MOTIVATION & Hannah Brazeau

EMOTION PSY 2001

 THE BASICS OF MOTIVATION
Motivation is an internal psychological force that determines the direction of people’s
behaviour, as well as their level of effort and persistence

Motive: A need or want that directs your thoughts and behaviours toward a goal.

Motives propel people to perceive, think, and act in ways that serve to satisfy a need.

Generally, motives tend to be triggered by a deficit or a lack of something (i.e., a need).

 THE BASICS OF MOTIVATION
Psychologists think of motivation as being:

INTRINS O EXTRIN APPROA

CH
Engagement
O AVOIDA
in a NCE
IC
The pursuit
SIC
The pursuit of
Engagement in

R
of an activity
or goal for
the inherent
an activity or
goal for
external
behaviour or
R
task in order to
actively
a behaviour or
task in order to
accomplish some avoid a
satisfaction rewards
goal punishment or
of the
negative
activity
consequence.
We all know that we experience motivation, but the bigger question is….

WHAT MOTIVATES PEOPLE?

 THE BASICS OF MOTIVATION
Our motives can be influenced by internal or external factors.

Drives: An internal state that arouses and directs behavior toward a specific objective or goal
• Homeostasis: A state of balance in the body.
• Hunger is the drive that pushes us to seek out food

Incentive: An external force that arouses and directs behaviour toward a specific objective or
goal.
• Positive Incentive: A good grade motivates studying behaviour
• Negative Incentive: Failing a course motivates you to avoid skipping class
The value of an incentive determines its motivational strength.
 MASLOW’S HIERARCHY OF
NEEDS
Maslow suggested that people are motivated
simultaneously by several needs.

The strongest source of motivation is the lowest

unsatisfied need. The exception is self-actualization.

The bottom four needs are deficiency needs.

 Motivated towards these needs when they are
lacking, or we have a deficiency
The top need (self-actualization) is a growth need.
 This need continues to develop and change when
fulfilled.
 MASLOW’S HIERARCHY OF
NEEDS
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 MASLOW’S HIERARCHY OF
NEEDS
Some characteristics of a self-actualizing persons
 Increased acceptance of self, of others, and
nature
 Increased spontaneity
 Improved interpersonal relationships
 Greatly increased creativity
 More democratic character (recognize the worth
of everyone)

Most people do not achieve self-actualization.

 MCCLELLAND'S ACQUIRED
NEEDS THEORY
McClelland proposed that every person is driven towards one of 3 “learned” needs:
1. Need for Achievement
2. Need for Power
3. Need for Affiliation

1.Need for Achievement – The desire to be successful and feel competent.

People who have a high need for achievement:
• Prefer activities with moderate levels of challenge
• Enjoy tasks where they are personally responsible for the outcome
• Prefer tasks where feedback on their performance is available
 MCCLELLAND'S ACQUIRED
NEEDS THEORY
McClelland proposed that every person is driven towards one of 3 “learned” needs:

2.Need for Affiliation – The desire for warm, close, communicative interactions with others.

People who have a high need for affiliation:

• Spend more time during day thinking about relationships
• Seek out more meaningful human contact in their day-to-day lives
• Smile, laugh, and make more eye contact
• Start up conversations more frequently
• Report more pleasant emotions when around other people
 MCCLELLAND'S ACQUIRED
NEEDS THEORY
McClelland proposed that every person is driven towards one of 3 “learned” needs:

3.Need for Power – The desire to control the environment to benefit themselves (personalized
power) or others (socialized power).

People who have a high need for power:

• Greater likelihood of career success
• More impulsive (e.g., risky gambling behaviour or substance use)
• Behave more assertively and actively in small group settings
• More argumentative
• Tendency not handle conflict well
MCCLELLAND’S ACQUIRED
NEEDS THEORY

Need for Need for Need for Power

Achievement Affiliation
 MAINTAINING MOTIVATION
Self-Determination Theory suggests that a behaviour will only be maintained if
engagement in that behaviour meets one’s basic psychological needs.

Autonomy Competence Relatedness

The need to be The need to The need to

a casual agent experience feel connected
in one’s life mastery and with other and
and feel in feel effective have a sense of
control of one’s within one’s belonging.
behaviours. environment.

