Introduction to Motivation

Early Perspectives on Motivation

Behaviorist Theories
Part I

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Motivation
Motivation
• Latin (verb) “Mouver” –to move
• Movement, get us going, keep us working, help us complete tasks
• Linked with Inner force, enduring traits, behavioral responses to
stimuli & sets of beliefs and affects

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Motivation
• Behavioral (conditioning) theories view
• motivation as an increased continual level of responding to stimuli brought
about by reinforcement (reward).
• Contemporary cognitive view
• postulate that individual’s thoughts, beliefs, and emotions influence
motivation.

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Motivation
• “A process hereby goal-directed activity is instigated & sustained.
• a process rather than a product ,
• cannot be observed directly
• referred it from actions (e.g., choice of tasks, effort, persistence) and verbalizations
(e.g., “I really want to work on this”).
• involves goals that provide impetus for and direction to action
• cognitive views emphasizes on importance of goals (may not be well formulated and
may change with experience), but the point is that individuals are conscious of
something that they are trying to attain or avoid
• requires activity-physical or mental.
• Physical: effort, persistence, and other overt actions.
• Mental: cognitive actions as planning, rehearsing, organizing, monitoring, making
decisions, solving problems, and assessing progress.
• Most activities students engage in are geared toward attaining their goals.

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Motivated activity
• Motivated activity is instigated & sustained
• motivational process are critically important to sustain action for long
term goals.
• motivational processes as expectations, attributions, emotions, and affects
help people surmount difficulties and sustain motivation.
• comes from determining how people respond to difficulties, problems,
failures, and setbacks they encounter as they pursue long-term goals.

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Relation/effects of motivation on learning and
performance (L & P)
• Boosting motivation
• Motivation can influence what, when and how we learn (Schunk, 1995)
• Motivation bears a reciprocal relation to L& P (Pintrich, 2003; Schunk, 1995).
• Theoretical understanding of motivation.
• Different types of research paradigms.

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Theory
Theory
• scientifically acceptable set of principles advances to explain a
phenomenon, provides a framework for interpreting environmental
observation and helps link research and education.
• a set of interrelated constructs (concepts), definitions & propositions
that present a systematic view of phenomena by specifying relations
among variables with the purpose of explaining and predicting the
phenomena.

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Hypothesis
Formulate hypothesis/assumption that can be empirically tested.
• Conjectural statement of the relation between 2 or more variables.
• “If such-and-such occurs, then so-and-so results.”
• Statements about the relations between variables
• Statements contain 2 or more variables that measurable or
potentially measurable and specify the variables are related.
*Variables must be defined and measured.
E.g. students’ perceived capabilities improve, display greater academic
motivation (choice of tasks, effort, persistence).
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Motivational Research Paradigms/Models

Correlational Research
• examines relation that exist between variables. (e.g., perceived
capabilities and motivation)
• Cause and effect? Influenced by one anther? Or by unmeasured
variables (e.g., home factors)
• suggests direction for experimental research

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Motivational Research Paradigms/Models

Experimental Research
• changes one or more variables and determines whether these
changes affect other variables.
• E.g., how forms of attributional feedback influence elementary
students’ achievement outcomes in learning, subtraction skills
• Varying types of feedback systematically and eliminating other variables as
potential causes (i.e., random assignment)
• Linking progress with effort : Prior vs. Future attribution to effort
• 4 groups: “You’ve been working hard” vs “You need to work hard”, Monitoring
(no feedback) and Control (no monitoring no feedback)

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Motivational Research Paradigms/Models
Experimental Research
• IV is types of feedback
• DV is measures of outcomes :self-efficacy & subtraction skills; motivation:
amount of problem solving during independent practice portions of the
sessions
• Conclusion: Linking past success to effort or stressing the benefit of hard is
more motivating
• Clarify causal relation and help to understand the nature of
motivation
• But is narrow in scope with only a few variables studied, as
classrooms are complex places with many factors operating
simultaneously

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Early Perspectives on Motivation

