Final Project: Motivation - Physiological NEEDS & DRIVES

General Overview:

I took this class to better understand what produces the motivation in people. I find myself at times wondering where does that sudden burst of excitement come from or sudden drive to complete a task. Why do I wake up sometimes feeling like a bum and have no desire to do anything? I saw motivation as a push or a feeling of achieving a need or desire but in taking this course I realize how more complex and in-depth it really is. Emotions serve as a motive, being scared promotes fear and in return can cause a phobia. People have a choice to satisfy their needs and desires producing instrucmental behaviors. Locke farther explained that when the choice is near there is an increase of desire for it. Arousal is important to our motives, one can be presented with a stimuli which will determine the type of response, the intensity of the rsponse will occur through the arousal function.
Yerkes-Dodson Law looks at the stimulation and performance for a given task. When taking an exam in which one did not study will experience low arousal for better performance on a difficult tasks. We took a look into the stressors of everyday life and how it can easliy affect a person's health and the way they deal with things. I farther educated myself on my personal goals and incentives, I looked at previous goals that I made for myself and saw whether I completely acheived what i set out to do or I never did anything about it.

NEED -> DRIVE -> BEHAVIOR/ACTIVITY -> GOAL

Favorite Part:

The part that interest me the most was concerning the Physiological Drive and Needs people have. The need of the person results in activity which restores balance. The drive of a person energizes the behavior and tends to increase over time. People are born with certain physiological drives and needs, when the need of the person is met the drive is reduced and their behavior returns to a state of relaxation. Physiological needs are essential to living such as breathing,food,homeostasis,and sex, it pushes the person into action in order to satisfy their need. The drive is an persistent internal pushing that is going after the need. There are two types of physiological needs: chronic and temporary, chronic needs are preexisting and temporary needs are ones that are dormant until they are activated. A stimulus activates a psychological need in a process called redintegration.



Extension:

My concept will relate to the drug and addiction section, I found this interesting article about menthol cigarettes being more than one-quarter of all cigarettes sold in the U.S. In fact, menthols -- often described as "cooling," "soothing," and "smooth" is increasing the numbers of smokers. The minty flavor makes them more appealing to young people, more addictive, and harder to quit than regular cigarettes.Since the 1960s and 1970s, tobacco companies have largely marketed menthols to younger people and blacks, who now smoke the cigarettes at higher rates than other groups. Roughly 70 percent of blacks smoke menthols, compared with just over 20 percent of whites and 26 percent of Hispanics, according to the latest government data. And there is some evidence that menthols are a "starter" cigarette. So why allow cigarettes to be sold when we all know the outcome, people begin to desire want need adapt and repeat what they like. Here is the article if you would like to farther read up on it.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/06/15/menthol.cigarettes/index.html?iref=allsearch