Recently in Cognitive Motivation Category

http://articles.latimes.com/2010/mar/15/health/la-he-marathon-20100315

This article is about different factors that motivate people to participate in marathons. Some of the information seems fairly obvious, especially to people in this class, but it is still interesting to consider these findings. I found it especially interesting that the reason a person runs can make a difference in if they finish the race. In short, it was the people with high intrinsic motivation who tended to finish the training and marathon itself. It said that "The 75 who did not finish were those most likely to have been motivated by the wish to lose weight or gain recognition from others."

This finding makes sense to me, and I think it fits rather well with our individualistic culture. Many of us feel that it should be up to each person how they want to live, we should not spend our lives trying to please others. It would be interesting to see if this finding holds up in collectivistic cultures. If it would, we could be more confident than intrinsic factors of motivation may be inherently more powerful in influencing whether or not a person ultimately finishes a marathon.

This article mentioned that more and more people are creating bucket lists on which they include marathons. The article said this was a form of extrinsic motivation because it is being done for recognition, but I would argue that it really depends on the person. There are undoubtedly some people who will do extreme activities just to brag about them, but there are others (using the bucket list) who simply enjoy the challenge.

I find it rather interesting that some people do it for loved ones, and I have heard that others still do it for Christ. From what we first read (that  the people with high intrinsic motivation tend to finish the marathons), it would seem that these motivations are extrinsic (being done for the approval of others). I think this certainly does seem true, but there are probably exceptions. If a Christian is doing the marathon as a type of self-imposed penance because they feel guilty about past wrongdoings or because they simply want to make a sacrifice for the Lord, that would probably be intrinsic motivation. On the other hand, if a Christian does the marathon as penance to avoid the fires of Hell, it seems that would probably be a form of extrinsic motivation. In retrospect, this past paragraph sounds somewhat like a bad joke, but I believe it is never the less very true.

Another point which merits attention is about endorphins. Over the past couple years I have read very contradictory "findings" on endorphins. You commonly hear that exercising and physical activities releases endorphins, and others have claimed that the level of physical exertion one must undertake to actually release significant levels of endorphins is dangerously high (with such physical activities doing actually more harm than good overall). I honestly do not know which view is objectively correct, so if anyone else might be able to shed light on this area, I would very much appreciate it.

One final point I would like to write about is that there obviously can be both primary and secondary motivations. The article also mentioned that specific reasons for making the commitment to a marathon may change over time. For example: physical health benefits may become dominant. Although raising money for charities seems to be partly be an extrinsic form of motivation, I really do not believe you can place it exclusively in a single category - there may be elements of both intrinsic and extrinsic forms of motivation present (recognition from others and feeling happy that you have helped others).   

http://www.2knowmyself.com/Persistence_definition/how_to_become_persistent

 

This article is very helpful for all of you people with the lack of motivation and persistence (we've all been there, myself included).   But is there something out there that you have always wanted to happen but you just can't quite make it there?  Maybe it has to do with exercising to feel healthy-- we all know we should but how many of us actually keep with a routine workout schedule?   This article defines persistence as "...not allowing anything to stop you from an activity once you start it unless it's something really severe."

Some helpful tips from the article included

1) Even if you feel like quitting, keep with it!

2)Keep your goal in sight

3)Don't ignore small situations-- be persistent with even the small tasks. 

4)Be flexible

5)Be confident in your ability to reach your goal

Reeve states in Chapter 8 (p 224) that when people are in the persuit of a goal, they may come across certian obstacles involving disctractions, demands of their time, or some other form of interruption.  THis article helps you focus on what is important in your persuit toward your goal.  Also, Reeve shows on page 221 that goals are to be more reachable if you know the process you will have to take to reach them.  This relates to number 3 from the article- Be persistent with the smaller tasks, because eventually those small tasks add up to the large goal in mind. 

The only question i had regarding this article, was how can you make someone want to be persistent with their goals?  Of course these are helpful steps, but they won't help much if the person is  someone with little motivation to set goals. 

I know a lot of people especially girls want to get married someday, and want to find their true love so I researched what motivates us to find true love and found this article which I found very interesting.

http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/independent-woman/love-sex/how-to-find-true-love-2051038.html

Helen Fisher the women who dedicates most of her life on How to find true love believes there are four personality types.

"all of us conform to one of four personality types, which are controlled by different chemicals in the brain. These chemicals mould us, and cause us to be attracted to people who complement our personality types (see panel). There is the Explorer, a sensation seeker ruled by dopamine; the Builder, a respecter of authority driven by serotonin; the Director, analytical and ruled by testosterone; and the Negotiator, intuitive and fired by oestrogen. Negotiators need to connect with others on a deeply personal level, are very trusting and good at talking."

