Nature and mechanisms of loss of motivation
Nature and mechanisms of loss of motivation.
Review of General
Psychology
4.3
4.3
Note: Ini hanya sebua catatan mohon merujuk sumber aslinya
Abstrak
Loss of motivation refers either to the weakening of a
motive q or to the loss of energy and
persistence with which some subordinate goal p is planned for and pursued in view of q. Although interrelated, such
aspects can be kept distinct, and the present work focuses on the loss of
strength of the subordinate goal. An analysis is provided of such mental
attitudes as subjective frustration, negative expectation, disappointment, and
discouragement so as to clarify their respective roles in favoring loss of motivation. The
necessary cognitive conditions for the occurrence of loss of motivation are
singled out; namely, goal p should be an intention, and
a disappointment should occur in regard to the instrumental relationship
between p and q , p's
attainability, or p's
convenience. Both advantages and limits of the model are discussed. (PsycINFO
Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved)(journal abstract)
Gambar
dan Tabel
·
Gambar 1
·
Gambar 2
Abstrak
Loss of motivation refers either to the weakening of a motive q or to the loss of energy and
persistence with which some subordinate goal p is planned for and pursued in view of q. Although interrelated, such aspects
can be kept distinct, and the present work focuses on the loss of strength of
the subordinate goal. An analysis is provided of such mental attitudes as
subjective frustration, negative expectation, disappointment, and
discouragement so as to clarify their respective roles in favoring loss of motivation.
The necessary cognitive conditions for the occurrence of loss of motivation are singled out; namely, goal p should be an intention,
and a disappointment should occur in regard to the instrumental relationship
between p and q, p's attainability, or p's convenience. Both
advantages and limits of the model are discussed.
This article analyzes loss of motivation and its relationships with a rich family of phenomena—such as
frustration, negative expectation, disappointment, and discouragement—that show
some kinship with it. We assume that an understanding of these relationships
will help identify the conditions under which loss of
motivation can
occur and the crucial steps in the process.
The goal-directed quality of
behavior, its hierarchical organization, and its persistence are now widely
acknowledged in the relevant literature (e.g., Austin & Vancouver,
1996; Deci & Ryan, 1991; Ford, 1992;Frese & Sabini, 1985; Gollwitzer, 1993; Hollenbeck & Klein,
1987; Locke & Latham, 1990; Pervin, 1989). A
person's activities receive organization and direction by the frameworks of his
or her goal structures. A special property of human behavior is the persistence
of goal structures for long periods of time, even in spite of lack of
reinforcement. Persistence is allowed by a number of crucial factors, such as
the ability to mentally simulate events and actions (Hayes-Roth &
Hayes-Roth, 1979; Taylor & Pham, 1995) and
to postpone goal satisfaction (Mischel, 1995),
the ability to organize goals into hierarchies of subgoals (Anderson, 1993; Carver & Scheier, 1981; Castelfranchi & Parisi, 1980; Martin & Tesser, 1989; Powers, 1973; Vallacher & Wegner, 1987), and the
ability to set internal standards of behavior and to find satisfaction in
meeting those standards independent of external rewards (Bandura, 1991).
Therefore, the problem of why and under what conditions a goal is
“dropped” deserves special attention. This problem has been more or less
directly addressed in several domains. Expectancy-value theories (Ajzen
& Fishbein, 1980; Atkinson,
1964; Edwards, 1954; Mitchell & Biglan, 1971; Rotter, 1982) actually address the core factors or general laws of motivation. One can easily
understand that changes in the perceived probability of success or in the value
attributed to the goal will heavily affect the strength of motivation. However, such models of motivation, as Kuhl (1984) would put it, are mainly
concerned with the principles guiding goal selection rather than goal
achievement, that is, with those mechanisms and processes that influence the
choice of a certain goal and action rather than those that favor or secure its
actual pursuit, in spite of possible difficulties; thus, for instance, such
aspects as disappointment and discouragement and their respective roles in the
“demotivation” process are not so explicitly addressed.
The model of action phases (Heckhausen & Gollwitzer, 1987) proposes a clear
distinction between themotivational (or
predecision) phase, consisting of deliberating wishes and setting preferences
up to the point of transforming a mere wish into an intention, with the implied
decision and commitment to fulfill it, and thevolitional (both preaction and action) phase,
which implies planning (preaction) and actually pursuing (action) the intended
goal. The thought contents and cognitive functioning typical of each phase are
quite different. The motivational phase is characterized by a “deliberative”
mind-set whose features are open-mindedness with regard to processing available
information and the impartial and accurate analysis of the desirability and
feasibility of the various wishes under examination. Conversely, the volitional
phase, starting when the decision has been made and the intention has already been formed, is characterized by an “implemental”
mind-set whose features are closed-mindedness toward the relevant information,
with a special orientation toward implementation information, and a partial and
self-serving analysis of desirability and feasibility issues. In any case, such
a distinction in orientation between the motivational and the volitional phase,
however important under many respects, risks undervaluing or neglecting the
possibility of loss of motivation after an intention has been formed or even in the course
of pursuit: Once the “Rubicon” of decision has been passed, it seems that
little room is left for afterthought, change of mind, and goal dropping. In
fact, the domain of implementation intentions (e.g., Gollwitzer & Brandstätter, 1997) is mainly concerned
with the effectiveness of goal pursuit rather than with goal disengagement and
loss of motivation,
although the latter can still play some role in the process, as far as
conflicts are concerned (for instance, interruption of goal pursuit may be
caused by a conflict between various means of pursuit).
Energy models of motivation are recently looking up again (e.g., Baumeister, Bratslavsky, Muraven, & Tice, 1998). Here, too, the
problems of willpower and persistence in goal pursuit are addressed. In
particular, proneness to give up pursuit is considered as far as it is a
consequence of ego depletion, which is traced back to any prior exercise of
volition, even in unrelated spheres of pursuit. In fact, a prior exercise of
volition is supposed to cause a temporary reduction in an individual's capacity
to engage in subsequent acts of volition, which imply some persistence in
goal-directed activity in spite of fatigue or difficulties. Thus, loss ofmotivation and intention dropping are here viewed under a
particular perspective that, though worth exploring, is extrinsic to such
aspects as the specific nature of the intended goal, its instrumentality for
higher order goals, and the individual's expectations, which conversely are
among the main concerns of the present work.
Various theories of depression, such as learned helplessness (Abramson,
Seligman, & Teasdale, 1978)—or better its revised
version, hopelessness depression (Abramson, Metalsky, & Alloy, 1989)—as well as other cognitive theories such
as Beck's
(1987) and G. W.
Brown and Harris's (1978),
are of course relevant to loss of motivation.
All of these theories stress to different degrees the causal role played in
depression by hopelessness, which implies both negative expectations about the
occurrence of the desired outcome and helplessness about changing the
likelihood of its occurrence. Hopelessness, in fact, is assumed to lead to
motivational deficits, a typical symptom of depression. As shown later,
hopelessness, and in particular its implied component of helplessness, is a
crucial factor in our treatment of discouragement. But, in our view, the latter
is not exactly the same as hopelessness. More important, though very similar to
loss of motivation,
discouragement does not necessarily imply it: There can occur loss of motivation without discouragement, as well as
discouragement without loss of motivation (see later discussion). Also, Brehm's
theory of motivation(Brehm
& Self, 1989; Brehm,
Wright, Solomon, Silka, & Greenberg, 1983; Wright
& Brehm, 1989),
concerned as it is with the intensity of motivation and the factors determining the mobilization
of energy and the degree of effort exerted in pursuit, is particularly relevant
to the relationship between discouragement and loss ofmotivation,
although the focus of such studies is mainly on either the amount of
motivational arousal or the various degrees of task engagement (depending on
such factors as the perceived difficulty of the task) rather than on task
disengagement and its eliciting conditions.
Other
approaches mainly address individual differences in motivation.
Achievement motivation studies (e.g.,Atkinson,
1957; McClelland,
Atkinson, Clark, & Lowell, 1953)
have distinguished two classical individual motivational tendencies: need for achievement and fear of failure.
The latter appears likely to favor loss ofmotivation and goal disengagement, through such
implications as lack of persistence, negative emotions, actual failure or poor
performance, and attributional biases (Birney,
Burdick, & Teevan, 1969; Heckhausen,
1975).
Recent studies in the same domain (e.g., Elliot
& Church, 1997; Elliot
& Sheldon, 1997)
have linked the general motivational disposition of fear of failure to more
specific avoidance goals and stressed the mediating role of perceived
competence between avoidance goals and such outcome measures as satisfaction
with progress and enjoyableness of pursuit.
The
relationship between individual differences in goal orientation and both task
disengagement and depression has been explored via other approaches. For
instance, Dykman
(1998) has found that “validation seeking” people,
as compared with “growth seeking” people, show greater fear of failure and task
disengagement when facing difficulties or obstacles. Dykman's work borrows from
Dweck's model of implicit theories of intelligence (e.g., Dweck
& Leggett, 1988; Hong, Chiu, & Dweck, 1995), in which “entity theorists” (those who
believe intelligence is a fixed entity) are compared with “incremental
theorists” (who believe intelligence is liable to change and increase). Such
implicit views of intelligence favor different goal orientations in achievement
situations (the goal of documenting one's intelligence versus that of
developing one's skills and knowledge), which allow one to predict individual
differences in disposition to avoid challenging situations and disengage from
challenging pursuits.
However important, individual differences
in either general motivational dispositions or avoidance versus achievement
goals do not exhaust the problem of the causes or eliciting conditions of loss
of motivation and goal termination. As we view them,
individual tendencies can favor or aggravate loss of motivation rather than elicit or determine it.
In the following, we first try to
circumscribe the notion of loss of motivation.
We focus on just one aspect of it, namely the loss of persistence or strength
with which a certain goal is wanted, planned for, or pursued in view of some
superordinate motive;
moreover, we distinguish such a form of goal termination from general goal termination,
which in our view is a wider phenomenon. Then we look at a number of implied or
related phenomena such as frustration, negative expectation, disappointment,
and discouragement, trying to identify their respective relationships with loss
of motivation.
This will allow a more explicit and analytical view of loss of motivation and of the general conditions under
which it can occur. Finally, we point to both the advantages and limits of our
model and also try to convert some of our speculations into testable
hypotheses.
Loss of Motivation: Restricting an Intuitive Notion
In common usage, being “motivated” to do
something implies, more or less tacitly, an instrumental relationship between
at least two goals, p and q. I am motivated to achieve p (either to realize or to maintain it)
in view of q. Goal q is the “motive”
for p.
The notion of motivation traditionally implies two distinct
(albeit interrelated) meanings. On the one hand, it means that some motive (q) exists for p. Suppose p is “studying”; if one asks a student
why he or she is motivated to study, the student can answer by providing his or
her motive q: “because I want to achieve a good
education,” “because I want to make Dad happy,” “because I want to increase my
chances to find a job,” and so on.
On the other hand, motivation refers to the strength and persistence
with which p is wanted, planned for, and pursued.
For instance, if one compares a “very motivated” student with a less motivated
student, one finds that the former is highly committed to studying, does not
become discouraged by failure or obstacles, and does not give up trying to
achieve p.
Needless to say, the two meanings are
closely related to each other, in that the second often depends on the first.
