So here, we are, it's almost over :)
Wrap up the course by providing me with a summary of your knowledge and experience. In the process, you can also address these questions if you'd like: How was this course for you? What, for you, are some of the most important things you learned? Will/have any of these things impacted your real life, or future? If so, what and how?
To culminate the things that I have learned in this class in one final blog I have chosen to highlight the things I found most interesting, the things that were most important/pertinent to my life and talk about the different ways I can use what I learned in my personal and career goals.
Psychology, and motivation/emotion courses are relatively new and unknown to me, but this course was very beneficial in many ways. It opened my eyes to a lot of thoughts and ideas that I would never have considered prior to taking this type of course. Most people go through their days following a routine that they have always done; but they never ask the Why? Why do I choose to get up 6 o’clock in the morning to workout? What drives that type of action? Or why do I feel sad when someone close to me dies? Or why do I get excited when my favorite baseball team wins a game? These are all basic questions that have relatively simple answers, but things that the average person does not think about or even care about. But this particular course has opened my eyes to these types of questions and I hope that eventually I will be able to better control my motivational and emotion states because of it.
As previously mentioned this course opened my eyes to a lot of new things; therefore I would have to consider this a positive experience in my life. I enjoyed the fact that it was a hybrid course that only met once a week because it kept me fresh and didn’t cause me to experience “burnout.” Most courses that I take are not set up this way and I eventually get tired of going to class two or three times a week, and begin to skip every-so-often. But having class only once a week allows me to re-energize and actually look forward to attending class every week. If I remember correctly I only missed on day and that was due to illness, not class “burnout.” I also really appreciated that you gave us the freedom to work ahead if we chose to. It helps give us the feeling of perceived autonomy, thus enhancing our ability to learn. And lastly, I want to briefly mention the blogging itself. I initially thought that I would be overwhelmed with having two blogging assignments due each week, but I soon realized that your expectations were realistic and I could handle the work load. It also helped that the assignment weren’t always the same week-in, week-out. I enjoyed most of the movie reviews, but what captivated me the most were the topical blogs about facial expression and the lost tribes.
Some of the most interesting and important things that I learned this semester included: What causes behavior and why does its intensity vary; the importance of physiological needs and how we take care of them, the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, the importance of setting realistic goals and the ideas of acquired needs and learned helplessness. Learned helplessness is the psychological state that results when an individual expects that life’s outcomes are uncontrollable. This phenomenon is sadly 100% true. I have experienced this a number of different ways and it really affects you mental state. Playing baseball there was always two teams that we couldn’t ever seem to beat, psychologically it was hard on us and the learned helplessness that we experienced played right into us not being able to win. Even if we were ahead by a few runs we all knew in the back of our mind that we would “blow it” or they would simply take over. This caused us to make mental mistakes and eventually lose the game, every time. Setting realistic, yet challenging goals are also very important when it comes to motivation. If you do not set a goal in the beginning, you will find it very difficult to stay motivated because you won’t know what you’re striving for or why you’re doing it. Goals must be realistic because setting the bar too high can also be very detrimental to staying motivated in the long run. The last thing that I want to mention that I found important was the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, as well as how each one affects us in different ways. Intrinsic motivation is the inherent propensity to engage one’s interests and to exercise one’s capacities and, in doing so, to seek out and master optimal challenges. In short intrinsic motivation comes from within and is what drives us to succeed. Extrinsic motivation on the other hand arises from environmental incentives and consequences, such as food, money, praise, attention, stickers, gold stars, privileges, tokens, approval, prizes, etc. Each one of these has its unique strengths and weaknesses when it comes to motivating people, but the thing we need to understand is which one to use in a particular situation to get the most out of people. In nearly all instances intrinsic motivation is the most useful and long lasting motivational technique, but intrinsic motivation cannot be faked, either you have it or you don’t. Extrinsic motivation on the other hand can be manipulated and changed on a daily basis. So it is up to me as a leisure professional to find the most useful ways to motivate people in an exercise setting.
In conclusion I want to mention how this course, and the things I have taken from it will benefit me in the future. Being a leisure major, and having my career goal being a director of a collegiate wellness center, motivation and emotion are very pertinent to me being successful. It would basically be my job to both motivate my employees to be the best workers they can be, as well as motivating the patrons of the facility to workout hard and workout effectively. Having trouble staying motivated to consistently workout myself, I aim to use what I have learned in this course about setting goals and using healthy incentives to hopefully motivate me to get into better shape. Lastly, and possibly the most important is how I want to better control my emotions when it comes to the people I care about. I want to learn to be more compassionate when someone needs me, more positive when things aren’t going perfect, and more open to new people and to new opportunities around me. I feel as though I have been very closed off to my surroundings and to other in the past, and I want to rectify that and improve my life for the better.
I certainly have learned a lot throughout the course of this class, this semester, and especially throughout this school year, my 3rd year at UNI. Prior to this school year or academic year I had taken two psychology classes, and now after this year I only have four left to take to earn a bachelor’s degree in psychology, which I plan to have earned by the end of next spring’s semester. This semester I have learned a lot in terms of thought processes, behaviors, and some more complete reasons as to why people perform some of the actions that they do. I attribute my gaining’s in knowledge to my growth from life circumstances, a Psychology of Human Differences that I am currently taking with Dr. Gasser, and certainly to this class, Motivation and Emotion. All of these components of my gained knowledge have taught me so much, and one of those lessons is the key component of this assignment, to reflect on life every so often. Reflecting on life allows a person to learn from their failures and successes, or in short to just become more knowledgeable.
For the sake of not writing a novel for this assignment, I will focus specifically on what I have learned throughout the semester from Motivation and Emotion, and even more specifically I will focus on the components that I have learned that I view to be significant. As I look through my notes to help me remember what I have learned, the first topic that I think was interesting to me was the ‘Model of Need-Drive-Behavior Sequence’. I found it interesting that the different components were put into a cyclical pattern because I had not thought of the process in that way before, and after I did I thought it seemed like a very good idea. Some more terms that I became much more familiar with throughout the semester that I still find interesting are: autonomy, relatedness, competence, quasi-needs, goals, self-efficacy, coping, identity, roles, control, sensation seeking, humanistic psychology, positive psychology, evil, and optimism. Since explaining why all of those terms are interesting to me would take way too long, I will focus on a few of them, and fortunately some of them are similar in terms of the concepts that they apply to. I am interested in autonomy, relatedness, roles, control, and sensation seeking because I believe they are all components that apply to a person’s health. Examples would be that people want to have autonomy over the food that they eat and the activities that they perform. Some people find comfort in routine, and therefore are less likely to sensation seek, whereas other people are more likely to sensation seek because they get easily bored with doing the same activities time after time. Examples such as these are ones that interest me because I have personally trained people in the past and had success with some and not had hardly any success with others. Taking this class has helped me in understanding some of the actions that I would need to take if I were to be a personal trainer again in the future.
