AP Psychology Unit 7: Motivation, Emotion, Personality, and Intelligence

Complex behavior in humans & animals patterned through a species that is learned. (Survival/Biological needs).

Humans have innate instinct that help us survive.
Criticism: Fails to explain actual motivation, lack of motive reasoning.

We ALWAYS want to return to homeostasis. Physiological needs motivate us to satisfy a need & reduce drive.
Homeostasis: Maintaining a balances, internal biological state. Not too hot, cold, hungry, full, etc. Just right.

Ex: Thirsty, need for water --> Drive: Thirst --> Reduce-Driving Behavior: Drinking water. (Returns us to homeostasis).

Positive or negative environmental stimulus that motivates behavior. Motivation to achieve goals via incentives. Produced by the need for goal attainment.
Ex: Motivated to continue working due to being paid well. (Money/being paid well is the stimulus).

The need to have our biological needs satisfied, & motivated by curiosity & stimulation. We like to be freaked out & get adrenaline.
Ex: Skydiving, bungee jumping, etc.

Too stimulated/Aroused: Creates stress & we are driven to decrease arousal.

The theory that certain needs have priority over others.
- All physiological/biological needs come before our psychological needs. One we have 100% of one level, we're motivated to achieve what's on the next.

The highest level that we strive for, the very best version of ourselves, reaching our fullest potential.

People & animals automatically regulate caloric intake to prevent energy deficits & maintain body weight via brains activity & appetite hormones. Maintaining a lack of hunger by eating.

Controls both increasing & suppressing hunger.

Makes us START eating hen stimulated. Damaged: Lack of ability to feel hungry

Makes us STOP eating when stimulated & full. The "off" button for hunger.
Damaged: Lack of ability to feel full.

Insulin: Controls blood glucose.
Glucose: Form of sugar, provides energy to body tissues.
Other Appetite Hormones: Leptin, Orexin, Ghrelin, PYY.

The point at which our body weight or "weight thermostat" is set. Our perfect body weight, and is hard to drastically change over a short period of time.
- Slow change is better than drastic sudden diet deficits.

The amount of energy your body uses at rest.

- Body Chemistry & environmental factors influence when we're hungry & what we're hungry for.
- Sweet & salty are genetic & universal.
- Environmental factors control our eating.

Size of portions make a difference & effect how much we eat. The bigger the portion, the more people eat.

- A person starves & become 15% OR MORE underweight.
- Continues to starve because they still feel fat; both psychological & biological.

Bringing & purging, repeated episodes of overeating, then purging or throwing it back up. Through vomiting, laxatives, or excessive exercising.

- Binges followed by distress, disgust, or guilt. But NOT purging.
Contributing factors: Family, environmental, or cultural ideals.

Having a BMI of 30 or more.
- 34% of American adults are obese; increase in fat ells, lower metabolic rate, genes & sleep loss.
- Stereotype of obese people being sloppy, lazy, & slow. Makes it harder for them to find jobs & develop relationships, & teased in school.

One of the first to study/research sexual motivation, conducted interviews to explore sexual platforms & norms.

Criticism: Sample group was primarily white young well educated urbanities, but did open the door to sexual research.

Excitement Phase --> Plateau Phase --> Orgasm --> Resolution --> Refractory Period (Only for men).

Hormones are for both physical development & characteristics, & activates sexual behavior, the want to have sex.
- Hormone shifts can happen throughout a lifetime, although psychological stimuli is necessary too.

Estrogen: Dominant sex hormone found in WOMAN.
Testosterone: Dominant sex hormone found in MALES.

External Stimuli: Videos, pictures, or other explicit material, arouses both men & woman. Repeated exposure lessens emotional response.

Internal Stimuli: How our imagination can influence sexual arousal & desire. Both men & women are aroused by dreams, memories, past experiences, etc.
- Genital arousal can occur in our own dreams.

- American teens have lower rates of sex, but higher rates f teen pregnancy & abortion rates.
Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STD's): 2/3 Of new infections are under 25.

Past sexually active partners increase the spread of disease

- Sex can reflect commitment & significance in a relationship.
- Values are both personal & cultural, & should be respected.

Motivated by making connections, wanting to feel involved with everyone else.
- Our relationships, above all, make us feel satisfied.
- Self-esteem increases when we feel needed & accepted. Correlates with our social behavior.
- We bind together out of fear of being alone. Can be the worst form of punishment.
- If we form close relationships, we're more likely to open up & be healthier psychologically.

- The belief that you have control over your life. We control our own fait, actions, choices, etc.

Blame others when we struggle, crediting chance or luck for our own doings & accomplishments.

