Read chapters 1-3 for sure, 4 & 5 will also be helpful. Read the blog post: http://www.psychologicalscience.com/motivation_emotion/2010/09/how-to-watch-movies-blog-tips.html. This was written by your TA with tips for what he thinks will be helpful to you.
Watch the movie. Take notes.
Next, write your comment. Your comment does not need to provide an overview of the movie (we have all seen it). Your comment should be an indepth analysis of one or more principles from your text. You should use scenes and characters to provvide examples of textbook concepts. Your comment should reflect that you are in an upper division, university level Motivation and Emotion course and clearly link elements from the movie to the textbook. How long? Long enough to do the above well :)
At the end of your comment, please indicate where you got the movie (this is just curiousity on my part).
The movie "Ray" was an excellent example of how motivation can help you conquer anything. Ray Charles had many different sources of motivation that helped him launch and maintain his music career. Ray Charles was first inspired to go into music by being intrinsically motivated. We see this when he goes to into the show where the man plays the piano and sits and listens to him for a while. The pure joy of listening and playing the piano made Ray want a career in music. Not even being blind was going to stop him.
Ray Charles also went through extrinsic motivation during his music career. He was in need of money and people were offering money for his music. Money became especially important when Ray starts his family and has his first son. We notice, however, that Ray's passion for the music slightly declines after getting paid. He goes on the road and picks up the habit of using heroine and the music doesn't become as important anymore. If he would have kept playing music just for the fun of it, these problems would not have occurred. We see that Ray has a lot of barriers to overcome when it comes to his fellow band members, and sometimes even his managers, take advantage of him by stealing or cheating him out of money he rightfully earned. Thankfully, we see that Ray is able to overcome all of these and is able to gain back his love for the music.
Ray also seems to be driven to prove that he can make it in the real world because of a promise he made to his mother. Right in the beginning of the movie, we hear and see his mom telling him not to let anyone or anything make him crippled. We see this promise manifest itself throughout the movie when Ray keeps saying he can do things himself. He can get around as well as a person who is blind possibly can. Also, he only asks for help when he truly is in need of it. Other than the few times when he does reach out for the help of a friend, Ray makes his own way in life. We see this in the very beginning of the movie when Ray travels by train alone to Seattle. Not only was it incredibly that a blind man would be willing to travel alone, but this event also occurred in the 1950's when segregation was still being enacted. Ray Charles is seen in the movie being forced to sit in the back of the bus. Despite all of these hardships, Ray is still able to make his way to Seattle where he can get a job and make some money. Thus, he is keeping his promise to his mother not to let anyone or anything make him crippled.
Another thing that could possibly motivate Ray Charles' decision to pursue his dreams is the guilt and memories he has of his younger brother's death when he drowned in their mother's washbin. In the movie, it is at least implied that Ray could have saved his little brother from the horrible fate he suffered. By pursuing his dreams and wanting to be successful, it is possible that Ray could have thought that this would make things better for his mother by making her be proud of him. Ray could possibly feel as though he is making it up to his mother by ensuring that one of her sons becomes the best possible person they can be and reaches their full possible potential.
Another thing we see as a motivator for what Ray Charles does is value. At one point in the movie, Ray is banned from ever playing his music in the entire state of Georgia again simply because he would not play in front of a segregated audience. Ray gave up something he loves and avoided it because doing it would have acted against his values. Ray had to make the decision to stick with what he loved or stand up for what he thought was right.
Heroin played a much larger role in this movie that I would have ever expected. I never knew that Ray Charles subjected himself to so much drug use when he was younger and starting his career. However, there are some motivational factors that help us to understand why Ray did this. Ray was under the motivation of relatedness. He was not readily accepted by his bandmates because of the fact that he was blind. Because of this, he needed to find another way to fit in and be included. When he found out some of the people he went on the road with were doing drugs and felt good doing it, Ray wanted to prove that he was one of the guys and did it right along with them.
Due to external regulation, Ray was motivated to get off of the drugs he was using. His family and friends all forced him into rehab because it would be best for everyone. Ray himself even agreed to go eventually. Ray's wife, Bea, ended up giving him an ultimatum that it was either the heroin, or risk losing everything. However, Ray was not interested and did not take kindly to the treatment right away and didn't want to get shots since the needles reminded him of shooting up. In the end, Ray was able to get the help he needed and kicked the habit.
In summation, I think "Ray" was an excellent film. It did a great job of showing how motivation can help launch your career and help keep you strong in everything you do. Ray Charles has always been an inspiration to not let anything, including mental and physical limitations, keep you from your dreams. This movie was great and I would recommend it to anyone.
I got my movie at the Digital Dogpound location in Waterloo for $6.
While watching “Ray” I saw many different examples of motivators that influenced Ray Charles throughout the course of his life. He struggled with many things including the death of his brother, addiction, and his blindness. Therefore, he had to have many different motivators to pick him up and force him to do what he needed to do, otherwise when life knocked him down time and time again he would have stayed down. Through all of his struggles though, he arose as one of America’s most recognized musical artists.
In the movie, Ray has flashbacks back to when he was growing up. It became obvious through these episodes that he held onto a huge sense of guilt about his brother drowning in his mother’s wash basin when he was very young. He felt as if his mother was hugely disappointed in him for not saving his brother from drowning. Ray trying to make his mother proud through becoming famous and not letting anyone look down on him because he was blind is a good example of introjection motivation. Introjection motivation is when people are motivated through guilt or the feeling of they have to do something to feel good about themselves. Through the flashbacks into Ray’s past the viewer was able to see why he had such a huge load of guilt on him and why he felt he had to make something of himself to alleviate the guilt.
The impact that Ray’s mother had on his life was very evident throughout this movie. After losing one son to a drowning accident, it had to of been excruciatingly difficult for her to force her remaining son to leave his old life to start a new one away from her. What motivated her to force her young son to get on a bus and leave their life even when he was pleading for her not to? It was clear that Ray’s mother loved him. That expression of love was her internal motive to send Ray away to a school where he could learn and gain more than their hometown could offer him. She loved him so much that she was motivated through her emotions to be unselfish and think only of what was best for her son. Adult Ray had great respect for his mother. That is why it was his undoing when he had a hallucination in the rehabilitation center in which his mother told him that he had still crippled himself, not through his blindness, but through his heroine usage.
Ray’s addiction to heroine started when he was on the road just starting out in a band. It appeared as if he just wanted to fit in with the band members. He had a social need that he believed heroine would fill and make him more accepted by the other band members. Unfortunately, that started a long road of addiction that encompassed him. As we followed the rise of Ray’s career we also saw his dependency on heroine become stronger. Heroine eventually became his only source of happiness besides his music. The drug eventually became what he depended on for dopamine to be released into his brain to give him happiness. Therefore, he was addicted. When Bea, his wife, finally said that if he did not get clean from the drug then he would lose everything including his music he checked himself into a rehabilitation center to become clean. His time in the rehabilitation center was extremely hard on his body. His body had developed a physical need for the drug and was willing to do whatever it took to get it. Due to him not having the drug anymore he became physically ill for many days, to the point that he had to get an IV otherwise he would have become dehydrated. Through that sickness though, Ray was willing to do what it took to stay clean so he could continue his music career and show his family that he could. That showed strong intrinsic motivation in Ray’s part. He wanted to become sober so he took up the challenge by placing himself in the hands of doctors who could help him because he knew he could not do it on his own. It also could be viewed as extrinsic motivation as well because he knew he had to get sober otherwise he would go to prison. If he became sober he would not have to go to prison, instead he could do community service. That was enough of an incentive to make Ray go to a rehabilitation center and stay sober since then.
In summary, I really enjoyed watching Ray. I believe that it has many examples of different forms of motivation in it. Ray had a challenging life and he succumbed to some of life’s pressures, yet he came out in the end a sober well-admired man. This was a great film to analyze and see first hand how motivation makes you do things.
I rented this DVD from netflix
“Ray” was a movie that provided many examples of prime motivators and how we can become motivated in our life. Reading through the chapters of the book, I have picked out four topics that I thought were well covered in the movie. The first idea is that of “internal motives.”
The book defines motives as “an internal process that energizes and directs behavior” (Reeve, 2009). More specifically, however, Ray Charles had lots of cognitive motives, or cognitions, throughout the movie. We see this within the first seen of the movie when his mom says to promise him to let anyone turn him into a cripple. It’s a flashback he has from his childhood. We see even more flashbacks throughout the movie when Ray is faced with challenges. Cognitions are the mental events that center around our way of thinking. When coming across tough decisions or problems in his life, for example, when he is passed out on the couch from an overdose of Heroin, he gets a flashback of his mother, and this motivates him and helps to make changes in his life.
Another source of motivation Ray experiences is the motive of external events, which are environmental situations that drive our behavior. These could arise from either social or cultural sources. Ray discovers his love for the piano when he hears the man in shop playing. Once his curiousity gets the best of him, he decides to go inside, which is where he learns his first notes. This situation was brought on by a social factor in his life—hearing the man play the piano almost every day. Another situation factor, though not as inspiring, is when he begins to use heroin. His first encounter with heroin is when he’s going to use the bathroom, and his band members tell him to leave, but he refuses. He says he wants to try it, so they give him a hit of it. Being around these band members, and, having the lifestyle that he does, it’s particularly easy for Ray to become addicted to it since he is around it so often. This could be a cultural factor of the external event.
External events also have what the book calls a “specific stimuli” (Reeve, 2009). For Ray, that specific stimuli was money. One thing he wanted to do in life was to make his mother proud, and for Ray, that was being successful. Money played a big part in Ray’s life, as we saw when he was faced with switching record companies because ABC was offering him more money than Atlantic was. Ray wanted to be able to provide for his family, and money, he thought, was a good way to benefit that.
