Effort investment in uncontrollable situations: The moderating role of motivation toward closure

Abstract According to the principle of energy-conservation principle, effort investment is usually reduced in situations that are perceived as uncontrollable. This because when success recognized impossible, any effortful actions no longer justified. However, we predicted individual differences uncertainty tolerance, i.e., need for closure (NFC), may moderate uncontrollable situations. We tested this prediction two experimental studies which exposed participants with differing levels NFC events, and indexed through assessment systolic blood pressure (SBP) responses. As predicted, uncontrollability (vs. controllability) condition, decreased significantly among low- but not high-NFC participants. Since gaining certainty achieving a critical epistemic goal low-NFC individuals, exerting extra gain therefore On other hand, do withhold their efforts, they highly motivated obtain certainty. These results help account contradictory findings effort-investment behaviour add substantively literature concerning motivation toward closure.