Motivation and emotion/Book/2025/Encouragement and motivation

Picture this ... You've been training for a half-marathon for months and after much hard work you think you're ready. When race day comes, however half way through you start to think you're not going to be able to complete it. Your legs, feet and body is so fatigued and sore that you're genuinely losing the will to keep going. Your motivation drops astronomically and at this rate all that hard work is about to go out of the window. Then one of the event's volunteers starts to cheer for you as you get closer and makes a simple statement of "You've got this—keep pushing, you're doing amazing, don't give up."

^{[grammar? - there are some grammatical errors in the text box above - I have written more on this version in your discussions page]}

Persistence and effort are key components of motivated behaviour. Encouragement—a specific form of social support—influences ^{[influences what?]} through cognitive, emotional, and physiological mechanisms such as enhanced self-efficacy, competence and motivation. With a visual example demonstrated in Figure 1. ^{[maybe reword for clarity. You could break the second sentence into two shorter sentences]}

Most people can remember a moment in which a simple few words of support made the difference between giving up and doubling down, whether it was a teacher, coach, therapist, coworker, peer, family member or friend. These moments capture the essence of encouragement. At its core, encouragement is not rewarding success or trying to inflate someone's ego, it is about affirming someone's capacity, effort and potential, even in times of difficulty.

Psychologists have long recognised that motivation is not all about the internal, but also the external. By nature humans are social creatures, whose persistence in difficult tasks are often dependent on the perceived presence or absence of support. While often overlooked in comparison to rewards or praise, encouragement is uniquely positioned to sustain motivation, working through a wide range of mechanisms cognitively, physiologically and psychologically. Encouragement, however, is not pure magic, often dependent on numerous factors for successful implementation such as authenticity, timing and context ^{[do some of the sentences in this paragraph need a source?]}.

Despite its everyday presence, encouragement has historically received less attention than other similar concepts such as praise, reinforcement and social support^[source?]. This lack of interest has caused ambiguity in definitions, applications, theoretical operationalism and measurements. Whilst it has been practically applied in a range of settings such as the classroom, sports field or health with notable success, there is still room for improvement.

Much of today's contemporary understanding of encouragement can be attributed to Alfred Adler and his work. Adler viewed encouragement to be at the centre of human development due to its role in overcoming discouragement, which he viewed to be the ultimate obstacle in human growth (Watts & Pietrzak, 2000). People often abandon tasks not because they are incapable, but because discouragement withers away at an individual's motivation to keep going. For this reason Adler viewed encouragement as the antidote to discouragement, allowing individuals to persist and continue to exert effort even in the face of adversity ^[source?]. Figure 2 poses the question of what is encouragement? Encouragement can be defined as a process which aims to affirm an individual's capacity and effort particularly in the face of adversity, as to foster persistence and motivation (Wong et al., 2025). Emphasising three core elements:

• Focus on effort and capacity

• Salience during difficulty

• Forward-looking orientation^{[Edit formatting so these dot points are under "emphasising three core elements" ]}

It is also important to note how encouragement differs from praise, reinforcement and social support. Praise affirms success, reinforcement shapes behaviour through consequences and social support through perceived support. Encouragement contrasts these by affirming values of persistence and effort though the emphasis of its core elements (Wong et al., 2025).

Illusive examples: ^{[Are these examples of encouragement? Maybe make the heading "Examples of encouragement" to make it clear]}

• A teacher to a student: “You’ve worked really hard on this problem — I can see your reasoning improving. Keep building on that, you can do it.”
• A physiotherapist to a patient in rehab: “This stage is tough, but it’s exactly where progress happens. Keep at it, you’re moving forward step by step, day by day.”
• A coach: “You’ve built such a strong foundation — imagine how much further you’ll go if you keep at it, you're going to be a weapon.”

Test yourself! Which of the following are core elements of encouragement? Focus on effort and capacity Salience during difficulty Forward-looking orientation All of the above

Encouragement exerts its influence through a range of psychological mechanisms (shown in Figure 3) which can be explained using motivational theories and understanding. At its core^[comma] encouragement bolsters self-belief, strengthens commitment to goal and helps to maintain persistence even in the face of difficulty.

Self-efficacy theory

Self-efficacy theory helps to posit that individuals tend to persist and exert effort when they believe that they can obtain success. Encouragement for this reason can help to sway this belief in a positive manner by reinforcing someone's confidence in their capacity in a way which helps them to believe they obtain success even in the face of difficulty (Bandura & Adams, 1977).

