Tag Archives: Motivation

Supportive Contexts for Growth and Development: an SDT Perspective

Self Determination Theory(SDT) posits that all humans require some nutriments to grow and develop; just like plants need nutriments like sunlight, water, nutrients etc to flourish, so do humans have some basic human needs for autonomy, competence, relatedness and meaningfulness (my addition) to develop and grow and thrive. If these needs are fulfilled (just like if the plants get sunlight , water and nutrients) then this leads to good outcomes like enhanced well being and optimal functioning and good relationships and purpose in life. However, if the needs are thwarted then ill-being and soured relationships, stagnation and nihilism may prevail.

SDT also posits that the sociocultural environment and situations and contexts can be more or less supportive of the basic psychological needs. If the sociocultural environment and situation/ context is more supportive of autonomy, competence, relatedness and meaning, then that leads to more growth and flourishing and better development over time.

Let’s just expand on this a little. We will consider basic psychological needs in infancy and childhood and see what activities or systems are involved in their satisfactions and what consequences it may have on the developmental trajectory.

Consider the need for autonomy; an infant/ child is typically exploratory and unless constrained exercises his/ her choice by exploring the environment. The parent has to set some limits on exploration to prevent harm and thus this conflicts with the child’s need for autonomy. Early on they learn that exploring unknown territories can lead to adverse outcomes and if parents are too permissive they quickly learn the emotion of fear. On the other hand they also have an intrinsic motivation associated with the emotion of interest that makes them find novel things and places attractive and hence worth exploring. If their need for autonomy is reasonably honored, they quickly form a concept of SELF that is distinct from caregiver. They realize, and start regulating, their emotions and an autonomy supportive environment leads to their emotional development. In terms of Erikson’s stage theories, they successfully navigate the autonomy vs shame and doubt stage.

Consider next the need for competence; an infant/ child typically likes to explore the limits of what they can do/ hope to do via play – both physical and symbolic. The parents/ adults typically provide some feedback on what is acceptable in terms of play to ensure that the right types of play are being indulged in to develop adult capability. For eg, if an infant tries to walk before crawling they will support the age appropriate crawling related play first. Early on infants/ children realize that playing in a free wheeling manner may lead to disappointment and sadness. On the other hand they also have an intrinsic motivation associated with the emotion of enjoyment that makes them find novel activities and objects interesting and worth playing with. If their need for competence is reasonably honored, they quickly become TASK-oriented, rather than ego oriented while indulging in any activity. They realize and start regulating their behaviors and a competence supportive environment leads to their physical and behavioral development. In terms of Erikson’s stage theories they successfully navigate industry vs inferiority stage.

Consider now the relatedness need; an infant/child is typically attuned to others and comes ready to be imprinted upon and have attachment with one or more caregivers. The infant/ child comes vulnerable and needy (the infant needs milk while the child needs say love) and greedy and the parent/ caregiver may regulate the care and attention and time they can devote to the child. Early on, when the needs are not met consistently or are contingent, the infant/ child learns to be (passive) aggressive and angry towards the attachment figure and learns to avoid contact. On the other hand the infant/child is driven by an intrinsic motivation associated with the emotion of love that makes them approach familiar people (parents/ teachers) and contexts(home/school) and worth building attachments with. If their need for relatedness is reasonably honored, they quickly become PEOPLE focused, considering people as ends rather than instrumental means to any outcomes.They realize and start regulating their relationships and a relatedness supportive environment leads to their social and moral development. In terms of Erikson’s stage theories they successfully navigate trust vs mistrust stage.

Lastly, consider the need for meaningfulness; an infant /child is typically a scientist-in-the-crib and comes ready to make sense of and interpret events and happenings and exercise agency and learn. The infant comes eager and curious and active and the parent may restrict some actions (like touching the genitals) that may lead to feelings of guilt and disgust in the infant/ child. On the other hand, the infant/ child is driven by an intrinsic motivation that is driven by the emotion of wonder and he/ she systemically and scientifically experiments with the surroundings and tries to find causal relations and have an impact and learn. If the need for meaning is reasonably honored, they quickly become WORLD focused, being ecological aware and seeing how they fit in. They realize and start regulating their cognition and a meaning supportive environment leads to their intellectual development. In terms of Erikson’s stage theories they successfully navigate initiative vs guilt stage.

In an nutshell, what I am proposing is that there are four systems revolving around exploration (autonomy), play (competence), attachment (relatedness) and learning (meaning) in the infants/ child that also give rise to the emotion pairs of fear/interest, sadness/enjoyment, anger/love and guilt/wonder that may sustain in adulthood also in a slightly transformed way. Also these may conceivable be related to the four major goals of Emotional well-being/positivity, Success/productivity, Morality/intimacy and Meaning/generativity.

I will rest my case here. In the next post I will actually go into what makes for an autonomy supportive, competence supportive, relatedness supportive and meaning supportive sociocultural context

Emotions and Motivations: an SDT perspective

I have blogged previously about personality and emotions and also personality and motivations, but haven’t made an explicit linkage between emotions and motivations; today I wish to rectify that and talk about how emotions and motivations are interconnected. I will be using the Self-Determination Theory (SDT) of human motivation to make my case.

SDT consists of as many as six mini-theories; we will focus on OIT and BPNT for the purposes of this post.

Organismic Integration Theory (OIT) posits that people act due to a variety of reasons. Some of these are intrinsic reasons (the activity/ task feels fun, pleasurable, energizing) while other are extrinsic reasons (someone asks us to do it, we do it to gain rewards/ avoid punishments). When someone is intrinsically motivated, they feel more autonomously regulated or in other words they feel more in control of the choices they make and activities they do and endorse these actions as emanating from the self. However, when one is extrinsically motivated they feel controlled in their choices and activities and may attribute their actions to the rewards/ punishment contingencies under which they are working.

People indulge in all types of activities, only a small part of which is for intrinsic reasons such as the activity being fun and interesting. We need to work, to pay the bills, and though the activity is performed primarily to gain external rewards (pay), the reasons for the same can be internalized to various extent. OIT posits that the more integrated to self and internalized we make the reasons for doing an activity that is primarily or initially driven by external regulation, the more autonomous the regulation will become and less controlled it will feel.

For e.g., I may do my work properly due to fear of loss of job or expectation of a pay hike and my motivation is external and I am externally regulated. This type of motivation is the most controlled. I may also do my work properly because I feel guilty on doing a shoddy job and displeasing my supervisor- here I have internalized the motive as emanating from within- feelings of guilt- and hence this will feel less controlled and more autonomous than external regulation. This is introjected regulation. I may also do my work properly because I think that’s the right thing to do, maybe to support my family – I identify with and accept that part of my life. Thus my motivation for work would be Identified motivation and will feel even more autonomous. Finally, I may do my work properly because I am a conscientious/ honest person and this fits in with my notion of who I am- I can identify with this motivation/ reason and integrate with my self concept. This form of Integrated motivation is the most autonomous of all, barring intrinsic motivation, which feels the most autonomous, because you don’t need to internalize any external reasons.

Basic Psychological Needs Theory (BPNT) on the other hand claims that all humans have three basic psychological needs- the need for autonomy ( being able to be volitional and endorse ones actions), the need for competence (being able to be effective at a task) and need for relatedness (being able to belong and have intimate, satisfying connections with others). When these needs are satisfied, a person thrives and works on optimal level, when these needs are thwarted a person languishes and may have ill-being.

