Chapter 1:
Motivation and its importance:
Motivation is wanting. Motivation is a simple condition inside us that desires a change (a
change in the self or a change in the environment). There is an active ingredient (i.e. wanting
change) within any motivational state.
Motivation is important for two reasons:
1. Learning about motivation is a very interesting thing to do → anything that tells us
what I and other people want, why we want what we want and how we can improve
our lives is going to be interesting. To give us these insights, we can turn to theories
of motivation.
2. Learning about motivation is a valuable, useful and deeply worthwhile thing to do → it
can be quite useful to know where motivation comes from, why it sometimes changes
and why other times it does not, in which conditions it increases or decreases, etc.
We can apply this knowledge to many situations. Understanding motivation and
motion offers a reliable pathway to gain valued outcomes.
Studying motivation and emotion is an opportunity to gain both theoretical understanding
and practical know-how.
There are thirteen different motivational reasons (e.g: to exercise):
1. Intrinsic motivation → e.g fun, enjoyment
2. Flow → e.g personal challenge
3. External regulation → e.g forced to do so
4. Goal → e.g accomplish a goal
5. Value → e.g: health benefits
6. Possible self → e.g: inspiration
7. Achievement strivings → e.g: pursuit of a standard of excellence
8. Competence → e.g: satisfaction from a job well done
9. Opponent process → an emotional kick
10.Positive affect → e.g: good mood
11.Introjection → e.g: alleviate guilt
12.Personal control → e.g: relieve stress depression
13.Relatedness → e.g: hang out with friends
We do not only need to consider the motivation to approach (e.g: to exercise), but also the
motivation to avoid (e.g: to not exercise).
Motivational science:
The term science signals that answers to motivational questions require objective,
data-based, empirical evidence gained from well-conducted and peer-reviewed research
findings. Motivational science embraces empirical methods, as it emphasizes testable
hypotheses, operational definitions of its constructs, observational methods and objective
statistical analysis to evaluate the scientific merit of its hypotheses. Such research seeks to
construct theories about how motivational processes work.
- Theory → it is an intellectual framework that organizes a vast amount of knowledge
about a phenomenon so that the phenomenon can be better described, understood
and explained.
,To understand the nature of something and to explain how it works, a theory of achievement
motivation needs to do two things:
1. It needs to identify the relations that exist among naturally occurring observable
phenomena (e.g: antecedents are optimal challenge and independent work,
consequences are effort and career choices).
2. It needs to explain why those relations exist
The following image illustrates the function and utility of a good theory:
A theory cuts through the complexity and noise of reality to represent how a phenomenon
generally works. Once formed, theories will generate predictions (i.e. hypotheses) about
where a motivational state comes from, what it leads to (e.g: behavioral change) and how,
when and under what conditions it might change.
How a theory conceptualizes the phenomenon may or may not be correct or complete. So,
researchers use the theory to generate testable hypotheses.
- Hypothesis → a prediction about what should happen if the theory is correct.
With a hypothesis in hand, a research study is carried out to collect the data necessary to
evaluate the accuracy of the hypothesis. If the finding supports the theory’s hypothesis,
researchers then gain confidence in the validity of the theory. If the findings fail to support
the theory, however, researchers lose confidence in the theory and either revise it or go in
search of a better theory. After a theory has been sufficiently, rigorously and objectively
validated, it becomes useful. A validated theory serves as a practical tool to recommend
applications that can improve people’s lives.
Two perennial questions:
The study of motivation revolves around providing answers the two fundamental questions:
1. What causes behavior? → we can see people behave, but we cannot see the
underlying cause or causes that generated their behavior. Motivation exists as a
scientific field to identify those hidden causes of behavior. It is helpful to expand this
general question into five specific questions:
- Why does behavior start?
- Once begun, why is the behavior sustained over time?
- Why is behavior directed toward some goals yet away from others?
- Why does behavior change its direction?
- Why does behavior stop?
By looking at this question we gain the capacity to explain why people do what they do. The
most popular theories that people embrace are self-esteem & praise and incentives &
,rewards. There is practically no evidence that boosting self-esteem will lead to motivation.
