Metamotivational Knowledge of the Role of High-Level and Low-Level Construal in Goal-Relevant Task Performance article review

Metamotivational Knowledge of the Role of High-Level and Low-Level Construal in Goal-Relevant Task Performance article review

Nguyen, T., Carnevale, J. J., Scholer, A. A., Miele, D. B., & Fujita, K. (2019, May 23).     Metamotivational Knowledge of the Role of High-Level and Low-Level Construal in            Goal-Relevant Task Performance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.            Advance online publication. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/

The article “Metamotivational Knowledge of the Role of High-Level and Low-Level Construal in Goal-Relevant Task Performance” by Nguyen, Carnevale, Scholer, Miele, and Fujita seeks to add to the field of knowledge, information on the roles of high-level and low-level construal in goal-relevant task management. The research question being addressed in the article is to what extent people understand the self-regulatory benefits of high-level versus low-level construal, that is, motivational orientations toward abstract and essential vs. concrete and distinctive features.

Nguyen, Carnevale, Scholer, Miele, and Fujita base their argument on the level of self-regulation held by different people. According to the researchers, self-regulation is a critical skill that predicts important life outcomes, including academic achievement and financial, physical, and mental health (p. 2). The researchers are further motivated by the importance of self-regulation on overall life outcomes. Generally, the primary objective of the researchers is to assess the reason as to why some people fail while others succeed on different desires. Besides, the researchers are not only interested in the mechanisms of developing self-regulation but also in intervention strategies to aid people who struggle while pursuing their dreams. The research further focused on the ways through which people interact with thoughts, behaviors, and feelings. Getting a clear understanding of peoples’ thoughts may have a significant impact on changing their approach to several life aspects. For example, keeping people away from food-related thoughts may stop them from eating unhealthy foods. Generally, the research addresses issues associated with self-regulation and the way individuals go about pursuing their goals in the context of construal level theory.

The researchers present a clear notion that the research is not an easy one right from the beginning. A sort of confusion appears in the starting stages of the research as the reader attempts to connect construal level theory to the research objectives. Besides, the researchers admit that the research is being done on a new field with a growing need for research; hence, more challenges may be faced. The research, for example, has to consider the fact that tasks differ in the extent to which performance varies from different motivational orientations. However, the article borrows crucial ideas from previous researches to form a basis for the current research.

Moreover, the construal level theory is discussed in detail in the article and its relationship to motivation patterns among individuals. Construal level theory proposes that people respond to this lack of reliable, detailed information by engaging in high-level construal—an orientation toward abstract, essential features of objects or events (p. 4). The suggestion picked from the construal level theory is that high-level and low-level construal is the psychological means with which people orient toward psychologically distant and proximal events.

Two hypotheses are tested in the research to come up with the various conclusions made. First, the researchers test whether people can recognize that performance on various tasks might be enhanced by high-level versus low-level construal, and secondly, whether people can identify effective strategies with which to create task-motivation fit (p. 4). Several experiments are done with independent samples to test the hypotheses. The researchers exhaustively address the behaviors of individuals when preparing for a task. Generally, the metamotivational construal of the individuals under examination is the primary issue of concern. Moreover, the research is done over a series of six experiments with conditions being standard for all the experiments, although the fifth experiment has some variations. The variations in the fifth experiment are made to consider the diversity in the population used for the study.

The study was not free from challenges, however, as secondary data was used. In most cases, secondary data fails to meet the requirements for a particular study. Individuals who collect data are always led by the desire to collect data that befits their research and only store it in case a similar research is needed. Therefore, the data is bound to have a severe bias if researchers are not careful. However, the researchers in this article realize the potential bias after reports emerge of farmers who provide false information. In response, the researchers apply the recommendations provided by Bai in 2018 (p. 5). The data points with GPS coordinates are used to improve the accuracy of the findings and conclusions made. Moreover, the results from the various experiments do not deviate significantly from the hypotheses proposed.