Being a personal trainer is one of the career choices that I am considering, so I was hoping that this class would help me understand what motivates people, and it certainly has. What I have gained from this class that I did not necessarily expect to learn is just how and why people do some of the things that they do. Prior to this class in many cases I would just have to say “I don’t know” or “I don’t understand” why people would make some of the choices that they have. Now I can much better understand why and therefore apply a lot more rationale and explanation to many of the everyday situations that I encounter. Should I not end up choosing personal training as my profession, I still feel that this class will benefit me in my future. Should I ever be in a managing or some sort of position with authority I feel that I would be able to do a better job of relating to co-workers and to do a better job of understanding how to help them. In closing I would just like to say that I have enjoyed this class because I feel I have learned quite a bit from it. I am very glad that I chose to take this class, and it is one that I already have, and will continue to recommend to people to take.
Over the course of the semester many concepts and theories were presented that were interesting as well as applicable to every day life. At a time in my life when I am facing the unknown after finishing up my last semester of school, some theories of motivation can be very useful and some slightly frustrating. This wrap up will look to explain the aspects of the class that were most interesting to me and how these theories and ideas can be applied to my current and future states.
To start, prior to this course I was very aware and knowledgeable about the differences between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation as well as many aspects of goal-setting theory. However, this course added a more applied view of these theories. For example, the explanations given both by the textbook as well as during class allowed me to view myself a littler more clearly and figure out which realm I fell into in many aspects discussed. One example that comes to mind is the theory of autonomy-oriented personality and control-oriented personality. Throughout most of the chapters I associated myself with the more positive side of the theories (however, I’m guessing everyone did which describes the “constant self” theory), but anyway one particular theory I found myself exuding more qualities of the negative side. As the chapter described control-oriented personality, I really felt that I am more this way than autonomy-oriented. Right now I am in a stage of constant job searching and I find myself constantly asking how much I will make, and then considering how much I will like the job and how much I will learn from it. At this point in my life, I certainly know that I will not find my dream job but when the chapter presented the example of how you would feel when being offered a promotion the first thing that came to mind was what is the pay increase. One concern for me is that personality is considered very stable, so it is likely that this is not going to change for me. However, knowing this information allows me to understand myself a little bit better than I had in the past.
Another portion of the class that I found interesting was the chapter and discussion about physiological needs. This chapter included biological aspects of human nature and our needs for food, water, and sex. While I certainly was aware of these needs already, the chapter gave some really neat insights into how the body reacts and signals when it is full, satisfied, etc. I related this chapter a lot to my own life and it made me think about the things I could do to help control my behavior and my self-regulation. Specifically, I thought the discussion about negative feedback was very interesting, and it made me wonder how people who are extremely obese continue to overeat: what I did not understand was how people continue to over indulge when their body is telling them to stop. However, the class did present the fact that there are environmental factors at play and clearly these factors are even more impactful than the biological factors.
As far as the theory of goal-setting, I really had a pretty strong knowledge of this prior to this course. However, my favorite part of goal-setting has always been the fact that offering rewards is not useful in enhancing performance. While I was aware of this before talking about it in this class, this semester proposed a new connection for me. I am interning at an organization that has an incentive/performance-based structure. Therefore, employees’ wage increases or decreases every quarter based on if they met their goal 2/3 of the time throughout the quarter. Additionally, employees’ receive (what I consider to be) a low base wage on which they receive a commission based on whether they met their goal and how much they exceeded it. While learning about this topic in this class, I naturally thought about how it applied to work. In an industry where turnover is extremely high and job satisfaction tends to be low, based on this theory this organization and others should think about how effective this type of structure is. It is extremely evident based on previous research as well as the textbook, that rewards actually cause productivity and performance do be worse than when there is no reward present at all. Goals in themselves are motivating so people do not need external rewards to enhance motivation. While again, I did know about this theory before this class, the discussion really allowed me to make some connections with what was actually going on in my life.
While the concepts mentioned certainly are not the only important things I took from the class, they are probably the few most important ones for me. Overall, I would say that this class was really good for me. It took some amount of the pressure off of the focuses on knowing every detail for an exam, and allowed for the focus on the most important and the most interesting aspects for me. I would much rather write what I know rather than simply regurgitate information onto a test. This is something that was also represented in the book I read for the book analysis assignment. Currently, there is so much emphasis on teaching to the test that we disregard actual learning and prepare students to perform well on the test as opposed to actually knowing the information. One thing especially good about this class is that it allows students to learn about the things that are interesting to them. While there is a fairly steady writing load, we are allowed to write about the pieces of the chapters that interest us. As a while, I would say that this class has impacted my life and future in some ways. When I mentioned earlier that some of these theories about planning, support as well as the many aspects of self-strivings and goal-settings were, at times, frustrating for me, I was relating specifically to the point in my life. I have always been a person that needed to plan everything and actually feels happy when reaching goal-attainment as well as working towards my ideal state (which I always have an idea of what this looks like). However, at this point in my life when I am finishing up my 6th year of school and am entering the job market with no idea of where I will end up, what job I will be doing, or how well I will be able to support myself. This, in itself, is a large stressor for me; however one assignment in this course had us talk about what our goals were for the future: I found that assignment very difficult and I find this part of my life to be difficult as well. In conclusion, I really enjoyed the majority of this class overall and I do feel that I learned a lot of information that is applicable to my current life and how I will look to motivate myself and others in the future.
After today's quiz show of the last psychologist standing, I feel as though I really gained some insight onto all the information I have learned throughout the course. To be honest, the quiz show actually brought out much my own personal motivation and emotion. At the beginning of the course, when these quiz shows were introduced, I set a goal for myself that I wanted to do well on most of them and do really well on the last one. In this course, I learned that this theory of goal setting and attainment is an important aspect when it comes to speaking about motivation and emotion. I learned in this course that those who set goals are more likely to achieve and succeed than those without. In addition, they served as feedback for how I was performing in the class. I learned that this is an essential part of goal attainment, because without it, can lose focus and sense of direction.
Also relating the course to my own personal experience, the quiz shows served as extrinsic motivation for me. This is because it acted as reward for my behaviors of reading and taking notes before the class. Extrinsic and intrinsic motivation were extremely interesting to me because I think that when one can identify which is causing the motivation then much more can be learned. This is because if a person is feeling soley extrinsically motivated then the person will most likely have a harder time remaining motivated. However, if a person is intrinsically motivated (this meaning that they are participating because it is what they want to do) then the motivation proves to be greater.
Something I really liked about the class that I also learned in the class was the autonomous way the class was set up. I learned that autonmy is basically a person's take on their sense of freedom. Personally, I have a high sense of autonmy, and I liked that the class was mostly determined by our own schedules. Being able to choose when to turn in our book reports, and having the blogs available to do earlier was rather beneficial. I think this helped a lot with my time management skills. Again, speaking of the game show quizzes, I also saw that I had a somewhat high competence need because I wanted to do well on them.
When speaking upon things learned in this class that may affect aspects of real life, I think about chapter 7 which addressed needs. Needs are obviously huge motivators in our lives, because they are things in with humans need to attain for either physical or emotional development. I learned that there are different types of needs, one of which is quasi-needs. Quasi-needs influence our cognitive behavior by affect how we think, feel, and act. They also stem from demands and pressures that arise from different situations. Basically, quasi-needs will come and go as demands are met or arise. Other needs are social needs which can be broken down into different categories. These include: achievement, affiliation, intimacy, and power. When social needs are acquired, they become "emotional and behavioral potentials that are activated by particular situational incentives". The motivating factor behind social needs are when "need-satisfying incentives appear". People depend upon their own recognition of social needs in order to seek environments that would promote and fulfill these needs.
