60  EPPP FUNDAMENTALS

Interrelationships Among Cognition, Affect,

and Motivation
The interrelationships among cognition, emotion, and motivation are complex and
cut across all areas of human functioning. Many of the observed interrelationships
are based on the theories that have been outlined in the rest of this chapter. This
section will describe some of the more important contributions to the understand-
ing of these interrelationships.
Albert Ellis was the first psychologist to describe the importance of the inter-
action of cognition and emotion in normal and abnormal functioning, particularly
in disorders like depression. In 1955, he established rational emotive behavior
therapy (REBT), which focused on how thoughts determine emotion (Ellis, 1955).
Ellis focused on “self-defeating” thoughts and postulated that these led to mala-
daptive behavior and pathological emotional states. He felt that helping an indi-
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vidual reduce these irrational thoughts would reestablish healthy emotions and
behavior (Ellis, 1976).
Aaron Beck expanded on the influence of cognition on emotion when he
developed cognitive therapy in 1967 with his seminal work, Depression: Clini-
cal, Experimental, and Theoretical Aspects. In it, he introduced the concept of
automatic thoughts and cognitive distortions and hypothesized that these con-
cepts were primarily responsible for disruptions of normal emotional function-
ing. Automatic thoughts are thoughts that seem to occur spontaneously and are
understood as accurate interpretations of reality by an individual. Automatic
thoughts are not actually spontaneous but are well-learned interpretations. These
automatic thoughts often interpret reality in ways that are biased and this bias
is reflected in a cognitive distortion (Beck, Rush, Shaw, & Emery, 1979). Beck
theorized that cognitive distortions lead to disrupted mood and disorders such
as depression.
The theory of learned helplessness (Seligman & Maier, 1967) was developed
to explain research that found that animals exposed to inescapable pain will even-
tually stop trying to avoid the pain, even when opportunities to escape were pre-
sented. This theory has been considered a possible explanation for depression, as
individuals develop a sense that they are unable to escape pain and feel helpless,
which eventually leads to depression (Seligman, 1975).
Attributional theory developed from Seligman’s work based on research show-
ing that learned helplessness was not a universal phenomenon (Cole & Coyne,
1977). Weiner developed the concept of attributional style and globality/­specificity,
stability/instability, and internality/externality (Weiner, 1986). Globality/specific-
ity refers to whether an individual interprets events as a general response or a
situation-specific response. Stability refers to the amount to which an individual
expects a particular response to be consistent across time. Internality/externality
refers to the extent to which an individual believes a result is caused by factors
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internal to the person or from the external environment.

Evaluative interactions between cognition and emotion have also been used
to understand performance and job satisfaction. Equity theory (Adams, 1965) was
among the first theories to apply cognitive/emotional interactions to these areas.
This theory indicates that individuals assess the rewards from their work. If they
feel under-rewarded or over-rewarded, they experience emotional distress and
attempt to rectify these feelings through changing either their evaluations of or
contributions to their work.
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 2. Cognitive–Affective Bases of Behavior  61

Goal-setting theory incorporated the fact that humans can plan for and form
expectations about the future and that these expectations can assist individuals in
reaching peak performance. Humans can set future goals that will then affect their
behavior. According to Locke (1968), goals affect behavior in four ways:

1. by directing attention
2. by mobilizing efforts and resources for the task
3. by encouraging persistence
4. by facilitating the development of strategies to complete the goal

Goal-setting theory also holds that the individual must have a commitment to the
goal in order to maintain motivation.
More recently, theories have been developed to understand the role of emo-
tion and cognition in performance. Of particular interest is the role that anxiety
(or autonomic arousal in general) plays in performance. The observable effects of
anxiety on performance have been described with the Yerkes–Dodson law, which
indicates that there is an optimal level of anxiety that will lead to peak performance
(Yerkes & Dodson, 1908). If anxiety is too low or too high, performance will be
negatively affected. Although the Yerkes–Dodson law describes the impact of anxi-
ety on performance, it does not adequately explain the mechanisms at work.
Two competing theories proposed to understand the role of anxiety in per-
formance are the Conscious Processing Hypothesis (CPH) and the Processing
Efficiency Theory (PET). CPH postulates that increased anxiety associated with
performance under pressure leads the individual to exert conscious control over
a skill or activity that otherwise can be completed with automatic processing
(Masters, 1992). This conscious focus on the skill disrupts the normally smooth
automatic processing and leads to decrements in performance. Research has been
equivocal for this theory (Mullen, Hardy, & Tattersall, 2005; Wilson, Smith, &
­Holmes, 2007). PET, on the other hand, focuses on the effect anxiety has on the
cognitive resources available to the individual. PET predicts that increased stress
will reduce the capacity of WM, thereby increasing the difficulty of completing
the task for the individual (Eysenck & Calvo, 1992). PET also provides an expla-
nation for maintained or improved performance under pressure by postulating
that, concomitant with decreases in WM, there is an increase in the attention that
is directed to the task. Research has generally been more supportive of PET over
CPH (Hardy & Hutchinson, 2007; Wilson, Smith & Holmes, 2007).
Another resource-focused theory is Conservation of Resources (COR). COR
postulates that the impact of stress and emotions on performance can be under-
stood as a function of individual and group resources (Hobfoll, 1998). Accord-
ing to this theory, an individual is primarily motivated to build and maintain
resources that will protect both the individual and the social system that supports
the individual. Resources provide both the means to deal with stress and anxiety
and the framework for an individual’s appraisal of an event and ability to cope
with the event (Buchwald, 2010). Individuals who already have reduced resources
will be more vulnerable than those who have abundant resources; these vulner-
able individuals will show reduced performance in the face of stress due to their
depleted resources.
Recent research has also focused on the role of self-talk in performance. Self-
talk is the verbalizations (internal or external) that an individual has toward him-
or herself that allow that individual to regulate emotions, interpret perceptions,

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