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Behavioral Activities

Motivated Thinking

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At one time or another, every one of us has engaged in “wishful thinking,” or “let our hearts influence our heads.” That is, every one of us has felt the effects of our motivations on our thought processes. Given this common everyday experience, it is not surprising that an essential part of early psychological research was the idea that drives, needs, desires, motives, and goals can profoundly influence judgment and reasoning. More surprising is that motivational variables play only a small role in current theories of reasoning. Why might this be? One possible explanation is that since the cognitive revolution in the 1960s and 1970s, researchers studying motivational and cognitive processes have been speaking somewhat different languages. That is, there has been a general failure to connect traditional motivational concepts, such as drives or motives, to information processing concepts, such as expectancies or spreading activation, which form the foundation for nearly all contemporary research on thinking and reasoning.

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Critical and Analytical Thinking

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What is critical and analytical thinking?

Critical analytical thinking is a key part of university study. Many first year students receive comments such as 'not analytical enough' on their early assignments. You will find that you develop your critical and analytical skills as you go through university. In brief, this means looking very closely at the detail and not taking what you read or hear for granted. Your tutors will expect you to:

•Evaluate how far materials are appropriate, and up-to-date.

•Evaluate how far the evidence or examples used in materials really proves the point that the author claims.

•To weigh up opinions, arguments or solutions against appropriate criteria.

•To think a line of reasoning through to its logical conclusion.

•Check for hidden bias or hidden assumptions.

•Check whether the evidence and argument really support the conclusions.

You will need to do this for materials that you read. For example, when you cite a source of evidence for your own arguments, you will need to be

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Efficacy of the Theory of Planned Behaviour: A Meta-Analytic Review

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The Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) has received considerable attention in the literature. The present study is a quantitative integration and review of that research. From a database of 185 independent studies published up to the end of 1997, the TPB accounted for 27% and 39% of the variance in behaviour and intention, respectively. The perceived behavioural control (PBC) construct accounted for signicant amounts of variance in intention and behaviour, independent of theory of reasoned action variables. When behaviour measures were self-reports, the TPB accounted for 11% more of the variance in behaviour than when behaviour measures were objective or observed (R2s = .31 and .21, respectively). Attitude, subjective norm and PBC account for signicantly more of the variance in individuals’ desires than intentions or self-predictions, but intentions and self-predictions were better predictors of behaviour. The subjective norm construct is generally found to be a weak predictor of intentions. This is partly attributable to a...

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Extending the Theory of Planned Behavior: Evidence of the Arguments of its Sufficiency

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Abstract

The Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) has been parsimonious, empirically supported, widely cited, most prominent, most compelling and well established model for predicting intentional behavior. Despite its comprehensive and valid prediction on behavior, TPB has received many debates and criticism on its narrow sufficiency of the three original components constructs of attitude, subjective norms and perceived behavioral control. This article discusses on the empirical support of various authors that recognized other relevant external factors to be considered in addition to the original model and considerations for future research context to enrich the existing theoretical contributions.

Introduction

The Theory of Planned Behavior or also referred to as TPB (Ajzen, 1985) has been useful and considered one of the most influential models in predicting social behaviors(Ajzen, 2011). It were found to be widely cited across domains to help in the understanding of many issues and problems of the societies(Armitage & Conner, 1999; Arnscheid & Schomers, 1996; Bansal & Taylor, 2002; Boldero, Sanitioso, & Brain, 1999;

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Why And How Normal People Go Mad

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Just about any ordinary person can slip into madness, believes APA President Philip G. Zimbardo, PhD. In fact, all it may take to trigger the process is a special kind of blow to one's self-image to push someone over the edge of sanity.

"My colleagues and I have demonstrated that situational forces...can generate surprisingly powerful contributions to make good people behave in bad ways," he said to a standing-room-only crowd in his presentation, "Why and how normal people go mad," at APA's 2002 Annual Convention in Chicago.

The basis for his ideas is his discontinuity theory, which posits that when people perceive a violation in some domain of functioning vital to their sense of self-esteem, they will search for ways to explain or rationalize the experience. An A-student who suddenly gets poor grades, for example, may develop sexual or eating problems, or exhibit violent fantasies--symptoms that could...

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Attention Seeking Behaviors

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When a child is not able to get attention from his or her primary caretakers, he or she will do what kids do and act out by saying or doing something that creates some drama. Children do this because negative attention is still attention. We expect this because children are trying to figure out how to do life, and part of their job is to push the boundaries and our buttons.

What we don't expect, and what becomes a big problem in relationships, is when adults act out in this manner. Make no mistake. If you ever say, "I should just kill myself," to see how your partner will respond, it is unquestionably an attention-seeking behavior. And it is one of the unhealthiest actions you can indulge in.

Creating this kind of drama in an adult relationship is at best a sad commentary on an obviously broken communication dynamic. In addition,...

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