Being flexible or rigid in goal-directed behavior: When positive affect implicitly motivates the pursuit of goals or means

Building on previous research on the role of positive affect as implicit motivator we investigated both flexibility and rigidity in goal-directed behavior. Given that goal-directed behavior can be represented in terms of goals or means, we suggest that goal-directed behavior is more flexible in switching means when positive affect implicitly motivates a person to reach the goal, but is more rigid in switching means when positive affect implicitly motivates a person to perform a specific means. Three experiments corroborated this idea: the speed of switching from a learned goal-directed means to a new means was facilitated when positive affect was attached to the representation of the goal, whereas this switching was slowed down when positive affect was attached to the representation of the learned means. Together, these findings provide new insights into the occurrence of flexibility and rigidity in implicitly motivated goal-directed behavior.     

Investigating the predictive validity of implicit and explicit measures of motivation on condom use,physical activity and healthy eating

The literature on health-related behaviours and motivation is replete with research involving explicit processes and their relations with intentions and behaviour. Recently, interest has been focused on the impact of implicit processes and measures on health-related behaviours. Dual-systems models have been proposed to provide a framework for understanding the effects of explicit or deliberative and implicit or impulsive processes on health behaviours. Informed by a dual-systems approach and self-determination theory, the aim of this study was to test the effects of implicit and explicit motivation on three health-related behaviours in a sample of undergraduate students (N?=?162). Implicit motives were hypothesised to predict behaviour independent of intentions while explicit motives would be mediated by intentions. Regression analyses indicated that implicit motivation predicted physical activity behaviour only. Across all behaviours, intention mediated the effects of explicit motivational variables from self-determination theory. This study provides limited support for dual-systems models and the role of implicit motivation in the prediction of health-related behaviour. Suggestions for future research into the role of implicit processes in motivation are outlined.     

Investigating the predictive validity of implicit and explicit measures of motivation on condom use, physical activity and healthy eating

The literature on health-related behaviours and motivation is replete with research involving explicit processes and their relations with intentions and behaviour. Recently, interest has been focused on the impact of implicit processes and measures on health-related behaviours. Dual-systems models have been proposed to provide a framework for understanding the effects of explicit or deliberative and implicit or impulsive processes on health behaviours. Informed by a dual-systems approach and self-determination theory, the aim of this study was to test the effects of implicit and explicit motivation on three health-related behaviours in a sample of undergraduate students (N?=?162). Implicit motives were hypothesised to predict behaviour independent of intentions while explicit motives would be mediated by intentions. Regression analyses indicated that implicit motivation predicted physical activity behaviour only. Across all behaviours, intention mediated the effects of explicit motivational variables from self-determination theory. This study provides limited support for dual-systems models and the role of implicit motivation in the prediction of health-related behaviour. Suggestions for future research into the role of implicit processes in motivation are outlined.     

Motives for Creativity: Exploring the What and Why of Everyday Creativity

People spend a lot of time on creative activities in their leisure time, but we still know little about what these activities are and what drives them. The literature suggests that several specific motives may be relevant for everyday creative behavior, including enjoyment, expression, challenge, coping, prosocial, social, material, recognition, and duty motives. Across two online studies totaling 750 participants, enjoyment was the strongest motive for everyday creativity, consistent with previous research linking creativity to intrinsic motivation and positive affect. Importantly, however, the relevance of motives differed across creative domains: visual arts, literature, and music were more strongly motivated by expression and coping motives, whereas handicrafts and creative cooking were more strongly motivated by prosocial and recognition motives. Intrinsic motives for creative activities were substantially related to high openness to experience, but explained incremental variance in the prediction of self-reported creativity as well as rated creative achievements. Together, these findings provide new insights into the motivational basis and function of everyday creativity.     