The next source of motivation comes from Freud’s Drive theory. And for this, I use Ray’s use of heroin. Freud’s Drive theory has four components that he says help to drive our behavior. The first is the source. For Ray, this source was heroin. Without his injections of heroin, he would experience the second stage of Freud’s Drive theory, which is impetus. In this stage, the person becomes deprived of their source, and they experience anxiety, or for Ray, withdrawal symptoms. The third component is the object. For Ray, this was heroin. In this stage, you satisfy your need by finding the necessary resources to do so, so Ray would shoot himself up with heroin. The last stage is aim, or the feeling of satisfaction. Once the dose of heroin was in Ray’s body, he felt satisfaction. This drive theory helps to explain why Ray used heroin, and why he kept using until he absolutely had to ween himself off of it.
The last motivational drive I am going to discuss is extrinsic motivation. It’s similar to external events motivating you, but what you affects the outcome of what you get. For Ray, his outcome was money. Lots of record deals were offering him money for his music, and this motivated him on who to sign with. Once ABC offered him more money that Atlantic was, he was motivated to go sign with ABC. This would be an example of extrinsic motivation.
Ray had tons of examples of motivation techniques throughout the movie, and I just decided to pick out a few of the key ones. Ray is a good movie for anyone looking for inspiration:)
I borrowed my movie from a friend who’s using Netflix:)
The movie "Ray" was a good example of motivation. It started right off with what caused/influenced a lot of his behaviors. Most of it stemmed from his childhood experiences (external events). For example, the environment and surrounding culture he grew up in, the death of his brother, the loss of his eyesight, gospel music, and the piano. His mother and what she taught him were also important factors. Having taught him to be independent and to not let anybody turn him into a cripple, caused/influenced his behaviors as well.
Ray had many internal motives such as needs, cognitions, and emotions, energizing and directing his behaviors. He had a psychological need of belongingness. He wanted to fit in and be included with his band members. In order to do so, he tried the drugs they were doing. One cognitive source of motivation for him was beliefs. He believed he could do everything himself and be successful. Goals were another source of motivation for him. A couple of his goals were to make something of himself and create his own style of sound instead of imitating other artists. Ray expressed a lot of his emotions through his music/songs. For example, he wrote a song expressing his feelings about Mariann (his first back-up singer).
Ray's motivation diminished and so did his ability to adapt when Marlene (his manager) took control of everything he was doing. She controlled where he lived, where he played, how much he was paid, and basically how he lived his life. Eventually, Ray gained back his motivation to control his life by leaving behind this situation and doing everything on his own. He signed on with Swing Time Records by himself, got his own apartment, and set his own wages and how they were to be given to him (all the money in singles). Ray's high-quality motivation caused him to adapt well and thrive.
Once Ray became successful and got married he wasn't able to give an equal amount of attention to both of his environments (life on the road and life at home with his family). Music became his whole life and soon everything revolved around it. He was never there for his family. Before starting a family, he worried about becoming like his father who was never around and had multiple families. He eventually did become like his father, however. His family and what he was missing out on in their lives wasn't enough of a motivator to prevent him from becoming like his father.
I found Bea to be an interesting character. She put up with a lot of things that Ray did from his drug using to him never being involved with the family to even his cheating. Ray was Bea's motivator. He was the only reason she stayed and put up with it all. She loved him very much and didn't want to lose him.
Ray's heroin addiction definitely brought about the motivational states of wanting and liking. In order to fit in, Ray wanted to try the drug his band members were using. Once he got hooked on it, his liking of the drug increased. This caused him to rely on it. Ray had promised his mother he would never let anyone or anything turn him into a cripple. However, his addiction caused him to break his promise to her. In other words, the heroin ended up being his crutch.
Throughout the movie, Ray experienced flashbacks of his mother. She was one of his main motivators because of the things she taught him about being independent. He strove to make her proud and to prove to her that he could stand on his own two feet.
Ray was intrinsically motivated many times in the movie. His music was his main intrinsic and extrinsic motivator. He got involved in music and continued to play the piano because he enjoyed them and found them fun to do (intrinsic motivation). At the same time, he enjoyed his music because it made him famous and earned him money (extrinsic motivation).
I was pleasantly surprised at how well I liked the movie. It was amazing to see how many obstacles Ray overcame and how driven one individual could be. I didn't know he had such an impact on segregation or how his music changed people's way of thinking. I'd highly recommend this movie!
Sorry I forgot to say where I got the movie! I rented it from Family Video.
The movie "Ray" was a great movie. It provided many different scenes from the beginning to the end that showed examples of motivation. Taking a quick look at Ray's early childhood years, he develops a passion for music. The only problem is that there is a huge boundary he must conquer, his blindness, which happens to him at the age of seven. But this does not stop Ray. We see his motivation to pursue music causes him to be raised from an ordinary and everyday person to being one of the most famous and well known musicians in history.
When Ray is a child and first goes blind, Ray becomes motivated to find his way around the house and show himself and his mother that he can make it on his own. Just before Ray goes blind his mother tells him to "Use your hands to find the door. Count the steps, and use your memory." After Ray has gone blind there is a scene when he falls to the ground and cries for his mother. Little knowning that his mother is in the house close by and watching, Ray calms himself, stands up and listens. He uses his hearing of the horses riding by outside, the sound of a grasshopper and the warmth of the fire to locate where he is. He tells his mother he knows she is there and she begins to sob in tears. This shows to be instinsic motivation when he finds his way around the house for himself. When he wants his mother to see that he can do it, it is an example of external motivation.
The next thing that struck me in this movie was how extremely motivated Ray was to pursue his love for music. The first scene where Ray displays his talent is near the begining of the movie when when a woman made fun of Ray for being a blind man. Ray didn't let her comments get to him and gets up and plays in front of a group of complete strangers and nails it!
The next thing that I want to say that I felt really motivated Ray was a saying that would play back in Ray's head throughout the movie that he would never forget. This saying was from his mother. "Don't let anyone or anything make you crippled." Ray stays motivated and shows that he does not let his blindness or negative comments from anyone make him crippled.
Ray finds himself being fought over by different individuals throughout the movie to play the piano and sing for them. His manager. Marlene, sees how true Ray's talent really is and she takes control of him completely. Ray's motivation begins to diminish when she controls his money, where he lives and just about anything he did. In fact, Ray has to tell the first group of people "No," and walk out when he finds out that they are cheating him for money and playing him for a fool. This is when money starts to play a role in the movie. WHen Ray finds that they have been cheating him for money he does not want any part with them anymore. When he walks out he is accompanied by Quincy Jones. Money begins to become what motivates Ray. Money is an example of external motivation.
I also noticed that when Ray got nervous before he played he was given a smoke and told that it would relax him. In the movie Ray finds his way into a very addicting drug, heroine. This also is an example of external motivation. It really becomes a problem when we see Ray hiding it from his wife and also when he is shooting up many other times throughout the movie.
More towards the beginning of the movie Ray falls in love with a woman. He goes onto marry her and has a child. He becomes nervous and is afraid he will not make a good father. Unfortunately, Ray is let astray with his use of drugs and he finds himself pursueing other women and living the double life. I saw Ray as turning from a person who was truly motivated for music at the beginning of the movie to turning his motivation to the love of drugs and adultery with other women. I still see Ray as a great musician but I really lost a lot of respect for him when I found out this is what was really driving his motivation at the time.
Even though Ray tells Bea "You don't belong on the tour and I am not gonna stop the drugs" Bea stays motivated and puts up with it.
Another example of external motivation is when his family and his friends are telling Ray to get off of the drugs. Although it is very hard for Ray, they get Ray to enter into rehabilitation. This shows that the friends and family who were his external motivation can really help an individual get back on track to pursue what really mattered to him in the first place, that is Ray's love for music, his internal motivation.
Overall, I feel that his mother was one of the main motivators in his life. This is because of the flashbacks he has and he never forgets what she has said to him. The overall instinsic motivation for Ray was his love for playing the piano and singing his music. The extrinsic motivation was that he wanted to be well known, famous, earn a lot of money and for some time use his drugs. He really shows this when he leaves Atlantic Records for Sam Clark who offers him 50,000 a year, 75 cents a record and his own masters. They actually show to still be happy for Ray and say they are proud of him even though they can't match what Clark has to offer.
And I got my movie from Family Video in Cedar Falls. It cost a dollar to rent.
The movie “Ray” is a powerful and inspirational movie. Viewers are taken through life long journey of Ray Charles, an African American jazz and pop artist. Ray’s determination and love for music shaped his life to achieve success. Many internal and external motives drove him to become one of the most famous pop jazz musical artists we still listen to today.
In this movie, we learn that Ray Charles became blind at the age of seven. Ray’s strong and independent mother taught him to never give up on his dreams despite that he is blind. His mother’s strong will and motivation drove Ray to make his mother proud and fulfill his lifelong dreams.
Ray’s internal motivations of needs, cognitions, and emotions were demonstrated throughout the movie. During the movie, Ray’s mother stated: “I will show you how to do something once. I will help you if you mess up twice. But the third time, you’re on your own because that’s the way it is in the world.” This powerful statement demonstrated the importance of learning how to fulfill the needs, dreams, and emotions in order to survive.
At a young age, his mother taught him to be independent, training him to focus and depend on auditory stimulation in the environment to feed his needs. For example, when Ray stubbed his toe and yelled for his mother’s help, his mother did not attend to his attention. At that moment, she realized that Ray would have to overcome challenges on his own. Ray did just that as he focused and began to rely on his other senses as he listened to the sounds around him and felt his way around the house. As he grew older and mastered the reliance of his other senses, Ray learned to become so independent that he traveled on a bus, to a different part of the country, by himself.
Cognitive motives are also demonstrated in this movie. Ray fell in love with the sound of the piano at a very young age. His goals and dreams derived from his musical talent. Although blind, Ray knew he had amazing musical talent. As Reeve mentions in the textbook, persons with cognitive motives “have an understanding of who they are and who they are striving to become” (p.9). While watching the movie, Ray’s love for music is demonstrated as we watch the excitement of his body language while he played his first notes on a piano.
Emotions also played a role as internal motives as well. Throughout the movie we see Ray in many emotional states such as expressing love, joy, and anger. For example, Ray demonstrates his love for his wife, Bea, as he expresses that she is the only one he truly loves and could not live without. Viewers can also see Ray’s expression of joy when he holds his first child in his arms. He also expresses his emotions of love and joy for music. However, the music industry also brought about some anger issues. Throughout his life, Ray understood that he was at risk of being taken advantage of. An example of this is when his managers stole money that Ray had earned after a performance. These internal motives, positive and negative, had changed the way Ray thought about other people and what was important in life.
