...
Given the recent advances in technology, knowledge-based products have become increasingly prevalent. Many companies offer interdisciplinary resources for incumbent learners to break through chronological and geographical constraints. Therefore, it is important to investigate the factors that motivate learners to pay for knowledge-based products. The purpose of this research was to identify the relevant factors that contribute to purchasing intentions and to clarify the reasons why people purchase knowledge-based products. This study involved 406 valid participants over 20 years of age with knowledge purchase experience. The results demonstrated that incumbent learners’ need for affiliation has a positive effect on involvement, and that involvement has a significant positive impact on knowledge purchase intentions. The key factor influencing learners to pay for knowledge-based products is their involvement in learning. Information anxiety interferes with the relationship between involvement and knowledge purchase intentions. However, no linear relationship was found between cognitive styles and involvement. Field-dependent learners show greater involvement and also information anxiety than field-independent learners. The research offers suggestions for practical use and future research from the perspective of knowledge-product marketing.
... Interestingly our results summarise in this regard the existing studies on listening effort and motivational intensity theory that examined the activity of both ANS branches. As discussed in the introduction section, these studies consistently found evidence for demand effects on SNS activity (e.g., Chatelain et al., 2016 ;e.g., Mackersie and Calderon-Moultrie, 2016 ;Mackersie and Kearney, 2017 ;Mazeres et al., 2019 ;Richter et al., 2008 ;Seeman and Sims, 2015 ), but the evidence for effects on PNS activity has been mixed. Some studies found significant effects (e.g., Mackersie and Calderon-Moultrie, 2016 ;Seeman and Sims, 2015 ) whereas others have not (e.g., Mackersie and Kearney, 2017 ;Silvia et al., 2016 ). ...
Research on listening effort has used various physiological measures to examine the biological correlates of listening effort but a systematic examination of the impact of listening demand on cardiac autonomic nervous system activity is still lacking. The presented study aimed to close this gap by assessing cardiac sympathetic and parasympathetic responses to variations in listening demand. For this purpose, 45 participants performed four speech-in-noise tasks differing in listening demand—manipulated as signal-to-noise ratio varying between +23 dB and -16 dB—while their pre-ejection period and respiratory sinus arrythmia responses were assessed. Cardiac responses showed the expected effect of listening demand on sympathetic activity, but failed to provide evidence for the expected listening demand impact on parasympathetic activity: Pre-ejection period reactivity increased with increasing listening demand across the three possible listening conditions and was low in the very high (impossible) demand condition, whereas respiratory sinus arrythmia did not show this pattern. These findings have two main implications. First, cardiac sympathetic responses seem to be the more sensitive correlate of the impact of task demand on listening effort compared to cardiac parasympathetic responses. Second, very high listening demand may lead to disengagement and correspondingly low effort and reduced cardiac sympathetic response.
... However, the model cannot account for some of the empirical observations that motivational intensity theory can account for. For instance, it cannot explain why increases in task difficulty sometimes lead to disengagement or a reduction in effort investment (e.g., Freydefont et al. 2012;Richter et al. 2012) or why success importance has no impact if task difficulty is low (e.g., Mazeres et al. 2019;Richter 2016a). ...
According to motivational intensity theory, individuals are motivated to conserve energy when pursuing goals. They should invest only the energy required for success and disengage if success is not important enough to justify the required energy. We tested this hypothesis in five experiments assessing exerted muscle force in isometric hand grip tasks as indicator of energy investment. Our results provided mixed evidence for motivational intensity theory. Corroborating its predictions, energy investment was a function of task demand. However, we did not find evidence for the predicted disengagement, and we observed that participants exerted in most conditions more force than required. Furthermore, the data could be better explained by a model that predicted an additive effect of task demand and success importance than by models drawing on motivational intensity theory’s predictions. These results illustrate the strong link between energy investment and task demand but challenge motivational intensity theory’s primacy of energy conservation.
... More recent studies also suggest parallels between motives and functions of the right hemisphere. First, several studies could show a link between the implicit achievement and power motive and cardiovascular responses (McClelland, 1989;Brunstein and Schmitt, 2010;Mazeres et al., 2019). Brain control over cardiovascular responses is lateralized, with the right hemisphere being dominant in sympathetically mediated control of the human myocardium (Wittling, 1997a;Wittling et al., 1998). ...
The implicit motivational needs for power, achievement, and affiliation are relevant for sports performance. Due to their hypothesized association with functions of the right hemisphere (McClelland, 1986), they may influence lateralized perceptual and motor processes. And due to their interactions with motive-specific incentives, they may influence performance conditional on the presence of suitable incentives. This preregistered study, conducted mostly online, examines motivational needs using a standard picture-story exercise (PSE) and their associations with indicators of perceptual and motor laterality and sports performance in gymnasts (N = 67). Further it explores how implicit motives interact with suitable motivational incentives in the prediction of sports performance. Results partly confirm a link between indicators of cerebral rightward laterality and implicit motives: the implicit affiliation and achievement motives are positively associated with an indicator of emotional-perceptional laterality (chimeric-faces task), but not with an indicator of motor laterality (turning bias). Moreover, the implicit achievement motive was positively correlated with training hours. The implicit affiliation motive was negatively associated with the highest attained competition level. The presence of achievement incentives (perceived control, failure) and affiliation incentives (training together or alone) did not interact with corresponding motives to predict sports performance.
