Search research articles

ABOUT JoVE

Overview Leadership Blog JoVE Help Center

AUTHORS

Publishing Process Editorial Board Scope & Policies Peer Review FAQ Submit

LIBRARIANS

Testimonials Subscriptions Access Resources Library Advisory Board FAQ

RESEARCH

JoVE Journal Methods Collections JoVE Encyclopedia of Experiments Archive

EDUCATION

JoVE Core JoVE Business JoVE Science Education JoVE Lab Manual Faculty Resource Center Faculty Site

Terms & Conditions of Use

Related Concept Videos

Complementation Tests

Complementation Tests

A complementation test is a simple cross to identify whether the two mutations are located on the same gene or different genes. It was first performed by Edward Lewis in the 1940s while working on fruit flies. He developed the test to identify the location and arrangement of different mutations on chromosomes.
Organisms heterozygous for different mutations are crossed pairwise in all combinations. If present on different genes, the mutations can complement each other by providing the missing...

Principle of Equivalence

Principle of Equivalence

According to Albert Einstein (1897-1955), free-falling and feeling weightless are intrinsically linked. If a person were in free-fall under gravity, for example, diving towards the Earth from an airplane, they would feel completely weightless. Similarly, a person descending in a lift may feel partially weightless. Broadly speaking, it is assumed that an object in a uniform gravitational field and an object undergoing constant acceleration in the absence of gravity are under the same...

Expected Value

Expected Value

The expected value is known as the "long-term" average or mean. This means that over the long term of experimenting over and over, you would expect this average. The expected average is represented by the symbol μ. It is calculated as follows:

Incomplete Dominance

Incomplete Dominance

Gregor Mendel's work (1822 - 1884) was primarily focused on pea plants. Through his initial experiments, he determined that every gene in a diploid cell has two variants called alleles inherited from each parent. He suggested that amongst these two alleles, one allele is dominant in character and the other recessive. The combination of alleles determines the phenotype of a gene in an organism.

P-value

P-value

P-value is one of the most crucial concepts in statistics.
P-value stands for the probability value. P-value is the probability that, if the null hypothesis is true, the results from another randomly selected sample will be as extreme or more extreme as the results obtained from the given sample.
A large P-value calculated from the data indicates to not reject the null hypothesis. But a higher P-value does not mean that the null hypothesis is true. The smaller the P-value, the more...

Quantifying Work

Quantifying Work

As a system undergoes a change, its internal energy can change, and energy can be transferred from the system to the surroundings, or from the surroundings to the system.

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by

Same author

Self-Regulatory Strategy Use, Efficacy, and Strategy-Situation-Fit in Self-Control Conflicts of Initiation, Persistence, and Inhibition.

European journal of personality·2026

Same author

Registered Report: A Replication Examining Occupational Experience and Performance on the Water-Level Task.

Psychological science·2026

Same author

World Beliefs Moderate the Effects of Trauma and Severe Illness on Emotional Distress.

Journal of personality·2025

Same author

Social exploration: How and why people seek new connections.

Psychological review·2024

Same author

People constrain their semantic associations when talking to both friends and strangers.

Journal of experimental psychology. General·2024

Same author

Metacognition and polyregulation in daily self-control conflicts.

Scandinavian journal of psychology·2023

Same journal

Executive function and social behavior: Causal evidence from loading working memory and inhibitory control.

Journal of experimental psychology. General·2026

Same journal

Correction to "Your research is public engagement: A case for more intentional science communication in research with human subjects" by Vaughn (2026).

Journal of experimental psychology. General·2026

Same journal

Correction to "Costs and benefits of acting extraverted: A randomized controlled trial" by Jacques-Hamilton et al. (2019).

Journal of experimental psychology. General·2026

Same journal

Conveying (discrete) emotionality with novel words.

Journal of experimental psychology. General·2026

Same journal

Physical actions shape moral choices: Environment-directed movements reduce cheating in young children.

Journal of experimental psychology. General·2026

Same journal

From chunks to schemas: Learning in the Hebb repetition paradigm.

Journal of experimental psychology. General·2026

See all related articles

Search research articles

Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jul 26, 2025

Development of a Virtual Reality Assessment of Everyday Living Skills

Development of a Virtual Reality Assessment of Everyday Living Skills

Published on: April 23, 2014

The value of mere completion.

Benjamin A Converse¹, Shelly Tsang², Marie Hennecke³

¹Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy, University of Virginia.

Journal of Experimental Psychology. General

|June 12, 2023

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

People often value completing tasks for their own sake, not just for rewards. This drive for completion influences how individuals prioritize goals and make choices between different tasks.

More Related Videos

Task Interruption and Resumption Paradigm for Testing the Activation and Pursuit of an Abstract Thinking Goal

Task Interruption and Resumption Paradigm for Testing the Activation and Pursuit of an Abstract Thinking Goal

Published on: April 18, 2017

Measuring Delay Discounting in Humans Using an Adjusting Amount Task

Measuring Delay Discounting in Humans Using an Adjusting Amount Task

Published on: January 9, 2016

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: Jul 26, 2025

Development of a Virtual Reality Assessment of Everyday Living Skills

Development of a Virtual Reality Assessment of Everyday Living Skills

Published on: April 23, 2014

Task Interruption and Resumption Paradigm for Testing the Activation and Pursuit of an Abstract Thinking Goal

Task Interruption and Resumption Paradigm for Testing the Activation and Pursuit of an Abstract Thinking Goal

Published on: April 18, 2017

Measuring Delay Discounting in Humans Using an Adjusting Amount Task

Measuring Delay Discounting in Humans Using an Adjusting Amount Task

Published on: January 9, 2016

Area of Science:

Psychology
Behavioral Economics
Cognitive Science

Background:

Everyday experiences reinforce goal completion through social praise and instrumental rewards.
Self-regulation theories emphasize the importance of goal achievement in human behavior.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate whether people intrinsically value task completion opportunities.
To determine if the desire for completion influences decision-making, independent of external rewards.

Main Methods:

Six experiments were conducted involving participants choosing between tasks with varying reward levels and completion opportunities.
Tradeoffs were examined for both extrinsic and intrinsic rewards, with some experiments controlling for participants' awareness of rewards.

Main Results:

Participants frequently chose lower-reward tasks when they offered a completion opportunity over higher-reward tasks without one.
This preference for completion persisted across different reward types and even when rewards were explicitly considered.
The attractiveness of completion increased significantly when a task was very close to completion.

Conclusions:

People sometimes value the act of completion itself, beyond the associated rewards.
The psychological allure of mere completion can significantly impact goal prioritization and decision-making in daily life.