Motivation and Emotion

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Chapter 9Motivation and Emotion
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Motivation Is a Dynamic Process

• The study of motivation is essentially the study
  of what moves a person or animal to act in a
  particular way.
• Motivation an inner state that energizes
  behavior toward the fulfillment of a goal

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Theories of Motivation

• Internal something about the organism pushes it
  toward (or away from) some object
• External attributes of the goal or the
  environment pull the organism in a certain
  direction

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Drive Reduction Theories Motivation to Reduce
Arousal

• an imbalance in homeostasis creates a
  physiological need, which produces a drive that
  motivates the organism to satisfy the need
• Homeostasis tendency to keep physiological
  systems internally balanced and adjusting in
  response to change
• Theory incomplete, many behaviors that seem
  designed to increase arousal.

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Drive-Reduction Theory
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Motivation to Maintain an Optimal Level of Arousal

• Research indicates too low levels of arousal are
  as uncomfortable as those that are too high.
• Yerkes-Dodson law.
• Best performance occurs when we are at an
  intermediate level of arousal.

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The Yerkes-Dodson Law
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Incentive Theory External Factors Motivate
Behavior

• Behavior is directed toward attaining desirable
  stimuli (positive incentives) avoiding
  undesirable stimuli ( negative incentives).
  (Remember operant conditioning.)
• Any stimulus that we learn to associate with
  positive or negative outcomes can serve as an
  incentive for behavior.

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Incentive Theory External Factors Motivate
Behavior

• Researchers distinguish two types of motivation
• Intrinsic motivation a behavior or an activity
  that a person perceives as a valued goal in its
  own right
• Extrinsic motivation type of motivation that
  leads a person to engage in a behavior or an
  activity for external reasons

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Maslow Proposed Some Needs Must Be Met before
Others

• We are born with a hierarchy of needs.
• First, basic safety and survival needs needs must
  be sufficiently satisfied.
• Next, the person is motivated by more social
  needs such as the desire for intimacy, love, and
  acceptance from others.
• These are followed by esteem needs such as the
  desire for achievement, power, recognition, and
  respect from others.
• All the needs in the four levels of the hierarchy
  are deficiency needs.

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Maslows Needs Hierarchy
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Maslow Proposed Some Needs Must Be Met before
Others

• Self-actualization, the need to fulfill ones
  potential, is the ultimate goal of human growth.
• This is an appealing theory of motivation in
  business, education, etc., and it provides an
  organized framework for discussing human motives.
• However, the simplicity of the theory proved to
  be its primary problem. (It tells us little that
  we did not already know and explains nothing.

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Obesity Eating Disorders Internal and
External Forces

• Definition the excessive accumulation of body
  fat
• Diagnosis calculate body mass index (BMI), which
  is weight in kilograms divided by height in
  meters squared (30 kg/m2)
• Person with body mass index over 30 is considered
  obese.

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Obesity Eating Disorders Internal and
External Forces

• From 1991 to 1998, 50 increase in number of
  obese American adults (12 to 18)
• Number of overweight children has doubled in past
  20 years.
• Obesity closely related to chronic health
  conditions high blood pressure, heart disease,
  diabetes, arthritis, sleep disorders

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Do Genes Shape Our Motivation Are eating
patterns hereditary?

• Instinct an unlearned, relatively fixed pattern
  of behavior that is essential to a species
  survival
• In the early 1900s William McDougall and other
  instinct theorists contended that much of human
  behavior is controlled by instincts.

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Do Genes Shape Our MotivationEvolutionary
Psychology Instinct Theories?

• The problem with these instinct theories is that
  many so-called instinctual behaviors are learned
  and shaped by experience.

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Do Genes Shape Our MotivationCurrent
Evolutionary Psychology?

• Contemporary evolutionary perspective states that
  we inherit adaptive genetic traits but that these
  traits express themselves more as predispositions
  for behaviors rather than as a predetermined set
  of actions.

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Do Genes Shape Our Motivation Intelligent
Design Theory?

