WK 9 - MOTIVATION & EMOTION

Question 1

Motivation and emotion

Answer 1

There’s an intimate link between motivation and emotion > have you won or lost something you’ve strived toward?

Question 2

Emotion

Answer 2

Full body-mind-behaviour response to stimuli. A pattern with cognitive, physiological and behavioural elements > an adaptive response to that stimulus (fear = survival and contentment = forming intimate bonds). E.g. someone cuts you off on the road, emotions is a mix of: expressive behaviour, bodily arousal and conscious experience

Question 3

Responding to stimuli

Answer 3

Angry at people and situations, proud of accomplishments, feel fear toward things and environments. There are not always external stimuli: mental image of a phobia, memory of an event and anticipation of a reward > there are cultural differences

Question 4

James-Lange theory: body before thoughts

Answer 4

James suggested we feel afraid because we tremble, we feel sorry because we cry. Conscious experience of emotion results from one’s perception of autonomic arousal > emotion is our conscious awareness of our physiological responses to stimuli

Question 5

Cannon-Bard theory: body and thoughts are simultaneous

Answer 5

Cannon pointed out that physiological arousal can occur without emotion, e.g. exercise. Visceral changes are to slow to precede the conscious experience of emotion > very different emotions exhibit patterns of autonomic arousal that are too similar to differentiate

Question 6

Issues with early theories

Answer 6

1) Different people can have different emotional reactions to the same stimuli
2) Even the same person can react differently too
3) Cognitive appraisal (e.g. interpretation of meaning) is a factor
4) Cultural appraisal (e.g. does being alone mean social rejection from the unity or welcome respite from a busy lifestyle)

Question 7

Cognitive appraisals

Answer 7

Interpretations and meaning that we attach to sensory stimuli > can be conscious or unconscious, may be learned or innate predispositions. Influences how we express our emotions and a t on them (explains why different people have different emotional reactions to the same stimuli). Situational cues give us information we need to label the arousal - misattribution of arousal

Question 8

Emotional expression

Answer 8

Expressive behaviours are observable emotional displays > can evoke similar responses in other (empathy). Some are products of evolution (survival), genetic elements (people blind from birth show same facial expression). Evolutionary adaptation beyond fear and anger > surprised facial expression allows us to take in informations, shared smiles build protective social bonds

Question 9

Detecting emotions in others

Answer 9

We read the body and voice intonations (context is key). Accuracy and agreement in labelling emotions is dramatically higher with situational cues > when faces are the same we base detection on context (situation, gestures, tears). We are primed to detect negative emotions quickly (those who have been abused are biased towards seeing fearful faces as angry)

Question 10

Common emotions in health situations

Answer 10

Anger, fear, happiness, satisfaction, disgust, sadness, guilt, grief

Question 11

Emotions: anger

Answer 11

One of our strongest and most interesting emotions (“short madness”). When facing a threat > fear triggers flight, anger triggers fight. Gives us energy to take action, persistent anger can cause more harm than the original source. Strong link between anger and thinking, you making an appraisal causes anger (giving an event meaning). CBT > be aware of thoughts and work to change them

Question 12

Managing anger

Answer 12

Genuine effort to calm down (deep breaths), leave the situation, calm and return, workout (emotions energise us), experience other feelings or journal

Question 13

Anger in healthcare

Answer 13

Could be related to frustrations, injustice, regret, pain, physiological changes. Can help through: encouraging clients to use anger in a positive way, listen, refrain from entering argument, ‘time out’, terminate session, seek support from colleagues

Question 14

Happiness

Answer 14

Subjective wellbeing (SWB) > no mean difference between men and women, no large difference in old age/disability. The feel-good, do-good phenomenon > when in a good mood we do more for others, the reverse is also true

Question 15

Can money buy happiness?