This paper reviews studies on the cardiac pre-ejection period (PEP) in the field of cognitive psychophysiology. The main objective was to better understand the relationship between PEP and effort mobilization in cognitive functioning. We reported studies that have measured the PEP in various cognitive tasks and experimental paradigms and other additional works that have highlighted inter-individual variability affecting PEP during both resting and cognitive activities. The reported literature tends to confirm that PEP might be a useful tool to measure cardiac sympathetic control related to effort mobilization and task difficulty. Methodological aspects, influencing factors (importance of success, emotions, psychiatric condition…), and limitations of the PEP usefulness (e.g., high inter-individual variability, questionable relevance in within-subject design) are also emphasized. Finally, we raised some questions and offered directions for future research to further our understanding of PEP measures.
Motives are traits of people that influence the way they perceive their environment. Motives provide the long-term energy for action, for example, in the domains of sport, exercise, and health. In this chapter we differentiate between implicit (nonconscious) and explicit (conscious) motives and describe three important motive themes—achievement, affiliation, and power—and their different effects on behavior in sports, exercise, and health settings. Standard indirect methods for measuring implicit motives are further introduced. Moreover, the motivational brain areas involved in implicit motivation processes as well as physiological associations with motive themes are briefly described. Finally, we illustrate consequences of implicit-explicit-motive (in)congruence for exercise and health behavior.KeywordsImplicitMotivePersonalitySportDispositionNonconsciousActionAchievementPowerAffiliationEffortAffectEmotionIndirectHormoneAssociative processingOperant
Ample evidence suggests that pain leads to additional demand in cognitive functioning, presumably due to its negative affective component and its propensity to capture attention. To highlight the role of motivational incentive, two experiments tested the combined effect of pain and monetary incentive on effort‐related cardiovascular response during cognitive performance. In both studies, healthy volunteers received individually adjusted painful or nonpainful thermal stimulations during a difficult cognitive task (4‐back task in Experiment 1; short‐term memory task in Experiment 2) and expected high (12 Swiss Francs in both experiments) or low monetary incentive (1 Swiss Franc in Experiment 1; 0.10 Swiss Francs in Experiment 2) for successful performance. Effort was primarily assessed as changes in cardiac pre‐ejection period (PEP). We predicted pain to increase subjective task difficulty during cognitive performance. Moreover, according to motivational intensity theory, we expected this to increase effort only when high effort was justified by high monetary incentive. Correspondingly, pain should lead to low effort (disengagement) when monetary incentive was low. Effort in the nonpainful conditions was expected to fall in between these conditions. The results of both studies support our predictions. Our findings provide the first evidence for the moderating effect of monetary incentive on physical pain's impact on effort‐related cardiovascular response. Accordingly, motivational incentives can counteract effort deficits associated with pain. The current findings further advance our understanding of pain's impact on effort‐related cardiovascular response by showing for the first time the moderating effect of monetary incentive. This suggests that it is possible to counteract effort deficits associated with pain, which may be beneficial from a clinical perspective.
Integrating the achievement motive literature and motivational intensity theory, we expected the implicit achievement motive (nAch) to directly determine effort mobilization when task difficulty is unclear. However, nAch should interact with task difficulty in determining effort mobilization when task difficulty is clear. Participants worked on an easy versus difficult memory task (Study 1) or a clear versus unclear arithmetic task (Study 2). We used the Picture-Story-Exercise to assess nAch and pre-ejection period (PEP) to operationalize effort. As predicted, PEP reactivity was strong in the difficult-high-nAch condition and in the unclear-high-nAch condition but low in the other three conditions. Supporting motivational intensity theory, our results showed that nAch requires difficult or unclear task conditions to exert a noticeable impact on effort.
Stable personality dispositions, like motives, are often assumed to exert a direct, stable impact on behavior. This also applies to the explicit achievement motive, which is supposed to influence the behavior that individuals select and how strongly they engage in it. Drawing on motivational intensity theory, we demonstrated in two studies that explicit achievement motive strength only predicted exerted force in a hand grip task if task difficulty was unclear. If task difficulty was clear, explicit achievement motive strength did not influence exerted force. Our findings suggest that the availability of information about the difficulty of motive satisfaction moderates the impact of the explicit achievement motive on behavior.
Objectives:
Effort investment during listening varies as a function of task demand and motivation. Several studies have manipulated both these factors to elicit and measure changes in effort associated with listening. The cardiac pre-ejection period (PEP) is a relatively novel measure in the field of cognitive hearing science. This measure, which reflects sympathetic nervous system activity on the heart, has previously been implemented during a tone discrimination task but not during a speech-in-noise task. Therefore, the primary goal of this study was to explore the influences of signal to noise ratio (SNR) and monetary reward level on PEP reactivity during a speech-in-noise task.
Design:
Thirty-two participants with normal hearing (mean age = 22.22 years, SD = 3.03) were recruited at VU University Medical Center. Participants completed a Dutch speech-in-noise test with a single-interfering-talker masking noise. Six fixed SNRs, selected to span the entire psychometric performance curve, were presented in a block-wise fashion. Participants could earn a low (&OV0556;0.20) or high (&OV0556;5.00) reward by obtaining a score of ≥70% of words correct in each block. The authors analyzed PEP reactivity: the change in PEP measured during the task, relative to the baseline during rest. Two separate methods of PEP analysis were used, one including data from the whole task block and the other including data obtained during presentation of the target sentences only. After each block, participants rated their effort investment, performance, tendency to give up, and the perceived difficulty of the task. They also completed the need for recovery questionnaire and the reading span test, which are indices of additional factors (fatigue and working memory capacity, respectively) that are known to influence listening effort.
