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Motivated but not engaged: The implicit achievement motive requires difficult or unclear task difficulty conditions to exert an impact on effort
Abstract
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.
... PEP reactivity was stronger in the difficult task condition, and stronger for the high nAch group. PREPRINT: Journal of Psychophysiology Mazeres et al. 2021a 78 students (mean age 23,72 y). Mental arithmetic task. ...
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.
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
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.
People exert less effort when performing in groups than when working alone. Based on the collective effort model’s core principle that individuals are only willing to work hard if they expect their individual contribution to be instrumental in obtaining personally satisfying outcomes, this study demonstrates the strong influence of individual motive dispositions on group performance. Motive dispositions vary from person to person and, when triggered by appropriate cues in the environment, form the current motivation and determine behavior. In experimental ad-hoc groups designed to provoke social loafing for individuals with a high need for achievement, i.e. with few opportunities for self-evaluation, team-members with a high need for achievement (N = 28) substantially reduced their effort to participate in the task at hand. Contrary, in the same situation, team-members with a high need for affiliation (N = 55) showed no social loafing at all, but social laboring instead, resulting in nearly 50% better performance in the group task compared to their team members with a high need for achievement.
This review organizes a variety of phenomena related to emotional self-report. In doing so, the authors offer an accessibility model that specifies the types of factors that contribute to emotional self-reports under different reporting conditions. One important distinction is between emotion, which is episodic, experiential, and contextual, and beliefs about emotion, which are semantic, conceptual, and decontextualized. This distinction is important in understanding the discrepancies that often occur when people are asked to report on feelings they are currently experiencing versus those that they are not currently experiencing. The accessibility model provides an organizing framework for understanding self-reports of emotion and suggests some new directions for research.
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).
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.
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)
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.
This research examined the hypothesis that situational achievement cues can elicit achievement or fun goals depending on chronic differences in achievement motivation. In 4 studies, chronic differences in achievement motivation were measured, and achievement-denoting words were used to influence behavior. The effects of these variables were assessed on self-report inventories, task performance, task resumption following an interruption, and the pursuit of means relevant to achieving or having fun. Findings indicated that achievement priming (vs. control priming) activated a goal to achieve and inhibited a goal to have fun in individuals with chronically high-achievement motivation but activated a goal to have fun and inhibited a goal to achieve in individuals with chronically low-achievement motivation.
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.
Motivation and Personality is the first book to be devoted to content analysis systems for assessment of characteristics of the individuals, groups, or historical periods which create verbal materials. Manuals for using the various systems, research regarding the background of the systems and practice materials are included to create a book which is both a work of reference and a handbook.
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.
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.
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.
We examined the impact of the implicit power motive on negotiation performance. Further, we examined the long-held notion that an aroused implicit motive's influence can be neutralized by a conflicting explicit motive. In two experiments with student samples, participants engaged in simulated salary negotiations against a fictitious opponent. Negotiation performance was assessed with participants' salary requests. As predicted, results indicated a positive impact of the implicit power motive on negotiation performance, regardless of whether the implicit power motive was measured (Experiment 1, N = 65) or manipulated (Experiment 2, N = 96). In addition, Experiment 2 confirmed that the effects of the aroused implicit power motive were neutralized when the explicit affiliation motive had been activated prior to negotiation.
The chapter illustrates the methodological and substantial progress that has been made in cross-cultural studies on implicit motives. After introducing a multiculture and multivariate approach in conducting research, methodological means to remedy bias in measurements across cultural groups are addressed. Thereafter, cross-cultural research on implicit motives at the collective and individual level is critically evaluated. It is argued that research on implicit motives across cultural groups is indispensable to the understanding of universal and culture-specific variations in individuals' mental processes and behavioral acts.
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.
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.
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.
Positive psychology is becoming established as a reputable sub-discipline in psychology despite having neglected the role of positive reinforcement in enhancing quality of life. The authors discuss the relevance of positive reinforcement for positive psychology, with implications for broadening the content of organizational behavior management. Specifically, literature in achievement motivation is discussed, and ways to promote success-seeking over failure-avoiding are entertained. (c) 2005 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.
Two studies were conducted to examine the hypothesis that individuals who claim lack of effort as a handicap in anticipation of an unsuccessful performance will perform poorly to be consistent with the claim. Subjects who scored high or low on the Self-Handicapping Scale (Jones & Rhodewalt, 1982) were led to believe that they were about to take a test that was either important or trivial (high or low ego-relevance) and that they would either perform well or poorly (high or low expected difficulty). They then indicated in private how hard they intended to try and subsequently took the test. In both studies, high self-handicapping subjects who anticipated a difficult test indicated that they would withhold effort on the test and displayed poorer performance than subjects in all other conditions. These findings were obtained regardless of the level of importance of the test. Study 2 demonstrated additionally that the effects of self-handicapping were independent of the subject's level of self-esteem. Study 2 also found that high self-handicapping subjects who expected a difficult test reported experiencing more distracting cognitions while taking the test than did other subjects. The results are discussed with regard to the effects of anticipatory self-protective behavior on performance outcomes.
