Motivation

1. What Gets Us Moving? Motivation

2. Motivation • Motivation: a need or desire that energizes and directs behavior

3. Motivational Concepts • Instinct Theory (Evolutionary Theory) • Drive-Reduction Theory • Arousal Theory • Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

4. Motivational Concepts • Instinct/Evolutionary • Influenced by Darwin • Instinct: complex behavior that is rigidly patterned throughout a species and is unlearned • Ex. Infants reflexes • Issues: Theory fails to explain human motives • However, still explains underlying assumption that genes predispose species typical behavior

5. Motivational Concepts • Drive Reduction Theory: • Replaced Instinct Theory • Idea that physiological needs creates an aroused tension state (a drive) that motivates an organism to satisfy the need • As physical need increases, psychological drive also increases • Incentives: positive or negative environmental stimulus that motivates behavior • When there is a need and incentive we feel strongly driven • Aim for each person is homeostasis: tendency to maintain a balanced or constant internal state

6. Motivational Concepts • Optimal Arousal Theory • We seek optimum levels of excitement: Without such stimulation, we get bored. • Examples: • Climbing a mountain • Taking AP Psychology • Maintaining a high GPA • Bringing in thousands of cans in order to beat Mrs. Faulkner’s class!

7. Motivational Concepts • Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs • Maslow’s pyramid of human needs. • Beginning at the base with physiological needs that must first be satisfied before moving up the pyramid to higher levels • (You will draw/label the pyramid later)

9. Maslow’s Hierarchy • Turn to page 331- draw Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and level each section. • Next, reflect on your activities over the past month. Enter three significant behaviors that you think demonstrate the operation of a need at each level of Maslow’s hierarchy. Please indicate the degree to which you are satisfied that your need has been met at each level. Use a scale of 1 (totally unsatisfied) to 6 (totally satisfied).

11. Hunger & Motivation

12. David Mandel, a Nazi concentration camp survivor, recalled how a starving “father and son would fight over a piece of bread. Like dogs.” One father, whose 20 year old son stole his bread from under his pillow while he slept, went into a deep depression, asking over and over how his son could do such a thing. The next day the father died. “Hunger does something to you that’s hard to describe.”

13. Hunger and Motivation • WWII concentration camps demonstrated the supremacy of physiological needs • Ancel Keys experiment on semistarvation • 36 Male Volunteers • 6 months food level cut in half • Beginning of energy conservation • Weight dropped rapidly and stabilized @ 25% below initial weight • Activated motives hijack out consciousness

14. Body Chemistry and the Brain • People automatically regulate their caloric intake to prevent energy deficits • Glucose: form of sugar that circulates in the blood and provides the major source of energy for body tissue. • When it is low, we feel hungry

15. Body Chemistry and the Brain • Hypothalamus: Hunger controls • Lateral hypothalamus (located on the sides): brings on hunger • Tells the body to release orexin which is a hunger triggering hormone • Ventromedial hypothalamus: depresses hunger and is located in the lower-mid section of the hypothalamus

16. Body Chemistry and the Brain • Set point: • When a body falls below individual’s “weight thermostat”, an increase in hunger and a lowered metabolic rate may act to restore the lost weight

17. Psychology of Hunger • Physical hunger is often paired with psychological hunger • Taste preferences • Feeling depressed you eat food that boosts the level of serotonin • Carbs • Preferences for salty and sweet are typically universal • Culture affects taste (neophobia: the dislike of things unfamiliar)

18. Eating Disorders • Anorexia: eating disorder in which a person diets and becomes significantly underweight, yet, still feeling fat, continue to starve themselves • .6% of the population (18.2 million) • 75% are female • 50% display binge-purge-depression cycle

19. Eating Disorders • Bulimia nervosa: eating disorder characterized by episodes of over eating, usually of high-calorie foods, followed by vomiting, laxative use, fasting, or excessive exercise

20. Eating Disorders • Binge-eating disorder: significant binge-eating episodes followed by distress, disgust, or guilt, but without purging, fasting, or excessive exercise that marks bulimia • 2.8% of the population at some time in their lives meet the criteria for this

21. Eating Disorders • Three family environmental aspects • Mothers of girls with eating disorders tend to focus on their own weight and on their daughters weight and appearance • Families of bulimia patients have a higher-than-usual incidence of childhood obesity and negative self-evaluation • Families of anorexia patients tend to be competitive, high-achieving, and protective • Does our society pressure girls to be thin?