Results:
Average sentence perception scores ranged from 2.73 to 91.62%, revealing a significant effect of SNR. In addition, an improvement in performance was elicited by the high, compared to the low reward level. A linear relationship between SNR and PEP reactivity was demonstrated: at the lower SNRs PEP reactivity was the most negative, indicating greater effort investment compared to the higher SNRs. The target stimuli method of PEP analysis was more sensitive to this effect than the block-wise method. Contrary to expectations, no significant impact of reward on PEP reactivity was found in the present dataset. Also, there was no physiological evidence that participants were disengaged, even when performance was poor. A significant correlation between need for recovery scores and average PEP reactivity was demonstrated, indicating that a lower need for recovery was associated with less effort investment.
Conclusions:
This study successfully implemented the measurement of PEP during a standard speech-in-noise test and included two distinct methods of PEP analysis. The results revealed for the first time that PEP reactivity varies linearly with task demand during a speech-in-noise task, although the effect size was small. No effect of reward on PEP was demonstrated. Finally, participants with a higher need for recovery score invested more effort, as shown by average PEP reactivity, than those with a lower need for recovery score.
Figure 1. Motivational intensity theory's predictions for tasks with known and fixed difficulty (Panels A and B) and for tasks with unknown and unfixed difficulty (Panel C).
It is current practice that researchers testing specific, theory-driven predictions do not only use a planned contrast to model and test their hypotheses, but also test the residual variance (the C+R approach). This analysis strategy relies on work by Abelson and Prentice (1997), who suggested that the result of a planned contrast needs to be interpreted in light of the variance that is left after the variance explained by the contrast has been subtracted from the variance explained by the factors of the statistical model. Unfortunately, the C + R approach leads to 6 fundamental problems. In particular, the C + R approach (a) relies on the interpretation of a nonsignificant result as evidence for no effect, (b) neglects the impact of sample size, (c) creates problems for a priori power analyses, (d) may lead to significant effects that lack a meaningful interpretation, (e) may give rise to misinterpretations, and (f) is inconsistent with the interpretation of other statistical analyses. Given these flaws, researchers should refrain from testing the residual variance when conducting planned contrasts. Single contrasts, Bayes factors, and likelihood ratios provide reasonable alternatives that are less problematic. (PsycINFO Database Record
(c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).
Female and male subjects who either had or had not refrained from drinking For a relatively extended period were given the chance to earn a choice of beverages by doing well on trials of an easy or difficult character-recognition task. Results indicated that need (deprivation) and difficulty interacted to determine diastolic responsivity during performance. Whereas diastolic responses were greater under difficult than easy conditions For Fluid-deprived subjects, they were slightly (not reliably) lower under difficult than easy conditions For fluid-satiated subjects. The diastolic findings corroborate and extend results obtained in a previous investigation that examined interactional effects of need and difficulty. They also document further the predictive validity of a recent model of effort and cardiovascular response and raise questions about traditional assumptions concerning the relation between need and cardiovascular responsivity.
This chapter deals with the psychological process that determines effort intensity in instrumental behavior. According to motivation intensity theory, effort should be proportional to experienced task difficulty as long as success is possible and justified and low when success is impossible or excessively difficult, given the available benefit. When task difficulty is unspecified or unknown, effort should be proportional to the importance of success. We report a program of experimental studies that have operationalized effort intensity as cardiovascular reactivity during task performance and used multiple manipulations of variables influencing subjective task difficulty (e.g., performance standards, ability, mood) and the amount of justified effort (e.g., material incentive, instrumentality, evaluation). The empirical evidence is in clear support of the principles of motivation intensity theory and challenges a number of other theoretical accounts. Directions for future research are discussed.
This chapter reviews the literature on congruence (consistency) between implicit (unconscious) and explicit (conscious) motives. The prevailing wisdom that implicit and explicit motives are uncorrelated is shown to be incorrect. When methodological shortcomings of past research (e.g., unreliability of measurement) are overcome, implicit and explicit motives are positively correlated. Nevertheless, the relation is weak enough that the discrepancy between implicit and explicit motives carries important information about personality congruence. The relation between implicit and explicit motives carries important information about personality congruence. The relation between implicit and explicit motives has been found to vary systematically and meaningfully as a function of substantive moderator variables, such as self-determination and self-monitoring. Motive congruence is predicted distally by satisfaction of basic needs during childhood and proximally by stress among individuals who have difficulty regulating affect. Motive congruence predicts important outcomes, including volitional strength, flow, and well-being. The chapter closes with a discussion of future research directions, such as the distinction between congruence and integration constructs.