Goal-setting theory

Goal-setting theory helps to emphasize^[spelling] the importance of clear and challenging goals, which in turn help to enhance effort and persistence. Whilst commitment to such goals can falter and wither when faced with difficulty or fatigue, encouragement helps to overcome this by reminding individuals of their capacity to obtain the goal by reframing setbacks as temporary and as a part of the process. This helps to maintain persistence and renew effort when such difficulties or challenges arise (Luneburg, 2011).

Expectancy-value theory

Expectancy-value theory helps to explain persistence as an indicator of whether individuals expect to succeed and values the outcome. Using this understanding, encouragement can be viewed to strengthen persistence by working to bolster expectancy and value by reaffirming an individual's capacity and value behind obtaining the goal (Wigfield & Eccles, 2000).

Social cognitive theory

Social cognitive theory helps to place emphasis on learning through social influence and modelling. Whilst encouragement is often delivered from one person to another, it can also be used in self-talk or self-evaluation, in this instance observed encouragement can act as social cues that can be used to shape self-talk, expectations and for behaviours involving persistence (Van et al., 2011).

Self-determination theory

Self-determination theory identifies competence, autonomy and relatedness as basic psychosocial needs. Encouragement can be used to support and meet these needs by affirming competence, autonomy-supportive affirmation and strengthening relatedness though social connection. In satisfying these needs encouragement can be regarded to foster self-determination and as an extension sustain persistence (Cervone & Shoda, 1999).

Summary of mechanisms

• Encouragement sustains belief in ability (self-efficacy).
• Encouragement reinforces goal commitment (goal-setting theory).
• Encouragement strengthens expectancy and value (expectancy-value theory).
• Encouragement provides social modelling and affirmation (social cognitive theory).
• Encouragement satisfies psychological needs (self-determination theory).

Theories of motivation suggest encouragement work by enhancing persistence and effort by bolstering beliefs, goal commitment, expectancy-value appraisals, social modelling and by helping to satisfy psychosocial needs. Whilst this provides a solid theoretical basis, it is important that it is validated by the performance of practical research and studies. For this reason numerous studies have been conducted globally to empirically test encouragement, with such research being conducted in education, sports, therapy and health.

Education

Educational contexts have provided some of the clearest and valuable insight into the effects of encouragement. With teachers frequently facing the challenge of motivating students to persist with difficult tasks, encouragement has shown to be a powerful tool.

• Wong, Cheng, McDermott, Deng and McCullough (2019) developed the Academic Encouragement Scale to measure how students perceive and internalise encouragement. They found that higher levels of perceived encouragement were associated with increased persistence in academic tasks, improved engagement and higher motivation to overcome setbacks or challenges. These findings help to show encouragement as a functional tool which can be used to increase motivation in regard to learning tasks.

• Reeve (2024) found that in examining a broader review of classroom motivation that verbal messages were important in affirming students competence and potential. It was found that these verbal messages of encouragement also were some of the most effective ways to sustain student engagement during lessons containing difficulty and or new content in learning. For this reason Reeve communicated encouragement to act as a scaffold to keep students engaged and invested in learning rather than to simply disengage when they encountered difficulty.

In an educational setting, the findings align closely with self-efficacy theory and expectancy-value theory. Through working to reaffirm a students' academic competence along with the possibility of success and importance of effort.

Sport and physical performance

Sports and physical performance contexts has been another area of interest with numerous studies seeking to evaluate the impact of encouragement not only on persistence and effort but also strength, endurance and competitive performance.

• McNair, Depledge, Brettkelly and Stanley (1996) found that verbal encouragement was responsible for significantly increasing voluntary muscle exertion during strength testing.They also found that when athletes received encouragement it also had the additional benefit of enabling them to exert more force and to maintain effort longer in comparison to those who did not.

• Further examination of anecdotal evidence and testimony from coaches and athletes further validate this. With many athletes citing their coach's encouragement as a pivotal moment at a point of potential disengagement, enabling them to persist in difficult training sessions or competitions (Jedloc et al., 2007).

In a sports and physical performance context encouragement works closely with goals-setting theory and self-determination theory. In helping athletes to commit to their goals and to affirm competence to help support intrinsic motivation.

Therapy and counselling

Psychologists and health practitioners also have shown encouragement to be an important tool in their line of work. In therapy and interventions encouragement has been shown to be an important tool in keeping clients engaged and motivated.

