Күту теориясы: Мотивация және мінез-құлықтың психологиялық аспектілері

Psychological theory
Expectancy theory (or expectancy theory of motivation) proposes that an individual will behave or act in a certain way because they are motivated to select a specific behavior over others due to what they expect the result of that selected behavior will be. In essence, the motivation of the behavior selection is determined by the desirability of the outcome. However, at the core of the theory is the cognitive process of how an individual processes the different motivational elements. This is done before making the ultimate choice. The outcome is not the sole determining factor in making the decision of how to behave.

In 1964, Victor H. Vroom developed the expectancy theory through his study of the motivations behind decision making. This theory is relevant to the study of management.

Expectancy is the belief that one's effort (E) will result in attainment of desired performance (P) goals. Usually based on an individual's past experience, self confidence (self efficacy), and the perceived difficulty of the performance standard or goal. Self efficacy – the person's belief about their ability to successfully perform a particular behavior. The individual will assess whether they have the required skills or knowledge desired to achieve their goals. Goal difficulty – when goals are set too high or performance expectations that are made too difficult. This will most likely lead to low expectancy. This occurs when the individual believes that their desired results are unattainable. Perceived control – Individuals must believe that they have some degree of control over the expected outcome. When individuals perceive that the outcome is beyond their ability to influence, expectancy, and thus motivation, is low.

Jere Brophy and Thomas Good provided a comprehensive model of how teacher expectations could influence children's achievement. Their model posits that teachers' expectations indirectly affect children's achievement: "teacher expectations could also affect student outcomes indirectly by leading to differential teacher treatment of students that would condition student attitudes, expectations, and behavior". The model includes the following sequence. Teachers form differential expectations for students early in the school year. Based on these expectations, they behave differently toward different students, and as a result of these behaviors the students begin to understand what the teacher expects from them. If students accept the teachers' expectations and behavior toward them then they will be more likely to act in ways that confirm the teacher's initial expectations. This process will ultimately affect student achievement so that teachers' initial expectancies are confirmed. In discussing work related to this model, Brophy made several important observations about teacher expectation effects. First and foremost, he argued that most of the beliefs teachers hold about student are accurate, and so their expectations usually reflect students' actual performance levels. As a result, Brophy contended that self fulfilling prophecy effects have relatively weak effects on student achievement, changing achievement 5% to 10%, although he did note that such effects usually are negative expectation effects rather than positive effects. Second, he pointed out that various situational and individual difference factors influence the extent to which teacher expectations will act as self fulfilling prophecies. For instance, Brophy stated that expectancy effects may be larger in the early elementary grades, because teachers have more one on one interactions with students then, as they attempt to socialize children into the student role. In the upper elementary grades more whole class teaching methods are used, which may minimize expectation effects. Raudenbush's meta analysis of findings from different teacher expectancy studies in which expectancies were induced by giving teachers artificial information about children's intelligence showed that expectancy effects were stronger in grades 1 and 2 than in grades 3 through Grade 6, especially when the information was given to teachers during the first few weeks of school. These findings are particularly relevant because they show a form of the expectancy theory: how teachers have certain expectations of students, and how they treat the students differently because of those expectations. Their criticisms of the theory were based upon the expectancy model being too simplistic in nature; these critics started making adjustments to Vroom's model. Edward Lawler claims that the simplicity of expectancy theory is deceptive because it assumes that if an employer makes a reward (such as a financial bonus or promotion) enticing enough, employees will increase their productivity to obtain the reward. However, this only works if the employees believe the reward is beneficial to their immediate needs. For example, a $2 increase in salary may not be desirable to an employee if the increase pushes him into a tax bracket in which he believes his net pay is actually reduced (a belief that is typically fallacious, especially in the United States). Similarly, a promotion that provides higher status but requires longer hours may be a deterrent to an employee who values evening and weekend time with their children. As an additional example, if a person in the armed forces or security agencies is promoted, there is the possibility that he or she will be transferred to other locations. In such cases, if the new posting is far from their permanent residence where their family resides, they will not be motivated by such promotions and the results will backfire. As such, the reward is valued negatively to the person receiving it. Lawler's new proposal for expectancy theory does not contradict Vroom's theory. Lawler argues that since there have been a variety of developments of expectancy theory since its creation in 1964 that the expectancy model needs to be updated. Lawler's new model is based on four claims. First, whenever there are a number of outcomes, individuals will usually have a preference among those outcomes. Second, there is a belief on the part of that individual that their action(s) will achieve the outcome they desire. Third, any desired outcome was generated by the individual's behavior. Fourth and finally, the actions generated by the individual were generated by the preferred outcome and expectation of the individual. Instead of simply looking at expectancy and instrumentality, W. F. Maloney and J. M. McFillen