Lecture 10 Personality and Motivation

Motivation

Are mental states that compel organisms to engage in purposive behavior.

-Behavior that is directed towards achieving goal or satisfying some needs or want.

How can we measure motivations?

By looking at the intensity and persistency of the behavior.

Extrinsic Motivations

Compel us to engage in bevaiors to obtain an external reward at that the behaviors might bring (E.g grades, money, status)

Intrinsic Motivations

Compel us to engage in behaviors because they are rewarding in their own right.

Homeostasis- Body Temperature

The enzymes in our cells require an optimal temperature range to function (E.g.98.6F)

Homeostasis-Fluid Balance

Our cells live in a watery environment; water that is lost must be replaced.

Homeostasis-Electrolyte Balance

Electrolytes such as sodium, potassium, etc must be unattained at optimal levels in order for the cell to function.

Homeostasis-Short-term energy balance

-Our cells require food (e.g. sugar) to function.

Homeostasis-Low energy balance

We must maintain a long-term store of energy (e.g. fat)

Drive

Is a tense state of arousal related to (usually biological) need (E.g., hunger, thirst, safety, maybe sex)

Drive-Reduction theory

Proposes that organisms are motivated to behave in ways that reduce these drives, such as eating to reduce the feeling of hunger, drinking to reduce the feeling if hunger, drying to reduce thirst, sex to reduce…whatever that reduces.

Hypothalamus

Critical for life-sustaining drives (thirst, hunger); plays a role in sexual aggressive behavior; links the nervous system to the endocrine system.

Hippocampus

Involved in the formation of memories of everyday events (e.g., decorative memories)

Nucleus Accumbens

The “Reward Center” of the brain; critical for the experience of pleasure; involved in reward-related learning and motivation.

Amygdala

Involved in threat detection, fear, and encoding the emotional aspects of memories.

Drives

Are created by internal needs that expert motivational forces that “push” us behaviorally toward satisfying those needs.

Incentives

Are external stimuli that appeal to our wants and that expert motivational forces that “pull” us toward them behaviorally.

Learned Incentives

A neutral stimulus (e.g. money) can become associated with the fulfillment of a biological need (e.g. hunger, thirst) and acquire incentive value.

Access to drive-reducing Things

Food

Relief + Elation

Dopamine release

Optimal Arousal

The “Just right” level of mental alertness attention and physical energy where a person performs a task best.

Yerkes-Dodson Law

Performance on a a task increases with arousal, but only up to a point!

Personality

Is the set of unique psychological characteristics, traits and patterns of behavior passed by each individual.

-This collection psychological characteristics traits and behaviors is organized, integrated and relatively enduring throughout a persons life.

Classical Psychodynamic Theory

According to Freud, personality emerges from the dynamic interplay between 3 distinct areas of mind: the ‘id’ the ‘ego’ and ‘superego’.

-Conflicts and Divisions of the mind are resolved by ego defense mechanism.

Psychosexual Development

Personality develops in childhood as the stages of psychosexual development.

Preconscious

Material that is not immediately conscious, but is accessible of needed (E.g. memories that aren’t repressed)

Unconscious

Reservoir of primal drives and their associated feelings, thoughts, and urges, desires, fantasies and (‘repressed) memories.

Conscious

Thoughts, memories, feelings etc that we are aware of in the present moment and that we can think and talk about rationally.

Pleasure Principle

A desire to seek pleasure and avoid pain at all costs.

-The ID demands immediate satisfaction of basic drives such as sex, hunger, and thirst.

Reality Principle

A desire to reconcile with the id with the demands of superego. (E.g. customs, morals, laws)

B.F. Skinner: Behaviorist Theorists

-Skinner argued that our personality is no different from any other aspect of our behavior.

-Personality is acquired, and, like nay behavior is changeable.

Humanistic Theories

We are resonating creatures, and face problems in mostly rational manner and try to make good decisions that will benefit ourselves and others.

-Human personality is formed from a natural, human striving towards self-actualization.

Maslows Pyramid of Needs

1. Self actualization

2. Esteem Needs

3. Belongingness and love needs

4. Safety Needs

5. Physiological Needs

Maslows ‘Peak Experiences’

A peak experience is a moment accompanied by a euphoric mental state often achieved by self-actualized individuals.