The factors that direct and energize the behaviour of humans and other organisms.

Instinct Approaches: Born to be Motivated

• Instincts: the inborn patterns of behavior that are
biologically determined rather than learned.
• Instinct approaches to motivation: the explanation of
motivation that suggests people and animals are born
preprogrammed with sets of behaviors essential to
survival.
• Weaknesses:
• Lack of agreement on the number of primary instincts.
• Unable to explain why behaviors evolve in some species but
not others.
 Drive-Reduction Approaches: Satisfying Our Needs 1

• Drive-reduction approaches to motivation: theories suggesting that a lack

of some basic biological need produces a drive to push an organism to satisfy
that need.
• Drive: motivational tension, or arousal, that energizes behavior to fulfill a
need. Hunger, thirst, sleep and sex

• Primary drives: related to biological needs of the body or of the species as a whole.
• Secondary drives: related to behavior that fulfills no obvious biological need.
In secondary drive, prior experience and learning brings about a need.
Strong needs to achieve academically/ professionally

. Homeostasis is the body's tendency to maintain a steady internal state.

(riding a roller coaster)
. But curiosity and thrill-seeking behaviour both shed doubt on drive reduction approach to motivation.
(say checking our phones for new messages)
3
McClelland’s Need Theory:
Need for Achievement
[Need for Achievement]
a manifest (easily perceived) need that concerns
individuals’ issues of excellence, competition,
challenging goals, persistence, and overcoming
difficulties
• Has a strong need to set and accomplish
challenging goals.
• Takes calculated risks to accomplish their goals.
• Likes to receive regular feedback on their
progress and achievements.
• Often likes to work alone.
McClelland’s Need Theory:
Need for Power
[Need for Power]
a manifest (easily perceived) need that
concerns an individual’s need to make
an impact on others, influence others,
change people or events, and make a
difference in life.
• Wants to control and influence
others.
• Likes to win arguments.
• Enjoys competition and winning.
• Enjoys status and recognition.
McClelland’s Need Theory:
Need for Affiliation
[Need for Affiliation]
a manifest (easily perceived) need that
concerns an individual’s need to establish and
maintain warm, close, intimate relationships
with other people.
• Wants to belong to the group.
• Wants to be liked, and will often go along
with whatever the rest of the group wants to
do.
• Favors collaboration over competition.
• Doesn't like high risk or uncertainty.
Arousal Approaches: Beyond Drive Reduction
• Arousal approaches to motivation: the belief that
people try to maintain a steady level of stimulation and
activity.
• These approaches suggest that if stimulation and activity
levels become too high, we try to reduce them; and if
stimulation and activity levels become too low, we seek
out ways to increase them.
• People vary in the optimal level of arousal they seek out;
some look for especially high levels of arousal.
• Daredevil sportsmen, high-stakes gamblers, criminals.
Different people have different levels of arousal. some look for especially high level of
arousal.
Eg: criminals who pull off high risk robberies
 Yerkes–Dodson Law

This law states that a relationship between arousal and behavioral

task performance exists, such that there is an optimal level of
arousal for an optimal performance. Over- or under-arousal reduces
task performance.
According to Yerkes- Dodson law, optimal level of arousal is
needed for optimal performance. Over or under- arousal
reduces performance.

8
Incentive Approaches: Motivation’s Pull
When we see our favorite dessert, we quickly eat it even though it was nothing to do with internal drives or maintenance of arousal. It is motivated by
the external stimulus of the dessert itself. To explain this the incentive approach to motivation came forward:
• Incentive approaches to motivation: theories
suggesting that motivation stems from the desire to attain
external rewards, known as incentives.
• Fail to provide a complete explanation of motivation, as
organisms sometimes seek to fulfill needs even with no
apparent incentives.

• Many psychologists believe drives and incentives may

actually work together in motivating behavior.
• “Push”: the internal drives proposed by drive-reduction theory.
• “Pull”: the external incentives of incentive theory.
Expectancy theory

10
Cognitive Approaches: The Thoughts Behind Motivation
• Cognitive approaches to motivation: theories suggesting that motivation is
a result of people’s thoughts, beliefs, expectations, and goals. get b
• Cognitive theories draw a key distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic
motivation.
• Intrinsic motivation causes individuals to participate in an activity for their own
enjoyment rather than for any actual or concrete reward.
• Extrinsic motivation causes individuals to do something for money, a grade, or some
other actual, concrete reward.
Maslow’s Hierarchy: Ordering Motivational Needs 1

• Psychologist Abraham Maslow proposed a model of motivation that places

motivational needs in a hierarchy.
• Before meeting sophisticated, higher-order needs, certain primary needs must
be satisfied.
• Self-actualization: a state of self-fulfillment in which people realize their
highest potential in their own way.
(Pg 304)

• Maslow’s hierarchy shows how our motivation progresses up the pyramid from the broadest, most
fundamental biological needs to higher-order ones.

