About the editors. - Acknowledgements. - Motivational science : the nature and functions of wanting. - Pt. 1. Basic wants. Reading 1. The need to belong : desire for interpersonal attachments as a fundamental human motivation. Reading 2. The social self : on being the same and different at the same time. Reading 3. Some affective consequences of social comparison and reflection processes : the pain and pleasure of being close. Reading 4. Why do we need what we need? A terror management perspective on the roots of human social motivation. - Pt. 2. When wants change. Reading 5. Life task problem-solving : situational affordances and personal needs. Reading 6. The dynamics of a stressful encounter. Reading 7. The support of autonomy and the control of behavior. - Pt. 3. Bridging the gap between knowing and doing. Reading 8. A cognitive-effective system theory of personality : reconceptualizing situations, dispositions, dynamics, and invariance in personality structure. Reading 9. The prediction of behavior from attitudinal and normative variables. Reading 10. Motivational determinants of risk-taking behavior. Reading 11. Self-evaluative and self-efficacy mechanisms governing the motivational effects of goal systems. Reading 12. What do people think they are doing? Action identification and human behavior. - Pt. 4. Getting what one wants. Reading 13. Beyond pleasure and pain. Reading 14. Origins and functions of positive and negative affect : a control-process view. Reading 15. Deliberative and implemental mind-sets : cognitive tuning toward congruous thoughts and information. Reading 16. Identity negotiation : where two roads meet. - Pt. 5. Knowing from wanting. Reading 17. Dissonance and the pill: an attribution approach to studying the arousal properties of dissonance. Reading 18. The case for motivated reasoning. Reading 19. Uncertainly orientation and persuasion :

individual differences in the effects of personal relevance on social judgments. Reading 20. Motivated closing of the mind : seizing and freezing. - Pt. 6. Wanting from knowing. Reading 21. An attributional analysis of achievement motivation. Reading 22. A social-cognitive approach to motivation and personality. Reading 23. Attribution of apparent arousal and proficiency of recovery from sympathetic activation affecting excitation transfer. Appendix : how to read a journal article in social psychology. - Author index. - Subject index.

Motivational science is concerned with the nature and functions of wanting and their relation to knowing, feeling and doing. Despite the central importance of motivational science to psychology, there is no current collection of articles that define the field. This reader provides an outstanding overview of classic and current articles in social personality that address major issues in motivational science. The articles in this reader were selected and edited for readability, interest, and centrality to motivational science. The reader provides an excellent introduction to social-personality contributions to motivational science at a level suitable for both advanced undergraduates and graduate student. It could be used both as a basic textbook for advanced courses in motivation and as a supplement to introductory courses in social-personality. Researchers, instructors and practitioners in motivational science would also benefit from having these important articles readily available for the first time in a single soursebook. ... - Back cover.