Social motivation

Final exam

Mindsets

A cognitive framework that guides attention, information processing, decision making and thinking about where your effort should go. They can coexist, but we tend to rely on one more than the other depending on the situation.

Deliberative mindset

A sequential mindset (before implemental). Open-minded, you are considering many options, you see yourself accurately, and weigh the pros and cons of the goals fairly. Ideal for goal setting.

Implemental mindset

A sequential mindset (after deliberative). Close-minded, you are only thinking about that goal and not alternatives, you tend to think of the option you are choosing favourably, and yourself favourably. This is when you start thinking about goal striving.

Promotion mindset

Pays more attention to what could be gained in a situation. Quantity over quality. Emotionality tends to run from cheerfulness to dejection. Goals are seen as desires. More sensitive to positive outcomes. Behaviour is eager,

Prevention mindset

Pays more attention to what could be lost in a situation. Quality over quantity. Emotionality tends to run from calm to agitation. Goals are seen as oughts, not desires. More sensitive to negative outcomes. Behaviour is cautious.

Regulatory fit

When the framing of a goal matches a person’s promotion or prevention mindset, the goal becomes more intuitive to them. If it does not match, then the goal may be more difficult to strive for.

Where we get our promotion/prevention mindset from

We get it from our caregivers/cultures.

Fixed mindset

The belief that intelligence and ability are fixed. This idea can lead to effort being seen as a demonstration of a person’s lack (the idea that they have to put in effort is seen as demeaning), they may strive for easier goals that show off their skills, will strive towards performance goals, not ask for help because they see it as a personal failing, memorize concepts instead of fully understand them and they are extrinsically motivated.

Growth mindset

The belief that intelligence and ability are flexible things that can be improved through consistent effort. Effort is seen as useful, a person will try to accomplish difficult tasks instead of easier ones, they will strive for mastery goals, ask for help, try to fully understand concepts, and be more intrinsically motivated.

Feedback and growth/fixed mindsets

There are three types of feedback: outcome, person and effort/strategy directed. Only effort/strategy directed feedback is useful in developing growth mindsets, while person and outcome feedback develop a fixed mindset.

Two types of expectations and how they inform each other

Efficacy, whether or not you believe that you will be able to do a certain action/how well you will be able to do it (can I do it). Outcome, the belief that your action will lead to a certain outcome (will it work). It is best when you believe both, but you can believe one and not the other, you just might not accomplish your goal.

Self-efficacy

Judgement about how well or poorly you think you will be able to perform in a certain context. This is distinct from efficacy expectations as it is more general across time. Self-efficacy does not mean ability, both combine to determine performance. Self-efficacy is not global, it is specific to certain domains.

Issues with self-efficacy

If your self-efficacy is low, you may suffer from self-doubt (anxiety, confusion, bodily tension)

Sources for self-efficacy

Personal behaviour history - how long have you been doing this well/poorly for? Locus of control is important in this case

Vicarious experience - watching a model do something successfully. Does the model resemble you? How experienced is the observer?

Verbal persuasion - directing ourselves away from thoughts of failure to thoughts of potential. This depends on how skilled the performer actually is and the trustworthiness of the persuader.

Effects of self-efficacy

Effort, quicker recovery in the face of failure

Decision making, more focused on task

Emotionality, seeing challenges as threats rather than opportunities

Learned helplessness

When people expect their outcomes to be non-contingent with their behaviour. This can be learned in one context but can generalize to others

Learned helplessness sources

Contingency - does the person have a history of their actions leading to the outcomes they expect?

Cognition - mental events, does the person believe that everything is hopeless even though their behaviour does yield the expected outcome? Can also mediate the relationship.

Learned helplessness effects

Motivational deficits

Learning deficits, interferes with learning new response-outcome contingencies

Emotional deficits in situations that call for assertiveness, they may become lethargic

Self-concept

The mental representation of the self, constructed from feedback over several years regarding characteristics, abilities and preferences.

