Core Idea: There exists 3 aspects of a task that a person considers subconsciously to be motivated towards achieving said task. If any of these aspects are not up to par, he will not be motivated towards doing the task.
Terminology
- Expectancy: Belief that effort leads to performance.
- Instrumentality: Belief that this performance is related/leads to rewards.
- Valence: Value or importance placed on this particular reward
- If an individual doesn’t truly believe that putting effort into a task leads to better performance, he will not be motivated to do it. Example: Studying for Digital Signal Processing is a joke because no matter how much you study you get random marks, so you don’t study at all. That is expectancy in action.
- If an individual does not believe that this performance will lead to rewards, he will not be motivated to do that task. Example: Non-graded courses don’t convert to any improvement to the CGPA, so people just study and attend quizzes just enough to pass the course. That is instrumentality in action.
- If an individual does not believe that the reward is meaningful, he will not be motivated to do that task. Example: Studying DSP will fetch you sure marks, the marks will substantially improve your GPA, but if the EEE degree in itself doesn’t have much value, then the individual will not be motivated to do that task. That’s valence in action.
All 3 of these must exist in a task for the person to do them with high motivation and efficiency.