Implicit Motives: Using Diffusion Modeling to Assess Effects of Motive Frustration on Cognitive Processes

三个主要的心理动机是成就动机、隶属动机和权力动机。这些动机的挫败感对人类的经验和行为有着重要的影响。然而，其潜在的机制尚未得到充分的研究。例如，消极的绩效反馈对具有高成就动机的个体的任务处理有什么影响？具有高度隶属动机的个体在得知他们将来会有很少的朋友时，会作何反应？在这个项目中，一个数学模型——扩散模型——将被用来更仔细地研究这种动机挫折对认知过程的影响。在动机研究领域，决策模型的应用是新颖的。与之前的研究通常关注行为变量（平均反应时间、错误率）不同，DM使用的是关于整个反应时间分布的信息。因此，区分不同的认知过程成为可能。例如，高内隐成功希望个体在负面绩效反馈后反应速度的提高可能有不同的原因。由于努力的增加，他们的信息吸收或运动反应可能会加快。也有可能是他们变得不那么谨慎，即以更高的错误率为代价而变得更快。这种完全不同的解释可以通过扩散模型来解开。我们将分析内隐成就挫败感（子项目1）和隶属动机（子项目2）的影响。因此，我们将研究可能对动机挫折后的认知过程产生重大影响的不同变量（其中，动机的希望与恐惧成分的强度，对失败的被动与主动恐惧，任务难度）。此外，在子课题3中，我们研究了动机研究中的另一个重要问题。在动机文献中，主要使用两种不同的程序，即所谓的图片故事练习和基于网格的测量来测量内隐动机。除其他外，基于网格的措施具有经济优势。然而，在过去的几年里，人们提出了一个问题，即这些程序是真正衡量内隐动机（如图片故事练习），还是更确切地说，是衡量外显动机（如自我报告测量）。在子项目3中，我们将利用前面子项目的数据和方法来系统地研究这个问题。通过文献回顾和分析以往子项目的动机数据，我们将比较基于网格的测量和图片故事练习的结构和标准效度。此外，我们将使用子项目1和子项目2的动机挫折程序来实验检验不同动机测量的有效性。

The three central psychological motives are the achievement, affiliation, and power motive. The frustration of these motives has an important influence on human experience and behavior. The underlying mechanisms have, however, not yet been sufficiently investigated. What is, for example, the effect of negative performance feedback on task processing for individuals with a high achievement motive? How do individuals with a high affiliation motive react to the information that they will have few friends in the future? In this project, a mathematical model — the diffusion model — will be employed to closer examine the effects of such motive frustrations on cognitive processes. In the field of motive research, the application of the DM is novel. In contrast to previous studies that often focused on behavioral variables (mean response times, error rates), the DM uses information about entire response time distributions. Therefore, it becomes possible to separate different cognitive processes. For example, an increase in response speed after negative performance feedback of individuals with a high implicit hope for success can have different causes. Due to increased effort, their information uptake or their motoric response might have accelerated. It is also possible that they become less cautious, i.e., faster at the expense of higher error rates. Such completely different explanations can be disentangled by means of diffusion modeling. We will analyze the effects of frustration of the implicit achievement (subproject 1) and affiliation motive (subproject 2). Thereby, we will examine different variables that can have a significant impact on the cognitive processes following motive frustration (among others, strength of the hope vs. fear component of a motive, passive vs. active fear of failure, task difficulty). In addition, in subproject 3, we investigate another important question from motive research. In the motive literature, mainly two different procedures, the so-called picture story exercises and grid-based measures, are used for the measurement of implicit motives. Grid-based measures have, among others, economic advantages. In the last years, however, the question has been raised whether these procedures really measure implicit motives (like picture story exercises), or rather explicit motives (like self-report measures). In subproject 3, we will take advantage of the data and methods of the previous subprojects to examine this question systematically. By means of a literature review and the analysis of the motive data from the previous subprojects, we will compare the construct and criterion validity of the grid-based measures and the picture story exercises. Further, we will use the procedures of motive frustration from subprojects 1 and 2 to examine the validity of the different motive measures experimentally.