Discuss the Cognitive Theories of Motivation in detail

Cognitive Theories of Motivation raise a different perspective of understanding the primary needs of an individual in order to keep the individual motivated and satisfied which will probably lead to greater efficiency and productivity.

Certainly, the entire scenario of a job depends on how much an employee is motivated and satisfied with the aim to benefit the company in return. It is the fact that a job is a need for both parties, i.e. the employee and the organization.

At one point, the organization requires a professional to help achieve the target and put effort into the growth of the organization. While on the other hand, the employee also seeks any source to satisfy the basic needs of life with the aim to keep surviving with professional standards.

Cognitive Theories of Motivation

Cognitive Theories of Motivation consist of two ultimate theories that are the Expectancy Theory and the Goal Setting Theory. The Expectancy Theory explains how and why an individual makes a certain decision of picking the best behavioral option from many.

On the other side, the Goal-Setting Theory offers the importance of creating goals and how goals, make a person be motivated and satisfied enough. Further clarification for both Cognitive Theories of Motivation is given below.

The Expectancy Theory

The Expectancy theory was proposed by Victor H. Vroom in 1964. It elaborates such a behavioral process in which an individual chooses one specific and necessary option over the others and what is the role of the decision in the process of achieving the career goals.

The theory consists of three variables that were introduced by Vroom in order to clearly explain the given behavioral process. The variables are as follows:

• “E” for Expectancy
• “V” for Valence
• “I” for Instrumentality

1. Expectancy

The Expectancy variable explains such a belief where the efforts of an employee are the result of a need to accomplish desired performance goals. There are three factors that comprise much impact on the expectancy perception of an individual.

• Self Efficacy: – The belief of an individual about their own efficiency and ability to perform a particular behavior effectively.
• Goal Difficulty: – This factor occurs in case the desired performance goals are greater or higher than expected, which might cause a lack of high expectancy perception and may lead to low perception.
• Control: – It is a degree that contains the perceived control of a person over performance.

2. Valence

In simple words, Valence pertains to such price/value that an individual sets on the basis of rewards or reinforcements. Usually, the process of setting value depends on intrinsic/extrinsic sources of motivation, goals, needs and values of the individual.

There are three terms that represent different forms of an individual’s values. The term -1 shows that the individual is not happy with the result and tries to avoid it, term 0 tells that the individual is feeling indifferent or strange regarding the results, and term +1 explains that the individual warmly welcomes the result.

3. Instrumentality

The instrumentality refers to the belief that an individual will receive a reward certainly based on the satisfaction of the required performance. The rewards can be of many forms such as extrinsic, intrinsic, non-monetary, non-monetary and more.

Instrumentality level will be low when a person receives the reward for a set of activities that must be performed as a job duty. While on the other hand, there are three factors involved in the instrumentality, which are, control, policies and trust.

Motivational Force: – It is the product of three variables of expectancy theory, i.e. expectancy, valence and instrumentality. In short, the product of three variables expectancy is called the motivational force. The appropriate formula to calculate the motivational force is:

Motivational Force = Expectancy * Instrumentality * Valence

OR

MF = E * I * V

According to the formula, if the variables are strong or high in a person, then his/her motivational level can also be termed as greater.

Goal-Setting Theory

The second or other cognitive theory of motivation is the Goal-Setting Theory. In the 1960s, the theory was introduced by Edwin Locke. The primary factor explained by the theory is that the goal-setting comprises direct and enough impact on the task performance.

A set of specific and hard to achieve goals will surely lead to a greater accomplishment of tasks and possibly, will motivate an individual additionally. Aside from it, easy to achieve goals may result in poor or very low task performance. Therefore, the set goals must be SMART.

The full form of SMART is:
“S” for Specific
“M” for Measurable
“A” for Attainable
“R” for Realistic
“T” for Time-Bound