Motivation: The Why of Behavior

Abstract

It seems only logical to open the topic of sports psychology with an overview of several theoretical views that have addressed that most fundamental and intriguing question: What causes us to behave as we do? Literally volumes have been written on motivation, a term that applies to a wide range of problems and that has been of central interest to a variety of disciplines, for example, comparative psychology, learning theory, industrial organizational psychology, and psychiatry. However, our coverage of motivation will necessarily be highly selective and restricted to those theoretical perspectives that have direct relevance and application to sporting activities. As with all of the upcoming chapters, motivational models and the predictions they provide will be illustrated and evaluated, wherever possible, in the context of studies conducted in sports.