Motivation gains on divisible conjunctive group tasks

Abstract

Two studies examined the effort that participants expended on a challenging physical persistence activity when that activity was a critical part of a divisible conjunctive task performed by two people working as a team compared to when it was structured as an individual task performed by one person working alone. It was found that participants put greater effort into that activity when they worked as part of a team task compared to when they worked alone—a motivation gain when working in groups. This gain occurred despite the absence of any apparent task-related ability differences among participants, and is most parsimoniously explained by the greater indispensability associated with working on a critical element of a divisible conjunctive group task. The implications of these results for the occurrence of motivation gains on other types of tasks and in real-world work settings are discussed.