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Article on the theoretical motivational background regarding metacognitive self. Based on this framework, a single-factor structure of metacognitive self is developed from modification of the MCSQ-40 questionnaire and results in a new tool: MCSQ-21.

Various papers have detailed an analysis of behavioral restraint that provides suggestions regarding fatigue influence on inhibitory control. A well-known limited resource model by Baumeister suggests that fatigue should directly impair it. By contrast, the behavioral restraint analysis suggests-first-that fatigue might affect control indirectly by impacting the intensity of restraint. Second, fatigue should impair control consistently only when it leads people to withhold restraint effort. We evaluated these suggestions in an experiment that presented participants a task designed to induce low- or high- mental fatigue and then challenged them to maintain a neutral facial expression while watching a more- or less emotionally evocative film clip. As expected, cardiovascular assessments during the facial restraint period revealed interactional response patterns indicative of opposing fatigue influence on restraint intensity under low- as compared to high-evocativeness conditions. Also as expected, fatigue combined with evocativeness to produce a three versus one pattern of inhibitory control operationalized in terms of the duration of non-neutral facial displays. Control failure increased with evocativeness only when fatigue was high and increased with fatigue only when evocativeness was high. Findings support the restraint analysis suggestions, extend results from previous research, and bear out the promise of the restraint analysis for advancing understanding of inhibitory control.

We offer thoughts on Shadmehr and Ahmed's foundational assumption that behavioral intensity (vigor) is proportional to the perceived value of outcomes driving behavior (incentives). The assumption is reasonable considering classical motivational thought and scholarship in related literatures but called into question by an influential contemporary theory of motivation by Brehm. Brehm's theory suggests that the assumption is warranted in some, but not all, performance circumstances. Furthermore, proportionality between vigor and value might be generated through a deliberative goal-setting process rather than through intrinsic neural linkages.

We presented participants with a bar-pressing challenge relevant to their identity after having exposed them to a prime that made their mortality more or less salient. For some participants, difficulty was low; for others, it was high; for the rest, it was unfixed. As expected, heart pre-ejection period responses-reflecting heart contraction force-were (a) stronger under high-salience conditions when difficulty was high and unfixed, but (b) low regardless of salience when difficulty was low. Findings bear out conceptually and extend results from a previous experiment. In doing so, they add substantively to a new line of support for terror management theory and document the predictive utility of a proposed blended analysis of associated effort processes. The blended analysis speaks to the way in which motives to manage existential terror should convert into active goal striving and to the impact that existential threat might have on aspects of autonomic arousal.

Memorializes Robert A. Wicklund (1941-2020). Wicklund was born in Seattle, WA, December 1, 1941. At the time of his death on December 12, 2020, he maintained residences in Bainbridge Island, WA, and Bielefeld, Germany. Bob earned his undergraduate degree at the University of Washington and his doctorate at Duke University in 1968. He held primary faculty positions at the University of Texas at Austin, Universität Bielefeld, and the Università di Trieste, and secondary appointments at numerous institutions, including the Ruhr-Universität Bochum, University of Bergen, Universität Mannheim, and Università di Palermo. Bob was a scholar's scholar who dedicated his entire life to understanding psychological phenomena, and to sharing his ideas with others. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Participants first completed a state affect checklist that included a fatigue (energy-tiredness) index and a measure of mental sharpness. They then were presented a simple memory challenge. In the first minute of the two-minute work period, heart rate responses (1) rose with values on the fatigue index, and (2) fell with values on the measure of mental sharpness. In the second minute of the work period, the responses were unrelated to fatigue index and mental sharpness values. Follow-up analysis indicated mental sharpness mediation of fatigue influence on heart rate in Minute 1. First minute findings add substantively to the body of evidence supporting recent suggestions that fatigue can lead people to try harder and experience stronger cardiovascular responses when confronted with simple challenges. They also support the suggestion that fatigue might exert its influence on cardiovascular responses to a mental challenge by diminishing cognitive clarity, that is, by obscuring thought. Second minute findings are contrary to the fatigue suggestions, but could indicate that memorization was accomplished in the first minute. A practical implication of the first minute results is that real-world fatigue could elevate health risk by enhancing CV responses to mundane daily tasks.