22. Obesity and Weight Control • Obesity • 35.7% of American adults are obese • 17% of American children are obese • Kentucky is ranked 7th in the leading obese states. • Is fighting fat a social responsibility? • A government responsibility?

24. Mini-FRQ action • Bob is on his way home from work. He has not eaten all day, but has expended a lot of effort on the line at Toyota. Apply the following terms to Bob’s scenario: • Glucose • Set Point • Hierarchy of needs

27. Sexual Motivation

28. Sexual Motivation • What stages mark the human sexual response cycle? • Masters and Johnson describe four stages in the human sexual response cycle: • Excitement • Plateau • Orgasm (males and females respond similarly both emotionally and neurologically) • Resolution

29. Sexual Motivation • During the resolution stage males experience the refractory period in which renewed arousal and orgasm are impossible • Sexual disorders can be successfully treated, often by behaviorally oriented therapy or drug therapy

30. Sexual Motivation • Hormones: • Females= estrogen • Males= testosterone • However, women’s sexuality is more responsive to testosterone level than estrogen levels • Research shows that women fantasize about sex or wear more sexually attractive clothing around ovulation

31. Sexual Motivation • Short-term hormonal changes have little effect on desire • Large shifts that occur due to the aging process have a much greater effect • As sex hormones decline with age, frequency of sexual fantasies reduce and the desire for intercourse also declines

32. Sexual Motivation • Psychology of Sex • Studies confirm that men become aroused when examining erotic material • However, studies also report that women exhibit nearly as much arousal as men do to same material • Sexually explicit material can have adverse effect • Imagined Stimuli • 95% of both males and females say they have had sexual fantasies

33. Sexual Motivation • Adolescent Sexuality • 1900- 3% of American women had experienced premature sex by age 18 • 1991- 54% • 2005- 47% of teens had experienced premature sex • Teen Pregnancy • American teens have a lower rate of contraceptive use and thus higher rate of pregnancy. WHY?

34. Sexual Motivation • Ignorance • Minimal communication about birth control • Guilt related to sexual activity • Alcohol use • Mass media • Predictors of sexual restraint • High intelligence • Religious engagement • Father presence • Participation in service learning programs

35. Sexual Motivation • Sexual Orientation and Research: • 2.5% of U.S. population is gay or lesbian • Sexual orientation is neither willfully chosen nor willfully changed. • Much like handedness: • Most people are one way, some the other. A very few are truly ambidextrous.

36. Some degree of homosexuality seems to be a natural part of the animal world. • LeVay study • Found that one hypothalamic cell cluster is larger in straight men than in women & gay men. • Hypothalamus not sexual orientation center but important in conducting neural pathways for sexual behavior. • Gay men & straight women have brain hemispheres of similar size • Lesbian women & straight men have a larger right hemisphere

37. Genes & Sexual Orientation • No statistical evidence that environmental influences determine sexual orientation • Homosexuality appears to run in families • Abnormal prenatal hormone conditions between the 2nd & 5th month of development have been a topic of research. • A lesbian’s cochlea and hearing systems develop in a different way compared to heterosexual males & females • Heterosexual females & gay men have less fingertip ridges on their right hand. • Final word- sexual orientation is biological and not a lifestyle choice!

40. Need to Belong • Belong: to feel connected and identified with others • Survival value to our ancestors • Could explain why humans live in groups in every society • Societies control behavior with threat of ostracism • When socially excluded people may engage in self-defeating behaviors

41. Motivation to Work • Why do we work? • Reasons vary person to person • Many will declare happiness or money as primary reasons for working

42. Motivation to Work • Personal psychologist work with organizations to devise selection methods of new employees, recruit, and evaluate applicants