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Motives and Goals (Humanistic) - Coggle Diagram
Motives and Goals (Humanistic)
Motives and Needs: Reveals a lot about a person by examining what they want and how they obtain them
Motives
: Internal states that arouses and direct behaviour toward specific objects or goals, often caused by a deficit.
Deficits are needs
, which are
internal states of tension
that cease when the need is fulfilled.
Influenced by psychodynamic ideas
Motives are internal and sometimes unconscious processes
Measured by projective techniques
Similarities with trait psychologists: Measurable individual differences that are stable across time and situations and can predict outcomes
Henry Murray's system of human needs
A need is a potentiality or readiness to respond in a certain way under certain given circumstances
Need entails state of tension that is relieved through need-satisfying thought or behaviour
Psychogenic needs
Need for dominance: Need for control
Need for understanding: Need for knowledge and enquiry
3 Big Motives
: Measured using TAT
Need for
Achievement
(nAch): Strive for excellence, do things better, and by successful
Overlaps with C
Prefer activities that provide moderate level of challenge
Enjoy tasks where they are personally responsible for the outcome and where they would receive feedback
Perform better than low nAch and are successful in entrepreneurship and innovation
May resort to cheating and bending the rules to gain success
Need for
Affiliation
(nAff): Preference for warm, close, and communicative interaction with others
Overlaps with A
Spend more time thinking about relationships
Positive emotions when around people and initiate more conversations
Smile, laugh, and make eye contact during interactions
Happier and higher subjective well-being
Need for
Power
(nPow): Desire to have an impact on other people's lives
Overlaps with dominance aspect of E
Predominantly interested in controlling others and the environment
Derive sense of superiority over others by arguing, taking up leadership positions, acquiring prestige possessions, and prefer friends who don't overshadow them
Unstable romantic relationships (for men)
Women with high nPow tend to marry successful men
With
US presidents
Positively associated with "presidential greatness", number of historically significant decisions made, and leading the US into war
Similarity to Big 5
Both are individual differences dimensions that are associated with important life outcomes
Motives speculated to be less stable than traits over lifespan and there is no clear genetic bases for motives
Goal Constructs: A lot of what we do and how we think and feel are structured around goals
Idiographic goals: Goals that are more specific and unique to individual people
Low generalisability and need a coding system to extract common themes
Current concerns
: Something that needs to be done that is kept active until the goal is either attained or abandoned
Can have several concerns simultaneously at the same time
Specific tasks that you have to accomplish within a short time frame
Time-specific and
micro-level goals
(e.g. needing to eat ramen for lunch)
Personal projects
: Set of relevant actions intended to achieve a selected goal that people actively engage in. Things that you are working on for the next two weeks to a month
High O: Pursue diversity of projects
High N: Projects are stressful, likely to fail, out of their control. Pursue avoidance projects (e.g. escaping from stress)
Natural units for analysis of goals as they reflect what people do in their daily lives as they work on their goals
Personal strivings
: Broad and long-term goals that organises broad areas of someone's life (e.g. be productive at work)
Can be categorised into basic human motivations (e.g. 3 big motives)
Different personal strivings can conflict with one another, resulting in difficulties and even psychological distress and illness
Nomothetic goals: Small number of essential goals that are universal to everyone
Categories:
Enjoyment
Self-assertion
Esteem
Interpersonal success
Avoidance of negative affect
Goal structure: 11 goals organised into 2 dimensions
Self-transcendence (spirituality) vs Physical self (Hedonism)
Intrinsic (self-acceptance) vs Extrinsic (Image)
Affiliation
Community feeling
Conformity
Financial success
Hedonism
Image
Physical health
Popularity
Safety
Self-acceptance
Spirituality
Correlations between Big-5 and goals are moderate to weak
A positively associated with social and relationship goals, negatively associated with economic goals
Change in E and C over college years positively associated with changes with goals
Personal Growth as Foundation for Humanistic Psychology
