research topics on motivation

198 Motivation Essay Topics

🏆 best essay topics on motivation, ✍️ motivation essay topics for college, 👍 good motivation research topics & essay examples, 🌶️ hot motivation ideas to write about, 💡 simple motivation essay ideas, 🎓 most interesting motivation research titles, ❓ research questions on motivation.

Motivation Theory by Henry Murray and Abraham Maslow.
Motivational Theories in Nursing
The Case of Nokia: A Lesson in Leadership and Motivation
Motivational Theories in Healthcare
Lack of Employee Motivation at the XYZ Company
Expectancy and Reinforcement Theories of Motivation
Role of Motivation and Individual Behavior
Motivations for Criminal Behavior Psychologists and criminologists have relentlessly tried to understand the factors that push individuals into committing crime.
Hilton’s Career Development and Employee Motivation As one of the pioneers in the hospitality industry, Hilton aims to attract and retain the best employees to drive its services and customer excellence.
Microsoft Company: Employee Motivation and Retention The examination of Microsoft’s strategy found that the introduction of a collaborative corporate culture in the company could bring an array of benefits such as boosting morale.
Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation Essay: Comparing Types of Motivation Intrinsic motivation comes from within an individual while extrinsic motivation arises from without the person. They can also differ in the way they drive behavior.
International Finance. Motivation and Management The purpose of this report study is to determine the reason why the United Kingdom decided to stand apart from the unification of European currencies.
Organizational Behavior on Lack of Motivation The managers should identify the manifestations of lack of motivation, because this behavior threatens to reduce work productivity to improve the working environment.
Teacher Profession and Motivation to Choose It My decision of becoming a teacher solely comes from my family background and my own personal interests as I grew up.
Selflessness and Motivation for Ethical Behavior The paper examines how selflessness can be the solution to unethical behavior. Selflessness and motivation for ethical behavior are the key themes discussed.
Unconscious vs. Conscious Motivation Motivation is not a byproduct of unconscious behavior. There is evidence pointing to the contrary – that every action is deliberate and the driving force behind each action is the combination of awareness.
Employee Motivation: Rewards and Incentives Role Motivation refers to the psychological aspect that stimulates a being to action towards a desired goal; it is the activation of a purpose-orientated conduct.
Self-Determination Theory of Motivation Self-determination theory can be used to explain motivation. People are inspired to pursue psychological growth when they feel a sense of autonomy, competence, and connection.
Employee Motivation and Retention in Microsoft Corporation The individual approach to personnel retention along with a fixed-term contract system could be easily integrated into the existing system.
Motivation, Job Satisfaction, Involvement, Stress Motivating personnel and the assessment of job satisfaction, including the degree of involvement and stress impact, are the essential aspects of leadership practice in the group.
Organizational Motivation in “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” In the “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” movie, motivation can be viewed from the perspectives of different theories of organizational behavior.
Google Company: Leadership and Motivation This paper uses the case of Google to explain why business and leadership models are usually supported by admirable organizational cultures.
Motivations Effect on Second Language Learning The number of people learning English as a second language has been increasing, especially among people of East Asia. This paper determines the motivation effect on learning a second language.
Gamification: Learning and Motivational Theories The learning theory explains the use of games in different environments, and the motivational theory explains the idea of gamification – it’s Bruner’s and Skinner’s theories.
Motivation Theories and Their Effectiveness in Workplace Settings Motivation is a strategic approach that inspires people to improve their performance by providing rewards based on their unmet needs.
Abraham Maslow Theory of Motivation & Hierarchy of Needs Maslow is still one of the most influential people in the field of psychology. He was a professor in four major institutions of higher learning in America.
Importance of Motivation for Employees Motivation refers to an internally generated drive to achieve a goal, as result, highly motivated employees focus their efforts on achieving specific goals.
Southwest Airlines Co: Motivation Philosophy and Practices Company The motivation strategy used by the company can be mainly explained by positive psychology, one example of which is embedded in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
Employee Motivation and Minimum Wage This paper critically discusses theories of employee motivation and evaluates the argument for and against the national minimum wage.
Classroom Activity Showcasing Application of Motivational Theory Paper illustrates a classroom activity that can be used to make grade 8 students be motivated in a business class.
Avon: Quality Assurance, Motivation and Attitudes Change The example of Avon Products shows that environmental issues have, over the past few years, increasingly aroused our concern both as members of the community and as customers.
Motivation Theories at the Workplace Labor motivation is understood as the organization of the company’s work in a way that encourages everyone to fulfill professional duties.
Motivational Axiom, Health Behavior and Promotion The purpose of this paper is to discuss motivational axioms and health behavior theories that apply to the health promotion project.
Motivation and Performance in UAE Construction Industry One of the most important revelations in the research was that workers and managers in the UAE construction industry were not motivated.
Understanding of Motivation: Motivation and Personality Psychology This paper explores the relationship between personality psychology and motivation, discussing how personality traits influence motivation and how motivation affects human behavior.
Motivation Theory of Henry Murray and Abraham Maslow Maslow’s theory has been criticized for being a generalist in nature to have covered all the ingrained needs of human beings.
Motivational Pros and Cons of Teams in Organization Motivation plays an important role in teams’ effort by directing productive energy dissipated by workers toward achieving organization’s goals and objective.
Motivational Factors on Kazakhstan’s Top Managers This paper presents analysis of effectiveness of different extrinsic and intrinsic motivators on the performance of top managers in different organizations of Kazakhstan.
Financial Rewards as a Motivation Factor This paper seeks to answer the question as to whether the one best way to increase work motivation for an organization is through financial rewards.
Motivation Methods to Quit Smoking According to the recommendations for treating tobacco use, the interventions for such patients should be aimed at motivating them to finally quit smoking.
Employee Motivation in Secondary and Tertiary Sectors This paper seeks to analyze the concept of motivation and examine how it is differently applied in secondary and tertiary sectors.
Motivation in the “Whiplash” Film by Damien Chazelle “Whiplash” by Damien Chazelle is a superb story depicting the efforts of an ambitious, 19-year-old drummer, Andrew Neyman, to become one of the greatest musicians ever.
The Impact of Motivational Interviewing Motivational interviewing is an approach that “encourages people to say why and how they might change and pertains both to a style of relating to others”.
Bims Inc.: Case Study. Employee Motivation When it reaches a point of employees not giving a damn about losing there job, it is a clearly indication that an effective enhancing-motivation program is necessary.
Education Psychology, Learning and Motivation Besides the differences that concern culture, language and social diversity, there are also such differences as concern individual student personalities.
Motivational Strategies for Employee Productivity Today, the environment in which public organizations exist is rather competitive, but each company is willing to achieve success.
Airport Security: Motivation System Security motivation should be an integral part of an airport security system. Security management of the airports should involve promoting security motivation as a way to engender a security culture.
Motivation Theories in Society Motivation is a psychological factor that drives one to take action towards specific set goal. It ensures that individuals’ behavior is oriented towards that goal.
Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation in Higher Education Concerns about how to guarantee that students learn effectively in class and attain academic excellence in their academic pursuits have emerged all over the world.
Berkshire Industries: Motivations and Options The case of “Berkshire Industries PLC” gives an examination of the situations that led to a new incentive plan capable of meeting the demands of both workers and shareholders.
Motivational Interviewing Case Study On the use of motivational interviewing to change certain negative habits and behavioral patterns with an emphasis on the client’s intrinsic motivation.
Motivation Techniques at Workplace The paper describes the importance and different theories of motivation techniques for employees in the business environment.
Motivational Theories in Curriculum Development Motivational theories are very valuable in the development of a curriculum in education. Educators require a strong understanding of what motivates their students.
Trader Joe’s Stores’ Teamwork and Motivation Trader Joe’s has become a multi-billion dollar national chain. The employees of Trader Joe’s are very friendly. They engage the customers in friendly talk.
Self-Efficacy Motivation in Mathematics Learning The paper discusses the challenge facing mathematics teachers who have to deal with the negative attitude and low motivation of students towards their subject.
Employee Motivational Techniques Several companies have discovered the importance of compensation and reward systems with an aim of empowering their employees.
Self-Motivation for Entrepreneurs: An Action Plan This paper discusses the importance of self-motivation for entrepreneurs and presents a plan of action with motivational strategies to stay focused on the venture.
Motivational Theories and Factors Different individuals are motivated by various things, so there is the need to examine employees’ motivation as well as the motivational effects of stress and conflict at the workplace.
Motivations of Human Behavior Human behavior is a rather interesting area of study as far as human beings try to study themselves and it is always a complicated task.
CVS Caremark Company’s Motivational Problems Motivational problems arise when the workers have lost morale and their focus on the achievement of their goals, or those of a company.
Evidence-Based Practice, Motivation and Barriers The exploration of the evidence-based practice (EBP) is expected to bring positive outcomes because of the unique character of the given approach.
Employee Motivation and Incentives The issue of employee motivation has been under research for a sufficient period for developing a variety of topic-specific theories and frameworks.
Motivation to Lead: Communication Skills Leadership is based on the informal influence of the leader. The leader has influence over followers, but this resource of impactfulness has a pronounced personal component.
Leadership and Motivation Impact on Repsol Organisational Culture The purpose of this paper is to analyse the impact of leadership and motivation on the organisational culture of Repsol.
Nucor’s Performance Management and Motivation Strategy Motivation is a critical factor affecting employees’ performance. The case of Nucor Steel is an excellent example of the use of work motivation theories in performance management.
Motivation and Globalization in Multinational Companies Motivation in the case of globalization becomes a burning issue of multinational companies as they should establish the most appropriate way to motivate their employees.
Surveys on Students’ and Teachers’ Motivation The results of the quantitative research concerning motivation and belief in success inspire confidence and motivate me for further self-education.
Employee Motivation and Involvement Types The buy-in is considered crucial as it also encourages employees to care about the vision and mission of the company and not just the money they are getting paid.
Motivation, Emotion and Behavior Theories The link between emotion, motivation and behavior is that our emotions may motivate us in performing a given task. Since we are motivated we can pursue something very quickly.
Employee Retention and Motivation Policies The purpose of an employee retention policy is to keep the company’s processes stable and provide better working conditions for employees.
Extrinsic and Intrinsic Motivation Extrinsic motivation occurs when a person is driven to undertake an action or participate in a task to receive a prize or escape prosecution.
Employees’ Motivation: A Manager’s Challenge The issue of motivating employees could be regarded as a strategy that calls for planning on a long-tern basis. In addition, its impact ought to be felt by the entire work environment.
Motivational Problems at Workplace Managers have the responsibility to make workers motivated since lack of it can be a source of many problems in the workplace.
Motivation as a Means of Productivity Increase First of all, it is necessary to find out if the motivation is a really effective means of increasing the work efficiency or not.
Dark Tourism and Theories of Its Motivation The current article analyzes a concept of dark tourism and its motivations on the basis of a review of the literature and an interview.
Robert Kiyosaki as a Motivational Leader This paper overviews Kiyosaki’s personality discusses his role as a motivational leader and his leadership type according to the theory.
Young Adult Consumers’ Motivations Understanding Food and beverage outlets in most cases are frequented by young and sophisticated individuals. Understanding the expectations of the customers by the restaurant proprietors is valuable enough.
Motivational Interviewing and Its Purpose Motivational interviewing is a method for managing people by assisting them in overcoming obstacles to adopting healthier behaviors.
Discussion of Motivational Interviewing The essay examines the concept of motivational interviewing, outline the difference between internal and external motivation, and reveal its impact.
Motivation & Negative Contribution Margin Negative margins are usually a consequence of the inability of the firm to control costs or industry difficulties beyond the control of the company.
Students’ Motivation in Present Grading System The problem of a drop in students’ motivation remains a concern in most schools nowadays. Educators have provided a variety of strategies for increasing students’ motivation.
Motivation at Workplace: Achieving Organizational Goals One of the biggest challenges faced by the leaders is getting the right people for the job. Leadership is all about perfection and any wrong decisions taken can prove very fatal.
Motivation at Norsk Petroleum Norsk Petroleum, a leading gas and petroleum company, pays a special attention to motivation and organizational culture, job satisfaction high productivity.
Motivation in Spencer Johnson’s “Who Moved My Cheese?” The message of Spencer Johnson’s “Who Moved My Cheese?” deals with the description that in a parabolic way enumerates the scenario of change in an individual’s life.
Motivational Factors in the Workplace Occasionally, employers or managers are usually at crossroads not knowing whether to motivate a person or provide an enabling environment.
Motivational Interviewing in Obesity Reduction: Statistical Analysis The research determines the effect the methods like motivational interviews and specific web tools will have on people suffering from different degrees of obesity.
Education and Motivation for At-Risk Students The paper is focused on examining the programs for at-risk students, the benefits of such programs, and the role of education in modern life.
Yerkes-Dodson Law: Motivation and Performance This paper examines and describes the aspects of the law specified by Yerkes and Dodson. This law covers the concept of motivation in its relation to performance.
Cultural Diversity and Motivation Managers are required to ensure that employees are motivated and cultural diversity and personality differences of all individuals are respected.
Leadership Style and Motivation in Health Care Of all the functions, leadership involves managers most directly with subordinates. Leadership in Nursing is very crucial as it ensures safety and quality health care for the public in hospitals.
The Prestige Company: Reward and Motivation This paper discusses the Prestige company’s reward management and evaluates the impact of economic, regulatory, psychological, and motivational factors on this practice.
The Expectancy Model of Motivation in Business This paper dwells on the expectancy model of motivation, which aims to explain the connection between motivation and performance.
The Motivation of Scientists Many sciences interconnect and create a more extensive system of knowledge. For example, psychology, the science about human behavior, is highly influenced by biology.
Health Coaching: Transtheoretical Model and Motivational Interviewing The Transtheoretical Model in health coaching focuses on individual decision-making. Motivational interviewing is used for different health-related issues in health coaching.
Exploring How Motivation Impacts Performance Communication between the CEOs of the Tailor Building Works Company is the core tool that can be used in order to boost motivation in the company.
Police Supervisor’s Dilemma: Control and Motivation The level of control needed in a police institution is related to the capability of officers to construct an inspiring environment.
Change and Restructure on Motivation the Workplace In the last for decades, businesses and organizations have been faced with the need to restructures so as to make them more competitiveness globally and better positioned.
Impact of Organization Restructuring on Motivation Organizational restructuring may bring positive or negative impacts on the motivation of the members of the organization.
Employee Motivation and Pay Plans Management role is characterized to address the objectives to be achieved with the involvement of employees in assessing the motivational factors impact in each situation.
Garment Trading Company: Motivational Climate and Its Improvement Using well-elaborated methodology and up-to-date research of employees’ motivation, the survey is designed to determine the level of employees’ motivation in this company.
Employee Motivation: Rewards, Goals, Empowerment It is important to enhance the motivation of the employees in an organization in order to attain the objectives of the firm.
Motivational Strategies for Nurses In case when nurses do not properly understand their performance instructions, it is unlikely that they will provide high-quality care.
Organizational Performance: Motivation and Its Impacts The centrality of employee input in an organisation’s overall performance can only be ignored at the peril of an organisation’s long-term survival.
Motivation Types and Leadership Styles in Nursing A better quality of care is possible when a nurse is internally motivated to achieve positive results and grow professionally.
Public Library: Bureaucracy and Lack Motivation The paper reports an interview with an acquisition librarian discussing the functioning and organizational culture of the public library, challenges of workers and readers.
Operationalization Methods: Motivation, Mood, Anxiety, and Happiness Operationalization is used for turning abstract concepts into quantifiable values. This paper aims to analyze and assess the operationalization methods.
Learners’ Mindsets: Motivational Strategies A learner’s mindset, be it fixed or growth, is a particular matter that a plethora of factors can influence. These factors can include a variety of elements.
Motivational Interviewing and Description Tool The use of open questioning, affirming, reflecting and summarizing (OARS) can be an efficient tool for interviewing people.
The Poem “The Iliad” by Homer: Achilles’ Motivation in Ransoming Hector In Homer’s poem “The Iliad”, Achilles ransomed Hector’s body to return it safely to his family for proper burial to prevent further anger from the gods.
Employee Motivation and Organizational Behavior The paper discusses the influence of employee motivation and relevant appraisal techniques on organizational behavior. It implies using a qualitative design.
Motivation and Accomplishing Goals in Management Workers may receive assistance from managers in comprehending how they are coordinating various tasks. The most important skill is the capacity to refrain from actions.
Motivational Theories in the Workplace This paper discusses the importance of motivation in the workplace, the different motivation elements, and the various theories explaining motivation.
Motivation at the Workplace: An Email Survey The email survey revealed various personality and motivation findings. In this case, different people have different motivating factors in their work environment.
The Role of Human Resources’ Motivation Different organizations use different strategies to persuade their employees to increase their productivity and positivity towards their duties.
Improving Physical and Moral Well-Being: The Role of Self-Motivation The conducted research is a fixation on sensations and was chosen to serve as a basis for reasoning about self-motivation in matters of improving physical and moral health.
Needs and Motivations From Maslow’s and the Scripture’s Perspectives The paper analyzes Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs remains the most inclusive yet structured approach for studying the nature of needs.
Ways To Cope Emotions and Stress There are several theories on how people experience emotions that have been put forward throughout the years, all attributing emotions to separate causes.
Motivation in the Workplace: The Organizational Culture The organizational culture sought to foster an environment of pushing employees to be their best, offering support to stimulate high performance.
Healthy Eating Behavior: Psychological Factors and Motivation This paper analyzes the way goals, mindsets, and personal beliefs affect motivation to engage or disengage in healthy eating behavior.
Problems With Blaming Poor Workplace Performance on Low Motivation An HR manager may overlook a wide range of details that shape staff members’ motivation, causing a disruption in their performance rates.
Performance-Driven Teams and Motivation The paper discusses performance-driven team, to which some refer as a high-performance team, which differs from a common one in its efficiency.
Women and Heart Disease: Knowledge, Worry, and Motivation The study revealed that few women are worried about developing heart diseases though a majority of middle aged women are motivated to modify their cardiovascular risk factor.
Motivation and Manufacturing Jobs Factories nowadays are indeed more mechanized and automated, but it should eventually lead to market expansion, which, in turn, will produce more jobs.
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and Motivation Esteem needs in Maslow’s Hierarchy represent a desire to have a realistic and, at the same time, positive opinion about oneself.
Motivational Interviewing as a Smoking Cessation Method Motivational Interviewing intervention is one of the primary cessation methods that is used among patients that reluctant to abstain from tobacco use.
The Impact of Motivation on Employees Employee empowerment and collaborative teamwork are important elements to be considered when starting a company.
Employee Motivation: Monetary and Non-monetary Motivators Keeping motivation in workers is oneself is critical skill in any leader as self-motivation translates to employee motivation, and employee motivation translates to productivity.
Motivation and Improving Employee Behavior All companies and managers face issues regarding leadership, conflict resolution, and the motivations of employees.
Organizational Behavior and Motivation in Hurricane Response This article examines methods that could be used to manage the aftermath of the Katrina disaster by some theorists in the field of creating mechanisms to regulate human behavior.
Motivation Strategies and Approaches at Workplace The performance of the young graduate employee should be the main factor to be monitored against the motivation strategies put in place.
Motivation of Females to Move In Leadership Positions in the Field of Corrections Employees do not motivate females to move to leadership positions. Each and every employee strives to sustain individual performance and promotion.
Organizational Behavior Motivation of Employees The issue of motivating employees is an extremely crucial undertaking of the management in an organization as it is vital towards achieving high performance.
Health or Self-Indulgence? The Motivations and Characteristics of Spa-Goers This article aims to examine the factors, which motivate travelers to look for spa experiences, especially the Hong Kong spa-goers, perceptions towards the spa.
Organizational Behavior and Motivation Scheme of an Employee The subject of the present study is the way organizational behavior is influenced by the issue of payment and what role payment plays in the whole motivation scheme of an employee.
Motivation & Control: The Police Supervisor’s Dilemma It is universally acknowledged that the effectiveness of the work is toughly connected with a consistent organizational structure and subordinate system.
Brief Motivational Intervention: Mindfulness Based Therapy Substance abuse is one of the leading social problems in the United States. In particular, alcohol is one of the most abused substances in the country.
Leadership, Motivation, Work Satisfaction and Performance Motivation, teamwork and performance are related to each other. The level of performance of a follower is mostly influenced by the amount of motivation he receives from his leader.
Existence, Relatedness and Growth Theory of Motivation Existence, Relatedness and Growth theory addresses some of the limitations of the needs theory. It says more than one need may motivate simultaneously.
Theories of Learning and Motivation Education theories and approaches employed in various domains bring up valuable nuances on links establishable student motivation and aspects like achievement and retention.
Corkely & Finn: Employees Motivation Corkery & Finn a regional investment brokerage house has been extremely profitable but the company has decided to expand its operations and open overseas branches.
Employee Behavior: Consequences and Motivation In the world of business, motivation is to drive the employee towards enhanced productivity by exploiting the abilities to the maximum potential, by improving the job performance.
Employee Motivation and Reward in Entrepreneurial Firm Successfully run organizations need the contribution of their employees. For efficient employee performance, a proper system of employee motivation and rewards should be in place.
Ashoka Incorporation: Employees Motivation In the case of Ashoka, the workers need to understand why it is important for strong masses to work for the improvement of their lives.
Risks to Staff Motivation and Morale In every organization culture determines the ways of performance and interaction between employees, communication and climate, morale and satisfaction.
Employee Motivation: Self-Directed Work Teams Individuals assigned to such teamwork intensively to achieve this common goal and are assumed to have the skill set required to complete their job.
Thai-Lay Fashion Ltd.: Leadership and Motivation A study with regard to how motivation can be improved in the Thai Lay Fashion Company has been conducted here.
Motivation Theories Explaining Individual Behavior Understanding the factors that motivate employees to perform and deliver better results is inherent to successfully manage organizational issues and meeting the set goals.
Social Motivation of an Artist and Business Owner This paper studies the social motivation on the example of a woman, who has created a business providing services as a graphic designer and a photographer.
Employee Motivation Meeting: Planning and Organizing The meeting “Motivating and Encouraging Newly-Hired Employees” will be held in a conference room. It is aimed at employee retention within the company.
Intrinsic Motivation and Work Experiences The goal of the overall assessment is to understand the power of intrinsic motivation on human work experiences.
Utah Symphony and Opera’s Merger and Motivation The number of non-salaried occasional workers that deal with the Utah Opera Organization is sufficient for employees to get worried.
Supervisor’s Motivation and Employee’s Performance Two shifts in the factory are falling behind in production. The senior manager wonders if that lack of motivation of supervisors is rubbing off on the workers.
Terrorism Attacks, Motivations, Political Factors Many people engage in terrorism because of sociological and personal factors. For example, a person is deprived of human rights, loses home, or cannot get an appropriate education.
The “Hour of Code” Project: Motivation to Programming The paper includes an analysis of some of the videos and explores the possible outcomes of the Hour of Code approach with a focus on the topics of creativity and success.
Employee Motivation at the Public Library The paper reports on a management consultancy of an acquisition librarian in a small public library. The key problems were low motivation and slow decision-making.
Leadership Mentoring and Nurses’ Motivation This paper proposes the article “The Effect of Leadership Mentoring on Motivation of Nurses: A Mixed Study Approach” for the International Journal of Nursing Studies.
Motivation, Leadership, Teamwork in Operational Enhancement In this work, three articles that consider particular concepts relevant for operational enhancement are discussed. The concepts of motivation, leadership, and teamwork are used.
Terrorism Definition and Motivation This paper defines the notion of terrorism according to the UN General Assembly Resolution and outlines three reasons people make terrorist attacks on innocent members of society.
Transformational Leadership for Nurses’ Motivation Motivation has a positive effect on patient health outcomes when nurses are willing to apply their knowledge and skills to work and achieve their full potential.
The Use of Motivation and Inspiration in Business This paper establishes the difference between motivation and inspiration and also shows how the two concepts are applied in organizations.
The United States Civil War: Soldiers’ Motivations This paper compares and contrasts the motivations of Union soldiers and Confederate soldiers, how were they different from each other and are there any ways they were the same.
Work Motivation: Capitalism, Individualism, Institutionalism The reasons why people work can be found in Weber’s Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. The key constituents are calling, predestination, and asceticism.
Using Motivation to Improve Employee Performance Motivation refers to the internal and external factors that encourage an employee to perform assigned tasks or achieve set goals and objectives.
Maslow’s Rationale for Work Motivation – Psychology Motivation refers to various innate forces that create impetus for satisfaction and fulfilment of recurrent human needs. Such forces are vital in determining human drive and willingness.
Work Motivation in the Theory X and Y Context McGregor’s theories of management can be used to operate modern day organizations. Theory X applied on the assumption that all employees lack motivation.
Management and Motivation Theory: What Motivates You? The question of whether a leader’s motivational aspects have an impact on his or her leadership style and performance has been subjected to substantial empirical exploration.
Consumer Motivation on the BevCo Example The paper considers the difficulties to gain consumer motivation and proposes changes to attitude at BevCo based on the investigations of its target consumers preferences.
Are Matching Games Effective at Improving Learner Motivation and Engagement in Literacy Lessons?
What Is Motivation and Why Is It Important?
Are Competition and Extrinsic Motivation Reliable Predictors of Academic Cheating?
What Are the Roles of Supervisors’ Prosocial Motivation and Perceived Corporate Social Responsibility?
How Motivation Can Change Your Life?
What Are the Benefits of Motivation?
Can External Interventions Crowd in Intrinsic Motivation?
What Are the Types of Motivation?
What Determines the Motivation for Further Training?
Does Monetary Punishment Crowd Out Pro-social Motivation?
What Causes Lack of Motivation?
What Is a Word for Lack of Motivation?
Does Motivation Affect the Outcome of a Sporting Performance?
Does Motivation Come From Within or Is It Stimulated by External Forces?
What Are the Eight Self-Motivation Techniques?
What Is a Good Example of Motivation?
Does Pursue External Incentives Compromise Public Service Motivation?
Does Teacher Motivation Lead to Student Motivation?
What Are the Strategies to Strengthen Motivation?
How Can ASDA (Farnborough) Improve Employee Motivation?
How Did Keynes Conceive Entrepreneurs’ Motivation?
How Motivation Theories Can Be Applied in Your Workplace?
What Motivation Techniques Can Be Used by Managers?
What Are the Various Tools and Techniques of Motivation?
What Are Ten Ways to Motivate Employees?
What Are the Attraction and Motivation Factors of Management Level of Hotel Employees in Hong Kong?
What Is Maslow’s Theory of Motivation?
Who Is the Founder of Motivation Theory?
What Is the History of Motivation?
What Are the Sources of External and Internal Motivation for People?

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20 Most Popular Theories of Motivation in Psychology

The many approaches to defining what drives human behavior are best understood when considering the very purpose of creating them, be it increased performance, goal pursuit, resilience, or relapse prevention, to name a few.

There is nothing more practical than a good theory.

There is no single motivation theory that explains all aspects of human motivation, but these theoretical explanations do often serve as the basis for the development of approaches and techniques to increase motivation in distinct areas of human endeavor.

This article briefly summarizes existing theories of motivation and their potential real-world applications.

Before you continue, we thought you might like to download our three Goal Achievement Exercises for free . These detailed, science-based exercises will help you or your clients create actionable goals and master techniques to create lasting behavior change.

This Article Contains:

What is motivation psychology, theories of motivation, content theories of motivation, process theories of motivation, cognitive theories of motivation, motivational theories in business, motivational theories in sports psychology, textbooks on motivation, a take-home message.

Motivation psychologists usually attempt to show how motivation varies within a person at different times or among different people at the same time. The purpose of the psychology of motivation is to explain how and why that happens.

Broad views of how to understand motivation were created by psychologists based on various types of analyses. Cognitive analyses, behavioral anticipation, and affective devices are often used to account for motivation in terms of expecting an end-state or goal.

