About

Mark Lepper is the Albert Ray Lang Professor of Psychology, Emeritus at Stanford University. His research has extensively explored motivation, social psychology, and attitude change, with a focus on how self-affirmation, praise, choice, and extrinsic rewards influence intrinsic motivation and social behavior. Lepper's work investigates psychological barriers to conflict resolution, the effects of praise on children's motivation, and cultural differences in the impact of choice on motivation. His contributions include examining the motivational processes underlying social and educational phenomena, emphasizing the importance of conceptual variables such as sincerity, autonomy, and cultural context in understanding motivation and attitude change. As an emeritus faculty member, he continues to contribute to the field through research and scholarly activities.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Psychology
• Political Science
• Social psychology
• Artificial Intelligence
• Mathematics education
• Cognitive psychology
• Cognitive science
• History
• Mathematics

Selected publications

• A Constraint-Satisfaction Model of Machiavellianism Effects in Cognitive Dissonance

  Routledge eBooks · 2022 · 2 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Psychology
  • Social psychology
  • Mathematics

  The consonance constraint-satisfaction model is applied to Machiavellianism self-concept effects in cognitive dissonance. Networks parameterized for low Machiavellian traits showed the usual dissonance effect, i. e., more attitude change after giving a counterattitudinal speech than after not giving such a speech, whereas networks parameterized for high Machiavellian traits showed the reverse, thus capturing human data. Classical dissonance theory had not accounted for the fact that people with high Machiavellian traits showed less attitude change after giving a counter-attitudinal speech than after not giving such a speech. The model predicts initial dissonance and the course of dissonance reduction in the various experimental conditions. The results underscore the point that cognitive dissonance operates according to the same constraint-satisfaction principles that govern a variety of other psychological phenomena.

  PublisherDOI

• Intrinsic Motivation and Instructional Effectiveness in Computer-Based Education

  2021 · 190 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Computer Science
  • Computer Science
  • Psychology

  Our goal in this chapter is to examine the relationship between intrinsic motivation and instructional effectiveness, in the context of the study of computer-based educational activities for children. In so doing, our hope is to illustrate the value of using computer-based learning as a laboratory for reviving classic issues in educational and social psychology and for examining those issues in a manner that highlights both their considerable theoretical significance and their immediate social importance. In the process, we wish to build upon the motivational analysis presented in the preceding chapter and raise, at this point, a set of conceptually related issues concerning the application of this analysis to the question of when computer-based techniques for enhancing intrinsic motivation will also increase, and when they may decrease, the effectiveness of the computer as an instructional medium.

  PublisherDOI

• Lee D. Ross (1942–2021).

  American Psychologist · 2021-11-18 · 1 citations

  article

  Memorializes Lee D. Ross (1942-2021). Ross made many contributions to social psychology. He had a knack for seeing the broad and deep psychological processes underlying individual episodes of rich, everyday behavior. Ross then crafted experiments that explored those processes in a way that was engaging and unusually memorable. After completing his PhD degree in 1969, Ross joined the faculty at Stanford University, where he taught for 52 years. Ross first achieved prominence in 1977 when he coined the term "the fundamental attribution error" to describe the tendency to attribute behavior primarily to a person's traits, attitudes, and other characteristics even when it should be clear that the person's behavior was largely the result of situational influences or constraints. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

  PublisherDOI

• Making Learning Fun : A Taxonomy of Intrinsic Motivations for Learning

  2021 · 910 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Computer Science
  • Political Science
  • Artificial Intelligence

  Over the past 2 decades, great strides have been made in analyzing the cognitive processes involved in learning and instruction. During the same period, however, attention to motivational issues has been minimal. It is now time to redress this imbalance. As Bruner (1966) has put the case: The will to learn is an intrinsic motive, one that finds both its source and its reward in its own exercise. The will to learn becomes a ‘problem’ only under specialized circumstances like those of a school, where a curriculum is set, students confined and a path fixed. The problem exists not so much in learning itself, but in the fact that what the school imposes often fails to enlist the natural energies that sustain spontaneous learning . . . (p. 127)

  PublisherDOI

• Consonance Network Simulations of Arousal Phenomena in Cognitive Dissonance

  Psychology Press eBooks · 2020-12-22

  book-chapterSenior author

  The consonance constraint satisfaction model, recently used to simulate the major paradigms of cognitive dissonance theory, is extended to deal with emotional arousal phenomena in dissonance. The impact of arousing drugs is implemented in the simulations by a scalar that modulates the intensity of unit activations representing the relevant cognitions and the connection weights representing their implications. The simulations show that even exotic dissonance phenomena can be explained in terms of the relatively common process of constraint satisfaction.

  PublisherDOI

• ISSUES IN LEARNING AND MOTIVATIONJohn C. Me Cullers

  Psychology Press eBooks · 2015-09-16

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• OVERJUSTIFICATION RESEARCH AND BEYOND: TOWARD A MEANS-ENDS ANALYSIS OF INTRINSIC AND EXTRINSIC MOTIVATION Mark R. Lepper and David Greene

  Psychology Press eBooks · 2015-09-16 · 4 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Self-perception and social-perception processes in tutoring: Subtle social control strategies of expert tutors

  Medical Entomology and Zoology · 2013-03-07 · 63 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• "Hot" Versus "Cold" Cognition: An Abelsonian Voyage

  Medical Entomology and Zoology · 2013-06-17 · 13 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Affirming the Self to Promote Agreement With Another

  Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin · 2011-05-17 · 18 citations

  article

  Two studies investigated the capacity of a self-affirmation intervention to lower a psychological barrier to conflict resolution. Study 1 used a role-play scenario in which a student negotiated with a professor for greater rewards for work on a collaborative project. A self-affirmation manipulation, in which participants focused on an important personal value, significantly reduced their tendency to derogate a concession offered by the professor relative to one that had not been offered. Study 2 replicated this effect and showed that the phenomenon did not depend on the self-affirmed participant's experience of a heightened sense of deservingness or a tendency to make positive attributions about the professor. Distraction and explicit mood enhancement were also ruled out as mediators of the self-affirmation effect, which appears to stem from motivational rather than explicit cognitive processes.

  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• NIH Grant R01HD017371

  NIH · $326k · 1988

• Overcoming Barriers to Efficient Negotiation and the Resolution of Disputes

  NSF · $400k · 2005–2009

Frequent coauthors

• Charles G. Lord

  Texas Christian University

  18 shared

• Lee Ross

  15 shared

• David Greene

  National Renewable Energy Laboratory

  10 shared

• Sheena S. Iyengar

  9 shared

• Thomas R. Shultz

  9 shared

• Gerald Sagotsky

  7 shared

• Jennifer Henderlong

  5 shared

• René Paulson

  4 shared

Labs

• Vice Provost for Student AffairsPI