Humanistic approach: The subjective experience is important, sometimes more than objective reality and individuals have the freedom to define the meaning of their experience
Phenomenology: Conscious awareness of the world is psychologically meaningful
Humanistic psychology
Carl Rogers: A person can only be fully understood from their own POV
Therapy would mirror or reflect the client's words back to facilitate therapy
Maslow: Person's ultimate need is self-actualisation, but needs to fulfil other needs first (hierarchy of needs)
George Kelly: Individual uses personal constructs to view and make sense of the world (organise according to themes) and are lay scientists (devise theories that account for past experiences)
It is the person's freely chosen interpretation (or construal) of those past experiences that matters
Existentialism: Individuals have the free will to choose how they exist
Positive psychology: Focus on positive subjective experiences, individual traits, and institutions to improve quality of life and prevent pathologies
Happiness and subjective well-being
Level of happiness
Set-point theory of happiness: Genetically determined (50%)
Happiness is generally stable over time, like our traits
10%: Life circumstances
40%: Intentional activities to maintain and enhance happiness
Benefits
Good health, occupational success, supportive relationships
Broaden-and-build theory: Positive emotions broadens individual's cognitive and behavioural repertoire, which would build up emotional and personal resources
Flow: Being fully engaged in the activity; enhancing conscious experience so that it is optimal
Complete absorption in what they are doing: Lack of distraction, positive emotions, intense concentration
Know what you love to do and enter this state
Virtues and character strengths: Enable individuals to thrive
6 universal core virtues (each can be further broken down into more specific character strengths):
Wisdom
Courage (exercise of will to accomplish goals in the face of opposition)
Humanity (interpersonal strengths)
Justice (healthy community life)
Temperance (protect against excess)
Transcendence (forge conections to the larger universe and provide meaning)
Being healthy is not just the absence of illness, but also the promotion of good outcomes
Virtues vs the Big-5: The Big-5 is descriptive while virtues are prescriptive; they prescribe how people should do in order to achieve happiness and a greater sense of subjective well-being
Criticisms
Some constructs may not be able to be operationalised and measured scientifically (e.g. transcendence is strengths that forge connections to the larger universe and provide meaning)
Positive psychology may be creating a false dichotomy of good and bad
Ability of interventions to enhance happiness (especially in the long run) is still unknown
Self-Determination theory: people seek to grow and develop optimally and have an actualising tendency (intrinsic motivation)
Three fundamental and universal needs: Fulfilment leads to high intrinsic motivation and well-being
Autonomy
: Freedom to choose and make decisions
Supported through autonomy support: Encouraging initiative, giving choices where possible, etc.
Competence
: Achieving mastery over tasks and growing capabilities
Structure and optimal challenge: Set clear task expectations, provide feedback for improvement, etc.
Relatedness
:Feeling connected to others
Involvement: Have a mentor, peers, give back to the community
Those who emphasise intrinsic goals are higher in positive emotions and lower to negative emotions and physical illness, and are benefactors to welfare of others and the wider community
Tae Bo
Two IVs:
Extrinsic vs Intrinsic motivation (e.g. learning Tae Bo helps you to be more attractive vs helps you remain healthy)
Supportive vs Controlling context ("you can" vs "you should")
Results:
Intrinsic and supportive conditions put in more effort and better performance
Students with intrinsic and supportive context condition persisted in Tae Bo more than students in other conditions
Extrinsic reward would undermine intrinsic motivation: Overjustification effect
Parental overprotection and perfectionism
Self-critical perfectionism: You think you are not good enough and criticise yourself if you make mistakes
Rigid perfectionism: You hold yourself to a very high standard
Narcissistic perfectionism: Expecting others to be perfect as well with sprinkles of entitlement
Building competence
Academic incompetence hypothesis: Competence-building reduces maladjustment
Adjustment erosion hypothesis: Maladjustment reduces competence-building
Competence-building (academic motivational constructs, mastery orientation, etc.) predictive of depression but not the other way round: Academic incompetence hypothesis is more likely