Motivation

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Motivation

• Motivation concerns the factors that direct and
  energize the behavior of humans and other
  organisms.
• Tries to identify why people seek to do the
  things they do.

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Theories of Motivation

• Drive Theory (Hull 1943) - A drive is a state of
  unrest or irritation that energizes one behavior
  after another until one of them removes the
  irritation.
• According to Hulls drive reduction theory
  animals and humans behave so that they can reduce
  drives.
• If you are thirsty you are driven to drink
• All behavior occurs to reduce drives

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Problems with drive theory

• Most people seek variety and activity in life.
• We like a moderate amount of stimulation.
• In short we are not driven, to have no drive at
  all.
• It also ignores external stimulation.
• We are not only driven by hunger, but also by
  which foods are available.
• Cheese cake

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Homeostasis theory an addition to drive theory

• Homeostasis is the maintenance of an optimum
  level of biological conditions within an organism
• humans and animals are motivated to maintain a
  state of equilibrium, not to reduce all drive to
  zero.
• We strive to maintain an optimum body
  temperature.
• Put on or take off clothes
• shiver or sweat
• same with food and water

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Problem with homeostasis theory

• It ignores the fact that new stimuli can arouse
  motivated behaviors.
• Even if you are not hungry, you may eat to be
  sociable, or because someone has made something
  you really like, or you have never tried before.

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Incentive Theories

• Incentives are external stimuli that pull us
  toward certain actions.
• In contrast drives are internal forces that push
  us to behave in certain ways
• A tasty looking desert has appeal and draws us
  toward it regardless of whether we have a hunger
  drive

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• Most motivated behaviors are a combination of
  drives and incentives
• Thus if we are hungry we are driven to relieve
  that hunger,
• however a piece of pie may have more incentive
  (draw us more) than a piece of bread

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Intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation

• An intrinsic motivation is a motivation to engage
  in act for its own sake.
• playing the guitar or piano, playing basketball,
  painting.
• We engage in many behaviors, just because doing
  the behavior is reward enough.

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Extrinsic motivation

• Motivation based on the rewards and punishments
  that an act may bring.
• Working -- for pay
• studying -- to get the social reward of doing
  well, to avoid feeling guilty about the money you
  lost if you fail

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Most behavior probably results from a combination
of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation

• Artists paint for the intrinsic joy of
  painting, but also for money and social
  recognition that can come from painting.
• Is it always better to have a combination of
  extrinsic and intrinsic motivation?
• Are we more motivated to play the guitar if we
  get paid, than if we dont get paid?

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Greene, Sternberg and Lepper (1976)

• Mathematical games with schoolchildren
• The children seemed to enjoy them.
• After a while, they started giving rewards for
  success.
• When they took away the rewards, the children
  stopped playing the games. 
• The children had decided that they were playing
  for the reward, not for the fun
• The seven year old fly fisherman and his parents.

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Types of motivation

• Primary and secondary
• primary motivation (nature) are automatic,
  built-in processes.
• Search for food, water, and sex.
• Secondary motivations (nurture) develop as a
  result of specific learning experiences.
• Strive to get Money - associated with ability to
  get food, and other basic needs
• strive to get certain types of foods and drinks -
  cheese, coffee, beer
• strive to get certain kinds of sexual partners?

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Maslows Hierarchy of needs

• An organization of needs (motivators) from the
  most necessary and insistent to the ones that
  receive attention when all others are under
  control

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Maslows Hierarchy of needs

• Physiological needs
• food, drink, shelter
• Safety needs
• The world is organized and predictable.
• Need to feel safe secure and stable
• Paranoid schizophrenia
• Fugitive from the law
• Dangerous part of a city

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• Belongingness and love needs.
• Need to be accepted
• Need to avoid loneliness and alienation.
• Need to be loved
• Esteem needs
• Need for achievement and independence.
• Need for recognition and respect from others
• Self-actualization
• Need to live up to ones fullest and unique
  potential

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Emotion

• Emotions may be necessary for making good
  decisions
• Phineas Gage in 1848
• an explosion caused an iron railroad spike to
  shoot through his head
• damaged his prefrontal cortex
• showed little emotions
• Although he was easily provoked and combative
• lost values
• no restraint in sexual advances, or profanity
• could not carry out long-term plans

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Elliot

• Damage to prefrontal cortex to remove a tumor.
• No emotional experiences
• cannot make plans or good decisions
• perhaps his inability to make decisions, comes
  from not having emotional feedback
• how do you evaluate a good thing versus a bad
  thing if you dont feel anything when you
  consider it?

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Emotional intelligence

• The ability to perceive, imagine, and understand
  emotions and to use that information in decision
  making
• evaluating the emotional content of social
  interactions.
• A car cutting you off in traffic,
• get mad
• ignore it
• depends partially on how you interpret the
  emotionality of the situation

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Lie detection an attempt to detect the
emotionality involved in telling a lie

• The polygraph is an instrument that records
  physiological indications of sympathetic nervous
  system arousal
• blood pressure, heart rate, breathing rate,
• electrical conduction of skin (sweaty palms
  increase electrical conduction).
• The idea is that people that lie become nervous
  and will show a sympathetic response.