Self-schemas

Domain specific cognitive generalizations of the self that you gain through learned experience. Your self-schemas make up your self-concept

Self-concept and receiving feedback

Self-concepts, once formed, direct us to achieve things that will get us feedback that supports those self-concepts. If you receive feedback that seems incongruent with your schema, there will be tension

Schemas move the person towards their desired, ideal self

When self-discrepant feedback is received, people may argue against feedback’s validity or importance, engage in compensatory self-inflation, discredit source’s reliability or exhibit new behaviour’s to reinforce their view of self

Strength of self-concept vs. strength of feedback

If self-discrepant feedback is mild or week, regardless of the strength of self-concept it is easily brushed off

If feedback is strong, it depends on strength of self-concept. Weak self-concepts will be overwhelmed and will change. Moderate self-concepts will exhibit self-verification, seeking out trusted people or performing reflection to see if their self-concept needs to be updated or if it can stay the same. If self-concept is strong, feedback will be dismissed.

Self-regulation

The ability to monitor, manage and direct the self in a meaningful way. This includes both overt and covert behaviour.

The steps of self-regulation

Forethought, goal setting

Performance, goal striving

Reflection, self-monitoring and self-evaluating

Self-control

The ability to restrain or override currently impulsive desires

Self-control ability stabilizes over time, but it can be trained and improved upon

Related with positive outcomes

However, it is a limited resource so we must use it wisely

Delay of gratification

Ability to forgo a smaller reward for a larger, more desirable, long-term reward

What are emotions?

Emotions are short lived states that help us adapt to opportunities and challenges we face during important life events

4 components of emotions

Feelings - subjective experience, cognitive interpretation

Bodily responses - changes in hormone, preparation for action, physiological activation

Sense of purpose - impulse to action, goal-directed motivational state, functional aspects of coping

Expressive behaviour - social signals and communication, facial expression, voice tone

Emotion and motivation

Along with needs and cognition, one of the big three that drives motivation

Emotions serve as an indicator as to how well the adaptation to the situation is going

Two ends of the spectrum of studying emotions

Biological theorists: emotions serve an evolutionary purpose, they are hardwired and automatic. Limited number of universal emotions

Cognitive theorists: emotions arise from the meaning given to situations. There are an unlimited number of emotions

These are reconciled through emotion families

Basic emotions

Emotions that are distinct, innate, present in other primates, have the same expression and subjective experience

All other emotions are learned through culture and socializing

Emotions families

Each basic emotion has a large spectrum of shades it encompasses (anger can be annoyance or it can be fury).

Functions of emotions

Coping - adaptive organizers of behaviour (for joy, this could be being playful or soothing someone)

Social - communicating feelings to others, maintaining/dissolving relationships, smooth out social interactions, influences how others interact with us

Emotional appraisals

A cognitive process that evaluates the significance of events in terms of one’s well being

How are events evaluated?

Valence (is it good or bad)

Goal relevance (is it relevant to my goals/well being)

Coping potential (can I cope with this successfully)

Goal congruence (is the event facilitating goal attainment)

Novelty (did I expect this event to happen)

Agency (who caused it?)

Attribution theory

How a person explains an important life event or situation

1. Primary appraisal, whether this is a positive or negative emotion

2. Secondary appraisal, attributions. Is this caused by something internal or external? Is this a stable cause? Controllable cause?

Emotion regulation

Emotions are detrimental when they are situationally inappropriate, elicited at the wrong time, or are at the wrong level of intensity. Emotional regulation is the capacity to influence which emotions are experienced/expressed and the capacity/way in which they are expressed

Emotion regulation strategies

Situation selection - avoiding the situation all together

Situation modification - changing the situation to better suit your needs

Attentional focus - focusing on something that is less emotional

Reappraisal - changing how you think about something

Suppression - pretending everything is fine

Emotion knowledge

The ability to differentiate between the emotions you are feeling down to their individual shades

Greater emotional knowledge helps with psychological well-being, it identifies the target for emotional regulation and suggests strategies. It also decreases emotional variability

Developed through emotion socialization processes