There is some interaction between OIT and BPNT. The more a person acts from autonomous motivations (feeling free and volitional), rather than controlled motivations (feeling pressured and compelled) the more his or her basic needs will be satisfied and thus the more happier and well-functioning he/she will be.

The above was the standard SDT formulations; I want to propose some changes/ modification to the same. To start with, as many others have proposed, I want to propose a new basic psychological need- the need for meaning. This need consists of both the need to find meaning and to lead a meaningful life- the need for both coherence and contribution in one’s life. Thus one would be driven by a need for comprehending the world and find in some inherent meaning in it; one would also be driven to add meaning to that world by being generative and making an impact. Just like other needs, the satisfaction of this need for meaning will lead to positive well-being, while frustration of this need will lead to ill-being.

The second change I want to propose is that just like extrinsic motivation is split into four types- External, Introjected, Identified, and Integrated, based on how autonomous/ controlled it is , we also differentiate between different types of intrinsic motivations- Intrinsic motivation driven by competence, Intrinsic motivation driven by meaning, Intrinsic motivation driven by relatedness and finally Intrinsic motivation driven by autonomy. I believe, and this is an empirical question, that even Intrinsic motivations of the four types will differ in the amount/ quality of autonomous regulation.

Now, that we have laid the groundwork, let me go straight to the main thesis of this post viz that emotions and motivations are connected in a very systematic manner. To illustrate my point, I will be using my eight basic emotions theory. To recall, the basic emotions are Fear, Disgust/guilt, Anger, Sadness, Interest/ courage, Wonder, Love and Joy. These emotions come in opposing pairs- Fear/ Interest, Disgust/ Wonder, Anger/ Love and Sadness/Joy. My thesis is that the motivations too come in pairs- External/ Intrinsic with competence; Introjected/ Intrinsic with meaning; Identified/Intrinsic with relatedness; and finally Integrated/ Intrinsic with autonomy. Also these motivation pairs correspond to the emotion pairs in the same order.

Lets start with External regulation. The threat of punishment is one mechanism that is active here, resulting plausibly in an emotion of Fear. Also when competence need, which is associated with this motivation pair is frustrated, then one is likely to feel incompetent and thereby suffer from anxiety based psychopathology , which is associated with emotion of Fear.

Consider on the other hand Intrinsic motivation with Competence. The exploratory drive or opportunity within challenge, is one mechanism active here, resulting plausibly in the emotion of Interest / courage. Also when competence, which is associated with this motivation pair, becomes a focal concern to the exclusion of balance with other needs, then one falls victim to obsessive passion and is thereby may even suffer from obsession and compulsions related psychopathology which is associated with emotion of Interest.

Next consider Introjected regulation. The incomplete internationalization is typically engendered via feelings of Guilt etc. Also when meaning need, associated with this motivation pair, is frustrated, one is likely to feel insignificant/ disillusioned and thereby suffer from addiction/ substance use based psychopathology, which is associated with emotion of guilt/ disgust.

On the other hand, Intrinsic motivation with Meaning leads to curiosity and sense of Wonder. When meaning need associated with this takes over to the exclusion of other needs one consequence could be dissociation based psychopathology associated with emotions of wonder.

Consider next Identified regulation– here at times there is compartmentalizing of self leading to frustration and Anger. When relatedness need , which is related to this particular pair, is frustrated it results in feelings of alienation leading to psychopathology associated with hostility, which is associated with the emotion of anger.

Intrinsic motivation with relatedness on the other hand leads to feelings of belonging and Love. When this need is focused on exclusively however, this may lead to excessive valuing of ingroups and prejudice towards outgroups.

Integrated regulation, where one’s self is in alignment and yet one is controlled and not fully autonomous, may lead to feelings of loss and Sadness. When autonomy need associated with this is frustrated, it results in feelings of being controlled and may result in depressive psychopathology, itself associated with sadness.

Finally, Intrinsic motivation with autonomy, leads to feelings of fun, play and Joy. When this need for autonomy becomes a predominant need however to exclusion of others one may get so charged up and free wheeling as to become manic, a pathology associated with emotion of joy.

I have delineated above based on strong theoretical grounds. There is some empirical support too, but more work needs to happen. This recent study for eg shows that negative emotions like fear and anger lead to loss in feelings of agency. I know that agency is not the same as controlled vs autonomous regulation, but the findings are tantalizing.

To me the emotion pair, motivation pair linkage makes perfect sense. Do let me know if you are aware of any research studies exploring on similar lines?

Personality and Goals

Goals, that people strive for, make an important part of a person’s personality- be it the daily strivings or the personal projects. However, this post is not about goals at that level of personality.

Goals can be classified as approach goals or avoidance goals based on whether one wants to achieve a particular positive outcome or is more motivated by avoiding a particular negative outcome. They can also be classified as mastery or performance goals based on whether one wants to learn and master the area and satisfy ones internal standards or whether one wants to meet external standards and is driven by appearing smart and capable. The roots of these goals, and underlying motivations, lie in Carol Dweck’s theory of growth and fixed mindsets.

So basically combining the two concepts above, we have four combinations:  Mastery-approach where one is motivated to grow and inspired by a future vision of oneself; Mastery -avoidance where one is motivated to maintain functioning and the desire to not fail to live up to earlier performance or past image; Performance – approach where one wants to perform better than other people; and Performance- avoidance where one wants to avoid performing worse than others.

In addition to this, there is promotion and prevention regulatory focus theory of goals and motivation that posits that we all have either a promotion focus, whereby we want to move towards goals and are eager or prevention focus wherein we want to avoid outcomes and are vigilant. These regulatory focus are a result of the discrepancy between actual and ideal and ought selves. The self discrepancy theory by Higgins et al posits that each of us have a few guides guiding our behavior-  ideal self is the self that we aspire to (a future vision) while ought self is what we have internalized as our duties, obligations etc. While ideal selves are more congruent with promotion focus, ought self discrepancy reduction leads to prevention focus.

Some of you might be seeing where I am getting from here. We are moving here form goals to trait level. What I propose is that while Mastery-approach goals lead to and are congruent with Promotion focus (as traditionally defined by Higgins), Mastery -avoidance leads to and follows from Prevention focus; similarly Performance-approach goals are what are typically considered as Avoidance motivation in literature ( Elliot et al) and Performance-  avoidance goals as related to Avoidance motivation. Thus it makes sense to consider and be sensitive to four types of motivational trait constructs- Promotion focus, Prevention Focus, Approach motivation and Avoidance motivation and to see them as distinct from Goals per se.  This is akin to the state -trait distinction in case of affective terms.

One can also correlate these motivational dispositional terms to Self determination theory. Basically, it appears common sense that mastery -approach goals are quite intrinsically motivating;  mastery -avoidance goals probably more identified motivation, but still autonomous. When we move to Performance goals the motivation becomes more controlled. Performance -approach goals driven by introjected motivation while Performance- avoidance goals to extrinsic motivation.

So how do these four motivational traits stand in comparison to the other well known personality traits and constructs?   This is an empirical question to be settled and part of it has been settled in this paper [pdf] by Elliot and Thrash.

