Intrinsic religious motivation and attitudes toward death among the elderly

Forty-five males and females ages 65 and older completed the Intrinsic Religious Motivation Scale, a measure of faith development (based on Fowler, 1981), and two multidimensional measures of death anxiety (the Collett-Lester Fear of Death Scale-Revised and the Multidimensional Fear of Death Scale). Individuals with intrin-sic religious motivation reported significantly lower levels of various types of death anxiety than did individuals with extrinsic religious motivation. No significant rela-tionships were found between stage of faith and attitudes toward death and dying.     

Intrinsic motivation among regular, special, and alternative education high school students.

This study examined motivationally related variables among three types of high school students. In particular, students' perceptions of competence, control, parental autonomy support, teacher autonomy support, peer autonomy support, and academic coping were investigated. Two hundred fifty-one juniors and seniors (104 regular education, 93 alternative education, and 54 special education) from a large Southern California school district participated. Significant group differences were found on measures of perceived competence, academic coping, and parental autonomy support. Specifically, regular education students had a higher level of self-reported academic competence than did special education students. Further, regular education and special education students reported that their parents were more involved in their lives as compared with alternative education students. Finally, regular education students reported a higher level of academic anxiety than did special education and alternative education students; however, regular education students had the highest level of positive coping. The implications of these findings are discussed.     

Intrinsic motivation and education: Competence in context

Our research program involving both laboratory and everyday activities suggests that there may be multiple goals relevant to interest in a task, and these goals include but are not limited to achieving a particular level of competence. The same information and feedback can thus either aid or obstruct intrinsic motivation, depending on its match with how students define the goals of their involvement. Furthermore, this potential flexibility in activity definitions allows individuals to purposely explore different routes to interest to maintain their motivation to perform relatively uninteresting, but perhaps important, activities. Intrinsic motivation thus appears to be created and maintained through an ongoing temporal process, with individuals potentially having an active as well as passive role in the process. This suggests that the potential to foster interest in education may not depend solely on the ability and efforts of educators or educational materials, but also on the ability and efforts of the individual student.The research described in this paper was funded by grants to the first author from the Spencer Foundation, and the Biomedical Research Support Grant Program, Division of Research Resources, National Institutes of Health (BRSG S07 RR07092). Portions of the research and preparation of this article were also facilitated by a grant awarded to Carol Sansone and Cynthia A. Berg from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and National Institute on Aging (HD25728). We would like to thank Mark Lepper for his helpful comments on a previous version of this article.     

Intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, and learning English as a foreign language

The objective of this study was to examine the relationships of amotivation, extrinsic motivation, and intrinsic motivation with learning the English language. The 230 Iranian students at Shiraz University were tested using the Language Learning Orientations Scales to measure Amotivation, Extrinsic Motivation, and Intrinsic Motivation as explanatory variables. Grade point average in English exams was selected as a measure of English learning Achievement. Multiple regression analysis revealed that learning Achievement scores were predicted by scores on the Amotivation subscale, Introjected Regulation subscale, Knowledge subscale, and Stimulation subscale, whereas, the External and Identified Regulation and Accomplishment subscales did not have a significant relationship with Achievement. The results are discussed in terms of differences in Iranian context and culture.     

Intrinsic goals for leisure-time physical activity predict children's daily step counts through autonomous motivation

ObjectivesThe present study tested a motivational sequence in which children's goals for leisure-time sport and physical activity (PA) from Goal Content Theory predicted pedometer-determined PA through behavioural regulation constructs from Self-Determination Theory.DesignQuantitative cross-sectional study.MethodsA sample of 1272 Flemish (Dutch speaking part of Belgium) sixth graders (M age = 11.42 years) filled in a questionnaire on PA goal content, behavioural regulations and pubertal status. Children's height and weight were measured to assess Body Mass Index (BMI). To measure daily PA behaviour, participants wore a pedometer for seven consecutive days. Structural equation modelling was performed to test the proposed motivational sequence and to examine the mediation effect of behavioural regulations towards leisure-time sport and PA on the relation between PA goal content and daily step counts.ResultsA structural equation model supported the hypothesized sequence in which intrinsic goals for leisure-time sport and PA predicted children's daily step counts through autonomous motivation towards leisure-time sport and PA. Multi-sample invariance testing revealed that the proposed model was largely invariant across BMI groups, pubertal status and gender.ConclusionsThe findings highlight the importance of emphasizing intrinsic goals for participation in leisure-time sport and PA in children aged 10–12 years. By stimulating children to participate in PA and sports by referring to intrinsic goals, children are more likely to enjoy PA, which in turn might increase the likelihood of a regular and long-term PA engagement.     

