For today's class makeup post, I would like you to apply what we are learning in class to real world matters. What I would like you to do is to go to NPR (http://www.npr.org/ ), the BBC (http://www.bbc.co.uk/ ), or there are some good news source links at the bottom of the Huffington Post(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ listed in their news sources) and read, watch, or listen to something that is interesting to you and relates to the course.
For your comment I would like you to briefly describe/summarize what your read, watched or listend to. Next, relate the news item to motivation (specifically) using terms from your chapters. When you are done, copy and paste the URL at the bottom so we can go and see the sources you used.
Once you are done with your comment provide a list of terms at the bottom.
I went to npr.org and found a very interesting article about the media. There are new ads in Minnesota that are targeting overweight parents as to blame for their overweight kids. The article talked about two different ads. One ad showed two boys arguing over whose dad could eat more, and then you see one overweight dad look down guiltily at his fast food tray full of fried goodies. Another commercial contained a mother and daughter both pushing a grocery cart full of unhealthy foods in the store. The mom looks at her daughter guiltily as well. There is a lot of controversy on these ads. One side is that this is targeting overweight adults as almost bullying adults. Another point made was that adults know that eating fast food every meal isn’t the key to health, and these ads are undermining their intelligence. On the other hand, the ad company (Blue Cross Blue Shield) came back and said the ads were showing good parents realizing they needed to do more for their kids’ health. What do you think?
It is easy to see where motivation plays into this campaign. They’re looking out for our youth’s health. They not only want our youth to be happy and healthy, but our adults as well. These ads were there to motivate parents into making healthier decisions for them, in hopes they will do the same for their kids. They also want to motivate parents to make healthier decisions that way their children will follow by example. Monkey see monkey do.
This ad is taping into intrinsic motivation. It isn’t saying “Eat healthy to look great!” or “Make healthy decisions to fit in your skinny jeans!” These are examples of external reinforcers, which would be an example of extrinsic motivation. The ad is targeting a bigger picture than that, something within. Parents love their children (or at least they should) and only want what’s best for them. When people are intrinsically motivated, they act out of interest. Parents are interested in doing what is best for their children, which would be having their child be healthy.
This ad also correlates a little bit with our physiological needs chapter. In chapter four, there are a couple pages on weight gain and obesity. Even though hunger is a physiological need, it is apparent that it can be taken too far, causing over weight and obesity. This ad campaign is very relevant to the U.S. – currently 35% of our population is obese, and these rates are only rising rapidly. Some environmental influences can cause obesity, including obese parents and bad eating habits for child obesity. This epidemic needs to stop, and Blue Cross Blue Shield are only trying to help the matter.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2012/09/27/161831449/new-anti-obesity-ads-blaming-overweight-parents-spark-criticism
Terms:
Physiological needs, hunger, intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, drive, reinforcer, environmental influences
The article I read was from the NPR website, titled “Big Quakes Signal Changes Coming to Earth’s Crust.” This article discussed the earthquake off the shore off Sumatra. Ross Stein, who works at the U.S Geological Survey, said that this 8.7 magnitude earthquake could affect the fault lines around the planet. Even though the earthquake wasn’t the biggest recorded, it had the largest after-effect, sending shockwaves around the world. The quake only lasted about two minutes too, compared to other quakes of greater magnitude that lasted nearly eight minutes. The earthquake was so far offshore that it didn’t have the destructive nature that we see elsewhere causing Tsunami’s. Seismologists Thorne Lay believes over the next few millions of years that a new plate boundary will form right around Southern Asia.
After reading this article, I tried to think of ways to relate it to motivation. The scientists in this article display intrinsic motivational behavior. It seems that learning about these earthquakes and fault lines gives them a sense of flow, and builds up their competence. To me, learning about these things is very interesting, and it would be hard to imagine if they weren’t intrinsically motivated to study it. Who wouldn’t be want to go out and do field tests and learn about the world we live in? Studying earthquakes offers scientists optimal challenges. Their skills are put to the test whenever they are doing tests, trying to interpret data, and doing additional research to make predictions, such as the one Thorne Lay made about a new fault line that may appear in the future. Another aspect of these guy’s jobs is their persistence. Studying Earthquakes isn’t always the easiest thing to do because it takes patience. Earthquakes aren’t something that happen whenever you want them to, it’s a natural phenomenon. Sure, there smaller quakes happening every day, but the large, interesting, and fun quakes to study are the ones with a higher magnitude.
I also wondered how these scientists became interested in this field. They probably became interested by situational interest. This probably occurred because of some event, like an earthquake, that took place in their past. As time went on they continued to develop their situation interest to an individual interest, where they directed their behavior towards studying these events.
Articles like these serve as a method of supporting the competence of scientists like Lay and Stein. Knowing their findings and predictions are well enough supported to be in a journal or newspaper has to be a great feeling of accomplishment, thus supporting their competence. It can give them positive feedback because it is kind of an evaluation of their work by saying they did a job well done.
http://www.npr.org/2012/09/27/161840202/big-quakes-signal-changes-coming-to-earths-crust
Terms: intrinsic motivation, flow, persistence, competence, positive feedback, supporting competence, optimal challenge, situational interest, individual interest
The article I chose was regarding the replacement officials in the National Football League (NFL) coming to an end. The regular NFL officials and its referee union have reached a tentative agreement on a new, eight-year contract. They are three weeks into the season and after each week; it was becoming more relevant on to why the regular officials needed to come back. Football was starting to lose fans because the games had gotten so out of hand. On a side note, sports’ betting was getting effected by these games that were causing millions of dollars to be lost. Just this past week, the Seahawks/Packers game, the last play where the refs screwed up caused over a $150 million dollars in sports betting to be overturned. That is a lot of money!