Basically Elliot et al using factor analysis, both EFA and CFA showed that personality constructs like Extraversion, positive emotionality and  BAS cluster together and are related to Mastery goals (they did not differentiate between mastery -approach and mastery -avoid); while Neuroticism, negative emotionality and BIS go together and are related to Performance-avoidance.  These latter 3 were also related to Performance approach goals, as were the former 3. The 2 underlying factors they theorized as depicting approach and avoidance motivation/ temperament.

I believe they would have got better and clearer results if they has used more constructs than just E/N and +ve emotioanlity, -ve emotionality, or BAS/BIS and also included C/E/A and constraint/disinhibition and FFFS too in the factor analysis and also split Mastery goals.

If so, I conjecture the following four factors:

  1.  Promotion focus: driven by ideal self discrepancy and mastery motivations comparing with oneself and one’s future version aspired to. When people work with this focus they experience positive emotionality, are open to experience and are motivated by intrinsic motives (SDT).
  2. Prevention focus: driven by ought self discrepancy and mastery motivations comparing onself to past performances by self and identified duties and obligations. The people with this focus experience positive emotionality, are Extraverted and the BAS drives their behavior.
  3. Approach Motivation: driven by external comparisons and performance motivations to achieve something.  High in Conscientiousness, experience constraint and are driven by BIS with introjected motivation.
  4. Avoidance Motivation: driven by external comparison to avoid bad outcomes. High in Neuroticism , experience negative emotionality and the FFFS drives behavior. They have extrinsic motivations.

This, of course, remains to be empirically proved.

To thrive in life invest in these 8 psychological constructs

We all want to excel in life and various psychological constructs have been proposed that can help us in this mission. These range from grit(mostly used in academic domain) to PsyCap (mostly used in work domain) to the concept of deliberate practice (mostly used in niche domains).

That's My Goal

That’s My Goal (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Grit has been proposed to be made up of passion and perseverance; passion itself being made up of investment of time and effort regularly in activities that one finds important, loved and self-defining (i.e. one identifies one’s self with the passionate activity).

PsyCap is made up of Confidence (self-efficacy), Hope, Resilience and Optimism; Hope itself being made up of Agency (goal directed energy) and Pathways (planning to meet goals).

So with so many constructs floating around which ones are basic and which ones derivative?

I propose the following eight basic psychological constructs, which if focused upon can lead to well-being and success in life:

  1. Purpose: Everyone should start with defining their life purpose. Once defined, it provides a general direction and decision-pulse for all your decisions, actions etc.  It is the super-ordinate goal of your life and all other goals should be subordinate and aligned to this.  A firm commitment to this purpose provides the motivation/ drive to achieve and flourish. This acts as the ‘narrow’ polarity of the fundamental four ABCD model by restricting our choices, once purpose is determined and defined. This is the end goal.
  2. Pathways : If purpose is the end goal, pathways are the means or subordinate goals and strategies to achieve that super-ordinate goal.  It enables one to flexibly take stock of the progress towards the end goal and adjust or change the means goal to continue momentum towards the end goal. As Angela Duckworth says ‘ “Go, go, go until you can’t go anymore…then turn left.” This acts as the ‘broad’ polarity of the fundamental four ABCD model by expanding our repertoire of responses.
  3. Positive narratives: We all tell stories to ourselves and our view of past is not objective but actively constructed. And its better to tell positive stories to ourselves than otherwise. This is related to learned optimism. As per Seligman, one should make stable, internal and pervasive/ generic attributions about positive events and temporary, external and specific attributions about negative events. This eventually enables us to  have a positive image of our abilities in the past and leads to hope and self confidence that we will be able to achieve in future too. This is related to ‘other’ polarity: how we interpret what happens to us via others .
  4. Positive self-belief: Call it confidence, call it self-efficacy or call it even agency ; this is belief in one’s own ability and efforts to lead to positive outcomes.  This is obviously related to ‘self’ and is cognitive in nature.
  5. Perseverance: This is being in for the long haul. When set upon achieving a goal, time is not a constraint, and one would continue investing time into the pursuit; if setbacks happen, one rebounds or emerges more determined. One does not change one’s goal or strategy easily. This is also related to resilience. This is ‘passive ‘ polarity as one reacts to setbacks / obstacle when they happen, but otherwise just continues investing time and energy. This is behavioral in nature.
  6. Practice: This is ensuring that efforts are not a constraint when it comes to achieving the goal. One is willing to work hard to archive ones goals and one actively and regularly and diligently puts in that effort. This again is ‘active’ and behavioral in nature. The willingness to put in hard work can again be developed like other constructs.
  7. Passion: This is not the regular definition of passion; by passion here I mean a consistency of interests and a fascination with a subject. It includes things like not getting distracted or waylaid by competing interests and also not letting you interest wane or fade over the time. It is obviously related to emotions and is the ‘pain’ polarity as an obsessive passion may sometime lead to pain.
  8. Playfulness: This is about having a playful attitude when working towards your goals;  it includes things like enthusiasm towards the goal, enjoying the journey by having flow experiences and being engaged and curious. This too is emotional in nature and is related to ‘pleasure’ polarity.

Some other construct are a composite of these; hope is a composite and so is deliberate practice or resilience.

Similarly, there are other constructs like task commitment ( like perseverance, endurance, hard work, but also self-confidence, perceptiveness and a special fascination with a special subject) which cover almost all of these.

I believe the above has great utility and can be a good framework for studying non-ability , non-personality factors that lead to exceptional performance. I am excited and look forward to other people adopting this model for their research and conceptualizations.

Personality and Motivation

ResearchBlogging.org

Agreeableness by state
Image via Wikipedia

I have blogged extensively about personality and how it may be related to emotions. A common theme underlying my discussion of personality and emotion has been these traits/states arising as a result of adaptation to basic evolutionary tasks or problems that each living organism/species has to solve. Where there are problems to be solved or tasks to be accomplished or goals to be achieved,  there is also going to be motivations and drive to achieve them and underlying needs that drive that pursuit. Thus motivation and Personality/ emotion are also intricately linked and associated when one uses the underlying basic adaptive problems paradigm.

In my last post I had mentioned that Personality can be discussed in just descriptive terms as in trait theories, the most famous of which is the five factor model of personality or one could look at the underlying processes and mechanism and come up with theories that are grounded in motivational or cognitive terms as to what actually drives the behavior in consistence with the observable traits and behaviors.

I have recently come across an important paper in my view which tried to bridge this gap by explaining the motivational systems (or reaction norms as they call it) underlying the five factor model of personality.

To recall, the five factor model or OCEAN model posits the following five factors:

  1. Neuroticism or sensitivity to negative affect
  2. Conscientiousness or ability to delay gratification and persist with task at hand
  3. Extraversion: propensity to socialize and be more outgoing
  4. Agreeableness: empathetic and cooperativeness
  5. Openness to Experience: Intellect and curiosity etc.

Now, I have elaborated or tried to explain the OCEAN  traits as per my understanding, but Dennissen and Penke looked at how prominent personality researchers have interpreted the traits to arrive at a common motivational framework that is grounded in theory and then they developed a scale in accordance with theory to measure  these motivational  reaction norms – the important difference from tradition FFM message scales being that all statements referred to underlying motivations/ propensities etc and did not refer to specific behaviors in specific situations.  They then subjected their scale to factor analysis that came with a five factor structure that was consistent with FFM and also had predictive validity of similar sorts. They thus conclude that their theoretical framework is on the right track.

