About the Motivation Science Center | Motivation Science Center

Motivation science is concerned with the nature and functions of wanting. It asks questions about what people want, how they try to get it, and what happens when they succeed or fail. By providing answers to these questions, motivation science bridges the gap between what people know and what they do.

Motivation scientists conduct research in four central areas:

Preference and choice (attitudes, decision making, resource allocation, and strategic planning)
Well-being (emotional, behavioral and physical problems, self-esteem, and quality of life)
Achievement (learning, performance, and activity engagement)
Social Influence (socialization, communication and persuasion, and cooperation and conflict)

Research in these areas is conducted across many disciplines, including psychology, economics, sociology, political science, management, marketing, education, medicine, and law.

History

In 2002, Columbia University’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (David H. Cohen, Vice-President) and Columbia Business School (under former Dean Meyer Feldberg), with the support of the Provost Jonathan R. Cole, each contributed funds to develop a Motivation Science Center at Columbia. E. Tory Higgins was appointed as director of the center, and there was an advisory board that included faculty members from the Arts and Sciences and Columbia Business School.

The basic idea behind creating the center was that, compared to other scientific domains, like neuroscience, that interface with other disciplines, the domain of motivation science had not been well articulated or made accessible to scientists or the public. This was both surprising and unfortunate given that a major goal of families, organizations, and institutions is to motivate others, and behavioral problems with motivational roots are consistently included among major societal concerns. It was time that motivation science became both better articulated and more visible as a distinct integrative scientific enterprise.

The stated purpose of the center was to sponsor activities directed toward constructing a new motivation science, both by integrating phenomena that were already being studied into general scientific principles of motivation, and by providing opportunities for scientists and policymakers to recognize the utility of such principles for their own work. At the time of its launch, four central areas were identified that a motivation scientist needed to understand — preference and choice, well-being, achievement, and social influence.

Consistent with this purpose, the first international conference sponsored by the center was held at Arden House in May 2003. It brought together psychologists who worked at all levels of analysis (social, cognitive, and biological) to present research and discuss theories related to four general and integrative motivational principles — expectancy, value, goals, and strategy. Since then, other conferences have been held on various basic and applied issues central to motivation science.

Faculty & Staff

Leadership

Director
E. Tory Higgins

Associate Director
Heidi Grant Halvorson

Board of Advisors
Joel Brockner, Geraldine Downey, Arie Kruglanski, Joonmo Kwon,
Robert Jervis, and Claude Steele

Media Advisor
Giles Anderson

Webmasters
Christine Hartman, Robin Wells

Visiting Scholars

Jennifer Boldero
Lottie Bullens
Dina Van Dijk
Baruch Eitam
Shelly Gable
Guiquan Li
Frank Mathmann
Gertraud Stadler
Helena Schiller

Members

Graduate students and Post-docs (*) who are presently at Columbia

James Cornwalll
Allison Turza-Balgerv
Christine Webb

Fellows

Faculty, scientists, and professionals from outside Columbia University that contribute to the center regularly.

Poonam Arora, Manhattan College and CRED, Columbia University

Vanessa Bohns, University of Waterloo

Miguel Brendl, Kellogg School of Management

Justin Cavallo, Wilfrid Laurier University

Joseph Cesario, Michigan State University

Jens Foerster, Universiteit van Amsterdam

Becca Franks, University of British Columbia

Antonio Freitas, SUNY Stony Brook

Ron Friedman, SUNY Albany

Nira Liberman, Tel Aviv University

Daniel Molden, Northwestern University

Jason Plaks, University of Toronto

Chris Roney, University of Western Ontario

Abigail Scholer, University of Waterloo

James Shah, Duke University

Amy Taylor Bianco, Ohio University