El objeto de la lingüística. Identificar el gesto y el discurso en Saussure

Table 1.3 Brain and Physiological Activity as Expressions of Motivation

Brain activity Activation of brain structures such as the amygdala (fear) or prefrontal cortex (setting goals).

Hormonal activity Chemicals in saliva or blood, such as cortisol (stress) or catecholamines (fight-or-flight reaction).

Cardiovascular activity Contraction and relaxation of the heart and blood vessels (attractive incentives, difficult/challenging tasks).

Ocular activity Eye behavior—pupil size (extent of mental activity), eye blinks (changing cognitive states), and eye movements (reflective thought).

Electrodermal activity Electrical changes on the surface of the skin (expression of threat or stimulus significance).

Skeletal activity Activity of the musculature, as with facial expressions (specific emotion) and bodily gestures (desire to leave).

anxious the interviewee feels in particular settings or by asking the interviewee to report anxiety-related symptoms, such as an upset stomach or thoughts of failure. Questionnaires have several advantages. They are easy to administer, can be given to many people simul-taneously, and can target very specific information (Carlsmith, Ellsworth, & Aronson, 1976). But questionnaires also have pitfalls that raise a red flag of caution as to their usefulness. Many researchers lament the lack of correspondence between what people say they do and what they actually do (Quattrone, 1985; Wicker, 1969). Furthermore, there is also a lack of correspondence between how people say they feel and what their psychophysiological activity indicates they probably feel (Hodgson & Rachman, 1974;

Rachman & Hodgson, 1974). Hence, what people say their motives are sometimes are not what people’s behavioral and physiological expressions suggest their motives are.

What conclusion, for instance, can one draw when a person verbally reports low anger but shows a quick latency to aggress, a rapid acceleration in heart rate, and eyebrows that are drawn tightly downward and together? Because of such discrepancies, motiva-tion researchers typically trust and rely on behavioral, engagement, and physiological measures to a greater degree than they trust and rely on self-report measures.

THEMES IN THE STUDY OF MOTIVATION

Motivation study includes a wide range of assumptions, hypotheses, theories, findings, and domains of application, as you will see in the chapters to come. But motivation study also has a number of unifying themes that integrate these assumptions, hypotheses, theories, findings, and applications into a coherent field of study, including the following:

• Motivation benefits adaptation.

• Motives direct attention and prepare action.

• Motives vary over time and influence the ongoing stream of behavior.

• Types of motivations exist.

• Motivation includes both approach and avoidance tendencies.

• Motivation study reveals what people want.

• To flourish, motivation needs supportive conditions.

• There is nothing so practical as a good theory.

Motivation Benefits Adaptation

Circumstances constantly change, as do the environments we live in (at home, school, work). Demands on our time rise and fall, opportunities come and go, and supportive relationships sometimes take a turn for the worse. Facing an ongoing and changing stream of opportunities and threats, people need the means to take the corrective action needed that can preserve and enhance their well-being. Motivations and emotions provide tremendous resources that allow people to adapt to these environmental changes.

When people go for hours without food and when food supply is scarce, hunger arises. When deadlines become too numerous, stress arises. When a person gains control over a difficult problem, a sense of mastery and competence arises. Changes in hunger, stress, and mastery motivation allow people to become complex adaptive systems. There-fore, one theme that runs throughout this book is that motivational states (e.g., hunger, stress, mastery) provide a key means for individuals to cope successfully with life’s inevitable, changing, and somewhat unpredictable demands. Take away the motivational states, and people would quickly lose a vital resource they rely on to adapt and to main-tain well-being. Anyone who tries to lose weight, write a creative poem, or learn a foreign language without first recruiting motivation will quickly realize that motivation benefits adaptation. The lesson we learn from such an undertaking is that motivation readies and allows us to lose weight, perform creatively, and learn complex skills.

When motivation sours, personal adaptation suffers. People who feel helpless in exerting control over their fates tend to give up quickly when challenged (Peterson, Maier, & Seligman, 1993). Helplessness sours the person’s capacity to cope with life’s challenges. People who are bossed around, coerced, and controlled by others tend to become emotionally flat and numb to the hopes and aspirations embedded within their inner psychological needs (Deci, 1995). Being controlled by others sours the person’s capacity to generate motivation of his or her own. In contrast, when students are excited about school, when workers are confident in their skills, and when athletes set higher goals, then their teachers, supervisors, and coaches can rest assured each of these per-sons will be able to adapt successfully to his or her unique environment. People with high-quality motivation adapt well and thrive; people with motivational deficits flounder.

