Motivation, Motive, and Psychology

 

Motivation is the state of an organism in pursuit of a goal. Motivation can be characterized by different degrees or levels. Thus, it is meaningful to say someone is highly or lowly motivated with respect to their pursuit or avoidance of an object. 

Motivation may be measured in different ways. We can observe people and animals in pursuit of visible goals like the speed of running toward a finish line, the time spent trying to solve a problem (level of engagement), or the time spent on a number of activities considered relevant to success as in winning an election or an award.

A college student who is highly motivated to get into a graduate school program may be observed to spend a great deal of time studying, earn high scores on classroom tests, spend time collecting information about graduate schools, and participate in research expected of successful graduate students.

Leaders may engage in motivation when they attempt to encourage people to work together in pursuit of organizational goals and objectives.

Biological factors like hormones and cardiovascular activity reflect degrees of motivation.

Self-report of motivation is not a reliable predictor of behavior. Some goals like losing weight or increasing exercise may be endorsed at highly important and a person may present as highly motivated but the actual behavior may not result in significant movement toward the expressed goal.

Motive

In psychology, a motive is a biopsychological state of arousal that activates an organisms pursuit of a goal. Primary motives, also called physiological motives, include thirst and hunger. We may also speak of needs as in the need to eat, drink, or sleep.

Motive is sometimes used to refer to the reason that explains why organisms behave as they do. A person may state a motive and observers may infer motives based on some sort of evidence like a pattern of nonverbal behavior, verbal statements, or writings online.

Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation

Intrinsic motivation is the goal-directed activity energized by the pleasure obtained from particpating in the activity in contrast to rewards or reinforcers external to the activity such as money or applause.

Extrinsic motivation is the goal-directed activity energized by an incentive external to the activity itself such as money, trophies, awards, and so forth.

Key words in this post

Motive, motivation, intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation

Cite this post

Sutton, G.W. (2020, December 30). Motivation, motive, and psychology. Psychology Concepts and Theories https://suttonpsychology.blogspot.com/2020/12/motivation-motive-and-psychology.html

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Psychology of Contempt

 

Contempt is an emotion and a disposition. Contempt destroys relationships.

Contempt is an emotion associated with feeling morally superior to another person. Contempt may be accompanied by mild anger. The people expressing contempt appears to see themselves as more powerful and of a higher status than the target of contempt.

Contempt may be upward and downward. That is, a person of lower social rank may feel upward contempt toward social superiors like authority figures or work supervisors. And people of higher social rank may feel downward contempt toward those viewed as of lower social rank like a professor toward a person of limited education or an experienced clinician toward a novice.

The work of Paul Ekman identified a facial expression of contempt as the corner of one side of a lip raised—a unilateral facial expression. The voice tone of contempt is perceived as smug and disapproving.

Contempt can have posture too—a move toward being physically upright as if to “look down one’s nose.” Eye-rolling is another sign of contempt.

As a psychotherapist, the work of John Gottman and his colleagues (e.g., Gottman & Silver, 1999) had a powerful effect on my appreciation for contempt, which is an emotion-driven attitude that can destroy a marriage.

Gottman and Silver illustrate contempt in a couple’s relationship. One partner routinely criticizes the other. The second person responds with a sneer and sarcasm when the critic makes a suggestion. The sarcasm turns to cynicism—both words reveal contempt. The authors add other indicators of contempt: “name-calling, eye-rolling, mockery, and hostile humor (Kindle location 1254).”

Contempt is related to disgust psychology but it is not the same. In both cases, a social distance occurs but disgust may be linked to feeling revulsion about something considered unclean, yucky, or sickening whereas, people feeling contempt may feel good. 

Contempt in a relationship conveys disgust and leads to more conflict, which prevents reconciliation. Contempt develops from a long history of negative thoughts toward the other in a relationship and can lead to a closely related pattern of belligerence, which is an expression of anger in an aggressive manner. Belligerence is manifest as a threat or provocation. In common language, contempt is the poison in toxic relationships.

In their article about dispositional contempt, Roberta Shriber at UC-Davis and her colleagues refer to the concept as “the tendency to look down on, distance, and derogate others who violate our standards (2017, p. 280).” These authors want to move the study of contempt from a look at the emotional components of which disgust is paramount, to a personality trait. Features of the disposition include a pattern of viewing select others as incompetent, inferior, and to be avoided. Shriber and others build on the data for contempt as a disposition based on its durability in the work of John Gottman and his colleagues.

