Motivation and Emotion

Motive is a general term covering wishes, needs, drives and interests that induce an organism to act towards a purpose

Bodily needs such as hunger, thirst and sex creating state of tension or arousal are called a drives.

When a person is hungry, the need for eating continually increases. At this point, hunger drive may not increase as much as the need. In other words, even if the need for eating increases, individual might forget about his hunger in a hectic day and miss a meal. However, this does not mean that the feeling of hunger subsides or the need for eating is over. In fact, the need to find food continuously increases. It is necessary to consider biological and psychological factors affecting this process. Biological need of the individual still remains; however, a problem or stress factor at work or fear of getting fat can prevent the individual from eating.

Incentives refer to non-biological elements that appeal to an individual even if he does not feel any need and trigger him for an action accordingly. These elements might be in the form of objects or events that attract individual’s attention. In conclusion, although a cake may satisfy the need for food when the individual is hungry, eating a cake after a meal does not have to do with satisfying the need for eating. 

homeostatis is the tendency for an individual’s internal environment to remain fairly constant. The word “Homeostatis” come from two Greek words: First one is “homos” means “same” and “therme” means “heat”. Homeostasis, is often defined as biological balance and it maintains the balance in the body like a thermostats. When room temperature decreases or increases, thermostats turns off or turns on the central heating system. Similarly, our body tries to keep this balance during hunger or thirst through certain systems.

The fact that human behaviors are not only innate, they can be developed later on, and common human behaviors are not observed as many times as individually unique behaviors weakens the relationship between intuition and human beings. People learn most of their behaviors later on and often show behaviors unique to them rather than stereotype behaviors. That is why it is difficult to explain human behavior through instinct.

Primary motives refer to common and unlearned drives that emerge due to biological needs and direct human behaviors accordingly. All biological drives such as hunger, thirst and sexuality are among primary drives. It might be useful to examine these drives in order to understand how primary drives emerge and direct human behaviors.

Hypothalamus is the center directing the reactions related to hunger in the body. It also controls eating process as hunger and thirst control center. The nerve cells in this center function according to glycoses level in blood. When insulin is released to blood directly, it lowers blood sugar level and feeling of hunger emerges. Similarly, when glycoses is released to the blood, feeling of hunger disappears.

The need to drink water is felt when water salt-balance of the body is distorted. To illustrate, bars offer free of charge snacks together with drinks as a marketing strategy since these snacks will increase salt level in the body, so customers are likely to drink more.

Sex, the primary drive related to reproduction behavior, is stimulated through biological and environmental factors. This drive differs from other primary drives such as hunger and thirst in some ways. While hunger and thirst are essential for the survival of an organism, sexuality is important only for the continuation of a species.

There are many different views about curiosity. While some researchers evaluate curiosity as an emotion, Freud defines it as the reflection of sexual drive in a socially appropriate way. Similarly, some researchers see curiosity as a need to find the meaning of life, while others associate it with intelligence and creativity.

Social motives -which include being together, power and affiliation- are about interpersonal relationships and as influential as unlearned motives on human behaviors. While the motives such as hunger, thirst and sexuality are common motives of humans, social motives -the learned motives- are shaped by social life and social values although they are sometimes affected by biological needs. Failing to satisfy hunger and thirst motives can cause biological problems; however, when learned motives are not satisfied, psychological problems occur rather than biological ones.

Need for achievement refers to doing your best while working on a task and feeling pleasure about its consequences.

What is important for individuals with high level need for attainment is to do his job as perfectly as possible. Here, need for attainment should not be confused with fear of failure. The individuals with high level fear of failure prefer tasks with higher possibility of success and avoid other difficult tasks even if they have the potential to succeed.

Abraham Maslow classified the needs shaping human behavior in the form of a pyramid; placing the most basic ones at the bottom step and the most complex ones at the top.While basic physiological needs such as hunger and thirst are placed at the bottom step, the top step houses self-realization, which is about individuals’ using all their potentials, as the highest level need in the hierarchy.

