Motivation

1. Motivation • Motivation concerns the factors that direct and energize the behavior of humans and other organisms. • Tries to identify why people seek to do the things they do.

2. Theories of Motivation • Drive Theory (Hull 1943) - A drive is a state of unrest or irritation that energizes one behavior after another until one of them removes the irritation. • According to Hull’s drive reduction theory animals and humans behave so that they can reduce drives. • If you are thirsty you are driven to drink • All behavior occurs to reduce drives

3. Problems with drive theory • Most people seek variety and activity in life. • We like a moderate amount of stimulation. • In short we are not driven, to have no drive at all. • It also ignores external stimulation. • We are not only driven by hunger, but also by which foods are available. • Cheese cake

4. Homeostasis theory an addition to drive theory • Homeostasis is the maintenance of an optimum level of biological conditions within an organism • humans and animals are motivated to maintain a state of equilibrium, not to reduce all drive to zero. • We strive to maintain an optimum body temperature. • Put on or take off clothes • shiver or sweat • same with food and water

5. Problem with homeostasis theory • It ignores the fact that new stimuli can arouse motivated behaviors. • Even if you are not hungry, you may eat to be sociable, or because someone has made something you really like, or you have never tried before.

6. Incentive Theories • Incentives are external stimuli that pull us toward certain actions. • In contrast drives are internal forces that push us to behave in certain ways • A tasty looking desert has appeal and draws us toward it regardless of whether we have a hunger drive

7. Most motivated behaviors are a combination of drives and incentives • Thus if we are hungry we are driven to relieve that hunger, • however a piece of pie may have more incentive (draw us more) than a piece of bread

8. Intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation • An intrinsic motivation is a motivation to engage in act for it’s own sake. • playing the guitar or piano, playing basketball, painting. • We engage in many behaviors, just because doing the behavior is reward enough.

9. Extrinsic motivation • Motivation based on the rewards and punishments that an act may bring. • Working -- for pay • studying -- to get the social reward of doing well, to avoid feeling guilty about the money you lost if you fail

10. Most behavior probably results from a combination of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation • Artists paint for the intrinsic “joy” of painting, but also for “money” and “social recognition” that can come from painting. • Is it always better to have a combination of extrinsic and intrinsic motivation? • Are we more motivated to play the guitar if we get paid, than if we don’t get paid?

11. Greene, Sternberg and Lepper (1976) • Mathematical games with schoolchildren • The children seemed to enjoy them. • After a while, they started giving rewards for success. • When they took away the rewards, the children stopped playing the games.  • The children had decided that they were playing for the reward, not for the fun • The seven year old fly fisherman and his parents.

12. Types of motivation • Primary and secondary • primary motivation (nature) are automatic, built-in processes. • Search for food, water, and sex. • Secondary motivations (nurture) develop as a result of specific learning experiences. • Strive to get Money - associated with ability to get food, and other basic needs • strive to get certain types of foods and drinks - cheese, coffee, beer • strive to get certain kinds of sexual partners?

13. Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs • An organization of needs (motivators) from the most necessary and insistent to the ones that receive attention when all others are under control

15. Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs • Physiological needs • food, drink, shelter • Safety needs • The world is organized and predictable. • Need to feel safe secure and stable • Paranoid schizophrenia • Fugitive from the law • Dangerous part of a city

16. Belongingness and love needs. • Need to be accepted • Need to avoid loneliness and alienation. • Need to be loved • Esteem needs • Need for achievement and independence. • Need for recognition and respect from others • Self-actualization • Need to live up to one’s fullest and unique potential

17. Emotion • Emotions may be necessary for making good decisions • Phineas Gage in 1848 • an explosion caused an iron railroad spike to shoot through his head • damaged his prefrontal cortex • showed little emotions • Although he was easily provoked and combative • lost values • no restraint in sexual advances, or profanity • could not carry out long-term plans

19. Elliot • Damage to prefrontal cortex to remove a tumor. • No emotional experiences • cannot make plans or “good” decisions • perhaps his inability to make decisions, comes from not having emotional feedback • how do you evaluate a good thing versus a bad thing if you don’t feel anything when you consider it?

20. Emotional intelligence • The ability to perceive, imagine, and understand emotions and to use that information in decision making • evaluating the emotional content of social interactions. • A car cutting you off in traffic, • get mad • ignore it • depends partially on how you interpret the emotionality of the situation

21. Lie detection – an attempt to detect the emotionality involved in telling a lie • The polygraph is an instrument that records physiological indications of sympathetic nervous system arousal • blood pressure, heart rate, breathing rate, • electrical conduction of skin (sweaty palms increase electrical conduction). • The idea is that people that lie become nervous and will show a sympathetic response.

