Motivation Theories
April Auspland, Krystal Obie, Brandy Baker, Karrissa Debardlabon, Katrina Davis
PSY/355
March 17, 2014
Juliet Fenyk
Motivation Theories This introduction to Differential Emotions, Self Determination and Stress & Coping explains and identify human motivations of this project (J. Clin Psychol, 1997). (SDT; Deci & Ryan, 1985; Ryan & Deci, 2000). (Lazarus, 1993). Intrinsic motivation refers to a person’s motivation that stems from the person rather than external forces, or avoiding punishment (Morris & Maisto, 2010). According to the self-determination theory described by Edward Deci, there are three basic needs, competence, autonomy, and relatedness to others. Furthermore, when all three of these innate needs are met intrinsic motivation thrives. Although when rewards are presented, it is likely to threaten the person’s sense of autonomy, thus losing motivation. One the other hand, if the individual perceives the reward as reinforcement of his or her competence rather then compliance, the individual will not interpret reward as a threat, and motivation is likely to increase. A person’s perception of the reward will determine motivation. In addition, social support has shown to improve independence and autonomy (Kolwalski, 2011).
The reason why everyone experiences intrinsic motivation is because it is caused by a person’s curiosity or it naturally comes from with a person. This type of motivation is not cause by external sources. However, it can eventually develop from an external source of motivation. For example a someone could start working at a job out of need of money, but eventually they could end up liking the job they do and show up for work because of the gratification it brings. Intrinsic motivation helps a person do many things such as grow, mature and acquire more information on something they were not too familiar with.
Appraisal is the process where a negative event is chosen to be viewed positively or negatively (Deckers, 2010). A real world example is a person wrecking a vehicle. Instead of letting the situation get the emotions raw, the person could decide they needed a new car anyhow. Two forms appraisal were discovered by Richard Lazarus; primary and secondary appraisal. In primary appraisal it is decided whether or not tan event is relevant, benign, positive or stressful. Secondary appraisal assesses strategies to meet demand of life events (Deckers, 2010). The steps for secondary appraisal include; determining adequate resources to cope, deciding what coping strategy to use, and evaluating if it will work. Example, a woman deals with a flat tire. She carries a jack, tools and a spare tire in her truck. She holds all the resources needed to solve or cope with the issue and will succeed in successfully changing the tire.
Lazarus had additional theories for stress and coping. Problem-focused coping and emotion focused coping. Problem focused coping includes trying to figure out the problem better and thinking about all solutions. According to (Deckers, 2010), emotion-focused coping is when the person manages the negative reactions of stress. An example of emotional coping is tension reduction. When someone used tension reduction as a coping mechanism the person may abuse drugs or stimulates to drive the stress away.
Richard Lazarus developed the Lazarus theory of emotion. His model basically states that a thought must occur before an emotion or physiological response can take place. Therefore, a person sees a bear (event), the person thinks ‘I am going to be shredded into tiny little pieces’ (thought), and the person simultaneously feels fear and prepares for ‘fight or flight’ (Emotion, 2014, para 14). The belief is that people have more control over the way stress affects them more then they really know. If we all stop and took a moment to reflect on the situation we can learn a good amount and calmly handle negative situations. Richard Lazarus is known is