Brief Lecture Notes for Unit 5
Motivation is the study of the "why" of behavior... why people choose to act as they do. Key questions in the study of motivation include the reductionistic question (can all human motives be reduced to one basic type?), the idiographic question (why do people differ from one another motivationally?), and the nativist-empiricist question (are human motivational structures innate or learned?) In this unit, we will examine three influential perspectives on motivation (the models of Keirsey, Maslow, and Weiner), as well as a historically influential perspective on emotion (the Schachter-Singer model).
Keirsey's temperament theory
According to this model, it is not meaningful to think of all human beings as having the same core motive. Different people find their lives oriented around different motives, goals, or non-negotiable objectives (and corresponding lifestyles). While recognizing that his model is in many ways an oversimplification, Keirsey believes that there are four major motivational structures and, in essence, four basic temperaments or types of people, which he styles Guardians, Artisans, Rationals, and Idealists. His theory can be linked to the currently influential Big Five model of human personality (see Unit 10). While many people may not fit perfectly and exclusively into one single group, Keirsey maintains that there are distinct, empirically observable behavioral and motivational differences among the four groups. While his theory is based on assumptions that some psychologists find questionable, many people including myself find the model useful on a heuristic level if nothing more.
Guardians (called Commanders in some of the Web links found elsewhere on this site) are motivated by duty, responsibility, security, and the maintenance of order and tradition. Theirs is the "Structured Way". Guardians are careful, linear, stepwise, "bottom up" learners who like to build a solid foundation of facts and details. They thrive on structure, certainty, and predictability. They have a concrete-linear mental style.
Artisans (called Adventurers in some of the Web links found on this site) are motivated by fun, adventure, excitement, and life in the present moment. Theirs is the "Active Way". Artisans are practical, application-oriented, hands-on, experiential learners who like to jump right into things and learn by doing. They thrive on activity, results, and immediacy. They have a concrete-nonlinear mental style.
Rationals (called Systematizers in some of the Web links found on this site) are motivated by competence, challenge, mastery, and intellectuality. Theirs is the "Strategic Way". Rationals are conceptual, logical, analytical, "top down" learners who like to fit new ideas into a mental context or cognitive map. They thrive on complexity, impersonal logic, and mental planning. They have an abstract-linear mental style.
Idealists (called Harmonizers in some of the Web links found on this site) are motivated by uniqueness, authenticity, self-actualization, and the expression of deeply held personal values. Theirs is the "Caring Way". Idealists are creative, innovative, relational, oceanic learners who like to connect unrelated ideas in a self-directed, free-flowing, autonomous way. They thrive on connections, significance, values, and intuition. They have an abstract-nonlinear mental style.
For a link to a self-assessment tool to help with the identification of your temperament, click here.
Maslow's hierarchy of needs
Motives, in this model, can be classified as either viscerogenic (related to a physiological need-state) or psychogenic (nonphysiological in nature). They can further be classified as either deficit motives (related to or caused by a lack, need, or state of deprivation) or growth motives (unrelated to a lack of some needed state or condition). In Maslow's model, motives are arranged in a hierarchy of decreasing intrusivity. Intrusivity means the inability to ignore a motive. There are six levels, from the most to the least intrusive:
1. Physiological motives (e.g., hunger, thirst, sex, the need for oxygen)
2. Safety/security motives (e.g., need for stability, certainty, freedom from anxiety, freedom from physical or psychological harm)
3. Love/belongingness motives (e.g., need to belong, to fit in, to have a niche or place, to be valued or cared about by someone)
4. Esteem/achievement motives (e.g., need to succeed, to climb the ladder of achievement, to obtain a social status marker)
5. Actualization motives (e.g., to enjoy creativity for its own sake, to fulfill one's potential regardless of how others may evaluate such activities)
6. Exterocentric/altruistic motives (e.g., to help others or make a difference in the lives of others, not for motives related to levels 1-5)
The intrusivity concept indicates (in Maslow's view) that a person cannot seriously and consistently address higher (less intrusive) needs unless lower (more intrusive) needs have already been substantially met. However, as with other underlying assumptions of Maslow's model, this is quite subject to debate.
Weiner's attributional model
An attribution is a mental (cognitive) explanation for an observed event. Attributions do not have to be accurate to influence behavior. Attributions can be classified along three independent dimensions:
1. Attributions are either internal/dispositional or external/situational. With an internal disposition, a person's behavior is explained in terms of "the kind of person they are" or something about them as a person (their interests, motivations, personality traits, qualities, attitudes). With an external attribution, a person's behavior is explained in terms of "the kind of circumstances they are in" or something about their environment, situation, or social context. For instance, "I failed the exam because I'm stupid" is an internal attribution (something about me); "I failed the exam because it was too hard" is an external attribution (something about the situation, in this case, the exam).
