Resources

Chapter One: The Beginnings of Motivation

1) Read the first chapter of the book.

2) So going back up to that quote. My definition of motivation is persistent behavior towards a goal. What I note is
that a goal means there is an end point that someone wants to reach. Motivation moves a person towards (or away
from) something. Behavior is the second part. Motivation does not involve sitting there and thinking hard about
something. There is some action involved. Persistence is the final important piece. And this is what I like in the
quote above. Motivation means that you keep moving towards the goal even when you want to stop. That is sooooo
important! Yes, we'd all like for things to happen quickly and you are lucky when it does. But SLOW movement and
persistence is (to me) a better indication of the strength of motivation than quickly reaching your goal.

3) Here are two online resources to explore related to motivation:

The Motivation wiki entry (Links to an external site.): This would be a great place to come back and review
terms or get another perspective on our class topics.
Psychology Today's Motivation Columns (Links to an external site.): Yes! Motivation is still a hot topic and note
how a lot of those topics relate to motivation at work!!

These links are nice and important for you to use this semester!

4) Just a note about "Behavior" in this chapter. You might respond with a few comments (like I did) of YIKES! in that
section. Behaviorism--the idea that humans thoughts don't matter and only what they do is important---is out of
style in psychology. It was a popular view early on in psychology and then also in the 70s. HOWEVER, that's a stinky
way of thinking about humans now. I'll be honest with you: when I started grad school, there were still a few hold
outs in behaviorism. But then they quickly retired. And there was much rejoicing. :-)

5) Biology (i.e., genetics) is important in why people do what they do. And because this book is focused on work
motivation instead of a more general perspective of human motivation, we don't spend much time talking about
this. What is interesting in genetics research is HOW MUCH HAS CHANGED. We used to think that genetics CAUSED
behavior or at least human attributes (e.g., height). But there is little evidence for a one-to-one relationship between
one (or several) particular genes and human outcomes. Soooo, I have two supplemental sources for this week. One
is a NY Times feature article by a very famous Harvard Psychologist, Dr. Steven Pinker (I get a little fan girl on him,
he's so brilliant in a variety of fields). The other is a podcast of how your GRANDPARENTS' genes and lived
experiences affect YOUR weight and cholesterol levels. EGADS. You will have to write a reaction to these two
stories.

Steven Pinker's Article in the New York Times (Links to an external site.)
Podcast on Genetics and your GRANDPARENTS' Genes!! (Links to an external site.)

Chapter Two: Empiricism in Motivation

1. Read Chapter 2. This is a quick chapter, although dense in the materials in contains. Don't forget the endnotes!!

2. So much of motivation research, particularly of employee motivation involves surveys. I'm sure you've taken lots
of surveys in your lifetime. One feature of these surveys is that we usually ask folks to tell us how much they agree
or disagree with particular statements. These responses range from Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree and give
researchers some idea of what the participants believe. These are called Likert Scales. Yes, I am one of the billions
of people who erroneously call them LIKE-ert scales instead of LICK-ert scales. Why? The thought of saying LICK in
relation to research methods weebs me out. So, I will continue to say LIKE-ert and acknowledge LICK is gross.
3. So the Hawthorne studies. These were a big freaking deal in early psychological research and they focused
entirely on employee motivation and productivity. I like this Chapter's take on the importance of the Hawthorne
studies, particularly if the examined the research nowadays, we would not draw the same conclusions. I think you
should know what the Hawthorne studies are, know that the Hawthorne effect is how people change their behaviors
based on knowing they are being observed, and how important motivation and performance is for employees.

4. World War II was a turning point for psychology. I know that's crazy, but a lot of the big changes in the way we
approach social and organizational psychology started in WWII. Labor unions, humanism, and variability between
people all became important in this era. It really is a change in how our discipline approaches problems.

Chapter Three: The Emergence of Theory

1. Read Chapter 3 of this book. Take your time. Take notes. Try to apply the theories to your own life.

2. Ok! So we are focusing on Motivation at Work. And while I know many of you have jobs, it may be easier to think
of other instances where you are (or are not) motivated. When you are reading through these theories, think about
your motivation at work, but also in school or in exercising. Let's think about school for a second. Do you have a
particular motivation (e.g., a goal) for a grade on a quiz? A class? A final GPA? A career after college? How do these
theories explain (or not) your motivation for these goals? One trick for understanding (and I mean REALLY
UNDERSTANDING) theories is applying them. If you don't have a job experience that seems relevant, try some
course work examples. School is you job right now, to be honest.

3. So I'm going to write a bit more than usual both here and in some lessons below. I will say, though, that I found
this book quite funny and enjoyable in some sections in how the author shares some "behind the scenes gossip"
about the theory development. Like how Hertzberg was told by his adviser that people are going to blame the bad
stuff on others and take credit for the good stuff themselves, but Hertzberg went ahead with his study. And how
Vroom basically tore down Hertzberg's life's work in a packed conference room by showing that all the results from
Hertzberg's study were due to method flaws! WOWSA!!! I don't often feel such empathy or see such foreshadowing
in text books!! Yes, the author is a bigwig in motivation theory and research and that makes this book both exciting,
important, and sometimes difficult to read.

4. So, this is a 3000 level course. And it meets requirements for the major. So there are purposefully some
challenging concepts related to methods and research I want you to work through. Psychology is a science. That
means we have theories (explanations of why things happen) and we test them with research methods. Sometimes
these theories hold up to empirical testing and sometimes they do not ((cough, cough, Maslow's Hierarchy,
Hertzberg's Hygiene, Vroom's Expectancy)). But each of these first theories lead to better later theories. That's a real
truth in science: The first theory is usually wrong, but it leads to a better theory later. So there. I'm going to point
out some research methods issues and you should be thinking and evaluating the quality of the research when you
read it.

5. Maslow's Hierarchy: It makes sense that Maslow developed this theory in the Great Depression when American's
were starving. Here is video that makes his point about why hunger knocks out any other motivation above it.

Feeding School Children on the Weekend improves Grades (Links to an external site.)

Interesting background. Know the 5 components of Maslow's Theory. I know that Theory X and Theory Y have
fallen out of favor, but I still know managers who treat their employees like Theory X managers. And they suck. I
also love that Maslow himself was upset that folks accepted this theory (and Theory X/Y) without empirical
support. Do you know how hard it is for a fancy pants researchers to criticize their own work, much less the people
who follow it. (Hertzberg, we're looking at you) That's very commendable on Maslow's part. It's impressive.

6. Job Characteristics Models. The focus here is on Job Enrichment. Have you had jobs that were so boring and
tedious you could barely stay awake? These jobs were not enriched!! For the Hygiene model, you should know his
belief about job dissatisfaction vs. job motivation. And what the two factors are and what they are composed
of (Links to an external site.). I have to be honest with you: Hackman and Oldham's job characteristics model is
MUCH, MUCH more highly regarded than Latham presents it in Chapter 3. He is a bit better in Chapter 4, but recent
meta-analyses show strong empirical support for this model. Here is a picture of it which I think is MUCH easier to
understand than the book's description:

So, the main ideas are that Core Characteristics (Job Dimensions) lead to Critical Psychological States lead to
Motivation (and other things).

Important characteristics are skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy and feedback. Think about
a server at a restaurant. Do they have a lot of these characteristics? Now think about a factory worker putting
on the right front tire of a car. Do they have a lot of these characteristics? What about your job??
Psychological States: include how meaningful your work is, how responsible you are for your work and
knowledge of what actually happened with when you finished your task. The arrows in the model mean that
the CHARACTERISTICS CAUSE THE PSYCHOLOGICAL STATES. This is really important. These models describe
causal relationships. So for the server vs. the factory worker vs YOU, having these job characteristics (or not!)
cause the psychological states (Or not!!). See how cool that picture is!?
Final Outcomes: The final outcomes are motivation, satisfaction and performance. These are the predicted
outcomes anyway. What the model says is that after feeling meaningfulness, responsibility, and knowledge
THEN the server, factory worker, or YOU feel motivated and satisfied (or not).

Pretty cool, huh!??!

There's one more part of this model and that's the employee growth needs strength. It is a MODERATOR. A
moderator is an interaction (THINK BACK TO RESEARCH METHODS!!!) and it means that the relationship between
job characteristics and critical states and outcomes is STRONGER for really ambitious people and not as strong for
people who are chilling out a bit more. So our factory worker may not really want a job with a lot of complicated
characteristics and actually be quite satisfied with his/her job. OR this factory worker may have high growth needs
and his/her head is about to pop off his/her body from boredom because it's not a challenging or meaningful enough
job.

NOW IT MAKES SENSE, eh!?

Wanna know your growth needs strength?

Check it out in this Growth Needs Strength Self-Assessment (Links to an external site.)!!

5. Equity theory. WOW! Latham HATES equity theory, which is goofy because I think it's one of the most universal
psychology theories around. I think this is where his focus on work only puts blinders on him. And also, we'll read
in Chapter 4 how Equity Theory is now being applied as Justice Theory and is incredibly important. But do you want
to know why equity is so important? Look at this video. What if you were the monkey who got a cucumber when
you saw the other monkey got a grape? Equity theory really is a theory of DEmotivation.

Capuchin Monkey Study (Links to an external site.)

6. WE HAVE THREE MORE THEORIES TO COVER!! This is where I start getting antsy for you all! If my head is full,
good gravy!! You might need some more coffee to finish this up! So expectancy theory. You can read an easy
summary of expectancy theory (Links to an external site.)here. We'll do a case study below on expectancy,
too. Generally, the problem with expectancy theory is the silly formula Vroom developed with it. I think it does
great to explain why motivation is LACKING when either expectancy, instrumentality, or valence is low (or Zero). And
it does well when all three are high. But there are problems when one or more of the levels is at a moderate
level. The theory gets all muddled then. Also, the criticism of the research on this theory says that the research was
"Between Groups of Individuals" instead of "Within Individuals." This is important. So the theory predicts that YOUR
motivation will change depending on the levels of your expectancy, instrumentality, and valence across a variety of
instances, right? You really value an A, you'll work hard. You get rewarded $1000 for good job, you'll work
hard. You get rewarded a banana, you won't. (I mean bananas are good and all, but I won't work extra hard for
fruit) So the theory predicts changes in YOUR motivation over time, but tests motivation between YOU and your lazy
roommate (between people). That's a real problem!! So even though this theory makes sense, the empirical
support is lacking. Still...ONE MIGHT NOTE.....Highly validated theories ((cough, Latham)) do draw upon this theory
later in making their own theory.

7. OH GOOD GRIEF. Behaviorism. Yes! It is a simple theory, but it is predictive. I thought the book does an
interesting job of describing the theory and their own application of it. I KNOW you have studied this theory a zillion
times as a psych major, so there.

8. Goal Setting theory! OK! Here we go! We're at the author's ground breaking and well supported theory
(although it does have its detractors even though he doesn't talk about it) Here is a pictures of that theory, which
makes it a freakload easier to understand.
You should note, too, that "Expectation of success" was NOT part of the original theory and was only added in after
Expectancy theory was developed. HA! Latham notes that fact, but I think we can note it more.

OK! Bless your hearts. I have written so much information here. I know this is an online course, but I cannot possibly
leave you all that far out in the wilderness to get through this chapter on your own! And I'm sorry, but watching me
say all of this on a video? Ugh. That bores me even thinking about it. But I did feel the need to hand hold you a bit
through some of this stuff.

