CHAPTER 4:
MOTIVATION
P R ESENTER: T E R RY J
E L L A PEN
CHAPTER OUTCOMES:
Define motivation
Describe the typical views of motivation
Guidelines to build motivation
Define achievement motivation and competition
Compare theories of motivation
Explain how achievement motivation develops
INTRODUCTION
Teachers, coaches, exercise therapists and scientists often wonder why some people are highly motivated and
constantly striving for success, while others lack motivation and avoid competition.
Physical educators want to motivate sedentary children to become physically active.
Exercise scientists and therapist routinely face the challenge of encouraging patients to adhere to an exercise
and/or rehabilitation programme.
Often the ability to motivate an athlete, rather than technical knowledge of sport or physical activity, is what
distinguishes a very good coach, exercise therapist and scientist from the average.
DEFINING MOTIVATION
It is the direction and intensity of one’s effort (Sage, 1977).
Direction of effort refers to whether an individual seeks out, approaches or is attracted to certain situations.
Example an injured athlete my seek rehabilitation for their injury and an accountant will join a health and
wellness centre to exercise to become conditioned.
Intensity of effort refers to how much time/work/energy a person invests in a particular situation.
A student attending this module, put in much effort (read the notes, complete the assignments and prepares
diligently for tests) will pass the module.
THREE APPROACHES TO MOTIVATION
THE TRAIT CENTERED OR THE PARTICIPANT CENTERED APPROACH
This approach contends that motivated behaviour is primarily a function of the person’s characteristics. The individual’s personality, needs and
goals are the primary determinants, encouraging their behaviour. Most sport psychologists do not endorse this approach because environmental
factors also influence a person’s behaviour.
SITUATION CENTERED APPROACH
This approach contends that motivation level is determined primarily by the situation. You may agree that situation influences motivation, you also
may recall situations where a negative environment was not the sole factor influencing you motivation.
INTERACTIONAL APPROACH
Kurt Lewis (1951) proposed that behaviour is a function of a person’s character and situation. This approach contends that motivation results
neither exclusively from participant factors (personality, needs, interests and goals) nor situational factors, but the interaction of these two sets of
factors. Most sport psychologists endorse this approach
BUILDING MOTIVATION WITH 5 GUIDELINES
GUIDELINE 1: CONSIDER BOTH THE SITUATION AND TRAITS IN MOTIVATING PEOPLE
To enhance motivation, one must analyse and respond not only to the player’s personality but also to the interaction of
personal and situational characteristics.
Motivation may change over time, therefore you monitor motives of the participant’s regularly to ensure adherence and
success.
GUIDELINE 2: UNDERSTAND PEOPLE’S MULTIPLE MOTIVES FOR INVOLVEMENT
Consistent effort is needed in order to identify and understand the participant’s motives for being involved in sport, exercise
and rehabilitation. This understanding can be obtained in several ways:
Identify why people participate in physical activity (social involvement, personal goals, satisfaction)
Observe participants and continue to monitor their motives (informal ask participant’s what are their motives for being
physical active, observe what activities they enjoy doing)
BUILDING MOTIVATION WITH 5 GUIDELINES
GUIDELINE 3: CHANGE THE ENVIRONMENT TO ENHANCE MOTIVATION
To enhance motivation, structure the teaching and coaching environment to meet the needs of all participants.
Provide both competition and recreation activities
Provide multiple opportunities to ensure success
Adjust to meet individual’s needs in a group (adopt different teaching/coach methods for each player in a team)
GUIDELINE 4: INFLUENCE MOTIVATION
As an exercise scientist, therapist and physical educator you have a critical role in influencing patients and children levels (high or low) and
types (positive or negative) of motivation.
Your actions and behaviour may indirectly affect the mood of the exercise, rehabilitative and teaching environment.
If you are having a bad day, this spills over to patients and students, resulting in direct dampening the environment,
Infuse a variety of activities (competition and recreational, individual and group sessions) and,
Employ technology (use exergames to encourage sedentary children to be become physically active, step counters to measure steps and
calories of cardiac and diabetic patients that need to be active).
GUIDELINE 5: USE BEHAVIOUR MODIFICATION TO CHANGE PARTICIPANTS’ UNDESIRABLE MOTIVES
Use behaviour modification techniques to change undesirable motives and strengthen weak motivation.
BUILDING MOTIVATION WITH 5 GUIDELINES
It is important remember that performance is not exclusively influence by the player’s motivation.
Other factors that influence performance include injury, team cohesion, overtraining, and failure to
learn new skills.
The exercise therapist, scientist and physical educator are part of the patient’s and/or participant’s
external environment.
Therefore it is easier to change the attitude and extrinsic motivational comments of the exercise
therapist, scientist and physical educator than changing the building in which rehabilitation,
exercising and physical education takes place.
