Contemporary theories of academic motivation seek to explain students' behaviours in academic settings. While each theory seems to possess its own constructs and unique explanations, these theories are actually closely tied together. In this theoretical study of motivation, several theories of motivation were described and an underlying theme of the influence of emotions was used to unify the theories. In these theories, emotions and beliefs are thought to elicit different patterns of behaviour such as pursuit of mastery, failure avoidance, learned helplessness and passive aggression. Implications emerged which focused upon creating classroom contexts that foster feelings of autonomy, competence and meaning as the catalysts for developing adaptive, constructive learning.