Motives Direct Attention and Prepare Action

Environments constantly demand our attention, and they do so in a multitude of ways. Just driving down the road, for instance, we have many things to do—find our destination, cooperate with other drivers, avoid hitting other cars, listen and respond to our passen-gers’ conversation, avoid spilling our coffee, and so forth. Similarly, a college student must simultaneously make good grades, maintain old friendships, eat healthy, balance budgets of money and time, plan for the future, wash clothes, develop artistic talents, keep abreast of world news, and so on. Who is to say whether our attention is allocated in one direction or the other? Much of that “say” comes from our motivational states.

Motives have a way of gaining, and sometimes demanding, our attention so that we attend to one aspect of the environment rather than to another.

Themes in the Study of Motivation 15 Motives affect behavior and prepare us for action by directing attention to select some behaviors and courses of action over others, as illustrated in Table 1.4. The table’s four columns list, from left to right, (1) various aspects of the environment, (2) a motive typically aroused by that environmental event, (3) a motive-appropriate course of action, and (4) a hypothetical priority given to each course of action as determined by the intensity of its associated motive. While six courses of action are possible, attention is not allocated equally because the aroused motives vary in strength (as denoted by the number of asterisks in the far-right column). Because interest, thirst, and rest are not urgent at that particular time (one asterisk), their salience is low and they fail to grab attention. The motive to avoid a headache’s pain is highly salient (five asterisks) and therefore a strong candidate to grab attention and channel behavior toward taking an aspirin. Pain, like many motives, has an intrinsic ability to grab, hold, and direct our attention (Bolles & Fanselow, 1980; Eccleston & Crombez, 1999). Motives, therefore, influence behavior by capturing attention, interrupting what we are doing, distracting us from doing other things, and imposing a priority onto our thinking, feeling, and behaving.

Motives Vary Over Time and Influence the Ongoing Stream of Behavior

Motivation is a dynamic process —always changing, always rising and falling— rather than a discrete event or static condition. It is helpful to think of motivation as a constantly flowing river of needs, cognitions, and emotions. Not only do motive strengths continually rise and fall, but people always harbor a multitude of different motives at any one point in time. Typically, one motive is strongest and most situationally appropriate, while other motives are relatively subordinate (i.e., one motive dominates our attention, while others lie relatively dormant, as in Table 1.4). The strongest motive typically has the greatest influence on our behavior, but each subordinate motive can become dominant as circumstances change and can therefore influence and contribute to the ongoing stream of behavior.

As an illustration, consider a typical study session in which a student sits at a desk with book in hand. Our scholar’s goal is to read the book, a relatively strong motive on this occasion because of an upcoming examination. The student reads for an hour, but during this time, curiosity becomes satisfied, fatigue sets in, and various subordinate motives —such as hunger and affiliation— begin to increase in strength. Perhaps the smell

Table 1.4 How Motives Influence Behavior for a Student Sitting at a Desk

Environmental Aroused Motive-Relevant Motive’s Urgency

Event Motive Course of Action Attention-Getting Status

Book Interest Read chapter. *

Cola Thirst Drink beverage. *

Familiar voices Affiliation Talk with friends. ***

Headache Pain avoidance Take aspirin. *****

Lack of sleep Rest Lie down, nap. *

Upcoming competition Achievement Practice skill. **

Note: The number of asterisks in column four represents the intensity of the aroused motive. One asterisk denotes the lowest intensity level, while five asterisks denote the highest intensity level.

Time

X Y Z X Y Z X Y X

Motive X

Motive Y Motive Z

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Strong Behavior Observed

Strength of Motive

Weak

Figure 1.4 Stream of Behavior and the Changes in the Strength of Its Underlying Motives Source: Adapted from Cognitive Control of Action, by D. Birch, J. W. Atkinson, and K. Bongort, in B. Weiner’s (Ed.), Cognitive View of Human Motivation (pp. 71–84), 1974, New York: Academic Press.

of popcorn from a neighbor’s room makes its way down the hallway, or perhaps the sight of a close friend passing the door increases the relative strength of an affiliation motive. If the affiliation motive increases in strength to a dominant level, then our scholar’s stream of behavior will shift direction from studying to affiliating.

