The articles linked to this assignment discuss three important aspects of human psychology: morality, values, and motivation. The first of the three addresses Lawrence Kohlberg's stages of moral development (UCF, 2015), which helps divide our chronological development of morality into certain stages. These stages, in brief, include pre-moral morality (the obsession with imposing one's will on others and fearing punishment), conventional morality (which focuses on appearing socially acceptable and how we directly judge actions of others) and finally post-conventional (the third, final phase in which we put aside our own needs to determine what is right or necessary to help everyone). Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The second article (WSU, 2015) covers our values, or more simply: how we determine what actions to take and how those actions shape who we are. Explain that we discover these values by determining which ones (once realized) make us happy or at peace. These values are divided into two categories: instrumental, meaning character traits, and terminal, meaning things we can work on as goals. In the third and final article (Stuart-Kotze, 2015), the theory of motivation is addressed. It covers four theories in particular, which I will once again summarize briefly. First there is Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. This classification of needs is commonly set up like a pyramid, working from the base to the top one step at a time: if you miss a step, you need to re-establish it and work your way up from there once again. . These steps, from bottom to top, are physiological, safety, belonging, esteem, and finally self-actualization: the stage where you reach your highest potential as a person and achieve your best self. Next, we have the dual factor theory, by Fred Herzberg. This essentially separates our motivation into two goals: achieving satisfaction through work and avoiding dissatisfaction. The elements we incorporate to satisfy ourselves are called motivators, and the elements we use to avoid dissatisfaction are called hygiene. Then there's Need for Achievement, by David McClelland. McClelland's theory revolves around how people distribute their need for power and their need for affiliation. The theory also touches on how high our desire to achieve is and how that can affect our motivation to perform certain tasks, as in the ring toss example used by the article. Finally, there is expectancy theory, by Victor Vroom. Vroom's theory challenges the idea of immediate satisfaction resulting from completing work. Revises the concept of goals and satisfaction to propose that workers are motivated to perform a task in order to satisfy another external goal. The goal is not the task; rather, the task is a potential means to fulfill one's true goal. They see their own behavior as influencing secondary goals and approach productivity with that level of voluntary productivity in mind. So, what exactly does this mean for a college sophomore? Certainly more than you might think. While many may not take it into account when starting their college career, motivation is something that must first be established by understanding what you want. Many approach college with the burning question “how can I motivate myself,” often without asking what they want to do when they finish school. To determine what they want, they must first consider their values and how they value themthey put into practice. The level of realism and challenge of the value then determines the immediacy and strength of the motivation. Then, by understanding their values and using that knowledge to pursue a career that best suits their passions and needs for success, a graduate can use their education to find a career that puts their values into practice. In determining what should motivate me, I look at my values. After looking long and hard at my past attitudes and behaviors, I discover that my two dominant values are love and happiness. If I were to think to myself what a perfect world would be like, my application of these values usually comes across as quite contradictory and antagonistic in itself, so I ascribe to these values a very personal nature. I believe one should do what makes them happy, as long as that happiness doesn't harm those around them. It becomes a sort of "you do you" world, but with the stipulation that you can't ruin other people's lives by doing so. For me, I use this value to justify my career choice: I am currently opting for a broad and easily employable degree for an open field so that I can earn enough money to support my future family and experiment with my other hobbies in convenient way (a terminal goal, pleasure). In other words, I'm not going to become a doctor because ultimately that takes more work than it would take to make me happy. I may not be directly satisfied with a lucrative career as a cell phone salesman, but it would take less time to purchase it, I would spend less money to get there, and I would ultimately be happy sooner because I would be living comfortably with my wife. If I chose to follow a career that I truly loved, I would end up poor and unhappy because unfortunately there is no such thing as a rich or experienced psychology bachelor. Ultimately, I care more about what I think of myself than what others might think of my career choice, at least to some extent. I suppose I simply want to appear as happy as I feel, if the world is to have any perspective on my values. The best thing I could think of to add to my values would be to stand up for myself and the people I care about when they are wronged. Too often I prefer to simply sit and silently accept an offensive remark or ungrateful disservice because it is easier to forget than suffer the fear and pain of confrontation. Recently, though, I've noticed that this fear of comparison doesn't always make me or anyone else happy. It usually encourages this type of treatment and leaves people close to me wondering if I really care about them. If I stood up for myself and others and made honest attempts to seek justice on their behalf, I believe I would find myself happier in the long run. This value would fall within the idea of social recognition of the theme. I hesitate to call it a desire for world peace, as I think it's legitimately an unrealistic value and I would find myself in a constant state of depression. These values took time to mature, in my case, and this is typically how human development occurs. As we mature physically, many of us mature mentally as well (although there are some who may remain in the early stage of moral development, such as prisoners). As mental maturity progresses, we begin to ascend through the three stages of Kohlberg's theory of moral development (UCF, 2015), and with each stage comes the likely revision or reevaluation of our core values. It is somewhat unrealistic to expect a child in the premoral stage to have the same understanding of what he or she really wants from life as he or she will have when he or she reaches the premoral stage..
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