Week 14 - The End

This will be my last blog for this semester.   Over the past 14 weeks I have shared with you what aspects of motivation and emotion I found most enjoyable and my progress and thought processes for conducting my assignments, the key one being our text book chapter.   When reading over my weekly blogs, it is evident that I have an interest in what motivates someone to think positively and how positive aspects play a role in motivating the individual.  This was originally seen in Week 1 where I picked my text book chapter Positive thinking and Motivation.  This was then seen in Week 3 where I discussed the effects of dopamine release and the positive effects this has on the body, motivating the individual to seek out environments that result in this chemical release.  

In Week 4 I focused on the Self Determination Theory and how the three fundamental psychological needs, autonomy, competence and relatedness all need to be satisfied in order to reach optimum psychological growth.  In Week 5, I discussed intrinsic motivation and the benefits this creates in performance, reaching goals and increasing well-being. Week 6 focused on the idea of helplessness and how if an individual feels that they are unable to overcome a negative situation that this results in greater self perceived inadequacy unlike those with a positive outlook. Week 7 introduced me to the father of Positive Psychology, Martin E. P. Seligman and his research in the area, opening up a whole array of information for me to sort through (which I really enjoyed reading)!  Week 9 saw me go a little off track however I really did enjoy researching robots that can convey emotional expression!  In Week 10 I had a lot of fun sorting through emotions within our tutorials, however what I found sad, was the fact that we have so many negative emotions and descriptions for how we are feeling and not so many positive ones.

The notion of the positive thinker was again brought up in Week 11.  This week focused on the idea of happiness and how being more extravert and less neurotic predicts how happy the individual actually is. Week 12 was my least favourite week, however I did enjoy the psychodynamic theory’s concepts of repression and suppression (something I can relate to experiencing)! Finally, Week 13 was definitely my favourite as it focused on Positive Psychology and covered much of the information that I wrote about in my text book chapter and more.  I most probably found it more enjoyable and interesting because of this.

As you can see, I have actually leant a lot in this unit.  Not only have I learned about differing theories and various aspects of motivation and emotion, I have also gained a few IT skills along the way! This was the first time in my undergraduate degree that I have had to write a blog, a text book chapter and create a multimedia presentation on the internet for everyone to see.  This will also have practical applications for the future, because I am sure that one day all books will be electronic, meetings will always take place via the internet and everyone will most probably work at home as a result.  This will mean that most forms of communication will end up being in electronic form.   The downside was that it did take a very long time and each of these assessment items were very time consuming, in the end however, it is something that we can all be proud of and will be able to look back on in the future.  It was also a nice way to finish off the year by combining the work of each student.  We have all become close friends over the past three years and to be able to keep something we have all worked hard on together will be a nice keepsake as we finish our undergraduate degree in Psychology.

If I take anything away from this learning experience, it would be to try and follow Seligman’s stance on Positive Psychology and attempt to be a more optimistic person.  Not only will this see me being open to new experiences and not be overwhelmed by the obstacles I face, it will also see me create greater connections with others, be more successful and be physically and mentally healthier. I guess overall, this subject has given me the intrinsic motivation I need to try and live a more optimistic life J

I hope you have enjoyed reading about my learning experience and hopefully you have learnt something too!

The End!