Chapter 9:

Motivation and
Emotion
 Motivation
• Dynamics of behavior that
initiate, sustain, direct, and
terminate actions
 A Model of Motivational
Activities
• Model of how motivated
activities work
• Need: Internal deficiency;
causes
• Drive: Energized motivational
state (e.g., hunger, thirst);
activates a…
• Response: Action or series of
actions designed to attain a…
• Goal: Target of motivated
 Types of Motives

• Primary Motive: Innate

(inborn) motives based on
biological needs we must
meet to survive
• Stimulus Motive: Innate
needs for stimulation and
information
• Secondary Motive: Based
on learned needs, drives,
 More Terms
• Homeostasis: Body
equilibrium; balance
• Circadian Rhythm: Cyclical
changes in bodily function
and arousal levels that vary
on a schedule approximating
a 24 hour day
Hunger: Whopper Anyone?
• Hypothalamus: Brain
structure; regulates many
aspects of motivation and
emotion, including hunger,
thirst, and sexual behavior
• Lateral Hypothalamus: If
turned on, an animal will begin
eating; if destroyed, an animal
will never eat again!
• Ventromedial Hypothalamus:
Stops eating behavior
More on Eating Behavior
(Hungry Yet?)
• Paraventricular Nucleus:
Part of hypothalamus;
keeps blood sugar levels
steady by starting and
stopping eating
• Neuropeptide Y (NPY):
Substance in the brain that
initiates eating
• Glucagon-like Peptide 1
(GLP-1): Substance in brain
 Set Point (For fat)
• Proportion of body fat that is
maintained by changes in
hunger and eating; point
where weight stays the same
when you make no effort to
gain or lose weight
More on Eating Behavior

• Leptin: Substance released

by fat cells that inhibits
eating
• External Eating Cues:
External stimuli that tend
to encourage hunger or
elicit eating; these cues
may cause you to eat even
if you are stuffed (like
 Behavioral Dieting

• Weight reduction based on

changing exercise and
eating habits and not on
temporary self-starvation
• Some keys
– Start with a complete
physical
– Exercise
 Behavioral Dieting
Continued
• Observe yourself, keep an
eating diary, and keep a
chart of daily progress
• Eat based on hunger, not on
taste or learned habits that
tell you to always clean your
plate
• Avoid snacks
 Eating Disorders: Anorexia
Nervosa
Film: Dying to be Thin
• Active self-starvation or
sustained loss of appetite
that seems to have
psychological origins
– Control issues seem to be
involved
– Very difficult to effectively
treat
– Affects adolescent females
 Eating Disorders:
Bulimia Nervosa
(Binge-Purge Syndrome)
• Excessive eating (gorging)
usually followed by self-
induced vomiting and/or
taking laxatives
– Difficult to treat
– Prozac and Zoloft
approved by FDA to treat
bulimia nervosa
Causes of Anorexia Nervosa
and Bulimia Nervosa
• Anorectics and bulimics
have exaggerated fears of
becoming fat; they think
they are fat when the
opposite is true!
• Bulimics are obsessed with
food and weight; anorectics
with perfect control
• Anorectics will often be put
 Thirst and Pain
• Extracellular Thirst: When water
is lost from fluids surrounding
the cells of the body
– Drink slightly salty liquid to
“quench”
• Intracellular Thirst: When fluid is
drawn out of cells because of
increased concentration of salts
and minerals outside the cell
– Best satisfied by drinking water
• Pain Avoidance: An episodic drive
 Sex Drive
• Estrus: Changes in animals
that create a desire for sex;
females in heat
• Estrogen: A female sex
hormone
• Androgens: Male hormones
 Human Sexual Response:
Masters and Johnson
• Sexual response can be divided
into four phases that occur in the
following order:
– Excitement: Initial signs of
sexual arousal
– Plateau: Physical arousal
intensifies
– Orgasm: Climax and release of
sexual excitement
 Sexual Script
• Unspoken mental plan that
defines plot, dialogue, and
actions expected to occur in
a sexual encounter
 Erogenous Zones
• Areas of the body that
produce pleasure and/or
provoke erotic desires
(genitals, breasts, etc.)
 Sexual Behavior and
Orientation
• Sexual Orientation: Degree of
emotional and erotic attraction
to members of the same sex,
opposite sex, or both sexes
– Heterosexual: Attracted
romantically and erotically to
the opposite sex
– Homosexual: Attracted
romantically and erotically to
the same sex
– Bisexual: Attracted
 Sexual Problems
• Desire Disorders: Person has
little or no sexual motivation
or desire
• Arousal Disorders: Person
desires sexual activity but
does not get sexually aroused
• Orgasm Disorders: Person
does not have orgasms, or
experiences orgasm too soon
or too late
• Sexual Pain Disorders: Person
 Stimulus Drives
• Reflect needs for
information, exploration,
manipulation, and sensory
input
• Yerkes-Dodson Law: If a
task is simple, it is best
for arousal to be high; if it
is complex, lower levels of
arousal provide for the
 How to Cope With Test
Anxiety
• Preparation
• Relaxation
• Rehearsal
• Restructuring thoughts
 Sensation Seeking
• Trait of people who prefer
high levels of stimulation
(e.g., skydivers)
 Learned Motives
• Social Motives: Acquired
by growing up in a
particular society or
culture
• Need for Achievement
(nAch): Desire to excel,
or to meet some internal
standard of excellence
• Class Exercise:
– nAch Need For
Achievement
Handout
H40-50 M20-40 L10-
20
 Abraham Maslow’s
Hierarchy of Human Needs
• Maslow’s ordering of
needs based on presumed
strength or potency; some
needs are more powerful
than others and thus will
influence your behavior to
a greater degree
 Maslow’s Needs
• Basic Needs: First four
levels of needs in Maslow’s
hierarchy
– Lower needs tend to be
more potent than higher
needs
• Growth Needs: Higher-level
needs associated with self-
actualization
 Types of Motivation
• Intrinsic Motivation:
Motivation coming from
within, not from external
rewards; based on personal
enjoyment of a task
• Extrinsic Motivation: Based
on obvious external
rewards, obligations, or
similar factors (e.g., pay,
grades)
 Emotions
• State characterized by
physiological arousal and
changes in facial
expressions, gestures,
posture, and subjective
feelings
• Adaptive Behaviors: Aid
our attempts to survive
and adjust to changing
conditions
 Physiological Changes
• Include changes in heart
rate, blood pressure,
perspiration, and other
involuntary bodily responses
• Adrenaline: Hormone
produced by adrenal glands
that arouses the body
 Emotional Expression
• Outward signs of what a
person is feeling
– Emotional Feelings:
•Private emotional
experience
 Plutchik’s First Four
Primary Emotions (2003)

