Personality, motivation, and performance: A theory of the relationship between individual differences and information processing

Presents a model to relate the personality dimensions of introversion-extraversion, achievement motivation, and anxiety to efficient cognitive performance. It is demonstrated how these personality dimensions in combination with situational moderators (e.g., success, failure, time pressure, incentives, time of day, stimulant drugs) affect the motivational constructs of arousal and effort. A general information-processing model that accounts for the systematic effects of these motivational states on certain task components (sustained information transfer and some aspect of short-term memory) is proposed. Empirical generalizations about task components in a structural model are combined, and testable predictions that differentiate alternative motivational hypotheses are derived. (132 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved).