Cognitive Views of Human Motivation

by Bernard Weiner

Cognitive Views of Human Motivation contains papers that were first presented during a symposium at the annual convention of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), held in San Francisco in February 1974. The book has five chapters and opens with a discussion of historical trends in cognition and motivation. This is followed by separate chapters on cognitive and coping processes in emotion, cognitive appraisals and transformations in self-control, an attributional model of achievement motivation, and cognitive control of action.The audiences for this book are psychologists and advanced undergraduate and graduate students interested in the areas of clinical, cognitive, motivation, and personality psychology. The book can serve as a main source of readings in courses on cognitive or motivational psychology and as a supplementary source for courses in clinical and personality psychology.

105 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1974

Reviews

[Joy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This collection of perspectives of motivation theory in the 70s is an interesting look at the way psychologists viewed motivation. Some of it was a bit simplistic, some overly convoluted, and some simply didn't strike a chord for me personally. However, I did appreciate Bolles' historical synthesis of the evolution of motivation theory. It was interesting because it departed somewhat from his book-length history. Coming from an education background, his attack on Thorndike surprised me, but it helped me critically analyze them both. Weiner's chapter on An Attributional Interpretation of Expectancy-Value theory was also good. It gave a breakdown of varying types of influences on motivation.