Achievement motivation

What motivates people?

• motivation is the desire to fulfil a need
  • gives us the drive to achieve a goal
  • enables concentration on a task or situation

Achievement motivation

• links personality with competitiveness
• the extent to which an individual is motivated to achieve success
  • success in sport is measured against competitive goals

Where does competitiveness come from?

Trait theory

• Murray (1938) suggested it was natural for someone to strive to beat another
• competitiveness is a trait that is inherited, stable and enduring

Social learning theory

• Bandura (1968) believed competitiveness was a product of learning
• behaviour is learnt through observation, imitation and reinforcement

Interactionist theory

• Atkinson and McClelland (1976) believed competitiveness was a produced by a combination of both theories

A & M believed competitive motivation is a combination of personality and situational factors.

Personality factors:

• need to achieve NACH
• need to avoid failure NAF

Situational factors

• probability of success
• incentive value of success
  • how good will you feel after doing something?

Personality factors are harder to change than situational factors. In challenging situations everyone has both a need to achieve and a need to avoid failure. Which need is stronger will determine whether a task is accepted or declined.

HIGH NEED TO ACHIEVE / LOW NEED TO AVOID FAILURE

• adopt approach behaviour
• accept challenges
• undertake risks
• shows persistance with difficult tasks
• attribute success to internal factors
• failure seen as a route to success
• aspire to mastery orientation (expecting to succeed)

LOW NEED TO ACHIEVE / HIGH NEED TO AVOID FAILURE

• adopt avoidance behaviour
• reject challenges
• decline risks
• give up with difficult tasks
• attribute success to external factors
• failure seen as a route to more failure
• adopt learned helplessness

APPROACH BEHAVIOUR

• behaviour that accepts a challenge

AVOIDANCE BEHAVIOUR

• behaviour that rejects a challenge

ATTRIBUTION

• the reasons given for success or failure

MASTERY ORIENTATION

• this type of person will expect to succeed but will persist when failure is experienced
  • eg. this person shows/demonstrates mastery orientation

LEARNED HELPLESSNESS

• the belief that failure is inevitable and that they have no control over the factors that cause failure

Type A

• someone with a high NACH
• will probably have a low NAF
• will choose difficult or demanding tasks which are more risky
• hard route up a rock face

Type B

• someone with a high NAF
• will probably have a low NACH
• will choose tasks which are less risky and more easily achieved
• easy route up a rock face

• a situation activates achievement motivation

The situation comprises:

• the probability of success
• the incentive value
  • this is the feeling an individual would have if they were to achieve. eg. how satisified they feel.

TASK 1 / DIFFICULT TASK

• high degree of satisfaction, therefore a high incentive value
• lower probability of success

TASK 2 / EASY TASK

• lower degree of satisfaction, therefore a lower incentive value
• higher probability of success

When there is a 50/50 chance of success:

Motivation is triggered for people with high NACH personality traits

• they display approach behaviour and mastery orientation
• the incentive will be high when the chance of success is evenly balanced

People with low NACH fear 50/50 situations

• a 50/50 chance causes maximum uncertainty and stress
• they will adopt avoidance behaviour and experience learned helplessness

People interpret success in different ways.

Ego goal orientation

• regard success as beating others and winning
• judge their success against comparison with others
• these are called ego or product goals
• usually non athletes

Task orientation

• judge success on the basis of personal improvement 
• judge their success in comparison with their own previous performances
• these are called performance or process goals
  • these build confidence
• usually athletes