Foundations of Sport and Exercise Psychology
Chapter 3: Motivation
Defining motivation
It is the direction and intensity of one’s effort.
There are several types of motivation: achievement motivation, motivation in the form of
competitive stress, and intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.
Components of motivation are direction of effort (whether an individual seeks out, approached or is
attracted to certain situations) and intensity of effort (how much effort a person puts forth in a
particular situations).
Motivation is used in more varied ways in life:
- As an internal personality characteristics
- As an external influence
- As a consequence or explanation for our behaviour
Reviewing three approaches to motivation
- Trait-centered view
This contends that motivated behaviour is primarily a function of individual characteristics. It is the
personality, needs and goals of a student, athlete or
exerciser. Personal factors Situational factors
- Situation-centered view - Personality Participant-by- - Leader-coach style
This contends that motivation level is determined - Needs situation - Facility
attractiveness
primarily by situation. - Interests interaction
- Team win-loss
- Interactional orientation - Goals record
This contends that motivation results neither solely from
participant factors, nor solely from situational factors. The best way to
understand motivation is to examine how these factors interact.
Example: the four fastest swimmers doesn’t necessarily make the best
team, because they might be influenced by the fact that they could let Participant
their team down. Some perform better alone, while others perform motivation
better
in a team.
Building motivation with five guidelines
Within the interactional model are five guidelines.
- Guideline 1: Consider both situations and traits in motivating people
Low participant motivation usually results from a combination of personal an situational factors. The
key is to focus on the interaction of these factors.
- Guideline 2: understand people’s multiple motives for involvement
Identify why people participate in physical activity People participate for more than one reason.
People have competing motives for involvement. People have both shared and unique motives.
Cultural emphasis affects motives.
Observe participants and continue to monitor motives This should improve your awareness:
1. Observe the participants and see what they like and do not like about the activity.
2. Informally talk to others who know the student, athlete or exerciser and solicit information about
the person’s motives for participation.
3. Periodically ask the participants to write out or tell you their reasons for participation.
- Guideline 3: change the environment to enhance motivation
1
, Provide both competition and recreation Coaches should pay more attention to the motives of fun
and fellowship, along with optimal physical training, they enhance motivation and improve their
athletes’ performance.
Adjust to individuals within groups Individualizing is not always easy to accomplish, because
instructors have to deal with a lot of people, which makes it really difficult.
- Guideline 4: influence motivation
Students are influenced by the teacher’s mood. The key thing is to remember is that your actions can
influence the motivational environment.
- Guideline 5: use behaviour modification to change undesirable participant motives
Behaviour modification techniques to alter undesirable participant motives are certainly appropriate
in some settings.
Developing a realistic view of motivation
Motivation is not the only variable influencing behaviour. Besides the motivational factors,
biomedical, psychological, sociological, medical and technical-tactical factors are also significant to
sport and exercise and warrant consideration in any analysis of performance.
Some motivational factors are more easily influenced than others.
Understanding achievement motivation and competitiveness
Achievement motivation refers to a person’s effort to master a task, achieve excellence, overcome
obstacles, perform better than others, and take pride in exercising talent.
Competitiveness is defines as ‘a disposition to strive for satisfaction when making comparisons with
some standard of excellence in the presence of evaluative others’. It views competitiveness as
achievement behaviour in a competitive context, with social evaluation as a key point.
Identifying four theories of achievement motivation
- Need achievement theory is an interactional view that considers both personal and situational
factors as important predictors of behaviour. Five factors make up this theory:
Personality factors or motives: two achievement motives; achieve success (capacity to
experience pride in accomplishments), avoid failure (the capacity to experience shame in failure).
Situational factors: probability of success (depends on whom you compete against and the
difficulty of the task), incentive value of success (value of success would be greater if you win
from a really good opponent than from a bad one).
Resultant tendencies: derived by considering an individual’s achievement motive levels in
relation to situational factors. This theory is best at predicting situations in which there is 50-50
chance of success.
Emotional reactions: how much pride and shame someone experiences. High achievers focus
more on pride, low achievers focus more on shame and worry.
Achievement-related behaviours: this indicates how the four other components interact to
influence behaviour. High achievers: more challenging tasks. Low achievers: avoid intermediate
risk.
- Attribution theory focuses on how people explain their successes and failures. This theory can be
divided in basic attribution categories: stability (a factor to which one attributes success or failure is
either fairly permanent or unstable), locus of causality (a factor is either external or internal to the
individual) and locus of control (a factor is or is not under our control).
These have been linked to expectations of future success.
- Achievement goal theory has three factors that interact to determine a person’s motivation:
achievement goals, perceived ability, achievement behaviour. Outcome goal orientation is that the
focus is on comparing yourself with others, task goal orientation is that the focus is on improving
relative to your own past performances. Task performance people select moderately difficult or
realistic tasks and opponents. They do not fear failure.
