Depressive symptoms, task choice, and effort: The moderating effect of personal control on cardiac response.

Dysphoric individuals perceive mental tasks as more demanding and show increased cardiovascular responses during the performance of easy cognitive tasks. Recent research on action shielding indicates that providing individuals with personal control over their tasks can mitigate the effects of manipulated affective states on cardiovascular responses reflecting effort. We investigated whether the shielding effect of personal choice also applies to the effect of dispositional negative mood on effort. N = 125 university students with high (dysphoric) versus low (nondysphoric) depressive symptoms engaged in an easy cognitive task either by personal choice or external assignment. As expected, dysphoric individuals showed significantly stronger cardiac PEP reactivity during task performance when the task was externally assigned. Most importantly, this dysphoria effect disappeared when participants could ostensibly personally choose their task. Our findings show that the previously observed shielding effect of personal action choice against incidental affective stimulation also applies to dispositional negative affect.

Cognitive conflict does not always mean high effort: Task difficulty's moderating effect on cardiac response.

This article presents an experiment (N = 127 university students) testing whether the previously found impact of conflict primes on effort-related cardiac response is moderated by objective task difficulty. Recently, it has been shown that primed cognitive conflict increases cardiac pre-ejection period (PEP) reactivity-an index of effort intensity-during the performance of relatively easy tasks. This effect could be attributed to conflict-related negative affect. Consequently, as it has been shown for other types of negative affect, we expected conflict primes' effect to be task-context dependent and thus to be moderated by objective task difficulty. In a between-persons design, we manipulated conflict via embedded pictures of conflict-related vs. non-conflict-related Stroop items in a memory task. We expected primed conflict to increase effort in a relatively easy version of the task but to lead to disengagement when task difficulty was objectively high. PEP reactivity corroborated our predictions. Rather than always increasing effort, cognitive conflict's effect on resource mobilization was context-dependent and resulted in weak responses in a difficult task.

The power of personal control: Task choice attenuates the effect of implicit sadness on sympathetically mediated cardiac response.

Implicitly processed pictures of facial expressions of emotions have been found to systematically influence sympathetically mediated cardiovascular reactivity during task performance. According to the Implicit-Affect-Primes-Effort model, this happens because different affect primes activate the concepts of performance ease versus performance difficulty. Grounded in a recent action shielding model, our laboratory experiment (N = 129 university students) tested whether engaging in action by personal choice can immunize against those implicit affective influences on effort. Participants worked on an objectively difficult cognitive task, which was either externally assigned or ostensibly personally chosen. As predicted, participants in the assigned task condition showed weaker cardiac pre-ejection period reactivity during task performance, reflecting disengagement, when they were primed with sadness than when they were exposed to anger primes. Most relevant, this affect prime effect disappeared when participants could ostensibly choose their task themselves. These findings replicate previous research on implicit affect's impact on sympathetically mediated cardiac response and extend the literature on action shielding by personal choice effects to implicit affective influences on action execution.

Personal task choice attenuates implicit happiness effects on effort: A study on cardiovascular response.

Research on the Implicit-Affect-Primes-Effort model (Gendolla, 2012) found that priming happiness or anger in challenging tasks results in stronger sympathetically mediated cardiovascular responses, reflecting effort, than priming sadness or fear. Recent studies on action shielding revealed that personal task choice can attenuate affective influences on action execution (e.g., Gendolla et al., 2021). The present experiment tested if this action shielding effect also applies to affect primes' influences on cardiovascular response. Participants (N = 136) worked on a cognitive task with integrated briefly flashed and backward masked facial expressions of sadness vs. happiness. Half of the participants could ostensibly choose whether they wanted to work on an attention or on a memory task, while the other half was assigned to one task. Our findings revealed effects on cardiac pre-ejection period (PEP), which align with the expected outcomes for a task of unfixed difficulty where participants establish their own performance standard. Most importantly, task choice shielded against the implicit affective influence on PEP that was evident when the task was externally assigned. Effects on systolic blood pressure (SBP) reactivity largely corresponded to those of PEP.

Noise annoys-But personal choice can attenuate noise effects on cardiac response reflecting effort.

Since personal choice fosters commitment and shields action execution against potentially conflicting influences, two laboratory experiments with university students (N = 228) tested whether engaging in action by personal choice versus external assignment of task characteristics moderates the effect of irrelevant acoustic noise on cardiovascular responses reflecting effort. Participants who could personally choose the stimulus color of moderately difficult cognitive tasks were expected to be shielded against the irrelevant noise. By contrast, when the stimulus color was externally assigned, we predicted receptivity for the irrelevant noise to be high. As expected, in both experiments, participants in the assigned color condition showed stronger cardiac pre-ejection period reactivity during task performance when exposed to noise than when working in silence. On the contrary, participants who could choose the stimulus color were shielded against the noise effect on effort. These findings conceptually replicate and extend research on the action shielding effect by personal choice and hold practical implications for occupational health.

