The present study examined Reversal theory (RT), which explains the personality and motivations of individuals as they engage in activity or competition. RT is concerned with two metamotivational states, the telic state and the paratelic state. In a telic state, an individual is said to be serious-minded, non-playful, and adhering to less challenging activity while in a paratelic state individuals are playful in nature, spontaneous, and not serious-minded. Prior RT research has focused on athlete's preference for risky or safe sports based on their specific metamotivational dominance. The present research builds on past research by looking at one's metamotivational dominance, self-efficacy, motivation, and affect (i.e., arousal and pleasure) in relationship to two non-athletic tasks (i.e., circling vowels and completing puzzles). It was hypothesized that telic individuals would perform better and have higher self-efficacy, motivation, and affect in the task of circling vowels and that the paratelic individuals would perform better and have higher self-efficacy, motivation, and affect in the task of completing puzzles. Ninety-five participants completed the Sensation Seeking Scale-V (Zuckerman, 1979), and based on the results a final sample of 32 participants who met telic and paratelic characteristics were asked to participate in the study. Participants completed two different tasks: circling vowels (i.e., a boring task) and completing puzzles (i.e., a challenging task). Results indicated that with regards to the boring and challenging task, the hypotheses for task performance and affect were in the expected hypothesized direction, however, the hypotheses for self-efficacy and motivation were not supported. It is essential for future research to explore the following: (1) It should examine differences between telic and paratelic individuals under conditions which vary in complexity, excitation, and challenge, and identify tasks that truly differentiate telic from paratelic individuals; (2) it should develop better measurement tools for eliciting more reliable measures of metamotivational dominance and hedonic tone; and (3) it should focus on tasks that are better categorized and specified. / A Dissertation Submitted to the Department of Educational Psychology and Learning Systems in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of
Philosophy. / Summer Semester, 2006. / September 23, 2005. / paratelic, telic, Reversal theory, metamotivational states / Includes bibliographical references. / Gershon Tenenbaum, Professor Directing Dissertation; James Sampson, Committee Member; Briley Proctor, Committee Member.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_176275 |
| Contributors | Shapiro, Brett S. (authoraut), Tenenbaum, Gershon (professor directing dissertation), Sampson, James (committee member), Proctor, Briley (committee member), Department of Educational Psychology and Learning Systems (degree granting department), Florida State University (degree granting institution) |
| Publisher | Florida State University, Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, text |
| Format | 1 online resource, computer, application/pdf |
| Rights | This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s). The copyright in theses and dissertations completed at Florida State University is held by the students who author them. |
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