There was so much more I learned in the class, but these were some of the main things that stuck with me. Most of all, this class helped me better understand other concepts learned in other classes especially when it comes to developmental and social psychology (which are of my interests). Learning the most important thing about motivation being as though it energizes and directs behavior, I think that motivation and emotion energizes and directs many aspect of psychology.
Overall, my experience in this class was great. I learned so much, and because of the way the class was directed, I feel as though a lot of it was learned by choice and not force. This is because we would be able to discuss what we found interesting and important in the chapters. I was not told exactly what I needed to know, but given all the tools to learn everything I needed/wanted to in the end.
I really enjoyed this course. The material was really interesting and completely relevant to my life and to everyone else’s. I also really liked the hybrid aspect of it. The movie critiques were a really interesting way to apply material learned from the text and it definitely broke up the monotony of all my classes this semester which is type, read, type, read, type, read. The quiz shows truly motivated me to read all of the chapters in their entirety.
I see motivation as an active process now that is ongoing. Before this class I really did not see all the aspects of my life where I could examine what was driving me to take certain actions or display certain behaviors. I can better understand questions that I may ask myself such as “why am I doing this?” or “what makes me keep doing this?”
One thing that I definitely did not give much attention to are those things that motivated me extrinsically versus intrinsically. I have learned that the things that motivate me intrinsically are the things that I persist harder at and that I take more pleasure from. I also liked learning about all four processes that give my behavior direction and purpose which are needs (including physiological, psychological and social), cognitions, emotions and external events.
I also learned a lot about goal setting and how to obtain success at goal setting by using the techniques we discussed from Chapter 8. I learned that goal difficulty can motivate me give more effort to difficult goals, that setting specific goals can help me to achieve them, the importance of feedback and by setting implementation intentions for how to reach my goals. These are things that I can apply to my life right now and in the future. Everyday I set goals that have to do with my education from the smallest thing like “I’m going to read Chapter 10 before 10:00 tonight” or a larger thing such as “I’m going to get good enough grades to get into whatever grad program I want most.”
I definitely view the reasons and purpose behind my behavior differently and so many times through this class either in lecture or in my reading I found myself going “hey, yeah, that is completely true – I’ve never though of it that way before!” To me, that is a sign of something I can learn and then apply far more easier than something I learn in statistics class!!
This class has definitely been my favorite psychology class so far. I learned about so much information that can be related everyone. I think the most important thing I learned is that being aware of your emotions and behaviors makes a huge difference in how you live your life. I find myself using information from the book to give advice to friends about how to handle situations. Some of these topics include optimism, goal setting/striving, and personality characteristics. The concept of optimism has been in my life for awhile. I consider myself to be fairly optimistic and I live a very happy life. When my friends are having troubles and are only doing things to make the situation worse, I try to give them advice about thinking positively and seeing the good in the situation rather than the bad. Our mind is very powerful and if we have the ability to use it to make our lives better, you’re going to be much happier.
I think optimism can be related to certain personality characteristics. As stated before, I’m optimistic and I’m happy about my life. I tend to always be in a good mood, which may be due to my extroversion. Although most of my friends are similar in that quality, I have a couple male friends who are more introverted and are very neurotic. Sometimes, it’s very hard to even talk to them because they’re so negative. After I read chapter 13 about personality characteristics, I realized that this characteristic is just part of their personality and it’s hard to control it. I became a lot more understanding about their feelings because I know that they’re not just acting that way, it’s who they are. I think that if these people were more aware of their thoughts and actions, they might be able to seek ways to try and become more positive. I believe that both of these friends have depression and possibly some kind of anxiety disorder. One of them has recently sought professional help, but I have a feeling that his neuroticism will lead him to stop going because he doesn’t think it will do anything.
Another part of the course that has really affected me is the chapter about goal setting and striving. Up until this school year, I was a horrible procrastinator. For almost every single assignment, I would wait until the night before to even start it. While I still did well in school, it caused a lot of anxiety that was unneeded. Fortunately, this school year I was able to turn things around but couldn’t figure out how I did it until this class. I realize now that the main thing that had changed is my goals. I started out the semester by deciding to read the assigned chapters and study harder before tests. When I got those tests back and they were As, I realized that putting in the extra effort was worth it. I set small, specific goals for myself rather than big, vague ones. Although last semester was a lot of hard work, it was worth it because I grew more autonomous, competent, and I achieved things. I ended up getting on the Dean’s List for the college of social and behavioral sciences. Now that I know I have the drive in me to do well, I continued to se to goals for myself this semester. My goal is to get on the UNI Dean’s List and to do that, I need to get an A in all of my classes. While I think I can do it, I won’t give up that goal if I don’t and I’ll keep it for next semester. Having all this knowledge about goals helps me give advice to friends who have trouble getting through school. For example, a friend was complaining about how overwhelmed he was this week because he has a lot of stuff due next week. I told him to make smaller goals by writing out each thing he needs to get done in order of when it’s due. That way, everything is specific and laid out so he can focus on one thing at a time. It’s also easy to apply these concepts to other things besides school.
This class has greatly impacted my life because it makes me think differently about how people behave. I’ll never forget something Dr. Maclin said in class that there’s usually a reason behind everything something does and knowing that can greatly help you understand situations better. I’ve used this information to deal with situations differently and more positively. If I would’ve known how useful all this information is, I definitely would’ve bought the book instead of rented it!
Overall, I really enjoyed this class. I think that one of the things that I liked the most was the way that the class was taught and the structure of the class as a whole. Considering that this is the last semester of my college career as a graduate student I have seen a lot of different teaching styles and it was nice to see a professor take a different approach to teaching in a university setting. I am a really big movie buff and I like how movies were incorporated into the teaching material. When you tell someone that you have to watch a movie for a class they kind of laugh and think that the class must be really easy. This is probably in response to the last time they watched a movie in a class (high school) when it was kind of used as a time killer. I think that using something as relatable as a movie and focusing your attention on the specific psychological concepts that we have been learning about is extremely affective. For one it makes you watch the movie with a completely different perspective and takes the concepts that we usually read about in textbooks and makes it relatable and viewable through the movies. Similarly, the use of on-line techniques of teaching is a good change of pace for teaching in general. It is really easy to get burned out on just going to multiple classes a week where the professor stands in front of the class and lectures. Allowing students to do more of the work on their own is a very good change in teaching style that keeps students more involved, as opposed to sitting in a chair and listening for multiple hours a week. I have also grown to appreciate the difficulty of teaching a class after teaching workshops on campus for the past academic year. It’s like pulling teeth sometimes when you want students to get involved and I think that the use of the quiz shows was a great way to get this participation. The quiz shows also really motivated you to read the material thoroughly before class in hopes of getting some extra credit points.
