Lecture Notes: Motivation for Better and Worse

Module Overview

• Final module in the book focuses on types of motivated behaviors leading to positive or negative outcomes.
• Previously discussed topics: motivation, emotion, goals, stress, coping, economics, personality, needs.
• New topics: normal and abnormal behavior, love, jealousy, social facilitation, social loafing, social influence, compliance, conformity, obedience, helping behavior, forgiveness, health behaviors, prejudice, discrimination, mob behavior, stigmatization of mental disorders.
• Discussion on universal human values as a common explanation for behaviors.

Module Outline

• 15.1. Motivation, for Better
• 15.2. Motivation, for Worse
• 15.3. Explaining Behavior, For Better or Worse, Through Values

Learning Outcomes

• Engage in motivated behavior for personal and others’ betterment.
• Recognize motivated behavior that is detrimental.
• Argue for values as a high-level explanation for behaviors.

Motivation, for Better

Exercise as Motivated Behavior

• Health benefits: weight loss, reduced disease risk, improved mood and sleep, longer life.
• Types of exercise: endurance, anaerobic, strength training, balance, flexibility.
• Tips for incorporating exercise: make daily activities active, social exercise, track progress, find alternatives for bad weather.
• Risks: injuries, exercise addiction.

Understanding Normal Behavior

• Historically focused on diseases and psychoanalysis.
• Positive psychology by Martin Seligman focuses on improving normal lives and happiness.
• Humanistic psychology emphasizes personal fulfillment, self-actualization, and positive regard.

Love

• Defined by freedom, compassion, and affection.
• Sternberg's Triangular Theory: intimacy, commitment, passion.
• Different subtypes of love based on combinations of these components.

Social Facilitation

• Presence of others affects performance on tasks.
• Dominant response: correct for easy tasks, incorrect for difficult tasks.

Helping Behavior

• Altruistic behavior vs. reciprocal altruism.
• Factors influencing help: personal responsibility, need for approval, mood.
• Situational factors: bystander effect, ambiguity of the situation.

Forgiveness

• Benefits: better mental health, reduced stress, healthier relationships.
• Steps to forgiveness: recognize value, identify who to forgive, join support, acknowledge emotions, release them.

Social Influence - Conformity

• Normative vs. informative social influence.
• Asch's experiment on conformity.
• Factors: group attraction, interaction expectation, task difficulty.

Social Influence - Compliance

• Techniques: reciprocation, commitment and consistency, social proof, liking, authority, scarcity.

Motivation, for Worse

Smoking

• Leading preventable cause of death.
• Reasons: social pressure, addiction, industry influence.
• Consequences: diseases, poor health, financial cost.

Features and Costs of Abnormal Behavior

• DSM-5 criteria: dysfunction, distress, deviance.
• Dangerousness and societal cost of mental illness.

Jealousy

• Negative emotional state from perceived threat.
• Evolutionary perspective: preserves social bonds but can lead to aggression.

Social Loafing

• Reduced effort in group settings.
• Employers combat cyberloafing with monitoring.
• Reduction strategies: small groups, identifiable contributions.

Prejudice and Discrimination

• Prejudice: negative belief; Discrimination: negative action.
• Implicit attitudes and stereotype threats.

Stigmatization of Mental Disorders

• Stigma types: public, label avoidance, self-stigma, courtesy stigma.
• Effects: work discrimination, suicide, reduced help-seeking.

Mob Behavior

• Deindividuation, snowball effect, anonymity.

Social Influence - Obedience

• Milgram's experiment: obedience to authority.
• Factors affecting obedience: proximity, authority presence.

Explaining Behavior Through Values

Defining Values

• Six components: beliefs, non-specific, goal-linked, ordered, relative, standard-setting.
• Ten values: openness to change vs. conservation; self-enhancement vs. self-transcendence.

Measuring Values

• Schwartz Value Survey and Portrait Values Questionnaire measure values across cultures.

Cross-Cultural Variation in Values

• Universality and diversity in value expression.
• Factors: life circumstances, age, gender influence value priorities.

Values and Personality

• Relationship with the Big Five traits and belief in a just world.

Values Predicting Outcomes

• Everyday behavior, cooperation, religiosity, social contact readiness, voting behavior.

Module Recap

• Balanced look at motivated behaviors with positive and negative outcomes.
• Universal human values as a potential unifying explanation.
• Book serves as a capstone course tying together psychology subfields.