| Two studies examined how contingencies of self-worth influence the experience of motivation as either autonomous or controlled. In the first study, the relevance and difficulty of a verbal task were manipulated via a computer-based methodology. Results suggested that task difficulty, relevance, self-esteem and incremental theories of intelligence moderated the effect of contingencies on intrinsic motivation. Specifically, highly contingent people who did academically-relevant difficult tasks reported increased intrinsic motivation if they had high self-esteem or held an incremental theory of intelligence. The second study employed a live experimenter and a hidden observer and the difficulty of a visual-spatial task was manipulated. Results for the second study were inconclusive. Implications for theory and practice relating to contingencies of self-worth, self-determination theory, self-esteem and theories of intelligence are discussed. |
