Intro to Motivation & Emotion

Question 1

Define Motivation

Answer 1

Wanting
A condition inside us that desires change (in self or environment)
Change behaviour, thoughts, feelings, self concept, surrounding environment, quality of relationships etc.

Question 2

Motivation, motion, emotion are derived from what Latin Verb?

Answer 2

movere: “to move”

Question 3

Two key reasons we study motivation

Answer 3

1. It is interesting
2. It can help us improve our lives and the lives of others

Question 4

Describe the 5 steps of motivational science

Answer 4

1. Reality:
   ◦ Observing behaviour
   a) Identify relations that exist among naturally occurring phenomena (what causes the phenomena, what the phenomena itself causes)
   Eg. Achievement motivation
   ◦ Explain why those relationships exist
   Eg. Why does challenge lead some people to strive for achievement while it leads others to be anxious and avoidant?
2. Theory
   ◦ Develop theory or framework to organize observations in attempt to describe, understand and explain what we observed
3. Hypothesis
   ◦ Develop hypothesis based on theory
   ◦ A prediction about what will happen if the theory is correct
4. Data
   ◦ Data collection to determine if the hypothesis is in fact valid and if the theory does do a good job of predicting the behaviour we observed in natural environments
   ◦ A validated theory can inform interventions and applications in real-world settings
5. Application
   ◦ Develop ways to apply this knowledge in order to modify the reality

Question 5

What is the first perennial question and what are the 5 subquestions?

Answer 5

1. What causes behaviour?
   ◦ Why does behaviour start?
   ◦ Once begun, why is behaviour sustained overtime?
   ◦ Why is behaviour directed toward some goals yet away from others?
   ◦ Why does behaviour change its direction?
   ◦ Why does behaviour stop?

Question 6

What is the second perennial question?

Answer 6

2. Why does behaviour vary in its intensity?
   ◦ Behaviour varies both within and between individuals

Question 7

What are the most popular theories of motivation which people embrace?

Answer 7

◦ Self esteem & Praise
- No empirical evidence to support
- Increasing student’s self esteem does not produce subsequent increases in academic achievement
- Self esteem is not a causal variable: it is an effect, a reflection of how our lives are going

◦ Incentive & Rewards

Question 8

Motives

Answer 8

Internal processes that energize, direct, and sustain behaviour

Question 9

3 Types of Motives: Energy, Direction, Persistence

Answer 9

◦ Energy: Behaviour has strength
◦ Direction: Behaviour has purpose
◦ Persistence: Behaviour has endurance

Thus, the study of motivation concerns the internal processes that gives behaviour its energy, direction and persistence

Question 10

What do internal motives determine?

Answer 10

Internal motives determine behaviour

Question 11

What are the 3 internal motives?

Answer 11

◦ Needs
◦ Cognition
◦ Emotion

These drive behaviour

Question 12

What often drive internal motives?

Answer 12

◦ External events
◦ Social contexts

Question 13

Internal Motives: Needs

Answer 13

◦ Conditions necessary to sustain life, growth, and well being
◦ Generate wants, desires, strivings that motivate whatever behaviours are necessary for the maintenance of life

Eg. Food & water (biological need)
Belongingness & interpersonal relationships (psychological need)

Question 14

Internal Motives: Cognitions

Answer 14

◦ Thoughts, beliefs, expectations, plans, goals, strategies, appraisals, attributions, and the self concept

◦ Motivate based on striving to meet expectations, follow through on plans etc.

◦ Cognitive sources of motivation revolve around the person’s way of thinking
Eg. Only individuals who make 100K a year are successful

Question 15

Internal Motives: Emotions

Answer 15

◦ Complex reactions to significant events in our lives

◦ Emotions generate brief attention getting bursts of emergency like adaptive behaviour

◦ Emotions allow us to react adaptively to the important events in our lives such as life’s challenges to our survival and well being

◦ Eg. Encountering threatening event: we rapidly and automatically feel afraid, heart rate increases, urge to escape arises, corner of lips drawn backwards in such a way others can recognize and respond to our fear experience.

Question 16

Emotions: What are the 4 interrelated aspects of experience?

Answer 16

◦ Feelings: Subjective, verbal descriptions of emotional experience

◦ Arousal: Bodily mobilization to cope with situational demands

◦ Purpose: Motivational urge to accomplish something specific at the moment

◦ Expression: Nonverbal communication of our emotional experience to others

Question 17

Motives: External events & social contexts

Answer 17

◦ Environmental, social, and cultural offering that affect a person’s internal motives

Question 18

Motives: What are some examples of environmental events?

Answer 18

◦ Specific attractive stimuli: money and events such as being praised

◦ Unattractive stimuli: foul odour, or unattractive event such as being yelled at

Question 19

Motives: What are some examples of social contexts?

