Examining brain structures associated with the motive to achieve success and the motive to avoid failure: A voxel-based morphometry study

Designing a methodological system for the development and support of gifted and motivated students

The paper was intended to develop a new methodological system and test its impact on the development of motivation and giftedness among children. The experiment was conducted among 1,200 children from grades 3, 7, and 10 by researchers from the Daryn Republican Applied Research Center of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan and L.N. Gumilyov Eurasian National University. The teaching methodology involved: interactive technologies; developing projects with faculty members; and conducting electives in the exact sciences, humanities, natural sciences, and the creative arts. The experiment lasted 4 months. Before and after the experiment, all respondents were evaluated by their instructors according to the following four criteria: academic giftedness, creative giftedness, social giftedness, and intellectual giftedness. The overall result demonstrated an increase in the level of giftedness to above-average values. Motivation levels observed among respondents in grades 3, 7, and 10 were 1.71; 1.72, and 1.54, respectively. The level for this criterion also reached above-average values. This implies that this technique is effective. This technique can already be applied not only in special schools for gifted children, but also in general educational institutions to achieve better results.

Relationship of ventral striatum activation during effort discounting to clinical amotivation severity in schizophrenia

Motivational deficits play a central role in disability due to negative symptoms of schizophrenia (SZ), but limited pathophysiological understanding impedes critically needed therapeutic development. We applied an fMRI Effort Discounting Task (EDT) that quantifies motivation using a neuroeconomic decision-making approach, capturing the degree to which effort requirements produce reductions in the subjective value (SV) of monetary reward. An analyzed sample of 21 individuals with SZ and 23 group-matched controls performed the EDT during fMRI. We hypothesized that ventral striatum (VS) as well as extended brain motivation circuitry would encode SV, integrating reward and effort costs. We also hypothesized that VS hypoactivation during EDT decisions would demonstrate a dimensional relationship with clinical amotivation severity, reflecting greater suppression by effort costs. As hypothesized, VS as well as a broader cortico-limbic network were activated during the EDT and this activation correlated positively with SV. In SZ, activation to task decisions was reduced selectively in VS. Greater VS reductions correlated with more severe clinical amotivation in SZ and across all participants. However, these diagnosis and amotivation effects could not be explained by the response to parametric variation in reward, effort, or model-based SV. Our findings demonstrate that VS hypofunction in schizophrenia is manifested during effort-based decisions and reflects dimensional motivation impairment. Dysfunction of VS impacting effort-based decision-making can provide a target for biomarker development to guide novel efforts to assess and treat disabling amotivation.

The Neural Basis Linking Achievement Motivation With Procrastination: Left Precuneus Connectivity With Right Anterior Cingulate Cortex

Procrastination adversely affects individual's learning, working, health, and well-being, which troubles many people around the world. Previous studies have indicated that people with higher achievement motivation tend to have less procrastination. However, how achievement motivation is linked with procrastination at the neural level is still poorly understood. Here, we adopted the voxel-based morphometry (VBM) and resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) methods to study this issue. The VBM analysis revealed that higher achievement motivation was correlated with larger gray matter volumes in left precuneus (lPre). Furthermore, the RSFC results showed that the functional connectivity between lPre and right anterior cingulate cortex (rACC) was positively associated with achievement motivation and negatively correlated with procrastination. More importantly, a mediation analysis demonstrated that achievement motivation fully mediated the relation between lPre-rACC connectivity and procrastination. These findings suggested that lPre-rACC coupling might be the neural correlate underlying the association between achievement motivation and procrastination.

Perceived Motivational Climates and Doping Intention in Adolescent Athletes: The Mediating Role of Moral Disengagement and Sportspersonship

Doping is an important issue in competitive sports and poses potentially irreversible consequences to athletes. Understanding the psychological process underlying antecedents and doping intention will inform policy and prevention. This study aimed to test the psychosocial mechanisms of doping in adolescent athletes using an integrated model. In this model, we examined the associations of perceived motivational climate (i.e., task-involving and ego-involving), moral variables (i.e., moral disengagement and sportspersonship), and attitudinal variables (i.e., perceived pros/cons of doping and perceived cons of not doping) with doping intention. We further investigated whether the moral variables mediated the relationship between perceived motivational climate and doping intention. A cross-sectional survey was employed in the present study. Six hundred and fifteen Chinese adolescent athletes (mean age = 15.68 ± 1.67 years) completed questionnaires measuring demographic information and the variables mentioned previously. Structural equation modeling showed that the hypothesized model had a good fit and explained 64.1% of the variance in doping intention. Task-involving motivational climate indicated both directly and indirectly negative associations with doping intention via sportspersonship. The ego-involving motivational climate was positively associated with doping intention via moral disengagement. Among perceived pros/cons of doping and perceived cons of not doping, both perceived cons of doping and cons of not doping were positively associated with doping intention with a small effect size. This study confirmed the roles of tasking- and ego-involving motivational climates, moral variables, and attitudinal variables on doping intention. These research findings may provide new insights for the future of intention-based doping prevention programmes.

