Perspectives Continued: The
Cognitive Perspective: Goal
Setting and Self regulation
MODULE ONE:
PERSPECTIVES
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Over the next four weeks, we will investigate the following motivational themes/perspectives:
1. Week one: evolutionary perspectives:
2. Week two temperament- Elliott and Thrash, 2002
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3. Week Three: self regulationResearch: Carver, 2004
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4. Week Four
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A. learning: habits (summarize)
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B. cognitive dissonance (summarize) week three
The Cognitive Perspective on
Motivation
• Cognitions-mental events
• The cognitive perspective on motivation
• How does a person’s way of thinking and
believing influence (motivate) behavior?
• Includes mental constructs like beliefs,
expectations, goals, plans, judgments, values,
and the self-concept
• Our Focus: Goal Setting, Implementing, Threat
Assessment, Avoidance and Self regulation
Historical Model-PLANS: The TOTE Model
The cognitive mechanism by which plans were believed to energize and
direct behavior.
If Incongruous
TEST
OPERATE
TEST
Compare
Present State
With Ideal State
Act on
Environment
To Realize
Ideal State
Compare
Present State
With Ideal State
If Incongruous
= motivational
energy
= motivational
direction
Schematic of the TOTE Model
If congruous
EXIT
Present State in
Congruity with
Ideal State
Historical Model-PLANS: Criticism
• In summary:
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We detect and inconsistency
We formulate and enact a plan
We detect and inconsistency
We formulate and enact a plan
• Plans are viewed as fixed and static
• Contemporary cognitive models allow a more dynamic
and flexible depiction of plan-directed behavior
• Rather than activating an action sequence, incongruity
gives rise to corrective motivation which can take many
forms:
• Change the plan, change the behavior’s intensity, or
drop the plan altogether
The Motivating properties of
Discrepancy
Present state represents the persons
current status of how life is going.
Present
State
Ideal state represents
how the persons
wishes life was going.
Ideal
State
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When the present state falls short of the hoped-for ideal state, a discrepancy is exposed.
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It is the discrepancy-rather than the ideal state per se– that has motivational properties.
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Discrepancy creates the sense of wanting to change the present state so that it will move
closer and closer toward the ideal state.
Two Types of Discrepancy
Discrepancy Reduction
Discrepancy Creation
Based on the discrepancy-detecting
feedback that underlies plans and
corrective motivation.
Based on a “feed-forward” system
in which the person looks forward
and proactively sets a future,
higher goal.
Discrepancy reduction corresponds
to plan-based corrective motivation.
Discrepancy creation corresponds to
goal-setting motivation.
Discrepancy reduction is reactive,
deficiency overcoming, and revolves
around a feedback system.
Discrepancy creating is proactive,
growth pursuing, and revolves around
a “feed-forward” system.
Updating the TOTE Model
• New areas of research followed the TOTE
model
• Modifications:
• Goal setting
• The importance of Feedback
• Self regulation of goal attainment and
threat avoidance
A goal is whatever an
individual is trying to
accomplish.
Goal Setting
* A goal is whatever an individual is trying to accomplish.
Why
doclarify
goalsperformance
work to increase
performance?
Goals
expectations.
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Goals counteract apathy, boredom.
Goals make feedback important.
Without goals, performance can be emotionally unimportant.
Goal attainment can generate feeling of pride, satisfaction, or
competence that the task itself cannot generate.
Adaptive Value of Goal Setting
• Setting goals yields higher quality
performance
• Examples:
• Sit-ups, weightlifting, learn textbook
information, sell products, shoot archery,
conserve natural resources, lose weight,
logging, word process, truck driving trips
• A few qualifiers though: goal effectiveness
depends upon two factors: goal difficulty and
goal specificity
Adaptive Value of Goal Setting
Performance
• Linear relationship between difficulty and
performance
Goal Difficulty
Adaptive Value of Goals Setting
• Specificity
• How clearly a goal conveys expectations
• “Do your best” vs. “Get out your spelling
list, rehearse the word list 4 times and
write each word 4 times”
• Specific=including something numerical
• Specificity produces consistency in
performance across individuals
Adaptive Value
• Summary: Goals will enhance performance under
specific circumstances:
• Difficult goals
• Energize the performer
• Increase effort and persistence
• Specific goals
• Direct the performer toward a specific course of
actions, increase mental and behavioral focus
• They tell the person where to concentrate attention
and what specifically to do
• So…specific, difficult goals raise performance, yielding
a net decrease in the ideal performance-actual
performance discrepancy
Caution:
• It is not automatic that proper goal setting
will yield performance gains:
• Performance depends on other factors,
besides motivation:
• Ability, training, coaching, resources
Feedback documents the performer’s
progress towards goal attainment.
The Fundamental Importance of Feedback
or, Knowledge of Results
The Adaptive Value of Feedback
(1) Feedback defines performance
Above-standard
At-standard
Therefore, instructive to future goal setting efforts
Below-standard
(2) Feedback acts as a reinforcer (or punisher)
Figure 8.3
Application: Goal Striving,
Threat Avoidance and the Role
of Affect
• The current research article
• Carver, 2004: Self Regulation of Action and Affect
• Self-regulation involves the person’s metacognitive
(self) monitoring of how his or her goal-setting progress
is going.
• It is our ability to transform mental abilities into task
related skills
• In other words, it involves self monitoring of your
behavior AND evaluation of the productivity of that
behavior in achieving a goal or avoiding a threat
Application: Goal Striving, Threat
Avoidance and the Role of Affect
• Some background info on this cognitive model
• “Cybernetic Model”
• Interdisciplinary study of the structure of complex
systems
• A cybernetic model works ONLY in a closed loop
fashion.
