Chapter 12

Motivation comes from…

…the interplay between nature and nurture (the bodily

push/the pull from thought and processes from culture)
Four Perspectives on Motivation
• Instinct theory (evolutionary perspective)

• Drive reduction theory

• Arousal theory

• Maslow’s hierarchy of needs

 Instinct Theory
• Instinct – complex behaviour with a fixed pattern
throughout a species and is unlearned

▫ Innate/inborn biological force

▫ Imprinting in birds, infant rooting and sucking

• Instinct theory failed to explain most human

motives
▫ Used instinct to name behaviors, rather than to
explain them
 5759 supposed instincts…clearly a fad took hold of the
imagination
Instinct Theory and Evolutionary
Psychology
• Our genes do predispose species-typical
behaviours
• Evolutionary psychologists search for reasons for
our behaviour in our genetic code

• Evolutionary theories – natural selection

favors behaviors that maximize survival and
reproductive success
▫ Why are we motivated to belong to groups?
▫ Why are we motivated to eat?
▫ Why are we motivated to find a romantic partner?
Drive-Reduction Theory

• Replaced Instinct theory

• The idea that a physiological need creates an

aroused tension state (a drive) that motivates
an organism to satisfy the need
____________________ __________________ _______________

Need
Drive Drive-reducing
(e.g., for
(hunger, thirst) behaviors
food, water)
(eating, drinking)
Drive-Reduction Theory
• Behaviour is motivated by a necessity to
reduce need
▫ The focus is homeostasis – the tendency to
maintain a steady internal state (think thermostat)
▫ Staying the same
 E.g., blood glucose levels (hunger or satiation), body
temperature (too hot, too cold)

Need Drive-reducing
Drive
(e.g., for behaviors
(hunger, thirst)
food, water) (eating, drinking)

Rest
Drives and Incentives
• We are pushed by our internal needs to reduce
drives
• We are also pulled by incentives
▫ Incentives are positive or negative stimuli that
motivate behaviour

• For each motivation:

▫ “How is this driven by my inborn physiological needs and
pulled by the environment?”
▫ An internal drive and an external stimulus leads us to be
strongly driven in our behaviour
Need (food)---Hungry (drive) – (eating
soup)
Associate soup with home (incentive)
Need (maintain body heat) –Drive
(feeling cold) – putting on the
sweater
• Spanner in the works for
a toddler…associate
putting on a sweater
with stopping playing

• How motivated are we

now?
• Incentives + or – stimuli
that attract or repel us
 Optimal Arousal
• Not all motivated behaviours reduce arousal; Some
motivated behaviours increase arousal

• Optimal Arousal theory:

▫ Even when our biological needs have been met, we feel
driven to experience stimulation (“infovores”)

 E.g., curiosity
 Too little stimulation = Boredom
 Too much stimulation = Stress
Yerkes-Dodson law
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Begins at the base with
needs that must first be
satisfied before higher-
level needs become
active
Maslow
• Maslow said we have a hierarchy of needs:
▫ Physiological
▫ Safety
▫ Belongingness and love
▫ Esteem
▫ Self-actualization
▫ Self-transcendence
• Issue - How does this
explain why people go
on hunger strikes?

• Implication - May not be

quite so hierarchical????
Things to keep in mind…
• Maslow recognized • Maslow estimated
that a given motive that the average
didn’t need to be American had needs
100% complete before met in this way:
moving on to a higher ▫ 85% physiological
need ▫ 70% safety
▫ Our needs are only ▫ 50% belongingness
partially satisfied at and love
any given time ▫ 40% self-esteem
▫ 10% self-
actualization
 Other tidbits…
• How a need gets met varies across
cultures
▫ Perhaps being a physician or being a
successful farmer

• Maslow didn’t believe that any

given behavior is motivated by a
single need
▫ Ex. Sexual behaviour can be
motivated by physiological release, a
need to win or show affection, or a
sense of identity, power, etc.
Self-Actualization Survey
• Scoring
▫ Questions 2,5,6,8,9,11,13 and 14 reverse the answers as
follows
 6=1, 5=2, 4=3, 3=4, 2=5,1=6
• Scores range from 15-90
• College students have a mean score of 60
• Factors measure autonomy, self-acceptance,
acceptance of emotions, trust, and responsibility in
interpersonal relations.
• People with high scores:
▫ tend to live in the present, rather then the past with
guilt and regret or in the future with overidealized
goals and fears.
▫ Inner-directed, extraverted, and rational in their
thoughts and behaviors
 Self-Actualization Survey
• Scoring
▫ Questions 2,5,6,8,9,11,13 and 14 reverse the
answers as follows
 6=1
 5=2
 4=3
 3=4
 2=5
 1=6
Self-Actualization Survey
• Scores range from 15-90
• College students have a mean score of 60
• Factors measure autonomy, self-acceptance,
acceptance of emotions, trust, and
responsibility in interpersonal relations.
• People with high scores:
▫ tend to live in the present, rather then the past
with guilt and regret or in the future with
overidealized goals and fears.
▫ Inner-directed, extraverted, and rational in
their thoughts and behaviors.
Hunger and Eating
•What starts you eating?

