Performance,incentives, and needs for autonomy,competence, and relatedness: a meta-analysis

Although self-determination theory (SDT) is one of the most widely cited theories of human motivation and function, critics have questioned the practical utility of its three needs (i.e., autonomy, competence, and relatedness) in performance contexts. We conduct a meta-analysis (k = 108, N = 30,648) to explore the magnitude and boundary conditions of need satisfaction and performance. As expected, autonomy (ρ = .28), competence (ρ = .37), and relatedness (ρ = .25) predict performance. Incentivization per se has little impact on need-satisfaction: instead, the need satisfaction → performance relationship is moderated by incentive salience. Consistent with a crowding-out hypothesis, need satisfaction matters less to performance when incentives are directly salient (ρ = .22) and more when indirectly salient (ρ = .45). Our meta-analysis demonstrates that indirectly salient incentives and need-satisfaction are indeed compatible, providing a direct response to criticisms of SDT in performance contexts. Additional unexpected findings and future directions are discussed.     

Does Selection Measure Scoring Influence Motivation: One size fits all?

Current theories of applicant motivation do not take the scoring of the selection measure into account. We propose that selection measures scored objectively versus using ratings have different motivational antecedents and consequences than selection measures scored using performance ratings. Results from two studies indicated differences between a cognitive ability test (scored objectively) and both an interview and written role‐play (scored using ratings) regarding the amount of self‐reported motivation, factors related to motivation (i.e., procedural justice, perceived performance, and perceived influence), and the relationship between motivation and performance. Both perceived performance and procedural justice were related to motivation across selection measures but only procedural justice was equally important. Perceived influence was only related to motivation regarding the interview. Motivation predicted performance only on the cognitive ability test. Thus, it appears that how a selection measure will be scored should be taken into account when investigating applicant motivation.     

Motivational and emotional effects of social comparison in sports

The comparison to other athletes and the resulting effects on emotion, motivation and effort investment are a natural and integral part of sports performance. The current study tested a bias toward upward comparison in athletes. Further it tested how comparison processes influence motivation (i.e., self-improvement motivation, coasting, disengagement), emotion (e.g. happiness and shame) and performance improvement as a behavioral measure of effort. Freshmen from an elite sport university volunteered to participate in an experience sampling study conducted over one semester (6 months). Contrary to our predictions, athletes did not generally compare more upward than downward, and only few subscales of the two sport-specific dispositional measures (sport-specific achievement motivation and sport orientation) predicted upward comparison. As hypothesized, upward comparison to moderately better standards was associated with greater motivation while extreme upward comparison was related to a drop in motivation and increased disengagement. Still, upward comparison during the semester significantly predicted performance at the end of the semester. Downward comparison was related to coasting motivation and lower levels of performance. Happiness decreased with upward and increased with downward comparison. The opposite was true for feelings of shame. This research emphasizes the role of the social environment in sports and how training partners depending on their inferiority or superiority can boost or hinder motivation and performance in athletes.     

Motivation sharpens exogenous spatial attention

Although both attention and motivation affect behavior, how these 2 systems interact is currently unknown. To address this question, 2 experiments were conducted in which participants performed a spatially cued forced-choice localization task under varying levels of motivation. Participants were asked to indicate the location of a peripherally cued target while ignoring a distracter. Motivation was manipulated by varying magnitude and valence (reward and punishment) of an incentive linked to task performance. Attention was manipulated via a peripheral cue, which correctly predicted the presence of a target stimulus on 70% of the trials. Taken together, our findings revealed that the signal detection measure, reflecting perceptual sensitivity, increased as a function of incentive value during both valid and invalid trials. In addition, trend analyses revealed a linear increase in detection sensitivity as a function of incentive magnitude for both reward and punishment conditions. Our results suggest that elevated motivation leads to improved efficiency in orienting and reorienting of exogenous spatial attention and that one mechanism by which attention and motivation interact involves the sharpening of attention during motivationally salient conditions.     