• Volition/Will
• Will: one’s desire, want/purpose
• Volition: act of using the will
• Introspection (Wundt, James, & Ach):report immediate experiences following
exposure to objects /events to study consciousness
• Method of a scientific psychology requires observation of conscious experience
• Method of observation is to examine one’s mental state “internal perception” and report
on personal thoughts/feelings
*Method of introspection previously used in psychophysics to study sensation

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Early Perspectives on Motivation
• Instincts/innate propensities that manifest themselves in behavior.
• E.g., imitation, emulation, anger, resentment, sympathy
• Instinctive behavior overlap reflexes and learning (developing habits).
• Cognitive component: awareness of ways to satisfy the instinct
• Affective: emotions aroused by the instinct
• Conative: striving to attain the object/goal of the instinct
• Regarding all behaviors as instincts downplays the role of learning and
cannot explain behavior

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Early Perspectives on Motivation
Freud’s Theory (Personality & psychoanalytical method of psychotherapy).
• motivation as psychical energy which builds up in “id” (a personality structure to attain basic
needs)
• forces within individual responsible for behavior) , “trieb” German “moving force” “instinct”
“drive”
• needs are satisfied by channeling energy into behaviors that reduce needs
• need reduction is pleasurable since buildup of energy is unpleasant.
• aim of energy is its goal (satisfaction) and aim of force is to satisfy the need.
• Repressed energy may cause pain and it manifests itself in distorted ways (neurotic behavior).
• A behavior may not represent the motive it appears to represent. E.g., unconscious repressed sexual energy
can disguise itself as overeating. (Unawareness of the force of unconscious repression at work)
• Assuming motivation stems from inner force that often are unconscious, the theory downgrades
the importance of personal cognitions and environmental factors.

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Behavioral Theories
In 1st half of early 20th century
• Connectionism (Thorndike)
• Classical Conditioning (Pavlov)
• Operant Conditioning (Skinner)

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Behavioral Theories
• Psychology as experimental science studying observable and scientific
phenomena as the physical science did (Watson, 1914)
• Rise of behavior in psychology occurred (Watson, 1914)
• against the backdrop of introspection is not reliable (subjective state with no basis in
reality, not observable, not scientific)
• explain behavior in terms of observable phenomena.
• View motivation as a change in the rate (likelihood of the behavior),
frequency of occurrence, or form of behavior (response) as a function of
environmental events and stimuli.
• Thoughts and feelings are not needed; rather, people are motivated by
environmental events.

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Behavioral Theories
• An additive view of behavior
• Complex behavior is reduced to a series of simple behavior
• No new principles are needed to explain complex behaviors

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Behavioral Theories
Connectionism by Edward Thorndike (1913)
• Formation of associations (connections) between sensory
experiences (perception of stimuli or events) and neural impulses that
manifest themselves behaviorally.
• Learning occur by trial and error (selecting and connecting)
• Various responses people/animal can perform, select one, perform it
and experience the consequences. Learning occurs gradually.
• Successful responses established, unsuccessful are abandoned. Connections
are stamped in /out by being repeated vs. not performed.

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Behavioral Theories
Connectionism by Edward Thorndike (1913)
• Law of effect
• consequence of behavior can produce learning
• responses that result in rewarding consequence are learned and those that
produce punishing consequences are not learned.
• modifiable connection between a situation and a response is made,
accompanied /followed by a satisfying sate of affairs, that connection’s
strength is increased or by an annoying state of affairs, its strength is
decreased.
• Always true? Punishing consequence always weaken misbehavior?

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Behavioral Theories
Connectionism by Edward Thorndike (1913)
• Law of Readiness
• when one is prepared to act, to do so is satisfying & not prepared to do so is
annoying.
• better learning when one is prepared and ready to learn (vs. not prepared &
not ready)
• when one is forced to learn (not ready), learning becomes annoying.
• Limited applicability to complexities of motivation in education
because it ignores cognitive processes and the complexities of human
motivation.

