Search

Past research has shown that satisfying different kinds of fundamental motives contributes to well-being. More recently, advances in motivational theory have shown that z is also tied to the integration of different motives. In other words, well-being depends not only on maximizing effectiveness in satisfying specific motives, but also on ensuring that motives work together such that no individual motive is too weak or too strong. In this chapter, we review existing research to show that specific forms of psychological distress can be linked to specific types of motivational imbalance or dis-integration. Such disintegration can arise from either excessive weakness of a specific motive or the excessive strength and/or dominance of a specific motive, thereby inhibiting other motives. Possible neural correlates and avenues of intervention are discussed.

We examine how self-regulatory motivations of locomotion (initiation) and assessment (evaluation) are related to retirement wealth in middle-aged and older Americans. We test a hypothesis that high locomotion and some assessment levels predict high wealth levels. We use two national data sets: the 2008 Health and Retirement Study (N = 6,464) and the 2005 Midlife in the United States (N = 4,963). We found that a combination of high locomotion and moderate assessment motivation can maximize wealth accumulation. By creating this combination of locomotion and assessment motivations, policy interventions can be more effective in motivating wealth accumulation for retirement, such as a required annual review of retirement savings plans and understandable disclosure of the plans' costs.

Regulatory focus (Higgins, 1997) builds on the classic approach-avoidance distinction by identifying two important approach orientations: the promotion focus (approaching gains and attainment) and the prevention focus (approaching nonlosses and safety). Though individual differences in regulatory focus have been widely studied in human psychology, it is unknown if such differences exist in other species. To explore this possibility, we designed a series of tests for laboratory rats, paralleling human regulatory focus research on risk taking. In home-cage tests, rats (N = 23) were given an opportunity to prevent a loss by burying a noxious novel object. In solitary tests in a novel enclosure, the same rats had the opportunity to pursue gains (food rewards) and/or safety (darkness). Rats demonstrated stable individual differences on both tests (p's < .001). Complementing the human research, duration of time spent with the noxious novel object was predicted by an individual's tendency to pursue safety (p < .01) and not by the tendency to pursue gains (p > .8). Some aspects of these results were compatible with alternative approaches, such as the bold-shy axis and "if-then" personality profiles (Mischel & Shoda, 1995). Regulatory focus theory, however, was uniquely able to predict the overall pattern, which may be an indication that it could contribute to future research in animal personality, motivation, and welfare.

Research focusing on motivation has consistently identified changes in motivational emphases as individuals age. However, whether these same patterns exist with respect to more domain-general conceptualizations of these motives has not yet been examined. Furthermore, researchers have not determined whether these differences in motivations across age groups are associated with differences in different measures of well-being. Using three cross-sectional samples, we examine the relative importance individuals place on different motivational domains across different age groups. In Studies 1a and 1b, we show that age is negatively associated with growth motive importance, but is unassociated with security, control, or epistemic motive importance. In Study 2, we show that older adults who do not show this de-emphasis of growth motives have significantly lower life satisfaction and lower self-reported flourishing relative to those older adults who do demonstrate the typical reduced emphasis. Implications for these findings for happiness across age groups are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]