Lecture 6: Personality and Motivation

Question 1

What is a motive?

Answer 1

internal state that arouses and directs behaviour towards a specific object or goal

Question 2

What is a motive caused by?

Answer 2

Motive is caused by a deficit, a lack of something

Question 3

What are motives often based on?

Answer 3

• Motives are often based on needs: states of tension within a person
• As need is satisfied, tension is reduced
• Motives propel people to perceive, think and act in ways that serve to satisft a need (safety needs, relational needs, societal needs)

Question 4

What domain are motives a part of and why?

Answer 4

Motives are part o the intrapsychic domain for several reasons:

• Motivational psychologists stress the importance of internal psychological needs and urges
• Some motives can be unconscious
• Reliance on projective techniques to measure motives

Question 5

What is Henry Murray’s theory of needs?

Answer 5

• According to Murray, need refers to a readiness to respond in a certain way under certain circumstances
• Needs organize perception, guiding us to “see” what we want (need) to see
• Needs organize action by compelling a person to do what is necessary to satisfy a need
• Needs also refer to states of tension and satisfying a need reduces tension
• It is the process of reducing tension that is satisfying and not a tensionless state per se
• Murray proposed a list of fundamental human needs and each need has a specific Desire, intention, Emotion, Action tendency (
• each person has own (dynamic) hierarchy (someone might be high on need for power, an average need for affiliation and a low need for achievement)
• Elements in environment affect person’s needs

Question 6

What is apperception?

Answer 6

• interpreting environment and perceiving meaning of what’s going on
• Needs and motives influence apperception, especially in ambiguous environments

Question 7

How can we test apperception?

Answer 7

• Thematic apperception technique
• Ambiguous pictures presented to a participant for interpretation
• Presumption that a person projects current needs and motives into the interpretation of a picture.

Question 8

What are some examples of needs one may project onto a TAT?

Answer 8

• Ambition needs (achievement, exhibition, order)
• Social power needs (aggression, autonomy, blame-avoidance)
• Social affection needs (nurturance, affiliation)
• TAT not widely used because of criticisms of accuracy and scoring issues

Question 9

What is self determination theory?

Answer 9

• Inherent growth tendencies
• Basic premise: humans are naturally active & seek opportunities to learn and grow
• Autonomy (independence, master of your own path)
• Competence (ability to accomplish a goal)
• Relatedness (social, need to belong & feel connected and contributing to community)
• If you have a behaviour that fulfills these needs, the motivation to do it is strong. This is called intrinsic motivation.
• Type of motivation:
  Intrinsic (inherently interesting, enjoyable). Extrinsic (rewards, or avoiding punishment)
• Behaviour might be the same but motivation different (e.g., volunteering)

Question 10

What is the candle problem?

Answer 10

• Problem: fix a lighted candle on a wall, so that the wax wont drip onto the table: Box of matches, Box of thumbtacks
• Two groups: Control (you will be timed, but just take your time and enjoy the puzzle).
  Experimental (given money for performing well. 20$ for the fastest time and 5$ if you’re in the top 25%).
• Which group was faster? Control condition was 3 1/2 minutes faster. The people who were not put under pressure, were able to be more creative and move more quickly.

Question 11

What is the over justification effect?

Answer 11

• When external incentives (e.g., money) decrease a person’s intrinsic motivation to perform a task
• Does this happen with all tasks? Are rewards ineffective? No, simple tasks

Question 12

What is the second candle problem and what did it demonstrate??

Answer 12

• Second study (thumbtacks outside of the box, making it much easier)
• Same instructions
• Different layout
• Results?
• Experimental group much faster
  Important points:
• Incentives not always effective
  -Intrinsic motivations much more effective in maintaining behaviour

Question 13

What are the big 3 motives?

Answer 13

• Need for Achievement (nAch)
• Need for Power (nPow)
• Need for Intimacy (nInt)

Question 14

What is the need for achievement?

Answer 14

• Desire to do better, be successful, and feel competent
• People who have a high need for achievement
  1) Prefer activities that offer moderate challenge
  2) Enjoy tasks where they are personally responsible for the outcome
  3) Prefer tasks where feedback on performance is available

Question 15

What are the sex differences in the need for achievement?

Answer 15

early childhood experiences associated with nAch are different for males and females (i.e., mother’s behaviour towards child. For women mother pushes them to do better but is less nurturing and for men, mother is more nurturing)

Question 16

How can we promote achievement motivation?

Answer 16

independence training and setting challenging but realistic standards for children (having a way to measure it is also important, providing praise when successful and feedback when not)

Question 17

What is the need for power?

Answer 17

• Readiness/preference for having an impact on people
• People with a high need for power are interested in controlling situations and controlling others
• People with a high need for power do not deal well with frustration and conflict- show strong stress response

Question 18

What are the sex differences in the need for power?

Answer 18

• No sex differences in average levels of nPow
• Sex differences: largest is that men, but not women, with high need for power perform a variety of impulsive and aggressive behaviours

Question 19

What can help the need for power to be less problematic?

Answer 19

• Various forms of impulsive behaviour (drinking, aggression, sexual exploitation) less likely to occur if person has responsibility training

Question 20

What is power and what does it affect?

Answer 20

• Power: the desire to have an impact on other people
• What happens to the person after achieving power?
• Power on perspective taking
• High power individuals over rely on their own point of view
• Power and assuming that everyone shares your insights
• Power and diminished empathy

Question 21

What is the need for intimacy?

Answer 21

• Recurrent preference for or readiness for warm, close, communicative interactions with others
• People with a high need for intimacy: Spend more time during day thinking about relationships, Report more pleasant emotions when around other people, Smile, laugh and make more eye contact, Start up conversations more often, More likely to have a few close friends

Question 22

What are the sex differences in intimacy?

Answer 22

• Women, on average, have a higher need for intimacy than men
• Fairly new concept: bromances (two heterosexual males who share a strong bond)
• Men who have bromances tend to score higher on mental health

Question 23

What is the motive to self actualize?

Answer 23

• Main emphasis:
  Conscious awareness of needs, choice, and personal responsibility
  Human need for growth and realizing one’s full potential (humans are inherently good)
• Human nature is positive and life-affirming
• Approach is a counter-response to psychoanalytic and behavioral traditions, both of which are held that people have little free will in determining their actions
• Contributions from Maslow

Question 24

Who was Abraham Maslow?

Answer 24

• Maslow’s ideas were a radical shift (from Freud) away from a focus on abnormal and on deficiency
• His ideas led the way for movement towards Positive Psychology

Question 25

What was Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs?

Answer 25

• Lower needs are most pressing and must be satisfied before we can proceed to higher needs
• Need hierarchy emerges during development, with lower needs emerging earlier in life
• Hierarchy: physiological needs, safety needs, love/belonging, esteem needs, and self actualization

Question 26

What proportion of the population are self actualizers?

Answer 26

• ~1% of population
• 15 characteristics define them
• Historical figures: Albert Einstein, Eleanor Roosevelt, Frederick Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Ghandi, Aldous Huxley
• We don’t necessarily talk about who is self actualized we talk about the path to it

Question 27

What is the press aspect of Henry Murray’s theory of needs?

Answer 27

• Press: need relevant aspects the environment. Alpha press: objective reality (described by everyone the same way; facts, things that we can validate) and Beta press: perceived reality (constructed reality). Environment perceived differently based on differing of individuals. (E.g., a tree- alpha press = tree, and beta press = wood for fire, apples for eating)