1. Chapter 9 Motivation:

2. Motivation Is a Dynamic Process
The study of motivation is essentially the study of what moves a person or animal to act in a particular way.
Motivation: an inner state that energizes behavior toward the fulfillment of a goal

3. Theories of Motivation
Internal: something about the organism pushes it toward (or away from) some object
External: attributes of the goal or the environment pull the organism in a certain direction

4. Biological Motivation: Drive Reduction Theories:
Homeostasis: tendency to keep physiological systems internally balanced and adjusting in response to change
an imbalance in homeostasis creates a physiological need, which produces a drive that motivates the organism to satisfy the need

5. Drive-Reduction Theory

6. Arousal Motivation Maintaining an Optimal Level
Research indicates too low levels of arousal are as uncomfortable as those that are too high.
Yerkes-Dodson law.
Best performance occurs when we are at an intermediate level of arousal.

7. The Yerkes-Dodson Law

8. Incentive Motivation: External Factors Motivate Behavior
Behavior is directed toward attaining desirable stimuli (positive incentives) & avoiding undesirable stimuli ( negative incentives). (Remember operant conditioning: an incentive is the promise of reinforcement.)
Any stimulus that we learn to associate with positive or negative outcomes can serve as an incentive for behavior.

9. Incentive Theory: External Factors Motivate Behavior
Researchers distinguish two types of motivation:
Intrinsic motivation: a behavior or an activity that a person perceives as a valued goal in its own right
Extrinsic motivation: type of motivation that leads a person to engage in a behavior or an activity for external reasons

10. Maslow Proposed Some Needs Must Be Met before Others
We are born with a hierarchy of needs.
First, basic safety and survival needs needs must be sufficiently satisfied.
Next, the person is motivated by more social needs such as the desire for intimacy, love, and acceptance from others.
These are followed by esteem needs such as the desire for achievement, power, recognition, and respect from others.
All the needs in the four levels of the hierarchy are deficiency needs.

11. Psychological Needs/Motives Maslow’s Needs Hierarchy

12. Do We Prioritize our Needs?
Maslow Proposed Some Needs Must Be Met before Others
He also said that self-actualization, the need to fulfill one’s potential, is the ultimate goal of human growth.
This is an appealing theory of motivation in business, education, etc., and it provides an organized framework for discussing human motives.
However, the simplicity of the theory proved to be its primary problem. (It tells us little that we did not already know and explains nothing.

13. Obesity & Eating Disorders: Internal & External Forces
Definition of obesity: the excessive accumulation of body fat
Diagnosis: calculate body mass index (BMI), which is weight in kilograms divided by height in meters squared (30 kg/m2)
Person with body mass index over 30 is considered obese.

14. Do Genes Shape Our Motivation? Are eating patterns hereditary?
Instinct: an unlearned, relatively fixed pattern of behavior that is essential to a species’ survival
In the early 1900s William McDougall and other instinct theorists contended that much of human behavior is controlled by instincts.
The problem with these instinct theories is that many so-called instinctual behaviors are learned and shaped by experience.

15. Then what determines eating patterns?
Internals – listen to hunger cues from the body
Externals – are pulled by the incentives of tasty food and social cues
People differ individually, so there may be genetic influence.

16. Biological influences on Eating Patterns
Hormones such as gastrin, leptin, and cholecystokinin (CCK) produced by a full stomach/digestive track
Blood glucose and insulin levels
Monitoring by the hypothalamus

17. The Psychology of Eating Learned Eating Patterns
Classical conditioning
Comfort food
Social events
Social acceptability
Acquired tastes

18. Obesity & Eating Disorders: Social/Cultural Forces
From 1991 to 1998, 50% increase in number of obese American adults (12% to 18%)
Number of overweight children has doubled in past 20 years.
Obesity closely related to chronic health conditions: high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, arthritis, & sleep disorders

19. Obesity & Eating Disorders: Social Forces
Weight discrimination more pervasive and widely condoned than race and gender discrimination
Results in social climate that pressures people to reach certain body ideals
Female ideal stresses difficult-to-attain thinness standards that endanger women’s health
Women of all ages more likely to view their bodies as objects of others’ attention and evaluate their bodies more negatively than men
Women more likely to habitually experience social physique anxiety, which is anxiety about others observing or evaluating their bodies

20. Obesity & Eating Disorders
Anorexia nervosa: eating disorder in which person weighs less than 85% of normal weight & expresses an intense fear of gaining weight.
Bulimia: eating disorder in which person engages in recurrent episodes of binge eating followed by drastic measures to purge body of consumed calories
In addition to sociocultural factors, a growing body of evidence suggests possible genetic and motivational influences on these eating disorders.