The Effect of Intrinsic Motivation on the Affect and Evaluation of the Creative Process Among Fine Arts Students

The main aim of this study was to gain a deeper understanding of the effect of intrinsic motivation on affect, subjective evaluation, and the creative process of young artists. Relations between motivation, affect, and evaluation were treated as a dynamic process and measured several times. The unique contribution of this study is that it concerned not only the effect of intrinsic motivation on the final result of creativity, but also changes in subjective evaluation and affect of the intermediate results at consecutive stages of the creative process. Thirty-six female fine arts students participated in the experiment. The creative task (collage making) was sampled on 3 occasions: after 5 min, 10 min, and at the end of the activity. Intrinsic and extrinsic motivations were induced by 2 types of instruction. The creative products were assessed by 13 judges in accordance with the consensual assessment technique. Intrinsically motivated art students experienced significantly higher levels of positive affect in the creative process and evaluated their performance significantly higher than extrinsically motivated students. The distribution of collage creativity scores suggests that there may be a complex effect of motivation on creativity among fine arts students. The study sheds new light on the effect of intrinsic motivation on evaluation, affect and product creativity.     

Individual differences in motives for regulating affect intensity: positive trait affect and the value of trait-consistent affect

We examined individual differences in the motivation to regulate affect intensity. In three samples (total n?=?1082) we used structural equation modeling and found support for a serial mediation model in which positive trait affect predicted the motivation to increase the intensity of positive affect and decrease the intensity of negative affect, indirectly, through the commonality and value of positive affect. These findings indicate that trait affect drives regulation motives for multiple parameters of affect: people most value, and are motivated to feel, moods and emotions that match their typical experiences on intensity as well as valence.

     

Mindfulness as a moderator of the effect of implicit motivational self-concept on day-to-day behavioral motivation

Drawing from theories regarding the role of awareness in behavioral self-regulation, this research was designed to examine the role of mindfulness as a moderator between implicit motivation and the motivation for day-to-day behavior. We hypothesized that dispositional mindfulness (Brown and Ryan, J Pers Soc Psychol, 84, 822–848, 2003) would act to modify the expression of implicit autonomy orientation in daily behavioral motivation. Using the Implicit Association Test (Greenwald et al. J Pers Soc Psychol, 74, 1464–1480, 1998), Study 1 provided evidence for the reliability and validity of a new measure of implicit autonomy orientation. Using an experience-sampling strategy, Study 2 showed the hypothesized moderating effect, such that implicit autonomy orientation predicted day-to-day motivation only for those lower in dispositional mindfulness. Those higher in mindfulness showed more autonomously motivated behavior regardless of implicit orientation toward autonomy or heteronomy. It also showed that this moderating effect of awareness was specific to mindfulness and was primarily manifest in spontaneous behavior. Discussion focuses on the implications of these findings for dual process theory and research.

Motivation, Cognition, and Action: An Analysis of Studies of Task Goals and Knowledge

This paper begins by analysing the nature of cognition and of motivation, especially as they relate to the operation of the subconscious. The interdependence of cognition and motivation is demonstrated. This interdependence is then illustrated through an analysis of studies on goal setting and task strategies (task knowledge) in relation to task performance. Three types of relationships have been found: direct, separate effects of goals and strategies; interactions between goals and strategies (moderation); and the mediation of goal effects by strategies. It is argued that there is really one underlying model that accounts for all of these findings. There are two paths to performance, one motivated by goals and another motivated by other factors. Each is or can be associated with relevant task knowledge. 'Direct' goal effects occur when the subjects already possess relevant task knowledge, but that knowledge is not measured. (If it were measured, there would be mediation.) Direct strategy effects occur when subjects are motivated to discover or use relevant strategies by (unmeasured) motives that are not a product of the performance goal. Moderation occurs when there is no task knowledge tied to the goals but knowledge derives from other sources, which combines with goals to produce performance. Mediation occurs when goals produce measured task knowledge, which, when controlled, vitiates the goal effect. This model suggests ideas for further research.     

Individual Differences in Religious Motivation Influence How People Think

Motives matter and may have implications for how people cognitively experience meaning through religion and spirituality. Specifically, intrinsically motivated people perceive religion and spirituality are more central to meaning in life, which should promote a tendency to adopt more coherent, expansive cognitive representations. In contrast, extrinsically motivated people may adopt narrower cognitive representations since their motivation is more proximally oriented. The present study tests these possibilities by examining how religious motivation relates to action identification (tendency to use coherent, higher‐level cognitive representations). Results from 630 participants revealed that among religious people, intrinsic and extrinsic‐personal religious motivations indirectly influence higher‐level action identification through strength of spiritual beliefs. These relationships were not evident among nonreligious people. Furthermore, extrinsic‐social religious motivation and religious service attendance did not relate to action identification. These findings demonstrate that religious motivation differences are consequential for the action identities people rely upon to form a sense of meaning.     