You are more likely to maintain behaviours that allow you to feel independent, capable,
and connected compared to behaviours that invoke feelings of pressure, inadequacy, and
 ASSESSING MOTIVES
Henry Murray (1938) believed that our needs are impacted by our
perceptions of the environment. As such, he developed a measure to assess
needs

Thematic Apperception Technique (TAT):

 Ambiguous pictures presented to a participant for interpretation
 Presumption that a person projects current needs into the interpretation of a picture

TAT measures implicit motivation—unconscious desires, aspirations, and

needs
ASSESSING MOTIVES
ASSESSING MOTIVES
ASSESSING MOTIVES
ASSESSING MOTIVES
 MAINTAINING MOTIVATION
Reinforcement Theory are shaped by their
consequences

Maintain behaviours that are rewarding and

suppress behaviours that lead to negative
consequences.
•Positive Reinforcement
•Negative Reinforcement
•Positive Punishment
•Negative Punishment
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 NUANCES OF MOTIVATION
Effects of Incentive Delay
Temporal Discounting: The subjective value of an incentive declines as
the time until its receipt increases.

There are individual differences in our ability to exert self-control and

delay gratification
• Future-Oriented: People who are better able to imagine the future
possibilities and engage in less “temporal discounting”
• Present-Oriented: People who are more focused on the “here and
now” and engage in more “temporal discounting”
 NUANCES OF MOTIVATION
Types of Rewards:
• Tangible Rewards: Concrete objects (e.g., money, diploma, trophy)
• Intangible Rewards: Words or actions that provide a sense of competence
(e.g., praise, applause)
NUANCES OF MOTIVATION
Lepper, M. R., Greene, D., & Nisbett, R. E. (1973). Undermining children’s
intrinsic interest with extrinsic reward: A test of the “overjustification”
hypothesis.
Preschoolers who were intrinsically motivated to draw were assigned to one of three experimental groups
1. Expected Reward Group
2. No Reward Group
3. Unexpected Reward Group

A week later children were given another chance to draw, and their time spent drawing was recorded.
• Those who expected to receive a reward spent less time drawing and did the minimum required.
• There was a loss of intrinsic motivation for this group.
• The other two groups spent much longer drawing and were more creative
 MOTIVATION AND GRADES
Wolters, C. A. (2004). Advancing Achievement Goal Theory: Using goal
structures and goal orientations to predict students’ motivation, cognition,
and achievement.
Achievement Goal Theory: Proposes that students’ motivation and achievement-related
behaviours can be understood by considering the purpose that they adopt while
engaged in academic work.

The researchers assessed 525 students on their:

• Motivational Goal-Orientation
• Self-Efficacy: belief in one’s capacity to act in the ways necessary to reach specific
goals
• Learning-Related Behavioural Patterns (e.g., engagement, procrastination, studying).

The researchers examined the relation between goal-orientation and school grades
 MOTIVATION AND GRADES
Wolters, C. A. (2004). Advancing Achievement Goal Theory: Using goal structures
and goal orientations to predict students’ motivation, cognition, and achievement.

Mastery-Approach Goal Orientation

• Learning as much as possible, overcoming challenge, increasing competence
Mastery-Avoidance Goal Orientation
• Work to avoid a lack of mastery or a failure to learn as much as possible
Performance-Approach Goal Orientation
• Want to demonstrate their ability relative to others or want to prove their self-
worth publicly
Performance-Avoidance Goal Orientation
• Want to avoid looking incompetent, lacking in ability or less able than peers
 MOTIVATION AND GRADES
Wolters, C. A. (2004). Advancing Achievement Goal Theory: Using goal structures
and goal orientations to predict students’ motivation, cognition, and achievement.

Wolters found a positive correlation between grades and self-efficacy

• Expressed a stronger focus on learning and improving (mastery) were more likely to report
less procrastination and were more likely to exhibit adaptive forms of motivational
engagement.

• Having greater performance avoidance was related to disengagement from challenging

activities.

• Experiencing more performance approach was related to engagement in challenging

activities
 MOTIVATION WRAP-UP
Although motivation appears to be straight-forward, there are many
things to consider when discussing motivation:

• What kind of motivation is being experienced?

• What is motivating you to engage in your behaviours?
• How are you going to maintain your motivation?
• Are there rewards involved?
• When and how are rewards being given?
• What personality trait does a person show related to their goals?
RECOMMENDED BREAK
 THE BASICS OF EMOTION
Important Differentiations:
Mood:
 A feeling or state that is not associated with an event.

Emotion:
 A conscious evaluative reaction to something.

Affect:
 The automatic classification of emotions into good (positive) or
bad (negative).
 THE BASICS OF EMOTION
Emotions are often quite complex.

First, emotions can be perceived as states or traits.

•States are transitory and depend more on the situation than the
person.
•Traits are a pattern of emotional responses that are relatively stable
across a variety of situations.

Second, our emotions have many components.

