Life Tasks Implicit Motives And Self Regulation In Daily Life

The ability to regulate and control our behaviors is a key accomplishment of the human species, yet the psychological mechanisms involved in self-regulation remain incompletely understood. This book presents contributions from leading international researchers who survey the most recent developments in this fascinating area. The chapters shed new light on the subtle and often subconscious ways that the people seek to regulate their thoughts, feelings and behaviors in everyday social life. The contributions seek answers to such intriguing questions as: How can we improve our ability to control our actions? How do people make decisions about which goals to pursue? How do we maintain and manage goal-oriented behavior? What happens when we run out of self-regulation resources? Can we match people and the regulatory demands of to specific tasks so as to optimize performance? What role does self-regulation play in sports performance, in maintaining successful relationships, and in managing work situations? The book offers a highly integrated and representative coverage of this important field, and is suitable as a core textbook in advanced courses dealing with social behavior and the applications of psychology to real-life problems.

It is motivation that drives all our daily endeavors, and it is motivation, or the lack of it, that accounts for most of our successes and failures. Motivation, however, needs to be carefully controlled and regulated to be effective. This book surveys the most recent psychological research on how motivational processes are regulated in daily life to achieve desired outcomes. Contributors are all leading international investigators, and they explore such exciting questions as: What is the relationship between motivation and self-control? What is the role of affect and cognition in regulating motivation? How do conscious and unconscious motivational processes interact? What role do physiological processes play in controlling motivation? How can we regulate aggressive impulses? How do affective states control motivation? Can motivation distort perception and attention? What are the social, cultural and interpersonal effects of motivational control? Understanding human motivation is not only of theoretical interest, but is also fundamental to applied fields such as clinical, counseling, educational, organizational, marketing and industrial psychology. The book is also suitable as an advanced textbook in courses in motivational sciences, and is recommended to students, teachers, researchers and applied professionals as well as laypersons interested in the psychology of human motivation and self-control.

Moving beyond the traditional, and unproductive, rivalry between the fields of motivation and cognition, this book integrates the two domains to shed new light on the control of goal-directed action. Renowned social and motivational psychologists present concise formulations of the latest research programs which are effectively mapping the territory, providing new findings, and suggesting innovative strategies for future research. Ideally structured for classroom use, this book will effectively familiarize readers with important theories in the psychology of action.

- How do unconscious motivational needs (i.e., implicit motives) influence physiological, cognitive, affective, and behavioral responses to incentives? - How can implicit motives be measured? - How are they shaped by culture, how do they influence political and societal processes? - Why are they often mismatched with the explicit beliefs people have about their motivational needs and what are the consequences of such mismatches? - How can we use knowledge about implicit motives in clinical, business, and school contexts to help people achieve their goals? These are some of the topics this comprehensive book presents in 18 clearly written chapters, contributed by leading authorities in the field. It represents a state-of-the-art reference for all researchers and practitioners interested in human motivation. Bringing together exciting new research on a central topic in human motivation, this volume is an important addition to the libraries of personality, social, and cognitive psychologists, affective and social neuroscientists, clinical psychologists, as well as graduate students in these fields and practitioners.

This handbook for social psychologists has been updated to reflect changes in the field since its original publication. New topics include emotions, self, and automaticity, and it is structured to show the levels of analysis used by psychologists.

A current collection of articles that define the field of motivational science.