Motivation

1. Motivation Chapter 12

2. Motivation • Defining motivation • The hungry animal: Motives to eat • The social animal: Motives to love • The erotic animal: Motives for sex • The competent animal: Motives to achieve • Motives, values, and well-being

3. Defining Motivation • A inferred process within a person or animal that causes movement either toward a goal or away from an unpleasant situation. • Intrinsic motivation • The pursuit of activity for its own sake. • Extrinsic motivation • The pursuit of an activity for external rewards such as money or fame.

4. The Hungry Animal: Motives to Eat • The genetics of weight • Culture, psychology, and weight • Weight and health: Body versus culture

5. The Genetics of Weight • Research suggests that heavy people are no more and no less emotionally disturbed than average weight people. • Heaviness is not always caused by overeating. • Set point • The genetically influenced weight range for an individual, maintained by biological mechanisms that regulate food intake, fat reserves and metabolism. • Identical twins weigh and gain weight similarly. • The complexity of mechanisms governing appetite and weight explains why “appetite suppressing” drugs fail in the long run.

6. Body Weights of Twins • Identical twins are more similar in body weight than fraternal • Same whether raised together or apart • Genetic factors play a large role in body weight

7. Culture, Psychology, and Weight • The environment and obesity • Cultural attitudes

8. The Environment and Obesity • Environmental factors related to weight gain: • Increased abundance of low-cost, varied high fat meals. • The habit of eating high calorie food on the run instead of leisurely meals. • The rise in energy saving devices such as remote controls. • The speed and conveniences of driving rather than walking or biking. • The preference for watching television or videos instead of exercising.

9. Cultural Attitudes • In many cultures, where food is a rarer commodity, fat is viewed as a sign of health and affluence in men, sexual desirability in women. • While people of all ethnicities and social classes have been getting heavier, the cultural ideal for white women has been getting thinner. • The cultural ideal for men has also changed. • Muscles used to mean a working class, now muscular bodies symbolize affluence.

10. Cultural Attitudes • Although more Canadian men than women are overweight or obese, more Canadian women are currently dieting, even when their weight is in the healthy range. • Regardless of actual weight, research has shown that Canadian teenage girls wanted to lose weight, while most boys wanted to gain weight. • Cultural norms appear in the teens and persist into adulthood.

11. Weight and Health: Biology versus Culture • People from cultures that regard overweight as a sign of health and sexiness are more likely to be obese. • People from cultures emphasizing thinness are more likely to have eating disorders. • Many with eating disorders reflect an irrational terror of being “too fat.” • Bulimia • Anorexia nervosa

12. Bulimia and Anorexia Nervosa • Bulimia • An eating disorder characterized by episodes of excessive eating (binges) followed by forced vomiting or use of laxatives (purging). • Anorexia Nervosa • An eating disorder characterized by fear of being fat, a distorted body image, radically reduced consumption of food, and emaciation.

13. Ideal Body Image • Which image is ideal for your sex? • Which comes closest to your own body?

14. Influences on Eating Disorders • Presence of extremely slim television stars. • Genes or set points which conflict with cultural standard. • Conflict between desire to achieve and perception of parent’s messages about a “woman’s place.” • Increase in male responsiveness to cultural expectations may be related to their desire to be more “manly.”

15. The Social Animal: Motives to Love • The psychology of love • The ingredients of love • Attachment theory of love • Gender, culture, and love

16. The Psychology of Love • The need for affiliation • The motive to associate with other people, by seeking friends, companionship, or love. • Predictors of love • Proximity • Choosing friends and lovers from the set of people who are closest to us. • Similarity • Choosing friends and lovers who are like us in looks, attitudes, beliefs, personality, and interests.

17. The Ingredients of Love • Sternberg’s Triangular theory of love • Passion • Euphoria and sexual excitement. • Intimacy • Being free to talk about things, feeling close to and understood by loved ones. • Commitment • Needing to be with the other person; being loyal. • Ideal love involves all three.

18. The Attachment Theory of Love • Like infants have attachment styles to their caregivers, adults have attachment styles to their partners. • Secure or rarely jealous or worried about being abandoned. • Avoidant or distrustful and avoids intimate attachments. • Anxious ambivalent or agitated and worried that partner will leave. • Adult style is related to infant style.

19. Distribution of attachment style • A representative survey of adults indicated: • Securely attached 33% • Avoidant 25% • Anxious 11%

20. Gender, Culture, and Love • Males and females respond similarly to: • Love at first sight • Passionate love • Companionate love • Unrequited love • Being the break-up recipient

21. Gender, Culture, and Love • Men and women different in • How they express love • Men-doing; women-saying. • How they define intimacy • Men-hanging out; women-sharing feelings. • Men and women used to have different goals in choices of partners • Men-more romantic; Women-more pragmatic. • As more women have become economically self-sufficient, differences have decreased.

22. Sex Differences in Marriage Age • Men tend to marry younger women • This age difference increases with man’s age • Women tend to marry men who are slightly older • This changes little with age Based on U.S. marriage statistics for the 1980’s

23. The Erotic Animal: Motives for Sex • The Biology of Desire • The Psychology of Desire • The Culture of Desire • The Riddle of Sexual Orientation

24. The Biology of Desire • Hormones and sexual response • Arousal and orgasm

25. Hormones and Sexual Response • Testosterone appears to promote sexual desire in both sexes. • Documentation included several studies of men and women. • However, this is not a simple relationship. • Sexual behaviour also increases testosterone. • Psychological factors are usually more important than hormones. • Sexual offenders who are chemically castrated don’t always lose sexual desires.

