Basic terms

Two perennial questions:

  1. What causes behaviour (starts, maintains and stops)?
  2. Why does behavior vary in its intensity?

Energy and Direction

  • Motivation(动机) is the energy and direction for people’s actions, desires, and needs (Reeve, 2015).
  • Four motivation sources:
    1. Needs theories（需要, see Reeve 2015, p.86）. For example, Maslow’s hierachy of needs.
      1. Physiological needs (Chpater 4): Thirst, hunger and sex. 类似于Urges（冲动）: concrete emotional pulls, produced in System 1’s perceptual / autonomic processes (urges to eat/drink)
      2. Psychological needs (Chpater 5): Autonomy, Competence and Relatedness.
      3. Implicit motives (Chpater 7): Achivement, Affiliation and Power.
    2. Cognitions
    3. Emotins
    4. External events Need-dive-behaviour-sequence
  • Motivation
    1. arouses an organism to action toward a desired goal;
    2. gives reason for the action, and purpose and direction to behavior;
    3. push of the mental forces to accomplish an action.

Needs

  • Needs is anything necessary but lacking or a lack of something wanted or deemed necessary
  • Needs (physiological situation) result in Drive forces (psychological state). Drive is a psychological state corresponding to a strong need or desire.
  • Needs produced by a process known as homeostasis. Homeostasis (内稳态) is the ability or tendancy of an oragnism or cell to maintain internal equilibrium by adjusting its physiological processes.
  • Our biological drives maintain our homeostasis. When our body deviates from the optimal level, automatic reactions began to make it steady. For example,
    • If you feel too hot, more blood will flow through skin thus lowering body temperature
    • We are normally not aware of such changes, unless continued disequilibrium drives us to move to a shady place, warmth, food and water
  • prepaid by Gujrat Pakistan

Future

  • Anticipation（预期）: Anticipation is hope. Hope allows for any number of things to happen. Hope keeps us open to possibilities we couldn’t even imagine. For example, “Before the problem (events) happened, how likely did you think it was that the problem would happened?” (1 corresponded to “no at all likely”, 7 corresponded to “very likely”)
  • Expectation（期待，期望）: Expectation usually has a very specific outcome. It relies on other people to react and behave in the way we want them to.

Past

  • Knowldge
  • Habitation（习惯）. 个体过基于过去经验养成的认知或行为偏向。
  • Beliefs and Attitude (信念和态度).

State

  • Desire
  • Intentions
  • Goal（目标）: A goal is an end state that the organism has not yet attained (and is focused toward attaining in the future) and that the organism is committed to approach or to avoid.

Summary

  • 冲动或动机是个体行为或思想的内在诱因。预期是个体对外部事件在未来要发生概率的权衡。目标是个体对自身将要达成或避免的状态的自我认知。
  • 个体内部产生的冲动或动机，自身的习惯（过去），以及对外部世界的预期（未来），都会影响到目标的设定和实施。

Relationship between Emotion and Motivation

  • Reeve, 2008, Chapter 11
  • 情绪与动机的关系主要分为两个方面：
    • 第一，情绪是动机的一种，类似于需要或者认知，情绪为我们的行为提供动力和方向。例如，愤怒可以调动主观的，生理的，激素的以及肌肉的资源来达到一些特定的目标，例如克服障碍，打倒不公。
    • 第二，情绪具有即时显示器（readout）的功能，通过情绪我们可以知道我们对于环境适应的是好还是坏。例如，高兴表示社会接受或者目标的趋近，二沮丧则表示社会拒绝或失败。

Emotion as Motivation

这部分主要源自：

  1. Tomkins和Izard的情绪动机理论。
  2. Lang和Bradley等人的情绪趋近-回避理论。

Emotion as Readout

  1. 积极情绪是绿灯，表示通往目标之路畅通无恙
  2. 负性情绪是红灯，表示出动机行为出了问题

3. Goal-directed behaviour

Filip Gęsiarz, Molly J Crockett, 2015

3.1 Relationship between Goal and motivation

  1. Goal is the target of the motivated behavior
  2. Motivation是因，Goal是果；但根据goal-setting theory，具体的且具有挑战性的目标也有动机的作用。
  3. 先有motivation，再有goal，再有implementation

3.2 Goal setting and pursuit

Efficient control stems both from the “which” (goal setting) as well as the “how” of goal pursuit (goal pursuit).

3.21 Goal setting.

  • Goal setting as characterized by a deliberative mindset in which one is weighing options (Which from among many possible goals should one select?), staying open-minded in considering information, and analyzing the value associated with (desirability) each possible goal along with their possibility of being attained (expectancy of success).
  • The essence of motivation (the goal) is in fact a cognitive structure, a mental representation.
  • As cognitively represented objects, goals can both (a) be selected by consciously willing them, but also (b) be triggered unconsciously. Goals need not always be conscious.
  • 个体追求目标阶段的困难程度首先依赖于目标设定的情况。模糊（vague）的目标相比清晰具体（specific）的目标更难以实现。所以目标的表征必须能够描绘出具体的结果（specified end）
  • 个体追求目标的意向与个体在目标领域的能力有关，也与这一目标对个体的重要性有关（Ferguson 2008 JPSP）。

