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Explicit achievement motive strength determines effort-related myocardial beta-adrenergic activity if task difficulty is unclear but not if task difficulty is clear
Abstract
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.
... Second, we believe that moxie has the potential to moderate a number of already established effects within the motivation literature. For example, research on motivation intensity theory consistently shows that people exert more effort on unspecified difficult tasks compared to unspecified easy tasks (e.g., Brehm et al., 1983;Gendolla et al., 2012Gendolla et al., , 2019Mazeres et al., 2021). It is possible that this tendency is moderated by moxie. ...
... Third, future research should consider investigating the impact of moxie on behavioral and/or physiological outcomes. For example, effort mobilization is reflected in increases in myocardial sympathetic activity assessed via various heart activity measures (e.g., systolic blood pressure; Freydefont et al., 2016;Mazeres et al., 2021;Richter et al., 2008;Silvia, 2012;Wright et al., 1990). Several studies have used effort-related cardiovascular reactivity to examine how situational variables impact motivation intensity (e.g., Framorando & Gendolla, 2019;Gendolla et al., 2019;Richter et al., 2008;Silvia et al., 2011;Wright et al., 1990). ...
Motivation intensity differs across individuals. While prior work has examined how situational factors contribute to these discrepancies, the present work takes an individual differences approach. We developed a new tool to measure a novel construct we call “moxie” to assess individual differences in motivation intensity. Seven studies were conducted to examine the psychometric properties of the proposed Moxie Scale. A single factor structure was demonstrated through exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, and the Moxie Scale was shown to have high internal consistency and strong test–retest reliability. Convergent, discriminant, criterion-related, and incremental validity were established by exploring associations between moxie and the Big Five personality traits, as well as related motivational constructs such as grit, self-control, volition and inhibition systems, and procrastination. Moxie also predicted intrinsic and extrinsic motivation above other motivational constructs. Finally, moxie predicted goal achievement over time and mediational analyses indicated that this occurred because those high in moxie invested more resources into their goal. Collectively, these findings suggest that moxie is an important and distinct motivational construct and offer new insights regarding individual differences in motivational intensity.
... Our hypotheses (see Fig. 1) were firstly, that tasks of consistently high complexity would have a positive impact on both immediate and delayed performance, while also increasing cognitive and metacognitive processes (Mielicki & Wiley, 2022;O'Brien et al., 2020), and secondly that consistently high task complexity would negatively influence intrinsic interest (Mazeres et al., 2021;Zepeda et al., 2020). Thirdly we expected a positive relation between metacognition (regulation and knowledge) and meta-awareness when task complexity was consistently high (de Bruin et al., 2020(de Bruin et al., , 2023Seufert, 2018Seufert, , 2020). ...
Background: Problem-solving encourages learners to engage in deep knowledge processing. However, merely providing problem-solving activities without considering task complexity may not optimize learning. Aims: The present study analyzed the effects of task complexity (consistently high vs. gradually increasing) on performance, germane cognitive load, meta-awareness, and intrinsic interest using a learning task conducted in a laboratory. Sample: We analyzed data collected from 98 graduate and ungraduated university students (N = 98; M age = 21.22 years, SD = 3.03). Methods: The study comprised a main session and a post-test. During the main session participants completed a problem-solving task either with consistently high complexity or gradually increasing complexity. During the post-test all participants solved the task once with high complexity. Metacognition (regulation, knowledge), germane cognitive load, meta-awareness, and intrinsic interest were assessed by self-evaluation questionnaires. Results: The findings indicated positive effects of consistently high complexity on immediate performance, germane cognitive load, and meta-awareness. Additionally, an important relationship between metacognition (regulation, knowledge) and meta-awareness was identified when learning with gradually increasing complexity. However, no impact of task complexity on intrinsic interest was found. Conclusions: The findings suggest that exposing learners to consistently high complexity tasks can have beneficial effects on learning without negatively influencing intrinsic interest.
... 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;. ...
... PEP reactivity was stronger in the high implicit achievement motive group when the task was difficult or unclear. Mazeres et al. 2021b 1) 88 students (mean age 20,68 y). ...
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.
... Importantly, recent research showed that needs/motives is an important factor to consider when predicting effort (e.g., Mazeres et al., 2021aMazeres et al., , 2022bRichter et al., 2012). This research observed that when participants are 'aroused' by situational cues suggesting that need satisfaction is possible in the current environment, needs/motives affected the maximal effort one is willing to invest in the task (potential motivation), which in turn affects effort in certain context. ...