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Is the lie detector effective?

• 50 criminal cases,
• two suspects took the polygraph, and one later
  confessed to the crime.
• About 76 of the guilty suspects were judged to
  be lying by experts.
• However, 37 of the not guilty suspects were also
  judged as lying
• our justice system advocates avoiding
  incarceration of not guilty individuals. This
  finding illustrates why lie detectors are not
  allowed in criminal cases.
• It shows that physiological response is an
  indicator of lying ( it is just not precise
  enough)

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Theories of emotion

• First lets examine what common sense tells us.
• If you see something that scares you what
  happens?
• You see a large man wearing a hockey mask and
  holding a bloody knife approaching you
• you get scared
• your heart-rate increases and other sympathetic
  responses
• The three major theories of emotion differ from
  this interpretation

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James-Lange theory of emotions

• Proposed independently by William James and Carl
  Lange in 1884.
• A persons interpretation of a stimulus evokes
  the autonomic changes directly the emotion is a
  perception of those changes.
• See killer
• heart rate increases, and blood pressure
  increases,
• therefore I must be scared.
• It is the physiological response that determines
  what emotion you think you are experiencing

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More James-Lange

• Differences in the autonomic response will be
  subtle for many emotions,
• anxiety and happiness can have similar
  sympathetic responses
• perhaps facial responses and other physical
  responses tell us what emotion we are
  experiencing
• I am smiling and laughing I must be happy.
• Frowning and clenching my fists I must be angry
• Frowning and running I must be afraid

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A test of James-Lange

• Read comics while holding pen in teeth (similar
  to smiling).
• Or while holding pen in lips (similar to
  frowning).
• Rate how funny the comics are
• The comics were rated reliably funnier when the
  pen was held in the teeth.

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Cannon-Bard Theory of emotions

• Certain areas of the brain evaluate sensory
  information and, send one set of impulses to the
  autonomic nervous system and another set to the
  forebrain.
• The autonomic nervous system causes physiological
  changes
• The forebrain causes cognitive changes.
• These things happen in parallel.
• Neither one causes the other. They are activated
  at the same time

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may be partially true

• People with spinal core injuries do not get input
  from the autonomic system
• Can still feel the cognitive aspects of fear, and
  anger.
• However they often say their emotions are
  somewhat flattened.
• Drugs that decrease the sympathetic response
• tranquilizers cause a decrease in reports of
  anxiety.

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Schacter and Singer

• The intensity of the physiological state
  determines the intensity of the emotion, but not
  the type of the emotion.
• Cognitive appraisal of the situation tells us
  what emotion we are experiencing
• see killer
• causes physiological arousal
• I am very aroused why?
• look around and determine the situation.
• There is a killer so it must be fear

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Schacter and Singers experiment

• Inject people with epinephrine (adrenaline), but
  told it was vitamins
• causes a sympathetic response.
• Half of the subjects were told to expect
  physiological arousal, the remainder were not
  told to expect anything
• Half of the subjects from each group were divided
  into two more groups
• 1. Euphoria situation
• 2. Anger situation
• Which member of your immediate family does not
  bathe or wash regularly?
• With how many men (other than your father) has
  your mother had extramarital relationships?
• 4 or fewer
• 5-9
• 10 or more

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• If people had been told to expect a physiological
  response, they interpreted that response as an
  action of the drug.
• They did not become very euphoric or angry
• If people did not expect a physiological
  response, they interpreted that response as an
  emotional response to the situation.
• They had fun in the euphoric condition
• They got mad in the anger situation

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• This shows that it is not just the physiological
  response that determines emotion (as James-Lange
  said).
• Your cognitive appraisal of a physiological
  response determines the emotion.
• Arousal in a happy situation happy
• Arousal in a mean situation mad
• Arousal in a sad situation sad

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Try these

• Monica feels as though she is in love because she
  feels her heart race, is out of breath, and has
  shaky knees
• James - Lange
• Bill walks into a room and realizes that the gray
  shape behind the door is not a shadow but a man
  with a gun. His heart begins to race at the same
  time as he experiences the emotion of fear
• Cannon - Bard
• Rosemary notices that her palms are sweating and
  her heart is beating quickly. She looks around
  the room and sees that the teacher is handing out
  a pop quiz. So she concludes that she must be
  feeling nervous due to the quiz.
• Schacter and Singer
• After a hard night of drinking you feel sad and
  irritable, you attribute this to your room mate
  being an ass.
• This is a misattribution. I think it is
  consistent with Schacter and Singers idea.
• When we are depressed we often attribute it to
  someone, or something around us.