Throughout this course we will be discussing the role of motivation and emotion and the impact on behavior. The goal of this project is for you to take this material and specifically and critically apply this to your own life. In doing so, the goal is to recognize and identify the powerful role motivation has had, will have, and does have on your life. This motivation autobiography will allow you to identify (a) the major motivational influences on who you are today (b) who you would like to be in the future (including specific goals for the future) and (c) specific strategies for how you plan on make the specific changes identified. In completing this assignment, keep in mind that the goal here is to integrate the course material, terminology, and concepts that we have learned into a comprehensive application to your own life. Thus, the majority of the paper will concentrate on Part A and the application of theoretical concepts including the biological, learning, and cognitive domains of motivation and emotion.
The paper should be a minimum of 2,250-2,500 words and include at least five scholarly research articles. Throughout the course I suggest you keep a journal to write down connections between your life experience and the course material (this will make it easier to apply the concepts directly to yourself). By the end of this paper, you should be armed with more knowledge of (a) what has motivated you in the past to help you understand who you are today, (b) something you’d like to become more motivated to do, and (c) strategies, based on motivation research that should help you accomplish this.
