Ch 14-Unconscious Motivation

Chapter 14 was all about unconscious motivation. It focused on Freud’s theories along with explaining how they have adapted over the years. The explanation of these theories helped to better my understanding of why we do some of the things we do. I was also able to learn more about unconscious motivation and how it is possible for us to be aware of it even if it may be in an abstract way. It also helped to teach me why we develop some of the ideas about certain people that we do and how it affects our relatedness to others.
The concept that was the most interesting to me was the ego and everything that it is compromised of. It was interesting to me that the ego is something that is slowly developed and relies solely on the person themselves. Through this development one is able to develop defense mechanisms towards certain things. The mechanisms help one to deal with things they may encounter and help us to adapt to different situations. I found it so interesting because it provided a better understanding for me as to how we are able to cope with things in our environment. Depending on how well developed our ego is we are able to deal with challenges, demands, and opportunities. I struggle with anxiety quite a bit and when a situation arises I was not prepared for it causes me distress. This could be because I am not able to properly use my defense mechanisms in order to deal with these conflicts. By having a better understanding of the role of the ego, my unconscious motivation, and the defense mechanisms I could potentially find a way to better deal with this situations.
I believe it is somewhat possible to become aware of our unconscious motivations. Although I do not believe we become completely aware of them. Our dreams serve as a way for us to access these motivations. Freud talked about how interpreting our dreams can sometimes help us to understand what we desire even if we were unaware of it before. Dreams serve many purposes for a person such as; stress buffering, problem solving, memory consolidation, and neurophysiological activity. Our implicit motivation helps to distinguish how we will act when presented with a challenge as well. It helps to determine whether we will feel good about the challenge or feel anxious. I think this helps to explain our unconscious motivation as well. Although we may not be 100% aware of it, when we choose to give up on a challenge it could be because it was never really a desire of ours anyway. This motivation directs our attention towards different things as well. I think this is also another way we can notice our unconscious motivation coming into play. If we are directed towards certain things this could be an indicator that it is a desire or we that we hope to fulfill. Although it is not a type of awareness that smacks you right in the face I do believe we are capable of becoming aware of our unconscious motivation along with the unfulfilled desires and wishes.

Terms:
Unconscious motivation
Relatedness
Ego
Defense mechanisms
Dreams
Implicit motivation
Desires

Chapter 14 dives into the depths of our unconscious motives. I associate the unconscious mind to the ocean because it seems like we have discovered a little bit of what is really there but yet, there is still a lot of uncharted territory to be discovered. I would say that the primary focus of this chapter was on some of Freud’s theories on the unconscious and how they have evolved over time to become more comprehensive and up to date theories. The various theories and ideas in this chapter serve to elaborate on why we may think the way that we do unconsciously and potentially explain what seems to be, at least to some extent, unexplainable.

The most interesting topic that I learned about while reading through this chapter was the concept of Dreams and the purposes they may serve us while we sleep. The five primary purposes from the text are venting, processing neural inputs, consolidating memories from short-term to long-term, buffering stress/coping, and problem solving. I had always just thought that our dreams served to showcase what seemingly random thoughts were arising from my dormant mind while I rested and recovered for the following day. Now I’ll strive to remember that our dreams do more than just express our unconscious wishes. They also have some crucial restorative and developmental properties.

While I was raking my own mind for an example of how I myself am unconsciously motivated I thought of how implicit motivation may play a part in my life. With implicit motivation being an unconscious attendance to the environment due to events having some emotional relevance to us, I thought of what I may encounter from day to day that would pull me to some emotionally fueled action. What I came up with was an old lady crossing the street. Bear with me here. If I saw a random elderly woman attempting to cross the street, and I did not know her, then I would have to make a conscious decision on whether or not I would go over and yield a helping hand. However, if for some reason I looked over and saw my own grandmother, someone I am emotionally attached to, attempting to cross the street then there would be no conscious thought involved whatsoever as by the time I would have thought about my actions my unconscious mind would have already implicitly motivated me to swoop in and save granny. That’s some insight on how I thought about my own unconscious motivations.

I believe that being able to comprehend our unconscious motivations is possible to some extent, but to a larger extent it is a futile task. Playing off of my interesting topic here, I feel that dreams may potentially provide us a glimpse into the unconscious mind. While on the other end of the spectrum we have concepts such as the adaptive unconscious. The adaptive unconscious describes how we can appraise our environment, set goals based upon that appraisal, make judgement calls, and initiate actions all while our conscious mind is focused on another seemingly more pertinent topic. Plus, we always have the biological roots of our unconscious minds that serve to initiate survival focused actions. Freud elaborates on this with his Dual-Instinct Theory which pits the survival focused instincts, eros, versus the perceived to be death instincts of thanatos. These two unconscious categories of instincts serve to counter one another in an endless battle for balance. We can try to make sense of them but I find it hard to become aware of their occurrence.

Terms Used:
Unconscious Motivation
Dreams
Adaptive Unconscious
Freud’s Dual-Instinct Theory
Implicit Motivation

Chapter 14 explores my personal favorite topic to read and discuss: The Psychodynamic Perspective. More specifically, it explores the psychodynamic perspective and how it explains underlying unconscious motivation. It opens by discussing the forefather of psychodynamics, psychoanalysis, which was the school of thought founded by none other than Sigmund Freud. Psychoanalysis and its theories are what gave rise to contemporary psychodynamics, the study of dynamic unconscious mental processes both not necessarily inside traditional Freudian thought. In a nutshell, this chapter pretty much explains what Freud said and did, how it is now disproven, but how it gave rise to today’s Neo-Freudian schools of thought. It touches on Dual-Instinct Theory (the two instincts of life (Eros) and death (Thanatos) motivate behavior; Freud), and how it gave rise to the Wish Model (drives are motivational wishes that cause motivation with the present vs. ideal state; Neo-Freudian). The chapter then introduces, discusses, and concludes by stating the four main postulates that Freud introduced and psychodynamic theory kept today: The Unconscious (where most of mental life occurs), Psychodynamics (for every thought or idea, there is a counter-thought and -idea), Ego Development (process of ego developing over time from immature and dependent to mature and autonomous), and Object Relations Theory (our childhood mental representations of self/others sets our later social motivations and relationship representations).

A few highlights from the in-betweens include the three perspectives of unconscious (Freudian (dreams are unconscious expression), Adaptive (unconscious = autopilot), and Implicit Motivation (we all have motives that we are not consciously aware of). Subliminal messaging, a phenomenon popular in marketing, was brought up as well, though the notion that subliminal messaging increases sales of items was proven largely untrue by researchers. Another highlight is the concept of Ego Psychology, founded on ego development, in which the ego acts autonomously of the id due to its ability to learn from society/experience.

The most interesting concept I read about, which was hard to choose given my predisposition to loving psychoanalytic theory, was the neural evidence discussed on page 404 (Do the Id and Ego Actually Exist? portion). Up until reading this section, all discussion of psychoanalytic theory was purely abstract. It was all unconscious and dream interpretation, but this chapter suggests that there may be neural structures coinciding with Freud’s theorized personality constructs. The id, the unconscious, impulsive, and more primitive construct sounds highly like the limbic system (primitive, emotional center) of the brain. The ego, the logical, rationalizing, and thinking portion of the personality constructs is reminiscent of the neocortex and its control of executive function. It gave me a new perspective on psychoanalysis that, with a better understanding of the brain and its systems, perhaps our unconsciousness could be observed at work at some point soon.

