Final Post

When I first thought of the word "motivation: all that came to mind was goal setting and achieveing goals. Now I understand that there is so much more behind that one simple word and relates to so many different aspects of a person's daily lifestyle. Motivation has been an extremely interesting and informative course. I have learned so much from the hisotry of motivational psychology & types of motivational psychology to the cognitivie process and emotions involved with this particular type of psychology. I feel as if the course incorporated a lot of topics I have already covered and learned about in previous courses and also gave inisight to completely new topics.


For example, in chapter 3, evolutionay antecedents of motivation were discussed. It was stated on page 69 that " fear has been used to illustrate a universal motive that is shaped by evolution. It is a prepared tendency or psychological mechanism in mammals that is ready to occur in response to certain stimuli." The chapter on Goals (11) also discussed different fears associated with attaining goals. This was interesting to read because it made me realize that a lot of my motivation to do things spurs from fear, particullarly the fear of failure or being unsuccessful.

In chapter 4, the economics of motivation was discussed and this was completely eye-opening for me! I had no idea that psychology could be related to economics. We learned about the differences between a variety of motivational costs. For example, physical energy costs can be seen as the use of oxygen and glucose such as when calories are burned. A psychological energy cost can be self-control to keep on a task and not giving into temptations. Some of the other topics we covered included addictions, behavior, stress & coping, personality, extrinsic and intrinsic motivation, and drives and needs.


My favorite topic was that on Homeostasis: Temperature, thirst, hunger, and eating. I'm a biochemistry major and I'm also currently taking Anatomy & Physiology. It amazed me how similar this chapter in the book was to everything that I am currently learning now in Anatomy and to other topics I've learned in previous Biochemistry courses. Homeostasis refers to the constant and normal conditions maintained in the body. The maintainance of this depends on a negative feedback system, a self-correcting process that reduces the discrepancy between a desired state and an actual satate. The example they give in the book is the operation of a furnace. Another example is when your body goes through a negative feedback inhibition such as when a person gets cold. Your body temperature intitially drops, you get cold, start to shiver, and this triggers your body temperature to rise in order to maintain a homeostatic balance between the weather outside and the temperature inside your body.


Another example is cellular thirst. In order for all of the cells in your body to work properly the cells must constantly replace the fluid they are losing while working. Intracellular fluid refers to the water contained within a cell ( approximately 67% of it is H2O! ) Extracellular fluid refers to remaining water that surrounds the outside of the cells. Both fluids containt concentrations of salt particales that must be maintained at a balance on both sides due to homeostasis! In anatomy we learned that this balance in maintained through the output and intake of the fluids through processes called diffusion & osmosis.


Here is a college I made demonstrating the relationship between biology & psychology:

Sources: Textbook: Motivation- third edition- Lambert Deckers.

I really enjoyed posting on this blog and I hope all of you enjoyed posting and reading as much as I did! Take care! :)

Final Post

At this very moment I am demonstrating one of the lessons learned in this class...

Why am I writing this post? What is the INCENTIVE for me by writing this post? Well, my incentive behind writing this post is a grade for this course (if all goes as planned, that grade will be an A!)

Along with learning about incentives and what drives us to do the things we do, I also learned about how motivation affects everyone's lives daily. This course covered topics such as addictions and addictive behaviors, arousal, personality traits, drives and the history behind it all.

I enjoyed a couple different parts of this course including the section on facial expressions. I felt that chapter 14 "Emotions as Motives" was pretty relavent to my life because this is something I deal with on a day to day basis and never even really thought about it! I work at a community based bank where we pride ourselves on customer service. Daily, I see the same people with whom I need to make small talk as part of my job. While they begin to tell me their life story or just want to vent, I have to pretend as if I am REALLY engaged in what they are saying even when I am not. This is where facial expressions really come into play. Just by using facial expressions it is so easy to convey your emotions. Facial expressions seems to be universal which is amazing if you really think about it. Lessons learned in this chapter I can carry with me throughout any job!

Below is a video I found that demonstrate 7 universal facial expressions!