Motivation psychology is a study of how biological, psychological, and environmental variables contribute to motivation. That is, what do the body and brain contribute to motivation; what mental processes contribute; and finally, how material incentives, goals, and their mental representations motivate individuals.

Psychologists research motivation through the use of two different methods. Experimental research is usually conducted in a laboratory and involves manipulating a motivational variable to determine its effects on behavior.

Correlational research involves measuring an existing motivational variable to determine how the measured values are associated with behavioral indicators of motivation.

Whether you think you can, or think you can’t, you’re right.

Henry Ford, 1863–1947

To be motivated means to be moved into action. We are induced into action or thought by either the push of a motive or the pull of an incentive or goal toward some end-state. Here a motive is understood as an internal disposition that pushes an individual toward a desired end-state where the motive is satisfied, and a goal is defined as the cognitive representation of the desired outcome that an individual attempts to achieve.

While a goal guides a behavior that results in achieving it, an incentive is an anticipated feature of the environment that pulls an individual toward or away from a goal. Incentives usually enhance motivation for goal achievement. Emotions act like motives as well. They motivate an individual in a coordinated fashion along multiple channels of affect, physiology, and behavior to adapt to significant environmental changes.

See our discussion of the motivation cycle and process in the blog post entitled What is Motivation .

In short, content theories explain what motivation is, and process theories describe how motivation occurs.

There are also a large number of cognitive theories that relate to motivation and explain how our way of thinking and perceiving ourselves and the world around us can influence our motives.

From self-concept, dissonance and mindset to values, orientation and perceived control, these theories explain how our preference toward certain mental constructs can increase or impair our ability to take goal-directed action.

Theories of motivation are also grouped by the field of human endeavor they apply to. Several theories relate to motivating employees where incentives and needs take a central stage as well as theories used in sports and performance psychology where affect is considered a more prominent driver of human behavior. Some of these theories are also applied to education and learning.

Read our insightful post on motivation in education .

The self-concordance model of goal setting differentiates between four types of motivation (Sheldon & Elliot, 1999). These are:

External motivation

Goals are heavily guided by external circumstances and would not take place without some kind of reward or to prevent a negative outcome.

For example, an individual who clocks extra hours in their day job purely to receive a bigger paycheck.

Introjected motivation

Goals are characterized by self-image or ego-based motivation, reflecting the need to keep a certain self-image alive.

For example, our worker in the example above staying longer in the office so that they are perceived as a ‘hard worker’ by their manager and co-workers.

Identified motivation

The actions needed to accomplish the goal are perceived as personally important and meaningful, and personal values are the main drivers of goal pursuit.

For example, the worker putting in extra hours because their personal values align with the objective of the project they are working on.

Intrinsic motivation

When a behavior is guided by intrinsic motivation, the individual strives for this goal because of the enjoyment or stimulation that this goal provides. While there may be many good reasons for pursuing the goal, the primary reason is simply the interest in the experience of goal pursuit itself.

For example, the worker spends more time at their job because they enjoy and are energized by using their skills in creativity and problem-solving.

Goals guided by either identified or intrinsic motivation can be considered self-concordant. A self-concordant goal is personally valued, or the process towards the goal is enjoyable and aligns with interests. Self-concordant goals are associated with higher levels of wellbeing, enhanced positive mood, and higher levels of life satisfaction compared to non-self-concordant goals.

Maslow’s theory of the hierarchy of needs, Alderfer’s ERG theory, McClelland’s achievement motivation theory, and Herzberg’s two-factor theory focused on what motivates people and addressed specific factors like individual needs and goals.

Maslow’s theory of the hierarchy of needs

The most recognized content theory of motivation is that of Abraham Maslow, who explained motivation through the satisfaction of needs arranged in a hierarchical order. As satisfied needs do not motivate, it is the dissatisfaction that moves us in the direction of fulfillment.

Needs are conditions within the individual that are essential and necessary for the maintenance of life and the nurturance of growth and well-being. Hunger and thirst exemplify two biological needs that arise from the body’s requirement for food and water. These are required nutriments for the maintenance of life.

The body of man is a machine which winds its own spring.

J. O. De La Mettrie

Competence and belongingness exemplify two psychological needs that arise from the self’s requirement for environmental mastery and warm interpersonal relationships. These are required nutriments for growth and well-being.

Needs serve the organism, and they do so by:

generating wants, desires, and strivings that motivate whatever behaviors are necessary for the maintenance of life and the promotion of growth and well-being, and
generating a deep sense of need satisfaction from doing so.

Maslow’s legacy is the order of needs progressing in the ever-increasing complexity, starting with basic physiological and psychological needs and ending with the need for self-actualization. While basic needs are experienced as a sense of deficiency, the higher needs are experienced more in terms of the need for growth and fulfillment.

Alderfer’s ERG theory

Alderfer’s theory of motivation expands on the work of Maslow and takes the premise of need categories a bit further. He observes that when lower needs are satisfied, they occupy less of our attention, but the higher needs tend to become more important, the more we pursue them.

He also observed a phenomenon that he called the frustration-regression process where when our higher needs are thwarted, we may regress to lower needs. This is especially important when it comes to motivating employees.

When a sense of autonomy or the need for mastery is compromised, say because of the structure of the work environment, the employee may focus more on the sense of security or relatedness the job provides.

McClelland’s achievement motivation theory

McClelland took a different approach to conceptualize needs and argued that needs are developed and learned, and focused his research away from satisfaction. He was also adamant that only one dominant motive can be present in our behavior at a time. McClelland categorized the needs or motives into achievement, affiliation, and power and saw them as being influenced by either internal drivers or extrinsic factors.

Among all the prospects which man can have, the most comforting is, on the basis of his present moral condition, to look forward to something permanent and to further progress toward a still better prospect.

Immanuel Kant

The drive for achievement arises out of the psychological need for competence and is defined as a striving for excellence against a standard that can originate from three sources of competition: the task itself, the competition with the self, and the competition against others.

High need for achievement can come from one’s social environment and socialization influences, like parents who promote and value pursuit and standards of excellence, but it can also be developed throughout life as a need for personal growth towards complexity (Reeve, 2014).

Herzberg’s motivation-hygiene theory

Herzberg’s two-factor theory, also known as motivation-hygiene theory, was originally intended to address employee motivation and recognized two sources of job satisfaction. He argued that motivating factors influence job satisfaction because they are based on an individual’s need for personal growth: achievement, recognition, work itself, responsibility, and advancement.

On the other hand, hygiene factors, which represented deficiency needs, defined the job context and could make individuals unhappy with their job: company policy and administration, supervision, salary, interpersonal relationships, and working conditions.

Motivation theories explained in 10 minutes – EPM

Process theories like Skinner’s reinforcement theory, Victor Vroom’s expectancy theory, Adams’ equity theory, and Locke’s goal-setting theory set out to explain how motivation occurs and how our motives change over time.

Reinforcement theory

The most well-known process theory of motivation is the reinforcement theory, which focused on the consequences of human behavior as a motivating factor.

Based on Skinner’s operant conditioning theory , it identifies positive reinforcements as promoters that increased the possibility of the desired behavior’s repetition: praise, appreciation, a good grade, trophy, money, promotion, or any other reward (Gordon, 1987).

It distinguished positive reinforcements from negative reinforcement and punishment, where the former gives a person only what they need in exchange for desired behavior, and the latter tries to stop the undesired behavior by inflicting unwanted consequences.

See our articles on Positive Reinforcement in the Workplace and Parenting Children with Positive Reinforcement .

Other process motivation theories combine aspects of reinforcement theory with other theories, sometimes from adjacent fields, to shine a light on what drives human behavior.

Adams’ equity theory of motivation

For example, Adams’ equity theory of motivation (1965), based on Social Exchange theory, states that we are motivated when treated equitably, and we receive what we consider fair for our efforts.

It suggests that we not only compare our contributions to the amount of rewards we receive but also compare them to what others receive for the same amount of input. Although equity is essential to motivation, it does not take into account the differences in individual needs, values, and personalities, which influence our perception of inequity.

Vroom’s expectancy theory

Victor Vroom’s expectancy theory (1964), on the other hand, integrates needs, equity, and reinforcement theories to explain how we choose from alternative forms of voluntary behavior based on the belief that decisions will have desired outcomes. Vroom suggests that we are motivated to pursue an activity by appraising three factors:

Expectancy that assumes more effort will result in success
Instrumentality that sees a connection between activity and goal
Valence which represents the degree to which we value the reward or the results of success.

Locke’s goal-setting theory

Finally, Locke and Latham’s (1990) goal-setting theory, an integrative model of motivation, sees goals as key determinants of behavior. Possibly the most widely applied, the goal-setting theory stresses goal specificity, difficulty, and acceptance and provides guidelines for how to incorporate them into incentive programs and management by objectives (MBO) techniques in many areas.

Lock’s recipe for effective goal setting includes:

Setting of challenging but attainable goals. Too easy or too difficult or unrealistic goals don’t motivate us.
Setting goals that are specific and measurable. These can focus us toward what we want and can help us measure the progress toward the goal.
Goal commitment should be obtained. If we don’t commit to the goals, then we will not put adequate effort toward reaching them, regardless of how specific or challenging they are.
Strategies to achieve this could include participation in the goal-setting process, the use of extrinsic rewards (bonuses), and encouraging intrinsic motivation through providing feedback about goal attainment. It is important to mention here that pressure to achieve goals is not useful because it can result in dishonesty and superficial performance.
Support elements should be provided. For example, encouragement, needed materials and resources, and moral support.
Knowledge of results is essential. Goals need to be quantifiable, and there needs to be feedback.

There are several articles on effective goal setting in our blog series that cover Locke’s theory and it’s many applications.

They address specific cognitive phenomena that can influence motivation, represent a particular factor of motivation, describe a form of expression of motivation, or explain a process through which it can occur or be enhanced.

The list of cognitive phenomena is by no means comprehensive, but it does give us a taste of the complexity of human motivation and includes references for those who want to read further into more nuanced topics:

Plans (Carver, Scheier, & Weintraub, 1998)
Goals (Locke & Latham, 2002)
Implementation intentions (Gollwitzer, 1999)
Deliberative versus implementation mindsets (Gollwitzer & Kinney, 1989)
Promotion versus prevention orientations (Higgins, 1997)
Growth versus fixed mindsets (Dweck, 2006)
Dissonance (Festinger, 1957; Harmon-Jones & Mills, 1999)
Self-efficacy (Bandura, 1986)
Perceived control (Skinner, 1996)
Reactance theory (Brehm, 1966)
Learned helplessness theory (Miller & Seligman, 1975)
Mastery beliefs (Diener & Dweck, 1978)
Attributions (Wiener, 1986)
Values (Eccles & Wigfield, 2002)
Self-concept (Markus, 1977)
Possible selves (Oyserman, Bybee, & Terry, 2006)
Identity (Eccles, 2009)
Self-regulation (Zimmerman, 2000)
Self-control (Baumeister & Tierney, 2011)

There are also several different approaches to understanding human motivation which we have discussed in greater detail in our article on Benefits and Importance of Motivation which amass a large body of motivational studies and are currently attracting a lot of attention in contemporary research in motivational science, namely intrinsic motivation (Ryan & Deci, 2000) and the flow theory (Csíkszentmihályi, 1975).

In addition to the Two Factor theory and equity theory, some theories focus on autonomy, wellbeing, and feedback as core motivational aspects of employees’ performance; theories X, Y and Z, and the Hawthorne effect, respectively.

Theory X and Theory Y

Douglas McGregor proposed two theories, Theory X and Theory Y, to explain employee motivation and its implications for management. He divided employees into Theory X employees who avoid work and dislike responsibility and Theory Y employees who enjoy work and exert effort when they have control in the workplace.

He postulated that to motivate Theory X employees, the company needs to enforce rules and implement punishments. For Theory Y employees, management must develop opportunities for employees to take on responsibility and show creativity as a way of motivating. Theory X is heavily informed by what we know about intrinsic motivation, and the role satisfaction of basic psychological needs plays in effective employee motivation.

In response to this theory, a third theory, Theory Z, was developed by Dr. William Ouchi. Ouchi’s theory focuses on increasing employee loyalty to the company by providing a job for life and focusing on the employee’s well-being. It encourages group work and social interaction to motivate employees in the workplace.

The Hawthorne Effect

Elton Mayo developed an explanation known as the Hawthorne Effect that suggested that employees are more productive when they know their work is being measured and studied.

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There are also several theories on motivation that are used in sports and performance psychology. The core concept in understanding motivation from the performance perspective is how physiological and psychological arousal accompanies behavior.

Arousal is basically a form of mobilization of energy and activation either before or while engaged in the behavior. Arousal occurs in different modes. Physiological arousal refers to the excitement of the body, while psychological arousal is about how subjectively aroused an individual feels.

When we say that our palms are sweaty or our heart is pounding, it implies physiological arousal. When we feel tense and anxious, it signifies psychological arousal.

Robert Thayer (1989) evolved the theory of psychological arousal into two dimensions: energetic arousal and tense arousal, composed of energetic and tense dimensions. Energetic arousal is associated with positive affect, while tense arousal is associated with anxiety and fearfulness.

Tense arousal can be divided further into two types of anxiety: trait anxiety and state anxiety. One refers to the degree we respond to the environment in general negatively and with worry, while state anxiety refers to feelings of apprehension that occur in response to a particular situation.

Arousal originates from several sources. It can be generated by a stimulus that has an arousing function and a cue function. But background stimuli that do not capture our attention also increase arousal.

Thayer found that arousal varies with time of day, for many of us being highest around noon and lower in the morning and evening. Coffee, for example, can boost arousal, as can an instance of being evaluated during exams, music performance, or sports competitions.

Arousal also depends on more complex variables like novelty, complexity, and incongruity. The interaction of various stimuli explains why sometimes arousal increases behavioral efficiency and in other instances, decreases it.

Optimal functioning hypothesis

The zone of optimal functioning hypothesis in sports psychology identifies a zone of optimal arousal where an athlete performs best (Hanin, 1989). As arousal increases, performance on a task increases and then decreases, as can be seen on the inverted-U arousal–performance relationship diagram below.

According to the zone of optimal functioning hypothesis, each individual has her preferred area of arousal based on cognitive or somatic anxiety. The Yerkes–Dodson law explains further that the high point of the inverted-U or arousal–performance relationship depends on the complexity of the task being performed.

Several theories have been proposed to explain the relationship between the inverted-U nature of the arousal–performance relationship.

Hull–Spence drive theory

The classic Hull–Spence drive theory emphasizes how arousal affects performance with little regard for any cognitive awareness by the individual. Also known as drive reduction theory, it postulates that human behavior could be explained by conditioning and reinforcement.

This oversimplification is part of the reason why more nuanced and complex cognitive theories have largely replaced the theory. The cusp catastrophe model in sports psychology, arousal-biased competition theory, processing efficiency theory, and attentional control theory are more concerned with the cognitive aspects of arousal and how this affects behavioral efficiency.

Arousal-biased competition theory

Mather and Sutherland (2011) developed an arousal-biased competition theory to explain the inverted-U arousal–performance relationship. It suggests that arousal exhibits biases toward information that is the focus of our attention.

Arousal effects and therefore increases the priority of processing important information and decrease the priority of processing less critical information. The presence of arousal improves the efficiency of behavior that concerns a crucial stimulus, but it is done at the expense of the background stimuli.

Two memory systems theory

Metcalfe and Jacobs (1998) postulated the existence of two memory systems that influence the level of arousal we experience: a cool memory system and a hot memory system, each in a different area of the brain. The cool system, located in the hippocampus, serves the memory of events occurring in space and time and would allow us to remember where we parked our car this morning.

The hot system in the amygdala serves as the memory of events that occur under high arousal. Metcalfe and Jacobs theorized that the hot system remembers the details of stimuli that predict the onset of highly stressful or arousing events, such as events that predict danger and is responsible for the intrusive memories of individuals who have experienced extremely traumatic events.

Processing efficiency theory

The processing efficiency theory of Eysenck and Calvo theorized on how anxiety, expressed as worry, can influence performance. Preoccupation with being evaluated and being concerned about one’s performance turns to worry, which takes up working memory capacity and causes performance on cognitive tasks to decline (Eysenck & Calvo, 1992).

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Here are a suggested book references for tertiary-level study of motivation for those who want to dive deeper into some of these topics:

1. Understanding Motivation and Emotion – Johnmarshall Reeve

IT provides a toolbox of practical interventions and approaches for use in a wide variety of settings.

Available on Amazon .

2. Motivation: Theories and Principles – Robert C. Beck

It covers a broad range of motivational concepts from both human and animal theory and research, with an emphasis on the biological bases of motivation.

3. Motivation – Lambert Deckers

How motivation is the inducement of behavior, feelings, and cognition.

4. Motivation and Emotion Evolutionary Physiological, Developmental, and Social Perspectives – Denys A. deCatanzaro

5. Motivation: A Biosocial and Cognitive Integration of Motivation and Emotion – Eva Dreikurs Ferguson

These include hunger and thirst, circadian and other biological rhythms, fear and anxiety, anger and aggression, achievement, attachment, and love.

6. Human Motivation – Robert E. Franken

7. The Psychology of Action: Linking Cognition and Motivation to Behavior – Peter M. Gollwitzer and John Bargh

These programs are effectively mapping the territory, providing new findings, and suggesting innovative strategies for future research.

8. Motivation and Self-Regulation Across the Life Span – Jutta Heckhausen and Carol S. Dweck

9. Reclaiming Cognition: The Primacy of Action, Intention, and Emotion (Journal of Consciousness Studies) – Rafael Nunez and Walter J. Freeman

This leads to the claim that cognition is representational and best explained using models derived from AI and computational theory. The authors depart radically from this model.

10. Motivation: Theory, Research, and Applications – Herbert L. Petri and John M. Govern

The book clearly presents the advantages and drawbacks to each of these explanations, allowing readers to draw their own conclusions.

11. Intrinsic & Extrinsic Motivation: The Search for Optimal Motivation and Performance – Carol Sansone and Judith M. Harackiewicz

12. The Psychobiology of Human Motivation (Psychology Focus) – Hugh Wagner

It starts from basic physiological needs like hunger and thirst, to more complex aspects of social behavior like altruism.

There is no shortage of explanations for what constitutes human motivation, and the research on the topic is as vast and dense as the field of psychology itself. Perhaps the best course of action is to identify the motivational dilemma we’re trying to solve and then select one approach to motivation if only to try it out.

By annihilating desires you annihilate the mind. Every man without passions has within him no principle of action, nor motive to act.

Claude Adrien Helvetius, 1715–1771

As Dan Kahneman argues, teaching psychology is mostly a waste of time unless we as students can experience what we are trying to learn or teach about human nature and can deduce if it is right for us.

Then and only then, can we choose to act on it, move in the direction of change, or make a choice to remain the same. It’s all about experiential learning and connecting the knowledge we acquire to our own experience.

What motivational theory do you find most useful?

We hope you enjoyed reading this article. Don’t forget to download our three Goal Achievement Exercises for free .

Image 1 : Maslow pyramid adapted from “Renovating the Pyramid of Needs: Contemporary Extensions Built upon Ancient Foundations” by D. T. Kenrick et al., 2010, Perspectives on Psychological Science, 5, 292–314 (see p. 293), and from “A Theory of Human Needs Should Be Human-Centered, Not Animal-Centered: Commentary on Kenrick et al. (2010)” by S. Kesebir et al., 2010, Perspectives on Psychological Science, 5, 315–319 (see p. 316), and from “Human Motives, Happiness, and the Puzzle of Parenthood: Commentary on Kenrick et al. (2010)” by S. Lyubormirsky & J. K. Boehm, 2010, Perspectives on Psychological Science, 5, 327–334.
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Eccles, J. (2009). Who am I and what am I going to do with my life? Personal and collective identities as motivators of action. Educational Psychologist, 44 (2), 78-89.
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What our readers think.

Hi Nicole, I love this site! I am a PhD student but in international development, not psychology and my methodology is multi-disciplinary, but that is quite difficult I am finding now I am looking at psychology! I have been sent down a path by an Australian academic about the role of action to motivation to action – do you have any good references to recommend on this? Thx, Sue Cant, Charles Darwin University

It sounds like you’re delving into an exciting interdisciplinary study! The role of action and motivation is indeed a key topic in psychology and relevant to international development too.

First, you might find “ Self-Determination Theory ” by Richard M. Ryan and Edward L. Deci interesting. It delves into the relationship between motivation, action, and human behavior, exploring how our needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness influence our motivation and actions.

Another reference to consider is “ Mindset: The New Psychology of Success ” by Carol S. Dweck. It explores the concept of “growth mindset” and how our beliefs about our abilities can impact our motivation to act and overcome challenges.

These references should provide a good starting point for understanding the psychological aspects of action and motivation. I hope they prove useful for your research!

Best of luck with your PhD journey!

Kind regards, Julia | Community Manager

I enjoyed the fact that there is plenty information, if I were to write an essay on Motivation.

It’s so informative and inclusive! I just wonder if there are relevant theories on how to motivate communities (e.g. residents, companies, experts) to participate in decision-making (e.g. protection of cultural heritage)? Thank you!

Glad you liked the article! I’m not sure if there are theories that specifically cover this (they may be more in sociology and a bit beyond my expertise). But I’d recommend having a read of my article on positive communities. If you follow some of the references throughout, I suspect you’ll find some great resources and advice, particularly on participative decision-making: https://positivepsychology.com/10-traits-positive-community/

Hope this helps a little!

– Nicole | Community Manager

Deci and Ryans Self Determination Theory needs to be discussed… NOT just given an afterthought. Their argument that human behaviour is driven by the 3 fundamental needs of 1) Affiliation 2) Competence and 3) Self Determination is supported by developmental science (attachment theory, Tomosello’s cross species work, developmental work on competence and learning, and finally the huge body of work on intrinsic motivation and self-regulation.

This overview is well written but appears to have a big hole in it.

Hi Dr. Martin,

Thanks for your comment. We agree SDT is a powerful theory, and it has many different applications. We’ve addressed these in depth in some of our other articles on the topic:

Self-Determination Theory of Motivation: Why Intrinsic Motivation Matters – https://positivepsychology.com/self-determination-theory/ 21 Self-Determination Skills and Activities to Utilize Today: https://positivepsychology.com/self-determination-skills-activities/ Intrinsic Motivation Explained: 10 Factors & Real-Life Examples: https://positivepsychology.com/intrinsic-motivation-examples/

Hey Nicole. This summary is amazing and pin points what I’m looking for. In the case where I have to evaluate this theory for example Maslow’s hierarchy theory in relation to an organization’s needs. How do I go about that or what’s the best way to do so?

Hi Deborah,

So glad you enjoyed the article. Could you please give a little more information about what you’re looking to do? For instance, are you looking for a theory you can apply to assess individual employees’ motivation at work? Note that not all of the theories discussed here are really applicable to an organizational context (e.g., I would personally avoid Maslow’s hierarchy for this), so it would be helpful to have a little more information.

Yes. Precisely that. I am looking for theories that I am adapt to do an intervention , implementation and evaluation of employee motivation in an organization. And how exactly these theories are implemented.

Thank you Nicole. Excellent summary of available theories. Could you tell me please which may be the best theory to explain involvement in extremism and radicalization?

Glad you liked the article. Research on motivations underlying extremism and radicalization tend to point to our beliefs having a central role. This paper by Trip et al. (2019) provides an excellent summary of the thinking in this space. It looks at the factors from an REBT perspective. It addresses a whole range of motivational perspectives including uncertainty-identity theory and integrated threat theory.

I hope this article is helpful for you.

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125 Motivation Research Topics & Essay Examples

📝 motivation research papers examples, 💡 essay ideas on motivation, 🏆 best motivation essay titles, 🎓 simple research topics about motivation, ❓ motivation research questions.

Modern Theories of Motivation in Psychology Psychology essay sample: In the study of the organizational behavior and change, the impact of groups, individuals and structures have high impact to the organization.
Maslow’s and the Two-Factor Motivation Theories Psychology essay sample: In the year 1959, a behavioral scientist and management theorist by the name Frederick Herzberg, proposed a hygiene-motivator theory called the two factor theory.
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The Behavioral Neuroscience of Motivation: An Overview of Concepts, Measures, and Translational Applications

Eleanor h. simpson.

Department of Psychiatry, New York State Psychiatric Institute, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA

Peter D. Balsam

Department of Psychiatry, New York State Psychiatric Institute, Psychology Departments of Barnard College and Columbia University, New York, NY, USA

Motivation, defined as the energizing of behavior in pursuit of a goal, is a fundamental element of our interaction with the world and with each other. All animals share motivation to obtain their basic needs, including food, water, sex and social interaction. Meeting these needs is a requirement for survival, but in all cases the goals must be met in appropriate quantities and at appropriate times. Therefore motivational drive must be modulated as a function of both internal states as well as external environmental conditions. The regulation of motivated behaviors is achieved by the coordinated action of molecules (peptides, hormones, neurotransmitters etc), acting within specific circuits that integrate multiple signals in order for complex decisions to be made. In the past few decades, there has been a great deal of research on the biology and psychology of motivation. This work includes the investigation of specific aspects of motived behavior using multiple levels of analyses, which allows for the identification of the underpinning neurobiological mechanisms that support relevant psychological processes. In this chapter we provide an overview to the volume “The Behavioural Neuroscience of Motivation”. The volume includes succinct summaries of; The neurobiology of components of healthy motivational drive, neural measures and correlates of motivation in humans and other animals as well as information on disorders in which abnormal motivation plays a major role. Deficits in motivation occur in a number of psychiatric disorders, affecting a large population, and severe disturbance of motivation can be devastating. Therefore, we also include a section on the development of treatments for disorders of motivation. It is hoped that the collection of reviews in the volume will expose scientists to a breadth of ideas from several different subdisciplines, thereby inspiring new directions of research that may increase our understanding of motivational regulation and bring us closer to effective treatments for disorders of motivation.

1 Why Motivation Is Important to Understand

Understanding what drives motivated behavior in humans is a truly fascinating endeavor. But as important as our curiosity for knowing what drives us as individuals, and what supports individual differences in levels of motivation among our friends and colleagues, is the critical question; why do motivational processes get disrupted when the clinical and personal consequences can be so devastating? As we will see across this volume, motivated behaviors involve biological and psychological processes that have undergone evolution at numerous levels, from individual molecules all the way to species-specific social organization. While motivational processes represent heritable traits of fitness, humans suffer from a number of disorders of motivation that can be organized into two distinct categories. The first category is composed of the apathy and pathological deficits in motivation commonly seen in patients with schizophrenia and affective disorders. The second category involves problematic excesses in behavior including addictions, the pathological misdirection of motivation. Developing treatments for disorders of motivation requires a detailed understanding of how motivated behavior occurs, how it is dynamically regulated under normal conditions, and how it is disrupted in disease. This volume provides reviews of recent research in each of these areas.

