Effects of task difficulty and interruption on goal valence

Abstract

Three experiments were conducted to investigate the effects of instrumental task difficulty, delay, and interruption on goal attractiveness. In Experiment 1, subjects faced either an easy, difficult, or impossible task in order to win $1.00. Goal ($1.00) attractiveness was then assessed in immediate anticipation of task commencement or during a 30-min bogus delay. An interaction was found such that task difficulty affected ratings in a nonmonotonic fashion in the immediate condition (inverted U) and in a negatively linear fashion in the delay condition. Based on these results, instrumental task difficulty was manipulated over two levels (easy and difficult) and cross-cut with a questionnaire length (short vs long) manipulation in Experiment 2. As predicted, goal ($1.00) attractiveness ratings, when obtained immediately prior to task commencement, were significantly higher upon a more salient interruption (i.e., the long questionnaire condition) only for those subjects assigned the easy task. In Experiment 3, task difficulty was manipulated in the same manner as Experiment 2 but was cross-cut with an interruption/no-interruption manipulation. Again as theoretically predicted, only in the easy task condition was goal attractiveness reliably higher when subjects were interrupted for dependent measure administration than when they were not. That is, goal ratings were a positive function of task difficulty in the no-interruption condition but were reliably higher and tended toward a negative pattern in the interruption condition. Theoretical and methodological implications of the three reliable interactions are discussed in terms of anticipatory energization and reactance arousal.