Final Project Post

I have learned so much throughout this motivation course. Some of the topics covered in this class were of more interest to me because I really wanted to learn about them. In general, this class was very interesting. We learned about motivation in depth, and the history and evolution behind it. Other topics covered consisted of addictions, homeostasis, behavior, stress and coping, (I thought this chapter was very interesting and helpful because I am always stressed). Other topics were, drives, personality, extrinsic and intrinsic motivation, goals, economics, emotions, and emotions as motives. The only topic I found to be somewhat boring was economics. Every other topic was intriguing and actually fun to learn about. As I was reading these chapters, I found ways in which they relate to people and to my own life. It was actually really cool.

My favorite part of this course was definitely chapter 1. Going into this class, I thought I knew all about motivation and what it entailed. In reality, I learned so much about motivation in only the first few pages of the chapter. It’s so crazy how in depth and conceptual one term can be. I actually thought that this class would be somewhat repetitive but, to my surprise, it was not. Reading about motives and incentives were my favorite part because of how much they each relate to everyday life. A motive is defined as: a person’s internal disposition to be concerned with and approach positive incentives and avoid negative incentives. An incentive is defined as: the anticipated reward or aversive event available in the environment. Everyone needs motivation in life. It gives them the drive that they need to complete tasks. Personally, motivation and the power of incentives have helped me achieve all my goals in life so far.

Motivation can help everyone in anything that they do. Motivation is a term that is used on a daily basis. Everyone can apply it to their life in one way or another. Motivation can be used for big things, or in the smallest aspects of ones life. Below is a commercial that Google recently released.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4vkVHijdQk

Stress & Success- Post #3

Who would have thought that the two words stress & success can go hand in hand! After reading chapter 7 it became more apparent that "stressful situations" can be classified in a variety of ways and that stress in general can mean something different to every indivvidual. Stress is defined as mental, emotional, or physical strain or tension. Ironically enough, these two can intertwine in two very opposite ways : stress can actually be caused by achiveing great success AND success cannot be achieved by a person unless they are under stress.

In our country, success is magnified and celebrated greatly especially when it is achieved after it seemed impossible to do or after long, hard work. People achieve success in many different ways, weather it be by finally getting fame and spotlight attention after perservering, profiting from a successful business, or overcoming any great obstacles. No matter how great or little the success, most people in our society today either glorify the success of others around they or even become envious of their success. What we don't realize is that there ' is a price to pay' for every success.

Take celebrities and important public figures for example. Since they are famous, they carry with them the responsibility of living up to everyone else's expectations and watching their every move. They have to make sure they keep everyone around them thinking highly of them. This responsibility could potentially bring with it shame, guilt, and pressure. Highly successful people can also be magnets for envious people that would do anything to see them fail and collapse. This could possible make these successful people depressed, afraid, self-destructive, and miserable and can lead them to abuse drugs. There is also another notion known as the "survivor guilt" where people feel guilty for being successful because they feel as if they don't deserve it as much as others do or that fate as treated them better, but at someone else's expense. Also, like they say, once you're at the top of the ladder the only way left is down. Many successful people fail due to stress in their lives.

However, for some people stress is exactly what they need in order to get to the top of the ladder. Take soldiers in the military and police officers for example. They are trained under pressure and in turn do their jobs best under pressure. This type of " mild pressure training" has been found to be very effective. When people practice something in a casual environment and then get thrown into a stressful situation, they often choke under pressure. However, if they are trained under pressure with low levels of stress, they tend to remain more calm, collective, and cool when they have to face the real situation because they have practiced.

In the end, your degree of success seems to be measured by how well you can manage stress or how well you can use it to your benefit!

Sources:

1. http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/intense-emotions-and-strong-feelings/201106/the-downside-success-guilt-or-shame

2. http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/choke/201005/want-success-under-stress-close-the-gap-between-practice-and-competition

Final Post

The class of motivation was a great I learn a lot of interesting information. It covers important points about what motivates human beings and how different things around their life can affect their motivation like for example emotions. There are universal motives in our society, certain needs that most people want for example goal setting, self concept, sexual interactions, and social milieu. The course also touches on the subject of addictive behaviors which was very informative to learn about. We also talk about stress, coping and health which I can relate to motivation. The class was an overview of a lot of good information in the subject of motivation.