What personality type are you? and if you have a boyfriend or girlfriend are they compatible with you according to Helen Fisher?

Praise is not always motivating.

http://www.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=The%20Power%20(and%20Peril)%20of%20Praising%20Your%20Kids%20--%20New%20York%20Magazine&expire=&urlID=21157633&fb=Y&url=http://nymag.com/news/features/27840/&partnerID=73272

"A growing body of research and a new study from the trenches of the New York public-school system�strongly suggests it might be the other way around. Giving kids the label of 'smart' does not prevent them from underperforming. It might actually be causing it."

Chapter 6 talks about relatedness and how relationships that are caring, accepting, and valuing satisfy the need for relatedness. Loneliness is used as an example of a characteristic of someone who has not fulfilled the need of relatedness. Having close, personal, and intimate relationships will help satisfy this need. Any social bond such as a sibling, spouse, or friend has the potential of being an intimate relationship. But even people who have siblings, spouses, and friends are not gaurunteed to have their need for relatedness satisfied. There are many marriages, as the text suggests, that may not satisfy one or both of the partners emotionally. The texts stresses the importance of fulfilling the need of relatedness because it has been shown that neglecting such needs can lead to loneliness and depression. Here is a website that explains how to start the process of trying to beat depression related to loneliness. It focuses on the importance of getting out of isolation and meeting new people. This should be done in hopes of finding someone that you could eventually develop a social bond, and thus, fulfilling the need of relatedness. I think this site has a good message behind it, but makes it sound a little easier than it probably is for depressed people. The textbook supports the need for meeting new people as a way of lessening depression and loneliness though.

http://www.ehow.com/how_5517599_beat-depression-related-loneliness.html

  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/09/science/09tier.html?bl

    

    This article talks about sociologists who set out to determine which types of gossip travels the fastest (whether people prefer good news, bad news, etc). The researchers studied a list of the New York Times' most emailed articles "checking it every 15 minutes for more than 6 moths... and controlling for factors like placement in the paper or on the Web Home page."

 

        The main researcher seemed to hypothesize that stories about sex and politics would be among the highest ranked. To his surprise, the stories that were most emailed actually tended to be those emotional in nature, with positive (those that "inspired awe") faring better than those that were negative. Those that are intellectually challenging and lengthy are also more often emailed. There were also a surprisingly high number of scientific articles that made the most emailed list.

 

       I was rather surprised by some of these results at first, but after thinking about the potential reasons behind the results I believe I understand this data better. Or, perhaps I am suffering from hindsight bias. In any case, I think it does make sense that people would want to send positive, awe-inspiring articles to their friends and loved ones because we very much want to increase others' feelings of happiness. Emotion is at the very core of our being. There is such an abundance of negative news presented on television, perhaps emailing positive articles is a way to help offset cable news' generally negative tone.

 

       The researchers made a quick observation about how one might have expected articles consisting of financial advice to be more popular. Their thinking was that if Person A gave person B great advice, then person B would return the favor at a later point in time. Another possible motivation they theorized was that some people might just send articles to "show off" and let others know that they stay well-informed.  

 

      I also found it a little surprising that articles a bit longer in length and "intellectually challenging" would be among the most popular. I have always been rather hesitant to send lengthy articles to friends because I worry that saturating them in an abundance of information that they might not even find remotely interesting could just make them mad. It does make sense though, that longer articles would be more likely to contain some type of interesting information in them than short articles. I wonder if social networking sites present a confound problem that creates a bias in favor of long articles - for example, if I read a short, interesting story and want to summarize what it said for my friends, I will often just post it on my facebook status.  

 

        The popularity of science articles was a bit baffling at first, but I think it does seem to make sense to me now. I believe people enjoy reading interesting science articles because they help us think in a new and different way. Scientific discoveries help us gain insight and perspective about the true physical and emotional nature of ourselves and our surrounding environment. I think reading about science can evoke feelings of transcendence - there is much we do not know and there is much we will never know, but with each additional step we take in studying the world, we come that much closer to solving the problems we face and that much more connected with the world around us.   

I ran across this article and thought it seemed like an interesting idea. It basically says changing your perspective from the 1st person "I" to the 3rd person "he" or "she" can help you gain an outsider's perspective on how to reach your goal(s) and subsequently improve motivation. I have heard of talking to yourself (2nd person) to improve motivation, but never 3rd. The real question is can this actually help improve motivation or is it just weird? What do you think? Anyone already do this? Anyone see any potential problems with doing this? Is it possible that using this technique could alter your appraisal of an event thereby changing the resulting motive?

