PSYC 1F90 Ch. 10

Motivation

A process that arouses, maintains, and guides behaviour toward a goal.

Need

An internal deficiency that may energize behaviour.

Drive

A state of bodily tension that arises from an unmet need.

Ex. hunger or thirst

Response

Any action, glandular activity, or other identifiable behaviour.

Goal

The target or objective of motivated behaviour

Incentive

Reward or other stimulus that motivates behaviour

Self-determination theory

Proposes that the needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness are critical motivational needs.

Intrinsic motivation

Desire to engage in behaviour based on internal rewards.

Naturally choosing to do an activity that meets our psychological needs

Extrinsic motivation

Motivation that comes from external forces.

Doing a task you would not do by choice, but you do it for the reward.

Hierarchy of needs

Maslow’s classification of human motivations by order of importance from basic biological function to self-actualization.

Basic needs

The first four levels of needs in Maslow’s hierarchy, lower needs tend to be more potent than higher needs.

Growth needs

In Maslow’s hierarchy, the higher-level needs associated with self-actualization.

Biological motives

Innate motives based on biological needs

Stimulus motives

Innate needs for stimulation and information

Promotes curiosity, activity, and exploration.

Learned motives

Motives based on learned needs, drives, and goals.

Homeostasis

The steady state of body equilibrium

Estrus

Changes in the sexual drive of animals that create a desire for mating

Particularly refers to females in heat

Estrogen

Any of a number of female sex hormones

Androgen

Any of a number of ale sex hormones; especially testosterone

Non-homeostatic drive

A drive that is relatively independent of physical deprivation cycles or body need states.

Circadian rhythm

A 24hr biological cycle found in humans and many other species.

Extracellular thirst

Thirst caused by a reduction in the volume of fluids found between body cells.

Intracellular thirst

Thirst triggered when a fluid is drawn out of cells due to an increased concentration of salts and minerals outside the cells.

Hypothalamus

A small area of the brain that regulates emotional behaviours and basic biological needs.

Taste aversion

An active dislike for a particular food.

Biological preparedness to learn

Organisms are more easily able to learn some associations than others. Ex. food with illness

Evolution then places biological limits on what an animal or person can easily learn.

Behavioural dieting

Weight reduction is based on changing exercise and eating habits, rather than temporary self-starvation.

Anorexia nervosa

An eating disorder characterized by a distorted body image and maintenance of unusually low body weight.

Feeding/ Eating disorder

A problem managing food intake that manifests itself in forms such as life-threatening failure to maintain sufficient body weight.

Bulimia nervosa

A disorder marked by excessive eating followed by inappropriate methods of preventing weight gain.

Arousal theory

Assume that people prefer to maintain ideal, or comfortable levels of arousal.

Yerkes-Dodson law

A summary of the relationships among arousal, task complexity, and performance.

Performance is usually poor at low levels of arousal

Performance suffers at high arousal levels unless the task is easy.

Maintaining moderate levels of arousal is optimal for performance.

Test anxiety

High levels of arousal and worry that seriously impair test performance

Social motives

Learned motives acquired as part of growing up in a particular society or culture.

Need for achievement

The drive to excel in ones endeavours

Need for power

The desire to have social impact and control over others

Opponent-process theory

States that strong emotions tend to be followed by the opposite emotional state

Also states that the strength of both emotional states changes over time.

Emotion

A feeling state that has physiological, cognitive, and behavioural components.

Mood

A low-intensity, long-lasting emotional state

Autonomic nervous system

The system of nerves carrying information to and from the internal organs and glands.

Amygdala

A part of the limbic system associated with the rapid processing of emotions, especially fear.

Polygraph

A device for recording heart rate, blood pressure, respiration, and galvanic skin response.

Commonly called a lie detector

Guilty knowledge test

A polygraph procedure used involving testing people with facts that only a guilty person could know.

Adaptive behaviours

Actions that aid attempts to survive and adapt to changing conditions

Kinesics

Study of the meaning of body movements, posture, hand gestures, and facial expressions.

Commonly called body language

Emotion regulation

Altering expression such that the emotion being displayed does not accurately reflect the one that is being experienced

Alexithymia

A learned difficulty expressing emotions, more common in men.

Emotional appraisal

Evaluating the personal meaning of a stimulus or situation.

Attribution

The act of assigning cause to behaviour

James-Lange theory

The proposition that bodily arousal leads to subjective feelings

Cannon-Bard theory

The proposition that the thalamus actively causes emotions and bodily arousal to occur simultaneously.

Schachter-Singer two-factor theory

A theory stating that emotions occur when physical arousal is labelled or interpreted on the basis of experience and situational cues.

Basic emotions

Theories that suggest emotions are brief states arising from cognitive appraisals and involve distinct expressions, physiology, and behaviour.

Positive psychology

The study of human strengths, virtues, and effective functioning.

Subjective well-being

General life satisfaction, combined with frequent positive emotions and relatively few negative emotions.

Different kinds of motives

Biological

Learned

Stimulus

Drive reduction theory

Biological needs motivate you to do things.

Once need is satisfied, the drive is reduced and you are no longer motivated.

Grehlin

A hormone released by the stomach lining signals low nutrient levels.

Signals lateral hypothalamus to release orexin hormone to increase hunger drive.

Leptin

A hormone released by fat cells when body fat exceeds optimal set point.

Targets ventromedial hypothalamus and signals it to decrease the release of orexin.

Self-determination theory

We have innate psychological needs not closely related to survival, need for psychological wellbeing.

Psychological needs

Competance

Autonomy

Relatedness

Competance

The need to solve problems and figure things out

Autonomy

Freedom to pursue your goals and make your own choices without interference

Relatedness

Connecting with and caring for other people

Guidelines to minimize the use of extrinsic motivation

Dont reward intrinsically motivated behaviour

use external rewards during skill developing to encourage them to keep learning

Phase out external rewards

4 Aspects of emotion

1. experience

2. physiology

3. expression

4. cognition

Behavioural expression

Each emotion has action tendencies/ adaptive behaviour that goes along with it.

Ex. Fear→ escape danger

Low road/ fast pathway

Responsible for autonomic emotional appraisals

Not rational, does not involve conscious reflection.

Response occurs quickly

Amygdala automatically appraises emotional stimuli

High road/ slow pathway

Longer pathway through the cortex

Engages rational part of the brain responsible for reasoning

Conscious emotional appraisal

Slower process