We believe we are responsible for our actions along with their outcomes and that we control our lives.

The belief that we can control our own actions, ability, strength, etc. Our own belief that we can accomplish something.

- Our own need to achieve goals. (A bonus, promotion, etc). Motivated to achieve by receiving feedback & continuing to accomplish what we want to achieve.

What happens to our body. (Heart beat increases/decreases, muscles relax/contract, breathing patterns irregulate).

How do we respond. (Smiling, frowning, clenched fists, eyebrows raise, etc.)

Our thoughts and feelings, our cognitive expression. What do we say or do, and what do we think. (Ow! haha, etc).

- Our physiological response to emotion arousing stimuli.
We FIRST realize physiological/body change, THEN we express emotion.
Stimulus --> Physio. Response --> Emotion

Ex: Car spins out of control, heart rate increases, then we feel fear.

- Emotion arousing stimulus triggers physiological response & experience of emotions AT THE SAME TIME.
Stimulus --> Physio. Response & Emotion

Ex: Car spins out of control, heart rate increases & we feel fear at the same time.

- One must be physically aroused & cognitively label the arousal.
- Emotional experience requires a conscious interpretation of the arousal.
Stimulus --> Physio. Response & Cognitive Label --> Emotion

Ex: Car spins out of control, heart rate increases AND we recognize this is scary, then we feel fear.

- We can wrongly associate our arousal to something else.
- We can wrongly associate a physiological response to another emotion, then experience it as that.

Ex: Associating the same physiological response of fear to our feeling/emotion of love and relief. (Bridge Example).

- Our emotions exist because they serve as an adaptive role.

- Emotions motivate people to respond quickly to stimuli in the environment, which helps improve chances of success & survival.

- Mainly associates all of our emotions to adaptation, instincts, survival, etc.

Ex: We feel fear in scary situations so we don't die.

- Thoughts must come before any emotion of physiological arousal. You must first think about your situation before any emotion occurs.
Stimulus --> Cognitive Appraisal --> Physio. Response & Emotion

Ex: Car spins out of control, we notice this is scary, heart rate increases and we feel fear.

- Our emotional reactions are SEPARATE from out cognitive label on the situation.

- Some emotions, particularly those needed for survival, are quickly activated though a fast pathway, while more complex emotions through a slower pathway.

- Emotions like fear, rage, happiness, etc are more evolutionary emotions that are quickly activated.

- More complex emotions like jealousy, remorse, regret, etc are activated through a slower pathway.

- The faces we make in response to our emotions are universal. (Happy face, anger, disgust, fear, etc).
- Although, HOW MUCH we display varies amongst different cultures.

Western/Individualist Cultures: Encourage display of emotional expression.
Eastern/Collectivist Cultures: Emotional expression is less encouraged, and an effort to protect their own culture.

- Facial expressions amplify & influence our own actual feelings. Happy facial expressions result in the actual feeling of being happy.

- Our level of neutrality is dependent on our own past experiences.

- Our level of neutrality is changed as a "new normal" when increased or decreased.

Ex: 60 degrees in California seems much colder than 60 degrees in New York.

- The experience of where you live affects your own level of neutrality on temperature.

- We base our level of neutrality in comparison to other people.

- Other people effect how we perceive our level of neutrality on certain things.

Ex: Thinking your day isn't as bad in comparison to someone's day who's day is worse.

- Comparing ourselves to those who are worse off than us boosts our level of what's a "bad day", and vice versa.

- Optimal arousal varies depending on the task.

Easy, Well Learned Tasks: More arousal is better.

Unrehearsed, Difficult Tasks: Less arousal is better.

- Increase in activity in the amygdala.

- Alarm system, prepares your body to flee from danger.

- We learn certain fears through other people & previous experiences. (Contagious)

- Phobia's: Intense, abnormally large fears that disrupt our ability to cope.

Negative Emotions: Linked to RIGHT hemisphere.

Positive Emotions: Linked to LEFT hemisphere.

- Recognized more quickly, can imply a potential threat.

Western Cultures: Encourage venting/ranting.

Eastern Cultures: Expressed anger can appear as a threat to a whole group.

- "Releasing" aggressive energy relieves aggressive urges. (Yelling, punching a pillow, etc.)

- Mostly Untrue: Releases anger in the short term, but increases your level of anger in the long term.

- Subjective well-being
- Self-perceived happiness and satisfaction in life.
- Objective well-being are things like physical & economic factors.

- People's tendency to be helpful wen body is already in a good mood.
- When we feel good, we do good things!
- When we do good things, we feel good!

linked to negative emotions

linked to positive emotions

- Originally a neurologist, started becoming curious about disorders that were not neurological & unexplained.