What determines effort intensity in instrumental behavior? According to motivation intensity theory, effort should be proportional to experienced task difficulty as long as success is possible and justified and low when success is impossible or excessively difficult, given the available benefit. When task difficulty is unspecified or unknown, effort should be proportional to the importance of success. This chapter reports an extensive program of research that has operationalized effort intensity as cardiovascular reactivity during task performance and used multiple manipulations of variables influencing subjective task difficulty (e.g., performance standards, instrumentality, ability, fatigue, mood, depressive symptoms, implicit affect, implicit and biological aging) and the amount of justified effort (e.g., material incentive, instrumentality, needs, personal and social evaluation, mortality salience). In the second edition of this handbook, this chapter focuses on recent empirical evidence for the principles of motivation intensity theory and discusses challenges for other theoretical accounts.

We offer thoughts pertaining to purported conceptual and replication crises that have been discussed in relation to the limited-resource model (LRM) of self-control, functioning as crisis outsiders who have been conducting related research concerned with determinants and cardiovascular correlates of effort. Guiding analyses in our laboratory convey important lessons about experimental generation of the now-classic LRM self-regulatory-fatigue effect on control. They do so by drawing attention to conditions that must be met in fatigue-induction and fatigue-influence phases of relevant experiments. One fundamental lesson is that even highly standardized fatigue-induction protocols cannot be expected to consistently allow definitive tests of this effect. Another is that the effect might emerge consistently only in a behavioral-restraint “sweet spot” of sorts—a multidimensional motivational space wherein rested study participants view restraint as possible and worthwhile and fatigued participants do not. Implications are identified and discussed.

Studies have documented the predictive utility of an integrative analysis of ability influence on effort and cardiovascular response. An assumption is that influence is driven by perception. We evaluated this altering ability perception through negative (nocebo) or positive (placebo) suggestion. Participants ingested a pill having been told it would reduce or enhance cognitive clarity. They then were presented a math task with the chance to earn an incentive if they met a low- or high performance standard. Analyses indicated higher reports of clarity during work among participants provided positive clarity instructions and a crossover clarity instruction x performance standard interaction for heart rate response. Responses were stronger for positive instruction participants when the standard was high, but stronger for negative instruction participants when it was low. Findings provide distinctive support for the assumption and suggest a fresh strategy for evaluating the impact of nocebo/placebo and other interventions on subjective experience.

We presented morning chronotype (“Lark”) university undergraduate volunteers a more or less difficult Sternberg-type recognition memory task either in the morning (8–11 am) or in the evening (5–8 pm) with instructions that they could win a prize if they were 85% successful. We established morning chronotype using the Composite Scale for Morningness (Smith et al., 1989), employing a tertile split on a pool of scale scores that ranged from 13 (extreme eveningness) to 55 (extreme morningness). Participants had scores above 37, with most participants identifying as White/Caucasian, Hispanic/Latino, or Black/African-American. Among women (final sample n = 81), systolic blood pressure and mean arterial pressure responses assessed during work formed a crossover pattern, being positively correspondent to difficulty in the morning but negatively correspondent to difficulty in the evening. Heart rate and heart pre-ejection period responses ran parallel in the morning but not the evening. Among men (final sample n = 41), cardiovascular responses differed neither with difficulty nor with time. Findings for women support the extension of a recent analysis of fatigue influence on effort and associated cardiovascular responses to the phenomenon of circadian mismatch. Findings for men do not support the extension but should be interpreted guardedly in light of prohibitively low cell ns and unexpected findings on key subjective measures.

Presents an obituary for Sharon Stephens Brehm (1945-2018). Brehm was president of the American Psychological Association in 2007. Her presidential address was titled "Looking Ahead: The Future of Psychology and APA" (see the July-August 2008 issue of American Psychologist, Vol. 63, pp. 337-344). In her presidential term, she worked to increase diversity, interdisciplinarity, and internationalization in psychology. Major initiatives included task forces on integrative health care, math and science education, and institutional review boards. Sharon was a writer of the first order. She published numerous books, chapters, and articles, including wellreceived social psychology textbooks prepared with Saul Kassin and Steven Fein. One book of special note was her foundational The Application of Social Psychology to Clinical Practice (1976), which played a key role in inspiring interest in the social-clinical interface. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

My commentary centers on two general theory essentials. One is a cogent depiction of motives and their operation. The other is an account of the conversion of motives into effortful goal pursuit. I construe motives as reasons to act that vary in strength, or importance, and have the capacity to (1) be either active or latent (quiescent), and (2) operate explicitly or implicitly. I argue that effort can, but will not necessarily, correspond to motive strength. After discussing the two essentials, I comment briefly on the relation between motive strength and desire, suggesting that the latter (desire) is not a simple function of the former (strength).