Many external motives also played a role in Ray’s musical success. Ray definitely expressed himself through his musical talent. His musical performances led to an increase in income; therefore, Ray was confident he could provide enough for his family. Ray also realized that his musical talent brought praise from other people. People all over the world listened and loved his music, despite some racial and religious arguments Ray had to overcome as well. However, some of his behaviors became problematic. Ray’s addiction to heroin brought about much attention and concern. His journey through rehabilitation was a stage of hardship and reflection. During his time in the rehabilitation unit, Ray realized his behaviors were unnecessary and began to focus and engage in more important aspects of his life, such as his wife and children.
Ray’s desire to fulfill his lifelong dream, providing for his family and making his mother proud, became overwhelming and that’s when he turned his life around—for the best. I would highly recommend this movie for I feel Ray’s journey through life is very interesting and motivating. I bought this movie online through Amazon. This movie cost me about three dollars (and that’s including shipping)!
Throughout the movie of Ray, we see a man who is motivated by several different factors, some good and some bad. The story of Ray begins with an intrinsically motivated individual. He wants to pursue piano, which is one of the reasons why he travels on a segregated bus to Seattle alone. He simply enjoys the act of playing the piano, which began for him at a very young age after learning and watching an older man express his skills to Ray through piano. After making the trip to Seattle, which was the start to his career, we see the true motivators of why he does what he does begin to shine through.
All through the movie, flashbacks are shown of a dark past that included Ray’s mother and younger brother. Ray is driven by the words that play out in his head from his mother not be a “charity case” or a “cripple.” Her disappointment in Ray for his irresponsibility and the loss of his brother only drives Ray to be a better person and a successful man. In the midst of the hallucinations of his past, Ray finds inspiration and hope, a driving factor in his immense success and recovery from drugs.
Instead of intrinsic motivation paving the way for Ray, we see extrinsic motivation beginning to take over. As Ray begins to grow in his career, money begins to become a motivator. This is partly due to his family that he must support but also because of the bliss of having more of it, which does get in the way of close relationships with those who care and look out for him the most. We can see that money becomes central to Ray by the changes he makes in his style of music in order to attract more followers. For example, the R&B gospel which was seen as poisoning kids minds, or when he decided to take a classier route with the orchestra sound. Ray was persistent in his actions and if he wanted something such as money, he would go after it. This as a result began to override his intrinsic motivation in the first place, although there is no doubt about it that he enjoyed what he was doing.
Another key way we see the motivation of Ray is through his use of drugs, in particular heroine. Towards the beginning when he starts to be exposed to it and insists that he try it, he states that he has a “null and void” that he was seeking to fill. As a means to fit in with the other members of the band, and a way to simply escape from reality, we see Ray’s addiction and abuse of the drug take full course. The dopamine which was released into his brain generated good feelings, a way to numb the pain of his past with his brother and his present with being an unfaithful husband to Bea. Ray becomes referred to as a “junkie” and goes through a series of setbacks, which eventually brings him to rehab and a near death experience. With a phenomenal support system of a loving wife who never gives up or leaves him, Ray successfully beats his drug addictions and ends up topping the charts in the music business.
Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the story of Ray. It was fascinating to see all of the obstacles and ups and downs he went through. It was a great way to see the many faces that motivation can take on in one individual. I purchased my DVD off of amazon.com.
The movie Ray showed several types of motivation. The first type of motivation seen was intrinsic motivation to learn how to play the piano. Ray wanted to learn the piano for fun and enjoyment because he liked the sound. Even as he got older and started being recognized he still enjoyed making music.
Another type of motivation seen was extrinsic motivation because Ray was paid to play once he started being booked and signing with record companies. He needed the money to support himself and his family. Later on he also needed the money to support his drug addiction. As the movie progressed he became more greedy. He left his contract and friends at Atlantic to go to ABC in order to get more money. This eventually became a problem because he hired his long time friend and helper Jeff because he was making side deals and stealing from Ray.
I also believe Ray kept making music because he was inspired to do so and wanted to accomplish a goal. Because he was blind he had many people discouraging him and setting him back. He wanted to prove that he could in fact become successful. Especially in the beginning, he was held back by several people. He tried out for the country band and the manager did not want him to play. The talent show refused him until they had no one else. After working there for so long Marleen said he couldn't have his paycheck and told him to see how he would do without her and so he left remembering that his mother didn't want him to work for the same type of people that she did. It would have been easy for him to stay there and have others take care of him, but he wanted to make it on his own.
Ray had a horrible addiction to heroin. He finally went into rehab because the judge had ordered him to do so, external regulation. Right before he left his wife and him got into a fight because he abandoned his family and music and friends for heroin. He cheated on his wife and had a baby with another woman. He had also influenced her indirectly into using heroine which eventually led to her death. He used the heroine to relieve stress and gain a good mood. His drug use also affected his music. He made new and different music while being on heroine. This did not encourage him to stop using it because he could capture new types of audiences, sell more records, and make more money.
The heroine use ties into dopamine and addictions. Heroine sensitizes the brain to dopamine stimulation more than a natural reward would. The dopamine gave him good feelings. It caused him problems with the body's motor system and caused him to itch and scratch all the time. Ray ended up having to increase the amounts each time because he was so addicted to the feelings it gave him.
There are a lot of emotions shown in the movie as well. Ray is happy when he is making music, beginning to rise as an artist, and when he is with Bee in the beginning of their relationship. He gets angry when using heroine and when is questioned about it. He becomes angry when he finds out he is being cheated out of his money. He shows love to Bee. He also shows affection to Mary Ann and Margie. He shows sadness when his brother drowns and when he thinks of his mother.
Overall I found the movie very interesting. I think it portrayed his will and motivation to become successful and overcome the challenge of being blind. I signed up for Netfix.
From the very beginning on the movie, I realized that Ray was going to go through a lot of struggles in life. These struggles would require Ray to find motivation around every corner. After watching the movie I feel like I’ve learned a lot about Ray Charles and his life. I had no idea the type of life he had nor did I realize path that he traveled to reach great success. I had always assumed that Ray was born blind, but learned through this movie that he lost his sight at the age of seven.
Before Ray went blind he already went through many obstacles that required and showed his motivation. External and internal motives drove much of his career. Ray first falls in love with music and more specifically gospel music. Ray displayed the internal motives of needs, cognition and emotions. The first internal motive was after his first experience with the piano. He snuck in and watched an older man play the piano. The man saw Ray and proceeded to teach him three notes which Ray picked up and then joined the man in playing the piano. From there on out the love and passion for the piano was developed.
Ray was very close with his mother and she taught him many of life's lessons. Ray remembers each of these lessons as flashbacks throughout his life. These thoughts or cognitions play out in his mind and remind him to stay motivated. Ray’s mother was honest with him when he started going blind. She quizzed him on how many steps were on their front porch to help prepare him for the time that he would lose all his sight. One of the most powerful statements from his mother stated, “I will show you how to do something once. I will help you if you mess up twice. But the third time, you’re on your own because that’s the way it is in the world.” This taught Ray that anything that happens to him is because he wanted and fought for it. She was determined that Ray was going to be independent and never depend on other people. In one flashback, Ray trips and falls going into their house and his mother is in the kitchen watching. Ray is crying out for his mother to come help him but she remains watching in the kitchen. Ray slowly gets himself up and begins listening to the sounds going on around him. He “sees” horses go by from the window, and he “sees” a cricket moving across the floor and is even able to pick up the cricket. Ray looks directly at his mother who is still watching him and asks why she’s crying. It’s as if in that moment Ray’s mother realizes that he can and will be independent.
Ray began traveling and putting his musical talent to work and to make money on his own. It wasn’t long before music agencies and talent agents were asking for him to sign on with them. Just before Ray’s musical career takes off he marries Della Bea. Della Bea is also another person that is always reminding Ray to stay focused on what is important in life. Della was basically a single parent because Ray was on the road all the time. She raises their two children and is moved into a bigger house each time Ray’s success grows a little bit more. She tries to remind Ray when his addiction is catching up to him, that his sons’ need him. He is slowly becoming more like his own father. Della also calls him out on his affairs and the back-up singer that became pregnant by Ray.
While out on the road he begins his addiction to heroine. This may stem from a need to belong. He learned that some of his band mates were partaking in this activity so he wanted to try it as well. Although he claims that the heroine will never interfere with his work, the addiction becomes one of the motives in his life. Della learns of this addiction and reminds him of what he can and will lose if it lets the drug take over his life. Not only would he lose his musical career but he would also lose his wife and children. Ray has another flashback when the drug really began to take over his life. His mother made him promise that he would never become a cripple. Ray realized that the drug was causing him to break that promise to her and that he still had a chance to prove he could succeed without it.
Ray experienced a wide range of emotions throughout his life. In the beginning of the movie they tended to be more happy and positive emotions. Ray had a hard time dealing with the drowning of his brother when they were young children. These emotions were all pre drugs. Then once the drugs started to take over his life, his emotions became slightly more rough around the edges. These various emotions were expressed through affairs with his back-up singers, caring less about his home-life.
Ray has a hard time with managers and people who want to cheat him out of his money because he is blind. He is quick to remind people that just because he is blind doesn’t mean he is stupid as well. He explains to people that his ears are his eyes and he wears shoes with hard soles so that he can hear the sounds better. These can all be categorized as external events that motivated him to remain as independent as possible just like his mother had raised him to be. Ray was also motivated by money that he could be making if he switched to a different label when his current contract was up. Switching labels would mean that he would make lots more money, retain the masters of his music and could dictate the type of music he wanted to record.
Ray eventually entered rehab because of his addiction to heroine and vowed to never touch the drug again. He was also allowed back into the state of Georgia after being told he was never allowed to perform in the state again because he stood up and refused to play if the audience was going to be segregated. This is another example of the motivation and strength Ray maintained throughout his life.
