Welcome back to this series on motivation.  Over the past few weeks we’ve been taking a look at the many aspects, or faces, of motivation and how you can use it to reach your personal goals and personal success.

We left off with Part III with goal system approach.  Today we’ll discuss:

Attribution and Achievement Goal Perspective’s

WTF!?

Yea I know, it seem like I’ve gone off the deep end…hang in there I promise it will make sense.

We’re going to look at goals and motivation in a somewhat different way this week, by checking out two additional goal/motivation philosophies; ‘attribution’ and ‘achievement’. These theories supply yet a third way of considering the “why” question of motivation that is “why am I pursuing this particular target?”

Causal Attribution: How We Explain the Past Affects the Future

We’re all naturally inclined to want to explain events that happen to us, especially unusual success or failure events.  This explanation helps with the desire that we can gain better control over those events in the future.

The ‘Causal attribution’ perspective categorizes the various types of explanations we use. For example, do you think your failure was caused by something internal in you, such as a lack of effort or preparation, or by something about the external situation that you couldn’t control, such as poor team effort, bad weather, or faulty equipment?

Was it caused by an unstable and likely temporary factor, i.e. bad weather, or by something more stable and likely to persist over time, i.e. a character flaw in a teammate?

Combining these concepts leads to four basic types of attribution:

• Internal-stable, i.e. attributing the outcome to our traits or abilities.
• Internal-unstable, i.e. attributing the outcome to our effort or our temporary sickness.
• External-stable, i.e. attributing the outcome to societal prejudice against our
• Ethnicity.
• External-unstable, i.e. attributing the outcome to luck or chance.

These are four basic types of reason people use to explain why things happen.

Why Does it Matter?

Because, explanations for our past successes or failures influence our motivations and expectations for the future.

Suppose you thought your failure was due to a stable internal factor, i.e. I’m dumb; I’m uncoordinated; I’m boring. This means it’s you who is at fault, so it really hurts on a personal level; and it is stable, so you believe you can’t do anything about it. Imagine the devastating impact this could have on your future motivation!

Suppose instead you thought your failure was due to an unstable external factor, i.e. the test covered unexpected material; the wet turf made you slip; the audience was burnt out from the long day prior. This failing really wasn’t due to anything related to you, it was a fluke, and next time could be better. Not so bad — you can bounce back from that!

So, explaining failures via an external-unstable attribution seems more motivational and emotionally beneficial than explaining failure via an internal-stable attribution doesn’t it?

On the other hand, explaining successes via an internal-stable attribution, i.e. I’m smart!…coordinated!…interesting! also seems more beneficial than explaining them via an external-unstable attribution such as I made lucky guesses! My opponent fell! I looked good compared to the terrible speaker before me! Internal-stable attributions for success in a personal achievement can help us to feel good about that personal achievement, and to want to take on more of the same because of the high level of expectations for personal success.

If you’re like me you are probably a bit suspicious about this aren’t you?

You may be asking yourself: so, all I have to do is make some blame-deflecting excuse after failure, and always take the credit after success? As the saying goes “That was easy.”

Both of these perspectives reflect “self-serving biases,” that let us feel good, or at least, not too bad about ourselves, but they also hide the true causes of the outcome.

When we “fail”, (and remember, there is no “failure” only feedback), maybe it was in part something about us, which we should take a look at and perhaps try to change! And when we succeed, maybe there was a “luck” factor involved, that we should recognize so we don’t rely on it next time.

In other words, before making any self-serving attributions, we should be sure not to distance ourselves from reality.

On the other hand, we saw last week post that “positive illusions” can be beneficial, sometimes acting as self-fulfilling prophecies. So, what determines when illusions are too “pie in the sky”, so that they turn into a negative? This is a very difficult question to answer and basically comes down to you…do these perspectives support in moving closer to your personal goal?

Entity vs. Incremental and Self Ability

An “entity” type person is someone who thinks a person’s is stable – you either have it or you don’t. ‘Entity’ type people hope they have it, and try to demonstrate to themselves and others that they have it.

For example, an ‘entity-oriented’ salesman might think that the ability to win others over is just something you are born with, some have it, and others don’t. This is an important point because, to some degree, all of us make these types of absolute character judgments.

An “incremental” person, by contrast, is somebody who thinks that ability is dynamic and can be developed, bit by bit, with effort. Incremental individuals hope to develop their ability, and are not so concerned with showing themselves and others that they already have it. For example, an incremental salesperson might think that sales ability can always be improved and sharpened.

Entity Theory

• “You have a certain amount of intelligence, and you can’t really do much to change it.”
• “Your intelligence is something about you that stays the same.”

Incremental Theory

• “Intelligence is something that we develop over time, through effort.”
• “People can learn to be more intelligent in their lives.”

Take a moment and think about which of these statements sounds like you.

Performance vs.  Mastery Goals

Looking at various physiology studies on goals there emerges a distinction between “performance” goals and “mastery” (or learning) goals.

I’ve talked about outcome goals and performance goals in other posts and this very much the same with a different name, but more importantly how the different goal effects motivation.

