Inleiding

De Master in Toegepaste psychologie voor professionals is opgebouwd uit verschillende masterclasses. Je krijgt tijdens deze proefles een kijkje in de stof van de masterclass Psychologie en gedrag. Ook bekijk je een introductievideo over de opleiding. Tijdens het lezen van de lesstof kun je jezelf testen door vragen te beantwoorden.

Een inleiding op de Master in Toegepaste psychologie voor professionals

In onderstaande video geeft hoofddocent Pieternel Dijkstra uitleg over de Master in Toegepaste psychologie voor professionals. Wat leer je tijdens de master en voor wie is hij bedoeld? Bekijk de video hieronder. 

Theorie: Understanding Motivation and Emotion.

Je gaat nu een aantal pagina's lezen uit het boek Understanding Motivation and Emotion. 

Mindset 2: promotion-prevention

Regulatory focus theory proposes that people strive for their goals by using two separate and independent motivational orientations (i.e., mindsets): prevention and promotion (Higgins, 1997, 1998). The first motivational system is an improvement-based regulatory style that involves a promotion focus, while the second motivational system is security-based regulatory style that involves a prevention focus. A promotion focus involves sensitivity to positive outcomes. The striving is to attain what one does not yet have. One strives to approach desired and ideal end states. A prevention focus involves sensitivity to negative outcomes. The striving is to maintain and not lose what one already has. One strives to maintain a sense of duty, obligation, and responsibility. A graphical representation of these two regulatory mindsets appears in Figure 9.2, with the promotion mindset summarized in the upper half of the figure and the prevention mindset summarized in the lower half of the figure. In both cases, the antecedents to adopt or develop the particular mindset appear on the left side of the figure, while its downstream consequences appear on the right side of the figure.

Promotion Mindset
The promotion regulatory focus centers on the possibility of advancement With a promotion focus, the individual is sensitive to positive outcomes, approaches possibilities of gain, and adopts an eager behavioral strategy of locomotion that might be characterized as "just do it." The concern is with growth, advancement, and accomplishment as the person strives to advance from a neutral state to one of accomplishing a desire, a wish, or an ideal. It means making good things happen. For instance, the person seeks to graduate, develop a new skill, earn extra money, and be supportive of friend. When ideals are realized, the emotional experience is one of being cheerful, including feeling happy and satisfied, but when these sought-after ideals are left unrealized, the emotional experience is one of being dejected, including feeling disappointed, dissatisfied, and sad.

Figure 9.2 Antecedents and Consequences of the Promotion (a) and Prevention (b) Mindset

People can adopt a promotion focus either chronically, as in a personality disposition, or it can be induced situationally. An individual who is chronically promotion-focused has been socialized to believe that what matters in life is making good things happen. Parents tend to adopt a bolstering, self-improvement mode in which the child is asked to accomplish ideals and fulfil aspirations (e.g., "My parents told me that they were proud of me when I was trying to be good at something"; Keller, 2008; Manian, Strauman, & Denney, 1998). Those ideals take the form of hopes and aspirations. In addition to parenting, a person's tendency to adopt a promotion focus can be increased by growing up in a promotion-focused culture (e.g., Italy; Fulmer et al., 2010). An individual who is situationally promotion-focused is in an environment that signals possible gains and opportunities for advancement. For instance, to situationally induce a promotion focus, researchers ask participants to think about an ideal: "Describe how your hopes and aspirations are different now from when you were growing up" (Freitas & Higgins, 2002, p. 2).

Prevention Mindset
The prevention regulatory focus centers on responsibility and duty. With a prevention focus, the individual is sensitive to negative outcomes, avoids possibilities of loss, and adopts a vigilant behavioral strategy of caution that might be characterized as "do the right thing." The concern is with safety, security, and responsibility as the person strives to prevent failing to do one's duty, meet one's obligations, and fulfil one's responsibilities. It means being careful to make sure that bad things do not happen. For instance, the person seeks safety and security, to not fail, to not lose money, and to stay in touch and in close contact with friends. When oughts are maintained, the emotional experience is one of being relaxed and feeling calm, but when these ought obligations are lost, the emotional experience is one of being anxious, including feeling agitated, uneasy, afraid, and threatened.

