PECASE: Rethinking the Value of Choice: Considering Cultural, Individual, and Situational Mediators of Intrinsic Motivation

Columbia University, New York NY

Investigators

Abstract

Conventional wisdom and decades of research in American psychology have suggested a link between the provision of choice and intrinsic motivation, which in turn has been correlated with numerous psychological benefits, including better performance and higher levels of satisfaction. Conversely, the absence of choice has been shown to detrimentally affect intrinsic motivation and performance. So ingrained is the assumption that people will find choice intrinsically motivating, that psychologists have rarely paused to examine the more general applicability of these findings. Rarely have circumstances been considered in which the provision of choice(s) may not be intrinsically motivating. Considered even less, is the possibility that having others make the choice may, in certain contexts, inspire greater intrinsic motivation and increased commitment to the chosen activity. Moreover, it has been implicitly presumed that the phenomena demonstrated in laboratory experiments with primarily European American participants will generalize cross-culturally. This research explores the mediating mechanisms underlying the relationship between choice and intrinsic motivation by examining for the first time circumstances in which people may actually exhibit greater intrinsic motivation when their choices are limited rather than expanded, or might even prefer to have others make their choices for them. By employing multiple methodological approaches including cross-cultural field, laboratory, and ethnographic studies using multiple dependent measures, the resulting mosaic of studies examines cultural, individual and situational differences in choice-making perceptions and goals. In particular, this research compares the motivational consequences of choice among individuals in the extent to which they perceive choice-making to involve the fulfillment of personal preference matching (i.e. identifying the choice most suited to personal interests) or to involve duty fulfillment (i.e. identifying the choice which is in accordance with others expectations). The relevance of this research can be observed across a wide array of choice-making settings. In organizational settings, this research examines the way correlates of employee motivation and performance vary across culture and vary across their choice-making perceptions and goals. Financial 401k decisions may be influenced by choosers' perceptions of their choice-making goal in that people striving to identify the personally most optimal 401k retirement plan option may actually prefer to opt out of the choice-making process, even when doing so is sub-optimal. Similarly, interviewees perceiving employment options as involving the identification of the personally most optimal preference may in the choosing process examine more options, and yet experience greater dissatisfaction resulting in reduced tenure in their jobs of choice, as compared to interviewees searching for the employment choice which enables them to fulfill their obligations to others. Furthermore, ethnographic studies conducted cross-culturally examine consumers' preferred choice-making methods and subsequent satisfaction with their choices as a consequence of their initial choice-making perceptions and goals. In short, because these studies include corporate, consumer, financial, and job interview contexts in addition to laboratory settings, they both enrich a theoretical understanding of choosers responses to various choice-making contexts and provide better information about important aspects of choice in complex real-world settings.