In Christianity, the Apostle Paul warned people in the Roman church against a contemptuous attitude toward people who held different convictions (See chapter 14).

In philosophy, contempt may be discussed as an example of a judgmental emotion. See the entry "emotion" in the SEP.

For a measure of contempt, see the Dispositional Contempt Scale

Read more about the problem of contempt in relationships: Principles of Healthy Marriages

Resources

The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work by Gottman & Silver

Unmasking the Face by Ekman & Friesen

The Righteous Mind by Haidt

Topics: #contempt #disgust #moralpsychology #righteousmind

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References

Gottman, J. & Silver, N. (1999). The seven principles for making marriage work. New York: Three Rivers.

Schriber, R. A., Chung, J. M., Sorensen, K. S., & Robins, R. W. (2017). Dispositional contempt: A first look at the contemptuous person. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 113, 280-309.

 

Self-defeating prophecy Self-defeating behavior

 

A Self-defeating prophecy is a belief that comes true when a person acts according to the belief.

Self-defeating behavior is any act that results in personal failure, pain, suffering, or misfortune.

Self-serving bias in psychology

 

Self-serving Bias. People generally have a self-serving bias, which means they take credit for their successes and reject blame for problems and failures.

Self-fulfilling prophecy in psychology

 Self-fulfilling prophecy is a belief about the future, which comes true when people act according to the belief. 

Read more -- related concepts of prejudice and discrimination.

Scapegoat theory in Psychology

 

Scapegoat theory is based on findings that people tend to blame their mistakes, failures, poor judgments, or negative circumstances on outgroups. A politician might blame another party or nation for economic woes.

Read more about the related concepts of discrimination and prejudice

Fundamental Attribution Error in Psychology

 

In psychology, the Fundamental Attribution Error is attributing the behavior of a group of people to personality traits or characteristics of the people rather than to an external cause such as a situation.

Other terms include: correspondence bias and over-attribution effect

For example, considering slaves to be ignorant or dependent instead of recognizing the system of slavery used the force of law and punishment to withhold education and freedom to live as they wished.

Reference

Jones, E. E., & Harris, V. A. (1967). The attribution of attitudes. Journal of experimental social psychology, 3(1), 1-24.

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Demonology, Deliverance, and the Psychology of Religion

 

Demonology. The study of devils and demons, which often includes fallen angels, witches, curses, and other practices.

Many religious traditions include supernatural beings believed to interact with human beings in harmful ways. The belief in demons varies with the religious group and with individuals but the beliefs are widely held throughout the world.

Deliverance or exorcism are ways religious people rid themselves of the influence of supernatural beings. The practice usually includes prayer along with other procedures.

Read more research and clinical practice in Chapter 14, "Devils, Demons, and Deliverance," of Counseling and Psychotherapy with Pentecostal Charismatic Christians.

Correlation in Psychology

 

Correlation. The relationship between two variables. When two variables vary in a specific way with each other, they are said to covary. The covariation can be described in a graph of the relationship or in a summary statistic known as a correlation coefficient. There are a few common correlation coefficients.

Correlation coefficient. A statistic that summarizes a correlation between two variables. Correlations range from -1.0 to +1.0. Positive correlation values represent relationships such that as one variable increases, so does the other. Negative correlation values represent relationships that are inverse. In an inverse relationship, one value increases as the other value decreases. A common coefficient is the Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient reported using a lower case, italicized letter r. See also correlation.

Conversion / Deconversion in Psychology of Religion

 

Conversion of St Paul by Benvenuto Tisi ca 1525

Conversion and deconversion are the acts of moving away from one spiritual or religious identity and moving toward another identity. A generic term for the processes is Spiritual Transformations.

Conversion and deconversion can occur as a result of a  spiritual struggle.

The processes of conversion have been scientifically studied for more than 100 years. An early observer was the American psychologist and philosopher, William James.

Read more about Spiritual Transformations in Chapter 15 of Counseling Pentecostal and Charismatic Christians.

See  Spiritual Struggles   and other spirituality measures in the Test Index for measures evaluating religiosity and spirituality.

