Chapter 9: Motivation
Chapter Review
Summarizing the Principles of Motivation
How Does Motivation Activate, Direct, and Sustain Behavior?1. Needs, drives, and arousal motivate behavior: Satisfying a need (a state of deficiency) motivates, with survival needs being the most motivating. According to the humanist perspective, we are compelled upwards in our needs hierarchy to achieve self-actualization. Drives are activated to satisfy needs and maintain homeostasis. Arousal affects performance, depending on the nature of the task and level of arousal.
2. Pleasure can motivate adaptive behaviors: The pleasure principle is central to motivation and pleasurable behaviors will be selected over satisfying biological needs. Satisfying pleasure needs may facilitate survival and reproduction. Dopamine activation may guide survival behaviors.
3. Some behaviors are motivated for their own sake: Extrinsically motivated behaviors emphasize external goals; intrinsically motivated behaviors are performed for their own sake, not biological needs. Curiosity, play, creativity, and problem solving are intrinsically motivated and are reduced by external reward.
Why Are Human Beings Social?
4. Humans have a fundamental need to belong: The formation of social bonds is adaptive because it aids survival and reproductive success. We experience anxiety at the prospect of rejection.
5. People seek others when they are anxious: Isolation causes anxiety and when anxious, we choose to be with others. Social comparison allows us to validate our selfperceptions.
6. People are motivated to detect and reject cheaters: A social dilemma arises when we experience a conflict between cooperating and being selfish. People act selfishly if they think others are as well, which threatens group stability. Therefore we are vigilant in detecting cheaters in the group and will stigmatize and reject them.
How Do People Achieve Personal Goals?
7. Good goals enhance confidence: Challenging, difficult, and specific goals are most productive. A sense of self-efficacy leads to success. Being motivated to achieve is a powerful influence on behavior.
8. Self-regulation requires self-awareness and delay of gratification: People use cognitive strategies to evaluate progress towards a goal. They act in accordance with their own goals when self-aware; deindividuation reduces that action. Avoiding self-awareness can lead to self-destructive behavior. Delay of gratification and self-regulatory strength are necessary to achieve goals.
9. The frontal lobes are important for self-regulation: The frontal lobes are involved in more complex tasks and therefore is involved in self-regulation. This is an adaptive function.
What Determines What We Eat?
10. Time and taste play roles: Eating schedules are conditioned. Sensory-specific satiety increases the likelihood of meeting nutritional needs during scarcity because it encourages consumption of a variety of foods but it can also account for over eating.
11. Culture determines what we eat: Specific food choices and how they are eaten are determined and vary by culture.
12. Multiple neural processes control eating: The hypothalamus influences eating behavior. Taste cues are processed in the prefrontal cortex. Receptors in the body also detect glucose and leptin levels as signals to eat.
What Is Addiction?
13. Addiction has psychological and physical aspects: Physical addiction involves the body's responses and tolerance. Psychological dependence involves habit and compulsion despite consequences.
14. People use—and abuse—many psychoactive drugs: Stimulants increase behavioral and mental activity. MDMA (ecstacy) produces energizing and hallucinogenic effects. THC (the active ingredient in marijuana) alters perception. Opiates provide high reward value by increasing dopamine activation.
15. Alcohol is the most widely abused drug: Though believed to reduce anxiety, alcohol consumption can increase anxiety and negative mood. A drinker's expectation can have significant effects on behavior.
What Factors Motivate Sexual Behavior?
16. Biological factors influence sexual behavior: The sexual response cycle includes excitement, plateau, orgasm, and resolution. Hormones determine physical development and they motivate sexual behavior. Neurotransmitters play a role in motivating sexual behavior. Women's sexual behavior varies across the menstrual cycle. Pheromones might play a role in sexual activity. Viewing erotica activates the amygdala.
17. Cultural scripts and rules shape sexual interactions: The cognitive sexual scripts inform sexual activity and are influenced by culture. A double standard of sexual behaviors exists for men verses women. Loss of virginity is culturally significant. Erotic plasticity is shaped by culture.
18. Mating strategies differ between the sexes: Female reproductive strategies revolve around intensive care of a few infants. Male strategies are less restrictive. Cross-cultural evidence support the different behaviors of males and females regarding reproductive imperatives.
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