The reason this article relates to motivation is that the commissioner of the NFL Roger Goodell over the course of the past three weeks has gotten motivated to reach an agreement. At the beginning of the season, there was no near future of an agreement with the regular officials. Both sides were seeing two totally different ideas. Commissioner Goodell made it clear that football fans were going to have to understand that the replacement officials are going to be here for awhile. But after the continuous debacle and blasphemy calls, fans have made it clear to Goodell that a deal needs to be made. Commissioner Goodell’s autonomy was being effected here. It was almost that the public was making it so he did not have a say in the matter anymore. It was getting to the point where the fans were going to enforce the decision. This has a lit a fire under Goodell’s rear and after the Seahawks/Packers game, within three days, a deal was able to be made. This is what football fans had been anxiously waiting to hear. For Goodell’s sake, this was an opposite act of volition. He was pressured into engaging in negotiation of a new deal to be made rather than doing it willingly without pressure. The NFL was actually starting to feel bad about the effects of the replacement officials because of the botched calls and how some players seemed to be out of control. It seemed like the officials did not have a firm grasp on the players and they were raising the already high risk of injury.
This is great for the NFL because the lockout did need to be over. Officially the regular NFL referees will be back in their zebra shirts tonight for the Thursday night football game between the Cleveland Browns and Baltimore Ravens. From a fan’s point, it can only be a positive thing that these men are back in uniform ready to referee games like their job entitles them to do.
Terms: motivation, autonomy, influencing, volition
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2012/09/27/161866460/we-have-a-ruling-nfl-referees-are-returning-to-the-field
While browsing through the NPR website I found an article on JK Rowling’s new book entitled The Casual Vacecy. The article discussed the new book and how it is different than her all so famous Harry Potter book series. In the article Rowling expresses her motivation to write this book saying that she felt a deep need to write it. "Exactly as with Harry Potter, I knew it was something I really, really wanted to write. I became excited about the idea of writing it," she says. "It's a very personal book ... It's not my story, but it does address themes, subjects that are very important to me.” (NPR September 27, 2012). By saying this, Rowling is expressing how she was intrinsically motivated (inherent propensity to engage ones interests and to exercise ones capacities and in doing so to seek out and master optimal challenges (Reeves 111) to write this book because she was truly interesting in writing it. This also relates to the fact that creativity is in large parts correlated to intrinsic motivation. Rowling is also expressing psychological needs and the need for competency when she states in the interview that "I truly don't mean this in any kind of an arrogant way, but I feel very liberated at the moment. And whatever the reviewers feel about The Casual Vacancy, it is what I wanted it to be, and you can't say fairer than that as a writer." (NPR September 27, 2012). This shows that in writing this book she had the need to express her capacities and skills and that is what really matters to her as a writer.
Terms: Intrinsic motivation, competence, psychological needs
http://www.npr.org/2012/09/27/161811822/poverty-informs-j-k-rowlings-new-novel-for-adults
I just read an article from the BBC that discussed the issues of blackmail that men who are using online dating sites are experiencing. These men end up chatting with some woman who they think is “attractive.” The woman tells the man that she wants to go further and ends up persuading the man to take off his clothes in front of his webcam. Next, the woman tells the man that she recorded him undressing (she even shows him the video) and says that she will release the video with false allegations of pedophilia unless the man pays a certain amount of money. These accounts of blackmail have been occurring quite frequently in France and many, police guess, are going unreported because of the high level of intimacy (and embarrassment) that occurs with these interactions. Sadly, some of these interactions have gone too far and one man even killed himself because he saw no end to this his ordeal.
There are a lot of different motives within this news story. First, the main motivation that these men have to get on these dating sites has to do with the psychological need of relatedness. These men are most likely single, lonely men and are looking for someone to date and/or fall in love with. These men are lacking a certain level of intimacy in their lives which is why I believe they are so motivated to get “intimate” with the apparent woman on the other side of the conversation. This may also partially tap in to the physiological need for sex. If we look at the evolutionary basis of sexual motivation, it may become clear that these men are looking for a potential partner to mate with and produce offspring with.
The blackmailer (whether male or female) has the motive to threaten and demand money due to extrinsic motivation. The positive reinforcer of money is enough to motivate the individual to threaten the man. Once the money is received, typically the blackmailer will ask the man for more and the cycle never stops until the man refuses. The positive reinforcer of money has increased the likelihood of the blackmailer’s behavior to occur again. If the man continues to reinforce the blackmailer by providing money, the blackmailer will continue to threaten and demand more. According to police, if the man refuses to give the money to these blackmailers, nothing usually happens except that the blackmailer will probably lose interest. The blackmailer did not get the reinforcer he wanted so he moves on to the next victim.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/click_online/9751569.stm
Terms: positive reinforcer, psychological needs, relatedness, intimacy, physiological needs, evolutionary basis, extrinsic motivation,
I found an article on npr.org that is called "Once Denied a Purple Heart, A Soldier gets her Medal." This article tells a story about a woman who was in the army and in Iraq during the year of 2005. She and her fellow members of her troop went around to different areas to deliver shoes, clothes and other supplies to families and children. On one of those trips her hummer was hit by a roadside bomb and she suffered from a severe concussion. This blast had changed her mental stability, she is not able to think as clearly anymore or just even able to come up with the right words that she wants to say.
