FINAL Motivation Psych Exam 1

Motivation gives

Gives behavior energy, direction, and persistence.

Why study motivation?

It helps explain why people behave the way they do and why behavior changes.

Basic motivation questions?

What causes behavior? Why this behavior? Why now? Why does it continue?

Motive

Internal process that energizes/directs behavior toward a goal.

Emotion

A response involving feelings, body reactions, thoughts, and behavior.

Antecedent condition

Something that precedes a behavior and influences whether it occurs.

Latent variable

Something we cannot directly observe, such as motivation or a person's need.

Motivation can be measured by?

Behavior, physiology, self-report, and brain activity

Motivation as a mediator?

Motivation can explain how one factor leads to a behavior.

Motivation + emotion?

Reciprocally related

Motivation vs. influence?

Motivation energizes and directs behavior; influence is anything that affects behavior

fMRI

A brain scan that measures changes in blood oxygen/flow to identify active brain areas.

Cortex

Thinking, planning, decision-making, and control.

Subcortex

Motivation, emotion, memory, and basic bodily functions.

Amygdala

Helps detect threats and emotionally important stimuli, especially fear.

Hypothalamus

Homeostasis and basic physiological needs

Hippocampus

Important for memory, especially contexts and experiences.

Nucleus accumbens

Helps process reward, motivation, and reward seeking behavior.

VTA

Produces dopamine neurons important for reward, motivation, and learning.

Basal ganglia

Movement, habits, and reward related behavior.

Thalamus

Major communication station, sends sensory info to other brain areas.

Prefrontal cortex

Planning, decision making, goal setting, and self control.

Orbitofrontal cortex

Evaluate rewards, punishments, and consequences when making decisions.

Anterior cingulate

Helps monitor conflict, errors, effort, and the need for control.

Insula

Internal body sensations and emotional awareness.

Salience network

Helps identify what is important or worth paying attention to.

Cognitive control network

Helps with attention, planning, problem solving, and self control

Amygdala's purpose

Helps detect potential threats and produce avoidance/fear responses.

Main reward pathway

VTA produces dopamine, received by nucleus accumbens, with connections to other brain areas.

What activates VTA dopamine?

Rewards and reward-predicting cues

Amygdala + reward system

Detect reward, push you to get reward, build habit to get reward

Amygdala vs. reward

Amygdala avoids threats, reward systems motivate approaching reward

4 emotion components

Feeling, physiology, thought, and behavior

How do emotions motivate?

Energize and direct behavior, approaching or avoiding something.

Emotional process

Event is interpreted, producing an emotional response and behavior.

Plutchik feedback loop

Situation, interpretation, feelings, behavior, and feedback.

Why complex emotions?

Different combinations of basic emotions, thoughts, experiences, and situations.

Emotion schema

A mental framework that helps us understand and respond to emotional experiences.

Why are emotions useful?

Emotions provide information and motivation that help us respond to situations.

Emotions help coping how?

Prep body/mind to deal with challenges or opportunities.

Emotions communicate how?

Facial expressions, body language, and voice

Emotion + development

Learning, relationships, social development, and self-control.

Circumplex model

A model that describes mood using valence and arousal.

Valence

How pleasant or unpleasant an experience feels.

Arousal

How activated or calm you feel.

Low valence + high arousal

Angry/anxious.

Affect

A person's general positive or negative feeling state.