2 What We Mean by the Word Motivation

The concept of motivation is a useful summary concept for how an individual’s past history and current state interact to modulate goal-directed activity. In this book, the authors examine the motivation to pursue many different goals. One general aspect of motivated behaviors is that they lead to a goal and obtaining the goal is rewarding. Thus, motivation, defined as the energizing of behavior in pursuit of a goal, is a fundamental property of all deliberative behaviors. One of the earliest psychological theories of motivation, Hull’s drive theory, posited that behaviors occur to reduce biological needs, thereby optimizing the organism’s potential for survival ( Hull 1943 ). However in Hull’s theory, motivational drive functioned solely to energize responding, drive was not responsible for initiating, or maintaining the direction of action. Later, motivation was conceptualized to consist of both a goal-directed, directional component and an arousal, activational component ( Duffy 1957 ; Hebb 1955 ). This is the framework of motivation still in use, such that if motivation were a vector—its length would represent the amplitude, or intensity of pursuit, and the angle of the vector would represent its focus on a specific goal. In this analogy, a motivation vector affected by apathy might have a reduced length in all directions and a motivation vector affected by addiction might have an increased length and a less flexible direction. The chapters in this volume explicitly acknowledge that motivation affects which responses occur as well as the vigor of those responses. It appears that we are just beginning to understand that these two aspects of motivation have both common and distinctive neural underpinnings. For example, circadian factors may energize the general motive of seeking food or mate (Antle and Silver, this volume), but the specific actions that occur in pursuit of these goals are regulated by different substrates (see Caldwell and Alders, Woods and Begg, Magarinos and Pfaff, all in this volume). Similarly, local cues that signal food availability may energize many food seeking actions, signals for specific foods differentially energize actions associated with obtaining the specific outcome. Again, the neural substrates of the general and specific effects are somewhat distinctive. At each level, whole classes of specific actions are made more or less likely by these factors ( Neuringer and Jensen 2010 ). We suggest that there is generally a hierarchical structure to motivation in the sense that general arousal factors such as sleep–wake cycles will affect many different motives, that activation of specific motives (e.g., hunger, thirst, social motives) can activate many specific actions that could lead to many specific outcomes within a general class of goals, and that more temporally and situationally specific factors determine the specific actions that occur in pursuit of that goal ( Timberlake 2001 ). With this in mind, it is clear that disruptions in motivation can occur at multiple levels of control which suggests there may be multiple interacting ways to attempt to treat disruptions.

3 A Simplified Overview of How Motivation Might Work in the Brain

Many different factors influence motivation, including the organism’s internal physiological states, the current environmental conditions, as well as the organism’s past history and experiences. In order for all these factors to influence motivation, information about them must be processed in a number of ways; it must be evaluated and encoded, and unless the motives are novel, the valuation and encoding will be affected by learning and retrieval processes. A simplified overview of how such diversity of information must be processed and integrated to result in motivation (both response selection and action vigor) is shown in Fig. 1 . Here, we organize the problem into a single, highest order concept that motivated behaviors represent the actions associated with the highest net value that results from a cost–benefit analysis that encompasses all of the potential influencing factors and processes.

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A simplified diagram of the influencing factors and processes that are involved in motivation. This framework of motivation places cost–benefit analysis central to the concept of motivation. Three major categories of factors are known to influence motivation: the individual’s physiological state, the environment, and the individual’s past history. Information about all 3 categories of factors will be subject to a number of processes (represented inside the blue oval), including evaluation and encoding. In almost all circumstances, the motive, environment, and physiological state will not be novel; therefore, information will also undergo learning and retrieval processes. All of the combined processes result in weighting of all the costs and benefits related to the motive, and the output of the cost–benefit calculation will impact upon the direction and vigor of action that the individual takes toward the motive goal

4 Cost–Benefit Computation as the Arbiter of Motivated Behavior

The costs associated with behavioral action may include physical effort, mental effort, time, loss of potential opportunities, discomfort, and danger (the risk of pain and potential death). The benefits associated with behavioral action might include fulfilling physiological and psychological needs, obtaining reinforcement secondary to those needs, escaping from harm, or avoidance of some of the costs listed above. As mentioned above, information entering the cost–benefit computation for any specific motive will be processed in several ways. The value of every cost and every benefit must be calculated and encoded. The concept of encoding value and experimental methods for measuring encoded value are discussed in detail by Redish et al., in this volume. It is important to consider that value must be encoded when a goal is obtained and then stored for future retrieval when obtaining that goal again becomes relevant. When that happens in the current moment, the assessment of value must be conditioned both on this past experience as well as the current state and environmental conditions. Goals are likely to be obtained with some temporal distance from the initiation, or even conclusion of behavioral output. Single neuron activity in several brain regions including orbitofrontal cortex, anterior cingulate, and basolateral amygdala has been shown to correlate with reward prediction and this work is reviewed by Bissonette and Roesch in this volume. The encoded values of costs and benefits do not belong in absolute scales because the values of all costs and benefits are rendered relative to the animal’s current physiological state as well as the current conditions of the surrounding environment.

Much has been learned about the role of dopamine in reinforcement learning, and its impact on motivated behavior from experimental manipulations of the dopamine system in rodents. This work is comprehensively reviewed by Salamone et al. in this volume. In addition to learning about the costs and benefits of a particular action, subjects also learn about specific signals that are associated with obtaining particular goals. Such signals can have an enormous influence on motivated behavior, and several chapters in this volume provide details of when and how environmental cues can influence response selection and response activation. These include Corbit and Balleine’s chapter on learning and motivational processes contributing to Pavlovian–instrumental transfer and John O’Doherty’s chapter on the neural substrates of motivational control in humans. Cue learning is also discussed in the context of motivational disorder, in the chapters by Meyer et al. and Barrus et al., that deal with substance abuse disorders and gambling.

Another aspect of the computation that energizes specific action has to do with signals that a particular goal is currently available. These signals occur on multiple timescales. Specific times of day can become associated with the opportunity to obtain specific goals, and discrete cues can signal the opportunity to achieve a goal as well as what specific ways there are to achieve it. For example, when meals occur at a regular time of day, there are behavioral, hormonal, and neural changes that occur in anticipation of a meal time that give rise to the motivation to seek food (Antle and Silver, in this volume). Encountering a restaurant can activate the specific behavioral sequences that lead to the ordering of food and the specific foods themselves can activate specific consummatory responses. All along this sequence of temporally organized behavior, there are concomitant changes in hormonal and neural states that energize and guide action (Woods and Begg in this volume).

After effective encoding of all the relevant costs and benefits, a computational process (the cost–benefit computation) is required to resolve the appropriate direction and vigor of action to be taken. This complex interplay of factors and processes is schematized in Fig. 1 .

How conceptually the cost–benefit computation is made is currently unclear. It is still unknown whether the value of costs and benefits are calculated on the same scale or not, whether their weights are integrated or subtracted such that, for example, the amount of predicted effort reduces the value of the predicted reward. Or perhaps, there is a circuit component that acts as a comparator of these two component values. An additional complication is that for any given motive, there are often multiple types of costs and potentially multiple types of benefits involved because many different types of control systems and circuits are at play (e.g., neuroendocrine, circadian, Pavlovian). This leads to the question of how so much diversity of information can all be used to make an appropriate response selection and determine action vigor. Do all factors enter into a singular, highly complex equation, as our simplified diagram ( Fig. 1 ) may seem to imply? Or do some systems continually run in parallel, with behavioral output as the result of a hierarchical switching from one system to another? Or perhaps there is fluctuation in the degree to which different factors influence the computation, e.g., the relative weights of physical and mental costs depend on the energy state of the organism.

Furthermore, it is possible that these alternative regulatory schemes are not mutually exclusive. For a detailed discussion on the potential mechanisms by which multiple deliberative processes that are running in parallel may each influence motivation (see Redish et al. in this volume). In the case of appetitive conditioning, there is evidence to suggest that animals can rapidly switch between responding that is driven by two different control systems, goal directed or habitual ( Gremel and Costa 2013 ). Audiovisual cues can trigger the rapid switching, implying that these two alternate circuits are constantly online and available in parallel. On the other hand, instead of a multi-tiered, hierarchical, or switching system, other work suggests that all information enters a singular computation process, and the output of this meta-computation is what drives motivation. This concept is favored by Magarinos and Pfaff (this volume) whose work on the sexual motivation of female rodents may suggest that for this specific motive, at least some factors may be integrated into a single decision-making process.

Above we have described the complex situation of many different factors influencing a single motive. It must also be recognized that at any given time, there may be competition for multiple goals and that imbalances in the strength of the motivations for each goal can cause conflict and dysfunctional behavior. The chapter by Cornwell et al. describes how human well-being depends not only on satisfying specific motives, but also on ensuring that motives work together such that no individual motive is too weak or too strong. It is becoming clear that different motivational systems have control elements that are unique to each system but that there may also be common substrates, perhaps close to the final steps that determine behavioral output. This is well illustrated in the chapter on defensive motivation by Campese et al. and in the chapter on social motivation by Caldwell and Alders. Again, the neurobiological mechanism whereby different motive systems interact is an important but not yet well-understood problem. Of particular interest will be to understand how defensive motivations interact with appetitive ones. The vast majority of modern work on motivation concerns itself with the mechanisms of appetitive motivation. Campese et al. show how to leverage what is now known about fear learning to understand the neurobiological mechanisms of defensive motivations. In a similar vein, Cornwell et al. argue for the importance of understanding how promotion/prevention motives in humans is an important modulator of other motives. Hopefully, the future will include a greater focus on understanding defensive motivations.

5 Research Approaches to Understanding Motivation

To increase our understanding of motivation in the brain, there are numerous approaches that can be taken. In this volume, many different academic approaches are represented as the research reviewed includes clinical, experimental, and comparative psychology; and several neuroscience subfields including, cognitive, molecular, cellular, behavioral, and systems neuroscience. This means that specific questions or single hypotheses can be, and often are being, approached at multiple levels of analysis. Indeed, it is when research programs combine a number of techniques, or use information derived from a few different techniques to propose (and test) new hypotheses that the most compelling results are obtained. For example, the work described by O’Doherty in this volume includes the use of human fMRI studies to investigate potential action-value signals that have been proposed from rat electrophysiological recordings. The research described by Redish et al. considers computational models of decision making and tests these models by measuring neuronal activity during deliberative behavior. In the chapter by Ward, the approach to testing motivational deficits in mice has very much been informed by the data from molecular and clinical studies in humans. By phenocopying in mice the molecular changes that have been detected in patients using PET imaging techniques, the behavioral consequences can be probed under well-controlled conditions. In a similarly translational manner, the research described by Robinson et al. in this volume applies electrophysiological and optogenetic techniques in rodents to probe behaviors that are altered in people with addictions. In the chapter by Barrus et al., the authors discuss the development of rodent paradigms designed to test various psychological theories of substance use and gambling disorders.

6 Organismal Level Biology Is Critical to Understanding Motivation

When multiple levels of analyses are used to investigate motivational processes, a critically important concept becomes apparent. While the evolution of traits that support motivation occurs at the level of molecules, proteins, cells, and circuits, it is the entire organism, and its interaction with the environment that is selected. An example of this concept is easily seen in the research on circadian modulation of motivation (Antle and Silver) and in the work on motivation for eating (Woods and Begg). For example, in the case of feeding we know many of the molecules and circuits involved in both the intrinsic, homeostatic factors which drive the motivational to eat, such as hormones and peptides, and we also know the neuromodulators and circuits that are responsible for some of the extrinsic/environmental influences on eating such as predictive cues. We are beginning to understand how these signals are integrated in order for decisions to be made and behavioral responses to occur; though as described above, understanding the mechanism of integration is currently a critical area of research.

7 Motivation Gone Wrong

Patients with many different psychiatric diagnoses may experience deficits in motivation, including depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, PTSD, and anxiety disorders. In this volume, we focus on the neurobiology of motivational deficits in depression and schizophrenia primarily because these are the two illnesses in which pathological deficits in motivation play a major role in patient functioning and clinical outcome ( Barch et al. 2014 ; Strauss et al. 2013 ). As such, far more research has been done on motivation in depression and schizophrenia than any other illness. In the last few decades, it has been recognized that the motivational deficits in Schizophrenia and depression share similarities, but also distinct differences. These differences occur because as mentioned above, there are many components involved in motivated behavior and each of them represent potential vulnerabilities that may be involved in different pathophysiological mechanisms. An excellent review of the similarities and differences in mechanisms underlying motivational deficits in depression and schizophrenia is provided by Barch et al. in this volume. The central difference in these types of pathologies is that many depressed patients suffer from impairments of in-the-moment hedonic reaction. Such anhedonia can diminish an individual’s capacity for anticipation, learning, and effort. In contrast, patients with schizophrenia demonstrate relatively intact in-the-moment hedonic processing. Instead, patients suffer impairments in other components involved in translating reward experience to anticipation and action selection.

There are also separate chapters that go into more specific detail for each of these pathophysiological conditions. An update on candidate pathomechanisms for motivational deficits in depression is provided by Treadway’s chapter. This volume devotes two chapters to the topic of motivation deficit in schizophrenia because this area of research has been more active than it has been in depression. This is likely because antipsychotic medications that successfully ameliorate the positive symptoms of schizophrenia (delusions, hallucinations, etc.) have been available for some time, leaving patients with the residual negative symptoms, of which a motivation is the primary driver of poor outcome and low quality of life ( Kiang et al. 2003 ).

Current concepts of motivation deficits and how motivation is assessed in patients with schizophrenia is reviewed by Reddy et al. Waltz and Gold extend these concepts into the exploration of the relationship between a motivation and the representation of expected value. The clinical research reviewed in the chapters that deal with apathy and motivation in humans is complimented by a chapter on methods for dissecting motivation and related psychological processes in rodents (Ward). Research using animal models is critical for several obvious reasons, including the availability of genetic manipulations, molecular modifications as well as invasive in vivo monitoring procedures that are not possible in human subjects. What hasn’t previously been obvious is how well we can use such animal models to investigate the various components of motivation that are particularly relevant to human disease. Ward describes such procedures and explains how best to leverage our current clinical knowledge using state-of-the-art mouse models.

On the flip side of apathy may be when motivation for a specific goal can come to dominate action in maladaptive ways as appears to be the case in addictions. Excessive behavior for many types of rewards including drugs, food, gambling, and sex can be problematic. In addiction, rapid and strong learning about what leads to reward, excesses in experiencing the hedonic value of rewards, exaggeration in representing those values, and dominance in being guided by those representations can all lead to significant narrowing in the diversity of motives. Several theories exist that attempt to explain the process of addiction in terms of disruption of motivational processes. Each theory differs in the emphasis on which specific aspects of motivation are primarily affected. The chapters by both Meyer et al. and Robinson et al. describe the motivational processes underlying substance abuse disorder. The chapter by Barrus et al. extends this discussion into the field of gambling. Barrus et al. suggest that many of the processes affected in gambling are the same as those affected in drug addiction, and therefore, the paradigms that have been successfully used to study drug addiction in animal models can be successfully modified to identify neurobiological mechanisms related to gambling. The central hypothesis in these analyses of addictions of drugs and gambling (as well as addiction to food and other things) is that an aberration in reward processing and/or in the control by cues associated with these rewards underlies the problematic nature of addictive behavior and its resistance to change.

8 Treatments

Given the modern emphasis on reward processes as a fundamental component of motivation, it is encouraging that modern cognitive/behavioral approaches to treating motivational disturbances focus on creating reward contingencies that modify deficits or excesses in behavior. Saperstein and Medalia describe how in schizophrenia patients motivation enhancing techniques are critical to treatment-related improvements within cognitive remediation therapy. In the case of addictions, Walter and Petry provide an overview of research indicating that contingency management is a demonstrably effective psychosocial treatment for substance use disorders. The central concept of contingency management is that extrinsic motivators are used to change patients’ behaviors. Specifically, reinforcement is provided when patients demonstrate abstinence. In the descriptions of both treatment approaches, the chapters consider the important role that intrinsic motivation may play in clinical success.

We are hopeful that the great progress in understanding the neurobiology of motivation described in this book will influence new ideas that will lead to novel pharmacological, physiological and psychological/psychosocial approaches to treatments for disorders of motivation. The identification of novel pharmacological treatments is dependent on the ability of preclinical researchers to investigate potential targets and screen potential candidate compounds using truly meaningful endophenotypic assays. The chapters in this volume that describe clinical studies of patient with disorders of motivation describe how motivation has been dissected into a number of component processes and the specific processes that are selectively disrupted in disease have been identified (Reddy et al., Barch et al., Waltz and Gold). To identify drugs that will be effective for disorders of motivation, preclinical assays must focus on the same specific processes affected in humans (see Ward in this volume). A recent example of the development of the kind of research tools that are needed for the purpose of investigating potential treatment targets is the strategy of dissecting goal-directed action from arousal by modifying previously existing rodent behavioral tasks ( Bailey et al. 2015a ). These new tools can then be used to assay specific effects of drugs that affect novel treatment targets ( Simpson et al. 2011 ) and Bailey et al. (2015b) . This novel approach was directly inspired by the literature on the selectivity of processes disrupted in humans with disorders of motivation.

In addition to pharmacological treatments, there is also the possibility that electrophysiological treatments for disorders of motivation may be developed. Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is currently used to treat a number of neurological and psychiatric conditions ( Kocabicak et al. 2015 ; Kringelbach et al. 2007 ; Udupa and Chen 2015 ). DBS has been used to treat essential tremor, Parkinson’s disease, treatment refractory major depression, severe obsessive–compulsive disorder, and chronic pain for several years. Several other applications are in experimental stages, including clinical trials for pervasive addiction and symptoms of schizophrenia. Such an invasive procedure requires many successive small-scale clinical trials before optimal procedures can be successfully developed. A significantly less invasive procedure used to modulate brain activity is transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). While the mechanism(s) by which TMS alters neuronal function and network activity is not understood, due to its noninvasiveness, hundreds of clinical trials have been conducted for a long list of neuropsychiatric conditions, including schizophrenia, and craving/addiction. A comprehensive review of studies of repetitive TMS has recently been published ( Lefaucheur et al. 2014 ).

Lastly, we are also hopeful that the emerging understanding that there are multiple systems driving motivation on an organismal level will lead to the development of treatment schemes that are more comprehensive than those that have been developed in the past. It may be that subtle adjustments in several of the factors that are involved in disorders of motivation (the endocrine system, circadian system, neurotransmitter function, etc.) can result in greater improvements and less side effects than treatments that focus on a single system.

Contributor Information

Eleanor H. Simpson, Department of Psychiatry, New York State Psychiatric Institute, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA.

Peter D. Balsam, Department of Psychiatry, New York State Psychiatric Institute, Psychology Departments of Barnard College and Columbia University, New York, NY, USA.

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511 Motivation Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

