Motivation is a desire within ourselves to work toward or against something.

In my psychology course I was learning about motivation and thought I would post some things I learned.



　

Motivation is a desire within ourselves to work toward or against something. It is said to be either intrinsic or extrinsic. I don't think others can motivate us it has to come from within ourselves. Others can influence us and inspire us in different ways good or bad but for the most part I think motivation has to come from us and our own drive or need to achieve a desired goal. I think how hard we push ourselves to a goal and not give up depends on how bad we really want it or how important it is to us. If we go after a goal for the wrong reasons we are more likely to give up on it or not get enjoyment out of it. Different things can factor into whether we keep at a goal or give up when things get tough.



1. Some people's goals and whether they stick with them are based on performance. People that set performance type goals are mostly concerned with performing well in front of others and being judged favorably. They like and want the praise of others for their goals and achievements. They don't want to be criticized and if they feel like they are being seen in a negative way and if others criticize them because they did poorly at something they tend to give up. They blame themselves for not doing well and stop trying which then in turn prevents them from improving. They tell themselves, they are stupid and can't do it and that they will never get better. They put themselves down and say others think negative of them, that others see them as an idiot. They prefer goals that are easy for them to accomplish without much challenge to them.



2. In my opinion mastery (learning) goals seem to be a better kind of goal to set for yourself than a performance goal. With mastery (learning) goals you are more focused and concerned with increasing your knowledge and skills and finding intrinsic pleasure in whatever you are seeking to learn and achieve (Dweck & Sorich, 1999; Grant & Dweck, 2003.) When people are motivated to master new skills for the pleasure of it and to increase their knowledge of it they will usually think of failure as a useful tool to learn from it to improve. They know what learning takes and that you have to sometimes fail or make mistakes to learn and grow from them. They don't become easily discouraged by failure or criticism. They know that with learning something new that we sometimes will temporarily fail, but if we keep moving forward and learn from it we can make progress and keep getting better at it. You are less likely to give up on your goal if you get pleasure from it and learn from it and aren't doing it for others.



3. In one study, 128 Anglo, African American, and Hispanic fifth graders were ask to independently work on sets of puzzles. The experimenter praised some on their intelligence and some on their efforts. Then they were given more time and harder sets of puzzles. This time the experimenter told them they did worse. The researchers found that the children praised for being smart rather than for working hard tended to lose the pleasure of learning and focused on how well they were doing. After the children failed the second set of problems they seemed to give up more on the subsequent ones, got less pleasure from them and performed less well than the children that were praised for their efforts instead of intelligence. Studies showed that when children realize that all effort is subject to improvement, they realize they can always try again. That is the key to mastery (Dweck & Sorich, 1999). Mastery goals are powerful intrinsic motivators at all levels of education throughout life. But, some people do improve with performance goals like Olympic athletes and musicians and some people combine performance and mastery goals together. To me it seems as if people prefer performance goals when they are receiving positive feedback and it helps them want to continuing doing a good job to get more praise. But to work toward a goal for intrinsic pleasure seems more rewarding, at least to me.



4. How hard a person works for something also depends on the persons expectations. If you are fairly certain of success, you will work harder to reach the goal. But, if you are certain of failing the goal you wont work as hard. Your expectations can create a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you expect yourself to fail you most likely will. If you think you will succeed you have a higher chance that you will. For example in a classic experiment young women were asked to solve 15 anagram puzzles. Before working on each one, they had to estimate their chances of solving it. Half of the women started off with very easy anagrams, but the other half insoluble ones. Those that started with the impossible ones decided they would all be impossible. These expectations, affected the young women's ability to solve the rest of the anagrams. The higher the expectation of success, the more anagrams the women solved (Feather, 1996). I think this makes "believing in yourself" very important because your attitude and belief in yourself to be able to do something can affect whether you do or give-up when you don't do well.