Abstract
People behave. It is hard to argue with this assertion. And although behavior sometimes seems spontaneous and not very well thought out, there usually appears to be one or another kind of purpose behind people’s actions. This purposive character underlies the subject area termed motivation. It is generally agreed that theories of motivation are intended to account for two aspects of behavior. The first is the “direction” that behavior takes—that is, the choice of one activity from among the many possible alternatives. The second is the “intensity” of behavior—the vigor, thoroughness, or single-mindedness with which the activity is done.
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© 1981 Springer-Verlag New York Inc.
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Carver, C.S., Scheier, M.F. (1981). Standards of Behavior. In: Attention and Self-Regulation. SSSP Springer Series in Social Psychology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-5887-2_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-5887-2_7
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4612-5889-6
Online ISBN: 978-1-4612-5887-2
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