According to the old rules of giving out purple hearts, this woman was not eligible to recieve this medal because they did not consider a concussion to be a traumatic enough of an injury. Army leaders and even doctors did not think that concussions were a big deal. This made the woman feel left out and she even felt like she was being told her injuries didn’t matter. Things have now changed, just last year the rules and regulations for the purple heart have changed in favor of giving those who received concussion while on duty the purple heart medal. Now more than 1,000 people have been awarded this honorary medal after getting concussions while on duty. There are still many more people who are eligible for this award, but alot of people just have not sent in their applications yet.
This article relates to our motivation class because this woman was told that she was competent enough to recieve this award. She did feel like she was left behind and was not given the medal she deserved. She worked very hard for the army and she strived to show them that a concussion is a true injury. The stucture of the rules and regulations to recieve the purple heart had finally changed to clarify the information about what the environment expects a person to do to achieve the desired outcomes. The woman was finally posed as competent after the structure was changed. The medal was a form of positive feedback and made the woman happy in the end. Another way this article relates to our class is that it shows this woman had both intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation. She intrinsically knew that her injury was qualified enough to recieve the honor that she deserved and extrinsically she wanted to get that medal to show that her injury turly mattered. Overall, this article showed that people will fight for their needs no matter if they are psychological, physiological or social.
Terms: Competence, structure, positive feedback, intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation.
http://www.npr.org/2012/09/03/159983380/once-denied-a-purple-heart-a-soldier-gets-her-medal
The article I chose to relate to our course material was found on www.npr.org and is entitled, “How Food And Clothing Size Labels Affect What We Eat And What We Wear.” This article describes the serving sizes provided by restaurants and how, if we see a smaller label we automatically think we are eating/drinking/consuming less substance. Companies are able to determine what they label their different portion sizes as, and in turn, have produced a society with ever-increasing portion sizes. Just because we “think” we are ordering a small drink, does not mean that our drink is small in comparison to other drinks at the restaurant, or at other competing restaurants. In an experiment in the article, people were given either medium or large cookies (that were known only to the researcher as the SAME size), and the participants ultimately ate more cookies if they were labeled as medium as opposed to being labeled as large cookies. The article goes on to talk about the increase in obesity. A marketing professor at the University of Michigan, Aradhna Krishna, stated that ‘just because there’s a different size label attached to the same actual quantity of food, people eat more… but also, [they] think they’ve not eaten as much.’ Another cause of obesity is that portion sizes continue to increase – soda today is SIX times as large as a soda sixty years ago. Tips from the article include eating from smaller plates and drinking out of straight glasses so that portions can be more easily seen by the consumers. The article ends by stating that clothing labels are very similar to food portion labels. When consumers see a smaller number in their clothing size, they feel better about their body image – even if the size is inaccurate. (Example: a size eight in the 1950s was a size zero in 2006). Many worry that the smaller clothing labels will lead to people becoming/remaining obese. Eating larger portions and seeing a smaller clothing size are large contributors to the issue of obesity in our society.
This article can be tied to the term medial forebrain bundle. This is the “pleasure center” of the brain and upon receiving positive reinforcement, is stimulated. When consumers see themselves fit into a smaller clothing size, they feel excited. The positive reinforcement assures the consumer that they are indeed smaller than they believe – usually exciting to people. Dopamine is also present as it generates good feelings associated with reward. When the participants in the study were consuming multiple “medium” cookies, they believed that they were consuming less and therefore benefiting by being able to have more cookies at a smaller portion size. Dopamine was present in this study because the participants felt good for controlling their behavior of wanting a large cookie, and instead consumed medium cookies instead.
Incentives are also present in this article. Incentives are environmental events that attract or repel one toward or away from initiating a particular course of action. Incentives involved with this article are those of the food and clothing labels. When the labels are smaller, the incentive for people is to consume more (assume they are not consuming as much food or as many calories) and to be unaware of their actual clothing size. Reinforcers are also present here for the reason that they reinforce/contribute to the continuing of behaviors mentioned above. People are reinforced to eat more because their portion sizes are “smaller.” People have an increased self-image (that might not be accurate) due to the “smaller” labels in their clothing.
Extrinsic motivation arises from environmental incentives and consequences that are separate from the activity itself. Extrinsic motivators relating to this article are, again, size portions and size labels. The extrinsic motivation here is that seeing a smaller size contributes to people consuming more. “If I eat a small sandwich, then I can have a cookie.” Again, the sandwich is not the size the consumer thinks it is, and thus they are eating more AND consuming a cookie as well.
