I'm worth more than you! Effects of reward interdependence on performance,cohesion, emotion and effort during team competition

ObjectivesTo examine the effects of reward structures on the performance of a motor task. To evaluate the effects of reward interdependence on performance, cohesion, emotion, and effort during intergroup (team) competition.DesignAn experimental design was used to compare the effects of reward interdependence (no, low, high) on performance of a strength and endurance task.MethodParticipants (N = 111) performed a 3-min handgrip task as a member of a team of four under three reward interdependence conditions (no; low, with an even split of prize money; high, with an uneven split of prize money) in head-to-head competitions against another team. Task performance was assessed using the cumulative force production total. Task-related cohesion, enjoyment, anxiety and effort were measured using self-report scales.ResultsPerformance was better with rewards than no reward, and better with high than low reward interdependence. Team cohesion was highest with low reward interdependence. Effort was greater with rewards than no reward. Anxiety and enjoyment did not vary among the reward conditions. Mediation analyses indicated that increased cohesion mediated improvements in performance from no reward to low reward interdependence conditions, and increased effort mediated improvements in performance from no reward to both low and high reward interdependence conditions.ConclusionPerformance of a simple physical task in team competition was facilitated by rewards, with optimal performance associated with unequal rewards (i.e., performance-related pay). The benefits of performing with rewards compared to no rewards were explained by increased cohesion and effort. Social interdependence theory can help explain performance of simple motor tasks during team-based competitions. The findings have implications for the pay structures adopted by sports teams.     

Narrative Persuasion,Transportation, and the Role of Need for Cognition in Online Viewing of Fantastical Films

Two studies examine narrative persuasion in the context of fantastical narratives viewed on a computer. In Study 1, participants (N = 160) used a personal computer to watch one of two short films that dealt with a contemporary social issue (privacy or the environment) set in an imaginary future. Neither film resulted in those who viewed it holding stronger story-consistent beliefs. However, viewers of the film about privacy who experienced higher levels of transportation were more likely to possess story-consistent privacy beliefs than those less transported or than viewers of the environmental film. Additionally, higher need for cognition was associated with stronger beliefs and intentions across both films, and viewers of the privacy film who were higher in need for cognition were most likely to endorse story-consistent privacy beliefs, perhaps due to extra cognitive effort demanded by the online delivery mode of the narrative. To explore this, in Study 2 (N = 126), participants were shown the privacy-themed film in either a low or high distraction condition. This successfully manipulated transportation, but in high distraction conditions, transportation was not significantly related to endorsement of story-consistent beliefs.     

Personality and Charismatic Leadership in Context: The Moderating Role of Situational Stress

We adopt an interactionist perspective and extend previous work on personality and charismatic leadership by considering the relationship between them across contexts. Based on Gray's reinforcement sensitivity theory, we expected the relationships between approach‐oriented dispositions and charisma to diminish under conditions of high workload‐induced stress. In a large‐scale lab study with 201 groups (Study 1, N = 721 participants), we manipulated conditions of stress and tested the interaction of stress with leaders’ extraversion and openness to experience in predicting their charismatic behaviors. We then tested, in a field study of 71 executives (Study 2, N = 256 participants), the interaction of employees’ reported stress with leaders’ stimulation values in predicting their charismatic behavior. In support of our hypotheses, the relationships between approach‐oriented dispositions and charisma were significantly weaker when stress was high. We discuss theoretical and practical implications of this finding, in particular given that it is in stressful conditions under which charismatic leadership is said to be most important.     

Investigating the influence of an effort–reward interaction on cognitive fatigue in individuals with multiple sclerosis

This study examined whether an alteration in the effort–reward relationship, a theoretical framework based on cognitive neuroscience, could explain cognitive fatigue. Forty persons with MS and 40 healthy age- and education-matched cognitively healthy controls (HC) participated in a computerized switching task with orthogonal high- and low-demand (effort) and reward manipulations. We used the Visual Analog Scale of Fatigue (VAS-F) to assess subjective state fatigue before and after each condition during the task. We used mixed-effects models to estimate the association and interaction between effort and reward and their relationship to subjective fatigue and task performance. We found the high-demand condition was associated with increased VAS-F scores (p < .001), longer response times (RT) (p < .001) and lower accuracy (p < .001). The high-reward condition was associated with faster RT (p = .006) and higher accuracy (p = .03). There was no interaction effect between effort and reward on VAS-F scores or performance. Participants with MS reported higher VAS-F scores (p = .02). Across all conditions, participants with MS were slower (p < .001) and slower as a function of condition demand compared with HC (p < .001). This behavioural study did not find evidence that an effort–reward interaction is associated with cognitive fatigue. However, our findings support the role of effort in subjective cognitive fatigue and both effort and reward on task performance. In future studies, more salient reward manipulations could be necessary to identify effort–reward interactions on subjective cognitive fatigue.     

