When studying the conduct From a dynamic interactive, or “transactional” approach we consider the intervention of factors personalsituational, interrelationship between both, the resulting behavior (let’s call it 1), its consequences and how these would affect future behavior, the perception and assessment of the situation and its interaction and the resulting behavior (let’s call it 2). Motivation also comes into play at the level of personal and situational characteristics, and the resulting behavior.
Any explanation of behavior would be incomplete if it does not consider the motivation toward a type of goal, the feelings of satisfaction derived from facing challenges and overcoming obstacles, the value assigned to a goal, and the subject’s evaluation of its probability. of obtaining a goal, an evaluation that includes beliefs about behavior-consequences contingencies and beliefs about personal capacity. The study of motivation analyzes why a behavior begins, what maintains it, where it goes and why it ends; would explain the reason for the behavior. Bandura differentiates three types of motivators:
- Biological motivators: from cellular deficits to aversive external events that activate consummatory and protective behavior against physical discomfort.
- Motivators that act through social incentives: In development, positive experiences occur in conjunction with the approval of others and negative experiences occur in conjunction with disapproval. These types of social reactions become predictors of positive or negative consequences, in incentives.
- Cognitive motivators: people motivate themselves, choose goals, define courses of action, anticipate their possible results, value these results, plan changes for the future, etc. Theorists who have highlighted the dynamic and motivational aspects more than the structural ones, share a vision of man as an active organism that seeks to increase his capabilities and interact with his environment effectively.
Geen suggests that motivation is a complex process that includes 3 steps:
- Define a goal that the person aspires to achieve. It may arise from a need that the person experiences, or from some external demand in interaction with the person’s needs.
- Choose a course of action that leads to achieving the goal. It implies the person’s intention or commitment to said goal.
- Act according to the chosen plan, establishing a strategy that allows you to make your actions more flexible by making continuous evaluations of your achievements (or failures) when facing subgoals on your way to the big goal or final objective.
The approach of goals The word goal It is used to define a desirable state for a person that can one day be achieved. It would be an achievable objective, not without some difficulty, the effort invested being contingent on its achievement, along the way there would be many other partial objectives. To know a person’s motivation to achieve a goal, obstacles are set up to test it, as in “initiation rituals.” Goals energize and direct people’s behavior. Behavior is motivational: it is aimed at achieving established objectives. Once a goal is established, the person will carry out various procedures on the way to achieving it: they will develop a certain level of effort, prepare action strategies and establish a commitment to the proposed objective.
He effort and persistence The achievement of a goal will be greater when it is clearly defined, and implies a certain level of challenge or difficulty, which will affect the evaluation of attractiveness, seeing the most difficult goals more positively. It is important for the person to obtain information about how he or she is managing to overcome partial objectives. The action strategies will be affected by the complexity of the goal. When they are simple, the action will be affected by motivational aspects (effort/persistence), when they are complex, cognitive aspects will predominate (preparation of plans/strategies). A goal motivates a person to the extent that they accept it and feel committed to it: if the commitment is great, it will mobilize greater effort. Whether other people know about the goal, the presence of rewards, or perceiving oneself as having the necessary skills to achieve it will increase the degree to which one feels engaged with his achievement.
He effort achieving the goals will depend on the person’s expectation of being able to achieve it, and the value that the objective has for them. Expectancy and value would be combined multiplicatively to determine the subjective utility of a goal to the person. If one of them is zero, the goal would be of no use, and you would not strive to achieve it. Sometimes. the person is faced with mutually incompatible goals. This conflict between goals involves feelings of acceptance and rejection. This can cause people to inhibit certain behaviors, think excessively about conflicting goals, and experience psychological distress.
Although the establishment of goals and the path to their achievement are motivational elements, cognitive aspects intervene in the process: after success or failure in exceeding minor objectives, the person makes attributions to analyze the causes. Are attributions They affect the formation of expectations about future performance, and elicit affective responses. The affective component of motivated behavior would be defined by the attributive dimensions of locus of causality and controllabilitywhile the dimension of stability contributes to the cognitive component. Goals have 3 types of properties:
- He cognitive component of a goal: includes representations or mental images of the goal, a hierarchy (from minor objectives to the final goal), and plans that lead to the final goal; Cognitive processes would be relevant when analyzing the available information before deciding whether or not to activate a certain plan to achieve a goal.
- He affective component includes the degree to which goal-related behaviors are associated with affective reactions of approach, fear, anger, etc.
- He behavioral component includes the actions associated with the plan to obtain a goal.
These three elements are related to each other and can vary in their degree of significance. A goal with a strong cognitive and weak affective component can be considered an attitude or value and a goal with a strong affective and weak cognitive component can be considered an impulse or desire. A goal with a well-developed strategy expresses an intention, and a goal without an elaborate plan can be a fantasy or illusion. Goal-directed behaviors are maintained for long periods of time.
This stability involves different factors: images stored in memory (imagining the goal produces the positive affective reaction associated with it); organize the goal in a hierarchy (overcoming subgoals activates positive reactions that help maintain the path toward the final goal); Although the person does not receive positive external reinforcement for exceeding subgoals, he can develop his own strategies, using internal sources of reinforcement as motivating elements.
Pervin presents a goal theory that emphasizes the purposeful nature of human behavior and recognizes the interdependent functioning of cognitive, affective, and behavioral characteristics. Personality is seen as an integrative concept, emphasizing its dynamic nature as a system aimed at achieving goals. Goal setting creates a discrepancy between the current state and a desired state, initiating, to reduce that discrepancy, a purposeful or intentional action. Approaches to motivation based on the concept of discrepancy describe a process with the following steps:
- The intention is established to strive to achieve a chosen goal, developing a strategy.
- Specific actions are carried out (subgoals)
- The results of these actions are compared with the final goal, to detect discrepancies.
- Causal attributions are made about possible perceived discrepancies. Based on these attributions, the person makes adjustments to his behavior, such as increasing his efforts, changing strategy, denying the discrepancy, etc.