Guido Gendolla, PhD and Rex Wright, PhD

Gendolla currently holds the chair of motivation psychology at the University of Geneva.

Wright is currently a professor at the University of Texas Dell School of Medicine.

Tell us a bit about your background: What is your area of research? What is your most recent journal-editing experience?

Guido Gendolla: I hold the chair of motivation psychology at the University of Geneva, Switzerland, where I direct the Geneva Motivation Lab. My research is primarily focused on the psychophysiology of motivation under affective and volitional influences.

Rex Wright: I am a professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Texas Dell School of Medicine and an emeritus professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of North Texas. My research is concerned broadly with determinants and cardiovascular correlates of behavioral engagement—that is, effort.

What sets Motivation Science (MOT) apart from other journals publishing on neuroscience and cognitive psychology?

MOT is distinguished in terms of its focus on neural, cognitive, social, and other processes relating to action. Broadly speaking, the field of motivation is concerned with what makes people go and how they achieve different purposes. Motivation theorists explain why people pursue different outcomes with different degrees of vigor and persistence. Other journals publishing neuroscientific and cognitive psychology articles do not require submissions to take a motivational perspective. In fact, articles that take an alternative perspective would fit better in a journal other than MOT. Regarding our journal’s readership, MOT brings its published work to the attention of researchers, scholars, and practitioners interested in motivation. It is the ideal journal for people who want to communicate with and learn from members of this group.

What advice would you offer new authors hoping to publish in your journal?

Prior to submitting, carefully consider your article’s thematic fit and likely competitiveness for publication. The number and quality of submissions to MOT has increased steadily in recent years. We maintain high standards, accepting only the strongest submissions. In considering empirical articles, we show a pronounced preference for theoretically driven studies that yield clearly interpretable findings and are compelling in terms of importance. In considering conceptual articles, we look for clear and convincing arguments that have potential impact and are informed by existing empirical evidence and prior scholarship. More detail is provided in our initial editorial “Gathering the Diaspora: Aims and Visions for Motivation Science (PDF, 16KB)opens in new window,” which is available through a link on MOT’s website.

What do you look for in a manuscript?

Fit, quality, and import.

What are the key questions in your area of research that are waiting to be answered and addressed?

In our personal research programs, key questions pertain to determinants and cardiovascular correlates of effort. Working with numerous students and colleagues over a period of decades, we have made progress in establishing certain relationships involving difficulty and heart contraction force. We have identified the function of many psychological moderators of effort, including different incentives, ability beliefs, affective states, and personal action choices, to name only a few. However, much work remains to be done on additional aspects of these topics, for example, on the distribution of effort across time and practical applications.

In the motivation science community generally, key questions are harder to identify, in part because guiding conceptions—along with associated terminology and techniques—are still evolving. One practical question is how to improve communication among groups who embrace different theoretical points of view. Another is how to identify and blend theories that might be usefully integrated to improve understanding of behavior and provide new testable hypotheses.

What problems do you see as important for the field to address more broadly, such as replicability, publishing concerns, communicating science to the public, and translating psychological findings to policy change?

As intimated above, investigators sometimes isolate into ideological factions, or silos. This can impede the exchange of ideas and, ultimately, the advancement of science. We are convinced that solid theory-based research testing well-developed hypotheses with clear operationalizations of key variables based on well-articulated construct definitions is the most promising way to produce meaningful and replicable findings. Regarding methodology, we have implemented many procedures that increase transparency and full methods disclosure in line with APA’s Journal Article Reporting Standards. Regarding policy change, MOT can provide solid scientific arguments for the implementation of programs. Understanding behavior is a key to changing behavior—and behavior change has become an existential question for humanity if one considers the ecological and political challenges of the 21st century.

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