Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2022 Apr 25:13:862152.
doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.862152. eCollection 2022.

Reward Salience and Choice in a Controlling Context: A Lab Experiment

Rosa Hendijani  1 , Piers Steel  2
Affiliations

Reward Salience and Choice in a Controlling Context: A Lab Experiment

Rosa Hendijani et al. Front Psychol. .

Abstract

One of the challenges in the motivation literature is examining the simultaneous effect of different motivational mechanisms on overall motivation and performance. The motivational congruence theory addresses this by stipulating that different motivational mechanisms can reinforce each other if they have similar effects on the perceived locus of causality. Reward salience and choice are two motivational mechanisms which their joint effects have been long debated. Built upon the motivational congruence effect, a recent empirical study affirms that a salient reward in a condition characterized by lack of choice and a non-salient reward in a condition characterized by provision of choice both increase overall motivation and performance. In this study, we examine the effect of reward salience and choice on overall motivation and performance in a controlling context, an effect which has not been studied before. A 2 (choice: present, absent) × 3 (reward: salient, non-salient, none) factorial design was conducted to examine research hypotheses. The results show that under controlling conditions, salient reward improves overall motivation and performance compared to non-salient and no-reward conditions.

Keywords: choice; motivation; performance; performance-contingent reward; reward salience.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Effect of reward salience and choice on overall motivation and performance in a controlling context.
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Experimental procedure.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Ackerman P. L. (1987). Individual differences in skill learning: an integration of psychometric and information processing perspectives. Psychol. Bull. 102 3–27. 10.1037/0033-2909.102.1.3 - DOI
    1. Amabile T. M., DeJong W., Lepper M. R. (1976). Effects of externally imposed deadlines on subsequent intrinsic motivation. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 34 92–98. 10.1037/0022-3514.34.1.92 - DOI
    1. Anderson R., Manoogian S. T., Reznick J. S. (1976). The undermining and enhancing of intrinsic motivation in preschool children. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 34 915–922. 10.1111/j.1467-8624.1986.tb00251.x - DOI - PubMed
    1. Argyris C. (1957). The individual and organization: some problems of mutual adjustment. Adm. Sci. Q. 2 1–24. 10.2307/2390587 - DOI
    1. Atkinson A. A., Banker R., Kaplan R. S., Young S. M. (2001). Management Accounting, 3rd Edn. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.