Autonomy is the want to make our own decisions for ourselves. Even if this article displays false autonomy, society believes that they possess the ability to make their own decisions for themselves when ordering food or trying on clothing. If I order a small drink, I am making the decision for myself. In relation to this article, even if I am ordering a small drink, I may not be getting the size small that I believe is actually a small. Autonomy in this article relates to perceived choice. People believe they have a sense of choice when deciding between sizes. In essence, the restaurant and clothing chains are responsible and allowed to determine their own labels for their consumers. Even if people believe they have perceived choice, it is not usually actual true sizes of which they are deciding between.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2012/09/26/161770336/how-food-and-clothing-size-labels-affect-what-we-eat-and-what-we-wear
Terms: medial forebrain bundle, dopamine, incentives, reinforcers, extrinsic motivation, autonomy, and perceived choice
*Please note that comment is stating how I understand the article. My opinions are taken from my understanding of this article and may not be applicable to me personally. Thanks!
The article discusses England’s lose in the game of cricket. It talks about how one of the players had a great game and yet the team still failed to win.
The motivation and drive was high for England and from what the article said they put a great deal of effort into the game. West Indies determination and competence for the game of cricket seemed to over rank England. The West Indies team showed they value the need of relatedness as they worked very hard with each other to bring the win home. The outcome for England was more aversive and Eoin Morgan, with his 71 smashes was not reinforced for his effort. He did however show he had a lot of autonomy by leading the team in points. He also showed great persistence in the game. He was playing his best for a desired outcome that didn’t take place.
The players for both teams get paid, which allows for extrinsic motivation to take place. Some of them may have other rewards or incentives they are playing for, that others don’t know about. Some of the players in the game may be playing out of intrinsic motivation. They might see the money as an extra and play for the sheer fun of the game. Eoin Morgan may have not got reinforcement from winning the game but I am sure he felt reinforced with the stats he had. For him to
The article proceeds to talk about the stats of the other players in the game and what types of behaviors they emitted to win the dual.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/cricket/19718647
Terms: autonomy, reinforcement, motivation, determination, competence, effort, persistence, relatedness, aversive, extrinsic motivation, intrinsic motivation
The article I read was from the BBC News site which was titled “High Sleeping Pill Use Worrying.” The article discussed how the use of sleeping pills is occurring more and more compared to previous years. Not only is it being used more it is also be used for longer periods of time, which is not healthy. In a survey of 2,077 individuals 30% said they had taken the pills for longer than a month without consent from a doctor, and 14% went for 6 months. This finding is worrying because contemporary views of sleeping pill show that they were used for individuals who had problems sleeping because of a condition. Some of these conditions include depression, anxiety disorders, and schizophrenia.
When thinking about why so many individual are taking sleeping pills the first thing that comes to mind is the concept of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.
Today’s society is very fast paced and we are constantly doing things, thus we are more keyed up and not relaxing. Therefore in terms of intrinsic motivation some individuals may be inclined to take sleeping pills so they are able to sleep or relax so they can focus during the day. And in terms of extrinsic motivation some individuals may feel they have to take the pills so they are able to accomplish tasks that they are told to do.
We also have physiological needs and sleeping is one of them, we need it in order to maintain homeostasis. If we do not sleep we will not be able to perform tasks efficiently. Another factor that may influence why individuals are taking sleeping pills is because their environment is influencing them to do so. For example if and individual sees or hears about the positive effects of the drug they are likely to try it and see if it does the same for them. Some individuals may be driven to take the drug because they are not satisfied and are being deprived of sleep, thus giving them the drive to take the pill.
Overall I think sleeping pills should only be taken when they are doctor approved because they do have negative side effects if taken for long periods of time. This article was very interesting as I had never heard much about sleeping pills, I know a lot of people use them but I never thought of specific reasons as to why they do.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-19727621
Terms: Intrinsic, Extrinsic, Homeostasis, Physiological Needs, Environmental Influences, Drive.
The article that I read was called: "Advisors Urge Romney:Bring Back Torture." It was mainly about how Obama is against abusive interrogation techniques used to get information out of terrorists while Romney seems for it. Obama is all for the no-torture policy and believes that torturing terrorists by tactics such as waterboarding, is not what Americans do and we must use leadership instead. Romney thinks otherwise, stating “I support the use of appropriate and necessary interrogation techniques to obtain information from high-value terrorists who possess knowledge critical to our national defense."
I think this is a very interesting topic because it goes along with positive/negative reinforcemnt and punishment in which we have learned about in class. Obviously Obama believes in positive reinforcement while Romney believes in punishment. Some would maybe even call in negative reinforcement. It would be considered negative reinforcement because depending on the technique, the more punishment there is, the more likely the person being interrogated is willing to talk so there's less punishment. Although he is not taking anything away from the person interrogated, waterboarding (a form of torture in which water is poured over the face of an immobilized captive, thus causing the individual to experience the sensation of drowning)does seem like a negative punishment, even though it may be harmless.
Waterboarding and other harsh tactics were used on terrorists after the 9/11 event and America was criticized because of it. In my opinion, I'm not quite sure what I think about all of this. I don't believe that we should stoop to a level which requires punishing people to get information out of them but I do think it's quite effective. But I think that positive reinforcement is more effective which Obama is trying to reassure people that it is what America is striving for.
Terms: positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, punishment
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/28/us/politics/election-will-decide-future-of-interrogation-methods-for-terrorism-suspects.html?_r=0
The article that I read was on Yahoo, and it was called "Seven Steps Away to 10,000 Steps A Day." The article explains different ways that we can reach our daily recommended 10,000 steps every day. The seven ways are: Get a pedometer, check your progress, walk your kids to school, do a check in instead of texting, skip the elevator, park farther away, and browse more at stores.
