Wanting to Feel Effective in Our Goal Pursuits for Both Outcomes and Process

Abstract

This essay explains that to be motivated is to have preferences that direct how we think, feel, and behave. These motivational preferences come from three sources. For value, people want to feel successful in attaining desired outcomes even though outcomes aren’t everything. For truth, people also want to feel effective in how they pursue these outcomes—in doing what is real and doing what is right. For control, people want to make things happen. Using Plato’s allegory of the Charioteer, the authors discuss how value, truth, and control motives work together in an integrated manner during goal pursuit, although truth plays a special role in the partnership.