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Defeating the Potentially Deleterious Effects of Externally Imposed Deadlines: Practitioners’ Rules-of-ThumbLiverpool Hope University, burgesm{at}hope.ac.uk
University of Alberta
University of Alberta The authors interviewed people to determine whether they devise strategies to offset the damaging effect that externally imposed deadlines have on intrinsic motivation. Interviewees’ "practitioners’ rules-of-thumb" strategies were consistent with the tenets of self-determination theory and were tested empirically in three experiments. In each of the experiments, complete or partial self-determination of initially externally imposed time limits negated the otherwise deleterious effects of deadlines on intrinsic motivation. Participants who actively co-opted a deadline as their own (Experiment 1), who self-imposed sub deadlines within an overall externally imposed deadline (Experiment 2), and who self-imposed more stringent deadlines than those imposed externally (Experiment 3) spent significantly more free-choice time engaged in target tasks than did their counterparts in externally imposed deadline conditions where no self-determination was permitted. Given the ubiquity of deadlines, the results can directly be implemented by both deadline setters and deadline recipients to protect people’s interest in their work.
Key Words: deadlines • self-determination • intrinsic motivation
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Vol. 30, No. 7,
868-877 (2004) |
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