When boredom gives birth to motivation: Interrelations between interest-enhancing strategies, interest, and self-determination.

Abstract

The goal of this thesis was to create and test an interest and motivation self-regulation model comprising three main components: Interest-enhancing strategies, interest, and self-determination. It was first hypothesized that when people are faced with a boring task, they will use the five following interest-enhancing strategies: Challenge enhancement, exploitation of stimulation from the physical context, introduction of variety within the task, provision of self-relevant rationales, and focused attentional involvement on the task. Second, interest-enhancing strategy use was hypothesized to be associated with interest, and interest, in turn, was hypothesized to be associated with the level of self-determination of extrinsic motivation. These relationships were also hypothesized to hold over time. That is, interest-enhancing strategy use was hypothesized to predict long term gains in interest, and long term gains in interest were hypothesized to predict long term gains in self-determination. Four studies were conducted to test the aforementioned hypotheses. Study 1 was a cross-sectional survey (N = 318). Its goal was to provide an exploratory test of the interest and motivation self-regulation model. The goal of Study 2 (N = 434) was to cross-validate the results obtained in Study 1, using a similar methodology. In Study 3 (N = 354), the interest and motivation self-regulation model was tested in the context of a longitudinal survey. Questionnaire measures were obtained twice, at a 10 weeks interval. A control group was also tested at Time 2 to evaluate potential "carry-over" effects. In Study 4 (N = 120), the interest and motivation self-regulation model was evaluated using an experimental design. Interest and motivation were measured repeatedly while the participants performed a boring free recall task. The results of all four studies revealed that the participants used the five proposed interest-enhancing strategies to a moderate extent. A single strategy, namely attentional involvement, was directly and positively associated with interest in all four studies. This strategy also had an indirect positive impact on self-determination, through interest. Moreover, in Studies 1, 2, and 3, challenge enhancement and provision of self-relevant rationales were indirectly associated with interest and self-determination, through the mediation of attentional involvement. In Study 4, provision of self-relevant rationales had a direct positive impact on self-determination. Introduction of variety did not relate, directly or indirectly, to interest and self-determination in any of the four studies. The results pertaining to exploitation of stimulation were inconsistent. In Studies 1 and 2, this strategy displayed a negative indirect impact on interest and motivation, through the mediation of attentional involvement. No significant associations were found in Study 3 for this strategy. In Study 4, this strategy displayed a direct positive impact on interest and self-determination. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)