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The FFM could provide a common language for psychologists from different traditions, a basic phenomenon for personality theorists to explain, a natural framework for organizing research and a guide to the comprehensive assessment of individuals that should be of value to educational, industrial/organizational, and clinical psychologists.

Motivation: Constructs, Theories, and Paradigms

Motivation is not directly observable. What we observe is a multidimensional stream of behavior that is determined both by environment and heredity and is observed through their effects on personality, beliefs, knowledge, abilities, and skills.

Numerous definitions of motivation have been proposed. Generally speaking, motivation may be defined as intra- and interindividual variability in behavior not due solely to individual differences in ability or to overwhelming environmental demands that coerce or force action (Vroom, 1964). From an applied point of view, however, Vroom (1964) points out that this definition is insufficient since it does not specify what is involved in motivation. Definitions that are more precise have stemmed from theoretical formulations often emphasizing different segments of the nomological network. 

For a definition of motivation to be adequate, three elements need to be included:

First, one must specify the determinants or independent variables that affect the stream of behavior.

Second, the theory must describe the nomological network of relations between the latent variables and the implications of these relations for observable behavior (Cronbach & Meehl, 1955).

Third, one must specify the motivational consequences, the dependent variables, or behaviors most likely to be affected by changes in the motivational system.

Motivational Consequences:  The Dependent Variable

The dependent variables most common in motivation research are direction of behavior, intensity of action (Cognitive effort and/or physical force of action), and persistence of direction-specific behaviors over time.

Motivation theories were grouped into one of three related paradigms: a) need-motive-value, b) cognitive choice, and c) self-regulation-metacognition. Theories were placed into one of the three paradigms based on their central assumptions about the motivational constructs and processes warranting greatest attention.

Need-Motive-Value Theories

Motivation theories in the need-motive-value paradigm emphasize the role of personality, stable dispositions, and values as a basis for behavioral variability. Some of the theories in this paradigm, such as Maslow's theory, emphasize innate forces that propel people to seek satisfaction of needs. Other theories emphasize the behavioral effects of a subset of human motives, such as competence and self-determination (Deci, 1975), while still others emphasize environmental conditions that enhance behavioral expression of learned dispositions, such as motive for success (See Atkinson, 1957).

For many of this paradigm's theories, the energizing force for action appears to stem from some type of internal tension or arousal. The extent to which some of the motivational effects in these approaches may be explained by psychic tension or arousal is a long-standing point of controversy. Studies that attempt to distinguish arousal from volitional sources of action, such as choice tendencies, tend to be found less in the applied literature and more in the basic psychology literature. Reviews of the experimental and personality literatures by Eysenck (1982) and Humphreys and Revelle (1984) conclude that arousal and volitional sources of motivation can and should be distinguished, but almost no systematic research in applied motivation has examined the implications of this distinction.

Cognitive Choice Theories

Theories in the cognitive choice paradigm focus on cognitive processes involved in decision making and choice. Campbell and Pritchard (1976), for example, defined motivation as "a label for the determinants of: (1) choice to initiate effort on a certain task, (2) the choice to expend a certain amount of effort, and (3) the choice to persist in expending effort over time" (p.65).

Naylor, Pritchard, and Ilgen (1980) defined motivation as "the process of allocating personal resources in the form of time and energy to various acts in such a way that the anticipated affect resulting from these acts is maximized" (p.159)

Expectancy-value theory

Within the framework of expectancy-value theory, a person's actions are related to the expectations that the person holds and the subjective values (or valences) that are associated with alternative instrumental actions and their possible outcomes (Feather, 1982c, 1990a, 1992b). The subjective values (or valences) may be positive or negative, signifying attractive or aversive events or outcomes.

For example, a person may perceive that travelling a long distance to his or her job is aversive but that working at the job itself is attractive. The expectations encompass beliefs about whether a particular action can be performed to some required standard that defines a successful outcome and also beliefs about the various positive and negative consequences that may follow the outcome.

The unemployed person may also hold the expectation that succeeding at the job interview will have positive consequences, the major one being getting the job. This outcome may in turn be linked to other consequences that have positive or negative subjective value (e.g., getting a salary, having to do a lot of shift work).

Concepts and forms of analysis employed recently in social cognitive theory (Bandura, 1986) and goal theory (Locke & Latham, 1990) resemble similar ideas in earlier statements of expectancy-value theory.

The detailed elaboration of expectancy-value theory includes the analysis of the determinants of expectations and subjective values (or valences) and assumptions about how these variables combine to determine action tendencies (Feather, 1982c, 1986, 1990a, 1992b). 

The variables are assumed to be linked to the cognitive-affective system. The model of the person is that of an active agent, appraising and construing situations in terms of available alternative courses of action and assessing the likelihood that actions can be performed and that these actions will lead to affectively toned outcomes and consequences.

The antecedents or determinants of expectations and subjective values (or valences) can be illustrated by reference to a person's attempts to obtain a particular job. Expectations about getting the job would be related to such factors as the person's beliefs about the amount of competition for the job, whether or not the person believes he or she stands relative to other applicants for the position, and by personality dispositions and more transient moods and affective states (e.g., anxiety) that might shift expectations upwards or downwards.

The subjective value (or valence) of a particular job would depend upon the perceived characteristics of the job itself and the person's needs and values. A job might be seen as attractive, for example, because it provides many of the environmental features that Warr (1987) lists in his vitamin model that are associated with good employment. That is, it may provide a secure income, opportunities for skill utilization, the exercise of control, variety, clarity, a defined goal structure, contracts with other people, and so on.

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Expectations and subjective values (or valences) are assumed to combine to determine a person's motivation to act in a particular direction. A person's motivation to try for a particular job, for example, would depend upon that person's expectation about how likely it is that he or she will be appointed as a result of an interview or other activity, and on the degree to which the person sees actions leading to the job and the job itself as attractive or aversive.

Feather, N. T. (1992). Expectancy‐value theory and unemployment effects. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 65(4), 315-330.