Theories of Motivation

• Motivation “Gets You Moving” - the needs, desires, feelings and ideas that direct behavior toward a goal

  • It is urge to behave or act in a way that will satisfy certain conditions, such as wishes, desires, or goals

• Instinct Theory “The Evolutionary Perspective” - people are motivated to behave in certain ways because they are evolutionary/genetically programmed to do so with survival instincts

  • Motivation to SURVIVE

  • Psychologists today debate if there are any human behaviors that can be considered true instincts

• Drive Reduction Theory “In Search of Balance” (Clark Hull 1943) - the idea that a physiological need creates an aroused tension state (a drive) that motivate an organism to satisfy the need

  • The greater the need, the stronger the drive

• Homeostasis “Stay the Same” - the body’s ability to maintain a state of equilibrium

• Incentive Theory - we are pulled into action by - positive or negative - outside incentives 

  • Actions are directed towards the promise of a reward or punishment

  • Can be used to get people to engage in certain behaviors or to stop performing certain actions

• Optimum Arousal Theory “Just the Right Amount of Excitement” - human motivation aims to increase arousal

  • Arousal is the level of alertness wakefulness, and activation caused by activity in the central nervous system

  • We feel driven to experience stimulation

• Optimum Level of Arousal - Motivation is the search for just the right amount of excitement

  • Being under-aroused/alert yields low performance. Or, being over-hyped yields low performance. The trick is to be just right

• People differ in the amount of stimulation they need or want

• Yerkes-Dodson Law - increased arousal can help improve performance, but only up to a certain point

  • At the point when arousal becomes excessive, performance diminishes

• Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs - Abraham Maslow suggested that people need to meet their basic needs before reaching higher level needs

• Physiological Needs - The most basic of Maslow’s needs are physiological needs, the things that are vital to our survival

  • Food

  • Water

  • Breathing

  • Homeostasis

• Security/Safety Needs - people want control and order in their lives  so this need for safety and security contributes largely to behaviors at this level

  • Some of the basic security and safety needs include:

    • Financial security

    • Heath and wellness

    • Safety against accidents and injury

• Social Needs - at this level, the need for emotional relationships drives human behavior

  • Some of the things that satisfy this need include:

    • Friendships 

    • Romantic attachments

    • Family

    • Social groups

    • Community groups

    • Churches and religious organizations

• Esteem Needs - At this point, it becomes increasingly important to gain the respect and appreciation of others. People have a need to accomplish things and then have their efforts recognized.

  • Feelings of Accomplishment

  • Prestige

  • Self-esteem

  • Personal worth

• Self Actualization - pursuing all of your talents shamelessly to be the best version of yourself you can be

  • At the highest level of the hierarchy, need that essentially equates to achieving one’s full potential

  • Self-actualizing people are self-aware, concerned with personal growth, less concerned with the opinions of others, and interested fulfilling their potential

• Self Transcendence - people strive for meaning, purpose, and communion that is beyond the self (spiritual fulfillment)

Specific Topics in Motivation

• Hunger Motivation - Understanding why we eat, hunger is something that makes us do things (motivator) and is a drive state

  • Hunger is a drive that pushes a person to behavior in a way that fills a need (People don’t eat only because they need food) 

• Hypothalamus - Most of the biological feeling of hunger comes from this brain structure that is responsible for synthesizing and secreting various hormones

  • Monitors your blood chemistry and responds to low levels

• Lateral Hypothalamus (LH) “Hungry” - The “on” button for eating. If stimulated, causes you to feel hunger

• Ventromedial hypothalamus (VMH) “Full”- The “off” button for eating. when stimulated, makes you feel full

• Set point - The hypothalamus wants to maintain a certain optimum body weight

  • Describes how the hypothalamus might decide what impulse to send

  • The hypothalamus tells us we should eat and lowers our metabolic rate- tells us to stop eating when that set point is reached and and raises our metabolic rate to burn any excess food

• External Cues for Eating Behaviors - Environmental factors that influence our desire to eat 

  • Include the time of day, estimated time until the next feeding, the sight, smell, taste, and even touch of food and food-related stimuli

  • Culture/Religious Values

• Sexual Motivation - The normal human interest in sexual objects and activities

  • Sex is not a need, but rather a desire

  • If we were not motivated to have sex, then we probably would not procreate (have babies) and the human species would end.

• Sex Response Cycle (William Masters & Virginia Johnson 1966) - Includes the stages humans go through during sexual interaction

  • Excitement Stage

  • Plateau Stage

  • Orgasm Phase

  • Resolution Phase

  • Refractory Period

• Achievement Motivation - The need for achievement drives accomplishment and performance and thereby motivates our behavior

  • Individual's need to meet realistic goals, receive feedback and experience a sense of accomplishment

• Intrinsic Motivation - behavior that is driven by internal rewards (autonomy, mastery, purpose)

  • We simply enjoy an activity or see it as an opportunity to explore, learn, and actualize our potentials

  • Individuals who are intrinsically motivated are likely to perform better and improve their skills at a given task

• Extrinsic Motivation - Behavior that is driven by external rewards such as money, fame, grades, and praise  

  • People who are extrinsically motivated will continue to perform an action even though the task might not be in and of itself rewarding

  • People who are extrinsically motivated tend to be less satisfied and become unhappy more easily

• Overjustification Effect - Phenomenon in which being rewarded for doing something actually diminishes intrinsic motivation to perform that action

  • People tend to pay more attention to these external rewards rather than their own enjoyment of the activity

• Affiliation Need - People need each other and need groups in order to survive and thrive “Social Animals” 

  • It is instead centered on gaining acceptance, attention, and support from members of the group as well as providing the same attention to other members

• Ostracism “Social Exclusion” - ostracism is being deliberately left out of a group or social setting by exclusion and rejection

  • Our brains react with anger or sadness when we’re being threatened with exclusion 

• Approach-Approach Conflict - Conflict within a person where he or she needs to decide between two appealing goals 

• Avoidance-Avoidance Conflict - Making a decision between two equally undesirable choices 

• Approach-Avoidance Conflict - Conflict involves making decisions about situations that have both positive and negative consequences

• Multiple Approach-Avoidance Conflicts - Weighs the pros and cons of differing situations that have both good and bad elements

Theories of Emotion 

• Emotion - A mind and body’s integrated response to a stimulus of some kind. The complex experience includes

  • Physiological Arousal 

  • Expressive Behaviors

  • Conscious Experience

• Nonverbal Communication (NVC) - Facial expressions, gestures, posture, distance, and nonlinguistic vocal characteristics that express emotional feelings 

  • Our brains are rather amazing detectors of subtle expressions

• Display Rule - A social group or culture's informal norms about how to appropriately express emotions

  • The norms of a group not only identify when and where it is appropriate to express emotions but also the extent at which these emotions are expressed

• Common-Sense Theory - Theory in which a stimulus leads to an emotion, which then leads to bodily arousal through the autonomic nervous system 

  • Environmental influence (some event) ---> Psychological experience ---> Physiological state changes (emotion)

• James-Lange Theory - Emotions occur as a result of physiological reactions to events

  • External stimulus

  • Physiological reaction

  • Emotional reaction is dependent upon how you interpret those physical reactions

• Facial Feedback Hypothesis - Facial expressions are connected to experiencing emotions

  • The act of smiling can itself actually make you feel happier

  • James-Lange theory is consistent with the current facial-feedback hypothesis

• Cannon-Bard Theory of Emotions - Suggests that the physical and psychological experience of emotion happen at the same time and that one does not cause the other

• Schachter-Singer Two-Factor Theory - The physiological arousal occurs first, and then the individual must identify the reason for this arousal to experience and label it as an emotion

  • Stimulus 

  • Physiological Response

  • Cognitively interpreted and labeled which results in an emotion

Stress and Coping

• Stress - Any type of change that causes physical, emotional or psychological strain

  • Acute stress - A very short-term type of stress that can either be positive or more distressing

