Cognitive Motivation

Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to announce a Call for Papers for a Special Issue on Cognitive Motivation in Intelligence. The aim of this Special Issue is to shed light on the nature and nomological network of traits related to cognitive motivation, such as the Need for Cognition and other investment traits; their interplay with personality, motivational, and ability traits; and to learn more about their longitudinal development as well as about their implications in different contexts of life.

Cognitive motivation can be defined as a set of traits that reflect an individual’s interest and enjoyment in engaging in difficult cognitive tasks. While intelligence represents what people are able to do and, hence, their maximum cognitive performance, Cognitive Motivation, in turn, can be characterized as the typically invested amount of effort individuals put into tasks by thinking. Cognitive motivation has been found to be related to a wide range of beneficial outcomes, such as academic achievement, job performance, or problem-solving; however, interestingly, it has also been found to be related to various indicators of well-being.

Despite the growing body of literature in the field, little is known about the underlying processes and mechanisms or developmental trajectories of Cognitive Motivation, and longitudinal explorations are scarce. Consequently, we especially welcome theoretical contributions that advance our understanding of the nature of Cognitive Motivation; articles that focus on developmental perspectives, such as developmental trajectories or factors impacting the development of investment traits; and longitudinal studies demonstrating the usefulness of Cognitive Motivation beyond academic contexts and for dealing with not only cognitive challenges.

We are clearly committed to the idea of Open Science and therefore primarily encourage work whose hypotheses have been preregistered and whose study material, code, and data are made publicly available. If you are interested in contributing to this Special Issue, please send an abstract before 1 December 2023. If invited to contribute to this Special Issue, a full paper should be submitted before 30 June 2024. All submitted papers will be peer-reviewed. We are looking forward to bringing together a number of exciting and insightful papers in this Special Issue.

Prof. Dr. Anja Strobel
Prof. Dr. Alexander Strobel
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Journal of Intelligence is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• cognitive motivation
• investment traits
• development
• mechanisms