A test of optimal theory on young adolescents' standing long jump performance and motivation

The OPTIMAL theory of motor learning contends that an external focus of attention (EF), enhanced expectancies (EE), and autonomy support (AS) are key attentional and motivational variables that optimise motor performance. We examined how integrating an EF into EE and AS interventions would impact young adolescents' standing long jump performance and self-efficacy, perceived competence, task effort, task importance and positive affect. Forty-eight participants completed 3 jumps in a baseline, EF (focus on jumping towards the cone), EE-EF (positive social-comparative feedback/high success probability) and AS-EF (self-definition of success) conditions. Both the EF and AS-EF conditions (but not the EE-EF condition) improved jump performance from baseline. The EF, EE-EF and AS-EF conditions improved young adolescents' self-efficacy, perceived competence, task effort and positive affect in comparison to baseline and were predictors of jump performance (as was task importance). However, in the EE-EF condition motivational states improved (from baseline) but this did not translate into performance improvements. The findings show that directing attention to visual external cues both independently and when framed within AS conditions enhanced young adolescents' jump performance and motivation through efficient goal-action coupling. In practice, PE teachers and sports coaches working with young adolescents can support autonomy by allowing self-definition of success using an external cue to enhance effective goal-action coupling, motor performance and motivation.     

削弱效应是否存在：工作场所中内外动机的关系

外部动机是否削弱内部动机？已有研究结论并不一致。澄清这一问题的有效途径是对外部动机的恰当分类。研究以165名企业员工为研究对象, 针对动机的动态性特点, 采用两时点纵向研究的方法, 以自我决定理论对外部动机的分类为基础, 探讨3种不同内化程度的外部动机--外在动机、内射动机和认同动机与内部动机的关系及外部动机内化程度与自主支持的关系。研究结果表明：(1)控制性、非内化的外部动机, 即外在动机和内射动机削弱员工的内部动机; (2)自主性、内化的外部动机, 即认同动机不会削弱员工的内部动机, 而是促进和保护内部动机; (3)自主支持环境促进员工外部动机内化的程度(即认同动机的增加)。最后, 研究对所取得结果的管理意义进行了讨论。     

Effect of motivation on academic fluency performance in survivors of pediatric medulloblastoma

It has been proposed previously that extrinsic motivation may enable survivors of childhood medulloblastoma to significantly improve aspects of neurocognitive performance. In healthy populations, enhanced motivation has been shown to promote academic fluency, a domain likely more relevant to the educational outcomes of pediatric medulloblastoma survivors than academic skill development. The present study investigates the effect of enhanced extrinsic motivation on fluent (i.e., accurate and efficient) academic performance in pediatric medulloblastoma survivors. Participants were 36 children, ages 7–18, who had completed treatment for medulloblastoma. Participants completed a neuropsychological battery that included administration of equivalent tasks on Forms A and B of the Woodcock-Johnson III Tests of Achievement. Half were randomly assigned to an incentive condition prior to the administration of Form B. Provision of a performance-based incentive resulted in statistically significant improvement, but not normalization of function, in performance on measures of academic fluency. No demographic, treatment-related, academic, neuropsychological, or self-perception variables predicted response to incentive. Findings suggest that academic performance of survivors may significantly improve under highly motivating conditions. In addition to implications for educational services, this finding raises the novel possibility that decreased motivation represents an inherent neuropsychological deficit in this population and provides a rationale for further investigation of factors affecting individual differences in motivational processes. Further, by examining effort in a context where effort is not inherently suspect, present findings also significantly contribute to the debate regarding the effects of effort and motivation on neuropsychological performance.     

Applying the SIDE model to brainwriting: The impact of intergroup comparison and anonymity on creative performance

According to the Social Identity model of Deindividuation Effects, intergroup comparison under anonymity accentuates social identity salience, potentially increasing motivation to work for one's group. The present experiment aimed to examine whether intergroup comparison and anonymity could boost creative performance in a brainwriting task. Sixty participants, randomly assigned to groups, wrote their ideas on sticky notes of the same (anonymity) or different color (individuation). To reinforce social identity salience, half the groups were told that their performance would be compared with other groups. As predicted, anonymity and intergroup comparison boosted both the number of nonredundant ideas produced by group members (fluency), and diversity of ideas pertaining to different categories (flexibility). By contrast, when social identity was not salient, anonymity led to an increase in the originality of ideas.     

