title: Examining brain structures associated with the motive to achieve success and the motive to avoid failure: A voxel-based morphometry study.
abstract: The motive to achieve success (MAS) and motive to avoid failure (MAF) are two different but classical kinds of achievement motivation. Though many functional magnetic resonance imaging studies have explored functional activation in motivation-related conditions, research has been silent as to the brain structures associated with individual differences in achievement motivation, especially with respect to MAS and MAF. In this study, the voxel-based morphometry method was used to uncover focal differences in brain structures related to MAS and MAF measured by the Mehrabian Achieving Tendency Scale in 353 healthy young Chinese adults. The results showed that the brain structures associated with individual differences in MAS and MAF were distinct. MAS was negatively correlated with regional gray matter volume (rGMV) in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC)/orbitofrontal cortex while MAF was negatively correlated with rGMV in the mPFC/subgenual cingulate gyrus. After controlling for mutual influences of MAS and MAF scores, MAS scores were found to be related to rGMV in the mPFC/orbitofrontal cortex and another cluster containing the parahippocampal gyrus and precuneus. These results may predict that compared with MAF, the generation process of MAS may be more complex and rational, thus in the real world, perhaps MAS is more beneficial to personal growth and guaranteeing the quality of task performance.
authors.affiliation: a Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality (SWU) , Ministry of Education , Chongqing , China.|b Faculty of Psychology , Southwest University , Chongqing , China.
authors.forename: Dan
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Ming
authors.affiliation: a Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality (SWU) , Ministry of Education , Chongqing , China.|b Faculty of Psychology , Southwest University , Chongqing , China.
authors.forename: Qunlin
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: a Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality (SWU) , Ministry of Education , Chongqing , China.|b Faculty of Psychology , Southwest University , Chongqing , China.
authors.forename: Wenjing
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: a Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality (SWU) , Ministry of Education , Chongqing , China.|b Faculty of Psychology , Southwest University , Chongqing , China.
authors.forename: Rui
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: a Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality (SWU) , Ministry of Education , Chongqing , China.|b Faculty of Psychology , Southwest University , Chongqing , China.
authors.forename: Dongtao
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Wei
authors.affiliation: c School of Mental Health , Jining Medical University , Jining , China.
authors.forename: Wenfu
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: a Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality (SWU) , Ministry of Education , Chongqing , China.|b Faculty of Psychology , Southwest University , Chongqing , China.
authors.forename: Jiang
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Qiu
authors.affiliation: a Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality (SWU) , Ministry of Education , Chongqing , China.|b Faculty of Psychology , Southwest University , Chongqing , China.
authors.forename: Zhan
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.affiliation: a Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality (SWU) , Ministry of Education , Chongqing , China.|b Faculty of Psychology , Southwest University , Chongqing , China.
authors.forename: Qinglin
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Zhang
mesh_terms: D000124:Achievement; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001921:Brain / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D007206:Individuality; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D009929:Organ Size; D011594:Psychometrics; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Achievement motivation; Motive to achieve success; Motive to avoid failure; Regional gray matter volume (rGMV); Voxel-based morphometry (VBM)