As for my own unconscious motivations, I can say that I am unconsciously motivated. However, I don’t know in what way I am unconsciously motivated. Now, I didn’t fully 100% understand this, so I’m going to explain it to the best of my ability. The implicit motivational perspective of the unconscious states that implicit motives are indirect, implied, or not well understood, and linked to emotional experience. When the environment offers the individual something that we intrinsically (unconsciously) value, we focus and persist more on the task. The unconsciousness focuses the consciousness on the task so it gets completed and rewards us more with positive affect. So, in my case, having a high social need for intimacy would mean I would naturally focus more on situations where intimacy is high. So, in a group presentation/study session, my unconsciousness would recognize that an intimacy gain is near and focus my consciousness on the task. During the task and upon its completion, I would feel the conscious reward of positive affect, but only because the unconsciousness helped to focus my behavior.

However, despite my hazy grasp on intrinsic motivation as it pertains to the unconscious, I can say with only the slightest bit of doubt, that your ability to become conscious of your unconscious motivations is dependent on what school of thought you subscribe to. If you are pure psychoanalytic and of the Freudian tradition, it is possible to become conscious of these. By analyzing your dreams, you can train yourself to interpret the latent message of the dream, not just the manifest message. In this way, you hear your unconscious wish/desire expressed in the dream and bring the motivation behind the anxiety you’re feeling to your conscious thought.

If you subscribe to the adaptive theory of unconsciousness, it’s kind of the wishy-washy one of the bunch. On one side, the unconsciousness exists purely to not be noticed in this theory. It monitors, performs, and keeps and eye out on tasks deemed too menial for conscious attention. When dangers do arise, the unconsciousness alerts the consciousness, bringing what was once an unconscious act to the conscious mind. So, in that regard, we are seeing the once unconscious process and motivation. However, the other side of that coin is that intuition bit. Humans make split-second judgement calls about other people all the time yet cannot seem to provide a reason for doing so. We have the results, but not the process or the motivation within our conscious grasp.

So, as an overall answer to the question posed: it depends, but for the most part, no. We cannot really see the unconscious motivation/processes that underlie unconscious motivation. If we could, then Freud’s theories would be a bit more empirically testable.

Terms Used:
Intimacy – Pg. 192
Psychodynamic Theory – Pg. 392
Psychoanalysis – Pg. 392
Dual-Instinct Theory – Pg. 393
Eros – Pg. 394
Thanatos – Pg. 394
Wish Model – Pg. 395
The Unconscious – Pg. 396
Freudian Unconscious – Pg. 397
Dream Analysis – Pg. 398
Manifest Content – Pg. 398
Latent Content – Pg. 398
Adaptive Unconscious – Pg. 398
Implicit Motivation of the Unconscious – Pg. 399
Subliminal Motivation – Pg. 400
Psychodynamics – Pg. 401
Id – Pg. 401
Ego – Pg. 401
Ego Psychology – Pg. 405
Ego Development – Pg. 405
Object Relations Theory – Pg. 411

Chapter 14 talked about unconscious motivation. There has been very little that has been discovered about the unconscious mind. The chapter talks about the different theories that are able to at least somewhat describe unconscious motivation. The main theory that is talked about deals with Freud and some of his ideas and how they have changed over the course of time. There is a lot to learn in this chapter about a topic that a relatively little amount is known.
The concept that interested me the most was the adaptive unconscious. A study was done on a man with epilepsy who had their hippocampus removed and had bad amnesia as a result of that surgery. They had the man come in to the lab each day and practice a motor skill. The results were surprising as the man had no recollection of coming in and practicing the motor skill the previous day, but still improved at the motor skill. This allows us to conclude that our brain does have some events that do not require much attention or memory of the event, and that we are able to adapt to what those events are. When we were younger, tying a shoe was very hard and took a lot of focus, but now, it does not seem to take any effort or concentration. I thought this idea to be fascinating but what I also thought to be interested was that it happened for someone who had amnesia as well. My guess was that it wa necessary to remember doing a task in order for it to be stored in the brain and become easier for the body to perform. It was fascinating to me that memory is not needed for the adaptive unconscious.
My unconscious motivation is very much in play when the idea of my will and my counterwill battling. I am often between wanting to go to class (will) and not wanting to (counterwill.) Most of the time I am not aware of my where my will to go to class comes in because I know that sometimes it really isn’t necessary. I also do not want to go to class sometimes when I know we will be doing something important and I do not know why I have the urge to skip class. Just as the book states, this causes somewhat of a civil war within my head. This was is usually not solved until I decide to go to class or skip and it is too late for me to change my mind.
I believe it is possible to be aware of unconscious motivations but I believe that it is after the motivation happens. I think it is possible to explain how you were unconsciously motivated but when you are in the process of the motivation happening, I don’t believe you are aware that it is happening. That is why, in my opinion, it is so hard to change your unconscious motivations.
Unconscious
Freudian Theory
Adaptive Unconscious
Memory
Will
Counterwill

Chapter 14 focused on the unconscious mind and how it affects motivation. The psychodynamic approach was used when discussing these concepts and portrays a deterministic and pessimistic view of human nature. Psychanalysis focuses on sexual and aggressive urges, anxiety, repression, and defense mechanisms of humans as well as emotional burdens and shortcomings. This perspective suggests that motivation is something that happens to an individual rather than something created or chosen. This chapter introduces the psychoanalytic approach versus the psychodynamic approach and how these perspectives are different.
The psychoanalytic approach is presents Freudian principles and supports the traditional concepts that he presented. The psychodynamic approach is different in the way that it refers to the study of changing unconscious mental processes. Freud’s views were that motivation is regulated by biological forces driven by impulse. Freud suggested that instinctual drives are the source of motivation within an individual. There were two main categories of instinctual bodily drives that Freud found, which were the instincts of life and the instincts of death. These two categories make up the duel-instinct theory, which is a theory within the psychoanalytic approach. The instincts of life, also referred to as Eros, are those that maintain life and ensure survival of both the individual and the species. Examples of these instincts are the drives for food, water, air, and sleep. The instincts for death, also referred to as Thanatos, are the instincts that drive an individual towards rest, inactivity, and the conservation of energy. The primary emphasis of the death instincts indicated by Freud was aggression.
Freud also presented the mind as three components. These components were the conscious, the preconscious, and the unconscious. The conscious part of the mind is what an individual is feeling, thinking, and experiencing at a current time. The preconscious is all the feelings, thoughts, and memory of experiences that are in storage and can be brought to the conscious at any time. The third component, the unconscious, is the largest and most important part of mental life. The unconscious is where inaccessible impulses, repressed experiences, childhood memories, and strong wishes/desires are stored within an individual’s mind. The unconscious component of the mind is difficult to study due to the fact that it is not accessible by an individual. One way that Freud attempted to study this component of the mind was through dreams. Dreams can be looked at by manifest content and latent content. Manifest content is the face value storyline of the dream, what actually happened. The latent content is the symbolic, underlying meaning of the events within the dream. The critique of Freud’s dream analysis is that interpretations of the symbolic meaning of events within the dream is subjective and can be evaluated differently by different individuals.
I do not believe that we are aware of our unconscious motivations due to the fact that they are in our unconscious and cannot be brought to the conscious part of our mind. I think that if we are motivated towards a certain goal or behavior and do not know why or cannot explain our motivation, then maybe we could conclude a possibility that it may be due to our unconscious motivation.

