AP Psychology Unit 7: Motivation, Emotion, and Personality

Reciprocal Determinism

Reciprocal Determinism

Environment affects the person, person reacts, influences environment

Drive Reduction Theory

Theory that our behavior is driven by biological needs (food, water, shelter) and we seek homeostasis

Drive

Impulse to act in a way that satisfies a need

Primary Drive

A biological need (hunger, thrist)

Secondary Drive

Learned Drive (money can get you food / shelter)

Arousal Theory

Theory that we seek an optimum level of excitement / arousal → each person has different needs

• People perform best under optimum level of arousal

Yerkes Dodson Law

Performance makes a bell curve from low to high arousal

Opponent Process Theory

This theory is Often used to explain addictive behaviors

• People are usually in a normal / baseline state. Moving out of it (ex. smoking) may be pleasurable at first

• Eventually feel an opponent process: motivation to return back to baseline state

  • Ex. Person may be uncomfortable without nicotine → motivation to smoke more

Incentive Theory

This theory states that sometimes behavior is pushed by a desire

• Incentives: Stimuli that we are draw to due to learning → associate stimuli with rewards or punishment

  • Motivation for reward (ie motivate by good test score so study alone because friends are distracting)

Incentives

Stimuli that we are draw to due to learning → associate stimuli with rewards or punishment

Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs

Made by Abram Maslow - Not all needs are created equal

Biological Needs are satisfied first

Then, love and self esteem (emotional needs)

Finally, attain life goals like satisfaction

Self-Actualization: Need to fulfill unique potential as a person

* More basic needs need to be met before moving the the next level

Does not explain behaviors like putting your life before someone else’s

Lateral Hypothalamus

This part of the brain is the Hunger center → stimulation = animal easts

Destruction = destruction of hunger → starvation

Ventromedial Hypothalamus

This part of the brain is the Satiety center: stimulation = stop eating

• Destruction = eat and gaining lots of weight

• Normal functioning: 2 areas oppose each other and signal when to start/stop eating

Set-Point Theory

How the hypothalamus decides which signal to send

• Hypothalamus wants to maintain optimum body weight → not all psychologists agree

• Below = should eat. Lower metabolic rate(how quickly the body uses energy)

  • Stop eating when a certain point is reached and metabolic rate rises to burn extra food

Metabolic Rate

How quickly the body uses energy

Externals

people more motivated to eat by external food cues (attractiveness and availability)

Internals

respond more often to natural body cues when it comes to hunger

Garcia Effect

Some foods bring back unpleasant memories of being sick → unappetizing

Culture and background also affects preferences

Bulimia

 Eating disorder: Large amount of food in short time (binging) and vomit, excessive exercise, or take laxatives (purging)

• Obsessed with food and weight: Majority are women. Average or slightly overweight

Anorexia Nervosa

Eating disorder: Starve below 85% body weight and refuse to eat. Vast majority are women

• Cultures have different rates of eating disorders → different emphasis on body weight

  • U.S. has the highest E.D. rates. History of EDs in family = higher risk

Achievement Motivation

Examines desire to master complex tasks and knowledge and to reach personal goals

• Humans are motivated to figure out the world and master skills

  • Some people have high achievement motivation and consistently feel motivated to seek challenges, but it varies with each person

Extrinsic

These motivators are rewards for accomplishments outside ourselves (such as grades or salary)

Intrinsic

These motivators are  Internal rewards such as enjoyment or satisfaction

Theory X

Management Theory:

• Employees work only if rewarded with benefits or threatened with punishment

Theory Y

Management Theory:

• Employees motivated to do good work by themselves

Approach-Approach Conflict

A motive conflict where one Must choose between two desirable conflicts

Avoidance-Avoidance Conflict

A motive conflict where one must choose between two unattractive outcomes (ie clean room or garage)

Approach-Avoidance Conflict

A motive conflict where One event/goal has both a good and bad feature (ie get ice cream but lactose intolerant)

Multiple Approach-Avoidance Conflicts

A motive conflict where one must choose between  2+ things that have good/bad outcomes (ie which college to attend)

James-Lange Theory of Emotion

This suggests that physical changes in the body happen first, which then leads to the experience of emotion. Essentially, emotions stem from your interpretation of your physical sensations. For example, your heart beating wildly would lead you to realize that you are afraid.

Cannon-Bard Theory of emotion

This states that the lower part of the brain, also called the thalamus, controls your experience of emotion. At the same time, the higher part of the brain, also called the cortex, controls the expression of emotion. It is believed that these two parts of the brain react simultaneously\

Biological changes and cognitive awareness of one’s emotional state must occur simultaneously (thalamus)

Two-Factor Theory

By Stanley Schachter, a theory about emotion: Physical response and cognitive label (mental interpretation) = emotional response

Stressors

Life events that cause stress

Stress Reactions

How people react to stressors, or changes in their environment

SRRS / Social Readjustment Rating Scale

by Thomas Holmes and Richard Rahe

Measures stress in Life Changing Units

Life Changing Units / LCU

The SRRS by Thomas Holmes measures stress in these units. Good and bad events are equated and raise the score

