Influence of Emotions Included in Autobiographical Memories on Motivation

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The purpose of this study is to examine how autobiographical memories for the past achievements influence on motivation at present through emotions. The contents of autobiographical memories are something to have experienced. Accordingly, we aim at making clear the relation between the past concrete experiences expressed as autobiographical memories and present motivation.Three studies were conducted using questionnaire method. First, we focused on autobiographical memories in sport among woman students. Second, the comparison of autobiographical memories in sport was explored between two groups of adults : one group belonging to social sports associations and the other group consisting of nurses who rarely participate in sport. Third, the relation between autobiographical memories and motivation for English learning was investigated.Adults who were doing somewhat sport remembered more events in recent years than those in their school days while the other participants described those happened in their school days. With regard to English learning, we found a lot of autobiographical memories relevant to the events happened outside school unexpectedly.Events involved in autobiographical memories were classified into six categories : successful experiences, positive interpersonal relations and flow experiences as positive experiences, and failure experiences, negative interpersonal relations and injury and dangerous experiences as negative experiences. Most of positive experiences were followed by positive emotions whereas most of negatives by negative ones. Further positive experiences led to high motivation at present, however, negative ones did not always cause low motivation.