Introduction to Motivation And Emotion

Question 1

What does it mean that the study of motivation and emotion is a behavioural science?

Answer 1

• Require objective, data-based empirical evidence
• Does not accept famous quotes

Question 2

What does motivation reasearch focus on?

Answer 2

• Construct theories about how motivational processes work
• Two questions; what causes behavior and why does behavior differ in intensity

Question 3

What causes behavior?

Answer 3

• Fundamental question, “why did she do that?”
• Tough question to answer, divides it into 5 other questions
• Elaborated into initiation, persistence, change, goal directedness and eventuall termination

Question 4

What causes behavior - 5 different questions

Answer 4

• Why does it start?
  Fundamental start, why does it continues?
• Why sustained over time?
• Direction towards certain goals over others?
• Change in direction?
• Why does it stop?

Question 5

What causes behavior - First essential problem

Answer 5

• Difficult to explain and understand how motivation affect behavior
• Motivation also influence thoughts, feelings, dreams and aspirations

Question 6

In what ways can behavior intensity differ?

Answer 6

• Within the individual, different goals
  High/Low effort, Strong/Fragile persistence
• Between individuals, same goals
• Different one day/week to another
  Fluctuates over time

Question 7

Behavior Intensity - Second Essential problem

Answer 7

To understand how an individuals behavior in intensity from one moment to another and how it differs in between people
- How to measure that to get the full picture?

Question 8

Whats the point of a motivation theory?

Answer 8

• Explain what gives behavior its energy and direction
• Their internal processes

Question 9

What does energy imply?

Answer 9

• That behavior has strenght
  Strong, intense and persistent

Question 10

What does direct imply?

Answer 10

• Behavior has purpose
  Guidance toward something

Question 11

Where does the forces come from that energize and direct behavior?

Answer 11

• Internal experiences
  Needs, cognitions and emotions
• External events
  Enviromental, social and cultural offering

Question 12

What is internal motives?

Answer 12

A process that happens inside your body

Question 13

What types of internal motives are there?

Answer 13

• Needs
  Essential and necessary for living and growing, conditions within individual
• Cognition
  Mental events such as thought, beliefs, expectations etc
• Emotions
  Helps us anticipate and adapt to events in our life, brief bursts of behavior

Question 14

What types of external evens are there?

Answer 14

Different types of sources for motivations
- Specific stimuli
- Events
General events and surrounding climate
- Avoidance or energizing

Question 15

What are the ways you can express/measure motivation?

Answer 15

• Behavior
• Engagement
• Psychophysiology
• Brain Activity
• Self-report

Question 16

How can you express motivation in behavior and its pros/cons

Answer 16

What the person puts their attention to and how much effort, latency in behavior, persistence and what the choice to do
- Facial expression
- Bodily gestures
- Infer presence and intensity of another persons motivation

+ Tangible evidence, put in natural setting and gives practical insight
- External factors, cant see intrinsic motivation and observer bias

Question 17

Express motivation through Engagement, and its pros/cons

Answer 17

To show intensity, what are the emotions involved, how they express and participates in conversations and cognition.
+ Similar to Behavior, real time feedback and different settings
- Subjectivity from observer, hard to generalise, underlying motivation and context

Question 18

Express motivation - Physiology and Brain activity

Answer 18

• Biological underpinnings of motivational and emotional states
• fMRIS, BT, pulse, breathing etc

+ Object data, ANS, neurobiological data, noninvasive and real time
- Expensive, limitations with spatial and temporal data, no subject data, no internal info, differences between individuals

Question 19

Express motivation - Self-report

Answer 19

• Often from questionnaire or interview
  + Easy to get administer, subjectivity and qualitative data
• People sometimes says one thing and does another
• Mismatch between what people say and how their body physiologically react

Question 20

How can circumstances influence motivation?

Answer 20

• Various aspects of environment
  Attention, physiological needs
• Previous experiences
  What type of action will we do now

Question 21

What is motivation?

Answer 21

• A dynamic process
  Changing, rising and falling
• Different types of motives influence our motivation, but heavily depends on or social context
• Seldom one type of motivation at one time
• It has approach and avoidance tendencies
• Energizes, direct and sustain behavior

Question 22

What is an emotion? - Historical Perspective

Answer 22

• Platos: dualism of rationality and passion, need to control passion
• Passions are a disturbance
• Emotions are important to us (19th century)

Question 23

What is an emotion - Modern Perspective

Answer 23

• Evaluative - consciously and not
• Physiological - arousal
• Phenomenological - subjectivity
• Expressive - mimic
• Behavioral - serves a function
• Mental - attention
• Short-lived compared to mood

Question 24

What are the components to emotion

Answer 24

• Feelings
• Bodily arousal
• Sense of purpose
• Social-Expressive

Question 25

Components Emotions - Feelings

Answer 25

• Subjective
• Awareness
• Cognition

Question 26

Components Emotions - Bodily Arousal

Answer 26

• A physiological activation
• Preparedness
• Motor Responses

Question 27

Components Emotions - Sense of Purpose

Answer 27

• Goal directed motivational state
• Functional aspect

Question 28

Components Emotions - Social Expressive

Answer 28

• Social Communication
• Facial Expression
• Vocal Expression

Question 29

Affect

Answer 29

• Arousal + valance (positive vs negative)
• What’s the context?

Question 30

Feeling

Answer 30

The conscious subjective experience of emotions

Question 31

Mood

Answer 31

A state of mind, often low in intensity
- Longer periods of time
- Not conditional to environment

Question 32

What causes us to feel things?

Answer 32

• Within us or around us?
• Contextualism vs Mechanism
• Two system view; biology + cognition
• Chicken-Egg race
• Complex process

Question 33

What is contextualism?

Answer 33

• Emotion and other psychological phenomena can only be understood in the context in which it occurs (Lazarus)
• Seldom any general explanations on how things work, often generalized in context
• Contextual factors cause and create emotions

Question 34

Contextual variables/factors

Answer 34

Demands of the environment, personal constraints, resources and personality

Question 35

What is Mechanism?

Answer 35

• Emotions are caused by our biology and structures in our mind
• Focus on universal structures(emotional components) and processes (functions)

Question 36

What is the relation between emotion and motivation?

Answer 36

• Emotion is a type of motive
  Triggering appropriate behavior
• Readout system to indicate how well/poorly something is going

Question 37

What does it mean that human behavior is multi-motivated?

Answer 37

• Several needs at once, what do we prioritize?
• Different types of motivation at once
• Social context influence the motivation
• Mindset
• Personality