Soooo, here, we have a model that goes right to left. The first thing we note is that all the arrows are pointing
eventually to MOTIVATION. And first, the goal has to be specific and challenging (although we've seen that depends
on how much knowledge the person has. Or maybe we'll see that in Chapter 4). ANYHOO, Do This is better in most
cases than Do Your Best. (Aiming specifically for an A is better than Doing Your Best. Aiming for a D is lame and not
motivating)

The next big thing is the commitment to the goal. That depends on how many other goals you're worried about, how
the goal is set (you want to get an A vs. your Mom wants you to get an A), how much you value the reward, and your
own assessment of whether you can do it or not (A in Psychology? Yes!! A in Advanced Nuclear Engineering?! NOT
SO MUCH)

The final part is feedback. Are you getting information on how well you're doing on reaching the goal? Latham has
lots to say about that in the next chapter, but that's what he predicted at this point.

Chapter Four: Immersed in Thought

1. Read Chapter 4 and rejoice that it is not Chapter 3. :->

2. So, we start again with goal setting and all of the research validating it. It is not a perfect theory and there are
certainly valid criticisms of it. I actually do NOT believe Latham's defense of the factor analysis.

Let me explain what a factor analysis is. I tell students it's like a salad spinner. Imagine a cool reverse salad spinner
where you put all of the salad items in a big bowl (lettuce, chickpeas, onions, croutons, olives and peppers). Then
you spin the salad spinner and all the like items end up with each other: All the lettuce goes down one shoot, all the
chickpeas down another, the croutons another, etc. That is a great analogy for what a factor analysis does for survey
items. You put all the questions from a survey in a "spinner" (the statistical factor analysis which is actually does
spin the variance) and at the end, it tells you which items are the most alike. If you have a good measure, all the job
satisfaction end up together, all goal setting items end up together, all the self-efficacy items end up together.

It's a great way to determine discriminant validity: that the items measuring the same thing (official name:
construct) hang together (official name: are more similar to each other than to other things/constructs). The problem
is that on page 63, Latham says that two factors hang together (goal setting and supervisor support) which is akin to
saying the chickpeas and olives hang together and that's ok. It's NOT. Chickpeas and Olives are different vegetables
and to confuse them is to make a big mistake.

So, two things. First, It's ok to disagree with an authority figure. He didn't say the data were incorrect. He just has
a different interpretation than I do. (Mine, of course, is right!) hahahahhaahah.
Second, there's been a revolution in the last 10 years of measuring things (constructs) and realizing there have been
problems in the past. I'd be SHOCKED if something created in the 80s would pass the stats we've been using in the
last 10 years (factor analysis), so it doesn't worry me. We just need to revise these measures to make them more
accurate (chickpeas and olives are not the same). YOU JUST LEARNED SOMETHING THAT IS ADVANCED SMARTY
PANTS!! Yay for you!!

3. So the rest of this section on goal setting is a little dense, but I think you can get it. One of the big issues is should
you pick a really, really hard goal (AIM FOR THE STARS!!) or should you pick a moderate goal (aim for an orbit around
the earth). I love how The Oatmeal's picture gets at the Where You Should Aim dilemma.

He spends a lot of time on that and self-efficacy starts to emerge as an important, neglected construct. Also,
negative feedback loop (like a thermostat--it's too cold, the heat turns on). We'll talk about feed-forward later but
it's sort of like knowing is going to be cold later on and storing up wood for the fire to make it hot later. I thought
the section on learning was really cool. So, if you don't know how to do something "do your best and learn how it
works" is the most motivating/high performance stance to take!! That seems HIGHLY RELEVANT to getting through
Chapters 3 and 4!!

4. Social cognitive theory (and Bandura, one of the most influential psychologists of the 20th century) is good
stuff. Social cognitive theories focus on outcome expectancies and self-efficacy. Human agency (the belief that
people control their actions and behavior) comes out of this. Those of you who are sociology majors have probably
talked about human agency and agency theory, but psychologists are really behind on considering that people make
choices and control what they do (beyond motivation).

5. Self-regulation is an interesting intervention Latham developed.

6. The High Performance Cycle (page 83) You can use this for work. You can use this for school. You can use this
for exercise. I am wondering how useful it could be in cognitive approaches to mental health and to adding folks
with developmental disabilities. We've honestly been used a version of this (Links to an external site.)to help my
then-5 year old twin son who has been having some inappropriate anger outbursts. This is the whole reason we are
using this book and not some of the other motivation books that focus nearly exclusively on behaviorism (so not
kidding!!!).

Also, FINALLY A FREAKING PICTURE. So before you read the text, read the picture. Take yourself through the
drawing and the get an understanding before you head through the text. It will make it easier. Also, put notes on
the picture. Easier to understand that way. A few thoughts:

Mediators actually "go between" demands and rewards. So having moderately high goals increases effort,
persistence, and strategies which increase rewards.
Moderators CHANGE the relationship: So it you don't have the ability to do something, you can have
moderately high goals, but you are not likely to achieve the rewards. If you DO have the ability, you WILL get
the rewards. Does that make sense to you? If not email me and I'll clarify this for the class. I would take every
variable in that box (ability, commitment, feedback, complexity, and situation) and see if you can understand
how a GOOD level HELPS goal to reward and a BAD level hurts it.
Go through the whole model following each arrow. You might note that even here, they are arguing that
performance (persistence, effort, direction<--um, motivation) leads to rewards leads to satisfaction. If you work
hard and do a good job AND get rewarded for it, you are happy. Right? Imagine if you worked hard, did a good
job and didn't get rewarded. How does that affect your satisfaction, commitment and subsequent work? That's
the key to the satisfaction/performance line that surprised psychologists for so long!
Final thought: Pictures=good. If you understand the picture before you read the text, it will make that section
SOOOOOO much easier.