To me, one of the most interesting sections of our reading was the portion that discussed the changes in motivational theories. I enjoyed reading about the history of motivation that started with the all-encompassing theories of the will, instinct, and drive that turned out to be dead ends and lead to the mini-theories. I have taken neuropsychology classes and the topic of how our brain affects our everyday functioning and behavior has always been fascinating to me. I wish we could have learned more about the specific areas within the brain that affect motivation but I also know that this are of psychology is still very new and not a lot is known. The physiological needs chapter was also one of my favorite topics especially after reading the book for my book report. I read The Long Walk by Richard Bachman (Stephen King) and I spent the majority of the book report on the physiological needs and how they affect motivation. I think that Stephen King’s writing style, which is extremely descriptive and almost palpable to the reader, is perfect for explaining the physiological deprivations that a person might go through in a grueling physical activity. The book report was also a really nice way of taking the motivation and emotion concepts that we read about in the textbook and applying them to something we would encounter on a daily basis like a novel.
It is hard to say just how much of the information that I learned in this class will continue to stay in the forefront of my consciousness in the future. I would like to say that I will always remember the motivational concepts that I learned and apply them to everyday situations. I also know that one of the reasons that this information is so interesting is because you can stop and observe your own, or others, behaviors and think about the motivational aspects behind certain actions. This is also a lot of work for someone to do on a daily basis which is why we usually don’t do it. But, hopefully I will take a break from the hustle and bustle of everyday life every once in a while and appreciate the motivational concepts behind my own and other people’s behavior.
Wrap up the course by providing me with a summary of your knowledge and experience.
After studying for “last psychologist standing” and the final video essay exam, I feel overwhelmed with the amount of information we covered in this class. If anyone were to ever ask me about motivation, I would use the word “complex” to describe it. It is easy for people not studying motivation to generalize motivation to mean something trivial. However, recognizing that drive, ideal selves, social influence, and self-efficacy are all together under the umbrella of motivation makes motivation understandably more complicated.
Since I am a graduate student in mental health counseling, I connected everything this class had to offer to counseling clients. I wanted to know what I could do to motivate my clients and motivate myself. I learned that there are two ways of looking at things, positively and negatively (such as with growth-seeking vs. validation-seeking and autonomy-oriented vs. control-causality orientation) and if someone can work towards achieving the more positive side, they will have less anxiety and depression. Much of counseling is simply informing people of their potential and giving them the tools to enable good in themselves. The sad truth is not everyone is raised knowing how to cope with their life situations or how to respond effectively in various environments to produce the best outcome. Through this class I have gained insight into the slight changes people can make to achieve happiness in their lives.
Incorporating society as a manipulator of emotions/goals/behaviors is also another tool I picked up through this class. I know there are societal theories of counseling, however this class gave me words with which to communicate to others how society influences their lives. I feel that people often go along with what societal expectations, however constant reliance on society can lead to anxiety, stress, and grief. In the United States it is not widely accepted, but I now believe that people need to focus inward on themselves genuinely so that they can impart positive experiences on those around them. Individuality is already supported in the U.S., but it suggests that developing without others is the best way; this is not true. As learned throughout this class, others are needed to be successful in life (intimacy, affiliation, etc.). Now I know why when I suggest to people who are depressed that they should go out and socialize more, why that is! There are so many suggestions I make to my client’s without ever really knowing why they work; and thanks to this class I have a deeper understanding of effective behavior.
Motivation and Emotion has also helped my personal life in many ways as well. I particularly liked chapter 8, which talked about implementation intentions and goals. Whenever I set a goal for myself now, I am sure to structure it in a way that will most likely produce a positive outcome. Through learning this I have developed the idea that I can control myself in meaningful ways to attain things like weight loss, a clean home, and financial aspirations. Simply learning how to better organize my goal-oriented thoughts will help me attain more of the goals I do set for myself! Thus, being in ME has increased my potential of being a happy and well-adjusted individual.
It is very hard to cram every little aspect that I have learned throughout this class, so you’re just going to have to trust me. Understanding the true complexity of motivation will affect how I counsel and how I live my life. When I first started this class I said to myself “I’m selling this book when I’m done with this class”; now I am adding it to the academic bookshelf in my office. Hopefully I am motivated enough in the future to flip through it, gather some points I need refreshing on, and use the information to it’s fullest.
Overall, I learned a lot from this course that I will use in my future career, with others, and when I need to motivate myself. I realized early on this class that I would actually have to do something, and I really liked a class that had extrinsic motivation for doing the assigned readings and coming to class. Most of my classes assign reading, but I was able to do well on the tests without them. I would just briefly skim the reading or not do it at all and was still able to get the grades I wanted. I didn’t have much intrinsic motivation for reading text books, so the extrinsic motivation of points for reading blogs and quiz shows helped motivate me to do this.
The thing that will impact my life the most is goal setting and how to set yourself up to achieve your goals. I am heading to graduate school next year, and it seems like my future career is so far away. I realized this semester that I was losing focus due to lack of feedback on my long term goal. I chose to set short terms goals to create a path to my desired long term goal. These have already helped me immensely, because I find that each time one of my short term goals are completed it gives me more motivation to reach my final goal. I also currently work with people with disabilities to help them achieve goals in their homes and communities. I have worked on goal implementation plans with all of them and helped write short terms goals on the path to long term goals. I also gave some suggestions to my boss about providing more feedback along the way, and these were recently implemented into the company. It’s amazing how little of things can make such a big difference when trying to accomplish goals.
Another topic that I know I will frequently use is the idea of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. When I was younger, I always got good grades and my brother struggled to pass classes. I would get so angry at my parents because they would reward him for a C, but I would get nothing for a report card with all A’s. However, after learning more about this topic, I realized that this was actually a smart idea on their part. I was intrinsically motivated to get good grades, and if they would have rewarded me for this, it may have cheapened the experience for me. My brother, however, needed extrinsic motivation to get good grades, so they had to find rewards for them that were motivating enough to work for those grades. If I had to suggest something to my parents now, I would tell them to make the reward for my brother known at the beginning of the semester. This way he would know right away what he is working for. They tended to not decide what it would be until towards the end of the semester when he had very little chance of raising his grades a significant amount.
I also learned the advantages of a positive attitude in this class. People who are optimistic are less likely to experience depression or let one failed task prevent them from doing well on the others. The facial feedback hypothesis also suggests that if a person smiles, they will begin to feel happier than they would if they frowned. Some of these seem like ways to trick ourselves into believing that everything is okay, but I think we all need those tricks sometimes. It’s the simple things that we can use to make a crappy day a little less crappy.
There are so many other things from this class that I know will pop up in my life, and I will say “hey, I know how to handle this situation”. I’m going to graduate school for Rehabilitation Counseling, so I will be primarily helping people with disabilities find and keep jobs. I now have better plans to motivate them to do well in the job and strategies to use when they are frustrated about not finding employment as quick as they would like to. This class has by far been one of the classes that I can apply most to my life and use with the people around me. They were not crazy theories, except Freud, that I knew I was just learning for a test.