That is, the existence as well as the degree of importance of the motive q affects the persistence and strength
of the subordinate p and its pursuit. If q is dropped or its importance
decreases, p can be dropped too, or its strength
decreases accordingly. Often, when one refers to a lack or loss of motivation,
one implies the absence or reduction of both meanings. For instance, the lack
of loss of motivation that is considered typical of
depression implies both the lack or weakness of motives that a depressive mood is likely to
favor, so that one finds little interest and value in anything, and the lack of
energy and persistence with which subordinate goals are planned for and pursued
in view of such weak motives.
In fact, because no q is found to be valuable and enjoyable,
where is one to find the energy and persistence for the means (p) for
it? Nothing is worth doing; everything is heavy and discouraging. What was
easily motivating in the past becomes either uninteresting and unvalued or slow
and laborious (Layne, Merry, Christian, & Ginn, 1982).
However, there are cases in which the motive q (including its degree of importance)
is maintained as such, and still the strength and persistence of its means p can suffer some setback, up to the
point that p is dropped while q is still there. It is precisely on
these kinds of processes that we focus our attention. While maintaining the motive level fixed, we attempt to see what
happens at the lower level, that of the means p.
The reasons for this choice are quite
simple. First, to identify the basic mechanisms and processes underlying
complex phenomena, it is necessary to let just one “thing” vary at a time.
Second, given the typical hierarchical organization of goals, we assume that
what happens at the superordinate level of motive qshould be quite similar to
what happens at the level of p. More precisely, we are suggesting a
recursive model of loss of motivation.
In fact, we assume that analyzing why q has been dropped or has lost its
importance implies considering some superordinate motive r, in view of which q is (seen as) a means.
Loss
of Motivation and
Intrinsic Motivation
Such a view of (loss of) motivation in terms of means–end relations
between goals, however, neglects the issue of intrinsic motivation,
which refers to performing an activity for itself (i.e., for the pleasure and
satisfaction implied by such activity, independent of any external reward;
e.g., Deci, 1975; Deci & Ryan, 1985; Lepper, Greene, & Nisbett, 1973). Actually, one could be motivated to
achieve p simply “for its own sake.” For
instance, the student in our previous example could provide an answer of the
type “I study just because I like it” to our question.
According to our model, intrinsic motivation could be viewed under either of the
following perspectives. First, one might assume that, when intrinsic motivation is at stake, p coincides with q, in that there is no other reason for
wanting and pursuing p but p itself. In other words, p would be a terminal goal in the
agent's mind (i.e., an end in itself). Second, it might be argued that when one
is motivated to engage in a given activity simply for the satisfaction it
provides, an instrumental relationship still exists between two goals: Going
back to the example, p would be “studying,” whereas q would be “experiencing a certain kind
of pleasure” (that related to learning new materials). Under this perspective,
our instrumental model of loss of motivation would also apply to intrinsically
motivated behavior.
Anyway, we do not lean toward the latter
position, in that we assume that some terminal goals—of both the low-level type
(e.g., eating chocolate) and the high-level type (e.g., survival, knowledge,
attachment, and so on)—do in fact exist. Actually, we view the distinction
between instrumental and terminal goals as a sensible and psychologically
convincing one.
Therefore, we are left with the problem of
understanding why and how loss of motivation can occur with regard to terminal
goals. In other words, why does a certain motive weaken or disappear if it is a
terminal one, that is, if the cause cannot reside in its instrumentality for
some superordinate motive?
In this regard, a couple of points need to be specified. First, as we argue
later, loss of motivation does not coincide with (or is not
implied by) any goal termination. Second, we must confess that we harbor some
doubt, if not about the existence, at least about the salience of loss of motivation with regard to true terminal goals. We
believe that, when loss of motivation is at stake, some instrumentality is
often (if not always) concealed under the seeming “terminality” of a given
goal. Suppose that I go to college “for the pleasure I experience while
surpassing myself in my studies”—which is considered a form of intrinsic motivation (seeVallerand, 1997, p. 285)—but after some time I no longer
find studying so satisfying and motivating. What has happened? A number of
possibilities can apply, two of which seem quite plausible: Either some failure
has occurred (I have not been able to “surpass” myself), or studying has been
superseded by some other interest (e.g., sports) in which I can equally (or
better) be successful. In both cases, according to such explanations, studying
is not an end in itself, in that it is not performed for its own sake. In fact,
an instrumental relationship is implied between studying and surpassing
oneself. In the former case, the goal has been found to be ineffective or
insufficient with regard to its superordinate goal. In the latter case,
studying has been found to be replaceable by some other (easier, or more
entertaining, and hence instrumental to some other side goal) goal.
This is just to say that true terminal
goals (and intrinsically motivated activities) are not so numerous as they
might appear at first sight, as well as to cast some doubt on the applicability
of loss of motivation to such goals. In a sense, this is in
line with what is typically claimed within the intrinsic–extrinsic motivationapproach;
that is, people's intrinsic motivation is undermined when it is no longer
intrinsic, in that an external reward is provided for some activity that was
originally viewed as interesting in itself. This is quite understandable if one
assumes that it is the instrumental relationship between goals that creates the
conditions for the occurrence of loss of motivation.
However, we do not want to go so far as to
rule out the possibility that terminal goals are affected by loss ofmotivation.
A depressive mood, for instance, is likely to weaken the value (or interest, or
importance, or whatever) of any goal, either terminal or instrumental.
So, as already mentioned, we choose to
limit our treatment of loss of motivation to instrumental goals. A further
restriction of our analysis is that we are concerned with the explicit and
possibly conscious aspects of the demotivation process and its eliciting
conditions. Thus, at this point, implicit or unconscious motives and processes are beyond the scope of
our work.
Loss
of Motivation and
Goal Termination
Loss of motivation implies goal termination. An agent
loses his or her motivation with respect to a certain goal p when p is no longer a goal. Or, considering
the process rather than its end point, one can say that loss of motivation refers to the decrease in probability
of p remaining as a goal.
However, a goal can be terminated
independent of loss of motivation. Simon (1967, p. 32) suggested four possible bases for goal termination: aspiration achievement, when the goal has been totally
achieved;satisficing, when
the goal, even though not totally realized, has been achieved “well enough”
(this implies a notion of a “scalable” goal, i.e., a goal that can be achieved
to a greater or lesser extent; in fact, a number of goals are scalable, e.g.,
eating chocolate, having suitors, or being good at tennis, rather than being of
the all-or-nothing kind); impatience, when a certain amount of time has been
consumed in trying to achieve the goal; and discouragement, when a certain number of attempts at
achieving the goal have been made without success.
When a
goal is dropped just because it has been (either substantially or completely)
achieved, one would not speak of loss of motivation.
For a loss of motivation to occur, some goal should be dropped
without being achieved. So, considering the possible reasons for goal
termination proposed by Simon (1967), only the last two seem to be relevant to
loss of motivation.
However, we see them as insufficient bases for loss ofmotivation and try to identify other possible
mechanisms and eliciting conditions.
As already observed, a goal p can be dropped as a consequence of q's dropping. The most simple
reason forq's termination is its realization (other possible reasons
would imply taking into account q's
instrumental relationship with other superordinate goals). Suppose Mary has the
goal p of losing weight just in view of the
goal q of finding a boyfriend. If she happens
to meet a potential boyfriend who finds her attractive (in spite of her
weight), p is likely to be dropped because q is (going to be) satisfied (and
terminated). One might say that Mary has lost her motivation to pursue p. But, for the sake of clarity, because
we choose to restrict our notion of loss of motivation to the level of means p, we would rather say that Mary has lost
her motive or that she has no (longer) motive to pursue p. If p is a condition for q, but q is already true (or is going to become
so) independent of p's
pursuit, p is not activated, or its activation is
inhibited.
On the other hand, p can be dropped while goal q is still there (i.e., it is not yet
achieved). Suppose again Mary has the goal p of losing weight just in view of the
goal q of finding a boyfriend. Suppose her
brother tells her that her problem is not weight but rather her lack of social
skills, especially when dealing with potential partners (because, say, she is
too shy). If Mary is persuaded by her brother's hypothesis, p is likely to be dropped and (in this
case) substituted by some other goal (say, improving her social skills) that
she regards now as more useful for q. In this case, one would say that a
loss of motivation relative to p has occurred.
In other words, both “having no motive”
and “losing one's motivation”
imply an instrumental relationship between at least two goals, of which one (q)
is the motive for the other (p). But whereas
in the former case pis
dropped simply because q is dropped, in the latter case p is dropped while q is still present in the agent's mind.
Loss of motivation presupposes the persistence of the motive q. Having outlined these basic
distinctions, we now move to such mental attitudes and mechanisms as
frustration, negative expectation, disappointment, and discouragement that
appear related to loss of motivation,
so as to specify under what conditions and how they can produce or favor it.
Frustration
A typical consequence of goal unattainment
is loss of motivation about that goal. If I have goal p of studying (in view of motive q of passing an exam) and I am not
achieving the required preparation, p is likely to be dropped.
However, not all kinds of unattainment are
likely to induce goal disengagement. For example, one should subjectively
experience such unattainment (i.e., believe it). If I do not realize that I am
not achieving my goalp, no
loss of motivation will occur. Here in fact we are
dealing with organisms endowed with cognitive regulatory mechanisms, acting on
the basis of their mental states: their goals, beliefs, and discrepant
assumptions. For such organisms, a goal is achieved or not achieved depending
on representations rather than on actual facts. If my goal is p, and I obtain not p but I do not assume it, there will be
no subjective unattainment (i.e., no belief–goal discrepancy). Moreover, given
my goal p, I may erroneously assume −p; a subjective unattainment does not
necessarily imply an objective one.
Thus, our first basic condition for
predicting loss of motivation from goal unattainment is the
following: If goal unattainment is to imply loss of motivation,
the unattainment should be subjective: a subjective unattainment is a
discrepant assumption (i.e., the coexistence in the individual's mind of the
belief −p and the goal p, or vice versa).
However, not all subjective unattainment is
likely to induce loss of motivation.
A mere belief–goal discrepancy is, so to say, physiological for goal-regulated
systems. It is their very “engine” in that they act precisely because they
record a discrepancy between goals and beliefs about the world (e.g., Miller, Galanter, & Pribram, 1960). For example, before starting to study,
and also in the process of studying, I am aware that I have not (yet) achieved
the required preparation, but of course this is not enough for inducing loss ofmotivation and disengagement from the goal. In
other words, an unachieved goal is not necessarily a frustrated one. Under what
conditions does it become frustrated?
To identify such conditions, it is
necessary to consider the role of time in the goal representation. A system
endowed with goals also has a more or less explicit “schedule” for their
fulfillment. When one has a goal, one embeds in its representation the time in
or by which one wants the desired state to be attained. This time is not
necessarily a precise moment: It may be a more or less extensive time span or
may even include the “eventually” of logic (i.e., an undefined “sooner or
later”). If the discrepancy between beliefs and goals is to coincide with a
frustration (or better, a frustrating assumption, because we are dealing with
subjective frustration), the time represented in the goal must coincide with
that represented in the belief (Miceli & Castelfranchi, 1997). Therefore, a discrepant assumption becomes a frustrating
assumption when the time specification of the goal coincides with that of the
belief. Consider the following trivial example: I have the goal of having a
baby. Suppose I am pursuing it, and the goal is still unachieved. When will it
become frustrated? It depends on the “deadline” I have put on it. The same
holds in the case of studying for the exam: My goal is frustrated (rather than
simply not yet attained) when I believe that I am not achieving the required
preparation within the established time.
