What is expectancy theory in psychology?

2 Expectancy-Value Theory

Expectancy-value theory has been developed by Jacquelynne Eccles and her colleagues (Eccles et al., 1983; Eccles & Wigfield, 2002; Wigfield & Eccles, 2001). The theory postulates that achievement-related choices are motivated by a combination of people's expectations for success and subjective task value in particular domains. For example, children are more likely to pursue an activity if they expect to do well and they value the activity. The model further differentiates task value into four components: attainment value (i.e., importance of doing well), intrinsic value (i.e., personal enjoyment), utility value (i.e., perceived usefulness for future goals), and cost (i.e., competition with other goals). According to the expectancy-value model, expectations for success and task value are shaped by a combination of factors. These include child characteristics (abilities, previous experiences, goals, self-concepts, beliefs, expectations, interpretations) and environmental influences (cultural milieu, socializers’ beliefs and behaviors).

Research has confirmed that expectations for success and task value are distinct constructs (see Eccles & Wigfield, 2002; Wigfield & Eccles, 2001). At the same time, the two factors are correlated; expectancies for success tend to predict children's later task value. That is, children tend to value the domains in which they feel competent (Eccles & Wigfield, 2002; Wigfield & Eccles, 2001). Moreover, both factors predict children's achievement-related outcomes. Expectations for success (i.e., competence-related beliefs) are more strongly linked to performance. For example, a girl who believes she will do well in math tends to get higher math grades than a girl who does not expect to do well. Task values are more strongly tied to achievement-related choices. For example, a girl who values math is more likely to take advanced math courses than a girl who does not value math. In summary, expectancy-value theory highlights the dual importance of competence-related beliefs (expectations for success) and values in explaining children's motivation. Further, research strongly supports these premises of the theory (see Eccles & Wigfield, 2002; Wigfield & Eccles, 2001).

3.2 Expectancy Value Theory

Expectancy Value Theory (Vroom, 1964) postulates that motivation for a given behavior or action is determined by two factors: (i) expectancy, ie, how probable it is that a wanted (instrumental) outcome is achieved through the behavior or action; (ii) value, ie, how much the individual values the desired outcome. These two core factors are integrated through multiplication, such that motivation = expectancy × value. Motivation is large when both expectancy and value are high, but disappears when one of these factors equals zero. Vroom further differentiates two subcomponents of the factor expectancy. The first subcomponent relates to an individual's belief about their personal ability to perform a given activity at a required level, in other words, the perceived relationship between effort and performance. This subcomponent is termed “expectancy” (just like the overall factor). The second subcomponent relates to (an individual's belief about) the probabilistic association between a performed activity and the wanted outcome (termed “instrumentality”). These two subcomponents are again integrated through multiplication, such that overall expectancy is high when an individual both beliefs that they will be personally able to perform a given activity and that successful performance of this activity will likely lead to the wanted outcome.

Eccles et al. (Eccles, 1983; Eccles and Wigfield, 2002; Wigfield and Eccles, 2000) and Lawler and Porter (1967) extended Vrooms model and define influencing factors of expectancy and value. For instance, Lawler and Porter (1967) state that value is determined by the degree to which an outcome is believed to satisfy needs for security, esteem, autonomy, and self-actualization. Eccles and colleagues (Eccles, 1983; Eccles and Wigfield, 2002; Wigfield and Eccles, 2000) argue that expectancy and value are affected by task-specific beliefs (ie, perceived difficulty) and individuals' self-schema and goals, which in turn are influenced by other peoples' beliefs, socialization, and personal past achievement experiences. These authors further listed four components of task value: (i) degree of enjoyment (intrinsic value), (ii) personal importance of doing well in a given task (attainment value), (iii) the degree of fit with current goals (utility value), and (iv) “relative cost,” including required effort, lost alternative opportunities, and negative affect. Finally, and in direct alignment with our framework, Eccles and colleagues state that expectancy and value directly influence performance, persistence, and choice.

All three described variants of Expectancy Value Theory are broadly consistent with our framework, and the two core components expectancy and value have been incorporated into our model as determining factors of expected extrinsic benefits. There are however some differences in the precise understanding of these factors. For instance, in Eccles and colleagues' model, expected costs are directly integrated into value estimation, rather than represented as a separate factor (as in our framework). Meanwhile, Lawler and Porter's model does not consider costs at all, and neither their model nor Vroom's theory explicitly differentiate between intrinsic and extrinsic benefits.

