Motivational science is one of the fastest-growing areas of research in social psychology, incorporating multiple perspectives from social-personality research. This volume provides students and researchers with a comprehensive overview of major topics in social motivation. All contributors are renowned specialists in their field who provide in-depth and integrated coverage of the major empirical and theoretical contributions in their area. Social Motivation is essential reading for all social psychologists with an interest in social-motivational processes, and will also be of interest to people working in political science and cultural studies looking for a psychological perspective to work in their field.
`Accessible and engaging, ... introducing students directly to the research literature [and] encouraging them to develop considerable theoretical sophistication.'---Katherine Arbuthnott, University of Regina --
As I begin to write this Preface, I feel a rush of excitement. I have now finished the book; my gestalt is coming into completion. Throughout the months that I have been writing this, I have, indeed, been intrinsically motivated. Now that it is finished I feel quite competent and self-determining (see Chapter 2). Whether or not those who read the book will perceive me that way is also a concern of mine (an extrinsic one), but it is a wholly separate issue from the intrinsic rewards I have been experiencing. This book presents a theoretical perspective. It reviews an enormous amount of research which establishes unequivocally that intrinsic motivation exists. Also considered herein are various approaches to the conceptualizing of intrinsic motivation. The book concentrates on the approach which has developed out of the work of Robert White (1959), namely, that intrinsically motivated behaviors are ones which a person engages in so that he may feel competent and self-determining in relation to his environment. The book then considers the development of intrinsic motiva tion, how behaviors are motivated intrinsically, how they relate to and how intrinsic motivation is extrinsically motivated behaviors, affected by extrinsic rewards and controls. It also considers how changes in intrinsic motivation relate to changes in attitudes, how people attribute motivation to each other, how the attribution process is motivated, and how the process of perceiving motivation (and other internal states) in oneself relates to perceiving them in others.
This innovative text sheds light on how people work -- why they sometimes function well and, at other times, behave in ways that are self-defeating or destructive. The author presents her groundbreaking research on adaptive and maladaptive cognitive-motivational patterns and shows: * How these patterns originate in people's self-theories * Their consequences for the person -- for achievement, social relationships, and emotional well-being * Their consequences for society, from issues of human potential to stereotyping and intergroup relations * The experiences that create them This outstanding text is a must-read for researchers in social psychology, child development, and education, and is appropriate for both graduate and senior undergraduate students in these areas.
Motivation, Altruism, Personality and Social Psychology takes up the debate around altruism and the acceptance in society that self-interest is a healthy guiding principle in life, and argues that helping behaviour can lead to self-fulfilment and happiness and is beneficial to psychological health and society in general.
This is a classic edition of Hugh Wagner’s influential overview of the biopsychological underpinnings of human motivation. It includes a new foreword written by Michael Richter who reflects on Wagner’s 20 years of teaching, writing and research in the field of biopsychology and promises an engaging, succinct and accessible introductory text that remains relevant and useful to students today. The Psychobiology of Human Motivation explores what directs our behaviour, from basic physiological needs like hunger and thirst to more complex aspects of social behaviour like altruism. Wagner explores the limits of biological explanations and shows how humans can influence ‘basic’ physiological drives in order to adapt to a complex social environment. An accessible, engaging resource strengthened by many applied examples, Wagner’s text continues to be integral reading for undergraduate students seeking a solid introduction to the psychology of human motivation across the social and behavioural sciences.
Moving beyond the traditional, and unproductive, rivalry between the fields of motivation and cognition, this book integrates the two domains to shed new light on the control of goal-directed action. Renowned social and motivational psychologists present concise formulations of the latest research programs which are effectively mapping the territory, providing new findings, and suggesting innovative strategies for future research. Ideally structured for classroom use, this book will effectively familiarize readers with important theories in the psychology of action.
This volume covers the current status of research in the neurobiology of motivated behaviors in humans and other animals in healthy condition. This includes consideration of the psychological processes that drive motivated behavior and the anatomical, electrophysiological and neurochemical mechanisms which drive these processes and regulate behavioural output. The volume also includes chapters on pathological disturbances in motivation including apathy, or motivational deficit as well as addictions, the pathological misdirection of motivated behavior. As with the chapters on healthy motivational processes, the chapters on disease provide a comprehensive up to date review of the neurobiological abnormalities that underlie motivation, as determined by studies of patient populations as well as animal models of disease. The book closes with a section on recent developments in treatments for motivational disorders.
