Motivation and Personality
Questions combine the hierarchy of needs with classroom applications, and ask you to classify a personality theory as type, trait or psychodynamic.
Motivation
Motivation energises, directs and sustains behaviour. Intrinsic motivation comes from interest; extrinsic from rewards and punishments. Maslow's hierarchy runs physiological, safety, love and belonging, esteem, self-actualisation - lower needs generally dominate until met. McClelland described the need for achievement; Atkinson modelled achievement motivation as the balance between hope of success and fear of failure.
Personality
Allport defined personality as the dynamic organisation of psychophysical systems. Types: Sheldon (body build), Jung (introvert, extravert), Kretschmer. Traits: Allport's cardinal, central and secondary; Cattell's 16PF; Eysenck's extraversion, neuroticism and psychoticism; the Big Five (openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism). Psychodynamic: Freud's id, ego and superego, and the oral, anal, phallic, latency and genital stages, with defence mechanisms such as repression and rationalisation. Assessment: interview, questionnaire (MMPI, 16PF) and projective methods (Rorschach, TAT).
Worked example
A capable student avoids every competitive task. Reasoning: fear of failure outweighs hope of success, so the pupil protects self-esteem by withdrawing. Remedy: set moderately difficult, individually paced tasks; give task-focused feedback rather than public ranking; reintroduce comparison gradually.
Traps
Presenting Maslow's levels as rigidly sequential; calling Rorschach and TAT self-report tests; mixing the order of Freud's psychosexual stages; using personality and character interchangeably.