Well, we have reached the end of the semester and I think I can speak for everyone by saying that's just fine. Upon entering this class, I learned that we would be running the class on a hybrid format. I have had experience with this before in another class, so I knew what to expect: a lot of writing. While writing 2-4 pages a week seems like a hassle, I have found that this method forces me to read the textbook and makes me remember the material much better. Now that it's all over, I can look back at the work I put into this course and feel proud of it. A good class however, is not good unless you enjoy the material being studied. I can honestly say that I didn't think I would enjoy this course at the start. When taken at face value, the study of motivation and emotion seems sort of dry. This class proved otherwise.
Why do we do what we do? Kim asked us this question on the very first day of class. Not surprisingly, this is what the study of motivation is mainly concerned with. It took us an entire semester to piece the puzzle together, but I feel as though I have a good answer to that question now. One of the more interesting answers to this question came when we discussed intrinsic motivation, in particular the psychological needs embedded in each of us. There are three psychological needs: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. I am interested in industrial/organizational psychology took this course to fulfill my requirements for the I/O certificate. During lecture, we focused a lot on the work environment when giving examples. For instance, the usage of autonomy may seem intimidating in the workplace but anecdotal evidence suggests that it has benefits including increased motivation, more active engagement and elevated creativity. Competence is another psychological need, defined as the need to be effective when interacting with the environment. Competence can be supported with positive feedback. Lastly, relatedness is also important in our lives. As a manager at my place of employment, I am constantly training people and overseeing their work completed. I know that every one of my employees has potential to be competent and happy on the job. This class has given me implications on how to make this happen from a managerial standpoint. One can usually say they have had a good day if all three of the preceding needs are met, and I want to make sure that happens.
I also found the section on social needs to be particularly applicable to my daily life. There are four basic social needs in humans: Need for achievement, need for affiliation, need for intimacy, and need for power. I found it very interesting that people vary in what they desire the most. For instance, some people have a high need for affiliation. These people can be paranoid about breaking interpersonal relationships and constantly please others in order to gain approval. I can think of a lot of people, including a younger version of myself, with this dimension. The need for power is defined as the need to have impact on others. I happen to live with a guy that has an abnormally high need for power. When we have a disagreement, I find it easy to take a deep breath and recognize that we differ in our social needs.
The chapter on individual differences in happiness also stood out to me as being particularly relevant. Everyone has a 'debbie downer' in their life that is seemingly obsessed with bring everyone's mood down. This can be explained in terms of basic personality traits. Those who rate high on neuroticism tend to meet the stereotype of the 'debbie downer'. This is because when interacting with the environment, they are particularly sensitive to punishing stimuli, or negative emotions. This will cause them to focus all of their attention on the negative, or cause them to retreat from the situation completely. Extraverts on the other hand, are sensitive to rewarding stimuli in the environment and tend to be happier all around.
Overall, I enjoyed this class. The textbook was very easy to read and I found it to be organized very effectively. For future reference, I believe this book should be used for this class. At first glance, the movie theme of the course seemed intimidating. I remember Kim showing us examples of movie analyses from previous semesters. I didn't think I'd ever be able to write that much but it turned out to be easy with the knowledge I had from the course. I enjoyed all of the movies from the course, and looked forward to relaxing and trying to dissect characters. Lastly, the lectures in the course were very effective. Whether I was behind or caught up on the reading, Kim always managed to engage the entire class with her lectures. I will strongly recommend this course to my fellow psychology majors, and a few others who I feel could benefit from the content.
I learned so much information through this course. When they say motivation is complex, they weren't kidding! There are so many aspects that are involved in motivation. There were many topics that stuck with me but I will only discuss a couple.
The difference between extrinsic and intrinsic motivation stuck with me throughout the entire semester. Extrinsic motivation of money, grades, and awards is always nice. I found out that intrinsically motivated tasks were more appealing to me and I was more likely to do in advance and put more effort forth. I am a really bad procrastinator and if I were not pressured to get it done or have an extrinsic incentive like a good grade, I would be more likely to do it over time or in advance; I would also put more interest in the topic I am working on. When I first was told of the movie blogs and the book report, I was both extrinsically motivated and intrinsically motivated. Getting a good grade was a nice incentive; however, I really enjoyed these projects. I took the class Music of Our Time last spring and we had to watch movies, analyze the music in them, and write a "blog" about what we observed. I was excited to get to watch movies in this class, but I was nervous about observing for psychological concepts. It ended up not being hard at all with the amount of knowledge we gained in class. The book report was also intrinsically motivated because I really enjoy reading books (not always textbooks) and the topic of my book was very inspiring (The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale).
I also realized how high my needs of psychological and social aspects are. I have high needs of autonomy (sense of freedom), competence, relatedness, achievement, and affiliation/intimacy. My need for power is not as high as the other areas. I already knew I was greatly motivated in life but it is nice to know where my focus for needs is so I know what to work towards in life.
Goals and goal strivings was another topic that stuck with me. Ironically, even though I am a big procrastinator I love to make lists and write out goals of what to get done on a particular day. I found out that my goals are really broad and I need to specify them to make them more successful. I also need to have implementation intentions. How am I going to reach this goal? What are the specifics of these goals? I am decent about making short-term goals to reach a long-term goal but I need to monitor those more and make them more difficult and specific.
I really enjoyed this course! I loved how Kim taught the class. The hybrid way of instructing worked really well. I didn't get exhausted or bored with the same stuff over and over everyday. I liked only going in one day a week and using the other day for online work, which I usually used that time on Thursday to do my topical blog. The way Kim taught was also nice. I liked that she used diagrams instead of bullets in her PowerPoint slides and just provided an overview and explanation of the material. I had a routine when it came to the work in this class. I actually enjoyed the textbook. It was easy to follow and understand. I even took the advice of the TAs and took notes as I read the chapters; this was extremely helpful when I did the blogs and studied for the final quiz show. Speaking of, the weekly extra credit quiz shows were really nice! There are several professors that do not offer extra credit and it is a pleasant change when it is offered. Like I said before, I also enjoyed the movie blogs and book report.
I am a social science secondary education major (psychology is 1 of 3 emphases). This class helped me immensely because now I can use what I learned to understand why my students do what they do. This will help me with my patience and understanding of not only my students but colleagues as well.
I learned a lot more than I has thought I was going to learn and the best part about it is that some of it was helpful. The part that I will probably always remember is that someone with an ideal self perspective will go farther than someone who just kind of goes with the flow. The chapter about how a goal works provided me with a lot of insight that I have never gotten out of motivational speeches or anything about obtaining a goal, it was neat how they broke it down into how it comes together and then incorporated studies to support info. The other chapter that was really neat was the emotions one.
I have always been the kind of person who just kind of let things happen instead of actively taking control which I learned wont really get me far. I have definitely realized this as graduation keeps getting closer, I do have regrets about not setting a goals, but I have become more focused in order to get into grad school. I have pictured where I want to be in 10 years and it seems to be getting clearer each time I do it and it makes setting goals much easier.
I enjoyed the layout of this class I was a little worried about it intially. What is great about this class was that the grades werent a "surprise" two weeks after the class is over. That also helps with trial and error trying to figure out how to do better, the only thing that would have made it better was maybe more in class invovlement and maybe reviewing the first two comments to give feedback so people have a better idea of what areas need improvement.