Publisher Summary
This chapter describes solute transport between blood and tissue. The heart and vasculature exist for one fundamental purpose that is the delivery of metabolic substrate to the cells of the organism. The smallest arteries branch into first-order arterioles with muscular walls innervated by sympathetic nerves. Continuous capillaries are found in muscle, skin, lung, fat, connective tissue, and the nervous system. About a quarter of the cytoplasmic volume is occupied by vesicles of diameter 60 nm, which are thought to be involved in transporting macromolecules into the cell (endocytosis) and, more controversially, across it (transcytosis). The endothelial surface is coated with a thin layer of negatively charged material called the glycocalyx as revealed by cationic probes. Fenestrated capillaries are an order of magnitude more permeable to water and small hydrophilic solutes than most continuous capillaries. In addition to its passive functions as a porous membrane, the capillary wall has many active metabolic functions.
The absence of a clear definition of "achievement" has led to some important weaknesses in the achievement motivation literature. The literature lacks coherence and a clear set of structural parameters, and the literature is too narrowly focused and limited in scope. In essence, what is commonly referred to as the "achievement motivation literature" represents a rather loose compendium of theoretical and empirical work focused on a colloquial understanding of the term "achievement." We suggest that for the achievement motivation literature to flourish, it is important to delineate its conceptual core carefully and precisely. We seek to do so by proposing that competence be considered the conceptual core of the achievement motivation literature. We propose that "achievement" be conceptualized in terms of "competence," and that "achievement motivation" be characterized as "competence motivation." Competence seems an ideal core for the achievement motivation literature, because competence at once has a precise meaning and is a rich and profound psychological concept. For this volume, we approached scholars who have made enduring contributions to the achievement motivation literature and asked them to think about their work in terms of competence. We also brought in people who might not typically identify with the field of achievement or achievement motivation but who would resonate to the concept of competence, and we asked them to cast their area of expertise in terms of competence. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Presents a new edition of the 1953 study establishing the validity of the TAT measure of need for achievement (nAch). Basic problems in the measurement of fantasy and the development of appropriate content analysis procedures, the nature of the achievement imagery index score, and the general development of nAch are examined. A new preface with "hindsight" is also included. (8 p ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
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
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.
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.
The present study investigated the use of reduction in intended effort as a strategy for protecting self-esteem from the threat of anticipated failure. It was hypothesized that people reduce the amount of effort they intend to exert when they expect a low probability of success on a highly ego-relevant task. Female subjects anticipated taking an easy (high probability of success) or difficult (low probability of success) test that was either high or low in ego relevance. Subjects' levels of intended effort and other task-relevant cognitions were assessed. It was found that subjects in the low-probability condition intended to exert less effort on the highly ego-relevant test than did subjects in the high-probability condition; probability of success had no effect on intended effort level on the low ego-relevance test. Subjects also reported that it was a worse day for a test in the low-probability condition than in the high-probability condition. The relevance of these findings to the egotism explanation of learned helplessness effects and general theories of motivation was discussed.
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.
This experiment investigated the moderating effect of masked anger versus sadness primes on objective task difficulty's impact on effort-related cardiovascular response. Cardiovascular measures (ICG and blood pressure) were assessed during a habituation period and an easy versus difficult short-term memory task during which participants were exposed to masked emotional facial expressions. As expected, sadness primes led to stronger cardiac preejection period (PEP) responses than anger primes when the task was easy. When the task was difficult, we observed the reversed pattern. Here, anger primes led to stronger PEP reactivity than sadness primes. Heart rate responses described the corresponding pattern. The results demonstrate that masked anger and sadness primes have different effects on cardiac response in easy and difficult tasks. The effect of anger primes resembles the facilitating effect of happiness primes observed in previous studies.
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.
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.
Examines the motivation for achievement as a psychological factor that shapes economic development. Refuting arguments based on race, climate, or population growth, the book instead argues for cultural customs and motivations - especially the motivation for achievement - as the major catalysts of economic growth. Considering the Protestant Reformation, the rise of capitalism, parents' influences on sons, and folklore and children's stories as shaping cultural motivations for achievement, the book hypothesizes that a high level of achievement motivation precedes economic growth. This is supported through qualitative analysis of the achievement motive, as well as of other psychological factors - including entrepreneurial behavior and characteristics, and available sources of achievement in past and present highly achieving societies. It is the achievement motive - and not merely the profit motive or the desire for material gain - that has advanced societies economically. Consequently, individuals are not merely products of their environment, as many social scientists have asserted, but also creators of the environment, as they manipulate it in various ways in the search for achievement. Finally, a plan is hypothesized to accelerate economic growth in developing countries, by encouraging and supplementing their achievement motives through mobilizing the greater achievement resources of developed countries. The conclusion is not just that motivations shape economic progress, but that current influences on future people's motivations and values will determine economic growth in the long run. Thus, it is most beneficial for a society to concentrate its resources on creating an environment conducive to entrepreneurship and a strong ideological base for achievement. (CJC)
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.
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.
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.