Psychology of Motivation Discussion

 Psychology of Motivation Discussion Paper

Instructions/Descriptions

 Psychology of Motivation Discussion Paper

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Lecture Notes

Welcome to Lesson 4, the psychology of motivation! With this lesson, you’re approaching the halfway point in this second part of Introduction to Psychology. The fact that you’re still interested in this subject and motivated to keep working toward your degree is a tribute to both your intelligence and perseverance. Keep it up!

Lesson 4 (Chapter 12 in your text), gets underway by addressing an issue that may very well be front and center for you. As you looked in the mirror this morning, did your expression register distaste as you contemplated your spreading waistline? Have you felt anxious trepidation as you prepare to step on your bathroom scale? Have you lied just a little bit about your dress size? Has your (aunt, spouse, girlfriend, fellow worker) been making disparaging jokes about your “beer gut”? If so, join the club.

The fact is America is suffering a crisis of obesity. As I write this, 50 percent of all adults are overweight, as are at least 25 percent of our children. What factors contribute to this epidemic? What prevents Americans from maintaining a healthy weight? Well, to start with, have you noticed that three of our main industries keep sending us conflicting messages every day about who we should be and what we should look like? The clothing industry bombards us with visions of underweight females and buffed-up male models that the vast majority of us can never hope to look like (and might not want to). The auto industry gets our juices flowing with images of sleek sports cars (that the average American can’t fit into, let alone drive comfortably). On the opposite side, the food industry urges us to eat large quantities of high-fat fast foods from behind the wheel of our ideal car while we wear our slinky, fashion-model clothes! With mixed messages like these thrown at us daily, it’s no wonder we’re befuddled.

Allow me to spend a moment philosophizing about the future. Think back to the topic of evolution and natural selection you encountered in Part 1 of this course. Do you recall this commentary? The fundamental idea behind natural selection is this: If in a particular environment, individuals with a genetically influenced trait tend to be more successful in survival, and their genes become more and more common in the population. What might this mean in today’s fast-paced world in which we give priority to high-tech mechanisms? Hasn’t modern technology compromised our need to be more physically involved in our lives? What will our lives be like in tomorrow’s even faster-paced world?

Think about this for a moment. Then, make a list of all the inventions that decrease human energy output, just so we can be faster, more mobile, and more competitive in a society that puts a high priority on success. Label the far-left column Gadgets. Label the middle column, Improves, and the right column Decreases Use of (meaning a part of the body). Your page will look something like this:

Continue adding to this list until you get a pretty good visual picture of why our bodies are obese, our muscles weak, and our minds are on overload! It makes you wonder if this trend toward physical shutdown will contribute to any changes in our genes. What might our bodies look like in future centuries as a result?

Respecting motivation, clinical psychologists devote a lot of time to helping people identify achievable goals. Typically, the psychologist’s clients will have good intentions and fairly realistic ideas about what they want to accomplish. And that’s a good thing. On the other hand, these typical clients have a major problem. They resist breaking down their big, end-result goal into smaller, achievable steps. For that reason, psychologists will recommend defining the small steps that will lead to a person’s major goal and writing them down in terms that are measurable. That way, once client have reached a small goal, they can reward themselves and then move on to the next small goal, and so on. Before the client knows it, he or she will have accomplished the main goal. Unfortunately, overall, many people fail to reach their overall goal, because they fail along the way to achieve one of the small steps. So, instead of looking back with satisfaction on all the smaller goals they’ve accomplished, and rewarding themselves, they let a momentary failure overwhelm them. A client might say, “Now, I’ll never accomplish my goal!” (But isn’t this same principle the key to success in earning your degree? Each lesson is one small step—one success—on the way toward your main goal.)

Let’s apply this concept of “small steps” to weight loss. The most effective and healthiest way to lose weight is to decrease caloric input and increase your level of exercise. Most people make the mistake of using the scale as their measurement for success or failure. They set as their overall goal losing a specific number of pounds. However, a savvy psychologist will recommend not using pounds lost as their standard of success or failure. Instead, the psychologist urges a client to identify an achievable exercise goal and an achievable change in diet. For example, the first goal might be to walk two miles, three times a week for two weeks. The goal for the next two weeks would be to forego alcoholic beverages and/or fried foods for two weeks. The object is to focus on achieving these two goals, not how much weight the person loses in the next four weeks.

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Psychologists find that people will lose weight if they’re able to achieve a moderate exercise goal and make a simple change in their diet. The next goal would be to either increase the existing goal or keep it the same, but always with the emphasis on small, achievable steps, such as increasing the exercise pattern from three times a week to four, or identifying another small dietary change they can make. Most people comply with their goal behavior, at best, only 75–85 percent of the time. A few rare people maintain 100 percent compliance. The reason for asking people to not use measured weight (pounds lost) as their goal is that weight loss is the result of reaching other goals. Unfortunately, most people get discouraged and give up their weight-loss behaviors because they (a) are not losing weight fast enough, (b) get tired of being on a restrictive diet, and/or (c) didn’t incorporate these behaviors into their lifestyle as small, successive goals.

This lesson focuses on many interesting topics that we could spend hours discussing. I predict it will hold your attention because it deals with “your life”—with the person you see and imagine yourself to be every time you look in the mirror. Since you aren’t learning this material in a classroom situation, I hope you will share this information with a friend, coworker, and/or significant other. It will make your study more fun and increase your learning progress. You may be surprised at the questions they ask as you talk about what you’ve learned!

 Psychology of Motivation Discussion Paper

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