Conditions Of High Motivation Research Articles

The Effect of Heuristic Cues on Jurors’ Systematic Information Processing in Rape Trials

There is concern that jurors’ decisions in rape trials might be influenced by misleading cues (e.g., victim stereotypes) potentially explaining disproportionately low conviction rates. We investigated the bias hypothesis from the heuristic–systematic model as an explanation for how jurors may be influenced by misleading stereotypes even while they are effortfully processing rape trial evidence. We expected that when case evidence was ambiguous, stereotypes would guide motivated participants’ effortful information processing, but not when case evidence was strong. Mock jurors ( N = 901) were asked to make decisions about a rape trial with either ambiguous or strong evidence in which the complainant was either stereotypically distressed or unemotional giving evidence. Participants were either placed under high motivation conditions to encourage effortful information processing or in a control condition with low motivation instructions to encourage less effortful processing as a comparison. Participants’ information processing and case decisions were measured as key dependent variables. We found partial support for the hypothesized interaction and the bias hypothesis, suggesting that the types of evidence participants attended to in decision-making were influenced by misleading stereotypical cues. Our findings have implications for interventions to reduce the effect of misleading stereotypes on decisions in rape trials. Additional online materials for this article are available on PWQ's website at http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/suppl/10.1177/03616843221118018 .

Variability in stadia evacuation under normal, high-motivation, and emergency egress

Egress modelling can be used in stadia design. This modelling describes the movement of pedestrians and crowd flow considering wayfinding and decision making in evacuation and circulation. The accuracy of the modelling is highly dependent on project-specific input data that accurately represents the movement of population with associated human factors considered. Currently, there are few contemporary studies of stadia that consider real egress decision making under a range of stimuli of which practitioners may use to influence their modelling and design process. Herein, a range of evacuation urgencies and their effect on pedestrian decision making and wayfinding in stadia are considered: standard post-game egress, egress under high-motivation conditions, and emergency egress. This is done through carefully collected and recorded observation of real stadia in Canada and obtained third party video for stadiums internationally. To reinforce findings, real case studies of other notable emergencies are also considered. Decision making at all stages of evacuation are analyzed. Results indicate that, based on the cases examined, the egress behaviours differ in relation to the level of urgency, such as high motivation and emergency, and gate densities are higher for high motivation egress by a factor of 1.5. The role of staff in the evacuation process is one of the predominant factors in reducing or extending premovement regardless of the scenario. Associated contemporary behavioural theorems are used to explain differences in movement and decision-making in evacuation scenarios.

WITHDRAWN: Is HUGO still the BOSS? Investigating the reciprocal effects of brand extensions on brand personality of luxury brands

This research aims to empirically investigate positive and negative reciprocal effects of extensions on brand personality by varying levels of congruency and typicality, while controlling for the effects of motivation processing. A 2 (incongruent, congruent) × 2 (high typicality, low typicality) × 2 (high motivation, low motivation) research design was employed using two extension categories, namely watches and kidswear of the HUGO BOSS brand. The findings revealed brand personality dilution effects only. Specifically, brand personality dilution occurred in response to incongruent and congruent information. Further, contrary to schema theory, brand personality evaluations neither strictly followed the bookkeeping model in high-motivation conditions nor the subtyping model in low-motivation conditions in response to in-congruent information.

Persistent effects of the orexin-1 receptor antagonist SB-334867 on motivation for the fast acting opioid remifentanil

The orexin (hypocretin) system is multifaceted, and regulates sleep-wake cycles, nociception, endocrine function and reward-seeking behavior. We have established an important role for this system in motivation for drugs of abuse. The orexin-1 receptor (Ox1R) antagonist SB334867 (SB) reduces seeking of drug reward under conditions of high motivation. There is some evidence that the effects of systemic SB on reward seeking persist beyond the pharmacological availability of the drug, however the time course of these effects is not well characterized, nor is it known whether similar persistent effects are observed following intraparenchymal injections. Here, we used a behavioral economics paradigm, which allows for repeated testing of drug motivation across consecutive days, to examine the persistent effects of acute systemic and local treatment with SB on motivation for the short-acting μ‐opioid receptor agonistremifentanil. Systemic injections of SB immediately prior to behavioral testing reduced motivation for remifentanil; this effect was sustained on a subsequent test at 24 h, but not on a third test at 48 h. When injected into ventral pallidum (VP) the effects of SB were more persistent, with reduced motivation observed for up to 48 h. We next made SB injections into VP 24 h prior to behavioral testing; this produced effects that persisted for at least 72 h post-treatment. Cued reinstatement of extinguished remifentanil seeking was also attenuated by pretreatment with SB 24 h earlier. These data indicate that the effects of SB on opioid seeking behavior persist beyond the bioavailability of the compound. These observations have important ramifications for the future clinical use of orexin receptor antagonists for the treatment of addiction.

