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III. Effort, Thinking, and Motivation
- Southern Illinois University Press
- Chapter
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III EFFORT, THINKING. AND MOTIVATION WHAT is it that we really prize under the name of effort? What is it that we are really trying to secure when we regard increase in ability to pnt forth effort as an aim of education? Taken practically , there is no great difficulty in answering. What we are after is persistency, cOllsecutiveness, of activity: endurance against obstacles and through hindrances. Effort regarded as mere in~ crease of strain in the expenditure of energy is not in itselfa thing we esteem. Barely in itself it is a thing we would avoid. A child is lifting a weight that is too heavy for him. It takes an increasing amount of effort, involving increase of strain which is increasingly painful, to lift it higher and higher. The wise parent tries to protect the child from mere strain; from the danger of excessive fatigue, of damaging the structures of the body, of getting bruises. Effort as mere strained activity is thus notwhat we prize. On the other hand. 46 EFFORT, THINKING, AND MOTIVATION a judicious parent will not like to see a child too easily discouraged by meeting obstacles. If the child is physically healthy, surrender of a course of action, or diversion of energy to some easier line of action, is a bad symptom if it shows itself at the first sign of resistance. The demand for effort is a demand for c(l1ttimdty in the face of difficulties. This account of the matter is so obvious as to lie upon the surface. When we examine into it further, however, we find it only repeats what we have already learned in connection with interest as an accompaniment of an expanding activity. Effort, like interest, is significant only in connection with a course of action, an action that takes time for its completion since it develops through a succession of stages. Apart from an end to be reached, effort would never be anything more than a momentary strain or a succession of such strains. It would be a thing'to be avoided, not so much for its disagreeableness as because nothing comes of it save exposure to dangers of exhaustion and accident. Eut where the action is a developing or growing one, effort, willing47 [3.237.51.235] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 22:38 GMT) INT£REST AND EFFORT ness to put forth energy at any point of the entire activity, measures the hold which the activity, as one whole affair, has upon a person. It shows how much he really cares for it. We never (if we are sensible) take, in ourselves or in some. body else, the U will for the deed" unless there is evidencethat there real1ywasa will, a purpose; and the sole evidence is some striving to realize the purpose, the putting forth of effort. If conditions forbid all effort, it is not a question of {t will" at all, but simply ofa sympathetic wish. This does not mean, of course, that effort is always desirable under such conditions. On the contrary, the game may not be worth the candle; the end to be reached may not be of sUfficient -importance to justify the expenditure of so much energy, orof running the risks of excessive strain. Judgment comes in to decide such matters, and speaking generally it is as much 'a sign of bad judgment to keep on at all costs in an activity once entered upon, as it is a sign of weakness to be turned from it at the first evidence of difficulties. The principle laid down I'Ihows that effort is significant not as oare effort, or 48 EFFORT, THINK.ING, A.ND MOTIVATION strain, but in connection with carrying forward an activity to its fulfillment: it all depends, as .we say, updn the end. Two considerations follow. (I) On the one hand, when an activity persists in spite of its temporaryblocking by an obstacle, there is a situation ofmentalstress :apeculiaremotional condition of combined desire and aversion. The end continues to make an appeal, and to hold one to the activity in spite of its interruption by difficulties. This continued forward appeal gives desire. The obstacle , on the other hand, in the degree in which it arrests or thwarts progress ahead, inhibits action , and tends to divert itinto some other channel - to avert action, in other words, from the original end. This gives aversion. Effort, as a mental experience. is precisely this peculiar combination of conflicting t(!1tdencies -tendencies away...