Motivation and Emotions

Motivation

Introduction To Motivation and Emotions

What drives you to want to learn about psychology? Why did you come to class today? Why did you choose Century College over another school? Why did you choose your best friend? Where you would live? Are your drives different from other people or do we all share the same goals in life?

This series of lectures will define motivation-emotion-stress, some of their many aspects, and discuss the various theories related to motivation, emotion, and stress. You will learn the different views on motivation, from those deemed instinctual, internal, and those viewed as external. You will also be presented with the theories of emotion, an abstract concept which has yet to have an agreed upon definition. And finally, you will be presented with different ways of understanding stress and its consequences.

Motivation

Ever wonder why some people seem to be very successful, highly motivated individuals? Where does the energy, the drive, or the direction come from? Motivation is an area of psychology that has gotten a great deal of attention, especially in the recent years. The reason is because we all want to be successful, we all want direction and drive, and we all want to be seen as motivated.But first, let’s define motivation and some its elements. The words motivation and emotion both have as their root the Latin word ‘emovere’ which roughly translate to move “out of” or “away from MOTION.

Motivation

• What is motivation? And what are some of the aspects of motivation?

• A motive is anything that initiates behavior.• Motives may be conscious or unconscious.• Motivation gives direction to behavior.• Desire, a major component of motivation (i.e.

moving us) is experienced as Tension until Aim/Goal is achieved.

Motivation

• Motives are divided into two classes:• Primary Drives: originating in internal, organic

processes (e.g. the drive to breath and eat).• Learned Drives: originating in external social

forces (e.g. family, religion, status)

Motivation

There are three main characteristics of all motivated behavior.

1. . Arousal (it is the energizing of behavior, it leads to action) e.g. an itch

2. . Direction (it gives direction to our movements) e.g. scratching the itch

3 .. Desire (gives hope for satisfaction) e.g. relief from itch

Motivation

• Another component of motivation is level of incentive.

• Incentives are objects/conditions in our environment that stimulate behavior.

• Levels of incentive run from extremely low (liver and onions) to extremely high (ice cream sundae).

Theories of Motivation

• There are five distinct theories of motivation I want you to be familiar with. Some include basic biological forces, while others seem to transcend concrete explanation.

• Instinct Theory• Drive Reduction Theory• Arousal Theory• Psychoanalytic Theory• Humanistic Theory

Instinct theory• Derived from our biological make-up. We've all seen spider's webs

and perhaps even witnessed a spider in the tedious job of creating its home and trap. We've all seen birds in their nests, feeding their young or painstakingly placing the twigs in place to form their new home. How do spiders know how to spin webs? How do birds now how to build nests?

• The answer is biology. All creatures are born with specific innate knowledge about how to survive. Animals are born with the capacity and often times the knowledge of how to survive by spinning webs, building nests, avoiding danger, and reproducing. These innate tendencies are preprogrammed at birth, they are in our genes, and even if the spider never saw a web before, never witnessed its creation, it would still know how to create one.

Instinct theory

People have the same types of innate tendencies. Babies are born with a unique ability that allows them to survive; (i.e. reflexes) they are born with the ability to cry. Without this, how would others know when to feed the baby, know when he needed changing, or when he/she wanted attention and affection? Crying allows a human infant to survive. We are also born with particular reflexes which promote survival. The most important of these include sucking, swallowing, coughing, blinking. Newborns can perform physical movements to avoid pain; they will turn their head if touched on their cheek and search for a nipple (rooting reflex); and they will grasp an object that touches the palm of their hands.

Drive Reduction Theory

According to Clark Hull humans have internal internal biological needs which motivate us to perform a certain way. These needs, or drives, are defined by Hull as internal states of arousal or tension which must be reduced. A prime example would be the internal feelings of hunger or thirst, which motivates us to eat. According to this theory, we are driven to reduce these drives so that we may maintain a sense of internal calmness (i.e equilibrium).

