Affect and the overjustification effect.

Studied the role of affect as a mediator of the overjustification effect and proposed that negative affect has a critical detrimental influence on intrinsic motivation, either as a reaction derived from self-perception and evaluation processes or as a factor that acts independently of these cognitive activities. Two studies, with 180 undergraduates, used the typical overjustification paradigm to test these hypotheses. In Exp I, the overjustification effect was successfully replicated for both behavioral and self-report measures of intrinsic motivation. It is important that the negative affect paralleled these results and was greatest in those conditions in which intrinsic motivation was predicted and found to be low (e.g., expected reward). In Exp II, affect was directly manipulated, independently of the cognitive manipulations. Results show that the induced positive affect erased the decrease in intrinsic motivation that was observed in Exp I. It is suggested that what determines the decrease in intrinsic interest in any activity is, in part, the amount of negative affect that becomes associated with the activity. (55 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)