chap. 3

Question 1

True or false: The first concept surrounding motivation was the idea of will.

Answer 1

True

Question 2

Define will.

Answer 2

The ability of an agent to make choices free from constraints.

Question 3

Who was one of the first psychologists to approach the subject of will?

Answer 3

Wilhelm Wundt

Question 4

What was Wundt’s belief about will? Give an example.

Answer 4

He believed that involuntary actions (i.e., habits), which do not require will, start out first as voluntary actions that require a great deal of will.
Example: When you were young, it likely took a lot of concentration to get you to brush your teeth, but the more you did this behaviour, the less you had to think about it.

Question 5

Explain Wilhelm Wundt’s theory of sensation of innervations.

Answer 5

He argued that all actions involved some conscious subjective feeling that you are exerting willpower. Thus, you aren’t forced to do an action, but the action itself is a lot less effortful.

Question 6

What was Ludwig Lange’s contribution to willpower?

Answer 6

Lange conducted the first experiment in the study of motivation using the control hammer. Lange found that when people attended to a stimulus, they were slower in reaction than when they attended to their anticipated response to the stimulus.
The fact that participants were forced to focus their attention on one source or another means that they were required to exert will over their attention

Question 7

What was Narziss Ach’s contribution to willpower?

Answer 7

He established an experimental study with the purpose of quantifying the strength of will. Using nonsense syllables, he developed the concept of Associative equivalent.

Question 8

What is Associative equivalent in relation to willpower?

Answer 8

This concept developed by Ach states that in order to successfully override a habit, the strength of one’s will must be stronger than the strength of the habit (coffee).

Question 9

What was Andreas Hillgruber’s contribution to willpower?

Answer 9

Hillgruber established the difficulty law of motivation which states that increasing task difficulty automatically increases the amount of effort an individual will devote to the task. Thus, if a goal is too simple, you get bored and put it aside.

Question 10

True or false: Early philosophers recognize that human behaviour is often driven by instinct.

Answer 10

False; they believed it was driven by basic animal urges.

Question 11

What is the difference between instinct and willpower?

Answer 11

Instinct is predetermined and innate, it is not a conscious choice; while willpower is a choice.

Question 12

The belief that all events, including human behaviour, is determined by previously existing causes forms the school of philosophical thought known as ___.

Answer 12

Determinism

Question 13

True or false: Instinct is a form of determinism.

Answer 13

True; because instinct represents an innate predisposition to approach or avoid a particular outcome.

Question 14

Whose theory of evolution allowed the concept of instinct to be fully realized as a formal explanation for human motivation?

Answer 14

Charles Darwin

Question 15

What is the process whereby the existence or extinction of a species is determines by whether its features promote survival?

Answer 15

Natural selection by Charles Darwin

Question 16

What is the one and only criteria necessary for the existence or extinction of a species (from natural selection)?

Answer 16

Whether or not it promotes survival

Question 17

Who was the first to popularize the idea of instinct, defining it as behaving in a way that would lead us to an outcome or a consequence that we don’t necessarily know will be?

Answer 17

William James; he states that “instinct leads, intelligence does but follow” – Bottom, up processing

Question 18

Who argued that instinct was the ONLY motivational force responsible for human behaviour? Further explain his theory.

Answer 18

William Mcdougall; he believed that if it wasn’t for instinct, humans would just lie around like a car with no gas; thus, we don’t run toward our goals, we are pushed toward them by instinctual forces

Question 19

Define drive

Answer 19

Drive is a form of arousal or energy that arises whenever a biological need is deprived.

Question 20

What are the 4 primary biological sources of drive?

Answer 20

Hunger, thirst, sex and pain.

Question 21

What are primary reinforcers?

Answer 21

Objects or events that reduce drive, p.ex; food, water, sexual activity and escape from pain.

Question 22

True or false: When we have an increase in drive, we feel discomfort, so we read for primary reinforcers to reduce it.

Answer 22

True.

Question 23

True or false; the weaker the drive is, the more intense or energized the organism’s behaviour will be toward primary reinforcers.

Answer 23

False; the STRONGER the drive, the more intense…

Question 24

What are the 4 qualities of drive?

Answer 24

(1) Drive is initiated by need deprivation, (2) because it is aversive, organisms are always trying to reduce their drive, (3) every behaviour is interpreted as an attempt to reduce drive, (4) behaviours that are accompanied by drive reduction are strengthened, making drive a necessary condition for learning (p.ex: mouse going through a maze for food)

Question 25

What was Freud’s interpretation of drive?

