Motivation, Emotion, and Stress

Saad Almoshawah Ph.D

Motivation

psychologists have always had A strong interest in trying to determine why people do the things they do. What made the life-styles of Donald Trump and Sam Walton so different? What motivated them? More importantly, what motivates us?

Motives can arise from an internal need, such as when we are hungry and are motivated to find something to eat.

Other motives originate from outside ourselves, aswhen some external stimulus or incentive pulls or entices us to act. After finishing a huge meal, some people yield to the temptation of a delicious dessert

Motivation Definition

Motivation is defined as arousal associated with a specific goal. In the learning process, the motive determines the goal to be activated and the direction behavior associated with that goal will take.

Since motivation and reinforcement are closely related, theories of reinforcement help to explain motivation.

Do we do the things we do because of our inherent nature the inborn, biological urges that push us from within?

Do we act because of the incentives that pull us from without?

Motivation Theories

Obviously both forces influence us, but theories of motivation differ in the relative power they attribute to each. The most thoroughly biological theories of motivation are the instinct theories.

Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation

Intrinsic motivation: An activity is pursued as an end in itself because it is enjoyable and rewarding. For example, A person anonymously donates a large sum of money to a university to fund scholarships for hundreds of deserving students.

Extrinsic motivation: An activity is pursued to gain an external reward or to avoid an undesirable consequence, A child reads two books each week to avoid losing television privileges.

Drive-Reduction Theory: Striving to Keep a BalancedInternal State

According to Hull (1943) all living organisms have certain biological needs that must be met if they are to survive. A need gives rise to an internal state of tension or arousal called a drive, and we are motivated to reduce it. For example, when we are deprived of food or go too long without water, our biological need causes a state of tension, in this case the hunger or thirst drive. We become motivated to seek food or water to reduce the drive and satisfy our biological need.

Drive-reduction theory is derived largely from the biological concept of homeostasis—the tendency of the body to maintain a balanced, internal state in order to insure physical survival. Body temperature, blood sugar, water balance, oxygen in short, everything required for physical existence must be maintained in a state of equilibrium, or balance. When this state is disturbed, a drive created to restore the balance. But drive theory cannot fully account for the broad range of human motivation.

Why do people seek activities that actually create a state of tension, horror movies, or bungee-jumping sky diving?

Arousal Theory: Striving for an Optimal Levelof Arousal

How does arousal theory explain motivation? Arousal theory can answer some of the puzzling questions

that drive-reduction theory cannot answer. Arousal refers to a person's state of alertness and mental and physical activation. It ranges from no arousal (as in the comatose), to moderate arousal (when we are pursing normal day-to-day activities), to high arousal (when we are excited and highly stimulated).

Unlike drive reduction theories, arousal theory does not suggest that we are always motivated to reduce arousal or tension. Arousal theory states that we are motivated to maintain an optimal level of arousal. If arousal is less than the optimal level, we do something to stimulate it; if arousal exceeds the optimal level, we seek to reduce the stimulation.

Biological needs, such as the needs for food and water, increase our arousal. But we also become aroused when we encounter new stimuli or when the intensity of stimuli is increased, as with loud noises, bright lights, or foul odors. And of course, certain kinds of drugs—stimulants like caffeine, nicotine, amphetamines, and cocaine—also increase arousal.

The Opponent-Process Theory: Emotions on a See-Saw

Another attempt to explain why people seek high-arousal activities is the opponent-process theory, Solomon and Corbit apply the opponent-process theory to motivation. They claim that in the opponent process, the emotional state we feel in response to certain activities or stimuli usually gives way to the opposite emotional state.

Consider a frightening activity, such as parachute jumping. Solomon claims that the tremendous relief and elation following a sky-diving experience leads a person to repeat the activity in order to re-experience the feeling of elation.

According to the opponent-process theory, the initial emotion gradually weakens with repetition of the activity. The opposing emotion becomes stronger and eventually provides the motivation for the activity. The terror of the free-fall gradually subsides, leaving the person to experience more of a thrill. The opposite emotion, that is, the elation and the exhilaration, intensifies and is pro-longed, thus motivating the person to repeat the activity.

Solomon (1980) further suggests that the opponent-process theory helps explain why "repeated pleasures lose a lot of their pleasantness" and "repeated aversive events lose a lot of their unpleasantness

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs: Putting Our Needsin Order

Humans have a variety of needs or motives. Clearly some needs are more critical to sustaining life than others. We could live without self-esteem, but obviously we could not live long without air to breathe, water to drink, or food to eat.

Abraham Maslow (1970) proposed a hierarchy of needs to account for the range of human motivation. He placed physiological needs at the bottom of the hierarchy, stating that these needs must be adequately satisfied before higher ones can be considered.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs: Putting Our Needsin Order

If our physiological needs (for water, food, sleep, and shelter) are adequately met, then the motives at the next higher level (the safety and the security needs will come into play. When these needs are satisfied, we climb another level to satisfy our needs to belong and to love and be loved. Still higher are the needs for self-esteem and the esteem of others. At the top of Maslow's hierarchy's the need for self actualization, the need to actualize or realize our full potential.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs: Putting Our Needsin Order

Although Maslow's hierarchy of needs has been a popular notion, appealing to many, it has not been verified by empirical research. The steps on the hierarchy cannot be said to be invariant, or the same for all people . We know from our own experience that for some people, the desire for success and recognition is so strong that they are prepared to sacrifice safety, security, and all other relationships to achieve it. A few people are willing to sacrifice their very lives for others or for a cause to which they are committed. Perhaps they too, have a hierarchy, but one in which the order of needs is somewhat different.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs: Putting Our Needsin Order

Self-Actualization

Need to realizeone's fullest potential

Esteem NeedsNeed to achieve, gain

competence, gain respect andrecognition from others

Belonging and Love NeedsNeed to love and be loved; need to affiliate

with others and be acceptedSafety Needs

Need for safety and securityPhysiological Needs

Need to satisfy the basic biological needs for food,water, oxygen, sleep, and elimination of bodily wastes

Emotions

Until relatively recently, almost all psychological researchinto emotion concentrated on negative emotions, and inparticular on fear and anger. This is partly because theseemotions appear to link much more closely with physiological arousal, but psychological research alsoreflects the values of the society in which it is located, andmodern society also neglects or undervalues the positiveemotions.

