Mazeres, F, Brinkmann, K and Richter, M (2021) Motivated but not engaged: The implicit achievement motive requires difficult or unclear task difficulty conditions to exert an impact on effort. Journal of Research in Personality, 94. ISSN 0092-6566

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Abstract

Integrating the achievement motive literature and motivational intensity theory, we expected the implicit achievement motive (nAch) to directly determine effort mobilization when task difficulty is unclear. However, nAch should interact with task difficulty in determining effort mobilization when task difficulty is clear. Par-ticipants worked on an easy versus difficult memory task (Study 1) or a clear versus unclear arithmetic task (Study 2). We used the Picture-Story-Exercise to assess nAch and pre-ejection period (PEP) to operationalize effort. As predicted, PEP reactivity was strong in the difficult-high-nAch condition and in the unclear-high-nAch condition but low in the other three conditions. Supporting motivational intensity theory, our results showed that nAch requires difficult or unclear task conditions to exert a noticeable impact on effort.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	1503 Business and Management, 1701 Psychology, 1702 Cognitive Sciences
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology
Divisions:	Psychology (from Sep 2019)
Publisher:	Elsevier
Date Deposited:	17 Sep 2021 08:24
Last Modified:	17 Sep 2021 08:24
DOI or ID number:	10.1016/j.jrp.2021.104145
URI:	https://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/id/eprint/15495

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