Personality differences between established and less-established male and female creative artists

Past research on personality constructs of creative individuals has focused on men rather than women and has neglected the essentially social aspect of being considered creative. Therefore, personality variables of 60 male and 60 female creative artists were described using the California Psychological Inventory (CPI). Male and female groups were further divided equally into two subgroups reflecting a difference in degree of social acceptance of their work. Relationships between the four groups were explored by multiple discriminant analysis. The major conclusion noted was that creative females tend to be more like their creative male counterparts, in terms of CPI scale variation, than are males and females in general.     

Style and spectral power: processing of abstract and representational art in artists and non-artists

We investigated cortical activity in response to abstract and representational paintings in artists and non-artists. Participants engaged in visual inspection of works of art and recalled them immediately afterwards through mental imagery. Meanwhile, we recorded their EEG, and calculated the power of their alpha band and theta band activity afterwards. In accordance with previous studies, theta band and alpha band power differed between artists and non-artists; these differences were found to depend, however, on the abstract or representational character of the paintings. Differences between abstract and representational art, and between inspection and imagery, occurred in alpha band power for non-artists only and in theta band power for artists. These results were taken to suggest that effects in artists reflect sustained focused attention and perceptual flexibility; in non-artists motivation and engagement with the task. The results were essentially whole-head, despite the local character of the measurement.     

Success and motivation among college students

The present research explores college students’ explanations of their success and failure in challenging activities and how it relates to students’ efficacy, value, and engagement. The results suggest most students hold one primary reason for success during the challenging activity, including grade/extrinsic, mastery/intrinsic, amotivation/working, social, and performance. These task reasons for success, if assumed to be goals, were more numerous than those suggested by goal theory. Task reason for success was important for engagement, intrinsic value, difficulty compared to others, and effort. As expected, engagement and intrinsic value were highest for those with mastery reasons but lowest for those in amotivation or those who succeeded because they made the grade. Unexpectedly, success was more important for motivation and experience of the activity. These results suggest that it is important to examine not only student goals, but also whether or not students reach their goals.     

Intrinsic motivation and attentional capture from gamelike features in a visual search task

In psychology research studies, the goals of the experimenter and the goals of the participants often do not align. Researchers are interested in having participants who take the experimental task seriously, whereas participants are interested in earning their incentive (e.g., money or course credit) as quickly as possible. Creating experimental methods that are pleasant for participants and that reward them for effortful and accurate data generation, while not compromising the scientific integrity of the experiment, would benefit both experimenters and participants alike. Here, we explored a gamelike system of points and sound effects that rewarded participants for fast and accurate responses. We measured participant engagement at both cognitive and perceptual levels and found that the point system (which invoked subtle, anonymous social competition between participants) led to positive intrinsic motivation, while the sound effects (which were pleasant and arousing) led to attentional capture for rewarded colors. In a visual search task, points were awarded after each trial for fast and accurate responses, accompanied by short, pleasant sound effects. We adapted a paradigm from Anderson, Laurent, and Yantis (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 108(25):10367-10371, 2011b), in which participants completed a training phase during which red and green targets were probabilistically associated with reward (a point bonus multiplier). During a test phase, no points or sounds were delivered, color was irrelevant to the task, and previously rewarded targets were sometimes presented as distractors. Significantly longer response times on trials in which previously rewarded colors were present demonstrated attentional capture, and positive responses to a five-question intrinsic-motivation scale demonstrated participant engagement.     

Intrinsic motivation as a function of extrinsic financial rewards and subjects'locus of control

Two studies investigating the effects of pay on the intrinsic motivation of subjects varying along the dimension of locus of control were conducted. It was hypothesized that internals, who should assign greater weight to the competency aspect of rewards they receive, would manifest increasing intrinsic motivation as pay increased. Externals, who should be more likely to focus on the controlling aspects of rewards, were expected to show decreases in intrinsic motivation as rewards increased. In Study 1, where both the controlling and competency aspects of the rewards offered were deliberately kept vague, the hypotheses were supported. In Study 2, where the controlling aspect of the pay offered was made salient by making pay contingent upon performance, high pay undermined the intrinsic motivation of both internals and externals. It was suggested that only when the controlling aspect of pay is not salient will the intrinsic motivation of externals and internals be differentially affected. Support for the hypothesis that internals and externals differentially weight available information when making causal attributions was also noted.     

Preschool children's accumulated and sustained physical activity

39 3- to 5-year-old children wore heart-rate monitors for 12 hr. on three consecutive days to examine physical activity patterns. Parent logs supplied additional information on type and location of activity. The highest number of accumulated minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity was recorded during the weekday (38.6 min.) and weekend (31.4 min.) afternoons, a time period when more activity occurred outdoors. Sustained activity was mostly short in duration, but many children (71%) accumulated recommended amounts of activity on the weekday, fewer (46%) on the weekend. Spearman rank correlations for weekday (r=.50, p=.004) and weekend (r=.58, p=.004) activity were significant. Considering health risk factors associated with physical inactivity, early educators must look to the essence of young children's physical activity patterns in designing programs. Large motor activity that is intense and that occurs outdoors is a good place to start.