Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Motivation – Internal forces (cognitive and emotional conditions) that affect a person’s
voluntary choice of behavior
• Aptitudes – natural talents that help people learn specific tasks more quickly and
perform them better
Role Perceptions – the extent to which people understand the job duties (roles)
assigned to or expected of them. Clear role perceptions:
• Stable, evaluative beliefs that guide our preferences for outcomes or courses of action
in a variety of situations
• Tell us what we “ought” to do – Define right or wrong, good or bad
• Serve as a moral compass that directs our motivation and, potentially our decisions
and actions
Value system -- hierarchy of preferences which is relatively stable and long-lasting
Ethics is the study of moral principles or values that determine whether actions are right
or wrong and outcomes are good or bad
• It is the “Who am I?” and “How do I feel about myself?” that people ask themselves to
guide their decisions and actions
• We compare our images of a job with our current (perceived self) and desired (ideal
self) to determine fit.
Self-enhancement
Self-verification
Affirming our existing self-concept. Stabilizes our self-concept – anchors
our thoughts and actions People prefer feedback that is consistent with
their self concept
Self-evaluation
Self-esteem
Self-efficacy
Locus of control
Social self
A. Emotions
Two dimensions of emotions – evaluation and activation
• Foundation of the circumplex model of emotions
• e.g. fearful is a negative emotion that generates a high level of
activation
• e.g. relaxed is a pleasant emotion that has fairly low activation
A. Motivation
Motivation is the forces within a person that affect direction, intensity, and persistence of
voluntary behavior. Motivated employees are willing to exert a particular level of effort
(intensity), for a certain amount of time (persistence), toward a particular goal (direction)
Nothing in the world can take the place of good old persistence. Talent will not. Nothing
is more common that unsuccessful men with talent. Genius won’t. Unrecognized genius
is practically a cliché. Education won’t. The world is full of educated fools. Persistence
and determination alone are powerful.
A. Money
Rewarding people with money is one of the oldest and most widespread applied
performance practices but money means different things to different people
• Symbol of achievement/success/status
• Reinforcer and motivator
• Reflection of performance
• Source of enhanced or reduced anxiety
Differences in meaning of money by gender and culture
• Men value money more than women – men tend to view money as a symbol of power
and status
• Cultural values influence the meaning and value of money – high power distance
countries e.g. China and Japan tend to have high respect and priority for money
Money is an important motivator
B. Self Leadership
The process of influencing oneself to establish the self direction and self-motivation
needed to perform a task.
Self-talk – the process of talking to ourselves about our own thoughts or actions
Positive self-talk increases self-efficacy
Mental imagery – process of mentally practicing a task and visualizing its successful
completion
3. Self Monitoring
4. Self reinforcement
“Taking” a reinforcer only after completing a self-set goal e.g. taking a break after
reaching a pre-determined stage of your work – self-induced form of positive
reinforcement