What I enjoy the most about the class of motivation was in general learning about what drives people to do certain things based in what their motivation is. I believe that evolutionary psychology was very interesting because it talks about universal motives and how the human being wants all of this. Selecting a mate for the male and women was a good subject as well because is very true women and men are very different in what they look for and that’s one of the reasons why we don’t get along most of the time. Chapter 14 Emotions and Motives was very interesting because the emotion sometimes dictates the behavior and sometimes people think and act with their emotion which could be wrong thing to do. Overall the class was great and I will recommend to anyone who wants to learn about motivation in psychology.

Post 3: Causes of Gambling Addiction

Being a local from Atlantic City I seen so many people lose their money and some win money but many of these people do not know how to control themselves this is when gambling becomes an addiction and not an entertainment. The reason why people get addicted to gambling is the adrenaline they feel when they play they feel good and comfortable. Gambling in many cases fills a void in these people life, the void could be in many areas of their life for example poor social life, loneliness, job dissatisfaction, empty-nest syndrome, boredom, and lack of purpose can contribute to a gambling addiction.

There are two types of gamblers “escape gamblers” who mostly play slot machines, lottery, or partake in online internet gambling. Action gamblers are mostly male who enjoy sport betting, poker, and racetrack gambling. The idea of easy money is what keeps them stuck to the addiction also anxiety and depression can lead to this addiction. Relatives who were gambling addicts could influence the person into a future addiction. These are some general causes of addiction to gambling, the most important thing is to be able to admit that there is a gambling problem and seek help immediately.

This video shows that gambling is a serious addiction and could destroy a persons life.

Post 2- The Struggles of Living With an Introvert

I just don't understand it! My roommate who is also my best friend, is an introvert. An introvert is someone who prefers the quiet company of their self. They do not like the loud crowded scene at all. My roommate Krissi and I are so different. I love going dancing, meeting new people, and socializing. Clearly, I am an extrovert. Krissi however, hates to go dancing and meeting new people. She is very creative. She loves to draw, sketch and tends to be very artistic. Getting her to have a conversation with someone new is like pulling teeth. If you ask me, this is a problem. She is 21 years old, but lives her life somewhat like a grandma! lol.. We are about to be seniors is college, and she won't come to parties with me because she is such an introvert. She dances all day long in our apartment, but will never let you catch her doing it in public. I just don't understand how we came to be such good friends. I've the expression, opposites attract, but geez!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwB-DBAbxKY

Post 2: Looks or Personality

In Chapter 3 we learn about the evolutionary antecedents of motivation, i think the selecting a mate subject is very interesting. The women prefer mates who have good financial prospects and are ambitious and industrious. These traits are needed to raise a family successfully. For the men they prefer mates who have good looks, which is indicate of fertility. Fertility is a trait that is needed to produce many children.

We can all agree that men and women look for people that are physical atrractive to them but there is also more than just looks there is personality. I think we all have met someone that maybe was not a good looking person but their personality made them a very pleasant person that you could stay with them for hours and just talk about everything and who knows later you can become attractive to them not as friends but something else.

The movie she out of my league was very funny and i can related to my post where personality won you shoud definitely watch it.

My final Post

What I learned most from this course definitely stems from the motives that surround our choices.  They are driven by a constant push/pull factor between our fears of failure and our need for success.  As someone else mentioned below me, the wonderful thing about this course and the text was that each topic built on the previous one and there was no "down time" in the course.  I feel that this may be one of the most important courses in my psychology degree because I want to ultimately end up in clinical therapy.  Much of therapy deals with pin pointing a patient's desires, goals, and the elements in their life that either inhibit or motivate them.  Our motives drive us in every single decision we make in our day to day from what we eat to what we wear to getting to class on time and showing up for work.  However the lack of motivation to lead a normal content life is often an effect of many psychological disorders, and the knowledge of how to restore or retrieve that motivation is essential for any type of mental rehabilitation. 

As far as myself, in a way I have learned that my thoughts and fears are natural.  I have often seen myself as unmotivated in many situations, however it seems that maybe I was letting my fear of failure hold me back (Maf).  In reading the text I have realized that i need to seek methods in which to counter those fears with postive reinforcement, and understand that fears are something that everyone shares, yet they still push forward to accomplish their goals.