The effects of virtual nature exposure on pro-environmental behaviour

Exposure to (virtual) natural environments may encourage people to care about environmental protection and to engage in pro-environmental behaviour. Previous research on this effect produced inconsistent results, suggesting that it may depend on the type of nature and behaviour under study. In the present study (N = 266), we investigated nature exposure effects on effortful pro-environmental behaviour in an online experiment. After watching pictures of either intact or destroyed natural environments, participants could exert voluntary extra efforts to generate real donations to an environmental organisation. In comparison to the intact nature condition, participants exerted significantly more effort for environmental protection after being exposed to pictures of destroyed nature. No clear differences were observed between the nature exposure conditions and a no-picture control condition. These findings illustrate the complexity of nature exposure effects and suggest that different types of nature exposure may differentially affect people's pro-environmental behaviour.     

Leadership transformationnel du superviseur et solitude professionnelle des employés

Based on the multifactor leadership theory (Bass, 1985), the study aims at testing the relationship between dimensions of transformational leadership (charisma, intellectual stimulation, individualized consideration, contingent reward, management-by-exception, laisser-faire) and employees’ loneliness. Participants were 288 adults employed across several organizations. A path analysis with structural equation modeling was performed to test the relationship between dimensions of leadership and loneliness. All relationships were significant except between charisma and loneliness. The results tend to shed light on the importance of transformational leadership in explaining loneliness at work.     

Situation Awareness and Transformational Leadership in Senior Military Leaders: An Exploratory Study

This study explored the relationship between leadership style and operational readiness in a sample of senior Norwegian military officers (N = 43), who participated in a 1-week joint staff exercise. Leadership style was measured by the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ-45), and indicators of operational readiness included situation awareness and interpersonal influence. Transformational leadership emerged as a predictor of situation awareness (R² = .33) and interpersonal influence (R² = .25), with intellectual stimulation as the only significant predictor among the facet subscales. Some possible theoretical and methodological implications for future research are also pointed out.     

Employee voice at work: the role of employees’ gender,self-efficacy beliefs,and leadership

ABSTRACT

Building on social role theory, we investigated the association between gender and employee voice (employees’ speaking up in a challenging but constructive way about work-related issues) in a typically male-dominated sector. In two field studies in the logistics context, we tested how and when gender is related to employee voice. In Study 1 (N = 132), we examined whether the gender-voice association is mediated by general self-efficacy beliefs. In Study 2 (N = 99), we replicated the indirect effect of gender on employee voice via general self-efficacy beliefs and investigated whether this indirect effect is contingent on supportive leadership. Using path analytical procedures, we found a significant indirect effect moderated by supportive leadership: At low and medium levels of supportive leadership, women reported less self-efficacy than men, which in turn resulted in less voice. At high levels of supportive leadership, the indirect effect was nonsignificant. Our studies contribute to research on the mechanisms and boundary conditions of gender’s influence in the employee voice process and have practical implications for leaders in male-dominated working contexts who want to encourage their female employees to speak up about work-related issues.     

The Effects of Task Content and Reward Contingency Upon Task Performance and Satisfaction1

A laboratory study examined the effects of task design and reward contingency upon task performance and satisfaction and upon behavioral and attributional measures of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation were defined by the task content-task consequence distinction. Both the task design and reward contingency factors were found to yield significant multivariate F ratios, but their interaction was not significant. Subjects in the contingent pay condition had higher performance quantity than those in the noncontingent condition. Subjects in the enriched task condition produced higher quality units than those in the nonenriched condition. Both contingent pay and enriched task conditons yielded higher task satisfaction and increased attributions of performance to intrinsic factors. Results were discussed in terms of cognitive evaluation theory and the distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.     

Leadership Style,Anonymity, and Creativity in Group Decision Support Systems: The Mediating Role of Optimal Flow

ABSTRACT Prior research indicates that flow, a psychological state characterized by concentration, enjoyment, and intrinsic motivation, may be linked to creativity of individuals participating in computer-mediated meetings. A laboratory experiment was conducted to evaluate the effects of leadership style (transactional contingent reward and transformational) and anonymity level (identified and anonymous) on flow and creativity of 159 undergraduate students working in groups performing a creativity task using a Group Decision Support System (GDSS). Results demonstrated that flow mediated effects of leadership on creativity in a GDSS context, and its role may be moderated by anonymity. Results also indicated that both flow and anonymity were required for enhancing creativity in a GDSS context. Implications for practice and research are discussed.     