There are of course problems with such can interpretation, but I found some of their motivational reaction norms pretty consistent with my basic adaptive problems and basic developmental life tasks paradigm, while some I could find were slightly different or more nuanced interpretations.

Looking at the original data set of 9 personalty researchers from where they derived this framework, some of these I could resolve to my satisfaction.

Neuroticism is interpreted as sensitivity to social rejection/exclusion. I have problems with this interpretation in that focuses too much on social dimension, while to me it is general sensitivity to threat/stress.  In their paper they do discuss this:

As can be seen in Table 1, almost all theorists link neuroticism to individual differences in affect regulation, conceptualizing this factor as differences in the ability to handle stress (Buss, 1991), facilitation of performance under pressure (Hogan, 1996), affect regulation (McAdams, 1992; van Lieshout, 2000), and affect intensity. These conceptualizations all regard neuroticism as the sensitivity of a domain-general system to respond to environmental threats. Various studies have also linked neuroticism to individual differences in general differential reactivity to negative events or stressors.
I like the above interpretation of Neuroticism as it is consistent with the adaptive problem of avoiding Foes. However, the authors  chose this interpretation over the above:

By comparison, other conceptualizations treat neuroticismas a trait that is especially activated in situations in which people’s social relationships are threatened. For example, Matthews (2004) pointed out that ‘‘individual differences in human anxiety revolve primarily around social fears such as being criticized or rejected, rather than physical threats” (p. 260, italics added). Support for this conceptualization comes from research by Bolger and colleagues (1989), who found that interpersonal stressors were more important in causing negative mood than non-social ones, such as transportation problems or work overload. Similarly, Denissen and Penke (in press) found that neuroticism was particularly correlated with the intensity of people’s negative reactions to social threats.

Conscientiousness did not have many interpretations:

All theorists listed in Table 1 agree that conscientiousness is involved in task-related behaviors. Speci?cally, McAdams (1992) conceptualizes this factor as involved in work-related behaviors, MacDonald (1995) as the monitoring of non-attainment of goals, van Lieshout (2000) as executive regulation in the performance domain, Ashton and Lee (2001) as the intensity of engagement in task-related behaviors, Buss (1991) as the capacity for reliable work and enduring commitment, and Hogan (1996) as trustworthiness and dependability. Holmes (2002) and Nettle (2006) are arguably most successful in capturing the positive aspects of both poles of the conscientiousness continuum by describing it as the promotion of immediate vs. distant goal striving. This conceptualization nicely maps onto lifespan-theoretical insights regarding individual differences in the tenacity of goal pursuit  (Brandtstädter,Wentura, & Rothermund, 1999). In the current paper, we adopt the view of these various authors that conscientiousness can be plausibly conceptualized as differences in the tenacity of goal pursuit.

To me the goal pursuit tenacity bodes well for adaptive problem of finding Food or exploring.

Extraversion seems to have multiple interpretations, all to my eyes equally valid.:

In Table 1, three clusters of conceptualizations of extraversion emerge. First, van Lieshout (2000) conceptualizes this factor as re?ecting a person’s activation vs. inhibition of impulses, which is somewhat similar to MacDonald’s (1995, 1998) notion of extraversion as re?ecting individual differences in behavioral approach. Both views are consistent with Lucas, Diener, Grob, Suh, and Shao (2000), who hypothesized that extraversion is positively associated with the sensitivity of individuals’ reward system. Because these authors view positive affect as a proxy of the activity of the general reward system, this hypothesis can also account for the high correlations between extraversion and individual differences in positive affect (Watson & Clark, 1997), even when controlling for social activity (Watson, Clark, McIntyre, & Hamaker, 1992).
A second cluster of explanations of the extraversion factor is the notion that this trait is involved in people’s hierarchical proclivity (Buss, 1991), leadership potential (Hogan, 1996), or disposition to wield power (McAdams, 1992). In addition, the disposition for dominance vs. submission in accessing resources is one of the two social dimensions that can be mapped onto extraversion in Holmes’ (2002) model. However, a problem with this account is that differences in dominance seem to be confounded by differences in competitive resources such as physical prowess, mental ability, material wealth, and social alliances, which depend not only on extraversion but also on other personality factors, such as general problem-solving ability and persistence in reaching goals.
Third, extraversion has been linked to the motivational predisposition to experience social interactions as rewarding (Ashton & Lee, 2001; McCrae & Costa, 1987). Insofar as this predisposition motivates people to seek out the company of others, this view is consistent with Holmes’ (2002) second possible conceptualization of extraversion as tapping into people’s level of assertiveness vs. passivity in initiating social contacts. In an empirical study, Ashton, Lee, and Paunonen (2002) presented evidence for this position, showing that a ‘‘tendency to engage and enjoy social attention” (p. 246) correlates very highly (.74) with traditional extraversion measures. Ashton et al. (2002) reasoned that extraversion can be adaptive because it is correlated with people’s ‘‘social attention-holding power” (Gilbert, 1989), allowing for the exertion of group in?uence and the attraction of possible mates (Campbell, Simpson, Stewart, & Manning, 2003; Nettle, 2005, 2006). In the current paper, we take this latter explanation as a plausible conceptualization of extraversion, though other explanations (e.g., as differences in general reward sensitivity) might also be consistent with the empirical evidence.

I am most sympathetic to second and third interpretations as they directly relate to the problem of Making Friends and Alliances.

Agreeableness is interpreted in two ways:

In Table 1, two clusters of conceptual interpretations for agreeableness can be discerned (the conceptualization by Ashton & Lee, 2001, is directed at a rotational variant of this factor and will not be considered here). First of all, several theorists regard agreeableness as fostering intimate relationships, conceptualizing it as enjoyment of other people’s company (Hogan, 1996), facilitation of intimate family relationships and parental investment (MacDonald, 1995), or dispositional love (McAdams, 1992). This conceptualization is consistent with the hypothesized social nature of personality traits. However, Hogan’s (1996) notion of enjoyment of other people’s company is dif?cult to differentiate from sociability, a key feature of extraversion. In addition, MacDonald’s (1995) emphasis on the facilitation of intimate family relationships and parental investment is not consistent with ?ndings by Graziano, Jensen-Campbell, and Hair (1996) that the effects of agreeableness on reactions to interpersonal con?ict with non-kin individuals do not consistently differ from reactions to con?icts with kin.
A second cluster of conceptualizations of agreeableness focuses on this factor’s role in human cooperative behavior, with Buss (1991) relating it to people’s willingness to cooperate, Holmes (2002) to acting cooperative vs. competitive, Nettle (2006) to empathy and trust vs. self-interest, and van Lieshout (2000) to the coordination vs. opposition of joint interests. This conceptualization is consistent with game-theoretical research on reputations of cooperation vs. competition in resource dilemma’s (Rasmusen, 2006) and with research by van Lange and colleagues (van Lange, 1999; van Lange, De Bruin, Otten, & Joireman, 1997) regarding the existence of individual differences in social value orientation. Finally, Koole, Jager, van den Berg, Vlek, and Hofstee (2001) showed that agreeableness is related to altruistic behavior when playing a variant of the public goods game. Consistent with this evidence, we propose that agreeableness can be plausibly conceptualized as individual differences in this tendency to display altruistic behavior.