TERMS
Unconscious
Psychodynamic approach
Psychoanalysis
Freud
Impulse
Instinctual drive
Instincts of life (Eros)
Instincts of death (Thanatos)
Preconscious
Conscious
Dream analysis
Manifest content
Latent content

Chapter 14 discusses Freud’s psychodynamic theories. Many of Freud’s theories and observations are not testable or reproducible. This has caused many psychologists to embrace psychodynamic research and not embrace the psychanalytical approach which include hidden sexual and aggressive forces. Freud believed life was motivated by two forces. The first was Eros which is the life instinct. It maintains basic survival and self-preservation. The second is Thanatos which is the death instinct. This pushes the body towards total inactivity and emphasis aggression. Contemporary psychodynamic theorists define psychodynamic theory with four postulates. They are the unconscious, psychodynamics, ego development, and object relations theory. The first postulate suggests the thoughts, motivations, and feelings exist at the unconscious level. The types types of unconsciousness are the Freudian unconscious, the adaptive unconscious which appraises the environment and takes action, and the implicit unconscious which are emotional associations that take place outside of conscious knowledge. The second postulate is psychodynamics. People have conflicting feelings as a result of mental processes that work at the same time such as the conscious mind attempting to suppress a thought while the unconscious brain works to highlight that thought. The third postulate is ego development. Ego development it the process of moving from an immature personality to a responsible, mature personality. The ego goes from symbiotic to autonomous during its maturation. The ego develops defense mechanisms to allow it to recognize and process vulnerabilities in a healthy manner. Finally, the fourth postulate is object relations theory. The object relations theory is a personality pattern that develops in childhood and allows people to evaluate the self, others, and relationships. This helps guide relationships into negative or positive ones.
I am really surprised that many of Freud’s ideas hold such merit in this day and age. Since most of his hypotheses were based off of case studies and therefore are not reproducible, it is interesting to see that much of is work is still being discussed. My impression of Freud is that he was widely considered to be wrong on many more things than he was right.
I am unconsciously motivated to engage in behaviors that are unhealthy for me such as staying inside all day watching TV or eating incredibly unhealthy foods. Even though consciously I want to exercise and eat better or spend more time on my homework, I find myself doing the opposite. I think it is possible to be able to identify some of our unconscious behaviors such as the ones I described above. It is easy to tell if you are doing something that makes you feel good instead of something that is harder and takes more energy. As for other unconscious behaviors such having hidden biases, those are more difficult to identify. If we identify them in the moment they are occurring, we can learn how to behave appropriately but many of our unconscious behavior occurs unnoticed. If a person has a strong grasp on the mind and its basic functions, they can be more equipped to deal with these behaviors but the average person who is not aware of unconscious behaviors may not be able to catch them.
Terms: Psychodynamic, Freud, psychoanalytic, motivate, Eros, Thanatos, aggression, ego, object relations theory, unconscious, conscious, autonomy.

Chapter 14 focuses on unconscious motivation, and theories that explain it. There are many different theories that that can help us understand the reasons behind our motivations. This chapter gives in-depth information on the psychodynamic perspective, the unconscious, psychodynamics, and ego psychology. Psychodynamic approach presents a largely deterministic and pessimistic image of human nature. Deterministic means that it holds the ultimate cause of motivation and behavior from biologically endowed and socially acquired impulses. This is what determines our desires, thoughts, feelings and behaviors. One party from this section that I found interesting was the dual-instinct theory. This theory is involved with two instincts. First, Eros which is an instinct for life. This instinct can include sex, nurturance, and affiliation. Next is, thanatos which is an instinct for death. This is involved with aggression toward self, and aggression toward others. The contemporary psychodynamic theory involves four postulates, and is opposed to the classical Freudian theory. The four postulates can include the unconscious, psychodynamics, ago development, and object relations theory. The unconscious is the idea that much of mental life is unconscious. Psychodynamics is the mental processes operate in parallel with one another. Ego development is a healthy development involving moving from an immature, socially dependent personality to one that is more mature and independent with others. Lastly, object relations theory is the mental representation of self and others form in childhood that guide the person’s later social motivations and relationships. I found ego psychology to be super interesting, and this includes the ego, id, and superego. The id initiates drive, including pleasure, aggression, and does not respond to morality. This is logic, reality or social convention. The ego is the one who will negotiate between the id, superego, and the social norms. This is what deals with the reality and environmental demands. Lastly superego represents the conscience, which is the internal moral beliefs and value system. This observes, evaluates, and compares the self with ideals. Ego defense mechanisms is something that I think can relate to everyone. I can see how I personally use some of the defense mechanisms described in the book. There are a couple that stood out to me including, projection, rationalization, and humor. I think that I see myself using rationalization often when I try to justify what happened in certain situations. I believe that we are unconsciously motivated by many things in our daily lives, including food, sleeping, social media. Unconscious motivation is a process that occurs automatically and involves thought, memory, and behavior. I also do believe that we can be aware of our unconscious motivations. I think one example of how we know a lot of the time when we are being motivated to skip class when we do not think something important is going on, but we feel motivated to go if something is due, or extra credit is being given. I also think that we are aware of our feelings even if why we are feeling this way is unconsciously motivated. Overall this chapter went over a lot of topics that I have already learned about, but went more in-depth to give me a greater understanding.

Terms:
Psychodynamic perspectives
Unconscious
Psychodynamics
Ego psychology
Deterministic
Pessimistic
Ego
Id

The thing I found most interesting from this chapter was that our ego is a defense mechanism, its always trying to protect us from something. To Freud the ego is our personality, and is developed to fulfill our adaptive roles, but according to Heinz Hartmann, the ego is involved in a process of maturation, developed through learning and experience. The ego is a developmental progression toward what is possible in terms of personal growth, maturity, and adjustment. The ego is also important for effectance. It concerns the individuals’ competence in dealing with environmental challenges, demands and opportunities, and when those interactions are successful, they produce a sense of being effective. So when a child is learning how to spell their name, it can be challenging because they have to go through a process. The first step is to learn the letters, then to learn how to spell your name, and then practice penmanship. Once a child has mastered how to spell their name, they will feel good about themselves and then move onto practicing having better handwriting.

Freud believed that the individual must express strong unconscious urges and impulses, though in a disguised form, so the unconscious can also be known as the “shadow phenomenon”. Freud rejected the thought that the unconscious was the essence of mental life and so he divided the mind into 3 components; the conscious, the preconscious, and the unconscious. The conscious is short-term memory; it includes all the thoughts, feelings, and sensations that a person is aware of at any given time. The preconscious stores all thought, feelings, and memories that are absent from immediate consciousness but can easily be retrieved. The unconscious is the mental storehouse of inaccessible instinctual impulses, repressed experiences, childhood memories and strong but unfulfilled wishes and desires. Regression and suppression are part of the unconscious mind. Repression is a defense mechanism for people because they cannot bear to know things about themselves that contradict their self-view. It is the process of forgetting information or an experience by ways that are unconscious, unintentional, and automatic. An example of this could be an adult who suppressed the memory of sexual abuse as a young child. Suppression is also a defense mechanism and is the process of removing a thought by ways that are conscious, intentional, and deliberate. Suppression usually does not work for long because thoughts and emotions can only be suppressed for a short time. An example of this would be a partner never pushing their chair in after dinner, and at first it doesn’t bother you, but after years of this, that and other things build up and then one day a fight breaks out because you were not honest about the issue in the first place.