Overall a great class and highly applicable to real life. It was neat to learn concepts , watch a movie and then have a moment of enlightenment when you see a concept from class being demonstrated. Even though I am not a big reader I enjoyed the book report which sort of scared me but help to actually understand both the book and the concepts.
In terms of providing a summary of what I learned from this course, I will just highlight some of the topics I found to be most interesting and/or most applicable to my life as of right now. For starters, if someone were to ask me if they should take this course I’d definitely say go for it! Even though we’re provided with a ton of information throughout the semester, I thought the vast majority of that information could be related to things out in the real world. I also enjoyed the hybrid-style class quite a bit…it’s always nice not to have class all week! In terms of relating my life to this class, this class offered student’s a certain amount of autonomy with letting us work ahead, coming only once a week, letting us do extra credit if we wanted, etc. I LOVE watching movies so having those movies incorporated into our coursework was a plus for me especially since I hadn’t seen any of the movies!!
Through taking this course, I learned a great deal of information that I thought was especially interesting including the following: what causes behavior; why does behavior vary in its intensity; the historical and contemporary perspectives of motivational and emotional concepts; how the brain functions as part of motivation and emotions (I took Biopsychology so this chapter was a nice refresher for me!); the differences between physiological needs, psychological needs, and social needs; the differences between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation; how to set goals; goal striving; how the self relates to motivation and emotion; all about emotions; unconscious motivation; and finally growth motivation and positive psychology.
One of the most interesting chapters for me was chapter five on intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. So much of this chapter has impacted my life, or could potentially do so in the future. This chapter really opened my eyes to how much, if at all, I am intrinsically and/or extrinsically motivated to do something whether it be study for an exam, write a paper, go workout, etc. I was also able to evaluate those tasks that I was more extrinsically motivated to complete and then figure out different ways I could possibly increase my intrinsic motivation toward the same thing which could potentially make completing the task more rewarding for me. This chapter also impacted my life in terms of how I handle my unruly younger siblings. They always throw a fit when they don’t get what they want and won’t do anything unless there’s some kind of reward waiting for them if they do the task. After taking this class I’m more knowledgeable about incentives, reinforcers, consequences, rewards, and punishers and whether or not they work and how I can incorporate them into my grand plan of motivating my younger siblings to behave and do what they’re told.
The chapter on goal setting and goal striving is definitely applicable to my life now and in the future. Starting last semester, I played around with the idea of going to grad school for a degree in Forensic Psychology. I finally decided I really wanted to go, so I began the process of setting a goal to get a Master’s degree after I graduated from UNI. I really had to focus my attention on what steps I needed to take to find schools with the program, how to apply, how much it costs to go there, etc which was a tiring and long task! These things correspond to motivation and emotion terms of plans, long-term goal setting, implementation intentions, getting started on pursuing a goal, and persisting and finishing my pursuit for this goal. After dishing out lots of money applying to various schools, going to interviews, paying for my transcripts to be sent out (which I think is a bunch of crap!), writing personal statements, taking the blasted GRE (grrrr….), etc I’m surprised my head didn’t explode! Clearly, I made a goal, set out what exactly I had to do to accomplish this goal, and in the end I got in to all the schools I applied to!
I thought this course was very beneficial to me, and I learned a lot! I was not sure how I would like learning about motivation and emotion, I mean, how much is there to know? That’s what I thought when I first signed up for this course. I didn’t think there would be much to do or learn about, because I thought it was all so simple. It really is not that simple though. . .there is so much I did not know!
One of the things that interested me the most was the idea of reaching self-actualization. I never really thought of each of us having a hierarchy of needs that we need to meet before we can truly realize who we are. The idea of having to go through “steps” (psychological, safety, love, esteem) seemed really weird to me. I thought you could just kind of jump around to the different levels and achieve them each in your own time. But, Maslow states that you must first achieve the bottom level before you can move on to the next. This fascinated me, and made me think about which level I am at. I feel like I have met the bottom three: physiological needs, safety/security needs, and love/belonging needs. I grew up in a household where all my needs were provided for and I never really worried about having food or a home to live in. I always felt safe in my home, neighborhood, with my friends, etc. So that need was met as well. My family is extremely close, so I always felt loved and like I belonged somewhere. I don’t think I have reached the “Esteem Needs” part or “Self-Actualization”. I don’t really feel confident in who I am yet, or where I am going in life, but I’m sure many people my age do not know that. I think it takes time to get to that point on the pyramid, even if all of your other needs are being met. I feel that is one of the most important things I learned throughout this course, and probably the one thing that I felt was most relatable to my life right now.
Overall, I really enjoyed this course and learned a lot. I thought the quiz shows were excellent ways to “test” our knowledge about the materials that were to be read. I did learn a lot through participating in those quizzes; it helped me to kind of take away the main points of the chapter. The Last Psychologist Standing was especially helpful! I think I probably learned just as much during that time as I did reading through the chapters on my own. It also helped me take the main points from what we were suppose to have learned and kind of apply it to everyday situations.
I also really liked that we had two weekly blogs, instead of other homework. I thought these blogs were very helpful in forcing us to pick out the important part of the chapter and then write about them. By doing that, I was able to sort out my thoughts a little and make myself truly understand what the chapter was talking about. The topical blogs were also very helpful because they allowed us to relate what we had learned to real-life situations--especially the movies! I learned so much from doing just those alone!
This course has made me more aware of what is going on inside me when I make life decisions or goals or even when I am going through some sort of emotions (anger, sad, happy, etc.). It made me more in-tune to what was going on and how the process worked for certain situations…that sort of thing. I really enjoyed this course, and learned a lot from it! I would definitely recommend it to others!
I learned a lot about motivation and emotions. I learned a bit about goals, personal growth, structure of the brain, social needs, physiological needs, psychological needs. I am not going to explain them all because I have been doing that over the semester. The best way to sum of the year would have to be me saying that I have a great understanding of the underlying mechanics of motivation. I have never had a course quite like this one before. I would have to say that I enjoyed it for the most part. It was a good change of pace, and it was the only class where I had to actually read the textbook to pass. It wasn’t too hard or too difficult. The moderate difficulty kept the class interesting and worthwhile. I would also say that I enjoyed the end of the year quiz show thing. I thought it was kind of fun, and a bit nerve-wrecking.
It is a subject that I never gave much thought about before. The text book helped me to open my eyes and allow me to get a better understanding of how my own motivation works. I know what variables can affect my motivation. I also know how motivation can appear in the firsit place. I would have to say that the most important thing I learned about in this class was goals. I know that I have many things I want to accomplish in life. My most outlandish goal is to go into space on a rocket ship. My most sensible goal is to settle down someday and start a family. They are only similar in the fact that I will have to sit down, plan, and make goals for them. Knowing how to structure my goals, and how difficult they should be will help me overcome any challenge I may have in the future.
Another important thing I learned about was the social needs an individual may have. I may not apply any of this material in the real world, but it did help me understand the actions of me and some other people. Why people do the things they do in order to achieve power or affiliation is a big step to understanding human nature.