Answer 25

Freud develops the concept of libido: All behaviour is motivated to satisfy our basic biological needs; our most basic urges, like the need for food or sex, cause energy to build up within the nervous system.

Question 26

True or false: When libido is high, it produces psychological discomfort in the form of anxiety.

Answer 26

True; if libido continues to rise unchecked, it can threaten the mental health of the individual

Question 27

True or false: The satisfaction of the libido is permanent, i.e., once the need is satisfied, there is no longer the need to do it again.

Answer 27

False: The satisfaction is only temporary, the urge will always come back, thus, the anxiety felt with the increase of libido acts as an alarm system.

Question 28

What are the 3 types of drive according to Freud?

Answer 28

Death (Thanatos), sex (Eros) and self-preservation (Ego).

Question 29

What was Clark Hull’s theory about drive?

Answer 29

Hull’s drive reduction theory states that the intensity of an organism’s behaviour is determined by drive, multiplied by habit (Behaviour = Drive * Habit). Thus, if you’ve done the behaviour multiple times before, it would increase your chances of doing it again at a later time.

Question 30

What are Hull’s 2 core principles of drive?

Answer 30

(1) Drive is activated by biological needs
(2) Organisms are motivated to engage in behaviours that reduce drive

Question 31

What are the main differences between instinct and drive?

Answer 31

While instinct is strictly defined as something innate and biologically driven, drive has no such restrictions. Drive rather involves a learned response because the organism must learn which behaviours reduce drive and which do not.

Question 32

True or false: Instinct can be measured in a lab, while drive cannot.

Answer 32

False: It is the other way around.

Question 33

What test did Henry Murray develop? Explain how it worked.

Answer 33

He developed a measure called the Thematic Apperception Test to assess how strong a particular need was within an individual. Murray would take the client’s analysis of the picture and analyze the client (the woman and man in bed picture). Murray demonstrated that people high in a particular need (affiliation) are more likely to engage in behaviours that fulfill that need (attend parties).

Question 34

What was the big motivator to go through Maslow’s hierarchy pyramid of needs?

Answer 34

To reach self-actualization.

Question 35

What is the school of thought of behaviourism?

Answer 35

It asserts that scientists can only accurately study what is directly observable, and the only thing we can really see, is behaviour and not drive or instinct.

Question 36

What is an incentive (in relation to behaviourism)?

Answer 36

It is an external stimulus that motivates an organism to perform a particular behaviour; it is one of the core motivational components of the behaviourist approach.

Question 37

True or false: Instinct pushes someone toward a behaviour, incentive theory pulls someone to it.

Answer 37

True.

Question 38

Offer an example to incentive.

Answer 38

If we promise a child a cookie for reciting her multiplication tables, the cookie serves as an incentive because it causes her to engage in the desired behaviour. It is a learned association; you have to find what matters to the person to get them to engage in the meaningful behaviour.

Question 39

Explain Thorndike’s law of effect.

Answer 39

Of the several responses made in a situation, those responses that are closely followed by an incentive will be more associated with that situation than other responses will be; the proximity of timing between the desired behaviour and the incentive.

Question 40

What led to the cognitive revolution?

Answer 40

During the era of behaviourism, researchers began to question the argument that all behaviour is explained by learning and incentives; these researchers thus argued that thoughts and cognition also play a central role in explaining behaviour.

Question 41

What ideas were included in the motivational explanations during the cognitive revolution?

Answer 41

Goals, attributions, expectations, plans, self-beliefs, and self-concept.

Question 42

Explain Tolman’s latent learning. Give an example.

Answer 42

Even though we don’t see the desired behaviour to begin with, the learning is still happening, the reward just isn’t present yet.
Example: You get drive to school every day, one day you have to drive there yourself, without GPS, you know your route.

Question 43

Ach found that to successfully override a habit, the strength of one’s will must be stronger than the strength of the habit, which he referred to as ___

Answer 43

Associative equivalent.

Question 44

According to the concept of ___, a food-deprived mouse would run a maze faster, learn it faster, and remember it better than a mouse not deprived of food.

Answer 44

Drive.

Question 45

In contrast to behaviourists who believe that the rat had learned to solve the maze based on getting rewarded with food, Tolman argued that the rat had developed a(n) ____, or mental representation of the maze in its mind.

Answer 45

Cognitive map.