• Cultural factors
 Time for tea?

• Physiological factors
 Hunger pangs accompany contractions of the stomach
 Detectors of levels of glucose and fat
 Glucostatic hypothesis
 Hypothalamus

• Brain controls food intake

▫ Lateral hypothalamus increases hunger
 Destroy lateral hypothalamus – animals won’t
eat
▫ Ventromedial hypothalamus reduces hunger
 Destroy ventromedial hypothalamus – animals
will not stop eating
The Hunger-Regulation Cycle
Homeostasis: The physiological aim of drive reduction. It is a state
of equilibrium or stability; to maintain a constant internal state.

• Hypothalamus monitors blood glucose.

• When blood glucose is low, people become hungry.
• Food raises glucose, reduces hunger and eating.
Hunger and Eating
• What stops you eating?
▫ Nutrients are not absorbed fully until an hour after
a meal stops
▫ Injecting food into stomach stops hunger
▫ Removing food from stomach restores hunger
▫ Water can reduce hunger
▫ Memory
• those with amnesia can be made to eat repeated meals

• Hunger also changes with

▫ Changes in food type
▫ Changes in exercise
How much do we eat?
Eating depends in part on
situational influences.
 Social facilitation: the
presence of others
accentuates our typical
eating habits
 Unit bias: we may eat only
one serving/unit (scoop,
plateful, bun-full) of food,
but will eat more if the
serving size is larger
 Buffet effect: we eat
more if more options are
available
Hunger and Eating –
Environmental effects on eating
• People all over the world seek out sweet and salty foods
▫ Even young infants
• Stressed students eat more snacks – less ‘meal’ food
• People like familiar food but preferences can be
learned/unlearned
▫ China: soy, rice wine & ginger
▫ Greece: olive oil, lemon, oregano
▫ Mexico: tomato, hot chillies
• Learned food associations:
▫ movie  popcorn
▫ baseball park  hot dog.
Hunger and Eating
Set point for body weight
• People who starve quickly replace lost body
weight
• Prisoners who agreed to eat more at first gained
quickly, then added less to their weight
▫ Despite eating 10,000 calories per day!
▫ Came to hate eating
▫ Lost most of the extra weight on returning to normal
diet
Set Point Theory
 Set Point
 the point at which an individual’s “weight
thermostat” is supposedly set
 when the body falls below this weight, an increase
in hunger and a lowered metabolic rate may act
to restore the lost weight

 Basal Metabolic Rate

 body’s base rate of energy expenditure when the
body is at rest
Hunger and Eating
Body Weights of Twins

• Identical twins are

more similar in
body weight than
are fraternal twins.
• Genetic factors play
a large role in body
weight.
Social Motivation
• Achievement Motivation
▫ Humans seem to be motivated to figure out our
world and master skills, sometimes regardless of
the benefits of the skills or knowledge.
▫ Studies involve looking at differences in how
people set and meet personal goals and go about
acquiring new knowledge or skills.
Hormones and Sexual Motivation
Sexual motivation may have evolved to enable
creatures to pass on their genes. Sexual desire
and response is not as tied to hormone levels in
humans as it is in animals.
During ovulation, women show a rise in
estrogen and also in testosterone.
As this happens, sexual desire rises in women
and also in the men around them (whose
testosterone level rises).
Low levels of testosterone can reduce sexual
motivation.
The Effect of External Stimuli
All effects of external stimuli on sexual
behavior are more common in men than
in women.
The short-term effect of exposure to
images of nudity and sexuality increases
sexual arousal and desire.
Possible dangers include:
the distortion of our ideas of what is
appropriate and effective for mutual
sexual satisfaction.
the habit of finding sexual response
through idealized images may lead to
decreased sexual response to real-life
sexual partners.
Imagined Stimuli
The brain is involved in
sexuality; people with no
genital sensation (e.g.
spinal cord injuries) can feel
sexual desire.
The brain also contains
dreams, memories, and
fantasies that stimulate
sexual desire.
Fantasies are not just a
replacement for sexual
activity; they often
accompany sex.
Why do we have Keeping
children
a need to close to
belong? caregivers