_____________________

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Conscious override

 

Conscious override occurs when people work to overcome their admitted prejudices. The effort to override requires self-control and cognitive effort, which can be draining.

Confounding variable

 

A confounding variable in research produces unexpected changes in the dependent variable and therefore interferes with interpreting the capacity of an independent variable to produce or explain changes in a dependent variable.

Confirmation bias in psychology

 

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Geoffrey W. Sutton & Bing AI

Confirmation bias occurs when people look at an event or set of data and find evidence to support their beliefs while ignoring contradictory evidence.

Wason (1960) reported evidence that once research participants hypothesized a rule producing a number sequence, they did not consider alternatives.

Mynatt et al. (1977) reported evidence for a strong confirmation bias in hypothesis testing.

For a review of research, see Nickerson (1998). Nickerson traces the history of confirmation bias to the philosopher, Francis Bacon. Some notes from Nickerson follow.

We have a tendency to prefer evidence that supports our beliefs, which is known as my-side bias.

The bias to search for confirming evidence occurs even when people do not have a strong interest in the search.

Confirmation bias explains why general comments from mind-readers and predictions by psychics and astrologers appear true for those who ignore inaccurate descriptions or predictions or do not consider the probability that something would be true or come to pass regardless of the prediction. 

Examples of confirmed expectations in research include ethnic, clinical, educational, socioeconomic, lifestyle, and stereotypes (p. 182).

Confirmation bias can worsen depression and paranoia.

Perceiving that a correlation between two events exists is another example of confirmation bias and is called an illusory correlation.

Confirmation bias may occur when people overestimate the ability to predict behavior based on a personality trait. Similarly, people may generalize from a person's action to think they always behave in a certain way (e.g., always angry, always kind), which is the illusion of consistency.

When people learn of a taxonomy, they tend to see other matters from that perspective. This phenomenon is called reification.

The primacy effect may help explain confirmation bias. That is, early information carries more weight in forming opinions. The primacy effect is related to the belief persistence phenomenon, which is the finding that once beliefs are formed, they are difficult to change regardless of contradictory evidence.

Our desire to favor select beliefs and ideas is an example of the Pollyanna Principle (Matlin & Stang, 1978).

There is evidence to suggest a positivity bias. That is, people find mentally easier to deal with positive findings than evaluate negative information.

More examples of confirmation bias

The historic hunt for evidence that people were witches, which resulted in the death of thousands.

Government and organizations create policies then search for evidence justifying the policies.

The history of medicine illustrates confirmation bias in diagnoses and the search for cures.

Jurors develop a bias toward a verdict before a trial is concluded. Final verdicts tend to be the same as the tentative verdicts.

References

Mynatt, C. R., Doherty, M. E., & Tweney, R. D. (1977). Confirmation bias in a simulated research environment: An experimental study of scientific inference. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 29(1), 85–95. https://doi.org/10.1080/00335557743000053

Nickerson, R. S. (1998). Confirmation bias: A ubiquitous phenomenon in many guises. Review of General Psychology, 2(2), 175–220. https://doi.org/10.1037/1089-2680.2.2.175

Wason, P. C. (1960). On the failure to eliminate hypotheses in a conceptual task. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 12, 129-140.

Geoffrey W. Sutton, PhD is Emeritus Professor of Psychology. He retired from a clinical practice and was credentialed in clinical neuropsychology and psychopharmacology. His website is  www.suttong.com

 

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Dr. Sutton’s posts are for educational purposes only. See a licensed mental health provider for diagnoses, treatment, and consultation.

Classism as Prejudice

Photo from wiki.ubc.ca

Classism refers to prejudicial attitudes toward people based on their social class. Classism can lead to discrimination based on locally defined social class.

Researchers divide social classes in various ways. The classifications people use may include different attributes such as economic, cultural, and social capital / social influence.

Thinking of people in terms of class is a common experience. People seem to naturally classify people as rich, important, attractive, and intelligent, which has the effect of setting up contrasting categories as less than the valued class.

Some writers use a variation of a traditional five-part system:

Upper class or elite

Upper middle class

Lower middle class

Working class

Poor

A UK study classified people in the following classes (O'Brien, 2013)

Precariat- most deprived of economic, cultural, social capital

Traditional working class

Emergent Service Workers

Technical Middle Class

New Affluent Workers

Established Middle Class

Elite