{"id":4310,"date":"2018-09-18T22:03:59","date_gmt":"2018-09-19T02:03:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.amyork.ca\/academic\/zz\/?p=4310"},"modified":"2018-09-18T22:09:14","modified_gmt":"2018-09-19T02:09:14","slug":"motivation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.amyork.ca\/academic\/zz\/cultural-psychology\/motivation\/","title":{"rendered":"Motivation"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>Your underlying reasons for things speak to your motivations, and these reflect a great deal about how you understand yourself and the world around you<\/li>\n<li>The things that motivate us vary across cultures \u2013 we need to learn about what drives us and others to have a better understanding of ourselves and of people from other cultures \uf0b7 We are motivated to pursue the things we want and to avoid the things we don\u2019t want<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>MOTIVATIONS FOR SELF-ENHANCEMENT AND SELF ESTEEM<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Self-enhancement<\/strong>: the motivation to view oneself positively<\/li>\n<li><strong>Self serving biases<\/strong>: tendencies for people to exaggerate how good they think they are o Much research has revealed that one important reason people have biased views of themselves is because they are motivated to view themselves positively<\/li>\n<li><strong>Downward social comparison<\/strong>: comparing your performance with the performance of someone who is doing even worse than you<\/li>\n<li><strong>Upward social comparison<\/strong>: when we compare our performance with someone who is doing better than we are<\/li>\n<li><strong>Compensatory self enhancement: <\/strong>the means of compensating for doing poorly on a particular activity by focusing on how good one is at something unrelated to that activity<\/li>\n<li><strong>Discounting:<\/strong> reducing the perceived importance of the domain in which one has performed poorly<\/li>\n<li><strong>External attribution: <\/strong>interpreting the cause of an action as something outside of oneself<\/li>\n<li><strong>Bask in the reflected glory: <\/strong>emphasizing one\u2019s connection to successful others in order to feel better about oneself<\/li>\n<li><strong>Endowment effect<\/strong>: the tendency for people to value objects more once they own them, and have endowed them with their own positive qualities o People see a connection between their objects and their selves, and once an object is owned, people\u2019s self views tend to color the objects<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>o Endowment effect is significantly stronger in western samples than East Asian ones<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>East Asians do not have as strong a desire as westerners to view themselves positively<\/li>\n<li>If we learnt about our attitudes about self-esteem from our parents and schools, where did they get them?\n<ul>\n<li>First evidence of these attitudes showed up in the protestant reformation \u2013 the did something akin to self enhancing motivations<\/li>\n<li>Predestination<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Predestination:<\/strong> the idea that before we were born, it had already been determined whether we were one of the fortunate \u201celect\u201d who would spend eternity in blessed heaven after our passing, or were one of the wretched many who were doomed to burn in hell forever<\/li>\n<li>The primary cue that a person was part of the elect was that he or she possessed absolute certainty about this fact o Any doubt regarding whether an individual was of the elect was to be seen as proof that the person was not<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>o Individuals became highly motivated to interpret events in their lives as signs that God was viewing them favorably<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>As cultures become more individualistic, people become more concerned with being able to take care of themselves and to carve their own paths, creating a corresponding motivation to view oneself positively<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>MOTIVATIONS FOR FACE AND SELF IMPROVEMENT<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>\u201cFace\u201d:<\/strong> the amount of social value others give you if you live up to the standards associated with your position o The higher your social position, the greater the amount of face that is available to you\n<ul>\n<li>Face is lost whenever individuals fail to live up the standards of their roles<\/li>\n<li>People become highly motivated to enhance\/maintain their face<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Prevention orientation<\/strong>: a concern with correcting ones weaknesses and avoiding others negative judgments o Trying to prevent bad things<\/li>\n<li><strong>Promotion orientation: <\/strong>a concern with advancing oneself and aspiring for gains o Trying to secure good things<\/li>\n<li>Ex. A loss of face is one of those bad things that people are motivated to avoid<\/li>\n<li>Self improvement: a desire to seek out potential weaknesses and work on connecting them o Working on things you do poorly so you can improve yourself and be less likely to fail in the future<\/li>\n<li>A concern with face leads people to prioritize a concern with how others might view them over a concern with how they view themselves<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>RELIGION AND ACHIEVMENT MOTIVATION<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Weber recognized a fundamental tenet of cultural psychology that human behavior is necessarily interwoven with meaning<\/li>\n<li>Weber viewed capitalism as the product of people deriving meaning from a particular cultural context o These ideas became the foundation for capitalism and grew out of the protestant reformation<\/li>\n<li>The individualized relation that