Arousal Theory

Similar to Hull's Drive Reduction Theory, Arousal theory states that we are driven to maintain a certain level of arousal in order to feel comfortable. Arousal refers to a state of emotional, intellectual, and physical activity. It is different from the above theory, however, because it doesn't rely on only a reduction of tension, but a balanced amount. It also does better to explain why people climb mountains, go to school, or watch sad movies.

Psychoanalytic Theory Remember Sigmund Freud and theory of personality. As part of this theory, he believed that humans have

only two basic drives: Eros: LifeThanatos: Death

According to Psychoanalytic theory everything we do, every thought we have, every emotion we experience

has one of two goals: to help us survive to prevent our destruction.

This is similar to instinct theory, however, Freud believed that the vast majority of our knowledge about these drives is buried in the unconscious part of the mind.

• Psychoanalytic theory argues that we go to school because it will help assure our survival in terms of improved finances, more money for healthcare, or even an improved ability to find a spouse. We move to better school districts to improve our children's ability to survive and continue our family tree. We demand safety in our cars, toys, and in our homes. We want criminal locked away, and we want to be protected against poisons, terrorists, and anything else that could lead to our destruction.

• According to this theory, everything we do, everything we are can be traced back to the two basic drives.

Humanistic Theory • Humanistic theory is the most well known theory of motivation.

• According to this theory: humans are driven to achieve their maximum potential and will always do so unless obstacles are placed in their way.

• These obstacles include hunger, thirst, financial problems, safety issues, or anything else that takes our focus away from maximum psychological growth.

• The best way to describe this theory is to utilize the famous pyramid developed by Abraham

Maslow (1970) called the Hierarchy of Needs.

• Maslow believed humans have specific needs that must be met and if lower level needs go unmet, we cannot possibly strive for higher level needs. The Hierarchy of Needs shows that at the lower level, we must focus on basic issues such as food, sleep, and safety. Without food, without sleep, how could we possible focus on the higher level needs such as respect, education, and recognition?

Malow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Emotions

Defining Emotions The word emotion comes from the Latin emovere, which means to be 'out of' or 'away from' motion. Emotions are a complex set of behaviors produced in response to internal or external event(s), or elicitor(s).

Emotions

There are three aspects of the emotional system: • 1. Physiological (including faster heart rate, sugar being

released into the blood, muscles tensing, and so on) This is the processes that occur in the brain and nervous system.

• 2. Behavioral (including facial expression, changes in voice tone, movements of our bodies) This is the observable expressive patterns of emotion, particularly those on the face.

• 3. Subjective (what the person privately feels inside) This is the experience or conscious feeling of an emotion.

Emotions

Subjective/Objective Aspects of Emotion• It is the experiential affect (the inner

subjective field) that provides the ongoing motivational state that modifies, controls, and directs behavior moment by moment.

• But cognition and perception also play an important role in initiating emotion. These factors effect how one subjectively experiences the emotion.

Measuring Emotions

Measures of emotions includes three components. • Physiological measures include heart rate or EEG

patterns. • Measurement of facial expressions and vocalizations

includes detection of changes in facial muscles and loudness, duration, and sound patterns of the child's voice.

• Self-report measures may be used to assess the child's interpretations of his or her own feelings of emotion.

Measuring Emotions

• These methods may lead to some problems. • Different emotions may lead to similar

physiological responses, the same overt facial expression may indicate different types of emotions, and self-reports of child's feelings may be biased or difficult to interpret.

The Functions of Emotions

• Emotional behavior has a broad influence in many domains of development.

• Emotions appear to organize and regulate people's behavior and are closely linked to cognition.

• Cognitive activity is often reflected in emotional expressions; such as mastery of a task, a person is likely to express joy or elation.

• Persons in positive emotional states perform better and learn faster than those in a negative emotional state.

The Functions of Emotions

• Of primary importance is the role emotions play in initiating, maintaining, or terminating social interactions between the person and others.

• Moods, more enduring emotional states, may indicate aspects of the individual's personality such as shyness, dependency, or aggression.

