Motivation, Emotion, Thinking, Intelligence and Creativity

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Hi,

Interesting assignment! One approach to help you with an assignment like this one is to look at each section, which you can then draw on for your final copy. The questions can act as a tentative outline for your paper, which will have an Introduction e.g. introduce topic; include purpose statement: (The purpose of this paper is to...); body (e.g. organized around the questions); and Conclusion (e.g. restate purpose in different wording; sum up main points).

Let's look closer at Part 1 and 2, from various sources, which you can then draw on for your final copy.

A. Part 1

I. Four people are each striving toward the same end, but are motivated by different means. Ella, Marcelo, and Masoko all want to obtain a promotion at their place of employment. Assume the following:

a. Ella's motivation can be accounted for by a biological theory of motivation.

Biological theories assume that we are motivated to meet our basic needs, although theorists differ somewhat on what these needs are. For example, Needs theory (Murray, 38) - there are 20 different motives (needs), e.g. for achievement (nAch), play, affiliation, aggression, sex, nurturance, and understanding. The nAch was studied by McClelland; in 1990 he studied 40 cultures and concluded that high nAch correlates positively with productivity of society. However, measures of nAch (projective tests - pictures - remember George...) have fairly low reliability and validity. (http://64.233.187.104/search?q=cache:2TyN3r_yo5kJ:web.isp.cz/jcrane/IB/Emotion_theories.pdf+biological+theory+of+motivation&hl=en)

Second, Maslow's (1954) Hierarchy of needs motivates the worker to ask for a promotion. In fact, according to this theory, Maslow (1908-1970) is best known for his developmental theory of human motivation. As a humanistic psychologist, Maslow believed that actualization of one's inherent potential was the driving force of human personality. Maslow placed self-actualization into a hierarchy of motivation or his famous "hierarchy of needs." Self-actualization is identified as the highest drive but before a person can turn to it, he or she must satisfy other lower motivations like physiological, safety, social and esteem needs, respectively. For example: A homeless youth client will need assistance in finding secure housing before being referred to a career decision making program, in Maslow's view (http://64.233.187.104/search?q=cache:2TyN3r_yo5kJ:web.isp.cz/jcrane/IB/Emotion_theories.pdf+biological+theory+of+motivation&hl=en)

See attached resource.

In other words, Ella is motivated by her innate 'biological' need for self-actualization. Biological theories do not deal with emotions and that is why some refer to them as reductionist, in that they focus on biology over and above other factors (e.g. emotions and environment).

b. Marcelo's motivation can be accounted for by a psychosocial theory of motivation.

One example of a psychosocial theory is Erikson's theory.

Erikson (1902-1994): Erik Erikson developed the psychosocial theory of social development. The theory describes the eight stages of human development (infancy to late adulthood), through which every person passes. At each stage of development the person is confronted with and hopefully resolves a new psychosocial issue. Each developmental stage builds on the successful completion of the earlier stages. If the issues of the earlier stages are not successfully resolved they are expected to reappear as problems in the later stages. Example: Youth clients working on establishing their own identity may be struggling with settling on a career path because they don't really know who they are yet. http://ccdf.ca/NewCoach/english/ccoache/e4a_bp_theory.htm

Erikson's theory of ego psychology holds certain tenets that differentiate his theory from Freud's. Some of these include:

? The ego is of utmost importance.
? Part of the ego is able to operate independently of the id and the superego.
? The ego is a powerful agent that can adapt to situations, thereby promoting mental health.
? Social and sexual factors both play a role in personality development (see more details at http://www.haverford.edu/psych/ddavis/erikson1.html).

In other words, Marcelo's motivation can be explained in terms of his developmental stage (assuming stage (e.g. career needs) and social factors (e.g. meeting career path, but perhaps also motivated to get ahead developmentally through obtaining a promotion for social needs of intimacy and love, etc.) http://ccdf.ca/NewCoach/english/ccoache/e4a_bp_theory.htm Psychosocial motivational theories do not deal with emotions directly, but Erikson's theory uses ...