People can adopt a prevention focus either chronically within the personality, or it can be induced situationally. An individual who is chronically prevention-focused has been socialized to see that what matters in life is preventing bad things from happening. Parents tend to adopt a critica!, punishing, and restricting mode in which the child is urged to attain safety and meet duties, obligations, and aughts (e.g., "My parents often scolded and criticized me"; Keiler, 2008; Manian, Strauman,& Denney, 1998). Doing what one ought to do means taking action to maintain the status quo, not make mistakes be responsible, and keep danger at bay. In addition to parenting, a person's tendency to adopt a prevention focus can be increased by growing up in a prevention-focused culture (e.g., Japan; Fulmer et al., 2010). An individual who is situationally prevention-focused is in an environment that signals possible losses in terms of one's social obligations and responsibilities. For instance, to situationally induce a prevention focus, researchers ask participants to think about an ought: "Describe how your duties and obligations are different now from when you were growing up."

Achievement Goals
Most theories of achievement motivation (those featured in Chapter 7) treat achievement behavior as a choice: Approach the standard of excellence or avoid it. The core question asks whether the person will approach success or avoid failure, and if so, with what intensity, latency, and persistence that choice will be pursued. Achievement goal researchers, however, are more interested in why a person shows achievement behavior rather than whether achievement behavior occurs. This is because we so often in daily life do not so much seek out standards of excellence as we have them forced upon us. That is, we are asked, and are often required, to approach a standard of excellence put before us, as happens at school (a test), at work (a sales quota), in sports (an opponent), and so on. In these sorts of settings, approach behavior is taken for granted (because it is required), and the question becomes why people adopt one type of achievement goal rather than another.

This is an important distinction to make because it helps differentiate the concept of "goals" from that of "achievement goals. "Goals (e.g., "My goal is to win the tournament.") represent the desired outcome the person strives to attain. Depending on how difficult, how specific, and how self-congruous that goal is, the person will show some level of achievement behavior (i.e., effort). Achievement goals (e.g., "My goal is to develop greater skill.") are concerned with why the person is trying to achieve something. That is, why is the person trying to win the tournament - is she trying to develop her competence, learn more, and improve her skills (mastery goal), or is she trying to prove her competence and outperform others (performance goal)?

Table 9.3 Distinguishing between Mastery and Performance Goals

As summarized in Table 9.3, the two main achievement goals are mastery goals and performance goals (Ames & Archer, 1988; Dweck, 1986; Kaplan & Maehr, 2007; Nicholls, 1984; Spence & Helmreich,1983). The two goals differ from one another in terms of the person's understanding as to what constitutes competence (Elliot & McGregor, 1999). With mastery goals, the person facing the standard of excellence seeks to develop greater competence, make progress, improve the self, and overcome challenges through intense and persistent effort. Achieving a mastery goal means making progress according to a self-set standard. With performance goals, the person facing the standard of excellence seeks to demonstrate or prove competence, display high ability, outperform others, and succeed with little apparent effort. Achieving a performance goal means doing better than others.

The distinction between mastery and performance goals is important because the adoption of mastery goals in an achievement context (e.g., in school, at work, in sports) is associated with positive and productive ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving, whereas the adoption of performance goals in an achievement context is associated with relatively negative and unproductive ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving (Ames & Archer, 1988; Dweck, 1999; Dweck & Leggett, 1988; Harackiewicz & Elliot, 1993; Linnenbrink, 2005; Nolen, 1988; Spence & Helmreich, 1983). The benefits of adopting a mastery, rather than a performance, goal are illustrated in Figure 9.4.