Of
course, the time specifications of some goals can depend more on the
individual's choice, whereas those of other goals present more rigid
constraints (i.e., they can be achieved only within a precise time span;
otherwise, they are frustrated). In terms typical of the planning and
scheduling domain, this implies that goals may have either soft deadlines
(which depend on the agent's choice, or at least the agent knows there are
further opportunities to achieve the goal) or hard deadlines (which do not
depend on the agent's will). So, in the case of soft deadlines, the time
specification assigned to p is not necessarily definitive.
This
amounts to saying that a frustrated goal is not necessarily frustrated
“forever.” A previously frustrated goal can later become active again and even
be pursued, which implies some process of goal suspension and subsequent
reactivation. However, the goal's “return” implies that it must be assigned a
new time specification: The state p that I previously wanted to be true at
Time 1 becomes a state p that I want to be true at a later
time. Thus, we have come up with another basic condition for predicting loss of motivationfrom
goal unattainment: If (subjective) goal unattainment is to imply loss of motivation,
the unattainment should be a (subjective) frustration, that is, a belief–goal
discrepancy in which the time specification of the goal coincides with that of
the belief.
But this
is still not enough. Not all frustrated goals (from here on, frustration refers to subjective frustration,
unless otherwise specified) are conducive to a loss of motivation.
Suppose I have the goal p that John calls me (in view, say, of
goal q that John asks me for a date), but I
do nothing to make p occur, and p is frustrated (i.e., I do not receive
John's phone call within the established time). This kind of frustration has
nothing to say about loss of motivation.
Loss of motivation about what, indeed? Conversely, if I
were trying to favor in some way p's
realization, and my attempts were frustrated, in that case frustration could
induce my loss of motivation with regard to p and, eventually, p's dropping.
Goals Versus Intentions
The
previous example implies an important distinction: that between mere goals and intentions.
The fundamental mental object known as goal or “regulatory state” is actually a
complex family including wishes, desires, needs,
and intentions.
In particular, intention is a special kind of goal, one that
shows a closer relationship with behavior. Intentions are precisely those goals that mediate
the relationship between attitudes and behavior (Ajzen, 1985; Fishbein & Ajzen,
1975). In
fact, not any goal is chosen for being pursued. Not any discrepant assumption
induces the organism to try to reduce the belief–goal discrepancy. In a world
where resources are bounded, an agent has to choose which goals to pursue (see Bell & Huang, 1997;Castelfranchi, 1996; Haddadi &
Sundermeyer, 1996). Such
a choice depends on a variety of criteria, including the perceived importance
of the goals, their assumed feasibility, and the amount of resources required
to accomplish them.
The
notion of intention implies the following defining
properties, which make it a very special kind of goal: it is conscious,
consistent with both the agent's beliefs about its possible achievement and his
or her otherintentions, chosen (i.e., implying a
decision to pursue it), and planned for. Thus, an intention is always about some action or plan.
The decision to pursue the goal implies the agent's commitment to it. Intention and commitment are then closely tied
to each other and give rise to the problem of the degree of commitment implied
by an intention,
or the conditions under which an intention can be dropped (e.g., Cohen & Levesque,
1990).
Thus, it is not mere goal frustration but the frustration of some intention p that has something to say about loss
of motivation.
And this is our third condition: If a frustration is to imply loss of motivation,
the frustrated goal should be an intention.
At this point, a terminological—as well as conceptual—clarification
is required. In fact, one might wonder why we should classify an intention as a kind of goal while we are at the
same time stressing the special nature ofintentions—namely,
their conscious and volitional component—which conversely is missing in our
basic notion of goal. Moreover, because we are dealing with loss of motivation,
which, according to our model, applies only to intentions,
why not address intentions from the beginning and do without
“goals” and their ambiguous or vague implications?
Our answer is that an abstract and general notion of goal is
needed because it is quite useful for a general theory of purposive behavior
and for catching some important properties that are common to different
motivational attitudes. For example, hierarchical means–end relationships hold
between wishes, desires, orintentions; conflicts can hold between
any kind of goal; and, as we have just observed, frustration is common to both
goals and intentions.
One would not like to have unrelated models of conflict or frustration when
applied to these different motivational attitudes. In fact, why postulate so
many independent “primitives” rather than trying to see what is shared by such
motivational attitudes and how each of them can be “decomposed” into simpler
ingredients?
More specifically, in our account of loss of motivation,
we need this abstract notion of goal for at
least two reasons. First, a good (i.e., dynamic) model of goal processing
presupposes some entity that is processed step by step and is subject to some
transformation, with the possibility not only of generating a new unrelated
entity but also going back in the process (to previous stages) while preserving
some specific content (i.e., the goal state). This, as shown later, is exactly
the case for intentions,
which can go back to their previous state of simple goals. Second, as we show
later in our treatment of disappointment, a general notion of goal is necessary
for a unified view of this mental attitude. In fact, disappointment can simply
concern some expectation (goal plus prediction). It does not necessarily
require intentions,
but it also applies to them. Relating disappointment to goals allows for a
general treatment of disappointment, whereas focusing on its relation with intentions permits one to see how disappointment
can imply loss of motivation.
Let us now retrace our line of reasoning and look at the relationship between
frustrated intentions and loss ofmotivation.
Frustrated Intentions and
Loss of Motivation
We have just stated that for a frustration to imply loss of motivation,
the frustrated goal should be anintention. But it is not necessary
that an intention is actually pursued [ 1 ] (and failed) to favor a
loss ofmotivation. In fact, contrary to common usage (e.g., J. S. Brown, 1961; Cofer & Appley, 1964; Dollard, Doob, Miller, Mowrer, & Sears, 1939), we do not restrict goal (and intention)
frustration to pursued (and failed) goals; rather, we view it as a wider
phenomenon including “privation” (Marx, 1956; Maslow, 1943;Miceli
& Castelfranchi, 1997), that is, the simple
fact that the goal (or intention)
is unrequited. So, considering mere goals, a goal can be frustrated (or
achieved) without being pursued: I have the goal that John calls me tomorrow, I
do not pursue it, and still, if tomorrow John does not call me, my goal is
frustrated.
Also, an intention can be frustrated without being
actually pursued. If goal p is chosen for pursuit and some
planning is being done for it, p is already an intention:
namely, what Bratman would call a “future-directedintention”
rather than an “intentional action” (e.g., Bratman, 1987). Consider again my intention p to study. Suppose I am not yet
pursuing p (that is, I have not started to study)
but I have decided to do so, and have started my planning for it (looking for
the books I should read and the classes to attend, scheduling my future weeks
so as to reserve some time for studying, and so on), but in so doing I come to
realize that I will not achieve the required preparation in time. This is
already a frustrating assumption. A frustrating assumption, according to the
definition previously suggested, is simply a belief–goal discrepancy in which
the time specification of the goal coincides with that of the belief. Nothing
is said about the time at which the frustrating assumption is made. That time
does not necessarily coincide with the time specification assigned to p. I can now believe that in 4 weeks I will
not achieve the required preparation. So, intention p is frustrated, and that frustration
can induce my disengagement from it (i.e., I drop p).
Of course, a frustrated intention can also be a pursued (and failed)
one, which is the more apparent case. A typical consequence of frustrated
pursuit is disengagement from striving (e.g., Klinger, 1995; Scheier & Carver, 1988). But actual pursuit is not strictly
necessary.
We can now summarize the eliciting conditions for loss of motivation identified so far: (subjective)
frustration of an intention p, either pursued or not yet pursued in
view of a persisting motive q. However, an intention,
when frustrated, is not always abandoned. As pointed out by Klinger
(1975), frustration is even likely to induce an “invigoration” phase in
which greater effort is put forth in view of goal attainment. In addition,
frustration is likely to temporarily increase the value of the failed goal (Brehm,
1972). Not surprisingly, as already observed, a frustrated goal can
receive a new time specification, become active again, be chosen among other
possible goals, and be pursued. For instance, in the case of the exam, I can
“resume” myintention p at the next session. In this regard,
my expectations about the future course of the events play a crucial role.
Expectations
Expectations are complex mental attitudes consisting of both goals
and predictions (i.e., beliefs about the future). In fact, whereas a pure
prediction of p is simply the belief that p is (more or less) likely to occur
(within a certain time), an expectation of p is a prediction of p combined with the goal p (positive expectation) or not p (negative expectation): I foresee a
certain event and I have the goal that it occurs or does not occur.
Negative expectations closely resemble frustrations. If, as we
assume, goal frustration does not necessarily imply goal pursuit, one can
consider a negative expectation as a subtype of frustration. Actually, a
negative expectation was already implied in our previous example: If I now
believe that in 4 weeks (my deadline) I will not achieve p (the required preparation), this is a
case of negative expectation.
Thus, frustrations can be either verified or unverified. A
frustration is verified if the time at which it occurs coincides with (or
follows) the time specification assigned to p. A frustration is unverified if the
time at which it occurs precedes the time specification assigned to p (Miceli &
Castelfranchi, 1997). A negative expectation is simply an
unverified frustration.
Expectations play a crucial role in the decisional phase, in that
they influence intention formation and maintenance. Broadly
speaking, to become (or remain) an intention,
a goal should be viewed as (a) attainable and (b) convenient; that is, the
benefits gained through its satisfaction (realization of some superordinate
goal, as well as positive side effects of p's
realization) should be viewed as greater than the costs of its choice
(including renunciation of other possible goals) and pursuit (both resources to
be spent and negative side effects of p's
realization).
From the preceding, one might infer that negative expectations
about p's attainability or
convenience induce loss of motivation with regard to p. However, such a conclusion does not
apply to all circumstances. A number of restrictions are needed. For example,
it should be taken into account that whereas a verified frustration represents
the highest degree of certainty (in that it is an actual frustration), a
negative expectation can show varying degrees of certainty (the more certain it
is, the more it will resemble an actual frustration, “as if” it had already occurred).
When an expectation about p's
unattainability is certain, it is by itself sufficient to induce loss of motivationabout intention p and, eventually, p's dropping. But when the
expectation of unattainability is not absolutely certain, convenience can also
play an important role in the process. In particular, the more convenient p is considered, the more probable it is
that p is translated into, or maintained as,
an intention.
In this case, one is likely to apply a rule of the kind “There is no harm in
trying.” In other words, here a negative expectation about p's attainability (even with a
high degree of certainty) is not enough for “disturbing” an intention.
Conversely, degree of negative certainty being equal, the less convenient p is deemed, the more probable it is
that it does not become an intention or that a formed intention is dropped before being pursued (or
even in the course of pursuit). Here, the commonsense rule at stake is “The
game is not worth the candle”: One is considering (or reconsidering) p's attainability and
convenience and p looks unworthy of pursuit. So, one
gives up p, whereas its motive q can still be there.
Therefore, the role of negative expectations in the process of
loss of motivation (including intention dropping as its end point) can be
summarized as follows: If a negative expectation about an intention p is to induce loss of motivation with regard to p, it is sufficient that the expectation
regards p's
unattainability and is certain. When attainability is uncertain, it is also
necessary to have a negative expectation of inconvenience: The greater the
inconvenience, the more likely the loss of motivation and consequent intention dropping. It is worth specifying that
two different situations are possible: In one case, p is dropped, so to say, as a whole; in
the other case, p can be still there as a goal, but it
is no longer an intention.
In fact, an intention is, as already observed, a special
goal, which implies the choice to pursue that goal. This choice is simply
another goal, that of “doing something” to make the first goal true. In other
words, anintention can be divided into the pure
represented state of the world that one wants to be true and the goal to act
(i.e., to use some means) to realize it. For instance, the intention “I lose weight” (in view of my motive qto find a boyfriend) can be
divided into goal p that I lose weight and goal r that I go on a diet (see the
distinction between “intention that” and “intention to”; e.g., Grosz
& Kraus, 1996).
