conation
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English[edit]
Etymology[edit]
Learned borrowing from Latin cōnātiō (“an act of attempting”).
Noun[edit]
conation (countable and uncountable, plural conations)
- (philosophy) The power or act which directs or impels to effort of any kind, whether muscular or psychical.
- 1899, George Frederick Stout, A Manual of Psychology, page 234:
- Any pleasing sense-experience, when it has once taken place, will, on subsequent occasions, give rise to a conation, when its conditions are only partially repeated...
- 1957, Lawrence Durrell, Justine:
- You can sit quiet and hear the processes going on, going about their business; volition, desire, will, cognition, passion, conation.
- 1987, Marshall J. Farr, 'Cognition, Affect, and Motivation: Issues, Directions and Perspectives Toward Unity', in Conative and Affective Process Analysis, p. 347:
- [The] 'purposive conscious striving' aspect of conation is very likely a concept we need to treat separately if we are to study human motivation successfully […]
Related terms[edit]
References[edit]
- “conation”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.