I believe my previous post was my most heartfelt because it felt very relatable to me.  I often broaden my horizons and the goals attached to them for fear of not achieving them to the standards I had set for myself.  As a result I have realized that either my standards are not reasonable or even attainable in any situation but a story or a fairy tale, or maybe I am striving to discover a new destination all together. 

In my Personality psychology class I learned about how we as humans use a multitude of defense mechanisms to shied ourselves from the realities of our fears and situations.  One of them was mastery of our weaknesses.  In essence it means that when we are faced with a situation or a dilemma that we do not understand we strive to control it by understanding it in its entirety.  Being that I have had many anxiety issues throughout my life this course has helped me to put a definition and an understanding to my approach to motivations.  I feel that nothing is truer than the feeling of being able to understanding your feelings and where they come from.  In doing this we can find a way to change the ways in which we are motivated, or even better, re-prioritize what is important enough to give motivation to.  I will recommend this course to everyone I know, psychologically affiliated or not.  I hope to delve more into this topic in the future

Goals!

For this post I wanted to talk about Goal Motivation, but more specifically goal specificity.  How many times do we set expectations for ourselves and they either fall flat, dissipate, and yet we cannot come to a conclusive reason as to why?  Our goal seemed reasonable enough.  It seemed to be within what we could have accomplished within the confines or time limits of what we were asked to do, so why the short coming?  Quite often, I find myself making vague goals so that I can have more "wiggle room" so that if I do not perform amazingly then it is of no disservice to me - I had no true expectation to begin with.

The problem with this theory is that in leaving the ultimate finished product of our goals up to interpretation by using a vague goal, we are in turn hurting ourselves. We think that we would be motivated to pursue the greatest possible outcome when there is no clear finish line, but as Deckers points out, that is clearly not the case.
Thus, the idea of goal specificity is introduced.  As defined by the text, goal specificity refers to how precise the goal is in contrast to how vague or unspecified it is.  In lament terms it is the level of which you are specific with your intended goal.  For example, I find that one of the main reasons that people are driven to seek out cognitive therapy is because they are unhappy and are seeking happiness, but cannot achieve it and want to know why.  But what are people and patients really saying when they feel that they are not reaching their goals of happiness?  Maybe it's not that happiness is unattainable, but their interpretation of the actual goal of happiness is what is in error. 

Happiness clearly holds a different definition for everybody.  However some people measure happiness but things, and others measure it as a state of mind.  For examply, happiness to me means health, a solid family unity, and feeling loved and appreciated. Those goals in and of themselves are vague enough that I may never entirely feel the most absolute feeling of "love and appreciation."  Therefore, that happiness is, in a way, unattainable because is is not measurable - there is not clear conclusion. At any given time one may not have the same level or intensity of appreciation.  As a result, my "happiness" is constantly in flux because those emotions are forever wavering - therefore my happiness does too.
But what about others who have absolute goals?  This brought me back to the Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson movie, "The Bucket List."  It's a film about 2 elderly men who are at the end of their rope in their lives due to terminal illnesses.  Subsequently, they decide to make a bucket list of things they want to accomplish in order to die feeling that they have lived a full and complete life.  Here's a trailer of the movie below

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PX8XEXmhHss

At their age (and in their unique situations) ending their lives feeling that they had accomplished their goals and their happiness was all that they wanted to leave the world knowing.  The level of goal specificity is incredibly high between these two because they had direct tangible and measurable goals that could be directly attained.  The accomplishments of them achieving those goals were able to be judged the same way universally - they could be crossed off of a list. Whereas, me feeling loved and appreciated is open to adverse interpretation worldwide.   They were able to leave the world feeling absolute conclusion and accomplishment because their goals were absolute.  And in the end, they finish all of their entire list

I think it comes down to having a definitive balance between knowing what you want your ultimate goal to be while also understanding that flexibility and understanding is necessary because life is way too unpredictable to have any one definitive idea of goals like happiness.  But every goal is different.  Others have a precise requirement, such as the requirements to finish college - attaining the required amount of credits.  Therefore the goal is to pass all of the classes necessary to  obtain those credits.  However happiness and other abstract goals are much different because as life changes, the ultimate goal of them changes.  We need to be able to understand when there needs to be a difference in deciding our goals when it comes to goals that need flexibility and those that have a concrete and definitive end.

