Unknowingly Influenced: The Effect of Subliminal and Supraliminal Indirect Rewards on Motivation

Abstract

In line with previous research on the subject of subliminal reward processing, which suggests that monetary rewards have a positive effect on people’s motivation to perform better on a specific task, we designed a study to investigate whether indirect rewards motivate people to do better on a specific task as well. We were also interested in the question if these indirect rewards, in the form of tokens, have to be processed supraliminally to motivate people, or if the effect also occurs if they process the reward only subliminally. Thirty subjects participated in our study at University College London. They had to perform a mental rotation task on which they could either earn a reward or no reward. The trials were either hard or easy. Analysis of the data revealed partial support for the effect of indirect rewards on motivation and subliminal reward processing. Furthermore, participants were not faster on subliminal reward trials than on supraliminal reward trials, but they were more accurate on supraliminal reward trials than on subliminal reward trials. Finally, there was support for the expectation that participants are more prone to rewards when a task is harder.