Target Motivation Research Articles

An examination of accuracy and bias in perceptions of a partner's motives for health behaviour regulation.

This study assessed accuracy and bias in people's perceptions of their romantic partner's adoption of short-term (avoid conflict) and long-term (later health) motives for interpersonally regulating their health behaviours. A cross-sectional Web-based survey of 114 cohabiting romantic couples (N=228 individuals) living in the United States. Romantic partners separately completed measures of their short-term and long-term motives for self-regulation and partner regulation of health behaviours, as well as their perceptions of partner regulation of their own health behaviours. Dyadic path analyses were conducted using the truth and bias model of judgement. Targets of interpersonal regulation perceived their romantic partner's short-term and long-term motives for influencing their (the target's) health behaviour with significant accuracy. However, targets' perceptions of their partner's motives simultaneously contained about the same amount of projection of the target's own short- and long-term motives for self-regulation. There was no similarity between the target's motives for self-regulation and their partner's motives for interpersonal regulation. Targets also tended to underestimate their partner's long-term motives for interpersonal regulation. Although people are somewhat accurate in their perceptions of their romantic partner's motives for attempting to influence their health behaviours, their perceptions are also contaminated by biases. This suggests that people's judgements about their partner's motives could be substantially improved. Statement of contribution What is known about this subject? Romantic partners use social influence tactics to improve each other's health behaviours. People who perceive their partner's influence attempts positively often make healthy changes. Misperceptions of a partner's motives for influence attempts may have health and relationship implications. What does this study add? People are aware of whether partner influence attempts are motivated by convenience or concern. People also project their own motives for self-regulating health behaviours onto their partner.

Mindreading: Judgments About Intentionality and Motives in Dispositional Inference

Judgments about the intentionality of other people's behavior are central to social perception. Perceivers typically explain a target person's intentional behavior in terms of the target's motives. In turn, inferences about motive often inform trait inferences about the target. In comparison to past theories, this multiple inference model portrays perceivers as interested in the specific beliefs and motives of others, rather than viewing perceivers as focusing on abstract causal reasoning. The model is applied to the literatures on attitude, morality, and ability attribution. In contrast to intentional behavior, perceivers explain a target person's involuntary, unintentional behavior by using a simpler process of global causal attribution.

We Want the Same Thing: Projection in Judgments of Sexual Intent

This article details two studies investigating the proximal role of social projection (i.e., assumed similarity) in judgments of sexual intent. Study 1 demonstrates that men and women who have a greater desire for casual sex are more likely to perceive sexual intent in others. Study 2 replicates this finding in a more realistic context and, further, situates judgments of sexual intent squarely into the cognitive domain, as results show that projection of casual sexual motivation is more likely when the target is similar to the perceiver and when the target's motivation is relatively ambiguous to begin with.

Incorporating If...Then...Personality Signatures in Person Perception: Beyond the Person-Situation Dichotomy.

Three studies investigated conditions in which perceivers view dispositions and situations as interactive, rather than independent, causal forces when making judgments about another's personality. Study 1 showed that perceivers associated 5 common trait terms (e.g., friendly and shy) with characteristic if...then... (if situation a, then the person does x, but if situation b, then the person does y) personality signatures. Study 2 demonstrated that perceivers used information about a target's stable if...then... signature to infer the target's motives and traits; dispositional judgments were mediated by inferences about the target's motivations. Study 3 tested whether perceivers draw on if...then... signatures when making judgments about Big Five trait dimensions. Together, the findings indicate that perceivers take account of person-situation interactions (reflected in if...then... signatures) in everyday explanations of social behavior and personality dispositions. Boundary conditions are also discussed.

Perceiving Others as Intrinsically or Extrinsically Motivated: Effects on Expectancy Formation and Task Engagement

In Study 1, participants who read about an extrinsically motivated target expected that task engagement would be less enjoyable and associated with less positive affect and that there would be poorer quality of interpersonal relations, compared with participants reading about an intrinsically motivated target. These effects were reversed when additional information disconfirmed initial perceptions of the target's motivation. In Study 2, participants who were taught a skill by an extrinsically motivated (paid) target reported lower interest in learning and lower task enjoyment than those taught by an intrinsically motivated (volunteer) target, despite receiving identical lessons and learning to the same criterion level. Lower levels of interest, task enjoyment, and positive mood "infected" a second learner when the first participant attempted to teach him or her the same skill. Results support a model linking social perception, expectancy formation, and motivational orientations toward activities.

Majority reaction to shifting and stable attitudinal deviates

AbstractFemale undergraduates, in groups of four, voted several times on appropriate treatment for a delinquent, using an electrical signalling device. Two simulatedgroup members consistently agreed with subjects' initial position. A third simulated member (target) exhibited one of nine response patterns. In six movement conditions (which formed a 2 × 3 design), the target (a) gradually moved a short distance toward or away from modal group opinion and (b) manifested high, medium, or low net agreement with the majority position. In three stable conditions, the target consistently (a) agreed with modal opinion, (b) disagreed, or (c) took a neutralposition. In movement conditions, the target was evaluated significantly more favourably in the toward than in the away condition and in the high agreement than in the medium and low agreement conditions. In stable conditions, the agreeing target was liked significantly better than the neutral and disagreeing targets. The target's response pattern also affected subjects' attributions about the target's motives, communication to the target (in notes interspersed between votes), and opinion change. Results were discussed in terms of previous research dealing with majority reaction to moving and stable attitudinal deviates.