Humans are unconsciously motivated through our biological instincts. We have a biological drive to eat, sleep, and reproduce. When we are hungry, we don’t think of eating as survival, we think of it as, “I’m hungry, and should eat to get rid of this growling in my stomach”. I think that it is not possible for us to become aware of our unconscious motivations because if we become aware of them, they will no longer be unconscious motivations, they will be conscious.

Terms: Ego, ego defense, ego development, ego effectance, unconscious, repression, suppression, drive,

This week’s chapter focused on unconscious motivation. This topic was largely pioneered by Sigmund Freud through his interest in psychoanalysis. The text differentiates between the psychoanalytic and psychodynamic fields of study based on adherence to Freud’s research. Throughout the chapter, the unconscious mind, psychodynamics, and ego psychology are explored in greater detail. In this blog post, I will review what information I found interesting, how I am unconsciously motivated, and if it is possible to become aware of our unconscious mind.

Firstly, I will explore the concepts that I found interesting. There were two main areas that I found interesting: present vs. ideal concept as it relates to chapter fourteen and subliminal motivations and Mad Men. The former was due to the elements of the present vs. ideal state that were brought up in this chapter. The first mention of this was in relation to the view that sex and aggression were psychological wishes rather than instinctual drives. The text explained that a present vs. ideal mismatch can occur and the use of sex or aggression could be a motivator to resolve the issue. This concept is also seen when covering repression and suppression. The text explains that these tools are unconsciously or consciously used to avoid ideas that contradict our present or ideal state. In the case of suppression, a rebound effect can occur that causes the individual to draw even more attention (to the point of obsession) to a thought that contradicts their present or ideal state. When considering the latter, I found that subliminal motivations were a key point in Mad Men due to the focus on advertising. In the book, it describes how subliminal messages are used to help sell products in advertisements. Similarly, in the show, the characters are trying to control the subliminal messages to sell products but also to avoid negative connotations that may be derived subliminally.

There were several components of this chapter that I could tell impact my unconscious motivations. Firstly, psychodynamics explains a conflict that I am experiencing currently. The text describes parallel desires such as want and fear of the same thing. With graduation approaching, I want to have a new experience such as moving to LA but, at the same time, I fear moving to LA. This tension is at the core of psychodynamics. Similarly, object relations theory is relevant to my unconscious motivations because of how it impacts my relationships. The theory suggests that childhood relationships effect adult ones based on attachment styles between the caregiver and child. For me, I seem to have adopted an avoidant attachment style that negatively impacts my desire to form close bonds. Lastly, ego defense styles impact my depression. Although there are many factors that cause someone to have depression, my ego defense mechanisms could play an important role due to my past use of denial and projection as ways to cope with life stress.

Overall, I do believe it is possible to be aware of some unconscious motivations. As I described above, this reading suggested several ways in which I could see the impact of unconscious motivations on conscious thoughts and actions. By taking the time to become aware of these things, we can begin working on them and changing our unconscious motivations.

Terms:
Psychoanalytic/Psychodynamic
Present vs. Ideal State
Repression/Suppression
Rebound Effect
Subliminal Motivations
Object Relations Theory
Avoidant Attachment Style
Ego Defense
Denial
Projection

Chapter fourteen talks about unconscious motivation and the psychodynamic perspective. It begins by explaining how the psychodynamic perspective is very deterministic and that people who follow this believe our personalities are very static after we go through puberty. Because of this, it is believed in this theory that many of our motivations could be caused by things that happened in our lives when we were younger. It went on to explain Freud’s dual-instinct theory and how it relies on eros [life instincts], and thantos [death instincts]. While eros motivators such as food and water push us towards surviving, thantos motivators are things that encourage us to stop and rest, such as aggression. The chapter then moves onto the Freudian unconscious and its three parts: the conscious, the preconscious, and the unconscious. As I learned in one of my previous classes, this theory is much like an iceberg. The conscious is the tip of the iceberg and focuses on the feelings and memories we are aware of at all times. For example, are we sad? Are we hungry? The preconscious is the middle portion of the iceberg where our feelings, thoughts, and memories lie that we can recall, but are not actively aware of. For example, my tenth birthday party would be in this area, as I do not always think about it but can easily recall it. Lastly, the unconscious is the part of the iceberg that goes deep under the water and contains memories, wishes, and biological impulses that are not accessible to us most of the time. For example, I don’t know how to swallow, but it is an unconscious ability that I am able to do. According to Freud, it is our unconscious drives that come out in our dreams. The chapter goes on to explain that these unconscious feelings and drives are actually a large motivator for us even when we don’t realize what they are. These motivators are called implicit motivators, because they are often not well understood or realized. Because this chapter focuses largely on Freudian theories, the last major things talked about were the ID and the ego, and how they develop. The chapter ends with the object relations theory, which has to do with how people treat others based largely on how they were treated by parents in their childhood. For example, if a daughter was abused by her father in earlier years, she might keep men at an arm’s length or not want to get close to them in her adulthood because her unconscious associates them with her father.
It was the most interesting to me when they explained how the ego is so hard to nail down and define, but they were very specific in terms of ego development. For example, the chapter mentions that the ego will go through six stages: symbiotic, impulsive, self-protective, conformist, conscientious, and autonomous. The ego apparently begins much like a child, in infant-like stages, and can be very overwhelmed by too many impulses. It then moves on to what’s essentially seen as the rebellious teenage stages in which the ego may act irrationally to impulses, and eventually settles into a mature ego in which we are able as humans to control our impulses. I do think that we are able to recognize our unconscious drives and motivators, especially by looking back and thinking of why we have some of the “set” behaviors that we have had for years.

Psychodynamic perspective
Dual instincts theory
Eros
Thantos
Conscious
Preconscious
Unconscious
Implicit motivators
Object relations theory

This chapter focuses on the unconscious mind and the different types of motivation that comes from the conscious and unconscious mind. Sigmund Freud developed four postulates to explain this theory of psychodynamics. In short, these four postulates are at a constant battle of trying to suppress feelings and thoughts, and then trying to get them out, while also making sure the wrong ones don’t get out and that the ones that do fit well with society and how exactly our brains develop to know what is okay to say out loud.