BUILDING MOTIVATION WITH 5 GUIDELINES
Achievement motivation and competitiveness greatly influences sport and exercise performance.
Achievement motivation refers to a person’s effort to master a task, achieve excellence, overcome
obstacles, perform better than others and take pride in exercising talent (Murray, 1938).
It is the person’s orientation to strive for task success, persist in the face of failure, and pride in
accomplishment (Gill, 2000).
Competitiveness is the disposition to strive for satisfaction when making comparisons with some standard
of excellence in the presence of evaluative others (Martens, 1976).
Martens definition is limited to the situation in which the athlete is being evaluated, or the potential to be
evaluated by knowledgeable others.
Many people often compete with themselves (trying to run a personal best 10km run).
THEORIES OF ACHIEVEMENT MOTIVATION
Four theories have evolved to explain what motivates people to act: need achievement theory, attribution theory, achievement goal theory and competence
motivation theory.
(i) Need Achievement Theory (Atkinson, 1974; McClelland, 1961)
This is an interactional view that considers both personal and situational factors as important predictors of behaviour. The following 5 components make-up this
theory:
(a) Personality factors
All of us have two underlying achievement motives: to succeed (the capacity to experience pride in accomplishment) and to avoid failure (the capacity to
experience shame in failure). The theory contends that behaviour is influenced by the balance of these motives.
(b)Situational Factors
There are two primary considerations to remember: probability of success (depends on who you compete against and the difficulty of the task) and incentive
value of success. The value you place on success, would be greater because it more satisfying to beat a skilled opponent than a novice.
(c) Resultant/behavioural Factors
This derived by considering an athlete’s achievement motivational levels in relations to situation factors
(e) Emotional Reactions
Refers to a person’s emotional reactions, how much pride or shame they experience. High achievers focus on pride, whereas low achievers focus more on shame
and worry.
(f) Achievement Behaviour
It is indicates the proportion of interaction of the first 4 components to influence behaviour. High achievers select more challenging tasks, prefer intermediate
risks and perform better in evaluative situations. Low achievers avoid intermediate risk, perform worse in evaluative situations and avoid challenging tasks. They
either select tasks extremely difficult ensuring failure or task extremely simple guaranteeing success.
The most important contribution of the need achievement theory is its task preference and performance predictions. Therefore it serves as a framework for all
THEORIES OF ACHIEVEMENT MOTIVATION
(ii) ATTRIBUTION THEORY (Heider, 1958; Weiner, 1985)
It focuses on how people explain their successes and failures. The most basic attribution categories are:
i.
Stability (a factor to which attributes success or failure is either fairly permanent or stability),
ii.
Locus of causality (a factor is either external or internal to the individual) and,
iii. Locus of control (a factor either is or not under the athlete’s control).
iv. Attribution affect expectations of future success or failure and emotional reactions. Attributing performance
to certain types of stable factors has been linked to expectations of future success.
(iii) COMPETENCE MOTIVATION THEORY (Susan Harter, 1988)
People are motivated to feel worthy or competent and moreover, these feelings are primary determinants of
motivations.
This theory also contends that athlete’s perception of control (feeling control over whether they can learn and
perform skills) are associated with self-worth and competency that influence emotional states (enjoyment,
anxiety, pride, shame) that affect motivation.
It is also important to remember that one’s competence differ over domains (physical, social, academic, etc.).
(iv) ACHIEVEMENT GOAL THEORY
THEORIES OF ACHIEVEMENT MOTIVATION
This theory proposed that a person is motivated by their interpretation of what it takes to achieve success.
However, the definition of success vary for each person. The achievement goal theory contends that a person’s achievement goals and their perceived ability interact to determine their
motivation.
To understand a person’s achievement motivation, we must understand what success and failure mean to that person. The best way to do that is to examine a person’s achievement goals and
how they interact with that person’s perceptions of competence, self-worth and ability and the environmental demands.
(a) Ego and Task Orientation
Ego orientation refers to beating others in competition
Task orientation refers to mastery of specific task
(b) Environmental demands
The environmental demands can be either ego or task orientated. Example a coach who continues to express the need to win, is proposing an ego orientated environmental demand. Whereas a
coach who encourages players to learn new skills is proposing a task orientated demand.
(c) Value of a task orientation
Sport psychologists contend that task orientation leads to strong work ethic, persistence in the face of failure and optimal performance. Task orientation can protect an athlete from
disappointment, frustration and a lack of motivation when the performance of opponents are superior to them (something they cannot control). Focusing on personal performance provides
greater control, the player become motivated and persist longer in the face of failure. Task-oriented people select realistic tasks and don’t fear failure.
