This week has focused on personal control beliefs and the self as well as its strivings. As James mentioned, the topics covered this week brought together a holistic overview of all of the elements that may encroach on the psychological experience of motivation (Neill, 2010). Reeve’s (2009) chapter nine and the first half of the lecture this week focused on personal control beliefs. I found this topic more interesting than the self, more so because I have not touched on this area before, whereas the self I have covered in philosophy and in previous psychology units.
So what does the future have in store for me? I don’t know, no-one knows. Despite the fact that we will never quite know what our future holds, people desire to control their personal environment. Individuals want to create more positive outcomes for themselves rather than negative ones. What we may expect to happen in the future however and how well we believe we can cope with what could occur can have motivational implications (Reeve, 2009). These ‘expectancies’ (a predictor of the likelihood that an event will occur) can be broken down into two (Neill, 2010). These are
1. Efficacy Expectations – Can I do it? and
2. Outcome Expectations – Will what I do work?
These expectations can be quite specific, fleeting or can come and go. However, over time there is a more cumulative, generic set of self beliefs that undermine our own set of beliefs and this is why people differ from one another from their perceived control. This notion of perceived control is developed further through the idea of self-efficacy. Self efficacy is referred to as ‘one’s judgment of how well they will cope with a situation, given the skills one possesses and the circumstances one faces (Neill, 2010).’ Albert Bandura states that we each have our own set of self efficacies, each of which is specific (Neill, 2010). It should be stated that ability is not the same thing as self efficacy. However, self efficacy does involve one’s abilities, as it is the skills that one possesses that help the person to perform effectively in complex situations (Reeve, 2009).
The opposite of self efficacy is self doubt. The individual concerned may have many skills but can experience a moment of feeling unable to carry though, this comes before failure, and stops you trying or carrying through with something. Many people, including my self, experience these feelings from time to time, in many differing situations. This idea of remaining in control seems to relate to the individuals frame of mind. This would be another area that I should consider looking into for my text book chapter on positive thinking.
Mastery beliefs are the ‘extent of perceived control one has over attaining desirable outcomes and preventing aversive ones (Reeve, 2010).’ When one’s personal beliefs are strong, then the individual sees a strong association between actions and outcomes. On the other hand when they are weak, the person sees their actions as having a minimal effect on outcomes. These can be broken down into mastery motivational orientation and helpless motivational orientation. Mastery being outlined by the individual view that they are able to sustain a challenge and that failure is merely feedback of how they can improve and helplessness, the opposite, is intrinsic to the individual as they feel that they are inadequate and cannot affect the outcome of a situation.
This idea of helplessness again relates to positive thinking. For example in one experiment, dogs were placed in three conditions. In one, they were administered an inescapable electric shock, in the second they were administered a shock but were able to stop it by pressing a button with their nose and in the third no shock was administered. In the second phase of the experiment these dogs were placed in an apparatus where a divider was placed in the box. Before the shock would occur a light would turn on, signalling that the dog was about to receive a shock. Each of the dogs could escape by jumping over this divider. Those dogs that were placed in the uncontrollable condition initially did not even bother trying to move, as they felt incapable of trying to escape. The dogs in the second condition however, jumped over the divider and escaped from receiving an electric shock (Reeve, 2009). This experiment has many parallels with the human world, as an individuals upbringing, environment and past experiences would all affect how an individual views themselves and acts in situations (Neill, 2010). Again this type of experiment and behaviour could be included within my text book chapter, how one’s environment and childhood effects how they think in adulthood could be touched upon.
These were the aspects that I found most interesting in this week’s topics. As we continue to cover other topics throughout the semester, I am gaining more and more ideas as to what I will include in my text book chapter. I feel that every week I am learning something which is relevant to my topic and am looking forward to finishing the assessment I have due before the chapter so I can get started. I personally think I am feeling a bit of a lack of self efficacy at the moment in relation to using Wikiversity, but hopefully once I actually start fiddling around with it, I will figure it out and not be so scared of failure! I am now glad that I have found the motivation to complete another blog, bye for now J
References
Neill, J. (2010, September 22). [Control beliefs and The Self Lecture]. Lecture presented at the University of Canberra
Reeve, J. (2009). Understanding motivation and emotion. United States of America USA
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