To me the first interpretation of empathy and prenatal investment and intimate family relations is consistent with the adaptive problems of having and caring for Kids. The second interpretation of altruistic behavior and cooperativenes is equally acceptable as presumably this builds on primitive kin-non-kin concerns and parental investment propensities.

The last factor Openness to Experience I have elsewhere reinterpreted as conformity/rebelliousness. The authors find following interpretations:

As can be seen in Table 1, several clusters of conceptualizations exist for the openness to experience factor. All conceptualizations converge in their conceptualization of this trait as involving a high level of cognitive activity, as indicated by having a broad, deep, and permeable consciousness (McCrae & Costa, 1997), a high propensity for innovation and solving problems (Buss, 1991; Hogan, 1996), engagement in the intellectual and creative domain (McAdams & Pals, 2006; Nettle, 2006; van Lieshout, 2000), processing incomplete information (Holmes, 2002), and intrinsically motivated curiosity facilitating the development of cognitive competence (MacDonald, 1995). In trying to make sense of this factor, however, openness should be distinguished from psychometric intelligence, which is correlated with openness but not identical to it (McCrae & Costa, 1987; also see Penke et al., 2007a).
A parallel distinction was made by Ackerman (1996), who noted the difference between maximum and typical levels of intelligence: whereas the former is identical to operationalizations of psychometric intelligence, the latter has been shown to correlate very highly with openness to experience (Goff & Ackerman, 1992). This conceptualization is almost identical to Cacioppo and colleagues’ (1996) construct of need for cognition, which they de?ned as ‘‘a stable individual difference in people’s tendency to engage in and enjoy effortful cognitive activity” (p. 198). Empirically, this view is supported by Berzonsky and Sullivan (1992), who found a correlation of .78 between need for cognition and the NEO-PI-R openness to ideas scale (though the correlation with other openness facets was lower). Accordingly, we propose that openness can be plausibly conceptualized as differences in the reward value of engaging in cognitive activity.

The need for cognition may be driven by the evolutionary task of identifying kin from non-kin.
To me this looks promising and in the expected direction. I’ll be watching research from this group more keenly henceforth and keep you guys posted.

Enhanced by Zemanta

DENISSEN, J., & PENKE, L. (2008). Motivational individual reaction norms underlying the Five-Factor model of personality: First steps towards a theory-based conceptual framework Journal of Research in Personality, 42 (5), 1285-1302 DOI: 10.1016/j.jrp.2008.04.002

Maslow’s motivational hierarchy revisited

ResearchBlogging.org

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Resized, renamed,...
Image via Wikipedia

I’ve written previously about Maslow’s motivational hierarchy and how that relates to the eight stage evo-devo model. Most people are familiar with the 5 motivational basic needs/motives theory of Maslow, but are not aware that he had later revised it to include eight basic needs/ motives.

A recent paper by Krenrick et al also discusses the more popular 5 motivational scheme of Maslow and revamps the model by dropping self-actualization at the top and making room for 3 reproduction related motives -mate attraction, mate retention and parenting.  Regular readers will note that this is inline with the eight stages discussed during life-history theory based perspectives on this blog.

This new paper, which is available in full on authors website, is an important contribution and gets many things right, though I believe that safety need should trump physiological needs and that we need an eighth motive/need which would be related to finding meaning/purpose/transcendence .

Anyway, lets first see what a motivational system is:

Throughout this article, we have used the terms needs, motives, and goals somewhat loosely. Our view of motivational systems follows that of evolutionary theorists such as Plutchik (1980) and Scott (1980), with connections to the views of the original evolutionary psychologists such as William James (1890) and McDougall (1908) and to Carver and Scheier’s (1998) cybernetic view. On that view, any motivational system includes (a) a template for recognizing a particular class of relevant environmental threats or opportunities, (b) inner motivational/ physiological states designed to mobilize relevant resources, (c) cognitive decision rules designed to analyze trade-offs inherent in various prepotent responses, and (d) a set of responses designed to respond to threats or opportunities represented by the environmental inputs (i.e., to achieve adaptive goals).

To elaborate, and link with the ABCD model of psychology, desire/motivation forms a big sub-domain of psychology,m but motivation.desire can itself be broken into 1)Affective components (a template for recognizing a particular class of relevant environmental threats or opportunities) 2) Behavioral components ( a set of responses designed to respond to threats or opportunities represented by the environmental inputs) 3) Cognitive components (cognitive decision rules designed to analyze trade-offs inherent in various prepotent responses) and 4) Desire / motivation proper ( inner motivational/ physiological states designed to mobilize relevant resources).

The motivational system itself can be analyzed at different levels of analysis-Proximate reasons for a behavior and ultimate reasons for a behavior. The different levels of analysis include  evolutionary (ultimate), developmental, situational (proximate) and phenomenological.  These concern with the biological context, the ecological context , the cultural context and the personological context respective;y in which a (human) being functions.

Kenrcik et al consider the evolutionary ,  developmental and proximate mechanisms and level of analysis and use that to refine the Maslow’s ladder and that makes sense and is more or less inline with the eight stage model.

They also refer to Deci and Ryan and their intrinsic motives and I like to think of deci and Ryan motives as well as addition to that by Daniel pink as follows: 1) autonomy (from genes) 2)  mastery (over environment) 3) Belongingness (to culture) and 4) Purpose ( of self) – these intrinsic drives again related to biology, environment, culture and phenomenology.  Only the last level of analysis need make a reference to consciousness; all prior levels are/may be non-conscious.  I believe the lack of phenomenological level of analysis is limiting and perhaps the reason they miss the eight and highest motive.

The authors, apart from adding new motives of mate attraction. mate retention and parenting, also stress the point that these are overlapping/ can be activated simultaneously and do not necessarily follow developmental stages.

The original article itself is accompanied by commentaries and Kenrick himself maintains a blog and has written a  couple of blog posts related to this, so there are no excuses for not reading up more on this.

Douglas T. Kenrick,, Vladas Griskevicius,, Steven L. Neuberg, & Mark Schaller (2010). Renovating the Pyramid of Needs
Contemporary Extensions Built Upon Ancient Foundations Perspectives on Psychological science DOI: 10.1177/1745691610369469

Enhanced by Zemanta

The ABCD of Psychology and Happiness

A smiley by Pumbaa, drawn using a text editor.
Image via Wikipedia

I’ve recently latched onto the ABCD model of psychological entities, where any psychological aspect is defined by following four features/dimensions: Affect( how does it subjectively feel) , Behavior (what are the manifest effects resulting in overt behavioral changes) , Cognition (how is it cognitively appraised) and Desire/Drive(what are the underlying motivations).

I was prompted on this journey by the evolutionary theory of personality (see here) by Theodore Millon, where he identifies four different evolutionarily salient domains and fields of adaptation: Existence (pain/pleasure) mapped to Affect in my model, Adaptation(active/passive) mapped to Behavior in my model, Replication(Self-other) mapped to Desire/drive in my model and finally Abstraction (broad-narrow) mapped to Cognition in my model.

Thus personality clearly is a dynamic between these four ABCD factors. What we habitually feel, how we habitually act, what usually drives us and how we habitually make sense of our situations clearly defines a personality.