Therefore, one can lose either one's motivation for p or one's motivation to pursue p (by going on a diet). In the latter
case, goal r (going on a diet) has been dropped,
whereas goal p is still there but is no longer anintention (i.e., it has returned to the state of
a mere goal).
In any case, however, it is worth stressing that, as in the case
of frustration, the goal implied in the expectation should be an intention for a loss of motivation to occur. Loss of motivation implies intention.
A negative expectation concerning a simple goal (even the most certain and
strongest negative expectation) says nothing about loss of motivation.
Suppose I have the goal (not the intention)
that John loves me and I also predict that he will never love me. In what sense
could one say that I have “lost my motivation”
for being loved by John? I could of course lose any hope of being loved by
John, thus being hopeless and depressed, which are exactly the emotional
reactions implied by my negative expectations. I could try not to think about
my hopeless goal and avoid any activity of imagination and “foretaste” of the
desired state of affairs. I could even try either to repress or to suppress my
goal (however hard it may be to explain how this can be realized). But, in any
case, loss of motivation does not apply.
To put the question in other terms, loss of motivation does not coincide with disengagement
from the originalmotive (which we do not consider here) but
coincides with disengagement from its pursuit, or, more precisely, from some
subordinate goal that has become an intention.
The two kinds of disengagement should be kept distinct. In fact, the latter
does not necessarily imply the former. It is sufficient to provide a reminder
of the typical reactions of depressed people to failure: Although they are
likely to disengage from pursuit, they are unable to “mentally” disengage from
failure and from the unachieved goal itself (e.g., Pyszczynski
& Greenberg, 1987).
Disappointment
Disappointment is a special case of negative expectation, which
necessarily implies a process of transition or transformation of a positive
expectation into a negative one. A disappointed expectation is in fact a
positive expectation (with varying degrees of certainty) that becomes negative
(with varying degrees of certainty).
A disappointed expectation (or disappointment) may regard simple
goals, not necessarily intentions.
For instance, I would like the weather tomorrow to be fine, and I expect it to
be so; then I come to know that a storm is approaching, and I become
disappointed. Here no intention is at stake, and, as a consequence, no
loss of motivation will apply. For a loss of motivation to be induced by a disappointment, the
implied goal should be, as usual, an intention.
What has already been observed about negative expectations of
unattainability or inconvenience and loss ofmotivation also applies in the case of
disappointment. However, a disappointment is more likely than a purely negative
expectation to induce intention dropping. In fact, on the one hand,
the very formation of theintention is favored by the initial positive
expectation. Although not indispensable, positive expectations are a condition
favoring the prioritization of the goal, its transformation into an actual intention,
and, hence, the commitment to its pursuit (Bratman, 1987; Cohen & Levesque,
1990; Pervin, 1991). On the other hand,intention dropping is favored by the
transformation of the positive expectation into a negative one. By contrast,
when an expectation is negative from its start, its implied goal is less likely
to become an intention,
although, as just observed, this is not impossible.
How does a positive
expectation turn into a negative one? Of course, one should somehow “verify”
that one'sintention is less likely to be realized than
initially supposed. However, such a verification does not necessarily imply an
actual (unsuccessful) pursuit of the intention (i.e., a verified frustration). It is
sufficient that some preliminary test about the intention's
conditions of attainability or convenience reveals that such conditions do not
hold. Suppose Mary has the goal that John falls in love with her and starts
having positive expectations about that goal (grounded, say, either in a few
signs of his interest toward her or in her confidence in her ability to make
him fall in love with her). Now suppose that, supported by these positive
expectations, Mary's goal becomes an intention,
and she starts planning an action (e.g., to call him for a date) for achieving
it. At this point, before any pursuit, Mary discovers that John is a
homosexual. Suppose that this new piece of information is sufficient to thwart
her positive expectation, which turns into a negative one. Such a
disappointment can induce loss of motivation about her intention,
which is dropped (whereas the hopeless goal may still be there).
So far, then, the
relationship between disappointment and loss of motivation can be summarized as follows:
Disappointment of an intention (unlike mere negative expectation)
implies a process of transition from a positive expectation about the intention's
attainability and convenience into a negative one: whereas the positive
expectation favors intention formation, the negative one favors intention dropping. For a disappointment to
occur, a verification (before, during, or after pursuit) about the intention's
attainability or convenience should apply.
However, this picture of
the role of disappointment in loss of motivation might be incomplete in that it does
not take into account another important factor that seems likely to enter the
demotivation process: suffering. Although the verification implied by
disappointment does not necessarily coincide with a verified frustration,
disappointment of expectations is very likely to aggravate the suffering
provoked by frustrating assumptions (Miceli & Castelfranchi, 1997). In fact, violation of expectations is an important component of
most emotional experiences (e.g., Mandler, 1984; Scherer, 1984; Stein & Levine, 1987, 1990). If Mary wants to be
loved by John and expects to be, the pain of her (either predicted or actual)
failure will be stronger than what she would experience in the absence of any
definite expectations (“It may work out all right, and it may not”) or in the
case of negative expectations.
We suspect suffering
itself to play some role in loss of motivation.
More specifically, loss of motivation could (also) be a means for avoiding
or reducing the suffering implied by a frustrating assumption, and in
particular a disappointment. But, if so, how does it work? That is, how can
loss of motivation favor suffering reduction?
Suffering Reduction as a Reason for Loss of Motivation
If loss of motivation is to be induced by disappointment,
the implied goal should be an intention,
which is dropped as a result of the verification that the desired state of
affairs is less likely to be realized than initially supposed. The existence of
an intention,
even before any pursuit, is quite likely to favor anticipation of the
satisfaction of the intended goal. The implied choice and commitment, as well
as the activity of planning for the goal, favor the continuous activation of
the goal itself, along with the persistence of images related to the desired
state and its expected satisfaction. This, together with the initial positive
expectation, favors an “as if” state of mind (which is all the stronger, the
more certain the expectation) in which the desired state is (almost) realized,
and the individual feels already allowed to dwell on the enjoyment of the
satisfaction of his or her goal. In a sense, the realization of the goal comes
to be viewed as something to be maintained (as if it were already given) rather
than acquired.
When the positive
expectation is disappointed, one “falls” from such a pseudo-satisfaction of the
goal to its pseudo-loss. In fact, because the goal was “as if” attained, now it
is “as if” lost, rather than simply not acquired. A loss—that is, the
frustration of a maintenance goal—is likely to imply greater suffering than the
frustration of an acquisitive goal (Miceli & Castelfranchi, 1997). Not surprisingly, the damage associated with the loss of a
given resource is considered greater than the utility associated with the
acquisition of the same resource (see Kahneman, Knetsch, & Thaler, 1990; Kahneman & Tversky, 1979). This is, in our view,
the basic reason why a disappointment about an intention implies greater suffering than a
simple frustrating assumption: The “virtual” satisfaction of the goal favored
by the initial positive expectation and the cognitive processes implied by the intention make people perceive the abortive real
satisfaction as a loss once the positive expectation is disappointed.
We assume that the intention dropping implicit in loss of motivation drastically reduces the anticipatory
representation [ 2 ] of one's achievement. Thus, once the intention dropping has reduced the “foretaste”
of the desired state, the latter is very likely to return to its original
acquisitive status; that is, it is seen as something quite far from being
(almost) given. As a consequence, the frustration of the goal comes to be
viewed as a failed acquisition rather than a loss. And this implies a reduction
in suffering.
In addition, intention dropping can be viewed as a preventive
measure against the greater suffering caused by pursued (and failed) goals. In
fact, the frustration of a pursued goal implies (all else being equal) greater
suffering than the frustration of a nonpursued goal (Miceli & Castelfranchi, 1997). One of the reasons for this resides in the (useless) costs
incurred for pursuit. The greater the amount of resources, effort, and
persistence involved (i.e., the investment demanded for pursuit), the greater
the suffering. This is due not only to the costs incurred but to the
consequence of having incurred costs, in that the value of the goal rises as
the costs incurred grow (as implied in the psychology of “sunk costs”; e.g., Arkes
& Blumer, 1985;Bazerman, 1990). Thus, intention dropping, implying renouncing pursuit
of the goal, can also be a means for avoiding the suffering relative to the
(supposedly useless) costs of pursuit one would incur.
In sum, loss of motivation can reduce suffering, through its
implied intention dropping, in at least two main ways.
On the one hand, it reduces the anticipation of the desired state, thus
favoring an experience of frustration in terms of failed acquisition rather
than loss; on the other hand, it can work as a preventive measure against the
suffering related to useless pursuit.
If loss of motivation reduces suffering, one can also expect
that, when the suffering rises to an intolerable degree (or even when one is
afraid it is going to rise), suffering itself can act as a demotivating force
(i.e., it can induce loss of motivation to be reduced). In particular, the
severe suffering caused by disappointment can favor loss of motivation as a means for avoiding or reducing
the suffering. Thus, the picture of the role played by disappointment in loss
of motivation can be enriched by the following
corollary: Disappointment induces greater suffering than either simple
frustration or negative expectation, and in so doing it is more likely to favor
loss of motivation,
and consequent intention dropping, as a means for suffering
reduction.
As Carver and Scheier (1990, p. 31) observed, the negative affect
occurring when one's expectancies about goal attainment become “sufficiently
unfavorable” induces “disengagement from the attempt to conform to it.” Because
disengagement, in turn, favors the reconsideration and reprioritization of
one's goals, such a view suggests a functional role not only for suffering as a
demotivating force but also for loss of motivation itself. This aspect is beyond the
scope of the present article, and deserves separate attention.
Suffering Reduction and Low-Level Versus
High-Level Intention Dropping
We have just suggested that loss of motivation,
through intention dropping, is likely to reduce the
suffering implied in disappointment. However, it might be plausibly argued that
this mainly applies to low-levelintentions. By contrast, when
high-level intentions,
and in particular intentions related to a person's self-view, are
at stake, the situation becomes much more complicated. In fact, dropping a
self-related intentioncan
be more painful than suffering from “low-level” disappointment.
At least a couple of reasons can be suggested for this fact. On
the one hand, a low-level intention is more easily replaceable than a
high-level one (see Carver & Scheier,
1990): If, for shopping (q), going by
car (p) proves impossible or inconvenient, I can easily drop p and establish some other feasible
subgoal (e.g., taking a bus). Conversely, if, to become a pianist (q), I
have to pass the conservatory exam (p), and the pursuit of pproves unsuccessful and
disappointing, what else can I do? Renouncing p implies renouncing q, which, as far as q is related to my life projects,
personal strivings, and self-definitional concerns, can be highly distressing.
Although there is some truth in the previous argument, it is worth
specifying that, as is apparent from the earlier examples, the intention's
irreplaceability implies the risk of renouncing the superordinate motive,
and in principle this may happen at any level in a goal hierarchy. Even a very
low-level intention (e.g., a specific step in a program)
can be the unique means for realizing a certain supergoal. And, whenever
dropping an (either low- or high-level) intention implies renouncing its superordinate
goal, intention dropping can be more difficult and
painful than it would be with a replaceable intention.
In other words, what applies at the higher levels in a hierarchy also applies
at the lower levels. What makes the real difference is the value attached to
the superordinate motive.
However, it is still true that the higher a motive in a person's goal hierarchy, the more
important it is likely to be. And the more important a motive and the less replaceable its
subordinateintention, the more difficult and
painful the latter's dropping.
