Achievement priming and final examinations

Abstract

Although recent research has shown that goals and motivation can be activated outside of an actor's awareness or intent and can guide subsequent decisions and behavior, moderating variables for those effects are still unclear. The present study investigated the moderating role of the number of days before final examinations on achievement goal priming effects. Students at a vocational school (37 men, 68 women; ages 18-25, mean age 19.1 years) participated either 10 days or 1 day prior to final examinations. Of those who participated 10 days before the examinations, students who were primed with achievement-related words reported lower negative affect towards the examinations, and engaged in voluntary preparation more than did participants in a control group who were primed with neutral words. However, of those who participated 1 day before their final examinations, participants in the achievement-priming condition reported higher negative affect towards the examinations, and engaged in voluntary preparation tasks less, relative to participants in the neutral-word control group. A similar interaction between achievement priming and time prior to the examinations was observed in measures of avoidance motivation and in the students' predictions of their performance on the examinations. These results suggest that the same achievement-priming procedure may lead to different results according to the perceivers' situation, and that situational moderation of automatic motivation is important.