Achievement Motivation
- motivation: a psychological construct designed to explain why people vary in the amount of time, energy, and talent they invest in the tasks they confront
- we recognize motivation by observing behavior
* choice of behavior / direction
* willingness or eagerness to engage
* effort and persistence (grit)
* quality of cognitive engagement
* depth of processing - Sample and Methodology
- Terms to Understand
* attributions: how people explain the causes of their stress and failure
* influence self-efficacy
* people naturally look for understanding of why events occur
* effort and ability are the most common attributions
* causal dimensions:
* locus of control
* internal: attribute factors to qualities about you
* external: attribute factors to something outside yourself
* stability: how will these factors change over time?
* personality is stable
* luck is unstable
* controllability: effort is controllable, personality isn’t
* achievement goals: focus on competence
* performance-approach: demonstrating high competence to self and others
* focus on looking good
* tend to have self-efficacy
* prefer tasks easy for self, hard for others
* avoid personally difficult tasks
* expend effort when it indicates high ability
* avoid effort when it indicates low ability
* when efficacy is in doubt students may shift to performance-avoidance
* performance-avoidance: avoiding demonstrating incompetence to self or others
* with high efficacy
* fear of failure
* exert high effort to avoid failure
* success brings relief but not satisfaction
* with low efficacy
* fear of failure
* self-handicapping: failing on purpose to avoid feeling bad
* avoid internal attributions for behavior
* learning goals: improving or increasing competence
* self-efficacy compared to others is not an issue
* prefer personally moderate challenge
* exert effort and persist
* use deep processing and self-regulation