Motivation in College

In Chapter 6 of Wilmot and Hocker’s text, Interpersonal Conflict, Functions of Conflict are discussed. One of these functions is that Emotions help people to adapt. There are six principles that Izard and Ackerman have formed that help people adapt from our emotions. The very first of the principles is that, “Motivation Depends on Emotions.” They say that, “Our behavioral goals depend on our feelings (pg. 200, (Wilmot & Hocker, 2011). I found this part of the text particularly interesting. When you think about this statement, that motivation depends on emotions, it’s actually stunningly true. I was thinking about any situation that I have ever been in. Or rather, a situation where I was deeply motivated to do something and this led me to my involvement in college. Now, in high school, I was partially involved. I was the treasurer of the Future Business Leaders of America, I worked on many homecoming floats for the homecoming parade, and I was even on the prom committee. But in reality, spread across four years, this isn’t much involvement. I remember making the decision that I was going to be more involved in college because I “needed it for my resume,” and because it “looks good” to be involved. But now, after reading Wilmot and Hocker on how emotions help us adapt, I can identify what really was the source of my motivation and what was my perceived source of my motivation. What I perceived was my source of motivation for getting involved in college was that I thought that being more involved would look good on a resume. However, my real source of motivation was in fact my emotions. I felt motivated by my feelings of being uninvolved, not being a part of something, and sometime even loneliness and lack of belonging.  In college, I got involved in as many and as much as I possibly could. It even took a toll on my body because I was simply doing too much. From experiencing the emotion of being work out, tired, run-down and just generally spread too far thin, I was motivated to reduce my involvement. I was scared when I did this. I felt that I did not want to disappoint anyone. However, in the big picture, I was letting people down already by not giving my 100% to the ten different groups I was in. After that number was reduced to 4 groups, I was happier, I wasn’t tired all of the time, and I was still able to remain friends with the people in the groups I had reduced my participation in. I was motivated to take all of these actions because of my emotions. Wilmot and Hocker say that we don’t act without reason and the reason for our actions is rooted in our feelings (Wilmot & Hocker, 2011). This sounds so simple when you think about it this way! Every action that we take is because of something, someone and some emotion. For me, this has helped me take a much better look at my emotions in any given situation and find the real cause of my motivation.