Act Generation Performance: The Effects of Incentive.
Abstract
Two experiments explored the generalizability of earlier research which indicated that human act generation performance was impoverished. Subjects were given a realistic decision problem and were asked to generate actions which could be taken to solve the problem. Subjects in two incentive conditions were offered monetary rewards for generating additional actions. Subjects in one condition were rewarded for the sheer quantity of actions produced and subjects in the other condition were rewarded for the quality of the actions produced. In a second experiment, both expert and naive subjects judged the quality of the actions produced by subjects in the first experiment. The results replicate earlier research in that most subjects generated relatively few actions and they also failed to generate important actions as rated by both expert and naive judges. There were no significant differences between the performance of subjects in the incentive conditions and subjects in the control condition. Thus, even when subjects are given substantial monetary incentives to generate additional actions, their act generation performance is impoverished. Differences in the act generation performance of the quantity and quality incentive conditions are discussed. (Author)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Aug 15, 1982
- Accession Number
- ADA120715
Entities
People
- Carol A. Manning
- Charles F. Gettys
- Jeff T. Casey
- Rebecca M. Pliske
Organizations
- University of Oklahoma