Progress-focused

Frank Martela , a Finnish philosopher and psychologist, has written a book entitled A wonderful life. Insights on Finding a Meaningful Existence . In the book he addresses questions such as: "Is life about finding happiness?" and "What can the basis for meaning still be in a time when religion is less and less the self-evident framework?" He invites the reader to think differently about meaning and comes up with some simple ideas for experiencing meaning.

Carol Dweck, founder of mindset theory, has written an ambitious new paper in Psychological Review . In this paper, she presents a new theory about how personality is formed and how both nature and nurture play a role in this. The interesting thing about this theory is that it both establishes connections between old and new theories within psychology and that is brings together separate psychological disciplines. Social psychologists have often been criticized for paying too little attention to theory building and for merely developing fragmentary knowledge. Dweck now comes up with a strong answer to these criticisms in the form of a broad theory which may turn out to explain a broad range of psychological phenomena. This type of theorizing is not only important for social scientists but also for practitioners for whom psychological knowledge is relevant (and who is really excluded from this group?). Good theory can help practitioners deal with problems in more informed, systematic ...

In this video, Ed Deci, co-developer of the self-determination theory, explains that we, as parents, teachers, coaches and managers should not try to motivate people but instead can try to create the conditions within which people can motivate themselves. People are not like, so to speak, empty vessels in which we have to pour motivation.  People are naturally motivated to explore and try to understand their environment and to try to make useful contributions. If you still treat people like motivation-less creatures into which motivation has to be pumped you will inevitably create resistance because you disregard their already existing motivation and their ability to further motivate themselves.