Emotions

Although emotions are difficult to define precisely, we can say that they contain the following two elements:

(a) they always involve either physiological arousal or depression; and

|b] unlike motives, they are always evaluative. Theories that attempt to explain what causes emotions and

what determines which emotions we feel include the James-Lange theory activation theory, the physiological cognitive interpretation, and cognitive appraisal.

The James-Lange theory of emotion

The introspections psychologist William James proposedthat emotion occurs as a result of our perceptions of physiological changes taking place in the body:' We do not weep because we feel sorrow: we feel sorrow because we weep‘.

Essentially, James was arguing that we produce a physiological reaction to some emotion- producing stimulus, and we then notice this reaction and try to make sense out of it. He gave an example of tripping on the stairs and catching the banister: at the time oftripping and grabbing the banister, no fear is felt; but afterwards, the heart starts beating faster, we sweat more and breathe more deeply. And it is then, according to James, that we begin to feel afraid. Our cognitions of the event at the time are not enough to frighten us; but when the emergency response of the body begins, we feel fear.

The Cannon-Bard theory of emotion

In contrast to the James-Lange model, Walter Cannon, saw the experience of emotion as entirely separate from its physiological correlates. Rather than emotions being caused by physiological changes, he argued, they both take place independently, albeit sometimes in response to the same stimulus. This became known as the Cannon-Bard theory of emotion.

In 1929, Cannon argued that the arousal response wasgeneral, not specific to different emotions. The samephysiological changes, he said, occur in very differentemotional states, and also occur in non-emotional states aswell. According to Cannon's model, an emotion-producingstimulus produces a generalised fight or flight response.

This occurs through a direct associative process which doesnot have anything to do with the feeling of emotion. At thesame time (usually), we respond to the situation as weunderstand it, and it is this cognitive response whichproduces feelings of emotion. The two reactions - theexperience of emotion and the physiological changes-havenothing to do with one another.

Schachter's theory of emotion

Schachter (1964) argued that the experience of emotion isall to do with the attributions which people make aboutwhat is going on.

These attributions include both the physiological reactions which are taking place and the social situation that the individual is in at the time.

the social setting determines the type of emotion which will be experienced (fear, anger, happiness, etc.) whereas the physiological response determines the strength of that reaction (how extremely the person feels it).

The facial feed back theory

Ekman, Sorenson and Friesen (1969) proposed that thefacial! expressions which people use to signify emotions may in themselves be involved in promoting those emotions, by providing feedback to the brain. The facial feedback hypothesis, in this sense, is similar to the James-Lange approach, but where James was concerned with central physiological states as the cause of emotion.

Ekman suggests that peripheral social signals, like smiling, are its cause.

Averill's social construction theory

Averill (1980) proposed that the experience of emotion issocially constructed.

The combinations of genetic and physiological reactions which take place are organised and interpreted by the individual in terms of the social norms and social roles which are involved in the situation. Averill sees emotions as transitory social roles, which are all to do with how the person appraises the situation.

It is not just negative emotions which Averill interpretedin this way. According to this theory, the same social processes apply to the positive emotions. In discussing love, Averill argued that this represents a social role which allows individuals to idealise, and be idealised by, another person.

Positive emotions

It is worth noting, however, that relatively few theories ofemotion have concerned themselves with positiveemotions, such as happiness, love.

It is only recently that researchers have become seriously interested in investigating some of the more positive aspects of human emotions. In part, interest in positive emotions has come about as a result of some of the ethical problems raised by experimentation into emotion.

Stress

Immediate responses to stressful or anxiety-provokingevents, as we have seen, generate a rapid high level ofphysiological arousal.

But what happens when the threat simply does not go away? The 'fight or flight' response is very costly in terms of energy, and not the sort of thing that the body can keep up for very long.

they are often continuous and non-specific – a constant anxiety that financial problems will result in homelessness, for instance, represents an acute but ongoing perceived threat, which does not take a direct physical form.

Locus of control

The implication of Weiss's study is that there are two aspects to developing effective coping when faced with sources of stress.

The first is that there should be some opportunity to exert control over the stressor to reduce it in some way.

The second is, that there should be some feedback about the effectiveness of the action.

It is not enough just to do something- you have to know that your actions have worked. This principle has formed the basis for much of the research into locus of control.

Locus of control

People with an internal locus of control, who believe that control of their lives largely comes from their own efforts, experience less stress than those with an external locus of control, who believe that they are largely the victims of circumstance.

Locus of control

of course, these beliefs can easily become self-fulfilling prophecies, since people with an internal locus of control are more likely to make more efforts to influence their lives, whereas those with an external locus of control are more likely to take a passive stance towards things.

Biofeedback

Some of the relaxation techniques which are used in programmes of stress reduction involve biofeedback. This is a method for teaching people to have some control over their autonomic responses.

Typically, someone who is using biofeedback to learn to control stress responses will use some kind of equipment which gives them information about their physiologicalstate.