Judging the Truth-Value of a Statement In and Out of a Deep Processing Context

Individuals judge fluently processed statements truer than disfluent statements, which reflects an illusion of truth. A dual-processing approach to the truth effect suggests that cognitive resources and motivation for accuracy should moderate this effect. However, previous research has only manipulated participants’ capacity during the encoding of the statements. We directly test an account of the truth effect based on processing features of System 1, manipulating both capacity and motivation at the time of the truth judgments. Fluency was manipulated either through repetition (Experiment 1) or perceptual contrast (Experiment 2). Congruent with dualistic assumptions, the evaluations of participants in the high-capacity and high-motivation conditions differed from those of participants in the other three conditions. However, the pattern of the truth effect in that specific condition was not the same in both experiments: in Experiment 1, the illusion of truth was only reduced, whereas the effect was complet...

Handing Over the Reins

Initiating and maintaining an intimate relationship means to live an interdependent life in which conflicts of interest are unavoidable. The occurrence and the impact of those conflicts are minimized to the degree to which individuals are motivated and able to put their own goals aside and accommodate to their partner’s needs. In the present research, we examined the underlying processes that allow individuals to tolerate partner dependence when initiating a relationship. Specifically, we hypothesized that under conditions of high motivation to increase closeness to a potential partner, individuals neutralize negative attitudes toward dependence. We induced motivation to increase closeness by instructing participants to image a situation where an attractive mate reciprocates romantic interests. Subsequently, implicit attitudes toward dependence were assessed with an Implicit Association Test. Results were in line with the hypothesis and are discussed in the framework of accommodative self-regulation.

The Role of Deliberative Versus Implemental Mindsets in Time Prediction and Task Accomplishment

The Model of Action Phases ( Gollwitzer, 1990 , 2012 ) distinguishes an implemental mindset evoked by planning goal-directed actions, from a deliberative mindset evoked by pondering pros/cons of adopting a particular goal. The present research demonstrates that mindsets affect time predictions. In Study 1 (N = 151), participants in an implemental mindset made shorter time predictions with respect to completing personal goals than participants in a deliberative mindset. In Study 2 (N = 78), we tested a mediating mechanism for the mindset effect by varying the motivation to return a report. The mindset effect was replicated in the low- but not in the high-motivation condition with participants in an implemental mindset returning the report earlier, and being as accurate in their predictions as participants in a deliberative mindset. Results indicate that an implemental (vs. deliberative) mindset increases motivation and therefore leads to shorter, but equally biased time predictions.

The strategy and motivational influences on the beneficial effect of neurostimulation: A tDCS and fNIRS study

Working memory (WM) capacity falls along a spectrum with some people demonstrating higher and others lower WM capacity. Efforts to improve WM include applying transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), in which small amounts of current modulate the activity of underlying neurons and enhance cognitive function. However, not everyone benefits equally from a given tDCS protocol. Recent findings revealed tDCS-related WM benefits for individuals with higher working memory (WM) capacity. Here, we test two hypotheses regarding those with low WM capacity to see if they too would benefit under more optimal conditions. We tested whether supplying a WM strategy (Experiment 1) or providing greater extrinsic motivation through incentives (Experiment 2) would restore tDCS benefit to the low WM capacity group. We also employed functional near infrared spectroscopy to monitor tDCS-induced changes in neural activity. Experiment 1 demonstrated that supplying a WM strategy improved the high WM capacity participants' accuracy and the amount of oxygenated blood levels following anodal tDCS, but it did not restore tDCS-linked WM benefits to the low WM capacity group. Experiment 2 demonstrated that financial motivation enhanced performance in both low and high WM capacity groups, especially after anodal tDCS. Here, only the low WM capacity participants showed a generalized increase in oxygenated blood flow across both low and high motivation conditions. These results indicate that ensuring that participants' incentives are high may expand cognitive benefits associated with tDCS. This finding is relevant for translational work using tDCS in clinical populations, in which motivation can be a concern.

