Unit 7: Motivation, Emotion, and Personality

Unit 7 Overview: Motivation, Emotion, and Personality

● Personality: an individual’s characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling and acting

● Motivation: a need or desire that energizes and directs behavior

● Emotion: a response of the whole organism, involving physiological arousal, expressive

behavior and conscious thought

“Psychologists to know”

● William James

○ James-Lange Theory: physiological arousal comes before emotion

● Alfred Kinsey

○ Study on sexual behavior in 1948

● Abraham Maslow

○ Not all needs are equal

○ Hierarchy of needs that predicts what needs have to be fulfilled first and which

follow after

○ By completing hierarchy, we can then fulfill unique potential as a person

○ Studied healthy people, who he felt achieved their full potential and looking at all

the things that they had in common

● Hans Selye

○ People experience major trauma in three major stages:

■ Alarm

■ Resistance

■ Exhaustion

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7.1: Theories of Motivation

“Motivational Concepts”

● Instincts: behaviors that occur unconsciously because they usually just feel right

● Incentives: drive us toward or away from the behavior

○ Either positive stimulus or negative stimulus

● Intrinsic motivation: when you are doing something for yourself

● Extrinsic motivation: when you are doing something for an external factor

● Overjustification effect: when an external factor decreases one’s intrinsic motivation to

complete a certain task

● Self-Efficacy:

○ High self-efficacy: belief that someone can complete a task successfully

■ High intrinsic motivation and accepting challenges along the way

○ Low self-efficacy: uncertain that you can master a task

■ Low intrinsic motivation

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“Different Theories”

● Intrinsic theory (evolutionary)

○ Those that are best adapted to their environments are likely to mate and survive

■ Motivation = survive

■ Adapt behaviors that help us live

Example Strength of Theory 👍 Weakness of Theory 👎

reflexes like rooting and due to our ancestral past. better than human behaviors.

sucking

● Drive-Reduction Theory (biological)

○ How our inner pushes and external pulls interact to drive our behaviors

■ Push factors: motivate us to get away from bad things

■ Pull factors: motivate us to work toward good things

○ Physiological needs create a tensional state that motivates an organism to satisfy

that need by doing a certain behavior

■ By doing this behavior, we should reach homeostasis

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Example Strength of Theory 👍 Weakness of Theory 👎

hungry, and then you cook yourself to reduce arousal by some motivated behaviors

something to make the feeling of meeting basic needs, increase arousal.

hunger go away. hunger, or thirst.

● Optimal Arousal Theory

○ Finding right level of stimulation

○ An organism tries to find behaviors that actually increases arousal because

everything else bores them

Example Strength of Weakness of Theory 👎

because you needed to find something to do. motivated behavior motivation to address

Another example is "Curiosity kills the cat" and may increase or our more complex social

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you just wanna try something new that excites decrease arousal. needs.

you!

● Yerkes-Dodson Law: moderate arousal can lead to optimal performance

○ Different from the optimal arousal theory

○ Focuses more on the relationship between performance and arousal

● Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

○ Based on needs

■ First level of needs focuses on fulfilling basic, physiological needs, once

they are met, the focus shifts to more cognitive and abstract needs

○ From the bottom to the top

■ Physiological needs

■ Safety

■ Belongingness

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■ Self esteem

■ Self actualization

● Reaching self-actualization is nearly impossible

● Find meaning beyond yourself

Strength of this Theory Weakness of this Theory

It incorporates the idea that we have The order of needs may change depending on

levels of various needs. the circumstance of the person.

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7.2: Specific Topics in Motivation

● Three specific motivations

○ Hunger motivation

○ Sexaul motivation

○ Social motivation

“Hunger Motivation”

● Washburn and Cannon → whenever we feel hungry, we experience stomach

contractions

○ Our body keeps track of how many calories we take in and how many we burn

● Glucose circulates through the blood and provides our bodies a major source of energy

○ Glucose level decrease → signaled and become hungry, brain triggers the

hunger in the hypothalamus

■ Lateral hypothalamus → stimulates hunger in a person

● Produce orexin

● Destroyed → never have a will to eat

■ Ventromedial hypothalamus → stimulates satiation (fullness) after eating

● Destroyed → never stop eating

○ Thyroid → regulation of metabolism

○ Pancreas → regulation of glucose in the bloodstream

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● Neurotransmitters and hormones that play role in hunger