Overall I really liked the movie Ray. I had never seen the movie and really learned a lot about Ray Charles life and the numerous obstacles that he had to overcome. I received and watched this movie through my Netflix account.
The movie Ray was full of examples of motivation and emotion. Some of the motivations I jotted down while watching the movie included the following: motivation to play music, people’s motivations to get up and dance in a bar, motivations to do drugs and to decide to quit doing drugs, motivation to cheat on your spouse, and the motivation to fire an employee. There were many other examples of motivation in this movie, but those were some I immediately picked up on. When it comes to emotion this movie was full of examples too. Whether it was the emotions from playing the piano on stage, emotions stemming from relationships, emotions caused by a death of a friend or family member, emotions of holding your first child, and emotions like stress caused by your job. A person could use this movie to show tons of examples of motivation and emotion, but the reasons why these motivations and emotions occur becomes important to understand. I specifically want to explain the ways in which drugs became so important to Ray.
After watching Ray, it is clear to see the character playing Ray Charles displays engagement through his continuous drug use. Ray specifically expresses behavioral engagement through his constant attention, effort, and persistence to shoot up and get high. Even Ray’s close friends can see Ray puts most of focus on having time to shoot up on heroine. When he has his case of tools to shoot up Ray is in deep concentration until he has finished this particular task. He also goes to great lengths to make time to shoot up, which proves his level of effort to complete this task is great. An example of this in the movie is when he gets off the plane and once he is in the building he has to make a stop at the bathroom. Even though he knows he may get caught because there are cops all around he still successfully gets drugged up. His persistency to use heroine is also very obvious. Getting high is not a task that happens every now and then. Ray is persistent when it comes to this behavior and will even use problem solving techniques to make sure he has time and privacy to attend to his drug addiction.
Not only is Ray behaviorally engaged in his drug addiction but he is also emotionally and cognitively engaged. He shows emotional engagement by displaying his interest and enjoyment in getting high. His interest began when he walked in on some of his friends shooting up. Even when they warned him not to become involved with the drugs, he still went ahead and did it anyways. That shows that his interest and curiosity were too great to keep him from saying no to doing drugs. The fact that he was doing drugs changes the reasons he enjoyed doing drugs and kept an active interest in them. Drugs physiologically alter the brain and its activity, so this could be the main reason Ray became addicted. His addiction then caused his enjoyment to peak each time he did drugs. Ray also displayed cognitive engagement with his drug use. As I explained earlier Ray often used problem solving techniques and certain strategies that would allow him to successfully use his drugs. There is one scene that shows his strategies, but it is not specifically clear because it depends how one interprets the scene. Earlier in the movie Ray’s wife finds his tools to do drugs in his shaving kit. Later in the movie he is getting high in the bathroom but tries to assure his wife it is only his shaving tools in his shaving kit when he packs in front of her. In my opinion Ray created some other secret place he could hide his drug tools because he knew his wife would be watching his shaving kit closely. This scene is just one example that proves Ray’s cognitive engagement he has for using drugs.
Another component to explaining a person’s engagement with something is known as the voice. Voice can be when a person verbally announces the level of engagement they have for a certain behavior. In the movie there is one specific scene in which Ray is telling his wife he gets high and won’t stop with this behavior until he believes it is preventing him from giving his family a good life. He also states that he is no rookie to drug use and he knows how drugs affect him and how the drugs work. He tries to reassure his wife that he can stop whenever he wants, but since it is obvious he is already addicted it is also obvious he is lying. Throughout the movie, Ray also displays his need and desire for the drugs. He often tells his close friends to get “things” ready meaning the system he uses in which to get high. Overall, it is clear to see Ray is very engaged in his drug taking behavior. In the movie he displays behavioral, emotional, and cognitive engagement as well as voicing his need and desire for drugs. Beyond the physiological addiction he had to the drugs, his level of engagement also made it very difficult for him when he entered rehab because he could not depend on engagement of his drug taking behavior anymore.
The world of Ray Charles was overrun with complicated behaviors and decisions. Both behaviors and decisions are aspects of a person’s life which are dominated by internal/external motivation and emotions. As we read in chapter 3 of Reeve, “when it comes to understanding motivation and emotion the brain is the star of the show.” Following those lines, to understand the world of Ray we must break down his cognitive processes and actions into a more easily understandable series of biological processes. More specifically, we can attribute Ray’s addictive behaviors and self-destructive actions to chemical actions and reactions within the brain.
According to Reeve, the medial forebrain bundle is the part of the brain associated with pleasure. Reeve goes on to say that this area of the brain is the closest thing humans have to an actual “pleasure center.” This area of the brain can be activated with electrodes causing generally positive feelings in small animals such as rats. Perhaps some malfunction or over-production in this “pleasure seeking” part of the brain caused Ray to become obsessed with his vices of drugs and women.
We also learned that drugs produce the feel good chemical of dopamine in the brain. Over an extended period of drug use the brain can almost forget how to make dopamine on it’s own without the drug. After extended (years) use of heroin, it is possible that Ray’s brain quit making dopamine on it’s own. In the movie we witnessed his terrible withdrawal process from the drug. That process showed physical symptoms of withdrawal and a bleak world without the chemical dopamine.
I purchased the movie for $7.50 brand new.
I also forgot to mention where I got the movie from. I just started a subscription to Netflix so that's how I received it.
The movie "Ray" creates a window into the life of Ray Charles. During the movie we see lots of motivations that compete for Ray’s attention. How Ray reacts gives us insight into how his values and needs change during the course of his life.
Throughout the movie we see that Ray is motivated to make music for a variety of reasons. Over the course of his lifetime, these motivations change. As Reeve points out in our textbook “when motivation varies, behavior also varies” (p. 6). The motivations that I identified are intrinsic motivation, possible self, relatedness, and extrinsic motivation.
From the beginning of the movie, it is clear that Ray is intrinsically motivated to learn to play the piano. In the movie there is a flashback to Ray’s childhood where he goes into a store that his mother told him not to just to hear a man playing the piano. This is where Ray’s behavior of playing the piano got its start. Ray is drawn to the piano, and when he is playing it is clear that he really enjoys it based on his facial expressions. A scene that demonstrates the joy that Ray gets simply from playing the piano is when he’s playing “Mess Around” for the first time in the studio. Ray is grinning from ear to ear and you can tell that he enjoys making music just for the fun of it. When Ray was intrinsically motivated he was the most creative, making songs up off of the top of his head to fit the situation he was in.
Possible self also motivates Ray to become a musician. When Ray is trying to make a name for himself he copies other people’s music that he admires. The first time Ray meets Bea she points this out to him, saying “I keep wondering what the real Ray Charles sounds like”. Bea is the one who motivates Ray to develop his own musical style.
Throughout the movie, other motives drive Ray to create music and make business decisions. As extrinsic motivations, for example money, begin to push Ray to perform he changes his values. When Ray was motivated by relatedness he cared about his friends, like Ahmet and Jerry at Atlantic records. Sure, extrinsic motivation was still present (Ray was still making money). But the fact that he was willing to subordinate this motive for his need to be encouraged and supported illustrates a point that Reeve makes, that “the strongest motive typically has the greatest influence on our behavior” (p. 15). Ray stayed with Atlantic records because as Ray said, they were like family to him. Once extrinsic motivation became Ray’s main motivation, he left Atlantic for ABC because they were able to pay him more money.
Ray’s heroine addiction is also very interesting in terms of motivations. I noticed that the first time that Ray uses heroin in the movie is right after he has a traumatic flashback to his brother drowning. This strong, upsetting emotional event led Ray to turn to drugs to numb his pain. When his band mates caution Ray about drugs, Ray says “My whole life’s been null and void.” This statement gives us insight into the reason that Ray uses drugs, as an escape.
Finally Ray is motivated to give up his drug addiction by Bea threatening to leave him. It is interesting that up to this point Marge’s death and multiple drug charges were not enough to motivate Ray to quit using heroine. Bea has been a source of stability for Ray and the risk of losing her and his family is enough to push Ray to quit using heroine for good.
I really enjoyed watching this movie, even though watching Ray struggle with his drug addiction was hard. This movie provided a plethora of opportunities to apply what I have learned in this class to real life. Even though different motives drove Ray throughout his career, it was his passion for creating great music that became his legacy.
I got the movie from Amazon.
The movie “Ray” was a beautiful example of motivators. Now knowing what I know about intrinsic and extrinsic motivators allowed me to view the movie from a whole different perspective. Ray Charles obviously had a strong passion for music. This is an example of intrinsic motivation. At its most basic level, intrinsic motivation is doing something simply because you want to, and not because there is any outside reward or reinforcement tied to it. The example from the movie that caught my attention was when Ray goes into a show and a man is playing the piano. During that scene, Ray Charles looks like a kid in a candy shop.
As the movie proceeds, Ray Charles also experiences extrinsic motivation. Our text books defines extrinsic motivation as “Extrinsic motivation arises from environmental incentives and consequences, such as food, MONEY, PRAISE, ATENTTION, stickers, gold stars, PRIVILEGES, tokens, APPROVAL, scholarships, candy, trophies, extra credit points, certificates, AWARDS, smiles, public recognition, a pat on the back, prizes, and various incentive plans (Reeve, 113). I don’t know about you but in the exact definition of the book, extrinsic motivators screamed out to me while watching Ray.. Money, Praise, Attention, Privileges, Approval, these are all things that came with Ray’s gift to play music. All though some may have been more obvious, the one that sticks out to me the most in Ray’s case is Approval. As a child Ray struggled with being blind, acceptance did not come easy. Money was probably the most obvious extrinsic influence in the movie. As Ray began to get paid for playing his music money began to take over his life. Ray like anyone else, loved money. Although money is not a bad thing and is needed for things like supporting a family (in Rays case) There are times when we saw Ray change his record deals because they would offer him more money. Money is an extrinsic motivator that can truly change a person, in this case, it did. Money led to Ray’s next big extrinsic motivator, Heroine. Heroine became a horrible addiction that Ray picked up. There was a point when he relied on it, he could not live without it. With the money Ray was making, he was able to support his drug addiction. This was like a circle of negative extrinsic motivators that the steering will of Ray’s life. Ray Charles had his intrinsic needs met, but the extrinsic motivators got the best of him. Ray Charles seemed to lose his love for music at some points. I believe drug addictions are so powerful that I might even go as far as to argue that drug addictions may become over time intrinsic. The culture Ray was now involved in as a musician was also a very powerful external influence. It was a way of life for musicians back then and may very well be today too.