7. So organizational justice. This is how equity theory has been translated to a more applicable theory. And since
we know that equity theory goes across species, we can assume that justice theories are useful everywhere humans
are. I am telling you right now as the parent of three children, organizational justice is just as relevant for parenting
as it is for managing. Actually, there is a lot of overlap between work and family theories, adjusted for age
appropriate issues, of course. So here are the biggies of organizational justice (and here is a link to the wiki (Links to
an external site.) cuz why not get an explanation written for the general public?):

Distributive justice: Are the rewards given out fairly (monkey example here)
Procedural justice: Are there fair policies, rules, laws in place? Do they treat people equitably? People
(employees, kids, citizens) need voice to believe in procedural justice. (It's really hard for me to type this and
not think of Freddie Gray).
Deonic Justice: Is the organization ethical? Do they care about society and the people in it? I actually do mean
employing organizations here. One of my former PhD students (now a shiny new professor (Links to an external
site.)) used this as a way to understand employees' attitudes to the organization. People want to think their
school, work, family, etc. is ethical.
Interpersonal Justice: Boy, this is important. Does the manager treat all the employees the same way? Or are
there favorites? I taught a grad class (Masters in I/O) last semester and we saw some meta-analyses that
showed that THIS is one of the biggies related to satisfaction and commitment in the
organization. FAIRNESS. EQUITY. JUSTICE. That's important stuff, y'all!

So motivation isn't just setting a goal. If the situation isn't fair, justice theory (coming from equity) says "uh-uh. I'm
out of here. "

ALRIGHTY then! Chapter 4 isn't easy, but it's not as bad as it could have been. And you made it through this unit. I
think you ought to reward yourself. This was at least moderately challenging materials.

Chapter Five: 20th Century Controversies

OK! So there four issues that are left for us to think about (and debate) are

The importance of money

Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic motivation
The "true" relationship between performance and satisfaction
Participative Decision Making

What I'd like to do is give you some overview of these topics as I perceive them (ahem, a bit more objectively than
Latham, who has a dog in this fight!) and some explanation as to what is really going on.

1. Read the book! You've conquered 3 and 4, so give yourself a pat on the back! Chapter 5 is better

2. Money! So the issue here is whether money is THE prime motivator or A motivator. I have a great practitioner
article that I want you to read. A "practitioner" is someone who works in industry (i.e., the "real world" as we
academics call it) and solves real problems. Occupational therapists, teachers, physical therapists and many of the
areas you all are interested in are occupied by practitioners. Do *those* practitioners use
money? NO!!!!! Practitioners in I/O psychology are HR managers, I/O psychologists and consultants. The article
below is from a consulting agency and is about how to reward employees when the organization is short on
money. My take: reward employees for good performance. I think it's less important WHAT the reward is than that
there IS a reward and it is valued.

2. Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic motivation. Money is an extrinsic reward. It's external to the person. Intrinsic motivation
is internal to the person. It's the internal feeling someone gets after they've done something difficult and are proud
of themselves (e.g., reading chapter 3, walking again after an accident, learning how to read as a
kindergartener). I've come to understand that praise from a supervisor or teacher for good work is right on the
border of intrinsic and extrinsic rewards. It's both external to the person but causes those feelings to be good. So
the issue here is whether rewarding someone extrinsically (e.g., money) for what they originally would do for the
joy of doing it (intrinsically) lowers motivation. There was some great research (which Latham keeps referring to but
never explicitly addresses) showing that children who are paid (extrinsic reward) to draw are LESS LIKELY to draw
during their free time than children who are only told their drawings are really nice (ahem, intrinsic). But what about
adults? Daniel Pink (from Harvard, honestly one of today's real intellectuals) has this amaze-balls Ted talk. Ch-ch-
ch-check it out.

Daniel Pink's Ted Talk on Intrinsic Extrinsic Motivation (Links to an external site.)

3. Performance and Satisfaction and Motivation. YOU MIGHT HAVE SEEN THIS ISSUE SOMEWHERE ELSE IN THE
BOOK. Um, yeah. Since the first page, this issue has been debated and it's still ongoing. So how should you interpret
this? You might want to know how the issue has evolved (not related, satisfaction before performance), etc. And
the best, more recent meta analysis (by Judge et al in 2001) shows there is a decent, moderate
correlation. Performance and satisfaction are correlated in the population around .30. BUT!!!!! What is the
direction? Performance before satisfaction or after? And where is motivation? Really, it depends where you start
in the logical causal chain:

(Rewarded) performance --> Satisfaction --> Motivation --> Performance -->rewards --> satisfaction -->motivation --
> performance -->rewards --> satisfaction -->motivation -->performance -->rewards --> satisfaction -->motivation --
>performance -->rewards --> satisfaction -->motivation -->performance -->rewards --> satisfaction -->motivation --
>etc.

Right? It's cyclical. Even starting at the beginning, you can't have (rewarded) performance until you've had effort
and persistence towards a goal (i.e., motivation). For those of you interested in motivation OUTSIDE of work, think
how this cycle relates to your occupational or life interest. Also, let's all note together how intellectually naive it is
to think there's a beginning cause and a definitive outcome to this cycle. Your children are not going to learn about
it this way. There are some cool intellectual, theoretical advances in the works to help us understand complicated
relationships like this. Grad school stuff for you, should you go there!!

4. Participative Decision Making. Oh, my goodness!!! This section made me laugh. You all have noticed
how gossipy this book is, right? "Then he said, and then I said and then he said, and then she said, and I was all....." So
the scoop in this section is that participative decision making is GOOD when/if the manager explains what is going
on. Autocratic decisions bad. Mutual understanding good. The problem is that the research was confounding (see
page 116 footnote) participative decision making with mutual understanding. The researchers couldn't figure out
which was the most important until the teased these variables apart. I just find it HYSTERICAL that I can explain that
to you (and you get it?!) and Latham took 4 pages and telling you about a freaking dinner party to explain that HE
WAS WRONG. HA!!!