Goal striving within agentic and communal roles: separate but functionally similar pathways to enhanced well-being

ABSTRACT Do agency and communion strivings provide functionally similar but predictively independent pathways to enhanced well‐being? We tested this idea via a year‐long study of 493 diverse community adults. Our process model, based on self‐determination and motive disposition theories, fit the data well. First, the need for achievement predicted initial autonomous motivation for agentic (work and school) role‐goals and the need for intimacy predicted felt autonomy for communal (relationship and parenting) goals. For both agentic and communal goals, autonomous motivation predicted corresponding initial expectancies that predicted later goal attainment. Finally, each type of attainment predicted improved adjustment or role‐satisfaction over the year. Besides being similar across agency and communion, the model was also similar across race and gender, except that the beneficial effects of communal goal attainment were stronger for high need for intimacy women and Blacks. Implications for agency/communion theories, motivation theories, and theories of well‐being are discussed.     

Prediction of intrinsic motivation and sports performance using 2 x 2 achievement goal framework

The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of 2 x 2 achievement goals on intrinsic motivation and performance in handball. Participants were 164 high school athletes. All completed the 2 x 2 Achievement Goals Questionnaire for Sport and the Intrinsic Motivation subscale of the Sport Motivation Scale; the coach for each team rated his athletes' overall sports performance. Using simultaneous-regression analyses, mastery-approach goals positively predicted both intrinsic motivation and performance in sports, whereas performance-avoidance goals negatively predicted sports performance. These results suggest that athletes who pursue task mastery and improvement of their competence perform well and enjoy their participation. In contrast, those who focus on avoiding normative incompetence perform poorly.     

Choking on the Money: Reward-Based Performance Decrements Are Associated With Midbrain Activity

ABSTRACT— A pernicious paradox in human motivation is the occasional reduced performance associated with tasks and situations that involve larger-than-average rewards. Three broad explanations that might account for such performance decrements are attentional competition (distraction theories), inhibition by conscious processes (explicit-monitoring theories), and excessive drive and arousal (overmotivation theories). Here, we report incentive-dependent performance decrements in humans in a reward-pursuit task; subjects were less successful in capturing a more valuable reward in a computerized maze. Concurrent functional magnetic resonance imaging revealed that increased activity in ventral midbrain, a brain area associated with incentive motivation and basic reward responding, correlated with both reduced number of captures and increased number of near-misses associated with imminent high rewards. These data cast light on the neurobiological basis of choking under pressure and are consistent with overmotivation accounts.     

PREDICTING THE SALARY SATISFACTION OF EXEMPT EMPLOYEES

This study examined the degree to which salary satisfaction can be predicted using company-maintained information commonly available to salary administrators. Predictors included years of continuous service, educational level, annual performance rating, an estimate of career potential, monthly salary, a measure of the most recent salary increase, and employee gender. A variety of hypotheses derived from Lawler's (1971) model of pay satisfaction also were tested, focusing on the relative contribution of perceived performance, perceived job demands, certain non-monetary outcomes, and external and internal pay equity. The research utilized a sample of managerial, professional, and technical employees from a large national oil company. The results suggest that without the inclusion of a variety of employee perceptions, only a small proportion of pay satisfaction can be accounted for, with salary and sex representing the primary objective predictors. Perceived performance, perceptions regarding supervision, advancement opportunity, and the company's benefit package, and both external and internal pay equity, were related to pay satisfaction in the direction predicted by Lawler's model. The implications of not being able to estimate pay system perceptions using company-maintained sources of information are discussed along with the results supporting certain key components of Lawler's model of pay satisfaction.     