I think this relates to motivation and emotion because it shows how we can be autonomous with our decisions to be healthy. 10,000 steps may seem like a lot, but this website gives many simple ways to reach that, so each reader has a choice that fits their daily life.
(http://shine.yahoo.com/healthy-living/seven-easy-steps-away-10-000-steps-day-130200639.html)
Terms: motivation, emotion, autonomy,
I read the article,” Mini-Counseling Sessions Can Curb Problem Drinking,” From Npr.org. This article dissects risky drinking and how to prevent it based on short sessions with a counselor. This article can correlate to many subjects we have covered in class. The motivation behind drinking Is an aspect that can be narrowed down based on each individual. However, drinking can be intrinsically motivating as well as extrinsic motivation. The break down that I would most like to connect this article to is the area of social need. The fact that these people make the connection that they do have an issue to the point of seeking out help. Based on the humanistic needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness; counseling can help suffice for these needs. Giving these victims a chance to meet particular needs might decrease their need for drinking. Counseling can provide the client with a source of motivation that an also coexist with meeting the general needs. The motivation can come from nurturing inner motivation and providing an encouragement for initiative. Counseling is another source of interactions with the environment and when having a desire for competence the amount of motivation for not drinking will increase. Drinking can be a very detailed matter that has several motives. However, by setting up sessions they can be provided with other ways to build motivation and meet their needs.
Key Terms: intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, need, social need, competence, initiative,
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/09/25/161764546/mini-counseling-sessions-can-curb-problem-drinking
I chose to listen to the story “For Happiness, Spend Money On Experiences” on NPR. Basically, it discussed how buying experiences rather than spending your money on just material items may bring you more happiness. An assistant professor of psychology, Dr. Ryan Howell, from San Francisco State University talked about a study he conducted involving 154 participants between the ages of 19 and 50. They were brought into the lab and were told to answer certain questions regarding how they use their money and how it affects their happiness. Essentially, the results showed that participants considered their money to be well spent if it went towards an experience. They also had an increased sense of vitality, more of a sense of being connected with their social world, felt less social comparison, and were overall more happy.
This is interesting in a sense because of the fact that money truly does seem to make us happy, which sort of contradicts what this study has shown. But, Dr. Howell explained that money makes some people happy at least some of the time when they spend it on the right things, such as experiences. He then goes on to describe how the psychological need theory underlies this because money makes you happy when you spend it on physiological needs such as hunger and shelter. This makes sense that we would be happy spending money every day because we like to have both food and shelter every day. It then went on to discuss how money could also make you happier if you use it to satisfy your psychological and social needs. All in all, it seems as though spending money on experiences rather than material items is a better option when it comes to our happiness!
This news item relates to motivation and emotion in multiple ways. For one, it is centered on happiness, which is an emotion. It thoroughly discusses how spending money on experiences can make you happier than if you were to spend your money on extraneous material items. Happiness is a valuable thing to have, so this piece of news is actually pretty important when it comes to our emotions.
Also, the concept of money can be related to motivation and emotion because of the fact that money is one of the most extrinsically motivating things in our society. We work hard every single day to make the money to be able to purchase the things that we want. Therefore, it would only make sense to spend our hard-earned money on what will satisfy us and make us the happiest, right?
Next, this news item discusses how money being spent on experiences leads to an increased sense of vitality. Vitality was just discussed at the end of Chapter 6. In the textbook, it discusses that when people have days that allow them to feel autonomous, competent, and interpersonally related, they are more likely to feel a sense of vitality. It discusses how psychological need involvement and satisfaction offers us the psychological nutriments we need to feel vital and well (p.168).
On top of that, psychological needs and social needs play an even bigger role because this news item shared how spending money on experiences led people to have more of a sense of being connected with their social world and to feel less social comparison. This goes hand in hand with the psychological need for relatedness. Physiological needs also come into play because it talked about how people are happy when they spend money on their basic needs such as hunger and shelter.
In conclusion, it seems as though spending money on experiences over material items really leads to a lot of positive outcomes. This piece of news from NPR really made me think about the ways in which I spend my money and the ways that I could possibly be happier if I were to spend differently. I learned a lot, and I was happy to see how much easier it is getting to tie in things from real life to motivation and emotion!
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121908647
Terms: vitality, social comparison, psychological need theory, physiological needs, psychological needs, social needs, motivation, emotion, happiness, extrinsic motivation, autonomy, competence, relatedness
Travel is something everyone does. People travel to see people and or places. It is the adventure where we get to learn and grow and interact with a new environment. People often get bored from being in one place they need new ones to be in and conquer. This is the need for competency. Then need to feel comfortable where they are but often will get bored and want to find a new adventure and place. What do people need to travel? Maps and directions help people get where they need to go. What happens when suddenly the maps and directions are useless?
People are very dependent on their phones for maps and GPS. One topic kept showing up on the new web sites. IT is the one about the new maps on the iphone. I chose to use the one that is on BBC news. What happened was when the new iphone upgraded people got a new maps system, not Google maps. The new technology in the phones is not right and the maps are leading people to the wrong places. People are panicking and not liking the new maps. Why is this a problem? People need to travel and need to feel like they can travel when they want and where they want. They start to feel restricted by the phone and technology and they feel like they are being told they cannot travel which is hurting their need for autonomy. If people feel lost they are not in control of their surroundings. Also going with chapter 6 people often travel to see people and keep that relationship alive and strong if they cannot they feel further apart from their friends. This can hurt their need to belong, also called relatedness.
