PSYC1001 Lecture Notes - Lecture 19: Animal Cognition, Exaptation, Electrodermal Activity
12 Jun 2018
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Definition of Motivation
Theories of Motivation
Examples of Specific Motivation
Emotion
DEFINITION OF MOTIVATION
Concerns of why do we behave in the ways we do
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Hunger
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Thirst
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Salt –our lives are designed in a way that we crave minerals/nutrients in our diet
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Air – we become motivated when we can’t breathe
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Achievement
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Power
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Affiliation
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Aggression
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Fear
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Sex
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Motivation includes
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Motivation of the four F’s - Feeding, fighting, fear and fucking
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The force that moves organisms to behave as they do
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A force or urge that may not result in behaviour
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But this force may not produce overt behaviour because of a conflict of two motivations at the moment
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Approach motivation: impulse to move toward a stimulus
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Avoidance motivation: impulse to move away from a stimulus
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Has a direction
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From 0 to high level
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Strength of urge
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Has an intensity
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Related to behaviour but not the same as behaviour
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Often possess conflicting motivations
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The above is often resolved in self-control –may require choosing long term goal over short term goal
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Partially voluntary
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May be more difficult to put into words than many other psychological states
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We think we know why we did what we did à but often we don’t, explanations given by ourselves are
rationalized to make us appear in best light to ourselves or others
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Subject to rationalization
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Can be conscious or below awareness
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Approach emotions: desire, interest, anger (ironic – we don’t want to feel it but we want to go towards it
to destroy it)
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Avoidance emotions: fear, disgust
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Emotion provides the force behind motivation
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Closely related to emotion
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Definition: Motivation
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THEORIES OF MOTIVATION
Evolutionary approach
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Instincts: unlearned responses to stimuli that are universal throughout a species
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Adaptive: assumes that organisms are motivated to engage in behaviours that help them to pass on their
genes (reproductive success)
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Humans possess a high degree of flexibility of behaviour –not everything is related to adaptive mechanisms;
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Charles Darwin
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Biology applied to psychology
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7B - Motivation and Emotion (Jones)
Sunday, June 3, 2018
9:25 PM
PSYCH 1001 Page 1