  • Chronic stress - Stress that seems never-ending and inescapable

• Eustress - Effect of positive events, or the optimal amount of stress that people need to promote health and well-being (creates motivation) 

  • Marriage, job promotion, having a baby, the anticipation of a first day, fun challenge  

  • Require a great deal of change in people’s habits and create stress 

• Distress - Occurs when people experience unpleasant and undesirable stressors

  • Catastrophic Events: Unpredictable event on large scale such as large earthquakes, hurricanes, wars 

  • Significant Life Changes 

  • Minor Hassles: The daily annoyances of everyday life such as standing in line, traffic jams, noisy environments

• General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS) - Researched by Hans Selye, the three stages of the bodies psychological reaction to stress 

  • Stress is a defensive mechanism

  • Stress follows the three stages of alarm, resistance, and exhaustion

  • If the stress is prolonged or severe, it could result in diseases of adaptation or even death

• Alarm - When the body first reacts to a stressor, the sympathetic nervous system is activated 

  • The adrenal glands release hormones that increase heart rate, blood pressure, and the supply of blood sugar, resulting in a burst of energy 

  • Reactions such as fever, nausea, and headache are common

• Resistance - As the stress continues, the body settles into sympathetic division activity, continuing to release the stress hormones that help the body fight off, or resist, the stressor

  • Noradrenaline seems to affect the brain’s processing of pain, so that when under stress a person may experience insensitivity to pain 

• Exhaustion - When the body’s resources are gone, exhaustion occurs, can lead to formation of stress-related diseases 

  • When the stressor ends, the parasympathetic division activates and the body attempts to replenish its resources

• Stressors - Stress-causing events that come from within a person or from an external source and range from relatively mild to severe (different intensities and effects)

  • Stressors are situations that are experienced as a perceived threat 

  • Not every potential stressor causes stress for everyone

• High levels of stress are associated with decreased immunity, high blood pressure, headaches, heart disease, and quicker progression of cancer and AIDS 

• Coping Strategies - Coping strategies can be adaptive or maladaptive

  • Maladaptive strategies ordinarily fail to remove the stressors or wind up substituting one stressor for another

  • Adaptive strategies remove stressors or enable us to better tolerate them 

• Locus of Control - Refers to the extent to which people feel that they have control over the events that influence their lives

  • Your locus of control can influence not only how you cope with stress, but also your motivation to take action

• Internal Locus of Control - You believe that you have control over what happens

  • Tend to work hard to achieve the things they want

  • Feel confident in the face of challenges

  • Tend to be physically healthier

  • Report being happier and more independent

• External Locus of Control - Blame outside forces for their circumstances

  • Often credit luck or chance for any successes

  • Don't believe that they can change their situation through their own efforts

  • Frequently feel helpless or powerless in the face of difficult situations

• Emotion-Focused Coping - Managing emotions that come up from a stressful situation

  • Replacing the negative emotional responses to the stressor

    • “Okay this is upsetting me, but I can stay calm and not lose my temper” 

• Problem-Focused Coping - The source of the stress is located and removed, thus removing the feelings that come up

  • If the problem can be removed, problem-focused coping can be better than other forms of coping

• Appraisal-Focused Coping - Attempts to reframe the stressors-changing one’s perceptions and assumptions about the stressors 

  • “Putting a positive spin on things” 

The Psychoanalytic Perspective

• Personality Psychology - The scientific study of the whole person

  • Personality can be defined as an individual's unique, relatively consistent pattern of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.

• Sigmund Freud -The Father of Psychoanalysis

  • He is regarded as one of the most influential - and controversial - minds of the 20th century

• Psychoanalytic Theories - Sigmund Freud developed theory of personality development, human behavior and experience are determined by forces over which we have very little control and about which we are generally unaware 

  • Great emphasis on the role of unconscious psychological conflicts in shaping behavior and personality

• Unconscious - According to Freud, a reservoir of mostly unacceptable thoughts, wishes, feelings, and memories

  • All our animalistic biological drives, instincts, and urges reside in the unconscious

  • Some of these thoughts we store temporarily in a preconscious area to move to conscious awareness

