S. SCHWAB ET AL.
has found that task duration can affect size of bias (Roy &
Christenfeld, 2008), adding actual task duration as a covariate
to the above analysis did not alter the results.
It is possible that the increased tendency to underestimate
when the promotion and internal focus conditions were com-
bined was because participants with a promotion motivation did
not account for the fact that performing the play-by-play condi-
tion forced them to take longer at the task. In support, when
given both the promotion and internal focus manipulations,
participants’ overall error (absolute value of the difference be-
tween their estimate and the actual duration) was smaller when
their estimate was compared to their first trial, M = 40.2 sec,
than when compared to their second trial (which they were
actually estimating), M = 67.2 sec, t(20) = 2.13, p = .04, d = .46.
However, this same relationship was not true in the other three
conditions: there was no significant difference in overall error
when comparing participants’ estimates to either completion
time (ps > .4). In the promotion condition, estimated duration
appeared to be more influenced by previous trials than the trial
that was actually being estimated.
General Discussion
While regulatory focus did influence time perception with a
shift in attention likely causing this influence, the connection
between motivation and attention were not as we originally
envisioned. We thought that having a promotion or prevention
focus might cause a shift in attention to the task at more of a
micro level, with people high in prevention paying more atten-
tion to the small details of the tasks. Instead, a shift in regula-
tory focus appears to influence attention to the task at more of a
macro level: participants with a promotion focus did not pay
attention to changes in the task that caused it to take longer.
Given that previous research has found that people with a
promotion focus are more attuned to the big picture and not the
small details (Förster & Higgins, 2005), we speculated that a
promotion focus would change how participants experienced
the details of the task. Participants might have been less likely
to attend to the specifics of the tasks causing longer estimates
due to decreased attention spent monitoring time in passing
(Thomas & Weaver, 1975; Zakay & Block, 1997) or partici-
pants might have remembered less specifics of the task causing
shorter estimates due to less attention paid to details of the task
during performance (Block & Reed, 1978; Ornstein, 1969;
Zakay & Block, 1997). However, these explanations are not
consistent with our finding that the tendency toward underesti-
mation was greatest only when a promotion focus was com-
bined with an internal focus. If motivational focus influenced
attention or memory for the specifics of the task, then bias
should have been largest when focus was very broad (promo-
tion and external focus) or very narrow (prevention and internal
focus). Instead, there was a differential effect of promotion
focus for the internal and external conditions indicating that the
results cannot simply be explained in terms of participants pay-
ing less attention or remembering less of the specifics of the
task.
The influence of a promotion focus was only evident on the
task at a macro level that included the participants’ full experi-
ence with the task. The tendency to remember the origami task
as being shorter when given both the promotion and internal
focus manipulations can be explained by insufficient adjust-
ment from previous experience with the task. The internal focus
manipulation caused participants to take longer on the task or,
in the case of participants with low experience, improve less.
Participants did not seem to take this into account retrospect-
tively when they had a promotion focus, which causes people to
look at the big picture and not the details (Förster & Higgins,
2005). Therefore, if participants were trying to reconstruct their
memory by focusing first on what they consider the prototypi-
cal duration of the task and then adjusting for aspects of the
task that might have made it take longer or shorter (Bartlett,
1932; Burt, 1992), a promotion focus appears to have caused
them to make an insufficient adjustment from the prototype.
Participants with a prevention focus, who likely paid more at-
tention to changes in the task, were able to make a sufficient
adjustment. When a promotion focus was combined with an
internal focus, which increased task duration, participants re-
membered the task as taking less time than did others with
similar experience. In contrast, when a promotion focus was
combined with an external focus, which did not alter task com-
pletion times, there was no shift in bias. Attention, or lack of
attention to be precise, to changes in the task led to bias in re-
membered duration.
The results of the current study indicate that a person’s mo-
tivational focus can influence their memory for task duration.
This seems to be limited to situations where the task takes
longer or shorter than it has previously. Participants who were
focused on seeking gains appeared to ignore the circumstances
that caused a change in the task and, therefore, were more
likely to differ in bias from others. Participants that were high
in experience with making origami rabbits were most likely to
underestimate the duration. For novices with origami task, the
shift in regulatory focus actually led to a more positive outcome
with a promotion focus leading to a decrease in the tendency to
overestimate.
Acknowledgements
We thank Nina Heinen, Katharina Kurz, Katharina Mayerle,
Ekaterini Nasta, Martina Herma, Saskia Sekanina and Teresa
Stegmüller for their help collecting the data.
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