TY - JOUR
T1 - Dissociable Effects of Monetary, Liquid, and Social Incentives on Motivation and Cognitive Control
AU - Crawford, Jennifer L.
AU - Yee, Debbie M.
AU - Hallenbeck, Haijing W.
AU - Naumann, Ashton
AU - Shapiro, Katherine
AU - Thompson, Renee J.
AU - Braver, Todd S.
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health grant R21AG058206 to TB. Additionally, JC and DY were supported by T32AG000030, and DY was further supported by T32NS073547 and F31DA042574.
Publisher Copyright:
© Copyright © 2020 Crawford, Yee, Hallenbeck, Naumann, Shapiro, Thompson and Braver.
PY - 2020/9/9
Y1 - 2020/9/9
N2 - 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.
AB - 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.
KW - cognitive control
KW - decision-making
KW - primary incentives
KW - reward
KW - social motivation
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85091461858&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.02212
DO - 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.02212
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85091461858
SN - 1664-1078
VL - 11
JO - Frontiers in Psychology
JF - Frontiers in Psychology
M1 - 2212
ER -