When people adopt mastery goals, compared to when they adopt performance goals, they tend to (1) prefer challenging tasks that they can learn from rather than easy tasks on which they can demonstrate high ability (Ames & Archer, 1988; Elliot & Dweck, 1988), (2) use conceptually based learning strategies such as relating information to existing knowledge rather than superficial learning strategies such as memorizing (Meece, Blumenfeld, & Hoyle, 1988; Nolen, 1988), (3) are more likely to be intrinsically rather than extrinsically motivated (Heyman & Dweck, 1992), and (4) are more likely to ask for help and information from others that will allow them to continue working on their own (Newman, 1991). These adaptive strategies allow those with mastery goals to work harder (increase effort in the face of difficulty rather than turn passive or quit; Elliot & Dweck, 1988), persist longer (Elliot & Dweck, 1988), and perform better (Spence & Helmreich, 1983).

Educational psychologists find the concept of achievement goals to be helpful in understanding students' classroom-based achievement motivation (Ames & Archer, 1988). Pat of the reasons achievement goals appeal to educators is that teachers exert a relatively strong influence over their students' achievement goals. What classroom teachers do to promote either mastery goals or performance goals during instruction can be seen in Table 9.4.

Figure 9.4 Positive and Productive Ways of Thinking, Feeling, and Behaving Associated with Mastery Goals

Hence, to promote mastery rather than performance goals, teachers (and coaches, parents, managers, etc.; see Duda, 2005, for an overview of achievement goals in sport) can define success as improvement, value effort, communicate that satisfaction comes from hard work, focus on how students learn, view errors as a natural and welcomed part of the learning process, explain the utility of effort when trying to learn something new, and assess (grade) students on their extent of improvement and progress. When teachers intentionally create such a learning climate, students are more likely to adopt mastery over performance goals (Maehr & Midgley, 1996; Meece & Miller, 1999).

Integrating Classical and Contemporary Approaches to Achievement Motivation
The classical (Atkinson's theory; Chapter 7) and contemporary (achievement goals) approaches to achievement motivation can be combined and integrated into a single comprehensive model (Elliot, 1997). In the integrated model, mastery goals and two different types of achievement performance goals exist: performance-approach and performance avoidance.

Table 9.4 Manifestations and Performance Goals in the Classroom Context

Note: The table can be interpreted by selecting one classroom climate dimension of interest and then reading across the row for how students with mastery goals rate - what they believe, what they are likely to say - on that dimension and then for how students with performance goals rate on that dimension.
Source: From "Achievement goals in the classroom: Students' learning strategies and motivation processes," by C. Ames and J. Archer, 1988, Journal of Educational Psychology, 80, pp. 260-267. Copyright1988, American Psychological Association. Reprinted by permission.

The classical achievement motivation constructs (achievement motivation, fear of failure, competence beliefs) serve as general, personality-like antecedent conditions that influence the specific type of goals the person adopts in a given achievement setting. For instance, as shown in Figure 9.5, people high in the dispositional need for achievement tend to adopt performance-approach goals, people high in the dispositional fear of failure tend to adopt performance-avoidance goals, and people with task-specific high competency expectancies tend to adopt mastery goals.

Figure 9.5 Antecedents and Consequences of the Three Achievement Goals
Source: From "A hierarchical model of approach and avoidance achievement motivation," by A. J. Elliot and M. A. Church, 1997, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 72, pp. 218-232. Copyright 1997, American Psychological Association. Reprinted with permission.

Figure 9.5 shows the results from an actual study that tracked participant' achievement strivings, achievement goals, course grades, and intrinsic motivation toward a college course (Elliot & Church, 1997). The need for achievement served as an antecedent for adopting mastery and performance-approach goals, the fear of failure served as an antecedent for adopting performance-approach and performance-avoidance goals (i.e., performance goals in general), and competency expectancies served as an antecedent for adopting mastery and performance-approach goals and for rejecting performance-avoidance goals (notice the negative sign for -.14). Furthermore, once these types of achievement goals were adopted, mastery goals increased intrinsic motivation whereas performance-avoidance goals decreased intrinsic motivation while performance-approach goals increased performance whereas performance-avoidance goals decreased performance (Elliot & Church, 1997).

To communicate a better understanding of what performance-approach and performance-avoidance goals are, sample items from the Achievement Goal Questionnaire - Revised (Elliot & Murayama,2008) are as follows:

• Performance-approach goal: My goal is to perform better than the other students.
• Performance-avoidance goal: My goal is to avoid performing poorly compared to others.
• Mastery goal: My aim is completely master the material presented in this class.

