PSYC 320 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Test Anxiety
Document Summary
Introduction to the psychology of motivation: motivation: the process that initiates, guides, and maintains goal-oriented behaviors. People are just not trustworthy sources for a number of reasons. We have a tendency to explain events different for ourselves verses other people. We are more likely to attribute personal events to external factors and the events experienced by others to internal factors. For example: if you fail a test, you may justify it by saying it was really hard or the teacher didn"t give you enough information to properly prepare for it. If your classmate fails a test you will probably assume they are lazy or stupid. - we have a lot of biases we are not even aware of. So we rarely, if ever, approach a situation from a neutral perspective. Yes, but mostly when other stimuli or factors are present. We tend to explain behavior by forming hypothetical constructs. Hypothetical construct: a tool used to facilitate understanding of human behaviour.
