* (...) because motivational concepts one uses need to be chosen carefully, and they need to be continually evaluated against new findings. Inadequate concepts are best tossed aside, useful concepts need to be improved upon, and new explanatory concepts need to be discovered.
* Theory is an intellectual framework that organizes a vast amount of knowledge about a phenomenon so that the phenomenon can be better understood and explained (Fiske, 2004) The study of motivation and emotion exists to answer the Why? questions of behavior, thought, and feeling such as, Why did she do that? and Why does she feel and think that way? Motivational theories therefore exist as answers to these sorts of questions, as in The reason why she did that was because _____ . To quote Bernard and Lac (2013, p. 574):
without an answer to why, we are left only with the description of behavior, and description without explanation is ultimately unsatisfying.
To understand the nature of something such as achievement motivation and to explain how it works, a theory of achievement motivation needs to do two things. First, it needs to identify the relations that exist among naturally occurring, observable phenomena. For instance, a theory needs to identify what causes the phenomenon and also what the phenomenon itself causes. A theory of achievement motivation, for instance, will identify variables such as optimal challenge, independent work, and rapid performance feedback as the naturally occurring causes for achievement strivings, and it will identify variables such as effort, persistence, and hope as its naturally occurring consequences. Second, it needs to explain why those relations exist. For instance, why does a challenge (e.g., Here, see if you can do this.) lead some people to experience hope and to exert greater effort while it leads other people to experience only anxiety and to withhold effort? If you can identify the antecedents and consequences to a motivational or an emotional phenomenon, then your understanding will be clearer, more sophisticated, and more helpful. You will be well positioned (well-informed) when it comes time to improve your life or the life of a loved one.
Comments
Post a Comment