... 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.
... 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. ...
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.
Social comparison theory states that comparison with others should influence an individual's behavior (Festinger, 1954; Munkes & Diehl, 2003). This is primarily due to an upward pressure: the pressure to be better than others, which according to some theories should motivate individuals to increase their level of performance (Munkes & Diehl, 2003; Rijsman, 1974). The effect of upward pressure on individual performance has been tested, but never on effort. To address this gap, we conducted a within-subject design study with N = 40 participants engaged in five-minute video games while presented with scores of a similar, slightly better, or weaker peer, with a control condition omitting the peer's score. Effort-related cardiovascular responses were recorded with initial systolic time interval (ISTI) during the game and baseline conditions. The effect of social comparison on effort was tested with a 4 (social comparison) x 5 (minutes of the tasks) repeated-measures ANOVA on ISTI reactivity. Results showed higher ISTI reactivity, interpreted as increased effort, when participants competed with similar and slightly better peers compared to a weaker peer and the control condition in the last minute of the task, confirming our expectations (Pegna et al., 2019). These results illustrate that social comparison - through its effect on upward pressure - is sufficient to elicit changes in effort-related cardiovascular response.
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
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.
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.
What 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. This chapter reports an extensive program of research that has operationalized effort intensity as cardiovascular reactivity during task performance and used multiple manipulations of variables influencing subjective task difficulty (e.g., performance standards, instrumentality, ability, fatigue, mood, depressive symptoms, implicit affect, implicit and biological aging) and the amount of justified effort (e.g., material incentive, instrumentality, needs, personal and social evaluation, mortality salience). In the second edition of this handbook, this chapter focuses on recent empirical evidence for the principles of motivation intensity theory and discusses challenges for other theoretical accounts.
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.
Explicit motives are well-studied in the field of personality and motivation psychology. However, the statistical overlap of different explicit motive measures is only moderate. As a consequence, the Unified Motive Scales (UMS; Schönbrodt & Gerstenberg, 2012) were developed to improve the measurement of explicit motives. The present longitudinal field study examined the predictive validity of the UMS achievement motive subscale. Applicants of a police department (n = 168, Mage = 25.11, 53 females and 115 males) completed the UMS and their performance in the selection process was assessed. As expected, UMS achievement predicted success in the selection process. The findings provide first evidence for the predictive validity of UMS achievement in an applied setting.
Motive research offers a comprehensive account of how differences in individuals’ motivation arise and in turn impact behavioral outcomes. In this review, we critically assess and discuss the current state of the art in research on the relation between motives and motor performance and to a lesser degree learning. Our evaluation of the literature indicates that the field is characterized by the use of heterogeneous motive measures, a strong focus on the achievement motive at the expense of other motives such as the affiliation and power motives, correlational designs, and divergent findings. Based on our critical assessment, we suggest that future research should strive to (a) carefully consider both the implicit–explicit motive distinction as well as their corresponding incentives and behavioral corre- lates, (b) broaden its scope beyond the achievement motive, and (c) aim to unravel the mechanisms that drive motives’ effect on motor performance. To inform theorizing and ultimately increase our understanding of both motivation and motor behavior and individual differences therein, we propose several changes to the overall research agenda to align efforts and research methodology and bring structure to the currently heterogeneous findings.
Although conscientiousness predicts many aspects of motivation, from delay of gratification to higher achievement, its relationship to responses to monetary incentives is surprisingly inconsistent. Several studies have found null or negative relationships between conscientiousness and behavioral performance in piece-rate, pay-for-performance tasks, in which people earn money for each unit of work completed. In the present study, we examined the role of conscientiousness in effort-related cardiac activity and behavioral performance during a pay-for-performance task. People worked on a self-paced, piece-rate cognitive task in which they earned 1 cent or 5 cents, manipulated within-person, for each correct response. Conscientiousness predicted greater physiological effort (i.e., shorter pre-ejection period [PEP] reactivity) as incentives increased but had no effect on behavioral performance. The findings suggest that conscientiousness is significantly related to effort for piece-rate tasks, and they reinforce a core idea in motivational intensity theory: effort, performance, and persistence are distinct outcomes that often diverge, so drawing conclusions about effort from performance can be complex.
