Activation by different incentives

It is important to say that motives predict behavior only in the presence of appropriate incentives. If there are no achievement incentives in the given research or work situation, there is no reason to believe that achievement-oriented individuals will behave differently from those low in the achievement motive (Spangler, 1992).

Research indicates that implicit motives are activated by natural stimuli, such as activity incentives or characteristics of a task itself (Langens, 2005; McClelland et al., 1989; Schmalt & Sokolowski, 2000; Schulhteiss & Brunstein, 2005). They are aroused by

environmental cues that signal the availability of a rewarding emotion (Schultheiss & Brunstein, 1999).

Examples of achievement activity incentives can be moderate task risk, task

performance and some achievement-related outcome, and opportunity to do something better, quicker, or more effective (Brunstein, 2007; Spangler, 1992). On the other hand, people with a high implicit need for achievement do not perform better when pressured externally or when outcomes are due to chance. Monetary rewards are also not an incentive for them, but they help to get information about how well they are doing (McClelland & Koestner, 1992).

On the other hand, explicit motives are activated by social appeals and incentives, such as rewards, prompts, expectations, demands, and norms that come from outside the task itself (Langens, 2005; McClelland et al., 1989; Schmalt & Sokolowski, 2000). Examples of social achievement incentives can be challenging goals set by experimenter, achievement- oriented instructions in an experiment, achievement work norms, time assessment, or competition pressure (Brunstein, 2007; Spangler, 1992).

Several other studies corroborated the importance of the interaction between motives, incentives, and behavior.

For example, Koestner, Weinberger, and McClelland (1991) designed two

experiments to show that the two kinds of motives are unrelated to one another and aroused by different factors in a performance situation. It was hypothesized that motives as assessed from fantasy (seen as implicit needs) are primarily aroused by factors intrinsic to the process of performing an activity, whereas motives obtained through self-report inventories (seen as self-attributed needs) are aroused by social factors that are extrinsic to the process of

performing an activity (e.g., the way in which a task is presented by an experimenter). As expected, when a memory task was introduced with an explicit emphasis on achievement, subjects high in self-attributed need for achievement performed better than those who were low, whereas in a neutral condition the reverse pattern was obtained. Importantly, it was shown that the implicit need for achievement did not interact with the social cue regarding achievement to facilitate performance. The implicit achievement motive was shown to influence the relation of task difficulty to performance on word-finding puzzles.

High fantasy achievement motivation subjects performed relatively better on the more difficult puzzles, whereas low fantasy achievement motivation subjects performed relatively better on the easier ones.

In the further research, by Brunstein and Maier (2005) (see also, Brunstein & Hoyer, 2002), 96 students first completed a PSE measure of the implicit need for achievement and a questionnaire measure of the explicit achievement motive and then worked on a mental concentration task that required them to respond as quickly as possible to various stimuli presented on a computer screen. After each block of stimulus presentations, they received graphical feedback about their performance (a) relative to their performance on a previous block (self-referenced feedback), and (b) relative to the performance of previous participants (norm-referenced feedback). The authors predicted and found that participants with a high implicit achievement motive, relative to those low in this motive, responded to task performance feedback (task-intrinsic incentive) by increasing actual performance on an attention task. Participants with a high explicit achievement motive, in contrast, responded to information about how well they were doing in comparison with other participants (social- extrinsic incentive) by choosing whether to continue the task or to do something else.

An extensive research on the measurement of the achievement motive with the help of different measurement techniques was done by Ziegler, Schmukle, Egloff, and Bühner (2010). The study aimed at exploring whether implicit and explicit measures represent two different common constructs, and analyzing in how far criterion validities differ with regard to different situations while controlling for the constructs of intelligence and Big Five. One hundred and fifty participants worked on three different measures of the implicit achievement motive: PSE,Implicit Association Test (IAT [Brunstein & Schmitt, 2004]) and Objektiver Leistungsmotivations Test (OLMT [Schmidt-Atzert, 2004]). Explicit achievement motive was assessed with two self-report questionnaires: Achievement Motives Scale Revised (AMS-R [Lang & Fries, 2006]) and the Conscientiousness Facet Achievement Striving (AS) from the

NEO Persönlichkeitsinventar (NEO-PI-R [Ostendorf & Angleitner, 2006]). The whole NEO- PI-R was also administered, as well as Intelligence Structure Test 2000 R (I-S-T 2000 R [Amthauer, Brocke, Liepmann, & Beauducel, 2001]).

Approximately six weeks after testing the students participated in a trial exam which established a task-oriented setting combined with the performance feedback, which aimed at eliciting the implicit achievement motive. The norm-referenced feedback, which should elicit the explicit achievement motive, was also given. Ten weeks later, the students took the real statistics examination, where the ego involvement should be high.

The results proved that in terms of constructs, explicit achievement motive measures can be combined into one latent variable, regardless of the different underlying constructs. This result was not found for the implicit achievement motive measures, which shows that each used different measurement approach. As far as prediction of performance is concerned, in a task-focused setting with self-referenced feedback, the PSE predicted performance at a trial exam, as expected. The correlation between PSE and the trial exam grade was significant (r = .22*, p < .05). Given norm-referenced feedback and ego-involvement, Hope for Success and Fear of Failure scales of the AMS-R were significant predictors of performance at real exam. Correlations between the scales and the real exam grade were r = .16*, p < .05, and r = -.16*, p < .05, respectively.