There is value in a healthy dose of self-esteem. but self-esteem is not a causal variable.
Instead, it is an effect, it is a reflection of how our lives are going.
There is also a problem in giving people rewards. Firstly, the rewards and incentives need to
be given carefully, because removing them tends to damage the person’s preexisting
motivation to engage in that same task without the promise of reward. Second, the person
offering the incentive actually ignores or bypasses an understanding of the person’s
motivation and instead seeks only compliance.
2. Why does behavior vary in its intensity? → behavior varies in its intensity and its
intensity varies both within the individual and among different individuals. When
motivation varies, behavior also varies.
Subject matter:
The study of motivation concerns those internal processes that give behavior its
energy, direction and persistence.
Energy implies that behavior has strength, that it’s relatively strong, intense and hardy or
resilient. Direction implies that behavior has purpose, that it's aimed or guided toward some
particular goal or outcome. Persistence implies that behavior has endurance, that it sustains
itself over time and across different situations.
- Motive → they are internal experiences (i.e. needs, cognitions and emotions) that
energize, direct and sustain behavior. They are the direct and proximal causes of
motivated actions.
The difference between a general motive versus a specific need, cognition or emotion is
simply the level of analysis. Needs, cognitions and emotions are just three specific types of
motives.
1. Needs → they are conditions within the individual that are essential and necessary
for the maintenance of life and for the nurturance of growth and well-being (e.g:
hunger, competence and belongingness). Needs serve the organism by (1)
generating wants, desires and striving that motivate whatever behaviors are
necessary for the maintenance of life and the promotion of growth and well-being and
(2) generating a deep sense of need satisfaction from doing so.
2. Cognitions → they are mental events, such as thoughts, beliefs, expectations,
plans, goals, strategies, appraisals, attributions and the self-concept. Cognitive
sources of motivation involve the person’s ways of thinking.
, 3. Emotions → they are complex but coordinated
feelings-arousal-purposive-expressive reactions to the significant events in our lives.
Emotions generate brief, attention-getting bursts of emergency-liek adaptive
behavior. That is, given a significant life event, emotions rapidly and rather
automatically generate and synchronize four interrelated aspects of experience into a
unified whole:
- Feelings → subjective, verbal description of emotional experience
- Arousal → bodily mobilization to cope with situational demands
- Purpose → motivational urge to accomplish something specific at that moment
- Expression → nonverbal communication of our emotional experience to others
By generating and synchronizing these four aspects of experience into a coherent
whole, emotions allow us to react adaptively to the important events in our lives.
Each emotion featured in the book serves a distinct motivation function.
External events and social context are important too, because they act as antecedents to
motives. External events are environmental, social and cultural offerings that affect a
person’s internal motives.
- Environmental events include specific attractive stimuli and events and specific
unattractive stimuli and events.
- Social context include general situations (e.g: a classroom, a parenting style or the
culture at large)
It is tempting to think that external events are themselves direct sources of motivation. The
motivational power of incentive and rewards is, however, traceable to the dopamine
discharge that occurs in the subcortical brain when the delivery of a valued reward is
expected. So it is actually the dopamine discharge and the cognitive expectation of a
forthcoming benefit (internal process), not the extrinsic reward itself, that energizes, directs
and sustains behavior.
- Influence → it is the social process in which one requests that the other changes his
or her behavior or thought.
Influence is not the same as motivation. Motivation is a private, internal process. What
motivation does is endow the person with the energy and direction needed to engage in and
to cope with the environment in an open-ended, adaptive, problem-solving sort of way.
When you motivate someone, you energize and direct their behavior, engagement and
coping. People are motivated when their behavior is strong, purposive and resilient. When
you influence people, you get them to do what you want them to do.
Expression of motivation:
Five telltale ways that you can know (or measure) motivation when you see it are:
1. Behavior → seven aspects of behavior express the presence, intensity and quality of
motivation:
- Effort → i.e. exertion put forth during a task. Percentage of total capacity used
- Persistence → .e. time between when a behavior first starts until it ends
- Latency → i.e. duration of time a person waits to get started on a task upon first
begin given an opportunity to do so
- Choice → i.e. when presented with two or more courses of action, preferring one
course of action over the other
Motivation and its importance:
Motivation is wanting. Motivation is a simple condition inside us that desires a change (a
change in the self or a change in the environment). There is an active ingredient (i.e. wanting
change) within any motivational state.