The most interesting thing I learned was that within the postulate of psychodynamics is the idea of repression and suppression, which discuss how the mind works to repress and suppress certain thoughts that we have. Repression is the brains unconscious way of keeping specific thoughts out of the conscious part of our minds so as not to interrupt out social balance in the world. This concept is the central part of Freud’s idea of psychodynamics, but also the most difficult to study. The unconscious mind holds the thoughts and desires that not even we know we have, so how it is that we don’t know they’re there until they just are? This is the question I find most interesting about this topic.
With the idea of repression in mind, we look at suppression next. Suppression deals with controlling the thoughts that escape from our unconscious into our conscious, which are the thoughts that repression couldn’t keep at bay. The tricky part is that once the thoughts have entered into our conscious, it takes a hell of a lot of work to get them out. Suppressions job is now to remove these thoughts so that we don’t think about them and then act on them. Examples of this can be wanting a candy car even though you’re on a diet and suppressing the need to eat one anyway. Or the want to watch Netflix even though you have a paper due. Your thought of watching Netflix keeps popping up in your mind, even though you give continuous effort to push it out so you can focus on your paper. This is where suppression fails. The mind is working so hard to keep this want/need out of our conscious and get it back in our unconscious that it results in us thinking about it even more, and according to Dan Wegner, if we really want to stop having to suppress a thought, we must focus on the unwanted thought. Suppression isn’t working alone though. While suppression is working to push the thought out of it’s home, repression (the unconscious mind) is searching for that thought to bring it back into their home. Suppression overall is a very important concept because it is very key in keeping people in their desired social bubbles. Suppression can be used for self-control over pain and anger, to deceive another person, to keep a secret, eating certain foods, and consuming addictive substances. The concept of suppression can be a social ally because it is constantly there to keep us from saying something that could potentially create a social conflict.

I believe I am mostly unconsciously motivated by object relations because I harbor many of the morals and constructs that my parents instilled in me. Growing up I had a great relationship with my dad and a pretty decent relationship with my mom and growing up my mental representations of my parents were always be hard-working, caring, and respectful. Because of them, my personality has resulted in me being exactly that: hard-working, caring, and respectful. My template for self is my most unconscious motivation, because it’s very possible that even when I am not thinking about it, I may be working very hard on something because that’s what my parents would want and that’s who they raised me to be.

Can we become aware of our unconscious motivations? I believe yes and no. I agree with mostly no because of what was said on the idea of repression. It states “because many motivations reside in the unconscious, people necessarily remain unaware of these motivations.” That is, if thoughts don’t ever become a part of the unconscious mind and suppression takes over, we will never know about these unconscious motivations. Even if thoughts do end up in our conscious mind, they are no longer unconsciously motivated, and who’s to say that now that the specific thought is being processed that we aren’t motivated differently than when it was in out unconscious mind. On the other hand, Freud found a way to look at people’s unconscious thoughts to find their motivations and desires by addressing the implicit and explicit motivations of their dreams.

Terms: Psychodynamics, Suppression, Repression, Unconscious, Conscious, Motivation, Explicit and Implicit, Object Relations Theory.

Chapter 14 is about, as you all know, unconscious motivation. It focused a lot on Sigmund Freud’s theories and how they have adapted and evolved over the many years. These theories can help someone better understand why individuals, or ourselves, do the things that we do. This chapter teaches us more about unconscious motivation and how we can become aware of it even if it is in an abstract way. It also demonstrates out relatedness to other individuals. I thought this chapter was really interesting and was a great chapter to truly show how the unconscious mind plays a role in motivation and how that can motivate us to do certain things.
This chapter covers the psychodynamic perspective, which talks about our unconscious motivations being driven by biological cues and socially learned reactions. The chapter then goes on to discuss the unconscious. This is the internal mental drive that we have that makes us do things, which we do not initially think about, and may not be able to explain why. Psychodynamics are the clashing forces in the mind that can cause conflict; the book gives an example of attracting and guilt. Ego psychology was then later developed and it the maturation separating the ego from the id. The chapter also discusses object relations theory which is the idea of how we experience things as a child and how that impacts on how we view the world as adults.
The most interesting thing that I read was the psychoanalytic theory. All of this information is mainly abstract and the unconscious and dream interpretation was all super interesting to me. This chapter suggests that there may be neural structures coinciding with Freud’s theorized personality constructs. The id, the unconscious, impulsive, and more primitive constructs sound a lot like the limbic system (primitive, emotional center) of the brain, The ego, the logical, rationalizing and thinking portion of the personality constructs is reminiscent of the neocortex and its control of the executive function. This all gave me a new perspective and knowledge on the psychoanalysis and with a better understanding of the brain systems and the part that they can play in personality and in motivation.
I believe that it is possible to be aware of our unconscious motivations, but only after the fact. We organize things in our mind in different ways that motivate us differently. How we set out goals can determine whether or not we will reach them. I think that dreams can provide us with a small look into the unconscious mind. Usually, for me anyways, my dreams often reflect things that are eating at the back of my mind that I’m not entirely thinking about but I know that they are there in my mind. We also always have the biological roots of our unconscious mind that serve to initiate survival focused actions. Freud focuses on this with his Dual-Instinct Theory which puts the survival focused instincts, eros, versus the perceived to be death instincts of thanatos. These two unconscious categories serve to counter one another in an endless battle for balance.
Terms: psychodynamic perspective, psychoanalytic theory, ego, id, motivation, dual-instinct theory

Chapter 14 discusses the unconscious mind and how it affects behavior in people. The chapter focuses on the psychodynamic perspective which derives from Freud's psychoanalytical perspective of psychology. Psychodynamic perspective is defined as "the study of dynamic, unconscious mental processes." The psychodynamic perspective focuses on 4 main postulates: the unconscious mind, psychodynamics, ego development, and implicit motivations.
The first postulate of the perspective is the unconscious mind. This postulate states that we as humans, experience all of our thoughts, feelings, and desires on an unconscious level. That means that whether or not you decided to do something or, there was definitely an unconscious idea of it in your head. The unconscious mind has 3 main perspectives of it's own as well. The first is Freudian unconscious. Freudian unconscious states that the unconscious mind is responsible for most of our behavior and actions. It also states that each person's psyche is made up on the id, ego, and superego. Only the id is entirely unconscious. Rather, the ego and superego operate on both an unconscious and conscious level. Freud also states that most of our primitive urges often don't make it into our behavior because they are unaccepted by our conscious mind. Lastly, Freud also claims that people avoid memories and urges that are painful through a coping mechanism known as repression.
The second perspective on the unconscious mind is the adaptive unconscious. The adaptive unconscious perspective shows us how impressive our minds really are. The adaptive unconscious mainly focuses on the present and isn't very flexible, however, it affects our decision making effortlessly without us even realizing it. The adaptive unconscious is also a leading theory on intuition, meaning that our adaptive unconscious affects our decision making in the present, when looking back on the situation someone may not be able to recall why they took that course of action. This is because the mental processes that led them to that behavior, took place in the unconscious mind.
The third perspective is implicit learning. Implicit learning is a very interesting concept to me. Implicit learning is defined as learning without knowing it is occurring. It is remarkable to me that as humans, we are able to constantly take in information, process it, and make decisions based on it with no visible strain on our minds. Implicit learning is just this. For example, as you are getting ready in the morning, you glance outside and see someone walking along wearing a coat, gloves, and hat. Now, maybe it's not your first reaction, but you just learned a bit of information on the temperature outside on that day. Some people may not even acknowledge obtaining this information but later as they head outside suddenly remember to put gloves and a hat on as well because they know its a cold day.
I'm not so sure if it is possible to realize one's unconscious motivations. The flaw in this is a bit philosophical, but if you come to realize a motive, is it still considered unconscious? I don't think so, it goes against the definition of what psychology says the unconscious mind is.

