Motivation Ch' 8

1
Motivation Ch. 8

• Goals and Plans

2
Basic Questions

• Why are goals useful for mobilizing action and
  increasing effort?
• How do we develop plans for the future?
• What role do intentions play in this process?

3
A Cognitive Approach to Motivation

• Demand leads to expectations
• Expectations ? non-random searches for satisfiers
• EX Say your car needs a new set of spark plugs
  and youve never bought them before. Where do you
  go?
• Note that this search for satisfiers is not
  random, but planned according to knowledge and
  experience

4
Plans

• Mental representations of current and ideal
  behaviors, objects and events
• Discrepancies ? incongruity ? planning
• Plans are intended to
• Remove incongruity
• Approach ideal states

5
T-O-T-E Cycle

• Test, Operate, Test, Exit
• According to the model, we
• Detect mismatches (Test)
• Generate plans to eliminate them
• Instigate appropriate behaviors (Operate)
• Monitor progress (Test)
• Exit the loop

6
Corrective Motivation

• Plan are not static, but dynamic
• We are active decision makers
• We can do a number of things
• Adjust ineffective plans
• Withdraw from plans altogether
• Work within situational constraints
• Increase effort

7
Discrepancy Our Cognitive Fuel

• Discrepancies are one of the roots of cognitive
  motivational theory
• Created from perceptions of a situation being
  less than ideal
• Creates a sense of wanting
• Uses imagination and visualization

8
Two Types of Discrepancy

• Discrepancy reduction
• I am not where I want to be
• The current state is aversive in some way
• Can come from social comparison or internal
  comparison

9
Two Types of Discrepancy

• Discrepancy creation
• I can be even better than I am
• The current state is not necessarily aversive
• Not as reliant on comparison processes

10
Differences to Remember

• Discrepancy reduction plan-based corrective
  action
• Discrepancy creation goal-oriented motivation
• Discrepancy reduction is reactive, discrepancy
  creation is proactive
• Discrepancy reduction is feedback dependent

11
Goals as Motivators

• Performance with goals is better than performance
  without goals
• Between persons and within persons
• Motivation increases linearly with goal
  difficulty
• Constrained by ability
• Specific goals produce more motivation than vague
  goals

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Difficulty and Specificity

• Goals should be difficult to achieve
• Diminishes negative factors like boredom, fatigue
  and distraction
• Increases persistence and effort
• Goals should be as specific as possible
• Directs attention and provides foundation for
  strategy
• Encourages active planning and plan modifications
• Reduces performance variability

13
Other Qualities of Good Goals

• Goals cannot be met without feedback
• Timely information about both results (outcomes)
  and performance (behaviors)
• Provides information used to modify plans and
  measure discrepancies
• Generates emotional reactions that can increase
  future motivation toward the goal

14
Other Qualities of Good Goals

• Goal acceptance - the decision to either accept
  or reject the goal
• Important idea when goals are given to others
• Goals that are accepted are more motivating
• If goals are rejected, motivation can sometimes
  turn from approach to avoidance

15
What Makes Us Accept Goals?

• Perceived difficulty Easier goals more readily
  accepted all things being equal
• Note that ease is determined through a
  difficulty-ability matching process
• Participation encourages ownership, fosters
  dissonance-related acceptance
• Hearing the others point of view and providing a
  rationale for the goal may be enough

16
What Makes Us Accept Goals?

• Credibility of supervisor
• Is the supervisor trustworthy? Supportive?
  Knowledgeable? Someone that is well-liked?
• Extrinsic incentives
• The incentive must be seen as valuable by the
  person

17
Some Cautions and Pitfalls

• Cautions
• Do goals generate motivation or just direct it?
• Be careful of the type of task onto which you
  apply a goal
• Pitfalls
• Goals can increase stress
• Goals can create opportunities for failure
• Goals can risk intrinsic motivation

18
How Far Is It, Again?

• Proximal (short-term) and distal (long-term)
  goals
• Rule of thumb Proximal goals should be the
  pathways to distal goals
• Prox ? Prox ? Prox ? Prox ? Prox ? Dist

19
Goal Distance and Intrinsic Motivation

• Goal could be perceived as an extrinsic motivator
• Key issue is the initial level of intrinsic
  motivation
• Uninteresting tasks benefit from proximal goals,
  which help develop competency
• Interesting tasks benefit from distal goals
  proximal goals are seen as controlling

20
Personal Strivings

• General personality dispositions rather than
  specific targets (goals)
• Related sets of goals fall under a personal
  striving umbrella
• EX Have a better attitude is a good personal
  striving but a bad goal

21
Strivings and Subjective Well-Being

• The content of ones personal strivings
  foreshadows long-term subjective well-being (SWB)
• Intimacy themes vs. power/achievement themes
• Intrinsic vs. extrinsic themes
• Approach vs. avoidance themes
• SWB is more about the striving rather than the
  attaining

22
Goals Into Action

• Mental simulations ? increasing focus on goal
  attainment
• Envisioning plans in advance may point to
  deficiencies
• Outcome-focused vs. process-focused?
• Implementation intentions specifying the plan
• Help to overcome procrastination, increase
  persistence, and adjust to interruptions
• Anticipate potential roadblocks (If X, Ill do
  Y)

23
Self-Regulation

• Metacognitive monitoring (knowing what you know)
• Three components
• Forethought goal setting and planning
• Action behaving, receiving feedback
• Reflection assessment of/adjustments to behavior

24
Developing Competent Self-Regulation

• Observation of expert model
• Imitation, social guidance and feedback
• Internalization of others standards
• Practice self-control based on new standards