Automatic effort mobilization and the principle of resource conservation: One can only prime the possible and justified.

Abstract

Two experiments tested the idea that the principle of resource conservation moderates and limits automaticity effects on effort mobilization. Effort-related cardiovascular response was assessed in cognitive tasks with different levels of task difficulty (Experiment 1) and success incentive (Experiment 2) during which participants were exposed to suboptimally presented action versus inaction primes. As expected, implicit activation of the action concept resulted in stronger effort-related cardiovascular response than activation of the inaction concept-but only when the task was feasible and success incentive was sufficiently high. Effects on task performance were compatible with those on effort. The findings indicate that the automaticity effect of action/inaction primes on effort mobilization is situated, sensitive to task context, and limited by extreme task difficulty and low incentive. The findings facilitate a theoretical integration of automaticity in effort mobilization with the principle of resource conservation.

How emotion context modulates unconscious goal activation during motor force exertion

“…Thus, trials containing inaction concepts tagged with unpleasant images were appraised as more difficult (i.e., comprising two successive negative signals) and eventually motivated greater force production. This perceived greater difficulty induced by negative affect could therefore reverse the effect of the inaction prime by influencing the mobilization of energy resources (Gendolla, 2012) and hence increase force output , supporting the notion that automatic priming effects on behaviour are context-dependent, moderated by the present task situation and underpinned by boundary conditions (Loersch and Payne, 2011;Silvestrini and Gendolla, 2013;Wheeler and DeMarree, 2009). Such effect on perceived demand was Regressors were aligned to subliminal word presentation.…”

“…disappeared. These stimuli presentation durations are similar to those used in other emotion and subliminal word prime experiments (Aarts et al, 2008;Gaillard et al, 2006;Pessiglione et al, 2007;Schmidt et al, 2009;Silvestrini and Gendolla, 2013), adapted for use within an MRI environment and our screen refresh rate constraints.…”

“…We do not believe this to be the case for several reasons. First, in the block designs of previous behavioural studies, participants were exposed to different priming contexts with non-words (Gendolla and Silvestrini, 2010;Silvestrini and Gendolla, 2013) or neutral faces (Silvestrini and Gendolla, 2011a) to control for habituation effects. Furthermore, long inter-trial intervals (2-4 s) were used to "give the implicitly activated representations of the affective states time to decay between trials" (Gendolla, 2012).…”

How effortful is cognitive control? Insights from a novel method measuring single-trial evoked beta-adrenergic cardiac reactivity

“…Consistent with our definition of effort mobilization (Kelsey, 2012), PEP is thought to reflect the sympathetic effects on the heart, mediated by its beta-adrenergic receptors, and has been shown to respond proportionally to task engagement (Richter et al, 2008). Further, research has shown that PEP becomes progressively shorter in response to increasing task difficulty (Richter et al, 2008;Silvestrini & Gendolla, 2013). It is important to note that these effects of decreased PEP were observed in the absence of a decrease in heart rate.…”

Ego depletion and the use of mental contrasting

“…According to the energy conservation principle (Richter 2015;Silvestrini and Gendolla 2013), people are motivated to conserve effort. For example, when performing a task people do not expend more effort than is necessary and worthwhile to successfully complete the task (motivational intensity theory, Brehm and Self 1989;Wright 1996).…”