PSYC 223 Study Guide - Midterm Guide: Motivation, Goal Setting, Institute For Operations Research And The Management Sciences

• School: Concordia University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 223
• Professor: Sarah Etezadi

Document Summary

Goals are the ideal states that we desire to achieve. We want to be smarter, thinner, and healthier so we engage in activities that will help us achieve our desired states and accomplish our goals. When we experience a discrepancy between our present state and ideal state, we become motivated to engage in activities or to change our selves that will help us obtain what we want. The steps underlying this process are (1) detect present-ideal inconsistencies. (2) generate a plan to eliminate inconsistencies. (3) instigate plan-regulated behavior and (4) monitor feedback: compare and contrast the two types of goal-related thoughts. Respondent thoughts: imagining having achieved the goal (fantasizing, focus on outcome (goal content) Goal specificity refers to how clearly a goal informs the performer of what she is to do. Specific goals draw attention to what one needs to do and reduces ambiguity in thought and variability in performance it keeps people on track and on task.