• Carlson and Slavik (2006), in reviewing Adlerian literature, highlighted the importance of encouragement by citing its ability to help clients maintain persistence and effort. A process which is only possible because it encourages the capacity to help affirm clients’ capacity and value of the end goal.

• Wong (2015) also cited encouragement to be important in therapy and behavioral change programs. Highlighting encouragement’s capacity to improve a client’s relatedness and motivational capacity through human interaction and affirming their competence along with capacity for change. All of which help to contribute to ensure clients persistence in these programs and motivation even when it is difficult.

In behavioral change programs and therapeutic settings, encouragement can be shown to consistently improve motivation, which in turn increases persistence and effort. This can be attributed to the way in which encouragement in this context helps to communicate competence, relatedness, social modelling, value behind achieving goals and potential to succeed.

Health and well-being

Encouragement has also been practically applied and evaluated in health contexts, often where persistence and effort determine long term outcomes.

• Wong et al. (2025) in evaluating health behaviours such as exercise, health dieting and lifestyle changes, encouragement was examined to improve persistence by affirming effort and potential in routine tasks which may feel difficult or under-rewarding in the short term.

• Wang, Guo, Wu and Zhang (2017) found that videos of encouragement prompting self-empowerment through exercise such as running or healthier dieting also had similar effects to traditional encouragement, helping individuals engaged in either finding it motivational and a way in which to affirm their effort and capacity to meet their health goals.

The findings in a health and well-being context help to show encouragement work using conceptual pathways presented in expectant-value theory, self-efficacy theory and social cognitive theory. By providing external affirmation on the value of the goal, the plausibility of success, self competence and relatedness by driving intrinsic motivation and persistence.

Test yourself! Which of the following does current research show about encouragement and improving persistence? That encouragement does increase persistence It has little or no impact There is not enough evidence It decreases persistence

Although encouragement has a solid theoretical grounding in motivational theories and promising empirical evidence, it still has many associated limitations and conceptual issues. Like many other psychological tools, its impact depends on a range of variables as to its application. Whilst more research has been conducted to improve its understanding and uniqueness compared to similar constructs such as praise, reinforcement and social support, it's not to the same extent and can be regarded as less mature.

Methodological limitations

• Small-scale and context-specific studies: Many existing studies are relatively small, context-specific, or qualitative. For instance, McNair et al.’s (1996) work on verbal encouragement and muscle exertion was highly controlled but limited in scope. For this reason generalising the findings across domains is challenging. Large-scale, multi-context studies are also very rare, leaving gaps in what could otherwise be robust, generalisable evidence.

• Measurement challenges: While measurement tools such as the Academic Encouragement Scale exist and (Wong et al., 2019) is a step forward, measurement tools remain limited. Many studies rely on subjective perceptions or simplistic coding of encouragement, which may not capture the whole nature of encouragement. Without improving or standardising measurement tools, there is a notable risk of being impressionistic.

• Causal inference: Much of the research conducted is also correlational, making it difficult in determining whether encouragement is the sole factor acting on persistence, motivation and effort. This is also problematic because of the lack of experimental and longitudinal studies, which could be used to help clarify causality and effects over time.

Cultural and contextual limitations

• Cultural variability: Encouragement is not the same across all cultures, what may be perceived as encouragement in Western cultures may not be perceived the same way in Eastern cultures, something in which can be attributed to either their respective collectivist or individualist qualities (Howard & Vigotsky, 2019). However, because of these differences it can hinder the ability to infer outcomes and produce models that can reliably predict outcomes.

• Age and developmental differences: Children, teens and adults respond differently to encouragement and its forms. For this reason, children and teens may rely more on external encouragement for persistence, while adults may rely more so on internal encouragement for improving persistence (Berg et al., 2022).

• Context dependency: Encouragement also does not hold the same effectiveness across different contexts, with research suggesting that encouragement in educational settings could be more effective than if it was encouragement in therapy or sports. Indicating that whilst encouragement can be applied in a range of settings, it does not necessarily have the same effectiveness or impact (Wong, 2015).

Risks and ethical concerns

• Inauthentic encouragement: Whilst encouragement is generally regarded as a positive action, performing it inauthentically may make it seem forced, generic or insincere. Consequently, because of this there is a risk that it can undermine trust and adversely reduce persistence and motivation (Wong et al., 2019).

• Over-reliance: Whilst encouragement can be a valuable tool, abusing it or excessive use may unintentionally have the side effect of individuals becoming dependent on external validation and affirmation if it is not balanced with intrinsic motivation and self-encouragement (Berg et al., 2022).

