The impact of the achievement motive on effort mobilization

Motives are assumed to be central driving forces of human behavior. Numerous theoretical and empirical papers have addressed the impact of the three big motives—the achievement motive, the power motive, and the affiliation motive—on various behavioral parameters like task persistence or task performance. However, the link between motives and one particular parameter of behavior, effort, has rarely been empirically examined. The present project aims to close this gap by examining the impact of the achievement motive on effort mobilization. Drawing on an integration of the achievement motive literature and Brehm's motivational intensity theory, we suggest that the achievement motive only exerts a direct impact on effort investment if the difficulty of a task is unknown. If task difficulty is clear, the achievement motive should not have a direct impact on effort mobilization. Instead, by determining success importance, it should set the upper limit of the relationship between task difficulty and effort mobilization. These predictions should hold for both the explicit and implicit achievement motives when aroused by motive-specific incentives. We propose four experiments that will test and clarify the impact of motives on effort mobilization. To broaden the generalizability of our findings, we will use two different operationalizations of effort investment: In all experiments we will assess both effort-related cardiovascular responses in mental tasks as well as exerted grip force in hand grip tasks. Apart from closing an important gap in the achievement motivation literature, the present project has implications for the impact of the power and affiliation motives on effort mobilization, for the impact of individual differences in general on effort mobilization, as well as practical implications.