I have also covered how emotions can be similarly considered as belonging to these four domains and having four ABCD dimensions– affective in nature, lead to action tendencies, differential appraisal and cognitive underpinnings and different motivational states-whether the motivation to be in control or to nurture the other.

As it happens I am also keenly into this new ‘positive psychology’ stuff and keep reading the practitioners in this field; thus while reading ‘Happier’ I came across the happiness definition (as per Seligman) as anything that is pleasurable, meaningful and engaging, then I could immediately see the relationship to ABCD model by extending the concept of Drive (or intrinsic vs extrinsic motivation) to the mix and thus came up with this ABCD definition of happiness on twitter:

ABCD of happiness: find work that has pleasure(Affect), meaning (Cognition) and is engaging(Behavior) and intrinsically motivating(Desire)less than a minute ago via TweetDeckSandeep Gautam
sandygautam

The above to me perfectly sums up the Happiness formula and is very easy to remember too!
I also serendipitously came across this amazing video based on Dan Pink‘s ‘Drive’

That made me think further of how the same ABCD formula applied to work incentives.

The ABCD of incentives – Offer Money (Affective), Mastery (Behavior:skilled) , Purpose (cognition:meaningful) and Autonomy (Drive:intrinsic)less than a minute ago via webSandeep Gautam
sandygautam

That to me is further proof of the simplicity and power of this simple ABCD formula. So are you ready to apply the ABCD of happiness and work incentives to your life?

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Personality and emotion: take 4

ResearchBlogging.org

Illustration of spacetime curvature.
Image via Wikipedia

I’ve written about the relation between personality and emotion from my perspective, but was gladdened when I found Scherer has written on the matter in a very eloquent and apt manner. To quote from him and Revelle:

Personality is the coherent patterning of affect, behavior, cognition, and desires (goals) over time and space. Just as a full blown emotion represents an integration of feeling, action, appraisal and wants at a particular time and location so does personality represent integration over time and space of these components (Ortony et al., 2005). A helpful analogy is to consider that personality is to emotion as climate is to weather. That is, what one expects is personality, what one observes at any particular moment is emotion.

It is important to note that personality/emotion definition has been expanded to include cognition as well as affect; behavior as well as motivation (desires). Traditionally emotions are seen as affective (feeling) in nature but we know that emotional states have different cognitive underpinnings and can affect cognition in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. Similarly though emotions may be more closely related to motivational issues (desires etc) they are also manifested in overt behavioral tendencies. some are energizing while others are calming/soothing.

In one of the last emotion/personality post , I referred to the dimensional emotional model of PAD (Pleasure-Arousal-dominance) as proposed by Meherbain. It is apt to note here that pleasure (pleasantness/unpleasantness) dimension is very much related to affect i.e. subjective feeling or how the emotion is subjectively felt. Also Arousal (Ready/Relaxed) is construct very much related to behavior or action tendencies. Some emotions lead to more vigorous, ready and active engagement with the environment as compared to others wherein one may be relaxed. Similarly Dominance (control/lack of control) is a motivational emotional dimension reflecting whether one wants to control and be in control or be dominated/ lose control in a particular situation.

That leaves us with cognition/appraisals dimension of emotions, but before we get onto that let us revisit the four evolutionary stages of Millon and how opposites on each stage lead to personality variations and disorders. The parallel with emotions will be self-evident.

The first stage is that of Existence and the polarity is of pain/pleasure: again an affective dimension/stage. Stability or life-preservation is coded by predominant disposition towards avoiding feelings of pain- a pain sensitive phenotype; Enhancing or life-enhancement is coded by predominant disposition towards felling pleasure a pleasure sensitive phenotype.

The second stage is that of Adaptation and the polarity is of active-passive: again a behaviorally defined dimension/stage. Modifying the environment to suit ones need is an active strategy, while passively accommodating to environmental niches is the passive strategy. both are defined behaviorally and the actual actions/behavioral tendencies define the personality type.

The third stage of Millon is that of Replication and the polarities are that of Self and Other: this is particularly a motivational dimension…whether one is motivated by selfishness and focus on oneself or by concern for others and selflessness too. There is polarity and tension between self-actualization tendencies and wants and other-nurturing motivational disposition. If focus is on self one would tend to dominate others, if focus is on others one would be willing to become vulnerable and submissive.

The fourth stage of Millon, that he does not relate to personality, but which I find integral to my theory is that of Abstraction and the polarity of information gathering versus information selection/transformation. I call the polarity Broad Versus Narrow and it is reflected in whether one is creative or is rigid and inflexible in thinking, , but the important point to note is that a cognitive dimension has been added to personality at the fourth stage.

Which brings us back to the (missing) cognitive dimension of emotions. I would have gladly taken the credit of discovering/proposing such a cognitive dimension, but it seems I was beaten to the game by Fontaine et al who made the bold statement :“The World of Emotions Is Not Two-Dimensional”.

As per Fonatine/ scherer et al’s analysis, using 144 features (like (a) appraisals of events, (b) psychophysiological changes, (c) motor expressions, (d) action tendencies, (e) subjective experiences, and (f) emotion regulation.) characterizing the 24 prototypical emotion terms, they found that emotions must be specified by at least four dimensions:these dimensions were evaluation-pleasantness, potency-control, activation-arousal, and unpredictability.

Note that the first three dimensions are similar to PAD while the fourth dimension is cognitive(appraisal) in nature- predictability vs unpredictability or certainty vs uncertainty in the appraisal of the situation. this ca be reasonably related to Broad Vs Narrow last stage of Abstraction i.e. whether one is cognitively open to new situations or appraisals or closed to them.

So the relationship between emotions and personality is more or less clear to my naive mind as of now. Of course I’m leaving some parts for the next post that will extend this and correlate with the eight stage process.

For now I’ll like to end with the excellent Scherer et al article quote:

In that personality represents the integration over time of feelings, actions, thoughts and desires, theoretical developments in personality benefit from a greater understanding of emotional processes. At the same time, research in emotion can take advantage of individual differences in sensitivities to situational cues and predispositions to emotional states. The questions of why some people become angry, while others become frightened or depressed in response to threats, and why some become elated while others seem unaffected when given rewards will be better understood by jointly studying the problem of long term coherence (personality) with short term fluctuations in affect, behavior, cognition and desire (emotion).

Fontaine, J., Scherer, K., Roesch, E., & Ellsworth, P. (2007). The World of Emotions is not Two-Dimensional Psychological Science, 18 (12), 1050-1057 DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2007.02024.x

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Am Manic, will focus; Am sad, will drift

ResearchBlogging.org

Lucky Guy Happy Gal... :-)
Image by wazari via Flickr

Attention can be focused or it can be diffused. Attentional focus has been shown to be affected by mood or affect; with positive affect leading to a broadening of attentional focus;  and negative affect, in general been shown to be associated with a narrowing of focus.

However, Gable and Harmon-Jones argue that emotion or affect is not a uni-dimensional construct, but has at least two dimensions: affective valence- i.e. whether it is felt as pleasurable or dis-pleasurable; and motivational  direction- i.e. the action tendency to approach or avoid in pursuit of a preventive/promotional goal.

Much work on emotions has emphasized that they have a number of underlying dimensions. Two dimensions that have received considerable attention are affective valence, the felt pleasure or displeasure, and motivational direction, the action tendency associated with a particular emotional state—approach or withdrawal. Approach motivation refers to an urge or action tendency to go toward an object, whereas withdrawal motivation refers to an urge or action tendency to move away from an object.