Rumination is a way of cognitive coping associated with depression and hostility that prolongs cardiovascular responses to stress. If repeated over time, the associated autonomic dysregulation may be 1 mechanism linking depression and hostility to cardiovascular disease. The current meta-analyses investigate the magnitude of cardiovascular responses (heart rate, diastolic blood pressure, and systolic blood pressure) to induced state sadness and angry rumination which are associated with depression and hostility, respectively. A literature search identified 43 studies (3,348 participants) meeting inclusion criteria. A random effects model was applied to calculate cardiovascular reactivity weighted effect sizes during induced sadness and angry rumination. Large and significant effect sizes were found for all analyses, with the standardized mean statistic, d, for single group designs ranging from .75 to 1.39. Results suggest that angry rumination may have larger cardiovascular effects than sadness rumination, and that rumination likely affects blood pressure more than heart rate. Potential implications of this relationship are discussed in light of limitations of the current study and existing rumination research. (PsycINFO Database Record
Need for Closure (NFC) refers to an individual’s aversion to uncertainty and desire to
quickly resolve it. Although numerous studies have demonstrated that this need leads
to a reluctance to invest effort in judgments and decision making, we argue that NFC
may be associated with less or more effort investment depending on key features of the
performance situation and instrumentality of effort for achieving closure. Specifically,
we expect that high (vs. low) NFC individuals should exert less effort when both lowand
high-effort performance options are available and both afford closure. By contrast,
they should exert more effort when task-related uncertainty causes that only effortful
means are instrumental for the goal of achieving closure. If only a high-performance
option allows the task goal to be attained and instructions how to perform a task are
clear and specific, there will be no differences between high and low NFC participants.
We tested these hypotheses in an experiment framed in terms of Motivational Intensity
Theory. The experiment asked participants to solve cognitive tasks under relevant
performance circumstances, indexing effort through assessment of systolic blood
pressure (SBP) responses. Results were supportive. They help to account for contradictory
findings in the NFC literature and add substantively to the broader literature
concerned with determinants and cardiovascular correlates of effort.
The present study investigated implicit processes associated with pain and tested the idea that priming pain during task performance systematically influences effort mobilization—that is, motivational intensity. Primed pain was predicted to increase perceived task difficulty and in turn effort mobilization but only when success was justified by a high incentive. Effort-related cardiovascular reactivity was assessed during a habituation period and a difficult short-term memory task presenting pain-related or neutral words together with a moderate or high incentive for success. Results fully supported the predictions. Cardiovascular reactivity was especially strong in the pain-prime/high-incentive condition compared to the other 3 conditions. Moreover, participants felt less capable to perform the task in the pain-prime than in the neutral-prime condition. Participants made also more errors during the task in the pain-prime condition than in the neutral-prime condition. These findings show that implicit pain has a systematic influence on effort mobilization and a similar detrimental effect on task performance as physical pain. Implications for other effortful processes associated with self-regulation and pain condition are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved)
Past research on reduced reward responsiveness in depression and dysphoria has mainly focused on monetary rewards. However, social rewards are important motivators and might be especially impaired in depression. The present study tested the hypothesis that nondysphoric individuals would mobilize more effort during a memory task without a clear performance standard when anticipating social approval for good performance. In contrast, dysphoric individuals were expected to be less sensitive to this reward and to mobilize less effort. Effort mobilization in this 2 (dysphoric vs. nondysphoric) × 2 (no reward vs. social approval) between-persons study was operationalized by participants’ cardiovascular reactivity. Results confirmed that nondysphorics had higher reactivity of systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, and heart rate when expecting to enter their name in the alleged “best list”, whereas dysphorics had lower cardiovascular reactivity. The present study expands evidence for reduced reward responsiveness in depression and dysphoria from an effort mobilization perspective by demonstrating reduced effort-related cardiovascular reactivity to social rewards.
