If this equation is right, then Impulsiveness appears to be a meaningless quantity. A more impulsive person would be less motivated to perform a task, but also would be less motivated to perform competing tasks. Changing Impulsiveness scales all Motivations equally, preserving the same structure of relative Motivation.
Right. Along with the clarification added by Procrastinus above, this is one thing I left out for the purposes of simplification. Technically, the TMT model’s denominator contains a constant, a measure of delay, and a measure of “susceptibility to delay.” ‘Impulsiveness’ is a decent single-word corallary of ‘susceptibility to delay’, but may vary depending on the task, whereas ‘impulsiveness’ is a word that sounds like a stable character trait.
It should be clarified whether this model considers entertainment activities as ‘tasks.’ If a person has high Impulsiveness, I intuitively see them doing a lot of things with high Expectancy, medium/low value, and little or no Delay. Example: videogames.
However, I do not predict that people with high Impulsiveness will sit around in bed all day actually doing nothing, so I think that the equation is flawed in that we usually understand Impulsiveness as a constant factor for a person, while Expectancy, Value, and Delay are all variable, depending on the activity being considered.
I have a real procrastination problem, and when I don’t have anything specific to do during the day I tend to lay in bed for at least an hour after I wake up. Not doing anything at all, just laying there.
So while laying in bed all day is probably unrealistic (hunger becomes a real motivator after a while) just sitting and doing nothing for a significant amount of time is not unrealistic at all.
If this equation is right, then Impulsiveness appears to be a meaningless quantity. A more impulsive person would be less motivated to perform a task, but also would be less motivated to perform competing tasks. Changing Impulsiveness scales all Motivations equally, preserving the same structure of relative Motivation.
Right. Along with the clarification added by Procrastinus above, this is one thing I left out for the purposes of simplification. Technically, the TMT model’s denominator contains a constant, a measure of delay, and a measure of “susceptibility to delay.” ‘Impulsiveness’ is a decent single-word corallary of ‘susceptibility to delay’, but may vary depending on the task, whereas ‘impulsiveness’ is a word that sounds like a stable character trait.
There. I’ve added to footnote #6 to clarify this.
With low motivation for all tasks, a person may end up not doing any task (some of the time) - procrastination.
It should be clarified whether this model considers entertainment activities as ‘tasks.’ If a person has high Impulsiveness, I intuitively see them doing a lot of things with high Expectancy, medium/low value, and little or no Delay. Example: videogames.
However, I do not predict that people with high Impulsiveness will sit around in bed all day actually doing nothing, so I think that the equation is flawed in that we usually understand Impulsiveness as a constant factor for a person, while Expectancy, Value, and Delay are all variable, depending on the activity being considered.
I have a real procrastination problem, and when I don’t have anything specific to do during the day I tend to lay in bed for at least an hour after I wake up. Not doing anything at all, just laying there.
So while laying in bed all day is probably unrealistic (hunger becomes a real motivator after a while) just sitting and doing nothing for a significant amount of time is not unrealistic at all.
Dorikka,
Does my new addition to footnote #6 answer your concern?
Yes—thanks.