5. So the section about the Practitioner's Viewpoint. WOWZA. I wish I could make every undergraduate and
graduate student who wants to be an applied psychologist read that section. You are at a real advantage because
now you understand the ins and outs of the theories Latham is referring to. And now you can understand that when
he says "Of COURSE, I'm going to think about job enrichment and Needs hierarchy when I fix motivation" you can
understand both how radical and practical that is!! Applied psychology is taking scientific information and using it
to solve real world problems: employee motivation, occupational therapy, mental health, developmental problems,
sports psychology, and every other problem that interests you and caused you to be a psychology major!! What he
is showing in this section is how you should use scientifically validated theories to solve problems, and don't be
stupid. Use good ideas based on what you know and is reasonable to solve problems. Honestly, folks, if you do that
as a consultant--you can make $1500/day on the cheap end. SO NOT KIDDING. Knowing the science. Knowing the
theories. And applying them to solve problems? Your career is set. Seriously.
Chapter Six: Needs
1. Read this SHORT chapter! And rejoice!! Dance!! Cartwheel! BE VERY HAPPY. It's part of the assignment this
week.

2. So, um, needs. Motivation got its start in understanding the importance of biological needs and how they affect
people's motivated behavior. For instance, when you are HUNGRY you are motivated to EAT! And (as Maslow
argued), it's hard to do anything when you're really, really hungry. So our bodies want to stay stable. This is called
homeostasis. We want regular blood sugar, enough sleep, water, and a comfortable temperature. If this goes out
of whack, our body enters into a negative feedback look that helps us get back to a steady state. We (or our body)
has a change, we note this change, and then we (or are body) seeks to re-enter the homeostatic state. Here's a cool
video about that. You may want to pause it to pay attention to the cycle since it's not in the book and could be on
your quiz!! :-)

Negative Feedback and Homeostasis (Links to an external site.)

How important are these basic needs to human motivation? I know we've pooh-poohed Maslow because his theories
don't really work near the top of the pyramid. But near the bottom? Yeah. A teacher friend of mine was teaching
math is a school with a lot of poverty and homelessness. Like 30% of the kids were homeless. She was upset because
they were not interested in math and my thoughts were HOW THE FIG NEWTON could ANY CHILD learn math when
they don't know IF they are going to eat and WHERE they are going to sleep that night. So, basic human needs are
incredibly strong motivators.

3. Also, this brings up some important issues with pleasure and pain in motivation. This is known as the hedonic
principal. It doesn't mean that humans are hedonistic and that we all want lots of food, drink, and sex all the
time. What it does mean is that humans generally approach pleasurable events and avoid painful events. Here
is video explaining the hedonic principal in marketing--an explicit high paying career that people with psychology
degrees can get-- that tries to motivates people to do things. ((Appealing? Think of double majoring in business
and cognitive and I/O psychology))

Hedonic Motivation and Marketing (Links to an external site.)

Further, and oddly, avoiding something bad can be more motivating in the short run than approaching something
good.

4. Another basic need is belonging, especially to a group. In social psychology, we study this as social categorization
theory. It means that we like to belong to meaningful groups. What about examples in your life? What social groups
do you belong to? You are a student, a summer school student, a psychology major, a member of a family, a member
of a group of friends. Your gender, ethnicity, age, marital and parental status are all part of your social
categorizations, too. Self-categorization is when you are thinking of yourself as an individual and not part of a
group. For instance, you are a member of this summer school class and you and all the other students are in this
together! You are also part of a discussion group. GO BEARS! Those are salient (accessible) social
categorizations. However, you are also alone right now in front of the computer. Alllllll alone. An individual in front
of the computer by your little lonely trying to figure out what the heck is going on in this class.
See what I'm doing here? I'm manipulating whether you feel like a group member (social categorization) or an
individual (self-categorization). Because I study online groups, I love, love, LURVE figuring out what happens when
people feel like a group and when they feel like an individual. One of the the things we know is that these
categorizations have POWERFUL effects on identity and motivation. You feel like a group member and you value
that group? You'll work hard for it. You will also ALWAYS think your group is better than other groups. Good stuff
and you should read this section well. It's important, basic psychology that affects much of how people think and
behave.

5. Finally, have you all been listening to the Hidden Brain podcast (Links to an external site.)? It's a PSYCHOLOGY
podcast from NPR in which a social scientist, Shenkar Vedantam, explains new research. I listen to it exercising
because I am just that nerdy. Well, there is a great one on new motivation research that I want you to listen to. It's
one of the real advancements since this book was written and by jove, with this short chapter, you can enjoy
someone telling you a story on research, eh? The specific podcast is actually here (Links to an external site.)

Don't forget the final two sections.

Chapter Seven: Individual Differences

1. Read Chapter 7.

2. So, I think it's been implicit in some of the readings, but I want to talk about distal and proximal in terms of the
predictors and outcomes of motivation. ((Did we talk about this at some point?)) For example,
a distal motivation goal is graduating with a 3.5. A proximal motivation goal is scoring 10 on this week's
quiz. A distal predictor on studying for this unit's quiz is conscientiousness. A proximal predictor is the reward you
anticipate giving yourself (a beer, an ice cream, or a nap) for getting at 10 on the quiz. See how these all play
together and make this TOPIC SO FREAKING COMPLICATED?! So, individual differences are distal predictors. For
example, being conscientious means you are very organized and structured. You tend to approach all issues from
your closet to your to do list with structure. But it's distal, it happens everywhere. If, perhaps today, you were very
sick or very busy or very stressed or overwhelmed, the promixal situation might over-ride your natural
conscientiousness. See!? Proximal predictors are more powerful than distal ones. But distal ones are still
important. So that's how we're starting this unit! Fun stuff ahead!!

