Specific Motivation

5 Key excerpts on "Specific Motivation"

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  eBook - ePub

  Personality and Individual Differences

  • Bere Mahoney(Author)
  • 2011(Publication Date)
  • Learning Matters

    (Publisher)

  This is consistent with other omnibus definitions of motivation, such as that of Baumeister et al. (2007, p2) who define motivation as in essence. .. any sort of general drive or inclination to do something. Similarly, according to Deci and Ryan (2000), motivation is something we are all concerned with because it is about how to move ourselves or others to act. We will now clarify two further contextual issues about human motivation research. First, we will attempt to clarify what we mean when referring to human motivation as self-regulation. Then we will consider the conceptualisation of human motivation as a state as opposed to a trait. Motivation as self-regulation In Chapter 1 we clarified the nature and scope of individual differences psychology. In doing so we identified that currently researchers are conceptualising individual differences and the main aspects of such differences – such as personality and intelligence or intellect – as self-regulation. Likewise, contemporary research on human motivation frequently conceptualises human motivation as self-regulation. However, according to Baumeister et al. (2007, p1), despite the expansion of motivation research Motivation is underappreciated in psychology generally. .. (and) Motivation’s role in self-regulation has been similarly underestimated. Nevertheless, the use of the term self-regulation to conceptualise human motivation is regarded as theoretically significant (Carver and Scheier, 2000a, 2000b) and as indicating a fundamental conceptual shift in motivation research (Caprara and Cervone, 2000). Furthermore, Caprara and Cervone (2000) argue that classic theories of personality primarily are theories of motivation (p339) and that the shift to conceptualising human motivation as self-regulation has also brought about an intellectual shift in motivation research

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  Motivating Humans

  Goals, Emotions, and Personal Agency Beliefs

  • Martin Eugene Ford(Author)
  • 1992(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications, Inc

    (Publisher)

  Consequently, it is often used in ambiguous or imprecise ways (deCharms, 1987; D. Ford, 1987). Nevertheless, if it is carefully defined and delimited, the concept of motivation provides a uniquely valuable way of describing the integrated patterning of a set of intimately related processes. Thus, based on the foregoing analysis, the concept of motivation is defined in Motivational Systems Theory as the organized patterning of an individual’s personal goals, emotions, and personal agency beliefs. Symbolically this can be represented as a formula of three interacting components: Motivation = Goals × Emotions × Personal Agency Beliefs Thus motivation is an integrative construct representing the direction a person is going, the emotional energy and affective experience supporting or inhibiting movement in that direction, and the expectancies a person has about whether they can ultimately reach their destination

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  Naming the Mind

  How Psychology Found Its Language

  • Kurt Danziger(Author)
  • 1997(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications Ltd

    (Publisher)

  In industry, there were several problem areas for which the question of rewards and incentives was beginning to appear particularly relevant. More than the issue of productivity, which was traditionally handled rather mechanically, rising concern about extraordinarily high rates of labour turnover prompted calls for psychological input into questions of ‘unwillingness to work’ and work satisfaction (Frost, 1920). The steady centralization of hiring and firing decisions in large companies, and increasing faith in the wisdom of scientific experts, had also made the application of relevant psychological knowledge more feasible. Before World War I, psychological knowledge pertaining to rewards and incentives hardly existed; in the 1920s, however, research in this area blossomed. By 1927, the textbook presentation of the sub-discipline of applied psychology included chapters on ‘the measurement of character and interest’ and ‘satisfaction as a product of work’, as well as sections devoted to such topics as the ‘relative strength of desires’, ‘consumers’ likes and dislikes’, and ‘the conflict of motives’ (Poffenberger, 1927). In addition, there is a discussion of laboratory studies of punishment in the context of the treatment of criminal offenders.

  The more popular literature of ‘personal efficiency’, directed at ambitious and aspiring managers and salesmen, had been using the semantics of motivation and personality for some time. As early as 1917, about half of a book entitled The Executive and his Control of Men (Gowin, 1917) was devoted to what was called ‘motivating the group’. This included chapters on ‘rewards’ and on ‘personality’. The post-war literature on ‘influencing people’ popularized the notion that individuals could be readily manipulated by playing on their wants, interests and motives (Overstreet, 1925).

