Social Contagion of Challenge-Seeking Behavior

• Published in: Journal of experimental psychology. General 2024-10, Vol.153 (10), p.2573-2587
• Main Authors: Ogulmus, Cansu, Lee, Ying, Chakrabarti, Bhismadev, Murayama, Kou
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Achievement Motivation; Contagion; Decision making; Female; Human; Male; Motivation; Probability; Social Behavior; Social Cognition; Social interaction
• ISSN: 0096-3445; 1939-2222; 1939-2222
• DOI: 10.1037/xge0001620

Despite having little economic utility, people are sometimes motivated to seek challenges (i.e., proactively choosing to work on a more difficult task than an easier one). The present study investigated whether just observing others' challenge-seeking behaviors could motivate people to seek more challenging tasks-the social contagion effect of challenge-seeking. The participants were presented with pairs of options, each associated with a math word problem of a certain difficulty level. We examined whether the participants' preference for a more challenging (i.e., more difficult) option changes after observing the decisions of others who hold a challenge-seeking or a challenge-avoiding attitude. Five experiments consistently showed that, while the participants generally avoided challenging word problems, observing challenge-seeking in others increased the probability of participants choosing more challenging options. These results indicate that our motivation to seek challenges may be instilled, in part, through social processes. Public Significance Statement Our research has revealed that challenge-seeking behavior can be promoted through social influence. This provides the groundwork for future research to unravel the influence of various social factors on challenge-seeking behavior and to design interventions that evoke positive feelings about challenges in schools and workplaces.