Working memory moderates the effect of the integrative process of implicit and explicit autonomous motivation on academic achievement

In previous research, autonomous motivation (AM) has been found to be associated with school achievement, but the relation has been largely heterogeneous across studies. AM has typically been assessed with explicit measures such as self‐report questionnaires. Recent self‐determination theory (SDT) research has suggested that converging implicit and explicit measures can be taken to characterize the integrative process in SDT. Drawing from dual‐process theories, we contended that explicit AM is likely to promote school achievement when it is part of an integrated cognitive system that combines easily accessible mental representations (i.e., implicit AM) and efficient executive functioning. A sample of 272 university students completed a questionnaire and a lexical decision task to assess their explicit and implicit AM, respectively, and they also completed working memory capacity measures. Grades were obtained at the end of the semester to examine the short‐term prospective effect of implicit and explicit AM, working memory, and their interaction. Results of moderation analyses have provided support for a synergistic interaction in which the association between explicit AM and academic achievement was positive and significant only for individuals with high level of implicit AM. Moreover, working memory was moderating the synergistic effect of explicit and implicit AM. Explicit AM was positively associated with academic achievement for students with average‐to‐high levels of working memory capacity, but only if their motivation operated synergistically with high implicit AM. The integrative process thus seems to hold better proprieties for achievement than the sole effect of explicit AM. Implications for SDT are outlined.     

Beyond priming effects: The role of positive affect and discrepancies in implicit processes of motivation and goal pursuit

Recent research demonstrates that goal pursuit can be instigated without conscious interventions when the mental accessibility of goal representations is enhanced by environmental cues. However, the mechanisms producing this non-conscious, motivational, goal-directed activity are not clearly addressed in the literature. In this chapter we present a framework within which the non-conscious activation of goal-directed behaviour can be understood. The framework departs from the idea that a goal is represented as a desired state and identifies three characteristics of this representation that render non-conscious goal pursuit more likely to occur: its mental accessibility, the discrepancy of the represented state with the actual state, and its association with positive affect. We present findings, largely established in our own labs, that demonstrate the crucial role of these three factors. We will close the chapter by showing how the framework can help to address some of the pressing issues in the research on non-conscious goal pursuit.     

Effects of External and Internal Motivation to Control Prejudice on Implicit Prejudice: The Mediating Role of Efforts to Control Prejudiced Responses

We examined the effects of internal and external motivation to control prejudice on implicit prejudice, focusing on identifying a mediator of the relation between external motivation and implicit prejudice. White participants completed internal and external motivation to control prejudice measures several weeks before completing the Implicit Association Test (IAT). Participants who were more internally motivated showed less implicit prejudice, whereas those who were more externally motivated displayed more implicit prejudice. Consistent with an ironic processes explanation, the effect of external motivation on increased implicit prejudice was mediated by efforts to control prejudiced responses.     

Dispositional Influences on Pay Preferences

This study tested whether individual measures of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and positive and negative affect predict a job seeker's attraction to organizations offering merit pay, skill-based pay, or broad banding. Intrinsic motivation was found to predict a decision for merit pay while extrinsic motivation did not. Hierarchical regression analysis results suggested that job seekers who were intrinsically motivated or experienced positive affect were attracted to pay plans that offer high levels of personal involvement. Individuals who were extrinsically motivated or experienced negative affect were attracted to pay plans that offer higher than average starting salaries.     

Internal motivation to respond without prejudice and automatic egalitarian goal activation

Past research has shown that people who are motivated primarily by their internalized beliefs to respond without prejudice are less likely to show implicit forms of racial bias (e.g., Devine, P. G., Plant, E. A., Amodio, D. M., Harmon-Jones, E., & Vance, S. L. (2002). The regulation of explicit and implicit race bias: The role of motivations to respond without prejudice. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 82, 835-848). We tested the idea that such individuals inhibit implicit race bias by automatically activating egalitarian goals. Study 1 showed that participants high in internal motivation but low in external motivation (i.e., primary internal) displayed more egalitarianism, but only after they had been subliminally exposed to African American faces. Study 2 showed that primary internal motivation was associated with lower levels of automatic stereotype activation and this effect was mediated by egalitarian goal activation. These results provide converging evidence that the relationship between primary internal motivation and low levels of implicit bias stems from the activation of egalitarian goals. We discuss the implications of these findings for efforts to reduce cognitive and affective forms of implicit racial bias.     

