ACHIEVEMENT MOTIVATION

 

Motivation is the basic drive for all of our actions. Motivation refers to the dynamics of our behaviour, which involves our needs, desires, and ambitions in life. Achievement motivation is based on reaching success and achieving all of our aspirations in life. Achievement goals can affect the way a person performs a task and represent a desire to show competence. These basic physiological motivational drives affect our natural behaviour in different environments. Most of our goals are incentive-based and can vary from basic hunger to the need for love and the establishment of mature sexual relationships. Our motives for achievement can range from biological needs to satisfying creative desires or realizing success in competitive ventures. Motivation is important because it affects our lives every day. All of our behaviours, actions, thoughts, and beliefs are influenced by our inner drive to succeed.

Motivational researchers share the view that achievement behaviour is an interaction between situational variables and the individual subject's motivation to achieve. Two motives are directly involved in the prediction of behaviour, implicit and explicit. Implicit motives are spontaneous impulses to act, also known as task performances and are aroused through incentives inherent to the task. Explicit motives are expressed through deliberate choices and are more often stimulated for extrinsic reasons. Also, individuals with strong implicit needs to achieve goals set higher internal standards, whereas others tend to adhere to societal norms. These two motives often work together to determine the behaviour of the individual in direction and passion.

Explicit and implicit motivations have a compelling impact on behaviour. Task behaviours are accelerated in the face of a challenge through implicit motivation, making performing a task in the most effective manner the primary goal. A person with a strong implicit drive will feel pleasure from achieving a goal in the most efficient way. The increase in effort and overcoming the challenge by mastering the task satisfies the individual. However, explicit motives are built around a person's self-image. This type of motivation shapes a person's behaviour based on their own self-view and can influence their choices and responses from outside cues. The primary agent for this type of motivation is perception or perceived ability. Many theorists still cannot agree whether achievement is based on mastering one's skills or striving to promote a better self-image. Most research is still unable to determine whether these different types of motivation would result in different behaviours in the same environment.

Achievement motivation has been conceptualized in many different ways. Our understanding of achievement-relevant effects, cognition, and behaviour has improved. Despite being similar in nature, many achievement motivation approaches have been developed separately, suggesting that most achievement motivation theories are in concordance with one another instead of competing. Motivational researchers have sought to promote a hierarchical model of approach and avoidance achievement motivation by incorporating the two prominent theories: the achievement motive approach and the achievement goal approach. Achievement motives include the need for achievement and the fear of failure. These are the more predominant motives that direct our behaviour toward positive and negative outcomes. Achievement goals are viewed as more solid cognitive representations pointing individuals toward a specific end. There are three types of these achievement goals: a performance-approach goal, a performance-avoidance goal, and a mastery goal. A performance-approach goal is focused on attaining competence relative to others, a performance-avoidance goal is focused on avoiding incompetence relative to others, and a mastery goal is focused on the development of competence itself and of task mastery. Achievement motives can be seen as direct predictors of achievement-relevant circumstances. Thus, achievement motives are said to have an indirect or distal influence, and achievement goals are said to have a direct or proximal influence on achievement-relevant outcomes.

These motives and goals are viewed as working together to regulate achievement behaviour. The hierarchical model presents achievement goals as predictors for performance outcomes. The model is being further conceptualized to include more approaches to achievement motivation. One weakness of the model is that it does not provide an account of the processes responsible for the link between achievement goals and performance. As this model is enhanced, it becomes more useful in predicting the outcomes of achievement-based behaviours.

Theorists have proposed that people's achievement goals affect their achievement-related attitudes and behaviours. Two different types of achievement-related attitudes include task-involvement and ego-involvement. Task involvement is a motivational state in which a person's main goal is to acquire skills and understanding whereas the main goal in ego-involvement is to demonstrate superior abilities. One example of an activity where someone strives to attain mastery and demonstrate superior ability is schoolwork. However situational cues, such as the person's environment or surroundings, can affect the success of achieving a goal at any time.

Studies confirm that a task-involvement activity more often results in challenging attributions and increasing effort (typically in activities providing an opportunity to learn and develop competence) than in an ego-involvement activity. Intrinsic motivation, which is defined as striving to engage in an activity because of self-satisfaction, is more prevalent when a person is engaged in task-involved activities. When people are more ego-involved, they tend to take on a different conception of their ability, where differences in ability limit the effectiveness of the effort. Ego-involved individuals are driven to succeed by outperforming others and their feelings of success depend on maintaining self-worth and avoiding failure. On the other hand, task-involved individuals tend to adopt their conception of ability as learning through applied effort. Therefore, less able individuals will feel more successful as long as they can satisfy an effort to learn and improve. Ego-invoking conditions tend to produce less favourable responses to failure and difficulty.

Competence moderated attitudes and behaviours are more prevalent in ego-involved activities than task-involved ones. Achievement does not moderate intrinsic motivation in task-involving conditions, in which people of all levels of ability could learn to improve. In ego-involving conditions, intrinsic motivation was higher among higher achievers who demonstrated superior ability than in low achievers who could not demonstrate such ability. These different attitudes toward achievement can also be compared in information seeking.

Task and ego-involving settings bring about different goals, conceptions of ability, and responses to difficulty. They also promote different patterns of information seeking. People of all levels of ability will seek information relevant to attaining their goal of improving mastery in task-involving conditions. However, they need to seek information regarding self-appraisal to gain a better understanding of their self-capacity. On the other hand, people in ego-involving settings are more interested in information about social comparisons, assessing their ability relative to others.

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