Salient Volunteering Behavior Increases Monetary Risk‐taking

Research finds that engaging in prosocial behavior has many positive psychological outcomes (e.g., enhanced well‐being, optimism, perceived control, and a boost in self‐concept), and research on monetary risk‐taking reveals these psychological outcomes are associated with increased risk‐taking. Merging these findings, we propose that when people's volunteering behavior is made salient in their minds, they take more monetary risks. Making research participants’ volunteering behavior salient by having them recall an act of prior volunteering (studies 1 and 3), choosing whether to volunteer (study 2), or choosing one of two volunteering activities (study 4), four experiments (and a fifth reported in the Appendix S2) reveal increased risk‐taking across several monetary‐risk outcomes (incentive‐compatible gambles, allocation of a windfall gain, and a behavioral risk‐taking measure involving escalating risk). Lastly, when the decision maker attributes a decision to volunteer to an external source, the effect of salient volunteering on monetary risk‐taking attenuates.     

The attenuating effect of mortality salience on dishonest behavior

People are easily tempted to engage in dishonest behavior when an incentive is given and when full anonymity is provided. In the present work, we investigated existential threat as a motivational factor that might reduce dishonest behavior. Research based on terror management theory has found that mortality salience increases the motivation to fulfill salient values of one’s cultural worldview. Assuming the concept of honesty is important to human societies, we hypothesized that mortality salience will reduce dishonest behavior when the concept of honesty is salient. In two experiments, we assessed dishonesty under full anonymity by applying a die-under-the-cup paradigm with the expected value serving as a stochastic baseline for honest behavior. Both experiments provided support for our hypothesis. Given an incentive to cheat, when the concept of honesty was cognitively activated by a word-search puzzle (Study 1) or by the name of the dice game (i.e., “honest game”; Study 2), mortality salient participants showed not only less dishonest behavior but actually honest behavior.

     

On how task-contingent rewards,individual differences in causality orientations,and imagery abilities are related to intrinsic motivation and performance

This study explored how causality orientations, individual differences in imagery, and reward contingency are related to performance and intrinsic motivation. Cognitive evaluation theory, as applied to both causality orientation and reward contingency, was used to make predictions about the effects of internal or external events perceived as being autonomy supportive or controlling. In the light of the fact that task-contingent rewards must be salient to undermine intrinsic motivation and performance, one can suppose that high imagery may increase the controlling aspects of task-contingent rewards. Moreover, research now indicates that vegetative activation correlates with levels of imagined effort, and that high imagery capabilities enhance performance in motor skills. The main purpose of this study was to contribute some arguments for imagery and reward interaction effects on intrinsic motivation and performance. As predicted, autonomy-oriented subjects reported more interest and intrinsic motivation, and exhibited better performance than did control-oriented individuals. Similar differences were observed in favour of high-imagery individuals. Moreover, the effects of imagery were not only subject to an interaction between imagery and causality orientation, but also between imagery and reward contingency. The links between these variables are discussed in the framework of both Carver and Scheier's (1981) motivational control theory, and Deci and Ryan's (1985a) cognitive evaluation theory. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A self-determination theory approach to adults’ healthy body weight motivation: A longitudinal study focussing on food choices and recreational physical activity

This study focuses on body weight motivation based on self-determination theory. The impact of body weight motivation on longitudinal changes in food choices, recreational physical activity and body mass index was explored. A sample of adults (N = 2917, 47% men), randomly selected from the telephone book, completed a questionnaire in two consecutive years (2012, 2013), self-reporting food choices, recreational physical activity and body weight motivation. Types of body weight motivation at T1 (autonomous regulation, introjected regulation, and external regulation) were tested with regard to their predictive potential for changes in food choices, recreational physical activity and body mass index (BMI). Autonomous motivation predicted improvements in food choices and long-term adherence to vigorous recreational physical activity in both genders. Introjected motivation predicted long-term adherence to vigorous recreational physical activity only in women. External motivation predicted negative changes in food choices; however, the type of body weight motivation had no impact on BMI in overweight adults in the long term. Autonomous goal-setting regarding body weight seems to be substantial for healthy food choices and adherence to recreational physical activity.     

