Motivation and Emotion

Goal Striving

As a starting point for understanding connections among students' motivations, emotions, and learning, it may be helpful to think about academic motivation within a larger context of striving toward life goals. Although less scholarly attention has focused upon academic emotions and motivation, many scholars have discussed the role of emotions within the context of general goal striving. Within this overarching context, scholars have described ways in which much of human behavior is based on the attainment of one's goal aspirations and the emotions related to those endeavors. In this sense, goal striving motivates behavior; goal attainment brings satisfaction (i.e., pleasant/positive emotions), and failure in goal attainment brings dissatisfaction (i.e., unpleasant/negative emotions). But emotions are connected to more than feelings of satisfaction and dissatisfaction related to obtaining goals. Robert Emmons has suggested that all aspects of goal-directed behaviors have emotional links. Emotions are interlinked with one's commitment to goals, are involved with one's motivation during goal-related activities, and may serve as feedback informing one of the status of his or her goal attainment.

Although these constructs were first discussed in relation to general goal striving, one can see how they can be applied to learning-related goals as well. [Page 693]Bernard Weiner's attribution theory was one of the first to focus on relationships of specific emotions with specific motivational behaviors in students' academic learning.

Attribution Theory

Weiner proposed that students' emotional reactions and motivational strivings are derived from evaluations that they use to explain a successful or failed attempt at a task or goal (i.e., causal attributions). Students' retrospective judgments of the causes of a successful or failed outcome affect their emotional responses and subsequent motivations in systematic and predictable ways. According to Weiner's theory, individuals make attributions along three dimensions: locus of control (internal–external), stability (stable–unstable), and controllability (controllable–uncontrollable). Additionally, he proposed that specific attributional patterns create specific, consequent emotions and motivations. For example, if a student attributes her successful task completion to her intelligence (internal and stable attributions) and because she put forth effort (controllable attribution), then she will likely experience pleasant emotions (i.e., happiness, pride) about her success and attempt similar, more difficult tasks in the future. On the other hand, if she perceives that she succeeded because the task was easy (external, unstable, and uncontrollable attributions), she may experience ambivalent emotions (e.g., satisfaction, but not pride). In the future, she may not attempt a similar, but more difficult task, because she may fear failure due to uncertainty regarding her abilities (internal and stable attributes).

Research has demonstrated that individuals' successes on challenging tasks leads to especially positive feelings, whereas their failures on easy tasks lead to especially negative feelings. In essence, attaining a difficult goal provides higher levels of pleasant/positive emotions such as satisfaction, joy in accomplishment, and feeling proud of one's self. On the other hand, when individuals fail to achieve easy tasks, they may generalize the implications of the failure, leading them to question their general competence and experience unpleasant/negative emotions such as worry, fear, and shame. For example, if a student perceives that a failure is due to internal, uncontrollable, and stable causes (“I'm not smart enough—I just don't have what it takes”), he or she may feel shame and will have no reason to be motivated to attempt the task again (i.e., there is nothing that one could do to remedy the causal factors). Accordingly, the individual may respond with “helpless” behavior and have no further motivation for attempting a similar task in the future. On the other hand, internal, unstable, and controllable attributions for a failed attempt (“I didn't try hard enough”) are more likely to induce feelings of guilt that do not call into question one's ability. Therefore, the student will more likely attempt similar, future challenges, perhaps with increased motivation.

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