Cognition as a Motivational Force

Question 1

How can cognition work as a motivational force?

Answer 1

Cognition is a variety of mental construct
- Beliefs
- Judgements
- Plans
Use of cognition to spring to action, thus a motivational force
- change the way you think = change your motivation

Question 2

What function does a plan have?

Answer 2

• To create congruency with present state and ideal state
• Mismatch between those states
• Plans used for discrepancy reduction (negative feedback loop, discrepancy gets smaller) and creation(feed forward, set higher goals)
  -Discrepancy = wanting to change

Question 3

The TOTE Unit

Answer 3

A model that shows the cognitive mechanism on how plans energize and direct behavior
- Test, Operate, Test, Exit
- Common in every-day-life

Question 4

The TOTE Unit - Test

Answer 4

Compare the present state with ideal state, if incongruent then to operate

Question 5

The TOTE Unit - Operate

Answer 5

Act on environment to realize ideal state

Question 6

The TOTE Unit - Exit

Answer 6

Ideal state and present state is in congruety with ech other

Question 7

Are plans static and whats the humans part in plans?

Answer 7

• Plans are a dynamic process
• Humans are active decision makers
  Do I want to work towards ideal state?
  Do I want to change and revision my plan?
• Adjustments, revise a plan, overcome new obstacles

Question 8

The states discrepancy - Progress

Answer 8

Satisfactory progress and more progress than anticipated
- Enlicit positive emotions; Hope, excitment, joy
Unsatisfactory progress
- Enlicit negative emotion; furstration, sadness, depression

Question 9

What are goals?

Answer 9

Something an individual want to accomplish
- A desire
- Future-oriented cognitive representation
- Energized behavior

Question 10

Goals - Components

Answer 10

• Difficulty(energy)
• Specificity(direct)
  To decrease ambiguity
• Congruence(sustain)
  All goals are not equal, what is important for me?

To improve performance

Question 11

What can go wrong with goal setting?

Answer 11

• Does not increase performance on tasks that are inherently interesting
• Goal conflict
  One plan = One goal (works best)
• External goals can be seen as controlling, pressure-inducing and intrusive
• Can lead to self-regulation problems such as getting started, staying on track and resuming after interruption due to being too controlling

Question 12

What is a mindset?

Answer 12

• A cognitive framework
• Guiding one’s attention, information processing, decision making, perception of effort, success and personal qualities
• Fully adopted, can be seen as a cognitive motivational system

Question 13

Deliberative - Implemental

Answer 13

Two ways of thinking that we use in goal-setting goal-striving

Question 14

Deliberative

Answer 14

• Open-minded way of thinking
• Considering the desirability and feasibility of a rang of goals one might or might not pursue

Question 15

Implemental

Answer 15

• Close-minded way of thinking
• What information is relevant to my goal
• Sheilding against non-goal-related consideration

Question 16

Promotion - Prevention

Answer 16

Different type of regulatory orientation one might acquire during goal striving
- Focusing on improvement or security
- What is success and failure?
- Need both for optimal goal striving in groups

Question 17

Promotion

Answer 17

Focus on advancing the self towards ideals by adopting and eager locomotion behavioral strategy
- Open-mindedness
- Exploration
- Success energize motivation

Question 18

Prevention

Answer 18

Preveting the self from not maintaining one’s duties and responsibilities by adopting a vigilant behavioral strategy
- Cautious
- Protecting one’s commitments
- Whats the right thing?
- Avoiding failure energizes behavior

Question 19

Growth-Fixed

Answer 19

Two contrasting ways of thinking about the nature of one’s personal qualities
- Differences in effort, strategy and attributions
- These mindsets can be learned, product of ones social experiences, or trained
- Influence the type of goal you pursue

Question 20

Growth

Answer 20

Personal qualities are malleable, changeable and can be develop through effort
- More motivational
- Mastery goals

Question 21

Fixed

Answer 21

Personal qualities are fixed and innate, cannot be changed
- Performance goals

Question 22

What assumption does Cognitive Dissonance have?

Answer 22

A person is competent, moral and reasonable
- A consistency in information and behavior that confirms ones belief of themselves

Question 23

Cognitive Dissonance

Answer 23

Where ones belief about themselves is being questioned

Question 24

Cognitive Dissonance - Process

Answer 24

1. Arousing situational events
   - Insufficient justification or effort
2. Produces inconsistenncy between cognition
3. Dissonance motivation
4. Implement strategy to reduce inconsistency
5. Dissonance is reduced or eliminated

Question 25

What is personal control?

Answer 25

• A form of expectancy
  How likely will an event occur; efficacy and outcome
• Coping with failure
  Appraisal
  Social process
• Future-oriented often
• Links with motivation

Question 26

What is self-efficacy?

Answer 26

• Judgement on how well or poorly one will cope with a situation
• Orchestrating skills and coping resources
  To test our skills

Question 27

Self-Efficacy - Shaped by

Answer 27

• Personal behavior History
  Have I done it before?
• Vicarious experiences
  Observing others, how do they react
• Verbal persuasion
  Support or bribing
• Physiological state
  Pain, sleep deprivation

Question 28

Self-Efficacy - Behavior

Answer 28

• Choice
  Approach vs avoidance
  What to go for and which setting
• Effort and persistence
  How much and for how long
  Quick recovery
• Thinking and decision making
• Emotionality
  Strong or weak, doubts?

Question 29

How can one cope with failure?

Answer 29

• View it as a challenge or as a threat

Question 30

Failure - Challenge

Answer 30

Leads to mastery coping
- Problem solving
Remains task-oriented
- Guidance seeking
- Help seeking
- Is adaptive functioning

Question 31

Failure - Threat

Answer 31

Leads to defensive coping, giving up
- Blame others
- Self-denigration
- Rumination
- Maladaptive functioning

Question 32

Mastery Motivational Orientation

Answer 32

A hard, resitant portayal of the self during encounters of failure
- Failure feedback can be helpful and constructive
- I influence my outcome

Question 33

Helpless Motivational Orientation

Answer 33

A fragile view of oneself during failures
- Feedback is a sign of personal inadequacy
- Other influence my outcome
- Learned helplessness
- Leads to deficits in;
Motivational - willingness to try
Learning - pessimistic mindset
Emotional - affective disruptions

Question 34

What is Implementation Intentions?

Answer 34

• If-Then
  When, where and how to achieve the goal
• Simple actions plans
• Need to be able to anticipate situations that can cause a problem
• To make goal striving a habit

Question 35

What is a mastery modeling program?

Answer 35

Expert leads a group of novices to cope with a fearsome situation
- Effective coping, enhance weak points of novices
- Small steps and gradually introduced to real life scenario
- Cooperative learning groups
- Expert is confident, regulate the others behavior

Question 36

Attributional Styles

Answer 36

What you use as the causal explanation to why something happened
- Explanatory
- Pessimistic style
Giving up, academic failure
- Optimistic
Takes credit for their success, but no to little blame for mistakes