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

Jennifer L. Crawford, Debbie M. Yee, Haijing W. Hallenbeck, Ashton Naumann, Katherine Shapiro, Renee J. Thompson, Todd S. Braver

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

11 Scopus citations

Abstract

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.

Original languageEnglish
Article number2212
JournalFrontiers in Psychology
Volume11
DOIs
StatePublished - Sep 9 2020

Keywords

  • cognitive control
  • decision-making
  • primary incentives
  • reward
  • social motivation

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