Final Post- Need to Achieve

I had the opportunity to take both “Learning Theory and Research” and “Motivation” with Dr. Berg. Both classes had similar layouts, was very interesting, and informative. This particular Psychology class “Motivation” explained why we do the things we do. There are so many aspects to motivation that most of us don’t think about on a daily basis. There is a motive behind everything that we do. Some of the topics covered were universal motives of sex, fear, food, and music (i.e. selecting mates, maintaining relationships based on motivation, food preference), addictions and addictive behaviors (the motivation behind using psychoactive drugs and gambling), personality and self in motivation, and drives and needs as internal sources of motivation.

I have taken many psychology courses in school since it is my major and I must say that this class and “Learning Theory and Research” are two of my favorites. I really wish that these classes were lectures; I think I would have loved them even more. I rented the books, but, because I learned so much from them, I want to buy them now. At first, I thought that these books were going to touch on a topic and then move on to another topic like other psychology books I have read. However, I soon found out that these books focused on the concept it was talking about and explained it in great detail. Additionally, before I started reading the books, I flipped through them and I recognized some of the topics. I thought the material was going to be repetitive but I discovered shortly that the text had an array of topics that I never seen or heard of before. For example, I had no idea that self esteem, emotions and personality traits had anything to do with motivation.

My favorite topic was achievement motivation in chapter 8 “Drives, Needs, and Awareness.” I found it interesting because I have a need to achieve/ a drive to be successful in anything I do. According to Deckers (2010), the need to achieve or motive to achieve success (Ms) is a disposition to engage in task-oriented behavior or achievement behavior. It is characterized as doing things better than before or surpassing a high external or internal standard of excellence. The standards can be defined on the job, in sports, or in school and are based on the performance of others or on the persons own standards. Many people have a need to achieve while others are motivated to avoid failures and some have both. The motive to avoid failures (Maf) is the opposite of the need to achieve and inhibits a person from attempting to achievement tasks. It is characterized by anxiety and fear about failing a task. I think a lot of people go through this in life. For example, I chose to major in psychology because I want to become a counselor for kids with health problems when I get older. As a result, I am driven by my Ms and it pushes me towards my goal. However, I become afraid of failing and I don’t want to let down myself/others so think I made the wrong decision. As a result, my Maf tries to push me away from my goal. The Maf does not work though because its strength is not as high as the strength of my Ms. The video shows some other people who were motivated to achieve despite what others thought about them.

This class has been an inspiration. For a while now, I felt like I have lost my motivation to do a lot of things and I’m trying to find it back. Reading this book helped me understand why some people, including myself, are not motivated and explained how we to become motivated.

References

Deckers, L. (2010). Motivation: biological, psychological, and environmental (3rd ed.). Boston, Mass.: Allyn & Bacon.

Final Post

Before I took this class, I did not know that the word motivation was so intricate. Prior to reading the text, my definition of the word motivation was something that pushes you to do something. I know it is a third grade definition but that is because I never thought about it any other way.

In this course I learned about what motivation really is. I also learned about emotion which is cool because I never really made a connection between the two…which is actually an obvious connection the more I think about it. The text had 5 different sections that made it easy to focus on what was being covered. In part one, the history was covered and how research on motivation was conducted. The source of motivation is either internal or external, push or pull. In part two, biological properties of motivation were explained. This covered drug abuse and addiction, sex, stress, food, and fear. Part three consisted of psychological properties. Maslow’s Theory was mentioned, along with what drives us, and personality traits. Part four talked about external sources which explained extrinsic and intrinsic motivation, goals, which I personally enjoyed learning about, and economics of motivation. Part five came back to emotions and covered moods and arousal. Different theories were discussed like the James-Lange theory, the Cognitive Arousal Theory , and Cannon’s Theory of Arousal.

I liked learning about Emotions as Motives in Chapter 14 because I could really relate the chapter to my life. I am a cashier at Home Depot and I meet hundreds of people a day. I know I am not supposed to judge a book by its cover but it gets me threw the day. If I see a customer with an unhappy facial expression, I deal with them differently that I happy customer. The bottom of the receipts gives the customers a chance to rate the service that they received from the store and the cashiers. If by the end of the transaction, I didn’t make my customer happy, I don’t even mention the survey! Honestly, with out facial expressions, silent films would be worse than they already are! I think for the same reason as for why I hate text messaging. Facial expressions make communicating and understanding people a tad bit easier.

