2. Chapter 9 Overview: Big Questions
• What Motivates Your Behavior?
• What Are Your Most Important Motivated Behaviors?
• How Do You Experience Emotions?
• How Do Emotions Affect You?
3. Chapter 9 Overview: Study Units
• 9.1 Many Factors Influence Motivation
• 9.2 Some Behaviors Are Motivated for Their Own Sake
• 9.3 Motivation to Eat is Affected by Biology
• 9.4 Motivation to Eat is Also Influenced by Learning
• 9.5 People Have a Need to Belong
• 9.6 People Have a Need to Achieve Long-Term Goals
• 9.7 Emotions Are Personal but Labeled and Described Consistently
• 9.8 Three Major Theories Explain Your Emotions
• 9.9 Your Body and Brain Influence Your Emotions
• 9.10 Your Most People Try to Regulate Their Emotional States
• 9.11 You Use Facial Expressions to Interpret Emotions
• 9.12 Your Display of Emotion Varies
• 9.13 Emotions Influence Your Thoughts
• 9.14 Emotions Strengthen Your Interpersonal Relations
4. What Motivates Your Behavior?
9.1 Many Factors Influence Motivation
9.2 Some Behaviors Are Motivated for Their Own Sake
5. 9.1 Many Factors Influence Motivation (1)
Most of the general theories of motivation emphasize
four basic qualities
1. Activating—it stimulates us to do something
2. Directive—it guides our behaviors toward
meeting specific goals or needs
3. Sustaining—it helps us sustain behaviors until
we achieve our goals or satisfy our needs
4. Differing in strength—motives will differ in
strength depending on the person and the
situation
6. 9.1 Many Factors Influence Motivation (2)
What Motivates Your Behavior? 9.1 Many Factors Influence Motivation
7. 9.1 Many Factors Influence Motivation (3)
Satisfaction of needs
• Need: A state of biological or
social deficiency (like water or
being with people)
• Need hierarchy: An
arrangement of needs, in
which basic survival needs
must be met before people can
satisfy higher needs
• Maslow’s theory is an
example of humanistic
psychology
• Self-actualization
8. 9.1 Many Factors Influence Motivation (4)
Drive reduction
• Drive: A psychological state
that, by creating arousal,
motivates an organism to
engage in a behavior to
satisfy a need
o Basic biological drives,
such as thirst and hunger,
help animals maintain a
stable condition
• A stable condition is called
equilibrium
9. 9.1 Many Factors Influence Motivation (5)
Homeostasis: Tendency for
bodily functions to remain in
equilibrium
• The set point indicates
homeostasis for the system
10. 9.1 Many Factors Influence Motivation (6)
Optimal arousal and
performance
• Arousal and performance
o Everyone is motivated to
engage in behaviors based on
their own optimal level of
arousal
• Arousal: Physiological
activation (such as increased
brain activity) or increased
autonomic responses (such
as increased heart rate,
sweating, or muscle tension)
11. 9.1 Many Factors Influence Motivation (7)
The Yerkes-Dodson law
describes the relationship
between arousal, motivation,
and performance
• This law states that
performance increases with
arousal up to an optimal
point. After that point, more
arousal will result in
decreasing performance
o A graph of this relationship
is shaped like an upside-
down U
12. 9.1 Many Factors Influence Motivation (8)
Pleasure
• Freud proposed that needs are satisfied based on the
pleasure principle.
o According to Freud, the pleasure principle motivates
people to seek pleasure and avoid pain
Incentives
• External objects or external goals, rather than internal
drives, that motivate behaviors
o Incentives affect our motivations to act in certain ways
because we have learned over time that our actions
have consequences
13. 9.2 Some Behaviors Are Motivated for Their Own Sake (1)
Intrinsic motivation
• A desire to perform an
activity because of the value
or pleasure associated with
that activity, rather than for
an apparent external goal or
purpose
Extrinsic motivation
• A desire to perform an
activity to achieve an external
goal that activity is directed
toward
14. 9.2 Some Behaviors Are Motivated for Their Own Sake (2)
Extrinsic rewards can reduce intrinsic motivation
• Self-determination theory
o In self-determination theory, people are motivated to feel good
about themselves
o People are motivated to feel successful (competence), have
personal control (autonomy), and develop personal
relationships with others (relatedness).
o Extrinsic rewards may reduce the intrinsic value of an activity
because they undermine our feeling that we are choosing to do
something for ourselves
• Self-perception theory
o In self-perception theory, we are seldom aware of our specific
motives. Instead, we make inferences about our motives
according to what seems to make the most sense
15. What Are Your Most Important Motivated
Behaviors?
9.3 Motivation to Eat Is Affected by Biology
9.4 Motivation to Eat Is Also Influenced by Learning
9.5 People Have a Need to Belong
9.6 People Have a Need to Achieve Long-Term Goals
16. 9.3 Motivation to Eat is Affected by Biology (1)
Stomach and blood chemistry
• People who have had their stomach surgically
removed due to illness continue to report feeling
hungry even though they no longer have a stomach.
