Intrinsic Motivational Factors for College Freshmen and Seniors and Employees in the Work Force Regarding Career Path Choice

Abstract

Within the area of industrial-organizational psychology, understanding motivation within organizations is a central concern. Motivation is defined as a person’s internal disposition to be concerned with an approach to positive incentives and avoid negative incentives. Though it can be used to help predict behavior, there is also the involvement of ability and environmental factors surrounding individuals that differentiate between different people’s behavior and performance. Dealing with the motivating factors that cause a person to pursue certain career paths, this review will provide a theoretical approach to the intrinsic value that someone would place on this process and would use to make his or her decision, rather than the extrinsic values that are commonly labeled. Looking at the reasons and processes that are used when determining both a major in college as well as a career in the real world, whether the latter follows the first or not, this approach will give an insightful reasoning as to the most common intrinsic values that people place on their areas in life, and the processes that accompany both the value-setting and decision-making