Now in this video, I have no idea what she is saying but I can tell that she is not furious and I can tell when she is asking a question by her facial expression. Kinda cool right?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8BIzOMQfOU

Final Post

I can hardly believe we have reached the end of the course already; and that we actually covered the entire book! I have to say that I found the latter chapters of the text - actually from Chapter 4 on - much more interesting than the earlier chapters. I actually wanted to read the material for my own edification instead of reading it just to ensure a good grade on the exams (intrinsic motivation). What I learned from the course is to be more cognizant of my motivators; in others words, to consider "why" I do or wish to do certain things. It's important for me at this stage in my life to understand the choices available to me and the basis upon which I make decisions. So many times we just "do" things without taking the time to consider why we do them. It's like we're functioning on autopilot and we "check out" mentally. What this course has also impressed upon me is to consider what motivates others. Oftentimes, I think we get so caught up in our own thoughts, ideas and motives that we don't stop to consider what is motivating other people. We often have the same experiences, but we certainly don't experience them the same. Our personalities, drives and needs, personality traits, and psychological needs are all different and varied.

What I found interesting is that there was limited discussion of religion/spirituality as a motivator. Certainly, that is a tremendous factor in many lives; definitely in mine. I only recall mention of it in Chapter 9 (p. 233) in connection with the "seven domains of contingencies of self-worth". I would think the text would include more material on such a dominant motivator.

My favorite part of the course was the chapter on personality (Chapter 9), with a close second being the chapter on Addictions (Chapter 4). It was particularly interesting to read the section on "possible selves". I think everyone to a certain extent imagines how their lives will unfold in the future and what joys and tragedies await. As I near the end of my undergraduate studies, I'm certainly envisioning roads that will enable me to put my degree to use and also considering whether pursuing a masters is the best option for me currently. Again, I have to consider my main motivation if I were to pursue the degree and what additional incentives need to be explored.

As for the chapter on addiction, I know many people that struggle with addictions (drugs and/or alcohol). Quite frankly, I still can't confess to understanding why someone would risk long term happiness over momentary pleasure, although the material on the value of instant pleasure versus delayed rewards makes sense. I now have a better understanding also that addictions have a biological component, so some people are predisposed to certain behaviors. I think I'm less inclined now to be too hasty in my evaluation of someone's circumstance, but to instead consider the various factors involved in an addiction.

In essence, as I said, I think it benefits us to consider one another's motives. We look at situations differently based on our personalities, influences, etc., so it's important to make an effort to understand where another person is coming from and what is motivating them.

I enjoyed this class. The schedule was accelerated, but the reading was interesting. I never had to post blogs before, so it was beneficial to learn about it and I enjoyed reading everyone's posts.

Good luck on the final and enjoy the rest of the summer!

The choice to write and read this final blog...

Right now you are reading my final post blog. Thank you for weighing out your other alternatives and giving up some opportunity to do so; you will not regret this. Prioritizing ones behavior is done so by motivating factors and considered opportunity costs. These costs have individualistic values that are based on exceptions and satisfaction levels. Choice overload is when the environment presents too many alternatives, leaving the decision making process overwhelmed. This results in demotivating effects leaving the person less likely to make a choice. The costs of the choices made are held accountable for, leaving an individual pressured to be responsible. When the choice is disappointing one will feel regret with increased levels for the amount of options that were rejected.

For example, let’s say you began this post and your significant other calls you with the options to put down the book, meet him at the bar, and then go out on the boat fishing. Depending on the motivating cost of each option one could make a variety of choices. In this instance, you could look at the length of time required to complete the task and judge whether to stay and finish, meet at the bar, or meet at the docks. Accompanying this judgment are possible feelings of regret depending how much you value completing the post blog, consuming beers, or catching a fish. If you had high value for all three you may finish, grab a beer and go out fishing. If you do not care for drinking or fishing you would hold a weaker value, and feel less regret for missing out on either one. If you liked fishing but not drinking, you could finish the blog and meet at the docks, without feeling any regret for not getting a buzz on or not finishing the post.

