Describe what psychologists have discovered about cognitive theories about motivation to work.

Mark scheme

Marking points from the official mark scheme (Oct/Nov 2019). The mark or mark type is shown in brackets.

1. Cognitive theories about motivation to work, including the following:
2. 1. Goal setting theory (Latham and Locke, 1984)
3. 2. VIE (expectancy) theory (Vroom, 1964)
4. 3. Equity theory (Adams, 1963)
5. Goal setting theory (Latham and Locke, 1984)
6. They showed that there was a relationship between how difficult and specific a goal was and people's performance of a task.
7. He found that specific and difficult goals led to better task performance than vague or easy goals.
8. To motivate, goals must have
9. 1. Clarity - measureable and unambiguous.
10. 2. Challenge - challenging enough to feel a sense of achievement when accomplished.
11. 3. Commitment – goals are understood and agreed upon with the employee
12. 4. Feedback - feedback provides opportunities to clarify expectations, adjust goal difficulty, and gain recognition.
13. 5. Task complexity – the employee should be capable of completing the task set. In addition, give sufficient time to meet the goal or improve performance and provide enough time for the person to practice or learn what is expected and required for success.
14. VIE (expectancy) theory (Vroom, 1964)
15. This theory suggests how the actions and behaviours of individuals are done to maximise pleasure and minimise pain.
16. Individuals are therefore more likely to be motivated to do certain acts, if they expect that rewards can be obtained, and that these rewards can be obtained without too much trouble and pain.
17. Valence
18. Valence is the strength of preference for obtaining a particular outcome. Valence will be positive when the individual prefers to attain some outcome to not attaining it. If the individual is indifferent, valence will be zero. Great valence will therefore strengthen e.g. an employee's motivation for attaining a particular outcome, which makes it important for managers and employers to discover what is valued by the employees. If an extrinsic factor, such as recognition, is seen as a valuable outcome by an employee, managers may use this information to motivate his/her employee.
19. Instrumentality
20. Instrumentality refers to the belief that doing a task will result in the attainment of some valued reward. If instrumentality is high, an employee believes that certain actions will result in the attainment of the rewards valued by him/her. Instrumentality refers to the importance of that e.g. employees see a clear path to rewards and goal attainment, and that they trust that managers will reward their actions as promised. If recognition is seen as valuable by an employee, the manager must thus assure that the employee believes that he/she will get this reward, if the task is accomplished satisfactorily.
21. Expectancy
22. Expectancy relates to the confidence have in themselves in accomplishing a certain task or assignment satisfactorily. If the individual does not regard himself as competent enough to do a certain job, the individual will not see it as feasible to get the desired rewards, and hence demotivate the employee.
23. According to Vroom, the strength of motivation to perform a certain task can be calculated using this formula: Motivation = Valence × Expectancy × Instrumentality
24. Managers can use the VIE-model accordingly:
25. Firstly, managers have to find out which rewards the employees want, and which rewards are seen as valuable by the employees (valence).
26. Secondly, managers have to create instrumentality, in which managers must convince the employees about that the accomplishments of certain tasks, will generate the rewards valued by the employees.
27. Thirdly, managers must ensure that the employees have the necessary capabilities to accomplish the given task, so that the employees expect that they will be able to accomplish it, and thus get rewarded.
28. Equity theory (Adams, 1963)
29. 'Equity Theory focuses upon a person's perceptions of fairness with respect to a relationship. During a social exchange, an individual assesses the ratio of what is output from the relationship to what is input in the relationship, and also the ratio of what the other person in the relationship outputs from the relationship to what is input into the relationship. Equity Theory posits that if the person perceives that there is inequality, where either their output/input ratio is less than or greater than what they perceive as the output/input ratio of the other person in the relationship, then the person is likely to be distressed.' – Adams.
30. For organisations this is where an employee/employer judges the employees net worth to the company and whether they are equal to the other employees in the same company.
31. They will judge their input to the company and also what they receive for this input in return.
32. In addition, they will compare this judgement to the other employees of the company. If they perceive they are putting in more than they are getting out in comparison to the others in the organisation, the employee will not feel motivated as if the opposite were true.
33. Mark according to the levels of response descriptors in Table A.
34. Other appropriate responses should also be credited.
35. A range of issues could be used for evaluation here. These include:
36. • Named issue – determinism. For all three theories, motivation of an employee is due to their own free will. The involvement of the employer in this motivation with incentives, targets, etc. and can help to motivate, but it is down to the employee if they feel motivated or not.
37. • Locke and Latham is somewhat deterministic as it is often the employer who sets the targets and it can be out of the control of the employee.
38. However, many organisations do involve the employee in setting the targets and making sure they are specific for that individual.
39. VIE theory is less deterministic as it is the employee's choice about what they find maximises their pleasure and minimises their pain.
40. Once this is discovered by the employer, however, they can put things in place (e.g. pay, conditions of service, etc.) that would be likely to benefit the employee and this is therefore more deterministic as it is causing the motivation of the employee.
41. Similar to VIE theory the equity theory also involves the free will of the employee as they are judging for themselves whether they feel their contribution is equivalent to the other employees in the company.
42. • Cultural bias of cognitive theories of motivation to work.
43. • Any appropriate evaluation issue of evidence of which leadership style theory is based (no requirement to evaluate any evidence in this response).
44. • Reductionist nature of theory.
45. • Individual/situational debate.
46. • Applications to everyday life.
47. Mark according to the levels of response descriptors in Table B.
48. Other appropriate responses should also be credited.