Frustration of the achievement motive: Insights from a diffusion model analysis

The present study aims to replicate and extend the experiment conducted by Brunstein & Maier (2005) on the impact of performance feedback and the strength of the implicit achievement motive on task performance. Brunstein and Maier found that more achievement motivated individuals show a reduc- tion in mean RTs when they get bogus negative intraindividual performance feedback. The reduction in mean RTs is interpreted by the authors as enhanced effort. This feedback by achievement motive interaction effect is cited as one key finding of motive literature. However, the effect has not yet been replicated. In our study, participants complete an attention task akin to the d2-R task while receiving either positive or negative bogus intraindividual performance feedback. The study has two primary objectives: firstly, to replicate the feed- back by achievement motive interaction effect reported by Brunstein and Maier, and secondly, to gain a more detailed understanding of the cognitive processes involved using the diffusion model (Ratcliff, 1978). In addition to presenting the results from our replication study, we will show the results of a pre-study demon- strating the applicability of the diffusion model to the type of task employed by Brunstein and Maier. Overall, we argue that diffusion model analyses can help to gain a better understanding of the effects of achievement motive frustration.