• The existence of receptors in the bloodstream that
monitor levels of vital nutrients.
o One theory proposes that the bloodstream is
monitored for its glucose levels.
18. Hormones
• Insulin: A hormone, secreted by the pancreas, that
controls glucose levels in the blood
• Ghrelin: A hormone, secreted by an empty stomach,
that is associated with increasing eating behavior
based on short-term signals in the bloodstream
• Leptin: A hormone, secreted by fat cells, that is
associated with decreasing eating behavior based
on long-term body fat regulation
9.3 Motivation to Eat is Affected by Biology (3)
19. 9.3 Motivation to Eat is Affected by Biology (4)
The brain
• The hypothalamus is the brain
structure that most influences
eating.
• The ventromedial hypothalamus
is the brain region associated
with feeling full. It is like the
“off switch” for hunger; when
damaged one is constantly
hungry.
• Seeing tasty food makes a
person crave it, and this
response is associated with
activity in the limbic system.
20. 9.4 Motivation to Eat is Also Influenced by Learning (1)
Conditioned to eat
• The internal clock leads to various anticipatory
responses that motivate eating behavior and
prepare the body for digestion.
21. 9.4 Motivation to Eat is Also Influenced by Learning (2)
Familiarity and eating
preferences
• People’s avoidance of
unfamiliar foods, which may
be dangerous or poisonous,
makes evolutionary sense
and is adaptive.
• What we prefer to eat is also
determined by the ethnic,
cultural, and religious values
of our own upbringing and
experiences.
22. 9.4 Motivation to Eat is Also Influenced by Learning (3)
Flavor
• Humans have an inborn
preference for sweetness.
• Animals, including humans,
will stop eating relatively
quickly if they have just one
type of food to eat.
23. 9.4 Motivation to Eat is Also Influenced by Learning (4)
Cultural influences
• Even when people are
starving to death, they may
refuse to eat perfectly
nutritious substances
because they are culturally
unfamiliar.
24. 9.5 People Have a Need to Belong
People are motivated to form
groups
• Need to belong theory: The
need for interpersonal
attachments is a fundamental
motive that has evolved for
adaptive purposes
o Example: the movie Cast
Away
25. 9.6 People Have a Need to Achieve Long-Term Goals (1)
Achievement motivation
• Murray proposed a number of basic psychosocial needs, including
o Power
o Autonomy
o Achievement
o Play
• Achievement motivation: The need, or desire, to attain a
certain standard of excellence
• Four factors that affect our ability to achieve long-term goals
o The goals themselves
o Our sense of self-efficacy
o Our ability to delay gratification
o Grit
26. 9.6 People Have a Need to Achieve Long-Term Goals (2)
Goals affect achievement
• Challenging goals encourage effort, persistence, and
concentration
o Goals that are too easy or too hard can undermine motivation
and lead to failure
Self-efficacy affects achievement
• The expectation that your efforts will lead to success
o Goals that are challenging but not overwhelming usually are
most likely to lead to success
27. 9.6 People Have a Need to Achieve Long-Term Goals (3)
Ability to delay gratification
• The ability to delay
gratification is an indicator of
success in life
o Marshmallow study
Grit
• People with grit have a deep
passion for their goals and a
willingness to keep working
toward them, even in spite of
hardships and pitfalls
o Shown to be a significant
predictor for the grades of
colleges students
28. How Do You Experience Emotions?
9.7 Emotions Are Personal but Labeled and Described Consistently
9.8 Three Major Theories Explain Your Emotions
9.9 Your Body and Brain Influence Your Emotions
9.10 Most People Try to Regulate Their Emotional States
29. 9.7 Emotions Are Personal but Labeled and Described
Consistently (1)
Emotion
• An immediate, specific,
negative or positive response
to environmental events or
internal thoughts.
• Emotions are based on
physical, bodily responses,
affect thoughts and actions,
and are subjective.
30. Primary emotions
• Evolutionarily adaptive emotions that are shared across cultures
and associated with specific physical states; they include anger,
fear, sadness, disgust, happiness, and possibly surprise and
contempt
Secondary emotions
• Blends of primary emotions; they include remorse, guilt, shame,
submission, and anticipation
By contrast with emotions, moods are spread-out, long-lasting
emotional states that do not have an identifiable object of trigger.
9.7 Emotions Are Personal but Labeled and Described
Consistently (2)
31. Emotions are described by
valence and arousal
• Circumplex model
o Your experience of
emotions can be
categorized by a certain
degree of valence
(negative to positive) and
by a certain level of
arousal (low to high).
9.7 Emotions Are Personal but Labeled and Described
Consistently (3)
32. 9.8 Three Major Theories Explain Your Emotions (1)
James-Lange theory
• Emotions result from the
experience of physiological
reactions in the body
• Facial feedback hypothesis
o According to this hypothesis,
the muscles used to create a
facial expression trigger your
experience of emotion. (a)
When you hold a pencil this
way, your cheek muscles draw
up into a smile. (b) But when
you hold a pencil this way, the
cheek muscles draw down into
a frown. In each case, the
resulting expression affects
your emotions.