3. So personality research has gone in and out of fashion since the beginning of psychology. While some people
claim that psychology is the study of individual differences, IMHO, THEY ARE WRONG. What is fashionable to study
and critique has changed too much to say that "individual differences" are the core of psychology. Other professors
may disagree. But now you know how I stand on that issue. I also, however, disagree wholeheartedly with social
scientists who say that individual differences (i.e., personality traits) are not real. That's not right either. They are
real. And they do influence behavior. But they are not the ONLY thing that influences behavior (cognition, situation,
habit, etc) also influence behavior. It's complicated, y'all!

4. Sooooo, the Big Five (or the Factor Five Model). Here is a good video overview of the Big Five. You're going to
take a test on the Big Five below, so you might want to do that before you watch the video.

Big 5 (Links to an external site.)

What I like about this video is that it brings in some of sociology's critiques about the Big 5 at the end: that society
plays a role in developing and reinforcing personality characteristics beyond the personality folks that we're simply

Born This Way. (Links to an external site.)

In fact, one of the biggest criticisms of the Big 5 is that there is no explanation of how people develop their personality
characteristics. UNTIL NOW......Du da DUUUUUUMMMMM!!

Extroversion compared to introversion:

Extrovert brains (Links to an external site.)

And Psychopaths!! Cray cray!!

Psychopaths and Conscientiousness (Links to an external site.)

5. That's cool stuff. But we don't stop there in looking at individual differences and motivation. Self-monitoring and
self-regulating are important. You might see a familiar name in this section. Yes, this is about Dr. Eric Heggestad in
our department. He does a lot of work on personality and has interesting work in this section, too! Self-monitoring
and self-regulating is an individual difference about how well people can focus. Hey!! Check out this video on
regulatory focus theory. I love when I find smarty pants professors making good videos!

Self-Regulatory Theory (Links to an external site.)

6. Soooo, core self-evaluations is a REALLY new approach to positive behavior/self-esteem/self-efficacy/locus of

control, and neuroticism. Tim Judge, a really, really top researcher at Florida has been working on this. It's getting
some criticism for re-organizing some of the previously established constructs, but I think it's interesting work. And
this, THIS, is the reason we held our twins back. Did you know that 1) the majority of academic and athletic
scholarships go to the OLDEST kids in a incoming college class (i.e, the oldest kids in the high school graduating
class)?; 2) that most private schools have earlier birthday deadlines than public schools (like May 1 compared to Sept
1 in public schools) so that private school students are usually older than public school students? and 3) being older
and having more brain and physical development than one's peers likely affects students' core self-evaluations (i.e.,
I can do this easier/better than my peers!!) and thus explains why the older kids (and private school kids) get more
of the scholarships?

We didn't hold our twins back because of scholarships. We held our twins back because we knew their core self-
evaluations from KINDERGARTEN and First Grade would affect them for the rest of their lives. And by jove, we are
correct. They have gone from being unhappy at school to being classroom leaders. They *LOVE* school and they
*LOVE* the mastery they are now developing about the course materials and they WORK HARDER and BETTER now
because of it. People frequently think that repeating a grade means you are bad. We've worked hard to make our
twins interpret "Re-K" (as we're calling it) as a chance to show how good they are, how hard they can work, and how
able they are to learn. Core Self-Evaluation, y'all. Psychology applied in real life.

7. Finally, self determination theory. Here is an overview (Links to an external site.)that is not so snarky as
Latham's. Here is a link (Links to an external site.) to some of the measures they use in their theory. You will take
one (you choose!) and report on your scores below.

Chapter Eight: Values

1. Read Chapter 8 of the book. Slowwwwwllly. It's another dense one.

2. So, Culture!! Culture is pretty important stuff and we don't talk about it so much in most of psychology. By
"culture" in this context, I mean differences between countries. Much of this work has been done by Hofstede and
Triandis (separately). Here is an initial introduction on Hofstede's Cultural Theories

Hofstede (Links to an external site.)

It is also interesting to compare countries of interest using Hofestede's measures (Links to an external site.). As you
see, the key issues are power distance, individualism, masculinity, uncertainty avoidance, and long term
orientation. Indulgence is a new one I haven't really worked with. Two things about the US is that we are HIGH
HIGH HIGH on individualism (remember identity? We think individual first, group second) and relatively low on
power distance (e.g., leaders are not that much higher than us and don't automatically get credit).

There are two important things I want you to remember when reading about this. First, other countries have
different profiles for these different variables. So assuming that people are motivated to behave a certain way across
countries is just silly. Second, not everyone in the country scores the same on these values! I'm a very collectivist
American! I'm very group oriented, and I am also very much American. That's true for most people. So when you're
thinking of cultures, groups, countries, and individuals, you have to keep all that information in mind!

Beyond these characteristics, there are also big differences in how people think about "families" and the
"self." Some people think of families as just mom, dad, and kids. There are also cultures (represented in this class)
where "immediate families" also include grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Self can either be independent
of others (the US) or interdependent with others (e.g., Asia, India).

These all relate to very distal motivations. That is, people's concepts about the self, norms of working, and political
system all affect motivations to do things, even if very distally. (I would say it explains a small but important amount
of variance in behavior)

It can also create some difficulties in interpersonal interactions. My husband works for an American company,
owned by a company in India, and for whom my husband's local boss is from Finland. Talk about some cultural
challenges!! Just look here for a (Links to an external site.)difference in the power distance measures for each of
these countries!! Imagine the challenges of the cultural and individual differences between the upper leaders of
these organizations!!

Ok. Now we can talk about expatriates: people who move from one country to another. And have problems! And
that's usually funny.
Italians meet Japanese (Links to an external site.)
I have not been an expat in London. (BTW, expat is the cool way of saying expatriate). But this link from Buzzfeed
is pretty dang funny (Links to an external site.). Also, true confession: I'm a big Dr. Who fan.

