Learning in the Face of Temptation: The Case of Motivational Interference

Students are often faced with the temptation of attractive activities, which may interfere with the learning task and result in detrimental effects on experience and performance. Seventy-seven students (50 girls, 27 boys; M age = 15.9 years; SD = 1.65 years) participated in an experiment that reflected the typical situation of students having to learn for school while other, attractive activities are present (e.g., television). Students who carried out the learning task (learning from text) while they were waiting to watch video clips reported more motivational interference and had worse learning results than did students who watched the videos first. The degree of availability of the video clips during the learning task had no differential effect.