Action-orientation shields against primed cognitive conflict effects on effort-related cardiac response.

This article presents a quasi-experiment (N = 79 university students) testing whether individual differences in action-state orientation moderate primed cognitive conflict's effects on sympathetically mediated cardiac response during task performance reflecting effort. Action control theory posits that action-oriented individuals are less receptive to distracting affective stimuli during goal pursuit than state-oriented individuals because action-orientation is related to higher volitional skills. Therefore, we expected that action-oriented individuals should be shielded against conflict primes' effect on effort-related responses in the cardiovascular system. By contrast, state-oriented individuals should be more sensitive to irrelevant negative affective stimulation and therefore mobilize higher resources under such conditions. Responses of the cardiac pre-ejection period (PEP) during a moderately difficult short-term memory task corroborated these predictions. The present findings provide the first evidence that individual differences in action-state orientation indeed moderate previously demonstrated cognitive conflict priming effects on effort-related cardiac response and extend recent findings on action shielding.

Can personal task choice shield against fear and anger prime effects on effort? A study on cardiac response.

This experiment tested whether personal task choice can shield against implicit affective influences on sympathetically mediated cardiovascular response, reflecting effort. Participants were N = 121 healthy university students who completed a moderately difficult memory task with integrated briefly flashed and masked fear vs. anger primes. Half of the participants believed they could choose between an attention and a memory task, while the other half was automatically assigned to the task. Replicating previous research, we expected an influence of the affect primes on effort when the task was externally assigned. By contrast, when participants were given a task choice, we predicted strong action shielding and thus a weak implicit affect effect on resource mobilization. As expected, participants in the assigned task condition showed stronger cardiac pre-ejection period reactivity when exposed to fear primes than when processing anger primes. Importantly, this affect prime effect disappeared when participants could ostensibly choose the task. These findings add to other recent evidence for action shielding by personal task choice and importantly extend this effect to implicit affective influences on cardiac reactivity during task performance.

Pain and gain: Monetary incentive moderates pain's impact on effort-related cardiac response.

Ample evidence suggests that pain leads to additional demand in cognitive functioning, presumably due to its negative affective component and its propensity to capture attention. To highlight the role of motivational incentive, two experiments tested the combined effect of pain and monetary incentive on effort-related cardiovascular response during cognitive performance. In both studies, healthy volunteers received individually adjusted painful or nonpainful thermal stimulations during a difficult cognitive task (4-back task in Experiment 1; short-term memory task in Experiment 2) and expected high (12 Swiss Francs in both experiments) or low monetary incentive (1 Swiss Franc in Experiment 1; 0.10 Swiss Francs in Experiment 2) for successful performance. Effort was primarily assessed as changes in cardiac pre-ejection period (PEP). We predicted pain to increase subjective task difficulty during cognitive performance. Moreover, according to motivational intensity theory, we expected this to increase effort only when high effort was justified by high monetary incentive. Correspondingly, pain should lead to low effort (disengagement) when monetary incentive was low. Effort in the nonpainful conditions was expected to fall in between these conditions. The results of both studies support our predictions. Our findings provide the first evidence for the moderating effect of monetary incentive on physical pain's impact on effort-related cardiovascular response. Accordingly, motivational incentives can counteract effort deficits associated with pain.

Individual differences in action-state orientation moderate task difficulty effects on effort-related cardiac response.

A quasi experiment (N = 100 university students) tested whether individual differences in action-state orientation moderate task difficulty effects on resource mobilization assessed as cardiovascular response. According to action control theory, action-oriented individuals have higher self-regulation capacities in demanding situations than state-oriented persons. Action-orientated individuals should also self-generate positive affect in face of obstacles. Therefore, drawing on Wright's (1998) ability extension of motivational intensity theory and research on affective influences on effort-related cardiovascular response, we expected that action-orientation should lead to stronger effort-related cardiovascular responses in a difficult task, while state-orientation should do so in an easy task. Reactivity of cardiac pre-ejection period (PEP) during performance on a short-term memory task corroborated this hypothesis. The present findings provide the first evidence of a link between action-state orientation and effort-related responses in the cardiovascular system.

