1. Motivation and Emotion
Chapter 8
Motivation and Emotion

2. Motivation: What Makes Us Act as We Do?
Motivation: All processes involved in starting, directing, and maintaining physical and psychological activities

3. Behavior motivated by…
Biological factors – food, water, sex
Eat piece of cake, pursue relationship
Emotional factors – panic, fear, love
Hurt someone, give up career, become parent
Cognitive factors – perceptions, beliefs, expectations
Try out for team if confident
Social factors – parents, friends, media
Buy something popular that you don’t like

4. How Psychologists Use the Concept of Motivation
Connects observable behavior to internal states
Relates biology to behavior
Accounts for variability in behavior
Helps explain behavior over time
Explains perseverance despite adversity
Based partly on desire to feel certain emotions
Motivation affects emotion
MOTIVATION & EMOTION ARE INTERTWINED!!!

5. Types of Motivation
Drive: Biologically instigated motivation; usually from a need
Physiological
Motive: Reason or purpose for behavior
Social/psychological
Used to describe motivations that are learned

6. Types of Motivation
Conscious motivation: Having the desire to engage in an activity and being aware of the desire
Unconscious motivation: Having a desire to engage in an activity but being consciously unaware of the desire
Intrinsic motivation: Desire to engage in an activity for its own sake
Extrinsic motivation: Desire to engage in an activity to achieve an external consequence (reward)

7. Theories of Motivation
Instinct theory: View that certain behaviors are determined by innate, automatic, involuntary and unlearned responses
Emphasizes biological factors
Fixed-action patterns: Genetically based behaviors, seen across a species, that can be set off by a specific stimulus (instincts)

8. Theories of Motivation
Drive-reduction theory: View that motivation arises from imbalances in homeostasis
Emphasizes biological factors
Homeostasis: body’s tendency to maintain a biologically balanced condition
Need: biological imbalance that threatens survival if left unmet; produces drives
Brain responds to needs by creating drives
Need for food hunger drive motivates you to find food

9. Theories of Motivation
Social-Cognitive Theory: motivation due to cognitive processes
Locus of control: An individual’s sense of where his or her life influences originate–internally or externally

10. Theories of Motivation
Freud’s Psychodymanic Theory: motivation from the unconscious
Focused on mental disorders more than everyday behaviors
Everything we do based on either
Eros – desire for sex
Thanatos – aggressive/destructive impulse

11. Maslow’s Humanistic Theory
Hierarchy of needs: The notion that needs occur in priority order, with the biological needs as the most basic

12. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

14. Theories of Motivation
Arousal theory: motivated to behave in ways that keep us at our optimal level of arousal (heart rate, tension, elec activity)
Seek excitement when bored
Seek relaxation when over-aroused

15. Theories of Motivation
Incentive theory: behavior is directed toward attaining desirable stimuli and avoiding unwanted stimuli
Focus on environmental stimuli instead of internal processes

16. Rewards Can Sometimes Squelch Motivation
Overjustification: The process by which extrinsic rewards can sometimes displace internal motivation
Nisbett & Lepper – children/drawing; those told of reward before were less inclined to draw for fun later
Usually when reward is given regardless of quality of performance and when it is tangible
View the next slide and make up a story.

17. Measuring the Need for Achievement
Projection: Process by which people attribute their own unconscious motives to other people or objects
Need for achievement (n Ach): Mental state that produces a psychological motive to excel or reach some goal
Influenced by intrinsic & extrinsic motivation
Low nAch – very easy or very difficult tasks to succeed or not look silly failing
High nAch – moderately difficult tasks for an attainable challenge (generally more success in life)

18. Motives in Conflict
Approach-approach conflict: A situation in which you must choose b/w 2 positive options
-2 people you like have asked you to prom
Avoidance-avoidance conflict: A situation in which you must choose b/w 2 negative options
-2 people you dislike have asked you to prom (but you want a date)

19. Motives in Conflict
Approach-avoidance conflict: A situation involving an option that has both a + and a – aspect
-Someone you dislike invites you to a sold out concert
Multiple approach-avoidance conflict: A situation involving two or more options when each has + and - aspects
-Job #1: good money, great company, long commute, rival works there
-Job #2: average money, OK company, short commute, best friend works there

20. Hunger Motivation The multiple-systems approach to hunger
Set point: Refers to the tendency of the body to maintain a certain level of body fat and body weight
Brain receptors/hypothalamus – fat/sugar in blood
Lack of Leptin – keep eating
Pressure detectors in stomach – full or empty
Other mechanisms – sweet and fatty foods
Physical activity
Thirst/hunger: Seek a stimulus
Pain: Avoid/remove a stimulus

21. Where Do Our Emotions Come From? The Neuroscience of Emotion
Two distinct brain pathways for emotional arousal:
Fast & unconscious – fear and avoidance
Slow & conscious – more complete appraisal
The biological mechanisms at work behind our emotions include:
The limbic system
The reticular formation
The cerebral cortex
The autonomic nervous system
Hormones/neurotransmitters

22. Psychological Theories of Emotion
James-Lange theory: A stimulus produces a physiological response that in turn produces/ causes an emotion
Emotion AFTER physiological response
I’m afraid because I run; not I run because I’m afraid
No phys. response = no emotion
Cannon-Bard theory: An emotional feeling and an internal physiological response to the stimulus occur at the same time
One is not the cause of the other
I am afraid AND running.

23. Psychological Theories of Emotion
Two-factor theory of emotion: Emotion results from the (1) physical arousal to a stimulus and (2) the cognitive interpretation of that arousal to the stimuls.
Schachter-Singer Theory
What does this physiological response mean?
Increased heart and sweating = happiness OR fear? Depends on if stimulus is friend or enemy.
Often misattribute emotion

24. James-Lange theory Cannon-bard theory Two-factor theory
Physiological arousal trembling increased heart rate
Stimulus snake
Emotion fear
Physiological arousal trembling increased heart rate
Emotion fear
Cannon-bard theory
Stimulus snake
Cognitive interpretation “I feel afraid!”
Physiological arousal trembling increased heart rate
Two-factor theory
Emotion fear
Stimulus

25. Psychological Theories of Emotion
Cognitive appraisal theory: Theory that individuals consciously decide on an appropriate emotion after the event (Lazarus)
Event  thinking  arousal/emotion
Based on perceptions of the event
Winding road = fear or beauty? B+ = great or horrible?
Opponent-process theory: Theory that emotions have pairs; when one is triggered the other is suppressed or that one follows the other.

26. Inverted “U” (Yerkes-Dodson Law)
Inverted “U” function: Describes the relationship between arousal and performance
Both low and high levels of arousal produce lower performance than does a moderate level of arousal
Better off if …Easy tasks = high level; Hard tasks = low level
Performance
Low
High
Arousal Level

27. Developing Emotional Intelligence
Emotional intelligence: Ability to understand and control emotional responses; understand emotions of others, too
When have you needed to mask an emotion?
Marshmallow Test:
Delay of gratification; subdue impulses; more success

28. What Do Our Emotions Do For Us?
Emotions have evolved to help us respond to important situations and to convey our intentions to others

29. Cultural Universals in Emotional Expression
Seven universal basic emotions: sadness, fear, anger, disgust, contempt, happiness and surprise (Ekman)
There are huge cultural differences in the context and intensity of emotional displays
Display rules: Permissible ways of displaying emotions in a particular society

30. The Emotion Wheel (Robert Plutchik)