Abstract
The study was designed to determine whether response to a stressful experience could be used to measure “generalized” intrinsic motivation. Ss (N = 54) were exposed to a stress and performed four criterion tasks ranging from cognitive to motor in nature. The prediction that Ss who stayed in the stressful situation would perform better on all tasks than Ss who withdrew was substantiated. However, motivation accounted for less variance in the criteria than did intelligence. The effectiveness of personality and personal history data in predicting performance on the same criteria was explored. Multiple regression equations accounted for 50% to 75% of the variance of the criteria. The value of and need for specific rather than universal measures to predict performance was emphasized.
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