Answer 19

◦ Social contexts include general situations such as classroom or workplace climate, parenting style or a culture at large

Question 20

Motivation vs. Influence

Answer 20

◦ Influence:
- Parents wanting to know how to get a child to clean their room
- Workplace managers wanting tips on how to persuade employees to make more sales = not motivation

◦ Motivation: Private, unobservable (internal) experience

◦ We only simply observe what is public and measurable and infer motivations

Question 21

5 Ways To Measure Motivation

Which ones are the most typically relied on?

Answer 21

1. *Behaviour
2. *Engagement
3. *Psychophysiology
4. *Brain Activations
5. *Self-report
   *most typically relied on

Question 22

Expressions of Emotion: Behaviour

Answer 22

◦ Can express the presence, intensity and quality of motivation

Question 23

Expressions of Emotion: Behaviour

How do we observe if someone’s motivated or how can we evaluate if one person is displaying higher levels of motivation than another?

Answer 23

◦ Simple answer: You can’t.
- Motivation is a very private and internal experience
- When you look out at a group of people you can’t see the goals they are striving for and you can’t see the motivation they have to achieve those goals
- Rather you have to observe what is made public and available to you and infer their motivation from these observations

Question 24

What is one way motivation and emotion can be inferred?

What are the 7 aspects of behaviour and what do they express?

Answer 24

◦ By observing individuals behaviours

Effort
◦ Intense effort vs. Lackadaisical effort

Persistence
◦ Long persistence vs. Fragile persistence

Latency
◦ Short latency vs. Long latency

Choice
◦ When presented with two or more courses of action, preferring one course of action over the other

Probability of Response/Occurrence
◦ High probability vs. Low probability

Facial Expressions
◦ Facial/gesture expressiveness vs. Minimal facial/gesture expressiveness

Bodily Gestures
◦ Individual pursuing one specific goal-object in lieu of another vs. individual pursuing an alternative goal-object

These 7 express presence, intensity, and quality of motivation

Question 25

Expressions of Emotion: Engagement

What are the 4 levels of engagement?

(Distinct yet intercorrelated and mutually supportive)

Answer 25

◦ How actively a person is involved in a task

1. Behaviour:
   on task attitude, effort, persistence
2. Emotion:
   interest, absence of distress, anger, anxiety, and frustration
3. Cognition:
   reflected in the strategies used to learn the task, seeking rather than just searching for surface knowledge, self regulatory behaviours like planning
4. Agency:
   contributing constructively to the task and trying to make changes for the better. When they’re asking questions and trying to learn more and when they’re expressing preferences it really they’re really making the task their own.

◦ Emotional engagement: presence of positive emotions during task involvement (interest, anxiety absence, enjoyment)

◦ Cognitive engagement: how strategically the person attempts to process info, employing sophisticated rather than superficial learning strategies, deep processing

◦ Agentic engagement: extent of person’s proactive and constructive contribution into the flow of the activity (input, asking questions, expressing preferences, letting others know what one wants and needs)

Question 26

Expressions of Emotion: Psychophysiology

What are the 5 Psychophysiological Expressions of Motivation and Emotion?

Answer 26

◦ Hormonal activity:
cortisol (stress), catecholamines (fight or flight rxn)

◦ CV activity:
contraction/relaxation of heart/bv (in response to attractive incentive, challenging task)

◦ Ocular activity:
pupil size (extent of mental activity)
eye blinks (changing cognitive states)
eye movements (reflective thought)

◦ Electrodermal activity: electrical changes on surface of skin

◦ Skeletal activity: facial expressions, bodily gestures, shifting one’s own weight from side to side (bored, desire to leave)

Question 27

Expressions of Emotion: Brain Activation

Which brain structure is active for thirst? Hunger?

Answer 27

◦ Behaviours are a manifestation of brain activity

Electroencephalography and functional magnetic resonance imaging to detect, monitor and measure brain based neural activity researchers can infer individual’s motivational and emotional levels

Thirst: Hypothalamus

Hunger: Insular cortex

Question 28

Expressions of Emotion: Self Report

What are the advantages?

Answer 28

◦ Ask individuals about their emotion level

◦ Interviews & questionnaires

◦ Can be unreliable:
There is a lack of correspondence between what people say and what they actually do
How they say they feel and what their psychophysiology indicates they probably feel (I’m not hungry)

◦ Advantages: easy to administer, can be given to many people simultaneously, can target very specific information

Question 29

10 Unifying Themes:

1. Motivation & emotion benefit adaptation and function

Answer 29

◦ Allow us to maintain an adequate level of functioning despite our changing environment

◦ Complex adaptive systems: the capacity to change allows us to function this way