The apology that Apple has produced is to make people still like them and trust them. Apple as a company feels motivated to put out an apology so people will forgive them. They want to be liked. People want to feel like they belong and want to be accepted. By publicly saying they are sorry they can show people that they care about their customers and the customers want to think and feel their phone company is looking out for them.
Terms: relatedness, autonomy, motivation, competence
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-19760978
I found an article called “Exercise sessions have little impact on child activity.” This article states that there is no significant impact in physical activity if children are involved in exercise extra-curricular activities after school. In fact, children who attend these events seem to do less physical activity at home in the evenings. Thus, the exercise activities after school were simply replacing activities that would’ve normally taken place at home afterwards. Parents may decide not to make them be active if they’ve already participated in an activity or the children may eat more because they feel they’ve worked for it.
I believe this has a lot to do with both extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. The children who are doing physical activity after school are being extrinsically motivated to do so. It is most likely a coach or a p.e. teacher who is making them be active in some way. It may not even be very strenuous, but it is extrinsic either way. The child is not doing what he wants to do intrinsically and isn’t exercising for himself. If that child wasn’t extrinsically motivated to exercise they may become more intrinsically motivated to exercise after school is over, because he may feel like he didn’t get enough during the day. I think it would make the child more aware of his actions and his physical activity if the motivation came from within himself rather than the environment.
I think the parents have a role to play in this as well. The parents should attempt to instill some knowledge into a child that will cause intrinsic motivation. For example; if a child knows that it is unhealthy to have no physical activity or if he is educated about the effects of obesity, that child might be more aware and have more intrinsic motivation. Also, if the parents find something fun for that child to do, the child will want to carry out that activity as well. For example; fun activities after school at home could contribute to relatedness and competence as well. Adding friends to the mix will satisfy the need for relatedness because it well help the child to grow closer to some of the friends that he or she normally wouldn't have hung out with. Making physical activities a group thing will make it more fun and satisfy this need. It will also help the child grow in competence as well. He will improve his skills in sports and other activities by practicing them daily and adding to physical activity. I think this is a huge problem in our society and I’m surprised how much it all comes back to motivation! Without this class I never would’ve thought about how much motivation is involved in just this scenario, let alone everyday life.
Terms: intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, psychological need, competence, relatedness
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-19743584
I found an article that discussed a Fox News report. Apparently the station aired live a car chase, and the video report ended with the guy committing suicide in the middle of a grassy field. I found the video on youtube and watched it, and it would have been pretty graphic if I would have had a larger screen to view the video from (the guy shot himself in the head). The news anchor, Shepard Smith, apologized numerous times to the audience about the video, and said that it was something that they should never have seen. He also said that something like that will never again “happen on his watch”.
In regards to the suicidal man, I think his actions reflected extrinsic motivation. He appeared to be under the influence of drugs, and whatever he had taken affected specific areas of his brain, causing his reckless behavior. Since I do not know for sure that he had taken drugs, his actions could also have been intrinsic. If this were the case, my assumption is that his behavior was the result of severe psychological need deprivation. He may not have felt like he had autonomy, may have felt incompetent, may have been unable to relate to others, or may have had some combination of all three. Being deprived of one or more of these needs may have motivated him enough to take control of his life in the only way that he could – by ending it – and thus finally feeling a sense of autonomy for a short amount of time.
I think that the news anchor’s behavior was extrinsically motivated. The news station messed up, and he knew it. I think that he hoped to obtain some amount of public approval through his apologies; in this sense, the public approval could almost have served as an incentive for the way he behaved. However, he could also have apologized so profusely because he was traumatized by the experience, and he felt a connection to those in the audience who were also upset by what they saw. If this is the case, then he was satisfying his need for relatedness.
Terms: extrinsic motivation, intrinsic motivation, autonomy, competence, relatedness, incentive
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2012/09/28/161972855/fox-news-smith-apologizes-after-man-commits-suicide-on-air
In this article I found on the Huffington Post’s site, six teens were in custody because they had all teamed up to beat up an “mentally challenged,” woman “just for fun.” They then proceeded to film the beatings and post it on Facebook. The woman who got beat up, miraculously had no broken bones after the brutal beating the girls gave her, however she did suffer cuts and bruises. Police haven’t been able to figure out why the girls went on attack mode on this woman. One of the girls’ babysits and the Mother she watches her kids for doesn’t understand how this could of happened, because she trusts the girl when she’s with her daughter, and that it was obvious that they were showing off to one another. The woman who was attacked has reportedly been sitting on her front stoop where she either asks for a cig or swears at passer buyers.
The motivation here for the girls to beat up this lady was clearly seen as being fun, something interesting for them to do. However the police haven’t quite figured out what the core motivation was for the girls’ malicious decision to team up and kick the crap out of this poor woman. I would say that chapter six plays a role in this where the girls who did the beating were dealing with all three of having autonomy, competence, and relatedness. For autonomy, all the girls clearly decided as a group to pick on this woman, but individually they all made that choice to take swings at her when she really couldn’t defend herself all that well. I feel that there is possible a ring leader in these girls who created a controlling motivating style with her friends. They were all in an social setting walking up together as a group, the first girl who took the first swing set it in motion for the rest of her friends to join along “in the fun,” with her. So the girls could have felt unwanted pressure to have to join, when maybe one or two of the girls didn’t want to. At this point, I’m feeling that probably wasn’t the case, but not enough information has come out on this article of why the girls all joined in, yet.