Abstract. As originally formulated, Brehm’s theory of psychological reactance posited two manifestations of reactance, (1) an increased desire to exercise the threaten freedom, and (2) an increased tendency to exercise that freedom. The theory included no statement about what determines the intensity of reactant striving, although many have assumed that striving intensity should be proportional to the magnitude of reactance, that is, the strength of the reactance motive. Conceptual links between Brehm’s reactance theory and his later theory of motivation intensity have rarely been made. However, the motivation intensity theory in fact has important implications for how reactance motives should convert into effortful goal pursuit. This article identifies central motivation intensity theory implications and discusses in summary a body of evidence that bears them out, albeit indirectly. The broad indication is that reactance should increase the willingness to deploy effort in the interest of restoring or confirming freedoms, with the conversion of willingness into action depending on what can, will, and must be done to achieve these ends.

Participants were presented a moderately- or impossibly difficult cumulative mental addition task with instructions that they could win a traditionally feminine- or masculine incentive if they achieved a 90% success rate. When the incentive was feminine, systolic blood pressure responses during the task period were stronger under moderately difficult conditions among women, but low irrespective of difficulty among men – creating a gender difference only when difficulty was moderate. By contrast, when the incentive was masculine, systolic-, mean arterial- and, to a lesser degree, diastolic blood pressure responses during the task period were stronger under moderately difficult conditions irrespective of gender. The former finding confirmed expectations and adds substantively to the body of evidence favoring a recent effort analysis of gender influence on CV response to performance challenge. The latter findings conflict with what was first expected, but can be understood in terms of post hoc reasoning extended in light of participants’ ratings of the masculine incentive.

I sketch here an analysis of fatigue influence on effort and apply it to the phenomenon of self-regulatory restraint, construing such restraint as resistance against a behavioral urge or impulse. The analysis suggests that fatigue does not have a single influence, but rather a multifaceted one dependent on the difficulty of the task at hand and the importance of accomplishing it. Application to self-regulatory restraint offers a novel and potentially significant understanding of how the phenomenon works. A key implication is that restraint intensity should vary proximally with the magnitude of the urge resisted. Another is that fatigue and other restraint ability factors should have different influences on restraint intensity depending on the magnitude of an urge and the importance of resisting it. Cardiovascular results from ability and fatigue studies attest to the validity of the fatigue analysis and support its application in the self-regulatory context.

Exposure to media violence is related to anxiety in youth, but the causality of the effect has not been established. This experimental study examined the effects of media violence on anxiety, blood pressure, and heart rate in late adolescents. We also examined whether these responses varied by previous exposure to media and real-life violence. College students (N = 209; M age = 18.74; 75 % female; 50 % Caucasian, 34 % African American, 9 % Asian, 3 % Hispanic, and 3 % other racial minorities) were randomized to view either violent or nonviolent high-action movie clips. Participants reported on their anxiety before and after watching the clips, as well as their previous exposure to violence. Measures of blood pressure and heart rate were taken at baseline and during movie viewing. Participants watching violent movie clips showed a greater anxiety increase than those watching nonviolent clips. Both groups experienced increased blood pressure and reduced heart rate during movie watching compared to baseline. Prior exposure to media violence was associated with diminished heart rate response. Additionally, students previously exposed to high levels of real-life violence showed lower blood pressure increases when watching violent clips compared to nonviolent clips. Thus, relatively brief exposure to violent movie clips increased anxiety among late adolescents. Prior exposure to media and real-life violence were associated with lower physiological reactivity to high-action and violent movies, respectively, possibly indicating desensitization. Future studies should investigate long-term anxiety and physiological consequences of regular exposure to media violence in adolescence.

