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Psychology in Your Life: Chapter 9

Terms in this set (53)

Activating
Motivation simulates us to do something.
Directive
Motivation guides our behaviors toward meeting specific goals or needs.
Sustain
Motivation helps one sustain behavior until they achieve goals or satisfy needs.
Differ in Strength
Motives differ in strength depending on person and situation.
Motivation
Factors of differing strength that energize, direct, and sustain behavior.
Need
A state of biological or social deficiency.
Need Hierarchy
An arrangement of needs, in which basic survival needs must be met before people can satisfy higher needs.
Humanistic Psychology
People strive toward personal fulfillment (Maslow's theory).
Self-actualization (Maslow)
Occurs when people achieve their personal dreams and aspirations.
Drive
A psychological state that, by creating arousal, motivates an organism to engage in a behavior to satisfy a need.
Homeostasis
Coined by Walter Cannon in the 1920s to describe the tendency for bodily functions to remain in equilibrium.
Set point
Desired point
Arousal
Physiological activation (such as increased brain activity) or increased autonomic responses (such as increased heart rate, sweating, or muscle tension).
Habit
A behavior that consistently reduces a drive over time.
Incentives
External objects or external goals, rather than internal drives, that motivate behaviors.
Yerkes-Dodson law
Describes the relationship between arousal, motivation, and performance. It states that performance increases with arousal up to an optimal point after which more arousal will result in decreasing performance.
Pleasure Principle
Motivates people to seek pleasure and avoid pain.
Extrinsic Motivation
A desire to perform an activity because of the external goals that activity is directed toward.
Intrinsic Motivation
A desire to perform an activity because of the value or pleasure associated with that activity, rather than for an apparent external goal or purpose.
Creativity
The tendency to generate ideas or alternatives that may be useful in solving problems, communicating, and entertaining ourselves and others.
Self-determination theory
Extrinsic rewards may reduce the intrinsic value of an activity because such rewards undermine our feeling that we are choosing to do something for ourselves.
Self-perception theory
States that we are seldom aware of our specific motives but instead make inferences about our motives according to what seems to make the most sense.
Self-efficacy
The expectation that your efforts will lead to success.
Achievement Motivation
The need, or desire, to attain a certain standard of excellence.
Need to belong theory
The need for interpersonal attachments is a fundamental motive that has evolved for adaptive purposes.
Leptin
A hormone that is associated with decreasing eating behavior based on long-term body fat regulation.
Ghrelin
A hormone that is associated with increasing eating behavior based on short-term signals in the bloodstream.
Sexual Response Cycle
A four-stage pattern of physiological and psychological responses during sexual activity.
Excitement phase (SRC)
Occurs when people contemplate sexual activity or when they begin kissing and touching in a sensual manner.
Plateau phase (SRC)
Pulse rate, breathing, and blood pressure increase, as do various other signs of arousal.
Orgasm phase (SRC)
Consists of involuntary muscle contractions throughout the body, dramatic increases in breathing and heart rate, rhythmic contractions of the vagina for women, and ejaculation of semen for men.
Resolution period (SRC)
A dramatic release of sexual tension and a slow return to a normal state of arousal.
Refractory period (SRC)
During which the man is temporarily unable to maintain an erection or have an orgasm.
Androgens
A class of hormones that are associated with sexual behavior and are more prevalent in males; testosterone is one example.
Estrogens
A class of hormones that are associated with sexual behavior and are more prevalent in females; estradiol is one example.
Double Standard
This unwritten law stipulates that premarital or casual sex is morally and socially acceptable for men but not for women.
Sexual Strategies Theory
Women and men have evolved distinct mating strategies because they have faced different adaptive problems over the course of human history. The strategies used by each sex maximize the probability of passing along their genes to future generations.
Emotion
Feelings that involve subjective evaluation, physiological processes, and cognitive beliefs.
Primary Emotions
Evolutionary adaptive emotions that are shared across cultures and associated with specific physical states; they include anger, fear, sadness, disgust, happiness, and possibly surprise and contempt.
Secondary Emotions
Blends of primary emotions; they include remorse, guilt, shame, submission, and anticipation.
James-Lange theory
Bodily responses are the basis for feeling emotions.
Cannon-Bard theory
Processing in the brain is the cause of emotions and bodily responses at the same time.
Schacter-Singer two-factor theory
How a person thinks about and labels bodily responses is the basis for emotions.
Emotion label (SS)
In other words, when we experience arousal, we search for its source so we can explain it cognitively.
Misattribution of arousal
Mistaken identification of the source of arousal.
Excitation transfer
Leftover physiological arousal caused by one event is transferred to a new stimulus.
Reappraisal
Directly alter our emotional reactions to events by thinking about those events in more neutral terms.
Humor
Simple, effective method of regulating negative emotions.
Distraction
The best way to avoid the problems that come with those mistakes.
Rumination
Involves thinking about, elaborating, and focusing on undesired thoughts or feelings.
Display Rules
Rules that are learned through socialization and that dictate what emotions are suitable in certain situations.
Affect-as-information theory
People use their current moods to make decisions, judgments, and appraisals, even if they do not know the sources of the moods.
Guilt
A negative emotional state associated with anxiety, tension, and agitation.
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