Chapter 12 – Motivation and Work

Motivation is the need or desire that energizes behavior and directs it toward a goal.
Perspectives on Motivation
• There are four perspectives scientists have when looking at motivation
including:
o Instinct theory-
 Behavior must have a fixed pattern throughout a species and
not be learned.
o Drive reduction theory-
 The idea that a psychologist needs to create an aroused state
that drives organism to reduce need of essential cares.
 When physiological need increases, so does the psychological
drive. Homeostasis.
 Use of incentives
o External/Arousal theory-
 Not all behaviors reduce immediate physiological needs or
tension states. The curiosity of small children and baby
monkeys is not motivated by any immediate physiological
need. Thus giving rise to the arousal theory.
o Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs-
 Beginning at the base with physiological needs that must be
first be satisfied before higher level safety needs and then
psychological needs become active.
Hunger
• A.L Washburn swallowed a balloon and then inflated it in his stomach. Once
inflated, the balloon would transmit his stomach contractions to a recording
device. Each time he felt hungry. Found out he was having stomach
contractions when ever he was hungry.
• Low glucose makes us hungry. Insulin reduces glucose and the hormone can
convert glucose into stored fat.
• Hunger was found to be centered in the hypothalamus. The lateral side brings
on the stimulus for hunger. When stimulated, animals began to eat and when
it was destroyed, starving animals would stop eating.
o This happens by this region releasing orexin, a hormone which triggers
hunger. Ventrome depresses hunger.
• Ghrelin is the hunger arousing hormone secreted by an empty stomach.
Hunger dampening chemicals secreted by fat cells are known as leptin.
• PYY is the digestive hormone which suppresses appetite.
• Basal Metabolic rate is the body’s resting rate of energy expenditure.
The Psychology of Hunger
• Washburn and Cannon showed that hunger’s inner push corresponds to the
stomach’s contractions, but hunger has other causes.
• Variations in body chemistry that influence our feelings of hunger include
insulin, ghrelin, and PYY
 • The hypothalamus performs various body maintenance functions, including
control of hunger. The lateral hypothalamus brings on hunger. The
ventromedial hypothalamus depresses hunger.
• Set point—the point at which an individual’s “weight thermostat” is
supposedly set.
o When the body falls below this weight, an increase in hunger and a
lowered metabolic rate may act to restore the lost weight.
Eating Disorders
• Anorexia Nervosa - When a normal-weight person diets and becomes
significantly underweight, yet, still feeling fat, continues to starve .Usually
and adolescent female
o When a person weighs less than 85% of their normal body weight 95% of
sufferers are female most are between the ages of 18-30. 30% of persons
diagnosed with anorexia nervosa die
• Bulimia Nervosa -Disorder characterized by private “binge-purge” episodes of
overeating, usually of high caloric foods, followed by vomiting or over
exercise
• A dramatic increase in poor body image has coincided with a rise in eating
disorders among women in Western cultures.
• In both anorexia and bulimia factors such as family settings and weigh-
obsessed pressures, over-whelm the drive to maintain a balanced inside.
• Twin research also shows that these eating disorders may have a genetic
component.
Sexual Motivation
• Sex is a physiologically based motive, like hunger, but it is more affected by
learning and values
• Sexual Response Cycle
o The four stages of sexual responding described by Masters and
Johnson
o Excitement, Plateau, Orgasm, Resolution
• Refractory Period- resting period after orgasm, during which a man cannot
achieve another orgasm
• Estrogen- a sex hormone, secreted in greater amounts by females than by
males
• Forces Affecting Sexual Motivation:
o Imaginative stimuli, External stimuli, Physiological readiness
• Sexual Disorders- problems that consistently impair sexual arousal or
functioning
o In Men -
 Premature ejaculation- ejaculation before they or their partners
wish. Impotence- inability to have or maintain erection
o In Women-
 Orgasmic disorder- infrequent or absent orgasms
• Sexually explicit material may lead people to perceive their partners as
comparatively less appealing and to devalue their relationships.
 • Sexually coercive material tends to increase viewer’s acceptance of rape and
violence toward women.
Adolescent Sexuality
• Adolescents’ physical maturation fosters a sexual dimension to their emerging
identity, but rates of teen intercourse vary from culture to culture.
• Reasons people don't use contraceptives:
o ignorance guilt related to sexual activity, minimum communication
about birth control, alcohol use, mass media norms of unprotected
promiscuity
Sexually Transmitted Infections
• STIs—sexually transmitted infections
• Attempts to protect teens through comprehensive sex-education programs
include a greater emphasis on teen abstinence.
• High intelligence, religiosity, father presence and participation in service
learning programs tend to be predictors of teen sexual restraint.
Sexual Orientation
• Sexual orientation—an enduring sexual attraction toward members of either
one’s own sex or the other sex.
• Studies indicate that about 3 or 4 percent of men and 1 or 2 percent of women
are homosexual, and that sexual orientation is enduring.
• Research does not support cause-effect links between homosexuality and any
of the following: A child’s relationships with parents, father-absent homes,
fear or hatred of people of the other gender, childhood sexual experiences,
peer relationship, or dating experiences.
• Achievement Motivation- a desire for significant accomplishment for mastery
of things, people, or ideas
• McClelland and Atkinson believed fantasies would reflect
achievement concerns
• Intrinsic Motivation- desire to perform a behavior for its own sake or to be
effective
• Extrinsic Motivation- desire to perform a behavior due to promised rewards or
threats of punishment
• Task Leadership- goal-oriented leadership that sets standards, organizes work,
and focuses attention on goals
• Social Leadership-group-oriented leadership that builds teamwork, mediates
conflict, and offers support
• Theory X- Assumes that workers are basically lazy, error-prone, and
extrinsically motivated by money. Should be directed from above
• Theory Y- Assumes that, given challenge and freedom, workers are motivated
to achieve self-esteem and to demonstrate their competence and creativity