“Don’t let anyone or anything make your crippled” This is the next motivator I want to talk about. At a young age Ray’s mother instilled the motivation for Ray to make it in life no matter what. Ray Charles was on a mission to succeed in life. There were very dark times throughout the movie when Ray could have given up, but he never did. Internal motivators such as the one not to let his mom down are what kept Ray going when his love and passion for music seemed to be nonexistent.
The final point that I want to hit is dopamine and relation is played in Ray’s life by way of heroine. “Dopamine release generates good feelings” (Reeves, 63). I believe the good feelings Ray was experiencing were released by heroine, which led to his addiction. Ray was getting a reward that he could not turn down (the high the heroine gave him). This was enough to keep him hooked.
The movie “Ray” was a prime example of many different types of motivators. I thought the movie was great and I would most certainly recommend it to others. I believe my newly acquired knowledge of motivation allowed me to see Ray from a different lens.
I got the movie from Netflix.
Throughout the movie we follow Ray though his life. We see what factors motivate Ray to begin his career, to start a family, to start using drugs, and to cheat on his wife. We first come to see how Ray is intrinsically motivated when he is a little boy going to a place where his mom tells him to say away. Ray and his brother George are together when Ray hears someone playing the piano. Ray tells George to go home, even after George reminds Ray that their mom wants them to stay away. Ray goes into the shop and sees an older man playing piano. Ray gets his first taste of music when the man shows Ray how to play. We see that after Ray goes blind his mother pushes him to not be a cripple. She makes him learn to do things on his own. We see some extrinsic motivation here because his mother pushes him. We also see some intrinsic motivation by the will power Ray has not to give up and learn to do things like everyone else. We see Ray was also motivated by extrinsic factors. Ray needs money and he got an offer to play a gig for money so that was his motivation to board the bus to Seattle. Money becomes a big part of Ray’s life especially when he marries and starts a family.
In this movie we see external motives or environmental events. He also had a sense of belongings and he wanted to fit in with his band mates. One good example is when Ray starts to use heroin. He is trying to go to the bathroom, but some of his band mates are in the bathroom shooting up heroin. They tell him to leave because he can’t handle the stuff and he does. Then we see another scene where they are shooting up heroin in the bathroom and this time Ray instead they give him a taste, which one bad member does. This starts Ray on his addiction to heroin. The motivating factors were his band mates were doing it (social influence) and they told him he couldn’t handle it (prove them wrong). Being around something so often makes it hard to not give in to the temptation. Rays self regulation was lowered till the point where he gave in to heroin. His heroin addiction had an impact on Ray’s dopamine level. The heroin interacted with Ray’s dopamine level causing Ray to feel a rush and very good after he took a dose.
Ray had some goals that motivated him in his career. He had a goal to make something of himself, just like his mother had wanted. Another goal was to make his own style of music. He took gospel, which is something he loved and listened to, and paired it with R&B to make his own sound. He was the first person to do this too. Ray was motivated by people to write songs too. He wrote a song about Mary-Ann, who he had a thing with for a while. Ray’s main motivator was his mother. She also came back to him though out the movie and gave him words of advice. Ray’s mother was the main reason that Ray quite during heroin and never touched it again. Rays wife Bee also had a motivator during the movie. Bee’s motivator was Ray, she put up with his drug use, his cheating, and his never being home just because she loved him. She does come to a point at the end of the movie where she has had enough and is ready to finally leave Ray.
Ray also has a lot of different emotions. As a child he is very happy child, who just enjoys life. Then after his brothers downing Ray is sad and you can see he is really hurt by the loss of his brother. Then Ray becomes blind and he becomes determined. When he falls running into the house and yells for his mom to help him and she doesn’t, he learns to really use his ears and he finds a cricket and his mother. This shows how determined he was as a child to be independent. When Ray’s mother puts him on the bus for the school for the blind you can see how sad Ray is. He is crying and saying he will be good and keep up with the other kids. Then when Ray starts with his first band and he asks were his band mates are going and they say there is only six to a cab which leaves Ray out. In this scene we can see how Ray feels sad and left out. When his first son is born you can see the happiness on Rays face and how he smiles when he sees his son. Though out the movie you see a lot of anger in Ray. A couple of examples of this are when people try to cheat him out of money. When his girlfriend on the road calls his house and when Bee finds out about his drug use. At the end of the movie when Ray founds out that Margie had died of an overdose we see sadness and a sense that it was his fault that she started using.
This is a very powerful and moving movie about a man who overcomes blindness in childhood and a drug addiction in adulthood. I bought this movie off of Amazon.
Motivation was a key element in Ray Charles' success as a musician. Throughout the movie, displays of both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation were constantly present. One of the first scenes that displayed intrinsic motivation dealt with Ray's desire to view a piano player in a nearby store. Although warned by his brother, Ray continued to approach the store because he was deeply interested and curious about the melodic sounds he heard. That curiosity and deep interest was intrinsic motivation that guided him to a life-long career as a musician. As shown in Chapter 1, page 17, intrinsic motivation can often lead to more creative and higher quality experiences. The quality of his experience as a piano played was portrayed throughout the film in how successful he was and how his music interested the masses.
Although his musical interest was initially based on intrinsic motivation, Ray soon found himself being extrinsically motivated to pursue his musical career. Specific examples of how extrinsic motivation was present include the time where Ray was offered a contract with ABC Records. Although deeply invested and personally affiliated with Atlantic Records, he found himself accepting an offer with ABC Records because of the large amount of money and success they offered. After achieving a high musician’s status and fan attention, Ray found himself constantly in the spotlight. Despite his marriage to Della B, he was constantly attracting young females and utilizing his status in order to pursue sexual advancements. These extrinsically motivated acts to pursue sex resulted in a plethora of negative consequences.
Several factors of motivation and emotion were intertwined with Ray’s constant struggle with heroine. His affiliation with heroine was initially a result of curiosity that eventually led to dependence. This dependence was created because of the pleasant feeling that heroine created and the psychological impact that it had. The positive feelings that resulted from the injection of heroine were due to the releasing of a dopamine. As discussed in class and shown in chapter 3, page 66, dopamine generates positive feelings when released in the brain. The flood of dopamine produced by heroine soon became so much that Ray’s brain stopped its normal production of dopamine. After his brain stopped producing the normal amounts of dopamine, he soon found himself constantly relying on heroine to produce pleasant feelings.
His psychological state also played a significant role in how his addiction began. Raised by a single mother who was a impoverished sharecropper, Ray experienced difficult times. The traumatic event of his younger brother drowning led Ray to constantly experiencing fear in a sporadic fashion. This fear and unpleasant psychological state resulted in vulnerability and a desire to escape his unpleasant state. His desire to feel emotionally healthy led him to take shortcuts. In this case, the shortcut that led to temporary feelings of positive emotional health was heroine.
It was very interesting and entertaining to view a movie while looking for specific motivational and emotional strategies. I believe that the movie portrayed multiple aspects of what we have learned in class and from our readings. It is increasingly helpful to apply our knowledge to real-life examples. Although the movie had obviously distorted parts of the movie to make them interesting, the core parts of Ray Charles story stuck out. These core parts served as real-life examples in which we could relate and apply various information. Overall the movie was excellent and it was not a difficult task to identify certain aspects of it that pertain to our class discussions and readings.
I chose to do Ray charles from figure 1.5 chapter one page twenty-two. The Framework to Understadn the Study of Motivation. As the Antecendent condition I chose Ms. Marlin and her club the Rocking Chair. Ray saved the Club from closing down, Ms. Marlin, Gossi, and his audiences always praised him. So Ray started thinking about signing with labels and going on his own. His Motive Status started off with his needs was wanting to get recognize and not just perform at the same club all the time, money since Ms. Marlin was not giving him any, more freedom on making his own decions (again Ms. Marlin made his decisions) and of course women (besides Ms.Marlin). As a human Ray experieced all kinds of emotions when it came to pursuing his fame, he experienced lonliness, at times he was excluded from the rest of his band only because they did not want to take care of him everytime they would go out, other times he would feel lustful so of course he would attract a woman to satisfy his need, and when ever he performed he felt genuinely happy. One of his most important cognitions of his life was his memory, thanks to his mother, that helped him get around and remeber certain tunes, pitches, nots, and ques. Also hearing to hear the music, people, and echos. Ray Charles energized and directed his behavior by pursuing his career despite of criticism due to his blindness and his combination of gospel music with jazz/b-bop. He engaged by processed information such as music notes by not only his senses but using his cognition. Physiologically his heart rate would always increase when he would perform, his respiration would become deeper as he sang, stomped and moved his feet and shoulders to give ques to the drummer. Ray self-reported to himself that he was happy. Another figure that I would like to use along with this moving is from chapter two page thirty-one figure 2.1 A Summary of Freud's Drive Theory. I used Ray's drug abuse with this one his source was the fact that he was experiecing with drawal symptoms when drug levels would drop and experience the opposite of the drug in a more intense manner, the impetus would be that the body physicologically adapts to, and compensates for the regula presence of the drug, also by binding and action of transmitter to receptor sites, which of course affects the Dopamine that is located in the basal ganglia (motor control). The object, He seeks to reverse the with drawal symptoms by being successful, earning more money, and then with money he buys his drugs. The Aim, He an intravenous type of injection which gives a good control of the dose and therefor satiesfies his body. I firt got netflix but my computer acted up it had to stay at the Ittc for a day and a half so I ended up buying the moving at Block Buster.
The movie Ray was a movie that had many points of interest, specifically Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation as well as incentives, reinforcers, and consequences that come from Extrinsic Motivation.