For competence, these girls seemed to be satisfied with what they did to this woman, especially since they filmed her and made it public. They were deep in their flow, because they were so absorbed with beating this woman up, but still “having fun,” while this lady was mentally challenged and defenseless, against them all. Lastly, they were all showing an example of relatedness with one another because they were doing it together, socially and accepting what they were doing as “fun.” Overall this article showed us how cruel young adults are becoming towards their elders. Personally, I think we need to start teaching these kids how to be more respectful, because clearly they haven’t learned that at this point in their lives if they think what they did is ok.
Terms: autonomy, controlling motivating style, competence, flow, and relatedness
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/28/4-teen-girls-arrested-record-beating-chester-neighbor_n_1922565.html?utm_hp_ref=crime
This article explains why two-thirds of the people in U.S. jails are charged with petty, nonviolent crimes. It describes how tax dollars are used to pay for the prisoners, why these inmates can not get out, and how flaws in the justice system are used for profit.
The orbitofrontal cortex is the brain part that brings attention to incentives in the environment. This attention helps people to plan their actions. In the article the prisoners chose to steal objects from stores, when their brains identified the merchandise as source of pleasure.
The nucleus accumbens generates the experience of pleasure from reinforcers or addictive drugs. One of the prisoners may be influenced by the drug at the crime scene, but I am not sure about how that specific drug works.
The anterior cingulate cortex is involved in decisions. The prisoners were motivated by this part of brain when they stole items in shops. When a prisoner was influenced by addictive drugs, his brain was hypersensitive to dopamine stimulation. This led to pleasure and impaired his ability to make a proper choice.
The goods in shops are sources of extrinsic motivation to the prisoners. They are motivated to steal these items. The items cause identified regulation because the prisoners voluntarily choose theft as a useful and valuable action. They are then locked up in jails for years, so they received excessive punishers.
The need of autonomy is not satisfied when people are locked up and can not live independently. The competence is reduced when people lose their jobs, cars, and housing because of captivity. The relatedness is lost when a prisoner is kept from his children for years.
Link:
http://www.npr.org/2010/01/21/122725771/Bail-Burden-Keeps-U-S-Jails-Stuffed-With-Inmates?sc=emaf
Terms: orbitofrontal cortex, nucleus accumbens, anterior cingulate cortex, dopamine, extrinsic motivation, identified regulation, punisher, autonomy, competence, relatedness
I found an article about the Los Angeles County’s sheriff. A report was issued accusing Sheriff Lee Baca of failing to address long-standing allegations of inmate abuse in his jails. These accusations included deputies beating inmates, cover-ups, and violence. The problems in the jails have apparently recently gotten worse, with a failure of leadership at the to, with Baca.
Deputies in the jails have been accused of violent beatings of inmates. They’ve also been accused of participating in secret cliques that glorify the beatings, as well as engaging in off-duty fights and of supervisors covering up years of excessive force.
I think this story fits in with extrinsic motivation and punishment. A punisher is any environmental stimulus that, when presented, decreases the future probability of the undesired behavior. What makes something, like a jail term, a punisher is its capacity to decrease the probability the behaviors that lead to the jail term will not happen in the future. This means that the person that receives the punisher is less likely to repeat the behavior than a person who received no consequence.
In this case, the beating would be an aversive punishment. Aversive punishers are commonly used in the culture but there is another type of punisher widely used, a response cost. Response costs suppress behavior by imposing the cost of losing some attractive resource if one engages in an undesirable behavior. The loss of attractive resources is a cost for the response of enacting the undesired behavior.
Terms: extrinsic motivation, punishment, aversive punisher, response cost
http://www.npr.org/2012/09/29/161997959/l-a-sheriff-rebuked-for-alleged-inmate-abuse
After browsing through the NPR website I found an article about J.K. Rowling that interested me. J.K. Rowling just realized a new book called “The Casual Vacancy”. Unlike the Harry Potter series this book has no magic and is for the adult reader. The book is based on troubled teens and there even more troubled parents. It’s about a politician that drops dead. Instead of mourning his death the town members start wondering what his empty seat could mean to them. The teenagers in the town try to influence what’s going on.
J.K. Rowling said this book is very different from Harry Potter. Many people asked her why keep writing? She is already a millionaire and an amazing writer in the eyes of many. What if this book changes how people feel about her? J.K. Rowling said she felt a deep need to write this book. She talked about it being a very personal book for her. The book is not about her but many of the topics are near and dear to her such as living in poverty and social classes.
