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Does general motivation energize financial reward-seeking behavior? Evidence from an effort task.

ABSTRACT: We aimed to predict how hard subjects work for financial rewards from their general trait and state reward-motivation. We specifically asked 1) whether individuals high in general trait "reward responsiveness" work harder 2) whether task-irrelevant cues can make people work harder, by increasing general motivation. Each trial of our task contained a 1 second earning interval in which male subjects earned money for each button press. This was preceded by one of three predictive cues: an erotic picture of a woman, a man, or a geometric figure. We found that individuals high in trait "reward responsiveness" worked harder and earned more, irrespective of the predictive cue. Because female predictive cues are more rewarding, we expected them to increase general motivation in our male subjects and invigorate work, but found a more complex pattern.

SUBMITTER: Chumbley J

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4178010 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Does general motivation energize financial reward-seeking behavior? Evidence from an effort task.

Chumbley Justin J Fehr Ernst E

PloS one 20140926 9

We aimed to predict how hard subjects work for financial rewards from their general trait and state reward-motivation. We specifically asked 1) whether individuals high in general trait "reward responsiveness" work harder 2) whether task-irrelevant cues can make people work harder, by increasing general motivation. Each trial of our task contained a 1 second earning interval in which male subjects earned money for each button press. This was preceded by one of three predictive cues: an erotic pi ...[more]

PMID: 25259798

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Project description:Different types of tasks exist, including tasks for research purposes or exams assessing knowledge. According to expectation-value theory, tests are related to different levels of effort and importance within a test taker. Test-taking effort and importance in students decreased over the course of high-stakes tests or low-stakes-tests in research on test-taking motivation. However, whether test-order changes affect effort, importance, and response processes of education students have seldomly been experimentally examined. We aimed to examine changes in effort and importance resulting from variations in test battery order and their relations to response processes. We employed an experimental design assessing N = 320 education students' test-taking effort and importance three times as well as their performance on cognitive ability tasks and a mock exam. Further relevant covariates were assessed once such as expectancies, test anxiety, and concentration. We randomly varied the order of the cognitive ability test and mock exam. The assumption of intraindividual changes in education students' effort and importance over the course of test taking was tested by one latent growth curve that separated data for each condition. In contrast to previous studies, responses and test response times were included in diffusion models for examining education students' response processes within the test-taking context. The results indicated intraindividual changes in education students' effort or importance depending on test order but similar mock-exam response processes. In particular effort did not decrease, when the cognitive ability test came first and the mock exam subsequently but significantly decreased, when the mock exam came first and the cognitive ability test subsequently. Diffusion modeling suggested differences in response processes (separation boundaries and estimated latent trait) on cognitive ability tasks suggesting higher motivational levels when the cognitive ability test came first than vice versa. The response processes on the mock exam tasks did not relate to condition.

Dataset Information

Does general motivation energize financial reward-seeking behavior? Evidence from an effort task.

Publications

Does general motivation energize financial reward-seeking behavior? Evidence from an effort task.

Similar Datasets

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