If a child feels security, this will allow him/her to confront new situations. This aspect is essential in the ambit of a class of second language acquisition.
A new situation such as, for instance, a student in a class of second language who has to speak in the second language in front of his/her peers. He or she might feel fear of being ridiculed for making mistakes. Maslow (1987) states that people usually scare of feeling inferiority, weakness or contempt for ourselves. He states that the need for security is stronger than the curiosity to experience something new. This kind of behaviour is a matter of defence. For that reason we can suppose that people sometimes try to avoid situations if they feel incapable of doing something perfectly.…show more content… The problem is that, as Reasoner (1992, p.51) says, a person who lacks this sense of purpose only relies on others for his/her self-esteem. This fact could be quite problematic because the experiences of a person can not be as good as we would want. Therefore, he points out that a person must have a sense of purpose in order to feel the internal motivation. But the goal established must be realistic to obtain a high self-esteem. This happens as we grow older because when we are child we usually set unrealistic goals. Remember we have seen that a child might feel a lot of pressure if he or she is asked to get an unrealistic goal (Lawrence, 1988, p.5). Taking the previous example, we have considered as a positive factor the fact that the student is part of a group because he/she will make an effort to improve the mark. But, on the contrary, as Combs (1964, as cited in Johnson, 1972, p.97) came to the conclusion, a student with a low performance obtains low marks because of his/her lack of confidence in his/her own abilities and possibilities. Hence, a person needs to believe in his/her ability to succeed and of being responsible for that as Reasoner (1992) pointed out. So, wanting to continue being part of a group would be a factor of motivation if the student maintains the sense of purpose. Following Branden (1990, p.23), to live without purpose is to live depending on the fluke whereas to live purposefully means to give energy to our existence because living purposefully we struggle to get our goals. In fact, he states that the fact of living implies a purpose because "purpose is of the very essence of the life process". The sense of purpose is related with the sense of competence, which is going to be seen thereupon, because Branden (1990,