Terms:
Unconscious motivation
Freudian unconscious
Adaptive unconscious
Implicit Learning
Repression
Id, ego, superego
psychodynamics
psychoanalytic perspective

Psychoanalytic theories, building off Freud, posited that much of what motivated human behavior originated at the unconscious level. Freud believed there were two basic unconscious drives (dual-instinct theory): Eros (the instinct for life, including procreation and pleasant sensations) and Thanatos (the death drive, which encourages conservation but also provokes aggression in the face of threat). The problem is that neither fits the model of physiological drive built on deprivation, such as we see with thirst and hunger. For instance, aggressive energy often is not triggered by deprivation, and the drive does not strengthen with time, as we would see with unsated thirst or hunger. More contemporary psychoanalytic thinkers have revised Freud’s dual-instinct theory from a theory of drives to psychological wish fulfillment.

Psychodynamic theories borrow from Freud’s notion that much of human behavior is motivated at the unconscious level, while rejecting Freud’s dual-instinct theory. They also posit that multiple mental processes can be operating in parallel, and these are often operating in conflict, such as triggering approach and avoidance energies. They also believe that ego development occurs when we move from immature, dependent personalities to more mature, interdependent ways of relating. Finally, they believe that much of our personalities and the way we perceive others develop to a point of relative stability in adolescence. From their perspective, developing awareness of our unconscious motivation, and thus be able to subject behavior to more conscious choice is movement towards psychological health and maturity.

The chapter then steps back and tries to understand how the unconscious works to motivate behavior. After addressing more of Freud’s theory, it explores the role of the adaptive unconscious. Much of our everyday behavior can operate without a great deal of conscious thought, and we have thus evolved to operate much of the time on a sort of autopilot. Think of when you drive some place, but do not remember anything about the trip. You obviously got there, but did not have to put much conscious thought into the process. Implicit motivation operates strongly in the realm of the unconscious. The collection of beliefs and preferences that trigger implicit motivational energy in a particular direction are mostly unconscious, and yet developing goals and plans based on this motivation occurs more at the conscious level. And yet external motivations often have aspects that operate at the unconscious level. Our particular preference for acknowledgment or preference for one type of reward over another, or response to rewards versus avoidance of punishment may be operating on the unconscious level.

Some cues that may trigger a motivational response may remain below the level of consciousness (subliminal). For instance, we may receive an explicit message encouraging a behavior, but it may be the subtle, pleasant image associated with the message may increase our likelihood of acting on that explicit message. Advertisers have been using subliminal messages to try to encourage consumer behavior for decades.

There are a number of psychological processes that operate at the unconscious level that direct our energy towards and away from certain behaviors. We have tendencies to suppress or repress information that is not in keeping with our sense of self or that are emotionally painful to us, to redirect or project attention away from things we find emotionally painful, and we defend the ego against attack and annihilation.

As we spend a lot of time in my program on psychological theories, including psychoanalysis, and psychodynamic theories, such as self psychology, there was little new here. Of course, you can make aspects of the unconscious conscious. In fact, a good deal of what we do in therapy is to help clients see some of the motivational patterns that they developed at earlier stages in life and how these are impacting their behavior, and then work with them to embrace healthier patterns of behavior that build off of this knowledge without denying that there are motivating dynamics that that are part of us whether or not we like them or not.

Terms: unconscious, ego, psychoanalytic theory, Freud, psychodynamic theory, dual-instinct model, Eros, Thanatos, drive, wish, ego development, object relations theory, subliminal, defense mechanisms.

Chapter 14 discusses topics related to the human mind's unconscious and experiences that one might be wanting to suppress, this is known as psychoanalysis. Freud tried to uncover patient’s unconscious motivations by analyzing their dreams and events that occurred in the dream, this is known as a shadow phenomenon. An example of shadow phenomenon that I can think of personally is when I have the reoccurring dream that all of my teeth fall out or, I pulled my teeth out willingly. When I have tried to figure out what this “message” means, all of the information I find points to anxiety and stress (shocker). The chapter goes on to discuss implicit motivations, which also happen to be unconscious. Implicit motivations can make or break tasks and obstacles laid out. For example, if someone has a positive effect or outlook on graduating in a few weeks then they will have the drive to finish strong in order to achieve a diploma and degree.

An interesting piece of information I read about was the ego defense mechanisms. The study on page 409 described the results for people who had poor defense mechanisms as being 75% more likely to experience depression than those who do have effective ego defense ego mechanisms. To me, this only reaffirms that depression is overdiagnosed and we should be helping people develop effective ego defense mechanisms before prescribing medications.

When reading about psychodynamics in the chapter I found the information about repression and suppression to be interesting. Before reading the chapter I had assumed that the two are virtually the same. An example of repression is when you think to yourself, “Do I need to convey this information to my peers?” Maybe, maybe not. An example of suppression is when humans take a more deliberate course of action to not act on an emotion that one is feeling. For example, when my father had passed away I began to suppress many of the emotions I was feeling in order to get through finals week successfully.

I think we most often cannot identify our unconscious motivations unless it is after one has accomplished a goal or avoided a goal. The motive is suppressed until it is put into action. However, when reflecting on an event or accomplishment, one may be able to successfully identify what motivated them at the time that they were unaware of during the process.

Freud
Shadow phenomenon
Implicit motivation
Suppression
Repression
Ego Defense Mechanisms
Unconscious Motivation

Chapter 14 discusses the unconscious aspect of our motivations and how much of an impact it can have on our lives. Freud was the first person to really dive into research and really be interested in the unconscious of people. This chapter provides information on two different approaches Freud used which is the psychodynamic and psychoanalytic approach. The psychodynamic approach is all about the drives and motivations within a person that they may not always be aware of. This helps to explain different structures of personality that individuals may have from one to another. The psychoanalytic approach has to do with the organization of personality and how it develops which can be found through psychoanalysis. The dual instinct theory was also explained in this chapter which includes Eros and Thanatos. Eros translates to life with instincts such as sex, affiliation, or nurturance and Thanatos translates to death with instincts such as aggression toward the self and toward others. The chapter then goes on to talk about ego development and how it matures and evolves throughout our lifespans involved with our inner selves and the environment. If our ego did not evolve and get better through maturity, we would never grow as people and our motivations would not drive us to be better people.

The most surprising topic that I learned about in this chapter is Freud’s idea of the mind being split into three parts consisting of the preconscious, conscious, and unconscious. Being a psychology major I do know about this, but it continues to surprise me and I am continuously trying to understand it completely. Our consciousness is explained as what we are thinking, feeling, and experiencing at a present time. These are things that we are fully aware of and engaged in so that explains why when we are awake, we are considered to be conscious. The preconscious is the ‘middle-man’ to our consciousness and unconsciousness. These are thoughts, feelings, or experiences that we are not aware of at the time, but if brought up, we have the ability to remember and bring it to our consciousness. The would occur if someone were to ask us “Why did you and your significant other split up?” or “Did you think the lecture was good yesterday?” It is surprising to me that the unconscious takes up the largest amount of space in our minds. The unconscious stores our thoughts, feelings, and memories that we do not think of and may not be able to bring into consciousness. Usually these contents are negative things such as conflicts, pain, or any kind of anxieties or fears.

