Human Motivation

1
Human Motivation

• Chapter 13
• The Need for Control and Competence

2
Competence

• Being able to successfully deal with threats
• Being able to successfully interact with the
  environment
• Being able to set goals
• Being able to see oneself as capable of going
  where no other person has gone before
• Human needs that pertain to development of
  competence
• Need to control
• Need to achieve
• Need to become competent

o     
3
The Need for Predictability and Control

• Need to control fundamental human need essential
  for survival linked to need for predictability
• Personal control provides the cognitive basis for
  experiencing optimism and hope linked to health
• Control is critical variable in psychological
  health and well-being people with greater
  perceived control tend to live longer.
• Without control, people lose ability to cope
  effectively lack of control implicated in
  stress, depression, anxiety, drug addiction, and
  eating disorders low perceive control might
  suppress immune function.

4
The Need for Predictability and Control

• The Biological Component
• Genetics account for about 30 variance
  associated with personal control and with how
  responsible people felt for misfortunes in their
  lives.
• There is a genetic basis for feelings of personal
  control.
• Although, humans do reach higher/lower levels of
  either external/internal control as a result of
  learning and cognition

5
The Need for Predictability and Control

• The Learned Component
• Distinction between internal/external personality
  types has roots in reinforcement theory.
• Internal locus associated with perceiving control
  produces certain desired results.
• External locus associated with perceiving the
  control does not produce results, results occur
  outside of personal control.
• Attitudes about control issues are shaped by how
  our parents thought/acted, by how they trained us
  to think/act, and by how our cultures taught us
  to act.

6
The Need for Predictability and Control

• The Cognitive Component
• Individuals react very differently to situations
  involving issues of control some people realize
  that they can control some situations and not
  others.
• High need to control might try to control the
  uncontrollable lead to stress low need to
  control may not attempt to control a situation
  that is actually controllable.
• People who feel helpless fail to take control
  this may lead to anxiety or depression.
• An internal locus orientation is more likely to
  result in depression, while an external
  orientation could be a defense against depression.

7
Linking Control and Competence

• Believing that we have control is an essential
  component of developing competence.
• People will not be motivated to develop
  competence unless they believe that their
  behavior will effect some desired outcome.
• Competence a condition or quality of
  effectiveness, ability, sufficiency, or success.

8
Competence and Achievement Motivation

• Need to achieve desire to overcome obstacles, to
  exercise power, to strive to do something
  difficult as well as and as quickly as possible.
• Pleasure of achievement comes in developing and
  exercising skills provides motivation for
  achievement.
• People select/work towards goals because they
  have an underlying need to achieve and a need to
  avoid failure.
• Competence arises from the early behaviors
  motivated by curiosity and exploratory needs.
• Efficacy Individual comes to understand or know
  that he or she is able to affect the environment
  these feelings can act as a reward.

9
Competence and Achievement Motivation

• The Biological Component
• Development of competence has its roots in the
  dynamic interplay of two basic biological systems
  (BAS/BIS)
• BIS activated by the unknown dangers associated
  with new environment will subside in the absence
  of threats/danger.
• BIS is more active in some children (timid or
  anxious child) competence is significantly
  reduced.
• Developed competence is linked to the development
  of executive areas of the brain

10
Competence and Achievement Motivation

• The Learned Component
• Children learn from their observation of adults
  that one way to get what they want from life is
  to gain knowledge and develop skills.
• Modeling and imitation are process by which
  individuals secure what they want from life.
• Motivation is provided by money, social approval,
  etc.
• Four Parenting Styles that Facilitate
  Achievement
• Involvement, structure, nurturing autonomy, and
  taking a process-vs-person focus.

11
Competence and Achievement Motivation

• The Cognitive Component
• Beliefs have a profound influence on the
  development of competence and success.
• Entity theory intelligence is fixed goals
  selected to indicate intelligence and goals
  avoided that provide evidence for lack of
  intelligence.
• Incremental theory intelligence is changeable
  goals selected to increase competence and
  maximize learning.
• How persistent we are is linked to our beliefs
  about whether we can learn and develop.

12
Goal Orientation

• Mastery goal orientation focus on gaining
  competence
• Master approach goal focus on development of
  competence and task mastery.
• Mastery avoidance goal focus on avoidance of the
  possibility of negative judgment of competence.
• Performance goal orientation focus on
  demonstration of competence to avoid unfavorable
  judgments.
• Performance goal approach focus on attainment of
  favorable judgments and competence.
• Performance avoidance approach focus on
  avoidance of unfavorable judgments of competence.

13
Self-Regulation of Competence Development

• Developing competence has to do with learning how
  to self-regulate the learning process

Self-Regulatory Processes

• Set difficult but attainable goals.
• Identify task strategies.
• Make us of imagery.
• Carefully manage time.
• Structure the environment.

• Seek help when needed.
• Learn to self-monitor.
• Learn to self-evaluate.
• Learn to create positive outcomes.

14
Basic Elements of Self-Regulation

• Self-observation (self-monitoring) monitoring
  behavior in order to become aware and change it.
• Self-evaluation (self-judgment) decide if what
  we are doing is congruent with what we want or
  our personal standards.
• Self-reaction (self-incentive) self-judgments
  are often accompanied by affective reactions,
  which can lead us to higher goals or to abandon a
  goal.

15
Theories and Principles of Goal Setting

• Without goals, we have no direction and no
  impetus to achieve.
• Goals arouse effort, give rise to persistence,
  provide directions, and motivate strategy
  development.
• Proximal goals relate to immediate future.
• Distal goals aspirations long-term goals
  sustain motivation keep us on course.
• We should set difficult, but attainable goals.
• If a goal is not sufficiently difficult, it will
  fail to motivate. If a goal is perceived an
  unattainable, we will not put forth effort.

16
Theories and Principles of Goal Setting

• People do not like to be viewed as lacking
  competence some people set easy goals for
  themselves.
• Feedback is essential if motivation is to be
  maintained at a high level determines how well
  we are doing.
• Self-set goals tend to produce greater motivation
  than assigned goals- we are in better position to
  create optimal goal and we tend to be more
  committed to decisions we made ourselves.
• Individuals told to do their best do no better
  than those with no goals.

17
Self-Efficacy and Goal Setting

• Self-Efficacy
• the conviction that one can successfully execute
  the behavior
• stable across time but not stable across
  situations
• will be affected by outcome expectations.
• Goal setting
• Individual assesses whether the distal goal will
  provide some desired reward or satisfaction
  (outcome expectation) if outcome expectations
  are high enough, the individual will assess
  whether he/she can mobilize the necessary
  resources.

18
Imagination in the Pursuit of Goals

• Positive fantasies (imagining how you might think
  or feel when you achieve your goal) are not
  effective motivators.
• Mental stimulation the representation of some
  event or series of events creating images.
• Effective by addressing self-regulation (coping
  of emotions) and coping (ability to plan/solve
  problems)
• Works when it is used to simulate process of
  achieving goal.