Motivation

A Model of Motivational Activities

• What is “motivation”?• Motivation is a reason or set or reasons for engaging in a

particular behavior.

• 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 behavior

• Incentive Value: Goal’s appeal beyond its ability to fill a need

So what are those “needs”

• Physiological = needs necessary for survival (e.g. oxygen, food)

• Psychological = social needs acquired through experience

Can we rank our needs?

Maslow believed that lower needs in the hierarchy are dominant. Basic needs must be satisfied before growth motives are fully expressed.

How do we explain motivation?

Sensation Seeking

• Sensation Seeking: Trait of people who prefer high levels of stimulation (e.g., the contestants on “Eco-Challenge” and “Fear Factor”)

• 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 best performance

Sensation Seeking ScaleHow sensation seeking are you?

1. A 2. A3. A4. B5. A6. B7. A8. A 9. B10. A11. A12. A13. B

Circle your answer if it matches the letters to the left.

Count the number of circles.

Higher numbers mean higher sensation seeking

Delaying “needs”

• Delaying Gratification

Which would you prefer…

$500 now, or $1000 next year

Hunger

• Food selection based on taste• Some taste preferences are present at birth.• Humans and mammals prefer the taste of fat.• Temporary taste cravings are reported by most people on

occasion, and most are difficult to explain.• Preference for familiar foods

• The human taste sense is uniform among all people, but people from different parts of the world exhibit different taste preferences.

• People’s food preferences are heavily influenced by familiarity.• Cuisine is one of the most stable and defining features of any

culture.

Figure 11.6 For most people, weight fluctuates around a set point, the way a diving board bounces up and down from a central position.

In Walter Cannon’s early study of hunger, a simple apparatus was used to simultaneously record hunger pangs and stomach contractions.

Eating Too Much or Too Little

• Obesity is a serious health risk because it increases the individual’s risk of:

• Diabetes• Coronary diseases• Some types of cancer• Sleep apnea

• Obesity tends to run in families. Genes play a role but they are not the only cause.

• The dramatic increase in obesity in the United States over the past 50 years has been linked to lifestyle factors.

• Shedding excess pounds lowers the risk of health problems such as diabetes and heart disease.

• The most effective weight control programs involve:• Improving nutritional knowledge.• Decreasing caloric intake.• Exercising.• Changing eating habits.• Eating more fresh fruits and vegetables.• Cutting down on butter, margarine, oils, and sugar.

Eating Too Much or Too Little

In a study by Fallon and Rozin (1985), women and men were asked which figure they considered most attractive and which figure they believed the opposite sex considered most attractive. Each sex misestimated the other’s preferences.

Eating Disorders: Anorexia Nervosa

• Active self-starvation or sustained loss of appetite that seems to have psychological origins

• A life threatening eating disorder characterized by:• Extreme fear of being too heavy.• Dramatic weight loss.• Distorted body image.• Resistance to eating enough to maintain a healthy weight.

• Afflicts: • Women during adolescence and young adulthood.• European American females of higher socioeconomic status.• Increase in numbers in recent years.

• Risks: • Mortality rate is approximately 5%.• Osteoporosis.

Eating Disorders: Bulimia Nervosa

• Excessive eating usually followed by self-induced vomiting and/or taking laxatives• Difficult to treat• Prozac approved by FDA to treat bulimia nervosa

• Characterized by recurrent cycles of binging and purging.• Purging can include:

• vomiting, • strict dieting,• fasting, • laxatives, and • prolonged exercise.

• Masters and Johnson – 1960’s

Sex

Pattern A, which culminates in orgasm and resolution, is the ideal sequence for both sexes, but not something one can count on. Pattern B, which involves sexual arousal without orgasm followed by a slow resolution, is seen in both sexes but is more common among womenPattern C, which involves multiple orgasms, is seen almost exclusively in women, as men go through a refractory period before they are capable of another orgasm.

• Large-scale surveys• Kinsey – first one, large, not representative• Later surveys more accurate…

Sex

The gender gap in desire for a variety of sexual partners. Buss and Schmitt (1993) asked college students about how many sexual partners they ideally would like to have for various time intervals ranging up to one’s entire lifetime. As evolutionary theorists would predict, males are interested in having considerably more partners than females.

How many sexual partners would you ideally like to have?

Parental investment theory and mating preferences. Parental investment theory suggests that basic differences between males and females in parental investment have great adaptive significance and lead to gender differences in mating tendencies and preferences, as outlined here.

The gender gap in how much people think about sex. This graph summarizes data on how often males and females think about sex, based on a large-scale survey by Laumann, Gagnon, and Michaels (1994). As evolutionary theorists would predict, based on parental investment theory, males seem to manifest more interest in sexual activity than their female counterparts.

How often do you think about sex?

Sexual Orientation

Work

• The need for achievement is a striving for accomplishment and excellence.• People tend to describe this in themselves in terms of

the extrinsic motivation involved – the attainment of rewards.

• There is also an intrinsic need for achievement, the accomplishment of goals for their own sake.

Goal-Setting Theory

• What are the pros and cons of establishing goals at school?

• Would setting goals before you start influence your effort invested?• In your job?• In school?

• What kind of goals would you set?

• How difficult should goals be?

Assessing Motivation

• Henry Murray developed the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT).

• TAT contains cards with pictures and drawings that are subject to various interpretations.

• Subjects are to construct stories about the picture.

This picture is similar to a Thematic Apperception Test card used to measure the need for achievement. What is happening in this picture? What is the person thinking and feeling? What is going to happen? Your answers to these questions reflect your own needs as well as the content of the picture itself.

Job Design

• Should jobs be designed to be challenging and interesting, or simple and foolproof?• According to the scientific-management approach,

or Theory X, most employees are lazy, indifferent and not creative. Work should be easy to perform and strictly supervised.

• According to the human-relations approach, or Theory Y, employees crave a sense of responsibility, variety of tasks, and a feeling of accomplishment.