Motivation and Emotion (PSY1005S): Comprehensive Study Guide
This document includes definitions and images, covering:
Motivation:
Early Approaches
Approaches based on Psychological Needs
Humanistic Approaches to Understanding Motivation
Motivation to Eat
Emotion:
Components...
Motivation & Emotion
The study of motivation helps us understand not only why some people are more driven to
achieve than others, but also why we experience certain drives, such as hunger.
Motivation
• A process that influences the direction, persistence, and vigor of goal-directed behaviour
• A process by which activities are started, directed, and continued so that physical or
psychological needs/wants are met
Unconscious motives affect how we behave. Freud emphasized sexual and aggressive motives.
Many modern theorists emphasize motives for self-esteem and social belonging. People are not
always aware of the factors motivating them.
- Extrinsic & Intrinsic motivation:
Extrinsic motivation: Person performs an Intrinsic motivation: Person performs an
action because it leads to an outcome that is action because the act itself is rewarding in
separate from the person (i.e., external some internal manner.
reward)
- Instincts and the evolutionary approach:
Instinct: An inherited characteristic, common to all members of a species, that automatically
produces a particular response when the organism is exposed to a particular stimulus. Instincts
motivate much of our behaviour.
• Instinct approach assumes that people are governed by instincts similar to those of animals.
- Needs and drives: Drive reduction theory:
Need: requirement for some material that is essential for survival (food, water)
▪ Need leads to psychological tension and physical arousal.
▪ Must act to reduce the tension.
▪ So, it drives us to act.
All drives are unpleasant but satisfaction of them results in reduction and subsequent pleasure.
The theory proposes this connection between internal physiological state and outward behaviour
o Primary drive – survival needs of the body (hunger, thirst)
o Secondary/acquired drive – learned through experience or conditioning.
Homeostasis - state of internal physiological equilibrium that the body strives to maintain. When
there is a primary drive need, the body is in a state of imbalance. This stimulates behaviour that
brings the body back into balance OR homeostasis.
, Motivational conflicts:
Motivated action can either be towards something or away from it.
• The behavioural activation system (BAS) responds to signals that offer potential reward
• The behavioural inhibition system (BIS), on the other hand, responds to feelings of fear or
anticipation of pain and leads us to avoidance or escape behaviour.
Types of conflict
1. Avoidance–approach conflict: This happens when one option is appealing and the other is
not.
2. Approach–approach conflict: This happens when both options are equally appealing.
3. Avoidance–avoidance conflict: This happens when both options are undesirable or painful.
Approaches based on Psychological Needs:
- McClelland’s theory of motivation:
Affiliation - need for friendly social interactions and relationships with others (seek to be liked by
other and held in high regard)
Power - need for having control over other people (want to make an impact on others and have
influence over them)
Achievement - strong desire to succeed in attaining goals (motive for success and fear of failure)
- Arousal and incentive approaches:
People have an optimal (best or ideal) level of tension. These approaches highlight the need for
stimulation.
• Incentive approaches: Incentives: Things that attract or lure people into action.
• Behaviour is explained in terms of the external stimulus and its rewarding properties. Motivation
can be seen as the result of both the ‘push’ of internal needs or drives and the ‘pull’ of rewarding
stimuli.
• Incentive theory does not explain the motivation behind all behaviours.
Humanistic Approaches to understanding motivation:
Key human motive = striving for personal growth
- Maslow’s hierarchy of needs:
o There are several levels of need that a person must strive to meet before achieving the highest
level of personal fulfilment
Need hierarchy - a progression containing deficiency needs at the bottom and uniquely growth
needs at the top (Maslow’s triangle).
Self-actualization - the need to fulfil our full potential, point at which people have reached their
full human potential, seldom reached.
Peak experiences - the times in one’s life when self-actualisation is achieved.
Transcendence - a search for spiritual meaning beyond one’s immediate self.
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