Abstract
The experiment investigated what happens when individuals high in achievement motivation (HA) and low in achievement motivation (LA) begin to win more than they lose or hit more than they miss in a ring-toss task in which they have the option of increasing or decreasing the difficulty of the task. Increasing the number of hits in a ring-toss task was manipulated by using a large electromagnet to influence the flight of the ring. This allowed distance from the target to be used as the dependent measure. The result support the hypothesis that MA men make the task more difficult in order to preserve the preferred ratio of .50 that has been observed by Atkinson and others and that LA men optimize winning when they are winning and losing when they are losing. Women tend to move toward the target no matter what the ratio of hits to misses but the magnitude of the change interacts with their measure of achievement motivation. LA women tend to behave more like HA men while HA women tend to behave more like LA men.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.