Diffusion Tensor Imaging of Incentive Effects in Prospective Memory after Pediatric Traumatic Brain Injury

Few studies exist investigating the brain-behavior relations of event-based prospective memory (EB-PM) impairments following traumatic brain injury (TBI). To address this, children with moderate-to-severe TBI performed an EB-PM test with two motivational enhancement conditions and underwent concurrent diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) at 3 months post-injury. Children with orthopedic injuries (OI; n=37) or moderate-to-severe TBI (n=40) were contrasted. Significant group differences were found for fractional anisotropy (FA) and apparent diffusion coefficient for orbitofrontal white matter (WM), cingulum bundles, and uncinate fasciculi. The FA of these WM structures in children with TBI significantly correlated with EB-PM performance in the high, but not the low motivation condition. Regression analyses within the TBI group indicated that the FA of the left cingulum bundle (p=0.003), left orbitofrontal WM (p<0.02), and left (p<0.02) and right (p<0.008) uncinate fasciculi significantly predicted EB-PM performance in the high motivation condition. We infer that the cingulum bundles, orbitofrontal WM, and uncinate fasciculi are important WM structures mediating motivation-based EB-PM responses following moderate-to-severe TBI in children.

Effect of motivational incentives on prospective memory performance in preschoolers

Little is known about the mechanisms and processes that lead to successful prospective memory performance in children, especially in preschoolers. Thus, the present study investigated the role of task motivation in age differences in prospective memory performance across the preschool age range. For the first time, a task procedure was used that equates ongoing task difficulty by means of age-standardized ongoing task material. Twenty 3-year-old and twenty 5-year-old children were asked to perform a prospective memory task in a high and in a low-motivation condition while being engaged in age-appropriate subtests of a general ability test. No main effect of Age or Motivation in prospective memory performance was found. Yet, a significant interaction effect of Age×Motivation was observed, as there was no difference between the age groups in the high-motivation condition, while in the low-motivation condition prospective memory performance of 3-year-old children was reduced compared to the 5-year-olds. Findings indicate that for younger children motivation or task importance may help in allocating the available resources to the task elements of interest.

Incentive effects on event-based prospective memory performance in children and adolescents with traumatic brain injury.

Prospective memory (PM) is the formation of an intention and remembering to perform this intention at a future time or in response to specific cues. PM tasks are a ubiquitous part of daily life. Currently, there is a paucity of information regarding PM impairments in children with traumatic brain injury (TBI) and less empirical evidence regarding effective remediation strategies to mitigate these impairments. The present study employed two levels of a motivational enhancement (i.e., a monetary incentive) to determine whether event-based PM could be improved in children with severe TBI. In a crossover design, children with orthopedic injuries and mild or severe TBI were compared on two levels of incentive (dollars vs. pennies) given in response to accurate performance. All three groups performed significantly better under the high- versus low-motivation conditions. However, the severe TBI group's high-motivation condition performance remained significantly below the low-motivation condition performance of the orthopedic injury group. PM scores were positively and significantly related to age-at-test, but there were no age-at-injury or time-postinjury effects. Overall, these results suggest that event-based PM can be significantly improved in children with severe TBI.

