Striving for unwanted goals: stress-dependent discrepancies between explicit and implicit achievement motives reduce subjective well-being and increase psychosomatic symptoms.

Nicola Baumann, Reiner Kaschel, Julius Kuhl

Journal: Journal of personality and social psychology 2006;89(5):781-99

PMID: 16351368

Full Text on American Psychological Association View on PubMed

Abstract

Three studies investigated the relevance of affect regulation, stressful life events, and congruence between explicit achievement orientation and implicit achievement motive for subjective well-being and symptom formation. According to personality systems interactions (PSI) theory, stressful life events were expected to reduce motive congruence when the ability to self-regulate affect was impaired (i.e., state orientation). Consistent with expectations, the State Orientation x Stress interaction predicted incongruence in healthy participants (Studies 1 and 3) and in patients (Study 2). Furthermore, incongruence partially mediated the direct State Orientation x Stress effect on subjective well-being (Studies 1 and 3) and the course of psychosomatic complaints over 3 months (Study 2). In Study 3, the experimental induction of threat reduced motive congruence in state-oriented participants compared with an acceptance condition. Findings underscore the importance of assessing motive congruence as a "hidden stressor" and validate a new operant multi-motive test.

Address: Department of Human Sciences, University of Osnabrück, Osnabrück, Germany. [email protected]

DOI: 10.1037/0022-3514.89.5.781

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MeSH Terms: Achievement, Adaptation, Psychological, Adolescent, Adult, Affect, Aged, Cross-Sectional Studies, Female, Goals, Humans, Life Change Events, Male, Mental Disorders, Middle Aged, Models, Psychological, Motivation, Personality, Prospective Studies, Psychophysiologic Disorders, Regression Analysis, Stress, Psychological, Volition