Ray, at the beginning of the movie, was growing up in an anything but wealthy home. However despite the fact that he was young, and his mother hadn’t any money to put him through school, he always knew that the piano peaked his interest. He showed a very high intrinsic motivation to learn and discover the piano. This was shown by his persistence to over come any obstacle that came in his way. When he was younger, he would sneak into the shop where he knew he would be able to see a piano. Eventually due to his persistence, the older gentleman taught him how to play. As he grew older, despite his blindness, he still persisted and traveled and showed up for any audition that he could. No one was going to put limitations on him because of his disability. The book states that intrinsically motivated persistence can be seen with on going endurance throughout different tasks or obstacles which is exactly what I saw with Ray.
Intrinsic Motivation can also bring out creativity in an individual. According to Teresa Amabile (Reeves, 2009) she proposed the following principle of creativity: “People will be most creative when they feel motivated primarily by the interest, enjoyment, satisfaction, and challenge of the work itself rather than by external pressures.” Ray showed this exact principle of creativity with his music. Due to his intrinsic motivation to not only learn piano and persevere through whatever came his way, he became very creative with music as well and began writing his own songs in a manner which outdid a lot of people of his time. People were very impressed with his music and he became a wide-known legend because of it. However, there are not only intrinsic motivations that helped make Ray great, there are also extrinsic motivations as well.
Extrinsic Motivations arise from outside or environmental incentives such as food, money, praise, attention, privileges, public recognition and many more. Ray Charles experienced many extrinsic motivations from the time he was young to later in life when he was a star. Ray’s mother had a lot to do him behaving the way he did and how he got where he did. His mother would always tell him “Don’t let nobody ever make a cripple out of you.” or, “I’m not giving up on you boy.” Her voice inside his head was a extrinsic motivation because it was her approval or her knowledge and love that kept him going in parts of his life when things got hard. She kept reminding him of what he needed to do and why. Another extrinsic motivation on Ray throughout the movie was money which was an incentive to keep him going in career. Ray made a lot of money as he progressed and grew more popular. I would assume that is in part what helped him endure all of the hardships along the way as well. However there were parts of the movie where Ray had consequences as part of extrinsic motivation as well. When he was addicted to Heroin, his wife had to set consequences for him that if he did not quit she was going to leave. Ray then was less likely to repeat the behavior and seek help.
Ray was a very enjoyable movie, although I had seen it before, there were a lot of things that I picked up on the second time around that I didn’t catch the first time. I would recommend this movie to anyone in the future taking a motivation and emotions class simply because it does show very well all sorts of different types of emotion.
oh and I almost forgot! I downloaded the movie from btjunkie. It was really easy and FREE! :)
Ray is a movie that shows all the main behavioral expressions of motivation as shown in Table 1.2 in our textbook (Reeve, 2009.) Those behavioral expressions are: attention, effort, latency, persistence, choice, probability of choice, facial expressions, and bodily gestures. Let’s take them one by one.
Ray shows attention when he’s playing the piano. I would say any time he sits down at the bench he pays attention to his music.
In the same manner, Ray exerts effort to learn how to play piano. He takes lessons with the old shopkeeper and practices a lot to perfect his talent.
Latency is shown in the flashback Ray has when he walks into the old store where he lives. When the piano player notices him, he asks him his name and indicates that he’s seen him hanging around the store. The old man invites him to play. The latency is the time in between him watching the old man playing piano and the first time he touched the keyboard.
Persistence is shown when Ray is in the hospital withdrawing from heroin. Even when the doctor offers him something to make it easier, Ray refuses, persisting in his efforts to rid his body of any and all drugs. He even tries to refuse an IV so he doesn’t dehydrate.
Choice is shown in a number of places, but I think the clearest example is when Ray first starts using drugs. The other members try to talk him out of it, but he has made his choice and he sticks by it. It’s also an example of persistence.
Probability of response is trickier, since Ray didn’t actually show it. However, while watching the movie, I felt that the probability of Ray’s response to requests to get him to stop using drugs would be fairly consistent. Of course, it was, until the end. That is an example of an improbable response.
Facial expressions are shown in everything in the movie. However, the facial expression I noticed most was Ray’s expression of disgust when he felt the older lady’s wrist towards the beginning. We had just heard that the reason he feels the wrist is so he can tell how pretty a women is; Ray’s facial expression clearly says that he doesn’t think this woman is pretty at all.
Finally, bodily gestures. While bodily gestures are many in this movie, I was struck with how hard it was for Ray to sit still. It was explained that because of the heroin, he wasn’t able to not move. That was pretty well portrayed, since Ray was constantly twitching. It made it hard for me to sit still; I kept wanting to get up and pace.
I got this movie through Netflix; I have a subscription.
It is clear from the very beginning of this movie that Ray had been going through hardships for a long time and that he would be having to continue to go through hardships his whole life. At the beginning you could tell that he was already motivated to be successful just because he got on the bus to Seattle to start his career. He could have just as easily agreed with the bus driver that he needed to be looked after and helped and that it was too much trouble for him to get on the bus, but he persevered.
Ray showed great amounts of intrinsic motivation, which is defined as "the inherent propensity to engage one's interests and to exercise one's capacities and, in doing so, to seek out and master optimal challenges" (Reeve, 2009). Ray is a prime example of this. He engaged in his interest of music from a very early age, and mastered the obviously huge challenge of being blind. Being blind in general is a huge challenge, but when you pair that with being a musician...that is pretty awesome. As it says in the book, intrinsic motivation comes from psychological needs, but I think in Ray's case the promise he made to his mother that he wouldn't let anyone turn him into a cripple had a lot to do with his success.
Ray also experienced some extrinsic motivation that "arises from environmental incentives and consequences" (Reeve, 2009). Some environmental incentives Ray experienced were money, praise, attention, privileges, awards, and public recognition. I think money was probably the biggest incentive for him, so he could support his drug habit. Also, he was motivated to be successful and make money, so he joined the band and stayed with the manager that basically gave him free rent for sex. He also later left the band because he thought they were cheating him out of his share of money.
I think Ray was very much driven by his difficult past. He had to go through things such as living in poverty, as his mother was a washwoman making very little money, feeling guilty for his brother's death, going blind, and being sent away to a school for blind children. Ray probably would have had a completely different life if he had not gone blind. It was his blindness that started his motivation. This started with him having to find his way around the house and do everything in the dark. That takes a lot of motivation! It was these hardships that gave him the motivation and ability to do the great things he did.
Along with his past, another thing I thought took a huge amount of motivation and courage was when he got off heroin. As we saw in the movie, the withdrawal symptoms of heroin are immense. Ray was intrinsically and extrinsically motivated to get clean basically for his family. He finally realized what he was doing to himself but I think he was more concerned about losing his family to the drug.
I got the movie from Family Video!
Throughout “Ray”, we see musician Ray Charles work through several aspects of motivation to reach his goals. His actions throughout the film allow us to see how internal and external movtive affected the choices he made throughout his career.
We can see great examples of both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Ray learned to play the piano at a fairly young age, and despite his blindness, stuck with it and eventually mastered the instrument. According to out textbook “When people are intrinsically motivated, they act out of interest, for the fun of it, and for the sense of challenge the activity at hand provides,” (Reeve, 2009). Without a lot of intrinsic motivation, Ray would never have attained the career success he did. The textbook refers to four benefits of intrinsic motivation, which we can also see examples of.
Persistence-If Ray had not persisted through difficulty, he would not have been successful. He was hell-bent on becoming a successful recording artist, and did everything he could to make it happen. He worked for low pay, dealt with racism and discrimination because of his disability, and other pressures from his record company, the women in his life, and various other entities throughout the film. But despite all the setbacks, he kept on trying, and it paid off for him in the end.
Creativity-Ray created his own musical genre by combining gospel, R&B and soul music together. No one had ever thought to do this before. It would have been easy for him to sing the same old type of songs for his whole career, but he was motivated to be more. This revolutionized his corner of the music industry, and brought him great success.
Conceptual Understanding/High-Quality Learning-When Ray’s blindness first begins to become serious, he has to learn how to get around without seeing where he’s going. His mother tries to teach him to use his hands as his eyes, and eventually Ray learns to use sound as a means of navigation as well. He also learns to do other cool things, like when he walks his first wife home and remembers exactly how many blocks they walked and in what direction(s) so he is able to walk back to his hotel by himself. There is also a significant learning curve Ray must go through when he first gets into the music business. For example, he learns to ask for his pay in single bills, so he can make sure he is paid accurately.
Optimal Functioning and Well-Being-In the earlier part of his career, Ray gets addicted to drugs, which ends up getting him in quite a bit of trouble. However, he is eventually able to kick the habit (because he was intrinsically motivated) and continue with his career.
We can also see several examples of extrinsic motivation. The most prevalent is probably money. Money was a central issue for Ray, especially when he was first beginning his career. He was trying to make a living, and struggled at first. He had several arguments with club owners and his managers about how much he should be getting paid for his shows. He knew he was popular, but was disregarded because of his blindness and his race. He was also motivated by his promise to his mother that he would never become a cripple just because he couldn’t see. His motivation to overcome these setbacks was a key part of the film.
Besides money, he had several other extrinsic motivations, including-praise, recognition, and several special lady-friends. All these served as reinforcers for him to continue writing songs and recording albums.
And I got the movie from Netflix.
Ray’s childhood experiences, as perceived through his memories, largely reveal themselves in his adult behavior. His first experiences with money and music, firsthand encounter with a loved one’s death, losing his sight, living in the era of segregation and having to scratch and claw for basic human rights, and internal control instilled by his mother are insightful contributions to better understanding Ray’s advancement through the life course.
Ray’s situational interest in the piano man at the general store was almost instantaneously fostered into individual interest (Reeve, 2009). Though his first piano lesson was restricted to all of three notes, this was the first push towards the intrinsically motivating component of music creation. Music would soon become and, consistently remain his number one priority. Similarly, his persistence can be seen in Ray’s unwavering belief in his ability to make it. The strength to stand on his own two feet exemplifies his longstanding battle with the challenge his mother reissues throughout: don’t ever let yourself or anyone else cripple you.
