Albert Bandura was a Canadian-American psychologist who was the David Starr Jordan Professor Emeritus of Social Science in Psychology at Stanford University.
Volition or will is the cognitive process by which an individual decides on and commits to a particular course of action. It is defined as purposive striving and is one of the primary human psychological functions. Others include affect, motivation, and cognition (thinking). Volitional processes can be applied consciously or they can be automatized as habits over time.
Goal setting involves the development of an action plan designed in order to motivate and guide a person or group toward a goal. Goals are more deliberate than desires and momentary intentions. Therefore, setting goals means that a person has committed thought, emotion, and behavior towards attaining the goal. In doing so, the goal setter has established a desired future state which differs from their current state thus creating a mismatch which in turn spurs future actions. Goal setting can be guided by goal-setting criteria such as SMART criteria. Goal setting is a major component of personal-development and management literature. Studies by Edwin A. Locke and his colleagues, most notably, have shown that more specific and ambitious goals lead to more performance improvement than easy or general goals. The goals should be specific, time constrained and difficult. Vague goals reduce limited attention resources. Unrealistically short time limits intensify the difficulty of the goal outside the intentional level and disproportionate time limits are not encouraging. Difficult goals should be set ideally at the 90th percentile of performance assuming that motivation and not ability is limiting attainment of that level of performance. As long as the person accepts the goal, has the ability to attain it, and does not have conflicting goals, there is a positive linear relationship between goal difficulty and task performance.
An implementation intention is a self-regulatory strategy in the form of an "if-then plan" that can lead to better goal attainment, as well as help in habit and behavior modification. It is subordinate to goal intentions as it specifies the when, where and how portions of goal-directed behavior. The concept of implementation intentions was introduced in 1999 by psychologist Peter Gollwitzer. Studies conducted by Gollwitzer in 1997 and earlier show that the use of implementation intentions can result in a higher probability of successful goal attainment, by predetermining a specific and desired goal-directed behavior in response to a particular future event or cue.
Self-regulated learning (SRL) is one of the domains of self-regulation, and is aligned most closely with educational aims. Broadly speaking, it refers to learning that is guided by metacognition, strategic action, and motivation to learn. A self-regulated learner "monitors, directs, and regulates actions toward goals of information acquisition, expanding expertise, and self-improvement”. In particular, self-regulated learners are cognizant of their academic strengths and weaknesses, and they have a repertoire of strategies they appropriately apply to tackle the day-to-day challenges of academic tasks. These learners hold incremental beliefs about intelligence and attribute their successes or failures to factors within their control.
Self-regulation theory (SRT) is a system of conscious, personal management that involves the process of guiding one's own thoughts, behaviors and feelings to reach goals. Self-regulation consists of several stages. In the stages individuals must function as contributors to their own motivation, behavior, and development within a network of reciprocally interacting influences.
Gordon Blaine Moskowitz is a social psychologist working in the field of social cognition. He is currently a professor in the Department of Psychology at Lehigh University. His primary research interests are in examining: 1) social inferences which occur with neither the intention of forming an impression nor the awareness that one has done so ; and 2) the non-conscious nature of motivation and goals, with emphasis on how the goals to be egalitarian and creative are more efficiently pursued when one is not consciously trying to pursue them. This work has been applied to the question of how stereotypes impact medical diagnosis and treatment and contribute to health disparities, as well as to how medical training can implement what is known about controlling stereotyping and prejudice to reduce such bias and minimize health disparities.
Behavioural change theories are attempts to explain why human behaviours change. These theories cite environmental, personal, and behavioural characteristics as the major factors in behavioural determination. In recent years, there has been increased interest in the application of these theories in the areas of health, education, criminology, energy and international development with the hope that understanding behavioural change will improve the services offered in these areas. Some scholars have recently introduced a distinction between models of behavior and theories of change. Whereas models of behavior are more diagnostic and geared towards understanding the psychological factors that explain or predict a specific behavior, theories of change are more process-oriented and generally aimed at changing a given behavior. Thus, from this perspective, understanding and changing behavior are two separate but complementary lines of scientific investigation.
Thomas Llewelyn Webb is a professor of psychology at the University of Sheffield in the UK. He is a social psychologist whose interests include motivation, goal orientation, and emotional self-regulation. His research has shown that making backup plans can reduce the likelihood of risky behavior.
A goal is an idea of the future or desired result that a person or a group of people envision, plan and commit to achieve. People endeavour to reach goals within a finite time by setting deadlines.
In psychology, the I-change model or the integrated model, for explaining motivational and behavioral change, derives from the Attitude – Social Influence – Self-Efficacy Model, integrates ideas of Ajzen's Theory of Planned Behavior, Bandura's Social Cognitive Theory, Prochaska's Transtheoretical Model, the Health Belief Model, and Goal setting theories. Previous versions of this model have been used to explain a variety of types of health behavior.
The health action process approach (HAPA) is a psychological theory of health behavior change, developed by Ralf Schwarzer, Professor of Psychology at the Freie University Berlin of Berlin, Germany and SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Wroclaw, Poland, first published in 1992.
The Max Planck Institute for Psychological Research was a research institute of the Max Planck Society formerly located in Munich in Germany.
Peter Max Gollwitzer is a German professor of psychology in the Psychology Department at New York University. His research centers on how goals and plans affect cognition, emotion, and behavior.
In consumer behaviour studies, the Blissful Ignorance Effect is when people who have good information about a product are not expected to be as happy with the product as people who have less information about it. This happens because the person who bought the product wants to feel like they have bought the right thing. However, if the person already knows how the product works they have a tougher time trying to justify the product to themselves if it has any problems.
The principle of creative synthesis was first mentioned by Wilhelm Wundt in 1862. He wanted to identify the different elements of consciousness and to see what laws govern the connections of these different elements. It started with the fact that colors, touches, and the spoken were not seen as the decoding of stimuli or the reception and storage of the things that are received into the brain from the external world. Wundt believed that instead, these factors are seen as the brain's subjective reactions to external stimuli that enter into our sensory systems. This is the concept of creative synthesis.
Princess Gabriele of Oettingen-Oettingen and Oettingen-Spielberg, known professionally as Gabriele Oettingen, is a German academic and psychologist. She is a professor of psychology at New York University and the University of Hamburg. Her research focuses on how people think about the future, and how this impacts cognition, emotion, and behavior.
In psychology, control is a person's ability or perception of their ability to affect themselves, others, their conditions, their environment or some other circumstance. Control over oneself or others can extend to the regulation of emotions, thoughts, actions, impulses, memory, attention or experiences. There are several types of control, including:
The 3H-model of motivation was developed by Professor Hugo M. Kehr, PhD., at UC Berkeley. The 3C-model is an integrative, empirically validated theory of motivation that can be used for systematic motivation diagnosis and intervention.
Jutta Heckhausen is Professor of Psychological Science, University of California, Irvine. She specializes in life-span developmental psychology, motivation, individual agency and social context. She expanded her education at the Center for Social and Behavioral Science, Stanford University and at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research, University Bielefeld, Germany. At the Department of Psychological Science at University of California, Irvine, she teaches in the areas of life-span development and motivational psychology.
