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Motivation and Action
This third edition provides translations of all chapters of the most recent fifth German edition of Motivation and Action , including several entirely new chapters. It provides comprehensive coverage of the history of motivation, and introduces up-to-date theories and new research findings. Early sections provide a broad introduction to, and deep understanding of, the field of motivation psychology, mapping out different perspectives and research traditions. Subsequent chapters examine major themes of human motivation, including achievement, affiliation, and power motivation as well as the fundamentals of motivation psychology, such as motivated and goal oriented behaviors, implicit and explicit motives, and the regulation of development. In addition, the book discusses the roles of motivation in three practical school and college, the workplace, and sports. Topics featured in this text Motivation and Action, Third Edition , is a must-have resource for undergraduate and graduate students as well as researchers in the fields of motivation psychology, cognitive psychology, and social psychology, as well as personality psychology and agency.
About the Jutta Heckhausen is the daughter of Heinz Heckhausen, who published "Motivation and Action” as a monograph in 1980 and who died in 1988 just before the 2nd edition came out. Dr. Heckhausen received her Ph.D. in 1985 from the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow with a dissertation about early mother-child interaction, and did her Habilitation in 1996 at the Free University of Berlin with a monograph about developmental regulation in adulthood. Dr. Heckhausen worked for many years at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin, conducting research about the role of motivation in lifespan development. She is currently a professor of psychology at the University of California, Irvine.
About the Jutta Heckhausen is the daughter of Heinz Heckhausen, who published "Motivation and Action” as a monograph in 1980 and who died in 1988 just before the 2nd edition came out. Dr. Heckhausen received her Ph.D. in 1985 from the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow with a dissertation about early mother-child interaction, and did her Habilitation in 1996 at the Free University of Berlin with a monograph about developmental regulation in adulthood. Dr. Heckhausen worked for many years at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin, conducting research about the role of motivation in lifespan development. She is currently a professor of psychology at the University of California, Irvine.
- GenresPsychology
924 pages, Hardcover
Published April 12, 2018
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March 11, 2024Chapter 1: Motivation and Action: Introduction and Overview
Why are some intentions easier than others? Why do some people fair better in pursuits?
Motivated behavior: 1. desire to control 2. goal (dis)engagement
authors confuse physical characteristics, abilities, skills, styles, personalities, habits, motives, traits, and desires (word soup)
Harold Kelly "Cube Model of Causal Inferences:" Is it the person or environment?
1. Consensus: compare individual differences in context (what is everyone else doing? is the individual behaving like the group or in opposition?)
2. Distinctiveness: compare the person across time (is he intrinsically motivated by work? does he talk about work constantly? is he situationally motivated?)
3. Consistency: compare to earlier behaviors (how does she normally respond?)
We can't distinguish between the person and environment for a bunch of reasons
1. We can't have one without the other (person w/o event, event w/o person)
2. We can't get good units of change of personhood or situationality
3. The objective situation is not the effect; the interpretation is the important bit
4. The observer cannot determine how much either variable effects behavior
volition: the psychologists' word of choice for describing agency these days (it changes); volition is the metamotivation, the process of changing motivations
Rubicon Model
1. Goal selection 2. Goal engagement (go mode) 3. Goal disengagement (stop)
Problems with chapter 1: failure to define incentives, personality, agency, or behaviors
Chapter 2: Historical Trends in Motivation Research
no one can agree on variables or methods for understanding behavior (still)
building from instinct (Darwin) to habits (William James) to testing (Galton, Binet)
Herrmann Ebbinghaus learning curves; reaction times, decisions of intentions, volitions
Würzburg School (introspective analysis): reaction-time measures, guided retrospection
Freud unconscious, William McDougall (personality instincts), understanding quasi-needs
Kurt Lewin: Field Theory of psychological forces, structuring layers of behavior f(P, E)
Instrumentality: expectancy of consequential actions; to William Stern (personality theory)
nomothetic: general abstraction techniques; idiographic: individual, concrete; (Allport)
Thorndike: learning psychology, cats in puzzle boxes; law of effect "the greater the satisfaction or discomfort, the greater the strengthening or weakening of the bond" Stimulus-Response (S-R bonds); habit: association between stimulus and response
Edward Tolman: learning/motivation; Clark L. Hull: needs (real), drives (theory contstruct)
Ivan Pavlov: activation psychology; excitation and inhibition; neurophysiological approach
Chapter 3: Trait Theories of Motivation
Allport: trait: "generalized and focalized neuropsychic system (peculiar to the individual), with the capacity to render many stimuli functionally equivalent and to initiate and guide consistent (equivalent) forms of adaptive and expressive behavior."
