Understanding Emotions and Motivation Basics

Emotion

A quick response to a trigger that includes a physical reaction, behavior, and thoughts about the situation. Example: You hear a loud noise and feel fear, your heart races, and you jump.

Feeling

The personal experience of an emotion. Example: Feeling nervous before a test.

Mood

A long-lasting emotional state without a specific trigger. Example: Feeling down all day for no clear reason.

Primary emotions

Basic, universal emotions that everyone feels. Examples: Anger, fear, sadness, happiness, disgust, surprise, contempt.

Secondary emotions

Emotions that are mixes of primary emotions or thoughts about emotions. Examples: Guilt (anger at self and fear of consequences), jealousy, pride, love.

Valence

How positive or negative an emotion is.

Arousal

How excited or calm an emotion is. Example: Excitement is high arousal, positive valence. Boredom is low arousal, negative valence.

James-Lange theory

Emotions come from physical reactions in the body. Example: You cry, so you feel sad.

Cannon-Bard theory

Emotions and body reactions happen at the same time, but separately. Example: You feel fear and your heart races at the same moment.

Schachter-Singer (Two-Factor) theory

Emotions come from physical arousal and a label for that arousal. Example: You feel your heart race and decide it's excitement because you're on a rollercoaster.

Misattribution of arousal

When you feel arousal and blame it on the wrong cause. Example: You meet someone on a scary bridge and feel attracted to them, but it's really the fear causing the arousal.

Amygdala

Helps detect important or emotional things in your environment, especially fear.

Damage to the amygdala

People may not feel or recognize fear, can't learn fear from past experiences, and have trouble judging trust in faces.

Fast route to the amygdala

Straight from the thalamus (quick, automatic).

Slow route to the amygdala

Goes through visual cortex first (more accurate).

Suppression

Trying to block or hide emotions. This usually doesn't work well.

Rumination

Repeating negative thoughts over and over. Makes feelings worse.

Reappraisal

Changing how you think about a situation. Example: Thinking of a breakup as a chance to grow.

Distancing

Thinking about an event as if it happened to someone else.

Emotional expressions

Inborn signals that help people communicate.

Paul Ekman's research

Showed that people from different cultures can recognize the same emotions in facial expressions, but only when given options; accuracy is lower in isolated cultures.

Display rules

Cultural rules about when and how to show emotions. Example: Some cultures expect people to smile even when upset.

Ideal affect

The type of emotions a culture wants people to show. Example: Americans value happiness, Germans value seriousness.

Motivation

A process that gets you to start, direct, and keep going toward a goal.

Four parts of motivation

Energizing: starts behavior; Directive: aims behavior toward a goal; Persistence: keeps behavior going; Strength: varies in how intense it is.

Need

Something you lack that your body or mind wants to fix. Example: Hunger is a need.

Drive

The state that pushes you to meet the need. Example: Hunger drive makes you want to eat.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

Theory stating that basic needs must be met before focusing on higher-level goals. Order: Food → Safety → Belonging → Self-esteem → Self-actualization.

Approach motivation

Going after things that feel good. Example: Studying to get a good grade.

Avoidance motivation

Trying to avoid bad outcomes. Example: Studying to avoid failing.

Yerkes-Dodson Law

You do best with medium arousal; too little or too much hurts performance. Example: A little anxiety helps on a test, but too much makes you freeze.

Intrinsic motivation

Doing something because you enjoy it. Example: Painting because you like it.

Extrinsic motivation

Doing something for a reward. Example: Painting to win a prize.

Undermining effect

Giving rewards for something people already like can make them lose interest. Example: Kids who got rewards for drawing later stopped drawing for fun.

Marshmallow Test

Children could have one marshmallow now or wait and get two later; those who waited did better in life later on.

Self-regulation

Controlling your thoughts and actions to reach long-term goals.

Self-regulation strategies

Ignoring the temptation; Thinking of the reward as distant or boring; Focusing on the long-term benefit. Example: 'If I wait, I get two marshmallows instead of one.'