Tested the Atkinson model for achievement-motivated behavior using a modified paired-associates learning task that allowed for the systematic variation of perceived level of difficulty. 76 male undergraduates served as Ss. Persons classified as high in the motive to approach success and low in the motive to avoid failure (Ms > Mf) performed better than Ss for whom Mf > Ms on groups of word pairs that Ss were told were of intermediate difficulty (ID). No difference in performance was found on items designated as easy or difficult. Results were as predicted by the model. A significant pattern of the avoidance of ID items by the Mf > Ms group was also found. (19 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
A cross-validation study is reported in which both personality variables and cognitive ability variables were evaluated as predictors of 2 separate performance criteria in a sample of 450 Master of Business Administration students. Whereas verbal and quantitative aptitudes of the students were found to be strong predictors of performance at written work, they were weak predictors of an in-class performance criterion. The opposite was true when specific personality trait variables were used as predictors. The personality characteristics of the students predicted classroom performance better than they predicted written performance. The Big Five factors of personality (Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, and Openness to Experience) did not predict either criterion consistently. In conclusion, personality variables are related to academic success when characteristic modes of behavior play a role in academic performance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Repeated attempts have been made in the past 35 years to obtain self-report measures of motives originally identified in associative thought. Measures of the same motive obtained in these two ways seldom correlate significantly with each other and relate to different classes of behavior. Recent evidence is summarized showing that implicit motives, derived from stories written to pictures, combine generally with activity incentives to affect behavior, whereas self-attributed motives, derived from self-reports, combine generally with social incentives to affect behavior. Hence, implicit motives generally sustain spontaneous behavioral trends over time because of the pleasure derived from the activity itself, whereas the self-attributed motives predict immediate responses to structured situations because of the social incentives present in structuring the situation. Implicit motives represent a more primitive motivational system derived from affective experiences, whereas self-attributed motives are based on more cognitively elaborated constructs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Proponents of the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT), most notably D. C. McClelland, have argued that the TAT and questionnaires are valid measures of different aspects of achievement motivation. Critics of the TAT have argued that questionnaires but not the TAT are valid measures of the need for achievement. Two meta-analyses of 105 randomly selected empirical research articles found that correlations between TAT measures of need for achievement and outcomes were on average positive; that these correlations were particularly large for outcomes such as career success measured in the presence of intrinsic, or task-related, achievement incentives; that questionnaire measures of need for achievement were also positively correlated with outcomes, particularly in the presence of external or social achievement incentives; and that on average TAT-based correlations were larger than questionnaire-based correlations. The theoretical implications of these findings are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Many theories argue that goal striving is more intense when people have optimistic expectancies for achieving the goal and
when attention is self-focused. Brehm’s motivational intensity theory, however, predicts that the intensity of motivation
is only as high as necessary, so people will try harder for difficult tasks than for easy tasks, all else equal. The present
experiment compared these two approaches by manipulating two levels of self-focused attention (low and high self-awareness,
via a mirror) and two levels of task difficulty (easy and difficult). Effort was assessed as cardiovascular reactivity, particularly
change in systolic blood pressure. Neither high self-focus nor an easy task per se caused increased effort; instead, high
self-focus significantly increased systolic reactivity when the task was difficult. Effort was thus higher despite less optimistic
goal expectancies, a finding that is predicted by Brehm’s motivational intensity theory but not by traditional self-regulation
models.
KeywordsSelf-focused attention-Effort-Cardiovascular reactivity-Active coping-Motivation
The interactive effect of achievement motivation and task difficulty on invested mental effort, postulated by Humphreys and Revelle [Humphreys, M.S., Revelle, W., 1984. Personality, motivation, and performance: a theory of the relationship between individual differences and information processing. Psychol. Rev. 91, 153-184], was examined using behavioral, subjective, and effort-related physiological measures. Eighteen approach-driven participants and 18 avoidance-driven participants were selected based on their motive to achieve success scores and their motive to avoid failure scores. A 2x3 factorial design was used, with three levels of task difficulty. As expected, approach-driven participants performed better and had a stronger decrease of midfrequency band of heart rate variability than avoidance-driven participants, especially during the difficult task. These results support the interactive effect of achievement motivation and task difficulty on invested mental effort.
The purpose of the study was to present experimental arguments evaluating the Humphreys and Revelle's model of effort. Two important factors were tested: achievement motivation and difficulty. Heart rate, heart rate variability, blood pressure, facial electromyographic reactivity, and reaction time were measured as an index of effort expenditure. A 2x2x2 factorial design was used with two levels of resultant achievement motivation, two levels of task difficulty, and two levels of goal difficulty. As expected, the 16 participants high in resultant achievement motivation showed a better performance and had a larger decrease of the midfrequency band than the 16 participants low in resultant achievement motivation, especially during the difficult task. Results lend some support for the impact of resultant achievement motivation, task difficulty, and goal difficulty on effort mobilization.
We tested whether the effect of achievement motivation on effort is modulated by two possible factors of the motivational intensity theory (Wright and Kirby, 2001): perceived difficulty and maximally justified effort. Approach-driven (N=16) and avoidance-driven (N=16) participants were first instructed to perform a reaction time task to the best of their abilities. Next, the participants were instructed to consistently beat their performance standard established in the first condition. Approach-driven participants showed a stronger decrease of midfrequency band of heart rate variability, which was used as an index of mental effort, than avoidance-driven participants in the second instruction condition. Moreover, avoidance-driven participants showed a higher corrugator supercilii reactivity, which was used as an index of negative affects, than approach-driven participants in the second instruction condition. No difference of perceived difficulty between groups was observed. Results suggested that avoidance-driven participants developed negative affects in the second instruction condition decreasing the maximally justified effort and their level of engagement.
A model explaining how the motive to achieve and the motive to avoid failure influences behavior assumes strength of motivation as being a multiplicative function of motive, expectancy, and incentive. This accounts for level of aspiration and also performance level when only one task is presented. "It also assumes that the incentive value of success is a positive linear function of difficulty as inferred from the subjective probability of success; and negative incentive value of failure to be a negative linear function of difficulty." 2 theoretical implications are "that performance level should be greatest when there is greatest uncertainty about outcome" and people with strong motive to achieve should prefer immediate risk whereas those with strong motive to avoid failure will prefer easy tasks or extremely difficult and risky tasks. Experimental results are cited with implications for research on gambling and social mobility aspirations. 22 references.
This article advances a simple conception of test validity: A test is valid for measuring an attribute if (a) the attribute exists and (b) variations in the attribute causally produce variation in the measurement outcomes. This conception is shown to diverge from current validity theory in several respects. In particular, the emphasis in the proposed conception is on ontology, reference, and causality, whereas current validity theory focuses on epistemology, meaning, and correlation. It is argued that the proposed conception is not only simpler but also theoretically superior to the position taken in the existing literature. Further, it has clear theoretical and practical implications for validation research. Most important, validation research must not be directed at the relation between the measured attribute and other attributes but at the processes that convey the effect of the measured attribute on the test scores.
