Motivation and Emotion

Motivation

� The drive to seek a goal, such as food, water, and friends

� What goals do you have?� What motivates you to seek those goals?

Emotion

� A state of the body causing feelings, such as hope, fear, or love

What controls motivation and emotion?

� Hypothalamus� controls pain, pleasure; also location of fear, rage,

hunger, thirst, and sex drives

� Amygdala� emotional responses like aggression and fear

� The Reticular Formation� activity level in body

What controls motivation and emotion?

� Pituitary Gland� Controller of chemical responses

� Adrenal Glands� Released adrenaline when faced with an emergency

� Gonads� Testes (male) and ovaries (female) produce sperm and

eggs, respectively

Motivational Forces

� Drives� Forces that push an organism

into action to reach a goal� Example: If you’re thirsty, you

have a need for water and are driven by the body to seek it

� Goal� What our behavior is aimed

toward� Example: Quenching your thirst

Motivational Forces

� The body’s drives operate in a cycle to maintain balance in the long run

� Homeostasis� Establishing a physical equilibrium, “staying the same”

Hunger

� What causes hunger?� Stomach contractions� Blood-sugar levels� Taste receptors on the tongue� Fat cells shrink

� Set point: the body-regulating mechanism that determines a person’s typical weight

Thirst

� Humans are made of 65 to 70 percent water� What causes thirst?

� A constant need for water� A dry tongue� Receptors in the intestines

Intrinsic v. Extrinsic Motivation

� Intrinsic: from within yourself

� Extrinsic: from outside of yourself

Drive-Reduction Theory

� When individuals experience a need or drive, they’re motivated to reduce that need or drive.� Drive theories assume that people are always trying to

reduce internal tension.� Therefore, drive theories believe that the source of

motivation lies within the person (not from the environment)

Need (ex. for food, water)

Drive(hunger, thirst)

Drive-reducing behaviors

(eating, drinking)

Drive-Reduction Theory

� Drive reduction theory has some implications.� Have you ever eaten when you weren’t

hungry?� What about a person that excessively works

out?� How do we account for other motivating

factors like: achievement, power, and curiosity?

Incentive Theories

� Again, an incentive has an ability to motivate behavior.

� Push vs. Pull theory –� Internal states of tension push people certain

directions.� External stimuli pull people in certain

directions.� According to incentive theory, motivation

comes from the environment around you.

Drive-Reduction v. Incentive

� Drive theory –Biological internal motivation (homeostasis)

� Incentive theory –Environmental motivation (not as much homeostasis, more outside factors)

Cognitive Theory

� Behavior strongly influenced by others� We watch others’ actions and consider their

success or failure, reward and punishment, etc.

� The observer thinks about what he sees and draws conclusions from it

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Emotions

Emotions

� Emotions: difficult to define� A relatively brief episode of synchronized evaluative

physiological, behavioral, and subjective responses.

� The term emotion usually is distinguished from feelings, mood, and affect.� Feeling: the subjective experience associated with an emotion.� Mood: an emotional state that is general and extended in time.� Affect: encompasses feelings and mood and categories of

emotion (e.g., positive or negative affect).

Emotions

� Part of our physical survival system

� We experience all basic human emotions before the age of two

� Emotion is influenced by culture

Theories of Emotion

� James-Lange� Evaluation of a stimulus causes physical reaction that

is experienced as a specific emotion.� Example: A person sees a spider and regards it as

dangerous. According to the James–Lange theory, the person would begin to shake and then experience the shaking behavior as fear: “I feel afraid because I am shaking”

James-Lange

Theories of Emotion

� Cannon-Bard� Thalamus relays stimuli to internal organs and cortex

simultaneously.� Physical changes and emotional experience occur at

the same time.� Example: A person sees a spider. According to the Cannon–

Bard theory, the person would begin to shake and simultaneously appraise the shaking behavior as fear: “The spider makes me shake and feel afraid”

Cannon-Bard

Theories of Emotion

� Schacter’s Cognitive Theory� Situational cues and what one is thinking at the

moment determine which emotion is experienced (crying at a birth =happy; crying at funeral = sad).� Example: A person sees a spider. According to two-factor

theory, the person, who believes spiders are dangerous, begins to shake and appraises the shaking as fear: “I label my shaking as fear because I appraised the situation as dangerous”

Schacter’s Cognitive Theory

Facial Expressions and Emotion

Facial Expressions and Emotions

� People around the world share basic emotions� Fear, anger, surprise, disgust, sadness, joy

� Each emotion has a distinctive facial expression

Facial Expressions and Emotion

� Expressions are universal� People from different cultures can use the same

facial expressions and recognize them in others as well

Facial Expressions and Emotions

� Cultural differences do exist� Example: in the Utku Eskimo population, anger is

rarely expressed� “Display rules” are different in Eastern v.

Western cultures� Differences between individualistic (e.g., U.S.) and

collectivist (e.g., China) cultures. For example, Chinese adults discourage expression of strong emotions, and Chinese children cry and smile less at one year of age compared with U.S. children.

The four psychological (non-survival) needs that affect motivation

� Curiosity� We want to try different things

� Manipulation� We want to handle objects in our environment

� Intrinsic and Extrinsic� Seeking rewards from within and without

� Need for Stimulation� We need stimulation in order to develop properly

Three Other Psychological Motivators

� Need for Affiliation� We want to belong

� Need for Approval� We want others to have good opinions of us

� Need for Achievement� We want to feel like we have accomplished

something in our life

Emotion

� Opponent-Process Theory� After an intense emotion, we experience its

opposite for awhile

� Cognition� We interpret situations and are directed to how we

should feel about those situations

Daniel Goleman: Emotional Intelligence

� Emotional Awareness� Introspection – knowing how we feel and why

� Managing Emotions� Able to exercise self control and think reasonably

in an emotional situation

� Identifying and Understanding other’s emotions� Empathy “I feel you man.”