A New Way to Increase Motivation

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100119133519.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily+(ScienceDaily%3A+Latest+Science+News)

I was rather intrigued by the research presented in this article. The main finding is alluded to in the title of the article - recent research suggests that those less motivated to achieve will excel on tasks seen as fun and those more motivated to achieve will not perform as well on tasks that are intended to be for fun. Obviously, this suggests that different students may need different types of motivation to excel. The students that are competitive and serious tend to be significantly less motivated when they think the task is just being performed for fun. Many other students do not take academics so seriously and work better when the task is fun.

Although these two groups are not all-inclusive (plenty of people lie somewhere in the middle of the extremes), I believe these differences do exist in the real world. As some individuals strive for excellence, they can become rather obsessed with perfection and get in the habit of avoiding anything fun-related to maximize their reputation of achievement. Given the incredible amount of time that many of these perfectionists put into their work, it is very hard for others to remain competitive without also putting a tremendous amount of effort into their academics. Because of this, I think many people stick to a more balanced (and perhaps more natural) life, in which they strive for excellence rather than perfection and are okay with not being labeled "the best."

Although I think many people are able to eventually find a balance between work and fun, there will always be those who are unable to achieve such a balance. I have not read much of the literature pertaining to this subject, but I wonder what the common causes of "overacheiving" are. It seems likely to me that some of these overly competitive individuals may be trying to compensate for low feelings of self-worth and others may be motivated by a need to feel superior. Whatever the reasons may be, I think most people realize is better for one's physical and mental health to not be overly competitive, but as people get older I think it becomes increasingly difficult for such people to change because the tendency to be that way has become a fundamental component of their personality. I think this research supports the idea that we can get too carried away and we can be overly motivated. Moderation is key in a great many areas of life.

 

Another questions that arises here is, "Does this research support the idea that people motivated by different approaches should be taught in separate groups (each given the learning style that works best for them)?" If we put more and more highly competitive people together into a single class though, would we also be creating the potential for even higher, even more unhealthy work ethics to arise? I suppose the questions I am posing here rest on the assumption that it can be unhealthy to be overly competitive, but I think this assumption is justified considering that those highly motivated become less able to do tasks that are supposed to be fun.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95949912

 

I found this NPR article on motivating school children to be rather interesting and perhaps somewhat controversial. It talks about paying children according to their attendance, quality of work, and behavior in class. My initial reaction to this story is that this type of program is a great experiment. We already spend tremendous amounts of money on education, but continue to get very poor results in many schools. I think money has sometimes been mindlessly thrown here and there, and we don't see any good come from that. It has sometimes been said that raising the teacher pay will bring in higher quality people or that bringing in various new classroom materials will help students learn, but the problem seems to be deeper than that.

As was mentioned earlier on our blog, one major problem is "stupid homework." By no means am I referring to all, or even most, homework, but in my educational experience I have had plenty of assignments that have just been downright meaningless. You waste a great amount of time, learn nothing, and feel like you've lost a few brain cells in the process. Another part of the problem is that the belief that homework/studying is unpleasant and to be avoided has been instilled in many of us from a very early age. There seems to be a negative connotation with learning, and I think we should work harder to change that, perhaps by doing more to support "science is fun" programs and others like it. If students perceive educational activities as fun, they will find greater energy to put into their learning.

I also think schools can put too much emphasis on grades, which can subsequently cause some children to focus only on letter grades and many others to become apathetic about the education system. Although I have generally got rather good grades throughout my academic career, and a certain amount of assessment is surely needed, putting so much of the emphasis on a few short (and sometimes poorly written) tests does not seem to be the best approach. Sometimes such tests tell you very little about the students except perhaps their abilities to discern/anticipate what information will be asked on the test and cram accordingly. I think many students feel this way, and they feel discouraged when think that they will not be fairly evaluated.

This may be more a problem in the high school and college environments, but I think another very serious problem with our education is an overwhelming lack of clarity in certain classroom environments. Sometimes students are required to read very old texts that are written in an English language that is very different from our own. It is unreasonable for students to be required to read these texts without any guidance from the instructor - the professor should be there for a reason. In college, I know of at least one professor who gets away with murder by having "discussion-based" classes in which the student is given no other instruction than to "read the textbook" - such professors contribute nothing yet get paid in full. When teachers do not present material in a clear, thought out, and interesting manner, the student can become very discouraged and the learning process is heavily impeded. It is a far from ideal outcome to cause some students to have anxiety attacks and others to give up entirely. More needs to be done to address this problem.

The controversy that arises from this Pay-To-Behave experiment also merits attention. A question that inevitably arises is, "Even if these financial incentives greatly increase academic performance, is teaching children to learn solely for money to be desired?" Some would probably argue that it is no different than receiving an allowance for doing chores or a paycheck for a job, but I am still not entirely sure how I would feel if I were one of the parents. I am not sure I would be comfortable sending a child through this program if I thought it would cause them to place money above everything else.