There are a couple different ways that I would say that I am unconsciously motivated to do throughout my daily life. These things are going to be negative, because like Freud has said, our unconscious usually stores rather unpleasant things and that is why it is not in our consciousness. One example is that I usually do not last very long in friendships, because I am afraid of getting hurt. I have been done wrong by all of my friends in the past, so I don’t try too hard to find other ones. I feel like I am always done wrong somehow, but I could just be looking for things to break off the friendship. Another example is when people ask how I am doing in school or at work and I usually just say everything is fine. The reason for doing so is to keep the negative things out of my consciousness, because I do not want to think about it, get upset, or let anyone know that. I could say school is going just fine when in reality I could have just gotten a C on an exam I studied hard for. These are considered repression like defense mechanisms in order to relieve anxiety symptoms as a defense.

I do believe that we may have some ability to tap into our unconsciousness motivations by breaking them down and finding the real cause for them. The dream research that Freud has produced can provide a lot of insight for our unconscious feelings or thoughts. For example, I sometimes have dreams about my old friends that I loved so dearly at one time. I then try to figure out if it means that I should get into contact with them again or if it is to remind me why I am not longer in contact with them. I would also say that I have never really had a real desire to be in a romantic relationship for many reasons, but every now and then I have a dream about being in one. Again, I am not sure if this is telling me why I am not in one or if I should continue to avoid it. Even psychoanalytic testing such as the Rorschach or the Thematic Apperception Test are designed to help up tap into our subconscious and I believe that it does work to an extent. I am not sure if the unconscious is something that we will ever have complete understanding and awareness over, possibly because we are too caught up with our current consciousness and the occasional preconscious.

Terms:
Psychodynamics
Psychoanalytic
Ego psychology
Freud
Eros
Thanatos
Repression
Subliminal motivations
Object Relations Theory
Dual instinct theory

Chapter fourteen is about the study of psychoanalysis and how the unconscious of human nature is affected by things such as traumatic memories, addictions, anxieties about the future, dreams, hypnosis, repressed memories, fantasies, masochism, self defeating behaviors, suicidal thoughts, impulses for revenge, and any hidden drives that shape certain needs, feelings, thoughts, and behaviors that might be considered abnormal. The study of psychoanalysis accurately depicts what is portrayed as popular behaviors in culture, including sex, aggression, psychopathology and revenge.

Sigmund Freud claimed that the biological drive in the dual-instinct theory was the source of motivation for all physical energy. The two types of instincts in the chapter were eros and thanatos. Eros is explained as the instinct that motivates the maintenance of life and security of the individual and collective survival. Whereas Thanatos includes the instincts that cause a person to rest and conserve energy to fight death. Aggression and sex are also instincts of the body that supply energy to motivate an individual’s behavior towards life or death. Through the aim to satisfy specific needs, individuals are able to learn these instincts through experience in direct behavior. Sex and aggression is described by contemporary psychoanalysts and psychological wishes that can regulate and direct behavior, but are not based on instinct. The theory of psychodynamic study as developed by Freud, is defined in four distinct categories. These categories include the unconscious, psychodynamics, ego development, and object relations theory. The unconscious is a mysterious category because it is secret from both the private conscious and what people are able to observe. In processes of emotion and motivation, it is possible for both processes to work simultaneously and experience contradicting drives of feelings and thoughts. This is why most people experience having opposite unconscious and conscious feelings, thoughts, and behaviors. In ego development, a person may develop from being socially dependent and immature to a responsible and mature personality that is more independent. Object relations is when patterns of personality over time begin to form during an individual’s childhood which shows psychologically how they are represented in themselves, others, and relationships.

I found that the most interesting thing to me in this chapter was that in psychoanalysis many of the unconscious thoughts, desires, and feelings that are expressed are incredibly common among what culture chooses to portray in movies. I thought that was so interesting that as people unconsciously think and are motivated by these ideas of sex, aggression, psychopathology and revenge so that there is an obvious relationship in what popular culture decides is entertaining enough in certain films that do portray any of these ideas. I notice that most of my culture and even myself are more drawn to watch movies and shows with those things being portrayed rather than a movie that has none of those ideas. I think it might be possible to become more aware of the unconscious based on the nature of an individual’s experiences, but I’m not sure if anyone is able to be completely aware of their unconscious because of the complexity and depth of the unconscious. I know, personally that I’ve experienced many dreams that have included things I fear and are painful to experience within the dream so when I have dreams like that I become aware of what my unconscious might be experiencing, and the fear that might be causing those dreams to occur.

Terms: psychoanalysis, unconscious, ego, sex, aggression, psychopathology, thanatos, dual-instinct theory, Sigmund Freud

Chapter 14 is titled Unconscious Motivation and talks about things related to the unconscious like Freud’s unconscious, Ego, and psychodynamic theory. First psychoanalytic and psychodynamic are different in that psychoanalytic are those who are committed to Freudian ideas, while psychodynamic is the study of dynamic unconscious mental processes. It can be done without psychoanalytical principles being used. There are four postulates or truths when it comes to psychodynamic theory today. They are the unconscious the mental life is unconscious, psychodynamics mental processes work in parallel, Ego development from an immature dependent to mature interdependent personality, and object relations theory in that childhood has representations of the self and others which may impact things later in life.
Freud thought there were three components to the mental mind, which are the conscious, preconscious and unconscious. The conscious would be considered short-term and are experiences and feelings they are aware at any given time. The preconscious stores all thoughts and feelings, and can be retrieved with help. The unconscious which Freud thought was the most important he thought was the storage of inaccessible impulses, which are repressed like experiences, memories, and wants/desires. Implicit motivations is like conscious motivation, which are those that are outside our awareness and are distinct. Implicit are things that are implied, but can be quite difficult to understand and measure. Subliminal motivation are like subliminal messages, with a hidden meaning behind was is being see. The book uses the example of eat popcorn and drink coke, at a local movie theater. But research shows that people do not act on subliminal messages, and the brain understand what is happening, it just depends if it is acted on which is different according to the book.
The Ego has defense mechanism in place from most to least mature, adaptive and maladaptive. Denial and fantasy are immature levels of defense mechanisms, while projection is above that as it can recognize reality. The third level are the most common defense mechanisms, like rationalization and reaction formation, which are effective against short term anxiety. Level four are the most adaptive and mature and include mechanisms like sublimation and humor. Other forms of defense mechanisms include anticipation, regression, and displacement. Ego effectance is the individual's competence in dealing with environmental challenges, demands and opportunities. It begins in infancy, with things like walking, crawling to language, and social skills. It develops to the response of life’s demands, and is based on the child’s sense of competence.
Something I found interesting was the study of the 56 men over 30 years, with them in college and followed them to see how they did in life based on their career, social, psychological, and medical problems. It showed that people with mature adaptive or defense mechanisms were or felt better in life compared to those that used immature defense mechanisms. This shows that how our unconscious mind and how we may react to certain things could impact areas of our life. For the social comparison, mature were 64% to have a rich friendship pattern, compared to 6% to the immature mechanism.
When it comes to our unconscious motivations I don’t think we are aware of them, but we may be trying to achieve a goal we want, which may be related to a hidden goal in our unconscious. We almost trick ourselves into doing one thing to do another without realizing it.
Words: Defense mechanism, ego, Freud, projection, preconscious, unconscious

