Motivation and Cognition

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Motivation and Cognition

• Art Markman

Special thanks to C. Miguel BrendlKyungil
KimClaude MessnerTodd MaddoxGrant Baldwin
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Issues

• Motivation and Cognition
• Why do we care about motivation?
• Components of the motivational system
• Goals
• Energy (motivation) to act
• Why hasnt motivation been a big part of the
  study of cognition?
• Why is it coming back?

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What is a goal?

• This has proven to be a hard question to answer
• Much of the motivational system is not accessible
  to consciousness
• What Id like to do in this talk
• Review 9 phenomena that constrain a theory of
  goals
• Talk about some studies were doing

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9 Phenomena

• People can talk about the reasons for their
  actions
• Talking about actions can cause interference
• Difficulty predicting future preferences
• Expressed attitudes need not coincide with action
• Affective states have a loose correlation with
  motivational states
• The world can prime goals
• Goals prime means for achieving goals
• Means remind people of goals
• Intentions to perform actions influence behavior

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People can talk about reasons

• Sometimes they are right
• People who express protected values often act in
  accordance with them
• If you say you will not buy a desk with
  rainforest wood, often you will not
• Some choices are made, because they can be
  justified
• Shafir and Tversky Trip to Hawaii after exam
• Attraction effect gets stronger when a reason
  must be given

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Talking about reasons can hurt

• Not everything can be talked about
• Wilson et al.
• People are less satisfied with their choice of a
  poster when they justify their choice than when
  they dont
• Berridge
• Addicts will press a button more for a solution
  containing a low dosage of their drug, but they
  cannot explicitly identify which solutions
  contained the drug

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Mis-prediction of future preferences

• When a future choice will take place in a
  different context, peoples predictions are bad
• Early devaluation studies with smokers
• Brendl, Markman, Messner
• Kahneman Snell People cannot predict the
  amount of ice cream they would want the future
• Read et al. People cannot predict their future
  movie choices
• Pick a highbrow film for later
• Pick a comedy for now
• Simonson
• Greater variety seeking when picking for the
  future

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Attitude Behavior (in)consistency

• Peoples behavior need not coincide with their
  expressed attitude
• Nisbett Wilson Kruglanski
• People often pick the right-most item in a
  display
• Justify with a discussion of quality of the item
• Strength of the effect mediated by Need for
  Closure
• Attitudes are affected by active goals
• If the attitude is elicited under different goal
  conditions than is the behavior, the two do not
  correspond.

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Affective States Motivation

• We use affective states as a guide to active
  goals
• They are not necessarily a good marker
• Hunger and eating
• Craving and need to use a drug (Tiffany)
• We were able to dissociate need to eat from
  hunger
• Brendl, Markman Messner, popcorn study

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Contextual Priming of Goals

• Zeigarnik Effect
• People remember unfinished actions better than
  finished ones (also Patalano Seifert)
• Ovsiankina Seeing a mailbox primes the action
  to mail a letter

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Priming among goals and means

• Lexical decision tasks
• Words for desired states prime words for actions
  related to them (Kruglanski et al.)
• Implementation intentions (Gollwitzer)
• People must learn to associate particular means
  with goals
• Forming specific intentions for satisfying a goal
  increases success at carrying out goal
• Wertenbroch People arrange their worlds to take
  this priming into account
• Smokers trying to quit will stop buying cartons

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Studies in my lab on Motivation

• A number of ongoing projects
• Influence of goals on preferences
• Structure of goals
• Influence of motivation on task performance
• Regulatory fit and flexibility.

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What is a Goal?

• This pattern can be used to determine what a goal
  is.
• We can use the pattern of valuation and
  devaluation to determine what is inside and
  outside the goal
• What is valued is inside the goal
• What is devalued is outside the goal

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Design

• Need to eat
• High Small amount of bread with salted butter
• Low Large amount of bread with unsalted butter
• Had to use male participants
• Females at UT would not eat prescribed amount
• Time of day
• 9am or 4pm
• Item type
• Breakfast foods
• Dinner Foods
• Nonfoods

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Hypotheses

• Preference ratings
• Are Goals General?
• Need to eat means need to eat food
• Breakfast and dinner foods should show valuation
• Nonfoods should show devaluation
• Are Goals Specific?
• Need to eat is specific to particular meal
• Interaction between time of day and need
• Breakfast foods valued in the morning
• Dinner foods valued in the evening

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Results of Goal Specificity Study




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Framework

• Approach goals
• Potential positive states of the environment
• Avoidance goals
• Potential negative states of the environment
• Regulatory focus theory (Higgins)
• Promotion Focus
• Sensitivity to gains/nongains
• Prevention Focus
• Sensitivity to losses/nonlosses

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Regulatory Fit

• Tasks have a reward structure
• Typical structure
• Reward for correct answers
• No points for incorrect answers
• Mild promotion focus
• Performance bonus
• Social approval
• This is a regulatory fit

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Consider the bigger picture

• Almost all cognitive research is in one cell
• Does this matter?
• As Cognitive Psychologists, we believe we are
  learning general facts about cognition

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Studying Regulatory Fit

• How can we study this systematically?
• Need a good manipulation of regulatory focus
• Need a task for which we can assess performance
• Need to be able to manipulate reward structure

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Perceptual Classification

• Classification of simple perceptual stimuli
• Small number of underlying dimensions
• Easy to vary category structure
• Extensive set of tools for modeling performance
  of individual participants
• Can assess the strategy they use in the task
• Hypothesis
• Regulatory fit promotes cognitive flexibility

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General Predictions
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Two Studies

• Gains condition Positive payoffs
• Loss condition Losses on each trial
• Promotion focus Entry into drawing for
  exceeding criterion
• Prevention focus Get entry at start, keep entry
  if criterion is exceeded
• Performance should be best in this task when
  there is a fit
• Complex conjunctive rule should be found earlier
  when there is a fit

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For gains
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Modeling for Gains
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Losses
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Modeling-Losses
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Conclusions

• Regulatory fit supports flexibility
• Not a main effect of regulatory focus
• Most cognitive studies operate under conditions
  of regulatory fit
• Many phenomena may reflect fit/mismatch
• Cognitive deficits in disorders
• Effects of pressure on performance

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Summary

• For many years, theories of goals were based on
  intuitions guided by little data
• Lewin Carver Scheier
• Research is acknowledging that key aspects of
  goals are not consciously accessible
• Experimental methods reflect this
• Data are permitting a new generation of theories
  of the cognitive structure of goals
• New work focuses on influence of motivation on
  cognitive performance.

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