Chapter 9 - Motivation and Emotion

Motivation

The process by which activities are started, directed, and continued so that physical or psychological needs or wants are met

Approaches to Understanding Motivation

1. Instincts

2. Drive Reduction

3. Psychological Needs

4. Arousal

5. Incentives

6. Humanistic

Instincts

Biologically determined and innate patterns of behavior

Instinct approach

Approach to motivation that assumes people are governed by instincts similar to those of animals

Need

A requirement of some material that is essential for survival

Drive

A psychological tension and physical arousal arising when there is a need

Drive-Reduction Theory

Approach to motivation that assumes behavior arises from physiological needs that cause internal drives to push the organism to satisfy the need

Primary drives

Those drives that involve survival needs of the body

Acquired (secondary) drives

Those drives that are learned through experience or conditioning

Homeostasis

The tendency of the body to maintain a steady state

Psychological Needs

• Need for achievement (nAch)

• Need for affiliation (nAff)

• Need for power (nPow)

Stimulus motive

A motive that appears to be unlearned but causes an increase in stimulation

Arousal theory

Theory of motivation in which people are said to have an optimal level of tension that they seek to maintain by increasing or decreasing stimulation

Sensation seeker

Someone who needs more arousal than the average person

Incentives

Things that attract or lure people into action

Incentive approaches

Theories of motivation in which behavior is explained as a response to the external stimulus and its rewarding properties

Expectancy-value theories

Incentive theories that assume the actions of humans cannot be predicted or fully understood without understanding the beliefs, values, and the importance that a person attaches to those actions and their consequences

Humanistic

Hierarchy of Needs (Maslow)

Self-actualization

The point that is seldom reached at which people have achieved their full human potential

Self-determination theory (Ryan & Deci)

3 inborn and universal needs

1. Autonomy

2. Competence

3. Relatedness

Emotion

The feeling aspect of consciousness, characterized by:

1. A certain physical arousal

2. A certain behavior that reveals the emotion to the outside world

3. An inner awareness of feelings

Cognitive-Mediational Theory of Emotion

How a stimulus is interpreted (appraised) by a person determines their emotional reaction and physical response