Motivation

1. Motivation

2. Motivation Motivation: What does it do for us? • Connects our observable behavior to internal states • Accounts for variations in behavior • Creates perseverance in the face of adversity

3. Motivation Three “Types” of Motives: Primary Drives (Biological): Necessary for Survival • Hunger – Influenced by: • Brain (“Hunger/Satiety Center”), hormones • External controls • Social influences • Culture • Thirst – Influenced by: • Cells & Salt loss/Hypothalamus • External/environmental factors • Sex – Influenced by: • Hormones • Pheromones? • Experiences & learning • Culture

4. Motivation Three “Types” of Motives: Stimulus Motives (Innate): Unlearned, Encourage “Exploration” • Exploration/curiosity: do organisms “need” stimulation? • Manipulation: may explain our need to touch everything! • Contact: Harlow’s monkey studies

5. Motivation Three “Types” of Motives: Learned (Social) Motives • Aggression: may be motivated by pain or frustration – cultural? • Achievement (need to excel): 3 types • Work orientation: do a good job • Mastery: improve abilities • Competitiveness: match skills w/ opponent • Affiliation: work for common cause (“belongingness”) • “Joiners” vs. “Loners”

6. Drive-Reduction Theory (1940’s-1950’s) • Behavior is motivated by biological needs • IOW: Our drive is to reduce our needs. • Need = requirement for survival • Drive = impulse to act in way that satisfies need • Primary Drives: biological needs (thirst, hunger) • Secondary Drives: learned drives (money) • Body seeks Homeostasis: Balanced internal state • Push-Pull factors • Nature (biological push) / nurture (psychological pull) • Create an example of Drive-Reduction theory. • Limitations of theory?

7. Motivation Motive: Needs, wants, desires • They can be biological,social, etc. STIMULUS  MOTIVE  BEHAVIOR So what motivates us? …. Instincts? (old idea) …. Drives? (newer idea) …. Incentives? (rewards)

8. Motivation The Theories (what is the stimulus?): • Evolutionary/Instinct Theories: Inborn behavioral patterns; unlearned, uniform, & universal fixed action patterns • Do humans have instincts? • The modern view?

9. Motivation The Theories (cont.): Arousal Theories: “motivation” is to achieve/maintain some level of physiological arousal • Drive-Reduction Theory (“Push” theory): internal state of tension/arousal (the “drive” -- based on physiological need) that motivates (or “pushes”) the organism to reduce the tension, return to homeostasis (or physiological “balance”) Drive-reducing Behavior (eating, drinking) Need (food, water) Drive (hunger, thirst)

10. Motivation The Theories (cont.): • Optimal Arousal Theory: some “ideal” level – if below optimal, motivation to increase, if above, motivation to decrease • Zuckerman’s “Sensation-Seeking” Scale…

11. Arousal Theory • Arousal Theory • We seek optimum level of excitement / arousal • High optimum level of arousal = high excitement behaviors • Perform better at high level of arousal • Yerkes-Dodson law (1908): performance increases with physiological or mental arousal, but only up to a point. • Different tasks require different levels of arousal for optimal performance

12. Yerkes-Dodson Law: theory that says a degree of psychological arousal (stress, anxiety, etc.) can actually improve performance, but only to a point; too much or too little arousal will decrease performance.

13. Motivation Extrinsic vs. Intrinsic Motivation • Extrinsic: Desire to perform behavior because of promise of reward or threat of punishment • Intrinsic: Desire to perform behavior for its own sake, for “internal” reward • Examples?

14. Motivation Extrinsic /Intrinsic: Which is better? • Intrinsic generally has the edge • Extrinsic still valuable, & the two often work together • Problems with extrinsic motivation: • Behaviors maintained by extrinsic alone may not last once motivation is gone • Will a student’s grades go down if parents stop giving them money for earning As & Bs? • Evidence suggests removal of extrinsic motivator results in lowered behavior levels • Overjustification Effect: if we give extrinsic rewards for things someone already loves to do, the intrinsic motivation may be replaced by the extrinsic motivation (athletes, musicians)

16. Motivation The Theories (cont.): • Incentive Theory (“Pull” theory): External goals motivate behavior • Modifed by the Expectancy-Value Model: motivation to pursue a given goal depends on your perceived likelihood of reaching the goal and the value of that goal • Competency Theory: We have the need to prove ourselves. • Incorporates the idea of Locus of Control: our belief that we control the outcome of our own lives (also comes into play in depression theories)

17. Motivation The Theories (cont.): Humanistic Theory: Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Abraham Maslow (Humanist) • Needs motivate behavior • Natural hierarchy of human needs • “Lower” needs must be met before higher can be met • Criticisms?

18. Maslow’s Hierarchy • Maslow said that there is a natural hierarchy or rank to the needs humans have. • Before one of the higher needs can be fulfilled, the needs on the levels below must be met, at least to some degree. • Most needs are met at a rate of about 85% before a person can move onto a higher need.

19. Criticism of Maslow • Although critics will admit Maslow’s Hierarchy was the first real step toward a comprehensive theory of motivation, they say it isn’t complete. • People often neglect their basic biological needs for more social needs • Cross-cultural needs: individualistic vs. collectivist cultures see needs differently • Sensation seeking: Why would someone jump out of a plane for “fun?” • Other areas it doesn’t explain?

20. What is Emotion? • Emotion is a 4 part process consisting of physiological arousal, cognitive interpretation, subjective feelings, and behavioral expression. • While our emotions are very different, they all involve a state of mental and physical arousal focused on some event of importance.

