Alternative predictions about the influence of surveillance on intrinsic motivation were derived from cognitive evaluation and objective self-awareness theories. Adult Ss in Experiment 1 were assigned to surveillance conditions that implicated either controlling or noncontrolling surveillant intentions or to no-surveillance conditions. A behavioral measure revealed greater intrinsic motivation in the noncontrolling intention and no-surveillance conditions than in the controlling intention conditions (ps < .05). Experiment 2 examined why the lowest level of intrinsic motivation in Experiment 1 occurred when the surveillant did not specify a reason for watching Ss. Results indicated that such surveillance was interpreted as reflecting both surveillant distrust of Ss and the intention to evaluate Ss' performance. Evidence from the 2 studies supported cognitive evaluation theory rather than objective self-awareness theory.Social influence strategies designed to regulate people's actions can have deleterious effects when used unnecessarily, that is, when people are intrinsically motivated to act. According to Deci and Ryan's (1985,1987) cognitive evaluation theory, these effects occur as a result of constraint-induced shifts between extrinsic and intrinsic motivational subsystems. When self-perceived autonomy is negated by socially controlling events, intrinsic motivation is supplanted by extrinsic motivation. Consistent with this reasoning, events that are explicitly antagonistic to autonomous functioning, such as task-contingent incentives (e.g., Deci, 1971;Lepper, Greene, & Nisbett, 1973), externally imposed deadlines (Amabile, DeJong, & Lepper, 1976), and externally imposed evaluation contingencies (e.g., Harackiewicz, Manderlink, & Sansone, 1984) have been shown to decrease intrinsic motivation.Other research demonstrates that more subtle constraints similarly can be detrimental to intrinsic motivation. Lepper and Greene (1975), for example, found that children who believed themselves to have been monitored by means of a videocamera during an initial play period evidenced lower subsequent intrinsic interest in the activity than did children who had not been monitored. This finding has been replicated with adults who were watched by a physically present surveillant (Pittman, Davey, Alafat, Wetherill, & Kramer, 1980) and by means of a videocamera (Plant & Ryan, 1985).The effect on intrinsic motivation of being watched presumably occurs because surveillance is a commonly understood means of exercising social control (Deci & Ryan, 1987). People know that under some circumstances, being closely watched is linked to performance evaluation and attempts to compel distrusted persons to comply with rules. When managerial per-
In three studies, the authors expand on Langer’s (1975) illusion of control model to include perceptions of personal luck as a potential source of misperceived skillful influence over non-controllable events. In an initial study, it was predicted and found that having choice in a game of chance heightened both perceived personal luck and perceived chance of winning. In additional studies, hypotheses were tested based on the proposition that luck perceived as a personal quality follows the laws of sympathetic magic. The results showed that participants acted as though luck could be transmitted from themselves to a wheel of fortune and thereby positively affect their perceived chance of winning. Results are discussed both in terms of the previously unexamined connection between illusory control and beliefs in sympathetic magic and as an extension of the illusory control model.
In Study 1, participants who read about an extrinsically motivated target expected that task engagement would be less enjoyable and associated with less positive affect and that there would be poorer quality of interpersonal relations, compared with participants reading about an intrinsically motivated target. These effects were reversed when additional information disconfirmed initial perceptions of the target's motivation. In Study 2, participants who were taught a skill by an extrinsically motivated (paid) target reported lower interest in learning and lower task enjoyment than those taught by an intrinsically motivated (volunteer) target, despite receiving identical lessons and learning to the same criterion level. Lower levels of interest, task enjoyment, and positive mood "infected" a second learner when the first participant attempted to teach him or her the same skill. Results support a model linking social perception, expectancy formation, and motivational orientations toward activities.
Which person would be most likely to continue gambling? A person who has just experienced a big win or a person who has just experienced a big loss? The answer appears often to be whichever gambler feels personally luckier. Two experiments investigated how perceptions of luck, understood as a personal quality, are affected by near, but unrealized outcomes during a game of chance. In Experiment 1, a near big loss at a gambling game heightened perceptions of personal luck relative to a near big win, even though all participants actually won the same modest amount. In addition, participants who experienced a near big loss generated significantly more downward counterfactuals than did those participants in the near big win condition. Most importantly, differences in selfperceived luck influenced future gambling behavior. Participants who experienced a near big loss on a wheel-of-fortune wagered significantly more on the outcome of a subsequent game of roulette than did those participants who experienced a near big win. Experiment 2 extended these results by testing the possible influence of a different type of near outcome and by including a control group. The discussion focuses on the emerging picture of how people understand luck.
Musically naive students were taught a piano lesson. In a paid teaching condition, the teacher was portrayed as being extrinsically motivated by a $25 payment. In a second condition, the teacher was portrayed as an intrinsically motivated volunteer The confederate teacher was blind to conditions and gave the same standardized lesson to all students. Students in the volunteer condition perceived the teacher as exhibiting greater enjoy-mast, enthusiasm, and innovation relative to those in the paid condition hey also enjoyed the lesson more, reported a more positive mood, and were more interested in further learning. During a free-play interval, students in the volunteer condition exhibited greater exploratory activity than those in the paid condition
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