I thought this section was actually pretty interesting. Once you get a good understanding of the background on
culture, I think you might find it interesting, too!

2. So the section on Job Characteristics is really about health and stress related to how a job is structured. The big
issue here is related to autonomy. In general, the more autonomy the better. It's healthier to control how you work
at your job than to have others control you. You've heard of micromanagers, eh?

Generally, micromanaging is not a good thing. HOWEVER, when an employee doesn't know what to do, autonomy
is HORRIBLE! It's very, very stressful! I really like the summary at the end of 178 through 179. Good stuff that's well
written and important.

3. So the last topic is person-environment fit. Here is a great Ted Talk about the importance of fit.

Fit (Links to an external site.)

There are a lot of details in this section. Like, what type of fit do we mean? (needs and supplies or demands and
abilities). Are they complementary (employee's skills match the needs) or complementary (everyone is high in
collectivism)? There are also problems with theories about this, basically matches only explain satisfaction, not
cognition or behavior. For example, if an employee is in an organization where his/her skills match the organization's
needs---DO THEY PERFORM BETTER? ARE THEY MORE MOTIVATED? ((Cough, cough. That seems important, eh?))
We also get to read about the ASA model (Attraction, Selection, Attrition) to explain what happens when there is
poor organizational fit. People are attracted to an organization, selected into it and then leave (in some
circumstances) if there is a poor fit.

What I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE (I kind of like) is the section that I think shows the next big social science
challenge for ALL research on page 187. People both produce and are products of their own environment. So the
ASA model gets challenged because Yes, people leave when they don't fit the environment. But they can also
CHANGE the environment---they can produce the environment that they want. All these Millennials entering the
workplace. They don't want to work in organizations in which they have to work all the time and have no life. (Do
you? Really?) They want to work places that they contribute to the organization, to society, and lets them have a
life/family/hobby/meaningful existence. It's not going to happen overnight. But the thriving organizations are the
ones in which can adapt to this new wave of employees coming in. We, as researchers, can see that. But we have a
hard time theorizing and measuring it. Cool stuff, here.

Fun chapter, overall, hopefully, after I've given you some background about what they are really talking about.

Chapter Eleven: Affect/Emotion

Read Chapter 11. Laugh with delight and glee as you pass over Chapters 9 and 10.
So emotions are really interesting but have not been studied outside of clinical work until recently. Emotions
still clearly have some importance in social and organizational psychology. So it's interesting that they are not
better studied, right? Some of the information that stands out during the intro is state vs. trait affect, why
emotions are long lasting, emotions vs. moods, how early I/O psychologists were poopyheads because they
thought all dissatisfaction was the employees fault.
The Affective Events Theory is interesting. It distinguishes between affect and job satisfaction, the first theory
to do that. And the book is WRONG (Latham really needs an editor) about what the theory says about job
satisfaction. Job satisfaction is the cognitive evaluation of the job experiences while affect comes from moods
and emotions. (Links to an external site.) We also see a bit of the research that NEGATIVE has a MUCH
BIGGER effect than POSITIVE. A boss yelling at you will have a much stronger effect on your emotions than a
boss saying "good job!" I really love that we're bringing in the subconscious into moods and emotions. Have
you ever realized that you're having an emotion, but not known why? That's your subconscious at work, and
we're FINALLY bringing the whole person (i.e., clinical aspects) into motivation and work experiences. AND of
course, there is some goal setting here, specifically, how emotions and cognitive appraisals affect how
committed one stays to the goal. Latham once again sucks the life out of the topic, but essentially the more
positive you feel at the time you set your goal, the more likely you are to commit to it. Ironically, the more
positive you feel, the LESS you evaluate your progress and the BETTER you are to sticking to it. WOW!!! Isn't
that interesting!? Doesn't that help explain why depressed people have a hard time getting things
done!! And why people high in negative trait affect are lower performers!!??!! FINALLY SOMETHING NEW
AND INTERESTING WITH GOAL SETTING THEORY. YES I AM SHOUTING FOR JOY OVER THIS!!! There is one
more really interesting thing here. What happens to people who abandon their goal? It's not good. Early
research says that people who abandon their goals (even with high self-efficacy) have negative experiences at
work and people who achieve their goals, but have LOW self efficacy are doing poorly too. Why? Perceived
control may be at play. Low perceived control (I can't really do anything about this situation) is a bad thing.
Ok. For SOME reason, we go over Organizational Justice again. And Latham leaves out deonic (ethical
behavior) and debates whether or not interactional justice should be divided into interpersonal and
informational justice (generally: NO). So, there is something important that's a bit obscured by Latham's
writing. (HA!) We know that justice is important and we have TONS of research showing that. But we don't
know why. (that's what he means when he says there is no overarching theory) Don't you think that's
interesting? We don't know why justice is so important at work? I go back to equity theory. It may be natural
across species to be treated fairly. Almost like the more cognitive capability, the more we see inequity as
wrong. So we meander a bit through this section. There's an organizational climate for justice, sort of like, do
you work for an ethical or unethical organization. So this doesn't have a picture, but I really, really, REALLY
want you to read this resignation letter which was published in the Op Ed of the New York Times (Links to an
 external site.). It is exactly the example of what happens when a high powered employee (who clearly doesn't
need a job after this!) wants to call out his unethical organization. The Times published this at 3 am (8 am in
London) and it served as the employee's notice for leaving. It made international news for calling out an
organization's injustice. Also, why is it so noteworthy? Because employee silence is so COMMON during
injustice. And this man threw his career away to Not Be Silent anymore.
Also in this section, there is a deeper explanation on why people react so negatively for SO LONG over
injustice. This has relevance to me because of how upset I was *last year* about how my twins were being
treated at school by the administration at the end of the academic year. There are alternative procedures
that COULD and SHOULD have been implemented and there are positive outcomes that SHOULD AND COULD
have occurred. This is an instance that will be perceived by my family as injust because we can clearly envision
different options that could have been positive. We had always expected that our children would go from K
through 8 at this school and, now, we're transferring our son to middle school elsewhere and keeping our
options open for the twins. Do YOU have an instance like that?
So, a psychological contract. This is interesting and important stuff. It's the implicit expectations employees
and employer's have with each other. Here is a good example for managers to understand what it is. (Links to
an external site.) (At this point, you know more than managers about many of these topics) Psychological
contracts are different from perceived organizational support (POS). POS has to do with formal policies like
family leave, flexible work hours, good healthcare, etc. Psychological contracts are promises, not formal
policies. In some ways, they are more important. Because breaking a promise leads to negative emotional
outcomes whereas breaking policies can have legal outcomes--and some sort of justice for the employees. I
would just like to point out that the administration broke the psychological contract we had with them over
the injust behavior we perceived. Blargh. It's not a positive feeling.
OK. Let's talk more about emotion in the work place. Here are two resources that I want you to
read OUTSIDE THE BOOK!! Here are two links about emotions at work. The first is an article from
the Academy of Management Association about managing emotions at work (Links to an external site.). The
second one is a video on how to handle tears at work. Surprisingly, this is a bigger issue than you would
imagine.
Tears at Work (Links to an external site.)

