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Motivation

- A  need or desire that serves to energize behavior

- Directs behavior towards a goal

- A hypothetical construct

- Types of Motivation

- Nature versus nurture

- Nature

- Physiological

- Nurture

- Environment

- Cognitively or culturally inspired

Nature

- Instinct View

- One of the first explanation for behaviors.

- Arose out of evolutionary theory

- Fad eventually died

- Named behavior

- Did not explain behavior

- Instinct

- Must have a fixed pattern throughout a species

- Must be unlearned

- Evolutionary View

- Motives are the product of evolution

- Maximize reproductive success

- Motives best understood in terms of the adaptive problems they solve

- Criticisms

- Overestimates the biological contribution to our behavior

- Ignores important environmental and cultural factors

- Could be used to argue that the status quo is the inevitable outcome of natural selection

- Drive Reduction

- Replaced instinct theory

- Physiological need creates an aroused psychological state

- Aroused state drives the organism to reduce the need

- Homeostasis

- The maintenance of a steady internal state.

- Drive Theory

- Applies the concept of homeostasis to behavior

- Drive

- An internal state of tension that motivates an organism to engage in activities to reduce tension

- Begin life with a small set of unlearned, biological drives

- Acquire a more diverse set of drives

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Nurture

- Incentive Theory

- External stimuli regulate motivational states

- Incentive

- An external goal that has the capacity to motivate behavior

- Source of their motivation lies outside the organism

- Emphasize the role of environmental factors in determining behavior

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Needs + Incentives

- Pushed by our need to reduce drives

- Pulled by incentives

- Both internal and external factors motivate behavior

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Optimum Arousal

- Some motivated behaviors actually increase arousal

- Exploration

- Curiosity

- If lacking stimulation

- Feel bored

- Look for a way to increase our arousal

- Too much stimulation

- Feel stressed

- Look for a way to decrease arousal

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Hierarchy of Needs

- Some needs take priority over others

- Abraham Maslow (1970)

- Hierarchy of needs

- Base of the hierarchy

- Physiological needs

- Top of hierarchy

- Need to actualize our full potential

- Satisfaction of needs activates needs at next level of hierarchy

- Needs

-  Physiological

-  Hunger, thirst

-  Safety and security

-  Feel safe, secure, stable

-  Belongingness and love

-  Affiliation, acceptance

-  Esteem

-  Self-esteem, achievement, independence, recognition/respect from others

-  Cognitive

-  Knowledge, understanding

-  Aesthetic

-  Order, beauty

-  Self-actualization

-  Live up to one's fullest and unique potential

External Stimuli

- Can motivate sexual behavior and arousal

- Erotic material

- Films, videotapes, magazines

- Stereotype

- Men are more affected by erotic material than women

- Reality

– Most women report as much arousal as men to erotic stimuli

- Repeated exposure to erotic material

- Result in habituation

- Emotional response lessens repeated exposures

- Adverse effects of erotic material

– Depiction of women being sexually coerced and enjoying it

- Can increase viewers' acceptance of the myth that women enjoy rape

- Can increase some males' willingness to hurt women

- Images of sexually attractive men and women

- May lead people to devalue their own partners

- Viewing X-rated films

- Can diminish people's satisfaction with their own sexual partners

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Imagined Stimuli

- Sexual motivation arises from interplay of physiology and environment

- Stimuli inside our own heads can also influence sexual arousal and desire

- Dreams with sexual content

- Sometimes contain sexual imagery that leads to orgasm

- Nearly all men

- 40% of women

- Sexual arousal sources (imagined)

- Memories of prior sexual activities

- Fantasies

- 95% of both men and women say they have had sexual fantasies

- Gender differences

- Sexual fantasies NOT an indication of sexual problems or sexual dissatisfaction

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Gender and Sexuality

- Attitudes

- Largest gender differences

- Initiation of sexual activity

- Acceptance of casual sex

- Frequency of masturbation

- Smaller gender differences

- Acceptance of sex if two people like each other

- 54% of men

- 32% of women

- Affection as a valid reason for first intercourse

- 48% of women

- 25% of men

- Thinking of sex “every day” or “several times a day.”

- 19% of women

- 54% of men

- Behaviors

- Clark & Hatfield (1989)

- Study examining gender differences in sexual behavior

- Researchers approached attractive person of the opposite sex

- Asked person if they would sleep with them

- Women

- All declined

- Men

- 75% agreed

- Many replications of results

- Friendliness as a sexual come-on

- Men have a lower threshold for perceiving than women

- Attribute friendliness as a sign of sexual interest

- Misattribution helps explain men's greater sexual assertiveness

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Evolution and Sexual Motivation/Behavior

- Parental investment theory

- A species’ mating patterns depend on what each sex has to invest to maximize the transmission of its genes to the next generation

- Males

- Little investment beyond copulation

- Reproductive potential maximized by mating with as many females as possible

- Females

- Great investment of effort

- Limits offspring they can produce in a breeding season

- Reproductive potential optimized by being selective in choice of mate

- Men with material resources

- Jealousy

- Evolutionary theory predictions

- Males and females should differ in the events that most readily activate jealousy

- Males

- Worry about paternity

- Sexual infidelity by partners especially threatening to reproductive success

- Elicits greatest jealousy in men

- Females

- Worry about losing a male partner's material resources

- Material resources depend upon emotional commitment

- Emotional infidelity elicits the greatest jealousy in women