Throughout the semester in this course I have learned a lot of new things about what motivates people to do the things they do. I liked how the course was set up. Having to only go to class one day a week was a plus for me. The blogs served as a good replacement of class. The video reviews were okay. The only one that I really didn’t like was Deer Hunter. Even though it showed a lot of good examples of the chapters that we were on that week, it was still really hard to watch and pay attention to.
After taking this course I learned many new things about motivation. I thought the chapter on the unconscious mind was really interesting. I had already briefly studied Freud in a different class and so being able to see that his ideas affected more than just things from that class broadened my idea of him and his ideas. Repressed feelings can eventually come to the conscious mind and can make people do things that they usually wouldn’t do normally. I also was able to learn about the different things that can actually motivate people to do things. People’s different life experiences affect why they do certain things. Learning about the different emotions was also interesting to me.
I think now that I know more about what motivates people to do the things that they do I will try to understand what they are doing more and in a more open mind. I can also understand why I do the things that I do more easily.
Taking Motivation and Emotions has taught me a lot about different emotions and how motivation works. The first couple of chapters were kind of slow but as the course and the book moved on the more interesting it became. I learned a lot about how people can become motivated and what can effect one’s motivations.
One of the chapters that I liked was chapter eight. It talked about setting a goal and how to go about achieving that goal. For some reason I try and go for the hardest goals instead of working my up. I found that this doesn’t work out the best. This chapter taught me about goal difficulty and specificity. Now when I have a goal in mind I’ll know how to go about it and have a much better change at achieving it.
Chapters eleven and fourteen were the other two chapters I found to the most interesting to learn about. Chapter eleven was about the five perennial questions of emotions. I learned all about emotions and what they really are. I liked how the book broke it down into five different steps, each explaining what it is, how many, and so on. It made it easier to read and it really brought out some good facts.
What I liked about chapter fourteen was learning about the unconscious mind. I was my favorite topic to learn about. The way that the conscious and unconscious communicates to one other was especially interesting to me. If I got the choice to learn more about any of the topics in the book it would be the unconscious mind. Learning about psychodynamic perspective and psychodynamics were also interesting topics to learn about.
One of the most surprising things that I did learn from the course is the difference between moods and emotions. Emotions only last a few seconds, but moods will stay with you for much longer. I always thought that an emotion stayed with you all day, and the mood was based off of events. The events can either make or break that mood.
For the course over all I had a good time. Having a class that’s half in class and half online was new to me. At first it was really confusing but in the end once I got it figured out I really liked it. I liked watching the movies, they were good examples of the chapters and help with the learning process. I used by freebie for Billy Elliot but I heard that it was really good, so when I get some free time I’m going to go rent it. Deer Hunter wasn’t so bad, and American Beauty I thought was a bit weird. There was just something about that movie, it did have its moments though. Using what I learned from this course I will think about how and why I’m setting a goal. That’s the biggest subject that I can carry over that would really help in the future.
I enjoyed taking the course. I enjoyed the course format immensely. I think we could and should start to do that with a lot of the classes at UNI. It would work better in some cases than in others, however, it would help us utilize the space that we have in various buildings much better.
I chose to take this course as an elective to better understand 1) how I was motivated 2) what that meant 3) How I could use the knowledge that I gained throughout this class to help me in the real world.
Before I touch on these questions, I will discuss some of the most important things that I learned. I learned the difference between intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation. This is key and it goes a long way to understanding a variety of other things in me and life in general. Those words get thrown around a lot, but actually understanding what they mean and the numerous facets and sub categories that those two broad topics can be broken down into.
I also learned the importance of setting goals and how that makes such a difference. It was also interesting to learn about implementation intentions and how those can have an impact on successfully completing those goals.
Most importantly, I feel that this class helped me see things in a different vantage point. Most of my coursework has been business related and the motivational class helped me look at things from a behavioral view. This is not to say that they are unrelated because it is exactly the opposite. One of the key variables in finance and investments is the human variable or human factor. Understanding how we are motivated as humans and the various subsets and unique qualities that we have all possess, but at the same time realizing that we are not unique in from the standpoint that we all need certain things, all desire love and belonging etc...
Applicability to my life? I feel that the previous paragraph talked briefly about it, in more detail and specific examples in a job hunt setting, I can better identify who I will get along with, what I am looking for in a company and why I am looking for that.
As an aside, I found the self actualization behaviors incredibly interesting. It provides a framework to think about the future decisions I will make and what I am trying to do, why I am leaning one way or the other and will help me get to that self actualization point.
Topical Blog/Wrap up
To provide a summary of my knowledge in this class might not be a very complementary reflection of this class and the content of it. This is largely due to the fact that I feel as though I have only scratched the surface of the immeasurable aspects related to motivation and emotion. I have taken other psychology classes and I have learned about the BAS and BIS’s before but I have identified that I was missing the application of these systems in real life. The application of these systems became applicable by watching Deer Hunter for example. I know for a fact that I will never read a book or watch a movie the way I once did. I might not apply the right terminology to the personality or behavior but I now have the framework to see aspects in behavior that I never would have had before taking this class.
Another topic I thought I understood was autonomy. I can say that the structure of this class as a hybrid supports autonomy because it does. But now I can see that even an apparently autonomous individual or one who is said have a good sense of self-efficacy could develop learned helplessness due to the long term trauma and an example would be in domestic violence. The personality aspects of extroverts and the desire for control or even perceived control can be used to manipulate others. My perspectives of inherent evil have been challenged and I no longer see tactics of interrogation, torture techniques violent criminals as just inherently evil people but probably due to a complex blend of emotional/hormonally weak brain functioning compounded by physiological needs and environmental/experiences.
The most intriguing aspect of this class for me is being able to see how “eudaimonic” well-being in individuals is now beginning to be understood as a vital aspect in the aging process. I am currently taking a Psychology of Aging class and the most recent research found in the Religious Order Study shows that the individuals identified as being high in “conscientiousness” who also have a good supportive intimate support system maintain a higher than normal cognitive functioning. This is important because some of these individuals are confirmed as having Alzheimer’s disease pathology in their brains and yet no one would have guessed it based on their last annual cognitive assessment. It is now apparent that the aspect of how we engage in the world affects our brain and its ability to reserve capabilities because the brain is dependent upon activity.