2
Chapter 3: Motivation
Defining motivation
It is the direction and intensity of one’s effort.
There are several types of motivation: achievement motivation, motivation in the form of
competitive stress, and intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.
Components of motivation are direction of effort (whether an individual seeks out, approached or is
attracted to certain situations) and intensity of effort (how much effort a person puts forth in a
particular situations).
Motivation is used in more varied ways in life:
- As an internal personality characteristics
- As an external influence
- As a consequence or explanation for our behaviour
Reviewing three approaches to motivation
- Trait-centered view
This contends that motivated behaviour is primarily a function of individual characteristics. It is the
personality, needs and goals of a student, athlete or
exerciser. Personal factors Situational factors
- Situation-centered view - Personality Participant-by- - Leader-coach style
This contends that motivation level is determined - Needs situation - Facility
attractiveness
primarily by situation. - Interests interaction
- Team win-loss
- Interactional orientation - Goals record
This contends that motivation results neither solely from
participant factors, nor solely from situational factors. The best way to
understand motivation is to examine how these factors interact.
Example: the four fastest swimmers doesn’t necessarily make the best
team, because they might be influenced by the fact that they could let Participant
their team down. Some perform better alone, while others perform motivation
better
in a team.
Building motivation with five guidelines
Within the interactional model are five guidelines.
- Guideline 1: Consider both situations and traits in motivating people
Low participant motivation usually results from a combination of personal an situational factors. The
key is to focus on the interaction of these factors.
- Guideline 2: understand people’s multiple motives for involvement
Identify why people participate in physical activity People participate for more than one reason.
People have competing motives for involvement. People have both shared and unique motives.
Cultural emphasis affects motives.
Observe participants and continue to monitor motives This should improve your awareness:
1. Observe the participants and see what they like and do not like about the activity.
2. Informally talk to others who know the student, athlete or exerciser and solicit information about
the person’s motives for participation.
3. Periodically ask the participants to write out or tell you their reasons for participation.
- Guideline 3: change the environment to enhance motivation
1
, Provide both competition and recreation Coaches should pay more attention to the motives of fun
and fellowship, along with optimal physical training, they enhance motivation and improve their
athletes’ performance.
Adjust to individuals within groups Individualizing is not always easy to accomplish, because
instructors have to deal with a lot of people, which makes it really difficult.
- Guideline 4: influence motivation
Students are influenced by the teacher’s mood. The key thing is to remember is that your actions can
influence the motivational environment.
- Guideline 5: use behaviour modification to change undesirable participant motives
Behaviour modification techniques to alter undesirable participant motives are certainly appropriate
in some settings.
Developing a realistic view of motivation
Motivation is not the only variable influencing behaviour. Besides the motivational factors,
biomedical, psychological, sociological, medical and technical-tactical factors are also significant to
sport and exercise and warrant consideration in any analysis of performance.
Some motivational factors are more easily influenced than others.
Understanding achievement motivation and competitiveness
Achievement motivation refers to a person’s effort to master a task, achieve excellence, overcome
obstacles, perform better than others, and take pride in exercising talent.
Competitiveness is defines as ‘a disposition to strive for satisfaction when making comparisons with
some standard of excellence in the presence of evaluative others’. It views competitiveness as
achievement behaviour in a competitive context, with social evaluation as a key point.
Identifying four theories of achievement motivation
- Need achievement theory is an interactional view that considers both personal and situational
factors as important predictors of behaviour. Five factors make up this theory:
Personality factors or motives: two achievement motives; achieve success (capacity to
experience pride in accomplishments), avoid failure (the capacity to experience shame in failure).
Situational factors: probability of success (depends on whom you compete against and the
difficulty of the task), incentive value of success (value of success would be greater if you win
from a really good opponent than from a bad one).
Resultant tendencies: derived by considering an individual’s achievement motive levels in
relation to situational factors. This theory is best at predicting situations in which there is 50-50
chance of success.
Emotional reactions: how much pride and shame someone experiences. High achievers focus
more on pride, low achievers focus more on shame and worry.
Achievement-related behaviours: this indicates how the four other components interact to
influence behaviour. High achievers: more challenging tasks. Low achievers: avoid intermediate
risk.
- Attribution theory focuses on how people explain their successes and failures. This theory can be
divided in basic attribution categories: stability (a factor to which one attributes success or failure is
either fairly permanent or unstable), locus of causality (a factor is either external or internal to the
individual) and locus of control (a factor is or is not under our control).
These have been linked to expectations of future success.
- Achievement goal theory has three factors that interact to determine a person’s motivation:
achievement goals, perceived ability, achievement behaviour. Outcome goal orientation is that the
focus is on comparing yourself with others, task goal orientation is that the focus is on improving
relative to your own past performances. Task performance people select moderately difficult or
realistic tasks and opponents. They do not fear failure.
2