Relationships among Coach Leadership,Peer Leadership,and Adolescent Athletes’ Psychosocial and Team Outcomes: A Test of Transformational Leadership Theory

Transformational leadership theory provided a framework to examine the relationships of coach and peer leadership with individual and team outcomes among team sport athletes. Adolescent female soccer players (N = 412) completed measures assessing coach and teammate transformational leadership behaviors, perceived competence, intrinsic motivation, enjoyment, team cohesion, and collective efficacy. Structural equation modeling revealed that coach leadership was more influential than peer leadership for predicting individual outcomes and collective efficacy, peer leadership was more strongly related to social cohesion than coach leadership, and both peer and coach leadership were equally important for task cohesion. Results are discussed relative to the viability of using transformational leadership theory to understand coach and athlete leadership in the sport domain.     

Left Hemispheric Lateral Preference and High Neuroticism Predict Disinhibition in Two Go/No‐Go Experiments

Although disinhibition is widely implicated in impulse‐control‐related psychopathologies, debate remains regarding the underlying approach and avoidance processes of this construct. In two studies, we simultaneously tested three competing models in which varying levels of extraversion, neuroticism, and hemispheric lateral preference are associated with disinhibition. In both studies (Study 1, N = 92; Study 2, N = 124), undergraduate students were randomly allocated to one of two versions of the go/no‐go task: one where participants were primed through reward to make more “go” responses and another where no such priming occurred. Neuroticism, extraversion, and hemispheric lateral preference measures were also collected. Across both studies, disinhibition was greatest in individuals who reported both a left hemispheric lateral preference and high neuroticism. This pattern was only found for those who were primed through reward to make more “go” responses. There was no association with extraversion. Contrary to previous research, our results suggest that left hemispheric asymmetry and neuroticism and not extraversion drive disinhibited approach, following the establishment of a prepotent approach response set. This has salient implications for the theoretical understanding of disinhibited behavior, as well as for the study of continued maladaptive approach behavior.     

Regulatory Fit and Resisting Temptation during Goal Pursuit

Because avoiding obstacles to goal attainment is a favored means of prevention-focused self-regulation, the authors proposed that resisting tempting diversions from task completion would better fit a prevention focus than a promotion focus, thus affecting task enjoyment and performance. Whether deciphering encrypted messages (Study 1) or solving math problems (Study 2), when exposed to attractive distracting video clips, participants in a prevention focus reported greater task enjoyment than did participants in a promotion focus, whereas the reverse was true when the distracting clips were not presented. Indeed, prevention-focused participants enjoyed the tasks more when they had to resist temptation than when they did not. In Study 2, prevention-focused participants outperformed promotion-focused participants under distracting (but not nondistracting) conditions, and regression analyses suggested that task enjoyment mediated this effect. Different regulatory states thus appear to differentially equip people to deal with tempting diversions from goal attainment.     

Children’s competitive peer aggression during reward and punishment

Behavior‐disordered children (N = 65) competed with a presumed unknown peer on consecutive administrations of an analogue aggression task of instrumental aggression (blocking the opponent’s game) and hostile aggression (sending the opponent a noise). The first administration as a reward‐only, nonpunishment condition. The second administration contained both reward and punishment conditions. Results indicated clear differences on aggressive responding during conditions of reward and punishment. Significant correlations were found between instrumental aggression during reward across the two administrations, whereas correlations between aggression during reward and aggression during punishment were nonsignificant. Teacher ratings of Covert‐Proactive Aggression correlated with analogue task instrumental aggression but not with hostile aggression on both administrations. Aggression during punishment was significantly correlated with Continuous Performance Test inattention and impulsivity scores, suggesting that impulsivity and inattention may play an important role in children’s ability to inhibit aggression during cues for punishment. These data indicate the utility of a laboratory analogue procedure to assess conditions associated with childhood aggression and to further our understanding of childhood aggression subtypes. Aggr. Behav. 27:1–13, 2001. © 2001 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Telling young children they have a reputation for being smart promotes cheating

The present research examined the consequences of telling young children they have a reputation for being smart. Of interest was how this would affect their willingness to resist the temptation to cheat for personal gain as assessed by a temptation resistance task, in which children promised not to cheat in the game. Two studies with 3‐ and 5‐year‐old children (total N = 323) assessed this possibility. In Study 1, participants were assigned to one of three conditions: a smart reputation condition in which they were told they have a reputation for being smart, an irrelevant reputation control condition, or a no reputation control condition. Children in the smart reputation condition were significantly more likely to cheat than their counterparts in either control condition. Study 2 confirmed that reputational concerns are indeed a fundamental part of our smart reputation effect. These results suggest that children as young as 3 years of age are able to use reputational cues to guide their behavior, and that telling young children they have a positive reputation for being smart can have negative consequences.     