21. Sexual Motivation Sex is not a survival drive.
However, sexual behavior is essential for the continuation of a species.
The reinforcing properties of sex may involve the same brain structures and neurotransmitter systems that are stimulated by cocaine and other addictive drugs.

22. Sexual Motivations Sexual behaviors may be influenced by:
Biological drive states
Psychological Needs: affiliation, acceptance, affection, achievement
Cultural customs and morals: relationship factors, religious Beliefs

23. Forces Affecting Sexual Motivation
Physiological
Readiness
Mental Set
feelings,
(beliefs,
etc.)
Pressures
Social

24. Decisions about Engaging in Sex: More Cultural than Biological
Percent of teenagers experiencing sex:
Varies across cultures
50-80% of American teenagers
2.5% China
Varies across history
3% of American women age 18 in 1900
50% of American women age 18 in 1998

25. Psychological Motives for Sexual Behavior
peer approval
need to feel valued
need for intimacy
stress reduction
need for power
desire to have children
belief that you are supposed to have an active sex life to be healthy

26. Sex and Relationships
Sex is most satisfying and has the least capacity for harm in intimate, committed relationships.
80% of adults in committed relationships , and 88% in “extremely physically and emotionally satisfied.”
However, sex is frequently engaged in for a variety of other motives.

27. Sex and Relationships “Sex is a socially significant act.”
It will affect your self-concept.
It will affect your current relationship.
It will influence relationships with future partners.
It will affect your relationship with parents and family.
It will affect your peer and friendship relationships.
It may cause you to become a parent under unintended circumstances.

28. Are we using each other?
People also have sexual relationships for selfish motives.
Use others to satisfy own desires
Feeling of power & control
Frighten, dominate, or humiliate
another
Demonstrate own attractiveness

29. Sex & Culture

30. Lack of Clear Cultural Standards
Cultural standards provide a reason not to do something.
They provide a balance to other social pressures to engage in an activity.
America is currently in a period of cultural confusion with weak or non-existent standards.

31. What are the social/cultural pressures to have irresponsible sex?
Idealized concepts of romance and sexuality
Sex will make you fall in love
Love will make sex OK.
Everybody is doing it. You are somehow unacceptable if you don’t.
Most HS seniors no longer virgins.
Media (TV, movies) created myths & ideals
Sex proves maturity, masculinity, &/or desirability
Sex is a necessary & desirable part of any romantic relationship (extended adolescence).
Spontaneous passion should be acted upon.

32. Sex Education?
Effective prevention programs must focus on multiple areas of a person’s life in order to increase safer sexual behaviors.
Discussions of nonsexual motivations for seeking intimacy
Assertiveness training for people to feel comfortable saying no to a potential sex partner
Providing models and examples of situations where safer sex is still exciting sex (de-glamorizing sex).

33. Are we becoming a sexually coercive society?
12% of American girls and 5% of boys say they were forced to have intercourse.
Among those who had sex voluntarily, 25% said they really did not want to do so.

34. Is there too much cultural encouragement to sexual activity?
United States
According to one survey, 72% of year old girls who had sex said that they regretted it.

35. Do we take sexual coercion lightly?
Estimated 13% of women have endured rape, legally defined as intercourse by force, by threat of harm, or when the victim is incapable of consent by reason of mental retardation, mental illness, or intoxication.
1998 college survey, 44% of women had experienced sexual coercion; 19% of men had obtained sex through force

36. Decisions about responsible sexual behavior
What is an appropriate relationship?
What is an “appropriate” motive? Does your partner agree?
Why is it OK to refuse sex? What reason would you give for saying “no” to an attractive partner?

37. Responsible Sexual Behavior
People who are uneasy thinking about sex plan less for sexual interactions.
This leads to more unprotected sex
& greater likelihood of unwanted pregnancies & STD infection.