Motivation and semantic context affect brain error-monitoring activity: An event-related brain potentials study

During speech production, we continuously monitor what we say. In situations in which speech errors potentially have more severe consequences, e.g. during a public presentation, our verbal self-monitoring system may pay special attention to prevent errors than in situations in which speech errors are more acceptable, such as a casual conversation. In an event-related potential study, we investigated whether or not motivation affected participants’ performance using a picture naming task in a semantic blocking paradigm. Semantic context of to-be-named pictures was manipulated; blocks were semantically related (e.g., cat, dog, horse, etc.) or semantically unrelated (e.g., cat, table, flute, etc.). Motivation was manipulated independently by monetary reward. The motivation manipulation did not affect error rate during picture naming. However, the high-motivation condition yielded increased amplitude and latency values of the error-related negativity (ERN) compared to the low-motivation condition, presumably indicating higher monitoring activity. Furthermore, participants showed semantic interference effects in reaction times and error rates. The ERN amplitude was also larger during semantically related than unrelated blocks, presumably indicating that semantic relatedness induces more conflict between possible verbal responses.

Relevance override: on the reduced impact of "cues" under high-motivation conditions of persuasion studies.

This research addressed the reduced impact of cues under high processing motivation of persuasion experiments. The results of 3 studies suggested that such reduced impact is due to a relevance override whereby any more subjectively relevant information swamps the effects of any less subjectively relevant information, given the recipient's sufficient motivation to process both. Because, in much persuasion research, cues may have been perceived as less relevant to the attitudinal judgments than message arguments, the relevance override hypothesis provides a general explanation of the reduced cue effect.

Extra effort during memory retrieval may be associated with increases in eyewitness confidence.

When testifying in court, witnesses are motivated to try as hard as possible to give an accurate account. This study tested the proposition that extra effort by eyewitnesses during a memory test can lead to higher confidence ratings without any accompanying changes in accuracy. Participant-witnesses answered multiple-choice questions about a classroom visitor who had spoken 5 days earlier. In the high-motivation condition participants could earn prizes based on their memory test performance; in the low-motivation condition there were no special incentives. Although the motivation manipulation did not affect mean witness confidence, the confidence-accuracy and effort-accuracy correlations were substantially smaller in the high-motivation condition than in the low-motivation condition. Furthermore, the confidence ratings for those participants who reported expending high levels of effort in both motivation conditions were significantly higher than the confidence ratings for the low-effort participants, despite the fact that response accuracy did not differ as a function of reported effort. These findings have important implications for understanding how pressures to perform well in the courtroom can affect eyewitness confidence.

In pursuit of short-term goals: anticipating the unintended consequences of using special incentives to motivate the sales force

Motivating salespeople is one of the core responsibilities of sales managers and a considerable literature has grown around this issue, providing understanding of the processes involved in gaining a motivated sales force. Most of this literature presumes motivation–effort–performance linkages. Recognizing that effort is just one of the possible outcomes of motivation, this study focuses on other potential consequences of motivation, problematic behaviors, i.e., any behaviors discouraged by management due to their portent for harm to the firm. In particular, this study examines the extent that various problematic behaviors are likely to occur under conditions of high motivation to attain short-term targeted goals. Based on a nationwide sample from three multidivisional sales forces ( n=827), the results provide numerous insights including the suggestion that company codes of ethics and values stances may only be effective at reducing highly problematic behaviors while lesser problematic behaviors may be more or less intractable. Also, affective commitment and relationship to supervisor may have dampening effects on tendencies toward problematic behaviors while status aspiration and competitiveness, qualities frequently sought in salespeople, may increase these tendencies.

The Effects of Extensions on Brand Name Dilution and Enhancement

In this article, the authors examine new product extension strategies that are likely to be effective in building brand equity. The framework accounts for mixed findings in brand equity literature by identifying motivation as a factor that moderates the dilution and enhancement effects observed in prior research. The authors find that the typicality of the extension and consumers’ level of motivation determine the effect of extensions on family brand name. In high-motivation conditions, incongruent extensions are scrutinized in detail and lead to the modification of family brand evaluations, regardless of the typicality of the extensions. However, in low-motivation conditions, brand evaluations are more extreme in the context of high (versus low) typicality. The less typical extension is considered an exception, which reduces its impact on evaluations. Results also show that brand name dilution or enhancement can occur in response to congruent extensions. However, processes that underlie the effect of congruent information are somewhat different.

