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)

Types of Motivation

1) Intrinsic motivation

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

2) Extrinsic motivation

• 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.

Motivation Theories

Behavioral theory

Cognitive theories

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

Sociocognitive theories

• Expectancy theory
• Attribution theory
• Self-efficacy theory

Humanistic theories

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

1 Behavioral Theory

01 Behavioral theory

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

a) Rewards

b) Praise/Criticism

• 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.

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

School incentives also can be in a form of:

d) Social recognition (Pengiktirafan sosial)

c) Feedback

• 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 ……..

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

e) Obligation removal (negative reinforcers)

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

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

02 Cognitive theories

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

• 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

02 Cognitive theories

b) Goal theory (Loake & Latham, 1990)

• 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.

Types of Goals

Mastery goal

Social goal

Performance goal

Performance-avoidance goal

02 Cognitive theories

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

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

Three psychological needs:

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

02 Cognitive theories

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

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

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

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

3 Sociocognitive Theories

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

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

• 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

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

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

• 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

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"

• 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)

4 Humanistic Theories

a) Hierarchy of needs (Maslow, 1943)

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

07

Asthetic Appreciation The need to appreciate order and beauty

06

Intellectual Achievement The need to appreciate order and beauty

05

Self-esteem The need to feel good about ourselves

04

Belonging The need to receive affection and attention from others

03

Safety The need to be protected from physical and emotional threat

02

01

Biological (Survival) The need to appreciate order and beauty

Limitations of Maslow’s theory

• 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

b) Unconditional positive regard (Rogers, 1959)

• 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

How does it work?

• 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

Limitations of Roger’s theory

• 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

References

• 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.

Thank you!

Dr Hadijah JaffriSchool of Education Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities