Chapter 10 - Flashcards
Motivation
a process that energizes, guides, and maintains behavior toward a goal.
Motivational states have four essential qualities:
- Motivational states are energizing or stimulating.
- Motivational states are directive.
- Motivational states help animals persist in their behavior until they achieve their goals or satisfy their needs.
- Motives vary in strength, influenced by psychological and external forces.
Motivational states are energizing or stimulating.
- They activate behaviors: they give individuals the energy to engage in activities.
- Ex.) the desire for fitness might influence someone to go for a run on a cold morning.
Motivational states are directive
- They direct behaviors toward satisfying specific goals or needs.
- Ex.) hunger motivates you to eat
- Ex.) thirst motivates you to drink
- Ex.) pride (or fear) motivates you to study for exams.
Motivational states help animals persist in their behavior until they achieve their goals or satisfy their needs.
- Ex.) Hunger annoys you until you find something to eat
Motives vary in strength, influenced by psychological and external forces.
- The intensity of motivations to do something can vary based on our internal feelings and external factors in our environment.
- Ex.) Exercising can be affected by our personal beliefs (psychological) and circumstances such as time availability or social support (external forces).
Motivational states
Internal feelings in living beings that drive them to start actions, choose what to do, and aim to reach their goals.
Need
Need: a state of biological, social or psychological deficiency.
- What you lack.
Need hierarchy
- Maslow’s arrangement of needs, in which basic survival needs must be met before people can satisfy higher needs.
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, bottom and top
- Survival needs (food, water) at the base of the hierarchy.
- Personal growth needs at the top.
Maslow and Personal Growth
To experience personal growth, Maslow believed people must fulfill their biological needs, feel safe and secure, feel loved, and have a good opinion of themselves.
Maslow - Self-Actualization
Self-actualization: a state that can be achieved when one’s personal dreams and aspirations have been attained.
- The height of Maslow’s theory was self-actualization.
- Self-actualization occurs when people achieve their own best self.
- Self-actualized people experience true happiness and inner peace.
- According to Maslow, self-actualized individuals are driven to pursue their passions and talents.
Maslow’s Hierarchy - Empirical Support
- Lacks evidence
- The concept of self-actualization as the height of Maslow’s hierarchy might not be universally applicable for achieving happiness.
- Some individuals prioritize personal beliefs over basic needs, as seen in hunger strikes.
- Western cultures tend to prioritize individual achievement, while many other cultures prioritize interpersonal values like belonging and relatedness above individual goals.
- Maslow’s hierarchy shows how some needs may be more important than others, but specific needs and their priorities vary among people and cultures.
Drive Definition
A psychological state that, by creating arousal, motivates an organism to satisfy a need.
- A specific drive encourages behaviors that will satisfy a specific need.
Example of Need and Drive - Oxygen
If you hold your breath, you will start to feel a strong sense of urgency, even anxiety.
- The need is the deficiency, the lack of oxygen.
- The drive is the feeling of anxiety or urgency.
Relationship between need and drive
- A need is what you lack, and a drive is the feeling or motivation that pushes you to fulfill that lack by taking action.
- A need is a deficiency in some area that creates a drive - an internal psychological state/feeling.
Role of basic drives in equilibrium
- For biological states such as thirst or hunger, basic drives help animals maintain equilibrium.
Definition of Homeostasis
Homeostasis: the tendency for bodily functions to maintain equilibrium.
Analogy for Homeostasis
Analogy: a home heating and cooling system controlled by a thermostat.
- Thermostat is set to an optimal level, or set-point. This optimal level indicated homeostasis.
- If the actual temperature differs from the set-point, the furnace or air conditioner adjusts the temperature to restore equilibrium.
Human body set-point temperature
The human body has a set-point temperature of around 37 celsius.
Brain Mechanisms in temperature regulation
Brain mechanisms, particularly the hypothalamus, play a crucial role in initiating responses to temperature changes.
- Initiate responses such as sweating - to cool the body
- Initiate responses such as shivering - to warm the body.
behavioral responses to temperature changes
- Individuals are motivated to perform behaviors like taking off or putting on clothing in response to temperature changes.
- These behaviors continue until the set-point temperature is reached, causing the regulatory mechanism to discontinue.