22. Is the lie detector effective? • 50 criminal cases, • two suspects took the polygraph, and one later confessed to the crime. • About 76% of the guilty suspects were judged to be lying by experts. • However, 37% of the not guilty suspects were also judged as lying • our justice system advocates avoiding incarceration of not guilty individuals. This finding illustrates why lie detectors are not allowed in criminal cases. • It shows that physiological response is an indicator of lying ( it is just not precise enough)

23. Theories of emotion • First let’s examine what common sense tells us. • If you see something that scares you what happens? • You see a large man wearing a hockey mask and holding a bloody knife approaching you • you get scared • your heart-rate increases and other sympathetic responses • The three major theories of emotion differ from this interpretation

26. James-Lange theory of emotions • Proposed independently by William James and Carl Lange in 1884. • A person’s interpretation of a stimulus evokes the autonomic changes directly; the emotion is a perception of those changes. • See killer • heart rate increases, and blood pressure increases, • therefore I must be scared. • It is the physiological response that determines what emotion you think you are experiencing

27. More James-Lange • Differences in the autonomic response will be subtle for many emotions, • anxiety and happiness can have similar sympathetic responses • perhaps facial responses and other physical responses tell us what emotion we are experiencing • I am smiling and laughing; I must be happy. • Frowning and clenching my fists; I must be angry • Frowning and running; I must be afraid

28. A test of James-Lange • Read comics while holding pen in teeth (similar to smiling). • Or while holding pen in lips (similar to frowning). • Rate how funny the comics are • The comics were rated reliably funnier when the pen was held in the teeth.

29. Cannon-Bard Theory of emotions • Certain areas of the brain evaluate sensory information and, send one set of impulses to the autonomic nervous system and another set to the forebrain. • The autonomic nervous system causes physiological changes • The forebrain causes cognitive changes. • These things happen in parallel. • Neither one causes the other. They are activated at the same time

30. may be partially true • People with spinal core injuries do not get input from the autonomic system • Can still feel the cognitive aspects of fear, and anger. • However they often say their emotions are somewhat flattened. • Drugs that decrease the sympathetic response • tranquilizers cause a decrease in reports of anxiety.

31. Schacter and Singer • The intensity of the physiological state determines the intensity of the emotion, but not the type of the emotion. • Cognitive appraisal of the situation tells us what emotion we are experiencing • see killer • causes physiological arousal • I am very aroused “why?” • look around and determine the situation. • There is a killer so it must be fear

32. Schacter and Singer’s experiment • Inject people with epinephrine (adrenaline), but told it was vitamins • causes a sympathetic response. • Half of the subjects were told to expect physiological arousal, the remainder were not told to expect anything • Half of the subjects from each group were divided into two more groups • 1. Euphoria situation • 2. Anger situation • Which member of your immediate family does not bathe or wash regularly? • With how many men (other than your father) has your mother had extramarital relationships? • 4 or fewer • 5-9 • 10 or more

33. If people had been told to expect a physiological response, they interpreted that response as an action of the drug. • They did not become very euphoric or angry • If people did not expect a physiological response, they interpreted that response as an emotional response to the situation. • They had fun in the euphoric condition • They got mad in the anger situation

34. This shows that it is not just the physiological response that determines emotion (as James-Lange said). • Your cognitive appraisal of a physiological response determines the emotion. • Arousal in a happy situation = happy • Arousal in a mean situation = mad • Arousal in a sad situation = sad

35. Try these • Monica feels as though she is in love because she feels her heart race, is out of breath, and has shaky knees • James - Lange • Bill walks into a room and realizes that the gray shape behind the door is not a shadow but a man with a gun. His heart begins to race at the same time as he experiences the emotion of fear • Cannon - Bard • Rosemary notices that her palms are sweating and her heart is beating quickly. She looks around the room and sees that the teacher is handing out a pop quiz. So she concludes that she must be feeling nervous due to the quiz. • Schacter and Singer • After a hard night of drinking you feel sad and irritable, you attribute this to your room mate being an ass. • This is a misattribution. I think it is consistent with Schacter and Singer’s idea. • When we are depressed we often attribute it to someone, or something around us.