AP Psych: Motivation and Emotion Key Terms

Resistance

In psychoanalysis, the blocking from consciousness of anxiety-laden material. Ex.) A client might make a off-handed remark or joke, claim they forgot the information, or pick a fight with the therapist. When they act in these types of counterproductive ways in response to the therapist addressing certain topics (i.e., the Resistance), the therapist is getting closer to the root of the problem.

Drive

Forces that push an organism into action in order to reach a goal. Ex.) The Drive of a person searching for food is hunger.

Type A Personality

Friedman and Rosenman's term for competitive, hard driving, impatient, verbally aggressive, and anger prone people. Ex.) A person who plays games to compete and win against others may be considered a Type A Personality.

Type B Personality

Friedman and Rosenman's term for easygoing, relaxed people. Ex.) A person who enjoys games for the love of the game, not winning may be considered a Type B Personality.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

A description of the needs that motivate human behavior. Ex.) According to Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, physiological needs like food and water must first be satisfied before a person can meet other needs higher up.

Intrinsic Motivation

A desire to perform a behavior effectively for its own sake. Ex.) Someone who writes music for his own listening pleasure.

Extrinsic Motivation

A desire to perform a behavior to receive promised rewards or avoid threatened punishment. Ex.) Children who study for tests in order to be rewarded with crayons.

Physiological Motives

A motive stemming from a basic physiological need. Ex.) Thirst and hunger are a Physiological Motive.

Motivation

A need or desire that energizes and directs behavior. Ex.) A person may eat food because they are hungry. Their hunger is their motivation.

Emotion

A response of the whole organism, involving (1) physiological arousal, (2) expressive behaviors and (3) conscious experience. Ex.) A person crying after his team lost the game is an example of Emotion.

Evolutionary Theory

A theoretical approach to psychology that attempts to explain useful mental and psychological traits—such as memory, perception, or language—as adaptations, i.e., as the functional products of natural selection. Ex.) Jill has been afraid of spiders since she was a toddler. After determining that she had never been bitten or seen someone bitten by a spider, her therapist explained that according to evolutionary psychology, Jill's fear might be an instinctive reaction.

Schachter-Singer two-factor Theory

A theory that human emotions contain two factors or parts: physical arousal and a cognitive label. According to Schachter, both of these elements must be present for you to experience an emotion. Some form of arousal occurs (e.g., increased heart rate, perspiration, etc.), you then put some label on this arousal, and then experience the emotion. Ex.) Imagine you are alone in a dark parking lot walking toward your car. A strange man suddenly emerges from a nearby row of trees and rapidly approaches. The sequence that follows, according to the two-factor theory, would be much like this: 1. I see a strange man walking toward me. 2. My heart is racing and I am trembling. 3. My rapid heart rate and trembling are caused by fear. 4. I am frightened!

Set Point

A theory that states everyone's body has a genetically determined range of weight and temperature that their body will try to maintain to stay at optimal health. Ex.) Stimulating the hypothalamus may alter a person's Set Point and change the fluctuation of their weight.

Opponent-Process Theory

A theory where emotional reactions to a stimulus are followed by opposite emotional reactions. Ex.) This may explain why drugs, such as opiates, give diminishing returns after prolonged use yet the effects of withdraw become more intensified and unpleasant.

Exhaustion

Exhaustion stage is a level of stress in the general adaptation syndrome (GAS). The exhaustion stage can result in physical or mental breakdowns due to the body's response to the stressor. Ex.) After running a marathon, the runner sleeps as soon as he gets home because of Exhaustion.

Anorexia Nervosa

An eating disorder in which a person (usually an adolescent female) maintains a starvation diet despite being significantly (15 percent or more) underweight. Ex.) This disorder most often affects females (although males do suffer from anorexia as well), and is typically associated with a tremendous amount of concern for and misperception of one's own body image.

Bulimia Nervosa

An eating disorder in which a person alternates binge eating (usually of high-calorie foods) with purging (by vomiting or laxative use) or fasting. Ex.)Like other eating disorders, there tends to be a relationship between social views of attractiveness and bulimia; cultures that identify being thin with being attractive have higher rates of bulimia.

Overjustification Effect

An effect that occurs when an expected external incentive such as money or prizes decreases a person's intrinsic motivation to perform a task. Ex.) A person who used to write music for his own pleasure started receiving money for writing music. That person started having less fun writing his own music because he began seeing it as work.

Need for Achievement

An individual's desire for significant accomplishment, mastering of skills, control, or high standards. Ex.)Say someone with a high Need for Achievement is just beginning to set high standards for themselves in fitness. They may aim to run a 5k (3-mile) race, but they would shy away from a longer race until they have become a more experienced runner, so they aren't setting themselves up for failure.

Affiliation Motive

Describes a person's need to feel a sense of involvement and "belonging" within a social group. Ex.) Affiliation Motive can be seen as the reason behind the formation of cliques.

