Unit 1: Motivation, Emotion and Stress

WHS AP Psychology Unit 1: Motivation, Emotion and Stress Essential Task 1-1: Identify and apply basic motivational concepts to understand behavior with specific attention to instincts for animals, biological factors like drives and homeostasis, and operant conditioning factors like incentives, and intrinsic versus extrinsic motivators.

Operant Conditioning Factors Biological Factors Theories Motivation Measures Sources Motivation Systems Motivation&Emotion Theories Stress Drive Reduction Theory Arousal Theory Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Effects Coping TheoriesofEmotion Opponent Process James-Lange CognitiveAppraisal Cannon-Bard Schachtertwo-factor

Essential Task 1-1: Outline • Basic motivational concepts to understand behavior • Instincts for animals • Biological Factors • Drives (Primary vs. Secondary) • Homeostasis • Operant conditioning factors • Incentives • Intrinsic motivators • Extrinsic motivators

Motives vs. Emotions • Motive • Specific need or desire, such as hunger, thirst, or achievement, that prompts goal-directed behavior • a need or desire that energizes behavior and directs it towards a goal. • Motives are different from emotions • Feeling, such as fear, joy, or surprise, that underlies behavior • You are more likely to predict behavior that results from a motive than an emotion.

Instincts are for animals NOT humans. • Instincts are complex behaviors that have fixed patterns throughout the species and are not learned (Tinbergen, 1951). Outline

Humans don’t have instincts

Humans don’t have instincts • This theory fell out of favor in psychology • A Meta-analysis during the height of this craze found 5759 ‘instincts’ • Most important human behaviors are learned • Human behavior is rarely inflexible and found throughout the species • Humans have reflexes but not instincts. • However, we may be predisposed to act certain ways due to adaptations from ancestral past– See Evolutionary Psychology in Unit 3

Biological Drives (Primary Drives) • Unlearned drive based on a physiological state found in all animals • Motivate behavior necessary for survival (fighting and fleeing – controlled by a brain region called the amygdala). • Many drives are initiated in the Hypothalamus • Hunger • Thirst • Sex • Evolutionary psychology talks about the four Fs (fighting, fleeing, feeding and reproducing).

Homeostasis – explains why we stop fulfilling biological drives. • The ability or tendency of an organism to maintain internal equilibrium or balance. • A state of psychological equilibrium obtained when tension or a drive has been reduced or eliminated. • We fulfill drives until we reach homeostasis (balance)

Secondary Drives – These are not biologically dictated • Learned drives • Wealth • Success • Fame

Primary vs. Secondary Drives • Primary (Biological) Drives push us to act. • Secondary Drives pull at our actions. • When BOTH are combined we are highly motivated.

Operant Conditioning • Your behavior is motivated to get rewards or to avoid punishment. Go to work Come home at curfew

Operant Conditioning Factors • Incentives – environmental cues that trigger a motive(desire) for a reward. • When a stimulus in your environment creates goal-directed behavior. Seeing a cue stimulates a motive. This is why ads use sex. It gets attention and stimulates a desire.

Two General Types of Rewards • INtrinsic – from the action itself or from within • EXtrinsic – for something else

Intrinsic Motivators • Refers to motivation that comes from inside an individual rather than from any external or outside rewards, such as money or grades. • It is stronger than external motivation

Extrinsic Motivators • Refers to motivation that comes from external or outside rewards, such as money or grades.

Unit 1: Motivation, Emotion and Stress