○ Ghrelin → increases hunger, secreted by an empty stomach

○ Orexin → increases hunger, secreted by the hypothalamus

○ PYY → decreases hunger, digestive tract hormone

○ Leptin → decreases hunger, protein hormone secreted by fat cells

○ Insulin → controls glucose levels, secreted by pancreas

● Set-point theory

○ Everybody has a fixed weight

○ Weight rebound

■ Losing weight → increased hunger and lowered metabolism

○ Basal metabolic rate: measure of how much energy our body takes in while

resting and maintaining homeostasis

● Taste preferences

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○ When we think about whether or not we should eat → automatically think of food

→ triggers hunger

○ Often consume a lot of carbohydrates when we are upset → boost serotonin

○ Conditioning can alter anything including taste preferences

○ Culture tells us what food we should eat and what food we shouldn’t eat →

impacting our preferences

○ Neophobia (dislike of new foods) ---> because of ancestors

■ Not trying new, unknown foods protected them

○ Different options plays an impact on how hungry we get

“Sexual Motivation”

● Sexually motivated behavior to treat sexual disorders

● Physiological need that is affected by learning and one’s values

● Alfred Kinsey (1948) → sexual survey

○ Premarital sex → most men and ½ of women

● Sexual Response Cycle (Master’s & Johnson’s 1960s study about sex)

1. Excitement - Beginning of sexual desire

a. Blood flows to genital region

2. Plateau - Sexual desire and excitement peaks

a. Secretion increases

3. Orgasm - genitals contract causing ejaculation → sexual stimulation

a. Breathing, heart rate, and blood pressure reach their highest points

4. Resolution - body returns to an unaroused state

a. Males - refractory period → resting period

● Sexual Dysfunction

○ Unable to excite sexually

■ One experiences distress from unusual sexual interest

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■ Sexual desire entials harm to other people

“Social Motivation”

● Belonging

○ Social → increase survival of ancestors

○ Social and sense of personal control (autonomy: self-govern), high self esteem

○ Ostracism - pain of being excluded

■ Reason of immigration

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7.3: Theories of Emotion

● Emotion: response of the whole organism involving physiological arousal, expressive

behaviors, conscious experience

“Theories of Emotion”

● Helped us survival

● Common Sense Theory

○ Stimulus → Emotion → physiological response

● James-Lange Theory

○ Stimulus → Physiological response → emotion

■ Stimulus (Growling Dog) → Physiological response (increased heart rate)

→ Emotion (Fear)

● Cannon-Bard Theory

○ Stimulus → physiological response + emotion

● Schachter-Singer Theory

○ Schachter 2 Factor Theory

○ Stimulus → Physiological arousal + Cognition → Emotion

○ Stimulus → Physiological response + Thoughts → Emotion

● Zajonc-LeDoux

○ Emotions are separated from cognition on the situation

■ Emotion (anger or rage) → immediate survival/ fast pathway

■ Emotion (love) → slow pathway

● Lazarus

○ Cognition → physiological arousal and emotion

● 3 Primary Emotions (Evolution→ response for survival)

○ Fear, anger, happiness

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“Facial Expression and Emotions”

● Emotions are similar → differ in where the brain activates

○ Fear + anger → amygdala

○ Negative emotion → right prefrontal cortex

○ Positive emotions → left prefrontal cortex

● Body languages

○ We are adapted to detect nonverbal threats

○ Difficult to detect lie

■ polygraph (detect lies based on physical response)

■ fMRI → more effective

○ Women are better at reading emotions, stereotype: gentle, emotional

○ Stereotype of men: angry

● Culture

○ Paul Ekman → facial expressions are universal

■ Detect happiness, sadness, shock, and fear on people’s faces

○ Cultures differ in the amount of emotional expression

■ America + Europe → more visible emotions

● Individualistic culture

■ Asia → hide emotions

● Collectivistic culture

● Facial Feedback Effect

○ Tendency of facial muscle states to trigger corresponding feelings

■ Smiling → happiness

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7.4: Stress and Coping

“Stress”

● When one experience certain events (stressor), one feels threatened or challenged →

stress

○ Physical reaction or emotional reaction

○ Stress → not always negative feeling

■ Distress: negative stress

■ Eustress: positive stress

● Stressor

1. Catastrophes → unexpected/uncontrollable events

2. Significant Life changes → life transition

3. Daily Hassles

“Responses to Stress”