(d) Ego orientation
Ego orientated people have difficulty maintaining perceived competence.
They judge success by how they compare to others, but they cannot necessarily control how others perform.
Ergo orientated people are likely to reduce their efforts, cease trying and make excuses
To protect their self-worth they select tasks in which they are guaranteed success or task they are extremely difficult ensuring failure. They perform poor in evaluation situations.
Entity and Incremental Goal Perspectives
ACHIEVEMENT GOAL THEORY
Dweck and Leggett (1988) and Elliot and Dweck (2005) proposed a social-cognitive model of achievement motivation.
Similar to task and ego orientations, achievement behaviour patterns are explained by how participants view their ability. Participants who are
characterized by an entity perspective adopts an ego orientation, where they see their ability as fixed and unable to change through effort.
Incremental perspective players’ adopt a task orientated perspective believing that they can change their ability through hard work and effort.
Approach versus Avoidance Achievement Goals
Athletes’ view of competency are characterized by either approach or avoidance orientation.
Athletes focus on achieving competency (exercising to look good and perform better) or avoid goals (where the athlete avoids incompetency)
(exercises because they do not want to look bad or fail).
Athlete in a task orientated approach would want to improve my personal best 10km time trial and avoidance orientation would be I don’t want
to run slower than my personal best time.
Importance of Motivational Climate
Motivational climates influence the types of achievement goals participant’s adopts: task-orientated climates are associated with task goals and
ego-oriented climates with ego goals (Duda & Hall, 2001).
Exercise scientists, therapists, coaches and physical educators play an important role in facilitating motivation through the psychological climate
they create.
WHAT THEORIES OF ACHIEVEMENT MOTIVATION TELL US?
Motivational
orientation
High achievers
o High motivation to achieve success
o Low motivation to avoid failure
o Focuses on pride of success
Attributions
o
o
Goal adopted
o
o
Perceived competence o
and control
Low achievers
o Low motivation to achieve success
o High motivation to avoid failure
o Focuses on shame and worry that may result
from failure
Ascribes success to stable and internal factors o
within one’s own control
Ascribes failure to unstable and external factors o
outside one’s own control
Usually adopts an incremental or task goal
Typical adopts approach goals
o
o
Ascribes success to unstable and external factors
outside one’s own control
Ascribes failure to stable and internal factors
within one’s own control
Usually adopts outcome or entity goals
Typical adopts avoidance goals
Has high perceived competence and believes o
achievement is within their own control
Has low perceived competence and believes
achievement is outside their own control
Avoids challenges, seeks out very difficult or very
easy tasks and competitors
Performs poorly in evaluative conditions
Task choice
o
Seeks out challenges, able competitors and tasks
o
Performance
conditions
o
Performs well in evaluative conditions
o
DEVELOPING ACHIEVEMENT MOTIVATION AND COMPETITIVENESS
(i) IMPORTANCE OF DISTINGUISHING BETWEEN STAGES
Recognizing the developmental stages of achievement and competitiveness, help sport psychologists better understand the
people’s behaviour.
Example would be to understand why pre-schoolers are not interested in competition, whilst 4th and 5th graders are preoccupied with it.
An integrated achievement orientation must be encouraged, teaching athletes when it is socially appropriate to compete and
compare oneself with others.
(ii) INFLUENCING STAGES OF ACHIEVEMENT MOTIVATION
The social environment in which athlete functions has important implications for achievement motivation and
competitiveness.
As professionals, we play a significant role in creating climates that enhance athletes’ achievement motivation.
USING ACHIEVEMENT MOTIVATION IN PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE
Important considerations when using achievement motivation in professional practice:
i. Recognizing interactional factors in achievement: discourage learned helplessness phenomenon (an acquired
condition in which a person perceives that their actions has no effect on the desired outcome of a task or skill
(Dweck, 1980))
ii. Emphasize task goals
iii. Focus on approach goals
iv. Monitor and alter attributional feedback
v. Assess and correct inappropriate attributions: also replace lack of ability attributions to lack of effort attributions,
which help to alleviate performance decrement and failure
vi. Determine when competitive goals are appropriate
vii. Enhance feeling of competence and control
POTENTIAL CLASS TEST QUESTIONS
1.
Define the concept of Motivation
2.
Discuss the three approaches of Motivation
3.
Discuss the guidelines for building Motivation
4.
Describe the Need Achievement Theory of Motivation” highlighting its influencing factors
5.
What is the Attribution Theory of Motivation
6.
Comprehensively discuss the Achievement Goal Theory of Motivation
7.
What is the Competency Motivation Theory
8.
In a summary tabulate the important findings of the Motivation Theories
9.
Differentiate between developing Achievement Motivation versus Competitiveness
10. Discuss the practical implication of Achievement Motivation in Professional Practice