Task difficulty, cardiovascular response, and the magnitude of goal valence.

Sixty-four young women expected to perform an easy, moderately difficult, or extremely difficult memory task with the opportunity to earn a small incentive for good performance. Cardiovascular (heart rate, systolic and diastolic blood pressure) and subjective measures were taken immediately prior to task performance. Both systolic blood pressure (SBP) responses and ratings of goal attractiveness were nonmonotonically related to expected task difficulty, with the most pronounced SBP elevations and highest goal attractiveness in the moderately difficult task condition. Product-moment correlations among cardiovascular response measures revealed a strong positive association between systolic and diastolic pressure (but not heart rate) change in the easy condition, positive relationships among all measures in the moderately difficult condition, and no significant correlations in the extremely difficult condition. Subjective measures of arousal were not affected by the task difficulty manipulation. Principal findings are discussed in terms of a theoretical model proposed by Brehm (1979) that states that motivation varies as a nonmonotonic function of the difficulty of goal attainment. Intercorrelations among cardiovascular response variables are considered in terms of their possible indication of the mechanisms underlying blood pressure changes associated with variations in motivation.

[1]  B. Houston.  Psychophysiological responsivity and the type A behavior pattern , 1983 .

[2]  W. Edwards.  The theory of decision making. , 1954, Psychological bulletin.

[3]  R. Wright,et al.  Psychophysiologic correlates of Type A behavior: Comments on Houston (1983) and Holmes (1983) , 1985 .

[4]  Jennings Bryant,et al.  Enhancement of humor appreciation by transferred excitation. , 1974 .

[5]  R. Elliott.  Tonic heart rate: experiments on the effects of collative variables lead to a hypothesis about its motivational significance. , 1969, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[6]  D. S. Holmes,et al.  Behavior control over aversive events: does control that requires effort reduce anxiety and physiological arousal? , 1980, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[7]  P. Obrist,et al.  Cardiovascular response to stress: effects of opportunity to avoid, shock experience, and performance feedback. , 1980, Psychophysiology.

[8]  R. Wright.  Perceived motivational arousal as a mediator of the magnitude of goal valence , 1982 .

[9]  P. Obrist,et al.  Presidential Address, 1975. The cardiovascular-behavioral interaction--as it appears today. , 1976, Psychophysiology.

[10]  J. Furedy,et al.  Phasic T-wave amplitude and heart rate changes as indices of mental effort and task incentive. , 1984, Psychophysiology.

[11]  H. Staudenmayer,et al.  Baseline levels in muscle relaxation training , 1978, Biofeedback and self-regulation.

[12]  J. Brehm,et al.  Difficulty and interpersonal attraction , 1984 .

[13]  S. Manuck,et al.  Effects of coping on blood pressure responses to threat of aversive stimulation. , 1978, Psychophysiology.

[14]  R. Thayer,et al.  Measurement of Activation through Self-Report , 1967, Psychological reports.

[15]  Linda Silka,et al.  Perceived difficulty, energization, and the magnitude of goal valence ☆ , 1983 .

[16]  Lyndon Jones,et al.  Theories of Motivation , 1987 .

[17]  B. J. Winer.  Statistical Principles in Experimental Design , 1992 .

[18]  R. Wright,et al.  Task difficulty, type A behavior pattern, and cardiovascular response. , 1984, Psychophysiology.

[19]  J. Brehm,et al.  The impact of task difficulty upon perceptions of arousal and goal attractiveness in an avoidance paradigm , 1984 .

[20]  P. Obrist.  Cardiovascular Psychophysiology: A Perspective , 1981 .

[21]  Niels Birbaumer,et al.  Biofeedback and self-regulation , 1979 .

[22]  S. G. Carmer,et al.  An Evaluation of Ten Pairwise Multiple Comparison Procedures by Monte Carlo Methods , 1973 .

[23]  John T. Cacioppo,et al.  Social psychophysiology : a sourcebook , 1983 .

[24]  R. Landmann,et al.  Plasma catecholamines and cardiac, renal and peripheral vascular adrenoceptor-mediated responses in different age groups of normal and hypertensive subjects. , 1980, Clinical and experimental hypertension.

[25]  R. Thayer.  Toward a psychological theory of multidimensional activation (arousal) , 1978 .

[26]  J. W. Atkinson.  Motivational determinants of risk-taking behavior. , 1957, Psychological review.

[27]  R. Wright,et al.  Motivation, anxiety, and the difficulty of avoidant control. , 1984, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[28]  P. Obrist,et al.  Pulse transit time: relationship to blood pressure and myocardial performance. , 1979, Psychophysiology.

[29]  P. Obrist,et al.  Task difficulty, heart rate reactivity, and cardiovascular responses to an appetitive reaction time task. , 1983, Psychophysiology.

[30]  David S. Krantz,et al.  Effects of control over aversive stimulation and type A behavior on cardiovascular and plasma catecholamine responses. , 1982, Psychophysiology.

[31]  P. Obrist,et al.  The relationship among heart rate, caratid dP/dt, and blood pressure in humans as a function of the type of stress. , 1978, Psychophysiology.