Action phases and mind-sets

Abstract

The focus of this chapter is on the course of action, which is understood to be a temporal, horizontal path starting with a person’s desires and ending with the evaluation of the achieved action outcome. The phenomena of choosing an action goal, initiating the appropriate actions, and executing these actions are assumed to be situated in between. This comprehensive perspective conceives of the course of action as a number of consecutive, distinct segments or phases. It raises questions concerning how people choose action goals, plan and enact their execution, and eaaluate thek efforts. The concept of “mind-set” is employed to find answers to these questions in terms of the cognitive processes or orientations that allow for easy completion of the different action phases. “Being motivated” implies a number of different phenomena. But how many distinct aspects of being motivated to pursue a desired goal are there? Kurt Lewin (Lewin, Dembo, Festinger, & Sears, 1944) made a major distinction between goal striving and goal setting. “Goal striving” is behavior directed toward existing goals, and thus addresses questions of moving toward the chosen goal. “Goal setting,” on the other hand, addresses the question of what goals a person will choose, and thus considers the expected value of the available choice options. Noticing the unique nature of both of these problems, Lewin adopted a distinct theoretical perspective for each of them. He referred to an expectancy X value model when goal setting was at issue-for instance, when he and his colleagues were attempting to explain people’s changes in aspiration level (Lewin et al., 1944).Issues of goal striving, however, were explained in terms of his theory of tension systems (Lewin, 1926), through which he tried to discover the forces that move a person toward a chosen goal. Lewin considered the strength of these forces to be related not only to the valence of the chosen goal, but also to the individual’s perceived distance from the goal. By introducing the variable of t3