Theories of Emotional Development

Early Perspectives on Emotional Development: Charles DarwinWilliam. JamesWalter Cannon

Psychodynamic Approaches on Emotions:Sigmund FreudCarl Jung

Humanistic ApproachContemporary Perspectives on Emotions :

Robert Plutchik Silvan TomkinsMichael Lewis and Linda MichalsonCarroll Izard and David Ekman

Charles Darwin

Darwin's theory included several key elements: • humans are genetically programmed with a set

of basic emotions; • emotional expression, in terms of facial and

postural indicators, is universal, not culture specific;

• mechanisms of emotional expression evolved because of the selection pressures in the species, thus having adaptive value for survival.

William James

• William James focused on visceral and other bodily changes associated with emotion; our experience of these changes as they occur is the emotion.

• For James, the body was the core of experience and the origin of reality. The body reacts to a stimulus and the body's reaction causes, the emotional experience.

• In the words of James, "The body changes follow directly the perception of the exciting fact… we feel sorry because we cry, angry because we strike, afraid because we tremble, and not that we cry, strike, or tremble because we are sorry, angry, or fearful, as the case may be."

Walter Cannon

• Walter Cannon proposed and tested central-neural theories. He examined brain structures involved in emotion (e.g., the amygdala, the hippocampus) as well as autonomic, cardiovascular, and neuroendocrine changes connected with emotional experiences. We now know that the entire brain is involved in emotional experience and expression.

• From the work of Cannon we know that for example the emotion anger activates the sympathetic nervous system as well as the adrenal medulla and cortex.

• Cannon’s idea was that the body reacts to the emotion.

Sigmund FreudRemember Sigmund Freud believed humans have two basic drives: Eros: Live Life and Experience PleasureThanatos: Avoid Death According to Psychoanalytic theory everything we do, every thought we have, every emotion we experience has one of two goals: to help us survive , to prevent our destruction.

• According to Freud, emotions are drive-related primitive forces that can make us do things we don't even want to do.

• In this biologically grounded view, we cannot really be held responsible because powerful passions overtake us.

• The human psyche is a "caldron of pressures demanding their release". • The metaphor of man as “machine” is prominent in Freud's explanations of human behavior. • The machine is endowed with a fixed amount of energy; if energy is spent performing one

function, it is unavailable for others. • The language of hydraulics is evident in terms such as cathexis (filling) and catharsis (flow, release).

Carl Jung• Jung pointed out how easily consciousness succumbs to unconscious

influences. • Under the influence of strong emotion, Jung thought the ego and the

unconscious may "change places." • Jung defined emotions as "instinctive, involuntary reactions which upset

the rational order of consciousness by their elemental outbursts. • Affects are not 'made' or willfully produced; they simply happen". • In another explanation, Jung termed it the “intrusion of an unconscious

personality". • By this, he meant that the person had been seized by a complex (the nucleus

of a complex being an archetype, such as the demon or the trickster). • In popular parlance, we still hear echoes of notion in statements such as "I

don't know what got into me," or "I was not myself," or "The devil made me do it.”

Humanistic Approaches• Feelings are considered a valued aspect of human experience; they are

not to be expelled or discharged but used as "orienting information." • For example, within the Gestalt school, emotion is regarded as "the

organism's direct, evaluative, immediate experience of the organism/environment field, furnishing the basis of awareness of what is important to the organism and organizing action."

• Thus, increasing awareness of emotion is a important objective. Becoming aware of anger might alert persons to violations of their rights, to situations in which too much of the self is being given to another (i.e., when being used), or to circumstances in which significant others are doing too much for them (i.e., stifling them).

• Outcomes of the increased awareness are Growth-promoting motivation to change and subsequent constructive actions.

Primary (Reflex) vs. Social (Learned) Emotions

• Reflex Emotions are a basic set of emotions that all people experience. These emotions are innate and directly related to adaptive behavior that is designed to enhance our survival in just the same way as the “fight or flight” response is designed to help us survive.

• Learned Emotions are created from the basic emotions. They are acquired through the socialization process. That is we learn these emotions in interaction with others. They are permutations and variations of the basic emotions. For example, anxiety is a blend of fear and at least two other unpleasant fundamental emotions. Which two (sadness, anger, or possibly guilt) will depend upon individuals personalities and the particular situation in which they find themselves.