33. 9.8 Three Major Theories Explain Your Emotions (2)
Cannon-Bard theory
• Emotions and bodily
responses both occur
simultaneously due to the
ways that parts of the brain
process information
34. 9.8 Three Major Theories Explain Your Emotions (3)
Two-factor theory
• How we experience an
emotion is influenced by the
cognitive label we apply to
explain the physiological
changes we have experienced
o Misattribution of arousal
o Excitation transfer
35. 9.9 Your Body and Brain Influence Your Emotions (1)
Emotions from bodily process
• Maps of emotion represent
areas of the body that are
more active (warm colors) or
less active (cool colors) when
people consider how various
emotions make their bodies
feel. The color bar reflects the
extent of increasing activity
(yellow) or decreasing
activity (blue).
36. 9.9 Your Body and Brain Influence Your Emotions (2)
Emotions from brain processes
• The amygdala processes the emotional significance
of stimuli and generates immediate emotional and
behavioral reactions
• Information reaches the amygdala along two
separate pathways
o The first path is a “quick and dirty” system,
which processes sensory information nearly
instantaneously
o The second path is somewhat slower, but it
leads to more deliberate and thorough
evaluations
39. 9.9 Your Body and Brain Influence Your Emotions (3)
The amygdala is involved in the
perception of social stimuli
• We “read” people’s facial
expressions; the amygdala
helps us interpret them
40. 9.10 Most People Try to Regulate Their Emotional States (1)
James Gross (1999, 2013) outlined several strategies people use
to regulate their emotions:
• Thought suppression and rumination
o When we suppress negative thoughts, we are trying not to
feel or respond to the emotion at all
o Extremely difficult and often leads to a rebound effect
o Rumination involves thinking about, elaborating, and
focusing on undesired thoughts or feelings
• Positive Reappraisal
o We directly alter our emotional reactions to events by
thinking about those events in more neutral terms
41. 9.10 Most People Try to Regulate Their Emotional States (2)
Humor
• Humor has many mental and physical health benefits
o Laughter improves the immune system and stimulates the
release of hormones, dopamine, serotonin, and endorphins
o When we laugh, we experience rises in circulation, blood
pressure, skin temperature, and heart rate, along with a
decrease in pain perception
Distraction
• Involves doing or thinking about something other than the
troubling activity or thought
o Some distractions backfire as we may end up thinking about
other problems
42. How Do Emotions Affect You?
9.11 You Use Facial Expressions to Interpret Emotions
9.12 Your Display of Emotion Varies
9.13 Emotions Influence Your Thoughts
9.14 Emotions Strengthen Your Interpersonal Relations
43. 9.11 You Use Facial Expressions to Interpret Emotions (1)
Charles Darwin argued that
expressive aspects of emotion
are adaptive because they
communicate how we are
feeling.
Eyes and mouth
• We convey emotional
information by means of our
eyes and mouth
o We see faces in contexts that
give us cues about what
emotion a person is
experiencing
44. 9.11 You Use Facial Expressions to Interpret Emotions (2)
Facial expression across cultures
• Research has found general
support for cross-cultural
identification of some facial
expressions.
o Support is strongest for
happiness and weakest
for fear and disgust.
45. 9.11 You Use Facial Expressions to Interpret Emotions (2)
Facial expression of pride are
innate
• Researchers found that
isolated populations with
minimal Western contact
accurately identify the
physical signs of pride. These
signs include
o A smiling face
o Raised arms
o An expanded chest
o A pushed-out torso
46. 9.12 Your Display of Emotion Varies
Display rules indicate what
emotions to show
Display rules
• Rules that are learned
through socialization and that
dictate what emotions are
suitable in certain situations
o From culture to culture,
display rules tend to be
different for women and
men.
47. 9.13 Emotions Influence Your Thoughts (1)
Emotions affect decision making
and judgements
• Affect-as-information
theory: People use their
current moods to make
decisions, judgments, and
appraisals, even if they do not
know what caused their
emotions.
48. 9.13 Emotions Influence Your Thoughts (2)
Decision making
• Emotions influence our decision making in different
ways.
o Anticipating how different choices might make us
feel can serve as a guide in decision making.
Emotion affects judgments
• In a study, people in good moods rated their lives as
satisfactory, whereas people in bad moods gave
lower overall ratings.
49. 9.14 Emotions Strengthen Your Interpersonal Relations
Guilt strengthens social bonds
• A negative emotional state associated with anxiety,
tension, and agitation
o Excessive feelings of guilt may have negative
consequences.
o There is evidence that socialization is more
important than biology in determining
specifically how children experience guilt.
50. 9.14 Emotions Strengthen Your Interpersonal Relations (2)
Embarrassment and blushing
• People feel embarrassed after
violating a cultural norm,
doing something clumsy,
being teased, or experiencing
a threat to their self-image.
• Blushing occurs most often
when people believe others
might view them negatively
and communicates an
understanding that some
type of social awkwardness
has occurred.
