This suggests that different people are motivated by different factors, when we are presented with choices, our decisions will be influenced by our level of performance. Atkinson recognised that most of us want to be challenge and are motivated by the need to achieve, nAch. This type of personality will take the difficult option as they want to be challenged. While other people will take the easier option (naF), these people will do this because they are afraid of failure.
For instance if there was a climbing wall, one hard, one medium and one easy, the naF person would chose the easy climbing wall whilst the nAch person would try the hardest climbing wall as they see it as a challenge.
Achievement motivation is linked to personality. In sport, someone with extrovert tendencies would have a high nAch as they want to be noticed. Therefore person with an introvert will take the easy option as they don’t want to failure or be noticed.
Different types of motivation Intrinsic motivation arises, when an activity is pursued for its own sake, regardless what any one else says. This type of motivation is mainly used by individual games players for example in tennis at Wimbledon no coaching is allowed while they are playing so only concurrent or terminal feedback can be given. Extrinsic motivation stems from other people e. g. a coach in football for example; this can be through positive or negative reinforcement.
This type of motivation is generally used in team games for example in football a coach trying to motivate his team from the sidelines or players such as the captain trying to motivate his team.
Drive reduction theory This is referred to as the drive to strive. In a football context if a team is winning the premiership like Man Utd, their drive to win the league again will be reduced due to the lack of a challenge for example when they won the Champions League in 2000, the next year the were not motivated to be successful again due to lack of a challenge.
Since winning in 2000 they haven’t won in since. Situational Factors Atkinson stressed that there were situational factors that govern our decisions. This relates to the probability of success and the rewards available for success. Roberts suggested that individuals with high failure avoidance will not only select the easy option but the difficult option as well and high achievers will select a hard option but one with probability of success because they require rewards that go with success.