Functional Approach

In their expectancy-value theory, Fishbein and Ajzen speculate that five to seven attributes or consequences are critical in determining a person's overall attitude. It is not clear, however, which particular attributes will be the most important (i.e., how the attributes are weighted). Functional theories of persuasion focus on the specific needs or functions that attitudes serve for a person and are therefore relevant for understanding the underlying dimensions of the attitude that are most important to influence. For example, some attitudes are postulated to protect people from threatening truths about themselves or to enhance their own self-image (‘ego-defensive function’), others give expression to important values (‘value-expressive function’), or help people to understand the world around them (‘knowledge function’) or facilitate achieving rewards and avoiding punishments (‘utilitarian function’). According to these theories, change depends on challenging the underlying functional basis of the attitude. Thus, if a person dislikes lowering taxes because of concern about social inequality (value expressive function), an argument about the amount of money the taxpayer will save (utilitarian function) will be ineffective.

Goals, Stress, and Optimism

Expectancies are important facets of expectancy–value theories, but so are goals and values. The emphasis on goals meshes well with aspects of contemporary theorizing in personality and social psychology. Recent years have seen a reemergence of interest in goal constructs. One prevailing view is that human behavior is organized around the pursuit of goals – trying to attain things that are desired and avoid things that are not. Because of differences in emphasis, theorists use different terms to refer to goals, including current concerns, personal strivings, personal projects, and life tasks. Goals that are even broader in nature carry labels such as possible selves and self-guides.

Although these various goal constructs certainly differ among themselves in ways that are far from trivial, they also share an underlying commonality. All include the idea that goals energize and direct activities. All include the sense that goals give meaning to people's lives and that understanding the person means understanding the person's goals and the organization of those goals. As such, goals are seen as providing the structure that define people's lives, imbuing lives with meaning, both in the short run and the long run.

Goal constructs provide an interesting window on the experience of stress and coping. From this vantage point, stress occurs when people experience difficulty moving toward desired end states or difficulty keeping away from end states that are unwanted. Stated somewhat differently, stress occurs whenever impediments to goal attainment are encountered. From this perspective, coping involves efforts to create conditions that permit a person to continue to move in the right direction (toward the desired goals or away from the undesired goals) or to disengage from goals that are seen as no longer attainable. Thus, stress and coping are not seen as distinct classes of phenomena but, rather, are seen as arising within the dynamics of normal goal-related self-regulatory processes.

What determines how a person reacts to the blockage of goal-directed activities? Expectancy–value theories suggest that the key determinant is the person's confidence or doubt that goal attainment will eventually occur. Thus, when confronting minor challenges, optimists take a posture of confidence and continue to persist in their goal-directed efforts, even if progress is difficult or slow. Pessimists are more doubtful and reserved in their efforts. This divergence should also be displayed as the threat to goal attainment becomes more extreme. Optimists are likely to believe that the adversity can be handled successfully; pessimists are likely to anticipate disaster. To the extent that continued engagement in goal-directed efforts is adaptive, optimists should experience a coping advantage over pessimists.

1.1 Expectancy-Value Theory

As formulated by Eccles and colleagues, expectancy-value theory holds that achievement-related choices—such as deciding to major in engineering with the goal of becoming a civil engineer—are governed by a variety of factors (Eccles, 1994; Eccles (Parsons) et al., 1983; Meece, Eccles-Parson, et al., 1982). The details of this theory are beyond the scope of this chapter, but Figure 1 provides additional information about the proposed factors that lead students to occupational and educational decisions. In particular, these factors may be divided into two categories: expectancy for success and subjective task value. Expectancy of success refers to the individual's expectation that he or she can succeed at the challenging task, such as majoring in engineering. Expectations for success develop over childhood and adolescence (see Butler, 2014 [Chapter 1 of this volume]) and are shaped by factors such as self-concept of abilities (e.g. “I am good at math so I can succeed in engineering”), gender stereotypes (e.g. “I am a girl and engineering is for men”), the beliefs of socializers such as parents (e.g. “my daughter is good at math and thus engineering would be a good field for her”), and previous achievement-related experiences (e.g. “I scored in the 99th percentile on my state's standardized math test”).