• Physiological Arousal
 Cognitive Evaulation - Subjective feeling and interpretation
 Behavioural Expression
 EMOTION – PHYSIOLOGICAL
AROUSAL
Autonomic Nervous System

Parasympathetic Sympathetic
Branch Branch

 Focused on • Focused on arousal

conservation • Activates the
 Works to body’s resources
preserving the (e.g., energy &
body’s resources hormones) to deal
and store energy. with stress.
EMOTION – COGNITIVE
EVALUATION
When you experience any kind of emotion, there are cognitive processes
that play an important role in interpreting our emotions and the events that
triggered them.

This subjective evaluation and interpretation generally occurs within our

conscious awareness
This process can be quite complex.
• How strongly am I experiencing this emotion?
• Is this a mixture of emotion?
• Does this emotion match the situation?

A the most basic level, we often just appraise our emotions as either good or
bad.
 THE TWO-DIMENSIONAL
MODEL OF EMOTION
A two-dimensional model that
suggests every emotion can
vary according to:
1. Valence: Pleasantness
2. Arousal: Physiological
Activation

What about surprise, grief, and

indifference?
 THEORIES OF EMOTION
Several theories have been developed to explain the sequencing of
emotion and arousal:

1. James-Lange Theory

2. Cannon-Bard Theory

3. Schachter and Singer Two-factor Theory

 JAMES-LANGE THEORY
This theory states that we experience an emotion based on the interpretation of the physiological
response.
 JAMES-LANGE THEORY
Strack, Martin, & Stepper (1988) : Investigated the Facial Feedback
Hypothesis

Facial expressions can reflect emotions as well as influence emotions

Participants asked to hold a pen either:

1. in their non-dominant hand (control condition)
2. between their teeth
3. between their lips

Participants rated a series of “The Far Side” comics for level of funniness

Hypotheses:
Pen between lips: Facilitates frowning  produce less positive emotion 
 JAMES-LANGE THEORY
Strack, Martin, & Stepper (1988) : Investigated the Facial Feedback
Hypothesis
 JAMES-LANGE THEORY
Strack, Martin, & Stepper (1988) : Investigated the Facial Feedback
Hypothesis

The hypotheses were supported.

JAMES-LANGE THEORY
The problem….
This theory suggests that each emotion come from a unique
physiological response.

Example:
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 CANNON-BARD THEORY
This theory states that we experience the emotional and physiological response at the same time.

thalamus
activation

the cortex
(emotion processing),
the limbic system
(emotional control and
arousal)
the autonomic nervous
system (arousal)
 SCHACHTER AND SINGER
TWO-FACTOR THEORY
This theory states that emotion results from the interaction between physiological arousal and
cognition.

Cognitive
Label
SCHACHTER AND SINGER
TWO-FACTOR THEORY
Dutton & Aron (1974): Capilano Suspension Bridge Study

50% of participants called the 12% of participants called the

experimenter experimenter

1. Arousal (elevated heartrate, fast pulse)

2. Meet attractive person (external cue)

 Attraction (rather than fear)

RECOMMENDED BREAK
 EMOTIONS

There are a basic set of emotions that are experienced

universally.
They are fear, disgust, anger, surprise, happiness, sadness
 EMOTIONS - HAPPINESS

Happiness can be difficult to define because we all understand the

feeling of happiness.

Some ways happiness is measured:

 Positive affect (PANAS)
 Life satisfaction
 Evaluation of how your life compares to some standard
 EMOTIONS - HAPPINESS
What makes you happy?

Wealthier countries have higher levels of life satisfaction than poorer

countries.

Researchers address confounds by looking at the relationship between

income and happiness within different countries.

It appears that economic status predicts well-being, but….

 once people can afford the necessities, increasing financial status is not
longer related to well-being
EMOTIONS - HAPPINESS

Kahneman and Deaton (2010)

 EMOTIONS – GUILT
Guilt:
• An unpleasant emotion that is
associated with an event or
behaviour.
• “I did something bad”

Shame:
• A negative self-evaluation implying
that the entire self is wrong.
• “I’m a bad person”
 EMOTIONS – GUILT
Feeling guilt can motivate people to engage in prosocial behaviours.

•Apologizing for transgressions

•Volunteering or doing other good deeds to redeem themselves
 EMOTIONS – GUILT
Participants were told that they would be completing a test.

Encountered a confederate Did not encounter a confederate.

Completed the Test. Completed the test.

Researcher asked if they heard anything Researcher asked if they heard anything
about the study. about the study.

All said “No” All said “No”

Liars! Truth-tellers!

