This is the Chapter 14 of the book The Individual (de Bruin, E., 1st Edition). Which is content for the exam of the Theory component of Module 4 (The Individual) of the University of Twente, in the Netherlands

Chapter 14:

Motives and Personality

Basic concepts:

• Motive: internal state arouse direct behaviour towards specific object/goal
• Needs: states of tension within a person

• Deficit (not having eten today) --> need (for food) --> Motive (hunger) -->

• Thoughts and fantasies
• Behaviours intended to satisfy need

• Intrapsychic domain: internal psychological needs/urges propel people to think, perceive and act in certain predictable ways, can be unconscious --> rely on projective techniques (fantasies, free associations, and responses to projective techniques that reveal unconscious motivation/feelings/behaviours)
• Modern theory of motivation: Henry Murrey
• Need: similar to drive, potentiality/readiness to respond in a certain way under given circumstances --> organize perception/action

• Associated with:

• Specific desire/intention
• Particular set emotions
• Specific action tendency

• Need for affiliation: desire win/maintain associations with people
• Hierarchy of needs: needs can be thought as existing at different levels/strengths --> interact with each other

• Dynamic: mutual influence of forces within person

• State levels: momentary amount of specific need, which can fluctuate among circumstances
• Trait level: measuring person’s average tendency on specific trait --> determine differences between individuals in their average tendencies towards needs

• Press: need-relevant aspects of environment

• Alpha press: objective reality
• Beta press: reality-as-it-is-perceived

• Thematic apperception Test (TAT): black-white ambiguous images --> asked to describe and interpret what is going on

• Apperception: act interpreting environment and perceiving meaning of what is going on in the situation

• Multi-motive grid: form of assessing motives combines features of TAT with features of self-report questionnaires, assessed based 3 motives (achievement/power/intimacy)

Self-Determination theory:

• Self-determination theory (SDT): framework aims combine results of all kinds motivation studies, focus internal/external motivational factors, how they affect social-cognitive development and personality

• Humans natural tendency towards growth and making sense world/oneself, tendency fuelled by social interaction and support

• Need to belong: evolutionary mechanism propels us towards meaningful social relations/affiliations
• Basic need theory: mini theory within SDT, innate/universal needs make adequate developmental progress possible, leading to better performance, well-being and social adjustment

• Autonomy: initiate actions by yourself, at free will, being able to regulate those actions
• Competence: feeling effective/competent in interacting with environment and that you are able to optimally meet challenging situations. Capable produce desired outcomes
• Relatedness: resembles need to belong. Feeling valued/connected to others, enabling you to receive/give support

The 3 big motives:

• Need for achievement: desire to do better, to be successful and to feel competent

• Independence training: parents behave in ways to promote autonomy/independence children --> children sense of mastery/confidence, promote need for achievement

• Need for power: desire have impact on others --> energize/direct behaviour when person opportunity exert power

• Power stress: when power is challenged, likely to show strong stress responses

• Need for intimacy: preference/readiness for warm/close and communicative interaction with others, high in nInt:

• Spent more time thinking about relationships
• Report pleasant emotions when around people
• Smile/laugh/make more eye contact
• Start conversations frequently
• When frustrated, associated with enhanced levels of envy/indirect aggression
• Affects neural processing of emotional images/influences attention processes

Humanistic Tradition:

• Humanistic tradition: emphasis conscious awareness needs/choice/personal responsibility

• Motivation: based on need to grow (other traditions say it’s based on specific deficit/lack)

• Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: needs defined by goals, basic needs found towards bottom hierarchy, self-actualization at the top

1. Physiological needs: prime importance to immediate/long-term survival
2. Safety needs: shelter/security --> being free from threat/danger

• Lower needs must be satisfied before proceed higher needs

3. Belongingness needs: need to belong to group (being accepted/welcomed by others) --> based theory of evolution
4. Esteem needs: esteem from others/self-esteem
5. Self-actualization: develop one’s potential, become person meant to be

• Evaluation:

• Theory based ideas/thoughts about motivation, not empirical research
• Prove lower-level needs stronger than higher-level needs
• Research shows no relationship between level of need and overall happiness

• Flow: subjective state when completely involved in something to the point of forgetting time/fatigue and everything else but activity itself --> powerful motivation force, indication experiencing self-actualization

• Carl Rogers: focused wats foster/attain self-actualization --> How does someone become fully functioning?

• Fully functioning person: on the way towards self-actualization

• Open to new experiences
• Centred in present
• Trust themselves/their judgments/feelings

• Desire Positive regard: children inborn need to be loved/accepted by parents/others

• Conditions of worth: requirements set by parents/significant others for earning their positive regard

• Conditional positive regard: when positive regard must be earned by meeting certain conditions

• When many conditions of worth --> live life effort to please others --> loose self-direction and no longer motivated towards self-actualization

• Unconditional positive regard: positive regard with no strings attached

• Children don’t engage in effort distort themselves for others --> able to become full functioning person

• Anxiety (Rogers): result of having an experience that doesn’t fit one’s self-conception --> new experiences threat self-image, self-image associated with positive regard of parents/significant others in the past

• Distortion: defence mechanism --> modify experience rather that their self-image in order to reduce the threat
• Emotional intelligence: ability know one’s own emotions/regulate those emotions/motivate oneself/know how others feel/influence other’s feelings

• Self-actualization tendency correlated with emotional intelligence (people get off path toward self-actualization because they are out of touch with their emotions)

• Client-centred therapy: never give interpretation/direction action client’s problem, only offer right conditions enable client to change themselves

• Core conditions for client-centred therapy

• Genuine acceptance from therapist
• Unconditional positive regard from therapist
• Empathic understanding client