Final Project Post

When I was picking my classes for the fall I didn't know anything about this class. My friend actually found it so we decided to take it together. I'm happy that we ended up in this course. Motivation is a very interesting topic and understanding it will definitely help you understand other areas of psychology. To be motivated means to be moved to action. We all have internal motives pushing us towards our goals and if that wasn't enough these goals offer incentives that pull us towards them. What I like about motivation is the fact that it is affected by biological, psychological, and environmental factors. It is so diverse yet so simple. We are all motivated into action every single day. I am motivated to be a good student because I hope to acquire a college degree and then hopefully a good job. We all have goals, big and small, and without motivation they would never even exist in the first place.

I enjoyed many aspects of this course. My favorite parts of lecture days were the many videos we watched and how Professor Berg related everything to real world experiences. It really made the topics much more interesting and relatable. One of my favorite chapters was chapter 3. Chapter 3 was about the evolutionary antecedents of motivation. It personally like evolutionary psychology and I think it is pretty interesting that all of our major sources of motivation can be traced back to our ancestors. Some of our universal motives include sex, fear, food, and music. Another part of the chapter I liked was the section about selecting a mate. Every single person has what is called a mate value. This value is determined by the person's characteristics that makes him or her desirable to another person as a partner. There is also the good gene hypothesis that states that beauty signals that a person has good genes for intelligence, a good immune system, healthy babies, and good parenting. Who knew how much of a role attractiveness actually played in finding a mate. It really makes you rethink the idea that beauty is only skin deep.

The last part of Chapter 3 that I liked was the part about food preference and the appeal of music. Preference for food comes from our evolutionary and personal history. Humans overall prefer fat in foods.This explains why fast food is so appealing despite the fact that it is bad for your health. Babies also exhibit an innate preference towards sweets and an aversion to sour and bitter stimuli. These evolutionary dispositions make me feel less bad about enjoying a greasy burger followed by some delicious ice cream. The last part of the chapter that I liked was about the universal appeal of music. I had never thought about music from an evolutionary standpoint so this section was interesting. Music actually has some survival benefits. These benefits could include the fact that music may promote group cohesion, regulate mood, help in mate selection, and is overall pleasurable to listen to. Music has been in human culture for over 30,000 years and it can be found all over the world. I like the idea that music is a part of human nature and that responding to it is innate in all of us.

After taking this course it is hard not to notice every day examples of motivation. For example, today I woke up at 11:00 and after talking to my friend decided that I wanted to get lunch with her.This motivated me to take a shower, get ready, and finish this post before going out. I woke up craving a honey bbq chicken supermelt and a mint cholocate chip ice cream sundae from Friendly's. Any other day this would make me feel like a fattie but knowing that evolutionary psychology suggests this to be normal of me I feel pretty awesome about it. As a student, motivation is what keeps me up to date on tasks. I want to graduate and get a good job so these things drive me to go to class and do the best I possibly can. I can go on and on about everyday examples so to sum it up motivation is exhibited everywhere. None of us would be where we are today without it.

Here is a video from Epic Meal Time about candy pizza. Not only is this guy hilarious but a candy pizza is every humans dream: the perfect combination of fats and sweets.