Psychology exam #3

Motivation

Forces acting on or within an organism to initiate and direct behavior

3 characteristic of motivation

1) Activation

2) Persistance

3) Intensity

Classic theories

Building blocks of human motivation

Instinct, Drive, Incentive, Arousal, Sensation seeking, and Humanistic

• Instinct - biological needs

• Drive - behavior is motivated by the desire to reduce internal tension caused by biological needs

• Incentive - motivated by external goal

• Arousal - motivated to maintain a certain level or arousal (not too high but not too low; different in everyone)

• Sensation seeking - degree in which a person is motivated to experience high levels of sensory ad physical arousal associated with varied and noval activities

• Humanistic - motivated to realize their personal potential

Maslow Hierarchy of needs

Must achieve bottom needs before moving up

Physiological needs —> Safety needs —> Belonging/love needs —> Esteem needs —> Self actualization/fulfillment

Self determination

Optimal human functioning occurs only if innate psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness are satisfied (growth orientated)

Mastery goals vs Performance goals

Mastery goals = growth mindset

Performance goals = fixed mindset

Intrinsic vs Extrinsic motivation

Intrinsic motivation - actions that are rewarding by themselves

Extrinsic motivation - actions are not rewarding themselves but lead to a reward

Hunger

Biological motive but motivated by biological, social, and psychological factors

Energy homeostasis, Basal metabolic rate, and Average bw

Energy homeostasis - calories consumed compared to calories expended

Basal metabolic rate - rate that the resting body uses energy for vital body functions

Average bw - baseline body weight maintained by energy homeostasis

Eating conditioning (classical v operant)

Classical - time of day you east normally elicits reflexive internal physiological changes

Operant - preference for certain tastes

Emotions and important factor

Physiological states that serve many functions in human behavior and relationships

• Regulating emotion is as important as experiencing it

3 components of emotions

1) Cognitive experience

2) Physiological response

3) Behavioral or expressive response

Importance of emotions (2)

1) Helps understand the meaning of experiential survival-related information

2) To communicate and understand experiences of others (often through facial expressions)

Basic emotions and 6 emotions

Basic emotions - represents a sequence of responses that is innate and hard-wired in the brain

6 emotions -

1) Happiness

2) Anger

3) Surprise

4) Disgust

5) Sadness

6) Fear

Deceptive expressions

Ability to control our expressions of emotions to some degree

Display rules, Intensification, Deintensification, Masking, and Neutralizing

• Display rules - norms for the control of appropriate emotion expression

• Intensification - exaggeration of emotional expression

• Deinensification - muting emotional expression

• Masking - expressing 1 emotion while feeling another

• Neutralizing - feeling no one expression of emotion

4 components of sincere expression

1) Morphology - use of reliable muscles

2) Symmetry - expression tend to be more symmetrical

3) Duration - lasts between ½ a second to 5 seconds

4) Temporal patterning - appear and disappear smoothly

Emotions through CNS

CNS - emotions are associated with distinct pattern responses by the CNS and brain

• Ex) Fear = decrease in skin temp, anger = increase in skin temp

Test to detect lying

Polygraph test - detects physiological changes associated with emotions

3 problems with lie detection

1) No unique physiological arousal pattern for lying

2) Some people can lie without arousal

3) Innocent people could be fearful/anxious when asked questions

2 positives of emotional regulation

1) Create and maintains close interpersonal relationships

2) Coping with adverse life events

4 theories of emotion

1) Lange - emotion arises from the perception of body changes

2) Cannon - emotional reaction is faster than physiological reaction

3) 2 factors - emotion is the interaction between physiological arousal and the cognitive label that applied to explain arousal

4) Cognitive - emotion results from cognitive appraisal of a situations effect on personal well-being

Social psychology

Study of how thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by presence of other people and social + physical environment

2 key research areas of social psychology

1) Social cognition - mental processes people use to make sense of their social environment

2) Social influence - how our behavior is affected by other people and by situational factors

Personal perception and Social norms

Personal perception - mental processes we use to form judgements about other people

Social norms - unwritten rules of expectations for appropriate behavior in a particular social situation