Need for Closure (NFC) refers to an individual’s aversion to uncertainty and desire to quickly resolve it. Although numerous studies have demonstrated that this need leads to a reluctance to invest effort in judgments and decision making, we argue that NFC may be associated with less or more effort investment depending on key features of the performance situation and instrumentality of effort for achieving closure. Specifically, we expect that high (vs. low) NFC individuals should exert less effort when both lowand high-effort performance options are available and both afford closure. By contrast, they should exert more effort when task-related uncertainty causes that only effortful means are instrumental for the goal of achieving closure. If only a high-performance option allows the task goal to be attained and instructions how to perform a task are clear and specific, there will be no differences between high and low NFC participants. We tested these hypotheses in an experiment framed in terms of Motivational Intensity Theory. The experiment asked participants to solve cognitive tasks under relevant performance circumstances, indexing effort through assessment of systolic blood pressure (SBP) responses. Results were supportive. They help to account for contradictory findings in the NFC literature and add substantively to the broader literature concerned with determinants and cardiovascular correlates of effort.

Participants were presented an easy or difficult mental addition task and led to believe that they could win a traditionally masculine incentive by meeting a certain performance standard. As expected, blood pressure and heart rate responses during the work period were stronger under difficult conditions than easy ones among men but low under both difficulty conditions among women. Findings support the suggestion from a conceptual analysis grounded in motivation intensity theory that gender differences in cardiovascular response could be partially understood in terms of effort processes that occur where men and women place different value on available performance incentives.

Female undergraduates were assigned to one of three groups, two involving regulatory training and one not. Training participants performed for 2 weeks tasks that required strong behavioral restraint (Strong Training) or weak behavioral restraint (Weak Training). Later, they took part in (1) a laboratory session in which they performed tasks with inhibitory components, and (2) a follow-up week in which they provided health behavior reports and used designated dental supplies. No Training participants took part only in the session and follow-up week. As expected, laboratory performance was improved for Strong- relative to No Training participants, with performance for Weak Training participants falling in between. Also as expected, Strong Training participants used more floss in the follow-up week than did the No Training participants, with floss for Weak Training participants falling between. Contrary to expectation, Strong Training participants used less toothpaste and reported having brushed less than the No Training participants. In addition, Strong Training participants evinced exaggerated—rather than diminished—cardiovascular responses during the laboratory tasks. The performance and floss use data support the suggestion that inhibitory system strength can be increased through use. The brushing and cardiovascular findings may be interpretable in inhibitory strength terms.

It is self-evident that resource allocation is better understood when a distinction is made between what people are willing to do to achieve a purpose and what they will do to achieve the purpose. Yet, motivation theorists have largely ignored this distinction in attempting to understand effort aspects of motivated behavior. An exception is Brehm, who has distinguished potential motivation from motivation intensity. Potential motivation refers to the upper limit of what people would be willing to do to satisfy a motive. It is proposed to vary with factors traditionally thought to determine motive strength (importance). Motivation intensity refers to effort and is proposed to vary proximally with the difficulty of instrumental behavior, first rising and then falling precipitously. In this article, I discuss Brehm's distinction and elaborate on its significance.

We presented cognitively healthy older adults and patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) three versions of a modified Sternberg memory task designed to range in difficulty from low to high. Among cognitively healthy older adults, blood pressure responses assessed during the work periods rose with difficulty. By contrast, among MCI patients, blood pressure responses assessed during the work periods were low irrespective of difficulty. Findings are discussed primarily in relation to a conceptual analysis concerned with ability determinants of effort (task engagement) and associated cardiovascular responses. They also are discussed in the context of other recent cardiovascular studies involving older adults and with regard to the potential for exaggerated cardiovascular responses to accelerate cognitive decline in advanced age.

Brehm's motivational intensity theory has been a fruitful conceptual framework for research on effort during the last three decades. Researchers have used the theory to address various effort-related phenomena, like the impact of ability, affect, and fatigue on effort mobilization. In this chapter, we provide an overview of development in the last 10 years focusing on research that has addressed (1) the energy conservation principle, (2) ability and fatigue effects, and (3) the impact of mood, dysphoria, and primed affect. We point out that most of the research has supported the predictions of the theory and its extensions and applications. However, we also elaborate on empirical findings that do not fit the theory and discuss open questions that need to be addressed in future research.