Exploring the black box of the contingent reward leadership–performance relationship: The role of perceived justice and emotional exhaustion

Using data collected from three different sources (N = 294), we examined a model in which perceived organizational justice (distributive, procedural, and interactional) and emotional exhaustion mediate the relationship between contingent reward leadership (CRL) and two performance indicators, namely organizational citizenship behaviours (OCB) and absenteeism. We found that procedural justice mediates the negative relationship between CRL and emotional exhaustion while controlling for work overload and transformational leadership. We also found that emotional exhaustion plays a mediating role in the relationship between two dimensions of justice (procedural and interactional) and both OCB and absenteeism. Interactional justice and distributive justice were also directly linked to OCB. Implications of these findings for research on leadership, psychological health, and organizational justice are discussed.     

Social importance enhances prospective memory: evidence from an event-based task

Prospective memory performance can be enhanced by task importance, for example by promising a reward. Typically, this comes at costs in the ongoing task. However, previous research has suggested that social importance (e.g., providing a social motive) can enhance prospective memory performance without additional monitoring costs in activity-based and time-based tasks. The aim of the present study was to investigate the influence of social importance in an event-based task. We compared four conditions: social importance, promising a reward, both social importance and promising a reward, and standard prospective memory instructions (control condition). The results showed enhanced prospective memory performance for all importance conditions compared to the control condition. Although ongoing task performance was slowed in all conditions with a prospective memory task when compared to a baseline condition with no prospective memory task, additional costs occurred only when both the social importance and reward were present simultaneously. Alone, neither social importance nor promising a reward produced an additional slowing when compared to the cost in the standard (control) condition. Thus, social importance and reward can enhance event-based prospective memory at no additional cost.     

A Neuropsychological Model of Mentally Tough Behavior

Four studies were conducted with two primary objectives: (a) to conceptualize and measure mental toughness from a behavioral perspective and (b) to apply relevant personality theory to the examination of between‐person differences in mentally tough behavior. Studies 1 (N = 305 participants from a range of different sports) and 2 (N = 110 high‐level cricketers) focused on the development of an informant‐rated mental toughness questionnaire that assessed individual differences in ability to maintain or enhance performance under pressure from a wide range of stressors. Studies 3 (N = 214) and 4 (N = 196) examined the relationship between reinforcement sensitivities and mentally tough behavior in high‐level cricketers. The highest levels of mental toughness reported by coaches occurred when cricketers were sensitive to punishment and insensitive to reward. Study 4 suggested that such players are predisposed to identify threatening stimuli early, which gives them the best possible opportunity to prepare an effective response to the pressurized environments they encounter. The findings show that high‐level cricketers who are punishment sensitive, but not reward sensitive, detect threat early and can maintain goal‐directed behavior under pressure from a range of different stressors.     

Public involvement in social and political participation processes: A gender perspective

One interesting perspective from which to investigate participation processes is that of gender (Angelique & Culley, 2007). The disparity between male and female participation is evident, in particular when dealing with politics. The research reported here examines any differences between men and women in three different groups: non‐participants (N = 201), social participants (N = 167) and political participants (N = 184). Two specific aspects were considered: (a) the perception of sociopolitical control, that is leadership competence and policy control, and (b) the perception of costs and benefits derived from participation. In focusing on such perceptions, if any difference could be evidenced, we aimed to investigate if this difference was determined by gender, by the type of participation or by the interaction of gender and participation. Data show that leadership competence and policy control were both influenced by the type of participation. An interaction effect of gender and type of commitment for policy control was observed and gender had a direct effect on leadership competence. These results suggest that the gender gap seems to be connected more to the context than to effective gender characteristics. Other data on the perception of costs and benefits are discussed. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

阈下奖励调节认知控制的权衡

本研究采用奖励版的AX-CPT任务, 通过控制奖励线索和反馈的呈现方式, 设置出基线、阈上奖励、阈下奖励三种条件, 考察习得的奖励联结和奖励动机能否以潜意识的方式影响认知任务的表现和认知控制的权衡。结果显示：奖励线索只在阈上呈现时提高AX序列的任务表现; 与基线条件相比, 阈上和阈下奖励条件下认知控制的权衡均偏向主动性控制, 且这种偏向在两者间无显著差异。这表明习得的阈下奖励线索可以调节认知控制的权衡, 使被试像阈上奖励时那样偏向主动性控制。