Goal Internalization and Outcome Expectancy in Adolescent Anxiety

Anxiety has been conceptualized in terms of increased avoidance motivation and higher expectancies of undesirable outcomes. However, anxiety research has hitherto not examined an important qualitative aspect of motivation: the degree to which reasons for goal pursuit are experienced as controlling and originating outside the core self. We asked 70 adolescents (34 boys, 36 girls; aged 16–18 years) to list their important approach and avoidance goals, and rate the extent to which they pursued each goal for intrinsic, identified, introjected and external reasons. Participants also rated goal importance, expectancies for goal outcomes, and completed an anxious symptom measure. Broadly in line with predictions, anxiety was significantly associated with introjected reasons for pursuing approach goals and external reasons for pursuing avoidance goals but not with autonomous reasons for goal pursuit. As predicted, anxiety was significantly associated with heightened expectancies of undesirable avoidance goal outcomes, but not with expectancies for desirable approach goal outcomes. Results suggest that the salient role of avoidance-based motivation in anxiety extends to introjected reasons underlying approach goal pursuit. Our findings point to the theoretical and clinical importance of addressing controlled reasons for goal pursuit in adolescent anxiety.     

Employee Stock Options: Are They Indeed Superior to Other Incentive Compensation Schemes?

Although employee stock options are gaining in popularity as a compensation plan aimed at improving work performance, there is neither theoretical nor empirical evidence that they are indeed superior to other incentive schemes, such as profit sharing and gain sharing. This paper examines, from a theoretical perspective, the possible effects of four incentive plans on employee motivation and performance: merit pay, profit sharing, gain sharing, and employee stock options. The analysis relies on two behavioral theories, Expectancy and Equity, and a conceptual financial framework. The different approaches yield incongruent predictions as to which of the four schemes can be expected to most enhance employee motivation. While the managerial theories favor stock options over profit or gain sharing, financial theory makes the case that all plans are identical in a competitive labor market, whereas if stock options are restricted and the labor market exhibits some degree of imperfection, gain and profit sharing plans may prove superior.     

Incentives improve performance on both incremental and insight problem solving

An increasing number of studies are showing a connection between emotion and motivation and cognitive processes. Most of these studies, however, have been correlational in nature, limiting the conclusions that can be drawn. We directly manipulated motivation through the use of an incentive and investigated its effects on insight and incremental problem solving. In four experiments we found that an incentive (the opportunity to leave the experiment early) increased problem-solving performance for all problems presented, regardless of problem type. Additionally, we found evidence that the incentive increased recall memory, indicating more thorough processing for participants in the incentive condition. This study provides evidence that incentives influence problem solving and implies that motivation should not be ignored when investigating cognitive processes.     

Neurobiology of the structure of personality: dopamine, facilitation of incentive motivation, and extraversion

Extraversion has two central characteristics: (1) interpersonal engagement, which consists of affiliation (enjoying and valuing close interpersonal bonds, being warm and affectionate) and agency (being socially dominant, enjoying leadership roles, being assertive, being exhibitionistic, and having a sense of potency in accomplishing goals) and (2) impulsivity, which emerges from the interaction of extraversion and a second, independent trait (constraint). Agency is a more general motivational disposition that includes dominance, ambition, mastery, efficacy, and achievement. Positive affect (a combination of positive feelings and motivation) is closely associated with extraversion. Extraversion is accordingly based on positive incentive motivation. Parallels between extraversion (particularly its agency component) and a mammalian behavioral approach system based on positive incentive motivation implicate a neuroanatomical network and modulatory neurotransmitters in the processing of incentive motivation. A corticolimbic-striatal-thalamic network (1) integrates the salient incentive context in the medial orbital cortex, amygdala, and hippocampus; (2) encodes the intensity of incentive stimuli in a motive circuit composed of the nucleus accumbens, ventral pallidum, and ventral tegmental area dopamine projection system; and (3) creates an incentive motivational state that can be transmitted to the motor system. Individual differences in the functioning of this network arise from functional variation in the ventral tegmental area dopamine projections, which are directly involved in coding the intensity of incentive motivation. The animal evidence suggests that there are three neurodevelopmental sources of individual differences in dopamine: genetic, "experience-expectant," and "experience-dependent." Individual differences in dopamine promote variation in the heterosynaptic plasticity that enhances the connection between incentive context and incentive motivation and behavior. Our psychobiological threshold model explains the effects of individual differences in dopamine transmission on behavior, and their relation to personality traits is discussed.