• Unequal access to encouragement: Encouragement is not equally distributed, there are always going to be individuals who get a lot, whilst others get little or none. In sports and education this raises questions about the ethical nature of encouragement, as to whether it is fair that some individuals may be evaluated whilst others aren’t.

Test yourself! Which of the following is one limitations surrounding encouragement and subsequent research? Time of day Lack of researchers Geelong's loss to Brisbane in the finals Measurement challenges

Addressing some of these limitations would help to benefit understanding of encouragement and to advance it in a constructive manner. It would also help to improve contemporary psychological understanding and relatedness to wider psychological theories outside of just motivation.

• Refining definitions and frameworks: As noted in studies such as Wong et al (2025), the anatomy of encouragement should continue to be clarified as to distinguish it from related constructs such as praise, reinforcement and social support. It could also benefit from the development of typologies.

• Improved measurement tools: Future research should also focus on the creation of multidimensional tools which can better capture encouragement and improve interpretation of its impact not only motivation, persistence and effort, but also other factors (Andreacci et al., 2002; Alcott, 2017).

• Experimental and longitudinal studies: Whilst there have been numerous studies conducted, many are short term and limited in their scope. In conducting more long term or longitudinal studies it could help to establish casualty and demonstrate the long term effects of encouragement on persistence and effort. It would also be beneficial if studies were also conducted in a range of settings to evaluate cross dimensional aspects and nuanced differences (Wong et al., 2019).

• Cross-cultural and developmental comparisons: Cultural contexts and differences is another area of potential research which can be conducted as to further develop fundamental understanding and different ways in which encouragement can be shown and or received. Additionally, this would also help to show if there are aspects in which are universal and or cultural specific whilst filling in a gap of current understanding (Wong et al., 2025).

• Mechanistic integration: Future work should also focus on further integrating encouragement into already established theories of motivation, as to better ground it in broader psychological models as to better explore encouragement through its cognitive, emotional and relational mechanisms in more depth.

Test yourself! Which of the following would benefit research in encouragement going forward? All of them Improving measurement tools Reframing definitions and framework Cross-cultural research

Encouragement is more than just a simple gesture.It’s a psychological tool which can be used to shape persistence and effort in meaningful ways, even when facing difficulties or fatigue. In defining encouragement it enables the ability to understand its theoretical framework and internal mechanisms which are all crucial in understanding the outcome of related research, practical applications, limitations and future direction. The insight from this demonstrates the promise and complexity behind encouragement and how it functions to influence human motivation. At its core, encouragement works by reinforcing an individual's belief in their capacity, communicating the importance of goals, social affirmation and satisfying psychological needs. For these reasons, it helps to align encouragement with major motivational theories, from Bandura’s self-efficacy theory to Deci and Ryan’s self-determination theory. Encouragement is not just anecdotal, but grounded in contemporary psychological frameworks and understanding. This is further supported by empirical evidence, whether in classrooms, sports fields and or clinics. Encouragement has been shown to enhance persistence and sustain effort even in the face of difficulty or fatigue. However, it relies on authenticity, timing and context for meaningful application. Encouragement if delivered thoughtfully can sustain motivation, however if delivered poorly it can undermine it. In evaluating practical implementation of encouragement it is clear that effective encouragement requires skill, sensitivity and adaptability. Teachers, coaches, psychologists and health professionals all benefit from utilising encouragement, but only when they can tailor it to the individual's needs and do so in a thoughtful manner. It is important to note and account for the fact that encouragement is not without limitations. Encouragement is not a magic solution to discouragement and persistence. Over-reliance and over use risks creating dependency and undermining its power. It is also important to note that encouragement is not culturally universal. Whilst these are challenges, it is also an opportunity to direct future research towards better clarifying encouragement, expand cultural research, examine long term outcomes and to help align it with already established psychological understanding. Ultimately encouragement matters because it has the capacity to motivate individuals in a truly unique and special way, helping to communicate to an individual that they are believed in, supported and have the potential to do any task they want. If done right, encouragement helps individuals to persist when they would otherwise give up, to sustain effort and motivation when challenges come about. Whilst there is a need for more research as to how encouragement is understood and applied, the evidence so far is clear, encouragement is more than a simple gesture, it's a powerful tool and driver for persistence, effort and human flourishing.

Most relevant Wikiversity pages

• Extrinsic motivation and psychological needs
• Motivation

• Bandura’s Self-Efficacy Theory Of Motivation In Psychology
• Contextual Analysis of Motivation, Engagement, & Persistence
• User page with social contributions