Week 11 Flashcards
individual differences
- personality characteristics that explain why different people have different motivational and emotional states even in the same situation
- there are several motivational principles related to personality characteristics
- individuals harbor personality characteristics that affect how they respond to situations in terms of felt happiness, felt arousal, and perceived control
situation variance
- all situations vary in their capacity to produce positive or negative emotions in us
- all situations vary in how stimulating and arousing they are
- all situations vary in how controllable they are
Happiness
- while people react strongly to life events, they also seem to return back to the same level of happiness they had before the event
- people seem to have happiness set points that regulates their happiness and subjective well-being; set point for positive emotionality (happiness set point) and set point for negative emotionality (unhappiness set point)
- status of our happiness and unhappiness set points can be explained by individual differences in our personalities (happiness set point = individual differences in extraversion; unhappiness set point = individual differences in neuroticism)
Extraversion and Happiness
Extraverts have greater capacity than introverts to experience positive emotions; stronger and more sensitive behavioural activating systems (BAS); eagerness to approach potentially rewarding situations
- therefore, greater sociability, greater social dominance, and greater venturesomeness
BAS
Behavioural activation systems
- the motivational function of the BAS is to energie approach-oriented, goal-directed behaviour like sociability, assertiveness, and venturesomeness
- signals of rewards: strongly activate the BAS of extraverts and mildly activate the BAS of introverts
Two types of happiness
- hedonic: totality of one’s pleasurable moments
- eudaimonic: it involves engaging oneself in meaningful pursuits and in doing what is worth doing; the actualization of the self
neuroticism and suffering
- neuroticism is a predisposition to experience negative affect and to feel chronically dissatisfied and unhappy
- neurotics have a greater capacity than emotionally stable individuals to experience negative emotions
- they also chronically harbor disturned and troubling thoughts
links of neuroticism and the behavioural inhibition system
- BIS detects and regulates environmental signals of punishment
- motivational function of the BIS is to energize avoidance-oriented, goal-directed behaviours like escape, withdrawal, and avoidance
- neurotics have a strong and highly sensitive BIS
arousal
represents a variety of processes that govern alertness, wakefulness and activation
four principles of arousal
- person’s arousal level is mostly a function of how stimulating the environment it
- people engage in behaviour to increase or decrease their level of arousal
- when under-aroused, people seek out opportunities to increase their arousal levels, because increases in environment stimulation are pleasurable and enhance performance whereas decreases are aversive and undermine performance
- when over-aroused, people seek out opportunities to decrease their arousal levels, because increases in environmental stimulation are aversive and undermine performance whereas decreases are pleasurable and enhance performance
control
- many possible personality characteristics could be included under the category of personal control beliefs
- Perceived control and Desire for control adequately capture most of the spirit of control beliefs
perceived control
- differences in people’s pre-performance expectancies of possessing the needed capacity to produce positive outcomes
- in order to perceive that one has control over a given situation:
1. the self must be capable of obtaining the available desired outcome
2. the situation in which one attempts to exercise control needs to be at least somewhat predictable and responsive - perceived control is a necessary forerunner for constructing beliefs about one’s competence, efficacy, and ability
- perceived control beliefs can emanate from any capacity, not just from one’s own competence, efficacy or ability
- perceived control contributes positively to effort, engagement, emotion, and challenge-seeking
desire for control
- the extent to which people strive to make their own decisions, influence others, assume leadership roles, and enter situations in overly prepared ways
- high desire for control individuals want control over their fates irrespective of how much control they currently have and irrespective of how structured or responsive the situation appears to be
- they have a strong desire to establish control and to restore lost control
High DC compared to low DC
Aspiration level: select harder tasks, set goals more realistically
Response to challenge: react with greater effort
Persistence: work at difficult task longer
Attributes (success and failure): more likely to attribute success to self and failure to unstable source
High DC benefit
Aspiration level: higher goals are achieved
Response to challenge: difficult tasks are completed
Persistence: difficult tasks are completed
Attributions (success and failure): motivation level remains high
