Motivating Goal-Directed Behavior Through Introspective Self-Talk: The Role of the Interrogative Form of Simple Future Tense

• Published in: Psychological science Vol. 21; no. 4; pp. 499 - 504
• Main Authors: Senay, Ibrahim, Albarracín, Dolores, Noguchi, Kenji
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01.04.2010; SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
• Subjects: Action theory; Anagrams; Athletic motivation; Behavior; Cognition & reasoning; Goals; Handwriting; Humans; Intention; Internal-External Control; Interrogatives; Intrinsic motivation; Introspection; Language; Linguistics; Motivation; Motivation research; Objectives; Prime numbers; Priming; Problem Solving; Psychological aspects; Psychological effects; Psychological techniques; Psychology; Research Reports; Salience; Self; Self control; Self-management; Selftalk; Semantics; Students - psychology; Thinking; Verbal Behavior; Verbs; Word order; Writing; self-talk; self-regulation; linguistic categories; intention
• ISSN: 0956-7976; 1467-9280
• DOI: 10.1177/0956797610364751

Although essential for psychology, introspective self-talk has rarely been studied with respect to its effects on behavior. Nevertheless, the interrogative compared with the declarative form of introspective talk may elicit more intrinsically motivated reasons for action, resulting in goal-directed behavior. In Experiment I, participants were more likely to solve anagrams if they prepared for the task by asking themselves whether they would work on anagrams as opposed to declaring that they would. In the next three experiments, merely writing Will I as opposed to I will as part of an ostensibly unrelated handwriting task produced better anagram-solving performance and stronger intentions to exercise, which suggests that priming the interrogative structure of self-talk is enough to motivate goal-directed behavior. This effect was found to be mediated by the intrinsic motivation for action and moderated by the salience of the word order of the primes.