1. And Emotion

2. Motivation: Wants, Desires and Needs
Psychological drives that propel us
Motivation refers to the psychological drives that propel us in a specific direction, or to act

3. What Is Motivation?
Factors that influence the initiation, direction, intensity, and persistence of behavior.
Cannot be directly observed, must be inferred.
Thought of as an intervening variable.

4. Motivation Motive are triggered by a stimulus (Incentive)
Bodily conditions (low blood sugar)
Cue in the environment (AP Test/College Success)
Emotion - Feeling, such as fear, joy, or surprise, that underlies behavior
When the stimulus creates goal-directed behavior it motivated the person

5. About our the basketball shots…
Where would you predict that people with high versus low achievement motivation tend to stand with respect to the basket?
What might motivate one to stand very close to verses far from the basket?
What is gained or lost by standing at each position?
What might one learn about one’s abilities and skills after shooting the basketball from each position?
What does it mean to have a motivation for achievement?

6. McClelland, 1955- Achievement Motivation
Children who scored low on the need-for-achievement test tended to take shots that the chances of success were virtually zero or so close that the chances were virtually 100%.
Children who scored high on the need-for-achievement test tended to throw rings at moderate distances where chances for success were reasonable, but not guaranteed.

7. Take the following survey…
college/psych/psychsci/media/survey.htm *Type “achievement motivation scale into Google)

8. Motives as Intervening Variables

9. Sources of Motivation Biological Factors Emotional Factors
Need for food, water, sex, temperature regulation
Emotional Factors
Panic, fear, anger, love, hatred
Cognitive Factors
Perceptions, beliefs, expectations
Social Factors
Reactions from others
(parents, family, co-workers, peers, friends)

10. (Biological, Emotional, Cognitive, or Social)
What were YOUR Sources?
Did you?
Source of Motivation
(Biological, Emotional, Cognitive, or Social)
Drink Water
Eat something unhealthy
East something healthy
Put on clean underwear
Get in a fight with family or a friend
Drive faster than the speed limit or do something else dangerous while driving
Study for a test/quiz
Take a test/quiz without studying
Do something exciting

11. What is the SOURCE of motivation?

12. Most Powerful Motivators
Food and sex!!
Will discuss in more detail in later slides…

13. Theories of Motivation
Evolutionary Instinct
Drive Reduction
Arousal Theory
Incentive Theory
Maslow’s Hierarchy

14. The Evolutionary Approach
Instinct- an unlearned biological pattern of behavior that is assumed to be universal throughout a species.
Meta-analysis during the height of this craze found 5759 ‘instincts’
Sign Stimulus- something in the environment that turns on a fixed pattern of behavior.
What is an “instinct” that most infants have?
What would be the “sign stimulus?”

15. Evolutionary Instinct Theory
Explains some animal behaviors
Explains some human behaviors
Does not explain other human behaviors

16. Problems with Evolutionary Approach?
Most human behavior is far too complex to be explained on the basis of extinct.
Most important human behavior is learned
Human behavior is rarely inflexible and found throughout the species
Not adaptive for humans to have actions set in motion by a signal from the environment.
What capabilities do humans have that make the evolutionary approach less significant?

17. Drive-Reduction Theory (Bodily Needs)
When the instinct theory of motivation failed it was replaced by the drive-reduction theory. A physiological need creates an aroused tension state (a drive) that motivates an organism to satisfy the need (Hull, 1951).
Tension

18. Drive Reduction Theory
Motivation through DRIVE and NEED
Drive- Impulse to satisfy physiological need.
Need- Requirements of survival
Need for Food (PHYSIOLOGICAL)
Drive is Being Hungry (PSYCHOLOGICAL)
Hull and Hebb (1940s) – certain drives, like hunger, thirst and sexual frustration, motivate us to act to minimize aversive states
Some drives, like thirst, are more powerful than others = prob evolved that way bc we can only survive a few days w/out water
Homeostasis – we’re motivated to maintain a given level of psychological equilibrium, once we satisfy drive there are mechanisms to ensure we don’t overdo it

19. Drive Reduction Theory
Some states are aversive (causing avoidance)
Hunger, thirst, sexual frustration
Satisfying drives is pleasurable
Homeostasis- The body’s tendency to maintain an equilibrium.
Primary and secondary (learned, i.e. $$$) drives
As a DRIVE becomes stronger,
we are motivated to REDUCE IT!

20. Drive Reduction Theory
Unbalanced
Equilibrium
Need
(E.g. for water)
Drive
(E.g. thirst)
Balance
Restored
Drive-Reducing
Behaviors
(E.g. drinking)
For example, after you haven’t eaten anything for several hours, the internal pangs of hunger signal an imbalance in your body’s energy level. This unmet biological need creates a drive state – hunger – that motivates or energizes your behavior. You would probably respond by eating.
For example, if you haven’t had anything to drink in a few hours, the chemical balance of your body fluids is out of balance, creating a biological need for water. One consequence of this need is a drive – thirst – that motivates you to find and drink water.
In other words, drives push people to satisfy needs, thereby reducing the drives and the arousal they create.

21. Problems with Drive-Reduction?
Drive Reduction does not always explain motivation
People often behave in ways that increase rather than decrease a drive
Once homeostasis is achieved we’d never do anything
Examples:
How is this true of diets?
Increasing Stress?

22. Optimum Arousal Theory
Human motivation aims to seek optimum levels of arousal, not to eliminate it. Young monkeys and children are known to explore the environment in the absence of a need-based drive.
OBJECTIVE 4| Discuss the contribution of arousal theory to the study of motivation.
Harlow Primate Laboratory, University of Wisconsin

23. Optimum Arousal Theory
Arousal- Feeling of being alert and engaged
Motivation influences arousal levels
VS.

24. Drives and Arousal Yerkes-Dodson Law
Relationship between arousal and performance
Optimal point of arousal
Underaroused = bored
Overaroused = stressed
Yerkes-Dodson Law – inverted U-shaped relation b/t arousal and performance, we tend to do best when at intermediate levels of arousal
If underaroused, get bored and don’t perform well, if overaroused, get stressed
“stimulus hunger” – drive for stimulation, sensory deprivation experiments, participants who were isolated for hours in sensory deprivation chambers saw vivid hallucinations

25. Yerkes-Dodson Law

26. Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation
Intrinsic motivation
Motivation for a behavior is the behavior itself
Children playing is an example
Extrinsic motivation
Behavior is performed in order to obtain a reward or to avoid punishment
A bonus program is an example

27. Overlearning
Learning to perform a task so well that it becomes automatic.
With extra learning, when individuals are under conditions of high arousal, they can rely on automatic pilot to get things done.

28. Incentive Theory ​Incentives
​stimuli that we are drawn to due to learning
​We learn to associate some stimuli with rewards and others with punishment
​we are motivated to seek the rewards

29. What Motivates YOU?