• Source: Maslow, A. H. (1970). Motivation and personality. New York: Harper & Row.
Maslow’s Hierarchy: Ordering Motivational Needs 2

• Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is important because it:

• Highlights the complexity of human needs.
• Emphasizes that until basic biological needs are met, people
will be unconcerned about higher-order needs.
• Spawned other approaches to motivation, including
self-determination theory—the idea that people have three
basic needs: competence, autonomy, and relatedness.
• However, research has been unable to validate the
specific order of Maslow’s hierarchy.
15
The Major Approaches to Motivation

Approach Description
Instinct People and animals are born with preprogrammed sets
of behaviors essential to their survival.
Drive reduction When some basic biological requirement is lacking,
a drive is produced.
Arousal People seek an optimal level of stimulation. If the level
of stimulation is too high, they act to reduce it; if it is too
low, they act to increase it.
Incentive External rewards direct and energize behavior
Cognitive Thoughts, beliefs, expectations, and goals direct
motivation.
Hierarchy of Needs form a hierarchy; before higher-order needs are
needs met, lower-order needs must be fulfilled.
Motivational Conflicts
• 1. Approach/avoidance conflicts. The organism is attracted and repulsed by elements
of the same situation.

• 2. Approach/approach conflicts. The organism is forced to choose between two

desirable outcomes that are mutually exclusive (i.e. only one can be picked).

• 3. Avoidance/avoidance conflicts. The organism is forced to choose between two

different undesirable outcomes.

• Double Approach Avoidance or Multiple Approach-Avoidance Conflict

17
Emotions
• Emotions: feelings that generally have both physiological and cognitive
elements and that influence behavior.
• Some psychologists argue there are two systems at work, one governing
emotional responses to a given situation and the other governing the
cognitive reactions to them.
• Some suggest we first experience an emotional response, and later try to make
sense of it.
• Others suggest we develop cognitions about a situation, then react emotionally.
The Functions of Emotions
• Emotions allow us to experience the depths of despair,
depression, and remorse, but also happiness, joy, and
love.
• Beyond making life interesting, emotions perform several
important functions in our daily lives:
• Preparing us for action.
• Shaping our future behavior.
• Helping us interact more effectively with others.
There is general agreement among scientists who study emotions, however,
that they involve three major components:

(1) physiological changes within our bodies—shifts in heart rate, blood

pressure, and so on;
(2) subjective cognitive states—the personal experiences we label as emotions;
and
(3) expressive behaviors—outward signs of these internal reactions (see for
details Mandal, 2004).

20
The James-Lange Theory: Do Gut Reactions Equal Emotions?
• James-Lange theory of emotion: emotional experience
is a reaction to bodily events occurring as a result of an
external situation.
• “I feel sad because I am crying.”
They suggested that every emotion has an accompanying visceral experience which produce specific sensation that the brain
interprets.
• The theory has some shortcomings:
• Visceral changes would have to occur relatively quickly.because we experience emotions such as
fear instantaneously

• Physiological arousal does not invariably produce an

emotional experience.For instance, joggers experience physiological changes such as increased heart rate etc. yet they
don't think of it in terms of emotion.
• Internal organs produce a relatively limited range of
sensations. For instance, many emotions are associated with similar sorts of visceral changes.
The Cannon-Bard Theory: Physiological Reactions as the Result
of Emotions
• The Cannon-Bard theory of emotion: both physiological arousal and
emotional experience are produced simultaneously by the same nerve
stimulus. (which emanates from the thalamus of the brain as they suggested)
• Rejects the view that physiological arousal alone leads to the perception of emotion.
• After we perceive an emotion-producing stimulus, the thalamus is the initial site of
the emotional response.
• The thalamus sends responses to the autonomic nervous system and the cortex.
However, from recent research we know that the hypothalamus and the limbic system, not the thalamus is responsible for emotional
experience. in addition, the simultaneous occurrence of physiological and emotional responses is yet to be demonstrated conclusively.
The Schachter-Singer Theory: Emotions as Labels
• The Schachter-Singer theory of emotion: emotions are
determined jointly by a nonspecific kind of physiological
arousal and its interpretation, based on environmental
cues.

• .In their experiment participants were told to have received vitamin injection, but were instead injected with
epinephrine. One group was introduced with an angry confederate and the other with a happy one. Later when asked
about their emotional state, many used the behavior of the confederate to explain their physiological arousal.

Later research has found that arousals are more specific. But, they were right in assuming that source of
physiological arousal is unclear and influenced by environmental cues.
MODULE 31 FIGURE 2

• A comparison of three theories of emotion.

• Access the text alternative for slide images.

• Stockbyte/Getty Images
Contemporary
Perspectives
on the
Neuroscience
of Emotions

25
Making Sense of the Multiple Perspectives on Emotion

• Emotions are complex phenomena, encompassing biological and cognitive

aspects.
• No single theory has been able to fully explain all the facets of the emotional
experience.
Facial Affect and Facial Feedback
• People across cultures express emotions similarly.
• Facial-affect program: the theory that a set of nerve
impulses produce a facial display reflecting an emotion
that is universal across cultures.
• Facial-feedback hypothesis: the hypothesis that facial
expressions not only reflect emotional experience but
also help determine how people experience and label
emotions.
(Pg 327)