Exploring Motivation: Theories and Types

Motivation

• Motivation is a specific need or desire that prompts goal-directed behavior.
• Sources of motivation include biological, emotional, cognitive, and social factors.
• Intrinsic motivation involves performing a behavior for its own sake.
• Extrinsic motivation involves performing a behavior for promised rewards or to avoid punishment.

Motivation Theories include:

• Instinct theory states that behavior is caused by inborn drives and is mostly applicable to animals.
• Drive reduction theory states that a physiological need creates a tension state (drive), motivating behavior to satisfy the need; the goal is homeostasis.
• Arousal theory, or optimal arousal theory, states that people seek an optimal level of arousal or excitement.
• Sensation-seeking is an enduring personality trait that motivates a person to act a certain way, with components like thrill-seeking, experience-seeking, disinhibition, and boredom susceptibility.

Yerkes-Dodson Law states:

• There is an optimal level of arousal/stress/competition for best performance.
• Most tasks are best performed at a moderate level: more complex tasks are better with lower arousal, while easier tasks benefit from higher arousal.
• Incentive theory states that behaviors are motivated by the desire to attain rewards and avoid punishments.
• Self-determination theory states that humans are motivated by autonomy, competence, and relatedness, this a psychological model.
• Maslow's hierarchy of needs suggests certain needs have priority over others, forming a pyramid where lower levels must be satisfied before higher levels can be achieved.

Maslow's hierarchy of five needs are

• Physiological, safety, love and belonging, esteem, and self-actualization.
• Hunger is increased by hormones like orexin, ghrelin, and insulin, and decreased by hormones like leptin and PYY.
• The lateral hypothalamus stimulates hunger, while the ventromedial hypothalamus reduces hunger.

Theories of Emotion

• Emotions, or affect, are the body's adaptive response involving physiological arousal, expressive behaviors, and conscious experience.
• Psychologists historically believed emotions either cause a physical response, or happen after feeling a physical response.
• Two-Factor Theory states that a physical response must be interpreted before the emotion is experienced, involving cognitive appraisal.
• Broaden and build theory states that positive emotions improve mood and enhance creative thinking and problem-solving skills.

"BROADEN" and "BUILD"

• "BROADEN" refers to increased attention and thought, leading to innovative ideas.
• "BUILD" indicates that expanded processes contribute to lasting resources.
• Research shows that individuals who experience positive emotions tend to perform better on cognitive tasks and exhibit improved mental health.

Feelings

• Facial Feedback involves facial muscle states triggering corresponding feelings.
• Universal Emotions are expressed similarly across cultures and include happiness, fear, anger, sadness, surprise, and disgust, are believed to be innate.
• Display rules are a culture's norms dictating appropriate emotional expression.

Stress

• Stress is the process by which we perceive and respond to threatening or challenging events, called stressors.
• Holmes and Rahe used the social readjustment scale to study stressors.
• 150 points or less on this scale means a low susceptibility to stress-induced health breakdown.

Scale

• 150-300 points indicates a 50% chance of health breakdown.
• +300 points indicates an 80% chance in the next 2 years.
• Immune suppression occurs when stress suppresses Lymphocyte production.
• B lymphocytes fight bacterial infections, while T lymphocytes attack cancer cells and viruses.
• Coronary Heart Disease involves clogged vessels nourishing the heart muscle and is a leading cause of death
• Hypertension involves abnormally high blood sugar.

Stress: Distress vs Eustress

• Distress is negative stress causing physical and mental health problems, when feeling overwhelmed
• Eustress is positive stress promoting growth and development when feeling challenged and motivated
• Problem-focused coping involves actively trying to solve a stressful situation.
• Emotion-focused coping focuses on managing the emotional response to a stressor.
• The general adaptation syndrome deals with stress in three phases: alarm, resistance, and exhaustion.

Phases of Stress

• Alarm phase is the initial response, and is followed by the resistance phase involving prolonged stress.
• Exhaustion (when enegry runs out) leads to vulnerability to illness, fatigue, and injury.

Personality Theories

• Psychodynamic theories focus on the inner workings of personality, emphasizing unconscious influence
• According to Freud, the unconscious is the source of all motivations, containing unacceptable thoughts

Sigmund Freud

• Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) was a medical doctor and the "most famous psychologist" who proposed unconscious motivations influence personality.
• Freud believed mental illness results from nurture, not nature, and created psychoanalysis.
• Freud's Model of the Mind compares the mind to an iceberg, this includes conscious, preconscious, and unconscious parts of the mind

Freud's components of personality include:

• ID is selfish, immature, and demanding.
• Ego acts as a "control center," mediating between the id and superego.
• Superego is the conscience, striving for perfection.
• Freud believed personality is established before 6 years old: fixation at an early age leads to unresolved conflicts.
• The ego uses defense mechanisms to reduce anxiety.
• Denial is a refusal to acknowledge painful reality.
• Repression involves unpleasant thoughts being pushed into the unconscious.

More defense mechanisms:

• Projection: attributing your own traits or behaviors to others.
• Regression: acting like a child.
• Reaction formation: acting the opposite of how you really feel.
• Displacement: taking out negative feelings on someone undeserving.
• Sublimation: turning disturbing feelings into socially acceptable activities.
• Rationalization: making excuses.

Carl Jung

• Carl Jung believed in the collective unconscious & archetypes - strayed from Frued
• The collective unconscious contains fears, behaviors, thoughts remarkably similar across time and culture and he believed in reincarnation and that minds evolve over millenia
• He included the personal unconscious, containing an individual's thoughts and feelings.
• Archetypes are used for understanding ourselves, society, belief systems/laws, working with our dreams, and initiating personal growth.

Personality Assessment

• Psychodynamic theorists use projective tests (open-ended tests) to identify personality traits and bring out feelings
• Trait theories attempt to learn what character traits make up personality and how they relate to actual behavior.
• Personality traits are relatively stable and consistent.

Factor analysis

• Factor analysis reduces variables by placing them in clusters of related items.

Data collection for Traits

• Trait theories use objective tests (multiple choice, true/false surveys), also called self-report or personality inventories.
• The Big Five theory uses modern research to 5 basic personality traits: openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.
• Social cognitive theories attribute personality differences to socialization, expectations, and mental processes.
• Reciprocal determinism proposes that a person's behavior influences and is influenced by personal factors and the social environment.

More Theories

• Self-efficacy is a person's belief in their ability to complete a task.
• Self-concept is how a person thinks about themselves.
• Self-esteem is the emotional evaluation of one's self-worth.
• Theory of mind is the ability to understand that others have thoughts, beliefs, and emotions separate from your own.

Locus of control:

• Locus of control is the expectancy by which people evaluate situations.
• Internal locus believe you control your own fate, while external locus believe your fate is out of your control.
• Humanistic theories emphasize subjective experience, personal growth, and unconditional positive regard.
• Self-actualizing tendency is a person's overall drive for personal growth and self-discovery.