Different Theorists on The Basic Emotions

Theorist Basic Emotions Basis for Inclusion• Plutchik Acceptance, anger, anticipation, disgust, Relation to adaptive

joy, fear, sadness, surprise biological processes• Arnold Anger, aversion, courage, dejection, desire, Relation to action

despair, fear, hate, hope, love, sadness tendencies Ekman Anger, disgust, fear, joy, sadness, surprise Universal facial expressions

• Frijda Desire, happiness, interest, surprise, Forms of action readiness wonder, sorrow

• Gray Rage and terror, anxiety, joy Hardwired • Izard Anger, contempt, disgust, distress, fear, guilt, Hardwired

interest, joy, shame, surprise• James Fear, grief, love, rage Bodily involvement • McDougall Anger, disgust, elation, fear, subjection, Relation to instincts

tender-emotion, wonder • Mowrer Pain, pleasure Unlearned emotional states • Panksepp Expectancy, fear, rage, panic Hardwired • Tomkins Anger, interest, contempt, disgust, Density of neural firing

distress, fear, joy, shame, surprise • Watson Fear, love, rage Hardwired

Robert Plutchik on Emotions• Building on Darwin's notion of the adaptive role of emotions, Plutchik defined

the origin and function of each of the eight emotions he terms "primary." • For example, the origin of fear is a threatening stimulus; anger results from

meeting an obstacle termed "enemy." The function of fear is protection of oneself, while the function of anger is destruction of one's enemy.

• Plutchik views anger and fear as opposites, as the former implies attack and the latter flight; both emotions lead to behaviors with survival value.

• Thus, in Plutchik's theory (described by its originator as a "general psycho- evolutionary theory of emotion"), emotion is conceptualized as a signaling system and a homeostatic process.

• Plutchik views the emotions as adaptive devices which have played a role in individual survival at all evolutionary levels.

• The basic prototypic dimensions of adaptive behavior and the emotions related to them are:

Robert Plutchik on Emotions

Prototypic Adaptive Pattern Primary Emotion1. Incorporation — ingestion of food

and water Acceptance2. Rejection — riddance reaction,

excretion, vomiting Disgust3. Destruction — removal of barrier

to satisfaction Anger 4. Protection — primarily the response

to pain or threats of painor harm Fear

5. Reproduction — responses associated with sexual behavior Joy

6. Deprivation — loss of pleasurable object which has been contactedor incorporated Sorrow

7. Orientation — response to contact with new or strange object Startle

8. Exploration — more or less randomactivities in exploringenvironment Expectation or Curiousity

Robert Plutchik on Emotions

Robert Plutchik on The Nature of Emotions

Robert Plutchik on The Nature of Emotions

Silvan Tomkins on Emotions• Another theorist within the Darwinian tradition, Silvan Tomkins,

views the skin of the face as more essential than its musculature in providing feedback for emotions. Among Tomkins's propositions are the following: (1) affects are muscular and glandular responses triggered by innate mechanisms; affect is primarily facial behavior, bodily behavior and inner visceral behavior.(2) when individuals become aware of their facial or visceral responses, they are aware of their affects;(3) individuals learn to generate from memory images of these responses;(4) amplifies not only its activator (e.g., more neural firing) but also the response both to the activator and to itself.

Michael Lewis and Linda Michalson on Emotions

• A cognitive-socialization explanation of emotions, put forth by Lewis and Michalson, emphasizes the importance of parents and others in providing child with information regarding appropriate emotional reactions for a given situation. This position views the emotional development as a product of experiential history. Out of this perspective developed the concept of Social Referencing.

Carroll Izard and Paul Ekman on Emotions

• Ekman and Izard represent contemporary views that support a more biological view of the origin of emotions.

• In cross-cultural research, Ekman found that universal facial expressions exist for some basic emotions. People from many cultures express various emotions in the same way and recognize emotional expressions similarly.

• Izard found that young infants make the same facial expressions that adults do in response to external stimuli.