Where do individuals find inspiration to perform at their very best?

In a series of six related experiments, participants were asked to do mundane tasks for either 10- or 20-minute increments for a set number of rewards. Items from a dollar store were presented as prizes.
In the first experiment, participants were told that if they transcribed copy for 10 minutes they could take home one item, and if they worked for 20 minutes they could take two items. The first group was told they could take two items from either bin, while another group was told they could take one item from one bin and, if they worked longer, a second item from the second bin. The researchers found that while only 10 percent of those who could take items from either bin without conditions transcribed for 20 minutes, 34 percent of the group whose prizes were from segmented categories did so. Thus, mentally separating these perks into bins or categories increased participants' time commitment to the transcription by playing into their desire to minimize the risk of "missing out."
In a later experiment to test the "missing out" theory, the researchers again offered items from two bins, plus an added condition whereby there were four different bins from which to choose. When four bins were present, telling participants that they could select one item from one category and another from a second category did not improve motivation. Participants were not as excited by obtaining the second reward because there were still two more categories or bins that remained inaccessible.
"It was really the desire to eliminate the fear of missing out that led to people work hard when there were two different categories," said Wiltermuth. "If they couldn't eliminate the fear of missing out, which would be the case when they had more categories of items, they didn't work very hard. They were at levels comparable to the single category."
"This also could apply to individual goals in the context of, dieting, for example. Wiltermuth, said, "If I drop five pounds, I might get this type of reward. If I drop another five pounds, I'm going to get another type of reward."
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Source-Eurekalert