This article has to do with intrinsic motivation and psychological need. It relates to intrinsic motivation because she was self-motivated to write this book. It’s not like she wrote the book because she needed the money. She wrote the book because she wanted to. She has a sense of satisfaction because it is enjoyable for her to write books that mean something to her. The article also deals with psychological need because she wanted/needed to get this book written and expressed. It mattered to her. She knows it will get some critical reviews but that was a risk she was willing to take.
http://www.npr.org/2012/09/27/161811822/poverty-informs-j-k-rowlings-new-novel-for-adults
terms used: intrinsic motivation, psychological need
I found an article on NPR that was called “New Anti-Obesity Ads Blaming Overweight Parents Spark Criticism.” This article talks about two anti-obesity ads that have been playing on TV in Minnesota. One ad features two kids at a fast food restaurant bragging about how much their dads can eat, and trying to one-up each other saying they will be able to eat more than their dads someday. One of the boy’s dads walks up, hears the kids, and looks down guilty at his tray of burgers and fries. The second ad shows an overweight mom pushing her shopping cart of unhealthy groceries around the store and eventually notices that her chubby daughter is wheeling a smaller cart with the same unhealthy foods in it.
These ad campaigns are trying to motivate parents, especially overweight parents, to set a good example for their children when it comes to eating. These ads are acting as an external motivator for parents because they are environmental sources of motivation trying to change their parenting styles. There are also some incentives in these ads. Incentives attracted or repel one toward or away from initiating a particular course of action. These ads are trying to repel parents from eating unhealthy and trying to motivate parents to have a healthy life style for both them and their children.
Autonomy is also present in these ads. Autonomy is the psychological need to experience self-direction and personal endorsement in the initiation of one’s behavior. Behavior is self-directed when our interests, preferences, and wants guide our decision-making process to engage or not to engage in particular activity. External events, environments, social contests, and relationships all vary in how much verses how little they support a person’s need for autonomy. These ads try to support a person is making better life-style changes for their family.
Terms: Incentives, external motivator, autonomy, psychological need.
I found an article one NPR titled "The Motivation Behind What We Eat, Drink." This article talks about why we eat the amount we do. It starts off saying how we are programmed to eat as much as we can because originally, the source of food was scarce and hard to get. So we are programmed to get as many calories as we can. It goes on to say that there are many studies supporting this, such as the bottomless soup bowl. This study showed that if you can get more for less money, people will do it and eat it all. It gave an example that people will eat a bag of chips, no matter how big the bag is. This is called a unit bias. One bag can have more or less chips than the other, people will still eat a bag of chips until its gone. There has also been controversy when New York City Mayor wanted to ban sugar drinks over 16 oz. This stirred up trouble because people are programmed to think bigger is better. When you put a small 12 oz can next to a 2 liter bottle, you think bigger is better both because of quantity and price.
I believe this is related to the physiological need of hunger in motivation. We became programmed to eat as much as we can because of extrinsic motivation (the scarcity of food). Because food was hard to get, we ate at much as we could when we could. Also thirst comes into play when it comes to size of drinks. When you are really thirsty, you think of quantity. The more the better. The more you have, the more your thirst will be quenched.
Terms: physiological need, hunger, extrinsic motivation, thirst.
http://www.npr.org/2012/06/08/154559788/the-motivation-behind-what-we-eat-drink
This article tells about the life of Ken Rensink. He is a special education teacher who loves what he does.
Even students with, what some may call, mental illnesses have needs. They have both intimacy and relatedness needs. Just as Ken said, many of his students grew up thinking they were failures and being shunned by those around them. We are all different, yet we all have social and psychological needs. This article shows Ken as a caring teacher who has a true desire to help his students do something with their lives. He does not try to exert a controlling power over the students but instead I think he tries to show his students that he cares for them. I think he wants to meet some of the needs that his students have not had fulfilled in the past such as relatedness and intimacy.
Terms: intimacy, relatedness, social and psychological needs, power
http://www.npr.org/2012/10/05/162303000/for-special-education-teacher-every-day-is-precious
Rion Tucker is a 20 year old transgendered man that grew up a lesbian in Main. He spends his time personally campaigning door-to-door in Dexter, Main trying to reach people to support same-sex marriage in his home state. He campaigned in 2009 and received a lot of negative feedback. The population of Dexter is poor, white, and older, making them a little more of a difficult target to reach. I chose to read this article and then also listen to it. After listening, Tucker’s persistence and calm voice honestly warm your heart. The narrator describes how even after dark, Tucker treks door after door trying to persuade voters. At the end of the story, you get to hear Tucker have a conversation with a man that claims his is against same-sex marriage, and especially against gay couples adopting children. Towards the end of the conversation, just by being patient and calmly explaining his side of things in terms that the older gentleman would maybe be able to understand a little easier, he persuaded his voter and convinced him to vote in favor of gay marriage.
We can see from the persistence and hard work of Tucker that he is extrinsically motivated to get people to vote for same-sex marriage. We know enough about Tucker to understand why the ballot is so important to him personally and we know that he wants a consequence that is separate from the activity of going door-to-door itself. Rion also has a reinforcer for his extrinsically motivated behavior. A reinforce is an extrinsic event that increases behavior. If this ballot is passed then he has the opportunity to be married to the person he loves, and hopefully one day be able to start a family with that person as well. He knows that it is all a stepping stone to having the equal rights and opportunities that he desires. In a way this also acts as an incentive for his behavior in the same ways. The incentive attracts or repels a person from or away from a course of action. Rion could let the doors being slammed in his face and the negative words used towards him as reasons to stop, but he instead lets the incentive be a positive form of motivation for him to keep going.
extrinsic motivation, reinforcer, incentive
http://www.npr.org/2012/10/09/162112334/getting-to-yes-on-gay-marriage-one-voter-at-a-time
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