MOTIVATION Flashcards
Achievement motive
An impulse to master challenges and reach a high standard of excellence.
Cannon-Bard theory
The idea that the experience of emotion happens at the same time that physiological arousal happens.
Cognitive appraisal
The idea that people’s experience of emotion depends on the way they appraise or evaluate the events around them.
Drive reduction theories of motivation
Ideas that suggest people act in order to reduce needs and maintain a constant physiological state.
External locus of control
The tendency to believe that circumstances are not within one’s control but rather are due to luck, fate, or other people.
Extrinsic motivation
The motivation to act for external rewards.
Hierarchy of needs theory
The idea, proposed by Abraham Maslow, that people are motivated by needs on four levels. Maslow believed people pay attention to higher needs only when lower needs are satisfied.
Homeostasis
Maintenance of a state of physiological equilibrium in the body.
Incentive
An environmental stimulus that pulls people to act in a particular way.
Internal locus of control
The tendency to believe that one has control over one’s circumstances.
Intrinsic motivation
The motivation to act for the sake of the activity alone.
James-Lange theory
The idea that people experience emotion because they perceive their bodies’ physiological responses to external events.
Locus of control
Locus of control - People’s perception of whether or not they have control over circumstances in their lives.
Motivation
An internal process that makes a person move toward a goal.
Motive
An impulse that causes a person to act.
Parental investment
The sum of resources spent in order to produce and raise offspring.
Polygyny
A mating system in which a single male mates with many females.
Pressure
A sense of being compelled to behave in a particular way because of expectations set by oneself or others.
Reflex
An innate response to a stimulus.
Reproductive advantage
The outcome of a characteristic that helps an organism mate successfully and thus pass on its genes to the next generation.
Set point
A genetically influenced determinant for body weight.
Sexual selection
Process in which females choose their mates based on certain characteristics that will then be passed on to their male offspring.
Social facilitation
The tendency for individuals to perform better in the presence of other people.
Theory of natural selection
A theory that explains the process of evolution. It states that inherited characteristics that give an organism a reproductive or survival advantage are passed on more often to future generations than other inherited characteristics.
Two-factor theory
The idea that people’s experience of emotion depends on two factors: physiological arousal and the cognitive interpretation of that arousal. When people perceive physiological symptoms of arousal, they look for an environmental explanation of this arousal.
