Chapter 8

• Motivation


  The state in which an organism experiences an inducement of incentive to do something
• Factors of motivation


  • Drives
  • Needs
  • Incentives
• Motives


  • Hypothetical state within an organism that propels it toward a goal
  • They cannot be seen or measured directly (they are inferred from behavior)
• Types of motives


  • Biological
  • Social
  • Personal
• Needs


  • Physiological (survival needs like oxygen, food, drink, avoid pain, temperature)
  • Psychological (achievement, power, self-esteem, social approval, belonging)
  • We might share similar physiological needs with other humans, but we express it in different ways
• Drives


  • A condition of arousal in an organism that is associated with a need
  • Needs give rise to drives
  • Drives arouse us to action and tend to be stronger when we have been deprived longer
  • Psychological needs like approval and achievement, also give rise to drives
• Incentives


  An object, person, or situation perceived as capable of satisfying a need or desirable for its own sake
• Theories of motivation


  • Evolutionary
  • Drive-reductionism (Homeostasis)
  • The search for stimulation
  • Humanistic perspective
  • Cognitive perspectives
• Evolutionary theory


  • Animals are neurally prewired (preprogrammed tendencies)
  • Instinct → Inherited disposition to activate specific behavior patterns that enable an organism to reach specific goals
  • They are species specific and are inborn
  • Genetically transmitted from generation to generation
• Drive-reductionism (Homeostasis)


  • Homeostasis → Tendency of the body to maintain a steady state
  • Organisms learn to engage in behaviors that have the effect of reducing drives
  • We acquire drives through experience
• The search for stimulation


  • Organisms seek to increase stimulation
  • Evolutionary advantage → Animals that are active and motivated to explore and manipulate their environment are more likely to survive
• Humanistic perspective


  • Conscious desire for personal growth
  • Human behavior is not just mechanical, for survival and for reducing tension
  • People tolerate pain, hunger, and many other kinds of tension to obtain personal fulfillment
  • Maslow "We are separated from other animals by our capacity for self-actualization → self-initiated striving to become what one is capable of being"
• Cognitive perspectives


  • People represent their worlds mentally
  • We try to eliminate inconsistencies, discrepancies in information so that our ability to make sense of the world remains whole
  • We are generally motivated to hold consistent beliefs and justify our behavior
• Hunger


  • Biological influences (Satiety regulates our eating, signals from mouth and digestive track, empty stomach leads to contractions)
  • Psychological influences (Mood, company, emotions, worries)
• Each year 22,000 cases of eating disorders are reported in Mexico
• In the US more than ½ of teenage girls and nearly 1/3 of teenage boys use unhealthful methods to try to control their weight, including fasting, skipping meals, smoking, vomiting, and using laxatives
• Anorexia Nervosa


  • Extreme fear of being too heavy, dramatic weight loss, distorted body image, resistance to eating enough to reach or maintain healthful weight
  • Mostly affects women during adolescence and young adulthood
  • It leads to respiratory and cardiovascular problems
  • Mortality rate for females with anorexia nervosa is aprox. 5%
  • They are usually in denial about having health problems
• Bulimia


  • Repeated cycles of binge eating and purging
  • It also affects mainly women during adolescence and young adulthood
  • Binge eating and food restriction
  • Vomit, laxatives, demanding and prolonged exercise regimes
• Emotions


  • A response
  • Something that motivates behavior
  • A goal itself
  • We are driven by emotions, and meeting –or failing to meet- our needs can have powerful emotional results
• Arousal


  States with physiological, cognitive, and behavioral components
• The greater the bodily arousal


  The more intense the emotion
• Strong emotions are associated with arousal of the autonomic nervous system
• Facial expressions


  • Faces are a key to social communication
  • Our ability to "read" facial expressions enables us to interact appropriately with others
  • Facial-feedback hypothesis suggests that facial expressions can also affect our emotional state
• Theories of emotion


  • James-Lange Theory
  • Cannon-Bard Theory
  • Cognitive appraisal
• James-Lange Theory


  • Emotions follow, rather than cause, our behavioral responses to events
  • Certain external stimuli instinctively trigger specific patterns of arousal and action
  • We become angry because we are acting aggressively or become afraid because we are running away
  • Emotions are the cognitive representations of automatic physiological and behavioral responses
  • Consistent with the facial-feedback hypothesis
  • We may be able to change our feelings by changing our behavior (behavior therapy)
  • It downplays the importance of human cognition, denies the roles of cognitive appraisal, personal values, and personal choice in our behavioral and emotional responses to events
• Cannon-Bard Theory


  • An event might simultaneously trigger bodily responses and the experience of an emotion
  • When an event is perceived, the brain stimulates autonomic and muscular activity and cognitive activity
  • Emotions accompany bodily responses
• Cognitive appraisal


  • Many emotions have similar patterns of bodily arousal, labels we give them depend largely on our cognitive appraisal of our situations
  • Cognitive appraisal (evaluation) → based on many factors, including our perception of events and the ways other people respond to those events
• Events trigger specific arousal patterns and actions. Emotions result from our appraisal of our body response
• Events are first processed by the brain. Body patterns of arousal, action, and our emotional responses are then triggered simultaneously
• Events and arousal are appraised by the individual. The emotional response stems from the person's appraisal of the situation and his or her level of arousal