Motivation from the Perspective of Contextual Cognitive Behavioral Approaches and the Psychological Flexibility Model

Abstract

In everyday uses, the term motivation may imply a kind of mechanistic, “inside” the person, type of process. Contextual approaches, on the other hand, adopt an evolutionary perspective on motivation that emphasizes the selection of behavior patterns through the joint actions of historical consequences and verbal or cognitive processes, themselves considered the product of the same contextual processes of selection by consequences. The contextual focus on building, maintaining, and elaborating behavior patterns from directly manipulable contextual features enables a focus on variables that are able to serve the purpose of prediction and influence over behavior. Current studies of these processes apply the psychological flexibility model, including its processes of values-based and committed action. Laboratory studies of these processes demonstrate their potential importance in healthy functioning in relation to chronic pain. Treatment studies, including studies of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), also demonstrate that enhancing these motivation-related processes has clinical utility.