PSYC 100 Chapter 11.1, 11.3-11.4: PSYC 100 Motivation and Emotion

• School: Queen's University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 100
• Professor: Jordan Poppenk

Document Summary

Describe the terms motivation and drive and differentiate between regulatory and nonregulatory drives. Describe the reward systems and mechanisms in the brain. Evaluate theories of motivation for their ability to explain how and why we eat. Motivation is defined as internal and external desires, needs, and interests to arouse and activate organisms in order to achieve a specific goal. Motivational states are energizing and are referred to as drives, which are reversible internal conditions that push people towards their goals. Drives can be classified as regulatory or non regulatory. Motivational states seek reward and behaviours are reinforced by pleasure. Regulatory drives come from hunger, thirst, thermoregulation, and sleep. They maintain physiological homeostasis and aid immediate survival, and originate from the hypothalamus. It instead aids our long-term survival and our offspring. The reward system is thought to reinforce behaviours reducing drives. It is located in the limbic system and areas in the basal forebrain.