Achievement motives and anxiety are associated with persistence for delayed rewards
Abstract
People vary in how long they are willing to persist for delayed rewards when the timing of those rewards is uncertain. Decisions about when to give up on delayed rewards result from a dynamic decision-making process in which people weigh the benefits of continued waiting against the opportunity costs of waiting. We hypothesized that individual differences in persistence might therefore emerge from differences in motivation, with approach motives (i.e., hope for success) predicting increased persistence and avoidance motives (i.e., fear of failure) predicting reduced persistence. In an online study, participants (n = 284) completed self-report questionnaires and a decision-making task optimized to capture individual differences in persistence. Hope for Success and Fear of Failure were assessed with the Achievement Motives Scale. Hope for Success was significantly positively associated with persistence, a relationship that was robust to controlling for relevant demographic covariates. Fear of Failure was negatively associated with persistence, but this association was only marginally significant after controlling for covariates. Reduced persistence predicted alcohol use intensity, replicating previous research. Finally, exploratory analyses demonstrated a significant association between anxious-depression and reduced persistence. Together, these findings suggest that persistence is linked to individual differences in motivational orientation and related psychological characteristics.
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BibTeX
@misc{miller2026achievement,
title = {{Achievement motives and anxiety are associated with persistence for delayed rewards}},
author = {Avital Miller and Karolina Lempert},
howpublished = {PsyArXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.31234/osf.io/fwnu7_v1},
url = {https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/fwnu7_v1/},
note = {CC0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Achievement motives and anxiety are associated with persistence for delayed rewards
AU - Avital Miller
AU - Karolina Lempert
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/10
PB - PsyArXiv
DO - 10.31234/osf.io/fwnu7_v1
UR - https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/fwnu7_v1/
AB - People vary in how long they are willing to persist for delayed rewards when the timing of those rewards is uncertain. Decisions about when to give up on delayed rewards result from a dynamic decision-making process in which people weigh the benefits of continued waiting against the opportunity costs of waiting. We hypothesized that individual differences in persistence might therefore emerge from differences in motivation, with approach motives (i.e., hope for success) predicting increased persistence and avoidance motives (i.e., fear of failure) predicting reduced persistence. In an online study, participants (n = 284) completed self-report questionnaires and a decision-making task optimized to capture individual differences in persistence. Hope for Success and Fear of Failure were assessed with the Achievement Motives Scale. Hope for Success was significantly positively associated with persistence, a relationship that was robust to controlling for relevant demographic covariates. Fear of Failure was negatively associated with persistence, but this association was only marginally significant after controlling for covariates. Reduced persistence predicted alcohol use intensity, replicating previous research. Finally, exploratory analyses demonstrated a significant association between anxious-depression and reduced persistence. Together, these findings suggest that persistence is linked to individual differences in motivational orientation and related psychological characteristics.
ER -