They also argue that much of the extant literature on emotion-attention linkage has focused on emotional valence alone, with just one type of motivational direction, and thus has not clarified the (in)dependent role of valence and motivational direction as regards to attention.

Thus, for e.g., the finding that positive emotions lead to  broadening of attention is focused on such research as emotions of joy, contentment etc that are low in approach motivation and are emotions felt after the goal has been reached.

Similarly, the research that has found that negative emotions lead to narrowing of focus have relied on emotions such as fear, anger etc that are high in withdrawal motivation and are pre-goal.

I believe, it is important to step back a little here and go back to our conception of happiness-ennui (mental well-being) continuum and sadness-mania (mental illness) continuum. Another way to conceptualize them is to see sadness having negative valence and low withdrawal motivation – it is passive; mania as having positive valence and high approach motivation- mania is characterized by immense desire for a goal and is pre -goal. Happiness is post goal emotion and is characterized by positive valence and low approach motivation- you have already reached the goal and do not need to exert much efforts in goal directed activity; ennui/boredom/listlessness is negative in valence and has high withdrawal motivation- it is pre-goal- a search for a worthwhile goal.

Another way to make the difference stark is employ the terminology of Berridge et al: happiness is related to liking and the opioid system; while mania is related to wanting and the dopamine system.  Depression/sadness  is related to disliking /feeling pain while ennui/boredom is related to dreading the outcome/feeling anxious (nothing to do and hence life is useless/meaningless!..anxiety but existential anxiety). Berridghe et al have shown that wanting/liking and dreading/disliking differ and have different neural and neurochemichal correlates.

To become a little philosophical, the wanting/disliking  mental illness continuum leading to mania or depression in extremes is to be avoided (thus the dictum of all religions to shun desire/ be stoic) while the happiness-ennui/boredom/existential anxiety system is more preferable where you focus on liking positive outcomes and dreading negative/neutral ones. While the former, to paraphrase Freud,  is the hysterical misery at worst, the latter is common unhappiness at worst.

But anyway that was long detour. Lets get back to the studies by Gable et al.

In the first study, the authors showed that motivational direction was relevant and was the reason behind the positivity-broadening of attentional focus effect. they showed that positive emotions lead to broadening of attention only in low approach motivation condition; but when the positive emotion had high approach motivation (emotions like desire. engagement etc), the positive affect lead to narrowing of focus.

Now a brief detour into methodology: the attentional focus is usually measured using local-global tasks whereby it is determined whether one is paying attention to global features or local features of an ambiguous/mixed stimuli. For eg, the most popular of these consists of a global big H made up of smaller (say 5 in number) F’s and then determining whether the subject notices the global H or the local F. Details can be seen in the Gable papers which are open access.

Now the authors found robust support for their hypothesis that it is the motivational direction and not affective valence that determines the attentional focus. They also relate it to adaptivity.

Positive affects, particularly those low in approach motivation, suggest a comfortable, stable environment and allow for a broadening of attention and cognition, which may serve adaptive functions (Carver, 2003; Fredrickson, 2001). However, broadening does not occur when positive affects are high in approach motivation. Such positive affects often encourage specific action tendencies, such as tenacious goal pursuit, and an associated reduction in attentional breadth. This reduced attentional breadth may prove adaptive, as it assists in obtaining goals.

They also extend these finding to negative affects and depression etc and I can easily relate them to earlier work I have covered regarding the danger or safety of environment and promotional/ preventive focus:

Together with past research, the present research supports the idea that low- and high-approach-motivated positive affect produce opposite effects on attentional breadth. It is possible that the intensity of withdrawal motivation exerts similar attentional effects; that is, low-withdrawal-motivated negative affect may cause broadening, whereas high-withdrawal-motivated negative affect may cause reduction in breadth. Indeed, such an interpretation would fit with past research. For example, individuals with depression, a low-intensity motivation, are more creative than nondepressed individuals (Andreasen, 1987) and show broadening of attention and memory (von Hecker & Meiser, 2005). In the case of low-motivated negative affects such as sadness and depression, “a more open, unfocused, unselective, low-effort mode of attention would prove not deficient but, on the contrary, beneficial” (von Hecker & Meiser, 2005, p. 456), as one disengages from a terminally blocked goal and becomes open to new possibilities (Klinger, 1975). The past research that found negative affect caused decreased attentional breadth may have evoked negative affective states that were high in withdrawal motivation (e.g., fear; Gasper & Clore, 2002).

This brings me to their current paper , aptly titled , The Blues Broaden, but the Nasty Narrows, that found exactly the effect hypothesized above that sadness/depressive mood was related to broadening of attention, while disgust, a negative emotion with high withdrawal motivation was related to narrowing of focus. they also found that the effect of negative emotion was mediated by arousal which could stand as a proxy for motivational direction.

These two experiments revealed that the relationship between negative affect and attentional precedence is more complex than commonly thought. In line with past theory and evidence, Experiment 2 demonstrated that negative affect caused a narrowing of attention. However, this narrowing occurred only when negative affect was high in motivational intensity. When negative affect was low in motivational intensity, in Experiment 1, it caused a broadening of attention. These results are consistent with the idea that the effect of emotion on local/global precedence is not due to negative versus positive affect, but is instead due to motivational intensity. Positive and negative affects of low motivational intensity broaden attention, whereas positive and negative affects of high motivational intensity narrow attention.

To me this is sufficient, clinching and converging proof of the theories I have been trying to develop with regards to emotions (specifically mania, depression, happiness and despair) and make clear that there are at least two dimensions to happiness/sadness and mental well being/illness constructs. Perhaps if we start liking what we have and stop coveting or wanting more, we have a philosophical, religious, as well as now a psychological, blueprint for how to lead the good life and how to avoid a living hell.

Gable, P., & Harmon-Jones, E. (2010). The Blues Broaden, but the Nasty Narrows: Attentional Consequences of Negative Affects Low and High in Motivational Intensity Psychological Science, 21 (2), 211-215 DOI: 10.1177/0956797609359622
Gable, P., & Harmon-Jones, E. (2008). Approach-Motivated Positive Affect Reduces Breadth of Attention Psychological Science, 19 (5), 476-482 DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02112.x

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Why, Mr. Anderson, why, why do you persist?

ResearchBlogging.org

Regular readers of this blog will be aware of my fascination with Carol Dweck and her entity versus incremental theory of intelligence/ability that I have blogged about extensively in the past. To recap, people (children usually in her studies) can have a fixed entity view of intelligence that it is a stable trait whihc can/does not change with time; or they can have an incremental view of intelligence that focuses more on motivational states, goals, desires as determinant of success/intelligence exhibited and view it as a malleable and not a fixed trait.

A major paradigm she uses is documenting the behavior of those with chronic or induced entity vs incremental view of intelligence after receiving negative feedback/actual setbacks.  She has found that while entity theorists relate their failures to global traits like lack of intelligence and display subsequent helpless behavior;   the incremental self theorists display mastery oriented behavior, use new strategies and in general persist.  The big question then becomes why do they persists? and the surprising answer may be what Neo answered – ‘because I choose to’.

