Abstract
One of the most striking discrepancies between everyday experience and psychological theorizing concerns the complexity of motivational states. While most psychologists tend to focus on a single behavioral domain (e.g., achievement, affiliation, eating, learning, problemsolving, sex, etc.), we know from everyday experience that people very rarely seem to have just one behavioral inclination in a given situation. In everyday life people usually experience several motivational tendencies simultaneously and more often than not have multiple commitments to a variety of goals. At first glance our task — to explain and predict which of the competing action tendencies a person actually will implement in a given situation — seems to boil down to the objective of establishing the dominant (i. e., strongest) action tendency among all the competing tendencies (e. g., Atkinson & Birch, 1970).
This Chapter was written during the author’s term as a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford, California. It is a pleasure to acknowledge helpful comments on an earlier draft by Jürgen Beckmann and Torgrim Gjesme.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Abramson, L. Y., Seligman, M.E.P., & Teasdale, J.D. (1978). Learned helplessness in humans: Critique and reformulation. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 87, 49–74.
Ach, N. (1910). Über den Willensakt und das Temperament. Leipzig, East Germany: Quelle & Meyer.
Ach, N. (1935). Analyse des Willens. In E. Abderhalden (Ed.), Handbuch der biologischen Arbeitsmethoden. Bd. VI. Berlin: Urban & Schwarzenberg.
Ajzen, I., & Fishbein, M. (1973). Attitudinal and normative variables as predictors of specific behaviors. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 27, 41–57.
Alloy, L. B. (1982). The role of perceptions and attributions for response-outcome contingency in learned helplessness: A commentary and discussion. Journal of Personality, 50, 443–479.
Anderson, J. R. (1983). The architecture of cognition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Anderson, J.R., & Bower, G.H. (1973). Human associative memory. Washington: Hemisphere.
Atkinson, J. W. (1958). Motives in fantasy, action, and society. Princeton, NJ: Van Nostrand.
Atkinson, J. W. (1964). An introduction to motivation. Princeton, NJ: Van Nostrand.
Atkinson, J. W., & Birch, D. (1970). The dynamics of action. New York: Wiley.
Atkinson, J. W., & Feather, N.T. (1966). A theory of achievement motivation. New York: Wiley.
Beckmann, J., & Kuhl, J. (1984). Altering information to gain action control: Functional aspects of human information-processing in decision-making. Journal of Research in Personality, 18, 224–237.
Berlyne, D.E. (1960). Conflict, arousal, and curiosity. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Blankenship, V. (1982). The relationship between consummatory value of success and achievement-task difficulty. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 42, 901–914.
Carr, T. H., & Bacharach, V. R. (1976). Perceptual tuning and conscious attention: Systems of input regulation in visual information processing. Cognition, 4, 281-302.
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1975). Beyond boredom and anxiety. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Deci, E.L. (1975). Intrinsic motivation. New York: Plenum.
Dörner, D., Kreuzig, H. W., Reither, F., & Stäudel, T. (Eds.). (1983). Vom Umgang mit Unbestimmtheit und Komplexität. Bern: Huber.
Düker, H. (1983). Über unterschwelliges Wollen. Göttingen, FRG: Hogrefe.
Easterbrook, J. A. (1959). The effect of emotion on the utilization and the organization of behavior. Psychological Review, 66, 183–210.
Eckblad, G. (1981). Scheme theory. New York: Academic Press.
Endler, N. S., & Magnusson, D. (Eds.). (1976). Interactional psychology and personality. Toronto: Hemisphere.
Frankel, A., & Snyder, M. L. (1978). Poor performance following unsolvable problems: Learned helplessness or egotism? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36, 1415–1423
Greene, D., & Lepper, M. R. (1974). Effects of extrinsic rewards on children’s subsequent intrinsic interest. Child Development, 45, 1141–1145.
Grosse, B. (1982). Verhaltenskorrelate von Handlungs-und Lageorientierung: Rehabilität und Validität der Handlungskontroll-Skala (unpublished thesis). Ruhr-University Bochum, FRG.
Heckhausen, H. (1977). Achievement motivation and its constructs: A cognitive model. Motivation and Emotion, 1, 283–329.
Hiroto, D.W., & Seligman, M. E. P. (1975). Generality of learned helplessness in man. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 31, 311–327.
Humphreys, M. S., & Revelle, W. (1984). Personality, motivation, and performance: A theory of the relationship between individual differences and information processing. Psychological Review 91, 153–184.