• Intelligent design theorists would say that
  humans may have been designed to feel and express
  certain emotions and to have certain motivations
  and that these motivations and emotions are
  designed to be adapted to the environment.
• This theory would also allow for human free will.

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Then what determines eating patterns?

• Internals listen to hunger cues from the body
• Externals are pulled by the incentives of tasty
  food and social cues

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Then what determines eating patterns biology?

• Hormones such as gastrin, leptin, and
  cholecystokinin (CCK) produced by a full
  stomach/digestive track
• Blood glucose and insulin levels
• Monitoring by the hypothalamus

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Then what determines eating patterns psychology

• Classical conditioning
• Comfort food
• Social events
• Social acceptability
• Acquired tastes

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Dieting Motivation vs. Motivation

• Dieting is largely ineffective in achieving
  long-term weight loss.
• Difficult to change weight once a set point
  established
• Increased exercise may be the best predictor for
  long-term weight loss.
• Food industry can be positive force in reducing
  obesity and promoting healthier eating without
  losing profits.

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Obesity Eating Disorders Internal and
External Forces

• Weight discrimination more pervasive and widely
  condoned than race and gender discrimination
• Results in social climate that pressures people
  to reach certain body ideals
• Female ideal stresses difficult-to-attain
  thinness standards that endanger womens health
• Women of all ages more likely to view their
  bodies as objects of others attention and
  evaluate their bodies more negatively than men
• Women more likely to habitually experience social
  physique anxiety, which is anxiety about others
  observing or evaluating their bodies

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Obesity Eating Disorders

• Anorexia nervosa eating disorder in which person
  weighs less than 85 of normal weight expresses
  an intense fear of gaining weight.
• Bulimia eating disorder in which person engages
  in recurrent episodes of binge eating followed by
  drastic measures to purge body of consumed
  calories
• In addition to sociocultural factors, a growing
  body of evidence suggests possible genetic and
  motivational influences on these eating
  disorders.

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Emotions Positive or Negative Feeling States

• Emotion a positive or negative feeling state
  typically including some combination of
  physiological arousal, cognitive appraisal, and
  behavioral expression

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Emotions Unifying Characteristics

• Involve reactions of many bodily systems,
• Expressions are based on genetically transmitted
  mechanisms but are altered by learning and
  interpretation of events,
• Communicate information between people, and
• Help individuals respond to changes in their
  environment.

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Emotions Result in Bodily Responses

• The autonomic nervous system produces bodily
  responses of emotion.
• It has two separate branches
• Sympathetic geared toward energy expenditure
• Parasympathetic geared toward energy
  conservation and refueling

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Three Brain Regions Coordinate Emotional
Responses

• The hypothalamus
• vital link between higher-order cognition
  (forebrain) and the lower brain (homeostatic
  control of the body)
• The limbic system (amygdala)
• Two distinct neural circuits produce emotional
  responses, particularly fear
• The cerebral cortex
• Important for the subjective experience of
  emotions

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Cognition and Emotion

• The brains shortcut for emotions

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Emotional Arousal
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Lie Detectors

• Polygraph
• machine commonly used in attempts to detect lies
• measures several arousal responses that accompany
  emotion
• perspiration
• heart rate
• blood pressure
• breathing changes

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Emotion - Lie Detectors
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Emotion - Lie Detectors

• 50 Innocents
• 50 Thieves
• 1/3 of innocent declared guilty
• 1/4 of guilty declared innocent (from Kleinmuntz
  Szucko, 1984)

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Experiencing Emotion

• Feel-good, do-good phenomenon
• peoples tendency to be helpful when already in a
  good mood

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Subjective Well-Being

• self-perceived happiness or satisfaction with
  life
• used along with measures of objective well-being
• physical and economic indicators to evaluate
  peoples quality of life

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Experiencing Emotion

• Does money buy happiness?

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Experiencing Emotion

• Values and life satisfaction

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Experiencing Emotion

• Adaptation-Level Phenomenon
• tendency to form judgments relative to a
  neutral level
• brightness of lights
• volume of sound
• level of income
• defined by our prior experience
• Relative Deprivation
• perception that one is worse off relative to
  those with whom one compares oneself

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Experiencing Emotion