Trait self-focused attention, task difficulty, and effort-related cardiovascular reactivity

► Individual differences in self-focused attention interacted with task difficulty to predict effort-related cardiovascular responses, quantified as systolic reactivity. ►Overall, systolic reactivity increased then declined as task difficulty increased, replicating past work on motivational intensity. ►People high in trait self-focus evidenced high reactivity in the most difficult condition but people low in trait self-focus disengaged. ►The findings extend recent applications of motivational intensity theory to self-focused attention, a pivotal variable in the psychology of self-regulation.