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Lack of Motivation Among Children and Its Solutions If we look at the education system, students’ interest to achieve higher education is low; in other words, students have a low motivation towards education, in the current setting.
Money as a Form of Motivation in the Work Place This then shows that money can and is used as a motivational factor in the work place so that employees can strive to give their best and their all at the end of the day.
Consumer Behaviour: Motivational Theories The purpose of this essay is to describe the motivational theories and the affect of it on the buyer or consumer.
Employee Motivation and Reward at Google One of the factors that make most of the employees wish to work with Google Company is that the company offers an environment that promotes employee growth and development.
Work Motivation in Starbucks Company I have performed a detailed analysis of several factors that influence the motivation of the employees of Starbucks and the relationship between these factors and the practices of the company.
Apex Computers: Problems of Motivation Among Subordinates In the process of using intangible incentives, it is necessary to use, first of all, recognition of the merits of employees.
Motivation at Costco Company: Theory and Practices On the other hand, the company’s top executives have been instrumental in the success of Costco in that they ensure effective training and development of the employees and address any issues that might affect the […]
Leadership and Motivation – Carlos Ghosn The purpose of this paper is to present a discussion of theories and concepts of leadership in current multinational businesses using the leadership style of Carlos Ghosn as a benchmark for effective leadership in the […]
Google Inc.’s Motivation, Principles and Methods This paper looks into the theories and methods used by Google to motivate its employees and the issues that the company is able to solve due to this practice.
Joining Street Gangs: Theoretical Motivations Both children and adults join street gangs in search for a sense of personal identity mainly due to the failure of social agents including the media, schools and churches.
The Impact of Goal Setting on Motivation and Success Correct goal setting is needed not only to determine the endpoint accurately but more importantly, it is to motivate and encourage an even faster and more efficient achievement of the goal by minimizing certainty and […]
Motivation and Human Behavior Internal motivation is the opposite, as it is not connected to the external conditions and is interlinked with the unique nature of the action and wants itself.
Motivation to Succeed in Life: Skills to Succeed and Achieve Aims and Goals Most of the methods usually help me to identify the strengths I have in the skills. This will help me to develop in management of my skills especially in the implementation skills.
Employee Motivation: Theories in Practice Accepting the importance of this approach, one can also admit the reconsideration of the approaches to leadership and motivation as two basic elements needed to create a positive working atmosphere and ensure that all individuals […]
Lack of Motivation at Work To accomplish this, the paper will identify characteristics and the impact of lack of motivation; possible ways of curbing the problem and, finally, a review of existing literature regarding employee’s motivation.
Motivation in Fashion Industry As a student set to join the industry in the future, my dream is to be the best designer and prioritize the needs of my customers.
Motivation and Performance The increase in the performance and productivity of individual workers is a primary concern of the company and it is one of the ways that a business is able to counter increasing costs of running […]
Mintz’s Motivation in Sweetness and Power For a long period of time, it was impossible to imagine that sugar was the main cause of people’s exploitation and slavery.
Work Motivation and Reward System The primary factors in the workplace that can impact on the performance and the productivity of the employees are rewards and motivation.
Companies That Use Expectancy Theory: SAS Motivation The regard given to the employees by the managers at the SAS institute is as directed by the CEO, who feels employees are the best asset the company has. The package and the rewards that […]
Student’s Motivational Strategy: Action Research It is also important to review the context of the research, the literature related to the topic and problem, the area of focus and research questions, the intervention details, and the strategies of the data […]
Corporate Motivational Techniques at Trader Joe’s The environment and culture that exists at Trader Joe’s can be termed as positive and hence effective in supporting the needs of an employee in a number of ways.
Motivational Issues in the Fast Food Sector Fast food refers to a type of cuisine produced in mass and marketed by some eateries, presentation stands, and service establishments for fast and effective production and delivery.
Compensation and Employee Motivation and Retention in Abu Dhabi National Oil Company Here, the paper expounds on the wide range of compensation schemes in the company and links each to the sustainability of a favorable work environment in the company and the retention of employees.
Leadership and Motivation: FedEx Corporation and UPS Inc. Introduction Leadership is the process of influencing people to contribute willingly to the goals and objectives of the organization. To solve this problem, the managers of FedEx used 360-degree feedback system to identify the causes […]
Motivation Theories The tool ensures a pleasurable reward for productivity and in turn creates motivation in employees to become more productive, besides when employees feel that their efforts are being rewarded they will tend to produce more […]
“Extreme Measures”: Moral Value of Motivation The idea of a good will is closer to the idea of a ‘good person,’ or ‘person of good will.’ The word ‘will’ is discussions to concern by the nature of rational agency.
“Self-Motivation” by Brandon Clark Review This idea has academic backing behind it Jeske and Axtell report that appreciation of effort is one of the crucial components of fostering motivation in employees and students alike.
Motivation and Management Motivation is thus a complex problem as far as organizations are concerned due to the variation of the needs, wants as well as the desires.
Workplace Motivation: Advantages and Disadvantages The inclusion of new motivational practices has the potential to address the higher needs of different followers. Organizational leaders should be aware of these needs and use the most desirable techniques to motivate their workers.
Leadership Motivation: Anita Roddick, Founder of Body Shop Specifically, the treatise adopts a reflective research in exploring the components of leadership and management such as transformational leadership, amanagerialism’, and organizational realities in the management style of Anita Roddick who founded the Body Shop.
United Way Company: Alderfer’s ERG Theory of Motivation It is the responsibility of the management in any organization to keep its employees motivated in a bid to evade the unpleasant consequences that come with a demotivated staff.
Employee Motivation and Job Satisfaction, Attitude, and Productivity Training and development of employees According to the results of the survey, a great percentage of those interviewed agreed to the fact that companies highly encourage and support education and training of workers.
The Puzzle of Motivation His argument basically seeks to show that the kind of jobs done in the 21st century require a new approach to answering the question on how employees are to be maximally motivated to do these […]
Knowledge of Motivational Theories for Better Management By understanding this theory, a manager will be aware that for some of the employees, social needs are the motivator and this being the case the manager will seek motivators that are relevant to the […]
Motivational Interviewing Owing to the evocative nature of the treatment interaction, this means that the patient is in a better position to make positive changes in his/her behavior.”Resistance” as evidenced in motivational interviewing is regarded as more […]
Students’ Motivation in Learning Mandarin Chinese It is quite remarkable that, according to the survey results, a lot of the students find the Chinese language and culture rather enticing, at the same time acknowledging that they do not like some parts […]
Motivation, Emotion, and Behavior Relationships Therefore, motivation is a result of external and internal desires that relate to the behavior of a person towards meeting a certain goal How people begin moving toward a behavior varies as emotions pull them […]
Aristotle’s and Freud’s Motivational Theories The efficient cause is the trigger that causes a person to behave in a certain way. These biological instincts are the source of mental or psychic energy that makes human behavior and that it is […]
Advantages and Disadvantages Management of Motivation Theories The other part of this advantage is that the company holds on to the excellent performers only, increasing the productivity of the company.
IBM: Employees’ Motivation Strategy IBM is able to provide employees with resources that allow them to meet the immediate physiological and safety needs of Maslow’s hierarchy.
Motivational Speaking: Types of Motivators A motivational speaker is a speaker who raises his/her speeches to lift up or motivate the audience. Motivation is basically to help someone to do something good i.e.to increase one’s willingness towards a right thing.
Employee Motivation at Wal-Mart in China That is, the company’s mission is to meet the expectations of its clients and not employees. In other words, if the factors that motivate employees are fully provided, they are likely to become motivated and […]
The Smart Goal-Setting Process: Motivation and Empowerment In order to achieve success in pursuing a goal, there has to be a way to measure success, which is why the second point of SMART goals theory is that the goals need to be […]
Employee Motivation as a Component of Performance Management Therefore, one of the areas that are given a lot of attention in strategic human resource management is the management of the expectations and demands of employees in organizations. Of critical relevance in employee motivation […]
The Theoretical Motivations for Serial Killings In order to theorize on the motivation of serial killers, it is obligatory to define the scope of the study. Practically, the most persistent barrier to the utter understanding of the motivation of a serial […]
Leadership Style and Employee Motivation: Burj Al Arab Hotel How effective and sustainable is the current leadership approach within the Burj Al Arab in the management of the level of employee motivation? How effective is the function of the current leadership styles in improving […]
Kaluyu Memorial Hospital’s Employee Motivation In these terms, the workplace hygiene of the hospital is very low and needs to be improved; moreover, the case study indicates that there are insufficient motivation factors for several employees, especially nurses and young […]
The Regency Grand Hotel’s Employee Motivation In this way, the workers would have achieved the goals that Becker had, motivating the workers, achieving excellent customer care services and increasing the performance of the hotel.
Expectancy Theory in Motivation Psychology According to the theory suggested by Vroom, which would later on be called the Expectancy Theory, the behavior of a person is largely predetermined by the consequences that their behavior is going to have.
Motivation Cases in a Pharmacy Department Physiological subsistence is the most basic need of a person followed by needs in relation to social circles such that a person can pursue talent, thereby leading to self-actualization.
The Reason to Motivation Others in Society When they lose hope and no longer see the need to pursue the goals or task, showing them the purpose of such may offer them the necessary motivation to continue to the end; this implies […]
Motivational Climate in Sports Training Environment The task in this session is characteristic of ego-involving climate. The coach should have allowed the boys to decide the tasks to be performed and targets to be met.
Research Methods Used in Motivation and Emotion Studies A research method is a procedure for collecting and analyzing data in a way that combines the research purpose of the study and the economy.
“Employee Motivation: A Malaysian Perspective” by Ismail These factors include interesting work, appreciation of the work done, working conditions, job security, feeling of involvement in organization, good wages, career growth and promotion while in the organization, organization loyalty to employees, and sympathetic […]
Praise and Motivation of Employees Robbins is of the opinion that praise motivates the employees and can be very instrumental in employee motivation than the other incentives.
Motivation Hypothesis and Theories The process motivated the interns to put in a lot of effort and reach even beyond the company’s objectives. The intern’s motivation resulted from positive attention, which made the intended conduct more likely to occur […]
Individual Differences in Selection and Motivation The importance of the individual and unique distinction in employee selection, training, and motivation lies in the following aspects. In this case, it will also be possible to create a particular program of assignments and […]
Marissa Ann Mayer: Leadership and Motivation Marissa Ann Mayer is the current Chief Executive Officer of Yahoo. Merissa has been ranked as one of the most powerful businesspersons in the United States.
Motivation, Behavior, and Connection Between Them Motives that influence certain actions serve as a factor that shapes habits, and the initiative that proceeds is a direct reflection of the characteristics of a person’s character.
Human Factor and Motivation in Aviation Security For this reason, the human factor in aviation security becomes a crucial issue that should be investigated in order to improve this aspect and minimize the probability of error.
Expectancy Theory in Motivation Management This gives a connection between a reward and performance; it reasons from the angle that if employees when appraised are rewarded accordingly, they are likely to be motivated and produce more output in anticipation of […]
Employee Motivation: Expectancy and Equity Theories With regard to the equity theory, it is recognizable that employees will observe the aspects of impartiality, fairness, and justice practiced by the management. Equity should be exercised within the entire organization and to all […]
Consumers’ Buyer Behaviour and Motivations Towards Product Packaging The question of why consumers perceive the buying of a certain product as rational or reasonable in certain situations with reference only to the package and no prior knowledge of the product has lingered in […]
Employee Motivation in Radisson Hotel It is to this response that this study aims to review the literature and suggest the ways in which Radisson Hotel can respond to employee motivation and also recommend on the best strategies to increase […]
Why Intrinsic Motivation Is Better Than Extrinsic Motivation The people, who get rewards for correcting bad behavior, or avoiding it, do not understand the need to do something good from the heart.
Organizational Motivation and Leadership in Workplace In an organisational setting, the term organisational behaviour is used to describe the dynamics that exist between individuals and groups in a common workplace in addition to the operational nature of the organizations in question.
Human Resource Motivation in Projects Management To fulfill the frameworks of project management, human resources are required at managerial and project members level.
Motivation and Emotion Understanding Motivation boosts and directs behavior, whereas emotions provide the emotional/effective constituent to motivation, either negative or positive. Motivation can be defined as “a want, a need, a desire or an interest that drives a person […]
Empowerment of Students for Their Motivation So, the group of students had to come up with the ideas for the project by sharing their thoughts and encouraging one other. Hence, a teacher’s control and guidance should be clearly presented to the […]
Introduction to Psychology: Motivation and Emotion The test subjects had to identify the emotional state they saw on the photo from the predetermined list of possible emotions.
How Motivation Influences Online Shopping The Balanced Buyer: In this cluster, about a third of the sample was moderately driven by the desire to seek variety.
Mobile Phone Buying Factors and Motivation The following are the research objectives that should be achieved: To identify the reasons why a person is motivated to buy a cell phone To define planning activities that one should observe before buying a […]
Employee’s Lack of Motivation and Its Reasons Therefore, it is proposed to improve it through employee relations, and the first step is to demonstrate to employees that the company wants them to be motivated, which in itself shows that the company cares […]
Employee Motivation and Key Performance Indicators However, to serve as motivators, KPIs need to be used in combination with a system of incentives and rewards for the employees who meet the standards.
Relationship Between Rewards and Employee’s Motivation The primary purpose of this study is to examine the effects of reward strategies in employee retention, employee turnover and its impact in Air Arabia international Company.
Motivation Importance in Our Daily Lives Psychologists’ view on origin of motivation The complexity of motivation due to unpredictability and fluctuation from one individual to another and at different times has led to various theories being postulated to explain its causes.
Motivation Theories in Education In this kind of motivation, the schools do not use external factors such as ratings and other rewards to influence the performance of students but rather the students have the freedom to achieve goals through […]
Building a Better Workplace Through Motivation: Kellogg’s Case SWOT Analysis In the Kellogg’s Case, the writer discusses motivation in places of work by relating theories of motivation to Kellogg’s motivation techniques.
Siemens: Motivation Within a Creative Environment Siemens has a lot of strengths in the business environment through the motivation of its employees within a creative environment. Siemens as also managed in changing its programmes through the involvement of the employees and […]
Motivational Interviewing Nurse With Patient The development of motivational interviewing began in the analysis of the challenges faced by drinkers. There are many challenges that you might encounter in the process of transforming your lifestyle.
Age-Crime Relationships and Motivations Of the three major factors outlined by basis theory, opportunities availability is the most determinant factor of crime commission among the youths as lack of jobs makes them engage in criminal activities in order to […]
Motivations to Choose Bottled Water The growth of the bottled water industry is attracting a lot of global attention because more companies are jostling to have a significant share of the market.
Job Design, Work, and Motivation The HSBC bank had initial objective of being the local bank that served and fulfilled the needs of the local people.
Leadership and Motivation Theories, Principles and Issues On noticing, the aptitude of his son and the unwillingness of the company to accept change with Ricardo threatening to resign and leave the company on his third year, Antonio Curt Semler decide to retire […]
Parenting Styles and Academic Motivation Lyengar and Brown conducted a study about the correlation between the academic achievements among the students and the parenting styles. This report paper tries to synthesize the literature review that surrounds the influence of parenting […]
Motivation Plan: Operating Room (Surgery Department) The supervisor indicated that the department, especially the operating room, needs the personnel to integrate their competencies in handling different tasks to enhance the wellness of the patients.
Intrinsic Motivation in Education The importance of the intrinsic motivation lies in the fact that it is a crucial characteristic, which allows the student to become a successful language learner.
Adult Learning and Motivation in the Human Resources Setting One of the areas of adult education that is of great relevance is adult learning and motivation in the human resource setting.
Motivation: The Need to Achieve The need to control the events of our lives in order to feel connected to others and be competent in our skills is the primary sources of our motivation.
Motivation in Nonprofit Organizations Following the notable challenges and gaps, there is a need for an extensive research and analysis concerning the issue of employee engagement and motivation in various organizations.
McGregor’s X and Y Theories Based on Maslow’s theory, organizations under the management style of theory X rely on the satisfaction of basic needs such as money and other benefits in motivation of their employees.
Employee Selection, Retention and Motivation Managers are also supposed to plan to meet current objectives of the organisation, both short term and long term as well as make the best use of resources for the benefit of the organisation.
Motivation in Continuous Education: Back to School I decided to go back to school and change my life because I want to get a degree in human resource management, help to keep the economy growing, and to get a job working for […]
Employees Motivation and Organisation’s Performance The main aim of this research study is to analyze the effect of the motivation of the workforce and its impact on the growth of the business organization.
The Impact of Motivation on Student’s Performance The goal of this part is to give a thorough summary of the research on student motivation and its effects on behavioral and academic development in school.
Motivation, Values, and Purpose Assignment Therefore, I am motivated to be a part of the community in the present as a student and in the future as a professional.
The Puzzle of Motivation at the Workplace Dan Pink, in his speech, argues that the model of achieving positive motivation characterized by the use of incentives needs to be updated.
Employee Motivation Methods and Their Effectiveness As a result, my staff would be more determined to achieve higher standards because they would take part in setting them in the first place.
The Significance of Strategic Compensation for Employee Motivation and Retention In response to some of the events in the companies that changed them, motivation systems were developed as a counter to the demoralization of employees.
Communication Failure, Lack of Motivation, and Conflicts as Common Workplace Issues Poor communication can lead to a lack of understanding and awareness, resulting in a breakdown of the relationship between employees, managers, and colleagues.
Low Motivation and Washback Effect of Examinations In addition to the lack of parental support and inadequate resources, the pressure from examinations can negatively impact students’ motivation in English language learning.
Personality Traits and Sources of Motivation High extrinsic and intrinsic sources of motivation and the average score in all other traits are true results but I dispute the avoiding tact outcome, with the extrinsic motivation being the main impediment to my […]
Students’ Motivations Toward Learning In addition, the outcome of this research identified changes in behaviors and attitudes concerning students’ perceptions of learning. The article demonstrates a change in students’ perceptions of their learning effectiveness.
Nurses’ Work Motivation and the Factors Affecting It The crucial topic of motivation is covered in the article Nurses’ Work Motivation and the Factors Affecting It: A Scoping Review.
Motivation as a Way to Successful Learning It is likely that the motivation to learn comes from my interest in the subject or because I need that knowledge for something.
Employee Motivation and Personal Hierarchy of Needs Esteem Needs: A decent salary, respectful attitude on the part of colleagues and management, and confidence in compliance with the position occupied. Security Needs: The availability of security measures in the personal, family, and workspace […]
Motivational Interviewing Among Medical Workers The interviewer must use the skill of affirmation to ensure that the patient remembers the necessary information. In the case of group therapy, where patients need to be convinced of the need to quit smoking, […]
The Issues of Student Motivation and Engagement Informing the parents of such benefits has the potential to increase their interest in motivating their children to practice and promote a home-learning environment.
Motivational Interviewing: Helping People Change Similarly, the softening sustain talk is performed in the manner that allows the patient to reconsider the current status quo and challenge it by shifting toward a healthier diet, which leads to a rating of […]
Student Motivation and Its Theoretical Aspects The goal of this exploration into the theoretical aspects of motivation is to analyze several theories of motivation and group these theories under the umbrella concept of the influence of sentiments.
Motivational Strategies for Teamwork When members of a team desire to advance their skills and the team leader cannot offer the opportunities, the team members are likely to be less motivated and therefore perform poorly.
Motivational Interviewing in a Hospital The approach can be helpful in behavioral change as it promotes offering guidance and helping people to appreciate what is in it for us.
Management Control and Employee Motivation The main elements of the motivation system are considered to be the needs of the individual, their motives, and incentives. The reasons may be the need to provide finances for the family, the desire to […]
The Google Company’s Employee Motivation Over the years, the organization has grown to be the best in data collection and technological advantages in artificial intelligence. As a result, Google is one of the greatest businesses to use as a benchmark […]
Professional Life: Social Interactions, Motivation, and Growth As such, the fact that other people are the source of our emotions is a piece of knowledge necessary in any professional life.
The Role of Motivation in the Educational Process The student reviewed in the case study has a strong understanding of the sounds, a high level of interest in studying, listening to the lecturer, and is ready and willing to work in groups.
Motivation in the Workplace: Acceptance and Recognition The verification process in the ACE-V process is vital because it negates bias and minimizes mistakes. The ACE-V method utilizes a new examiner to ensure the analysis, comparison, and evaluation steps are conducted with integrity.
Case Study of Motivational Issues Firstly, it is the fact that the officer is close to the end of his carrier. He realizes that there is no necessity to gain a significant reputation among the management the attainments of the […]
Gender Factor of Crime Motivation In essence, understanding why women are less involved in crimes can be instrumental in providing insights into the root causes of crime.
Generational Differences Regarding Motivation If the younger generation thinks that the older ones no longer have the motivation to work, the older generation also believes that the young have no purpose and desire to work.
Wearable Technology and Motivation in Healthcare According to Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society, wearable technology can only be a part of it, and the major focus must be on sustained change of behavior.
Motivational and Emotional Factors of Job Acceptance Understanding the primary factors driving Freda’s desire to agree or decline the offer is essential in ascertaining the incentives and drawbacks of each of her choices.
Work Environment’s Impact on Motivation and Creativity The article “How your work environment influences your creativity” by Teresa Amabile explores the social and environmental influences that promote creativity and the counteractive factors.
School Motivation: The Use of Extrinsic and Intrinsic Motivations I believe that it is the truth that producers are increasing the representation of minorities and people of various genders and sexualities.
An Employee Motivation Email’s Analysis Part of the manager’s job is to keep the staff motivated; to do so, the manager can apply theoretical frameworks concerning workforce motivation, such as expectancy theory.
Motivation in Human Organs Transplantation More than half a century has passed since the first transplantation, and throughout this period, the question of the impact of the operation on the duration and quality of life of the donor has been […]
Motivation Strategies for Learning The first strategy is to build relations of mutual respect and understanding that will help students to socialize in possibly stressful settings. The third option is to build a system of competition among students in […]
Motivational Team Management: The Case of Capratek In addition, the paper uses Maslow’s theory on the hierarchy of human needs and Herzberg’s Two-Factor theory to create a change management strategy that addresses the confusion in the team.
Recruiting Team Members: Motivational Manager To attract an appropriate candidate for the position of Motivational Manager, it is essential to evaluate motivational techniques and theories that may help perceive a vacancy as desirable, develop a job posting promotional introduction on […]
Behavioral Motivation Theory: Ethics, Law, Religion This work aims to identify the ethical and legal foundations of the behavioral motivation theory, provide examples of the manifestation of this concept from a biblical perspective, and determine how the concept relates to the […]
The Motivation of the Video Game Player For instance, the project gave its players the dynamic and fast pace of the game, a vast and detailed map, various locations, several different weapons, and character skins, and this is not all the possibilities.
Increasing Employee Motivation for Small Businesses Given the effects of the pandemic on business operations and human resource practices, employee safety and wellbeing has been thrust to the forefront of leadership concerns because it has become increasingly poignant for leaders to […]
The Effect of Motivation on Cognitive Load Cognitive load is the capacity of working memory and is affected by the design of instructional material. The number of working resources affects the completion of tasks and is influenced by the design of instructional […]
Factors for Teachers’ Motivation in Distance Learning Efficient communication with the administration of an institution is a crucial factor that affects the motivation of teachers in distance learning.
Attention, Relevance, Confidence, Satisfaction Model of Motivation in Education To summarize, the element of familiarity can significantly increase the effectiveness of the educational process, relying only on the correct use of the student’s past experience, but it is worth considering the nuances of the […]
Motivation of Public Sector Employees The research should consider the employees’ expectations from the working experience and the performance in the particular area of the workplace, in our case – the public sector because the expectations according to the area […]
Managers’ Concern Over Employee Motivation Issues Thus, the responsibility of management is to monitor and direct workers in a company. Even though most people have to work for a livelihood and a job is an essential part of everyone’s lives, administrators […]
The Puzzle of Motivation: Video Review However, it will not serve as a motivational factor because I will attract the talent by offering them more autonomy and purpose.
The Structures, Motivations, and Qualities of Terrorist Groups This implies that the structures of terrorist groups are determined by the capacity and character of the government and society where they operate.
Article’s Comparison: Genre, Target Audience, and Motivation The target audience of the selected texts is, to a certain degree, different: on the one hand, any person can be the reader of the story and article.
Motivation Theories in the Healthcare Context The basis of such an approach is the use of some influence: monetary in the form of bonus payments, and moral in the form of praise.
Motivation for Russian Geographic Expansion in the 18th Century Historians have argued that the motivations leading to the expansion included the need to mobilize and access new and prime lands and resources, the acquired literacy level of the Russians as compared to their conquest, […]
Christchurch Mosque Shootings and Motivations The following paper will provide the background information on the event, review the origins of the terrorist, explore the motivations behind the shootings, and apply appropriate psychological theories to the critical analysis.
Motivations of Lone-Wolf Terrorists The phenomenon of lone-wolf terrorism is an interesting one because it challenges one to attempt to understand the motivation of a person to commit a violent criminal act knowing of the severe consequences.
Motivation for Juvenile Justice System The assertion of motivation among the criminal employees reflects the understanding levels of different Social factors at the workplace in the Juvenile justice system.
Pleading Guilty: Key Motivation As a result, the defendant and their legal counsel often do not manage to properly assess the prosecutor’s claim due to the plea’s urgency and its disparity with the potential trial sentence.
Study of the Concept of Motivation As Fowler states, a theory of goal setting, developed by Edwin Locke in 1966, assumes that a person’s behavior is determined by the goals they set for themselves and for the achievement of which they […]
Motivational Interviewing for Mental Health Patients This is why it is imperative for the counsellor to be patient and honest with the client about their condition. Only when a patient is aware of their mental damage, can they amass the strength […]
Presidential Debates: Political Interests Motivations and Opinions Unfortunately, candidates are usually motivated to gain some results and effects on the citizenry rather than think about the methods to achieve the desirable consensuses.
Motivation: What Managers Need to Know The manager must however observe that motivational factors may differ or provide different results based on the strategy used.
Effects of Positive College Classroom Motivational Environments The paper aimed to investigate factors that influence the learning environment of college students through the observation of academic behaviors such as procrastination.
Consumer’s Referent-Seeking Behaviour: The Antecedence and Motivational Factors If we are to really understand the consumer’s behaviour, the object of the behaviour needs to be identified and analyzed to establish what attribute, characteristic, or property of the object is responsible for the arousal […]
Cases to Apply Extrinsic Motivation From the viewpoint of irrelevant motivation theory, progress in a study is conditioned by rewards promised by the university and pressure from parents and teachers.
Reflection on Motivational Interviewing The other reason that makes MI particularly suitable for counselling adolescents and young adults is because it respects client’s autonomy. It just offers alternatives and allows the client to make choice.
Analysis of Push and Pull Factors in Food Travel Motivation The implementation of the pull strategy is aimed at providing a powerful and long-term information impact through the media on the end consumer of the product.
Impact of Motivation and Emotions on Human In their article “When we want them to fear us: The motivation to influence outgroup emotions in collective action,” Hasan-Aslih et al.introduce the concept of emotional regulation and address the influence of emotions on the […]
Applying Motivational Interviewing Skills to Assessment His father said that he was no longer allowed to talk with his friends and took away his phone and computer and sent him to his room to study.
Benefits of Employees Motivation Motivated employees are happy and satisfied with their job. They are always committed towards the realization of the organization goals and objectives.
Emotional Motivation in Customer Purchase Decisions
Motivational and Forensic Interviewing
Hillcrest Memorial Hospital: Employee Motivation and Empowerment
Motivational Interviewing as a Therapeutic Technique
Motivational Interviewing in Healthcare System
A Career in Acupuncture: Personal Motivation
Reason, Motivations, and Belief for Conducting Cyber Attack
Management Learning: Leadership, Motivation and Job Satisfaction
Motivation in Police Department
True Altruism and Motivation to Help
Career Motivation of Youth Professional Activity: RAKBANK
Bilingualism and Communication: Motivation, Soft Skills and Leadership
Role of Motivation in K-12 Students’ Practice Frequency in Music Performance
Psychological Theories and Tests of Motivation
The Cold War and Motivations Behind It
Effective Incentives in Motivating Workers
How Fun at Workplace Can Affect Employee’s Motivation
Survey: Motivation at Work and Lack of It
Teamwork Dynamics, Motivation, Conflict Resolution, and Leadership
Motivation Theories in Fulfillment of Psychological Needs
Motivation Improvement in Employee Relations
Dehart-Davis’ “Gender Dimensions of Public Service Motivation”
Causes and Motivations of Terrorism
The Psychological Contract and Motivation
“Eat That Frog!” by Brian Tracy as a Set of Motivation Keys to Achieve Better Results
Freud: Motivation Evaluation and Motivational Theories
Personality and Psychology of the Motivation
Understanding the Facets of Motivation
Algebra I in Middle School and Its Impact on Tracking and Motivation
Bentum Fabrication Inc.’s Motivation and Performance
Workplace Motivational Strategies
Motivation, Emotion, Stress, Health and Work
Discipline and Child Abuse: Motivation and Goals
Ford Motor Company’s Motivational Profile
Group Motivation Inventory
Motivation and the Brain: A Psychological Attribute and Activities
Identifying Sources of Motivation
Employee Motivation Importance Review
Motivation Concept: Definition, Types, Sources, Motivation and Behavior
Motivation and Leadership Practices Around the World
Communication and Motivational Theory
Concept of Motivation Analysis
Motivation and the Brain Analysis
Motivation Profiles and Management in Organizations
Employee Motivation: Strategic Management Exercise
Introduction to Motivation and Job Satisfaction
Nursing Profession and Motivation
Best Worker Is a Happy Worker: Developing Motivation
Low Employee Motivation and How to Address It
Motivational Interviewing in Psychology
Quality Guitars and Workforce Motivation Relations
Compensation and Motivation of Management Based on Accounting Theory
A Problem of Leadership Style and Employee Motivation
Self-Regulation and Motivation in Sports
Employee Motivation in Public Organizations
Employee Motivation Approaches
Motivational Interviewing as a Smoking Cessation Intervention for Patients With Cancer
Management and Motivation: Personal Development
Motivation and Rewards on Performance
The Path to Success: Motivation, Business Structure
How Instructional Practices Affect Student Motivation
Aims and Motivations of Voyages in the Renaissance
Employee Motivation and Individual Differences
Quitting Smoking: Motivation and Brain
The Administrator’s Role in Employee Motivation
Employee Motivation at Service Firms
Iraq-Iran War and Saddam Hussain’s Motivations
Career Development & Employee Motivation Initiatives: Chipotle
Motivation and Solution to Motivation Problem Analysis
Motivation Risks in Various Organizational Cultures
Employee Motivation: Creating a Comfortable Workplace
Employee Motivation Program: Cost-Benefit Analysis
The Role of Motivation on Employees Performance
Motivation Through Holistic Fitness: A Cost-Benefit Analysis
The Role of Motivational Interviewing in SUD
Behavior Follows Attitudes: Leadership Reflections and Work Motivation
Motivation Effect on Nurse Work in Qassim Region
Employee Motivation Through Holistic Fitness
Multiple Perspectives on Employee Motivation
Motivation Through Holistic Fitness: A Risk Analysis
Sources of Motivation for Pursuing a PhD
Enhancing Adult Motivation to Learn
Career Development and Employee Motivation Initiatives at Chipotle
Employee Motivation and Cross-Cultural Communication
Cultural Dimensions Model and Employee Motivation
Cultural Influence on Employee Motivation
Suzie Sue Restaurant’s Workforce Motivation Strategy
Leadership & Employee Motivation in the UK Restaurant Sector
Carmina Campus Company: Employee Motivation
Motivation Approach in Dental Practice
Motivational Interviewing in Psychotherapy
Motivational Theories and Common Behaviors
Motivation and Behavior in the Workplace
Korean Air Co.’s Communication and Motivation
Cognition, Motivation and Success
Disaster Tourism and Motivation Behind It
Learning Styles Models and Theory of Motivation
Motivation and Performance Influence on Life
Consumer Behavior and Motivation
Motivation Process in Education
Technology Effect on Motivation in English Learners
A Source of Motivation, and Motivational Theories
Motivational Conversations: People, Environment and Politics
Personal Motivational Skills Analysis and Development
Green Hotel’s Customer Motivation and Satisfaction
Leadership and Employee Motivation and Satisfaction
Math Curriculum and Ginsberg’s Motivational Framework
Understanding Relationship Between Motivation and Performance
Motivational Learning and Development in the Workplace
Does Locus of Control and Motivation Predict Occupational Stress?
Motivation: Content and Process Theories in Practice
Empowerment, Motivation and Performance
Motivation and Conflict: Analysis and Design Methods
Behavior and Motivation: Theory and Research
Incentives to Increase Employees` Motivation
Mixed Method in Motivation and Video Gaming Study
IPhone 8 Purchase Motivation Analysis
Employee Motivation, Termination, and Work Stress
Learning Motivation Tools in the Classroom
Southwest Airlines’ Motivational Strategies
The Impact of Motivation in the Workplace
Motivation Theories and Study of Their Effectiveness
Workers’ Motivation Levels and Performance
Atrium Health Company: Job Motivation and Satisfaction
Improving Motivation at Atrium Health
Employee Motivation for Professional Development
Health Promotion: Motivation and Skills for Changes
Employees Motivation: “How to Kill Creativity?”
Motivation in the Healthcare Field Workplace
Motivation Theories and Definition
Means of Improving Employee Motivation
Employee Motivation and Support Approaches
Effective Organizational Employee Motivation System
Motivation: Theories and Principles in Management
Emotionally Intelligent Leadership Through Motivation and Inspiration
Motivational Aspects of Teamwork in Schools
Leadership Question and Motivation of Employees
Job Satisfaction and Motivation
Nurse-Performance Evaluation Tools and Motivation
Employee Stimulation, Motivation, and Retention
Auckland Motel Employees’ Motivation Sources
Self-Control Theory and Criminal Motivation
Motivation in the Workplace: Industry Practicum
Motivational Interviewing and Needed Skills
Motivation in “Drive” by Daniel Pink
Leadership in Action: Understanding Employee Motivation
Work Motivation and Organizational Behavior
Memory, Thoughts, and Motivation in Learning
Employee Engagement, Empowerment, and Motivation
Chinese Luxury Hotels’ Employee Motivation
Motivations of Businesses to Employ Big Data
Vegetarian Groups by Motivation
Salespeople’s Effective Motivational Strategies
ABC Company’s Organizational Behaviour and Motivation
Philosophy Teaching and Learning Motivation
Customer Motivation in Marketing and the PRISM Model
Team Motivation Strategies and Approaches
Historical Insights Project for Students’ Motivation
Students’ Motivation Strategy: Action Research
Personal Motivation Skills Development
Resolving Work Motivation Problem
Employee Motivation: Fred Maiorino’s Case
Head Start Program and Motivational Theory
St. Aidan’s Hospital: Work Motivation Problem
Motivational Models and Training in Education
Teamwork and Motivation Importance
Motivation Theories and Principles
Motivational Theory in the Instructional Program
Motivation in Adults and Young Learners
Education, Behavior and Motivation Theories
Autonomy Supportive Teaching and Motivational Systems Theory
The Motivation to Take a Healthy Diet
Motivation and Change in Schools
Development, Motivation and Self-Regulation in Learning
Two Theories of Motivation
Employee Motivation Theories in 3rd Rock From the Sun
Leadership: Motivation and Satisfaction
Motivational Counseling and Interviewing Techniques
Improvement of Achievement Motivation for Learners
Students’ Achievement Motivation: Two Scales Scoring
Workforce Motivation: Theories and Approaches
Employee Motivation: Daniel Pink’s Views
Leadership: Providing Purpose, Motivation and Inspiration
Emotions Function and Its Role in a Motivation
Motivation Concept and Sources
Work Motivation From Psychological & Coaching Perspectives
Counselling and Helping in Motivational Interviewing
Political Interests Motivations and Opinions
Presidential Debates, Partisan Motivations, and Political Interest
Four Seasons Company Motivation and Performance Management
Motivation Theories and Factors in Management
Motivation Importance in an Educational Environment
Employee Motivation, Conflict and Personnel Management
Concepts and Sources of Motivation
Mental Psychology and Motivation
Motivation Management Tools and Tactics
Motivation and Transfer of Learning
Educational Technologies on Student Motivation and Confidence
WooWoo Company Management: Teamwork and Motivation
Motivational Theories and Motivation at Work
Impact of Employee Motivation in Organizational Performance
Facilitating Customer Support at Radisson Hotels
Motivational Framework for Culturally Responsive Teaching Versus the Arcs Model
Motivational Practices for Employees
Destination Attributes and Motivations Between First-Time and Repeat Travellers in the International and Interstate Tourism: Melbourne
Motivation in the XXI Century: New Solutions to the Old Concerns
The Right Motivation and Its Effects
Employee Motivation Theories and Benefits
Training and Development Options for Motivation and Retention
Management Issues: Most Relevant Motivational Theory
Motivational Theory and Generation Y
Motivation and Reward Systems Used in Today’s Companies
Leadership and Motivation Ideas
Leadership and Motivation in Global Organizations
Employees Job Motivation
Leadership and Motivation Theory
Consumers’ Motivation and Satisfaction of Luxury Hotel in China
Consumers’ Motivation and Satisfaction of 5-Star Hotel in China
Employee Motivation in Spanish Hotel Chains
Does Blogging Increase the Motivation of Boys in Class
The Impact of Employee Motivational Strategies on Organizational Performance
The Role of Motivation in Online Collaboration From an Active Learning Perspective
“Self-Determination Theory and the Facilitation of Intrinsic Motivation, Social Development, and Well-Being”
Improving Front Office Employees Motivation in a Luxury Hotel in Beijing
Motivation Plan: Virgin Blue Company
Motivation and Organizational Behaviour
Teamwork and Motivation: Woowooo Inc.
Usage of Blogging for Boys’ Motivation
Decision Making & Motivation
HSBC Bank Middle East Motivation Models and Workers Performance
Motivation, Work Performance, Job Satisfaction
Student Engagement and Student Motivation in a Reading Classroom for the Kindergarten Level
Motivational Theories and Organizational Performance Relations
Motivation Role in Organizational Management
Motivation and Employee Involvement
Undergraduate Students’ Views on Social Links and Their Influence on Motivation
Motivation in Higher Education
WeChat Users’ Motivation, Satisfaction and Loyalty
Nurturing Motivation in Students
Modern Theories of Motivation for Thailand
Employee Motivation vs. Work and Family Issues
Relationship Between Parental Involvement and Children’s Motivation
Tourism Motivation Categories
Examining Reward, Motivation and Incentive Systems for the Staff Currently Employed at the Japanese Subsidiary of Sujdavdan
Team’s Motivation, Satisfaction, and Performance
Asian Efl Learners’ Perceptions of Motivational Teaching Strategies in the English Speaking Class
Defining Motivation and Employee Satisfaction
Impact of Motivation on Second Language Acquisition
“Generational Buying Motivations for Fashion” by Laura Portolese Dias
Measuring Employee Motivation
Organizational Behavior, Motivation and Conflict Management
Motivation Underlying Interpersonal Attraction and Romance
Influence of Team-Based Pay Structures on Team Members’ Performance and Motivation
Special Education: Motivation of Teachers and Performance of Students
Organizational Development: Motivation, Communication, and Innovation
Using a “Daily Motivational Quiz” to Increase Student Preparation, Attendance, and Participation
Motivation and Leadership Theories
HR Performance Issues and Motivation
Motivation in Combat: The German Soldier in World War II
Secretary Motivation Incentive Plans
Motivation and Participative Decision-Making in Organizations
Motivation and Telecommuting
Equity Concept: Motivation and Features in Leadership
Corporate Culture, Employee Motivation and Workforce Diversity
Factors Affecting Employees’ Motivation
Cross-Cultural Management: Providing Motivation and Leadership
Management Practices and Employee Motivational Policies
Classical Theories of the Employee Motivation
Motivation Theories in the TV Comedy Series “Sex and the Sally”
Relationship Between Electoral Motivations and Institutional Changes
Motivation Applicability in the Workplace
Goals for Motivation Employees in HRM
Motivational Problems in the Workplace
Motivational Strategies
Motivation in Radisson Hotel in Dubai
Improving Employees’ Motivation
Work Motivation at the Kudler Fine Foods
Campus Life Problem Motivation
Canadian Flair Bartender Gavin Macmillan, His Personality and Motivation
How Does HR Department Use Motivation to Increase Employee’s Retention Rate
Growth and Motivation Theories: Application in Personal Behavior, Professional Goal Setting, Social Policy Formulation
Evaluating Performance Through Motivation
PGL Management: Motivational Strategy
The Reasons Why Motivation Is Important
Leader’s Role in Motivating Workforce
Practicing Leadership: Motivation and Management
Motivation as a Function of Human Resource
Employee Motivation and Management at the Nucor Corp.
Issues Affecting the Transition of First-Year Students Into University Culture About Motivation and Learning
Concept of the Theory of Motivation by Maslow and Herzberg
Consumer Behaviour Motivation in Sport Tourism
Changes in Learning and Motivation With the Advent of Online Learning
Leadership Theories and Motivation Issues
Managing Employee Motivation Through System Thinking
The Motivational Factors at the Workplace
Give’Em the Pickle! Motivation in Business
Motivational Program and Alcoholics Anonymous
Motivation and Determination in the Film “The Replacements”
The Motivation Behind Employer-Offered Healthcare in the US
Concept of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation Model
Team Work and Motivation
Money, Motivation and Employee Performance
Classroom Motivation: Climate and Instructional Variables
Workplace Motivational Plan
Workplace Motivation Theories
Financial Incentives in Employee Motivation
Motivational Theories in Organization
Individual Motivation and Performance Management
Motivational and Cognitive Sources of Prejudice
Motivation Theories in Business Environment
Employee Motivation Factors in Banking
Motivation and Flight Centre Staff
Understanding the Nature of Motivation
What a Manager Should Know About Motivation
The Issue of Motivation in English Second Learners
Employee Motivation: Strengths and Weaknesses
Three Major Theories of Motivation
Motivation, Emotion, and Learning
Scholars Contributions in the Theories of Motivation
Motivation: Selfish Interests
Motivation Evaluation: Martin Luther King Jr.
Personality and Motivation
Loyalty Motivation in “Best Places to Launch a Career” by Tanaka
Self-Regulation, Depletion, and Motivation
Motivation Concepts and Theories
Organizational Motivation and Leadership in the Workplace
What Was the Motivation for the Europeans to Explore?
How Can Managers Use Their Understanding of Motivation to Improve Performance of Staff?
Does Teacher Motivation Lead to Student Motivation?
How Did Abraham Maslow’s Humanistic Approach to Management Influence Later Theories of Motivation?
Are Matching Games Effective at Improving Learner Motivation in Literacy Lessons?
How Did Keynes Conceive Entrepreneurs’ Motivation?
Does Motivation Come From Within or Is It Stimulated by External Forces?
How Does Motivation Affect Job Performance?
Can External Interventions Crowd in Intrinsic Motivation?
Describe One Process Theory of Motivation. Why Is It a Process Theory?
How Does Work Motivation Impact Employees’ Investment at Work and Their Job Engagement?
Does Motivation Matter When Assessing Trade Performance?
How Motivation Theories Can Be Applied in the Workplace?
Are Competition and Extrinsic Motivation Reliable Predictors of Academic Cheating?
How Do Moral Judgements and Motivation Relate to Each Other?
Does Pursuing External Incentives Compromise Public Service Motivation?
How Can Equity Theory Explain the Motivation of Employees Working at Xandria?
What Determines the Motivation for Further Training?
Does Monetary Punishment Crowd Out Pro-social Motivation?
Are Prosocially Motivated Employees More Committed to Their Organization?
Does Motivation Affect the Outcome of a Sporting Performance?
How Can ASDA (Farnborough) Improve Employee Motivation?
What Motivates Cultural Tourists?
Why Did BMW Launch the Films Campaign? What Was the Motivation?
Learning Styles Essay Topics
Performance Management Ideas
Mentorship Topics
Professionalism Research Ideas
Team Leadership Research Ideas
Work Environment Research Topics
Volunteerism Paper Topics
Work-Life Balance Essay Titles
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Ambition, Goals

