Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2014, Experimental Psychology (Arts and Sciences)

Six studies examine the effect of accuracy motivation and reward on intuitive performance. In the first three studies, extrinsic motivation was found to undermine performance on an intuitive performance task. Intuitive accuracy was tested using the Artificial Grammar System. In Study One, participants who were induced into an extrinsic-self mindset performed marginally worse at discriminating letter strings compared to participants induced into an intrinsic-self mindset. In order to encourage extrinsic motivation for Studies Two and Three, participants were told that top performers on the intuition task would receive a $50 gift card. Extrinsically motivated participants discriminated strings significantly lower than control participants (Study 2) and classified strings at chance levels (Study 3). Study Four added a retrieval deadline to the task to minimize conscious control. Accuracy motivation did not improve with the response deadline, so I concluded that extrinsic motivation negatively impacted the implicit components of intuition. Further investigation revealed that fragmented attentional encoding accounted for diminished intuitive performance (Study 5). Last, intrinsic motivation improved intuitive performance (Study 6).

Committee: Keith Markman PhD (Advisor); Taylor-Bianco Amy PhD (Committee Chair); Griffeth Rodger PhD (Committee Chair); Vigo Ronaldo PhD (Committee Chair); Rios Kim PhD (Committee Chair) Subjects: Psychology