Color as an Environmental Processing Cue: External Affective Cues Can Directly Affect Processing Strategy Without Affecting Mood

We argue that environmental cues provide affective information that directly influences processing strategy, with positively valenced (i.e., happy) cues leading to nonsystematic processing and negatively valenced (i.e., sad) cues leading to systematic processing. Two studies addressed this issue. In Study 1, participants were exposed to a set of problem solving tasks printed on either red, white, or blue paper and under the condition of either low or high motivation to process. The results showed that in the low motivation condition the blue and white paper participants outperformed the red paper participants, while in the high motivation condition there were no effects. Further, there were no differences in mood among the groups, although results from a pilot study indicated that the red paper was perceived as communicating happiness relative to the blue paper. These results suggest that an environmental cue, such as color, can directly affect processing strategy in low motivation participants. In Study 2, participants completed both simple and complex problem solving tasks on either red or blue paper. The results of Study 1 were conceptually replicated. For complex tasks, blue paper led to better performance than did red paper; however, no difference was apparent for simple tasks. In Study 3, participants completed a set of simple problems on either red, white, or blue paper and evaluated either their affective state or the affect conveyed by the paper. As expected, there were no effects on accuracy on these simple tasks or on affective state. However, the red paper was perceived as conveying more positive affect then either the white or blue paper. The results are discussed in the context of an extension of the cognitive tuning hypothesis to the area of environmental cues. Stop rule and restricted capacity explanations, as well as implications, are discussed.

Time management and achievement striving interact to predict car sales performance.

Recent research (T. H. Macan, 1994) questioned the importance of time management in predicting performance. The authors tested the hypothesis that time management behaviors interact with achievement striving to predict car sales performance. On the basis of data from 102 salespeople, moderated regression analyses supported that hypothesis. There was a significant interaction between short-range planning and achievement striving. Results show how time management is related to job performance under conditions of high motivation. Despite a large literature lauding the benefits of time management behaviors in general (e.g., Warihay, 1978) and for sales performance in particular (e.g., Berkowitz & Ginter, 1978; Feiertag, 1991; Friedman, 1993), the available literature suggests some controversy regarding whether the expected benefits of time management are realized in practice (Macan, 1994). Empirical findings suggest that positive time management practices are associated with self-evaluations of academic performance (Macan, Shahani, Dipboye, & Phillips, 1990), objective grade point average (Britton & Tesser, 1991 ), job satisfaction (Landy, Rastegary, Thayer, & Colvin, 1991 ), and self-perceived organizational performance (Lim, 1993). However, there are also data suggesting that time management behaviors may have little effect on objectively measured job performance (Macan, 1994).

Motivational Variations in the Singing Behavior of a Siamang Pair (&lt;em&gt;Hylobates Syndactylus&lt;/em&gt;)

Several experiments have shown that engaging in territorial singing is an appetitive and reinforcing activity in gibbons. The present study examined whether the strength of this behavior would vary with changes in motivational conditions in the same manner as does the strength of the consummatory behavior associated with other reinforcers. The subjects were a fully accommodated pair of siamangs. Following baseline. (A" duration = 34.33 min), song-bout durations were observed under low motivation (X = 20.33 min), then high motivation (X= 36.16 min), then low (Z= 22.67 min), then high (X = 32.50 min). Six song bouts were observed under each condition. In the high motivation condition, 5-6 days intervened between song bouts; in the low motivation condition, song bouts were separated by 2 days. Each change in motivation was accompanied by a significant change in song-bout duration (Mann-Whitney t/ tests; p's &lt; .01 ). Findings are related to a general conception of species-typical behavior as a source of reinforcement.

The effects of hypnotic induction versus high motivation on oral temperature.

Abstract The hypothesis that changes in oral temperature are associated with neutral hypnotic induction was investigated using neutral hypnosis and a high motivation condition as controls. 33 Ss were assigned to 3 experimental conditions: (1) neutral hypnotic induction, (2) high motivation control, and (3) no treatment control. Ss in all 3 conditions received pre-and post-treatment oral temperature measurements after a 20-minute temperature stabilization period. Ss exposed to the neutral hypnotic induction condition showed a significantly greater increase in oral temperature as compared to Ss in both the high motivation and no treatment control conditions. Ss in the latter 2 conditions did not differ from each other in this regard. The methodological considerations of future research in this area are also discussed.