Motivation
Motivation: What drives you?
• Motivation: A psychological process that directs and maintains your
behavior toward a goal fueled by motives
• Motives: Needs or desires that energize your behavior
• Primary, biological motives:
• Hunger, thirst, sex, pain reduction, optimal arousal, agression
• Secondary, social motives:
• Achievement, affiliation, autonomy, curiosity, play
• Social motives: learned motives acquired as part of growing up in a
particular society or culture
Theories of Motivation
•Instinct/Evolutionary Theory
•Drive Reduction Theory
•Incentive Theory
•Arousal Theory
•Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Instinct/Evolutionary Theory
• Darwin believe many behaviors could be passed on through genes
• William James believed that motivation via instincts was important for human
behavior
• McDougall supported the idea that all thoughts and behaviors resulted from
instincts (curiosity, aggression, & sociability)
• Ethologist Konrad Lorenzo investigated imprinting with baby geese and their
instinct to follow their mother
• Sociobiology tries to relate social behaviors to evolutionary biology
• The Big Debate…Are any human behaviors considered TRUE instincts?
Drive Reduction Theory
• According to Clark Hull, behavior is motivated by the need to reduce drives such
as hunger, thirst, or sex
Need
Drive
Behavior
(motivated state
caused by a
physiological
deficit)
(state of
psychological
tension induced
by a need)
(attempting to
return to
homeostasis)
• Homeostasis: Body’s ability to maintain an internal steady state of metabolism
• Metabolism: Sum total of all chemical processes that our in our bodies and allows
us to stay alive
Incentive Theory
• Pushes: Primary motives that satisfy our biological needs
• Pulls: Environmental factors
• Secondary motives; Motives we learn to desire
• Incentive: an environmental stimulus (negative or positive)
that motivates us to get us closer to a goal
Arousal Theory
• Arousal: The level of alertness, wakefulness, and activation
caused by activity in the central nervous system
• Yerkes-Dodson Law: We usually perform most activities best
when moderately aroused, and efficiency of performance is
usually lower when arousal is either low or high
• Easy tasks  Moderately high arousal
• Difficult tasks Moderately low arousal
• Average tasks Moderate level of arousal
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
• Self-actualization: achievement of all our
potentials
• Transcendence: Spiritual fulfillment
Physiological Motives
Sex Hormones
• Luteinizing hormone (LH) & follicle stimulating
hormone (FSH): Secreted by the pituitary gland,
which stimulate the gonads
• Males Testes
• Females Ovaries
• Testosterone & estrogen: Secreted by the
gonads to initiate and maintain sexual arousal
Achievement Motive
• A desire to meet some internalized standard of excellence
• Thematic Appreciation Test (TAT): Created by David McClellan to
measure achievement motivation
• High need for achievementmoderately challenging tasks to
satisfy needs
• Avoid easy goals (no sense of satisfaction) and impossible goals
(no hope of success)
• Low need for achievement easy of impossible goals (do not
take responsibility for failure)
Affiliation Motive (Need to Belong)
• Being isolated for long periods of time causes anxiety
• Aroused when feeling threatened, anxious,
celebratory
• Evolutionary psychologist believe that the need to
belong provides social bonds which lead to survival
and reproductive benefits such as food, shelter,
safety, and reproduction, and care for offspring
Overjustification Effect (Intrinsic Motivation)
• When promising a reward for doing something we already
like to do results in us seeing the reward as the
motivation for performing the task. When the reward is
taken away, the behavior tends to disappear
• Example: Naturally you are a good student and enjoy
learning and doing well. Your parents begin to reward
you with money for your good grades during
elementary school and middle school. When you get
to high school, they stop giving you money, so you
stop trying hard to get good grades.
Social Conflict Situations
• Being torn in different directions by opposing motives the block us from attaining a goal,
leaving us feeling stressed & frustrated
• Approach-approach conflicts: situations involving two positive options only one which
we can have
• Live on campus or buy a new car
• Avoidance-avoidance conflicts: Situations involving two negative options, one which we
must choose
• Use a lot of my savings for the rabbis shot or potentially die!
• Approach-avoidance conflicts: Situations involving whether or not to choose an option
that has both a positive and a negative consequence(s)
• Go to a party that may get busted to hang out with the popular crowd or go to the mall and spend
a lot of money for clothes for spring break
• Multiple approach-avoidance conflicts: Situations involving several alternative courses of
action that have both positive and negative aspects
• Changing your outfit many times to look great for a first date although you may be late