Social categorization and Implicit personality theory

Social categorization - mental processes of categorizing people into groups on the basis of their shared characteristics

Implicit personality theory - associates physical attractiveness with a wide range of desirable characteristics

Attribution and Fundamental attribution error

Attribution - process of explaining your own behavior and the behavior of other people

Fundamental attribution error - tendency to randomly attribute the behaviors of others to internal personal characteristics while ignoring the role of external situational factors

Self-serving bias

Peoples tendency to credit themselves for their success and blame their failures on external circumstances

Victim blaming

Tendency to blame an innocent person for somehow causing the problem or not taking steps to prevent it

Hindsight bias

Tendency to overestimate ones ability to have foreseen or predicted the outcome of an event

Just world hypothesis

Assumption the world is fair and that people get what they deserve

Attitude

Learned tendency to evaluate objects, people, or issues in a particular way (can be positive or negative)

Prejudice

Refers to a negative attitude towards people who belong to a specific social group

Stereotype

Cluster of characteristics that are associated with all members of a specific social group, often includes qualities that are unrelated to criteria that define the group

Implicit attitude

Evaluations that are automatic, unintentional, and unconscious

Social influcence

Study of how our behavior is influenced by those around us

Conformity

Adjusting opinions, behaviors, or judgements so it matches those of the people around us or the norms of the social group/situation

Normative

Behavior motivated by the desire to gain social acceptance or approval

Asch experiment

Showed before still conformed even knowing the other in their group are wrong

Obedience

Following orders

Milgram experiment

Subjects shocked learners if they were wrong, shock levels increased with each error

Prosocial behavior

Any behavior that helps another person

Altruism

Helping another person with no expectation of personal reward or benefit

Aggression

Behavior that is intended to harm another person

Social loafing

Tendency to expend less effort on a task when it is a group effort

Social facilitation

Tendency for presence of others to enhance performance

Deindividuation

Reduction of inhibitions that can occur when a person is a part of a group whose members feel anonymous

Rule of reciprocity

If someone gives or does something for you, you feel obligated to return the favor

Personality

An individuals unique and relatively consistant patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving

Psychoanalytic perspective

Freud - unconscious forces, sexual and aggressive instincts, and early childhood experiences shape personality

ID

Seeks immediate satisfaction of urges and drives, ruled by pleasure

Ego

In touch with demands and restriction of the external world, operates on self reality

Superego

Evaluates acceptability or behavior and thoughts then praises or admonishes

Repression

Exclusion from consciousness of anxiety producing thoughts, feelings, or impulses

Denial

Failure to recognize acknowledgements

Regression

Retreating to a behavior from an earlier stage of development

5 psychosexual stages

1) Oral stage - birth → year 1

2) Anal stage - year 1 → year 3

3) Phallic stage - year 3 → year 6

4) Latent stage - year 6 → puberty

5) Genital stage - puberty → death

Fixation

Unresolved developmental conflicts

Oedipus complex

Child’s unconscious sexual desire for opposite sex parent, usually with feelings of danger for the other parents

Jung

People are motivated by more general psychic energy to achieve growth

Humanistic perspective

Free will, self awareness, and psychological growth

Rodgers

Innate drive to maintain and enhance yourself if you have a good enough environment

Self concept (conditional v unconditional)

Conditional - you will be loved/valued only if you behave a certain way

Unconditional - you will be love/values no matter what

Social cognitive perspective

Bandura - conscious though processes, self regulation, and situational influences

Self effeciency

Beliefs that people have about their ability to meet demands of a specific situation

Trait

Enduring predisposition to behave a certain way

5 source traits

1) Openness to experience

2) Conscientiousness

3) Extraversion

4) Agreeableness

5) Neuroticism

Psychological tests

Asses a persons abilities, aptitudes, interests, or personality on the basis of a systematically obtained sample of behavior

Projective test

involves a persons interpretations of an ambiguous image to asses unconscious tissues

Thematic apperception test

Involves creating stories about ambiguous scenes

Objective test

Personality test scored by comparing persons answers to standardized norms collected on large groups of people

MMPI

Asses personality characteristics and psychological disorders in normal and disturbed populations