Psychology 352 – Motivation

Chapter 10 – Personal Control Beliefs

Motivation To Exercise Personal Control

• The desire to exercise personal control relies on the person’s belief that they have the power to produce favorable results.
• In anticipating events and outcomes, people rely on their past experiences and personal resources.
• Two types of expectancies exist:
  • Efficacy Expectations – Can I do it?
  • Outcome Expectations – Will it work?
• Both efficacy and outcome expectations must be high before behavior becomes energetic and goal-directed.

Self-Efficacy

• One organizes and orchestrates his skills to cope with the demands and circumstances you face.
• Not the same as ability.
• The opposite of efficacy is doubt.
• Self-efficacy predicts the motivational balance between wanting to try and anxiety, doubt, and avoidance.

Sources of Self-Efficacy

• One’s personal history in trying to execute a certain behavior
  • This source is the most influential for people.
• Observations of similar others who also try to execute that behavior
  • This is a strong source of efficacy beliefs.
• Verbal persuasions
  • Depends on the credibility, expertise and trustworthiness of the persuader.
• Physiological states
• Therapy

Self-Efficacy Effects on Behavior

• Choice of activities and selection of environments
  • Doubt overwhelms efficacy and produces an avoidance decision.
• Extent of effort and persistence put forth during performance
  • Self-efficacy leads to a quick recovery of self-assurance following setbacks.
  • Strong self-efficacy
  • Doubt
• The quality of thinking and decision making during performance
• Emotional reactions
  • People with high self-efficacy
  • People who doubt their efficacy

Empowerment

• High self-efficacy beliefs can be acquired and changed
• The level of self-efficacy predicts ways of acting that are competent and empowering.
• Empowerment
  • Possessing the knowledge, skills, and beliefs that allow people to exert control over their lives.
• To empower oneself
  • Translate your knowledge and skills into effective performance when threatened, and exert control over intrusive negative thoughts.
• Empowering People: Mastery Modeling Program
  • An expert works with novices to show them how to cope with a feared situation.

Personal Control Beliefs

• The degree to which a person believes that he causes desirable outcomes and prevents aversive ones.
• Mastery Vs. Helpless Motivational Orientations
  • Mastery motivational orientation
  • Helpless motivational orientation

Learned Helplessness

• The psychological state that results when an individual expects that life’s outcomes are uncontrollable.
• Learning helplessness
• Application to humans
  • Feedback
• Components of learned helplessness theory
• Contingency – the objective relationship between a person’s behavior and the environment’s outcome. Asks the question “to what extent does your voluntary, strategic behavior influence the outcomes that occur in a particular setting?”
• Cognition – Thoughts distort the relationship between objective contingencies and our subjective understanding of personal control. Three cognitive elements are:
  • Biases
  • Attributions
  • Expectancies
• Behavior – Coping to attain or prevent an outcome.
  • Helpless people
  • Mastery people

• Effects of Helplessness
  • Learned helplessness generates behavioral passivity through its effect on 3 types of deficits:
    • Motivational
    • Learning
    • Emotional
• Helplessness and Depression
  • Learned helplessness and depression share common symptoms
  • Learned helplessness and depression share common treatment.
  • Research – depressed people are not more prone to learned helplessness.
    Learned Helplessness (continued)
• Explanatory Style – a relatively stable, personality trait that reflects the way people explain the reasons why bad events happen to them.
  • Optimistic explanatory style
    • Internalize success and externalize failure
  • Pessimistic explanatory style
• Criticisms and Alternative Explanations
  • The expectation that one learns can produce helplessness.
  • Deficit in norepinephrine.
  • High carb diet.

Reactance Theory

• The psychological and behavioral attempt at reestablishing an eliminated or threatened freedom.
• Reactance and Helplessness – a threat to personal freedom correlates with the perception of an uncontrollable outcome.
  • If the environment continues to be uncontrollable, we learn that all attempts at control are pointless.
  • Reactance is based on perceived control
  • Helplessness is based on the absence of control
  • Reactance response precedes a helpless response
  • Reactance enhances performance
  • Helplessness undermines performance

Hope

• High agency
  • Self-efficacy.
• Clear pathways
  • Mastery over helplessness.
• High hope people
  • Establish specific and short-term goals
  • Set mastery achievement goals
  • Rely on internally set goals
  • Engage goals with intrinsic motivation
  • Are less easily distracted by distractions or negative feelings
  • Generate multiple pathways
  • Store up internally-generated determination
  • Have more meaning in their lives