Integrating the classical and contemporary approaches to achievement motivation overcomes, the shortcomings of each individual approach (Elliot, 1997). The problem with the classical approach is that general personality dispositions do a poor job predicting achievement behavior in specific settings. In other words, general personality factors are not necessarily the regulators of achievement behavior in specific life domains such as school, sports, and work. A person might show strong achievement strivings at work yet only the fear of failure in social situations. The problem with the achievement goals approach is that a person is potentially left wondering where these different types of achievement goals come from in the first place. In other words, if you know a basketball player has a performance-approach goal (e.g., to have the highest scoring average on the team), the question remains as to why he or she adopted that particular achievement goal rather than another. Together, the two theories can predict achievement behavior in specific situations ( using achievement goals) and can explain from where these achievement goals arise ( using personality dispositions and competence perceptions).

Vragen

Vraag 1
Hoe mensen denken heeft grote gevolgen voor hoe ze zich voelen en voor wat ze doen. In de psychologie zijn er verschillende modellen ontwikkeld die helpen deze verbanden beter te begrijpen, waarbij een bepaalde manier van denken nogal eens wordt verwoord als ‘mindset’.

Casus:
Manager A werkt in een bedrijf dat op het randje van het faillissement staat. Manager B werkt in een bedrijf dat juist groeit en bloeit. Nu doet er voor beide managers zich een kans voor: beiden kunnen meedoen aan wedstrijd waarmee ze kunnen laten zien dat hun bedrijf de moeite waard is. Wie wint krijgt veel gratis media-aandacht voor het bedrijf. Daar staat tegenover dat er veel tijd en energie in de wedstrijd moet worden geïnvesteerd.

Analyseer de situatie van de managers in termen van promotion-prevention mindset. Welke mindset lijkt de situatie waarin de managers verkeren met zich mee te brengen? En welke gevolgen heeft dat voor deelname aan de wedstrijd? Motiveer je antwoord.

Vraag 2
Stel de markt waarin het bedrijf van manager X opereert is heel competitief. Welk type achievement goal wordt dan in de hand gewerkt? Wat is hier het nadeel van voor de medewerkers van het bedrijf en het bedrijf zelf?

Bekijk hier de antwoorden

Onderstaand kun je jouw antwoorden controleren.

Vraag 1
Het dreigende faillissement zal bij werknemer A vooral een preventiemindset in de hand werken. Men is gericht op behoud van het bestaande en voorkomen dat het verder bergafwaarts gaat. Mogelijke verliezen worden als belangrijker gezien dan mogelijke winsten. Men zal dus niet meedoen aan de wedstrijd. Dat wordt als te risicovol gezien in termen van te investeren tijd en energie.

Feit dat het bedrijf floreert zal bij werknemer B vooral een promotiemindset in de hand werken. Men is gericht op verbetering en ontwikkeling, en het bereiken van idealen. Mogelijke winsten  worden als belangrijker gezien dan mogelijke verliezen. De kans is groot dat men dan ook meedoet aan de wedstrijd. Men is bereid het risico te nemen, ook al levert het niks op. Men is gericht op kansen, niet op obstakels.

Vraag 2
Men zal sterk naar andere bedrijven kijken en wat die doen, om vooral niet slecht, of liever nog beter te zijn dan de concurrentie. Het gaat dus om een performance goal oriëntatie. Nadelen daarvan zijn is dat men de voordelen van de mastery goal orientation, zoals bijvoorbeeld genoemd in figuur 9.4 op blz. 257 van Understanding motivation and emotion misloopt. Nadelen zijn bijvoorbeeld:

• Liever de ander verslaan dan beter te worden in het eigen werk. Het geeft dus geen garantie voor een hoge kwaliteit van het eigen werk.
• Er kan een gebrek aan ontstaan aan intrinsieke motivatie. Als de noodzaak tot presteren wegvalt (bijvoorbeeld omdat de concurrentie vermindert), doet men weinig meer.