Life is about choices, and from an early age I have always been overloaded in my array of options. My parents allowed me to be an individual, while providing and supporting all my endeavors. This sounds all well and nice but as I became this individual I developed an anxiety related to the choices I was presented with along with feelings of regret. It is like a constant battle in my head to plan for the future and live in the moment. I am the type of person who doesn’t relax on vacation; you do not want to scan this cat.

Drug of Choice... Final Project Post

Motivation class has been an eye opening and thought provoking class. I never really thought about "why" people do certain things, or what makes them motivated to respond to situations in certain ways. From emotions, to motivations of actions, to addictions, to arousal and more, this class makes me look at human behavior and personality in a new light.
If I had to pick a favorite topic from this class it would have to be "Addictions and Addictive Behaviors", especially the addiction to drugs. I think that drugs and other addictions are always relevant to life, there is a constant debate in our own society and government about regulations of drugs, laws prohibiting sale and consumption. It was interesting to learn the reasons behind why people become addicted to these drugs. The government recognizes the dangers of certain drugs and tries to make laws to prevent people from using them, but is doesn't seem to work. Even when alcohol was made illegal during prohibition, other more dangerous drugs including opium were still legal. Opium was made illegal in 1914 by passing Schedule II of the Controlled Substances Act. Even drugs that are legal in the US are debated due to health risks, cigarettes are the leading cause for cancer and some people feel they should be illegal, while others feel they have a right to consume whatever substances they wish. Both sides of the drug debate have valid points, and it is unlikely that the controversy will be solved anytime soon.
As much as some people advocate for legalization of drugs, even the ones that are legally available can ruin lives. The following link is to a clip from the show "Intervention" about a woman who is an alcoholic http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDqLo9ihTrs. This woman's life is consumed by her addiction and is creating health problems and strains on family relationships. The next video is an advertisement promoting the legalization of marijuana; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4wk4gV7avk&feature=related.
Drugs are a part of life, from caffeine to heroine, almost everyone uses drugs in one form or another. I am fascinated though, about how addiction to a substance can take over a person's mind and life. I am intrigued not only by the addiction but the techniques used to help addicts overcome their addiction.

Motivation: Final Post

Wow! This class went by so quickly and yet it left my head filled with information. I enjoyed each chapter and the knowledge in each one. It is difficult to sum up in a few short paragraphs what I have learned in this class.

Did you ever wonder why we go to school? Did you ever ask yourself why a teacher tests a student? There is motive for why we engage in these behaviors. I learned that a motive can be a need, want, desire or interest that pushes us in a particular direction. You can call it whatever you want: a belief, instinct, interest, need or a drive but it is motivation that causes us to take action.

Certain theories within the field of motivation have especially stood out to me and I thorouly enjoyed reading about them. The Instinct Theory teaches us that people are motivated to behave in a certain way because evolution has programmed us to do so. This theory helps to explain why a mother will sit up all night to comfort her sick or crying child. It is her instincts that tell her to do so. The Incentive Theory of Motivation tells us that people are motivated to do certain things because there are external rewards involved. The reward for completing college is a degree and a better, higher paying job. The Drive Theory is when people are motivated to take action to reduce internal tension that may be caused by an unmet need. Homeostasis is a state of physiological equilibrium that we are constantly trying to achieve. I think this goes hand in had with the Drive Theory. For example, when we are hungry we experience a physical discomfort. We are then motivated to find food and eat it. Eating the food causes a reduction in the physical tension and equilibrium is restored...YAY!! Finally, the Arousal Theory suggests that people take action to either decrease or increase levels of arousal. For instance, when our levels of arousal are too high, we look for ways to relax such as yoga or meditation.

I can honestly say that I truly enjoyed the textbook for this class. I think I will hold on to it for a while. As a first time blogger, I think I handled it quite well. I enjoyed sharing my thoughts about the class with others and looked forward to reading posts from everyone. The videos in people's posts were very interesting. I look forward to blogging in the future. As for those of you in the class who stated that you have never blogged before...I couldn't tell. Stay focused on your goals. Best wishes to all!!