26. Arousal and Orgasm • Freud differentiated between “immature” clitoral orgasms and “mature” vaginal orgasms in women. • Kinsey suggested that males and females had similar orgasms but that females were less sexual. • Masters and Johnson asserted that women’s capacity for sexual responses surpassed men’s. • Didn’t examine differences based on developmental, experiential or cultural factors.

27. Arousal and Orgasm • What we know now • Physiological responses don’t always correlate with subjective experiences. • Psychologists still disagree on whether there are sex differences in sex drive. • Social psychologists suggest that males sexual behaviour is more biologically determined while females sexual desires and responsiveness are more affected by circumstances, the specific relationship and cultural norms.

28. The Sexual-Response Cycle

29. The Psychology of Desire • Motives for sex include: • Enhancement • Intimacy • Coping • Self-Affirmation • Partner Approval • Peer Approval

30. Sexual Coercion and Rape • Persistent gender differences occur in perceptions of, and experiences with, sexual coercion. • 29% of female undergraduates reported having experienced at least one incident of sexual assault. • Only 6% of all sexual assaults in Canada are reported to police, due possibly to the fact that most women know their male attackers. • Men are far more likely than women to admit coercing a partner into sex - using alcohol, drugs, threats, or actual physical force.

31. Possible Motivations for Rape • Peer approval • General anger • Revenge • The desire to dominate • Anger at women or the world

32. The Culture of Desire • Sexual Scripts • Sets of implicit rules that specify proper sexual behaviour for a person in a given situation, varying with the person’s age, culture, and gender.

33. The Riddle of Sexual Orientation • Factors which do not explain homosexuality: • A smothering mother. • An absent father. • Emotional problems. • Same sex play in childhood and adolescence. • Parental practices. • Role models. • Seduction by an older adult.

34. Biological Explanations for Homosexuality • Studies demonstrating brain differences have not been replicated. • Prenatal exposure to androgens. • May be moderately heritable.

35. Sexual Orientation: Genetic Links • Identical twins have highest concordance (similarity) rates for sexual orientation • Same pattern for males and females • This suggests some genetic link in sexual orientation

36. Difficulty in finding origin of homosexuality • Sexual identity and behaviour are different and can occur in different combinations. • Some are sexually attracted to both men and women. • Some are heterosexual in behaviour but have homosexual fantasies. • Sexual behaviours can differ in different cultures.

37. The Competent Animal: Motives to Achieve • The Effects of Motivation on Work • The Effects of Work on Motivation

38. The Competent Animal: Motives to Achieve • Need for achievement • A learned motive to meet personal standards of success and excellence in a chosen area. • The Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) is a projective test that asks people to invent stories about ambiguous pictures which are then scored for unconscious motives such as the need for achievement, power, or affiliation.

39. The Importance of Goals • Goals improve motivation when: • The goal is specific • The goal is challenging but achievable • The goal is framed in terms of approach goals instead of avoidance goals • Approach goals are framed as getting what is wanted. • Avoidance goals are framed in terms of avoiding unpleasant experiences.

40. Types of Goals • Performance Goals • Goals framed in terms of performing well in front of others, being judged favourably, and avoiding criticism. • Mastery (Learning) Goals • Goals framed in terms of increasing one’s competence and skills.

41. Expectations and Self efficacy • Self-fulfilling prophecy • A expectation that comes true because of the tendency of the person holding it to act in ways that bring it about. • Self-Efficacy • A person’s belief that he or she is capable of producing desired results, such as mastering new skills and reaching goals.

42. The Effects of Work on Motivation • Working conditions • Opportunities to achieve

43. Working Conditions • Working conditions that increase job involvement, motivation, and satisfaction include: • Work provides a sense of meaningfulness. • Employees have control over part of work. • Tasks are varied. • Company maintains clear and consistent rules. • Employees have supportive relationships with superiors and co-workers. • Employees receive useful feedback. • Company offers opportunities for growth.

44. Opportunities to Achieve • When person lacks fair chance to make it, he or she may be less than successful.

45. Motives, Values and Well-Being • Motivational conflicts • Maslow’s hierarchy of needs • Universal psychological needs

46. Motivational Conflicts • Approach-Approach Conflict • Equally attracted to two activities or goals. • Avoidance-Avoidance Conflict • Choosing between the “lesser of the evils.” • Approach-Avoidance Conflict • One activity or goal has both positive and negative elements.

47. Maslow's Pyramid of Needs • Needs arranged in a hierarchy • Low-level needs must be met before trying to satisfy higher-level needs • Esteem: Status, respect, power • Self-actualization: Fulfill one’s potential

48. Universal Psychological Needs • Autonomy • Feeling that choices are based on true interests and values. • Competence • Feeling able to master hard challenges. • Relatedness • Feeling close to others who are important to you. • Self-esteem • Self-respect.

49. Universal Psychological Needs