Motivation

Question 1

how does culture relate to agency and control?

Answer 1

Different cultural environments foster different ways of exercising control

Question 2

agency and control: 2 questions humans ask themselves

Answer 2

• whether or not we can change (implicit theory of the self)

- whether or not the world can change (implicit theories of the world)

Question 3

2 questions humans ask themselves: can I change?

Answer 3

• Yes: incremental theory of the self
• • Beliefs that abilities are malleable and are capable of being changed with efforts
• No: entity theory of the self
• • Belief that abilities are largely fixed, reflecting innate features of the self
• These theories of self have implications for responding to failure

Question 4

2 questions humans ask themselves: can the world change?

Answer 4

• Yes: incremental theory of the world
• • Perspective that the world is seen as being flexible and responsive to our efforts to change it
• Entity theory of the world
• • Perspective that the world around you is fixed and beyond your ability to change it

Question 5

combination of theories of self and world

Answer 5

• Those with independent views of self (indep self-construal): tend to have incremental theories of the world and entity theory of the self (primary control)
• Those with interdependent view of self (interdep self-construal): tend to have entity theory of the world and incremental theory of self (secondary control)

Question 6

Primary control vs. secondary control

Answer 6

• Primary control:
• • Exercising agency by making changes in your environment to suit one’s own needs (changing the world to fit you)
• • Assume an internal locus of control
• • aka: agency, influence
• • More common in America/individualistic countries
• Secondary control:
• • Exercising agency by adjusting goals and desires to control the psychological impact of reality (changing yourself to fit the world)
• • Assume an external locus of control
• • aka: adjustment
• • More common in Japan/collectivistic countries

Question 7

agency and control

Answer 7

• Differences in control and expression of agency → differences in choice-making
• • Independent self-construal: important decisions must be made by ourselves
• • Interdependent self-construal: important decisions often made by close others

Question 8

agency and control: spaceship game study

Answer 8

• If children were asked to play a spaceship game, how engaged would they be depending on who makes choices in the game?
• • Options: choice of spaceship made by themselves, by strangers (out-group), or by social circle (in-group)
• • 2 groups of kids: European-American and Asian-American kids
• Results:
• • European-American kids played/cared most about the game when they got to make the choice themselves
• • Asian-American kids played/cared most about the game when the choice was made by in-group members
• • Neither group played/cared as much when the choice was made by out-group members

Question 9

how are motivations transmitted?

Answer 9

• These motivations (ie. importance of self-esteem) commonly expressed in advertisements
• • Create, feed off of, perpetuate cultural norms
• • Part of cultural dialogue
• • Ex. Burger King: “have it your way” (matching messages to cultural group)

Question 10

too many choices (and paradox of choice)

Answer 10

• Detrimental to have too many choices presented to us
• Overwhelming choices deplete mental resources
• Paradox of choice:
• • We don’t want too much choice (too stressful), but we also don’t want too little choice (we all want to exercise some level of primary control)
• • Too little choice leads to higher levels of learned helplessness