Reviewed by Psychology Today Staff

Motivation is the desire to act in service of a goal. It's the crucial element in setting and attaining our objectives.

Motivation is one of the driving forces behind human behavior. It fuels competition and sparks social connection. Its absence can lead to mental illnesses such as depression . Motivation encompasses the desire to continue striving toward meaning, purpose, and a life worth living.

Sources of Motivation
How to Set and Accomplish Goals
How to Increase Motivation
Diet, Exercise, and Finance Goals

People often have multiple motives for engaging in any one behavior. Motivation might be extrinsic, whereby a person is inspired by outside forces—other people or rewards. Motivation can also be intrinsic, whereby the inspiration comes from within—the desire to improve at a certain activity. Intrinsic motivation tends to push people more forcefully, and the accomplishments are more fulfilling.

One framework used for understanding motivation is the hierarchy of needs proposed by American psychologist Abraham Maslow in 1943. According to Maslow, humans are inherently motivated to better themselves and move toward expressing their full potential—self-actualization—by progressively encountering and satisfying several levels of need from the most fundamental, such as for food and safety, to higher-order needs for love, belonging, and self-esteem .

Eventually, Maslow extended the theory to include a need for self-transcendence: People reach the pinnacle of growth and find the highest meaning in life by attending to things beyond the self. Although the universality of Maslow's theory has been challenged, many believe it captures fundamental truths about human motivation.

Motivation can stem from a variety of sources. People may be motivated by external incentives, such as the motivation to work for compensation, or internal enjoyment, such as the motivation to create artwork in one’s spare time. Other sources of motivation include curiosity, autonomy, validation of one’s identity and beliefs, creating a positive self-image , and the desire to avoid potential losses.

Intrinsic motivation is a drive that comes purely from within; it’s not due to any anticipated reward, deadline, or outside pressure. For example, people who are intrinsically motivated to run do so because they love the feeling of running itself, and it's an important part of their identity. Extrinsic motivation can increase motivation in the short term, but over time it can wear down or even backfire. By contrast, intrinsic motivation is powerful because it is integrated into identity and serves as a continuous source of motivation.

Extrinsic motivation is any reason someone does work other than the joy of doing the work itself. Anything promised for completing the task or received as a result of completing the task are extrinsic motivators. An extrinsic motivator needs three elements to be successful, according to research by psychologist Victor Vroom: expectancy (believing that increased effort will lead to increased performance), instrumentality (believing that a better performance will be noticed and rewarded), and valence (wanting the reward that is promised).

Achieving a goal is a process. And all of the components of that process deserve attention to ensure success, from setting the objective, to overcoming obstacles, to sustaining momentum until the project is complete.

Failing to accomplish a goal is sometimes due to the way it was set. But a few psychological tricks can help set and reach those goals. One is to ensure that the goal is attached to a value, such as the value of supporting your local community or fighting climate change . Another is to frame your goal as an asset to be gained rather than a threat to be avoided. For example, instead of thinking, “I shouldn’t bother my boss, so we can avoid a rocky relationship,” try thinking, “I want to learn new communication skills to reset our relationship.” Yet another idea is to try setting a learning goal instead of a performance goal; instead of deciding to lose 20 pounds, decide to learn more about nutrition and cook two healthy recipes each week.

Motivation targets the “why” of change, but momentum targets the “how.” Generating momentum is pivotal for taking the concrete steps needed to shift out of entrenched patterns and make change. Focusing on momentum can also be used in a therapeutic context. For example, a therapist might address a pattern of avoidance in a patient with depression by identifying small steps they have already taken (getting out of bed that morning, coming to therapy ) and then listing the next steps they can take next. Recognizing the motivation for change and focusing on the dynamics that support change can also help build momentum.

It’s natural to feel stuck at certain points, especially when working through difficult tasks. But research suggests that several strategies can help. One is to focus on the positive consequences of the activity, such as passing a final exam. Another is to try and regulate your emotions during the task, such as by thinking about an upcoming vacation while running on the treadmill. Yet another is to monitor and track your progress, which can continue to propel you toward the next milestone. Lastly, try to enrich the task and make it more enjoyable (called “temptation bundling”), like listening to a podcast as you do the laundry.

Tracking progress is key to sustaining motivation and achieving your goals. It’s helpful to make progress visual and concrete, such as by writing it down or using an app. Tracking can also help you spot patterns that might derail your success. For example, health and wellness goals are generally long-term. Tracking your progress and behavior can help you spot when you tend to slip up, and then address the underlying causes. Additionally, it can be motivating to reflect back on the progress you’ve made, or look forward to the work to come if it’s a core part of your identity.

Some people may find themselves completely stymied by a project; others may simply want to pack a little more productivity into their timeline. No matter where motivation begins, there are always ways to increase it—whether that be your own motivation or someone else’s.

Sometimes you might feel completely unmotivated —and that’s ok. In that situation, allow yourself to feel the discomfort, hear the negative self-talk , and then take action anyway, For example, let’s say you come home after a long day at work and just want to unwind and watch TV. Instead of turning the TV on, acknowledge that you’re tired and then challenge yourself to read five pages of the book on your nightstand first. This approach gives space for negative thoughts and feelings, while helping you change ingrained patterns.

Procrastination is often driven by underlying feelings of distress or anxiety elicited by a given task. But there are ways to navigate the discomfort and beat procrastination. You can break the project into small, more manageable pieces; accomplishing one step will fuel your motivation for the next. You can set limits for the time spent preparing to begin, or aim to complete tasks as quickly as possible. You can also set a reward that you’ll get after completing the task or a part of it.

Companies have the opportunity to motivate employees with incentives, but they also need to be mindful that incentives can backfire—as in the case of the Wells Fargo scandal. Employees are motivated by external rewards when they believe that working harder will lead to a better performance, that they’ll be rewarded for a better performance, and they appreciate the reward, such as a bonus or time off. It can be difficult to meet those criteria—“Will my hard work really be noticed?” “Does my contribution really matter since I’m on a large team?—so companies should tailor incentives to each unique team and role.

Successful interventions often motivate through a combination of psychology and economic policy, which vary by context but often leverage social norms. For example, more people enrolled in a sustainable energy program when the sign up sheet was in their building lobby, because they could showcase their values to their neighbors—or perhaps feel pressured to sign up to maintain a good reputation.

Some of the most common goals people make—and the most common goals they struggle to meet—are to eat healthier, work out more, and save more money. Many traps can prevent people from achieving those goals, but anticipating those challenges can help achieve real change.

Many people struggle to stick to a diet. Research suggests that extrinsic motivators—to avoid hurtful comments or fit into an outfit—can jumpstart the process but that intrinsic motivation—interest, enjoyment, and challenge in the journey—is key to sustained, lasting weight loss. Intrinsic motivation encompasses competence, autonomy, and relatedness, so it’s helpful to 1) choose a diet that will be sustainable and effective 2) believe that the diet, start date, and end goals have been chosen autonomously and not “assigned” by others 3) find a community of supporters.

There are a few creative ideas to consider if motivation is a barrier to exercise. One is to widen the options you have: If you don’t have time to go to the gym, exercise by going for a walk, doing a bodyweight circuit, or watching a yoga video. Another is to make exercise more enjoyable, such as by listening to a book on tape. Yet another is to establish a social contract with a friend or family member. For example, if you allow phone time to supersede exercise, you must donate to a cause of the other person’s choosing.

Four steps can help cultivate the habit of saving money. The first is to set a specific saving goal for an emergency fund. This focused goal will build habits that become sustainable saving. The second is to save something every day, even if it’s just a few dollars, because repetition helps to form habits. Third, making savings visible, whether by checking a savings account online or keeping cash in a glass jar. Fourth, consistently spend less than you make—in addition to cultivating a saving mindset, it’s important to change a spending mindset.

Most people, unfortunately, fail to follow through on their New Year’s resolutions. This might be because people tend to set overwhelming goals, engage in all-or-nothing thinking, don’t anticipate obstacles, and beat themselves up when they get off track. By addressing those traps—such as by breaking large goals into smaller pieces or thinking of results as a range of positive outcomes rather than “success or failure”—people are more likely to truly achieve their goals.

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Research Article

When research is me-search: How researchers’ motivation to pursue a topic affects laypeople’s trust in science

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

* E-mail: [email protected]

Affiliation Department of Psychology, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Munich, Germany

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Resources

Roles Conceptualization, Supervision, Writing – review & editing

Marlene Sophie Altenmüller,
Leonie Lucia Lange,
Mario Gollwitzer

Published: July 9, 2021
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0253911
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Research is often fueled by researchers’ scientific, but also their personal interests: Sometimes, researchers decide to pursue a specific research question because the answer to that question is idiosyncratically relevant for themselves: Such “me-search” may not only affect the quality of research, but also how it is perceived by the general public. In two studies ( N = 621), we investigate the circumstances under which learning about a researcher’s “me-search” increases or decreases laypeople’s ascriptions of trustworthiness and credibility to the respective researcher. Results suggest that participants’ own preexisting attitudes towards the research topic moderate the effects of “me-search” substantially: When participants hold favorable attitudes towards the research topic (i.e., LGBTQ or veganism), “me-searchers” were perceived as more trustworthy and their research was perceived as more credible. This pattern was reversed when participants held unfavorable attitudes towards the research topic. Study 2 furthermore shows that trustworthiness and credibility perceptions generalize to evaluations of the entire field of research. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.

Citation: Altenmüller MS, Lange LL, Gollwitzer M (2021) When research is me-search: How researchers’ motivation to pursue a topic affects laypeople’s trust in science. PLoS ONE 16(7): e0253911. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0253911

Editor: Lynn Jayne Frewer, Newcastle University, School of Natural and Environmental Sciences, UNITED KINGDOM

Received: December 4, 2020; Accepted: June 15, 2021; Published: July 9, 2021

Copyright: © 2021 Altenmüller et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Data Availability: We provided all materials, the anonymized data and analyses, and supplementary materials online at the Open Science Framework via the following link: https://osf.io/phfq3/ .

Funding: The author(s) received no specific funding for this work.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Introduction

“Being a scientist is, at the most fundamental level, about being able to study what’s exciting to you”, says Jeremy Yoder, a gay man studying experiences of queer individuals in science [ 1 ]. Like Yoder, many researchers are passionate about their research and dedicated to their field. After all, they are free to choose research questions they deem important and are interested in. Freedom of science and research secures the independence of the academic from the political and other spheres. In return, researchers are expected to be neutral and objective and make their research process transparent to guarantee that this freedom is not exploited for personal gains.

Just as people differ in what they are interested in in their personal lives, researchers differ in what they find more or less fascinating and worth studying. Such fascination can have multiple causes and is often rooted in a perceived personal connection to a topic. For instance, Sir Isaac Newton allegedly became interested in gravity after an apple fell on his head [ 2 ]. A specific type of personal connection exists when researchers study a phenomenon because they are directly (negatively) affected by that phenomenon. In 1996, Harvard alumni and neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor suffered a rare form of stroke that made her undergo major brain surgery, affected her personal and academic life tremendously, and eventually awakened her interest in studying the plasticity of the brain [ 3 ]. In 2006, she published an award-winning book covering her research and her personal story that led her to pursue this path. The Jill Bolte Taylor case is, thus, a prototypical example for such “me-search”: researchers studying a phenomenon out of a particular personal affection by (or connection to) this phenomenon. “Me-search” thus means pursuing a scientific question when the answer to that question is idiosyncratically relevant for the individual researcher (as opposed to when the answer is relevant per se).

Being directly affected by a phenomenon provides researchers studying it with a high degree of expertise and motivation: Jill Bolte Taylor, for instance, claims to bring a deep personal understanding and compassion to her research and work with patients [ 4 , 5 ]. That said, being personally affected may also come at the cost of losing one’s scientific impartiality and neutrality for the subject: Jill Bolte Taylor was criticized for being overly simplistic in her scientific claims and mixing them with esoteric ideas, and for pushing her own agenda (i.e., selling her story) by dramatizing her own experiences [ 4 – 7 ].

While some criticized Jill Bolte Taylor heavily, the general public does not seem to have a problem with her research as “me-search”. Her book is currently translated into 30 languages, and thousands of people visit her talks and keynote addresses [ 4 – 6 ]. Does that suggest that the general public tends to turn a blind eye on conflicts of interest that may arise from a researchers’ personal affection by their research object? While the Jill Bolte Taylor case seems to suggest so, research on science communication and public understanding of science has shown that people are highly sensitive to potential conflicts of interest arising from researchers’ personal involvement: perceiving researchers as pursuing an “agenda” for personal reasons is a major factor predicting people’s loss of trust in researchers and science [ 8 – 11 ]. On the other hand, people may see personal (“autoethnographic”) experiences of researchers personally affected by their topic as valuable and laudable ‒ it may imply that “they know what they’re talking about” [ 12 – 14 ]. Similarly, revealing a personal interest or even passion for a particular research topic (e.g., due to being personally affected) could also overcome the stereotypical perception of scientists as distant “nerds in the ivory tower” [ 15 , 16 ]: researchers who openly disclose the idiosyncratic relevance of their research topic may appear more approachable, more likeable, and more trustworthy [ 17 – 19 ].

Thus, the public’s reaction to “me-search” seems to be ambivalent and contingent on certain boundary conditions. Thus, the question we are going to address in this article is whether and when ‒ that is, under which circumstances ‒ a researcher’s personal affection by a research topic (“me-search”) positively vs. negatively impacts public perceptions regarding the trustworthiness of the respective researcher (and the entire research area in general) and the extent to which this researcher’s findings are perceived as credible .

Perceivers’ motivated stance as a moderating variable

This potentially ambivalent perception of “research as me-search” can be understood from a motivated reasoning [ 20 ] perspective: Laypeople receive and process information in a manner biased towards their own beliefs, expectations, or hopes. This also applies to the reception of scientific information [ 21 , 22 ]: For example, laypeople are more likely to dismiss scientific evidence if it is inconsistent with their beliefs [ 23 , 24 ] or if it threatens important (moral) values [ 25 , 26 ] or their social identity, respectively [ 27 – 29 ].

However, identity-related and attitudinal motivated science reception might differ in their underlying mechanisms. For identity-related motivated science reception, biased perception of information, which is relevant to a social identity, is driven by a defense motivation to protect this positive social identity [ 30 ]. Thus, identity-threating scientific information is countered by identity-protection efforts, such as discrediting the findings and the source. These efforts will be more pronounced among strongly identified individuals [ 27 – 29 ]. For attitudinal motivated science reception, however, the mechanism might function as a broader perception filter. When confronted with new scientific information about the respective attitude object, the perceptual focus will be directed at clues helping to uphold prior attitudes (i.e., confirmation bias [ 31 ]): Potentially attitude-inconsistent information is attenuated, while potentially attitude-consistent information is accentuated. The ambivalent nature of “me-search” might allow to be easily bend in such a motivated manner and, thus, lead to biased perceptions of a researcher either way: when the findings are in line with one’s prior beliefs, being personally affected may be considered an asset–the respective researcher is perceived as more trustworthy and his/her findings as more credible (compared to no idiosyncratic relevance). However, when the findings are inconsistent with one’s prior beliefs, idiosyncratic relevance may be considered a flaw–the respective research is perceived as biased, untrustworthy, and less competent, and his/her findings are likely perceived as less credible than when idiosyncratic relevance is absent.

Prior research on motivated science reception mainly focused on laypeople’s reactions towards specific scientific findings: after learning about the outcome of a particular study, participants dismiss the research (and devalue the researcher) if these outcomes are consistent vs. inconsistent with their prior beliefs [ 23 – 25 , 27 – 29 ]. However, people might be prone to motivated science reception even before results are known, judging researchers proverbially just by their cover (e.g., by biographical data, personal and scientific interests and motivations). People who hold positive attitudes towards a certain research topic might perceive “me-searchers” as more trustworthy and anticipate their results to be more credible (before knowing the specific outcomes). By contrast, people who hold negative attitudes towards a certain research topic they might trust “me-searchers” less and expect their findings to be less credible.

Additionally, motivated reception processes can be extended over and above the specific information under scrutiny and lead to questioning the scientific method in itself–a phenomenon termed the “scientific impotence excuse” [ 32 ]. In line with that, critical evaluations of specific researchers and their findings are sometimes generalized to the entire field of research [ 27 ]. Thus, the fact that a researcher engages in “me-search” might be interpreted in a way that fits best to one’s preexisting convictions and may generalize to the entire field of research.

The present research

In two studies, laypeople read alleged research proposals concerning potentially polarizing research topics (i.e., LGBTQ issues and veganism) which were submitted by researchers who disclosed being either personally affected or not affected by the respective topic. We investigated whether ( Study 1 ) and when (i.e., moderated by preexisting positive attitudes towards the respective research topic, Studies 1 and 2) such “me-search” information increased or decreased laypeople’s perceptions regarding these researchers’ epistemic trustworthiness and the anticipated credibility of their future scientific findings. Of note, we use the term “credibility” to differentiate evidence-related trust/credibility from person-related trust/credibility (i.e. “trustworthiness”). Further, we test whether one researcher’s “me-search” impacts the evaluation of the entire respective field ( Study 2 ).

For both studies in this paper, we report how we determined our sample size, all data exclusions (if any), all manipulations, and all measures [ 33 ]. All materials, the anonymized data, and analyses are available online at the Open Science Framework (OSF; see https://osf.io/phfq3/ ). Before starting the respective study, informed consent was obtained. Participants read a GDPR-consistent data protection and privacy disclosure declaration specifically designed for the present study. Only participants who gave their consent could start the respective survey. According to German laws and ethical regulations for psychological research [ 34 ], gathering IRB approval is not necessary if (i) the data are fully anonymized, (ii) the study does not involve deception, (iii) participants’ rights (e.g., voluntary participation, the right to withdraw their data, etc.) are fully preserved, and (iv) participating in the study is unlikely to cause harm, stress, or negative affect. The present studies met all of these criteria; therefore, no IRB approval had to be obtained.

In our first study, we conducted an online experiment investigating the main effect of a researcher’s disclosure of being personally affected vs. not affected by their research on their trustworthiness and the credibility of their future research. Further, we tested whether laypeople’s preexisting attitudes towards the research topic moderate this effect.

Four-hundred and eleven German participants were recruited via mailing lists and social networks. Ninety-seven participants had to be excluded due to pre-specified criteria: Sixty-seven participants failed the manipulation check; 25 participants failed the pre-specified time criteria (viewing the manipulation stimulus less than 30sec, taking less than 3min or more than 20min for participation); 5 participants had apparently implausible response patterns (e.g., “straight-lining;” identical responses on every single item on more than one questionnaire page in a row). Eighty-five further participants failed the attention check. Excluding them did not change the overall results, so, for the sake of statistical power, we did not exclude these 85 cases. The final sample consisted of N = 314 participants. We conducted sensitivity analyses using G*Power [ 35 ] for determining which effect sizes can detected with this sample in a moderated (multiple) regression analysis: At α = 0.05 and with a power of 80%, small-to-medium effects (f 2 ≥0.03) can be detected with this sample. Participants were mostly female (74% female, 25% male, 2% other) and their age ranged between 16 and 68 years ( M = 26.79; SD = 10.18). Most participants were currently studying at a university (71%; working: 21%; unemployed or other: 8%). Participants who were currently studying or already had a university degree (93%) came from a variety of disciplines (law, economics, and social sciences: 49%; humanities: 16%; mathematics and natural sciences: 14%; medicine and life sciences: 11%; engineering: 4%).

Materials and procedure.

After obtaining informed consent, we asked participants to imagine they were browsing the website of a research institute and came across a short proposal for a new research project by a researcher named Dr. Lohr (no gender was indicated for greater generalizability and avoiding possible gender confounds). Next, participants read the beginning of the alleged proposal of a planned research project for which Dr. Lohr was allegedly applying for external funding. The text briefly introduced the planned project (i.e., investigating social reactions to queer employees at the workplace) and a statement of Dr. Lohr explaining why they were interested in conducting this project. Participants were randomly allocated to two groups. In the “not personally affected” condition, Dr. Lohr wrote:

“ I am interested in investigating this research topic in more detail not only out of scientific reasons but also because I–as someone who does not identify as homosexual and is not affected by my own research–really think we need more evidence-based knowledge about queer topics which we can implement in everyday life .”

In the “personally affected” condition, Dr. Lohr wrote:

“ I am interested in investigating this research topic in more detail not only out of scientific reasons but also because I–as someone who identifies as homosexual and is affected by my own research–really think we need more evidence-based knowledge about queer topics which we can implement in everyday life .”

We added a definition for the word “queer” below the proposal: “ Queer is a term used as self-description by people who do not identify as heterosexual and/or who do not identify with the gender assigned at birth . The term is often used as umbrella term for LGBTQ (lesbian , gay , bisexual , trans and queer) and describes all people who identify as queer .” After completing an attention check question (see pre-registration), we measured participants’ trust in Dr. Lohr with the Muenster Epistemic Trustworthiness Inventory (METI; [ 36 ]), which was constructed for measuring trust in experts encountered online. It consists of 14 opposite adjective pairs measuring an overall trustworthiness score (Cronbach’s α = .95) as well as the sub-dimensions expertise (e.g., competent–incompetent, Cronbach’s α = .92) and integrity/benevolence (e.g., honest–dishonest, Cronbach’s α = .93) on 6-point bipolar Likert scales. Factor analyses (see Appendix A in the supplementary materials, https://osf.io/phfq3/ ) suggest that a two-factor model (with expertise and integrity/benevolence) fit the data better than a three-factor model (as suggested by [ 36 ]), corroborating the idea of a cognitive-rational dimension and an affective dimension of trustworthiness [ 37 ]. Next, participants rated the extent to which they found Dr. Lohr’s research credible on a 6-point Likert scale ranging from 1 = “not at all” to 6 = “very much” (6 items, e.g., “I think Dr. Lohr’s future findings will be credible;” “I will be critical of Dr. Lohr’s research results” (reverse-coded); Cronbach’s α = .84).