Is cognitive conflict really effortful? Conflict priming and shielding effects on cardiac response.

Two experiments with N = 221 university students investigated the impact of primed cognitive conflict on effort assessed as cardiac response in tasks that were not conflict-related themselves. Manifest cognitive conflict in cognitive control tasks is confounded with objective response difficulty (e.g., in incongruent Stroop task trials). This makes conclusions about the effortfulness of cognitive conflict itself difficult. We bypassed this problem by administrating pictures of congruent versus incongruent Stroop task stimuli as conflict primes. As predicted, primed cognitive conflict increased cardiac pre-ejection period (PEP) responses in an easy attention task in Experiment 1. Accordingly, cognitive conflict itself is indeed effortful. This effect was replicated in an easy short-term memory task in Experiment 2. Moreover, as further predicted, the primed cognitive conflict effect on PEP reactivity disappeared when participants could personally choose task characteristics. This latter effect corresponds to other recent evidence showing that personal action choice shields against incidental affective influences on action execution and especially on effort-related cardiovascular response.

Incidental affective influences on effort-related cardiac response: The critical role of choosing task characteristics.

This experiment tested whether personal choice vs. external assignment of task characteristics moderates the effect of incidental affective stimulation on effort-related cardiovascular response. We expected strong action shielding and low receptivity for incidental affective influences when participants could choose themselves the stimulus color of an easy memory task. By contrast, when the stimulus color was assigned, we expected weak action shielding and high receptivity. As expected, participants in the assigned color condition showed stronger cardiac pre-ejection period reactivity when exposed to sad music than when exposed to happy music during task performance. These music effects did not appear among participants who could personally choose the stimulus color. Our results replicate previous research by showing that personal choice leads to action shielding, whereas individuals remain receptive for affective influences during volition when task characteristics are assigned.

Task choice shields against incidental affective influences on effort-related cardiovascular response.

In an attempt to integrate theorizing on action shielding with affective influences on effort-related cardiovascular response, an experiment with N = 115 university students (90% women) tested whether working on a task by personal choice versus external assignment moderates the effect of happy versus sad background music on effort-related cardiovascular response during task performance. We predicted strong action shielding and low receptivity for incidental affective influences when participants could ostensibly choose the task to be performed. Given the difficult nature of the task, we thus expected strong effort-related cardiovascular responses due to high commitment when the task was chosen. By contrast, for assigned-task participants, we expected high receptivity for incidental affective influences and thus predicted strong cardiovascular reactivity when they were exposed to happy music but low responses due to disengagement when they were exposed to sad music. Effects on responses of cardiac pre-ejection period, systolic blood pressure, and heart rate confirmed our effort-related predictions. Apparently, personal choice of a task can immunize individuals against incidental affective influences on resource mobilization.

Robert A. Wicklund (1941-2020).

Memorializes Robert A. Wicklund (1941-2020). Wicklund was born in Seattle, WA, December 1, 1941. At the time of his death on December 12, 2020, he maintained residences in Bainbridge Island, WA, and Bielefeld, Germany. Bob earned his undergraduate degree at the University of Washington and his doctorate at Duke University in 1968. He held primary faculty positions at the University of Texas at Austin, Universität Bielefeld, and the Università di Trieste, and secondary appointments at numerous institutions, including the Ruhr-Universität Bochum, University of Bergen, Universität Mannheim, and Università di Palermo. Bob was a scholar's scholar who dedicated his entire life to understanding psychological phenomena, and to sharing his ideas with others. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Mapping the interconnected neural systems underlying motivation and emotion: A key step toward understanding the human affectome.

As a part of a larger Affectome Project (http://neuroqualia.org/background.php) with an overarching goal of mapping and redefining biological substrates of feelings and emotions, we explored the neural underpinnings for the functions of motivation and emotion. Historically emotion and motivation have been placed into distinct neural circuits and examined separately. We propose a novel view of significant neural convergence of emotion and motivation, in contrast to conventional neural-based frameworks emphasizing segregation. Evidence from diverse research areas in emotion and motivation was reviewed, pinpointing key neural regions of overlap. The findings support important neural sharing between emotion and motivation, suggesting that these two functions are tightly intertwined with one another in the brain. Neural overlap does not necessarily imply continuous functional overlap. Even if identical brain regions/systems are activated for motivation and emotion, this activation may involve distinct and unique patterns of connection and information flow as the network shifts functionality. This review highlights the crucial importance of further research to explicate the patterns and modes of responding of these overlapping systems.

It's about effort: Impact of implicit affect on cardiovascular response is context dependent.