achievement motive: standard of excellence, intrinsic value of success across tasks
most people have most traits of intermediate strength; most of it is not conscious
classification problem: bias toward explaining all behavior with traits or nothing at all
sedimentation hypothesis: languages evolve to describe human behavior (Alport/Odbert)
Cattell (1946): reducing 17,953 words to 171 bipolar variable pairs to the big-five
unambiguous support for construct and criterion validity; traits are empirically separate
not distinguishing: biological dispositions, acquired abilities, habits, values, and motives
R. B. Cattell Traits: cognitive dispositions/abilities, temperament dispositions (consistent across sitatuions), and dynamic/motivational/dispositions (change according to context)
independence (orthogonal nature) of temperament and motives (ie: introversion/affiliation motive); people cannot accurately self-report; implicit/explicit selves; confusion of values
Murray (1938) Thematic Apperception Test (TAT): important motivational psychology tool
Achievement motive:
1. Action with concrete outcome
2. Measurable outcome of quantity/quality
3. Task is within zone of attainble difficulty and possible success w/ time/effort
4. Standard assessment for task outcome
5. Intentional action with individual outcome accomplishment
Why are some intentions easier than others? Why do some people fair better in pursuits?
Motivated behavior: 1. desire to control 2. goal (dis)engagement
authors confuse physical characteristics, abilities, skills, styles, personalities, habits, motives, traits, and desires (word soup)
Harold Kelly "Cube Model of Causal Inferences:" Is it the person or environment?
1. Consensus: compare individual differences in context (what is everyone else doing? is the individual behaving like the group or in opposition?)
2. Distinctiveness: compare the person across time (is he intrinsically motivated by work? does he talk about work constantly? is he situationally motivated?)
3. Consistency: compare to earlier behaviors (how does she normally respond?)
We can't distinguish between the person and environment for a bunch of reasons
1. We can't have one without the other (person w/o event, event w/o person)
2. We can't get good units of change of personhood or situationality
3. The objective situation is not the effect; the interpretation is the important bit
4. The observer cannot determine how much either variable effects behavior
volition: the psychologists' word of choice for describing agency these days (it changes); volition is the metamotivation, the process of changing motivations
Rubicon Model
1. Goal selection 2. Goal engagement (go mode) 3. Goal disengagement (stop)
Problems with chapter 1: failure to define incentives, personality, agency, or behaviors
Chapter 2: Historical Trends in Motivation Research
no one can agree on variables or methods for understanding behavior (still)
building from instinct (Darwin) to habits (William James) to testing (Galton, Binet)
Herrmann Ebbinghaus learning curves; reaction times, decisions of intentions, volitions
Würzburg School (introspective analysis): reaction-time measures, guided retrospection
Freud unconscious, William McDougall (personality instincts), understanding quasi-needs
Kurt Lewin: Field Theory of psychological forces, structuring layers of behavior f(P, E)
Instrumentality: expectancy of consequential actions; to William Stern (personality theory)
nomothetic: general abstraction techniques; idiographic: individual, concrete; (Allport)
Thorndike: learning psychology, cats in puzzle boxes; law of effect "the greater the satisfaction or discomfort, the greater the strengthening or weakening of the bond" Stimulus-Response (S-R bonds); habit: association between stimulus and response
Edward Tolman: learning/motivation; Clark L. Hull: needs (real), drives (theory contstruct)
Ivan Pavlov: activation psychology; excitation and inhibition; neurophysiological approach
Chapter 3: Trait Theories of Motivation
Allport: trait: "generalized and focalized neuropsychic system (peculiar to the individual), with the capacity to render many stimuli functionally equivalent and to initiate and guide consistent (equivalent) forms of adaptive and expressive behavior."
achievement motive: standard of excellence, intrinsic value of success across tasks
most people have most traits of intermediate strength; most of it is not conscious
classification problem: bias toward explaining all behavior with traits or nothing at all
sedimentation hypothesis: languages evolve to describe human behavior (Alport/Odbert)
Cattell (1946): reducing 17,953 words to 171 bipolar variable pairs to the big-five
unambiguous support for construct and criterion validity; traits are empirically separate
not distinguishing: biological dispositions, acquired abilities, habits, values, and motives
R. B. Cattell Traits: cognitive dispositions/abilities, temperament dispositions (consistent across sitatuions), and dynamic/motivational/dispositions (change according to context)
independence (orthogonal nature) of temperament and motives (ie: introversion/affiliation motive); people cannot accurately self-report; implicit/explicit selves; confusion of values
Murray (1938) Thematic Apperception Test (TAT): important motivational psychology tool
Achievement motive:
1. Action with concrete outcome
2. Measurable outcome of quantity/quality
3. Task is within zone of attainble difficulty and possible success w/ time/effort
4. Standard assessment for task outcome
5. Intentional action with individual outcome accomplishment
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