Finally, the text book chapter is finished! If you would like to read it, click here. I am quite happy with what I have achieved, I actually enjoyed researching and writing about this topic. As it was on positive thinking and motivation I learnt a lot about the benefits of thinking positively and have been trying to increase my well being and mental health by ‘attempting’ to adopt a more positive thinking style. Despite the fact that I feel that I should have spent more time on it, this really would not have been possible with all of the other assessment I have had due throughout this semester. Overall though I think I am more glad that I have finished it and was able to figure out how to do the coding on Wikiversity! It is not over yet though, my task over the next week will be to create a multimedia presentation which summarises the main points of my chapter using a program on the Internet called Screenr. In today’s lecture James taught us how to use this program, it seems relatively easy to use which will be nice, as this will enable me to spend more time writing my presentation rather than figuring out how to actually record it!
This week however, we have focused on the topic of unconscious motivation. I did not find this week as enjoyable as the others, however the subject I found most interesting was that of Psychodynamics. Freud believed that motivation is an intricate occurrence because individuals often engage in behaviours that they do not want to do. Freud stated that all people have wills and ideas. However he also states that the conscious will fights against the unconscious counterwill and that this fight never sees a victor (Reeve 2009).
The most prevalent concept in Freud’s Psychodynamic theory is that of repression. Repression is an unconscious act that sees the individual forget information unconsciously (Reeve, 2009). Repression undergoes the act of analysing each thought and determining whether it qualifies to enter the public domain. As many of these motivations stay in the unconscious as a result of the act of repression, many individuals are not aware of their unconscious motivations. This act of repression occurs as these motivations do not fit in with an individuals own self view or the opinions that others and the outer society have of these desires. When these thoughts begin to emerge, anxiety overtakes this situation and this cases repression to occur yet again (Reeve, 2009).
Suppression on the other hand is something that I know I have definitely engaged in. Suppression is when an individual deliberately and consciously stops a thought from entering their mind. However as people have very little control over their thoughts, this act does have a high failure rate as suppressed thoughts do not remain that way forever. We use repression when we do not want to think, do, want or remember something. The following example relates to me over the past week:
Think: I should really be doing that assignment
Do: Don’t go out tonight!
Want: Try not to eat Maltesers!
Remember: Try to forget about what I did last time I was out…
It is apparent that individuals use suppression for their inner good, it is a private experience that we all struggle with in order to keep a secret, overcome fear, pain and to control our behaviours (Reeve, 2009). This unwanted thought however can actually become an obsession, because the more the individual tries to not think about something, the more they actually begin to think about it! I find I continually do this when I do not want to do an assignment. I watch TV, go out, go on Facebook and do everything but the assignment. However, no matter how much I try not to think about the assignment (what I should be doing) I just keep thinking about it more and more. So in the end, it is clearly more beneficial to just do the assignment and have fun later! That concludes my blog for this week. I will start my multimedia presentation this week and provide a link in my blog next week so you can view it!
References
Reeve, J. (2009). Understanding motivation and emotion. United States of America USA
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