Motivation (Test Jan. 17th, 2025) Flashcards
Motivation
Factors that energize and direct behavior.
Biological motivation
Basic human needs and desires.
Safety, hunger, thirst.
Social motivation
Basic human needs and desires.
Anger, love, vengeance, sex.
Motivations in the real world
Excellence (sports, etc.), consumerism (why people buy what they buy), relationships, martyrism (dying for a cause you believe is greater than yourself), self sacrifice, thrill, etc.
Industrial-organizational psychology
Psychological principles in workplace used to solve issues in organizational context.
Instinct
Three theories of motivation:
Subconscious, doesn’t need to be taught (sex drive, rooting instinct, etc.). Can work at the same time as drive-reduction.
Drive-reduction
Three theories of motivation:
Needs make us driven to maintain homeostasis such as eating to reduce hunger. Primary reinforcers (hunger, thirst) and secondary (money, etc). Can work at the same time as instinct.
Insentive
Three theories of motivation:
Anything we try to achieve with out behavior. Better school grade, more money, etc. Extrinsic and intrinsic motivation.
Evolutionary psychology
Behaviors that allow us to best pass on our genetic code.
Self-determination theory
Competence (need to be good at something), autonomy (control over your life), and relatedness (relationships).
Personality type T
Thrill seakers/ sensation seaking, searching for novelty/unique/weird things and might get bored in a relationship.
Health psychology
Includes hunger as motivation. The study of psychological behavioral process in health, illness, and healthcare.
Most important health aspect
Diet
Hypothalamus
Regulates and motivates hunger and emotional expression. Connection between eating and emotion.
Psychological factors on eating
How society/culture/surroundings effect behavior, effecting what and when you eat.
Hunger cues
Smell of food, appearance of food, other people eating, boredom and stress, body image, etc.
Pituitary gland
Most gland that produces hormones controlling many bodily functions, transferring signals from the brain. Includes: temperature, stress, growth, pain relief, etc.
Ghrelin
Hormone produced by the stomach that activates hunger.
Leptin
Hormone produced by fat cells for satiety response to say you’re full, basically the counter of ghrelin.
Obesity and BMI
Obesity- Medical condition where body fat accumulates to the point of negative health effects.
BMI- 30 or over is considered obese.
Factors that produce obesity
Genetics, diet, exercise level, hormone imbalances, brain chemistry issues, cultural expectations, etc.
Irrational positive self-image
It can be just as damaging as a negative self-image. Ex. Those body-positivity people who are literally dying from obesity.
Dopamine
1 of 4 chemicals that bring about happiness.
Reward chemical. Eating, achieving a goal, etc.
Endorphins
1 of 4 chemicals that bring about happiness.
Painkillers. Exercising, laughing, etc.
Oxytocin
1 of 4 chemicals that bring about happiness.
Love hormone. Socializing, petting animals, physical touch, etc.
Serotonin
1 of 4 chemicals that bring about happiness.
Mood stabilizer. Sun exposure, mindfulness, nature, etc.
Social motives
Learning to want something from watching others, secondary reinforcers. Most common is achievement.
Displayed by achievement-driven person
Persistence, competitiveness, a drive for more challenging goals. Is the most common and most effective social motive. More powerful than fear of failure because they will persevere.
Displayed by people driven by fear of failure
Is the second most common social motive. They will choose easier tasks or impossible ones (to more easily rationalize and so others won’t judge them for failing). Less powerful. Humiliation is due to failure and therefore a drive.
Most common biological motive
Pain avoidance
Kurt Lewin
Motivational conflict theory, asks why people choose to do one thing and not the other.
Motivational conflict theory
Approach-approach: Choose between two appealing options
Approach-avoidance: Choosing an option that also has drawbacks, like eating junk food
Avoidance-avoidance: Choosing between two unpleasant options, a dilemma
Emotion
Arousal provoked by a significant effect.
Physical, behavioral, and cognative appraisal components of emotion
Physical- Arousal level, can’t be controlled. Heart rate, breathing, pupillary response, etc.
Behavioral- Owtward expression, can be controlled. Facial expressions, body language, gestures. Sometimes takes people a half second to respond the way they meant to, meaning their flash of initial response is the true one.
Cognitive appraisal- How we interpret the environment. Someone bumps into you and apologizes or glares instead.
Display rules
Body language that’s different across cultures. Ex. Thumbs up
Elicitor
A factor that triggers emotions.
Broaden-and-build theory of emotions
Positive emotions help build more positive social responses while negative emotions reverse this. It can expand your inventory.
Universality of facial expressions
Are the same from culture to culture. Anger and rage are the easiest to recognize. Instinctive.
Achievement, affiliation, autonomy, and dominance
Achievement- Desire to excel/improve.
Affiliation- Social interaction/acceptance. Ostracism is being outcasted or socially shunned.
Autonomy- Independence and control over your life.
Dominance- Making your own rules and taking leadership roles.
Feedback effect
“Fake it till you make it”
Behavioral feedback- Acting as if you feel certain emotions can cause you to actually feel the emotions.
Facial feedback- Forcing facial expressions will give you corresponding feelings.
Can be used for self-therapy and helps with empathy and connecting.
Estrogen
Girls are on average more emotionally intelligent than boys because they have more estrogen, while boys have testosterone leading them to be more aggressive.
Estrogen helps produce female physical and mental effects. Hormone levels vary. Females are also more positive while males get angrier easier.
Emotions: Envy vs Jealousy
Envy- A desire to have what someone else has.
Jealousy- Fear that someone will take what you have. Not to be confused with territorial and not necessarily insecurity.
Emotions: Disgust and fear
Disgust- Learned from 4-8. Varies by culture.
Fear- Unpleasant, caused by a belief that someone or something is dangerous, fearing the unknown. Can be interpreted as pleasurable and thrilling. Can elevate heart rate to dangerous levels and kill.
Phobia- Extreme irrational fear.
Amygdala(e)
On either side of the temporal lobe. Part of emotional memory with more primitive emotions like anger, fear, and sex.
Because the frontal lobe is one of the last parts of the brain to fully develop, adolescents judge things more often through the amygdala.
Catharsis
Process of relieving stress, providing relief from strong repressed emotions. Not always positive, like if your catharsis is to kick dogs.
Spillover effect
Arousal from one event spills over into another, displacement.
Arousal
Fules emotion, creates an emotional state, and then cognition channels it.