Chapter Twelve: Boundaryless Psychology

So my goal in "talking" to you in this section is to provide some overview and perspective on the different topics.
1. Read the book.
2. Social psychology: Yes. i'd argue I/O psychology is a subset of social psychology. If you liked this class (which
may not have been the BEST introduction to I/O psych--if you missed Psych 2171), you'll like Social Psych.
3. Clinical Psychology: Yes! Lots of folks can't decide between I/O and clinical psych. What I like here is some of
the applications of clinical psych to I/O. Like Self-talk! Dr. Rogelberg's (here at UNCC) lab studies self-talk for
leaders. Self-talk and self-efficacy are clearly related!
3. Perfectionism: Mmmm-hmmmm. You know who you are in this class. Set your goals for the stars so if you fail,
you're still in the sky. Nope. Perfect is the enemy of good. One of my best mentors told me: It will never be
perfect. Just get it over the bar. ("It" is whatever you are working on)
4. Attribution theory and learned helplessness. This is SOOOO important. And learned helplessness is very
neglected at work. So Locus of Control has to do with who does someone credit or blame for successes and
failures. Usually, I would say: Who would you blame if you didn't do well on a test? Yourself, the teacher or the
test? If it's Yourself, you have a strong internal locus of control. IN THIS CLASS, I THINK WE CAN ALL SAFELY
BLAME LATHAM ON ANY POOR TEST PERFORMANCE. ((More on that in a final unit talk to appear below I'm going
to write up about this class)) But back to locus of control. There are three important factors: Locus (internal or
external), Stability (temporary or long term), and control (in my control, out of my control). Learned helplessness
is bad and occurs when all of these are bad (internal, long term, out of my control). Of COURSE there is a good
video on this. And it is easy to apply all of this info to working for bullies or having any long term bad experience.
Learned Helplessness (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.
Learned optimism is replacing that self-talk with fate happens, the problem is specific, this is temporary, I can think
of a solution. LIFE LESSON JUST THROWN AT YOUR FEET HERE PEOPLE!!
5. Positive Organizational Behavior: Bullshit. Don't read. The construct of POB is not unique from other
constructs and is not worth learning about.
6. Working Alliance and Attachment theory. Ok.
7. Narcissism: Boy oh boy oh boy. This is getting A LOT of attention! Many leaders are narcissists and that is not a
good thing. I'm sure you've had bosses and co-workers who fall higher than normal on this spectrum.
8. Life-Span Research: OH THE IRONY of an old man writing about cognitive decline in employees. Certainly not
him!! There is some theory out there that says that older employees want positive socio-emotional relationships at
work while younger workers want prestige. The data do not necessarily support this. Younger workers want
socio-emotional support too. ((Cough, cough, millennials and work-family balance and a job with meaning)) Older
workers DO focus more on the positive than the negative aspects work. And TIME!!! Yes, time is been completely
neglected by researchers because it is so hard to study. It's ALL managers think about, but researchers don't. That
said, there are some leading researchers working on bringing time back into studies. So, yay.
9. Levels of Analysis: You can say that people are motivated. You cannot say that organizations are
motivated. ((It's called reification. An organization does not behave like a single entity like an individual does)) But
is a *group* motivated? That's the level of analysis question. Where can take theory from one level (individual,
group, team, organization, country) and apply it to another. We don't know but it's worth thinking about!!
10. Teams. Yes, there are teams and we need to know more about them.
11. Computer models. Skip. Dude is not technologically savvy.
12. Evolutionary Psychology. So, um, yeah. Evolutionary THEORY: Yeah!! Evolutionary psychology? Not so
much. Latham and others come down on the side that evolutionary psychologists like to PREDICT gender
differences (i.e., what will happen in the future) that are untestable in the present but make proclamations for the
future. For example, women will not be leaders because they genetically do not have as much dominance like men
do. Sociologists would argue that there are social structures (people with power do not like to give up their
power) that are better explanations of the same observations. Further, as gender (and ethnicity) differences in
power recede, the evolutionary psychologists predictions do not hold. There. Hegemony (Links to an external
site.)Links to an external site.is a great way to think about the way gender differences perpetuate and it's not due
to genetic differences.
13. Neuroscience. OK!
14. Intergration. I can't even. So you shouldn't either. I actually Xd the model on page 304 out of my book.
Easy(ier) chapter for the end! Yay!