Izard, C. (1977). Human emotions. New York: Plenum.
Kintsch, W. (1974). The representation of meaning in memory. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Koller, P. S., & Kaplan, R. M. (1978). A two-process theory of learned helplessness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36, 1177–1183.
Kruglanski, A. (1975). The endogenous-exogenous partition in attribution theory. Psychological Review, 82, 387–406.
Kuhl, J. (1977). Meß-und prozeßtheoretische Analysen einiger Person-und Situationsparameter der Leistungsmotivation. Bonn: Bouvier.
Kuhl, J. (1981). Motivational and functional helplessness: The moderating effect of state versus action orientation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 40, 155–170.
Kuhl, J. (1982 a). The expectancy-value approach in the theory of social motivation: Elaborations, extensions, critique. In N.T. Feather (Ed.), Expectations and actions: Expectancy-value models in psychology. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Kuhl, J. (1982 b). Action vs. state orientation as a mediator between motivation and action. In W. Hacker, W. Volpert, & M. von Cranach (Eds.), Cognitive and motivational aspects of action. Amsterdam: North-Holland-Publishing Co.
Kuhl, J. (1982 c). Handlungskontrolle als metakognitiver Vermittler zwischen Intention und Handeln: Freizeitaktivitäten bei Hauptschülern. Zeitschrift für Entwicklungspsychologie und Pädagogische Psychologie, 14, 141–148.
Kuhl, J. (1983 a). Motivation, Konflikt und Handlungskontrolle. Heidelberg, FRG: Springer.
Kuhl, J. (1983 b). Motivationstheoretische Aspekte der Depressionsgenese: Der Einfluß von Lageorientierung auf Schmerzempfinden, Medikamentenkonsum und Handlungskontrolle. In M. Wolfersdorf, R. Straub, & G. Hole (Eds.), Der depressiv Kranke in der psychiatrischen Klinik: Theorie und Praxis der Diagnostik und Therapie. Regensburg: Roderer.
Kuhl, J. (1983 c). Emotion, Kognition und Motivation: II. Die funktionale Bedeutung der Emotionen für das problemlösende Denken und für das konkrete Handeln. Sprache und Kognition, 4, 228–253.
Kuhl, J. (1984). Volitional aspects of achievement motivation and learned helplessness: Toward a comprehensive theory of action control. In B. A. Maher (Ed.), Progress in Experimental Personality Research (Vol.13), (pp.99–171). New York: Academic Press.
Kuhl, J. (in press). Motivation and information processing: A new look at decision-making, dynamic conflict, and action control. In R. M. Sorrentio & E.T. Higgins (Eds.). The handbook of motivation and cognition: Foundations of social behavior. New York: Guilford Press.
Kuhl, J., & Beckmann, J. (1983). Handlungskontrolle und Umfang der Informationsverarbeitung: Wahl einer vereinfachten (nicht optimalen) Entscheidungsregel zugunsten rascher Handlungsbereitschaft. Zeitschrift für Sozialpsychologie, 14, 241–250.
Kuhl, J., & Eisenbeiser, T. (in press). Mediating versus meditating cognitions in human motivation: Action control, inertial motivation, and the alienation effect. In J. Kuhl & J. W. Atkinson (Eds.), Motivation, thought, and action. New York: Praeger.
Kuhl, J., & Geiger, E. (in press). The dynamic theory of the anxiety-behavior relation: A study on resistance and time allocation. In J. Kuhl & J.W. Atkinson (Eds.), Motivation, thought, and action. New York: Praeger.
Kuhl, J., & Helle, P. (1984). Motivational and volitional determinants of depression: The degen-erated-intention hypothesis. (Submitted). Max Planck Institute for Psychological Research, Munich, FRG.
Kuhl, J., & Melendez, J. (1984). Undermining intrinsic motivation: Individual differences and duration of exposure to extrinsic rewards (Manuscript in preparation). Max Planck Institute for Psychological Research, Munich, FRG.
Kuhl, J., & Wassiljew, I. (1983). Intrinsic task-involvement coping with failure, and problem-solving: Motivational and emotional determinants of the complexity of action plans (Manuscript submitted for publication). Max Planck Institute for Psychological Research, Munich, FRG.
Kuhl, J., & Weiß, M. (1983). Performance deficits following uncontrollable failure: Impaired action control or global attributions and generalized expectancy deficits? (Manuscript submitted for publication.) Max Planck Institute for Psychological Research, Munich, FRG.
