On the Motivational Basis of Cue Identification in Teams

Abstract

Although identifying cues indicating a problem represents a crucial aspect of team adaptation, little is known about the conditions under which team members do this correctly. To address this issue, the current study focused on the motivational basis of cue identification by investigating interactive effects of members’ regulatory focus, their contribution redundancy, and the team performance context. Participants working in 105 three-person teams were asked to identify problem cues in a signal detection task. Utilizing a 2 (regulatory focus: promotion vs. prevention) x 2 (performance context: status quo vs. loss) x 2 (contribution redundancy: low vs. high) mixed analysis of variance (ANOVA) design with contribution redundancy as a within-participants factor, we obtained the predicted three-way interaction: In the status quo condition, prevention-focused, but not promotion-focused, team members were less accurate in identifying problem cues when their contributions were redundant. Our findings contribute to a better understanding of the motivational basis of team adaptation.