How words affect motivation
Scientific litsketch on boosting motivation
Research shows that simply exposing ourself to words such as “action”, “go”, “fast” and “run” while performing a task increases our level of effort and performance (Gendolla and Silvestrini, 2010). Such action-related words affect the way we behave, increasing our motivation to achieve our goals. On the other hand, words such as “sleep”, “slow”, “passive” and “stop” reduce our effort and performance.
In an experiment, people were divided into three groups. Group One was shown the action related words including “action”, “go”, “fast” and “run” for 52 milliseconds each, which is too fast for most people to even realise that those words were shown. Group Two was shown inaction related words including “sleep”, “slow”, “passive” and “stop”, while Group Three was shown words that do not exist such as “tcaoin” and “pslee”. Next, all groups were given a task whereby a string of four letters were shown for three quarters of a second (750 milliseconds), and they had to correctly guess whether another letter was part of the string of four letters that were shown previously. For example, XHGT is shown for 750 milliseconds. Then letter G is shown next. People had to correctly indicate whether G was indeed a part of the four letter string. This task was repeated 32 times. Throughout this experiment, people’s shortened cardiac preejection period was measured, which is the time the clean, oxygenated blood sits in the heart before being pumped out to the rest of the body. This is a direct measurement of how much effort we are putting to carry out a task. The shorter the prevention period, the more effort we are expending.
The results show that Group One that was shown action related words completed the task fastest and spent the most amount of effort, while Group Two that was shown inaction related words completed the task slowest and spent the least amount of effort.
It’s amazing that we put more effort in a task when we are exposed to action related words so fast that we do not even recognise them. In other words, certain words like “action”, “go” fast” and “run” can make us work harder while other words like “sleep”, “slow” can make us lazy.
Indeed, words can change our motivation. So surround yourself with action related words when performing a task to increase your level of effort and motivation.
Gendolla, Guido HE, and Nicolas Silvestrini. "The implicit “go” masked action cues directly mobilize mental effort." Psychological Science 21, no. 10 (2010): 1389-1393.