סמינר בהתנהגות ארגונית

ד״ר אוריאל הרן  אוניברסיטת בן-גוריון בנגב

Guilt is a powerful motivator of both goal achievement and prosocial behavior. But in competitive settings, attaining one’s goal prevents others from attaining theirs, putting achievement and prosocial motivations at odds. This work explores the relationship between guilt, motivation, and performance on individual and competitive tasks. The findings suggest that competition and guilt, separately, can increase motivation and performance, but when applied together, they result in a reduction of both measures, even when the competitor has nothing to do with participants’ guilt. This pattern was found for both the emotional experience and trait-level proneness to guilt. The effect appears to be driven by the conflict between individual and prosocial motivations, which are enhanced by guilt but contradict each other in competitions. Such conflict can be resolved by linking the competitive achievement with a prosocial outcome: when the competitive goal was beneficial to both oneself and others, guilt was associated with higher competitive performance. The results shed light on the role of guilt in motivating goal-oriented behavior.