Based on the Implicit-Affect-Primes-Effort model, we tested whether the effect of implicitly processed affect primes on cardiovascular responses is limited to settings that call for effort and in which implicit affect can inform about subjective task demand. Participants were presented with letter series and briefly flashed sadness versus happiness primes. Half of the participants were asked to memorize all occurring vowels (achievement context), while the other half merely watched the series (watching context). Responses of cardiac pre-ejection period, heart rate, and systolic and diastolic blood pressure supported the predictions. As expected, in the challenging achievement-context condition, happiness primes led to stronger cardiovascular reactivity than sadness primes. By contrast, reactivity was modest in both affect prime conditions when the participants merely watched the stimuli. That is, the impact of affect primes on cardiovascular responses was limited to a setting that directly called for effort mobilization.

Affect and cognitive control: Insights from research on effort mobilization.

We present theory and research on effort mobilization that is relevant for understanding the role of affect in cognitive control. We posit that cognitive control and effort are closely related and introduce motivational intensity theory and supporting empirical evidence mainly based on cardiovascular measures of effort. Most important, we discuss the role of affect in the context of effort mobilization and cognitive control from different perspectives. We first present theories predicting affective influences on effort, namely the mood-behavior-model and the implicit-affect-primes-effort model, and supporting empirical evidence. Second, we discuss further implications of the resource conservation principle highlighting the aversive aspect of effort and review evidence for the impact of value and its affective component on effort and cognitive control. Finally, we present a recent integration of the neural mechanisms underlying both effort and cognitive control. We conclude that affective processes are necessary and instrumental for both effort mobilization and cognitive control.

Prime warning moderates implicit affect primes' effect on effort-related cardiac response in men.

Based on the Implicit-Affect-Primes-Effort model (Gendolla, 2012, 2015), we tested whether warning individuals about the occurrence of affect primes during a cognitive task moderates the primes' effect on effort-related cardiac response. Participants worked on a challenging mental arithmetic task with integrated masked affect primes-very briefly flashed pictures of facial sadness vs. happiness expressions. Additionally, half of the participants were warned about the primes' appearance and their possible effect on experienced task demand; the other half of the participants was not informed about the primes. Reactivity of cardiac pre-ejection period (PEP) was stronger in the happiness-prime than in the sadness-prime condition, but only when the participants were not warned about the primes' occurrence. This effect was further moderated by gender and only significant among men. Heart rate (HR) responses showed a largely corresponding effect. The results suggest that prime-warning is a boundary condition of implicit affects' effect on effort mobilization-and that this effect applies especially to men.

Major depression impairs incentive processing: evidence from the heart and the face.

BACKGROUND: The present study tested the hypothesis of a differential pattern of reward and punishment responsiveness in depression measuring effort mobilization during anticipation and facial expressions during consumption. METHODS: Twenty patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) and 20 control participants worked on a memory task under neutral, reward, and punishment instructions. Effort mobilization was operationalized as cardiovascular reactivity, while facial expressions were measured by facial electromyographic reactivity. Self-report measures for each phase complemented this multi-method approach. RESULTS: During anticipation, MDD patients showed weaker cardiac pre-ejection period (PEP) reactivity to reward and blunted self-reported wanting, but weaker PEP reactivity to punishment and unchanged self-reported avoidance motivation. During consumption, MDD patients showed reduced zygomaticus major muscle reactivity to reward and blunted self-reported liking, but unchanged corrugator supercilii muscle reactivity to punishment and unchanged self-reported disliking. CONCLUSIONS: These findings demonstrate reduced effort mobilization during reward and punishment anticipation in depression. Moreover, they show reduced facial expressions during reward consumption and unchanged facial expressions during punishment consumption in depression.

Prime visibility moderates implicit anger and sadness effects on effort-related cardiac response.

Based on the Implicit-Affect-Primes-Effort (IAPE) model (Gendolla, 2012, 2015), an experiment investigated the effect of affect primes' visibility on effort mobilization during cognitive processing. Participants worked on a short-term memory task with integrated sadness vs. anger primes that were presented suboptimally (briefly and masked) vs. optimally (long and visible). Effort was assessed as cardiovascular response, especially cardiac pre-ejection period (PEP). To monitor performance, we assessed response accuracy and reaction times. In accordance with the IAPE model, PEP reactivity was stronger in the sadness-prime condition than in the anger-prime condition-but only when the primes were suboptimally presented. Effects on response accuracy revealed a corresponding pattern. The results suggest that prime visibility is a boundary condition of anger and sadness primes' effect on effort mobilization.