Ego involvement and effort: cardiovascular, electrodermal, and performance effects.

An experiment with N=52 university students manipulated ego involvement (low vs. high) and task difficulty (unfixed vs. easy) of a letter detection task. In accordance with the theoretical predictions about the role of ego involvement in active coping, high ego involvement increased the performance-related reactivity of systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, heart rate, and also the number of unspecific skin conductance responses when task difficulty was unfixed ("do your best"). Ego involvement had no impact on autonomic reactivity when task difficulty was easy due to a fixed low performance standard. Furthermore, participants in the ego involvement/unfixed condition, where autonomic reactivity was relatively strong, committed significantly fewer errors in the letter detection task than those in the other conditions, reflecting an association between mental effort and performance.

[1]  Jeffrey A. Gray,et al.  The psychology of fear and stress, 2nd ed. , 1987 .

[2]  T. W. Smith,et al.  Social determinants of cardiovascular reactivity: effects of incentive to exert influence and evaluative threat. , 1997, Psychophysiology.

[3]  D. Fowles.  Psychophysiology and psychopathology: a motivational approach. , 1988, Psychophysiology.

[4]  G. Gendolla,et al.  The joint impact of mood state and task difficulty on cardiovascular and electrodermal reactivity in active coping. , 2001, Psychophysiology.

[5]  Social evaluation and cardiovascular response: an active coping approach. , 1995 .

[6]  M. Dawson,et al.  The electrodermal system , 2007 .

[7]  G. Gendolla,et al.  Informational mood impact on effort-related cardiovascular response: the diagnostic value of mood counts. , 2002, Emotion.

[8]  G. Gendolla,et al.  Mood state and cardiovascular response in active coping with an affect-regulative challenge. , 2001, International journal of psychophysiology : official journal of the International Organization of Psychophysiology.

[9]  J. Nicholls.  Achievement motivation: Conceptions of ability, subjective experience, task choice, and performance. , 1984 .

[10]  Leslie D. Kirby,et al.  Effort determination of cardiovascular response: An integrative analysis with applications in social psychology , 2001 .

[11]  Carol S. Dweck,et al.  Motivational processes affecting learning. , 1986 .

[12]  R. Levenson.  Autonomic Nervous System Differences among Emotions , 1992 .

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

[14]  T. W. Smith,et al.  Interpersonal influence as active coping: effects of task difficulty on cardiovascular reactivity. , 1990, Psychophysiology.

[15]  R. Wright,et al.  Cardiovascular incentive effects where a challenge is unfixed: demonstrations involving social evaluation, evaluator status, and monetary reward. , 2002, Psychophysiology.

[16]  D. Kahneman.  Attention and Effort , 1973 .

[17]  N. Schneiderman,et al.  The reliability and specificity of delta versus residualized change as measures of cardiovascular reactivity to behavioral challenges. , 1991, Psychophysiology.

[18]  A. Schwerdtfeger,et al.  Predicting autonomic reactivity to public speaking: don't get fixed on self-report data! , 2004, International journal of psychophysiology : official journal of the International Organization of Psychophysiology.

[19]  Karen S. Quigley,et al.  Cardiac psychophysiology and autonomic space in humans: empirical perspectives and conceptual implications. , 1993, Psychological bulletin.

[20]  A. Kramer,et al.  Theoretical and methodological issues in psychophysiological research , 1998 .

[21]  A. Sherwood,et al.  Hemodynamics of blood pressure responses during active and passive coping. , 1990, Psychophysiology.

[22]  R. Wright,et al.  Task difficulty, cardiovascular response, and the magnitude of goal valence. , 1986 .

[23]  R. Wright,et al.  Brehm's theory of motivation as a model of effort and cardiovascular response. , 1996 .

[24]  R. Wright,et al.  Cardiovascular effects of experimentally induced efficacy (ability) appraisals at low and high levels of avoidant task demand. , 1995, Psychophysiology.

[25]  H. Gr.  Compensatory control in the regulation of human performance under stress and high workload; a cognitive-energetical framework. , 1997 .

[26]  Reduced electrodermal response to conflict, failure to inhibit dominant behaviors, and delinquency proneness. , 1982, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[27]  G. Gendolla,et al.  The informational impact of mood on effort mobilization: a study of cardiovascular and electrodermal responses. , 2001, Emotion.

[28]  G. Gendolla.  Effort as assessed by motivational arousal in identity-relevant tasks , 1998 .

[29]  J. Deich,et al.  Self-Efficacy as a Moderator of Perceived Control Effects on Cardiovascular Reactivity: Is Enhanced Control Always Beneficial? , 1995, Psychosomatic medicine.

[30]  F. Rhodewalt,et al.  Claimed self-handicaps and the self-handicapper: The relation of reduction in intended effort to performance , 1991 .

[31]  Vigilance, active coping, and cardiovascular reactivity during social interaction in young men. , 2000 .

[32]  R. Wright,et al.  Energy resource depletion, task difficulty, and cardiovascular response to a mental arithmetic challenge. , 2003, Psychophysiology.

[33]  J. Brehm,et al.  The intensity of motivation. , 1989, Annual review of psychology.

[34]  R. Stennett,et al.  The relationship of performance level to level of arousal. , 1957, Journal of experimental psychology.

[35]  K. Light,et al.  Young Psychophysiologist Award address, 1980. Cardiovascular responses to effortful active coping: implications for the role of stress in hypertension development. , 1981, Psychophysiology.

[36]  D. Brackett,et al.  Activation patterns to aversive stimulation in man: passive exposure versus effort to control. , 1985, Psychophysiology.

[37]  A. Pecchinenda.  The Affective Significance of Skin Conductance Activity During a Difficult Problem-solving Task , 1996 .

[38]  S. Bongard,et al.  Mental effort during active and passive coping: a dual-task analysis. , 1995, Psychophysiology.

[39]  G. Gendolla,et al.  The joint effect of informational mood impact and performance-contingent consequences on effort-related cardiovascular response. , 2002, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[40]  J. Greenberg,et al.  Determinants of reduction in intended effort as a strategy for coping with anticipated failure , 1983 .

[41]  T. Beauchaine,et al.  A comparison of psychophysiological and self-report measures of BAS and BIS activation. , 2005, Psychophysiology.

[42]  J. Cacioppo,et al.  The psychophysiology of emotion. , 1993 .

[43]  J. Tuomilehto,et al.  Blood pressure levels in the 41 populations of the WHO MONICA Project , 1997, Journal of Human Hypertension.

[44]  N. Simionescu,et al.  The Cardiovascular System , 1983 .

[45]  R. L. Greene,et al.  Electrodermal Measures of Attention and Effort to Stimulus Onset and Offset for Intramodal and Intermodal Tasks , 1979, Perceptual and motor skills.

[46]  G. S. Klein,et al.  The influence of ego-involvement on confidence. , 1941 .

[47]  D. Tranel.  The effects of monetary incentive and frustrative nonreward on heart rate and electrodermal activity. , 1983, Psychophysiology.