Premium
Self‐reinforcement in mildly mentally retarded adults: effects of motivational orientation and instructional demand
Author(s) -
SWITZKY H. N.,
HAYWOOD H. C.
Publication year - 1991
Publication title -
journal of intellectual disability research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.941
H-Index - 104
eISSN - 1365-2788
pISSN - 0964-2633
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2788.1991.tb01055.x
Subject(s) - reinforcement , psychology , set (abstract data type) , demand characteristics , mentally retarded , task (project management) , developmental psychology , cognitive psychology , social psychology , economics , computer science , programming language , management
. The effects of external (environmental) and internal (cognitive) selfinfluences of self‐regulatory behaviour were investigated in 60 mildly mentally retarded adults. External conditions were three demand conditions (stringent, variable, and lenient). The‘internal’variable was an individual differences one, motivational orientation: one‐half of the subjects were relatively intrinsically motivated and the other half were relatively exrrinsically motivated. Both external and internal self‐influences affected performance on a motor/attention task. Subjects in the stringent‐demand condition worked harder, set higher performance standards and arranged leaner schedules of self‐reinforcement than did subjects in the lenient demand condition. Intrinsically motivated subjects worked harder, set higher performance standards, and arranged leaner schedules of self‐reinforcement than did extrinsically motivated subjects over all demand conditions. Furthermore, intrinsically motivated subjects chose higher performance standards than had been demonstrated to them in the lenient‐demand condition, and also arranged leaner schedules of self reinforcement over all demand conditions than had been demonstrated to them, compared to extrinsically motivated subjects. Internal self‐system characteristics appear to interact reciprocally with external demand characteristics to reveal substantial individual differences in patterns of self‐reward behaviour.