Sports Psychology: Motivational Theories

Need Achievement Theory: Explained by McClelland (1961) and Atkinson (1974).
Aim: To explain why some individuals are more motivated to achieve than others.
Based on two psychological principles:
- Motive to achieve success.
- Motive to avoid failure.
Managing individuals with different personalities requires understanding their motivations, responses to feedback, and suitable tasks.
David McClelland's Human Motivation Theory: Helps identify people's motivating drivers for effective praise, feedback, and task assignment.
Example: Understanding a team member's affiliation driver (avoiding standing out) helps in providing private praise.

Abraham Maslow's Theory of Needs (early 1940s): Identified basic human needs in order of importance
- physiological needs, safety needs, and the needs for belonging, self-esteem and "self-actualization".
David McClelland's "The Achieving Society" (1961): Built on Maslow's work, identifying three motivators:
- Need for achievement.
- Need for affiliation.
- Need for power.
- Individuals exhibit different characteristics based on their dominant motivator.
Motivators are learned, leading to the theory sometimes being called the Learned Needs Theory.
Regardless of gender, culture, or age, everyone has three motivating drivers, with one being dominant based on culture and life experiences.

Achievement
- Strong need to set and accomplish challenging goals.
- Takes calculated risks.
- Likes regular feedback.
- Often prefers working alone.
Affiliation
- Desire to belong to the group.
- Seeks to be liked, often agreeing with the group.
- Favors collaboration over competition.
- Dislikes high risk or uncertainty.
Power
- Desire to control and influence others.
- Likes winning arguments.
- Enjoys competition and winning.
- Enjoys status and recognition.
- Strong power motivators divided into personal (controlling others) and institutional (organizing teams for company goals) drives.

Identify dominant motivators to influence goal setting, feedback, motivation, and rewards.
Design jobs around team members' motivators for a better fit.

Based on the principle that organisms have psychological needs.
Tension arises when needs are not satisfied.
Satisfying needs reduces drive, leading to homeostasis and relaxation.
Drive increases over time, operating on a feedback control system like a thermostat.
Drive theory analyzes, classifies, and defines psychological drives.
Drive: An instinctual need that drives behavior; an "excitatory state produced by a homeostatic disturbance".
In 1943, Clark Hull and Kenneth Spence researched motivation in terms of motivation, drives, and explanation of all behavior.
Clark Hull's study: Rats deprived of food for longer periods were more likely to develop a habit of going down the same path to obtain food.

Deals with how people compare their value to others in similar work situations based on inputs and outputs.
Assumes motivation is based on the desire to be treated equally and fairly.
Example: If an employee finds out a peer earns more for the same job, they may reduce their effort to create fairness.

*Loyalty
*Hard Work
*Commitment
*Trust

The equation for evaluating equity is:
$\frac{\text{Your Outcomes}}{\text{Your Inputs}} = \frac{\text{Other's Outcomes}}{\text{Other's Inputs}}$

Explains differences in motivation between high and low achievers.
High achievers approach tasks, believing success is due to high ability and effort.

Stage 1: Observation: Observe the behavior first-hand.
Stage 2: Belief: Believe the behavior was intentional.
Stage 3: Cause
External/Situational Attribution: Behavior is due to situational factors.
- If Maria's car breaks down and she blames her ignorance, it's an internal attribution.

Locus of Causality
- Internal
  - Stable: Ability
  - Unstable: Effort
- External
  - Stable: Task Difficulty
  - Unstable: Luck

Based on the assumption that people fear diseases.
Health actions are motivated by the degree of fear (perceived threat) and expected fear-reduction potential, if benefits outweigh obstacles.
Example: Individuals are less likely to get a flu shot if they don't think they're at risk.