Multiple-Approach-Avoidance Conflict

Describes the internal mental debate (sometimes called a conflict) that weighs the pros and cons of differing situations that have both good and bad elements Ex.) Choosing a college is an example of a Multiple-Approach-Avoidance Conflict because a person weighs multiple factors such as campus, money, distance and reputation.

Defense Mechanism

In psychoanalytic theory, the ego's protective methods of reducing anxiety by unconsciously distorting reality. Ex.) A child's temper tantrum is a form of acting out and a Defense Mechanism when he or she doesn't get his or her way with a parent.

Approach-Approach Conflict

Psychological conflict between two desired gratifications that may lead to some hesitation but rarely to great distress. Ex.) When a person has two choose between two really good jobs, it is an Approach-Approach Conflict.

Avoidance-Avoidance Conflict

Psychological conflict that results when a choice must be made between two undesirable alternatives Ex.) When a person has to choose between doing homework and doing chores, it is an Avoidance-Avoidance Conflict.

Approach-Avoidance Conflict

Psychological conflicts that occur when there is one goal or event that has both positive and negative effects or characteristics that make the goal appealing and unappealing simultaneously. Ex.) A person is offered a job that is a promotion and higher salary but would have to move to a city far away.

Hans Selye - General Adaptation Syndrome

Selye determined that the body has a natural, adaptive response to stress that is composed of three stages: alarm, resistance, exhaustion. Ex.) In its attempt to retain homeostasis, the body makes use of its hormonal system, also known as the fight or flight response. With this response, you would notice how the body wants things to be resolved fast and easy, that's why it already resorts to releasing hormones that would enable you to combat stress in the most immediate way possible. This struggle of the body against stress is the main theme of the General Adaptation Syndrome.

Holmes-Rahe Social Readjustment Scale

The Social Readjustment Rating Scale, also known as Holmes and Rahe Scale, was created in 1967 as a means of measuring personal stress levels. This scale uses a list of 43 stressful life events, and a numerical score for the power of each event, and asks the user to indicate how many of these events have occurred in their life in the previous 12 months. Ex.) According to the Scale, a score of 300+ indicates an 80% chance of the individual suffering from a significant level of stress.

Drive Reduction Theory

The idea that a physiological need creates an aroused tension state (a drive) that motivates an organism to satisfy the need. Ex.) Thirst or hunger is what causes people to search for water or food according to the Drive Reduction Theory.

Instinct Theory

The idea that all humans have the same motivations due to our similar biological programming. This theory says that the root of all motivations is the motivation to survive. Ex.) An example of Instinct Theory is that infants have an innate rooting reflex that leads them to root for and suck on a nipple.

Incentive Theory

The idea that behavior is motivated by a desire for reinforcement or incentives. Ex.) If a person is offered money to eat a ghost pepper, according to the Incentive Theory this behavior is motivated by an incentive which is the money.

Arousal Theory

The idea that we seek an optimum level of excitement or arousal. People with high optimum levels of arousal will be drawn to high excitement behaviors while the rest of us are satisfied with less exciting and less risky activities. Ex.) If our levels drop too low we might seek stimulation by going out to a nightclub with friends. If these levels become too elevated and we become overstimulated, we might be motivated to select a relaxing activity such as going for a walk or taking a nap.

Alarm Reaction

The initial stage in the body's response to stressful stimuli, characterized by adaptive physiological changes, such as increased hormonal activity and increased heart rate. Ex.) The feeling that you would get if you were walking down a trail and suddenly realized you were about to step on a big snake.

Yerkes-Dodson Law

The principle that performance increases with arousal only up to a point, beyond which performance decreases. EX.) An athlete who performs better under real game situation than he/she does during practice games. There is more arousal (stress, excitement) during the real games which increases their performance. But, if the pressure becomes too much, their performance can decrease (e.g., missing an easy shot with time running out and losing the game -- choking).

Stress

The process by which we perceive and respond to certain events, called stressors, that we appraise as threatening or challenging. Ex.) Midterms are a source of stress for High Schoolers.

Arousal

The state of being physiologically alert, awake, and attentive. Ex.) Increased heart rate and blood pressure is a sign of Arousal.

Cannon-Bard Theory

The theory that an emotion-arousing stimulus simultaneously triggers (1) physiological responses and (2) the subjective experience of emotion. Ex.) A woman is hiking in the forest when she stumbles upon a bear. All at once, she starts sweating, trembling, and feeling extremely afraid.

James-Lange Theory

The theory that our experience of emotion is our awareness of our physiological responses to emotion- arousing stimuli. Ex.) Imagine that you are walking through a dark parking garage toward your car. You notice a dark figure trailing behind you and your heart begins to race. According to the James-Lange theory, you then interpret your physical reactions to the stimulus as fear. Therefore, you feel frightened and rush to your car as quickly as you can.