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 Behavioral Theories
Classical Conditioning by Ivan Pavlov (1927, 1928)
• Present an unconditioned stimulus (UCS) elicit unconditioned response
(UCR)
• Present a neutral stimulus before presenting UCS.
• In early trials, no response resulted.
• After repeated pairing of CS with UCS, the CS acquires the motivational
potential of UCS to generate a CR.
• Eventually, CS can produce CR as neutral stimulus has become CS that
elicits a CR similar to the original UCR.
• Repeated presentation of CS without CUS cause extinction, the CR
diminishes and disappears.
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John B. Watson 1920

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Behavioral Theories
Classical Conditioning by Ivan Pavlov (1927, 1928)
• Incomplete account of behavior by ignoring cognitive processes.
• A passive view of learning and motivation. In fact, learners are mentally active
and exert much control over their learning and motivation
• Does it require mental processing ?
• It is not/never automatic but depends on cognitive processes (Fuhrer & Baer, 1985). CS must
inform individuals that the US is likely (Rescorla, 1972, 1987).
• CS helps people form expectations about the time, place, quantity, quality …etc of the UCS.
• Even CS is predictive, it will not be conditioned if another CS is a better predictor. Ss need to
realize there is a CS-UCS link. Expectations form through conditioning apparently motivate
individual to anticipate UCS.
• Emotional reactions can be conditioned to neutral stimuli by pairing them with
UCS, aversive events.
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Behavioral Theories
Operant Conditioning by B.F. Skinner (1953)
• Examines the external variables of which behavior is a function. (Effects of
behavioral consequences).
• ABC model: Antecedent  Behavior  Consequence
• an antecedent stimulus sets the occasion for a behavioral response to be performed,
which is followed by a consequence.
• the consequence is any stimulus or event that affects the future rate of responding
or the probability that the response will be performed when the stimulus is present.
• Connection between consequence & behavior
• Response-stimulus (RS) conditioning /R-S view
• Association between response (behavior) & the stimulus that follows
(consequence)

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Behavioral Theories
Operant Conditioning by B.F. Skinner (1953)
• Reinforcement increases the rate/likelihood of responding.
• Positive reinforcer is a stimulus that , when presented following a response,
increases the future rate or likelihood of the response occurring in that situation.
• Positive reinforcement involves presenting a positive reinforcer following a response.
• Negative reinforcer is a stimulus that, when removed following a response, increases
the future rate or likelihood of the response occurring in that situation.
• Negative reinforcement involves removing a negative reinforcer contingent on a
response.
• Punishment decreases the rate/likelihood of responding
• Punishment may involve either removing a positive reinforcer or presenting a
negative reinforcer following a response.

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Operant Conditioning
4 possible consequences
Reinforcement Punishment
(behavior increases) (behavior decreases)

Positive Positive reinforcement Positive punishment

(something Something added increases behavior Something added decreases
rewarded) behavior
Negative Negative reinforcement Negative punishment
(something Something removed increases Something removed
removed) behavior decreases behavior

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 4 possible consequences of operant conditioning
• Something good can start or be presented, so behavior increases = R +
• Something good can end or be taken away, so behavior decreases = P –
• Something bad can start or be presented, so behavior decreases = P +
• Something bad can end or be taken away, so behavior increases = R -

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Partial/Intermittent Reinforcement Schedules
Ratio Schedules
1.Fixed-ratio schedule: Reinforces a response only after a specified number of responses.
• e.g., piecework pay.

2.Variable-ratio schedule: Reinforces a response after an average but unpredictable number of responses.
• Such unpredictability makes it easier or harder extinguish ? (e.g., gambling, fishing)

Interval Schedules
3.Fixed-interval schedule: Reinforces a response only after a specified time has elapsed.
• e.g., preparing for an exam only when the exam draws close, monthly salary

4.Variable-interval schedule: Reinforces a response after an average but unpredictable time intervals, which
produces slow, steady responses.
• e.g., pop quiz

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Partial/Intermittent Reinforcement Schedules
• Fixed Ratio vs. Variable Ratio Schedules
• No. of responses made before reinforcement is given
• E.g., 1:10 (Fixed) vs. 3rd , 8th , 9th and 20th (average 20%)
• Fixed Interval vs. Variable Interval Schedules
• The amount of time that elapses before reinforcement is provided
• E.g., student’s study habit: stated exams. vs. surprise pop quizzes (fixed time period vs.
interval varies around some average)
• Which one provides more steady rate of response and take longer to extinguish responses
after reinforcement ends?
Which one produces stronger and lengthier responding before extinction (in terms of rate of
response and resistance to extinction)?
*Extinction is a lack of responding produced by nonreinforcement of the response. It depends on
reinforcement history.
*A reinforcer applied too often produce and lead to decreased responding.

