Motivation and Technology Lab

Principal Investigator: Anna Gödöllei

At the Motivation and Technology (MAT) Lab, we conduct research related to two broad topics areas: (1) technology at work, and (2) employee motivation and self-regulation.

First, we study employees’ reactions to technology (e.g., AI, robots, computers), and technology driven changes (e.g., automation, gamification) at work. We approach these questions from an employee perspective rather than a systems or economic perspective. Representative projects include:

• Understanding people’s competing (optimistic vs. pessimistic) appraisals of the impact of automation on their job prospects

• Identifying the antecedents of employees’ preparation for automation at work, and developing interventions to encourage people to prepare for automation

• Studying applicants’ reactions to, and applicants’ performance on game-based selection assessments

Second, we study employees’ subjective experiences of goal progress, and the implications of these experiences on self-regulatory behaviours. In other words, we try to understand people’s thoughts and emotions as they make progress towards, or struggle to make progress towards their goals, and how these thoughts and emotions translate into further efforts to set, revise, and strive towards goals. Representative projects include:

• Exploring people’s definition of what it means to “make progress” towards ill-defined goals, and the implications of these definitions on feedback seeking, goal revision, and goal striving

• Summarizing the meta-analytic effects of boredom on workplace outcomes, with special attention on task performance and creative performance

• Identifying and harnessing the effects of momentary (i.e., state) fluctuations in promotion and prevention regulatory focus on task performance across differing performance domains