Motivation

Lecture 10
Motivation
What motivates you?
How do you feel when you are not motivated?
How do you feel when you are motivated?
Is it easier to stay in the non-motivated state?
Is motivation related to emotional state?
● Internal state or condition that activates
behaviour and gives it direction;
● Desire or want that energizes and directs
goal-oriented behavior;
● Influence of needs and desires on the
intensity and direction of behavior.

Motivation
● The psychology of motivation looks at the “whys” of behavior.
● Motives are hypothetical states that activate behavior towards
goals. Motives may take the form of:
◦ Needs
⚫Physiological
◦ needs necessary for survival (e.g. oxygen, food)
◦ not necessarily based on deprivation.
⚫Psychological
◦ needs for achievement, power, self-esteem, etc.
◦ may be acquired through experience
◦ Drives are an aroused state of psychological tension caused
by a need. When you are hungry you find something to eat.
Hunger is the tension caused by the need for food. Being
motivated to eat is the method of reducing the tension.
◦ Incentives
⚫objects, persons, or situations viewed as capable of
satisfying a need or as desirable for its own sake.

Motivation
● Drive theory
● Arousal theory
● Expectancy theory
● Goal setting theory
● Maslow’s needs hierarchy
● Intrinsic motivation

Theories of motivation
● According to this theory biological needs arise in
our bodies, they create unpleasant states of
arousal, and we try to eliminate them to create a
balance
● Drive reduction aims to restore a steady state of
physiological equilibrium known as homeostasis
● Therefore biological needs is the motivating
factor in driving us to satisfy these needs
● Eventually this was linked to other basic needs
such as status, power, stable social
relationships…
● There seems to be some contradictory views as
to whether or not drive theory reduces or
increases behaviour
● Most psychologists believe that drive theory by
itself does not provide a full explanation of
human motivation

Drive theory
● People are motivated to behave in ways
that maintain their optimal level of
arousal (note: optimal level differs from
person to person)
● arousal-performance curve (Yerkes-
Dodson law)
● people can tolerate high levels of
arousal on easy tasks, but often not on
difficult ones

Arousal theory
● Behavour is pulled by expectations of
desired outcomes
● Effort -------> Performance linkage
(How hard will I have to work?)
● Performance -------> Reward linkage
(What is the reward?)
● Attractiveness (How attractive is the
reward?)
● This theory has been largely applied to
work motivation

Expectancy theory
● Specific goals increase performance, and
difficult goals, when accepted, result in
higher performance than easy goals.
● People often accomplish more when they
have a concrete goal than when they do not
● This works better under certain situations:
● When the goal set is specific, challenging,
attainable and feedback is received on their
progress toward meeting the goal

Goal setting theory

● Physiological Needs
◦ These are biological needs (oxygen, food, water, and a relatively
constant body temperature).
◦ They are the strongest needs because if a person were deprived of all
needs, the physiological ones would come first in the person's search
for satisfaction.
● Safety Needs
◦ When all physiological needs are satisfied and are no longer controlling
thoughts and behaviors, the needs for security can become active.
◦ Adults have little awareness of their security needs except in times of
emergency or periods of disorganization in the social structure (such as
widespread rioting). Children often display the signs of insecurity and
the need to be safe.
● Needs of Love, Affection and Belongingness
◦ Maslow states that people seek to overcome feelings of loneliness and
alienation. This involves both giving and receiving love, affection and
the sense of belonging.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs

● Needs for Esteem
◦ These involve needs for both self-esteem and for the esteem a person
gets from others.
◦ Humans have a need for a stable, firmly based, high level of self-
respect, and respect from others.
◦ When these needs are satisfied, the person feels self-confident and
valuable as a person in the world. When these needs are frustrated, the
person feels inferior, weak, helpless and worthless.

● Needs for Self-Actualization

◦ Maslow describes self-actualization as a person's need to be and do
that which the person was "born to do." "A musician must make music,
an artist must paint, and a poet must write." These needs make
themselves felt in signs of restlessness. The person feels on edge,
tense, lacking something, in short, restless.
◦ If a person is hungry, unsafe, not loved or accepted, or lacking self-
esteem, it is very easy to know what the person is restless about. It is
not always clear what a person wants when there is a need for self-
actualization.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs

● Intrinsic motivation is when I am motivated
by internal factors, as opposed to the
external drivers of extrinsic motivation.
● Intrinsic motivation drives me to do things
just for the fun of it, or because I believe it is
a good or right thing to do.
● There is a paradox of intrinsic and extrinsic
motivation. Intrinsic motivation is far
stronger a motivator than extrinsic
motivation, yet external motivation can
easily act to displace intrinsic motivation
● Intrinsic motivation though powerful is not
quite as stable?
Intrinsic motivation
● This consists of three components:
● Physiological changes within our body
(heart rate, blood pressure…)
● Subjective cognitive states personal
experiences we label as emotion
● Expressive behaviours outward signs of
these internal reactions 

Emotion
● The right cerebral hemisphere plays an
important role in emotion functions
● It seems to be specialized in processing
emotional information, therefore individual
with damage to this area would have
difficulty understanding the emotional tone of
the other person’s voice
● Normal individuals tend to process emotional
information when it is presented to their right
hemisphere, not their left hemisphere
● This hemisphere also seem to play an
important role in the expression of language