According to classical motive disposition theory, individuals differ in their propensity to derive pleasure from affiliative experiences. This propensity is considered a core process underlying the affiliation motive and a pervasive cause of motivated behavior. In this study, we tested these assumptions. We presented participants with positive affiliative stimuli and used electromyography to record changes in facial muscular activity that are indicative of subtle smiling. We were thus able to physiologically measure positive affect following affiliative cues. Individual differences in these affective contingencies were internally consistent and temporally stable. They converged with affiliation motive self- and informant reports and picture story exercise scores, indicating that they are partly accessible to the self, observable to outsiders, and overlap with implicit systems. Finally, they predicted affiliative behavior in terms of situation selection and modification across a wide variety of contexts (i.e., in daily life, the laboratory, and an online social network). These findings corroborate the long-held assumption that affective contingencies represent a motivational core aspect of affiliation. (PsycINFO Database Record
(c) 2015 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)
The Achievement Motives Scale (AMS) is a well-established and frequently used scale to assess hope of success and fear of failure. In three studies with German-speaking samples (N = 3523, N = 132, N = 126), the authors developed a revised form of the AMS using confirmatory factor analysis. As found in previous research, the original 30-item set of the AMS did not provide an acceptable fit to a two-factor model. In contrast, a revised 10-item version (AMS-R) provided an adequate fit to the theoretically intended two-factor model. The adequate fit could be validated in cross-validation procedures. Furthermore, the revised scales provided adequate reliability, lower interscale correlations, and criterion-related validity with respect to typical criteria of achievement-related behavior.
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)
Research in the context of the mood-behavior-model (Gendolla in Rev Gen Psychol 4:348–408, 2000) has shown that moods can have an impact on effort mobilization due to congruency effects on demand appraisals. However,
the mood research literature suggests that mood may also influence effort mobilization by its impact on appraisals of the
instrumentality of success. In a single factor (mood valence: negative vs. neutral vs. positive) between-persons design, participants
performed a memory task under conditions of unclear task difficulty. By successfully performing the task, participants could
earn the chance to win a monetary reward. As predicted for tasks with unclear difficulty, effort mobilization—assessed as
cardiovascular reactivity—increased from negative to positive mood. This effect was mediated by the subjective probability
of winning the monetary reward for successful performance. These results demonstrate for the first time that mood can influence
effort mobilization via the estimated instrumentality of success.
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.
Importance
If we assume that women and men exhibit variations of the same fundamental vascular physiology, then conventional analyses of subclinical measures would suggest that women catch up to men by midlife in the extent of potentially important vascular disease. Alternatively, under the assumption that vascular physiology may fundamentally differ between women and men, a sex-specific analysis of existing data could offer new insights and augment our understanding of sex differences in cardiovascular diseases.
Objective
To evaluate whether longitudinal patterns of blood pressure (BP) elevation differ between women and men during the life course when considering baseline BP levels as the reference.
Design Setting, and Participants
We conducted sex-specific analyses of longitudinal BP measures (144 599 observations) collected for a period of 43 years (1971 to 2014) in 4 community-based US cohort studies. The combined total included 32 833 participants (54% female) spanning ages 5 to 98 years. Data were analyzed between May 4, 2019, and August 5, 2019.
Exposures
Age and serially assessed longitudinal BP measures: systolic BP, diastolic BP, mean arterial pressure (MAP), and pulse pressure (PP).
Main Outcomes and Measures
Sex-specific change in each primary BP measure compared with baseline BP levels, derived from multilevel longitudinal models fitted over the age span, and new-onset cardiovascular disease events.
Results
Of the 32 833 participants, 17 733 were women (54%). Women compared with men exhibited a steeper increase in BP that began as early as in the third decade and continued through the life course (likelihood ratio test χ² = 531 for systolic BP; χ² = 123 for diastolic BP; χ² = 325 for MAP; and χ² = 572 for PP; P for all <.001). After adjustment for multiple cardiovascular disease risk factors, these between-sex differences in all BP trajectories persisted (likelihood ratio test χ² = 314 for systolic BP; χ² = 31 for diastolic BP; χ² = 129 for MAP; and χ² = 485 for PP; P for all <.001).
Conclusions and Relevance
In contrast with the notion that important vascular disease processes in women lag behind men by 10 to 20 years, sex-specific analyses indicate that BP measures actually progress more rapidly in women than in men, beginning early in life. This early-onset sexual dimorphism may set the stage for later-life cardiovascular diseases that tend to present differently, not simply later, in women compared with men.
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.
