The influence of a waiting intention on action performance: Efficiency impairment and volitional protection in tasks of varying difficulty

Abstract

The efficiency of currently performed activities can be impaired if a strong competing goal intention and an opportunity to initiate corresponding activities are present. According to the theory of action phases, the degree of this impairment should depend on the difficulty of the current activities. With increasing task difficulty the reactively increasing volitional strength of the current goal intention should protect the current intention against competing intentions. Empirical evidence from two experiments supports this prediction. In Experiment 1, the efficiency of a word choosing task was reduced when a competing goal intention was present and the degree of task difficulty was low. With increasing task difficulty this efficiency impairment disappeared. When the level of difficulty was further increased, the impairment reoccurred. Several possible explanations for this curvilinear relationship are discussed. In Experiment 2 task difficulty was varied between subjects, yielding results which rule out purely motivational explanations based on the subjective probability of success. In summary, the results of our experiments can be interpreted as evidence of a volitional protection of the current goal intention in case of arising difficulties.