The other important aspect specifically related to eudaimonic is based on an internal conviction that to please God or to serve Him is to teach and serve others and that is why the study of Nun’s will serve historical understanding in aging well for generations to come
This course has taught me a lot about why people, myself included, behave in certain ways. Understanding how different people are motivated by different stimuli in the same situation is very intriguing. I learned that we all have a lot in common, such as our physiological needs, social needs, and extrinsic motivation; but what is more interesting to me is what makes us different. Such as our deferring intrinsic motivation, and how some people have a low need for achievement and others have a high need for achievement (or any social need for that matter). I am extremely glad to have learned about goal setting and goal striving. Occasionally I lose focus of my long term goal of graduating from grad school and being a family counselor; therefore, it helps to know that I can and should set up a pattern of short term goals for some feedback along my journey. I truly believe that people who keep trying, and try hard (in other words people who are persistent) are going to be more successful. I feel more educated in the area of understanding people’s defense mechanisms and ways of coping. When someone does something irrational, instead of getting upset and arguing with them, it is nice to be able to take a step back and realize what they are doing in order to cope with a situation. This course has also helped me to improve myself. I wish to have a mastery motivational orientation and not a helpless one. I wish to grow into a positive, happy, hardworking person who everyone feels they can count on. Another topic within this course that I found interesting was that of the basic emotions being aids for survival. Disgust of a sick caveman or type of food, for example, saved lives! On a day to day basis, I walk through campus past hundreds of students just like me, yet also extremely different. Everyone has a different level of arousal at any given moment and is acting in such a way to either reduce or increase that arousal…Everyone has a perceived control over their situation and differing desire for that control. To believe you can produce your desired outcome you must first be in a situation that is somewhat predictable and responsive, and secondly, you must believe you can do it! And after taking this course, and retaining information from it than my other courses, I believe I have the motivation to do anything I set my mind to, as cheesy as that sounds. This course was a great tool not only for psychology majors, but for everyone in general.
I came into this course wanting to learn more about motivating others. I am an instructor and therefore was interested in ways to motivate students to learn. I had heard in the past that schools used food rewards for motivation and stopped that practice, but I never understood why. It makes sense when we learned that sometimes external rewards can take away internal motivation. I reflected on a particular issue where I wanted students to learn a particular subject, and offered extra credit points (reward) if they could show their study technique. They either had to make note cards or rewrite notes from class to show that they were writing the information again. It made me wonder if I took away internal motivation because students should be doing these techniques for all course concepts.
I also learned about my own motivation. I am motivated by my own grades and scores, so when we did not have tests throughout the semester, I was not motivated to look over and study previous concepts along the way. I only looked it over again in time for the reward of points at the final exam and final quiz show. I was motivated to try for the other quiz shows (for extra credit points), but quickly fell into learned helplessness. I read each chapter and took notes before each show, but could never answer all questions. I attributed it to not being able to retain information just by reading, so after around chapter 6, I only read the chapters and did not take notes because they would not do me any good. I really like the idea of rewards for reading the chapter before discussing it in class. It is a great way to provide motivation to at least have a general idea of the concepts, even if the reward strategy didn’t work the greatest for me. I at least read it, which is maybe more than I would have done without that incentive!
The other big piece of information I will take from this course is goal setting. I am going to help students set goals which will hopefully increase their scores on exams. I will use the information that they should make their own moderately difficult goals (and not force what I want them to accomplish), set timelines, clear strategies, and make them write it down. I will also give feedback on each student’s goal to maintain motivation. I think this will break down a student’s long-term goal of graduating, and also breaking down the other long-term goal of passing a course, by setting a few goals throughout the semester.
One issue I am still uncertain of is showing class rank as a means of motivation. It is hard to distinguish if posting (anonymous) low scores is a positive reinforcer by increasing awareness of low grades (compared to others in course) to increase motivation to do better, or if it is a punisher designed to increase awareness of ignorance in order to decrease bad work. I have learned from the course that punishers rarely work, and that each student is different in how they interpret this based on their experience. I guess knowing this information is half the battle and each class will different.
I feel like I have learned a lot from the course and have already started utilizing the information. I wish there was a second motivation course because I am sure there is much more to learn. I am also looking forward to more information on positive psychology, which I think will help greatly with motivating others.
I think I learned a lot in this course. I think the main chapter I will remember is the goal striving chapter because I can really put it to use. I will also always remember the importance of intrinsic motivation as opposed to extrinsic motivation. The most interesting chapter to me was the personality chapter. I actually like knowing that there is a happiness set point and that the personality traits (extraversion) that determine happiness are predetermined. I also think it could be a helpful chapter when dealing with people you’re close with. Not only the personality chapter could be helpful but also the social needs chapter. If you know why a person acts how they do then you may know how to deal with them better and communicate with them better. I liked this class not only because it helps you understand why you do things, it also helps you see why others do things.
This course, for me, was a lot of work just because I took the Psychology of Violence seminar at the same time. It was hard to read 2 chapters every single week and also do 4 blog posts every week. On top of that, we had to do a book report and a project for the other class. I think the blog posts for the reading assignment were very helpful because they actually forced me to read. The topical blogs were kind of annoying. I get the point of trying to relate the chapter topic to something else and know how to talk about it but it just felt like a lot of work. I guess I’m just not used to having assignments like that in classes. I like having Thursday off. That was very helpful. I really like the quiz shows too. They were fun and I got some extra credit.
I think the movie analysis we did in this course helped me to look at things from the perspective of the topics of class. It made me more able to look at other things from a motivational and emotional perspective. They were also helpful for writing the book report because I knew what to look for while reading.
I think the actual class time was helpful but I felt bored if I had already read and done the blog for that chapter. A lot of the information on the powerpoint was directly out of the text. I think it would have helped if the powerpoints were more supplemental and added to or provided greater information than the text. Overall, I liked much of the content of the class despite all of the work. With that being said, I cannot wait to graduate next week and be done.
I wasn't really sure what to expect when I registered for this class. I had taken organizational psychology last semester and when we had spoken about motivation well I would have to say I didn't find it motivating. This class ended up being extremely interesting. I think it is a class that every major should take. Any job working with people or where you would be involved with people in any way (which should be every job!) this class can be very useful. And not to think of it as a manipulation tactic, but rather a better understanding for ourselves and the people around for why we might do what we do.
I could probably sum up the most important things I learned was the importance of trying to understand people's motivation, and that motivation is affected by MANY things.
The first concept I found important because it is easy to go through life and think people do things or they are some certain way because of an inherent trait for example "they are bad". BUT this class shows us that we need to dig a little deeper. There can be numerous explainations and causes. To consider things from other peoples perspectives, situations, motivations, and so on can help understand people in a much better way. I really think this is something that I have already begun to see a change in myself. It is easy to consider this from the idea of someone doing something you think is bad. And when situations have arose I believe I have been attempting to consider the other variables instead of just classifying them a certain way, blaming them, or whatever the circumstances may be.
The second concept that I found very important was the realization that motivation and certain behaviors can derive from numerous possibilities. I never considered the biological aspects of people's motivation. Even simple things like the fact that cold temperatures can cause people to be hungrier. Alot of things before I took this class I think I was aware of on a certain level but after taking the class I know the actual names and concepts in greater detail. Such as people's needs. Everyone has probably known someone that they thought "just needed attention". But from the concepts in class and taking a deeper consideration I might infer that the individual might have a high need for relatedness, intimacy, or power. I thought that was interesting to learn that people just vary on what needs are high or low. Which is just another way to give me a better understanding of individuals instead of just maybe classifying them as annoying or whatever trait. But instead considering they probably have a high need that is simply not being met.
Although there were tons of other concepts and theories we spoke about in class, I believe these 2 aspects have and will have a more profound impact on my life. It has changed the way I look at things and its something I will remember for a long time. These are obviously concepts that I would believe any psychologist should be aware of, but they are concepts I think that everyone should be aware of. A better understanding of ourselves and the people around us, I believe, would be cause for alot less conflicts and problems.