The role of implicit motivation in hot and cold goal pursuit: Effects on goal progress, goal rumination, and emotional well-being

Two cross-sectional studies examined the role of implicit motivational needs in the association between personal goal pursuits and depressive symptoms and affect. Replicating and extending on findings reported by Brunstein et al. [Brunstein, J. C., Schultheiss, O. C., & Grässmann, R. (1998). Personal goals and emotional well-being: The moderating role of motive dispositions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75(2), 494–508], both studies provided evidence that goal progress significantly accounted for variations in depressive symptoms and happiness only in individuals with high levels of implicit motivation, but not in individuals low in implicit motivation. Moreover, in the absence of a strong sense of goal commitment, high levels of implicit motivation were associated with high goal progress in both studies and low levels of goal rumination in Study 2. These findings are interpreted within a dual-systems framework of motivation that distinguishes an implicit, intuitive, and hedonically driven from an explicit, effortful-analytical, and non-hedonic mode of goal pursuit.     

(Why) do I think what you think? Epistemic social tuning and implicit prejudice

This research examines whether people who experience epistemic motivation (i.e., a desire to acquire knowledge) came to have implicit attitudes consistent with the apparent beliefs of another person. People had lower implicit prejudice when they experienced epistemic motivation and interacted with a person who ostensibly held egalitarian beliefs (Experiments 1 and 2). Implicit prejudice was not affected when people did not experience epistemic motivation. Further evidence shows that this tuning of implicit attitudes occurs when beliefs are endorsed by another person, but not when they are brought to mind via means that do not imply that person's endorsement (Experiment 3). Results suggest that implicit attitudes of epistemically motivated people tune to the apparent beliefs of others to achieve shared reality.     

The Hormonal Correlates of Implicit Motives

Implicit motives represent nonconsciously represented dispositions to seek specific classes of incentives and to avoid corresponding classes of disincentives. Growing evidence suggests that the implicit power motive is associated with basal levels and reactivity of the gonadal steroid hormones testosterone in men and estradiol in women. It is also associated with increased release of stress hormones (cortisol, norepinephrine) in response to dominance challenges and social defeat. The implicit affiliation motive is linked to the release of progesterone: increases in progesterone are followed by increases in affiliation motivation, and arousal of affiliation motivation is associated with concurrent or subsequent progesterone increases. There is limited evidence for a role of vasopressin in achievement motivation. These findings point to a key role of the hypothalamus for implicit motives, a role that is consistent with the existence of function‐specific nuclei within this brain area.     

Proximity and distance goals in adult attachment

We used a variant of the Implicit Association Test (IAT) and explicit reports to examine the assumption that attachment anxiety and avoidance are related to proximity and distance goals. Results confirmed that attachment avoidance was associated with a stronger implicit motivation for and positive evaluation of distance goals in attachment relationships. This was found both at the implicit and explicit levels and both in a threat and non‐threat context. Attachment anxiety was associated with proximity goals only when measured explicitly, but not when goal activation was measured implicitly. Our findings highlight the importance of considering both implicit and explicit goal representations when studying motivational processes in the context of attachment, and suggest that the IAT can provide a useful tool for investigating implicit motivational constructs. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Power of Being Positive: The Relation Between Positive Self-Concept and job Performance

Most managers would probably agree that positivity is something they value in employees, yet selection research has virtually ignored the relation between employee positivity and job performance. This article suggests that a broad personality trait, labeled positive self-concept or core self-evaluations, is a potentially important personality trait in the prediction of job performance. Positive self-concept consists of four specific traits previously studied in isolation: self-esteem, generalized self-ef- ficacy, locus of control, and (low) neuroticism or emotional stability. Data analyzed from 12 samples revealed that these specific traits are strongly correlated and comprise a common factor. Drawing from four motivation theories, we argue that the principal reason positive self-concept is linked to job performance is because positive employees are more motivated to perform theirjobs. We also argue that, in some jobs, positive self-concept may be an ability factor. Finally, we discuss various implemen- tation issues involved in using positive self-concept in selection decisions. Overall, this article suggests that positive self-concept is a trait deserving of more attention in selection research and practice.