The underlying topic of chapter fourteen is our unconscious motivation. The chapter begins by elaborating on the psychodynamic perspective. Regarding motivation, Reeve (author) expresses that motivation is simply something that happens to us and it is not something we necessarily can create. To fully grasp the concept of psychodynamics, the chapter states, we have to have a basic understanding of psychoanalysis. This popular theory makes the unconscious its subject matter and takes into account things like dreams, memories, fantasies and other things that are hidden and shape our emotions without us having any way of molding it. In relation, psychodynamics focus on the study of the unconscious mind while psychoanalysis focuses on the Freudian theories that were shaped by Sigmund Freud himself.
The chapter continues and elaborates on the unconscious even more. This section was most interesting to me. It states that this area of study is the most difficult to do because our unconscious mind is so hidden and extremely hard to gain access to. The study of the unconscious mind is separated into three sections. The first is the Freudian Unconscious. This theory seems to focus on Freud’s view on dreams and how they matriculate our unconscious desires and wishes. The second theory is the Adaptive Unconscious. This theory highlights how we appraise the environment and set different goals and act on situations around us. This expands from day to day routines, to some of the hard decisions like choosing a college to go to or whether or not to ask for a raise at work. The third theory is Implicit Motivation. Implicit motives affect our behaviors and direct our attention towards the environmental factors that affect our emotions. They are linked with the values that we have learned and constructed.
With the topic of psychodynamics, Reeve elaborates on repression and suppression. Repression is basically the process of forgetting something/information unconsciously or unintentionally. Like the whole topic of the unconscious, repression is extremely difficult to study because subjects are asked to talk about things that they no longer have the memory for. With suppression, there is the attempt to remove someone's thought. This whole concept basically cannot work because we cannot completely quit thinking, there is always going to be something in our mind. Lastly, the chapter goes into depth about Object Relations Theory. This theory stresses the impact that our previous experiences have on us as we grow older. I learned alot about this when I took developmental psychology. We see that for a parent that has multiple spouses and allows the child to have the personal interactions, then they too will have multiple spouses. The book gives the example of how the care of a mother or parent can affect the adult life of that child. With motivation overall regarding the unconscious, we see how the chapter has the view of biology being a factor but also how our surroundings also have an effect. Personally i feel that I am unconsciously motivated by my peers being successful in college and having their lives prepared for the future. This pushes me to work hard as they are and to strive to be successful.

Terms:
Motivation
Repression
Suppression
Psychodynamics
Psychoanalytics

Chapter 14 was about unconscious motivation. It started out by explaining Freud’s psychoanalysis and how people now study using the psychoanalytic approach (traditional Freudian principles) or the psychodynamic process (apart from psychoanalysis). Four postulates define psychodynamic theory: the unconscious, psychodynamics, ego development, and object relations theory. There are three views of the unconscious: Freudian unconscious, the adaptive unconscious, and implicit motivation. In psychodynamics, mental processes operate in parallel with one another. Ego development involves the transition from immature social dependence to mature and socially responsible. Object relations theory studies how people relate to objects to satisfy the emotional and psychological need for relatedness; mental representations of the self and others form in childhood to guide adult social motivations.

I am unconsciously motivated all the time when making decisions, dreaming, repressing, reacting, and coping; I am unconsciously motivated in ways that I don’t even realize, which was the most interesting thing I learned. For example, I am a messy person, and I have trouble getting motivated to organize my possessions. Consciously, I make excuses for the mess, and I organize my mess when I get overwhelmed by all the stuff, receive negative feedback from my roommate, or know people will be visiting my house. My desire to avoid judgment is overwhelming, so I plan parties to motivate myself to get organized. Unconsciously, there are more factors in which I may or may not be aware. For example, my organization habits formed when I was young, and they likely had something to do with the lack of control I felt in my childhood. In adulthood, when I feel like my life is out of control, I throw my stuff everywhere in my house, regressing to my defense mechanism of displacement and allowing my outer world to reflect inner chaos.

In the past, I kept a dream journal, and I spent time trying to interpret those dreams, especially dreams that had recurring themes (e.g. all my teeth falling out or being tirelessly chased). I speculated what these dreams meant and did some internet research to see what I could find, but I realized that there is no way for me to fully understand my unconscious mind. Even if I did think I could interpret dreams correctly to understand some of my unconscious, I’d still need to consider neurophysiological activity, memory consolidation, the stress-buffering/coping function, and the problem-solving function. In general, I believe I can speculate about some of my unconscious motivations, but unconscious motivations are always running in the background, and there is no way for me to be fully aware of all of my unconscious motivations. Adding to this, awareness of a person’s true motivations can cause conflict with the ideal self or society’s view of a respectable person, so the mind represses most unconscious thoughts.

Terms: unconscious motivation, neurophysiological activity, memory consolidation, stress-buffering and coping function, problem-solving function, repression, defense mechanism, displacement, psychodynamics, ego development, object relations theory, psychoanalysis, psychoanalytic approach

The movie Spotlight is about a group of reporters that work for the Boston globe and team up to figure out a way to expose the Catholic Church’s organized concealing of many acts of sexual misconduct and abuse by the priests of the church. Members of the team go out on a mission to speak to and interview victims of the sexual abuse and the priests that might have committed the abuse themselves. The project requires the team to read through endless reports of graphic information about the victims and what happened to them. By gaining more and more information, they are finally able to provide the evidence they need to get the story published and inform the public what was happening in the church. Although the cardinal had been given a higher position in the church, people were now aware of the horrible things the priests were doing and not getting punished for.

The spotlight team exemplified characteristics of unconscious motivation through their roles on the job. They each displayed an excessive amount of effort and time that was put into the project outside of their paid positions. It was not required of them in their specific jobs to continue in investigation but because of the unconscious motivation underlying their behaviors, they were unconsciously driven to do more than just there jobs and put in more than just the effort expected of them. In the interactions that each character on the team had with their families, their minds were noticeably on work and the investigation rather than the time they should be spending home.

I also noticed that the film has many instances of how ego is shown through the spotlight team. The clear example is how they seem to persist in getting their story published despite negative things that get in the way. Because of their egos, they are able and willing to continue in their efforts to go beyond success in writing the story for the sake of the truth. There is no moment of doubt or hesitation that causes them to freak out, but they continue to endure showing the strength of their egos and the development of their egos throughout the investigation. If they were showing a sense of weaker egos, it would be difficult for them to get through the traumatic information they had to read through and would likely quit and stop the investigation because of the challenges that come with it.

Adaptive unconscious, which is how people process information and make decisions unconsciously, occurs consistently through the story of the film there are many instances when you notice the characters go on autopilot and know what to do and when to do it because it is natural to the environment they are around consistently. They are able to do things on autopilot that may have not come natural to me because I haven’t adapted to their jobs and work environment like they have.

I feel like I am definitely unconsciously motivated at my place of employment like the characters in the movie because I've worked there long enough to adapt and have the ability to do my job on autopilot and unconsciously do certain aspects of my job well without being conscious of it.

Terms: unconscious motivation, ego, adaptive unconscious, conscious