Chapter 12 & 13

Motivation & Emotions

CONCEPTS AND THEORIES OF MOTIVATION

• Motive: A need or desire that energizes and directs behavior

• Motivation: Refers to the psychological processes that arouse, direct, and maintain behavior toward a goal

CONCEPTS AND THEORIES OF MOTIVATION

• SOURCES OF MOTIVATION: Four factors can serve as sources of motivation

1. Biological

2. Emotional

3. Cognitive

4. Social

CONCEPTS AND THEORIES OF MOTIVATION

• INSTINCT THEORY AND ITS DESCENDANTS: – Instinct: an instinct is an unlearned behavior pattern

that is characteristic of all members of a species

– Criticisms: Instinct theorists tried to attribute all behaviors to instincts

• Example: Zeon paints the house because he has an “aesthetic instinct”. People pray because they have a “religious instinct”.

– The instinct theory fails to explain behavior, it just label behavior.

– Also, as John B. Watson pointed out, the instinct theory failed to accommodate the role of learning in human behavior.

CONCEPTS AND THEORIES OF MOTIVATION

• DRIVE REDUCTION THEORY: The drive reduction theory was proposed by Clark Hull in the 1940s and 1950s.

– The drive reduction theory states that a need (a biological state in which the organism lacks something essential for survival such as food, oxygen or water) results in a drive (a state of tension), which motivates the organism to act to reduce the tension and return the body to homeostasis (literally means “staying the same”. It is a steady state of physiological equilibrium.

– Limitations of the drive reduction theory is that it does not explain why people continue to engage in a behavior after a drive is reduced.

• Example: Why do people continue to eat when they are no longer hungry?

CONCEPTS AND THEORIES OF MOTIVATION

• AROUSAL THEORY: States that people are motivated to maintain their optimal level of arousal, increasing arousal when it is too low and decreasing

it when it is too high.

Optimal arousal levels

vary from person to

person.

CONCEPTS AND THEORIES OF MOTIVATION

• INCENTIVE THEORY: According to this theory, behavior is goal-directed; we behave in ways that allow us to attain desirable stimuli and avoid negative stimuli. The value of a goal is influenced by biological and social factors.

CONCEPTS AND THEORIES OF MOTIVATION

• INCENTIVE THEORY (CONTINUED)– (While a drive is an internal state of tension

that pushes you toward a goal, an incentive is an external stimulus that pulls you toward a goal.)

– Incentives are often associated with drives. For instance: your thirst drive motivates you to replenish your body’s water, but incentives determine what you choose to drink.

CONCEPTS AND THEORIES OF MOTIVATION

• INCENTIVE THEORY (CONTINUED)

Strength of the incentive theory: In nicely explains why we eat dessert even when we are stuffed (we are pulled by the incentive of the good food). It also explains why we perform arousing or life-threatening behavior (which not only do not reduce drives but actually increases body arousal or tension). We are motivated by positive incentives such as praise, recognition, or rewards.

HUNGER AND EATING

• HUNGER AND THE BRAIN

– Lateral Hypothalamus: Tells us when we are hungry

– Ventromedial Hypothalamus: Tells us when we are full

HUNGER AND EATING

• FLAVOR, CULTURAL LEARNING, AND FOOD SELECTION

Flavor and variety are important in initiating eating. More food will be eaten when a variety of tastes is offered. Classical conditioning influences the preference for a variety of food. The sight of food can elicit conditioned responses (the secretion of saliva, gastric juices, and insulin) that are associated with eating. Specific hungers, the desire for certain foods at certain times, may reflect the biological need for a nutrient found in those foods. Finally, social cues tell people what and how much are appropriate to eat in certain social situations.

HUNGER AND EATING

• EATING DISORDERS– Obesity: A condition of severe overweight that can

contribute to diabetes, high blood pressure, and increased risk of heart attack.

– Physiological factors that predispose people to obesity:

1. body type

2. more and larger fat cells

3. a higher set point

– Psychological factor: maladaptive reactions to stress

HUNGER AND EATING

• Anorexia Nervosa: This is an eating disorder characterized by a preoccupation with food and self-starvation, and dramatic weight loss. Physical causes are unknown, but psychological factors that contribute to anorexia nervosa include a preoccupation with thinness

HUNGER AND EATING

• Bulimia Nervosa: This eating disorder is characterized by binging and purging and is usually not life-threatening. The victim may be thin, normal weight, or overweight. Bulimia Nervosa appears to be caused by cultural factors, emotional problems, and possibly malfunctioning biological mechanisms.

ACHIEVEMENT MOTIVATION

• We work because of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. The desire for approval, admiration, and other types of positive evaluation from ourselves and others motivates our behavior.

ACHIEVEMENT MOTIVATION

• NEED FOR ACHIEVEMENT People with a high need achievement are

motivated to master tasks and take great pride in doing so.

• Individual Differences: People with a high need to achieve set challenging but realistic goals that have clear outcomes. They like feedback from competent critics. In contrast, people with low achievement needs seem to enjoy success because they have avoided failure

ACHIEVEMENT MOTIVATION

• NEED FOR ACHIEVMENT– Individual Differences: People with a high

need to achieve set challenging but realistic goals that have clear outcomes. They like feedback from competent critics. In contrast, people with low achievement needs seem to enjoy success because they have avoided failure

HUNGER AND EATING

• BIOLOGICAL SIGNALS FOR HUNGER AND SATIETY– Signals from the stomach: The stomach may

partially control the hunger motive, but the cues may operate primarily when people are very hungry or very full

– Signal from the blood: The brain monitors blood content for the presence of nutrients (glucose, fatty acids, and amino acids) and hormones (insulin, and leptin) whose presence communicates hunger or satiety.