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Behavioral Theorists
Premack Principle by Premack (1962 & 1971)
• states that the opportunity to engage in a more valued activity reinforces engaging in a less
valued activity, offers a systematic means for ordering reinforcers and predicting how
consequences will function
• e.g., homework then games ; meal then ice cream)
• Value: amount of responding or time spend on the activity in the absence of explicit reinforcers.
• predicts if value of 2nd (contingent) event is higher > than the value of 1st (instrumental) event, the likelihood
of occurrence of the 1st event will increase (the reward assumption)
• the opportunity to engage 2nd (contingent) event can be effective reinforcer for the 1st (instrumental event).
Effective contingencies. Make participation at valued activities contingent on working on less-valued ones.
• if value of 2nd (contingent) is < 1st (instrumental), likelihood of occurrence of 1st event will decrease (the
punishment assumption).

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Types of Learning
Associative Learning (simple, passive, external)
• Classical Conditioning
• Operant Conditioning

Cognitive Learning (complex, strategic, internal)

• Learning without responding & practice
• Learning without reinforcement
• Latent Learning stimulus/reward is not associated
with response/behavior

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Learning without reinforcement:
Tolman & Honzik (1930) on latent learning
3 groups of rats explored the maze over the course of 2 weeks

Group 1 – rewarded every time they reached the goal box starting day 1; rewarded
for all 22 trials of the study (always found food at the end of the maze)
Group 2 – was never rewarded; not rewarded at all (never found food)
Group 3 – not rewarded during the first 10 days but began receiving a reward in the
goal box on the 11th day; not rewarded for trials 1-10, but rewarded on trials 11-22
(found no food for 10 days, but then received food on the 11th )

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Cognitive maps: mental maps/representations
• 3 routes with S-R associations of different degrees. 1 >2>3
• Rats freely explored the maze over a series of trials.
• Hungry rats picked 1/2/3?
• Block at point A. Rat were forced to retreat to choice point and go a different way. Picked 2/3?
• Block at point B.
• Behaviorists predicted: Take path 1, strongest association when blocked then go back , pick
path 2, the second next strongest S-R association.
• Cognitive view: A general mental map for the entire maze arrangement, rats realize path 2 is
also blocked.
• Result: Rats ran back to choice point and took path 3! (Over 90%).

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Learning that couldn’t be explained by
behaviorism
• Latent Learning – learning without reinforcement (Tolman & Honzig,
1930)
• Observational Learning – learning without behaving or being
reinforced (Bandura, 1977)
• Overjustification –when external rewards can reduce intrinsic
motivation

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Albert Bandura: social learning theory

Experimental Experimental Control

condition 1 condition 2 condition
Independent The model The model Watching a
variable received received nonviolent
reward for punishment film
hitting the for hitting the
“bobo” doll “bobo” doll
Dependent The child is more The child is less The child is less
variable likely to hit the likely to hit likely to hit
“bobo” doll the “bobo” the “bobo”
doll doll

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 Overjustification
• Rewarding people for doing something they already enjoy
can make them do it less often, under certain circumstances.

• Behavior following discontinuation of reward are lower than

levels of behavior prior to reward

*Eisenberger, R., & Cameron, J. (1996). Detrimental effects of reward:

Reality or myth? American Psychologist, 51(11), 1153-1166.

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Overjustification
But a full behaviorist account of the phenomenon
• Intrinsically motivated behavior was learned on a continuous
schedule (the behavior rewards itself)
• An external, more powerful reward starts the interval
reinforcement schedule. Rates of behavior depends on the
interval schedule
• When the external reward is less/removed, behavior
drops/stops.

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