History and Theories of Motivation and Emotion

Watch for the articles being connected with this issue by returning often.

Differing Viewpoints with Theories Throughout History

Contents:

Sources of Motivation

Biological and Physiological Aspects of Motivation

Psychological Needs and Motivation

Personality Traits, Self, and Motivation

Goals and Incentives

Emotions as Motivators

New Identity; Goals For the Future

How I Can Help

Additional Materials

Explaining Physiological Proccesses Involving Motivation

Today I played a game of billiards and won several games, which was my goal from the very beginning. Billiards is a game called ‘pool’ where you strategically plan out a way to get the ball into a specific spot. This game involves biological, psychological and environmental sources of motivation (Deckers, 2010). To explain an entire game would take many pages as there are so many motivators and incentives involved with each planned turn. I am going to attempt to explain motivation in terms of my journey with the game of pool.

Personal History

I started playing pool as a novice with absolutely no experience, and played against experienced individuals. I am a very competitive person by nature, and even though I hated losing; I very rarely ever won. I would get frustrated for many reasons, but mostly because my pride was hurt because I couldn’t manage success with any of my attempts at shooting the balls. Now two people always would win on the pool table and they were a challenge to everyone. I wanted more than anything to beat these two people on a regular basis to be considered challenging. This personal history explains the need for a boost in ego while playing pool (Deckers, 2010). This is what has happened and helps me to create change so I may have better self-confidence.

References  Deckers, L. (2010). Motivation: Biological, psychological, and environmental (3rd ed.) Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

This article was written for my college course in the first week of my studies.  Motivation is not just how we go after our dreams, it's also a complex process involving our physiology (biological processes).  In order toknow which direction to take in making changes in your life, you must understand how complex the theories involving motivation really are.

 Breaking down My Activity

Receiving respect due to my skills and feeling my self-confidence rise is the main change I want to create when I am playing 'pool'. Once I decide what my goal is going to be after evaluation of my personal history with playing pool, I need to set my sights on the goal and use my motivation as a pushing mechanism towards achieving it (Deckers, 2010). The environment will provide me with incentives that will help by pulling me towards my goal. In this case, in order to be respected in playing pool, I’m going to have to be successful with every shot I attempt. Each time I sink the right ball exactly as I have predicted, I get another chance to get it right again. By practicing regularly, I will be successful with my strategies and more confident with my game; the incentive is being able to win. Feeling proud would create the motivation that pushes me towards my goal of being a respected player and winning is the environmental source that helps pull me towards what I desire (Deckers, 2010). There are three main sources of motivation and all three are found in this activity that I was involved with.

Playing pool involves biological motivations because of the strong use of our brain, nervous system, vision and calculation; we use a complex system to motivate us for what to do. When you are playing this game, the receptors in your eyes send signals to your brain, which then is interpreted and messages are sent out telling us what to do (Deckers, 2010). Much of this is learned through past experiences when engaged in the same activity. We are born with innate abilities, particularly for survival, and many of these physiological factors are present when attempting to make a correctly made shot (Deckers, 2010). This complex system also has a link with genetic areas we possess at birth.

This game also involves Psychological motivators, which is also an internal source; such as feeling intellectual, successful, respected, focused and stimulated. Just like the biological process, this is an internal source, as it comes from within (Deckers, 2010). Emotions are a special type of motivator and individual people experience different motivators differently because of unique characteristics, genes, etc (Deckers, 2010). Because I am a very competitive person and love to win, the motivation behind my incentive will be stronger.

This game also has an external source that plays a part in motivation. This area involves the environment, which acts as a form that pulls you towards your goal (Deckers, 2010). Your motivation is going to serve as an action that is further enhanced by the reward you will receive as a result of your decision. In this particular game, there are many external sources that work as incentives to make particular decisions in pool (Deckers, 2010). The most obvious is winning, then accuracy, etc. There are many ways you can actually be rewarded when you are attempting to play a game of billiards. As an example: Accuracy is the motivation behind playing, and in order to be accurate, I have to strategically sink specific pool balls into pockets found around the table (which is where I'll focus my energy). What is the external source, or reward found within the environmental areas? If I intentionally complete a shot correctly, I am rewarded with getting another turn. This reward pulls me closer to being accurate when playing billiards (which is the end result).

ConclusionMotivation is what makes people around the world unique. Depending how often, how hard and how determined we are can mean the difference to how fast we actually reach our goal (Deckers, 2010). All factors, both psychological and physical require energy and we all create goals with which to focus our motivation because of experiences in our lives. If we quit creating goals, we’d quit finding motivation, and without motivation we’d no longer feel alive (Deckers, 2010). We need motivation in order to enhance our personal growth; with the purpose of achieving total success. We will never truly ever reach the highest levels of success or we no longer would have a need to live. Just like motivations and incentives are a means to obtaining the end, I have achieved my goal and have now won so many times that I am definitely more confident and well-respected. So the environment provided incentives that gave me a reward for sticking to my motivation and I did achieve success with my plan. Now it's time to work on changing other areas of my life and create another goal.

Summary

What tells us that we need to change our lives, and what inspires us to go in the direction that we choose?  Whenever we have a goal that we wish to obtain, we must figure out how we are going to have a successful approach to the situation.  This entire process involved in obtaining the positive solution is a complex process that involves the brain and body.  This means that we should take care of our bodies as optimally as possible in order to assure that our mind and body are capable of following through with your plans.

Whenever something happens in our life, we are surged with a flood of emotions, which are caused from the chemicals and hormones that are released in the body that affect the way the brain acts.  It's not easy to alwqays control the flood of emotions and if we don't think things through before we react, we can make matters worst.

There is a reason behind everything we choose to do and when we participate in events that cross our paths, we tend to want to change the emotion.  This change in emotions is really the motivator behind your goal.  The rewards you expect to receive, both the big and the small, which usually happens to make us feel better about ourselves will guide us to success.  

It may not be a simple fix to the problem you are facing, and may require some research on your part in order to accomplish your hopes and dreams; but if you stick to the plan at  hand, you will feel like life is rewarding you and not just shoving sharp sticks into your eyes.

Now that you understand how our body and mind works from a biological process, and you understand how important it is to take care of your health, you can read further information I have learned on this path to self discovery.  Leading a healthy life is not just a matter of making good choices, it's also a matter of keeping your body prime so that it sends the correct signals necessary to create a new identity for yourself.

Each thought process that you  tend to come across or encounter is bound to involve a process more complex than the thought itself.