A study with young and older adults (N = 91) investigated the effect of self-involvement on stereotyping tendency and effort mobilization. We hypothesized that the impact of self-involvement varies as a function of age: increased self-involvement should lead older adults to engage in more effortful information processing and decreased stereotyping, whereas increased self-involvement should have no impact on effort mobilization and stereotyping tendency in young adults. Young and older adults read narratives under low and high-self-involvement conditions before performing a recognition test that measured their stereotyping tendency. Effort was assessed as cardiovascular responses. We found that older adults in the high-self-involvement condition presented low stereotyping tendency (similar to that of young people) in comparison to older adults in the low-self-involvement condition. Furthermore, older adults in the high-self-involvement condition had decreased high-frequency heart rate variability in comparison to the other conditions, but only during the recognition test; this suggests increased effort mobilization. These findings indicate that self-involvement decreases older adults’ stereotyping tendency, possibly through effort mobilization.
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.
Participants first completed a state affect checklist that included a fatigue (energy-tiredness) index and a measure of mental sharpness. They then were presented a simple memory challenge. In the first minute of the two-minute work period, heart rate responses (1) rose with values on the fatigue index, and (2) fell with values on the measure of mental sharpness. In the second minute of the work period, the responses were unrelated to fatigue index and mental sharpness values. Follow-up analysis indicated mental sharpness mediation of fatigue influence on heart rate in Minute 1. First minute findings add substantively to the body of evidence supporting recent suggestions that fatigue can lead people to try harder and experience stronger cardiovascular responses when confronted with simple challenges. They also support the suggestion that fatigue might exert its influence on cardiovascular responses to a mental challenge by diminishing cognitive clarity, that is, by obscuring thought. Second minute findings are contrary to the fatigue suggestions, but could indicate that memorization was accomplished in the first minute. A practical implication of the first minute results is that real-world fatigue could elevate health risk by enhancing CV responses to mundane daily tasks.
Theories and research on depression point to reduced responsiveness during reward anticipation and in part also during punishment anticipation. They also suggest weaker affective responses to reward consumption and unchanged affective responses to punishment consumption. However, studies investigating incentive anticipation using effort mobilization and incentive consumption using facial expressions are scarce. The present studies tested reward and punishment responsiveness in a subclinically depressed sample, manipulating a monetary reward (Study 1) and a monetary punishment (Study 2). Effort mobilization was operationalized as cardiovascular reactivity, while facial expressions were measured by facial electromyographic reactivity. Compared to nondysphorics, dysphorics showed reduced pre-ejection period (PEP) reactivity and blunted self-reported wanting during reward anticipation but reduced PEP reactivity and normal self-reported wanting during punishment anticipation. Compared to nondysphorics, dysphorics showed reduced zygomaticus major muscle reactivity and blunted self-reported liking during reward consumption but normal corrugator supercilii muscle reactivity and normal self-reported disliking during punishment consumption.
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.
Theories of effort and self-regulation see quitting as an important part of adaptive behavior. The present experiment examined effort withdrawal at the intersection of two theories: motivational intensity theory, a model of effort regulation, and self-awareness theory, a model of adaptive self-regulation. A sample of young adults worked on a challenging cognitive task that became increasingly hard. Self-focused attention was manipulated using nonconscious first-name priming. When the task was difficult, self-focus increased effort, quantified as systolic blood pressure (SBP) reactivity; when the task was impossible, all conditions withdrew effort. The findings support the conception of effort withdrawal as an adaptive component of self-regulation and expand on the growing interest in implicit influences on effort.
Gendolla and colleagues have consistently found that negative mood leads to higher effort-related cardiovascular reactivity than positive mood if performers can choose their own performance standard (Gendolla, Abele, & Krüsken, 2001; Gendolla & Krüsken, 2001a, 2002a, 2002b). However, an integration of motivational intensity theory with the mood literature suggests that the impact of mood on cardiovascular activity should vary with task context. In a 2 (task context: demand vs. reward) x 2 (mood valence: negative vs. positive) between-persons design, participants performed a memory task without a fixed performance standard. The results showed the expected interaction. Positive mood led to higher effort mobilization-reflected by increased pre-ejection period and heart rate reactivity-than negative mood if participants had answered questions about task reward before performing the task. If participants had responded to questions about task demand, the pattern was reversed. These results extend and add to preceding research that has demonstrated that mood impact on effort-related cardiovascular activity is not stable but depends on task context.
