Expectancy/Goal-Setting Theory + MTT's

Just getting a general feel for if this applies to anyone else.. so expectancy theory in an organizational sense is the tendency to act in a certain way on the stength of the expectation that the act will be followed by a given outcome, and the attractivness of the outcome to the person.. Goal-setting theory pretty much just says that more difficult and specific goals lead to higher performance..

Applying this to tourney poker, do you tend to perform better when there is more on the line (higher buy-ins) than in micros or is your effort the same regardless of the buy-in/importance? I think this is a leak in my game.. mind you I only play micros so occasionally trying a 10+1 is my leap.. but with some micros I just multi-task way too much, .. With bigger tourneys, like PCA DS that I gave a couple shots at through sats, I was at least more focused, if not playing better than normal.

How do I putforth the same amount of effort and decision making skills on any level, or is this kind of an intrinsic thing that we (conciously or sub-conciously) can't avoid?