• Most basic emotions are:

– Fear
– Surprise
– Sadness
– Disgust
 Plutchik’s Last Four
Primary Emotions
– Anger
– Anticipation
– Joy
– Acceptance (Trust)
 Brain and Emotion
• Autonomic Nervous System
(ANS): Neural system that
connects brain with
internal organs and glands
• Sympathetic Branch: Part
of ANS that activates body
for emergency action
• Parasympathetic Branch:
Part of ANS that quiets
body and conserves energy
– Parasympathetic
 Lie Detectors
• Polygraph: Device that
records changes in heart
rate, blood pressure,
respiration, and galvanic skin
response (GSR); lie detector
– GSR: Measures sweating
Categories of Lie Detector
Questions
• Irrelevant Questions: Neutral,
emotional questions in a
polygraph test
• Relevant Questions: Questions
to which only someone guilty
should react by becoming
anxious or emotional
• Control Questions: Questions
that almost always provoke
anxiety in a polygraph (e.g.
“Have you ever taken any
 Body Language (Kinesics)

• Study of communication
through body movement,
posture, gestures, and facial
expressions
• Facial Blends: Mix of two or
more basic expressions
 Three Types of Facial
Expressions
• Pleasantness-
Unpleasantness: Degree to
which a person is
experiencing pleasure or
displeasure
• Attention-Rejection: Degree
of attention given to a
person or object
• Activation: Degree of
 Theories of
Emotion
James-Lange Theory
• Emotional feelings follow bodily
arousal and come from awareness of
such arousal
Cannon-Bard Theory
• The thalamus (in brain) causes emotional
feelings and bodily arousal to occur at the
same time
Schachter’s Cognitive Theory
• Emotions occur when a label is applied to
general physical arousal
 Attribution

• Mental process of
assigning causes to
events; attributing
arousal to a certain source
Facial Feedback Hypothesis

• Sensations from facial

expressions help define
what emotion a person
feels
A Modern View of Emotion

• Emotional Appraisal:
Evaluating personal
meaning of a stimulus
• Emotional Intelligence:
Combination of skills,
including empathy, self-
control, self-awareness,
sensitivity to feelings of
 Elements of Emotional
Intelligence
Video: Edutopia/Overview
• Self-awareness
• Managing emotions
• Understanding emotions
• Using emotion
• Emotional flexibility