Drawing on the idea that humans aim to avoid wasting energy that is important for survival,
motivational intensity theory postulates that task difficulty and success importance determine
energy investment. Additionally, the theory makes predictions on how task characteristics moder-
ate the relationship between task difficulty, success importance, and energy investment. In this
article, I will show how the different predictions of motivational intensity theory relate to one
another and to what extent they can be derived from the fundamental principle of energy conser-
vation. I will also discuss the application of the theory to effort mobilization and cardiovascular
reactivity. Specifically, I will discuss the additional assumptions and predictions that are necessary
to link these applications to motivational intensity theory’s basic rationale, the energy conservation
principle.
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.
Implicit motives orient one's attention toward motivational incentives and energize and select behaviors that facilitate incentive attainment. Yet, the exact qualities of these incentives were not rigorously explored until recently, and early research reports hindered the field by only offering vague references to what motivational incentives were. This chapter discusses and critiques major models of motive-specific incentives by McClelland and colleagues from the 1950s and 1980s as well as those by Schultheiss in the 2000s. Lastly, this chapter argues that nonverbal signals are the core implicit motivational incentives and presents a motivational field theory of motivational incentives proposing that facial expressions of emotion function as motive-specific incentives.
Reward insensitivity in depression and dysphoria has been demonstrated by self-report, behavioral, and neuroscience data. These findings show less anticipated and experienced pleasure to rewarding stimuli, no behavioral adaptation in anticipation of rewards, and altered functioning in reward-related brain areas. The present study expands previous research by using cardiovascular reactivity to three levels of reward as an indicator of effort mobilization. Undergraduates with low versus high depression scores worked on a cognitive task in anticipation of no, versus a small, versus a significant amount of money for successful task performance. Results of pre-ejection period and heart rate reactivity confirmed the expected linear increase as a function of reward value in nondysphoric participants and the expected blunted response across all reward levels in dysphoric participants. The present findings thus show that dysphoric individuals have a motivational deficit in terms of reduced effort-related cardiac reactivity when anticipating a monetary reward.
In einer experimentellen Studie mit N = 88 Studierenden wurde uberpruft, wie Dispositionen des impliziten (TAT) vs. expliziten Leistungsstrebens (Fragebogen) mit individuellem vs. normativem Feedback bei der Vorhersage von Leistung und Persistenz in einem Konzentrationstest zusammenwirken. Die Aufgabenleistung wurde durch die Interaktion zwischen dem TAT-Leistungsmotiv und individuellem Feedback vorhergesagt. Probanden mit hohem Leistungsmotiv reagierten auf Ruckmeldungen, welche einen Ruckgang (im Unterschied zu einem Anstieg) ihrer individuellen Leistung anzeigten, mit einer Verbesserung ihrer Testleistung. Die Entscheidung, die Bearbeitung der Aufgaben nach einer vorgegebenen Anzahl von Durchgangen fortzusetzen oder abzubrechen, wurde demgegenuber durch die Interaktion zwischen selbst berichteter Leistungsorientierung und normativem Feedback vorhergesagt. Persistenz zeigten vor allem Probanden, die sich selbst hohe Leistungsorientierung zuschrieben, jedoch Ruckmeldungen erhielten, welche eine Verschlec...
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.
Power versus affiliation motivations refer to two different strivings relevant in the context of social relationships. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to determine neural structures involved in power versus affiliation motivation based on an individual differences approach. Seventeen participants provided self-reports of power and affiliation motives and were presented with love, power-related, and control movie clips. The power motive predicted activity in four clusters within the left prefrontal cortex (PFC), while participants viewed power-related film clips. The affiliation motive predicted activity in the right putamen/pallidum while participants viewed love stories. The present findings extend previous research on social motivations to the level of neural functioning and suggest differential networks for power-related versus affiliation-related social motivations.
ABSTRACT A review of the literature on individual differences in motive dispositions points toward the importance of distinguishing between motives as assessed in fantasy and self-report. We proposed that these two modes of assessment have identified independent motivational systems that influence behavior in different ways. Two experiments were designed to show that the two kinds of motives are unrelated to one another and are aroused by different factors in a performance situation. It was hypothesized that motives as assessed from fantasy (seen as implicit needs) are primarily aroused by factors intrinsic to the process of performing an activity, whereas motives obtained through self-report inventories (seen as self-attributed needs) are aroused by social factors that are extrinsic to the process of performing an activity (e.g., the way in which a task is presented by an experimenter). In the first experiment, performance on a memory task was shown to depend on the interaction of subjects' self-reported motive for achievement with achievement-arousing instructions, whereas performance on a word-finding puzzle depended on the interaction of subjects' fantasy need for achievement with the puzzle's level of intrinsic challenge. A second experiment generalized these findings to the power domain.
