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Kennemer Dunes, today. Finishing after dark [ motivation ]

"[Except for elementary reflexes], people are not equipped with inborn repertoires of behaviour. They must learn them. New response patterns can be acquired either by direct experience or by observation. Biological factors, of course, play a role in the acquisition process. Genetics and hormones affect physical development which in turn can influence behavioural potentialities. Many so-called instinctual behaviours [though], even in lower species, contain a large learning component. […] When people deal with everyday events, some of their responses prove successful, while others have no effect or result in punishing outcomes. Trough this process of different reinforcement, successful forms of behaviour are eventually selected and ineffectual ones are discarded [...] Self-reinforcement refers to a process in which individuals enhance and maintain their own behaviour by rewarding themselves with rewards that they control when ever they attain self prescribed standards. […] According to social learning theory […] self-regulated reinforcements increase performance mainly trough its motivational function. By making self-reward conditional upon attaining a certain level of performance, individuals create self-inducements to persist in their efforts until their performances match self-prescribed standards. […] Track performances, for example, are gauged in terms of speeds. Achievement-oriented activities are evaluated on the basis of quality, quantity, or originality. Social conduct is judged along such dimensions as authenticity, concequentialness and deviancy […] Whether a given performance will be regarded as rewardable or punishable depends upon the personal standards against which it is evaluated. Actions that measure up to internal standards give rise to positive appraisals, while those that fall short are judged negatively. For most activities there are no absolute measures of adequacy. The time in which a mile is run, the scores obtained on tasks, or the size of charitable contributions, do not convey in themselves sufficient information for self-appraisal. […]  In performances gauged by social criteria, self appraisals require relational comparisons of at least three sources of information to judge a given performance: absolute performance level, one's own personal standards, and a social referent."

Albert Bandura in 'Social Learning Theory', page 16, 17, 130 131. First published in 1977 by Prentice-Hall, Inc., USA