Chapter 9 Motivation and Emotion

1. Chapter 9Motivation and Emotion

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. Drive Reduction Theories: Motivation to Reduce Arousal • an imbalance in homeostasis creates a physiological need, which produces a drive that motivates the organism to satisfy the need • Homeostasis: tendency to keep physiological systems internally balanced and adjusting in response to change • Theory incomplete, many behaviors that seem designed to increase arousal.

5. Drive-Reduction Theory

6. Motivation to Maintain an Optimal Level of Arousal • 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 Theory: External Factors Motivate Behavior • Behavior is directed toward attaining desirable stimuli (positive incentives) & avoiding undesirable stimuli ( negative incentives). (Remember operant conditioning.) • 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. Maslow’s Needs Hierarchy

12. Maslow Proposed Some Needs Must Be Met before Others • 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. What are some reliable psychological needs? Need for affiliation/affection/acceptance Need for achievement/accomplishment Need for approval

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.

15. Do Genes Shape Our Motivation:Evolutionary Psychology: Instinct Theories? • The problem with these instinct theories is that many so-called instinctual behaviors are learned and shaped by experience.

16. Do Genes Shape Our Motivation:Current Evolutionary Psychology? • Contemporary evolutionary perspective states that we inherit adaptive genetic traits but that these traits express themselves more as predispositions for behaviors rather than as a predetermined set of actions.

17. 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

18. Then what determines eating patterns: psychology • Classical conditioning • Comfort food • Social events • Social acceptability • Acquired tastes

19. 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

20. Sexual Motivation • 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.

21. Forces Affecting Sexual Motivation

22. Sexual Attitudes & Behaviors • Vary across cultures • 50-80% of American teenagers • 2.5% China • Vary across history • 3% of American women age 18 in 1900 • 50% of American women age 18 in 1998

23. Are we having fun? • According to one survey, 72% of 12-17 year old girls who had sex said that they regretted it.

24. Are We Having Trouble? • Births to unwed parents

25. Adolescent Pregnancy • U.S. adolescent pregnancy rate is higher than that of most industrialized countries • 40-45% of these end in abortion • 75% to unmarried females • Why? • Increased social acceptance • Belief that a baby will fill a void in life

26. Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STD’s) • Adolescents have the highest rates of all age groups, 1 in 6 of those who are sexually active contracts a sexually transmitted disease per year.

27. What motivates teen sexual activity & lack of contraception? • Ignorance of relationship/motivational factors • Guilt related to sex – ambivalent feelings • Lack of communication about birth control • Alcohol • Media norms of spontaneous passion

28. Why are we having so much irresponsible sex? Lack of clear cultural standards (reasons not to). Change in direction of social pressure Religious diversity - More people believe it is OK.

29. Why are having so much irresponsible sex? • Social Pressure & Idealized concepts of romance and sexuality (Reasons to). • Everybody is doing it - Most HS seniors no longer virgins. • Media (TV, movies) creates ideals • Proves masculinity/desirability (media pressure). • Necessary & desirable part of romantic relationship (extended adolescence). • Spontaneous passion is idealized.

30. Knowing about “Safer Sex” Is Not Enough • College students engage in number of risky sexual behaviors: • High numbers of sexual partners • “One-night stands” with casual acquaintances • Frequent condomless sex

31. 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).

32. 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.

33. Know your partner • Cochran & Mays (1990) • 4% of women; 20 % of men Indicated that they would lie to a potential sex partner about the results of a positive HIV test.

34. 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.

35. Sex and Relationships • Sex is most satisfying and has the least capacity for harm in intimate, committed relationships. • However, people often engage in sexual relationships for other motives. • Need to be accepted or to belong. • Need to be loved. • Believing casual sex is “normal.”

36. Sexuality - Adulthood • 80% of adults in committed relationships , and 88% in marriages report begin “extremely physically and emotionally satisfied.”

37. Sexual Motivation • Motives for sexual behavior also include nonphysical factors: • peer approval • need to feel valued • need for intimacy • stress reduction • need for power • desire to have children

38. Sex and Relationships 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

39. Sexual Coercion • 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.

40. Sexual Coercion • 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

41. Deciding how sexual behavior suits your life: In what relationship? • A new acquaintance? • An old friend? • A new romantic interest? • A long-time romantic interest? • A fiance(e)? • A marriage partner? • Anyone, anywhere, anytime?

42. Why is it OK to have sex? • Share mutual love or affection? • A thrill? A biological need? Curiosity? • Prove that you are attractive? • Fulfill a need for acceptance or affection? • Hold on to a partner? • Don’t need a reason?

43. Why is it OK to not have sex? • Immoral? • Not socially acceptable? • Might get pregnant? • Might catch a disease? • I’m not that easy? • Don’t want to bond with you? • Don’t want to be used?

44. What Sexual Acts Do Americans Find “Very Appealing”?

45. Why Do Men Have a Stronger Sex Drive & Enjoy More Variety Than Women? • One explanation for the differences involves the different sexual scripts men and women learn. • The traditional women’s sexual script is to downplay interest in sex and to resist sexual advances; • The traditional men’s script is to freely express sexual interest, brag about sexual exploits, and to persist despite protests. • The alternate explanations are biological. • Edward Laumann’s National Health and Social Life Survey of 3,500 American adults’ sexual behaviors

46. Sex and Love More Fused for Women Than for Men • Research suggests women tend to emphasize emotional intimacy as more of a necessity for sexuality than men. • Men more focused on the sexual mating aspect • Women more focused on the attachment aspect. • Such findings suggest that, compared to men, women’s sexual motivation is more easily shaped by social, cultural, and situational factors.

47. Males & Female Similarities • Nurture: Cognitive factors influence sexual arousal. • Nature: Testosterone, a male sex hormone found in both men and women, has a positive influence on sexual desire • The effect is stronger among men than women.

48. Emotions: Positive or Negative Feeling States • Emotion: a positive or negative feeling state typically including some combination of physiological arousal, cognitive appraisal, and behavioral expression

49. Emotions: Unifying Characteristics • Involve reactions of many bodily systems, • Expressions are based on genetically transmitted mechanisms but are altered by learning and interpretation of events, • Communicate information between people, and • Help individuals respond to changes in their environment.

50. Emotions Result in Bodily Responses • The autonomic nervous system produces bodily responses of emotion. • It has two separate branches: • Sympathetic: geared toward energy expenditure • Parasympathetic: geared toward energy conservation and “refueling”