University Study Notes: Physiological Needs, Psychological Needs, Extrinsic Motivation, Goals, and Mindsets

Course Administration and Announcements

  • Community Service Learning (CSL) Students:

    • Pre-approved placements: Contact supervisors immediately to discuss details and begin volunteering.

    • Self-proposed placements: The deadline for emailing the instructor for approval was June 24. This is necessary to initiate the "found-own" form by the June 30 deadline.

    • Reflection Journal 1: Instructions available the week after June 24. Students are not required to have started their placement to complete this journal. The due date is July 9 at 11:59 pm.

  • Problem-Based Learning (PBL) Students:

    • Groups and Discussion Forum 1 opened on June 25 via Brightspace.

    • Discussion Forum 1 Due Date: Revised to July 3 at 11:59 pm.

    • Discussion Forum 2: Closes July 16 at 11:59 pm.

  • Midterm Examination Details:

    • Date: Tuesday, July 14 at 10:00 am.

    • Format: In-person, closed book, 75-minute duration.

    • Scope: Modules 1 through 5.

    • Structure: 40 multiple-choice questions and 1 written response question (5 points).

    • Written Response Requirements: Read a scenario, identify and define relevant course concepts, explain their application, and provide informed advice/recommendations.

    • Materials: Pencils, erasers, and one piece of photo ID.

    • SASS Students: Must confirm attendance on Ventus immediately.

Understanding the Framework of Motivation

  • Antecedent Conditions: Motivation is triggered by environmental events and social contexts.

  • Motive Status: These conditions influence the inner state, categorized into:

    • Needs: Physiological, psychological, and social.

    • Cognitions: Beliefs, expectations, and goals.

    • Emotions: Short-lived subjective-physiological-functional-expressive phenomena.

  • Sense of Urgency: These motives energize, direct, and sustain behavior, engagement, psychophysiology (brain activity), and self-reports.

  • Life Outcomes: Changes in motivation lead to changes in performance, achievement, learning, adjustment, skill/talent, and well-being.

Module 2: Physiological Needs

  • Definition of Need: Conditions essential for life maintenance and the nurturance of growth and well-being. Failure to satisfy a need leads to physical or psychological deterioration.

  • Physiological Needs: Biological conditions regulating bodily well-being, often arising from deficiencies. Examples include hunger, thirst, sex, sleep, and temperature regulation.

  • Clark Hull’s Drive Theory (1943):

    • Physiological deprivations (e.g., lack of food) create biological needs.

    • If unsatisfied, the deprivation generates a psychological "Drive."

    • Drive: A state of psychological discomfort, tension, or restlessness that energizes behavior to mitigate the biological deficit.

  • The Need-Drive-Behaviour Process (Cyclical):

    1. Satiated state.

    2. Physiological deprivation develops gradually.

    3. Prolonged deprivation produces bodily need.

    4. Need intensifies and gives rise to psychological drive.

    5. Goal-directed motivated behavior occurs to gratify the drive.

    6. Consummatory behavior occurs (e.g., eating).

    7. Drive is reduced, returning to a satiated state.

  • Regulatory Processes:

    • Homeostasis: The tendency to maintain a steady equilibrium (e.g., blood glucose, hydration).

    • Negative Feedback: The mechanism that stops behavior once a steady state is reached; it acts as the opponent process to drive.

    • Intraorganismic Mechanisms: Biological regulatory systems within the person (e.g., neural, hormonal, and physiological systems) that activate/terminate needs.

    • Extraorganismic Mechanisms: Non-biological influences (e.g., environmental smells, social settings, cultural habits) that influence drive.

    • Multiple Inputs/Outputs: Drive can be triggered by different antecedent conditions (inputs) and can lead to various behavioral consequences (outputs) to restore balance.

Module 3: Psychological Needs

  • Definition: Psychological nutrients critical to mental health, growth, and well-being. They promote optimal performance beyond mere survival.

  • Criteria for Defining a Psychological Need (Vansteenkiste, Ryan, & Soenens, 2020):

    • Psychological (not physical).

    • Essential (leads to growth/well-being vs. ill-being).

    • Inherent (evolved and adaptive).

    • Distinct (not derived from other needs).

    • Universal (applies across all cultures and personalities).

  • Self-Determination Theory (Deci & Ryan, 2000): Focuses on three core needs: Autonomy, Competence, and Relatedness.

  • Need Satisfaction vs. Frustration:

    • Satisfaction: Leads to intrinsic motivation (spontaneous interest and mastery), engagement, and health.

    • Frustration: Predicts maladaptive behavior, passivity, and ill-functioning.

Autonomy

  • Definition: The need to experience self-direction and personal endorsement in behavior initiation (Ryan & Deci, 2017).

  • Key Aspects: Volitional action (agency), self-endorsement (ownership), and self-concordance (alignment with personal values).

  • Autonomy Support: Facilitated by perspective-taking, clarifying importance, providing rationales, accepting negative affect, using invitational language, and patience.

  • Paradox of Choice: Choice supports autonomy only when it is meaningful, unconstrained, and not overwhelming.

  • Frustration Reactions:

    • Reactance: Increased desire for a behavior because it was restricted.