● Fight or Flight Response

○ Sympathetic nervous system

● General Adaptation Syndrome

○ Hans Selye

1. Alarm → sympathetic nervous system is activated and our body is ready

to face the stressor

2. Resistance → attempt to cope with the stressor

a. Stress hormone are released

3. Exhaustion → body begins to be vulnerable

● Dealing with Stress

○ Isolating oneself and withdrawing from society

○ Tend and befriend response → communicating with others and supporting others

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■ Women → like to bond (high oxytocin levels)

■ Men → more aggressive

● Lewin’s Motivation Conflict Theory

○ Approach-approach conflict → pick between two desirable outcomes

○ Avoidance-avoidance conflict → pick between two undesirable outcomes

○ Approach-avoidance conflict → both an attractive and undesirable outcome

○ Multiple approach-avoidance conflict → must choose between two or more things

that have both attractive and undesirable outcomes

● Stress related illness

○ Prolonged stress → “psychophysiological illnesses”: heart disease, cancer,

stroke, chronic lung disease.

○ Cortisol

■ Hormone associated with stress

■ Small amounts → benefits in the short term,

■ Long → significant health complication in health

○ Unhealthy Behaviors

■ Smoking, drinking and drugs

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7.5: Introduction to Personality

“Research Methods Used to investigate Personality”

● Case studies

● Surveys

● Personality inventories → questionnaires in which people respond to different questions

that target a wide range of feelings and behaviors → personality traits

○ MMPI (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory)

■ Emotional disorders, screening purposes

“Psychologists”

● Alfred Adler

○ neo-Freudian → expansion of Freud’s theory with Karen Horney

○ Childhood is important, however, social tension is crucial for personality

development

● Albert Bandura

○ Reciprocal determinism: person’s personality can change based on the situation

or people

● Paul Costa & Robert McCrae

○ 5 big factor trait

1. Openness: open to new experiences, creativity, flexible thinking

2. Consciousness: hard work, responsibility, organization

3. Agreeableness: easy to get along, empathy

4. Extraversion: outgoingness

5. Neuroticism: emotional stability

a. High neuroticism → nervous, depressed or anxious

● Sigmund Freud

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○ Personality set in early childhood

○ 5 psychosexual stages → development of personality

● Carl Jung

○ neo-Freudian

○ Individual’s personal unconscious contains the painful memories and thoughts

that person has

○ Collective unconscious

● Abraham Maslow

○ Humanism

○ Hierarchy of needs → individuals are motivated to achieve self actualization by

working through hierarchy

○ Positive self-concept = high self esteem

○ Individuals achieving self actualization → change in personality

● Carl Rogers

○ Humanism

○ Free-will lead to self actualization → unconditional positive regard

○ Unconditional positive regard = acceptance

○ Self actualization = self accepting personality

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7.6: Psychoanalytic Theories of Personality

“Psychoanalytic Theories”

● Psychoanalytic theories → influence of unconsciousness on personality

● Free association → explore individual’s unconscious

● The Unconscious

○ Freud → behavior is controlled by unconscious

■ Unconscious → stores all unacceptable thoughts and desires (repressed)

■ Preconscious → thoughts that can be easily assess and brought to

conscious

■ Conscious → all of the thoughts that are aware and express

○ Personality is splitted on three different parts

1. Id → storage of unconscious thoughts

a. Fulfilling sexual and aggressive drives

b. Pleasure principle → automatic gratification

c. Built by sexual and aggressive needs

2. Ego

a. Between id and the superego

b. Reality principle

c. Attempts to satisfy what the id wants

d. Without immediate gratification portion

e. Decision maker and the balance between the id and superego

3. Super ego

a. Our conscience

b. Moral value

c. Built by parents and society

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○ Psychosexual Stages

■ Case studies → we cannot generalize to the population

■ Psychosexual Stages

1. Oral → pleasure focused on the mouth (sucking, biting, chewing)

a. Oral fixation → smoking, nail biting, and gum-chewing

2. Anal → pleasure focused on the bowel

a. Anal retentive → extreme attention detail

b. Anal expulsive → opposite to anal retentive, disorganized,

careless, some sort of artistic ability

3. Phallic → pleasure focused on the genitals

a. Oedipus complex → boys feel attracted to their mother and feel

jealousy toward their father

b. Electra complex → girls feel attracted to their father and feel

jealousy toward their mother

4. Latency → no sexual feelings

5. Genital → relationships and mature sexual experiences

● Oedipus complex/electra complex → identification

● The parent becomes a role model

○ Defense Mechanism → rationalize behavior

■ Repression → eliminate the cause of anxiety

■ Regression → acting like a younger age when anxiety was not

experienced

■ Reaction formation → expressing the exact opposite emotion of what one

feels

■ Projection → taking how one feels and placing it on someone else

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■ Rationalization → making excuses for one’s situation or cause of anxiety