In physiology terms, when we have a performance goal, we are trying to do well relative to others, or relative to some external standard or norm of success. We are trying to win the competition or make the grade.

When we have a mastery goal, we are trying to do well relative to our own past performance, or relative to some internal standard of success. We are trying to learn and improve.

Lots of research shows that mastery goals do in fact lead to more improvement, as well as deeper learning and knowledge. Mastery goals though do not necessarily lead to better performance, because mastery-oriented people are often more concerned with learning what is interesting, rather than “winning.” However, this new learning usually pays off later.

Performance goals tend to be associated with more anxiety and less enjoyment, although they can also be associated with great concentration and persistence, since the ego is on the line. Take a minute to reflect, which better describes your approach to achievement situations, performance or mastery?

Approach vs. Avoidance

If you’ve been reading my posts for a while you know that I (and NLP) talk about “moving towards” or “moving away from” motivation, this is the same thing.

Four Basic Types of Achievement Goals

So in looking at Mastery and Performance goals it would seem that are performance goals always “bad” right?

Well performance goals aren’t necessarily a “bad”, what research has found is that it depends on whether they involve approach or avoidance motivation.

In his “2 x 2 Achievement Goal matrix,” there are four basic types of achievement motivation:

• Mastery approach.
• Performance approach.
• Non-performance avoidance.
• Non-mastery avoidance.

These are the four basic “whys” of achievement behavior.

For example, in business, performance-approach goals orient people towards the bottom line or objective production targets; performance-avoidance goals orient people towards not screwing up in the eyes of others; mastery-approach goals orient people towards skill-development workshops and improving on past performance; and mastery avoidance goals orient people towards maintaining their skills, a concern sometimes seen in older workers who are compensating for cognitive declines.

Research shows that performance approach goals actually do produce greater performance, and it is only when fear of failure enters the picture that difficulties come up.

This makes sense, and is actually reassuring — it would be awkward to have to conclude that competing against others, or trying to reach objective performance standards, is “bad” by definition!

So, what does all this mean for those who want to positively motivate themselves and others?

1. First, even in the most objective performance condition, try to focus yourself and others on what can be learned and developed in the situation, rather than focusing on the final outcome (success/failure) and its implications.
2. It is OK, and sometimes even necessary, to also have objective performance goals. However, don’t over-emphasize such goals, if at all possible!
3. When failures and set-backs occur, be sure not to interpret them as failures of the self or others’ selves (remember only feedback). Instead, keep on thinking of achievement as a process, which takes continued effort and skill-development.

By following this point you will produce the most benefit for yourself and others in the long run.

Let’s Review

• In this post, we looked at how we explain past events affects our motivation for the future: internal-stable attributions for success and external-unstable attributions for failure provide the greatest emotional benefits and perhaps subsequent motivation. However, we have to be careful to avoid “self-serving biases” that keep us from learning what needs to be learned!
• We also compared “entity” and “incremental” styles of personal ability. Entity type people believe ability is fixed, and are concerned with proving their ability; incremental type people believe ability is changeable, and are concerned with improving their ability.
• Entity perspectives are vulnerable when failure occurs, because they tend to make internal-stable attributions for failure and withdraw effort – or, they self-handicap and set up the conditions for further failure (by not sleeping, preparing, etc., for the next achievement situation).
• Incremental perspectives can better handle failure — since their true goal is to learn and develop, failure provides valuable information about where they need to focus effort.
• Finally, we compared “performance” and “mastery” achievement goals, which go along with entity and incremental self-theories. We looked at performance goals and how they are generally beneficial, as long as they involving approaching success rather than avoiding failure. It is only in the latter case that failing at performance goals produces the “helpless” motivational pattern.

Key References

• 1. 1 Dweck, C. S. (1999) Self-theories: Their role in motivation, personality, and development. New York: Psychology Press.
  2. 2 Dweck, C. S. (2002). Beliefs that make smart people dumb. In R. J. Sternberg (Ed), Why smart people can be so stupid (pp. 24-41). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
  3. 3 Dweck, C. S., & Leggett, E. L. (1988). A social-cognitive approach to motivation and personality. Psychological Review, 95(2), 256-273.
  4. 4 Dweck, C. S. (1999) Self-theories: Their role in motivation, personality, and development. New York: Psychology Press.
  5. 5 Elliott, A. J. Shell, M. M., Henry, K. B., & Maier, M. A. (2005). Achievement goals, performance contingencies, and performance attainment: An experimental test Journal of Educational Psychology, 97(4), 630-640.
  6. 6 Elliot, A. J. (2006). The hierarchical model of approach-avoidance motivation. Motivation and Emotion, 30(2), 111-116.
  7. 7 Elliot, A. J. (2006). The hierarchical model of approach-avoidance motivation. Motivation and Emotion, 30(2), 111-116.

Please let me know your thoughts on this post in the comments below

Related articles

• The Faces of Motivation And Your Personal Success – Part II (warriormindcoach.com)
• The Faces of Motivation And Your Personal Success – Part I (warriormindcoach.com)
• The Faces of Motivation And Your Personal Success – Part III (warriormindcoach.com)

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