Subjective task value involves several aspects, including interest (intrinsic value) and utility value, which refers to a person's perception of the usefulness of the task either currently or in the future (Meece et al., 1982). For example, if a student wants to become a civil engineer, undertaking an engineering major has very high utility value for her. Interest, utility value, and self-concept of ability tend to correlate with each other. That is, people who have a positive math self-concept also tend to be interested in math and to see it as useful.

Expectancy-value theory is a developmental theory, incorporating factors such as the development of self-concept and the influence of socializers such as parents and teachers. Moreover, it recognizes the importance of the cultural milieu—such as cultural gender stereotypes and the easily observed gender segregation of adult occupations—in shaping adolescents’ and adults’ occupational choices. In later sections, we will review specific research that derives from the theory.

The health belief model

The health belief model (HBM) is a value-expectancy theory, and assumes that an individual's behavior is guided by expectations of consequences of adopting new practices (Janz et al., 2002). The model has four key concepts (Hornik, 1991; Fisher and Fisher, 1992):

Susceptibility: does the person perceive vulnerability to the specific disease?

Severity: does the individual perceive that getting the disease has negative consequences?

Benefits minus costs: what are the positive and negative effects of adopting a new practice?

Health motive: does the person have concern about the consequences of contracting the disease?

In addition, self-efficacy, a sense of competence as a cogent agent of long-term behavior change, has recently been integrated into HBM. Thus, increased sexual risk-taking or unprotected sex may be explained and addressed by HMB as follows: one's beliefs about the benefits of condoms (protection from HIV or STDs) do not outweigh the costs of condom use (pleasure reduction due to reduced sensation, partner-related concerns such as creation of distrust in a relationship or reduction of spontaneity); interventions would focus on shifting the benefit–cost. A criticism of this model is that it lacks clear definitions of components and the relationship between them; thus the model has been critiqued for inconsistent measurement in both descriptive and intervention research. HBM has been further critiqued for not fully addressing several behavioral determinants, including socio-cultural factors, and assuming that health is a high priority for most individuals (thus, it may not be applicable to those who do not place as high a value on health).

5.5 Motivational Consequences of Perceived Causality

When considering the necessary components of a theory of motivation, I first turned to Atkinson, Rotter, and Expectancy/Value theory. This theory states that what one does depends on what one is going to get (value) and the likelihood of getting it (expectancy). How, I asked, could an attribution approach incorporate expectancy and value? The expectancy component was already embraced; the probability of reaching a goal is (in part) determined by the perceived stability of the cause of the prior outcome. Remember, attribution theory is post-outcome and pre-behavioral. But what about value? Here, Atkinson particularly provided guidance. He specified that the value of an achievement-related outcome is not, for example, the amount of monetary reward or some other external incentive. Rather, value is the pride experienced following success. I reasoned that if causal stability is related to expectancy of success, then perhaps causal locus could be linked with the value of success. It was then a small step to realize that pride in accomplishment and increments in self-esteem require internal attributions for success. That is, one experiences pride following success ascribed to ability and effort but not if that outcome is perceived as due to undertaking an easy task or because of good luck.

The pairing of stability–expectancy and locus–pride linked attribution thinking to Expectancy/Value theory. In addition, I already had evidence of a connection of between controllability and moral evaluation from my earlier studies manipulating ability and effort along with task outcome. These causal dimension-based associations provided the scaffold on which to construct a theory of motivation. The structure of the theory took the following temporal sequence (see Weiner, 1985, 1986):

Outcome—Causal search—Cause—Causal dimension—Expectancy/Emotion—Behavior

For example, consider the following two motivated episodes:

A student fails an exam (the outcome). She finds out that others have done well and knows she has done poorly on past exams (causal search). She ascribes failure to lack of ability (cause). Ability (akin to aptitude) is perceived as internal to her, relatively stable, and not under volitional control (causal dimensions). Because the cause is internal, personal esteem is lowered (emotion); because the cause is stable, she expects to fail in the future (expectancy); and because the internal cause is not subject to personal control, other feelings including humiliation and shame are experienced (emotions). Low esteem, low expectancy, and shame result in motivation decrements and dropping out of school (behavior).

A student fails an exam. He partied the night before and ascribes the failure to lack of effort. Effort expenditure is perceived as internal to him, unstable, and under volitional control. Because the cause is internal, personal esteem is lowered; because the cause is unstable, he thinks he can succeed in the future; because the internal cause is subject to personal control, there is inferred personal responsibility for the outcome and the emotions experienced include guilt and regret. Expectancy maintenance along with guilt and regret overcome lowered self-worth and results in renewed goal striving and motivation increments.

