Comportamiento geoquímico de los elementos en las condritas ordinarias.

Motivation at the situational level of generality may operate differently to contextual or global motivation. The overriding factors for consideration of situational motivation processes are the individual’s trait cognitive and affective responses and the influence of environmental demands (Steyer et al. 1999; Elliot and Thrash 2002; Baird et al. 2006). Extroversion and neuroticism are suggested to be the main personality traits which relate directly to performance motivation (Zuckerman et al. 1993; Ackerman and Heggestad 1997; Olson and Weber 2004; Robinson et al. 2005; Mor et al. 2008) and furthermore, these trait characteristics can change gradually over a period of time where an individual experiences many similar situations (Baird et al. 2006).

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The first study in this thesis will measure personality traits and motivation to assess the impact of personality traits on reported motivation. Different situations may require unique responses and therefore, the individual will need a mixture of strategies and processes in order to cope with the specific demands (Bindarwish and Tenenbaum 2006). Perceived situational demands may act as a stimulus for emotion, which in turn influences the cognitive and affective response (Reich et al. 2003) as predicted by SDT (Deci and Ryan 2000; 2008). However the resulting behaviour may then cause the individual to revise the perceived demands for the very next part of the activity, immediately influencing the various processing systems culminating in variable or consistent performance behaviour. Studies 2, 3 and 4 of this thesis will include measures of affect in order to ascertain levels of positive and negative affect in addition to a specific situational motivation measure.

Positive affect is linked with adaptive coping and self-regulatory strategies (Gendolla and Krüsken 2002) and extroversion (Bakker et al. 2006; Luhmann and Eid 2009; Ng and Diener 2009). In contrast, negative affect is generally related to maladaptive coping strategies (Pushkar et al. 2002; Robinson and Tamir 2005) and felt more intensely than positive affect (Otani et al. 2007). However, it may be that negative affect is required in order to initiate goal-orientated performance where a current evaluation of performance identifies required changes to meet future performance expectations (Carver and Scheier 1982; 2002; vanDellen and Hoyle 2008). Where activity is initiated under conditions of negative affect, as the individual monitors feedback and perceives positive progress towards a goal, this negative perception may change (Linnenbrink and Pintrich 2002; Hardy and Gustavo 2005; Sutin and Robins 2005; Smith 2006).

Affect, behaviour and cognition may play a dual role in situational motivation, i) as a

consequence of motivation (Deci and Ryan 2000; 2008) and ii) in the short temporal sequencing of situational motivation acting as an antecedent or mediator of subsequent motivation

(Linnenbrink and Pintrich 2002; Turnbull and Wolfson 2002; Covassin and Pero 2004). Additionally, success and failure perceptions may elicit different responses based on the individual’s personality traits (Levesque et al. 2008) and an interpretation about competency, benefits and costs of continuing to pursue goals in the current situation (Araújo et al. 2005). Increasingly, researchers are finding that performance and progress information is received from a range of sources, including both intrinsic and extrinsic approaches, and that individuals who can use multiple strategies demonstrate consistently better performance across a range of situations (Covington 2000; Steinberg et al. 2000; Merkle et al. 2002; Tauer and Harackiewicz 2004; Bailis et al. 2005; Hollombeak and Amorose 2005; Vansteenkiste et al. 2006). Studies 3

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and 4 will measure situational motivation in combination with affect, goal data and perceptions of goal progress in order to explore situational motivation processes.