RELATIONS AND CONFLICTS AMONG MOTIVES

• Approach-Approach: represents a win-win situation—you’re faced with a choice between two equally appealing outcomes. As a rule, approach-approach conflicts are usually easy to resolve and don’t produce much stress

– Example: Should it marry Brad Pitt or Tatum Channing?

RELATIONS AND CONFLICTS AMONG MOTIVES

• Avoidance-Avoidance: Choosing between two unappealing or undesirable outcomes. Because avoidance-avoidance conflicts make people feel like they’re “caught between a rock and a hard place” they often delay decision-making. Or you may avoid the decision by bailing out of the situation altogether (drop the AP Psych. course)

– Example: Your AP Psychology teacher is requiring you to either write a 15 page research paper or 3 short 5 page essays.

RELATIONS AND CONFLICTS AMONG MOTIVES

• Approach-Avoidance: Here, a single goal has both desirable and undesirable aspects. This is the most stressful of the conflicts. When faced with an approach-avoidance conflict, people often vacillate, or repeatedly go back and forth in their minds, unable to decide whether to approach or avoid the goal.

– Example: You’re offered a new job. On the plus side, the higher salary and increased benefits are attractive. On the minus side, you will have to work longer hours. You need extra money, but keeping up with your college assignments is already a struggle.

– Or… someone you can’t stand has tickets to your favorite group’s sold-out concert and invites you to come along.

RELATIONS AND CONFLICTS AMONG MOTIVES

• Multiple Approach-Avoidance: Two or more alternatives each have both positive and negative features.

Theories of Emotion• Emotions are a mix of 3 components

1. Physiological Arousal (heart pounding, eyes dilating)

2. Expressive Behaviors (quickened pace)

3. Conscious Experience (am I being kidnapped?)

Theories of Emotion• James Lange Theory of Emotion (Also known as the Cart Before the Horse Theory)

According to this theory, people experience emotion based on observations of their own physical behavior and peripheral responses.

Car pulls out in front of you

Sweat, Tremble Fear

Theories of Emotion• The James-Lange Theory assumes that

each emotion has a different pattern of physiological changes.– Example:

Crying = sad

Smiling = happy

Theories of Emotion• Evaluating James-Lange Theory:

• If the James-Lange Theory is correct, there should be a unique peripheral physiological response for every emotion (in other words crying should ONLY mean sadness)

• Another criticism is that people who cannot feel their peripheral response should not (according to this theory) experience emotion. However, research shows that people with spinal cords severed at the neck (although deprived of most feedback from their physiological responses) still experience emotions (However, research has shown if he emotion is expressed in body areas below the neck there is a decrease in emotional intensity)

Theories of Emotion• SCHACHTER’S COGNITIVE LABELING

THEORY:

(a.k.a. cognitive appraisal theory, two factor theory, cognitive arousal theory)

Theories of Emotion Stanley Schacter and Jerome Singer, like most

modern psychologists, believe that our cognitions are an essential ingredient of emotion. The Two-factor Theory views emotional experience as the outcome of two factors:

1. physiological arousal

2. the attribution of a cause for that

outcome (if one of these factors is

absent, emotion will not be experienced).

Theories of Emotion• Experiment: Schacter and Singer injected some

of their subjects with a hormone, epinephrine (adrenaline) that caused physiological arousal, such as increased heart rate and blood pressure. However, subjects were told that the injections were vitamin C and were not told that they would experience physiological arousal. After the injection, subjects were placed in different situations- a happy one or an angry one.

Theories of Emotion• In the happy situation, a confederate of the

researchers’ created a happy atmosphere by laughing and throwing paper airplanes around.

• In the angry situation, another confederate created an angry atmosphere by complaining about filling out a long questionnaire.

Theories of Emotion• If the subjects were told to expect the

physiological effects of the drug, they felt no emotions because they attributed their arousal to the drug. However, if the subjects were told that the injection would produce no effect they looked for other causes to explain their physical arousal (the confederate’s behavior). Subjects in the happy situation often reported feeling happy and their overt behaviors were smiles. While those in the angry situation often reported feeling angry and their overt behaviors were angry facial expressions.

Theories of Emotion• So… in the absence of a reason for their

physiological arousal, subjects interpreted environmental cues, such as being in a happy or angry situation, as the cause of their arousal and thus reported feeling happy or angry

Theories of Emotion• CANNON-BARD’S THEORY:

The Cannon-Bard Theory of Emotions gives equal weight to physiological changes and cognitive processes

Theories of Emotion• Evaluating Cannon’s Theory: The Cannon-Bard

Theory was rejected because the thalamus does not play the role that Cannon-Bard thought it did. But… if we substitute the limbic system (amygdala), it is supported by research

• Conclusions: Emotion has both a physiological and a cognitive component. There also appears to be some direct experiencing of emotion by the brain, independent of physiological arousal. It is not yet known which component is primarily responsible for emotion.

Theories of Emotion