According to Maslow, it is not possible to meet the needs at upper levels without satisfying the ones at a lower level. An individual who cannot satisfy his hunger is not expected to seek for a romantic relationship or some ways to achieve self-realization. Similarly, an individual who has been hungry for a long time is not expected to eat according to social rules when he finds food.

Emotions are complex processes that affect human behaviors. In fact, emotions, which can be defined as what individuals feel about something, are the drives that induce behaviors. Human beings have been programmed in a way to be able to make contingency plans to handle life-related issues. The word “emotion” derives from the Latin word “motere”, which means, “move”. In other words, it comes from the exact word e-motion; that is, the moving energy.

Emotions emerge at different levels in the body. Although different theories define the order of levels in different ways, the following three levels are observed in every emotion experience. The first level is subjective emotional experience, in which each individual experiences emotions according to their perceptional framework.

Another level of emotional experience is emotional behavior level. The behavior based on a specific emotion gives clues about this emotion to the people around the individual.

The third level related to emotional experience is physiological reactions in the body. A noticeable increase due to an emotion in the heartbeat and breathing as well as some changes in intestine and stomach can be listed as the examples of this level.

Intense emotions such as rage or fear cause some physiological changes in the body. For instance, when we are afraid of something, our heart beats faster, our mouth gets dry, we sweat, shiver, and feel heartburn in the stomach. Most of these physiological reactions of the body occur when the sympathetic division of autonomic nervous system activates.

The basic emotions ensuring adaptation to the environment are listed as follows:

• fear

• joy

• anger

• sadness

• disgust

• anticipation

• acceptance

• surprise

All of the above mentioned emotions are thought to have a function in terms of adaptation to nearby environment. For instance, while fear helps living creatures to be prepared for reactional behaviors to protect themselves, fury and anger remove the danger through aggressive behavior.

According to the theory developed by William James and Carl Lange, the body reacts to the nearby events, and when this reaction is noticed, an emotion occurs accompanied with these physiological changes. Pupils’ getting bigger and goosebumps on arms are accompanied with certain behaviors. To illustrate, when an individual sees a dog in a deserted street, certain physiological changes occur in his body, which leads to the emergence of fear as an emotion. This theory claims that people do not run away because they are afraid, but they are afraid because they run away.

Since internal organs are not supported as strongly as other organs by nervous system, internal changes occur very slowly. Thus, it is not possible to associate internal organs with excitement and emotions.

• It is possible to artificially obtain such physiological changes in the body by taking medicine. In other words, when a medicine or substance is taken to the body, similar physiological changes occur, but this does not mean that emotion will be experienced or it may not be experienced as dense as the naturally occuring changes.

• Individuals may react differently for the same emotion. For instance, fear results in crying with some individuals but other behaviors such as shivering with others. James-Lange theory is not sufficient to explain this situation.

• Autonomous system may not give very different reactions to emotional experiences. Anger or seeing a beloved one may cause similar physiological reactions such as faster heartbeat. At this point, it is not possible to expect a different reaction for each single emotion.

According to Walter Cannon and Philip Bard, the founders of this theory, the physical reactions such as being alert about the danger are accompanied with emotional experiences. When a stimulant is perceived, brain activates muscles and cognitive activity that involves the previous experiences related to that specific emotion. Thus, Cannon–Bard theory suggests that emotions accompany physiological reaction. In contrast, James-Lange theory argues that emotions induce physiological changes.

cognitive factors play an important role in how our emotions differ and change from person to person.

Placebo effect is a term used to explain how some individuals recover from illnesses by taking fake medicine without receiving a real treatment. They take fake medicine thinking that they are real, so they believe that they are receiving medical treatment.

Gestures and mimics can be classified into two main groups:

Basic gestures and mimics: They are defined as the movements supporting emotions and thoughts and make them concrete. They are classified in three different groups: Expressive gestures and mimics , Social gestures and mimics, Schematic gestures and mimics.

Secondary gestures and mimics: They involve non-social body movements associated with body needs such as yawning, sneezing and coughing. They can give clues about the source as well. For instance, yawning many times can reflect the reactions of the individual to an ongoing speech.