Answer 15

Money can buy happiness when it lifts people out of extreme poverty, otherwise it does not help (e.g. income/purchasing power increase didn’t increase happiness)

Question 16

Adaptation-level phenomenon

Answer 16

When we step into the sunshine, it seems bright at first > our sense adapt and we develop ‘new normal’, so if cloud covers the sun, it may seem ‘dark’ in comparison. This allows applies to wealth > we adapt to form ‘new normal’ and most people need another boost to feel the same satisfaction

Question 17

Increasing your chances at happiness

Answer 17

Work to develop close relationships, reach out to the less fortunate, seek meaning/challenge, align habits with goals, exercise, cultivate optimism

Question 18

Motivation

Answer 18

A process that influence the direction, persistence and vigour of goal-directed behaviour > it is a need or desire that energises behaviour and directs it towards a goal (multi-dimensional and numerous factors involved)

Question 19

Drive-reduction theory

Answer 19

A physiological need creates an aroused tension state (a drive) that motivates an organism to satisfy the need. Need (food/water) > drive (hunger/thirst) > drive-reducing behaviours (eating/drinking)

Question 20

Drives and homeostasis

Answer 20

Drives are the result of disruptions to homeostasis > a state of internal equilibrium that the body strives to maintain. Physiological = water/thirst and psychological = optimum levels of anxiety, stress or arousal > requires sensory system to identify disequilibrium. Some aspect of motivations makes us go against our drive to stay at an equilibrium

Question 21

Arousal

Answer 21

Human motivation aims to seek optimum levels of arousal, not eliminate it (we need drive to act) > stress in excess vs stress that motivates us to reduce it. Strive to keep stress levels in moderation (each individual has different perspective)

Question 22

Optimum arousal

Answer 22

Individuals differ in their comfort range of arousal. Easy tasks performance better at high arousal, unfamiliar better at lower arousal

Question 23

Humanistic approaches: hierarchy of motives

Answer 23

Abraham Maslow suggested that certain needs have priority over others: deficiency needs at the bottom (physiological), growth needs at top (achievement), self actualisations is the ultimate human motive to fulfil our potetnial

Question 24

Hierarchy of needs

Answer 24

From bottom to top: physiological > safety > belongingness and love > esteem, self-actualisation. Self-actualisation: develop ourselves in a wide range of areas (intellectual, emotional, creative social) - explore activities for their intrinsic satisfaction

Question 25

Self-determination theory

Answer 25

Revolves around the fundamental psychological needs (that motivate goal based behaviour) for: competence, autonomy, relatedness, in relation to: intrinsic and extrinsic motivation

Question 26

Intrinsic motivation

Answer 26

Doing an activity for its inherent satisfaction rather than for some separable consequence (e.g. because you find it enjoyable or challenging > no other gain)

Question 27

Extrinsic motivation

Answer 27

Doing an activity in order to attain some separable outcome (e.g. to obtain an external reward/avoid punishment)

Question 28

Achievement motivation

Answer 28

Beyond basic drives, the need for achievement. A positive desire to accomplish tasks and complete successfully with standards of excellence (motive for success > fear of failure). Can be high in both, or high in one and low in the other

Question 29

High-need achiever characteristics

Answer 29

Perceive themselves as responsible for outcomes, prefers challenging tasks that involve moderate risk of not succeeding > more likely to strive hard when they perceive some risk of not achieving

Question 30

Motivational climate

Answer 30

Aside from individual differences, situational factors such as climate play a role:
1) Ego-involving climate: people are compared to one another, urged to compete at best (those who perform well receive extra attention)
2) Mastery-involving climate: emphasise/reward effort, enjoyment and personal involvement

Question 31

Mastery-involving achievement environments

Answer 31

Linked with school and sport success: foster higher intrinsic motivation to do tasks, higher enjoyment of those tasks, improve self-esteem and enhance perceptions of learning and mastery > leads to lower performance anxiety because the focus is on ‘doing one’s best’ than winning

Question 32

Motivational conflict

Answer 32

Motivational goals sometimes conflict with one another > e.g. desire to achieve success and have fun. When something attracts us we move toward it; when something repels us we move away. Different combinations of these tendencies can produce three basic types of conflict

Question 33

Approach-approach conflict

Answer 33

Two attractive alternatives, selecting one means losing the other > e.g. dating

Question 34

Avoidance-avoidance conflict

Answer 34

Choosing between two undesirable alternatives > e.g. boring study or failing

Question 35

Approach-avoidance conflict

Answer 35

Being attracted to and repelled by the same goal > e.g. desiring a relationship but fearing rejection

Question 36

Emotional intelligence (EI)

Answer 36

Ability to perceive, understand, manage and use emotions:
1) Perceiving emotions (recognising them in faces, music and stories)
2) Understanding emotions (predicting them and how they might change and blend)
3) Managing emotions (knowing how to express them in different situations)
4) Using emotions to enable adaptive or creative thinking