Dissociable Effects of Monetary, Liquid, and Social Incentives on Motivation and Cognitive Control

Frontiers in Psychology

article

Jennifer L. Crawford¹  Haijing W. Hallenbeck¹  Ashton Naumann¹  Katherine Shapiro¹  Renee J. Thompson¹  Todd S. Braver¹ 

[1] Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences, Washington University in St. Louis, United States

关键词: social motivation;    cognitive control;    primary incentives;    reward;    decision-making;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2020.02212

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

Humans are social creatures and, as such, can be motivated by aspects of social life (e.g., approval from others) to guide decision-making in everyday contexts. Indeed, a common view is that people may have stronger orientation toward social goals or incentives relative to other incentive modalities, such as food or money. However, current studies have only rarely addressed how social incentives compare to other types of rewards in motivating goal-directed behavior. The current study tested this claim; across two separate experiments, the effects of liquid and social incentives were compared in terms of their subsequent impact on task performance and self-reported affect and motivation. Critically, valenced social incentives offered both ecological validity (short video clips—Experiment 1) and continuity with prior stimuli used in the social reward and motivation literature (static images—Experiment 2) when examining their effect on behavior. Across both studies, the results replicate and extend prior work, demonstrating robust effects of liquid incentives on task performance and self-reported affect and motivation, while also supporting an interpretation of weaker motivational and affective effects for social incentives. These patterns of results highlight the complex and wide-ranging effects of social incentives and call into question the effectiveness of social incentives, relative to other incentive modalities, in motivating behavior.

【 授权许可】

CC BY