2. Attributions are either stable or unstable. With a stable attribution, the perceived cause is something fixed and unchanging, something that will remain constant over time. With an unstable attribution, the perceived cause is something temporary and changeable, something that is likely to alter with time. For instance, "I failed the exam because I'm stupid" is a stable attribution (I've always been that way, and I always will be), while "I failed the exam because I didn't study" is an unstable attribution (next time, maybe I will study harder).
3. Attributions are either global or specific. With a global attribution, the perceived cause influences many different aspects or domains of life, not just the specific behavior under question. With a specific attribution, a specific behavior or situation is influenced, but not much else. For instance, "I failed the exam because I'm stupid" is a global attribution (being stupid likely influences all aspects of your life), while "I failed the exam because psychology is a hard subject for me" is specific (I might be smart at everything else, so only this one class is affected).
Click here for examples of all eight kinds of attributions.
From the above examples, you can see that any attribution can be classified on all three dimensions simultaneously. Thus, "I failed the exam because I'm stupid" is an internal, stable, global attribution. But "I failed the exam because it was unusually difficult" is an external, unstable, specific attribution... do you see why?
People who persist at difficult tasks, and who are therefore more likely both to succeed frequently and to recover quickly from failure, are those who make internal, stable, global attributions for successes in their lives, but internal, unstable, specific attributions for failures... do you see why? Hence, at-risk students, employees, and so forth can be helped to change their attributional patterns and lower their risk of persistent failure as a result. This attributional therapy approach has been used in middle school settings, for instance, with great effect.
Schachter and Singer's model of emotion
Most people in our culture have an unmediated view of emotion, speaking and acting as if outward events directly created emotions: "She made me so mad!" But a more accurate model is probably a mediated model, which acknowledges that something inside the person (their cognitions or thought patterns) stand in between the outward events of life and the emotional experiences we have. Emotions in this model are not caused directly by life events, but by our interpretations of them, what we say to ourselves about them (self-talk), or, in essence, our attributions about them.
Schachter and Singer's model is a specific elaboration of the mediated approach to emotion. Specifically, they argue that strong, specific emotions occur only when two conditions are met: (1) autonomic nervous system arousal (see Unit 3), which in their view is largely nonspecific (takes on the same general arousal pattern for all emotions); (2) a specific interpretation or attribution (cognitive label), which channels the physiological arousal into a specific emotional direction. Their empirical test of this hypothesis (a bit too complex for these lecture notes, but will be summarized in the live lecture) provided good overall support for this idea, when their two hypothesized components (arousal and attribution) were manipulated separately, as two independent variables. Their model has a number of surprising real-world applications, such as why, if you want someone to fall in love with you, you'd be better off inviting them to a hockey game than to a lecture about the philosophy of Martin Heidegger. (But then, you already knew that, didn't you?)
Other aspects of motivation and emotion
In a motivational conflict, two incompatible motives or modes of action are pitted against one another. Three general types are approach-approach conflicts (which of two desired conditions should I seek, if I must choose between them?), avoidance-avoidance conflicts (which of two undesirable conditions should I accept, if I cannot avoid them both?), and approach-avoidance conflicts (in which a desired condition can only be obtained at the cost of enduring an undesirable one). A specific subtype of approach-avoidance conflict is the social trap, in which long-term gains are pitted against short-term costs: these motivational conflicts explain (in part) why it's so difficult to give up a bad habit or take up a good one.
The Yerkes-Dodson Law explains the relationship between motivation and task performance, which are related in a curvilinear fashion (moderate levels of motivation are associated with optimal or best task performance). This law explains, for instance, why both undermotivated and overmotivated (unduly anxious) students do worse on exams than moderately motivated students.
Study Guide
1. What is meant by motivation? Relate the concepts of reductionism, idiographic vs. nomothetic psychology, and nativism vs. empiricism to motivation.
2. What are the basic assumptions of Keirsey's temperament theory? How do Guardians, Artisans, Rationals, and Idealists differ in terms of their core motivations?
3. How do viscerogenic and psychogenic motives differ? How do deficit and growth motives differ? Relate these distinctions to Maslow's hierarchy. What is meant by intrusivity, and what implications does it have?
4. What is an attribution? Give some examples. Be able to classify examples of attributions along the three attributional dimensions discussed in lecture. How do these concepts help explain task persistence (or the lack of it) in the face of failure?
5. Summarize the Schachter-Singer model of emotion, and how it is related to the nonmediated-mediated distinction. How can this model be experimentally validated?
6. What are three types of motivational conflicts, and how do they differ? What is a social trap? Give some examples.
7. What is the Yerkes-Dodson Law, and how does it explain the relationship between motivation and performance?