Biological basis of emotion

● Differences have been noted in both the right
and left hemisphere and this is based on two key
elements; valence (the extent to which the
emotion is pleasant or unpleasant) and arousal
(the intensity of emotion).
● The left hemisphere seems to be associated with
response to reward and positive affect
● Where as the right is associated with avoidance,
withdrawal from negative affect
● Anterior regions of the hemispheres are mainly
associated with the valence whereas the
posterior is associated with arousal
● The amygdala seems to be involved in our ability
to judge the intensity of others emotions

Biological basis of emotion

● Nonverbal cues- this is defined as outward
signs of other’s internal emotion states
shown outward
● Some nonverbal cues include:
● Facial expression- these serve as clues for
our emotions.
● Gestures- movements of various body parts
that convey specific meaning in a given
culture
● Body language- these involves body posture
or movement of body parts

The external expression of

emotion
● The way we feel and think
● Our mood can influence our cognition
● We perceive stimuli positively when we are in a
happy mood
● Mood can also impact on our information
processing in that it has been found that positive
affect encourages us to have flexible fluid style of
thinking and vice versa
● Mood also impacts our creativity, the happier we
are the more creative we are
● Affect can also impact on our ability to make
plans and our intentions in social situations

Emotion and cognition

● Expression of many emotions may be
universal.
◦ Smiling appears to be a universal sign of
friendliness
◦ Showing of teeth a sign of aggression
● However, the relationship between facial
expressions and emotions has not been
found to be a perfect one-to-one

Expressions of emotions
● Deals with positive emotions such as happiness
and love.
● Statistics of those who are happy.
◦ Majority of people in developed nations are
satisfied with their lives.
◦ Happiness tends to run in families.
◦ People tend to be happier when they live in
affluent societies and earn decent incomes.
◦ Money does not make people happy but when
we have enough money at least we don’t have to
worry about money.
◦ More educated people tend to be happier.
● Statistics of those who are happy continued.
◦ People who are married are happier.
◦ People who have a social support are happier.
◦ Happy people are more open to new experiences
and are more willing to risk.
◦ Religious people are happier.
◦ Happiness tends to be accompanied by
optimism.
Positive Psychology
● Suggestions to be happy include:
◦ Take advantage of your education to develop
skills so that you can be free from want.
◦ Do not let the fact that others have more
impair your ability to appreciate what you
have.
◦ Value friendships and other social
relationships.
◦ Think about the meaning of life and make your
life more meaningful.
◦ Consider whether you blame yourself too much
when things go wrong.
◦ Consider if you are generally optimistic or
pessimistic about your future.
Positive Psychology
● We feel emotions first, and then feel
physiological changes, such as muscular tension,
sweating, etc.
● In neurobiological terms, the thalamus receives a
signal and relays this both to the amygdala,
which is connected with emotion. The body then
gets signals via the autonomic nervous system to
tense muscles, etc.
● This was a refutation of the James-Lange theory
in the late 1920s.
● Example
● I see a bear. I feel afraid. I tense in readiness to
run away.

Cannon’s Theory of Emotion

● We have experiences, and as a result, our
autonomic nervous system creates physiological
events such as muscular tension, heart rate
increases, perspiration, dryness of the mouth
● This theory proposes that emotions happen as a
result of these, rather than being the cause of
them.
● The bodily sensation prepares us for action, as in
the fight or flight. Emotions grab our attention and
at least attenuate slower cognitive processing.
● Example
● I see a bear. My muscles tense, my heart races. I
feel afraid.
 

James’ Theory of Emotion

● When trying to understand what kind of person we
are, we first watch what we do and feel and then
deduce our nature from this.
● This means that the first step is to experience
physiological arousal. We then try to find a label to
explain our feelings, usually by looking at what we
are doing and what else is happening at the time of
the arousal.
● Thus we don’t just feel angry, happy or whatever:
we experience feeling and then decide what they
mean.
● Example
● When we are feeling unwell, we often will deduce
the illness from the symptoms. From then on,
hypochondria can take hold and further symptoms
psychosomatically appear to confirm our
conclusions.
 

Two-Factor Theory of Emotion

● Schachter and Singer (1962) gave some people a
mild stimulant and others a placebo (on a pretence of
testing vitamins). They then gave them a
questionnaire containing rather personal questions. A
stooge in the room got angry at the questionnaire
and the people who had been given the stimulant
(and who hence felt aroused) got even angrier (the
people with the placebo were not that angry).
● Dutton and Aron (1974) had an attractive woman ask
for interviews of young men both on a swaying rope
bridge, 200 ft above a river, and also on terra firma.
A part way through the interview, she gives them her
phone number. Over 60 % from the rope bridge
called her back, versus 30% from terra firma. They
had interpreted their arousal from fear on the bridge
as attraction to the woman.

Research
● Suggests that an emotional reaction to
stimulus is followed by an opposite reaction
and repeated exposure to a stimulus causes
the initial reaction to weaken and the
opposite reaction to strengthen
● This theory provides insight to drug addiction
● Repeated use of drugs becomes less intense
and the withdrawal symptom becomes
strengthened

Opponent process theory