title: Persistence motives in irrational decisions to complete a boring task.
abstract: We explored a novel task paradigm where participants from the online work marketplace Amazon Mechanical Turk were given the choice to quit or continue an unfinished boring task for identical economic rewards. In Studies 1a and 1b, about half the participants chose to continue (corresponding to an average of 55 and 35 cents in foregone earnings). Participants' self-reported reasons for continuing involved various types of persistence motives, reflecting a desire to persist or complete per se. Studies 2, 3a, 3b, and 3c ruled out the possibility that people continued because they enjoyed the task or believed there were additional rewards for continuing. Study 4 showed that the choice to quit/continue was associated with the manner in which the choice was presented (persistence test vs. decision-making test) and individual differences in dispositional persistence motives. The present data indicate that motivational forces independent of the focal reward may affect intertemporal decisions.
authors.affiliation: Norwegian Institute for Alcohol and Drug Research, Oslo, Norway th@sirus.no.
authors.forename: Torleif
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Halkjelsvik
authors.affiliation: Norwegian Institute for Alcohol and Drug Research, Oslo, Norway.
authors.forename: Jostein
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Rise
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D002755:Choice Behavior; D003657:Decision Making; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009042:Motivation; D012201:Reward; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: completion effect; delay of gratification; intertemporal choice; motivation; persistence