Motivation is important for two reasons:
1. Learning about motivation is a very interesting thing to do → anything that tells us
what I and other people want, why we want what we want and how we can improve
our lives is going to be interesting. To give us these insights, we can turn to theories
of motivation.
2. Learning about motivation is a valuable, useful and deeply worthwhile thing to do → it
can be quite useful to know where motivation comes from, why it sometimes changes
and why other times it does not, in which conditions it increases or decreases, etc.
We can apply this knowledge to many situations. Understanding motivation and
motion offers a reliable pathway to gain valued outcomes.
Studying motivation and emotion is an opportunity to gain both theoretical understanding
and practical know-how.
There are thirteen different motivational reasons (e.g: to exercise):
1. Intrinsic motivation → e.g fun, enjoyment
2. Flow → e.g personal challenge
3. External regulation → e.g forced to do so
4. Goal → e.g accomplish a goal
5. Value → e.g: health benefits
6. Possible self → e.g: inspiration
7. Achievement strivings → e.g: pursuit of a standard of excellence
8. Competence → e.g: satisfaction from a job well done
9. Opponent process → an emotional kick
10.Positive affect → e.g: good mood
11.Introjection → e.g: alleviate guilt
12.Personal control → e.g: relieve stress depression
13.Relatedness → e.g: hang out with friends
We do not only need to consider the motivation to approach (e.g: to exercise), but also the
motivation to avoid (e.g: to not exercise).
Motivational science:
The term science signals that answers to motivational questions require objective,
data-based, empirical evidence gained from well-conducted and peer-reviewed research
findings. Motivational science embraces empirical methods, as it emphasizes testable
hypotheses, operational definitions of its constructs, observational methods and objective
statistical analysis to evaluate the scientific merit of its hypotheses. Such research seeks to
construct theories about how motivational processes work.
- Theory → it is an intellectual framework that organizes a vast amount of knowledge
about a phenomenon so that the phenomenon can be better described, understood
and explained.
,To understand the nature of something and to explain how it works, a theory of achievement
motivation needs to do two things:
1. It needs to identify the relations that exist among naturally occurring observable
phenomena (e.g: antecedents are optimal challenge and independent work,
consequences are effort and career choices).
2. It needs to explain why those relations exist
The following image illustrates the function and utility of a good theory:
A theory cuts through the complexity and noise of reality to represent how a phenomenon
generally works. Once formed, theories will generate predictions (i.e. hypotheses) about
where a motivational state comes from, what it leads to (e.g: behavioral change) and how,
when and under what conditions it might change.
How a theory conceptualizes the phenomenon may or may not be correct or complete. So,
researchers use the theory to generate testable hypotheses.
- Hypothesis → a prediction about what should happen if the theory is correct.
With a hypothesis in hand, a research study is carried out to collect the data necessary to
evaluate the accuracy of the hypothesis. If the finding supports the theory’s hypothesis,
researchers then gain confidence in the validity of the theory. If the findings fail to support
the theory, however, researchers lose confidence in the theory and either revise it or go in
search of a better theory. After a theory has been sufficiently, rigorously and objectively
validated, it becomes useful. A validated theory serves as a practical tool to recommend
applications that can improve people’s lives.
Two perennial questions:
The study of motivation revolves around providing answers the two fundamental questions:
1. What causes behavior? → we can see people behave, but we cannot see the
underlying cause or causes that generated their behavior. Motivation exists as a
scientific field to identify those hidden causes of behavior. It is helpful to expand this
general question into five specific questions:
- Why does behavior start?
- Once begun, why is the behavior sustained over time?
- Why is behavior directed toward some goals yet away from others?
- Why does behavior change its direction?
- Why does behavior stop?
By looking at this question we gain the capacity to explain why people do what they do. The
most popular theories that people embrace are self-esteem & praise and incentives &
,rewards. There is practically no evidence that boosting self-esteem will lead to motivation.
There is value in a healthy dose of self-esteem. but self-esteem is not a causal variable.