• Id - Part of the human personality that is made up of all our inborn biological urges that seeks out immediate gratification

  • Exists at birth and contains all the instincts and energy necessary for survival (libido) 

  • The id operates on the pleasure principle, demanding immediate gratification

• Ego - The largely conscious, “executive” part of personality that, mediates among the demands of the id, superego, and reality

  • The ego operates on the reality principle, satisfying the id’s desires in ways that will realistically bring pleasure rather than pain

  • Ego contains our partly conscious thoughts

• Superego - The part of personality that, represents internalized ideals and provides standards for judgment (the conscience) and for future aspirations

  • Focuses on how we ought to behave, the morality principle, need to comply with parental and other authority 

  • Around age 4 or 5 

• Psychosexual Stages - The childhood stages of development (oral, anal, phallic, latency, genital) during which, according to Freud, the id’s pleasure seeking energies focus on distinct erogenous zones

  • Freud believed personality formed the first few years of life

  • Sexuality=Desire for sensuous pleasure of any kind

• Oedipus Complex - According to Freud, a boy’s sexual desires toward his mother and feelings of jealousy and hatred for the rival father

  • During the phallic stage

  • Children eventually cope with the threatening feelings, said Freud, by repressing them in the unconscious and by identifying with (trying to become like) the rival parent

• Identification - The process by which, according to Freud, children incorporate their parents’ values into their developing superegos

  • Freud believed that identification with the same-sex parent provides what psychologists now call our gender identity—our sense of being male or female

• Fixation - According to Freud, a lingering focus of pleasure-seeking energies at an earlier psychosexual stage, in which conflicts were unresolved

  • Being stuck in a stage carries the sexual energy from that stage into adulthood 

  • Fixation can also result if a trauma occurred during that stage

Freud’s Theories 

• Defense mechanisms - Freud proposed that the ego protects itself with defense mechanisms, tactics that reduce or redirect anxiety by distorting reality 

  • Defense mechanisms are thought to safeguard the mind against feelings and thoughts that are too difficult for the conscious mind to cope with 

• Repression - Acts to keep information out of conscious awareness

  • Freud also thought these repressed feelings, memories, or desires come out in dreams symbolically and through slips of the tongue

• Displacement - Involves taking out our frustrations, feelings, and impulses on people or objects that are less threatening

  • Displaced aggression is a common example of this defense mechanism

• Projection - Involves taking our own unacceptable qualities or feelings and ascribing them to other people

  • Allowing the expression of the desire or impulse, but in a way that the ego cannot recognize, therefore reducing anxiety

• Regression - When confronted by stressful events, people sometimes abandon coping strategies and revert to patterns of behavior used earlier in development

  • People act out behaviors from the stage of psychosexual development in which they are fixated

• Denial - Functions to protect the ego from things with which the individual cannot cope

  • Outright refusal to admit or recognize that something has occurred or is currently occurring

• Rationalization - Involves explaining an unacceptable behavior or feeling in a rational or logical manner, avoiding the true reasons for the behavior

  • Rationalization not only prevents anxiety, it may also protect self-esteem and self-concept

• Reaction-Formation - Reduces anxiety by taking up the opposite feeling, impulse, or behavior

  • Defense mechanism to hide their true feelings by behaving in the exact opposite manner

• Critics Point Out…

  • (+) Today’s psychologists give Freud credit for drawing attention to the vast unconscious, importance of sexuality, & conflict between biological impulses & social restraints

  • (-) Research does not support many of Freud’s specific ideas 

Neo-Freudian and Psychodynamic

• Freud’s writings were controversial, but they soon attracted followers & critics 

• Neo-Freudians - Pioneering psychoanalysts accepted Freud’s basic ideas

• Psychodynamic Theories

  • His followers accepted the id, ego, superego, that personality was defined in childhood, and in the unconscious

  • They differed by (1) increasing the role of the conscious and (2) decreasing the roles of sex and violence