Moreover, although a low-level intention may be irreplaceable, we do not
pretend to rule out the idea that high-level intentions are more likely to be irreplaceable.
We in fact share this conviction, but only to some extent. Otherwise, if
high-level intentions were irreplaceable in any case, it
would be impossible to account for those kinds of so-called “fluid
compensation” (e.g., Allport,
1943; Steele,
1988) in which to compensate for some deficit or failure, people look
to other areas of “power” (different from those in which the failure is
identified) that offer better chances of success. So, a stutterer may take up
mime, a handicapped individual may bring his or her intellectual faculties to
the forefront, and a shy person may focus on his or her artistic gifts. This is
an interesting phenomenon attesting to a great psychic capacity for abstraction
and generalization. Although governed by various goals relating to a wide range
of domains, the individual shows the capacity to “translate” one goal into
another once each goal has been ascribed a sort of exchange rate. Just as
various objects (a house, a promotion, a divorce, a holiday, and so forth) may
be compared once they are reduced to monetary terms, so different goals
(athletic prowess, sexual conquest, or even a lottery win) may also be compared
when taken in terms of a denominator such as power or self-esteem. However, the
replaceability of one goal with another has its limits. In fact, one goal can
be equivalent to another inasmuch as both are means for one common supergoal.
If it is enough for me to be a clever mime, a skilled orator, or a good boxer
to consider myself successful, then these goals will also be interchangeable.
By contrast, if in my system of goals and values there is no such instrumental
relationship between, say, “being a good boxer” and “being successful,” and if
any ad hoc revision of this system of motives and values threatens their established
order (e.g., entailing discussion of deeply rooted values), then the operation
will hardly take place. Thus, neither substitution with other motives and values nor the consequent
compensation will occur.
Apart from the replaceability issue, however, dropping a
self-related intention can be particularly painful because of
the symbolic meaning attached to the fact of disengaging from one's life tasks
and personal strivings. In such cases, one is forced to choose between two
“evils”: either going on in an apparently unsuccessful pursuit or acknowledging
(before oneself or other people) that one has fallen short of one's own life
projects and self-values. In terms of suffering, probably the latter option
seems worse. (There might also be a degree of satisfaction or pride implied in
being engaged—although unsuccessfully—in some challenging endeavor.) However, in
considering such cases, one should always be careful in identifying and
distinguishing among the various goals implied in a given hierarchy or common
to different hierarchies. In fact, a certainintention can be instrumental to different motives,
and what is a useless pursuit with regard to a certain superordinate goal may
still be useful with regard to another. For instance, “studying” (p) can
prove unsuccessful relative to “passing the exam” (q), but it can still
be functional to such a motive (r) as “showing that one is a
hard-working person” (which is, at least in part, independent of q's realization). Thus, in such
cases disappointment relative to p as a means for q can be “compensated” by a satisfied
expectation relative to p as a means for r. The amount of disappointment and
consequent suffering will depend on the importance attached to q and r, respectively.
However, we find it reasonable to suppose that also in those cases
suffering can act as a demotivating force. Conflict and ambivalence (and the
suffering they entail), in fact, especially when experienced with regard to
one's personal strivings, tend to inhibit action (e.g., Emmons
& King, 1988).
Although action inhibition does not coincide with intention dropping (the intention can still be there and can also imply
intense planning and replanning activity), at least engagement in actual
performance, as well as effort expenditure and persistence in striving, can be
undermined.
Discouragement
Discouragement can be viewed as a kind of
disappointment. In discouragement, there is in fact a transformation of a
positive expectation into a negative one. In particular, discouragement implies
a transition from a situation in which one has the “courage” to “manage” it to
a situation in which one loses heart. In other words, when one becomes
discouraged, one comes to despair of succeeding in something (i.e., in
achieving some goal) after having expected a positive outcome.
However, a discouragement is something more
specific than a simple disappointment. Discouragement implies disappointment,
but there may be disappointment without discouragement. Consider the previous
example involving my expectations for sunny weather: If I have to change my
prediction from “sunny” to “rainy,” I will become disappointed but not
discouraged. In this case, there is nothing to be discouraged about.
The reason for this resides in the fact
that, as already stressed, disappointment does not necessarily implyintention.
One may be disappointed about mere goals, but, in regard to discouragement,
there should necessarily be some intention implied: One is in fact discouraged
from pursuing some goal (because one's positive expectations have been
disappointed). Going back to the previous example, discouragement might come
into play if the expected sunny weather were considered an enabling condition
for pursuing the goal of, say, taking a trip. In such a case, I would be discouraged
with regard to that goal (or better intention)
but simply disappointed relative to the goal of having sunny weather.
Thus, discouragement implies both
disappointment and intention.
If one considers again the example of Mary planning to make John fall in love
with her until she discovers he is a homosexual, one can see that this is, in
fact, a case of discouragement: Mary becomes discouraged from trying to make
John fall in love with her, because the news about his homosexuality has
disappointed her positive expectations of succeeding in that endeavor.
Moreover, discouragement shows another
important difference from mere disappointment. In discouragement, the focus of
attention is on one's lack of power to achieve a certain goal p. As already observed, in common usage,
“being discouraged” means that one feels unable to manage the situation,
whereas “being disappointed” is unmarked with regard to power. Both imply a
transition from a positive expectation to a negative one. But in the case of
discouragement the positive expectation implies a belief of the type “I can
manage it,” whereas in the case of mere disappointment the expectation can
simply be “p will happen.”
This is quite in line with Weiner, Russel, and Lerman's (1979, p. 1216) view of disappointment as
“independent of attributions but dependent on outcomes” (see also Zeelenberg et al., 1998).
Discouragement is indeed very close to
hopelessness, as defined by Abramson et al. (1989), that
is, the conjunction of negative expectations about the occurrence of desired
outcomes with “expectations of helplessness about changing the likelihood of
occurrence of these outcomes” (p. 359). The main difference between
discouragement and hopelessness is that the former necessarily entails a
transition from positive expectations to negative ones (i.e., a
disappointment). In fact, starting from mere negative expectations, one can
become hopeless without undergoing a discouragement phase.
Thus, discouragement entails some negative
belief concerning one's power (means, skills, resources, or enabling
conditions) to realize an intended p. But does it necessarily concern one's internal
power? That is, in attributional terms, should the (expected) failure be seen
as dependent on one's lack of effort or ability? Not necessarily: One can
become discouraged as well when the failure is traced back to lack of external
power, that is, some objective difficulty or impossibility to realize p, such as the absence of an external
enabling condition (e.g., sunny weather or a potential partner with
heterosexual inclinations). It is worth observing that the hopelessness theory
of depression (Abramson et al., 1989) also deemphasizes the “internality dimension,” (in contrast to
its original statement; Abramson et al., 1978) while stressing the
role of stable and global attributions (either internal or external). In the
same vein, Smith and Pope (1992) pointed out that an individual's appraisal of his or her coping
potential with respect to a task combines considerations of perceived task
difficulty and perceived ability. However, when an internal lack of power is at
stake, discouragement is likely to elicit greater suffering, in that it is
accompanied by painful beliefs about one's lack of self-efficacy (e.g., Bandura, 1982) and a possible lowering of self-esteem.
And such greater suffering is in turn likely to favor loss of motivation (as described earlier).
Moreover, in terms of becoming discouraged, it is not necessary
that the intention has been actually pursued and that
pursuit has proved to be unsuccessful. It suffices that the agent has somehow
verified that success is unlikely. As in disappointment, such a “verification”
does not necessarily imply a verified frustration. If some planning has been
performed, and a preliminary test of the intention's
conditions of attainability and convenience reveals that such conditions do not
hold (as initially supposed), the agent can become discouraged before any
pursuit.
However, when pursuit has already occurred, discouragement will be
stronger, in at least two senses of the word. On the one hand, it will be more
certain; the negative expectation it implies will be more certain, grounded as
it is on an actual frustration of the goal. On the other hand, discouragement
will be more serious, in that the suffering it entails will be greater. [ 3 ] Therefore, the stronger the discouragement,
the more likely it will be to induce loss of motivation.
We can summarize the previous analysis of the relationship between
discouragement and loss of motivationas
follows: Discouragement is a kind of disappointment whereby (previously
positive and then negative) expectations concern one's (either internal or
external) power to realize an intention.
The strength of a discouragement depends on two basic factors (other than the
importance of the intention itself): the actual (failed) pursuit
of the intention and the internal character of the lack
of power implied. The stronger the discouragement, the more likely the
pertinent loss of motivation and intention dropping.
Discouragement and loss of motivation are closely related. The necessary
ingredients of discouragement (i.e., disappointment and intention)
are in fact sufficient conditions for loss of motivation to occur. However, although
discouragement is very likely to induce loss of motivation,
it does not necessarily coincide with it. If one views loss of motivation as the final result of a process
rather than as the process itself, one should notice that discouragement is not
yet loss of motivation.
One can be discouraged and still maintain one'sintention as such. By contrast, loss of motivation (as a final result) implies intention dropping.
In addition, and more important, there can be loss of motivation without discouragement. In other
words, the latter is just a possible (and, in fact, very likely) cause of loss
of motivation.
Other causes can come into play.
Loss of Motivation
Let us go back to our initial example about Mary having the intention p to lose weight in view of her goal q to find a boyfriend. When Mary assumes
that p is not a (good) means for q (because her brother tells her that,
to find a boyfriend, it is not her weight that matters), she is likely to drop p (and possibly look for alternative
means). Here a loss of motivation has occurred. But would one say that
Mary has become discouraged with regard to p? She is disappointed, because her
positive expectation that p would serve for q has turned into a negative
expectation, but one would not say that she is discouraged. In fact, no
negative belief concerning power (either internal or external) to realize the
intended p is at stake here, in that p can be successfully accomplished (or,
at least, Mary is not considering whether it can or cannot be accomplished). By
contrast, what matters is the belief that, once p is achieved (i.e., Mary loses weight), q remains unrealized. In other words,
what is at stake here is a very basic belief about the instrumental
relationship between p and its “motive” q. At first p was believed to be a good means for q, but then the means–end relationship
came to be questioned: p “did not work;” it did not serve for q. And this was enough for loss of motivation to occur.
It might be argued that, in this situation, Mary can become
discouraged as well. For instance, she might declare that she is “discouraged”
because she has realized that losing weight is useless (with regard to the goal
of finding a boyfriend), and one would not be puzzled by her choice of that
word to describe her feelings. But if one looks more closely at the meaning
conveyed by Mary's report, one can see that it is not focusing on the mere
belief that p is useless. Mary is implicitly saying
much more. She is saying that, because losing weight is useless, she feels
unable to manage the situation, in that she has no alternative means (for q) at her disposal, or she does
not know which other means would serve the purpose.
In a word, she is discouraged because she does not know what to do, or she
believes she can do nothing else. Once again, her power to manage the situation
is at stake, and discouragement refers precisely to that power. (The only
difference from the previous cases of discouragement is that the reference goal
here is q rather than p.) In fact, if she were
offered some promising alternative means (as in the original example, where her
brother suggests she try to improve her social skills), her discouragement
would be out of place. Thus, we have shown a case of loss ofmotivation without discouragement: Whenever the
implied disappointment regards the mere means–end relation, in that p is no longer believed to be a means
for q (as initially expected), loss of motivation can occur independent of
discouragement.
As already pointed out, a second difference between loss of motivation and discouragement implies a view of
loss of motivation in terms of the “end point” of the
demotivating process, where the end point coincides with dropping the intention.