Selye’s General Adapatation Syndrome / GAS

three-stage process that describes the physiological changes your body goes through when under stress. General response humans and animals have to an event

• Alarm reaction = higher heart rate and blood redirects to muscles, organism is ready for a challenge

• Resistance: Body is ready and hormones are released to maintain the state. Body depletes resources

• Exhaustion: Return to normal → More vulnerable because body is depleted

Alarm Reaction

Part of Selye’s General Adaptation Syndrome

higher heart rate and blood redirects to muscles, organism is ready for a challenge

Resistance

Part of Selye’s General Adaptation Syndrome

• Body is ready and hormones are released to maintain the state. Body depletes resources

Exhaustion

Part of Selye’s General Adaptation Syndrome

• Return to normal → More vulnerable because body is depleted

Percieved Control

Perceived lack of control over events increases the harmful effects of stress.

Control lowers stress even if the amount of original stress is the same

Type A

This personality type is known as “work hard, play hard”

Type B

This personality type is relaxed and easygoing

Identification

Defense mechanism: become attached or take traits of the agressor

Id

This part of Freud’s unconscious follows the pleasure principle and exists from birth. It looks for immediate gratification

Ego

This part of Freud’s unconscious develops at age 2 or 3, after the id. It follows the reality principle and negotiates between the desires of the id and the limits of the superego

Eros

According to Freud’s personality theory, the life instincts

Thatanos

According to Freud’s personality theory, the death instincts

Libido

According to Freud’s personality theory, the force that controls instincts

Defense Mechanisms

According to Freud’s personality theory, these behaviors allow us to deal with something unpleasant happening. These are unconscious strategies to protect from harmful thoughts or feelings

Repression

A defense mechanism:

Blocking thoughts from conscious awareness

Denial

A defense mechanism:

Not accepting the ego-threatening truth

Displacement

A defense mechanism:

Moving your emotions onto another object or person

Projection

A defense mechanism:

Thinking that your feelings towards someone are felt by them too

Reaction Formation

A defense mechanism:

Claiming to feel the opposite of what one actually does

Regression

A defense mechanism:

Returning to an earlier comforting behavior such as a stuffed animal

Rationalization

A defense mechanism:

Coming up with a beneficial result from the unpleasant experience

Intellecutalization

A defense mechanism:

Undertaking an academic, unemotional study of a topic

Sublimation

A defense mechanism:

Channeling frustration towards a different, more socially acceptable goal, such as excersize

Personal Unconscious

Part of Carl Jung’s Psychodynamic theory:

This concept is similar to Freud’s equivalent: painful or repressed memories that are known as complexes

Complexes

Part of Carl Jung’s Psychodynamic theory: painful or repressed memories stored in the personal unconscious

Collective Unconscious

Part of Carl Jung’s Psychodynamic theory:

This information is passed down through a species and contains archetypes: universal concepts for all humans that lead to cultural similarities

Archetypes

universal concepts for all humans that lead to cultural similarities

Inferiority, Superiority

According to Carl Jung and Alfred Adler, people are driven by ______ (fear of failure), and _______ (desire to achieve)

Nomothietic

A type of approach for trait theorists:

The same basic set of traits can describe an entire personality

Hans Eysenck

This person believed that everyone can be classified on an introvert/extrovert scale

Big Five

OCEAN

Paul Costa and Robert McCrae thought of these personality traits as being able to define everyone:

• Openness

• Conscientiousness

• Extroversion

• Agreeableness

• Neuroticism

Factor Analysis

Using correlations between traits to see which ones cluster together

Idiographic

This approach in trait theorists says that defining everyone under the same traits is not possible: everyone is different

Cardinal Dispositions

Part of Gordon Allport’s personality theory:

some people are influenced almost completely by one trait

Central Dispositions

Part of Gordon Allport’s personality theory:

some people are influenced mainly by a few traits

Secondary Dispositions

Part of Gordon Allport’s personality theory:

These are less effective than central dispositions but are still important

Somatotype Theory

by William Sheldon

Largely unnacurate theory about endomorphs (fat people, friendly, outgoing), mesomorphs (muscular people, determined), and ectomorphs (thin people, shy) and their personality traits

Triadic Reciprocality / Reciprocal Determinism

Albert Bandura’s Social-Cognitive Theory of Personality:

Personality comes from the interaction between traits, environment, and behavior

Self-Efficacy

Confidence in your ability to get things done

Personal-Construct Theory

George Kelly’s Social-Cognitive Theory of Personality:

Personality comes from using constructs to understand the world (fair vs unfair, smart vs dumb)

Fundamental Postulate

The idea that behavior is influenced by cognition and you can predict future behavior by looking at the past

Locus of Control

Julian Rotter theorized that people have an internal or external _______

• Internal: responsibility for what happens to them: hard work leads to success

  • External: Luck or external factors decide fate

Determinism

The idea that the future is dictate by what happens in the past. In other words, it is only possible for you to make a single choice

Self-Concept

Global feeling about oneself

Unconditional Positive Regard

Blanket Acceptance needed to self-actualize

Projective

These types of tests use interpretation of ambiguous stimuli (Rorschach inkblot and thematic apperception)

Barnum Effect

The idea that people see themselves in vague, stock descriptions