• Carl Jung - Early follower of Freud, established rival theoretical perspective

  • Jung thought all people shared a collective unconscious. This is our supposedly common collection of images that we have gained together as human beings from our ancestral & evolutionary past 

  • Deepest and most inaccessible layer of the psyche 

• Archetypes - Major structural components of the collective unconscious, universal pattern or predispositions that structure how all humans consciously and unconsciously adapt to their world

  • Evidence is found in ancient myths, dreams, and universal symbols

• Persona (Mask) “Conformity Archetype” - The socially acceptable mask or front the person presents to the world, highly conscious creation 

  • Individual’s persona is built on conscious patterns concerning how a good “actor” presents an appropriate mask and plays an appropriate role for the world 

  • Hides or disguises the rue potential of the self

• Mirror image of our biological sex

  • Anima - The hidden feminine side of man, based on men’s collective experiences with women throughout time 

  • Animus - The hidden masculine side of woman

• Shadow - Animal side of our personality, part of the unconscious mind, repressed ideas, weaknesses, desires, instincts, and shortcomings 

• Alfred Adler - Emphasized social interest as the primary determinant of behavior 

  • Adler believed people strive for superiority to be altruistic, cooperative, creative, unique, aware, and interested in social welfare

  • People compensate for inferiority complexes based on inadequacies

  • Birth order is important factor controlling personality 

• Adler Birth Order 

  • Oldest child (prepared for appearance of a rival) is likely to develop into a responsible, protective person

  • Middle likely to be ambitious and well adjusted

  • Youngest child is likely to be spoiled

• Karen Horney - Feminist perspective to psychoanalytic theory, attacked male bias in Freud’s work 

  • Males & females are envious of attributes of the other sex, women are more envious of men’s societal status than their male parts 

Neo-Freudian and Projective Tests

• Projective Test - Personality test that provides ambiguous stimuli and test-takers tell a story about it 

  • More reliable at uncovering unconscious personality traits or features. However, they are criticized for having poor reliability and validity, lacking scientific evidence

• Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) - Projective test in which people express their inner feelings and interests through the stories they make up about ambiguous scenes

  • Consists of 30 cards (including one blank card) depicting ambiguous drawings

  • Clinician may presume any hopes, desires, and fears are projections of their own inner feelings or conflicts

• Rorschach Inkblot Test (Hermann Rorschach) - The most widely used projective test, a set of 10 inkblots, During the test, participants are shown the inkblots and asked what each one looks like

  • This test can be used to examine a person’s personality characteristics and emotional functioning, and is thought to measure unconscious attitudes and motivations.

• The Modern Unconscious Mind

  • Current research confirms that we do not have full access to all that goes on in our mind, but the current view of the unconscious is not that of a hidden storehouse filled with repressed feelings and thoughts

  • Neuroscience has shown that the major brain structures essential for forming conscious memories are not functional during the first two years of life 

Other Theories of Personality 

• Humanistic Theories - Emphasize the importance of free will and individual experience in the development of personality

  • Positive qualities & potential inherent in all of us 

• Carl Rogers Self Theory - Self, an organized, consistent set of beliefs and perceptions about ourselves, which develops in response to our life experiences

  • Experiences inconsistent with our self-concept cause us to feel threatened & anxious

  • If we are well adjusted, we can adapt by modifying our self-concept

• Ideal Self vs. Real Self: - The ideal self is the person that you would like to be; the real self is the person you actually are 

  • Incongruence, the difference between our real self, and ideal self

  • The more the incongruence the more severe the impact on the individual's’ self concept 

• Unconditional Positive Regard - Showing complete support and acceptance of a person no matter what that person says or does

  • If a person were provided with genuine unconditional positive regard they would become a fully functioning person (strives to become genuine self) 

• Abraham Maslow - Human personality is a reflection of the needs a person is striving to satisfy 

  • Maslow said we fulfill the most basic needs first, each layer of needs is vital to development of personality 

  • Unhealthy personality is one where people are continually frustrated at the inability to satisfy their need to self actualize

• Self Actualization - All people strive to become self-actualizing, fulfilling their natural desire to achieve their full potential

