| Abstract: | Reversal theory is a new “mode-based” theory of motivation and personality which challenges some fundamental assumptions in these two fields and systematically develops an alternative account which emphasizes the complexity, changeability, and even inconsistency of much of behavior and experience. The present paper introduces some of the main concepts of the theory, including those of metamotivation, reversal, telic and paratelic modes, and telic dominance, and shows how the general approach involved can be characterized as “structural phenomenological.” The experimental, psychometric, psychophysiological, and other types of research which have been generated by the theory are reviewed and shown to be generally supportive of it. |
