The types of motivation (intrinsic and extrinsic), achievement motivation and the need to achieve and need to avoid failure, attribution theory and learned helplessness, and social facilitation and inhibition.

What this dot point is asking

AQA wants you to explain intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, describe achievement motivation and the need to achieve and need to avoid failure, apply attribution theory and explain learned helplessness, and explain social facilitation and inhibition and how to counter the negative effects.

Types of motivation and achievement motivation

Achievement motivation (Atkinson and McClelland) is a performer's drive to succeed in competition, shaped by the balance of two needs. Performers high in the need to achieve (Nach) seek challenges, take risks, persist in the face of failure, welcome feedback and evaluation, and attribute success to internal factors; they prefer tasks with about a 50 percent chance of success, where the challenge is real. Performers high in the need to avoid failure (Naf) avoid challenge, give up easily, dislike feedback and fear evaluation; they prefer either very easy tasks (guaranteed success) or very hard ones (no shame in failing). Behaviour also depends on the incentive value of success and the probability of success in a given situation. Coaches develop Nach by setting realistic, achievable but challenging goals, giving positive reinforcement and success early, attributing outcomes constructively, and gradually raising task difficulty so the performer learns to approach rather than avoid competition.

Attribution theory and learned helplessness

Learned helplessness is the belief that failure is inevitable and beyond one's control, caused by repeatedly attributing failure to stable, internal factors such as a lack of ability. It is countered through attributional retraining, attributing failure to changeable factors such as effort, and by building success through realistic goals.

Social facilitation and inhibition

The negative effects are linked to evaluation apprehension, the fear of being judged, developed by Cottrell, who argued it is not the mere presence of others but the perception of being evaluated that raises arousal. Zajonc classified the others present as the audience (passive watchers) and co-actors (others performing the same task alongside, but not competing). High arousal from their presence makes the dominant response more likely, so the effect depends on the performer and the skill: an expert's dominant response on a simple gross skill is correct (facilitation), while a beginner's dominant response on a complex or fine skill is often wrong (inhibition). The negative effects are reduced by training with an audience present (habituation so the crowd no longer raises arousal), improving the skill to the autonomous stage (so the dominant response becomes correct), using selective attention and mental rehearsal to block out the crowd, and applying cognitive and somatic stress-management techniques to control arousal.