■ Displacement → changing the target of one’s aggression

■ Sublimation → rechanneling emotions into a socially acceptable activity

■ Denial → refusing to believe an idea that cause anxiety

■ Intellectualization → obtaining knowledge over something as a means of

having a sense of control

○ Criticisms of Freud

■ Not scientific → no empirical evidence

■ Overestimation of early childhood and sex

■ Less prediction

■ Psychologists agree with some of the defense mechanisms

“Psychodynamic Theory”

● Neo-Freudian : expansion of Freud’s ideas

● Emphasized social interactions rather than sex

● Carl Jung → unconscious plays a large role in development

○ Personal unconscious → consists of painful memories and thoughts that one

cannot confront

○ Collective unconscious → passed down through a species, inherited universal

concepts that we all share as humans “archetypes”

● Alfred Adler - conscious role of ego more than unconscious

○ Motivation comes from fear of failure, the inferiority complex

○ Superiority complex → people mask their fears of being inferior by acting

superior

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7.7: Behaviorism and Social Cognitive theories of Personality

“Social-Cognitive Theories”

● Principle of learning, cognition, social behavior

● Reciprocal Determinism

○ Albert Bandura → social learning theory (bobo doll)

○ Imitation and modeling

○ Personality can change depending on one’s thoughts, the environment, behavior

● Locus of Control → location of control (locus: single; loci: plural)

○ Internal locus of control → you can control fate

■ Healthier

○ External locus of control → fate determines you

○ Learned helplessness

■ State in which an organism has learned to resign itself to repeated

aversive events as they believe that they have no control over their lives.

● Cause of depression

● Optimism vs. Pessimism

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○ Optimistic personality → positive sides

○ Pessimistic personality → negative sides

○ Balance between two is important

● An individual

○ Self esteem → evaluation of oneself

○ Self-efficacy → ability to have confidence in compilation of task

○ Self-serving Bias → perceive oneself favorably

● Positive Psychology

○ Positive well being, positive health, positive education

○ Martin Seligman

“Behavioral Theories”

● Effect of learning on personality

○ Conditioning

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7.8: Humanistic Theories of Personality

“Humanistic theories of personality”

● Self-esteem: person’s feeling about oneself

● Self-concept: person’s global feeling about oneself

○ Positive self-concept → optimistic/positive → satisfaction

○ Negative self-concept → dissatisfaction

● Abraham Maslow

○ Hierarchy of needs → motivation and the way to reach self-actualization

○ Self-actualization - you fill your potential

■ Found a purpose beyond yourself and able to help others

“self-transcendence”

● Carl Rogers

○ growth - promoting environments

■ Genuineness

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■ Acceptance (unconditional positive regard)

■ Empathy

● Criticisms of Theories

○ Overly optimistic

○ Self-centered

“Self-concept and Culture”

1. Individualistic cultures → individual, privacy and personal achievements

2. Collectivist cultures → community and priority to groups

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7.9: Trait Theories of Personality

“Trait Theorists”

● Gordon Allport: first to describe personality through traits (patterns of behavior)

○ Cardinal Traits: traits that dominate personality

○ Central Traits: traits that form personality

○ Secondary Traits: variable traits depending on current circumstances

● Hans Eysenck

○ Nomothetic approach: basic set of traits can describe all people’s personality

■ Introversion-extraversion scale

■ Stable-unstable scale

● Isabel Myers and Katharine Briggs

○ MBTI (Myers-Brigg Type Indicator)

■ Favorite world

● Extroverted vs Introverted

■ Information

● Sensing vs. Intuition

■ Decision

● Feeling vs. Thinking

■ Structure

● Judging vs. Perceiving

● Raymond Cattel

○ 16 PF (personality factor) → 16 basic traits present in people

● Paul Costa and Rober McCrea

○ Big five personality traits

1. Openness

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2. Consciousness

3. Agreeableness

4. Extroversion

5. Neuroticism

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7.10: Measuring Personality

“Projective Tests”

● Stimuli → more than one meaning → inner thoughts through interpretation of the stimuli

○ Rorschach inkblot test

■ Not reliable

○ Thematic apperception test (TAT) → number of cards that has picture of person

or people in situation → interpretation

“Personality Inventories”

● Self-report inventories (personality inventories) → questionnaires that ask people to

provide information about themselves

○ MMPI

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