cognitive process
Cognition is the "mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses". It encompasses all aspects of intellectual functions and processes such as: perception, attention, thought, ima ...
by which an individual decides on and commits to a particular course of action. It is defined as purposive striving and is one of the primary human psychological functions. Others include affect (feeling or emotion),
motivation
Motivation is an mental state, internal state that propels individuals to engage in goal-directed behavior. It is often understood as a force that explains why people or animals initiate, continue, or terminate a certain behavior at a particul ...
(goals and expectations), and
cognition
Cognition is the "mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses". It encompasses all aspects of intellectual functions and processes such as: perception, attention, thought, ...
(thinking). Volitional processes can be applied consciously or they can be automatized as
habits
A habit (or wont, as a humorous and formal term) is a routine of behavior that is repeated regularly and tends to occur subconsciously.
A 1903 paper in the ''American Journal of Psychology'' defined a "habit, from the standpoint of psychology, willpower'' as scientific and colloquial terms (respectively) for the same process. When a person ''makes up their mind'' to do a thing, that state is termed 'immanent volition'. When we put forth any particular act of choice, that act is called an emanant, executive, or imperative volition. When an immanent or settled state of choice controls or governs a series of actions, that state is termed predominant volition. Subordinate volitions are particular acts of choice which carry into effect the object sought for by the governing or ''predominant volition''.
According to Gary Kielhofner's "Model of Human Occupation", volition is one of the three sub-systems that act on human behavior. Within this model, volition refers to a person's values, interests and
self-efficacy
In psychology, self-efficacy is an individual's belief in their capacity to act in the ways necessary to reach specific goals. The concept was originally proposed by the psychologist Albert Bandura in 1977.
Self-efficacy affects every area of hum ...
(personal causation) about personal performance.
Kurt Lewin
Kurt Lewin ( ; ; 9 September 1890 – 12 February 1947) was a German-American psychologist, known as one of the modern pioneers of social psychology, social, industrial and organizational psychology, organizational, and applied psychology in the ...
argues that motivation and volition are one and the same, in distinction to the nineteenth century psychologist Narziß Ach. Ach proposed that there is a certain threshold of desire that distinguishes motivation from volition: when desire lies below this threshold, it is motivation, and when it crosses over, it becomes volition. In the book ''A Bias for Action'', Heinrich Bruch and Sumantra Ghoshal also differentiate volition (willpower) from motivation. Using this model, they propose assessing individuals' differing levels of commitment with regard to tasks by measuring it on a scale of intent from motivation(an emotion) to volition (a decision). Discussions of impulse control (e.g., Kuhl and Heckhausen) and education (e.g., Corno), also make the motivation-volition distinction. Corno's model ties volition to the processes of self-regulated learning.
See also
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Appetition
In philosophy, desire has been identified as a recurring philosophical problem. It has been variously interpreted as what compels someone towards the highest state of human nature or consciousness, as well as being posited as either something to be ...
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Avolition
Avolition or amotivation, as a symptom of various forms of psychopathology, is the decrease in the ability to initiate and persist in self-directed purposeful activities. Such activities that appear to be neglected usually include routine activit ...
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Executive functions
In cognitive science and neuropsychology, executive functions (collectively referred to as executive function and cognitive control) are a set of cognitive processes that support goal-directed behavior, by regulating thoughts and actions thro ...
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Free will
Free will is generally understood as the capacity or ability of people to (a) choice, choose between different possible courses of Action (philosophy), action, (b) exercise control over their actions in a way that is necessary for moral respon ...
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Motivational salience
Motivational salience is a cognitive process and a form of attention that ''motivates'' or propels an individual's behavior towards or away from a particular object, perceived event or outcome. Motivational salience regulates the intensity of b ...
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Neuroscience of free will
The neuroscience of free will, a part of neurophilosophy, is the study of topics related to free will (including Volition (psychology), volition and the sense of agency), using neuroscience and the analysis of how findings from such studies may ...
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Self-agency
Self-agency, also known as the phenomenal will, is the sense that actions are self-generated. Scientist Benjamin Libet was the first to study it, concluding that brain activity predicts the action before one even has conscious awareness of his ...
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Prohairesis
Prohairesis or proairesis (; variously translated as "moral character", "will", "volition", "choice", "intention", or "moral choice") is a fundamental concept in the Stoic philosophy of Epictetus. It represents the choice involved in giving or wi ...