Motivational profiles and motivational intensity may be good indicators of optimum performance and will be used in all studies for this thesis to assess the beneficial effects of situational motivation. Measuring these motivational profiles occurs through psychometric instruments, collecting responses to pre-determined and structured items derived from theoretical constructs (Hart et al. 2007; Faye and Sharpe 2008; Ullrich-French and Cox 2009; Vansteenkiste et al. 2009). However, motivation information can also be ascertained from other sources such as goal information (Maslow 1970; Vallerand and Bissonnette 1992; Reiss 2005), volitional participation in additional unstructured activity (Recours et al. 2004), or through a more objective physiological response such as HRV (Gendolla and Krüsken 2002; Ruiz-Padial et al. 2003; Westenhoefer et al. 2004). Triangulation of measurement processes may provide a clearer and more detailed comprehension of situational motivation (Cotton et al. 2010; Erickson et al. 2011). The investigation of motivation as a situational construct may be more credible if opportunities were provided for participants to explain the meaning for their responses (Hareli and Weiner 2002; Lane et al. 2005; Hannula 2006). Possible methods might include cognitive and affective reporting along with interpretation of goal progress and achievement. This could also provide a basis for linking more than one process or construct at the situational level of motivation (Hareli and Weiner 2002; Hannula 2006). Participants in studies 2, 3 and 4 will be given opportunities to provide goal setting and progression data along with additional

information about how they feel, in an attempt to gather more credible data for this thesis.

Motivation to achieve a goal or avoid an unpleasant outcome is vital in stimulating behaviour for an activity (Deci and Ryan 2008; Ewen 2010). Goals are generally set within a task-mastery or ego-performance framework, and can be influenced by situational demands (Mallet 2005), team or group environment (Downie et al. 2006) and perceived motivational climate (Reinboth and Duda 2004). During an exercise situation, individuals with more experience can utilise intrinsic motivation as a situational drive more effectively (Recours et al. 2004). Although complex and subtle differences between intrinsic motivation and more self-determined forms of extrinsic motivational regulations such as introjection, can provoke feelings of guilt and shame if exercise is not undertaken (Wilson et al. 2003; Thøgersen-Ntoumani and Ntoumanis 2006). However, in a sports situation due to increased opportunities for normative comparison, extrinsic motivation can increase levels of anxiety (Smith et al. 2006a). Although, the task orientated nature of skill progression favours adoption of a task orientation and reliance on more

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intrinsic processes (Ryska 2002a; Spray et al. 2006). Thus a combination of intrinsic-extrinsic and task-ego goals and orientations are purported to be necessary for good performance in an active situation (Martens and Webber 2002; Biddle et al. 2003). Whilst it is not anticipated that participants categorise their own goal data into these specific orientations, the data collected may enable a retrospective assessment of goal type for studies 2, 3 and 4 by the researcher.

Personality traits must also be considered within situational measurement as the trait responses will influence the situational response and exposure to similar situations will influence the trait response over time (Lu 1999; Steyer et al. 1999; Baird et al. 2006). Intense and stimulating situational demands may override the individual’s trait like response, causing affective changes which can produce unpredictable behaviour (Koestner et al. 1989; Efklides 2011). Self-

regulatory processes are important in controlling and guiding performance behaviour during activity in relation to feedback from goal progress and other sources (Deci and Ryan 2000; Gernigon et al. 2004; Efklides 2005). Thus goal setting becomes an important part of the self- regulatory process for performance where both goals set and perceived progression towards those goals will alter according to affective state (Smith 2006; Shell and Husman 2008). At the situational level of generality according to the HMIEM, motivational processes may rely on different antecedents than for the contextual or global levels (Linnenbrink and Pintrich 2002; Hardy and Gustavo 2005). It may be more important at the situational level, that the

motivational orientations include both intrinsic and extrinsic strategies (Merkle et al. 2002; Bailis et al. 2005). Measurement of motivational constructs has been recognised as challenging (Barkoukis et al. 2008; Faye and Sharpe 2008). However, a number of psychometric

instruments have been validated and widely used in motivational research (Hart et al. 2007; Ullrich-French and Cox 2009), although these focus on the contextual level of motivation and only the SIMS (Guay et al. 2000) addresses situational measurement of motivation. The studies in this thesis intend to use the previously validated SIMS (Guay et al. 2000) as a specific measure of situational motivation which is also grounded in SDT.

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