Freud's method of therapy

- Person relaxes & sats whatever comes to mind, no matter how trivial or embarrassing.

Psychoanalysis: Freud's method & process of studying the unconscious mind.

The Unconscious: Our unacceptable thoughts, wishes, feelings, & memories below the surface because they are too painful or embarrassing to bring to our conscious awareness.

Preconscious: An area we can stores some of these thoughts to retrieve them into awareness.

ID: Unconscious drives to satisfy basic sexual & aggressive urges. Our most basic, animalistic urges.

EGO: Develops as a young child, formed realistic principles & make better decisions in your like.

- The "executive" or "mediator" between the ID's basic urges, and the Superego's ideals & judgements.

Superego: Represents your consciousness that strives for perfection.

- Develops around 4-5 y.o

- Produces feelings of pride or guilt & focuses on the most ideal & virtuous way to behave. (The most logical way of thinking).

- Freud believed personality forms in the first few years of life.

- We are affected by unresolved conflicts from early childhood.

Fixate: When we are deprived or overindulged during one of these stages, we may FIXATE (lock) our pleasure seeking in the stage.

Personal interpretation: How we deal with personal sexual & aggressive urges DEVELOPS throughout childhood, and finally matures as we get older.

0-18 Months
- Pleasure centers on the mouth- sucking, biting, chewing.

Overindulged: Excessive smoke or eat & dependent.
Under-indulged: Deprival of dependence.

18-36 months
- Pleasure focuses on bowel and bladder elimination; coping with demands for control.

Fixated: Unable to balance control, messy & disorganized OR too neat & over-controlling.

3-6 years
- Pleasure zone is the genitals; coping with incestuous sexual feelings.
Oedipus Complex: Boys feel sexual desire for mother & jealous of their father. & Vise Versa for girls.

Fixated: Identify with the same-sex parent. Value their developing ego.

6-Puberty
- Dormant sexual feelings

Fixated: Repression of sexual urges & focus on school athletics & same-sex friends.

Puberty - Through Life
- Maturation of sexual feelings.

- Tactics to distort reality and reduce anxiety to protect the ego.
- Freud believed that we used them to distort reality & reduce anxiety, & to protect the ego.

- Banishes thoughts to the unconscious.
- Underlines all other defense mechanisms.
Freudian slips: Seeps out in dreams via the tongue.

Ex: Jacob cannot remember certain painful memories as a child. To protect himself, he unconsciously represses these memories from his consciousness. Instead, he displays anxious behaviors toward other items that he associates with these original painful memories.

- Retreating back to infantile sexual stage when we are fixated.

- Thumb sucking, fetal position, etc.

Ex: A person stuck in traffic may experience road rage, the kind of tantrum (Like a kid) they'd never have in their everyday life but helps them cope with the stress of driving.

- Switching our unacceptable impulse to the opposite.
- People express the opposite feeling that is causing anxiety.

Ex: Feeling/acting like you hate him, but you actually love him.

- Putting your own troubling/threatening impulse on someone else.

Ex: Calling someone insecure even though you're the person who's insecure.

- Making up self-justifying excuses and reasons to hide from the real explanation of your answers.

Ex: A student claims they got a bad grade on the test because their teacher didn't teach well (RATIONALIZING their grade outcome) in an effort to not admit they didn't study themselves.

- Taking out sexual/aggressive impulses on a more acceptable object or person.

Ex: Yelling at husband because you're actually mad at your boss, but you cannot yell at your boss.

- When we manage to displace our emotions into as constructive rather than destructive activity.

Ex: When an artist is mad, they paint to release their emotions!

- A focus on negative or feared traits.
- Becoming the person you're afraid of to understand their perspective and mindset. IDENTIFYING with them.

Ex: Identifying/relating with scary abusive parent by understanding they were abused too.

- Blocking external events from awareness, is someone situation is just too much for us to handle, we refuse to experience it.
- Refusal to accept the truth.

- How current psychologists test the unconscious.
- Personality test that provides ambiguous stimuli to project interests or conflicts.
- Patient is to draw a picture, tell a story, describe an event, etc. Patient is expected to project their own feelings on the picture, story, event, etc.

- A projective test in which people express their inner feelings and interests through the stories they make up about ambiguous scenes.
- Given a picture, and expected to tell a story about it.

- Test taker are presented inkblots and tells the clinician what they see in each design, and a detailed report of the the responses is made for later interpretation.
- "What do you see in this image?"

- Sexual intentions are more important in sexual tensions in development of personality.

- Personality problems develop out of feelings of inferiority, & potential to develop the inferiority complex.