21. Emotion Basics • Emotion and motivation are complimentary process. The concept of emotion emphasizes arousal, both physical and mental, while motivation emphasizes how this arousal becomes action. • Emotions help us respond to important situations and to convey our intentions to others.

22. Origins of Emotions • The biggest breakthrough in the study of emotions was the discovery of two distinct emotional pathways in the brain. • One of the pathways is fast, and operates mainly at an unconscious level where it screens incoming stimuli and helps us respond quickly to stimuli even before they reach consciousness. • These cues seem to have a built-in, innate sensitivity to certain cues-explains why we have more fears of spiders, heights and lightening than cars or electricity.

23. Origins of Emotion • The other pathway is much slower and linked to explicit memory. While it generates emotions more slowly, it delivers more complex information to our consciousness. • This system relies heavily on the cerebral cortex, which is why we can feel fear, despite knowing there is no real basis for that feeling.

24. Experienced Emotion • The ingredients of emotion

25. The Limbic System • While the two pathways differ, they do have some things in common. Both rely heavily on the limbic system. • The amygdala plays an especially important role in both emotion pathways. In the past it was thought that the amygdala was simply involved in negative emotions. Recently it has been discovered that it plays a role in positive emotions as well.

26. Expressed Emotion • People more speedily detect an angry face than a happy one (Ohman, 2001a)

27. Why We Have Emotions • Emotions are the result of genetics and learning, especially early in life. • Emotions serve as arousal states that help organisms cope with important recurring situations. • Learned emotional responses, along and genetics are both important components of many psychological disorders, including depression, anxiety disorders and phobias.

28. Universality of Emotions • Despite different languages, cultures and social norms, studies suggest that people “speak and understand substantially the same ‘facial language’ the world around.” • Essentially, people share a set of universal emotion expressions that give support to the idea of a biological heritage of the human species.

29. Seven Basic Emotions • Paul Ekman, a leading psychologist in emotions, suggests humans everywhere can recognize seven basic emotions: sadness, fear, anger, disgust, contempt, happiness and surprise. • Anger • Happiness • Disgust • Surprise • Sadness • Fear

30. Expressed Emotion • Culturally universal expressions

31. Experienced Emotion • Infants’ naturally occurring emotions

32. Display Rules • According to Ekman, the seven emotions are universal, but the display rules vary greatly, depending on the culture. • He defines display rules as the permissible ways of displaying emotions in a given society.

33. Anger

34. Contempt

35. Disgust

36. Fear

37. Happiness

38. Sadness

39. Surprise

40. Reading Emotion • In addition to being universal, the ability to read facial expressions is nearly ageless. Psychologists think that children as young as 5 years old have the same ability to recognize emotion on a person’s face as an adult does.

41. More Emotions • While we can recognize Ekman’s seven emotions, most of us can think of others like greed, envy, regret, optimism, etc. • Robert Plutchik suggests that rather than seven, we have eight primary emotions and eight secondary emotions. He depicts this in his “Emotion Wheel.” • More complex emotions occur when pairs of adjacent emotions combine. Ex: love is a combination of joy and acceptance.

42. Emotion in Men and Women • In our culture, on average, women are viewed as far more emotional than men. This may be the result of two factors. • Biology, and the genetic make-up of men and women do lead to women “having more emotion.” • Higher levels of certain hormones • Culture, may be the bigger of the two causes. Boys and girls learn different lessons about emotion and emotional control. Boys are largely taught to hide emotions that may be seen as weaknesses and are praised for emotions that show strength and dominance. Girls are taught the exact opposite. • Display rules of emotion

43. 16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0 Number of expressions Women Men Sad Happy Scary Film Type Expressed Emotion • Gender and expressiveness

44. Experienced Emotion • Catharsis • emotional release • catharsis hypothesis • “releasing” aggressive energy (through action or fantasy) relieves aggressive urges • Feel-good, do-good phenomenon • people’s tendency to be helpful when already in a good mood

45. Experienced Emotion • Subjective Well-Being • self-perceived happiness or satisfaction with life • used along with measures of objective well-being • physical and economic indicators to evaluate people’s quality of life

46. Experienced Emotion • Moods across the day

47. $20,000 $19,000 $18,000 $17,000 $16,000 $15,000 $14,000 $13,000 $12,000 $11,000 $10,000 $9,000 $8,000 $7,000 $6,000 $5,000 $4,000 Average per-person after-tax income in 1995 dollars 100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% Percentage describing themselves as very happy Personal income Percentage very happy 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 Year Experienced Emotion • Does money buy happiness?

48. Lateralization of Emotion • Different parts of our brain deal with different emotions. In the cerebral cortex, the right hemisphere generally specializes in negative emotions and the left hemisphere generally processes more positive and joyful emotions. • The idea that each hemisphere specializes in different classes of emotion has been called lateralization of emotion.

49. Psychological Theories of Emotion • There are multiple theories on how our emotions affect out behavior and mental processes. • James-Lang Theory: An emotion provoking stimulus a physical response, that then leads to emotion. • Emotion follows behavior • “We feel sorry because we cry; angry because we strike; afraid because we tremble.”-William James • Cannon-Bard Theory: A theory that an emotional feeling and an internal physiological response occur at the same time. • Emotion and behavior happen simultaneously

50. Sight of oncoming car (perception of stimulus) Pounding heart (arousal) Fear (emotion) James-Lange Theory of Emotion • Experience of emotion is awareness of physiological responses to emotion-arousing stimuli