Cognitive Mechanisms Of Autonomous-controlled Motivation On Self-control

Self-control is processes by which the self intentionally alters its own predominant thoughts,emotions and behaviors(Baumeister & Vohs,2016).A large number of studies have demostrated that the degree of autonomy in motivation cloud predict selfcontrol performance.Compared to controlled motivation(involes behaving with the experience of pressure),autonomous motivation(involes behaving with a full sense of volition)leads to better self-control.However,the cognitive mechanisms for this effect has received very limited attention and remained relatively unexplored.The present study aims to investigate the precise cognitive mechanisms for enhancing self-control by autonomous motivation in the first study.In the second study,the boundary conditions of the relative effectiveness of autonomous control were fully examined.Finally,the neural activity differences between autonomous motivation and controlled motivation during self-control task were investigated in the third study.There were two experiments in the first study.Experiment 1 compared the goal maintenance and response inhibition(i.e.two basic components of self-control)for autonomous motivation and controlled motivation by using a continuous performance task(AX-CPT).The autonomous motivation was induced by providing individuals with a rationale for the task,acknowledging their feelings,and supporting the experience of choice.The controlled motivation was induced by using language that conveyed control and pressuring the participants to choose the assigned task.In the AX-CPT,a cue(A or B)preceded a probe(X or Y)with a short or long delay.Participants were told to make a target response to AX trials with high frequency(70%),and to make nontarget responses on BX,AY and BY trials with low frequency(10%)respectively.The results showed that the autonomy-supported participants produced higher accuracy than the controlled participants on either long or short delay trails that required actively maintaining the cues information to reduce response conflict(BX).However,they also achieved higher accuracy on the long delay trails that maintaining the cues information will lead to more response conflicts(AY).Experiment 2 was performed to explore the difference in response inhibition between autonomous motivation and controlled motivation by using a Stroop task that placed low demands on goal maintenance.Previous studies suggested that the demands of goal maintenance in the Stroop task can be manipulated by varying the proportion incongruency in the task.In the 100%incongruent tasks(on which the color and word did not match),goal maintenance should be least demanding because the task context repeatedly reinforces the goal.For this,the 100% incongruent task was used for this study.No significant differences were found between the autonomous and controlled motivation groups on accuracy and speed,which on the other hand suggested the mediated role of goal maintenance between autonomous-controlled motivation and self-control.The second study included 3 experiments.Experiment 3 compared the autonomous group with the controlled group on a Stroop task that placed high demanding of goal maintenance to further attest the role played by goal maintenance,as well as to provide a performance standard for Experiments 4 and 5 to contrast with.Experiment 3 used a25% incongruent task,and this context could allow accuately responding on most trials even if the participants completely neglect the goal and respond habitually by reading the word.Therefore,responses on the rare incongruent trials will be especially sensitive to successful goal maintenance.The data indicated that the autonomy-supported group yielded higher accuracy on incongruent trails than controlled group,which was consistent with that of in Experiment 1.The goal maintenance mediated the association between autonomous-controlled motivation and self-control performance either in a self-control task that required keeping the task demands(Stroop task)or in a task that required maintaining the cue information(AX-CPT task).For the main difference between autonomous motivation and controlled motivation during self-control was attributed to goal maintenance,and previous study suggested that providing feedback promoted goal maintenance,Experiment 4 used the same Stroop task as in Experiment3 to examine if there were any changes in the two motivation groups on self-control after providing accuracy feedback.Experiment 4 also set long or short feedback presentation to further validate the effect of feedback cue.The data showed that the accuracy feedback had no significant effect on the autonomous group,whereas it significantly enhanced the sef-control performance for the controlled group.Both the autonomous motivation and controlled motivation groups had a comparative accuracy.When the feedback was more sailent,the controlled participants yielded higher accuracy,which was even higher than that of the autonomy-supported participants.The data imply that the controlled individuals are more externally dependent during selfcontrol,whereas the autonomous indivuduals are more self-focused.Experiment 5 used the the same Stroop task as in Experiment 3 to invigestate if there were any changes in both motivation groups on self-control after placing a mirror in front of participants to promote their self-awareness.The data demonstrated that the autonomous group showed no differences on self-control,whereas the controlled group showed significant improvements in performance.The two motivaion groups did not differ in accuracy,but the controlled participants displayed significantly larger response-time facilitation effects relative to the autonomous participants.The third study included 1 experiment.Experiment 6 examined the neural activety differences between the autonomous motivation and controlled motivation groups during a modified version of Stroop task using functional near-infrared spectroscopy(f NIRS)technique.The task temporally separated goal maintenance from responserelated processes by inserting a delay between the instructions(read the word or name the color)and the color word presentation.The behavior data showed that the autonomous group produced higher accuracy expecially on incongruent trails in comparison to the controlled group.The f NIRS data showed that in the first phase,the autonomous group exhibited increased activity in prefrontal cortex(PFC)regions than did the controlled group.In the second phase,the autonomous group also showed increased activity in PFC regions when reading the word of congruent stimuli.The data suggested that the automously motivated individuals enhanced proactive control and actively maintained goal-related information to prepare the system to respond appropriately for incongruent stimuli.However,this preparation impaired their predominate tendancy to respond habitually for congruent stimuli.To summarize,evidences from both behavioral and neural study demonstrate that the effect of autonomous motivation on self-control performance is related to active goal maintainace.In addition,the relation between autonomous-controlled motivation and self-control is modulated by the accuracy feedback and the level of self-awareness.This study facilitates the understanding of how autonomous motivation improves selfcontrol,and provides a lot more details about the association between autonomouscontrolled motivation and self-control.