Next, we measured participants’ own positive attitudes towards LGBTQ issues—the moderator variable in our design—with eleven statements developed from research on sympathy, group attitudes, and allyship [ 38 , 39 ] rated on a 6-point Likert scale ranging from “not at all” to “very much” (e.g., “I think that LGBTQ-related topics receive more attention than necessary” (reverse-coded); “I am open to learning more about concerns raised by LGBTQ people;” Cronbach’s α = .93). Next, we conducted a manipulation check by asking participants to indicate whether Dr. Lohr disclosed being personally affected by their research (“Dr. Lohr stated being personally affected;” “Dr. Lohr stated not being personally affected;” “Dr. Lohr did not say anything about being affected or not”).

Finally, we measured demographic variables (age, gender, occupation, academic discipline) and control variables: general perceptions of researchers’ neutrality (self-developed 6-point bipolar scale with 4 adjective-pairs, e.g. subjective–objective, and 6 distractor pairs, e.g. introverted–extraverted, Cronbach’s α = .81) and Public Engagement with Science (PES) with two measures adapted from a survey by the BBVA Foundation [ 40 ]: a 5-item scale measuring PES frequency (e.g., “How often do you read news about science?” 5-point Likert scale ranging from 0 =“never” to 5 =“almost daily,” Cronbach’s α = .78) and a multiple choice question measuring 15 potential PES experiences during the last 12 months (e.g., “I know someone who does scientific research;” “I visited a science museum”). Participants had the opportunity to participate in a lottery and sign up for more information and were debriefed.

Our randomized groups did not differ in regard to general perception of neutrality in science ( p = .924) or PES (PES frequency, p = .709; PES experiences, p = .533). Table 1 summarizes all means, standard deviations, correlations and internal consistencies of the measured variables.

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0253911.t001

Main effect of being personally affected.

First, we tested the main effect of the researcher’s disclosure of being personally affected on epistemic trustworthiness and credibility of future findings. Laypeople trusted Dr. Lohr significantly more in the “personally affected” condition ( M = 4.92, SD = 0.75) than in the “not personally affected” condition ( M = 4.66, SD = 0.81), t (312) = 2.93, p = .004, d = 0.33, 95% CI d [0.11; 0.56]. For credibility, the difference between the “personally affected” condition ( M = 4.15, SD = 0.96) and the “not personally affected” condition ( M = 4.04, SD = 0.86) was not significant, t (312) = 1.02, p = .306, d = 0.12, 95% CI d [-0.11; 0.34]. Further exploring the two dimensions of epistemic trustworthiness, Dr. Lohr was perceived as higher on integrity/benevolence, t (312) = 3.19, p = .002, d = 0.36, 95% CI d [0.14; 0.59], and on expertise, t (312) = 2.17, p = .030, d = 0.25, 95% CI d [0.02; 0.47] when disclosing being personally affected.

Moderation by pre-existing attitudes.

Second, we tested whether the effect of being personally affected by the research topic on trustworthiness was moderated by participants’ pre-existing attitudes towards LGBTQ issues. Using standardized linear regression, we again found a main effect of condition on trustworthiness, beta = 0.15, p = .004, 95% CI beta [0.05, 0.26]. There was a significant main effect of participants’ pre-existing attitudes, beta = 0.30, p < .001, 95% CI beta [0.20, 0.40] and the condition × attitudes interaction effect was significant, beta = 0.19, p < .001, 95% CI beta [0.08, 0.29], increasing the amount of explained variance in trustworthiness by 3% to R 2 adj = .14. Table 2 summarizes the results. Fig 1A displays the interaction effect and standardized simple slopes analysis further qualifies it: Participants with more positive attitudes towards LGBTQ issues (+1 SD above sample mean) trusted Dr. Lohr more when the researcher was personally affected vs. not affected, beta = 0.34, p < .001, 95% CI beta [0.20, 0.49]. For participants with less positive attitudes towards LGBTQ issues (-1 SD below sample mean), this effect appears to be reversed, yet the simple slope was not significant, beta = -0.03, p = .646, 95% CI B [-0.18, 0.11]. The same pattern of interaction effects emerged for both, integrity/benevolence ( p = .009, total R 2 adj = .14) and expertise ( p < .001, total R 2 adj = .10); full analyses are reported in Appendix B (see https://osf.io/phfq3/ ).

Linear regression plots for the interaction effect of attitudes × condition on epistemic trustworthiness (Fig 1A) and credibility (Fig 1B) with 95% confidence intervals: Participants’ attitudes towards the research topic moderated how a researcher’s disclosure of being personally affected (vs. being not personally affected) by one’s own research was perceived.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0253911.g001

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0253911.t002

Regarding our second dependent variable, credibility, we found no main effect of condition, beta = 0.04, p = .456, 95% CI beta [-0.06, 0.13]. However, there was a significant main effect of participants’ pre-existing attitudes, beta = 0.48, p < .001 95% CI beta [0.39, 0.58]: Participants with more positive attitudes anticipated a higher credibility of future research findings in this condition than participants with less positive attitudes. Similar to epistemic trustworthiness, there was a significant condition × attitudes interaction effect, beta = 0.21, p < .001, 95% CI beta [0.12, 0.31], increasing the amount of explained variance in credibility by 4% to R 2 adj = .26. Table 2 summarizes the results. Fig 1B displays this interaction effect: Again, participants with more positive attitudes towards LGBTQ issues (+1 SD above sample mean) anticipated Dr. Lohr’s future research findings to be more credible when the researcher was personally affected vs. not affected, beta = 0.25, p < .001, 95% CI beta [0.12, 0.38]. However, for participants with more negative attitudes (-1 SD below sample mean) this effect was significantly reversed: They rated the future research as less credible when the researcher was personally affected vs. not affected, beta = -0.18, p = .009, 95% CI B [-0.31, -0.04].

Results from Study 1 suggest that LGBTQ researchers are perceived as more trustworthy and their future findings as more credible when they disclose being personally affected by their research topic (i.e., being queer themselves), but only if perceivers hold positive attitudes towards LGBTQ issues. By contrast, holding less favorable attitudes towards LGBTQ issues lead to more skeptical reactions towards personally affected vs. unaffected researchers. This finding shows that learning about a researcher’s personal affection by their research can, indeed, go both ways, as suggested by our theoretical reasoning. On a more general level, our research suggests that public reactions towards “me-search” is a matter of pre-existing attitudes, and, thus, a case of motivated science reception [ 21 , 22 ].

There are some limitations to this first study: As most people in our sample held rather positive attitudes towards the LGBTQ community ( M = 4.93, SD = 1.02; on a scale from 1 to 6), predicted values on trustworthiness and credibility at the lower end of the attitude spectrum are probably less reliable. Also, we did not control for participants’ own identification as belonging to the LGBTQ community. Thus, we cannot differentiate clearly between attitudinal and identity-related effects, which is important because attitudes and identity concerns have a psychologically distinguishable impact on motivated science reception [ 27 , 28 ]. Additionally, replicating our results in a different domain is necessary to be able to generalize our findings. Another question of generalizability that is left unanswered is how such individual experiences with one personally affected researcher might impact laypeople’s perception of the entire field. This calls for more research on the double-edged nature of the moderating effect of preexisting attitudes.

In our preregistered second study (see https://osf.io/c9r4e ), we aimed to replicate our findings in a more diverse sample and with a different research topic that has the potential of polarizing participants even more strongly. We used the same design as in Study 1, but changed the proposed research topic to perceptions of vegans and introduced a vegan vs. non-vegan researcher. Again, we hypothesized that laypeople’s attitudes towards veganism moderate the effects on trustworthiness as well as credibility of future research. Additionally, we tested whether the effect of one researcher being personally affected by their own research generalizes to the broader perception of their entire field. Furthermore, we also explored whether the moderation by attitudes towards veganism prevailed when controlling for self-identification as being vegan (not included in preregistration).

We conducted an a-priori power analysis using G*Power [ 35 ] for detecting the hypothesized interaction effect in a moderated multiple regression analysis ( f 2 = 0.04, based on Study 1, with 1- β = 0.90 and α = 0.05, which resulted in a total sample of N = 265. Anticipating exclusions (see specified criteria) of comparable size as in the previous study, we aimed for a sample of at least 350 participants.

We collected data from 364 participants via mailing lists and social media. Fifty-seven participants had to be excluded due to our preregistered criteria (see https://osf.io/c9r4e ): one participant was younger than 16 years, 31 failed the manipulation check, 10 took less than 20sec viewing the proposal, 12 took less than 3min or more than 20min for participation, 3 had apparently implausible patters of response (i.e., “straight-lining;” identical responses on every single item on more than one questionnaire page in a row). The final sample consisted of N = 307 participants (76% female, 23% male, 1 other) who were between 18 and 79 years old ( M = 33.55, SD = 13.92). Approximately half of the sample (50%) was currently studying at a university, further 40% were working and 10% not working, one person was currently in training. Eighty-five percent were currently studying or already held a university degree (social sciences: 49%, humanities: 17%, natural sciences: 14%, life sciences: 8%, engineering: 6% and other 6%). Most participants did not consider themselves as vegans (89%).

We used the same materials and procedure as in Study 1 (see OSF for full materials: https://osf.io/phfq3/ ). However, we changed the research topic to “perceptions of vegans”. Participants were randomly assigned to two conditions. In the “not personally affected” condition, the researcher Dr. Lohr wrote:

“ I was interested in investigating this research questions not only out of scientific reasons but because , as someone who is not living as a vegan and , thus , not personally affected by my own research , I think we have a need for more evidence-based knowledge regarding the social embedding of vegan lifestyles , which we can acknowledge in everyday life .”

“… because , as someone who is living as a vegan and , thus , personally affected by my own research , I think we have a need for more evidence-based knowledge regarding the social embedding of vegan lifestyles , which we can acknowledge in everyday life . ”

As dependent variables, we again used the 14-item METI [ 36 ] to measure epistemic trustworthiness, but we expanded the measure for credibility of future research by adding one more item (“I would express skepticism towards Dr. Lohr’s future findings”) to better capture the behavioral aspects of credibility (now: 7 items; Cronbach’s α = .86). We also added a measure of participants’ evaluation of the entire field (not the specific researcher) as a third dependent variable. This 12-item scale was adapted from a related study [ 28 ] (e.g., “I think researchers who do research on that topic sometimes lack competence,” “I think it is difficult to apply results from this line of research to reality;” 6-point Likert scale ranging from 1 = “not at all” to 6 = “very much;” Cronbach’s α = .85). Next, participants’ attitudes towards veganism (i.e., the moderator variable) were measured with a 14-item scale adapted from the attitude measure in Study 1 by changing and adding items (e.g., “I think veganism is exaggerated” (reverse-coded) and “I can imagine being a vegan myself;” 6-point Likert scale ranging from 1 = “not at all” to 6 = “very much;” Cronbach’s α = .95).

To reduce exclusions after data collection, participants could proceed only if they answered all attention checks correctly (4 items; multiple choice). We added self-identification as vegan as a control variable (“Do you presently consider yourself a vegan?” yes/no); and an open-ended question about participants’ opinion regarding the researcher being personally affected to explore how laypeople rationalize their opinion. These responses were later coded for valence (positive, negative, mixed, or neutral) and content (deductive and inductive coding) by two raters blind to the specific research question (see Appendix C in the supplementary materials, https://osf.io/phfq3/ ; interrater reliability for valence, Cohen’s κ = .86, p < .01; and for content, Cohen’s κ = .74, p < .01). Again, the questionnaire closed with a sign-up for a lottery and more information as well as a debriefing.

Our randomized groups did not differ in regard to PES (PES frequency, p = .147; PES experiences, p = .101). However, they did differ significantly in regard to the general perception of neutrality in science ( p = .049). Possible implications are addressed in the Discussion. Table 3 summarizes all means, standard deviations, correlations and internal consistencies. In the following, we report our findings for all three dependent variables (trustworthiness, credibility, evaluation of the entire field), consecutively.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0253911.t003

Trustworthiness.

First, we ran the standardized regression model for epistemic trustworthiness. There was neither a significant main effect of condition on epistemic trustworthiness, beta = 0.04, p = .482, 95% CI beta [-0.07, 0.15] nor a significant main effect of attitudes towards veganism, beta = 0.07, p = .205, 95% CI beta [-0.04, 0.18]. However, the hypothesized condition × attitudes interaction effect was significant, beta = 0.22, p < .001, 95% CI beta [0.11, 0.34], increasing the amount of explained variance in trustworthiness by 4% to R 2 adj = .05. Table 4 summarizes the results. Fig 2A and standardized simple slopes analyses show that participants with more positive attitudes towards veganism (+1 SD above sample mean) trusted Dr. Lohr more when personally affected vs. not affected, beta = 0.26, p = .001, 95% CI beta [0.11, 0.42]. This conditional effect was reversed for participants with more negative attitudes (-1 SD below sample mean), who trusted Dr. Lohr less when personally affected vs. not affected, beta = -0.19, p = .020, 95% CI beta [-0.34, -0.03]. The interaction effect remained significant when controlling for participants’ self-identification as being vegan ( p < .001, total R 2 adj = .06). In secondary analyses, we explored the effects on the two facets of epistemic trustworthiness, separately. The same pattern of interaction effects emerged for both integrity/benevolence ( p < .001, total R 2 adj = .08) and expertise ( p = .005, total R 2 adj = .02); full analyses are reported in Appendix D in the supplementary materials (see https://osf.io/phfq3/ ).

Linear regression plots for the interaction effect of attitudes × condition on epistemic trustworthiness (Fig 2A), credibility (Fig 2B) and critical evaluation of the entire field (Fig 2C) with 95% confidence intervals: Participants’ attitudes towards the research topic moderated how a researcher’s disclosure of being personally affected (vs. being not personally affected) by one’s own research was perceived.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0253911.g002

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0253911.t004

Credibility.

On credibility, there was no significant main effect of condition, beta = -.07, p = .146, 95% CI beta [-0.17, 0.03] but a significant main effect of attitudes towards veganism, beta = .35, p < .001, 95% CI beta [0.25, 0.45]. As predicted, the condition × attitudes interaction effect was also significant for credibility, beta = 0.25, p < .001, 95% CI beta [0.15, 0.35], increasing the amount of explained variance in credibility by 6% to R 2 adj = .21. Table 4 summarizes these results. Fig 2B and standardized simple slope analyses qualify the interaction effect: In line with the results for trustworthiness, participants with more positive attitudes (+1 SD above sample mean) anticipated Dr. Lohr’s future findings to be more credible when personally affected vs not affected, beta = 0.18, p = .016, 95% CI beta [0.03, 0.32], while the conditional effect for participants with more negative attitudes (-1 SD below sample mean) changed its sign, beta = -0.32, SE ( B ) = 0.14, p < .001, 95% CI beta [-0.47, -0.18]. As before, the interaction effect remained significant when controlling for self-identification as being vegan ( p < .001, total R 2 adj = .21).

Evaluation of the field.

Third, we investigated whether this moderation effect generalizes to the evaluation of the entire field of veganism research. There was no significant main effect of condition, beta = -.00, p = .989, 95% CI beta [-0.10, 0.10] but a significant main effect of attitudes, beta = -.41, p < .001, 95% CI beta [-0.51, -0.31]. Again, we found the hypothesized condition × attitude interaction effect, beta = -.27, p < .001, 95% CI beta [-0.37, -0.18], increasing the amount of explained variance in critical evaluation by 7% to R 2 adj = .27. Again, Table 4 summarizes these results and Fig 2C and standardized simple slopes analyses further qualify the interaction effect: Participants with more positive attitudes towards veganism (+1 SD above sample mean) were less critical of research on veganism when Dr. Lohr was personally affected vs. not affected, beta = -0.28, p < .001, 95% CI beta [-0.41, -0.14]. By contrast, this conditional effect was reversed for participants with more negative attitudes towards veganism (-1 SD below sample mean), beta = 0.27, p < .001, 95% CI beta [0.14, 0.41]. This interaction effect also remained significant when controlling for self-identification as being vegan ( p < .001, total R 2 adj = .28).

Participants’ opinion.

Overall, participants who responded to the open-ended question expressed mostly negative opinions about the researcher being personally affected by his own research (negative: 48%, neutral: 21%, positive: 17%, and mixed: 14%). The most frequently mentioned (negative) remark was that a “me-searcher” might be biased towards their research (60%; e.g., “ By introducing himself as being affected , I fear he cannot evaluate the results of his research objectively ”). The second most frequently mentioned remark was that such idiosyncratic relevance is irrelevant (24%; e.g., “ It wouldn’t make a difference ”). Positive remarks were mentioned less frequently: Participants ascribed more motivation (11%; e.g. “ I think interest , also personal interest , is an important prerequisite for determined research ”) or knowledge about the topic (8%; e.g. “ Very good , most likely , he thus is knowledgeable about the subject matter and can conduct the study in a more purposeful manner ”) to the “me-searcher”, or recognized the transparency (7%; e.g., “ The main thing is transparency . People are always biased , perhaps even unconsciously ”; for more details, see Appendix C in the supplementary materials: https://osf.io/phfq3/ ).

In Study 2, we replicated the moderation effect of preexisting attitudes on the effect of a researcher disclosing being personally affected (vs. not affected) by their own research on participants’ epistemic trustworthiness and credibility ascriptions regarding the research and researcher’s future findings. Further, we showed that this effect generalizes to the evaluation of the entire research area. Here, positive attitudes towards veganism determined how learning about an openly vegan researcher impacted participants’ perceptions of trustworthiness and credibility as well as the evaluation of the entire field of veganism research compared to learning about a non-vegan (i.e., non-affected) researcher. Participants who held more positive attitudes towards veganism reported more trust, higher anticipated credibility of future findings, and a less critical evaluation of the field when confronted with a vegan researcher. Conversely, for participants with less positive attitudes this effect was reversed. The moderation by positive attitudes towards veganism persisted when controlling for participants’ self-identification as vegans. Overall, the interaction effects observed in Study 2 explained similar amounts of variance as in Study 1 (epistemic trustworthiness: 3% vs. 4%, and credibility: 4% vs. 6%). Further, qualitative analyses revealed that most participants reported negative–or, at least, mixed–perceptions of a “me-searcher” (e.g., “me-searchers” may be biased, but also highly motivation and knowledgeable), which corroborated our theoretical prediction that “me-search” may be a double-edged sword. Interestingly, these qualitative findings seem somewhat contradictory to the quantitative findings, according to which there was no main effect of researchers’ idiosyncratic affection by their research topic.

In Study 2, one caveat is that the groups differed significantly in regard to participants’ general expectations of neutrality in science. Participants who read about the personally affected researcher had weaker expectations of neutrality; yet, when added to the regression model as a control, the pattern of results remained unchanged (see Appendix E in the supplementary materials, https://osf.io/phfq3/ ). Further, as a second caveat, we show that participants generalized their perceptions to the overall field of veganism research. However, this research area might be considered quite narrow and, thus, future research should investigate how far such generalization processes stretch out to perceptions of broader areas of research (e.g., health psychology).

General discussion

In two studies, we show that laypeople’s perception of researchers who disclose being personally affected by their own research can be positive as well as negative: The effect of such “me-search” was moderated by laypeople’s preexisting attitudes. Queer or vegan researchers were perceived as more trustworthy and their future findings were anticipated to be more credible when participants had positive, sympathizing attitudes towards the related research object (i.e., LGBTQ community or veganism). When participants’ attitudes were less positive, this pattern reversed. In Study 2, we extended our research from individualized perceptions of single researchers and their findings to evaluations of the entire field of research. Participants who were confronted with a personally affected researcher seemed to consider this person a representative example and generalized their judgment to their evaluation of the entire (though here quite narrow) research area.

We explored epistemic trustworthiness in more detail in both studies, namely the cognitive-rational facet of expertise and the affective facet of integrity/benevolence: Both were impacted by researchers’ disclosure of being personally affected, although effect sizes for expertise were descriptively smaller than for integrity/benevolence. This points to “me-search”–when received positively–possibly adding to the perception of competence-related aspects like a deeper knowledge of a phenomenon (e.g., via anecdotal insights) [ 12 – 14 ] and, even more so, warmth-related aspects like seeming more sincere, benevolent, transparent and, thus, approachable [ 15 , 16 , 41 ]. Disclosing such personal interest in a scientific endeavor might be able to bridge the stereotypical perception of cold and distant “science nerds” by revealing passionate, human and, thus, more relatable side of a researcher. When received negatively, however, “me-search” might be regarded as harboring vested interests, which casts doubts on a researcher’s neutrality and objectivity [ 8 – 11 , 42 ].

In general, the main models tested here explained between 5% and 28% of variance which may not appear impressive at first glance. However, our studies posed a very strict test of the effects of “me-search” by only using a subtle manipulation sparse in information followed by measures of very specific perceptions which might have contributed to an understatement of the real-world impact.

“Me-search” neither automatically sparks trust nor mistrust in laypeople, even if their explicit opinions seem rather negative. In line with assumptions from motivated science reception [ 22 , 43 ], our findings suggests that the ambivalence of the fact that a researcher is personally affected can be seized as an opportunity to interpret the situation in a manner that best fits to preexisting attitudes: Researchers, their findings and even their entire field of research are evaluated–even before learning about specific findings–based on prior attitudes towards the research topic. We show in Study 2 that the moderation effect of participants’ positive attitudes towards the respective research topic (i.e., veganism) prevails when controlling for self-identification with the topic (i.e., being a vegan). This suggests that, indeed, in motivated reasoning attitudinal and identity-related processes can be differentiated: Here, social identity protection could be ruled out as alternative explanation for the effects of pre-existing attitudes. Noteworthily, we demonstrate that motivated science reception already operates when the results are not (yet) known. This points towards a perceptual filter made up of pre-existing attitudes that is activated when confronted with scientific information and leads to biased pre-judgments: Ambivalent cues (i.e., “me-search”) are prematurely interpreted in line with prior attitudes without actually knowing whether the new scientific information will be attitude-consistent or inconsistent (when, later, results are reported).

Future research

Future research on the motivated reception of “me-search” should focus on three open questions. First, while we consider it a strength of our studies that the results of the proposed research project were not yet known, it might be interesting to see how being personally affected or not interacts with the perceived direction of the communicated scientific results (e.g. supporting vs. opposing a certain position): To what extent can the first, premature evaluation of a “me-searching” researcher be adapted if the actual results are inconsistent with this pre-judgment?

Second, the investigation of what specific characteristics of “me-search” are instrumentalized by benevolent or skeptical perceivers might not only provide practical tips on how to handle being personally affected (e.g., in science communication) but also important theoretical insights on the building blocks of trust in science and researchers (see discussion above regarding the effects on the facets of epistemic trustworthiness). As one example, knowing that a qualitative level of knowledge is highly valued could further research on the trust-benefit of enriching statistical evidence with anecdotal and narrative elements [ 44 , 45 ]. As second example, we argue that researchers’ self-disclosure of being personally affected by their research might signal transparency and, thus, improve the perception of the trust facets integrity and benevolence. Yet, even the disclosure of not being personally affected could have such an effect on a researcher’s reputation and, at the same time, it might be less ecologically valid (as, presumably, it is rather unusual to explicitly state to not be affected by something). Introducing a control group without any information about a researcher’s relation towards their research object might bring light to this.

Third, we demonstrated the moderation effect of preexisting attitudes for two research areas (i.e., LGBTQ and veganism) and in different populations. Yet, further research should investigate whether this effect will hold up for other areas, more diverse samples and different kinds of “me-search”, as well. For example, in some research fields being personally affected by the research might be perceived as more morally charged than in others and, thus, having stronger polarizing effects [ 46 ]: While, in veganism-research, “me-search” might be grounded in an ideological choice (e.g., thinking its morally wrong to consume animal products and, thus, being vegan), having a stroke and, following, studying stroke-related brain plasticity is likely perceived as less ideological. Also, different scientific methods (typically) used in a field might impact the perceptions of “me-search” depending on how prone for subjectivity these methods are perceived to be (e.g., qualitative “me-search” like autoethnographic analyses might be perceived more critically than when using seemingly objective, quantitative methods like physiological measures). Further, researchers who are not directly personally affected by their research but “merely” interested in something for personal reasons (e.g., being highly empathetic towards queer concerns without identifying as queer) might not profit from disclosure of such personal motivations: Such researchers might be perceived as impostors [ 47 ] lacking the expertise stemming from directly firsthand experiences.

Practical implications

Finally, for the applied perspective on public engagement with science, it should again be noted, that motivated reasoning processes are activated even before specific results are presented (e.g. before hearing a talk or reading about a study). This might be important, as judgments are quickly formed and remembered [ 48 , 49 ] and, therefore, the first impression of a researcher might set the tone for further interactions and, particularly, for the acceptance and implementation of their findings. This emphasizes the importance of researchers knowing their audience (and their attitudes) when engaging in science communication.

Of course, there are also ethical considerations concerning “me-search”: Researchers should always declare any conflict of interests when conducting research [ 50 , 51 ]. Failing to disclose being personally affected by one’s own research might backfire severely on researchers’ reputation–especially concerning their trustworthiness and the credibility of their findings–and in particular, when this information is disclosed by someone else and not themselves. At least for achieving positive reputational effects, it seems researchers need to freely initiate the disclosure of limitations and problems themselves [ 41 , 52 ]. A possible solution for reaping all the benefits and protecting against the potential harms of engaging in “me-search” might be to actively seek out mixed research teams. Including affected as well as non-affected individuals in research projects might be worth considering from the stance of the public’s trust in science: It enables deep, even personal insights to the studied phenomenon, while still securing balanced perspectives and impartiality.

Neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor became famous for turning her “stroke of fate” into productive and well-selling “me-search”. Yet, she was praised as well as heavily criticized for mixing her personal and scientific motivations: When research is also “me-search”, it can be perceived positively as well as negatively depending on laypeople’s preexisting attitudes towards the research object. Researchers who disclose being personally affected by their own research can benefit from this disclosure in terms of trustworthiness and credibility when it is perceived by laypeople with positive attitudes; however, for audiences with more negative attitudes this effect is reversed and disclosure can be harmful. One experience with a personally affected researcher might be enough to impact the evaluation of the whole field. Thus, openly acknowledging “me-search” in one’s research is an ambivalent matter and its communicative framing as well as the targeted audience should be well considered.

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116 Motivation Research Topics & Essay Examples

📝 motivation research papers examples, 🎓 simple research topics about motivation, 🏆 best motivation essay titles, ✍️ motivation essay topics for college, ❓ motivation research questions.