• Purpose: to define the functions and workings of
systems that have goals and participate in a circular
causal chain that moves from
– action (behavior),
– to sensing (one’s current situation),
– to comparison (of situation with an ideal) that will prompt further
action
Application: Goal Striving, Threat
Avoidance and the Role of Affect
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Why cybernetic models do a better job of describing human behavior than
the TOTE model
– Shows how we can handle multiple tasks
– Depicts our ability to focus on multiple goals at once
Application: Goal Striving, Threat
Avoidance and the Role of Affect
• Some background info on this cognitive model
• Definitions:
• “Discrepancy Reducing” Behavior Feedback Loop
– Behavior is produced to REDUCE any discrepancy between a
goal (ideal state) and one’s perception of a current behavior
(current state)
– Follows all of the properties of “Discrepancy-Reduction”
planning and goal seen in previous slides
– Kinds of discrepancy that is produced: behavior is not close
enough; behavior has exceeded ideal
– Behaviors that are produced from perceived discrepancies are
vastly different, depending upon whether the discrepancy
indicates failure to meet the goal or exceeding the goal
Application: Goal Striving, Threat
Avoidance and the Role of Affect
• Some background info on this cognitive model
• Definitions:
• “Discrepancy Enhancing” Behavior Feedback Loop
– Behavior is produced to push you away from, or to move away
from, a threat (ideal state), also called an “anti-goal”
– This loop acts to ENLARGE the discrepancy between the antigoal and the current perception
– Kinds of discrepancy that is produced: behavior takes the person
too close to the threat; behavior has kept the person further from
away from the threat
– Behaviors that are produced from perceived discrepancies are
vastly different, depending upon whether the discrepancy
indicates failure to avoid the threat or exceeding the threat
Application: Goal Striving, Threat
Avoidance and the Role of Affect
• Some background info on this cognitive model
• Definitions:
• “Affect” Loop
– Affect indicates our desires and whether those desires are being met
– Loop works simultaneously with a behavior feedback loop
– Here, a comparison is made between one’s current RATE of progress
toward a goal (or away from a threat) and one’s ideal RATE of progress.
– Types of discrepancy:
– you are not going fast enough
– You are going too fast
– The kinds of affects that are produced will vary depending upon the
following:
• Whether the reference concerns a goal or a threat
• Whether the rate is too slow or faster than intended
Hints to Guide Your Reading
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Note: the following are suggestions that will IMMENSELY assist you in
taking the quiz and especially in preparing you for your exam…please be
sure to do this as you are reading, or as soon as you finish
Reading: pgs 13-top of pg 27
First, re-draw Carver’s model of self regulation (figure 2.1)
Secondly, define each of the terms in the model
Thirdly, please execute one iteration (that means use the model in a step by
step fashion) of the model with respect to a goal that you have in this class.
Here’s how:
– First…imagine a good “Reference Value” (goal)…one with some sort of
numerical value in it (recall, a difficult and a specific goal yields best
performance)
– You also determine “The Current Input”, execute “The Comparator” and
determine an “Output”
– Imagine this “Disturbance”: you experience car trouble and are certain your
school work will have to be put off for an entire day while it gets fixed.
– Determine this disturbance’s “Effect on the Environment”, and re-run the rest of
the model to see how your output could likely be affected.
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Next, instead of using a Goal as a “Reference Value”, now substitute this
“Threat: you have determined that to avoid any contact with a car, it is best
to cross a street when vehicles are at least 100 feet away from you. “ What
would be the result of the comparator function? What would be a possible
output?
Hints to Guide Your Reading
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Questions for Reflection:
What kind of affect occurs when a goal is going well? What type of behavior
is likely produced?
What kind of emotion occurs when a goal is going poorly? What type of
behavior is likely produced?
What kind of affect occurs when a threat is going well (is being avoided)?
What type of behavior is likely produced?
What kind of affect occurs when a threat is going poorly (you are getting
closer to the threat value)? What type of behavior is likely produced?
In which type of behavior feedback loop are you trying to produce an output
that moves you closer to the ideal?
In which behavior feedback loop are you trying to produce an output that
moves you away from the ideal?
How do these cybernetic models indicate when you could or should shift
from one reference situation to another. For example, how do you know,
according to these models, when to shift from the reference of “spending
time with my significant other” to the reference of “earning a 90% on my
chemistry exam”?
Discussion Group Case Study
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The goal of this case study is to get you to consider why or how failures in self
regulation could occur.
Janie, a person with an avoidant temperament approaches you, a clinical
psychologist, and indicates that she is having an anxiety problem. Specifically, she
suffers from “generalized anxiety” which means that she is chronically anxious and
really doesn’t know why. In other words, nothing in her environment triggers anxiety,
per se, she just feels anxious all the time.
Why should this make sense to you, knowing that she has an avoidant, rather than
an approach temperament?
You decide to use a cognitive therapy strategy to assist her in alleviating her anxiety.
In preparation for your first counseling session, you create a cybernetic behavioral
and affective feedback loop that would indicate how an anxiety disorder would occur
(NOTE: the KIND of behavior feedback loop you use is critical to understanding this
task)
So, pick you behavior loop. Next indicate how a malfunction in the components would
likely create chronic anxiety that would lead to her anxiety disorder. Look at each
component, consider how it should function for a person to have a normal affective
life, and then consider how that specific component could work improperly, thereby
causing an erroneous affective output.
After identifying all of the possible malfunctions, focus in on one and formulate a
strategy to help her regain adaptive self regulation that would decrease her anxiety
disorder.
Discuss your thoughts with your group, then post your collective feedback loop and
explanation of the malfunction within the class discussion.