Human Motivation 1: Theories of Motivation and Affect

Human Motivation 1: Theories of Motivation and Affect

Motivation

Processes that direct and sustain individuals’ (e.g. students) behavior toward something (e.g. learning)

• Process to engage in a behavior arises from within the individual because it is extrinsically rewarding
• Occurs when one is motivated to perform a behavior or engage in an activity to earn a reward or avoid punishment.

2) Extrinsic motivation

• Process to engage in a behavior arises from within the individual because it is intrinsically rewarding

1) Intrinsic motivation

Types of Motivation

Motivation Theories

• Maslow 's hierarchy of needs
• Roger 's unconditional positive regards

• Expectancy theory
• Attribution theory
• Self-efficacy theory

Humanistic theories

Sociocognitive theories

Cognitive theories

• Interest theory
• Goal theory
• Self-determination theory
• Cognitive evaluation theory

Behavioral theory

1 Behavioral Theory

• Praise could be interpreted as low ability cue
• Criticism could be interpreted as a high ability cue

b) Praise/Criticism

a) Rewards

• Informational rewards
• Rewards to inform performance
• E.g.: Good job! You have done an excellent piece of work!
• Controlling rewards
• Could be in terms of privileges
• Rewards to control behavior
• E.g.: If you finish the ten questions correctly in 10 minutes, you will get RM1.

01 Behavioral theory

• Reinforcements and punishments are motivators
• School incentives can be in a form of:

• E.g.: Getting an exemption of performing certain tasks in the future if perform a former task better

e) Obligation removal (negative reinforcers)

• E.g.: Getting a Dean’s list award etc.

d) Social recognition (Pengiktirafan sosial)

c) Feedback

School incentives also can be in a form of:

• Performance feedback
• E.g.: You have done a good job better than Marlina.
• E.g.: You have improved a lot since the first quiz!
• Informational feedback
• E.g.: You have done a good job answering this question. You wrote stages involved ……..

Limits of behavioral theory

• It does not promote intrinsic motivation
• Depend on external causes to motivate behaviour
• Develops materialistic attitudes
• Tangible rewards are attractive
• It does not consider expectations and beliefs
• More on immediate satisfaction

2 Cognitive Theories

a) Interest theory (Krapp, Hidi, & Renninger, 1992)

02 Cognitive theories

• There are three general perspectives on interest
• 1) Dispositional interest (individual)
• E.g. Interested in plants, thus likes to read books about types of plants etc.
• 2) Situational interest (activated by environment)
• E.g. A visit to botanic garden trigger interest in flowers
• 3) Psychosocial state of the individual
• Combination of
• Actualised individual interest
• Situational interest

Performance-avoidance goal

Social goal

Performance goal

Mastery goal

Types of Goals

b) Goal theory (Loake & Latham, 1990)

02 Cognitive theories

• Goal setting is essentially linked to task performance.
• It states that specific and challenging goals along with appropriate feedback contribute to higher and better task performance.

Three psychological needs:

• Competence
• Control/autonomy (similar to locus of control)
• Relatedness (similar to need for belonging)

c) Self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985)

02 Cognitive theories

People are active organisms, with evolved tendencies toward growing, mastering ambient challenges, and integrating new experiences into a coherent sense of self

Providing information: Good job! Your understanding of the topic has improved a lot. You understand how certain information is interconnected with another

Controlling behavior: Good job! You have done well because you follow my instructions

E.g.: Getting a praise (an event) from a teacher could be perceived as controlling or providing information

d) Cognitive evaluation theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985)

02 Cognitive theories

Events that happen to individuals such as students might affect motivation through their perception of the events itself as either controlling behavior or providing information

3 Sociocognitive Theories

• Values:
• Intrinsic interest
• Importance
• Utility (engagement in a task based on task value)
• Cost (time etc.)

• Students' achievement and achievement related choices are most proximally determined by two factors
• expectancies for success
• subjective task values

a) Expectancy X value (Wigfield & Eccles, 2002)

Attitudes are developed and modified based on assessments about beliefs and values.

• Three aspects of attribution:
• Locus of control [internal or external]
• Stability [consistency/regularity of occurrence]
• Controllability [within or beyond control]

• How the social perceiver uses information to arrive at causal explanations for events.
• How and why people explain events as they do

It examines what information is gathered and how it is combined to form a causal judgment

b) Attribution theory (Fiske, & Taylor, 1991)

• Factors that influence self-efficacy:
• History of success
• Mastery experience
• Positive modeling
• Social role model (vicarious experience)
• Social persuasion (verbal or/and action)
• Emotional and physiological state
• Visualisation (imaginal experience)

c) Self-efficacy theory (Bandura, 1977)

Self-efficacy is a personal judgment of "how well one can execute courses of action required to deal with prospective situations"

4 Humanistic Theories

Biological (Survival) The need to appreciate order and beauty

Safety The need to be protected from physical and emotional threat

Belonging The need to receive affection and attention from others

Self-esteem The need to feel good about ourselves

Intellectual Achievement The need to appreciate order and beauty

Asthetic Appreciation The need to appreciate order and beauty

Self-actualisation The need to realise one's full potential as a human being

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a) Hierarchy of needs (Maslow, 1943)

• It lacks of rigorous scientific methods
• Maslow’s basic assumptions have been criticized
• It lacks of research evidence to support the theory
• It does not explain some phenomena, e.g., ‘starving artist’
• There is little evidence for the rigid stage hierarchy
• Some needs are not accounted for, e.g., power and control

Limitations of Maslow’s theory

• Each individual needs for unconditional positive regard for growth
• Unconditional positive regard is an acceptance and support of a person regardless what he/she says or does
• Basic human needs are necessary for self-actualization

b) Unconditional positive regard (Rogers, 1959)

• Each individual needs positive regard
• But if others impose conditions of worth, it will lead to conditional positive regard
• When there is too much of conditions of worth, it leads to lose of desires, lack of self-direction and difficulty to move toward self-actualization

How does it work?

• Each individual needs positive regard
• But if others provide unconditional positive regard, individual develops positive self-regard

How does it work?

• Students are human beings
• Many needs are non-academic
• It does not assume that deficiency needs have been met
• The proposition separates behavior from worth
• It is challenging for teachers in helping students to reach their potentials
• Diversity among students affects their needs

Limitations of Roger’s theory

• Santrock, J. W. (2017) Educational Psychology (6th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill
• Woolfolk, A. E. (2016). Educational Psychology (13th ed.). Boston: Pearson
• O’Donnell, A. M., Reeve, J. & Smith, J. K. (2012) Educational Psychology: Reflection for action. (3rd ed.). New Jersey: Wiley
• Moreno, R. (2010). Educational Psychology. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

References

Dr Hadijah JaffriSchool of Education Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities

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