3.2 Goal pursuits Goal operate

  • Implementing the pursuit of a goal that has already been selected.
  • 个体追求目标阶段的困难程度也依赖于策略的选择和实施。个体有可能采取糟糕的策略，也有可能采取明智的策略；但是前者可能实施的更好，后者虽然有个好策略但也有可能没有贯彻落实。 *
  • 常见的搭配：
    1. to attain a goal, goal attainment
    2. to pursue a goal, goal pursuit
    3. to activate goal representations, goal activation
    4. to facilitate 1) the goal pursuits 2) the goal-setting process 3) the goal refinement process 4) goal-directed behavior 5) the goal of affiliation/memory
    5. to refine a goal into more concrete sub-goals
    6. to fulfil a goal
    7. to pursue a goal whenever it has been activated

Goals as Mental Representations

  1. Explicitly Selecting a Goal。个体有意识地形成一个目标，或者在多个目标中进行有意识地权衡选择。
  2. Implicitly Triggered Goals。Tolman （1932）认为人类可以通过联结学习（associative learning）形成目标的认知表征。他认为目标就是需要（饥饿）和情景（如铃声）之间的连接。由于这种习得了联结关系，个体再次进入同样的情景时，就会对激励（或惩罚）产生预期。因此，Tolman认为目标的形成并不一定需要意识的参与，不一定要个体形成有意识的意图或目的（intent or purpose）。区分goal和intention。内隐目标研究的转折点，就是 Bargh (1990)提出的目标自动激活模型(auto-motive model)。和早期Tolman的观点类似，Bargh也认为目标和意图在意识中以类似的方式进行表征，如社会结构，原型和图论等等。Bargh认为，流程（procedure）以及计划（plans）等信息，可能会被直接、自动化地与记忆中的环境特征（前提是它们之前就频繁一直地联系）相连接。
  3. 内隐目标启动的方式：
  4. 通过个体无法察觉的刺激（undetected stimuli）无意识地启动目标。例如阈下言语启动范式；
  5. 通过个体可以察觉的刺激（undetected stimuli）无意识地启动目标。例如Chartrand and Bargh (1996) 使用句子整理任务(Srull & Wyer, 1979)无意识地启动被试的目标。结果发现无意识组的反应和有意识组类似，而和控制组差异显著。当然，除了词语，环境中的物体也可以无意识地启动目标（Kay, Wheeler, Bargh, and Ross，2004）
  6. 有意识选择的目标能够内隐地保持可访问性。某个时间有意识选择的目标，可能能够在接下来的环境中保持可访问性，而个体不会意识到他们受到之前目标的影响。
  7. 通过偏差测试（discrepancy detection）提供目标的可访问性。例如，Koole, Smeets, van Knippenberg, and Dijksterhuis (1999)让被试进行一个假定的智力测试，给被试提供虚假反馈。测试由无法解决的问题组成，这样被试就会强制性地体验到不能“聪明”的挫败感。然后，让被试进行一个言语判断任务（a lexical decision task）。结果发现，进行过偏差测试的个体相比控制组，对智力相关词语的识别速度更快。
  8. 慢性目标（chronic goals）。Bargh（1982）认为长时间不停地和习惯化地追求一些目标，会使得这些目标相比其他目标具有更高的可访问性，可持续性（chronic），跨情景性（across a variety of contexts）。这种目标会在目标系统中具有更高的层级，更有可能被使用。
  9. 目标表征的特性
  10. Standards or End States。能够明确个体想要达成或避免的标准或状态。
  11. Discrepancies。能够与已经完成或现有的状态进行区分。
  12. Abstraction of the Goal。目标是具体还是抽象。
  13. Framing of the Goal。目标的维度？维度1，目标是接近还是回避？维度2，自我实现，积极事件最大化。
  14. Affordances。McArthur and Baron (1983, p. 215) described affordances as “the opportunities for acting or being acted upon that are provided by environmental entities.” 能够与情景线索相联系。
  15. Means。一个目标不仅包括终极状态，也包括通往目标的方式。
  16. Affect。有的目标是个体不想去做，但是不得不做的。所以目标还可以分为，他们应当怎么做，和他们愿意怎么做。

References

  • Locke, E. A., & Latham, G. P. (2002). Building a practically useful theory of goal setting and task motivation: A 35-year odyssey. American psychologist, 57(9), 705.
  • Aarts, H. and A. Elliot (2012). Goal-directed behavior, Taylor & Francis.
  • Wit;, S. d. and A. Dickinson (2009). “Associative theories of goal-directed behaviour: a case for animal-human translational models.” Psychological Research 73(4): 463-476.
    • Wit., S. d., et al. (2009). “Differential engagement of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex by goal-directed and habitual behavior toward food pictures in humans.” Journal of Neuroscience 29(36): 11330-11338.
  • Deci, E. L. and R. M. Ryan (2000). “The” what” and” why” of goal pursuits: Human needs and the self-determination of behavior.” Psychological Inquiry 11(4): 227-268.
  • Locke, E. A. and G. P. Latham (2006). “New directions in goal-setting theory.” Current Directions in Psychological Science 15(5): 265-268.