  • Maslow viewed self-actualization as an ongoing process and becoming fully self-actualized as a rare event

• Behavioral Theories - Behavioral theories suggest that personality is a result of interaction between the individual and the environment

  • If we change someone’s environment, we change his or her personality  

• Operant Conditioning Theory - Personality is the sum of behaviors learned as responses to rewards or through negative reinforcement

  • B.F. Skinner applied the principles of operant conditioning to personality

• Environmental Determinism - Proposes that all behavior is caused by outside environmental forces (free will is an illusion)

• Social Cognitive Approach/Theory - Suggests that cognitive processes play a role equal to the environment’s role to determine the individual's behavior patterns and personality

  • Focus on how we and our environment interact (instead of our environment controlling us)

• Reciprocal Determinism - Albert Bandura proposed that the person, environment, and behavior interact to determine patterns of behavior and thus personality

  • Personalities shape how we interpret and react to events

  • Personalities help create situation to which we react 

  • Different people choose different environments

• Observational Learning - Albert Bandura Behavior results, people see other people’s actions and the consequences of those actions and then incorporate those behaviors into their own behavior

• Self Efficacy - The belief that you can do a particular task greatly increases the chances that you actually can do it

  • Bandura described these beliefs as determinants of how people think, behave, and feel

• Social-Cognitive Theory, Julian Rotter - People make choices that shed light on their personality, people engage in activities to achieve an outcome that will satisfy their psychological needs

  • Locus of Control - One’s belief about where the forces that determine outcome resident

• Internal locus of control - Cognitive expectancy that their own actions will result in the outcome they are seeking

• External locus of control - Cognitive Expectancy that outcomes they experience are more due to outside forces like luck or fate

Trait Theories 

• Trait/Type Theories - The trait approach to personality is focused on differences between individuals, focused on identifying and measuring individual personality characteristics

  • Trait - relatively permanent characteristic of our personality 

• Gordon Allport - Conducted research that focused on conscious motivation and personal traits. Proposed three levels of traits…

  • Cardinal Traits - traits that dominate an individual’s whole life

  • Central Traits - general characteristics that form the basic foundations of personality

  • Secondary Traits - often appear only in certain situations or under specific circumstances

• Raymond Cattell’s 16 Traits - 16 traits are the source of all human personality

  • Factor analysis - he identified closely related terms and eventually reduced his list to just 16 key personality traits

  • Developed one of the most widely used personality assessments known as the "Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire"

• Cattel’s Two Types of Traits

  • Source Traits - The more basic traits that underlie the surface traits, forming the core of personality

  • Surface Traits - Aspects of personality that can easily be seen by other people in the outward actions of a person 

  • Cattell’s Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire, 16PF, list of 16 basic source traits

• Hans Eysenck’s Personality Dimensions - Developed a model of personality based upon just three universal traits

  • Extraversion - Measures our sociability, tendency to pay attention to external environment

  • Neuroticism - Measures our level of instability

  • Psychoticism - Measures our level of tough-mindedness (friendly, empathetic, and cooperative we are)

• Paul Costa & Robert McCrae developed a list of five personality dimensions 

• The Big Five Personality Factors - Model of personality traits, many researchers believe that they are five core personality traits

  • Openness 

  • Conscientiousness 

  • Extraversion 

  • Agreeableness 

  • Neuroticism 

• Self-Report Methods - Most common personality assessment techniques, involve a person answering a series of questions, such as a personality questionnaire, or supplying information about himself or herself  

  • Type of test is often presented in a paper-and-pencil format or may even be administered on a computer

• Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2) - The most widely used and researched clinical assessment tool used by mental health professionals to help diagnose mental health disorders

  • Composed of 567 true/false items, tests are scored by computer & charted on MMPI-2 profile, psychologists identify abnormalities

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) - Self-report inventory designed to identify a person's personality type, strengths, and preferences

• Based on the answers to the questions on the inventory, people are identified as having one of 16 personality types

  • Extraversion-Introversion

  • Sensing- Intuition 

  • Thinking-Feeling 

  • Judging-Perceiving