I recently came across this book  ‘Are we free’  about free will debate and in it was surprised to find a chapter by Carol Dweck and Daniel Molden titled “self-theories in the construction of free-will’  that builds on works of Carol et al to argue that those iwth fixed views of intelligence/morality basically are determinisms believing in a kind of genetic determinism, while the incremental theorists are sort of libertarians who believe that one can exercise choice over one’s behavior.  They also show that belief in free-will/incremental theories has a better life outcome.

I will now quote extensively form that lovely artcile:

Modern psychological research suggests that, at least within Western societies, belief in the power of the individual over the constraints of the environment predicts better psychological adjustment and greater personal success. As a rule, people appear to fare better with an internal versus external locus of control (Rotter, 1966), feelings of self-determination versus external constraints (Ryan & Deci, 2000), and use of primary control (direct, agentic action) over secondary control (adjusting to the environment or event without trying to affect it; Heckhausen & Shultz, 1995; Lazarus, 1991).

They then mention how even after having an inetrnal attribution, one may still differ in whether one attributes to fixed traits or malleable states.

We have investigated this issue by focusing on people’s beliefs about whether basic personal attributes (such as intelligence or personality) are fixed and static traits or, instead, more dynamic qualities that can be cultivated (Dweck, 1999; Dweck & Leggett, 1988). The former belief is termed an entity theory, because here the assumption is that human attributes are fixed entities that are not subject to personal development. The latter belief is termed an incremental theory, because here the assumption is that human attributes can be developed or changed incrementally through one’s efforts.
Research comparing entity and incremental theorists has uncovered marked differences, ones that have important implications for perceptions of free will (for reviews see Levy, Plaks, & Dweck, 1999; Molden & Dweck, 2006). Not only do entity theorists by definition believe in fixed traits, but they also believe that these traits directly cause behavior in a highly predictable way (Chiu, Hong, & Dweck, 1997; Hong, 1994). In contrast, not only do incremental theorists by definition believe in more dynamic, malleable traits, but they also believe that people’s thoughts, feelings, and motivations—which they view as controllable— play the major role in causing their actions (Hong, 1994).4 Thus, both theories give the major causal role to factors inside the person, but those internal factors for entity theorists are not amenable to personal control, whereas those internal factors for incremental theorists are far more susceptible to it.

Taken as a whole, these findings suggest that different beliefs about the nature of people’s traits and abilities may profoundly alter people’s potential for perceptions of free will in choices and actions. Entity theorists’ greater emphasis on the deterministic influence of fixed internal traits could serve to give them a sense of a stable and predictable world, but at the same time, constrain perceived opportunities for choice and agency. In contrast, incremental theorists’ greater focus on people’s thoughts, feelings, and motivations as causes of action—factors they believe can be controlled—could serve to enhance perceived opportunities for self-determination.

Thus, entity theorists tend to respond to difficulty by relinquishing agency, whereas incremental theorists tend to react by reasserting their agency. Do these different reactions make a difference for important life outcomes? In a longitudinal study by Blackwell et al. (2007), students’ math achievement was monitored during their transition from relatively simple elementary school mathematics to more challenging junior high school mathematics. Although entity and incremental theorists did not differ in their math achievement when they entered junior high, incremental theorists soon began to earn higher grades than entity theorists and this disparity continued to increase over the next 2 years. The discrepancy in performance was found to result in large part from incremental theorists’ belief in the efficacy of renewed effort and their choice to persist in the face of setbacks (see also Hong et al., 1999). Furthermore, several studies have now taught students an incremental theory and shown substantial increases in their motivation and grades or achievement test scores in the face of challenging curricula both in junior high school and in college (Aronson, Fried, & Good, 2002; Blackwell et al, 2007; Good, Aronson, & Inzlicht, 2003).

Further support for these findings comes from recent research by Baer, Grant, and Dweck (2005).5 They showed, first, that entity theorists experience greater symptoms of distress and depression in their daily lives and that this is tied to their greater tendency to engage in self-critical rumination about their fixed traits and abilities following negative events. Baer et al. also showed that the more distress entity theorists felt, the less they engaged in active problem solving. The opposite was true for incremental theorists. Overall, then, entity theorists’ belief in deterministic traits leads them to perceive fewer choices for action following failure, and they do indeed appear to suffer from this lack of choice and reduced agency.

They then go on to discuss the self-theories in relation to moral responsibility and social judgement building on their previous work that showed that people having entity views tend to be more retributive, while those with incremental views moire rehabilitative when judging others.

In short, even though entity theorists believe that traits constrain the extent to which people could have acted otherwise, they still believe that people should be held accountable for these constrained actions. Moreover, even though incremental theorists believe that people are more free to alter and develop their basic character (i.e., they have ultimate responsibility for their actions; see Kane, 1996), they are less severe in their moral judgments and punishment. Perhaps it is their understanding of the complex psychology that lies behind decisions to act that makes them more understanding of errant behavior. Further, because in their eyes wrongdoers can change, they tend to advocate rehabilitation instead of retribution. To our knowledge, discussion of the link between conceptions of free will and the type of punishment people should receive has been less prominent in philosophical discussions and may be a fruitful direction for further analysis (see, for example, Smart, 1961).
To summarize thus far, research on self-theories has yielded a picture of two psychological worlds. In one, traits are fixed and deterministic and there is little room for agency when those traits prove deficient. It is also a world of retributive justice. In the other world, traits are malleable, and so are the causes of behavior, leaving more room for choice and agency even after setbacks. In this world of enhanced self-determination, education and rehabilitation are emphasized so that wrongdoers might be guided to make better choices in the future.

They finally conclude with implications of their research for the free-will debate, which I think need to be mulled over.

The first point from our research is that personality is, in many ways, a highly dynamic system in which (changeable) beliefs can create a network of motivation and action (Cervone, 2004; Dweck & Legget, 1988; Molden & Dweck, 2006; cf.; Mischel & Shoda, 1995). For example, personal theories of intelligence create different goals, beliefs about effort, task choices, and reactions to setbacks. Although these beliefs can be instilled or activated without people’s awareness, they can also be self-chosen.
We do not deny the important effects of inborn temperament and early experience and we do not view the child as a blank slate on which anything can be written. Yet our view of personality is very different from a view of personality as just a set of deep-seated personal qualities that inevitably incline people toward particular choices and actions. Indeed, even some of the most ardent students of temperament’s role in personality grant that as children develop they cognitively construct their worlds, and that these cognitive constructions (such as self-theories) become an important part of their personality (Block, 1993; Rothbart & Ahadi, 1994).9 Thus our first point is that people’s belief systems are part of their personality, and we see in this more dynamic view of personality greater possibility for self-formation.
Our second point is that beliefs, such as self-theories, can alter what are often taken to be deep-seated traits. Such traits might include resilience, extroversion, openness to experience, conscientiousness, risk taking, and nurturance (Block, 1993; McCrae & Costa, 1999).

To me, it is important to persist. Persist in convincing skeptics of the utility of free will. And I choose to!

Dweck, C., Chiu, C., & Hong, Y. (1995). Implicit Theories and Their Role in Judgments and Reactions: A Word From Two Perspectives Psychological Inquiry, 6 (4), 267-285 DOI: 10.1207/s15327965pli0604_1
Carol, Dweck S; Daniel, Molden C (2008). Self-Theories: The Construction of Free Will Are We free, 44-65

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]