Introduction to Motivation

This semester one of my units for university is called Motivation and Emotion. For this unit we have been asked to reflect on our opinions and insights into what were are learning in lectures, reading material and tutorials.

The study of motivation seeks to explain what causes behaviour and what causes this behaviour to vary in its intensity, which I think are questions that are central to all fields of psychology. Thus it is no surprise that motivational research spans across many fields of psychology and that grand theories that hoped to explain motivation in a very broad and all encompassing way, have not been successful. Furthermore, motivation, like many other aspects of psychology, cannot be categorized as a purely biological, purely cognitive or a purely social phenomenon. It is the interplay of each of these factors which determines behavior and each has the power to motivate behaviour. The mini-theories of the day are much more likely to explain what motivates behaviour because they can take all these factors into account to varying degrees.

It is also interesting to think about how motivational forces are forever changing for each individual. People are hardly ever motivated by just one thing at a time, but only one form of motivation has enough energy to motivate their behaviour. Especially as a student I can relate to this problem of many motivational factors competing with social, academic and financial motivators, (to name a few) constantly competing to influence day-to-day behaviours. However, I wonder, why is it that one motivator seems to have more power to energise and direct behaviour over others? What is it about these motivators that make them stronger than another? I think this is a very subjective question and thus could be very difficult to study empirically. I am looking forward to investigating how researchers and psychologist so far have tackled these questions as well as reading the ideas of other students in this unit to gain some insight into the complex issue of motivation.