Sunday, June 12, 2011

Final Post

Motivational psychology was one of the more interesting psychology classes I have taken. The theories make logical sense and can be related to your everyday life experiences. Homeostasis can carry many interpretations of the meaning depending on the context. In this case, homeostasis simply means your body's way of evening itself out. If you are hungry, your stomach growls. When you are cold, your body shivers as it's way of internal heating. It can also be related to the hedonic value. Hedonic value is the pursuit of pleasure while avoiding pain. On a biological basis, that drives you to fulfill your hunger and need for warmth. It can also be linked to procrastination, another topic we have covered. Procrastination is putting off an unwanted or "painful" task in order to enjoy another activity.
Coming into this class I thought motivation was an abstract idea. I have come to learn they are testable theories. The section of the text I found most appealing was addictions. Someday, I'd like to be a drug and alcohol counselor so learning in depth about the psychological motivation behind it was fascinating. In abnormal psychology, we learned about the biological causes for this abnormality, but that is not always an easy thing to explain to someone who is uneducated in the field. The motivational aspect behind it can be broken down into laments terms, and I find that much more helpful. There is so much more to addiction that simply drug and alcohol addiction that will explained in the following video.

http://youtu.be/3hKp5yxEfj4

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