Motivational Effects on Attention, Cognition, and Performance

Abstract

Why should cognitive psychologists be concerned with motivation? In the typical cognitive psychology formulation, motivation is not a theoretically interesting or important variable. The assumption typically made is that motivation simply involves caring about a task or wanting a successful task outcome-and that once individuals care about the task they will display the cognitive processes (and hence the intellectual performance) of which they are capable. In this view, motivation is a quantity that people have in varying degrees and, if they have enough of it, their intellectual performance will fully reflect their cognitive abilities.