Life tasks, implicit motives, and self-regulation in daily life.

Abstract

This thesis concerns self-regulation of life tasks in daily life and how implicit motives affect this self-regulation. The first two goals of this dissertation are (1) to describe two problems important to self-regulation in daily life: how much and how one works on a goal; and (2) show that the personal meanings individuals make of life tasks, as represented in appraisals, structure their daily life by affecting how they regulate how much and how they pursue those life tasks. This thesis also examines how broader, implicit motives, affect self-regulatory efforts. McClelland and his colleagues (e.g., Koestner, Weinberger, & McClelland, 1991) have suggested that motives assessed with the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) arise from a different system of motivation, one that operates without the deliberative awareness of self-regulatory motives. Goal (3) of this thesis is to propose that implicit motives influence self-regulation primarily by moderating the consequences of how one works on life tasks. Goal (4) of this thesis is to further elaborate the distinction between TAT-based motives and self-report-based motives by claiming that implicit motives are aroused by the intrinsic nature of qualities of behavior, not activity-contents. Thus, the predictions are made that individuals will be more satisfied with their life tasks, and work on them more often, if they are able to experience motive-relevant qualities while working on them. These hypotheses were tested with an experience-sampling methodology. Five times per day, participants described which tasks they were working on and which qualities they were experiencing. Before the study, participants appraised each of three life tasks. At the end of the study, participants indicated their satisfaction with those tasks. Results showed that life task appraisals predicted how much and how individuals worked on life tasks, and how satisfied they were with the tasks. Implicit motives showed no direct relationships to life task appraisals, how much nor how one worked on life tasks, nor satisfaction with life tasks. However, TAT-based motives did moderate relationships between how individuals worked on tasks and how much they worked on the tasks, and how satisfied they were with the tasks.