Self-Efficacy and Motivation for Students Learning The development of self-efficacy across all domains of learning plays a key role in the improvement of students’ academic performance.
Motivating Students to Learn and Succeed To be an effective teacher, one should be able to engage the students and help them maintain an interest in the subject being taught.
Self-Efficacy and Self-Concept in Students The paper reviews two self-constructs: self-concept and self-efficacy and determines if academic performance enhances if students alter their beliefs about themselves.
Educational Partnership: Teachers, Students, Parents The paper studies the importance of motivation and communication in educational leadership and partnership between Sharjah teachers, Arab students, and parents.
Adult Education: Affordances and Constraints The concept of work-life balance has become an essential if not integral aspect of the present-day adult learner.
Keller’s and Wlodkowski’s Models in Adult Learning Keller’s ARCS model and Wlodkowski’s approach to motivation are the two strategies that ensure adults’ compelling learning.
The Role of Academic Engagement Academic engagement or attachment refers to the importance children place on getting quality education and how they view academic outcomes to be of benefit to their personal lives.
Social Media Impact on English Language Learning This is a proposal of the research on the role of social networking websites and social media websites in motivating the students’ progress in learning the English language.
Curriculum Design and Evaluation The process of designing and developing a curriculum is quite challenging. A curriculum needs to consider the needs of society, the education system, and the individuals.
Motivation in U.S. Education Program For an educational program to be competitive at best and enough in nurturing motivation, it must provide the likelihood of nurturing this motivation at young age.
Lack of Student Engagement Within Online Learning Lack of student engagement is declining within online learning, and there are multiple factors contributing to the development of this tendency.
Teachers Investing in Building Relationships Effect on Students This research will contribute to the improvement of academic success based on how teacher-student relationships are approached.
Multiple Intelligence Theory: Critique Among recognized experts in the field of cognitive learning, the name Howard Gardner is today the most famous not only in the United States but also abroad.
"Underachievement": Case Study "Underachievement" — tells about Lashandra Jones, who used to be a perfect student and participate in various activities in high school.
The Impact of Teacher-Students Relationship The issue of the relationship between teacher and student is a traditional psychological and pedagogical problem, which has been the subject of research by many scientists.
Self-Directed Learning, Learning Orientation, and Self-Motivation The three critical concepts from this course that have an effect on personal belief are self-directed learning, learning orientation, and self-motivation.
The Analysis of Different Learning Theories This paper aims to analyze different learning theories and how these theories make positive and negative impacts on the success and lack of success of children.
Teaching and Student Motivation in the Christian Tradition Within the Christian tradition, teaching can facilitate the increased power of persuasion and the ability of teachers to provide invaluable knowledge on morality and doing good.
Motivating Social Studies Students Through the Use of a Computer Simulation This project will use a computer-based simulation game to help students understand how the elements of social studies connect to each other.
Motivation and Work-Life Balance: Intrinsic Goal Learning new skills and information means more than an opportunity to grow professionally and enhance one's chances of building a successful career.
Graduation Rates at the U.S. Colleges and Universities The article focuses on the efficacy of initiatives meant to improve graduation rates. Its findings show that graduation rates do not depend on the difficulty levels of a program.
Active Learning: Approaches and Theories The paper discusses four theories of active learning: behaviorist, cognitive, social, and humanistic. It supposes issues that help to achieve students’ active learning engagement.
Student Motivation and Ways to Enhance It Motivation and ways to enhance it have been explored for decades, and various advancements in this field have been achieved.
Pay Level Predominance Over Other Factors Motivating Students’ Internship Enrolment The research focus will be set on students' perception of motivating factors, satisfaction with payment, and the overall internship benefits.
The Importance of Motivation in Life The essay shows the importance of motivation, factors affecting it, and teachers' vital role in inspiring their students.
Consumer Behavior Course Reflection Consumer behavior (CB) is a broad area with many interconnected aspects, theories, and frameworks, which require an in-depth understanding to relate.
Practice Educator Working with Students This paper examines the efficacy of performing the functions of a Practice Educator, critically reflects and analyzes aspects of learning and practice working with the student.
Supporting Children with Specific Needs: Approaches and Interventions Teachers are in direct contact with children with special needs. They are expected to give special training to the children depending on the understanding level of each child.
Education Issues. Motivation Centred Learning Motivation is very important to people in their daily activities. It enables people to achieve their goals and set new ones.
The Creation of an Engaging Learning Environment For young children, creatively incorporating fun or stimulating content into learning experiences was an excellent way of increasing engagement during learning activities.
Aspects of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation The paper shows that teachers and parents can directly influence the intrinsic motivation of children. Many teachers are subject to a certain framework.
Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation Theory The paper states that intrinsic and extrinsic motivation approaches might not only motivate students but also affect their emotional conditions.
Motivation and Learning Relationship Analysis The connection between motivation and learning is an essential part of achieving necessary educational outcomes for numerous individuals throughout the world.
Brainology: Transforming Student's Motivation to Learn Carol Dweck writes "Brainology: Transforming Student's Motivation to Learn" to present her point of view on students' mindsets and intelligence in an expanded format.
Learners’ Engagement and Motivation Learners’ engagement and motivation depend on innovative approaches to teaching, which should concern lessons’ objectives, stages, and activities.
Grit in Education and Life for Motivation and Succesful Learning The paper discusses grit. It is a combination of resilience in front of failures and deep commitment and loyalty to goals that require time for achievement.
Motivation and Supervisory Leadership Motivation plays a major role in education because it impacts teachers’ approaches to student learning and stimulates their growth and development.
Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation of Teachers in Special Education Secondary School The system for evaluating the curriculums is used as a measure of success and achievement, and an effective tool for improving the quality of education.
Intentional Teaching, Operant Conditioning and Extrinsic Motivation Operant conditioning is a learning method credited to BF Skinner, which involves using the consequences of behavior to influence whether it is repeated or not.
The Effectiveness of Online and Face-to-Face Learning Despite e-learning’s extensively proclaimed advantages, it is not as effective as traditional offline instruction, which finds support in experts’ opinions.
Enhancing Student Performance Through Motivation Motivation is an essential aspect of learning since it facilitates the student to retain information and view learning as a positive activity.
Engagement Motivation in Education The types of engagement motivation discussed in this essay can be divided into intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.
Effectiveness of Educational Leadership Management Skills Most scholars agree that leadership in learning management positively impacts the quality of the educational process.
Teacher Training: Gamification Strategies and Flipped Classroom Design The aim of the study was to show the positive outcome of gamification strategies and flipped classroom design in training on the improvement of the skills of future educators.
Culture of Learning in the Knowledge Society Educators-researchers consider a new culture of learning, appropriate to the knowledge society and aimed at active, constructive, independent, motivated and holistic learning.
Factors of Motivation of Distance Education Teachers are motivated to participate in Distance Education due to their ability to facilitate it as well as the freedom it provides; however, increased workload discourages them.
Adult Education Site: Course Schedule, and the Evaluation Criterion This paper is a site visit report of an online adult education program run by the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) in Massachusetts.
Video Games and Their Impact on Students’ Motivation Video games have proven to increase students’ motivation substantially; they provide numerous ways of interaction and allow for cheap simulation.
Co-Construction and Gender-Related Issues at School This paper discusses such aspects of education as co-construction, gender-related issues in the classroom, and co-construction and beliefs in life and death.
Bullying of Disabled Children in School The purpose of this study is to evaluate the level of bullying of students with disabilities and special education needs.
Parental Engagement into Children’s Education Parental engagement in children’s studies has a positive impact on the children’s academic achievements and contributes to higher results in school.
Importance of Parent-Teacher Partnership in Child Development This research paper examines the effect of parent-teacher partnership in making the children attain their developmental milestones.
Theories of Skills Assessment in ESL The lack of an actionable and motivating assessment of language progress can lead to even more student stress.
Challenges Related to Student Discipline and Motivation in the Classroom This paper examines key challenges stemming from poor discipline and motivation in the classroom and attempts to explain their nature.
Lack of Parental Involvement Leads to Poor Student Achievement This paper investigates the correlation between the lack or presence of parental involvement and the academic achievement of students.
The Greatest Motivational Factor In Children Life
Students’ Motivation for Learning at a Distance
The Classical and Modern Theories of Motivation
The Principles and Barriers of Motivational Thinking
The Three Major Components of Motivation
The Relationship Between Reward and Motivation
Striatal Dopamine and the Interface Between Motivation and Cognition
Brain Development, Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation
The Use and Effectiveness of Motivational Interviewing in Pedagogy
Understanding Responsible Leadership: Role Identity and Motivational Drivers
Performance and Motivational Issues With Students
The Key Elements and Criticisms of Motivation Theories
The Strategies for Successful Motivation and Engagement
Early Childhood Education and Motivation
The Relationship Between Student Motivation and GPA
Emotional Intelligence Academic Achievement Motivation Among Adolescents Education
The Motivation Sequence, the Motivation Hub, and the Motivation Core
The Contrast Between Punishment and Motivation in Child Discipline
Information-Motivation-Behavior Skills for Education
Correlation Between Motivation and Achievement
Social Care Work and Its Adverse Effects on Staff Motivation
Motivational Interviewing as a Smoking Cessation Method Motivational Interviewing intervention is one of the primary cessation methods that is used among patients that reluctant to abstain from tobacco use.
The Strategies for Increasing Self-efficacy and Academic Motivation
The Motivation for Learning Korean Among the Taiwanese
Connection Between Teaching Styles and Parental Motivation
The Association Between Motivation, Affect, and Self-regulated Learning When Solving Problems
Best Motivation for Internal Promotion
The Two Leading Theories of Motivation: Analysis
Students Motivation and Its Relationship With Academic Performance Education
The Human Relations View of Motivation
The Human Motivation Theory of Abraham Maslow
Standardized Assessment Performance and Student Motivation
Teacher Motivation and Its Effect on the Academic Achievement
Teachers Behavior and Students Motivation For Learning
Motivation Strategies and The Main Key Theories Education
The Strength and Weaknesses of Content and Process Theories of Motivation
Modern Education and Motivation in The Educational Process
Motivation Enhances Teaching and Learning Education
Education, Academic Motivation, and Adjudicated Youth
The Relationship Between Leadership Styles and Motivation
Organizational Motivation Intrinsic and Extrinsic
How Does Teacher Behavior Affect Students’ Motivation to Learn?
How Does the Environment in the Classroom Influence Student Motivation?
What Is the Relationship Between Motivation and Performance?
Why Monetary Incentives Are an Ineffective Way for Increase Motivation?
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Explaining research performance: investigating the importance of motivation

Original Paper
Open access
Published: 23 May 2024
Volume 4 , article number 105 , ( 2024 )

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Silje Marie Svartefoss ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-5072-1293 1 nAff4 ,
Jens Jungblut 2 ,
Dag W. Aksnes 1 ,
Kristoffer Kolltveit 2 &
Thed van Leeuwen 3

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In this article, we study the motivation and performance of researchers. More specifically, we investigate what motivates researchers across different research fields and countries and how this motivation influences their research performance. The basis for our study is a large-N survey of economists, cardiologists, and physicists in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, and the UK. The analysis shows that researchers are primarily motivated by scientific curiosity and practical application and less so by career considerations. There are limited differences across fields and countries, suggesting that the mix of motivational aspects has a common academic core less influenced by disciplinary standards or different national environments. Linking motivational factors to research performance, through bibliometric data on publication productivity and citation impact, our data show that those driven by practical application aspects of motivation have a higher probability for high productivity. Being driven by career considerations also increases productivity but only to a certain extent before it starts having a detrimental effect.

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Introduction

Motivation and abilities are known to be as important factors in explaining employees’ job performance of employees (Van Iddekinge et al. 2018 ), and in the vast scientific literature on motivation, it is common to differentiate between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation factors (Ryan and Deci 2000 ). In this context, path-breaking individuals are said to often be intrinsically motivated (Jindal-Snape and Snape 2006 ; Thomas and Nedeva 2012 ; Vallerand et al. 1992 ), and it has been found that the importance of these of types of motivations differs across occupations and career stages (Duarte and Lopes 2018 ).

In this article, we address the issue of motivation for one specific occupation, namely: researchers working at universities. Specifically, we investigate what motivates researchers across fields and countries (RQ1) and how this motivation is linked to their research performance (RQ2). The question of why people are motivated to do their jobs is interesting to address in an academic context, where work is usually harder to control, and individuals tend to have a lot of much freedom in structuring their work. Moreover, there have been indications that academics possess an especially high level of motivation for their tasks that is not driven by a search for external rewards but by an intrinsic satisfaction from academic work (Evans and Meyer 2003 ; Leslie 2002 ). At the same time, elements of researchers’ performance are measurable through indicators of their publication activity: their productivity through the number of outputs they produce and the impact of their research through the number of citations their publications receive (Aksnes and Sivertsen 2019 ; Wilsdon et al. 2015 ).

Elevating research performance is high on the agenda of many research organisations (Hazelkorn 2015 ). How such performance may be linked to individuals’ motivational aspects has received little attention. Thus, a better understanding of this interrelation may be relevant for developing institutional strategies to foster environments that promote high-quality research and research productivity.

Previous qualitative research has shown that scientists are mainly intrinsically motivated (Jindal-Snape and Snape 2006 ). Other survey-based contributions suggest that there can be differences in motivations across disciplines (Atta-Owusu and Fitjar 2021 ; Lam 2011 ). Furthermore, the performance of individual scientists has been shown to be highly skewed in terms of publication productivity and citation rates (Larivière et al. 2010 ; Ruiz-Castillo and Costas 2014 ). There is a large body of literature explaining these differences. Some focus on national and institutional funding schemes (Hammarfelt and de Rijcke 2015 ; Melguizo and Strober 2007 ) and others on the research environment, such as the presence of research groups and international collaboration (Jeong et al. 2014 ), while many studies address the role of academic rank, age, and gender (see e.g. Baccini et al. 2014 ; Rørstad and Aksnes 2015 ). Until recently, less emphasis has been placed on the impact of researchers’ motivation. Some studies have found that different types of motivations drive high levels of research performance (see e.g. Horodnic and Zaiţ 2015 ; Ryan and Berbegal-Mirabent 2016 ). However, researchers are only starting to understand how this internal drive relates to research performance.

While some of the prior research on the impact of motivation depends on self-reported research performance evaluations (Ryan 2014 ), the present article combines survey responses with actual bibliometric data. To investigate variation in research motivation across scientific fields and countries, we draw on a large-N survey of economists, cardiologists, and physicists in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, and the UK. To investigate how this motivation is linked to their research performance, we map the survey respondents’ publication and citation data from the Web of Science (WoS).

This article is organised as follows. First, we present relevant literature on research performance and motivation. Next, the scientific fields and countries are then presented before elaborating on our methodology. In the empirical analysis, we investigate variations in motivation across fields, gender, age, and academic position and then relate motivation to publications and citations as our two measures of research performance. In the concluding section, we discuss our findings and implications for national decision-makers and individual researchers.

Motivation and research performance

As noted above, the concepts of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation play an important role in the literature on motivation and performance. Here, intrinsic motivation refers to doing something for its inherent satisfaction rather than for some separable consequence. Extrinsic motivation refers to doing something because it leads to a separable outcome (Ryan and Deci 2000 ).

Some studies have found that scientists are mainly intrinsically motivated (Jindal-Snape and Snape 2006 ; Lounsbury et al. 2012 ). Research interests, curiosity, and a desire to contribute to new knowledge are examples of such motivational factors. Intrinsic motives have also been shown to be crucial when people select research as a career choice (Roach and Sauermann 2010 ). Nevertheless, scientists are also motivated by extrinsic factors. Several European countries have adopted performance-based research funding systems (Zacharewicz et al. 2019 ). In these systems, researchers do not receive direct financial bonuses when they publish, although such practices may occur at local levels (Stephan et al. 2017 ). Therefore, extrinsic motivation for such researchers may include salary increases, peer recognitions, promotion, or expanded access to research resources (Lam 2011 ). According to Tien and Blackburn ( 1996 ), both types of motivations operate simultaneously, and their importance vary and may depend on the individual’s circumstances, personal situation, and values.

The extent to which different kinds of motivations play a role in scientists’ performance has been investigated in several studies. In these studies, bibliometric indicators based on the number of publications are typically used as outcome measures. Such indicators play a critical role in various contexts in the research system (Wilsdon et al. 2015 ), although it has also been pointed out that individuals can have different motivations to publish (Hangel and Schmidt-Pfister 2017 ).

Based on a survey of Romanian economics and business administration academics combined with bibliometric data, Horodnic and Zait ( 2015 ) found that intrinsic motivation was positively correlated with research productivity, while extrinsic motivation was negatively correlated. Their interpretations of the results are that researchers motivated by scientific interest are more productive, while researchers motivated by extrinsic forces will shift their focus to more financially profitable activities. Similarly, based on the observation that professors continue to publish even after they have been promoted to full professor, Finkelstein ( 1984 ) concluded that intrinsic rather than extrinsic motivational factors have a decisive role regarding the productivity of academics.

Drawing on a survey of 405 research scientists working in biological, chemical, and biomedical research departments in UK universities, Ryan ( 2014 ) found that (self-reported) variations in research performance can be explained by instrumental motivation based on financial incentives and internal motivation based on the individual’s view of themselves (traits, competencies, and values). In the study, instrumental motivation was found to have a negative impact on research performance: As the desire for financial rewards increase, the level of research performance decreases. In other words, researchers mainly motivated by money will be less productive and effective in their research. Contrarily, internal motivation was found to have a positive impact on research performance. This was explained by highlighting that researchers motivated by their self-concept set internal standards that become a reference point that reinforces perceptions of competency in their environments.

Nevertheless, it has also been argued that intrinsic and extrinsic motivations for publishing are intertwined (Ma 2019 ). According to Tien and Blackburn ( 1996 ), research productivity is neither purely intrinsically nor purely extrinsically motivated. Publication activity is often a result of research, which may be intrinsically motivated or motivated by extrinsic factors such as a wish for promotion, where the number of publications is often a part of the assessment (Cruz-Castro and Sanz-Menendez 2021 ; Tien 2000 , 2008 ).

The negative relationship between external/instrumental motivation and performance and the positive relationship between internal/self-concept motivation and performance are underlined by Ryan and Berbegal-Mirabent ( 2016 ). Drawing on a fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis of a random sampling of 300 of the original respondents from Ryan ( 2014 ), they find that scientists working towards the standards and values they identify with, combined with a lack of concern for instrumental rewards, contribute to higher levels of research performance.

Based on the above, this article will address two research questions concerning different forms of motivation and the relationship between motivation and research performance.

How does the motivation of researchers vary across fields and countries?

How do different types of motivations affect research performance?

In this study, the roles of three different motivational factors are analysed. These are scientific curiosity, practical and societal applications, and career progress. The study aims to assess the role of these specific motivational factors and not the intrinsic-extrinsic distinction more generally. Of the three factors, scientific curiosity most strongly relates to intrinsic motivation; practical and societal applications also entail strong intrinsic aspects. On the other hand, career progress is linked to extrinsic motivation.

In addition to variation in researchers’ motivations by field and country, we consider differences in relation to age, position and gender. Additionally, when investigating how motivation relates to scientific performance we control for the influence of age, gender, country and funding. These are dimensions where differences might be found in motivational factors given that scientific performance, particularly publication productivity, has been shown to differ along these dimensions (Rørstad and Aksnes 2015 ).

Research context: three fields, five countries

To address the research question about potential differences across fields and countries, the study is based on a sample consisting of researchers in three different fields (cardiology, economics, and physics) and five countries (Denmark, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, and the UK). Below, we describe this research context in greater detail.

The fields represent three different domains of science: medicine, social sciences, and the natural sciences, where different motivational factors may be at play. This means that the fields cover three main areas of scientific investigations: the understanding of the world, the functioning of the human body, and societies and their functions. The societal role and mission of the fields also differ. While a primary aim of cardiology research and practice is to reduce the burden of cardiovascular disease, physics research may drive technology advancements, which impacts society. Economics research may contribute to more effective use of limited resources and the management of people, businesses, markets, and governments. In addition, the fields also differ in publication patterns (Piro et al. 2013 ). The average number of publications per researcher is generally higher in cardiology and physics than in economics (Piro et al. 2013 ). Moreover, cardiologists and physicists mainly publish in international scientific journals (Moed 2005 ; Van Leeuwen 2013 ). In economics, researchers also tend to publish books, chapters, and articles in national languages, in addition to international journal articles (Aksnes and Sivertsen 2019 ; van Leeuwen et al. 2016 ).

We sampled the countries with a twofold aim. On the one hand, we wanted to have countries that are comparable so that differences in the development of the science systems, working conditions, or funding availability would not be too large. On the other hand, we also wanted to assure variation among the countries regarding these relevant framework conditions to ensure that our findings are not driven by a specific contextual condition.

The five countries in the study are all located in the northwestern part of Europe, with science systems that are foremost funded by block grant funding from the national governments (unlike, for example, the US, where research grants by national funding agencies are the most important funding mechanism) (Lepori et al. 2023 ).

In all five countries, the missions of the universities are composed of a blend of education, research, and outreach. Furthermore, the science systems in Norway, Denmark, Sweden, and the Netherlands have a relatively strong orientation towards the Anglo-Saxon world in the sense that publishing in the national language still exists, but publishing in English in internationally oriented journals in which English is the language of publications is the norm (Kulczycki et al. 2018 ). These framework conditions ensure that those working in the five countries have somewhat similar missions to fulfil in their professions while also belonging to a common mainly Anglophone science system.

However, in Norway, Denmark, Sweden, and the Netherlands, research findings in some social sciences, law, and the humanities are still oriented on publishing in various languages. Hence, we avoided selecting the humanities field for this study due to a potential issue with cross-country comparability (Sivertsen 2019 ; Sivertsen and Van Leeuwen 2014 ; Van Leeuwen 2013 ).

Finally, the chosen countries vary regarding their level of university autonomy. When combining the scores for organisational, financial, staffing, and academic autonomy presented in the latest University Autonomy in Europe Scorecard presented by the European University Association (EUA), the UK, the Netherlands, and Denmark have higher levels of autonomy compared to Norway and Sweden, with Swedish universities having less autonomy than their Norwegian counterparts (Pruvot et al. 2023 ). This variation is relevant for our study, as it ensures that our findings are not driven by response from a higher education system with especially high or low autonomy, which can influence the motivation and satisfaction of academics working in it (Daumiller et al. 2020 ).

Data and methods

The data used in this article are a combination of survey data and bibliometric data retrieved from the WoS. The WoS database was chosen for this study due to its comprehensive coverage of research literature across all disciplines, encompassing the three specific research areas under analysis. Additionally, the WoS database is well-suited for bibliometric analyses, offering citation counts essential for this study.

Two approaches were used to identify the sample for the survey. Initially, a bibliometric analysis of the WoS using journal categories (‘Cardiac & cardiovascular systems’, ‘Economics’, and ‘Physics’) enabled the identification of key institutions with a minimum number of publications within these journal categories. Following this, relevant organisational units and researchers within these units were identified through available information on the units’ webpages. Included were employees in relevant academic positions (tenured academic personnel, post-docs, and researchers, but not PhD students, adjunct positions, guest researchers, or administrative and technical personnel).

Second, based on the WoS data, people were added to this initial sample if they had a minimum number of publications within the field and belonged to any of the selected institutions, regardless of unit affiliation. For economics, the minimum was five publications within the selected period (2011–2016). For cardiology and physics, where the individual publication productivity is higher, the minimum was 10 publications within the same period. The selection of the minimum publication criteria was based on an analysis of publication outputs in these fields between 2011 and 2016. The thresholds were applied to include individuals who are more actively engaged in research while excluding those with more peripheral involvement. The higher thresholds for cardiology and physics reflect the greater frequency of publications (and co-authorship) observed in these fields.

The benefit of this dual-approach strategy to sampling is that we obtain a more comprehensive sample: the full scope of researchers within a unit and the full scope of researchers that publish within the relevant fields. Overall, 59% of the sample were identified through staff lists and 41% through the second step involving WoS data.

The survey data were collected through an online questionnaire first sent out in October 2017 and closed in December 2018. In this period, several reminders were sent to increase the response rate. Overall, the survey had a response rate of 26.1% ( N = 2,587 replies). There were only minor variations in response rates between scientific fields; the variations were larger between countries. Tables 1 and 2 provide an overview of the response rate by country and field.

Operationalisation of motivation

Motivation was measured by a question in the survey asking respondents what motivates or inspires them to conduct research, of which three dimensions are analysed in the present paper. The two first answer categories were related to intrinsic motivation (‘Curiosity/scientific discovery/understanding the world’ and ‘Application/practical aims/creating a better society’). The third answer category was more related to extrinsic motivation (‘Progress in my career [e.g. tenure/permanent position, higher salary, more interesting/independent work]’). Appendix Table A1 displays the distribution of respondents and the mean value and standard deviation for each item.

These three different aspects of motivation do not measure the same phenomenon but seem to capture different aspects of motivation (see Pearson’s correlation coefficients in Appendix Table A2 ). There is no correlation between curiosity/scientific discovery, career progress, and practical application. However, there is a weak but significant positive correlation between career progress and practical application. These findings indicate that those motivated by career considerations to some degrees also are motivated by practical application.

In addition to investigating how researchers’ motivation varies by field and country, we consider the differences in relation to age, position and gender as well. Field of science differentiates between economics, cardiology, physics, and other fields. The country variables differentiate between the five countries. Age is a nine-category variable. The position variable differentiates between full professors, associate professors, and assistant professors. The gender variable has two categories (male or female). For descriptive statistics on these additional variables, see Appendix Table A3 .

Publication productivity and citation impact

To analyse the respondents’ bibliometric performance, the Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS) in-house WoS database was used. We identified the publication output of each respondent during 2011–2017 (limited to regular articles, reviews, and letters). For 16% of the respondents, no publications were identified in the database. These individuals had apparently not published in international journals covered by the database. However, in some cases, the lack of publications may be due to identification problems (e.g. change of names). Therefore, we decided not to include the latter respondents in the analysis.

Two main performance measures were calculated: publication productivity and citation impact. As an indicator of productivity, we counted the number of publications for each individual (as author or co-author) during the period. To analyse the citation impact, a composite measure using three different indicators was used: total number of citations (total citations counts for all articles they have contributed to during the period, counting citations up to and including 2017), normalised citation score (MNCS), and proportion of publications among the 10% most cited articles in their fields (Waltman and Schreiber 2013 ). Here, the MNCS is an indicator for which the citation count of each article is normalised by subject, article type, and year, where 1.00 corresponds to the world average (Waltman et al. 2011 ). Based on these data, averages for the total publication output of each respondent were calculated. By using three different indicators, we can avoid biases or limitations attached to each of them. For example, using the MNCS, a respondent with only one publication would appear as a high impact researcher if this article was highly cited. However, when considering the additional indicator, total citation counts, this individual would usually perform less well.

The bibliometric scores were skewedly distributed among the respondents. Rather than using the absolute numbers, in this paper, we have classified the respondents into three groups according to their scores on the indicators. Here, we have used percentile rank classes (tertiles). Percentile statistics are increasingly applied in bibliometrics (Bornmann et al. 2013 ; Waltman and Schreiber 2013 ) due to the presence of outliers and long tails, which characterise both productivity and citation distributions.

As the fields analysed have different publication patterns, the respondents within each field were ranked according to their scores on the indicators, and their percentile rank was determined. For the productivity measure, this means that there are three groups that are equal in terms of number of individuals included: 1: Low productivity (the group with the lowest publication numbers, 0–33 percentile), 2: Medium productivity (33–67 percentile), and 3: High productivity (67–100 percentile). For the citation impact measure, we conducted a similar percentile analysis for each of the three composite indicators. Then everyone was assigned to one of the three percentile groups based on their average score: 1: Low citation impact (the group with lowest citation impact, 0–33 percentile), 2: Medium citation impact (33–67 percentile), and 3: High citation impact (67–100 percentile), cf. Table 3 . Although it might be argued that the application of tertile groups rather than absolute numbers leads to a loss of information, the advantage is that the results are not influenced by extreme values and may be easier to interpret.

Via this approach, we can analyse the two important dimensions of the respondents’ performance. However, it should be noted that the WoS database does not cover the publication output of the fields equally. Generally, physics and cardiology are very well covered, while the coverage of economics is somewhat lower due to different publication practices (Aksnes and Sivertsen 2019 ). This problem is accounted for in our study by ranking the respondents in each field separately, as described above. In addition, not all respondents may have been active researchers during the entire 2011–2017 period, which we have not adjusted for. Despite these limitations, the analysis provides interesting information on the bibliometric performance of the respondents at an aggregated level.

