Communication and Behavioural Science

Learning Outcome 1 - Theories of Motivation

In this exercise, you will work in small groups to investigate and give a short presentation on one of the following theories of motivation. Your tutor will advise as to which theory you have been assigned and the date of the presentation.

Your group presentation should be around 10 minutes in total.

Theories of motivation

· Instinct theories (including early theories of motivation, and ethological theorists such as Lorenz and Tinbergen)

· Homeostatic drive theory (e.g. Cannon, 1929)

· Drive Reduction Theory (Hull, 1949)

· Maslow and humanistic theories of motivation

· Cognitive theories of motivation (e.g. Piaget)

· Social theories of motivation

What you should include:

You can discuss the allocation of work amongst yourselves, but your presentation should include:

q a brief outline of the theory concerned

q an explanation of how it fits into the 'wider picture' of psychological approaches and key debates (e.g. innate vs learned, internal vs external)

q any applications or examples that help to illustrate the theory (e.g. eating behaviour)

q notable psychologists and/or research studies

q what you feel the implications of this theory are for understanding interpersonal communication in terms of motivation, needs etc.

How you present your work is again up to you, but you may find it helpful to prepare a 'bullet point' summary to remind yourselves of the main points and to help yourselves and your colleagues when it comes to the assessment.

The more work you do with this, the less you will have to do for the assessment!!