This research examined how implicit and self-attributed needs to achieve (labeled as n Ach and san Ach, respectively) combine with self-referenced and norm-referenced feedback to predict effort-related (task performance) and choice-related (task continuation) indexes of students' engagement in a mental concentration task. In Experiment 1 the authors found that in a task-focused setting, task performance was predicted by the joint effect of self-referenced feedback and n Ach, whereas task continuation was predicted by the joint effect of norm-referenced feedback and san Ach. In Experiment 2 the authors found that in an ego-focused setting, n Ach and san Ach interacted in the prediction of task performance but not of task continuation. In Experiment 3 the authors found that the effects of n Ach and san Ach on students' performance were mediated by the anticipated affective value of achievement outcomes. These findings are discussed in relation to a 2-system approach to achievement motivation.
A new integrated method for scoring power, achievement, and affiliation motive imagery in verbal running text (speeches, interviews, literary works, etc.) is introduced as an aid to doing personality research at a distance. Documentation includes studies demonstrating interscorer and temporal reliability, validity, and convergence with the original TAT-based motive scoring systems. The integrated running text system, which is nonreactive and can be applied to any naturally-occurring verbal material, is an alternative to traditional personality testing and assessment.
Background
The present study tested the hypothesis of a differential pattern of reward and punishment responsiveness in depression measuring effort mobilization during anticipation and facial expressions during consumption.
Methods
Twenty patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) and 20 control participants worked on a memory task under neutral, reward, and punishment instructions. Effort mobilization was operationalized as cardiovascular reactivity, while facial expressions were measured by facial electromyographic reactivity. Self-report measures for each phase complemented this multi-method approach.
Results
During anticipation, MDD patients showed weaker cardiac pre-ejection period (PEP) reactivity to reward and blunted self-reported wanting, but weaker PEP reactivity to punishment and unchanged self-reported avoidance motivation. During consumption, MDD patients showed reduced zygomaticus major muscle reactivity to reward and blunted self-reported liking, but unchanged corrugator supercilii muscle reactivity to punishment and unchanged self-reported disliking.
Conclusions
These findings demonstrate reduced effort mobilization during reward and punishment anticipation in depression. Moreover, they show reduced facial expressions during reward consumption and unchanged facial expressions during punishment consumption in depression.
The present study extends past research about reduced reward responsiveness in depression by assessing effort-related cardiovascular responses during anticipation of a social reward. Dysphoric (i.e., subclinically depressed) and nondysphoric participants worked on a cognitive task. Half the participants in each group expected the possibility to subscribe to a social exchange internet site. Effort mobilization during task performance was assessed by participants' cardiovascular reactivity. Confirming the predictions, nondysphoric participants in the social-reward condition had higher reactivity of pre-ejection period, systolic blood pressure, and heart rate, compared to the other three cells. In contrast, dysphoric participants' cardiovascular reactivity was generally low. These findings indicate that social-reward function is indeed impaired in subclinical depression. Implications for social punishment are discussed.
Research on age differences in implicit motives is rare and has shown contradictory results. We investigated age and gender differences in implicit motives (achievement, power, affiliation and intimacy), measured by the Picture Story Exercise (PSE), in an extensive, heterogeneous dyadic sample of 736 adults aged 20 to 80 years. Data were analyzed with a multilevel approach. Results indicate lower motive scores in all four measured motives in aged as compared to young adults but higher scores in activity inhibition. Further, women scored higher in affiliation and intimacy motives than men, while men scored higher in achievement and power motives and in activity inhibition than women. Possible underlying affective and neuroendocrinological processes of age dependent change in implicit motives are discussed.
Three studies investigated the relationship between the achievement motive and sport participation. It was expected that both the implicit and the explicit achievement motives are positively associated with how frequently people engage in sport activities. The implicit achievement motive was assessed with indirect motive measures; the explicit achievement motive was either inferred from participants’ personal goals or measured with self-reports. Two hundred five athletes participated including college students enrolled in leisure sport programs offered at their university (Study 1), amateur athletes registered in sports clubs (Study 2), and elite tennis athletes (Study 3). The implicit achievement motive consistently predicted sport participation in all three studies. In contrast, the explicit achievement motive was uncorrelated with sport participation. The interaction between the two motives did not yield an effect on sport participation. The results indicate that the implicit, unconscious need to achieve facilitates regular engagement in sport activities, but the explicit, conscious orientation toward achievement does not. The enrichment of sports environments with incentives for the implicit achievement motive may thus attract more people to participate in sport activities.
This chapter explores potential links between thematic and chronometric methods of measuring implicit motives. It begins with a brief overview of the strengths and weaknesses inherent in thematic measures of motivational preferences. It then argues that reaction time-based measures (e.g., priming procedures) of implicit social cognitions can provide important insights into how implicit motives work and translate into goaldirected action. To exemplify this position, this chapter summarizes a number of studies examining the predictive validity of an Implicit Association Test designed to assess individual differences in achievement motivation. On this basis, it is argued that the field of implicit motives can benefit from an exchange of ideas with several important lines of social cognitive research on the automatic nature of motivational concerns.
This chapter discusses the major topics such as picture selection, administration, coding systems, and data processing that are related to usage of the Picture Story Exercise (PSE), a major content coding method for assessing implicit motives. It offers a step-by-step guide description of different aspects of preparing, administering, scoring, and processing PSE data. Included in the chapter is a discussion about developing multi- and single-motive picture sets for the PSE; such recommendations are followed by previously unpublished cue strength statistics for a PSE picture set that targets the achievement motive.