  Comparing the psychological and quasi-psychological literature of the second and third decades of the twentieth century with earlier usage, the change in the semantics of ‘motive’ is quite striking. Traditionally, a ‘motive’ was a substantive that referred to a specific aspect or entity linked to some human action. The verbal form, ‘to motivate’, and the abstract form, ‘motivation’, were quite rare and are not documented as having occurred before the late nineteenth century (Oxford English Dictionary

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  Motivate Your Writing

  Using Motivational Psychology to Energize Your Writing Life

  • Stephen P. Kelner, Jr., PhD(Authors)
  • 2021(Publication Date)
  • JABberwocky Literary Agency, Inc.

    (Publisher)

  Section I: Motivation--Why People Do What They Do

  “‘If you knew you would be poor as a church mouse all your life—if you knew you’d never have a line published—would you still go on writing—would you?’ ‘Of course I would,’ said Emily disdainfully. ‘Why, I have to write—I can’t help it by times—I’ve just got to.’“

  —Lucy Maud Montgomery

  “Any writer is inevitably going to work with his own anxieties and desires. If the book is any good, it has got to have in it the fire of a personal unconscious mind.”

  —Iris Murdoch

  Passage contains an image

  Chapter 1: What is Motivation

  We are going to use a particular definition of “motivation” in this book, and it differs from the one in the dictionary. When we talk about “motives” here, we describe a very specific concept, developed through psychological research on tens of thousands of healthy, productive people. As a working definition, try this on for size:

  A motive is a recurrent concern for a general goal of which one may not be consciously aware; this concern drives, directs, orients, and energizes behavior, and can be seen in fantasy.

  —McClelland, 1984

  Let’s turn this into more common English. A motive sits in the back of your head (metaphorically, not literally—let’s not get into psychobiology here) and influences you. It isn’t as specific as “I want to make money” or “motive to get published.” It is something more general, such as “enjoyment in doing better” or “emotion around being liked.”

  People show an infinite range of behavior, so it may sound ludicrous when I say that only three motives can explain about eighty to eighty-five percent of human behavior overall. Nevertheless, it is true that for most people, a few basic drives explain most of their thinking and actions. That doesn’t mean that people are simple, or psychology would be a lot easier to study. What it means is that a few general drives influence a wide range of possible behaviors. Furthermore, your actual behaviors and actions are not just based on these unconscious motives. They come out of what you value, what you have been taught, what you can do well, many other characteristics of you as a person, and what is going on outside you.

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  The Motivated Brain

  Improving Student Attention, Engagement, and Perseverance

  • Gayle Gregory, Martha Kaufeldt(Authors)
  • 2015(Publication Date)
  • ASCD

    (Publisher)

  Part I

  Understanding Motivation

  Passage contains an image Chapter 1

  The Challenge of Motivating Students

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  Engagement and motivation—what's the difference? Teachers everywhere strive to motivate their students and engage them in learning. Can we really motivate others, or is it a personal thing that happens when conditions are right? The English words motivation and movement are derived from the Latin movere , "to move." The German philosopher Schopenhauer (1999) suggested that motivation was the result of all organisms being in a position to "choose, seize and even seek out satisfaction." Neo-behaviorists Hull and Spence used terms such as drive and incentive as synonyms for motivational concepts.

  Paul Thomas Young (1961) defined motivation as the process of generating actions, sustaining them, and regulating the activity.

  Salamone (2010) suggests that motivation processes allow organisms to regulate their internal and external environment, seeking access to some stimuli and avoiding others. Sutherland and Oswald (2005) suggest that engagement is not just a simple reaction of a student to a teacher's action but is much more complex.

  Although there are many definitions of motivation, with some stressing the notion of movement that would suggest engagement, we should not assume that motivation and engagement are synonymous. Sometimes the terms are used interchangeably, but really motivation is the force or energy that results in engagement. In a classroom, the complex interaction of teacher, student, and curriculum helps to create motivation that yields high engagement.

  Motivation, Drive, Tenacity, and Grit

  Motivation, drive, tenacity, and grit are currently hot topics. A variety of opinions and theories are emerging from cognitive psychology about how important these skills are to one's success in life and how to promote them.

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