The results obtained from the experiments do not deviate significantly from the hypotheses presented. The first experiment showed that participants recognized the need for high-level and low-level construal in preparation for tasks. In the second experiment, preparedness was tested, and individuals with high-level construal preparedness were found to be successful in most of the activities. The first four experiments provide a suggestion that people not only distinguish tasks in which performance benefits from high-level versus low-level construal, but they also understand the strategic means to induce these motivational states to create task-motivation fit (p. 10). A generalization is therefore made that individuals recognize that high-level preparatory exercises are more useful than the low-level preparatory exercises in anticipation of various tasks. The fifth experiment is subjected to a slightly different environment by introducing the impact of distractors. The results show that distractors do not inhibit the recognition of high-level and low-level construal tasks among the participants. Also, the sixth experiment shows that the construal level theory was applicable in the way people created task motivation fit in their daily task accomplishment. However, the research appeared to make more generalizations, thus leaving some unanswered questions.

The generalization of various concepts in the research leaves several unanswered questions. For example, the bias in the data is corrected by recommendations made by another researcher. The researchers conclude that the method proposed by the researcher is useful and provides accurate results. However, the recommendation does not appear valid for the type of bias present. For example, the relationship between GPS coordinates and the information provided by a farmer may not be sufficient to imply that the information provided is accurate. Besides, the only information verified by the GPS coordinates is the location of the farmer. Therefore, the researchers have not sufficiently addressed the challenge of biased data, and the results could be affected by the bias in the data. Moreover, the use of several experiments may not be ideal for getting reliable results.

A single experiment is proposed that will combine all the requirements in the experiments already performed. A single sample from any of the experiment, or a combination of the various samples is taken to be used for the purposes of the new experiment. The bias was mostly found from the data used. Therefore, the data for the new experiment will be obtained from a different source. Then survey is done on the individuals to check their opinions on the need for preparations before undertaking a task. The results obtained will then be analyzed collectively to check for the general acceptance of level construal on goal achievement. Besides, several experiments come along with several drawbacks that may lower the credibility of the results. The use of the new experiment will deal with the need to standardize the conditions so that results are not affected by the change of conditions. For example, the exclusion method in every experiment is done independently and could be subject to errors that might impact the results obtained. In the new experiment, errors are minimized since exclusion is done once. Also, the introduction of distractors in the fifth experiment is not exhaustive. Distractors are diverse, and different people react differently to distractors. Furthermore, the sample size may not represent the exact image of the population’s reaction to distractors while reacting to construal task preparation.

Moreover, the experiments could have suffered from the suspected false information in the data, although the researchers tried to address the challenge. The attempts made to overcome the challenge of false information might have reduced the bias in the results obtained hence improving the credibility of the results. Also, the application of the construal level seems to have been credibly done with the researchers showing popularity with the theory.

In sum, the article “Metamotivational Knowledge of the Role of High-Level and Low-Level Construal in Goal-Relevant Task Performance” by Nguyen, Carnevale, Scholer, Miele, and Fujita seeks to add to the field of knowledge, information on the roles of high-level and low-level construal in goal-relevant task management. The hypotheses considered are whether people can recognize that performance on various tasks might be enhanced by high-level versus low-level construal and secondly, whether people can identify effective strategies with which to create task-motivation fit. However, the research appeared to make more generalizations, thus leaving some unanswered questions. Therefore, the researchers have not sufficiently addressed the challenge of biased data, and the results could be affected by the bias in the data. However, the attempts made to overcome the challenge of false information might have reduced the bias in the results obtained hence improving the credibility of the results.

Works Cited

Nguyen, T., Carnevale, J. J., Scholer, A. A., Miele, D. B., & Fujita, K. (2019, May 23).     Metamotivational Knowledge of the Role of High-Level and Low-Level Construal in            Goal-Relevant Task Performance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.            Advance online publication. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/