This paper explores the effect of achievement motivation on creative performance. I also describe how expectations of differing types of evaluations and knowledge of the domain moderate the relationship between implicit achievement motivation and creativity. Results suggest achievement motivation, measured implicitly, is related to creative performance. Additionally, the effect of achievement motivation at the implicit level on creative performance is moderated by expectation of evaluation and domain knowledge in a three-way interaction. The main effect for achievement motivation, assessed at the implicit level, as a predictor of creative performance holds when controlling for other factors previously tested as predictors of creativity, including a self-report assessment achievement motivation. I conclude by discussing the implications of this research and provide suggestions for future research opportunities. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Motivational research over the past decade has provided ample evidence for the existence of two distinct motivational systems. Implicit motives are affect-based needs and have been found to predict spontaneous behavioral trends over time. Explicit motives, in contrast, represent cognitively based self-attributes and are preferably linked to choices. The present research examined the differentiating and predictive value of the implicit vs. explicit achievement motives for team sports performances. German students (N = 42) completed a measure of the implicit (Operant Motive Test) and the explicit achievement motive (Achievement Motive Scale-Sport). Choosing a target distance was significantly predicted by the explicit achievement motive measure. By contrast, repeated performances in a team tournament were significantly predicted by the implicit measure. Results are in line with findings showing that implicit and explicit motive measures are associated with different classes of behavior.
An experiment with N=52 university students manipulated ego involvement (low vs. high) and task difficulty (unfixed vs. easy) of a letter detection task. In accordance with the theoretical predictions about the role of ego involvement in active coping, high ego involvement increased the performance-related reactivity of systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, heart rate, and also the number of unspecific skin conductance responses when task difficulty was unfixed (“do your best”). Ego involvement had no impact on autonomic reactivity when task difficulty was easy due to a fixed low performance standard. Furthermore, participants in the ego involvement/unfixed condition, where autonomic reactivity was relatively strong, committed significantly fewer errors in the letter detection task than those in the other conditions, reflecting an association between mental effort and performance.
G*Power (Erdfelder, Faul, & Buchner, 1996) was designed as a general stand-alone power analysis program for statistical tests commonly used in social and behavioral research. G*Power 3 is a major extension of, and improvement over, the previous versions. It runs on widely used computer platforms (i.e., Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Mac OS X 10.4) and covers many different statistical tests of the t, F, and chi2 test families. In addition, it includes power analyses for z tests and some exact tests. G*Power 3 provides improved effect size calculators and graphic options, supports both distribution-based and design-based input modes, and offers all types of power analyses in which users might be interested. Like its predecessors, G*Power 3 is free.
The present research tested the hypothesis that the implicit need for achievement (n Achievement) predicts attenuated cortisol (C) responses to difficult tasks, because it represents a propensity to view difficulty as a cue to mastery reward. In two studies, n Achievement was assessed through content-coding of imaginative stories and salivary C was assessed both at baseline and post-task. In Study 1 (N = 108 US students), n Achievement predicted an attenuated C response to a one-on-one competition in the laboratory, regardless of whether participants won or lost. In Study 2 (N = 62 German students), n Achievement predicted an attenuated C response to the Trier Social Stress Test (Kirschbaum, Pirke, & Hellhammer, 1993), but not to a non-stressful control task. In Study 2 only, the attenuating effect of n Achievement was moderated by gender, with only men showing the effect. Across both studies, the average effect size of the association between n Achievement and C responses to difficult tasks was r = −.28. These findings point to a role of n Achievement in emotion regulation.
The authors examined the validity of an Implicit Association Test (Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998) for assessing individual differences in achievement tendencies. Eighty-eight students completed an IAT and explicit self-ratings of achievement orientation, and were then administered a mental concentration test that they performed either in the presence or in the absence of achievement-related feedback. Implicit and explicit measures of achievement orientation were uncorrelated. Under feedback, the IAT uniquely predicted students’ test performance but failed to predict their self-reported task enjoyment. Conversely, explicit self-ratings were unrelated to test performance but uniquely related to subjective accounts of task enjoyment. Without feedback, individual differences in both performance and enjoyment were independent of differences in either of the two achievement orientation measures.
ABSTRACT Motives to achieve and values associated with achievement were conceptualized as distinct and independent personality constructs, one nonconscious, the other conscious, each predictive of a different type of achievement-related behavior It was hypothesized that (a) motive and value measures would be uncorrelated, (b) motives would predict “operant” or spontaneous behaviors while values would predict “respondent” or stimulus-driven behaviors, and (c) motives and values would interact such that subjects with high values relating to achievement would perform better than those with low values, but only when their motives were also high Hypotheses (a) and (b) were strongly supported m two studies, and Hypothesis (c) was supported in Study 2 In that study, the motive for achievement was a particularly strong predictor of operant math performance among those subjects who valued achievement as opposed to affiliation The findings suggest that nonconscious (motive) and conscious (value) measures are both useful in different cases–the former for predicting “real” (doing) activity, the latter for predicting self-report (thinking) responses Questions concerning how motives and values might combine to predict different kinds of behavior are addressed
Respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) is being used increasingly in psychophysiological studies as an index of vagal control of the heart and may be among the most selective noninvasive indices of parasympathetic control of cardiac functions. A comprehensive understanding of RSA, however, requires an appreciation of its multiple autonomic and physiological origins. We review the physiological bases of RSA and show that RSA arises from multiple tonic and phasic processes of both central and peripheral origin. These underlying mechanisms are at least partially differentiated, have distinct dynamics and consequences, and may be differentially sensitive to behavioral and cognitive events. These multiple mechanisms are relevant for psychophysiological studies of RSA, and a thorough understanding of RSA can only be achieved through an appreciation of the dynamics of its underlying origins. There is a distinction between the psychophysiological and neurophysiological domains, and conceptual and empirical bridges between these domains are needed.
The statistical parameters that influence the reliability of delta and residualized change were examined in the context of the assessment of cardiovascular reactivity. A comparison of the relative reliabilities of these two quantification methods was performed using systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, and heart rate data from two samples of 134 and 109 subjects observed during baseline and either two or four behavioral challenges. The results indicated that both delta and residualized change scores can yield reliable measures of blood pressure and heart rate reactivity to behavioral challenges, and that their reliabilities will be comparable under the conditions observed in laboratory reactivity studies. Correlations between baseline and delta did not indicate that these two measures were systematically related. Finally, delta scores are more appropriate than residuals when assessing the generalizability of responses across a variety of tasks.
We discuss the expectancy–value theory of motivation, focusing on an expectancy–value model developed and researched by Eccles, Wigfield, and their colleagues. Definitions of crucial constructs in the model, including ability beliefs, expectancies for success, and the components of subjective task values, are provided. These definitions are compared to those of related constructs, including self-efficacy, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, and interest. Research is reviewed dealing with two issues: (1) change in children's and adolescents' ability beliefs, expectancies for success, and subjective values, and (2) relations of children's and adolescents' ability-expectancy beliefs and subjective task values to their performance and choice of activities.
Undergraduate students in engineering and science completed the Thematic Apperception Test, which was scored for achievement motivation and also for power motivation. They later participated in an experiment in which they first provided a solution to an engineering problem. The experimenter then gave them preprogrammed, written feedback on how well they performed in two conditions of the experiment (positive or negative feedback) and no feedback in a third condition. Feedback was couched in the language of both achievement and power imagery. Last, students rendered solutions to a second engineering problem—the water-for-Tonya problem. Two students who had completed a course in the psychology of creativity performed ratings of each solution on dimensions designated as creativity and complexity. Ratings for the two dimensions moderately correlated with one another (r = .62) and therefore were combined and summed across the two evaluators to form a single overall Creativity score. Achievement motivation correlated positively with Creativity score in the positive- and negative-feedback conditions (rs = .43 and .38) but not significantly in the no-feedback condition (r = .10). Power motivation correlated positively with Creativity in the positive-feedback condition (r = .32), and negatively in the negative-feedback condition (r = −.25), but not significantly in the no-feedback condition (r = .17). Multiple regression/correlation analysis lent further support to these findings. A major conclusion that these data suggest is a differential response to negative feedback. Achievement-motivated people appear to benefit from it, whereas power-motivated people do not.
An experiment assessed the joint effect of dispositional need for closure (NFC) and task difficulty on engagement-related myocardial beta-adrenergic activity. Participants who scored either low or high on the NFC scale performed an ambiguous categorization task with either low or high difficulty. Confirming the theory-derived predictions, task difficulty effects on pre-ejection period (PEP) reactivity were moderated by NFC. If difficulty was low, PEP reactivity was low and independent of the participants' NFC level. If difficulty was high, participants with high NFC showed increased PEP reactivity compared to participants with low NFC. These results extend previous research on Wright's model of engagement-related cardiovascular reactivity and suggest that the model may provide a useful framework for assessing the impact of personality on cardiovascular response.
Self-determination theory (SDT) maintains that an understanding of human motivation requires a consideration of innate psychological needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness. We discuss the SDT concept of needs as it relates to previous need theories, emphasizing that needs specify the necessary conditions for psychological growth, integrity, and well-being. This concept of needs leads to the hypotheses that different regulatory processes underlying goal pursuits are differentially associated with effective functioning and well-being and also that different goal contents have different relations to the quality of behavior and mental health, specifically because different regulatory processes and different goal contents are associated with differing degrees of need satisfaction. Social contexts and individual differences that support satisfaction of the basic needs facilitate natural growth processes including intrinsically motivated behavior and integration of extrinsic motivations, whereas those that forestall autonomy, competence, or relatedness are associated with poorer motivation, performance, and well-being. We also discuss the relation of the psychological needs to cultural values, evolutionary processes, and other contemporary motivation theories.
Undergraduates scoring low and high on a questionnaire measure of relatively extended fatigue were presented four versions of an auditory mental arithmetic challenge, ranging in difficulty from low to impossibly high. Among Low Fatigue participants, blood pressure and heart rate responses assessed during the work periods first rose and then fell with difficulty. Among High Fatigue participants, blood pressure responses remained low across difficulty conditions, while heart rate responses rose weakly from the low- to the moderate difficulty condition and then declined. Findings are discussed in terms of a recent interactional analysis of fatigue influence on cardiovascular response.
Null-hypothesis significance testing remains the standard inferential tool in cognitive science despite its serious disadvantages. Primary among these is the fact that the resulting probability value does not tell the researcher what he or she usually wants to know: How probable is a hypothesis, given the obtained data? Inspired by developments presented by Wagenmakers (Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 14, 779-804, 2007), I provide a tutorial on a Bayesian model selection approach that requires only a simple transformation of sum-of-squares values generated by the standard analysis of variance. This approach generates a graded level of evidence regarding which model (e.g., effect absent [null hypothesis] vs. effect present [alternative hypothesis]) is more strongly supported by the data. This method also obviates admonitions never to speak of accepting the null hypothesis. An Excel worksheet for computing the Bayesian analysis is provided as supplemental material.