Regression analysis

To analyse the relationship between motivation and performance, we apply multinomial logistic regression rather then ordered logistic regression because we assume that the odds for respondents belonging in each category of the dependent variables are not equal (Hilbe 2017 ). The implication of this choice of model is that the model tests the probability of respondents being in one category compared to another (Hilbe 2017 ). This means that a reference or baseline category must be selected for each of the dependent variables (productivity and citation impact). Furthermore, the coefficient estimates show how the probability of being in one of the other categories decreases or increases compared to being in the reference category.

For this analysis, we selected the medium performers as the reference or baseline category for both our dependent variables. This enables us to evaluate how the independent variables affect the probability of being in the low performers group compared to the medium performers and the high performers compared to the medium performers.

To evaluate model fit, we started with a baseline model where only types of motivations were included as independent variables. Subsequently, the additional variables were introduced into the model, and based on measures for model fit (Pseudo R 2 , -2LL, and Akaike Information Criterion (AIC)), we concluded that the model with all additional variables included provides the best fit to the data for both the dependent variables (see Appendix Tables A5 and A6 ). Additional control variables include age, gender, country, and funding. We include these variables as controls to obtain robust effects of motivation and not effects driven by other underlying factors. The type of funding was measured by variables where the respondent answered the following question: ‘How has your research been funded the last five years?’ The funding variable initially consisted of four categories: ‘No source’, ‘Minor source’, ‘Moderate source’, and ‘Major source’. In this analysis, we have combined ‘No source’ and ‘Minor source’ into one category (0) and ‘Moderate source’ and ‘Major source’ into another category (1). Descriptive statistics for the funding variables are available in Appendix Table A4 . We do not control for the influence of field due to how the scientific performance variables are operationalised, the field normalisation implies that there are no variations across fields. We also do not control for position, as this variable is highly correlated with age, and we are therefore unable to include these two variables in the same model.

The motivation of researchers

In the empirical analysis, we first investigate variation in motivation and then relate it to publications and citations as our two measures of research performance.

As Fig. 1 shows, the respondents are mainly driven by curiosity and the wish to make scientific discoveries. This is by far the most important motivation. Practical application is also an important source of motivation, while making career progress is not identified as being very important.

Motivation of researchers– percentage

As Table 4 shows, at the level of fields, there are no large differences, and the motivational profiles are relatively similar. However, physicists tend to view practical application as somewhat less important than cardiologists and economists. Moreover, career progress is emphasised most by economists. Furthermore, as table 5 shows, there are some differences in motivation between countries. For curiosity/scientific discovery and practical application, the variations across countries are minor, but researchers in Denmark tend to view career progress as somewhat more important than researchers in the other countries.

Furthermore, as table 6 shows, women seem to view practical application and career progress as a more important motivation than men; these differences are also significant. Similar gender disparities have also been reported in a previous study (Zhang et al. 2021 ).

There are also some differences in motivation across the additional variables worth mentioning, as Table 7 shows. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, there is a significant moderate negative correlation between age, position, and career progress. This means that the importance of career progress as a motivation seems to decrease with increased age or a move up the position hierarchy.

In the second part of the analysis, we relate motivation to research performance. We first investigate publications and productivity using the percentile groups. Here, we present the results we use using predicted probabilities because they are more easily interpretable than coefficient estimates. For the model with productivity percentile groups as the dependent variable, the estimates for career progress were negative when comparing the medium productivity group to the high productivity group and the medium productivity group to the low productivity group. This result indicates that the probability of being in the high and low productivity groups decreases compared to the medium productivity group as the value of career progress increases, which may point towards a curvilinear relationship between the variables. A similar pattern was also found in the model with the citation impact group as the dependent variable, although it was not as apparent.

As a result of this apparent curvilinear relationship, we included quadric terms for career progress in both models, and these were significant. Likelihood ratio tests also show that the models with quadric terms included have a significant better fit to the data. Furthermore, the AIC was also lower for these models compared to the initial models where quadric terms were not included (see Appendix Tables A5 – A7 ). Consequently, we base our results on these models, which can be found in Appendix Table A7 . Due to a low number of respondents in the low categories of the scientific curiosity/discovery variable, we also combined the first three values into one to include it as a variable in the regression analysis, which results in a reduced three-value variable for scientific curiosity/discovery.

Results– productivity percentile group

Using the productivity percentile group as the dependent variable, we find that the motivational aspects of practical application and career progress have a significant effect on the probability of being in the low, medium, or high productivity group but not curiosity/scientific discovery. In Figs. 2 and 3 , each line represents the probability of being in each group across the scale of each motivational aspect.

Predicted probability for being in each of the productivity groups according to the value on the ‘practical application’ variable

Predicted probability of being in the low and high productivity groups according to the value on the ‘progress in my career’ variable

Figure 2 shows that at low values of application, there are no significant differences between the probability of being in either of the groups. However, from around value 3 of application, the differences between the probability of being in each group increases, and these are also significant. As a result, we concluded that high scores on practical application is related to increased probability of being in the high productivity group.

In Fig. 3 , we excluded the medium productivity group from the figure because there are no significant differences between this group and the high and low productivity group. Nevertheless, we found significant differences between the low productivity and the high productivity group. Since we added a quadric term for career progress, the two lines in Fig. 3 have a curvilinear shape. Figure 3 shows that there are only significant differences between the probability of being in the low or high productivity group at mid and high values of career progress. In addition, the probability of being in the high productivity group is at its highest value at mid values of career progress. This indicates that being motivated by career progress increases the probability of being in the high productivity group but only up to a certain point before it begins to have a negative effect on the probability of being in this group.

We also included age and gender as variables in the model, and Figs. 4 and 5 show the results. Figure 4 shows that age especially impacts the probability of being in the high productivity and low productivity groups. The lowest age category (< 30–34 years) has the highest probability for being in the low productivity group, while from the mid age category (50 years and above), the probability is highest for being in the high productivity group. This means that increased age is related to an increased probability of high productivity. The variable controlling for the effect of funding also showed some significant results (see Appendix Table A7 ). The most relevant finding is that receiving competitive grants from external public sources had a very strong and significant positive effect on being in the high productivity group and a medium-sized significant negative effect on being in the low productivity group. This shows that receiving external funding in the form of competitive grants has a strong effect on productivity.

Predicted probability of being in each of the productivity groups according to age

Figure 5 shows that there is a difference between male and female respondents. For females, there are no differences in the probability of being in either of the groups, while males have a higher probability of being in the high productivity group compared to the medium and low productivity groups.

Results– citation impact group

For the citation impact group as the dependent variable, we found that career progress has a significant effect on the probability of being in the low citation impact group or the high citation group but not curiosity/scientific discovery or practical application. Figure 6 shows how the probability of being in the high citation impact group increases as the value on career progress increases and is higher than that of being in the low citation impact group, but only up to a certain point. This indicates that career progress increases the probability of being in the high citation impact group to some degree but that too high values are not beneficial for high citation impact. However, it should also be noted that the effect of career progress is weak and that it is difficult to conclude on how very low or very high values of career progress affect the probability of being in the two groups.

Predicted probability for being in each of the citation impact groups according to the value on the ‘progress in my career’ variable

We also included age and gender as variables in the model, and we found a similar pattern as in the model with productivity percentile group as the dependent variable. However, the relationship between the variables is weaker in this model with the citation impact group as the dependent variable. Figure 7 shows that the probability of being in the high citation impact group increases with age, but there is no significant difference between the probability of being in the high citation impact group and the medium citation impact group. We only see significant differences when each of these groups is compared to the low citation impact group. In addition, the increase in probability is more moderate in this model.

Predicted probability of being in each of the citation impact groups according to age

Figure 8 shows that there are differences between male and female respondents. Male respondents have a significant higher probability of being in the medium or high citation impact group compared to the low citation impact group, but there is no significant difference in the probability between the high and medium citation impact groups. For female respondents, there are no significant differences. Similarly, for age, the effect also seems to be more moderate in this model compared to the model with productivity percentile groups as the dependent variable. In addition, the effect of funding sources is more moderate on citation impact compared to productivity (see Appendix Table A7 ). Competitive grants from external public sources still have the most relevant effect, but the effect size and level of significance is lower than for the model where productivity groups are the dependent variable. Respondents who received a large amount of external funding through competitive grants are more likely to be highly cited, but the effect size is much smaller, and the result is only significant at p < 0.1. Those who do not receive much funding from this source are more likely to be in the low impact group. Here, the effect size is large, and the coefficient is highly significant.

Predicted probability for being in each of the citation impact groups according to gender

Concluding discussion

This article aimed to explore researchers’ motivations and investigate the impact of motivation on research performance. By addressing these issues across several fields and countries, we provided new evidence on the motivation and performance of researchers.

Most researchers in our large-N survey found curiosity/scientific discovery to be a crucial motivational factor, with practical application being the second most supported aspect. Only a smaller number of respondents saw career progress as an important inspiration to conduct their research. This supports the notion that researchers are mainly motivated by core aspects of academic work such as curiosity, discoveries, and practical application of their knowledge and less so by personal gains (see Evans and Meyer 2003 ). Therefore, our results align with earlier research on motivation. In their interview study of scientists working at a government research institute in the UK, Jindal-Snape and Snape ( 2006 ) found that the scientists were typically motivated by the ability to conduct high quality, curiosity-driven research and de-motivated by the lack of feedback from management, difficulty in collaborating with colleagues, and constant review and change. Salaries, incentive schemes, and prospects for promotion were not considered a motivator for most scientists. Kivistö and colleagues ( 2017 ) also observed similar patterns in more recent survey data from Finnish academics.

As noted in the introduction, the issue of motivation has often been analysed in the literature using the intrinsic-extrinsic distinction. In our study, we have not applied these concepts directly. However, it is clear that the curiosity/scientific discovery item should be considered a type of intrinsic motivation, as it involves performing the activity for its inherent satisfaction. Moreover, the practical application item should probably be considered mainly intrinsic, as it involves creating a better society (for others) without primarily focusing on gains for oneself. The career progress item explicitly mentions personal gains such as position and higher salary and is, therefore, a type of extrinsic motivation. This means that our results support the notion that there are very strong elements of intrinsic motivation among researchers (Jindal-Snape and Snape 2006 ).

When analysing the three aspects of motivation, we found some differences. Physicists tend to view practical application as less important than researchers in the two other fields, while career progress was most emphasised by economists. Regarding country differences, our data suggest that career progress is most important for researchers in Denmark. Nevertheless, given the limited effect sizes, the overall picture is that motivational factors seem to be relatively similar regarding disciplinary and country dimensions.

Regarding gender aspects of motivation, our data show that women seem to view practical application and career progress as more important than men. One explanation for this could be the continued gender differences in academic careers, which tend to disadvantage women, thus creating a greater incentive for female scholars to focus on and be motivated by career progress aspects (Huang et al. 2020 ; Lerchenmueller and Sorenson 2018 ). Unsurprisingly, respondents’ age and academic position influenced the importance of different aspects of motivation, especially regarding career progress. Here, increased age and moving up the positional hierarchy are linked to a decrease in importance. This highlights that older academics and those in more senior positions drew more motivation from other sources that are not directly linked to their personal career gains. This can probably be explained by the academic career ladder plateauing at a certain point in time, as there are often no additional titles and very limited recognition beyond becoming a full professor. Finally, the type of funding that scholars received also had an influence on their productivity and, to a certain extent, citation impact.

Overall, there is little support that researchers across various fields and countries are very different when it comes to their motivation for conducting research. Rather, there seems to be a strong common core of academic motivation that varies mainly by gender and age/position. Rather than talking about researchers’ motivation per se, our study, therefore, suggests that one should talk about motivation across gender, at different stages of the career, and, to a certain degree, in different fields. Thus, motivation seems to be a multi-faceted construct, and the importance of different aspects of motivation vary between different groups.

In the second step of our analysis, we linked motivation to performance. Here, we focused on both scientific productivity and citation impact. Regarding the former, our data show that both practical application and career progress have a significant effect on productivity. The relationship between practical application aspects and productivity is linear, meaning that those who indicate that this aspect of motivation is very important to them have a higher probability of being in the high productivity group. The relationship between career aspects of motivation and productivity is curve linear, and we found only significant differences between the high and low productivity groups at mid and high values of the motivation scale. This indicates that being more motivated by career progress increases productivity but only to a certain extent before it starts having a detrimental effect. A common assumption has been that intrinsic motivation has a positive and instrumental effect and extrinsic motivation has a negative effect on the performance of scientists (Peng and Gao 2019 ; Ryan and Berbegal-Mirabent 2016 ). Our results do not generally support this, as motives related to career progress are positively linked with productivity only to a certain point. Possibly, this can be explained by the fact that the number of publications is often especially important in the context of recruitment and promotion (Langfeldt et al. 2021 ; Reymert et al. 2021 ). Thus, it will be beneficial from a scientific career perspective to have many publications when trying to get hired or promoted.

Regarding citation impact, our analysis highlights that only the career aspects of motivation have a significant effect. Similar to the results regarding productivity, being more motivated by career progress increases the probability of being in the high citation impact group, but only to a certain value when the difference stops being significant. It needs to be pointed out that the effect strength is weaker than in the analysis that focused on productivity. Thus, these results should be treated with greater caution.

Overall, our results shed light on some important aspects regarding the motivation of academics and how this translates into research performance. Regarding our first research question, it seems to be the case that there is not one type of motivation but rather different contextual mixes of motivational aspects that are strongly driven by gender and the academic position/age. We found only limited effects of research fields and even less pronounced country effects, suggesting that while situational, the mix of motivational aspects also has a common academic core that is less influenced by different national environments or disciplinary standards. Regarding our second research question, our results challenge the common assumption that intrinsic motivation has a positive effect and extrinsic motivation has a negative effect on the performance of scientists. Instead, we show that motives related to career are positively linked to productivity at least to a certain point. Our analysis regarding citation patterns achieved similar results. Combined with the finding regarding the importance of current academic position and age for specific patterns of motivation, it could be argued that the fact that the number of publications is often used as a measurement in recruitment and promotion makes academics that are more driven by career aspects publish more, as this is perceived as a necessary condition for success.

Our study has a clear focus on the research side of academic work. However, most academics do both teaching and research, which raises the question of how far our results can also inform our knowledge regarding the motivation for teaching. On the one hand, previous studies have highlighted that intrinsic motivation is also of high importance for the quality of teaching (see e.g. Wilkesmann and Lauer 2020 ), which fits well with our findings. At the same time, the literature also highlights persistent goal conflicts of academics (see e.g. Daumiller et al. 2020 ), given that extra time devoted to teaching often comes at the costs of publications and research. Given that other findings in the literature show that research performance continues to be of higher importance than teaching in academic hiring processes (Reymert et al. 2021 ), the interplay between research performance, teaching performance, and different types of motivation is most likely more complicated and demands further investigation.

While offering several relevant insights, our study still comes with certain limitations that must be considered. First, motivation is a complex construct. Thus, there are many ways one could operationalise it, and not one specific understanding so far seems to have emerged as best practice. Therefore, our approach to operationalisation and measurement should be seen as an addition to this broader field of measurement approaches, and we do not claim that this is the only sensible way of doing it. Second, we rely on self-reported survey data to measure the different aspects of motivation in our study. This means that aspects such as social desirability could influence how far academics claim to be motivated by certain aspects. For example, claiming to be mainly motivated by personal career gains may be considered a dubious motive among academics.

With respect to the bibliometric analyses, it is important to realise that we have lumped researchers into categories, thereby ‘smoothening’ the individual performances into group performances under the various variables. This has an effect that some extraordinary scores might have become invisible in our study, which might have been interesting to analyse separately, throwing light on the relationships we studied. However, breaking the material down to the lower level of analysis of individual researchers also comes with a limitation, namely that at the level of the individual academic, bibliometrics tend to become quite sensitive for the underlying numbers, which in itself is then hampered by the coverage of the database used, the publishing cultures in various countries and fields, and the age and position of the individuals. Therefore, the level of the individual academic has not been analysed in our study, how interesting and promising outcomes might have been. even though we acknowledge that such a study could yield interesting results.

Finally, our sample is drawn from northwestern European countries and a limited set of disciplines. We would argue that we have sufficient variation in countries and disciplines to make the results relevant for a broader audience context. While our results show rather small country or discipline differences, we are aware that there might be country- or discipline-specific effects that we cannot capture due to the sampling approach we used. Moreover, as we had to balance sufficient variation in framework conditions with the comparability of cases, the geographical generalisation of our results has limitations.

This article investigated what motivates researchers across different research fields and countries and how this motivation influences their research performance. The analysis showed that the researchers are mainly motivated by scientific curiosity and practical application and less so by career considerations. Furthermore, the analysis shows that researchers driven by practical application aspects of motivation have a higher probability of high productivity. Being driven by career considerations also increases productivity but only to a certain extent before it starts having a detrimental effect.

The article is based on a large-N survey of economists, cardiologists, and physicists in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, and the UK. Building on this study, future research should expand the scope and study the relationship between motivation and productivity as well as citation impact in a broader disciplinary and geographical context. In addition, we encourage studies that develop and validate our measurement and operationalisation of aspects of researchers’ motivation.

Finally, a long-term panel study design that follows respondents throughout their academic careers and investigates how far their motivational patterns shift over time would allow for more fine-grained analysis and thereby a richer understanding of the important relationship between motivation and performance in academia.

Data availability

The data set for this study is available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

We are thankful to the R-QUEST team for input and comments to the paper.

The authors disclosed the receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the Research Council Norway (RCN) [grant number 256223] (R-QUEST).

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Silje Marie Svartefoss

Present address: TIK Centre for Technology, Innovation and Culture, University of Oslo, 0317, Oslo, Norway

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Nordic Institute for Studies in Innovation, Research and Education (NIFU), Økernveien 9, 0608, Oslo, Norway

Silje Marie Svartefoss & Dag W. Aksnes

Department of Political Science, University of Oslo, 0315, Oslo, Norway

Jens Jungblut & Kristoffer Kolltveit

Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS), Leiden University, 2311, Leiden, The Netherlands

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All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection, and analysis were performed by Silje Marie Svartefoss, Jens Jungblut, Dag W. Aksnes, Kristoffer Kolltveit, and Thed van Leeuwen. The first draft of the manuscript was written by all authors in collaboration, and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Svartefoss, S.M., Jungblut, J., Aksnes, D.W. et al. Explaining research performance: investigating the importance of motivation. SN Soc Sci 4 , 105 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s43545-024-00895-9

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Scientists show that serotonin activates brain areas influencing behavior and motivation

by Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology

Lighting up the brain: What happens when our 'serotonin center' is triggered?

Our brains are made of tens of billions of nerve cells called neurons. These cells communicate with each other through biomolecules called neurotransmitters. Serotonin, a type of neurotransmitter, is produced by serotonin neurons in our brains and influences many of our behavioral and cognitive functions such as memory, sleep, and mood.

Using mice, scientists at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) and their collaborators from Keio University School of Medicine have studied the main source of serotonin in the brain—the dorsal raphe nucleus (DRN). By studying how activating the brain's 'serotonin center' affects awake animals for the first time, they found that serotonin from the DRN activates brain areas that affect behavior and motivation.

"Learning about the brain's serotonin system can help us understand how we adapt our behaviors and how mood therapy medication works. But it was hard to study how serotonin from the DRN affects the entire brain. First, because electric stimulation of the DRN can also activate neurons that don't use serotonin to communicate with each other, and second, using drugs can affect other serotonin in the brain," explained Dr. Hiroaki Hamada, a former Ph.D. student at OIST's Neural Computation Unit.

Dr. Hamada is lead author of a paper on this study published in the journal Nature Communications .

Previous studies by researchers at the Neural Computation Unit have shown that serotonin neurons in the DRN promote adaptive behaviors in mice associated with future rewards. Dr. Hamada and his collaborators wanted to understand the mechanisms in the brain that cause these adaptive behaviors.

"We knew that DRN serotonin activation has strong effects on behavior, but we didn't know how this serotonin activation affects different parts of the brain," stated Prof. Kenji Doya, leader of the Neural Computation Unit.

Observing the entire brain's response to DRN serotonin activation

The researchers used a novel technique called opto-functional MRI to address this question. They used a method called optogenetics to selectively activate serotonin neurons in the DRN with light and observed the entire brain's response using functional MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging).

They utilized the latest MRI scanner with a strong magnetic field to achieve the high resolution needed to study the small brains of mice. The mice were put in the MRI scanner and serotonin neurons were stimulated at regular intervals to see how this affected the whole brain.

They found that DRN serotonin stimulation causes activation of the cerebral cortex and the basal ganglia, brain areas involved in many cognitive functions. This result was very different from a previous study performed under anesthesia. Additionally, the brain's response to serotonin stimulation is strongly linked to the distribution of serotonin receptors (proteins activated by serotonin) and the connection patterns of DRN serotonin neurons.

"We clearly see from the high-field MRI images which areas in the brain are activated and deactivated during the awake state and under anesthesia when we activate serotonin neurons in the DRN," Dr. Hamada said. "A previous study showed that the cerebral cortex and the basal ganglia were mostly deactivated under anesthesia, which we also observed. However, in awake states, these areas are significantly activated."

The cerebral cortex and the basal ganglia are parts of the brain critical for many cognitive processes, including motor activity and behaviors to gain rewards like food and water. Activation of DNR serotonin neurons can therefore lead to changes in motivation and behavior.

Patience and stimulating your own serotonin

Combining the new technique of high field MRI and optogenetics presented many obstacles that Dr. Hamada had to overcome. "We introduced and adapted a method previously used by our collaborators and established many new procedures at OIST. For me, the main challenge was using the new MRI machine at the time, so I needed to have patience and stimulate my own serotonin. I started doing a lot of exercise after that," he said.

Seeing activations in the DRN for the first time was a standout moment for Dr. Hamada. In the beginning, he used the same light intensity that his collaborators used, but this was too weak to see the brain responses in the MRI. He then used bigger optical fibers and increased the intensity to stimulate the DRNs.

Prof. Doya noted that the next important milestone to achieve is understanding exactly how this brain-wide activation of serotonin occurs. "It's important to find out what is the actual molecular mechanism allowing this activation in our brain. People who would like to get better at adjusting their behavior and thinking in different situations could also find it helpful to learn more about how serotonin helps control our moods."

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Frontiers in Psychology
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Motivation for Physical Activity -Volume II

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This is the second volume of the Research Topic Please Motivation for Physical Activity, please see the first volume here . Physical activity engagement is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon ...

Keywords : Discouragement and demotivation, Health-related behaviors, Healthy lifestyle, Motivations, Physical activity, Physical exercise

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Unique brain circuit is linked to Body Mass Index

Newly discovered connection between two brain regions may help regulate how much we eat.

Why can some people easily stop eating when they are full and others can't, which can lead to obesity?

A Northwestern Medicine study has found one reason may be a newly discovered structural connection between two regions in the brain that appears to be involved in regulating feeding behavior. These regions involve the sense of smell and behavior motivation.

The weaker the connection between these two brain regions, the higher a person's Body Mass Index (BMI), the Northwestern scientists report.

The investigators discovered this connection between the olfactory tubercle, an olfactory cortical region, which is part of the brain's reward system, and a midbrain region called the periaqueductal gray (PAG), involved in motivated behavior in response to negative feelings like pain and threat and potentially in suppression of eating.

The study will be published May 16 in the Journal of Neuroscience.

Previous research at Northwestern by co-author Thorsten Kahnt, now at the National Institutes of Health, has shown the smell of food is appetizing when you're hungry. But the smell is less appealing when you eat that food until you are full.

Odors play an important role in guiding motivated behaviors such as food intake, and -- in turn -- olfactory perception is modulated by how hungry we are.

Scientists have not fully understood the neural underpinnings of how the sense of smell contributes to how much we eat.

"The desire to eat is related to how appealing the smell of food is -- food smells better when you are hungry than when you are full," said corresponding author Guangyu Zhou, research assistant professor of neurology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. "But if the brain circuits that help guide this behavior are disrupted, these signals may get confused, leading to food being rewarding even when you are full. If this happens, a person's BMI could increase. And that is what we found. When the structural connection between these two brain regions is weaker, a person's BMI is higher, on average."

Though this study does not directly show it, the study authors hypothesize that healthy brain networks connecting reward areas with behavior areas could regulate eating behavior by sending messages telling the individual that eating doesn't feel good anymore when they're full. In fact, it feels bad to overeat. It's like a switch in the brain that turns off the desire to eat.

But people with weak or disrupted circuits connecting these areas may not get these stop signals, and may keep eating even when they aren't hungry, the scientists said.

"Understanding how these basic processes work in the brain is an important prerequisite to future work that can lead to treatments for overeating," said senior author Christina Zelano, associate professor of neurology at Feinberg.

How the study worked

This study used MRI brain data -- neurological imaging -- from the Human Connectome Project, a large multi-center NIH project designed to build a network map of the human brain.

Northwestern's Zhou found correlations to BMI in the circuit between the olfactory tubercle and the midbrain region, the periaqueductal gray. For the first time in humans, Zhou also mapped the strength of the circuit across the olfactory tubercle, then replicated these findings in a smaller MRI brain dataset that scientists collected in their lab at Northwestern.

"Future studies will be needed to uncover the exact mechanisms in the brain that regulate eating behavior," Zelano said.

The research reported in this press release was supported by the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Diseases grants R01-DC-016364, R01-DC-018539, R01-DC-015426 and the Intramural Research Program at the National Institute on Drug Abuse grant ZIA DA000642, all of the National Institutes of Health. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

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Materials provided by Northwestern University . Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Journal Reference :

Guangyu Zhou, Gregory Lane, Thorsten Kahnt, Christina Zelano. Structural connectivity between olfactory tubercle and ventrolateral periaqueductal gray implicated in human feeding behavior . The Journal of Neuroscience , 2024; e2342232024 DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2342-23.2024

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research topics on motivation

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198 Motivation Essay Topics

MotivationandIncentives →

20 Most Popular Theories of Motivation in Psychology

This Article Contains:

External motivation

Introjected motivation

Identified motivation

Intrinsic motivation

Maslow’s theory of the hierarchy of needs

Alderfer’s ERG theory

McClelland’s achievement motivation theory

Herzberg’s motivation-hygiene theory

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Reinforcement theory

Adams’ equity theory of motivation

Vroom’s expectancy theory

Locke’s goal-setting theory

Theory X and Theory Y

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Optimal functioning hypothesis

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Two memory systems theory

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17 Tools To Increase Motivation and Goal Achievement

1. Understanding Motivation and Emotion – Johnmarshall Reeve

2. Motivation: Theories and Principles – Robert C. Beck

3. Motivation – Lambert Deckers

4. Motivation and Emotion Evolutionary Physiological, Developmental, and Social Perspectives – Denys A. deCatanzaro

5. Motivation: A Biosocial and Cognitive Integration of Motivation and Emotion – Eva Dreikurs Ferguson

6. Human Motivation – Robert E. Franken

7. The Psychology of Action: Linking Cognition and Motivation to Behavior – Peter M. Gollwitzer and John Bargh

8. Motivation and Self-Regulation Across the Life Span – Jutta Heckhausen and Carol S. Dweck

9. Reclaiming Cognition: The Primacy of Action, Intention, and Emotion (Journal of Consciousness Studies) – Rafael Nunez and Walter J. Freeman

10. Motivation: Theory, Research, and Applications – Herbert L. Petri and John M. Govern

11. Intrinsic & Extrinsic Motivation: The Search for Optimal Motivation and Performance – Carol Sansone and Judith M. Harackiewicz

12. The Psychobiology of Human Motivation (Psychology Focus) – Hugh Wagner

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When research is me-search: How researchers’ motivation to pursue a topic affects laypeople’s trust in science

Introduction

Perceivers’ motivated stance as a moderating variable

The present research

Materials and procedure.

Main effect of being personally affected.

Moderation by pre-existing attitudes.

Trustworthiness.

Credibility.

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