Instead, it is an effect, it is a reflection of how our lives are going.
There is also a problem in giving people rewards. Firstly, the rewards and incentives need to
be given carefully, because removing them tends to damage the person’s preexisting
motivation to engage in that same task without the promise of reward. Second, the person
offering the incentive actually ignores or bypasses an understanding of the person’s
motivation and instead seeks only compliance.
2. Why does behavior vary in its intensity? → behavior varies in its intensity and its
intensity varies both within the individual and among different individuals. When
motivation varies, behavior also varies.
Subject matter:
The study of motivation concerns those internal processes that give behavior its
energy, direction and persistence.
Energy implies that behavior has strength, that it’s relatively strong, intense and hardy or
resilient. Direction implies that behavior has purpose, that it's aimed or guided toward some
particular goal or outcome. Persistence implies that behavior has endurance, that it sustains
itself over time and across different situations.
- Motive → they are internal experiences (i.e. needs, cognitions and emotions) that
energize, direct and sustain behavior. They are the direct and proximal causes of
motivated actions.
The difference between a general motive versus a specific need, cognition or emotion is
simply the level of analysis. Needs, cognitions and emotions are just three specific types of
motives.
1. Needs → they are conditions within the individual that are essential and necessary
for the maintenance of life and for the nurturance of growth and well-being (e.g:
hunger, competence and belongingness). Needs serve the organism by (1)
generating wants, desires and striving that motivate whatever behaviors are
necessary for the maintenance of life and the promotion of growth and well-being and
(2) generating a deep sense of need satisfaction from doing so.
2. Cognitions → they are mental events, such as thoughts, beliefs, expectations,
plans, goals, strategies, appraisals, attributions and the self-concept. Cognitive
sources of motivation involve the person’s ways of thinking.
, 3. Emotions → they are complex but coordinated
feelings-arousal-purposive-expressive reactions to the significant events in our lives.
Emotions generate brief, attention-getting bursts of emergency-liek adaptive
behavior. That is, given a significant life event, emotions rapidly and rather
automatically generate and synchronize four interrelated aspects of experience into a
unified whole:
- Feelings → subjective, verbal description of emotional experience
- Arousal → bodily mobilization to cope with situational demands
- Purpose → motivational urge to accomplish something specific at that moment
- Expression → nonverbal communication of our emotional experience to others
By generating and synchronizing these four aspects of experience into a coherent
whole, emotions allow us to react adaptively to the important events in our lives.
Each emotion featured in the book serves a distinct motivation function.
External events and social context are important too, because they act as antecedents to
motives. External events are environmental, social and cultural offerings that affect a
person’s internal motives.
- Environmental events include specific attractive stimuli and events and specific
unattractive stimuli and events.
- Social context include general situations (e.g: a classroom, a parenting style or the
culture at large)
It is tempting to think that external events are themselves direct sources of motivation. The
motivational power of incentive and rewards is, however, traceable to the dopamine
discharge that occurs in the subcortical brain when the delivery of a valued reward is
expected. So it is actually the dopamine discharge and the cognitive expectation of a
forthcoming benefit (internal process), not the extrinsic reward itself, that energizes, directs
and sustains behavior.
- Influence → it is the social process in which one requests that the other changes his
or her behavior or thought.
Influence is not the same as motivation. Motivation is a private, internal process. What
motivation does is endow the person with the energy and direction needed to engage in and
to cope with the environment in an open-ended, adaptive, problem-solving sort of way.
When you motivate someone, you energize and direct their behavior, engagement and
coping. People are motivated when their behavior is strong, purposive and resilient. When
you influence people, you get them to do what you want them to do.
Expression of motivation:
Five telltale ways that you can know (or measure) motivation when you see it are:
1. Behavior → seven aspects of behavior express the presence, intensity and quality of
motivation:
- Effort → i.e. exertion put forth during a task. Percentage of total capacity used
- Persistence → .e. time between when a behavior first starts until it ends
- Latency → i.e. duration of time a person waits to get started on a task upon first
begin given an opportunity to do so
- Choice → i.e. when presented with two or more courses of action, preferring one
course of action over the other