Two experiments investigated cardiovascular effects of mental fatigue as a function of (1) the difficulty of the cognitive challenge with which participants were confronted, and (2) the relevance of that challenge to the activity that instigated the fatigue. In the first, participants performed an easy (fatigue low) or difficult (fatigue high) counting task and then were presented an arithmetic challenge (task B relevance high) or a scanning challenge (task B relevance low) with instructions that they would avoid a noise if they attained a modest performance standard. Analysis of blood pressure responses assessed during the work periods revealed fatigue main effects, reflecting stronger responses for High Fatigue participants, regardless of the character of the second task. In the second, the procedure was the same except that it included a high performance standard and provided the chance to win a prize. Analysis of the pressure data revealed fatigue x work period interactions, reflecting relatively stronger responses among High Fatigue participants in work period 1, but relatively weaker responses among these participants in work period 2. Results confirm previous findings and support an analysis of fatigue influence on effort and associated cardiovascular responses. They also argue against the idea that mental fatigue influence may be confined to relevant cognitive performance realms.

s. Given the history of effort discussions and the current level of interest in effort processes, one might think there would be a consensus on the character of the effort construct. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Theorists and investigators tend to concur that effort pertains to the intensity of behavior (Brehm and Self 1989; Higgins 2006; Kahneman 1973; Kruglanski et al. 2012). However, they have divergent views regarding its fundamental essence as well as key questions relevant to volition and phenomenology (Gollwitzer 1996; Locke 1996; Wegner 2002). Theorists and investigators also have divergent views regarding the function of effort, with a growing number assuming an energy mobilization function (Gendolla and Wright 2009), but notable others taking contrary stances (e.g., Kurzban et al. 2013). Although disagreements about effort character are understandable and healthy in some respects, they impede the advancement of related science and must ultimately be resolved. This special issue of Motivation and Emotion showcases work from eleven ongoing research programs concerned in some respect with effort. We organized it to raise awareness of the character and quality of contemporary effort research, emphasizing that the featured work is only representative of the larger body of effort work that is available. In raising awareness, we hoped to inspire further reflection on effort processes and to encourage non-effort investigators to consider implications of new effort conceptions and discoveries for their own research. We also hoped to facilitate relevant idea exchange—improving communication and the chance for emergent insights, including ones relevant to effort construct debates. Readers will see that the featured work addresses a rich array of effort issues, with themes ranging from priming influence to effort effects on goal value. Themes allowed for different possible organizational schemes; thus, we decided somewhat arbitrarily to structure in four sections. Articles in Section 1 involve the priming theme, specifically, addressing the role priming plays in determining effort outcomes. M. Richter (&) Geneva Motivation Lab, Department of Psychology, University of Geneva, 1205 Geneva, Switzerland e-mail: Michael.Richter@unige.ch R. A. Wright Department of Psychology, University of North Texas, 1155 Union Circle #311280, Denton, TX 76203-5017, USA e-mail: Rex.Wright@unt.edu 123 Motiv Emot (2014) 38:745–747 DOI 10.1007/s11031-014-9435-0

Abstract: Sex differences in responses to experimental pain have been widely reported, with women typically showing lower pain threshold and tolerance than men. One possible explanation for these differences is that traditional gender roles may lead to sex differences in perceived ability to tolerate pain. To address this possibility, the present study evaluated the influence of a sex-related perceived ability manipulation on pain tolerance and cardiovascular responses to ischemic pain assessed via the submaximal effort tourniquet procedure. A sample of 68 young adults (35 women, 33 men) were randomly assigned to 1 of 2 perceived ability conditions, which depicted either women (FEM condition) or men (MASC condition) as more able to tolerate the painful task. The results indicated that men had higher pain tolerance than women. Although there was no overall effect of the experimental condition, only men in the FEM condition had higher tolerance than women. Also, men had greater blood pressure reactivity than women, and further analysis showed that women in the MASC condition had the lowest systolic blood pressure reactivity. Cardiovascular reactivity and motivation to tolerate the pain were positively correlated with pain tolerance only among men in the FEM condition. These findings indicate that the perceived ability manipulation produced only modest effects on pain tolerance and cardiovascular reactivity, but the relationship of cardiovascular and subjective responses to pain tolerance differed across conditions. These findings suggest that perceived ability may contribute to perceptual and cardiovascular responses to pain in a complex fashion, and further research to explicate these relationships is needed. [copy ] 2002 by the American Pain Society

This study examined cardiovascular effects of energy resource depletion. Participants first made a series of easy or difficult grips with their right or left hand. They then made and held a moderately difficult dynamometer grip with their right hand while measures of blood pressure and heart rate were taken. As expected, systolic blood pressure responses during the second task period were greater when the first task was difficult than when it was easy if the first task was performed with the right hand, but not if the first task was performed with the left hand. The data support the view that ability perception and, thus, cardiovascular responsiveness vary with relevant energy stores.

