Step 1: Four key terms and definitions i. ii. iii. iv. Motivational Phenomena: refers to an internal complex process that exists at multiple levels (e.g., neurological, cognitive, cultural) that energizes, directs, and sustains behaviour. Motivational States: Motivational states are physiological internal states in the organism that play an important role in initiating behaviour, selecting actions to perform, and orienting the actions to achieve desired goals. Motivational Agents: A motivated agent has a dynamically changing internal environment, provided by motivations, that can influence its decisions. For example, in the presence of food, an agent may or may not choose to eat depending on the state of its internal environment, specifically its hunger motivation. Theoretical eclecticism: define as intentionally drawing on different theories of learning when making instructional decisions (Barr and Tagg, 1995) Step 2: Identify and Summarise the Main Points Step 3: What do you agree with/disagree with? Give reasons as to why i. Theoretical Eclecticism. Step 4: Four peer reviewed articles Step 5: Identify future areas for research and practice Given the importance and the level of complexity inherent in the study of human motivation, there is clearly only going to be increasing research activity on this topic in the years ahead. Where is the field headed? What gaps do motivation studies need to address? What are the proximal and distal problems in line for exploration and discovery? Evolutionary and Biological Perspectives Neuropsychology and Human Motivation Johnmarshall Reeve and Woogul Lee • A goal of Revee and Lee's chapter was to show the relevance of neuroscience to motivation research in an effort to expand the field through introducing new methodology and theoretical conceptualizations. They wondered about the future of motivation and neuroscience, and how much the two fields will come to influence one another. They put this future in the hands of motivation researchers, who will need to be open and willing to learn more about neuroscience and its methods for this advancement to occur. • The authors raised many questions that will require a good deal of empirical support to eventually answer. For example, they asked whether neuroscience is relevant to only some parts of motivation or whether it is relevant to more general and complex types of motivation. Another question they posed as meriting inquiry: Can the brain generate motivation of its own? Or is the motivation at the neurological level always a response to environmental events? • They also encouraged more research on the compatibility of dependent measures in neuroscience, such as reaction times and cortical activations, with typical outcomes in motivation research. Research in motivational neuroscience has begun to identify neural bases of different motivational states, but completing such an endeavor might arguably be the biggest challenge facing this field. Step 6: Concluding remarks and critical questions Critical question: Which perspective do you agree with the most to study motivation? References Adams, C. D., & Dickinson, A. (1981). Instrumental responding following reinforcer devaluation. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology. B, Comparative and Physiological Psychology, 33(2b), 109–121.