When participants were finished, they were given the option to help fill in bubble sheets for
another study.

Truth-tellers: volunteered to help fill in bubble sheets for 2 minutes

Liars: volunteered to help fill in bubble sheets for 63 minutes
 EMOTIONS – GUILT
Guilt can be used as a manipulation tactic

Guilt Trip:
 The act of making someone feel guilty to induce them to feel an
emotion or do something.

Individuals can become quite skilled at this tactic.

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 EMOTIONS – GUILT
Survivor’s Guilt

"The guilt of feeling grateful to be alive is heavy. Wanting to smile about surviving but not sure if the
people around you are ready, as the world mourns the victims killed and viciously slain, I feel guilty
about screaming about my legs and pain...Because I could feel nothing like the other 49, who weren’t
so lucky to feel this pain of mine. I never thought in a million years that this could happen. I never
thought in a million years that my eyes could witness something so tragic. Looking at the souls
leaving the bodies of individuals. Looking at the killer's machine gun throughout my right peripheral.
Looking at the blood and debris covered on everyone's faces. Looking at the gunman's feet under the
stall as he paces. The guilt of feeling lucky to be alive is heavy, it's like the weight of the oceans walls
crushing uncontrolled by levies. It's like being drug through the grass with a shattered leg and thrown
in the back of a Chevy. Being rushed to the hospital and told you're going to make it, when you laid
beside individuals whose lives were brutally taken. The guilt of being alive is heavy."
 EMOTIONS – DISGUST
A strong unpleasant feeling of revulsion.

Disgust can arise from either psychological or physiological trigger.

There are evolutionary reason for us to experience disgust.

After feeling disgust people tend to avoid the circumstances that

triggered it.
 EMOTIONS – DISGUST
Porzig-Drummond, Stevenson, & Oaten (2009)

Can disgust motivate healthy behaviour?

Participants randomly assigned to watch one of three videos:

•Control: Nature Documentary
•Education: Hand-Hygiene Knowledge
•Disgust: Hand-Hygiene Knowledge with Secretions

When seen one week later, those who watched the disgust video cleaned
their hands more frequently compared to those in the other two conditions.
 EMOTIONS – DISGUST
Schnall, Haidt, Clore, & Jordan (2008)

Induced disgust in participants and assessed moral judgements.

Participants assigned to three conditions:

Control – room with no smell
Mild-stink – room with 4 fart sprays
Strong-stink – room with 8 fart sprays

Participants read and rated vignettes of various scenarios.

Some U.S. states allow first cousins to marry each other. The state you live
in does not currently permit first-cousin marriages, but it is considering
legalizing it.
What do you think about such legislation?
 EMOTIONS – DISGUST
Schnall, Haidt, Clore, & Jordan (2008)

Results indicated that the average moral judgment ratings were significantly
different.

People in the stinky rooms rated the scenarios more harshly than those in
the control room.
 THE BASICS OF EMOTION
Emotions provide us with feedback when something is good or bad, but
they also:
 Motivates Behaviour
 Promote Belongingness
 Guide Learning
 Affect Decision making
 ANTICIPATING EMOTIONS
We tend to base some of our behaviours off how we think they will make us
feel

Affect Forecasting:
The ability to predict one’s emotional reactions to future events.
Based on past experiences

We tend to be accurate at predicting what emotions we will feel, but we

have the tendency to overestimate the emotion intensity and the length of
time emotions will be felt
 ANTICIPATING EMOTIONS
Hedonic Treadmill:
Theory proposing that people stay at about the same level of happiness regardless of
what happens to them.

Brickman (1978):
• Interviewed lottery winners and paraplegics to determine their change in happiness
levels
• On average, the winners’ ratings of everyday happiness were 3.33 out of 5, and the
accident victims’ averaged answers were 3.48.
• The lottery winners were not as happy as it was expected, and the accident victims
were not as unhappy as might have been expected.
 ANTICIPATING EMOTIONS
Hedonic Treadmill:
Theory proposing that people stay at about the same level of happiness regardless of
what happens to them.

Lucas, Clark, Georgellis, and Diener (2003):

• Examined changes in baseline level of well-being due to changes in marital status.
• Found that a negative events had a greater impact on happiness set point than a
positive events
• Concluded that people often completely adapt and return to their baseline level of
well-being
 EMOTIONS WRAP-UP
In class, we tried to break-down some of the nuances of emotional experiences
by discussing…
• The cognitive and physiological experience of an emotion
• The sequencing of emotions
• The basic emotions of happiness, disgust, and guilt
• The outcomes of emotions
• The anticipation of these outcomes