Inferiority Complex: Inferior social urges, not sexual.

- Against woman & countered Freud's "Penis Envy"
- Social & cultural variables are the foundation of development, and the need for love & security comes from a child's sense of learned helplessness.
- Developed idea of neurosis: A driving need for someone or something, which hormones thrive.

- Agreed with Freud that the unconscious has a very powerful influence on personality, but our unconscious is more than just thoughts & feelings.

- Humans share a "collective consciousness" A shared reservoir of memory that drives our behavior.

Ex: Covid, 9/11, etc.

Criticism:

- No neurological basis.

- Development is life long, not just fixed in childhood.

- Former abuse could've influenced his ideas on development.

- Painful repressed memories are true but rare.

Enduring Ideas:

- Drew attentions to the unconscious & rational behavior.

- Introduced defense against anxiety.

- Explored enduring ideas of our tension between biological impulses & social well-being.

- Coping w/sexuality & basic impulses.

- Large cultural impact overall.

- Contrasts Freud's theory about "sick" people.
- We are NOT inherently messed up, we are inherently good.

- Focuses on ways "healthy" people strive for self-determination & self-actualization.
- Emphasis on human potential & self-awareness. How people see the world & themselves.

- Our thoughts & feelings about ourselves & who we believe ourselves to be. How we vie ourselves overall.

- At the core of human approach.

- We first strive to achieve personal safety, then a senses of security, then to love & be loved, then self-esteem, and finally actualization.

- Studied healthy, mature adults.
- Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson, & Eleanor Roosevelt.

- People are basically good & have the potential to be self-actualized.
- Growth promoting environment result three important conditions. Creating a growth-based climate.

Genuine: Open with feelings, genuine want to help & dropping facades.

Accepting: Unconditional Positive Regard: Total accepting towards another person, despite failures & always being valued.

Empathetic: Sharing & mirroring our feelings & reflecting our meanings.

Criticism:

- Too vague & subjective, (who's to say we are the best?)

- Too individualistic & self-centered.

- Naive of reality of human capability of evil.

Support:

- Greatly influenced counseling, education, child learning & management.

- Many therapists still use humanistic approaches.

- Self actualization & a positive self-concept is what people strive for.

- Sought to describe personality in terms of fundamental traits.
- Characteristics behaviors & fundamental motives.

- Statistical method that enables researchers to identify clusters of test items that measure a common ability of performance.
- "How well is the performance on these questions?"
- Used to organize traits into different clusters.

Breaks down personality into 2 dimensions:
- Extroversion vs. Introversion
- Stable vs. Unstable
- Personality traits are divided into different categories.

PET Scans: Normal brain arousal in extroverts is relatively low which can explain why they seek stimulation.
Frontal Lobe: Personality area.
Autonomic Nervous System: More reactive yields & anxiety when dealing w/stress.
- Genes influence temperament in behavior style. (Twin Studies)

Openness: Imagination, feelings, actions, ideals.

Conscientiousness: Competence, self-discipline, thoughtfulness, goal-driven.

Extraversion: Sociability, assertiveness, emotional expression.

Agreeableness: Cooperative, trustworthy, good-natured.

Neuroticism: Tendency toward unstable emotions.

- Longer questionnaires that people respond to items designed to gauge a wide range of feelings & behaviors.

- Mostly self reported, can create weaker results due to reports of what we hope to be.

- Peer-reported inventories are more accurate.

- David Funder: Believed that peer reported inventories were more accurate.

- Starke Hathaway (1960)
- The most widely researched & clinically used of all personality tests, originally developed to identify emotional disorders.
- Hundreds of true/false questions used to see how many differed from that of a normal group.

- Testing a pool of items and then selecting those that discriminate between groups.
- DERIVED from a group.
- Objectively through a computer, does not guarantee validity.

- AKA the 16 Personalities Test
- Indicator of a self-reported inventory designed to identify a person's personality type, strengths, & preferences.
- Developed by Myers & Briggs based off of Carl Jung's personality types.
- 16 Personalities falls under 4 categories. Although not the most reliable or valid test.

- Proposed by Albert Bandura (1986)
- The interaction between a person & their situation. Focuses on how we & the environment interact.
- How we act in situations reflect our personality.

- The interacting influences between personality, the environment, & behavior.
- They all are affected by one another & vise versa.

Benefits:

- Positive outlook can increase achievements & hope, & therefore success.

- Can keep you motivated & ambitious, & overall beneficial to your health.

Risks:

- Excessive optimism can blind us to risk & overconfidence.

- Can make you work harder to achieve the derived outcome.

- People are most overconfident when incompetent. You don't know what you don't know! We are extremely overconfident.