CLASS 19

MOTIVATION
AND
EMOTION
What’s the difference?
 Confusing because they usually occur together

 Emotion
 the subjective experience of a physiological reaction to a
stimulus
 e.g. anxiety, excitement, disgust, love

 Motivation:
 activates a specific goal-directed behavior
 hunger, thirst, sex, escape, money, power
 not necessarily conscious
Q: Function of motivation ?
 Simple Answer -- For survival:

 Organisms need to initiate adaptive behaviors

(eat, drink, sleep, etc.)
 Forces to push them in right direction
 cars & computers can’t do it
VARIETIES OF MOTIVATION
 How many and what is their origin?

 Freud – just two

 Learning theory – reward & punishment
 Humanistic theory – hierarchy of needs
 Instincts – too many and no organization
 (37 according to William James, 1890)
Here are some of them…..
• Acceptance, the need for approval
• Curiosity, the need to learn
• Eating, the need for food
• Family, the need to raise children
• Honor, the need to be loyal to the traditional values
of one's clan/ethnic group
• Idealism, the need for social justice
• Independence, the need for individuality
• Independence, the need for individuality
• Order, the need for organized, stable, predictable
environments
• Physical activity, the need for exercise
• Power, the need for influence of will
• Romance, the need for sex and for beauty
• Saving, the need to collect
• Social contact, the need for friends (peer
relationships)
• Social status, the need for social
standing/importance
• Tranquility, the need to be safe
• Vengeance, the need to strike back and to compete
 DARWIN’S
EVOLUTIONARY
THEORY
• Organizes and explains motivation

Motivations maximize reproduction

•
of the species
Mechanism of evolution
 Sexual reproduction  variation
 Environmental pressures and mate-competition

 Some survive
 Namely, those who suit new circumstances
 Floods

 Famine

 War
 Evolution Creates Diverse Species

 Many niches in ecosystem

 Each niche selects for different traits

 Yields great diversity between species

 It all happens automatically !

Evolutionary Psychology
 Not just physical differences are selected

 Also behavior and thinking

 Our species shows specific psychological tendencies

 e.g., specific fears, desires and intuitions

 Other species show their own tendencies

Who survived?

 The fittest ?
–not strength or speed but intelligence

 The best reproducers ?

 Must show cross-sex attraction

 Effective reproducers
 Must also enjoy nurturance
 Adaptive qualities depend on gender
Individual Differences
 Not emphasized in evolutionary theory
 3 possibilities

1. Natural variation around ideal mean ?

2. Mutations ?

3. Polymorphisms ?
Gender differences
 Predictable from evolutionary theory because
males and females must have different
reproductive agendas

 IN SHORT:
 Men spread their seed and fight off

competitors
 Women invest in their babies
Most sex differences are small
 Except with regard to:

 physicalaggression
 reproductive preferences

 Those show large differences

 Different species? Different planets?

Clark & Hatfield (1989)
 Students approached by opposite-sex stranger

 1. Date ?
yes = 50% of males
50% of females

 2. Have sex ?
yes = 75% of males
0% of females
Let me count the ways

 Casual sex vs. commitment

 Sex vs. relationship focus

 Entertainment choice

 Interest in nurturance
Which theory ?

 EP predicts all these differences should occur in

every human society

 Other theories predict that they should vary across

culture
Class essay #3
 Clark & Hatfield study (1989)

 Do you think that the same sex difference would

occur if this study were run on the UBC campus this
year?
 Explain your reasoning in 100-150 words
 Email to paulhus.sec.8.3@gmail.com
 OR

 Email to paulhus.sec.9.3@gmail.com