This study examined cardiovascular effects of incentive value in men and women confronted with cognitive challenges that were more and less difficult to meet. Participants performed computer memory tasks varying in difficulty from low to high, with instructions that they could earn chances toward a $100 prize or $10 prize by attaining a 90% success rate. Analysis of cardiovascular responses assessed during work revealed an interaction between difficulty and incentive value for heart rate. Participants' heart rate responses were proportional to task difficulty and unaffected by incentive value in all conditions except for the most difficult one. Where difficulty was greatest, $100 participants showed relatively high heart rate responsiveness, whereas $10 participants showed low heart rate responsiveness. This heart rate finding corroborates and extends cardiovascular results from previous experiments, and lends further support to the view that cardiovascular responses will be proportional to incentive value only under some task conditions.

We sketch here an understanding of self-regulatory restraint and cardiovascular responses that may accompany it. The understanding represents an application of an integrative analysis that has long guided research in our laboratory and has distinctive implications relative to traditional self-regulation perspectives. One core idea is that restraint intensity varies proximally with the magnitude of the urge resisted—first rising and then falling, with the fall occurring where regulatory success appears impossible or excessively difficult given its importance. Another is that regulatory ability factors, including fatigue, have different influences on restraint intensity depending on the magnitude of an urge and the importance of resisting it. Cardiovascular responses accompanying self-regulatory restraint may be those associated with beta-adrenergic sympathetic nervous system activation. Direct evidence for this understanding is limited, but indirect evidence—from nonregulatory tests of the integrative analysis and its application—is abundant.

Youth are exposed to large amounts of violence in real life and media, which may lead to desensitization. Given evidence of curvilinear associations between exposure to violence and emotional distress, we examined linear and curvilinear associations of exposure to real-life and movie violence with PTSD symptoms, empathy, and physiological arousal, as well emotional and physiological reactivity to movie violence. College students (N = 209; mean age = 18.74) reported on their exposure to real-life and televised violence, PTSD symptoms, and empathy. Then, students were randomly assigned to view a series of violent or nonviolent high-action movie scenes, providing ratings of emotional distress after each clip. Blood pressure was measured at rest and during video viewing. Results showed that with increasing exposure to real-life violence, youth reported more PTSD symptoms and greater identification with fictional characters. Cognitive and emotional empathy increased from low to medium levels of exposure to violence, but declined at higher levels. For males, exposure to higher levels of real-life violence was associated with diminishing (vs. increasing) emotional distress when viewing violent videos. Exposure to televised violence was generally unrelated to emotional functioning. However, those with medium levels of exposure to TV/movie violence experienced lower elevations of blood pressure when viewing violent videos compared to those with low exposure, and those with higher levels of exposure evidenced rapid increase in blood pressure that quickly declined over time. The results point to diminished empathy and reduced emotional reactivity to violence as key aspects of desensitization to real-life violence, and more limited evidence of physiological desensitization to movie violence among those exposed to high levels of televised violence.

Participants received feedback that they had low ability (n= 16) or moderate ability (n= 17) on a memory task and were given the chance to attain more and less challenging performance standards in subsequent work periods. Myocardial contractility and stroke volume responses were in an interactional pattern reflecting (a) a positive relationship between demand and heart performance for moderate ability participants in contrast with a nonmonotonic relationship between demand and heart performance for low ability participants and (b) stronger heart performance for the low ability group than for the moderate ability group when the standard was low and moderate, but the reverse of that when the standard was high. Blood pressure responses were similar, although systolic responses provided no evidence of a reversed perceived-ability/cardiovascular-response relationship when demand was high.

Participants first performed a reaction-time task and received feedback that they had high or low ability with respect to it. They then performed a second task that was either similar or dissimilar in character to the first, with the chance to earn a prize if they attained a moderate performance standard. Blood pressure responses assessed during the second task period were or tended to be greater for those who received negative ability feedback than for those who received positive ability feedback if the second task was similar to the first, but did not differ as a function of ability feedback if the second task was dissimilar to the first. Findings add to the body of evidence supporting a recent integrative analysis of effort, ability, and cardiovascular (CV) response and confirm the assumption that CV ability effects are performance-domain specific. Findings also call further into question the common supposition that CV responsivity is proportional to perceived ability in an appetitive context, and they provide empirical grounds for analyzing CV response instability effects in perceived-ability terms.