Emotional
support to Mutual
get Evolutionary protection
through psychology in a group
crises perspective:
seeking bonds
with others aids
survival in many
ways
Division of Cooperatio
labor to n in
allow hunting
growing and
food sharing
food
Balancing Bonding with Other Needs
 The need to bond with
others is so strong that we
can feel lost without close
relationships.
 However, we also seem to
need autonomy and a sense
of personal
competence/efficacy.
There a tension between “me”
and “us,” but these goals
can work together.
 Belonging builds self-
esteem, and prepares us for
confident autonomy.
The Need to Belong Leads to:
loyalty to friends,
teams, groups, and
families.
However, the need to
belong also leads to:
• changing our
appearance to win
acceptance.
• staying in abusive
relationships.
• joining gangs,
nationalist groups, and
violent organizations.
Social Networking =
Social Connection?
 Connecting online can be
seen as taking turns
reading brief words about
each other, or as an
experience of connection
and/or belonging.
 Portrayal of one’s self
online is often close to
one’s actual sense of self.
 Use of social networking
can become a
compulsion, sacrificing
face-to-face interaction
and in-depth
conversation.
Another Area of Motivation: Work
Why do we work…only for money and other incentives?
The income from work can indirectly satisfy the drive for
food and shelter.
Some are driven by achievement motivation.
In rare cases, the goals and activities of work can feel like a
calling, a fulfilling and socially useful activity. Some people may
seek the optimal work experience called “flow.”

feeling purposefully
engaged, deeply
immersed, and
challenged
 Personnel
psychology:
hiring and evaluating

The Psychology of
the Workplace: Organizational
psychology:
Industrial- management,
Organizational supervision, leadership,
[I/O]Psychology and teamwork
I/O psychology includes
three different areas of Human factors
psychology:
focus
how workers interface
with machines and the
environment
Personnel Psychologists’ Work
All of the below are potential areas of research and
consultation for personnel psychologists.
 Selecting, Hiring and
Placing Employees
Personnel psychologists
can help find the right
person for the right job.
This involves:
analyzing the content of
the job to be filled.
developing tools and
procedures for assessing
potential employees, and
for selecting the ones that
fit the job.
helping to optimize
worker placement and
promotion.
Which employees
will do the job
well?
Strengths refer to enduring
qualities that can be
productively applied.
Personnel psychologists
such as Mary Tenopyr have
done research to find which
strengths predict success at
various jobs.
This research can be used
to develop procedures for
selecting applicants that
have the right strengths for
a job.
How do we select the right
applicants?
 To get the information which  aptitude tests
would predict future job  job knowledge
performance, personnel tests
psychologists recommend:  work samples
 Still, employers rely on an  past job
informal interview to get a “feel” performance
for the applicant.
The Interviewers overestimate their ability to
“read” people because of four errors:
interviewer
illusion/ 1.valuing intentions rather than habits.
fallacy 2.neglecting to recall bad “reads” such as
past interviewees who failed or quit.
3.seeing interview behavior as a
predictor of job behavior.
4.using prejudgments to interpret
interviewee behavior.
 Organizational Psychology
Goals of Organizational
Psychology Research
Organizational Maximizing worker motivation,
psychology: satisfaction, and productivity
studying and
consulting about
how worker Understanding organizational
productivity and structures and dynamics
motivation is
affected by
different patterns Facilitating organizational change
of worker-
management
engagement,
leadership, and Improving teamwork and leadership
teamwork
Grit:
Motivation to Achieve
and Self-Discipline to
Succeed
Organizational psychologists
work in part to maximize
motivation and put it to use
for employers.
Grit refers to a combination
of desire for achievement and
the ability/willingness to
persist at hard work.
Success in careers and
organizations may be caused in
part by people with grit, who
stick to a goal when others
would have quit.
50
 Achievement in most fields of
work may seem like a function of
talent; however, Thomas Edison
noted that, “genius is 1 percent
inspiration, 99 percent
perspiration.”
 Talent itself can be a result of
perseverance. According to the
“ten year rule,” it takes about ten
years of hard work to become a
skilled expert in a field.
 Success in work is predicted
more by self-discipline than by
intelligence test scores.
Satisfaction & Engagement
Employees who are more
Employees who are engaged (connected,
satisfied in an organization
passionate, and energetic) get
are likely to stay longer. more work done.

Because a happy worker is a productive worker,

organizational psychologists study factors related
to employee satisfaction, such as whether a worker:
feels that they personally matter to the
organization and to other people.
feels a sense that effort pays off in the quality of
the work and in rewards such as salary and
benefits.
 Employee Engagement: Three Levels
Many employees are engaged
(connected, passionate, and
energetic about the
companies/organizations they
work for).
Some are not engaged; they
show up and get tasks done
but show little passion or
energy.
Others are actively
disengaged; they are
unhappy, alienated, and not
invested, even undermining
what people are trying to
accomplish.
Organizational
psychologists find that
people are most engaged in
work when they:
know what is expected of
them.
have the materials they
need to do the work.
have opportunities to
excel.
feel fulfilled.
feel part of something
important.
have opportunities to
grow/develop in the job.
Human Factors: Work that Fits
People
The psychology of human factors:
taking the design of the body and the
functioning of the mind into account
when designing products and
processes.