Gray Matter Volume Differences Between More Versus Less Resilient Adults with Chronic Musculoskeletal Pain: A Voxel-based Morphology Study

Resilience, a personality construct that reflects capacities to persevere, maintain a positive outlook and/or thrive despite ongoing stressors, has emerged as an important focus of research on chronic pain (CP). Although behavior studies have found more resilient persons with CP experience less pain-related dysfunction than less resilient cohorts do, the presence and nature of associated brain structure differences has received scant attention. To address this gap, we examined gray matter volume (GMV) differences between more versus less resilient adults with chronic musculoskeletal pain. Participants (75 women, 43 men) were community-dwellers who reported ongoing musculoskeletal pain for at least three months. More (n = 57) and less (n = 61) resilient subgroups, respectively, were identified on the basis of scoring above and below median scores on two validated resilience questionnaires. Voxel-based morphology (VBM) undertaken to examine resilience subgroup differences in GMV indicated more resilient participants displayed significantly larger GMV in the (1) bilateral precuneus, (2) left superior and inferior parietal lobules, (3) orbital right middle frontal gyrus and medial right superior frontal gyrus, and (4) bilateral median cingulate and paracingulate gyri, even after controlling for subgroup differences on demographics and measures of pain-related distress. Together, results underscored the presence and nature of specific GMV differences underlying subjective reports of more versus less resilient responses to ongoing musculoskeletal pain.

Why Negative or Positive, If It makes Me Win? Dark Personality in Spanish Competitive Athletes

Research on the dark triad traits (narcissism, Machiavellianism and psychopathy) is increasingly focusing on the functional or dysfunctional influences of personality traits on cognitive, behavioural and emotional responses. Thus, studies in sport contexts have shown that athletes who participate in competitive sports have higher scores in the dark triad than those who do not. The objectives of this cross-sectional study were to evaluate the linear and predictive relationships between dark traits and competitiveness (p < 0.01), as well as to identify any differences based on sports orientation (professionals vs. amateurs). Scales SD3 (dark personality) and C-10 (competitiveness) were applied to a sample of Spanish athletes (n = 806). The results show that competitiveness is strongly related to the traits of the dark personality triad. Narcissism is related to both the desire to win and the fear of losing, while Machiavellian tendencies are high when athletes feel like losers. Finally, psychopathic tendencies are related to feelings of inferiority and fear of failure. In conclusion, the results suggest that dark personality traits are related not only to the individuality of the athletes, but also to the self-perception of both their psychological response and the competitiveness of their sporting environment.

Brain structure links trait conscientiousness to academic performance

In the long history of identifying factors to predict academic performance, conscientiousness, a so-called ‘big five’ personality trait describing self-regulation and goal-directed behavior, has emerged as a stable predictor for this purpose. However, the neuroanatomical substrates of trait conscientiousness and the underlying brain mechanism linking trait conscientiousness and academic performance are still largely unknown. Here, we examined these issues in 148 high school students within the same grade by estimating cortical gray matter volume (GMV) utilizing a voxel-based morphometry method based on structural magnetic resonance imaging. A whole-brain regression analysis showed that trait conscientiousness was positively associated with the GMV in the bilateral superior parietal lobe (SPL) and was negatively associated with the GMV in the right middle frontal gyrus (MFG). Furthermore, mediation analysis revealed that trait conscientiousness mediated the influences of the SPL and MFG volume on academic performance. Importantly, our results persisted even when we adjusted for general intelligence, family socioeconomic status and ‘big five’ personality traits other than conscientiousness. Altogether, our study suggests that the GMV in the frontoparietal network is a neurostructural marker of adolescents’ conscientiousness and reveals a potential brain-personality-achievement pathway for predicting academic performance in which gray matter structures affect academic performance through trait conscientiousness.