Original manager-duo Marlene and Garcy looked out for Ray, literally, taking care of the business aspect of things for a ridiculous percentage as Ray was left to roast doobies with the little hype man. After signing with Atlantic, Ray was given increasing autonomy to write, record, and perform his own unique musical brand. His styling synthesized rhythm and blues with gospel; his performances grew from small venues to sold-out stages yet his showmanship was unwavering (subtract the few instances when he was all smacked up in the studio). RCA records then afforded Mr. Charles full-blown autonomy enabling his competence to grow exponentially. He was synonymous with the cutting edge— he was doing what was then unheard of, spontaneously playing a song before a live audience prior to recording in the studio. Ray’s musical appetite was insatiable: always on the road, always pushing the envelope, he was in his element singing about feelings.
A seemingly nonexistent negative feedback loop characterized his musical accomplishments and aspirations. Creativity, learning and memory flourished in his younger years as the importance of external motivators was not as conspicuous. Recognition, record sales, and public opinion externally motivated Ray but not as effectively as tangible and expected rewards. Manifest in money, the primary reinforcer was a consequence of Ray’s live performances and record releases. The routine day-to-day of touring and recording were accompanied by expected, increasing monetary returns. RCA records guaranteed 75 percent of record sales in addition to complete autonomy as a songwriter/ producer and the rights to all of his songs. Charles then shifts from his gospel-devil music to country at RCA, therefore, exploring the traditionally-white genre and enabling his own artist growth.
As a result, the hidden cost of monetary rewards/incentives undercuts Ray’s intrinsic motivation. Autonomous self-regulation becomes increasingly difficult with his prolonged success, reception of tangible and expected rewards (Reeves, 2009). In the beginning Ray is getting paid chump change yet his competence is growing and he has no shortage of wrist-rubbing, sock-knocking escapades. Similarly, for a particular period of time the only positive reinforcer keeping him in the studio and onstage is heroine. Even with the money coming in he is always living in the dark. Although he hears like we see, a deeper void persists almost throughout the movie’s entirety. In Ray’s virgin heroine scene, it seems a desperate response to past wrongs, prior rejection, separation anxiety, and a pessimistic worldview nurtured in childhood. Welcomed to fill the void in Ray’s own life, he reasoned he would be right at home with a belt around his arm and a needle in his vein. Longing to belong— to relate to Fathead and other band members who had previously rejected mere affiliation—Ray dives in with the notion that nothing is better than sex.
A womanizer in his own right, beyond his initial sexual conquests Ray’s social relationships were plagued by his distance and aloofness. Being the breadwinner was central to his identity but family time was not feasible given his schedule; given Ray’s own fatherless past his own anxieties surface when he contemplates the what-if possibility of being a bad father. However, an early Christmas or new little league team jerseys was implanted in fatherhood’s place.
It is interesting to see the dynamic nature of Ray’s extrinsic motivation over the movie’s course (Reeve, 2009). Introjected regulation accompanies Ray’s internalization of his wife’s take on his drug usage—she can talk till she’s blue in the face but he has no intention of stopping. On at least one occasion he is interrupted from getting his fix by her phone call; his manager, Jack, is informed to take a message. Only after his second heroine arrest, when he is ordered to inpatient treatment, does Ray start shifting towards identified regulation. After his brother George forgives him and his mother offers him words of hope for the future in a vision, Ray accepts the destructive nature characterizing much of his prior behavior. He fully commits himself to getting clean for his family, his music and himself. Before the credits roll—during the last 40 years of his life—Ray reaches the integrated regulation stage of extrinsic motivation. Through self-reflection and examination he has internalized his sobriety as consistent with his identity, psychological health and interpersonal growth—giving back millions to charities and traditionally-black universities. In what may be the culmination of his career, Georgia formally forgives Ray while simultaneously passing “Georgia on My Mind” as the state song.
Rented the movie from Digital Dog Pound on 1st street.
Ok, so firstly, I did not really like this movie. I found Ray to be egocentric and kind of a sociopath, but I suppose it did make for a good movie about motivation and emotion. There were plenty of times during this film that I thought “what could his motivation to do that possibly be??” So, with that thought, I went back to my chapter to compare his actions with theoretical motivations.
The main points of the movie that bothered me was the fact that Ray made it a point to return to Houston to get married to Della but then actively decided to cheat on her. In class we talked about how the motivation for sex was usually caused by the hormone testosterone. At first it seemed to make sense, testosterone started pumping and his wife was at home in a different town, so he started having sex with the female singer. Then I started thinking, why was his testosterone so high? He was married, which we said in class usually lowered testosterone and he was blind so I would think that it would be more difficult for his testosterone to be released considering one of the senses (I would think a more important sense for starting the testosterone flow) was not available to trigger it. I believe that Ray made a conscious decision that was not very influenced by hormones.
Next I examined the other chapters we discussed in class. I looked at the Grand Theories (Will), Need Structure, and Drive but each one all focused on the biological needs. I wondered why there were not any theories that started beyond after the base needs line. I tried to come up with some sort of theory of my own and came up with a theory that started after the need for sex and was based on a psychological want for sex or affection. After a lot of thought, and a couple models and graphs, I figured maybe my theory was not very sound and would be pretty difficult to make universal.
Finally, I came to a settlement. I went back to the theories and agreed that sex is a universal, physiological need that is the primal base of many different actions. The settlement came when I gave in and said, “Yes, ok, it is completely physiological,” that I at least allowed myself to believe that since Ray’s motivations were purely primal and maybe he was still intrinsically good.
I borrowed the movie from Emily Schnurr who got it from Netflix.
The film Ray showcases the series of personal highs and lows that Ray Charles experiences through his lengthy career as a musician. Ray is an exceptionally motivated and savvy individual. This “rags-to-riches” cliché has been considerably overworked in cinematography but the underlying story of struggle and adversity truly delivers. The film is motivating in itself even without examining what could motivate a man so significantly. Music was both an intrinsic and extrinsic motivation in Ray’s life. We see an intrinsically motivated individual in Ray from the time he learns piano through his years as an up-and-coming musician. His love and passion for sound and music was self derived; it was an outlet that brought overwhelming satisfaction to his life.
Those who are intrinsically motivated achieve greater satisfaction and experience along with an increased sense of autonomy and relatedness. His success as a musician stemmed from intrinsic motives and personal interest in music. Eventually, music was used as tool to get Ray what he wanted instead of bringing self-satisfaction. Extrinsic motivation was soon apparent when Ray’s motivation was no longer derived from love or passion but instead the almighty dollar. He jumped at the opportunity to sign with ABC records because the compensation was greater; this is a prime example of someone who is solely motivated by environmental incentives.
Ray’s primary source of motivation comes from his fiercely independent mother. She is a very strong woman who simply will not allow her only remaining son to pity himself or let the world dictate his fortune. It’s this “sink or swim” mentality that continues to drive Ray and played a significant role in his success. This influence is evident throughout the film as most of Ray’s flashbacks involving his mother correspond with the problem or sequence at hand. Her telling her son to never let anyone cripple him resonates in his mind at any sign of adversity. He even turns a devastatingly negative external event in his brother’s death into an opportunity to become a stronger person and drive aspects of his success.
Desire, want, fear, acceptance, and determination are a few of the factors that influenced Ray’s cognitions, actions, and direction. He longed to belong since he was adversely different from everyone he encountered. As stated earlier money became an exceedingly large external motivator after he had discovered his manager and supposed friend had been deceiving him regarding financial matters. Money is of essence to Ray as he sees it as a means to get what he desires; success, a better life, acceptance. He was internally motivated by his yearning to be accepted within his band. That want is increased when the door is shut so to speak on his attempts to fit in. That internal motive led to his eventual drug use and heroine addiction. The psychological emptiness that he associated with the drug being “null and void” exemplifies his emotional instability that stems to his childhood. He, with many drug users, was looking to suppress the fear that resided within him and was further driven by his sensation seeking tendencies.
Along with Ray’s drive, determination, and motivation came goals. Ray’s earliest goal was to be successful; we see this very early when the onset of blindness occurs. After pleading to his mother for help when he stumbles into their home and lands on the floor, he quickly calms himself and finds his bearings. He starts to use his memory and comprehension skills to maneuver around the house with the help of some external stimulus (the fire, horses pulling the wagon, and the cricket). He always strived to make something of himself as he believed his mother would have accepted nothing less. Ray also didn’t want to just listen to the sound of great musicians and replay it; he wanted to develop his own style with his own characteristics. His goal was to be a pioneer in music and to create a new distinct sound he could call his own. By fusing R&B and Gospel music he achieved just that.
With his new found success, temptation and lifestyle overrode family life and priorities. Ray fell victim to a trap than many successful persons fall into. Everything came very rapidly and very habitually. He wasn’t able to self regulate his emotions, behaviors, or desires and indulged in pleasure; both with women and drugs. Despite his choice in lifestyle Bea persisted in her support of Ray and hesitated to leave her husband. She was internally motivated to stay and help her husband through hardship, although it was the influence of Ray’s late mother that gained him the ability to seek help in overcoming his drug addiction.
I gained more perspective than I realized from approaching this movie in a different manner than normally. It allows you to empathize with the characters and you gain a better understanding of the actions and processes throughout the movie. Going through the readings beforehand and easily applying the concepts also made the movie a bit easier to decipher for me personally and I was visually able to see these concepts in action.
I viewed the movie online using the following link:
http://www.novamov.com/video/4a8afd70307aa
For Ray, failure to learn how to function self-sufficiently as a blind man was not an option. From the beginning, his mother demanded that he learn to rely only on himself to be able to live successfully in a world which would view him as a cripple. This external motivator soon became integrated within himself (also known as integrated regulation).
Through the use of operant conditioning, Ray learned how to walk without a cane or a seeing-eye dog and rely on his memory (using his medial prefrontal cerebral cortex) and auditory senses (the use of hard sole shoes so he could hear the differences in sound that echoed off the walls as he walked). In the beginning, Ray struggled with this. We clearly see this struggle in the scene where he ran into the house and tripped over a chair. His mother’s initial response was to help him but she quickly stopped herself. By doing this, Ray had to rely on his own senses to figure out how to maneuver around. When he finally focused in on the sounds of the room, he was then able to move around without hurting himself which in turn was an attractive consequence for learning to use sounds to walk around.