formed between each person and God has been argued to be a central to the blossoming of individualism that emerged during the reformation<\/li>\n<li>Weber proposed that the belief in predestination played a key role in the development of capitalism<\/li>\n<li>Weber proposed that protestants who were led to think about spiritual quests should become motivated to work harder \u2013 resulted in work being seen as a spiritual task<\/li>\n<li>He proposed that protestants should be entirely focused on their work and maintain a detached attitude toward potential distractions, such as other people because of the sacred nature of their work<\/li>\n<li>He proposed that protestant anxiety about salvation was the driving force behind their work ethic<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>o Coupled with the protestant worldview that people would inherently wicked and depraved<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Weber\u2019s ideas remain controversial<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>AGENCY AND CONTROL<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Getting what we want requires us to make efforts that are constrained by what our cultures lead us to believe about how the world works<\/li>\n<li>Culture can shape our motivations through our perceptions of control<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>PRIMARY AND SECONDARY CONTROL<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>There are 2 ways in which we gain control in our lives:\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Primary control<\/strong>: people achieve this by striving to shape existing realities to fit their perceptions, goals, or wishes<\/li>\n<li><strong>Secondary control<\/strong>: people achieve this when they attempt to align themselves with existing realities, leaving the realities unchanged but exerting control over their psychological impact<\/li>\n<li>When your desires and goals adjust themselves to what your environment is most likely to provide<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>When people view individuals to be the center of experience and action, they accordingly look to individuals as a source of control<\/li>\n<li>The independent self is perceived as relatively immutable and consistent o This view of self as an immutable entity, working within the context of a mutable world, sustains a perception of primary control<\/li>\n<li>Secondary control strategies are an effective means for managing one\u2019s successful functioning in group contexts o Spending a great deal of time thinking of ourselves as members of groups might make us perceive groups as agents that can make decisions and exert control Thus changing the way one thinks about control<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>MAKING CHOICES<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The choices we make are the most direct way we engage in primary control strategies<\/li>\n<li>More choices are available to individuals acting alone that to those who are part of an interdependent network<\/li>\n<li>In individualistic societies, people are less dependent on the actions of others than they are in collectivistic ones<\/li>\n<li>In collectivistic societies, individuals tend to identify with their group\u2019s goals<\/li>\n<li>Making individual choices seems to be especially valued in individualistic cultures<\/li>\n<li>Decreased feelings of control might be associated with some psychological costs o Research has revealed that when individuals are unable to avoid harmful situations, they can experience something known as learned helplessness<\/li>\n<li>When an individual feels that he or she is unable to control of avoid unpleasant events, and the person will suffer from the stress and potentially depression<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>o Working class adults participate in a different cultural world from that of upper middle class adults; they are more likely to face hardships in their lives and have less control over these hardships compared to upper middle class people MOTIVATIONS TO FIT IN OR STICK OUT<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>In deciding how to behave in a group we can either act in a way that fits in well with others or act in a way in which we stick out from others o The way we reach this decision is influenced by our cultures\n<ul>\n<li>Motivations to fit in are more powerful in cultural contexts that encourage people to maintain strong relationships with others<\/li>\n<li>People who value interdependence are more concerned with fitting in than standing out<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Your underlying reasons for things speak to your motivations, and these reflect a great deal about how you understand yourself and the world around you The things that motivate&hellip; <a class=\"continue\" href=\"https:\/\/www.amyork.ca\/academic\/zz\/cultural-psychology\/motivation\/\">Continue Reading<span> Motivation<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[108],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyork.ca\/academic\/zz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4310"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyork.ca\/academic\/zz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyork.ca\/academic\/zz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyork.ca\/academic\/zz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyork.ca\/academic\/zz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4310"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyork.ca\/academic\/zz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4310\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyork.ca\/academic\/zz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyork.ca\/academic\/zz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyork.ca\/academic\/zz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}