Recent contributions to the literature on stress and hypertension are discussed. The significance of effortful active coping in evoking sympathetically-mediated heart rate and blood pressure increases is supported by results of studies involving both aversive and appetitive task incentives. Young healthy males who are above-average in heart rate during coping tasks show consistently higher heart rates and systolic pressures during other stresses as well, but are indistinguishable from less reactive persons when relaxed. Studies involving beta-blockade indicate that these above-average cardiovascular increases are partly due to a greater beta-adrenergic response among the high heart rate reactors. In addition, the parents of these high heart rate reactors report a greater incidence of hypertension than parents of low reactors, suggesting that high cardiovascular responses during active coping stress may reflect a high degree of susceptibility to later hypertension.
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.
Increasing interest among psychophysiologists in sympathetic (beta-adrenergic) influences upon the heart has created the need for noninvasive techniques for assessing these influences. The validity of pre-ejection period (PEP), a systolic time interval, as a measure of beta-adrenergic influences upon myocardial contractility is evaluated. Details of a procedure for determining PEP using a polygraph and digital computer are presented. This methodology is then applied to an experiment in which the intracardiac (PEP) and arterial subintervals of pulse transmission time (PTT) are measured during biofeedback-assisted control of PTT in order to evaluate the relative contribution of changes in PEP to PTT control.
It is self-evident that resource allocation is better understood when a distinction is made between what people are willing to do to achieve a purpose and what they will do to achieve the purpose. Yet, motivation theorists have largely ignored this distinction in attempting to understand effort aspects of motivated behavior. An exception is Brehm, who has distinguished potential motivation from motivation intensity. Potential motivation refers to the upper limit of what people would be willing to do to satisfy a motive. It is proposed to vary with factors traditionally thought to determine motive strength (importance). Motivation intensity refers to effort and is proposed to vary proximally with the difficulty of instrumental behavior, first rising and then falling precipitously. In this article, I discuss Brehm's distinction and elaborate on its significance.
This experiment investigated the combined effect of implicit affect and monetary success incentive on effort-related cardiac response in a 2 (Affect Prime: anger vs. sadness)×2 (Incentive: low vs. high) between-person design. Sixty-two participants were exposed to affect primes during an objectively difficult short-term memory task. As predicted, by our theorizing about affect primes' systematic impact on subjectively experienced task demand and corresponding effort mobilization, sadness primes led to a weak cardiac pre-ejection period (PEP) response when incentive was low (disengagement), but to a very strong PEP response when incentive was high (high effort). PEP responses were moderate in the anger-prime conditions (low effort). HR responses largely corresponded to those of PEP. The results demonstrate for the first time that high incentive can compensate the effort mobilization deficit of individuals who process sadness primes during a difficult task.
Using motivational intensity theory as a framework, three experiments examined how implicit self-focus (manipulated with masked first-name priming) and explicit self-focus (manipulated with a large mirror) influence effort-related cardiovascular activity, particularly systolic blood pressure reactivity. Theories of self-focused attention suggest that both implicit and explicit self-focus bring about self-evaluation and thus make meeting a goal more important. For a "do your best" task of unfixed difficulty, implicit and explicit self-focus both increased effort (Experiment 1) compared to a control condition. For a task that varied in difficulty, implicit and explicit self-focus promoted more effort as the task became increasingly hard (Experiments 2 and 3). Taken together, the findings suggest that implicit and explicit self-processes share a similar motivational architecture. The discussion explores the value of integrating motivational intensity theory with self-awareness theory and considers the emerging interest in implicit aspects of effort regulation.
This study examined the relationship between implicit power motivation (n Power) and salivary estradiol in women. Forty participants completed the Picture Story Exercise, a measure of n Power, and salivary estradiol levels from two saliva samples were determined with radioimmunoassay. We found that n Power was positively associated with estradiol levels. The positive correlation between n Power and estradiol was stronger in single women and women not taking oral contraceptives than in the overall sample of women. These findings replicate those of Stanton and Schultheiss (2007), giving further credence to the argument that women’s dominance striving is positively associated with their endogenous estradiol levels and that both social and biological factors influence the nature of that association.
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.
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.