An ongoing stream of behavior in which a person performs a set of three behaviors, X, Y, and Z (e.g., studying, eating, and affiliating; Atkinson, Bongort, & Price, 1977) appears in Figure 1.4. The figure plots the changes in the strength of each of these three motives that produce the observed stream of behavior. At time one, motive X (studying) is the dominant motive, while motives Y and Z are relatively subordinate. At time two, motive Y (eating) has increased in strength above motive X, while motive Z remains subordinate. At time three, motive Z (affiliating) gains relative dominance and exerts its influence on the stream of behavior. Overall, Figure 1.4 illustrates that (a) motive strengths change over time, (b) people forever harbor a multitude of motives of various intensities, any one of which might grab attention and participate in the stream of behav-ior, given the appropriate circumstances, and (c) motives are not something a person either does or does not have, but instead, these motives rise and fall as circumstances change.

Types of Motivations Exist

In many people’s minds, motivation is a unitary concept. Its key feature is its amount, or its intensity level. From this point of view, what matters about motivation is “how much.” As a unitary construct, motivation can be nonexistent, low, moderate, high, or very high in terms of how much one has. Practitioners (teachers, managers, coaches) who view motivation as a unitary construct therefore focus on the question, “How can I foster more motivation in my students, workers, or athletes?”

In contrast, several motivation theorists suggest that important types of motivations exist (Ames, 1987; Ames & Archer, 1988; Atkinson, 1964; Condry & Stokker, 1992;

Deci, 1992a). For instance, intrinsic motivation is different from extrinsic motivation (Ryan & Deci, 2000b). The motivation to learn is different from the motivation to perform

Themes in the Study of Motivation 17 (Ames & Archer, 1988). And the motivation to approach success is different from the motivation to avoid failure (Elliot, 1997). In other words, human beings are motivationally complex (Vallerand, 1997).

Watch as an athlete practices, an employee works, and a doctor cares for a patient, and you will see variations in the intensity of their motivation. But an equally impor-tant observation to make is to ask the question of why the athlete practices, why the employee works, and why the doctor provides care. Attending to the person’s type of motivation is important because some types yield a higher quality of experience, more favorable performances, and psychologically healthier outcomes than do other types. For instance, students who learn out of an intrinsic motivation (via interest, curiosity) show more creativity, positive emotion, and conceptual learning than do students who learn out of an extrinsic motivation (via stickers, deadlines; Deci & Ryan, 1987). In achievement situations, students whose goal is to approach success (“My goal is to make an A.”) outperform equally able students whose goal is to avoid failure (“My goal is to not make an F.”) (Elliot, 1999). When people go on a diet, those with autonomous motivation often diet successfully by eating healthier foods, whereas those with controlled moti-vation often diet unsuccessfully and fall into dysfunctional behaviors such as bulimia (Pelletier et al., 2004). Often—on a team of hardworking athletes, in a factory with hundreds of workers, and in a hospital full of doctors —people do not vary all that much in the level of their motivation but, instead, in the type —or in the quality—of their motivations.

Emotions also show that motives vary not only in intensity but also in type. For instance, a person who is intensely angry behaves quite differently from a person who is intensely afraid. Both are highly motivated and “how much?” matters, but “which type?” (of emotion) is an equally important question to consider, because people who are angry behave very differently than do people who are afraid. So a complete motivational analysis of behavior answers both questions —How much motivation? and What type of motivation?

Motivation Includes Both Approach and Avoidance Tendencies

Generally speaking, people presuppose that to be motivated is better than to be unmo-tivated. Indeed, the two most frequently asked questions in motivation are, “How can I motivate myself?” and “How can I motivate another person?” In other words, how might one possess more motivation than one presently has, either for oneself or for others?

Clearly, motivation is a state that people long to achieve for themselves and for others.

The problem is that you sometimes get what you wish for. In actuality, several motivational systems are aversive in nature —pain, hunger, distress, fear, dissonance, anxiety, pressure, helplessness, and so on. We do welcome many approach-oriented motivational states (e.g., interest, hope, joy, expectation, desire, achievement motiva-tion, self-actualization). But many other motivational states are not so welcomed (e.g., fear, frustration), as they ready us to avoid aversive, threatening, and anxiety-provoking situations. Attention-getting motives like anxiety and tension essentially poke the prover-bial needle in our side until we give the aversive motive its due and adjust our behavior accordingly. Often, motivational and emotional states operate under the principle, “the greater the irritation, the greater the change” (Kimble, 1990, p. 36).

