Motivation from control

Abstract

Human motivation is sensitive to value-to the outcomes of actions. People invest mental and physical resources for obtaining desired results or for stopping and reversing undesired ones. Accordingly, people's motivation is sensitive to information about their standing in relation to outcome attainment ('outcome feedback'). In this paper, we argue and present the first evidence for the existence of another motivational sensitivity in humans-a sensitivity to our degree of control on the environment and hence to information about that control ('control feedback'). We show that when actions have even trivial and constant perceptual effects, participants' motivation to perform is enhanced. We then show that increased motivation is not because more information about task performance is available and that motivation is increased only in conditions in which control over the effects can be firmly established by the mind. We speculate on the implications for understanding motivation, and potentially, physical and mental health.

I control therefore I do: Judgments of agency influence action selection

“…These findings are consistent with various postulations that agency is itself rewarding, motivating, and desirable. The results also fit well with previous work from our lab (Eitam et al, 2013) using another task, in which we found that participants' correct responses are faster when they are immediately followed by an effect (compared to when Participants' chose the key associated with the highest probability of delivering an effect reliably more often than they chose the key that never delivered one in both conditions. no such effect appeared or when they were followed by a 300 ms lagged effect).…”

“…Two extant studies lend direct support to the prediction that valance-neutral own-action-effects do in fact increase motivation (Eitam, Kennedy, & Higgins, 2013;Stephens, 1934) but unfortunately, in both the mere exercise of control was not clearly dissociated from information about obtaining desired outcomes (e.g., successful task performance). As such, even the simple question of whether mere agency motivates in and of itself is still wide open.…”

A Multi-Sample Investigation of the Assessment and Locomotion Scales in a Population of Secondary School Students

“…uncover the full range of cognitive mechanisms influenced by control and truth motivations (see Eitam, Kennedy, & Higgins, 2013;Higgins, 2012b). Even though our study cannot address all of these aspects, the multi-phase-multi-sample design we employed enables us to identify some of the likely causes of the poor fit associated with the original scales.…”

Optimizing performance through intrinsic motivation and attention for learning: The OPTIMAL theory of motor learning

“…Studies with both humans (Tiger, Hanley, & Hernandez, 2006) and other animals (Catania, 1975;Catania & Sagvolden, 1980;Voss & Homzie, 1970) have shown that both prefer an option leading to a choice than an option that does not, even if this option results in greater effort or worksuggesting the existence of an inherent reward with the exercise of control (Karsh & Eitam, 2015;Leotti & Delgado, 2011). Along the same lines, Eitam, Kennedy, and Higgins (2013) demonstrated that human motivation is dependent on (the perception of) one's actions having effects on the environment. Even if the effects of one's actions are trivial, intrinsic motivation is enhanced if the performer has control over those effects (termed Control Effect Motivation by Eitam et al).…”