WHS AP Psychology
Unit 8: Motivation, Emotion and Stress
Essential Task 8-3: Essential Task: Identify and
apply basic motivational concepts to understand
behavior with specific attention to instincts for
animals, biological factors like needs, drives, and
homeostasis, and operant conditioning factors like
incentives, and intrinsic versus extrinsic motivators.
Drive
Reduction
Theory
Maslow’s
Hierarchy
of Needs
Human
Drives
Intrinsic/
Extrinsic
Motivation
We are
here
Arousal
Theory
Motivation
Theories
Motivation
& Emotion
Explain complex motives
Stress
Effects
(eating, aggression,
achievement and sex)
Theories of
Emotion
James-Lange
Cannon-Bard
Measures
Sources
Opponent
Process
Cognitive
Appraisal
Schachter
two-factor
Coping
Essential
Task
8-3:
Outline
• Basic motivational concepts to
understand behavior
– Instincts for animals
– Biological factors like
•
•
Drives (Primary vs. Secondary)
Homeostasis
– Operant conditioning factors
•
•
•
Incentives
intrinsic motivators
Extrinsic motivators
Motives vs. Emotions
• Motive
– Specific need or desire, such as hunger,
thirst, or achievement, that prompts goaldirected behavior
– a need or desire that energizes
behavior and directs it towards a goal.
• Emotion
– Feeling, such as fear, joy, or surprise, that
underlies behavior
4
Instincts for animals NOT
humans.
• Instincts are complex behaviors that
have fixed patterns throughout the
species and are not learned
(Tinbergen, 1951).
Outline
Humans don’t have instincts
• Fell out of favor in psychology
• A Meta-analysis during the height of this
craze found 5759 ‘instincts’
• Most important human behavior is
learned
• Human behavior is rarely inflexible and
found throughout the species
• Humans have reflexes but not instincts.
6
Biological Drives (Primary Drives)
• Unlearned drive based on a physiological
state found in all animals
- Motivate behavior necessary for survival
• Hypothalamus
– Hunger
– Thirst
– Sex
• Evolutionary biology talks about the four Fs
(fighting, fleeing, feeding and reproducing).
Homeostasis – explains why we
stop fulfilling biological drives.
• The ability or tendency of an
organism to maintain internal
equilibrium or balance.
• A state of psychological
equilibrium obtained when
tension or a drive has been
reduced or eliminated.
Secondary Drives – not
biologically dictated
• Learned drives
• Wealth
• Success
• Fame
Operant Conditioning Factors
• Incentives – environmental cues that
trigger a motive.
• When a stimulus creates goal-directed
behavior
Intrinsic Motivators
• Refers to motivation that comes from
inside an individual rather than from
any external or outside rewards, such
as money or grades.
• It is stronger than external motivation
Extrinsic Motivators
• Refers to motivation that comes from
external or outside rewards, such as
money or grades.