Discouragement—as well as (and even more than) disappointment—is likely to
induce or favor intention dropping, but the intention may still be there, in spite of
discouragement.
If discouragement is to induce intention dropping, much depends on the strength
of discouragement itself (as described earlier); thus, such factors as the
certainty of the negative expectations about p's
feasibility and convenience and negative beliefs about one's self-efficacy are
likely to play a crucial role in favoring intentiondropping.
However, it is worth stressing that the “threshold” for intention dropping is hard to establish
“objectively,” in that it does not necessarily depend on such factors as the
preassessed value the person ascribes to p or its motive q or the number of unsuccessful
pursuits. Negative expectations themselves are quite far from depending only on
objective signs or proof of p's
unattainability or inconvenience. A general sense of doubt (especially
self-doubt) and dispositions to pessimistic forecasts are likely to play a
crucial role. In fact, for instance, some people can become discouraged and
begin to despair after a first unsuccessful attempt or in front of the first
obstacle they meet, whereas others stubbornly persist in spite of serious
obstacles or previous actual failures. The risk of failure plays a different
role according to how it is viewed by the person: as a stimulating challenge to
be met or, conversely, as an unbearable threat to be avoided. And here what
makes the difference is the person's self-esteem and feelings of personal
control (e.g., Bandura, 1982; McFarlin,
Baumeister, & Blascovich, 1984; Taylor
& Brown, 1988).
But, apart from the strength of discouragement, there are other
reasons why discouragement (as well as disappointment) may be insufficient to
cause intention dropping. In fact, persistence (i.e.,
the likelihood of giving up or not giving up a certain intention or pursuit) does not depend only on
such beliefs as “It is impossible,” “It is too difficult,” or “I am unable to.
... ” The greater the amount of resources already allocated and spent in
pursuing an intention,
the greater the resistance to giving up. In other words, persistence can be
enhanced by previous effort.
This seems to depend on the so-called “sunk cost effect” (e.g., Arkes & Blumer,
1985). Sunk costs are, as
mentioned earlier, the resources and effort already spent in a given pursuit.
Such costs are likely to motivate the decision to persist in spite of more
“rational” economic reasons (i.e., the ratio between the costs and benefits
expected from the outcome), which would orient one toward disengagement. In
other words, according to mere economic reasons, one's choice to persist or
give up should depend on a question such as “Is there a better investment I can
make?”, regardless of what has already been spent. However, the human decision
maker's choice is heavily influenced by the problem of “how much I have already
spent” in the endeavor.
The basic motivation underlying the sunk cost effect is
assumed to be a desire not to appear wasteful. Such amotive to avoid the waste of what has already been spent is very
likely to favor persistence in useless and discouraging pursuits. Not
surprisingly, an important consequence of having incurred costs is, in fact, an
increase in the subjective importance of the specific intention (that is, its value rises as the costs
incurred grow), as if the value of the goal of “waste aversion” were added to the original
value of the intention.
Therefore, although I can
be seriously discouraged about succeeding in an endeavor (e.g., passing an
exam), if I have already spent a great amount of effort (e.g., I have studied
very hard and for a long time), discouragement might prove insufficient to
produce intention dropping. More precisely, we propose
that persistence is inversely proportional to strength of discouragement and
directly proportional to sunk costs. Thus, we suggest the following prediction:
The stronger the discouragement (or disappointment) and the lower the costs
already incurred in pursuit, the more likely intention dropping.
Relationships Among Disappointment, Discouragement, and Loss of Motivation
At this stage, the
relationships among disappointment, discouragement, and loss of motivation are more clear. Disappointment is the
most general mechanism of the three, in that both discouragement and loss ofmotivation imply it: Discouragement is
disappointment about one's power to achieve a certain intention p,whereas loss of motivation is either discouragement (along with
actual intention dropping) or disappointment about the
instrumental relationship between intention p and its motive q. So, as Figure 1 shows, both discouragement and loss of motivation are kinds of disappointment. However,
the latter is a wider phenomenon that does not necessarily overlap with either
of the former two; disappointment may regard simple goals (not intentions),
whereas both discouragement and loss of motivation pertain to intentions.
In the same vein, discouragement overlaps only partially with loss of motivation,
because, as just argued, there can be loss of motivation without discouragement (when loss of motivation stems from disappointment about the
instrumental relationship between p and q),
as well as discouragement without loss of motivation (when the intention is not dropped).
Relationships among disappointment, discouragement, and loss of
motivation
Toward a Principled Model of Loss of Motivation
Let us now try to sum up
the results of our analysis in terms of the basic conditions for loss of motivation.
One is motivated for p (its attainment or maintenance) in
view of q. Goal q is the motive for p if three basic conditions hold: (a)
One believes that p is a means for q; (b) one believes that p is attainable (in terms of both
external and internal conditions of attainability); and (c) one believes that p is “convenient” in at least two
senses. On the one hand, it is preferred to possible alternative means for q, in that it is regarded as the most
effective for realizing q. On the other hand, it is not too
expensive; that is the costs implied by its pursuit and achievement (including
renunciation of other possible goals, as well as possible negative side effects
ofp's realization) are supposed to be lower than the benefits
(realization of the superordinate motive,
including the latter's importance, as well as possible positive side effects)
it can provide. In addition, when comparison with other possible means is
involved, p is assumed to be less expensive than
such other means. However, such a “rational” picture of convenience
considerations should be corrected by a psychological view of convenience, one
that is implied by the sunk cost effect. In particular, the convenience of
choosing p (as a means for motive q), which depends on the
factors previously mentioned (i.e., p's
supposed effectiveness and the costs–benefits ratio), does not necessarily
coincide with the convenience of renouncing p. The latter also depends on having
already incurred some costs, and to what extent. This, too, is (in
psychological terms) a matter of “convenience.” In fact, it is viewed as
inconvenient to quit when one has invested “too much” (at least until there is
some possibility of attainability).
If a demotivation process
is to occur, the necessary conditions are, as we have shown, disappointment andintention.
The negative expectation implied in disappointment can concern any of the
following beliefs.
Not(a): The individual comes to believe that intention p is not a means for q, as initially supposed; this is the
case earlier analyzed in which loss of motivation can occur without discouragement.
(a) +
not(b): The individual still believes that p is a means for q, but disappointment concerns p's attainability. Note that
condition (a) is a necessary complement of not(b), in that p's attainability or
unattainability is relevant to loss of motivation as far as the means–end relationship
between p and q is supposed to hold. Conversely, not(a)
is by itself sufficient for loss of motivation to occur, independent of the
individual's wondering about either attainability or convenience.
(a) +
not(c): The individual still believes that p is a means for q, but disappointment concerns p's convenience. Here condition
(a) is a necessary complement of not(c), in that the problem of p's degree of convenience is
relevant as far as p is considered a means for q.
Figure 2 shows the previous necessary conditions “in the flow”; that is, it
sketches how they might work to produce loss of motivation (and the possible consequent
disengagement from the intention).
Of course, the flowchart in Figure 2 is very sketchy, in that many aspects are neglected or roughly
simplified. For example, it is limited to depicting what happens once the intention (more precisely, a “future-directed” intention,
in Bratman's terms; see Bratman, 1987) is already formed and, possibly, already accompanied by
preliminary positive expectations. At that point, as shown, a “verification”
phase is supposed to start because, in the process of planning for realizing
the intention,
one is likely to check whether the conditions for such planning hold. And here
is where disappointment can come into play, either about the instrumental
relationship between intention p and its motive q or about p's attainability or
convenience. In each case, disappointment leads to loss of motivation;
in addition, if some negative inference about one's power is at stake,
disappointment also implies discouragement, which is likely to induce (or, more
precisely, increase the likelihood of) loss of motivation.
Necessary conditions for
loss of motivation
Going back to the verification phase, its three components are
sequentially ordered in Figure 2, namely, instrumentality
followed by attainability, and then convenience. Actually, we believe this is
their “logical” order, in particular as far as the priority of instrumentality
is concerned (in fact, as already stressed, both p's attainability and convenience
considerations can play some role in the demotivation process if intention p is viewed as a means for its motive q). However, we do not assume
that, in actual fact, the procedure applied by a human planner should
necessarily follow a sequential order, and in particular this one. Most depends
on the particular information available at the moment. So, in some instances,
one can start with (and even limit the verification to) attainability or
convenience considerations; especially when particularly cogent and apparent,
such considerations can be sufficient to undergo disappointment and loss of motivation aboutintention p, without even addressing the other
questions.
Another simplification in Figure 2 is that the verification
tests simply represent two possible exit points—yes or no—without taking into
account varying degrees of certainty and probabilistic thresholds. However,
supposing such tests do not lead to disappointment, the intention is actually pursued. If, during or
after pursuit, no frustration is recorded, then pursuit is considered
successful, and the intention is satisfied; in the case of
frustration, a new verification phase is called into play.
Comparison
With Related Models
What is the “added value” of the present model in comparison with
others dealing with the same problems, that is, loss of motivation and disengagement? To start with, in
our view, an analytical treatment of the “family” of those mental attitudes
that are related to loss of motivation was still missing in the literature.
In particular, disappointment and discouragement and their respective roles in
the demotivation process had never been addressed in such detail. More
specifically, let us try to point to a few differences between our work and a
couple of approaches that we view as particularly close to ours.
First, we feel quite comfortable with Carver and Scheier and their
control-process view (e.g., Carver
& Scheier, 1981, 1982, 1990; Scheier & Carver, 1988). Particularly interesting is their stress on the role of the
perceived rate of progress in discrepancy reduction, rather than discrepancy
per se, in disengagement. They in fact claim that it is not just the presence
or absence of discrepancies between the intended and the present states (or the
size of such discrepancies) that can explain or predict disengagement but,
rather, the perceived “slowness” with which they are being reduced. Although we
have not addressed the rate of reduction issue directly, it is quite compatible
with our view in that it implies our difference between merely unattained and
frustrated goals. In particular, if our notion of a deadline for the
realization of the goal were divided into several subdeadlines—distributed
along the time span within which, according to the individual, the goal should
be realized—such intermediate deadlines could in fact function as reference
values for an “acceptable rate” of discrepancy reduction.
However, simply referring to sufficiently favorable versus
sufficiently unfavorable expectations about goal attainment (also including
progress in discrepancy reduction) can still be inadequate in explaining or
predicting disengagement. Consider, for instance, our “there is no harm in
trying” case, in which even very unfavorable attainability expectations can be
insufficient for mining an intention if convenience expectations are
sufficiently favorable. An important distinction is in fact missing in Carver and
Scheier's model between the two kinds of (negative) expectations—attainability
versus convenience—and their respective role in disengagement.
More generally, we find that Carver and Scheier's approach is
mainly focused on action execution and the possible disengagement from it
(i.e., on disengagement from pursued intentions).
Their model of disengagement starts with attempts at discrepancy reduction and
(either actual or potential) perceived obstacles, interruptions, and changes in
the rate of progress toward the goal, which can affect the agent's outcome
expectancies and so favor disengagement from such attempts. In this way,
another kind of disengagement, that occurring before action, is neglected, if
not excluded in principle. Conversely, we have tried to also address those
disengagement processes that can occur in the transition from a “future intention”
to an actually pursued one (see Figure 2). Moreover, remaining within the domain of
pursued intentions,
some important aspects seem to be lacking in Carver and Scheier's model. In
fact, as they put it, if behavior “proceeds smoothly” (i.e., without obstacles
and at a sufficiently positive rate of progress), disengagement has no reason
to occur. However, in our view, this is not altogether correct. Behavior can
proceed smoothly, and nevertheless disengagement can still occur: It is
sufficient that one starts to question the intention's
instrumentality in view of the superordinate goal, as in the not(a) case
in the previous section. In other words, if, in spite of a successful pursuit
of p and a positive rate of progress toward
its realization, I start to harbor some doubt about p's “use” for q, my motivation can suffer a serious setback, up to
the point of my dropping the intention.
