PSYC 100 Chapter Notes -Neophobia, Prefrontal Cortex, Walter Mischel

• School: McGill University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 100
• Professor: Daniel J Levitin

Document Summary

Motivation is the area of psychological science concerned with the factors that energize, or stimulate behaviors. Most of the general theories of motivation emphasize 4 essential qualities of motivational states. Energizing : they activate or arouse behaviours- they cause to do something. Directive : they guide behaviours toward satisfying specific goals or specific needs (thirst motivates drinking,). Help people persist in their behaviours until goals are achieved, or needs are satisfied. Differ in strength, depending on internal or external factors. We have biological and social needs, including the need for achievement and the need to be with others. Failure to satisfy a particular need leads to physical or psychosocial impairment. A need : state of deficiency, which an be biological (water) or social. Abraham maslow (1940s) believed that human are driven by many needs, which arranged into a need hierarchy. => a theory exemplar of humanistic psychology, viewing people as striving toward personal fulfilment.