The Effects of Identity-Relevance and Task Difficulty on Task Motivation,Stress, and Performance |
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Authors: | Britt Thomas W |
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Institution: | (1) Department of Psychology, Clemson University, Clemson, South Carolina;(2) Department of Psychology, Clemson University, 418 Brackett Hall, Clemson, South Carolina, 29634-1355 |
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Abstract: | Tested the hypothesis that the identity-relevance of a performance domain would predict task motivation, stress, and actual
performance. Psychology majors and non-majors (N = 94) completed either moderately difficult or very difficulty questions from a standardized verbal aptitude test. Before
the test participants were told that performance on the test was either predictive of success as a psychologist (identity-relevant
condition) or were given no information on the predictive ability of the test (control condition). Results revealed that only
psychology majors evidenced higher motivation and stress in the identity-relevant condition in comparison to the control condition.
The results of actual test performance revealed that when identity-relevance was high, psychology majors tended to do better
than non-majors on a task of moderate difficulty, but tended to do worse on a task of high difficulty. Implications of the
results for identity-relevance as a motivational and emotional lynchpin for performance are discussed.
The author would like to thank Cynthia Ellison, Melissa Kinder, and Kelly Riddle for their assistance in data collection.
A paper based on the results of the present study was presented at the 2004 meeting of the Southeastern Psychological Association
and was the co-recipient of the outstanding professional paper award. |
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Keywords: | identity-relevance stress motivation performance engagement |
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