In our view, this side of the demotivation process is unduly neglected, and the
reason mainly is an almost exclusive attention to pursued intentions and perceived success in pursuit,
which inevitably restrict the domain of application of disengagement.
Another outstanding model of motivation and disengagement is Bandura's
social–cognitive theory (e.g.,Bandura, 1982, 1986, 1991; Bandura & Cervone, 1983). Bandura has mainly
addressed the crucial and pervasive role of self-efficacy beliefs in affecting
(loss of) motivation.
The great importance of self-efficacy beliefs can hardly be questioned.
People's degree of effort and persistence in striving heavily depends on their
self-efficacy beliefs; obstacles, impediments, frustrations, and
disappointments are insufficient per se for explaining or predicting loss of motivation,
in that what often makes the difference is people's confidence in their ability
to overcome such obstacles and eventually obtain the desired result.
However, comparing Bandura's approach with ours, we would say that
its strength is also its limit, in that it is basically confined to the
treatment of discouragement and its relationship with loss of motivation.
More precisely, it addresses only a (very important) part of discouragement,
that which implies self-efficacy beliefs. As a consequence, we view Bandura's
picture of loss of motivation and its eliciting conditions as
incomplete, for at least a couple of reasons. First, as already stressed,
discouragement can also regard one's lack of external power, enabling
conditions, and so on, in which self-efficacy considerations are not implied.
Second, loss of motivation can occur independent of discouragement.
Crucial to this regard is our distinction between disappointment and
discouragement. In fact, whereas discouragement is just a type of
disappointment (regarding the transition from a special positive expectation,
that of being able to achieve one's intention,
to the negative expectation of being unable to achieve it), the necessary
conditions for loss of motivation are disappointment and intention.
In other words, the negative expectation implied in disappointment can concern
various kinds of beliefs about an intention that include, but are not limited to,
the individual's power to realize the intention.
Concluding
Remarks
In this article, we have tried to explore a complex phenomenon,
loss of motivation,
by distinguishing it from mere goal termination, identifying its relationships
with more basic mental attitudes, and singling out the basic conditions for
loss of motivation.
In what follows, rather than merely summarizing how loss of motivation is related to, and favored by, such
phenomena as frustration, negative expectation, disappointment, and
discouragement, we try to single out a number of hypotheses derivable from our
analysis and suggest, in general terms, what is needed for testing them empirically.
In particular, we focus on disappointment and discouragement, which show a
closer and more direct relationship with loss of motivation.
We have defined disappointment as a special case of negative
expectation implying the transformation of a positive expectation into a
negative one, and we have stressed that disappointment can regard simple goals,
not necessarily intentions.
This seems quite easily verifiable by examining the possible changes in
people's expectations about states of the world or events in which no personal
causation is involved, and so no possibleintention can plausibly be at stake.
We have also suggested that, when disappointment applies to intentions, intention dropping is favored by the
positive-to-negative transformation of expectations. Conversely, when an
expectation is negative from the start, the implied goal is less likely to
become an intention;
if the intention is already formed, however, its
dropping can be less likely (all else being equal). To control this prediction,
one should design a situation comparing the behavior of
two groups of people, one endowed with negative expectations about a givenintention and the other endowed with
disappointed expectations about the same intention (e.g., that of accomplishing a given
experimental task). Initially, the actual existence of that intention in both groups should be ascertained
(for instance, by inquiring about participants' willingness and commitment to
accomplish the task). As for expectations, both kinds could be induced via an experimental
manipulation. The “disappointment” group should be initially presented with
positive information about the task accomplishment so as to favor (and then
ascertain) the existence of a positive expectation, and then the latter should
be undermined by introducing some new piece of information about the
unlikelihood or inconvenience of the desired outcome. Conversely, the “negative
expectation” group should be presented from the start with such negative
information. Of course, the “negativity” of both kinds of expectations should
be of the same extent (that is, implying beliefs about the same degree of
inconvenience or probability of unattainment). At this point, one should
measure and compare the frequency of intention dropping in the two groups. In
addition, because we have suggested that disappointment induces greater
suffering than negative expectation, it would be worthwhile to measure and
compare the subjective distress experienced by the two groups of participants
to verify whether it is, in fact, greater within the “disappointed” group.
We have defined discouragement as a kind of disappointment regarding,
in particular, the transition from the positive expectation of being able to
achieve one's intention to the negative expectation of being
unable to achieve it. Thus, discouragement entails some negative belief
concerning one's power to realize the intendedp. We have suggested that (a) it can
concern both internal and external power, (b) it can apply to both future and
pursued (and failed) intentions,
(c) it is stronger (and entails greater suffering) if it regards internal power
or pursued and failed intentions,
and (d) the stronger the discouragement, the more likely the pertinent loss of motivation and intention dropping. These are in principle all
testable hypotheses.
To ascertain the relative impact of people's discouragement with
regard to their external versus internal lack of power, one can design an experiment in which two groups of
participants are initially induced to harbor the same positive expectations
about their accomplishment of a given task, and their “encouraging” beliefs are
verified (e.g., by asking them whether they actually think they “can manage”
the situation). Then such expectations should be differentially undermined by
presenting one group with negative information about external obstacles or the
lack of enabling conditions and the other group with negative information about
their own self-efficacy relative to the task. At this point, one should
ascertain that the expected change has in fact occurred in the participants'
expectations (i.e., that they no longer feel so able to manage it) and then
measure both the amount of distress experienced and the frequency of intention dropping in each group. A similar
experiment could be aimed at verifying the relative impact of pursued and
failed versus nonpursuedintentions on the strength of discouragement. In
this case, one group of participants (endowed, as before, with “encouraging”
expectations) should actually try to accomplish the task and be induced to fail
and attribute the failure to their lack of (either internal or external) power;
by contrast, the other group should just experience the transition from
positive to negative expectations about their power to accomplish the task,
without any actual pursuit. Then, as before, one could measure both the amount
of distress experienced and the frequency of intention dropping in each group.
In our treatment, we have often pointed to the differences between
disappointment and discouragement. As shown, discouragement is a special case
of disappointment: All discouraged people are also disappointed, but not all
disappointed people are discouraged. [ 4 ] So, to verify the differences between
disappointment and discouragement, one should inquire within that “space” where
there is no possible overlap between them; that is, one should ascertain the
existence of disappointment devoid of discouragement. One way to do so is to
focus on disappointment about mere goals, which, as already mentioned, does not
involve any expectation about one's personal role in the production of the
desired result. However, what one may find in such cases is a form of
disappointment that is devoid not only of discouragement but also of possible
loss of motivation andintention dropping (in fact, no intention is implied in these cases).
By contrast, another way to address disappointment devoid of
discouragement is more relevant to our presentpurposes in that it also allows one to verify
another important hypothesis implied in our model, namely the existence of loss
of motivation devoid of discouragement. In other
words, what should be verified is that disappointment can lead to loss of motivation independent of discouragement. This is
nothing other than what happens in our so-called not(a) case, in which
disappointment regards an actual intention p in view of somemotive q, and the negative expectation implied
in disappointment has no “discouraging” implication (i.e., no consideration
about one's power) but simply concerns p's
instrumentality relative to q (i.e., the individual comes to believe
that p is not a means for q, as initially supposed). In such a
case, one would need to conduct a study in which
participants are first induced to believe that the pursuit of a certain intention p is the correct means for realizing a
superordinate goal q (and the existence of such a belief,
as well as the participants' willingness to pursue p and to obtain q, should be ascertained). Then
participants should be “disappointed” by providing them with some new piece of
information about the uselessness of p (relative toq). At this point,
the supposed absence of discouragement should be verified by ascertaining
whether and to what degree the participants' reports focus on their “lack of
power” (and by possibly comparing them with other reports about more
“discouraging” situations in which the negative expectations concern
unattainability or inconvenience). Finally, one could assess whether and to
what degree such disappointment inducesintention dropping in the participants.
This work has been mainly focused on the minimum requirements and
conditions for the occurrence of loss ofmotivation. Of course, a
number of aspects have therefore been neglected.
For instance, reconsidering our basic conditions, let us go back
to disappointment about p's
convenience, that is, to what we have called the (a) + not(c)
condition. It is worth specifying that this condition implies a kind of loss of motivation we have not considered, in that it can
bring ulterior motives into play, other than q. In other words, there is a possible
case of disappointment about convenience that involves the interaction between
the p–q means–end relation and other means–end
relations or, more generally, other goal hierarchies. Think of any case in
which p's inconvenience
depends on some undesired side effect produced by its pursuit or achievement.
Suppose, for instance, that Mary's intention p is “going on a diet,” and her motiveq is “losing weight.” Mary actually
assumes both that p is a means for q and that it is attainable. She also
believes p is convenient in the sense that it is
preferable to other means as far as its effectiveness in view of qis concerned. However, Mary
can become disappointed about p's
convenience in some other respect. For instance, she learns that going on a
diet favors depressive reactions, weariness, and the like, which could thwart
some other motive r of hers (such as being healthy, good
tempered, or hard working). At this point Mary can lose her motivation to pursue p, and the intention is dropped, in that in spite of its
unquestioned usefulness with regard to q, the outcome is not worth the effort
once p's realization is
compared with the thwarting of r. And, of course, q's attainment will be at risk
unless Mary is able to determine some alternative and more convenient means for
it (e.g., liposuction).
This kind of phenomenon suggests that loss of motivation does not necessarily regard a single
means–end relationship between two goals. It implies at least two goals, but it
often calls other goals into play. These interrelations are made possible by
the hierarchical organization of goals and the probable interdependence or
interference between different hierarchies and plans. Thus, a wider look at
loss of motivation should take into account such possible
relationships and, in particular, the role of conflicts between different motives and plans for achieving them. As
already observed, in fact, such conflicts are likely to favor loss of motivation with regard to the conflicting goals,
and in particular to inhibit action toward those goals, especially when the
latter are of the high-level type, such as personal strivings (e.g., Emmons
& King, 1988).
Other
important aspects have been neglected in this work. One of its major limits is
that, neglecting unconscious motives,
“intentions,”
and expectations, it does not take into account unconscious or “automatic”
forms of loss of motivation.
This, however, is by no means a reflection of a hyperrationalistic view of loss
ofmotivation or a bias against nonconscious forms
of action control, but rather a temporary choice to restrict our analysis to
the conscious, and often deliberated, side of the phenomenon.
Another
important issue, one we have mentioned only in passing that deserves a separate
work of its own, is the functional value of loss of motivation,
either in the psychological sense or from an evolutionary standpoint. For the
time being, it is worth emphasizing that the two perspectives should not
necessarily or always converge or coincide. That is, sometimes loss of motivation might prove functional in view of an
individual's well-being or suffering reduction and maladaptive in terms of
fitness of the individual's genes, or vice versa. More precisely, the specific
conditions under which loss of motivation favors subjective well-being (e.g.,
disengagement as a means to cope with an unbearable discouragement) might be
different from those favoring adaptation (e.g., disengagement as a means to
save resources otherwise wasted in useless pursuits).