    • Learned Helplessness: Expectation that outcomes are independent of behavior.

Competence

  • Definition: The need to be effective in environment interactions and master optimal challenges.

  • Flow: A subjective state of complete absorption occurring when there is an optimal match between personal skill level and activity challenge (moderate-to-high levels of both).

  • Competence Support: Provided through structure, clear expectations, guidance, and scaffolding within the "Zone of Proximal Development" (what a learner can do with guidance).

  • Cognitive Evaluation Theory (Feedback):

    • Controlling aspect: Affects autonomy.

    • Informational aspect: Affects competence.

    • External events increasing both autonomy and competence boost intrinsic motivation.

  • Failure Tolerance: Environments must value errors as constructive tools for identifying causes and improving strategies.

  • Loss of Competence Reactions:

    • Self-serving attributional bias: Taking credit for success but denying responsibility for failure.

    • Self-handicapping: Creating barriers to performance to provide a pre-made excuse for anticipated failure.

Relatedness

  • Definition: The need to establish social connections, feel cared for, and feel valued.

  • Relatedness Support: Characterized by responsiveness (Understanding, Validation, Caring).

  • Relationship Types: Communal (focused on welfare) vs. Exchange (focused on reciprocity/debt).

  • Rejection/Frustration Effects: Results in hurt feelings, emotional numbness, impaired cognition, and aggression.

Module 4: Extrinsic Motivation

  • Definition: Motivation arising from environmental consequences (“Do X, get Y”), based on operant conditioning.

  • Consequence Categories:

    • Positive Reinforcement (+R+R): Desirable stimulus presented, behavior increases.

    • Negative Reinforcement (−R-R): Undesirable stimulus removed, behavior increases.

    • Positive Punishment (+P+P): Undesirable stimulus presented, behavior decreases.

    • Negative Punishment (−P-P): Desirable stimulus removed, behavior decreases.

  • Effectiveness of Punishers (Example: Corporal Punishment):

    • Short-term benefit: Immediate compliance.

    • Long-term costs: Increased aggression, antisocial behavior, poor mental health, and reduced parent-child relationship quality.

  • Effectiveness of Rewards: While they promote compliance, they often undermine intrinsic motivation and interfere with learning quality.

    • Strategies: External rewards should be unpredictable and intangible when used for uninteresting tasks.

  • Self-Determination Continuum (Extrinsic Types):

    1. External Regulation: Driven by rewards/punishments.

    2. Introjected Regulation: Driven by internal pressure, guilt, or self-administered rewards.

    3. Identified Regulation: Driven by personal importance or utility.

    4. Integrated Regulation: Driven by coherence with one's core values.

  • Internalization: The process of transforming an external rule into an internal endorsement.

Module 5: Goals

  • Cognition in Action: Mental events act as a “spring to action” (Ames & Ames, 1984).

  • Discrepancy: The mismatch between present reality and an ideal state.

    • Discrepancy Reduction: Reactive; feedback-based; deficiency-overcoming.

    • Discrepancy Creation: Proactive; feed-forward; growth-pursuing.

  • Goal Features Affecting Performance:

    • Difficulty: Effort is proportional to how hard a goal is.

    • Specificity: Reduces ambiguity and variability.

    • Congruence: Authenticity leverages personal resources.

    • Proximity: Short-term (proximal) goals provide feedback and sustain motivation for long-term (distal) goals.

  • Achievement Goals:

    • Performance Goals: Focus on proving skill relative to others (Interpersonal). Includes Performance-Approach and Performance-Avoidance.

    • Learning (Mastery) Goals: Focus on progress and skill development (Intrapersonal).

  • Goal Striving Strategies:

    • Mental Simulations: Visualizing the process (striving) is more effective than visualizing the outcome (content).

    • Implementation Intentions: An "if-then" plan specifying when, where, and how behavior will occur (e.g., "If there are stairs, then I will take them").

  • Maximizing Attainment: Requires flexibility, accountability (writing goals down), and overcoming the planning fallacy.

Module 6: Mindsets

  • Definition: A cognitive framework guiding attention and the meaning of effort, success, and failure.

  • Deliberative vs. Implemental:

    • Deliberative: Open-minded, realistic pros/cons analysis; ideal for goal setting.

    • Implemental: Closed-minded, narrow focus, optimistic bias; ideal for goal striving.

  • Promotion vs. Prevention:

    • Promotion: Focus on improvement, gains, and ideals ("I want to"). Eager strategies.

    • Prevention: Focus on security, avoiding loss, and obligations ("I have to"). Vigilant strategies.

    • Regulatory Fit: Increased engagement when a person's mindset matches the situation's focus.

  • Fixed vs. Growth (Dweck):

    • Fixed (Entity): Personal qualities are fixed; effort signals low ability; prefers easy tasks to look smart.

    • Growth (Incremental): Qualities are changeable; effort is a tools for learning; prefers difficult challenges.

  • Feedback Types and Motivation:

    • Person-directed: (e.g., "You're smart") Leads to helplessness and fixed mindsets.

    • Outcome-directed: (e.g., "You got it right") Focuses on success/failure.

    • Effort/Strategy-directed: (e.g., "You worked hard") Most effective for persistence and fostering a growth mindset.