From the Nomothetic to the Idiographic

Motivation emerges from the interaction of situational stimuli and dispositional characteristics. This chapter deals with the latter.

Dispositional factors of motivation are assumed to explain why some people show certain patterns of motivated behavior across situations, whereas others do not. Apart from specific situational stimuli, motivation is thus attributed to stable traits that are rooted in the individual personality, and that distinguish between people across situations and, to a certain extent, over time.

Individual dispositions to show certain patterns of motivation across situations have been given various labels in psychological research, reflecting very different notions of which and how many such dispositions there are, how they develop, and how they influence motivation. Accordingly, theories of motivation differ in terms of the relative importance they attribute to dispositional and environmental influences. Whereas the five-factor model focuses on endogenous dispositions and assumes the environment to play only a minor role, systems theory approaches emphasize the complex interactions between external stimuli and internal dispositions.

In this chapter we start with a simple model and gradually work our way toward a much more complex perspective on the role of dispositional factors in motivation. This does not mean to imply that one model is inherently preferable to another: all scientific theories of motivation aim to explain and predict in the most parsimonious and yet generally valid way possible why different people experience very different levels of tension and energy in similar situations, and why their behavior is directed toward such different goals.