A prevalent theme of the movie was music. Music provided many different motivations for Ray. First, it was intrinsic. From the time he was a young boy and learned how to play the piano from an old man, Ray had always felt enjoyment from playing. In the scene directly after he signed up Marge Hendrick and the other two back-up singers, we see Ray sitting at the piano before rehearsal playing “Moonlight Sonata” by Ludwig Van Beethoven. There was no extrinsic motive for him to play the song. Rather Ray was playing it for his own enjoyment. As a pianist myself, playing the song “Moonlight Sonata” provides an outlet for my darker emotions. There’s something about the tone of it coupled with the accentuated notes streamed throughout it that allows me to release my frustration, sadness, and stress in a creatively pleasant way. From this perspective, I can’t help but wonder if this was the same motivation Ray had to pick that particular song to play.
Music soon became an extrinsic motive for Ray as well. As he grew older, he was given money to play for crowds of people. From our text book, when an extrinsic motivator is added in combination with an intrinsic motivator, the intrinsic motive is reduced. We do see this happen somewhat when Ray is first signed to Atlantic Records. When he was in the recording studio, he kept playing songs that mimicked other recording artists. This was not what the record producers wanted from him. They wanted him to sound different. They wanted the “real” Ray. Unfortunately, Ray had a difficult time giving them what they wanted. When put on the spot, his creativity was reduced and he could only imitate others.
Another prevalent theme that occurred throughout the movie was Ray’s addiction to heroin. The heroin provided Ray an attractive incentive to minimize the pain and guilt he felt over the death of his brother, George. As with other addictive drugs, heroin sensitizes brain structures (like the nucleus accumbens) to dopamine stimulation more so than naturally occurring rewards. Since dopamine helps to make us feel really good and heroin replaces the need for dopamine, the use of heroin actually reduces the body’s natural production of dopamine. It is this reduction that causes the urges and many times painful withdraw symptoms (as we later seen during Ray’s battle to gain sobriety while he was in rehab).
I had never watched this movie before now (even though my husband had it in his dvd collection). I’ll admit, it was somewhat hard to watch in some parts. As a parent, I can only imagine the pain and grief of losing a child (in other words, I cried my eyes out at those parts). So for Ray’s mother to have to deal with the grief of losing one son, and the struggles of raising a blind son on top of the day-to-day stresses of living in poverty is inspiring.
The movie Ray had many complex motivational factors going on throughout the movie. Though I could spend a good deal of time talking about each of them I will stick to only the three main motivators I saw and give my view on the reasons for them. Throughout the movie (generally when Ray ran into some sort of difficulty) there were flashbacks to Ray’s childhood. Though we only get bits and pieces at a time, we eventually come to learn that when Ray was very young he saw his brother die. Because he froze and did nothing he blamed himself for his little brother’s death. This left him with an enormous sense of guilt for the rest of his life, and became an external event that drove his behavior.
I think this is part of the reason Ray if not began than continued to use drugs. In the movie Ray talks about being alone in the dark and just wanting to get away from it, I believe that the drugs ability to do this for him became the drugs major incentive and reinforcement. It was an incentive because taking those drugs allowed him to escape and it was also reinforcement because no matter what happened to him the drugs allowed him to escape from that. You can see how strong this motivation was in him because he allowed it to trump both his family and his music.
His family (and I will be including his mother and brother in this) are also very strong motivators for Ray. His mother becomes his internal motivation to succeed because he didn’t want to be seen as a cripple. His wife and friends became his external motivation to get off drugs and focus on his third major motivator: Music. His music was, after all, the reason he was exposed to many of the things we saw in this movie (drugs, sex, lies, and deception being the most memorable). The desire to make music was a clear intrinsic motivation for Ray since before he even lost his sight. A scene from the movie that clearly shows this is when he goes into the shop to listen to a man playing the piano even though he knows he will get in trouble with his mother if she finds out.
Over all after reading the chapters I saw this movie as more of a battle of motivations than anything else. The movie started out with Ray’s intrinsic desire or motivation to create and be a part of music. Throughout a good part of the movie this was shadowed by the incentive the drugs gave him to escape from his guilt over his brother’s death and his sorrow over the loss of his sight. Eventually with the help of his family’s external motivation he was able to overcome his addiction and get back to his love of music.
I bought this movie at Wal Mart and it was an extended edition so sorry if parts were different
Ray really did not have a choice in becoming motivated. He had to be motivated in order to make something with his life. He was hit hard by lots of disadvantages and obstacles that he need to overcome in order to survive. He was poor, black, blind, lived in poor area, with a father that was not around and lived in a time period when there were great racial prejudices. His story reminds us what can be overcome with great motivation.
His mother did an excellent job in helping him along. When he was starting to lose his sight she helped him remember where the stairs were and how many there were. She reminded him she would only help twice but no more because the world was like that. She was tough but not too tough. Even when Ray fell and cried for her she didn’t run to him she let him learn for himself. She reminded him to never let anyone make him cripple.
Music started as an intrinsic motivation for Ray then later it did become extrinsic motivation and went back to intrinsic. He started to play music for fun and because it made him feel good when things in his life were not going well. It was a form of healing and letting go from all the pressures of the world. Having seen his brother die and with his mother gone motivated him to become a better person but this also drove him to succeed with his music. Later it was something that was needed in order for him to survive if he did not have music he would not have not been able to make a living.
While working for Marlene he wanted to get away because he knew he was letting others make him a cripple and because he was being paid unfairly. He had motivation to get away. Later he went on to receive other forms of extrinsic motivations like praise and perks for being such a big star, travel, a big house and anything he could want.
Drugs affected his life even if he didn’t seem to think so. As he told Amhet who was worried about him, “it’s not affecting anything and when it does I will stop.” The drugs started to affect how he felt. The dopamine in his system was malfunctioning from the drugs in his system. He could no longer understand what was pleasurable to him and nothing seemed to make him happy. His affairs and drugs kept him from not realizing how much of a “cripple” he let himself become. His values were all in disarray. Because heroin had became hyper sensitized in his body he needed more and more of it and it stated to affect greatly his relationships which were very important to him
He started to lose his relatedness motivation as well. His fame and drugs did not let him see he was not being a good friend to his old group mates, one of them later laundered money from him because he felt he was being treated bad. His music also started to be affected by the bad publicity. His fight with Della helped him realized he did need to change. His related and value motivation afterward the fight was strong; he decided to quit for his family. His decision would ultimately let him go back to doing music for the fun of it and not to help keep up the habit.
This movie was an enjoyable one to see and now I understand why Jamie Foxx received an Oscar for it. I borrowed this movie from a friend. It was great to see a movie about having everything set against someone and they still come out on top.
Ray's life is full of conflict and several different ways that it motivates him. Motivation comes from internal motives and external events. The types of motives are interrelated. As stated in the book " an individual's motivational state cannot be separated from the social context in which it is embedded." (p 69)
Internal motives are broken down into three categories(need, cognitions, emotions) and each had several examples in the movie. For need, Ray learned to develop his hearing skills for his well-being and in order to survive.He wouldn't have gotten very far if he had not practiced/been forced to do things himself by his mother. Cognitively, a lot of Ray's motivation stems from a promise he made with his mother that he will never become a cripple. Many of his actions stem from keeping the self-concept of being an able-bodied man. A subcategory of emotions is expression, and Ray uses his music to express how he is feeling in his life. When he is in love with Bea, he puts how he feels to music and when she asks him to stop he says "I'm just singing about how I love you."
Intrinsic motivation is a type of internal motivation. His music is very intrinsic. He sneaks into the store to hear the piano even when he knows he may get into trouble. As he starts to loses his sight, we see him playing with a drum and listening to the rain for fun. Persistance is part of it and even with several times of being cheat by "friends/partners" and being told his sound isn't what is needed, he continues to try. When he has problems with the Cookie girls, he decides he will just record them himself. He seems to view music as way to master challenges. Music is a place for Ray to have creativity and control. When he feels he doesn't have control ( threat to his autonomy) he takes charge and stands for himself. He knows what is right for his music even when others say it won't work.
For external events, money is obvious stimuli. Eventually however, his addiction to heroine becomes his number one motivation. He is also motivated by the views of others. He is also motivated by cognitions of others. He works hard to prove to others that he is not stupid even if he is blind ( this plays into his own self concept from the promise made to his mother). Also when he gets negative feedback on the different styles he tries... he is motivated to find his own sound.
With brain functioning, I think there is a lot of examples of uses of his amygdala. The amygdala detects and responds to threatening and emotionally signigicant events. When Ray intially performs infront of an audience he expereiences anxiety and weed is used to suppress that repsonse.The death of his brother is an emotional event that haunts him through out his entire life. When he has flashbacks he expereiences fear and anxiety. This experience contributes to his use of drugs. According to the book, impairment of the amygdala leads to tameness, lack of emotional response and preference of social isolation. These characteristics become more present the further he slips into his addiction. Such example is when he is on the phone with his manager and is congradulated on his Grammy nomination. The manager states that he should be happy. When Ray is shown, he isn't showing any emotion about the nomination and is isolating himself at that point. His nucleus accumbens also plays a role perpetuating his addiction to drugs. The nucleus accumbens helps with the association of pleasure from outside stimuli. Ray develops a positive sensation to Herion even when the consuquences of his addiction are negative. Drugs make the nucleus accumbens hypersensitive to Dopamine, which is probably the most important neurotransmitter in reguards to motivation. Dopamine is responsible for good feelings and is essential to learning about rewarding events and incentives.
In chapter 4, when discussing the need for sex, the topic of facial metrics is presented as a way to determine attractiveness. Ray seems to have developed his own way have deciding attractiveness. Several times throughout the film he is seen feeling women's wrists. According to those around him, that is how he decides if a woman is attractive. His tactile sense substitutes for his visual sense.I found this skill to be quite interesting.