Human beings are curious, intrinsically motivated, sensation-seeking animals with goals and plans to master challenges, to develop warm interpersonal relationships, and to move toward attractive incentives, psychological development, and growth. Such an approach orientation to motivation focuses on desired goals and involves approaching and moving toward desired goals and outcomes. It is also true, however, that people are stressed, frustrated, plagued by insecurities, pressured, afraid, in pain, depressed, and encounter aversive situations from which they wish to flee. Such an avoidance orienta-tion to motivaorienta-tion focuses on undesired goals and involves avoiding and moving away from undesired outcomes (Elliot, Sheldon, & Church, 1997). To adapt optimally, human beings have (and need) a motivational repertoire that features just as many aversive, avoidance-based motives as positive, approach-based motives. Hence, a full understand-ing of the rich fabric of human motivation includes an appreciation for both approach and avoidance tendencies (Carver, 2006; Elliot, 2006).

Motivation Study Reveals What People Want

The study of motivation reveals why people want what they want. It also reveals what people want—literally, the contents of human nature. The subject matter of motivation and emotion concerns what we all hope for, desire, want, need, and fear. It examines questions such as whether people are essentially good or evil, naturally active or passive, brotherly or aggressive, altruistic or egocentric, free to choose or determined by biological and societal demands, and whether or not people harbor within themselves tendencies to grow and to self-actualize.

Theories of motivation reveal what is common within the strivings of all human beings by identifying the commonalities among people from different cultures, differ-ent life experiences, differdiffer-ent ages, differdiffer-ent historical periods, and differdiffer-ent genetic endowments. All of us harbor physiological needs such as hunger, thirst, sex, and pain. All of us inherit biological dispositions such as temperament and neural circuits in the brain for pleasure and aversion. We all share a small number of basic emo-tions, and we all feel these emotions under the same condiemo-tions, such as feeling fear when threatened and distress after losing something or someone of value. We all pos-sess the same constellation of needs, including needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness. We are all hedonists (approach pleasure, avoid pain), but we seem to want enjoyment, well-being, and personal growth even more (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000).

Theories of motivation also reveal those motivations that are learned through expe-rience and socially engineered through cultural forces (and hence outside the realm of human nature). For example, through our unique experiences, exposures to role mod-els, and awareness of cultural expectations, we acquire different goals, values, attitudes, expectations, performance expectations, ways of explaining our successes and failures, personal aspirations, a sense of self, and so forth. These ways of energizing and directing our behavior arise from environmental, social, and cultural forces. The study of motiva-tion therefore informs us what part of want and desire stem from human nature but also what part of want and desire stem from personal, social, and cultural learning. It reveals what part of motivation is universal and what part is enculturated.

Themes in the Study of Motivation 19 To Flourish, Motivation Needs Supportive Conditions

A person’s motivation cannot be separated from the social context in which it is embed-ded. That is, a child’s motivation is affected by and somewhat dependent on the social context provided by his or her parents, and a student’s motivation is affected by and somewhat dependent on the school he or she attends. The same could be said for the motivation of athletes affected by coaches, patients affected by physicians, and citizens affected by their culture. For the motivation of children, students, athletes, and the like, environments can be nurturing and supportive or environments can be neglectful, frus-trating, and undermining. Those who are surrounded by social contexts that support and nurture their needs and strivings show greater vitality, experience personal growth, and thrive more than those who are surrounded by social neglect and frustration (Keyes, 2007; Ryan & Deci, 2000b). Recognizing the role that social contexts play in people’s motivation and well-being, motivation researchers seek to apply principles of motivation in ways that allow people’s motivation to flourish. Four areas of application are stressed in this book:

• Education

• Work

• Sports and exercise

• Therapy

In education, an understanding of motivation can be applied to promote students’

classroom engagement, to foster the motivation to learn and develop talent, to support the desire to stay in school rather than drop out, and to inform teachers how to provide a motivationally supportive classroom climate. In work, an understanding of motivation can

classroom engagement, to foster the motivation to learn and develop talent, to support the desire to stay in school rather than drop out, and to inform teachers how to provide a motivationally supportive classroom climate. In work, an understanding of motivation can