Motivation and

Emotion
MOTIVATION
• 1. Why did you sign up to take a law program?
• 2. How does it feel when you do your best?
• 3. If we know we are going to feel good when we do our
best; then why don’t we do our best all of the time? Or
more often?
• 4. What is motivation?
• 5. Do you think that our motivation changes as we age?
• 6. Besides money, what motivates adults to go to work?
 Motivation
a need or desire that energizes
and directs behavior* or
Is what (feelings or ideas)
drives us to seek a specific goal
Motives-what drives behavior
and accounts for why we do
what we do.
• Instinct—motives are innate
• Drive—biological needs as motivation
• Incentive—extrinsic things push or pull behavior
• Arousal—people are motivated to maintain optimum level of
arousal
• Humanistic—hierarchy of needs
  -In the early 1900’s, psychologists followed the instinct theory,
but today it is referred to as the evolutionary theory.
 Instinct -
Is an un-learned, complex behavior that has a fixed patterned
throughout a species.
• Instinct theory grew as the result of the popularity of Charles
Darwin’s evolutionary theory.
• Psychologists began to believe that genes predispose a species
typical behavior.
• For example: an infant’s sucking & rooting reflexes or
imprinting in birds.
 Instinct theory was replaced by drive-reduction theory:
 the idea that a physiological need creates an aroused tension state (a
drive) that motivates an organism to satisfy the need.
• A NEED is defined as one of our requirements for survival. (food, water or
shelter)
• A DRIVE is our impulse to act in a way to satisfy this need. A state of
tension is created from an internal imbalance.
• Most physiological needs create psychological states that drive us to reduce
or satisfy those needs.

Need Drive-reducing
Drive
(e.g., for behaviors
(hunger, thirst)
food, water) (eating, drinking)
 The aim of Drive reduction theory is:
Homeostasis
 the tendency to maintain a balanced or constant
internal state.
Drives are categorized in 2 ways:
Primary Drives – biological needs
Secondary Drives –are learned drives (money)
The problem with this theory is that it does not explain all our
motivations, such as the need for excitement or speed.
• We are motivated by seeking an optimum level of excitement or
arousal. We are driven by the need to explore, to satisfy our
curiosity.
• Each of us has an optimum level of stimulation that we like to
maintain.
• DESCRIBES THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PERFORMANCE &
AROUSAL.
• In general arousal will increase performance up to a point, after
which further arousal will impair performance.
• Optimal arousal changes with the the difficulty of the task.
Describes the relationship between
performance & arousal.
 Incentive
a positive or negative environmental stimulus that
motivates behavior
Behavior is not pushed by a need but pulled by a
desire for achievement.
 We are motivated to seek the rewards.
We are attracted to particular goals or motives.
• Abraham Maslow (1908-1970) was a humanistic
psychologist. Humanists focus on fulfilling one’s
potential.
• Humans strive for personal growth..that basic needs
must be satisfied before moving on to the next level.
• Maslow believed that not all needs are created
equal.
• He described a hierarchy of needs that predicts
which needs we are motivated to satisfy first.
• Clayton Alderfer reworked Maslow's Need Hierarchy to align it more
closely with empirical research. Alderfer's theory is called the ERG theory –
• Existence, Existence refers to our concern with basic material existence
requirements; what Maslow called physiological and safety needs.
• Relatedness, Relatedness refers to the desire we have for maintaining
interpersonal relationships; similar to Maslow's social/love need, and the
external component of his esteem need.
• Growth-Growth refers to an intrinsic desire for personal development; the
intrinsic component of Maslow's esteem need, and self-actualization
• Alderfer's ERG theory differs from Maslow's Need Hierarchy insofar as ERG
theory demonstrates that more than one need may be operative at the
same time.
• ERG theory does not assume a rigid hierarchy where a lower need must
be substantially satisfied before one can move on.
• According to David McClelland, regardless of culture or
gender, people are driven by three motives:

• achievement,

• affiliation, and

• Power.
8. EXPECTANCY THEORY:
• A class of subjective
feelings elicited by
stimuli that have high
significance to an
individual
• stimuli that produce high
arousal generally
produce strong feelings
• are rapid and automatic
• emerged through natural
selection to benefit
survival and
reproduction
• Fear, surprise, anger, disgust,
happiness, sadness
• Basic emotions are innate and ―hard-
wired‖
• Complex emotions are a blend of
many aspects of emotions
• Classified along two dimensions
• Pleasant or unpleasant
• Level of activation or arousal associated
with the emotion
• Sympathetic nervous system
is aroused with emotions
(fight-or-flight response)
• Different emotions stimulate
different responses
• Fear—decrease in skin
temperature (cold-feet)
• Anger—increase in skin
temperature (hot under the
collar)
Amygdala
• evaluates the significance of stimuli
and generates emotional
responses
• generates hormonal secretions and
autonomic reactions that
accompany strong emotions
• Direct connection to thalamus
allows for rapid reaction to
potentially dangerous situations
• Each basic emotion is
associated with a unique
facial expression
• Facial expressions are
innate and ―hard-wired‖
• Innate facial expressions
the same across many
cultures
• Display rules—social and
cultural rules that regulate
emotional expression,
especially facial
expressions.
• James-Lange: Emotional feelings follow bodily arousal and
come from awareness of such arousal
• Schachter’s Cognitive Theory Emotions occur when physical
arousal is labeled or interpreted on the basis of experience
and situational cues
• Cannon-Bard Theory Activity in the thalamus (in brain)
causes emotional feelings and bodily arousal at the same
time
• Polygraph: Device that
records changes in
heart rate, blood
pressure, respiration,
and galvanic skin
response (GSR); lie
detector
• GSR: Measures
sweating
(a) A typical polygraph includes
devices for measuring heart rate,
blood pressure, respiration, and
galvanic skin response. Pens mounted
on the top of the machine make a
record of bodily responses on a
moving strip of paper.

(b) Changes in the area marked by the

arrow indicate emotional arousal. If such
responses appear when a person
answers a question, he or she may be
lying, but other causes of arousal are
also possible.