Previous studies that have examined the relationship between implicit and explicit motive measures have consistently found little variance overlap between both types of measures regardless of thematic content domain (i.e., power, achievement, affiliation). However, this independence may be artifactual because the primary means of measuring implicit motives—content-coding stories people write about picture cues—are incommensurable with the primary means of measuring explicit motives: having individuals fill out self-report scales. To provide a better test of the presumed independence between both types of measures, we measured implicit motives with a Picture Story Exercise (PSE; McClelland, Koestner, & Weinberger, 198920.
McClelland , D. C. ,
Koestner , R. and
Weinberger , J. 1989. How do self-attributed and implicit motives differ?. Psychological Review, 96: 690–702. [CrossRef], [Web of Science ®], [CSA]View all references) and explicit motives with a cue- and response-matched questionnaire version of the PSE (PSE–Q) and a traditional measure of explicit motives, the Personality Research Form (PRF; Jackson, 198413.
Jackson , D. N. 1984. Personality Research Form, , 3rd ed., Port Huron, MI: Sigma Assessment Systems, Inc. View all references) in 190 research participants. Correlations between the PSE and the PSE–Q were small and mostly nonsignificant, whereas the PSE–Q showed significant variance overlap with the PRF within and across thematic domains. We conclude that the independence postulate holds even when more commensurable measures of implicit and explicit motives are used.
An experiment with 64 participants manipulated task difficulty and assessed cardiac reactivity in active coping over four levels of demand. Participants performed a memory task while preejection period, heart rate, and blood pressure were assessed. In accordance with the theoretical predictions of R. A. Wright's (1996) integration of motivational intensity theory (J. W. Brehm & E. A. Self, 1989) with Obrist's active coping approach (P. A. Obrist, 1981), preejection period and systolic blood pressure reactivity increased with task difficulty across the first three difficulty levels. On the fourth difficulty level-where success was impossible-reactivity of both preejection period and systolic blood pressure were low. These findings provide the first clear evidence for the notion of Wright's integrative model that energy mobilization in active coping is mediated by beta-adrenergic impact on the heart.
Impedance cardiography was introduced over 20 years ago as a noninvasive and unobtrusive technique for measuring systolic time intervals and cardiac output. Although our understanding of the physiological events reflected in the impedance cardiogram has become more refined, the technique's theoretical basis remains somewhat controversial and acceptance of its validity has relied heavily upon empirical validation. Largely as a consequence of this status, there have been inadequate grounds on which to develop sound methodological standardization. Currently, the methodological approaches that have been most frequently adopted may be viewed as representing the standard. The various aspects of impedance methodology are discussed, and alternative approaches described, with the objective of providing an informed basis for choosing among these methodological alternatives. It is recommended that studies utilizing impedance cardiography should be reported with clear and detailed methodological description. This should help clarify the extent to which methodological differences may underlie any discrepant research observations, as well as facilitate the emergence of improved methodological standards.
Cardiovascular measures were obtained from 40 subjects differing in level of achievement motivation during the performance of a vigilance task. Analysis of interbeat interval and heart rate variability indicated that cardiovascular measures obtained from low achievers did not differ significantly from pre-test measures during the performance of the task, while the measures from high achievers did. In addition, the performance of high achievers was significantly better than the performance of low achievers. It is suggested that these findings indicate that high achievers are marked by the effort they expend in performance and that such effort is reflected in the cardiovascular activity of such subjects.
A comparison of pre-ejection period (PEP), heart rate (HR), and systolic (SBP) and diastolk (DBP) blood pressure responses to the cold pressor test and a pseudo-shock avoidance reaction time task was performed in 183 young men. These tasks differ in the extent to which they evoke enhanced myocardial and vascular adrenergic activity. Decreases in PEP were more pronounced during the reaction time task, while DBP increased more during the cold pressor test. MR and SBP responses did not differentiate the two tasks. PEP decreases occurred in the absence of any apparent increase in cardiac preload or decrease in afterload. Parental hypertension as determined by physician reports was associated with higher SBP across all conditions. A subgroup of individuals (15%) showed SBP levels >140 mm Hg when typical clinical stethoscopic determinations were made, but less than half as many showed such elevations during a more extended resting baseline using remotely operated devices. High stethoscopic SBP was associated with greater cardiovascular responses to the stressors, while high SBP during the extended baseline was not.
As a complement to the literature on the discriminant validity of implicit and self-attributed motives, this study explored two issues that point to convergences: moderation of concordance between implicit and self-attributed achievement motives, and the role of the two types of motive as antecedents of achievement goals. Significant positive correlations were found between implicit and self-attributed need for achievement and between implicit and self-attributed fear of failure. Individuals higher in self-determination were more concordant in implicit and self-attributed need for achievement. Implicit and self-attributed achievement motives predicted achievement goals in a similar manner, and structural equation modeling yielded good fit for a conceptually parsimonious latent motive model. It is suggested that implicit and self-attributed motives converge in some respects (yet diverge in others), and implications for theory are discussed.
The onset of ventricular depolarization defines the start of the preejection period (PEP), which is commonly used as an index of myocardial contractility and sympathetic control of the heart. Although the fiducial point for this onset has traditionally been the onset of the Q wave of the electrocardiogram, other measurement points have also been used in the literature, including the peak of the Q wave (i.e., the onset of the R wave). Conceptual, physiological, and empirical considerations addressing the reliability and validity of these alternative metrics support the application of the Q-wave peak/R-wave onset as the fiducial point for PEP measures.