References
1. Abramson, L.
Y., Metalsky, G. I., & Alloy, L.
B. (1989). Psychological Review.
3. Ajzen, I., Kuhl, J., & Beckmann, J. (Eds.) (1985). Action
control: From cognition to behavior. Berlin: Springer-Verlag.
4. Ajzen, I., & Fishbein, M. (1980). Understanding
attitudes and predicting social behavior. Englewood Cliffs,
NJ: Prentice Hall.
5. Allport, G.
W. (1943). Psychological Review.
7. Arkes, H.
R., & Blumer, C. (1985). Organizational
Behavior and Human Decision Processes.
9. Atkinson, J. (1964). An
introduction to motivation. Princeton, NJ: Van Nostrand.
11. Bandura, A. (1982). American
Psychologist.
12. Bandura, A. (1986). Social
foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive theory. Englewood
Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
13. Bandura, A., & Dienstbier, R. (Ed.) (1991). Perspectives
on motivation. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
15. Baumeister, R.
F., Bratslavsky, E., Muraven, M., & Tice, D.
M. (1998). Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
17. Beck, A.
T. (1987). Journal of Cognitive Psychotherapy: An International
Quarterly.
18. Bell, J., Huang, Z., Bell, J., Huang, Z., & Parsons, S. (Eds.) (1997). Proceedings
of the Second Workshop on “Practical Reasoning and Rationality”. Manchester,
England: University of Manchester.
19. Birney, R., Burdick, H., & Teevan, R. (1969). Fear
of failure. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold.
20. Bratman, M.
E. (1987). Intentions, plans, and practical
reason. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
21. Brehm, J.
W. (1972). Responses to loss of freedom: A theory of
psychological reactance. Morristown, NJ: General Learning
Press.
23. Brehm, J.
W., Wright, R.
A., Solomon, S., Silka, L., & Greenberg, J. (1983). Journal
of Experimental Social Psychology.
25. Brown, J.
S. (1961). The motivation of behavior. New
York: McGraw-Hill.
26. Carver, C.
S., & Scheier, M. F. (1981). Attention
and self-regulation: A control-theory approach to human behavior. New
York: Springer-Verlag.
27. Carver, C.
S., & Scheier, M.
F. (1982). Psychological Bulletin.
29. Castelfranchi, C. (1996). Mathware
& Soft Computing.
31. Castelfranchi, C., & Parisi, D. (1980). Linguaggio,
conoscenze e scopi. Bologna, Italy: Il Mulino.
33. Cohen, P.
R., & Levesque, H.
J. (1990). Artificial Intelligence.
35. Deci, E.
L. (1975). Intrinsic motivation. New
York: Plenum.
36. Deci, E.
L., & Ryan, R. M. (1985). Intrinsic
motivation and self-determination in human behavior. New
York: Plenum.
37. Deci, E.
L., Ryan, R.
M., & Dienstbier, R. (Ed.) (1991). Perspectives
on motivation. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
38. Dollard, J., Doob, L.
W., Miller, N. E., Mowrer, O.
H., & Sears, R. R. (1939). Frustration
and aggression. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
39. Dweck, C.
S., & Leggett, E.
L. (1988). Psychological Review.
41. Edwards, W. (1954). Psychological
Bulletin.
43. Elliot, A., & Sheldon, K. (1997). Journal
of Personality and Social Psychology.
45. Fishbein, M., & Ajzen, I. (1975). Belief,
attitude, intention, and behavior: An introduction to theory and
research. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
46. Ford, M.
E. (1992). Motivating humans: Goals, emotions, and personal
agency beliefs. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
47. Frese, M., & Sabini, J. (Eds.) (1985). Goal
directed behavior: The concept of action in psychology. Hillsdale,
NJ: Erlbaum.
48. Gollwitzer, P.
M., Stroebe, W., & Hewstone, M. (Eds.) (1993). European
review of social psychology. Chichester, England: Wiley.
49. Gollwitzer, P.
M., & Brandstätter, V. (1997). Journal
of Personality and Social Psychology.
51. Haddadi, A., Sundermeyer, K., O'Hare, G.
M. P., & Jennings, N.
R. (Eds.) (1996). Foundations of distributed artificial
intelligence. London: Wiley.
53. Heckhausen, H., Sarason, I., & Spielberger, C. (Eds.) (1975). Stress
and anxiety. Washington, DC: Hemisphere.
55. Hollenbeck, J.
R., & Klein, H. J. (1987). Journal of
Applied Psychology.
56. Hong, Y., Chiu, C., Dweck, C.
S., & Kernis, M.
H. (Ed.) (1995). Efficacy, agency, and
self-esteem. New York: Plenum.
57. Kahneman, D., Knetsch, J., & Thaler, R. (1990). Journal
of Political Economy.
59. Klinger, E. (1975). Psychological
Review.
60. Klinger, E., Shrout, P.
E., & Fiske, S.
T. (Eds.) (1995). Personality research, methods, and
theory. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
61. Kuhl, J., Maher, B.
A., & Maher, W.
B. (Eds.) (1984). Progress in experimental personality
research. New York: Academic Press.
63. Layne, C., Merry, J., Christian, J., & Ginn, P. (1982). Cognitive
Therapy and Research.
64. Lepper, M.
R., Greene, D., & Nisbett, R.
E. (1973). Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
65. Locke, E.
A., & Latham, G. P. (1990). A theory
of goal setting and task performance. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice
Hall.
67. Martin, L.
L., Tesser, A., Uleman, J.
S., & Bargh, J.
A. (Eds.) (1989). Unintended thought: Limits of awareness,
intention, and control. New York: Guilford Press.
68. Marx, M.
H., & Jones, M.
R. (Ed.) (1956). Nebraska Symposium on
Motivation. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
69. Maslow, A.
T. (1943). Psychological Review.
70. McClelland, D., Atkinson, J., Clark, R., & Lowell, E. (1953). The
achievement motive. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.
71. McFarlin, D.
B., Baumeister, R.
F., & Blascovich, J. (1984). Journal
of Personality.
73. Miller, G.
A., Galanter, E., & Pribram, K.
H. (1960). Plans and the structure of behavior. New
York: Holt.
74. Mischel, W., Gollwitzer, P.
M., & Bargh, J.
A. (Eds.) (1995). The psychology of action. New
York: Guilford Press.
75. Mitchell, T.
R., & Biglan, A. (1971). Psychological
Bulletin.
76. Pervin, L.
A. (Ed.) (1989). Goal concepts in personality and social
psychology. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
77. Pervin, L.
A., Maehr, M. L., & Pintrich, P.
R. (Eds.) (1991). Advances in motivation and
achievement. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.
79. Pyszczynski, T., & Greenberg, J. (1987). Psychological
Bulletin.
80. Rotter, J.
B., & Feather, N.
T. (Ed.) (1982). Expectations and actions:
Expectancy-value models in psychology. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
81. Scheier, M.
F., Carver, C.
S., & Berkowitz, L. (Ed.) (1988). Advances
in experimental social psychology. New York: Academic Press.
82. Scherer, K.
R., & Shaver, P. (Ed.) (1984). Emotions,
relationships, and health. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
83. Simon, H.
A. (1967). Psychological Review.
84. Smith, C.
A., Pope, L. K., & Clark, M.
S. (Ed.) (1992). Emotion and social behavior. Newbury
Park, CA: Sage.
85. Steele, C.
M., & Berkowitz, L. (Ed.) (1988). Advances
in experimental social psychology. New York: Academic Press.
86. Stein, N.
L., Levine, L. J., Snow, R.
E., & Farr, M. (Eds.) (1987). Cognition,
conation, and affect. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
87. Stein, N.
L., Levine, L. J., Stein, N.
L., Leventhal, B., & Trabasso, T. (Eds.) (1990). Psychological
and biological approaches to emotion. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
89. Taylor, S.
E., Pham, L. B., Gollwitzer, P.
M., & Bargh, J.
A. (Eds.) (1995). The psychology of action. New
York: Guilford Press.
91. Vallerand, R.
J., & Zanna, M.
P. (Ed.) (1997). Advances in experimental social psychology. New
York: Academic Press.
93. Wright, R.
A., Brehm, J. W., & Pervin, L.
A. (Ed.) (1989). Goal concepts in personality and social
psychology. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
94. Zeelenberg, M., van
Dijk, W. W., van der
Pligt, J., Manstead, A. S. R., van
Empelen, P., & Reinderman, D. (1998). Organizational
Behavior and Human Decision Processes.
Catatan kaki
1 ^ We use pursuit in a strict sense. To “pursue”
some intention, it is necessary to perform a
special kind of action, that is, an action viewed by the performer as endowed
with a causal power of favoring or producing the desired and expected outcome.
Thus, a pursuit is an active attempt to produce a change in the world as a
result of one's action. Usually, at the same time one also performs other
actions: those necessary for monitoring the action execution itself, its
enabling conditions, and its result. However, these monitoring actions are not
sufficient for pursuing an intention. In fact, monitoring also
occurs with regard to mere goals (not intentions). Suppose one has a goal
that—to be accomplished—does not require any personal intervention on the
world, in that it can be achieved through other agents or natural forces. One
can just hope, wait, and check whether one's expectations are (going to be)
fulfilled or not. In this case, we would find it misleading to call this
“pursuit” hoping, waiting, or monitoring. In fact, goal pursuit has been
“delegated” to other causal agents. Although expecting the realization of the
goal, one does not believe that one is causally contributing to its
achievement. Such an important difference between monitoring actions and actual
pursuit cannot be missed.
2 ^ Of course, dropping an intention may often be insufficient for
doing without “images” of the desired state: In fact, a hopeless wish is still
enough to favor such images (Castelfranchi, 1998). But, however recurrent, they appear as less persistent and
vivid and, in any case, are confined to the realm of “wish” and daydreaming,
which is already marked as unreal. By contrast, when the intention is still there, such images
belong, so to say, to the realm of reality: They are marked as not only
possible, but probable, and are seen as “going to be real.” That is why it is
so easy to enter an “as if” state of mind and to conceive an acquisition goal
as a maintenance one.
3 ^ The suffering will be greater both because of
that certainty (the more certain a negative expectation, the less room left for
hope in future successful attempts) and because of the negative implications of
failed pursuit, such as the regret for having incurred useless costs and the
depressing negative self-evaluations typically induced by failure when it
occurs in spite of one's efforts. In fact, in the absence of plausible external
causes, a failure that occurred in spite of one's effort is likely to be traced
back to one's lack of ability (Covington, 1985; Dweck & Leggett, 1988; Kun & Weiner, 1973).
4 ^ It is worth stressing that some difference may exist between the
everyday meaning and use of a certain term and the “technical” meaning one can
attach to it. In other words, we do not necessarily assume that, when people
say they are either “disappointed” or “discouraged,” they mean exactly what we
mean with those words. Indeed, people can use them more or less vaguely, in the
same situation, and often interchangeably, which is also allowed by the actual
overlap between the two phenomena (in that, as we view it, discouragement is a
kind of disappointment). By contrast, what we assume is that there exist two
distinct mental attitudes that both concern the transformation of a positive
expectation into a negative one. But one attitude (which we call
“disappointment”) is more general than the other, in that it applies to both
simple goals and intentionsand is unmarked with regard to power. The other (which we call
“discouragement”) applies just to intentions and implies people's negative
beliefs about power.
Alamat untuk Korespondensi:
Maria Miceli, Istituto di Psicologia CNR, Viale Marx 15, 1-00137
Rome, Italy
Komentar
Posting Komentar