General Psychology: Motivation and Emotion PDF

General Psychology MOTIVATION AND EMOTION Major Approaches to Motivation u Instinct u Drive reduction u Arousal u Incentive u Cognitive u Hierarchy of needs Explaining Motivation u Motivation: Factors that direct and energize the behavior of humans and other organisms u Includes behavioral, cognitiv...

General Psychology MOTIVATION AND EMOTION Major Approaches to Motivation u Instinct u Drive reduction u Arousal u Incentive u Cognitive u Hierarchy of needs Explaining Motivation u Motivation: Factors that direct and energize the behavior of humans and other organisms u Includes behavioral, cognitive, and social aspects u Studied with a variety of approaches u All approaches seek to explain the energy that guides behavior in specific directions Instinct Approach u Instincts: Inborn patterns of behavior that are biologically determined rather than learned u Instinct approaches to motivation: The explanation of motivation that suggests people and animals are born preprogrammed with sets of behaviors essential to survival u Weaknesses u Lack of agreement on number of primary instincts u Unable to explain why behaviors evolve in some species but not others Drive-Reduction Approach u Suggest that a lack of some basic biological need produces a drive to push an organism to satisfy that need u Drive: Motivation tension, or arousal, that energizes behavior to fulfill a need u Primary drives - Related to biological needs of the body or of the species as a whole u Secondary drives - Related to behavior that fulfills no obvious biological need Arousal Approach u Belief that people try to maintain a steady level of stimulation and activity u Suggests that if stimulation and activity levels become too high, individuals tries to reduce them u If stimulation and activity levels become too low, we seek out stimulation to increase them u People vary in the optimal level of arousal they seek out; some look for especially high levels of arousal u Daredevil sportsmen, high-stakes gamblers, and criminals Incentive Approach u Suggest that motivation stems from the desire to attain external rewards, known as incentives u Fails to provide complete explanation of motivation as organisms sometimes seek to fulfill needs even with no apparent incentives Cognitive Approach u Suggest that motivation is a result of people’s thoughts, beliefs, expectations, and goals u Draws distinction between: u Intrinsic motivation - Causes individuals to participate in an activity for their own enjoyment rather than for any actual or concrete reward u Extrinsic motivation - Causes individuals to do something for money, a grade, or some other actual, concrete reward Maslow’s Hierarchy u Places motivational needs in a hierarchy u Suggests that before meeting sophisticated, higher-order needs, certain primary needs must be satisfied u Self-actualization: State of self-fulfillment in which people realize their highest potential in their own way Maslow’s Hierarchy u Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is important because it: u Highlights complexity of human needs u Emphasizes that until basic biological needs are met, people will be unconcerned about higher-order needs u However, research has been unable to validate the specific order of Maslow’s hierarchy Other Needs u Achievement Motivation: Stable, learned characteristic in which a person obtains satisfaction by striving for and achieving challenging goals u People with high need for achievement are selective in picking challenges u u Avoid situations with success coming too easily or unlikely to come People with low achievement motivation tend to be motivated primarily by a desire to avoid failure u The need for affiliation: Interest in establishing and maintaining relationships with other people u The need for power: Tendency to seek impact, control, or influence over others and to be seen as a powerful individual Understanding Emotional Experiences u Emotions: Feelings that generally have both physiological and cognitive elements and that influence behavior u Functions u Preparing us for action u Shaping our future behavior u Helping us interact more effectively with others The James-Lange Theory u The James-Lange theory The James-Lange Theory u Emotional experience is a reaction to bodily events occurring as a result of an external situation u We experience emotions as a result of physiological changes that produce specific sensations, which the brain interprets as emotions u Drawbacks u Visceral changes would have to occur relatively quickly u Physiological arousal does not invariably produce emotional experience u Internal organs produce a relatively limited range of sensations The Cannon-Bard Theory u The Cannon-Bard theory The Cannon-Bard Theory u Physiological arousal and emotional experience are produced simultaneously by the same nerve stimulus u Rejects the view that physiological arousal alone leads to the perception of emotion u After we perceive an emotion-producing stimulus, the thalamus is the initial site of the emotional response u Thalamus sends responses to autonomic nervous system and the cortex The Schachter-Singer Theory u The Schachter-Singer theory The Schachter-Singer Theory u Emotions are determined jointly by a nonspecific kind of physiological arousal and its interpretation u Based on environmental cues u Supports a cognitive view of emotions The Roots of Emotions u Later research has found that arousal is more specific than Schachter and Singer believed, research supports that we may look to our surrounding to determine the source of physiological arousal The Roots of Emotions The Roots of Emotions u Making sense of the multiple perspectives on emotion u Emotions are complex phenomena, encompassing biological and cognitive aspects u No single theory has been able to fully explain all the facets of emotional experience Ekman’s Universality Studies Ekman’s Universality Studies u Expressions are rather universal across cultures u Display rules can vary Ekman’s Universality Studies u Universality Studies (Ekman, 1972) u Photographs of emotion thought to portray universally recognizable emotions were shown to observers in different countries, who had to label each emotion u High agreement for 6 basic emotions (happiness, anger, sadness, surprise, disgust, fear) u Criticism: only literate, industrialized, modern cultures were included Display Rules Study u Two preliterate tribes in New Guinea found similar results u Participants asked to select a story that best described a facial expression u Asked to produce facial expressions of different emotions u Pictures taken of New Guinean facial expressions, shown to Americans who had never seen the tribe members u Americans could accurately label emotions Display Rules Study u Friesen (1972) u Japanese and American participants viewed stressful stimulus alone u High status experimenter u Shows display rules are different Condition Americans Japanese Alone Showed disgust Showed disgust With Experimenter Showed disgust Smiled Importance of Facial Expressions u Not only reflect emotions, but also determine emotions u Facial-feedback hypothesis u Hypothesis that facial expressions not only reflect emotional experience but also help determine how people experience and label emotions