This conception of motivation unfolds in a temporal or historical sequence, rather than being “all at once” or “ahistorical” as the theories of Lewin, Atkinson, and Rotter. In addition, it includes a variety of cognitions and emotions, hence having both more head and more heart than the prior motivation conceptions on which it was built. But thus far relatively little has been said about the heart (emotions), and I turn to that next.

Revised protection motivation theory

An extension of the HBM, the revised Protection Motivation Theory (PMT) is also a value-expectancy theory. It was first proposed to facilitate understanding of fear appeals and deviates from the HBM in that it attempts to predict the adoption of adaptive (e.g., sun protection) versus maladaptive responses (e.g., sunbathing without protection) to health threat. According to this theory, the threat appraisal process involves an evaluation of factors that increase or decrease the likelihood of maladaptive responses. Intrinsic (e.g., physical pleasure) or extrinsic (e.g., social approval) rewards can increase the likelihood of maladaptive responses, while fear – triggered by increased perceptions of susceptibility and severity – can decrease the likelihood of such responses. As in the HBM, the coping appraisal process involves subjectively evaluating the ability of the response to reduce health threat. PMT also incorporates self-efficacy (i.e., the belief that one can successfully perform the response) as a component of coping appraisal. Protection motivation, which directs behavior, is a combination of threat and coping appraisal. It is commonly measured via behavioral intentions.

The psychosocial model of sun protection and sunbathing described in the previous section incorporated self-efficacy for sun protection as its PMT component. Results suggested that self-efficacy for sun protection, which was deemed distinct from past behavior or habit, is a strong positive predictor of both facial and body sun-protective behaviors. Although severity was not related to actual sun-protective or sunbathing behavior, perceived susceptibility was negatively associated with intentions to engage in a maladaptive response (i.e., sunbathing) and advantages of sunbathing. These results are consistent with PMT.

Abstract

We discuss the development of Eccles, Wigfield, and colleagues' expectancy-value model of achievement motivation (now called SEVT for situated expectancy value theory) and review the research on the part of the model that concerns the development of children's expectancies and values and their relations to performance and activity choice. We focus primarily on subjective task value (STV), first discussing the definition of its different components (intrinsic value, attainment value, utility value, and perceived cost) and how they develop across the childhood and adolescent years. We discuss relations among these components and the notion of “hierarchies of values” as being especially important for activity choice. We next turn to discussion of sources of influences on task values and processes by which individuals' STVs take shape. Next is a discussion of how individuals' values and expectancies relate to their activity choice; we discuss both variable-centered and person centered research addressing this issue. Then we discuss expectancy-value theory based interventions that have focused primarily on enhancing individuals' utility values. We close with suggestions for future research.

8.2 Implications for Theory and Research

My discussion of gendered motivational approaches is intended to complement, integrate, and extend other theoretical perspectives. Returning to my opening complaints about incipient gender-blindness, E-V theory is exempt. This approach continues to generate an impressive body of empirical research that increasingly considers the influence of socio-cultural beliefs, practices, and affordances on the gender-typed motivational beliefs and choices of both boys and girls, not only in STEM but also in other domains. The focus on sex-typed domains may disguise more general gendered motivational tendencies, however, such as those discussed in this chapter. Achievement goal theory has confirmed the importance of considering not only the value of success but also the kind of success students strive to achieve. My own grounding in this approach pointed me in the direction of male proving and female improving, but readers cannot fail to notice my frustration that researchers in this tradition so often ignore gender. As a result, we still know little, for example, as to whether and how gender might moderate the effects of performance goals and contexts among low versus high achievers. In my discussion of attributions and self-evaluative motives, I often had to rely on relatively early studies because recent ones did not consider gender. Thus, it is possible that some of the trends I identified might have changed, in keeping with changes in social attitudes and affordances. I have focused on gender and motivation in the West, simply because there is not yet enough relevant research in other countries. Few studies of academic motivation in Eastern cultures have compared boys and girls. It is suggestive, however, that although students in collectivistic cultures self-enhance less in agentic and achievement domains than do their counterparts in the West, women self-enhanced less than males also in Japan (Kitayama et al., 1997). Last, but not least, thinking about gender led to many insights about motivation in the past and can, I believe, continue to do so in the future.