Personality and Motivational Factors on an Intentional-Incidental Learning Task

Abstract

Locus of control, other-direction, and academic achievement motivation were investigated as a function of acceptance of motivational cues in intentional-incidental learning. Correlations among the three personality constructs were also calculated. The subjects were 134 college students studied under high and low learning motivation for each personality construct. It was hypothesized that high academic achievement motivation would be associated with increased intentional learning and that internal subjects would have consistent intentional and incidental learning under both levels of motivation. The externals, accepting experimenter's instructions, would show a funneling effect toward greater intentional learning under high motivation with corresponding decreases in incidental learning. No significant differences on the learning task by locus of control or other-direction were found. Subjects high in achievement motivation performed significantly better on the intentional task than those low in achievement motivation. The highly motivated group performed significantly better than those who were low on the incidental task, suggesting that the motivation may focus the subject's attention toward embedded incidental cues. Significant intercorrelations were obtained among the three personality constructs.