La Berge, D. (1973). Attention and the measurement of perceptual learning. Memory and Cognition, 1, 268–276.
Lavelle, T.L., Metalsky, G.I., & Coyne, J.C. (1978). Learned helplessness, test anxiety, and acknowledgment of contingencies. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88, 381–387.
Lazarus, R. S. (1966). Psychological stress and the coping process. New York: McGraw Hill.
Lazarus, R.S., & Averill, J. R. (1972). Emotion and cognition: With special reference to anxiety. In Ch. D. Spielberger (Ed.), Anxiety: Current trends in theory and research (Vol.2). New York: Academic Press.
Lepper, M.R., Greene, D., & Nisbett, R.E. (1973). Undermining children’s intrinsic interest with extrinsic rewards: A test of the overjustification hypothesis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 28, 129–137.
Lindworsky, J. (1923). Der Wille. Seine Erscheinung und Beherrschung nach den Ergebnissen der experimentellen Forschung. Leipzig: Barth.
Mandler, G., & Sarason, S. B. (1952). A study of anxiety and learning. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 47, 166–173.
Mischel, W. (1968). Personality and assessment. New York: Wiley.
Mischel, W. (1973). Toward a cognitive social learning reconceptualization of personality. Psychological Review, 80, 252–283.
Mischel, W. (1981). Metacognition and the rules of delay. In J. Flavell & C. Ross (Eds.), Cognitive and social development: Frontier and possible futures. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Mischel, W., Ebbesen, E. G., & Zeiss, A. R. (1972). Cognitive and attentional mechanisms in delay of gratification. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 21, 204–218.
Mischel, H.N., & Mischel, W. (1983). The development of children’s knowledge of self-control strategies. Child Development, 54, 226–254.
Morgan, M. (1981). The overjustification effect: A developmental test of self-perception interpretations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 40, 809–821.
Morgan, M. (1983). Decrements in intrinsic motivation among rewarded and observer subjects. Child Development, 54, 636–644.
Morris, L.W., & Liebert, R.M. (1970). Relationship of cognitive and emotional components of test anxiety to physiological arousal and academic performance. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 35, 332–337.
Neely, H.N. (1977). Semantic priming and retrieval from lexical memory: Roles of inhibition-less spreading activation and limited-capacity attention. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 106, 226–254.
Newell, A., & Simon, H.A. (1972). Human problem-solving. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Norman, D., & Rumelhart A.D (1975). Explorations in cognition. San Francisco: Freeman.
Oakes, W. F., & Curtis, N. (1982). Learned helplessness: Not dependent upon cognitions, attributions, or other such phenomenal experiences. Journal of Personality, 50, 387–408.
Olson, D.R., & Astington, J. W. (1983). Children’s acquisition of metalinguistic and metacogni-tive verbs. (Manuscript submitted for publication.) Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, Toronto: Canada.
Piaget, J. (1952). The origins of intelligence in the child. New York: International Universities Press.
Posner, M. I., & Snyder, C. R. R. (1975). Attention and cognitive control. In R. L. Solso (Ed.), Information processing and cognition. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Reiss, S., & Sushinsky, L. W. (1975). Overjustification, competing responses, and the acquisition of intrinsic interest. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 31, 1116–1125.
Roth, S. (1980). A revised model of learned helplessness in humans. Journal of Personality, 48, 103–133.
Roth, S., & Kubal, L. (1975). The effect of noncontingent reinforcement on tasks of differing importance: Facilitation and learned helplessness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 32, 680–691.
Seligmann, M.E. P. (1975). Helplessness: On depression, development, and death. San Francisco: Freeman.
Thoresen, C.E., & Mahoney, M.J. (1974). Behavioral self-control. New York: Holt, Rinehart, & Winston.
Wine, J.D. (1982). Evaluation anxiety: A cognitive-attentional construct. In H. W. Krohne & L. C. Laux (Eds.), Achievement, stress, and anxiety. Washington, D.C.: Hemisphere.
Woodworth, R.S., Schlosberg, H. (1954). Experimental psychology. London: Methuen.
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1985 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Kuhl, J. (1985). Volitional Mediators of Cognition-Behavior Consistency: Self-Regulatory Processes and Action Versus State Orientation. In: Kuhl, J., Beckmann, J. (eds) Action Control. SSSP Springer Series in Social Psychology. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-69746-3_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-69746-3_6
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-69748-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-69746-3
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive