Exploring the Köhler Motivation Gain Effect: Impression Management and Spontaneous Goal Setting

Recent research on the “Köhler effect” (e. g., Hertel, Kerr, & Messé, 2000a,b) has demonstrated that persons increase their effort when working with a stronger coworker compared to when working as individuals. One pre-condition for these motivation gains was a conjunctive task structure, suggesting that high instrumentality of the weaker worker's performance for the group outcome is crucial for the effect to occur. Two experiments were conducted to replicate and further explore these instrumentality effects using a physical persistence paradigm. Experiment 1 compared anonymous and non-anonymous teams working conjunctively to test whether collective motives (maximizing group's outcome) or individualistic interests (impression management) are more likely to underlie the Köhler motivation gain effect. Results replicated overall motivation gains and showed only slight effects of the anonymity variation, suggesting that the motivation gains are more a product of collective motives than individualistic interests. In Experiment 2, spontaneous goal setting processes were explored as a possible mediator of the Köhler motivation gain effect. Comparing conjunctive and additive task conditions for weaker group members again demonstrated that high instrumentality is crucial for the Köhler motivation gain effect. Moreover, while there was no reliable difference between these conditions in reported goal setting, simulating high instrumentality goals by explicit instruction in another additive task condition did lead to significant motivation gains.