Final Project Post: Motivation

Motivation has different definitions. To be motivated is to be moved to action/behavior or change in action/behavior. A motive is an internal disposition to approach or avoid an incentive. An incentive is an environmental stimulus that attracts or repels. All of these definitions put together defines motivation, but there is much more to it than that. Us as human beings have drives that we are not even necessarily aware of. Evolution is one of the main things that affect motivation and our drives as humans. Emotions affect our motives. For example, getting angry is an adaptation to a blocked goal. There are many sources for our motivation. There are internal sources, such as biological or psychological. There are external sources, such as incentives and goals. All of these things put together motivate different people in different ways.
We covered a lot of different and interesting topics in this course, but if I had to choose one that I liked the best it would have to be addictions and addictive behaviors. This topic was interesting because so many people have addictions and it was personal to be because my father is an alcoholic. It was interesting to see how different addictions affect people and what motivates them to be addicts. In genetics of addiction individuals who are genetically related are more vulnerable to drug experimentation and addiction. For personality, people who are high sensation seekers are more likely to experiment with drugs. People who are impulsive and people who have a low sensitivity to dopamine in their brain have a higher risk of using drugs. There is also gambling addiction, which is when people are not sensitive to negative financial and social consequences and are just after the "high" of winning money. Some people do not have addictive personalities and some people do. Everyone is different and it is sometimes hard to know the reality of addiction, but it is good to be knowledgeable, so that you can prevent yourself from becoming an addict and also help others.
Every topic in this course was related to real life and it was very interesting and informative. I learned a lot in this course and since everything was related to real life this information is something that I am always going to think about when making decisions in my life. For example, why am I choosing this guy as my boyfriend? or Am I not going after this job because I am just afraid of failure? Am I going to college for myself or for my parents? Am I doing volunteer work for intrinsic rewards or external rewards?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc
This link is a video on what motivates us at home and in the work place

Motivation: Final Post

Throughout the past 3 months, I have learned many different and new concepts in this course; I will briefly cover a couple of those here. To begin, the whole idea of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation fascinated me. I definitely would consider myself to be mostly motivated by extrinsic forces; I love to compete against others. I also found the topic of introversion and extroversion. The premise of trying to figure out why people are the way they are has always interested me, and this is just another trait that deals with that. In terms of me, I am undoubtedly an extrovert; I am very outgoing and love to be around people most of the time. This course was highly informative about a very interesting topic, motivation is something that every human being grapples with on a daily basis, some more than others, but it is a topic that most of the general population can connect with.

If I had to narrow it down, I would definitely have to say my favorite topic that was covered this semester was the universal motives of sex, fear, food, and music. I liked the specific example that was shown on a video during one class; it was about this special group of hunters in Africa who would spend days hunting a single animal. They would exhaust astonishing amounts of energy to hunt a single animal with one goal: to feed their families. When I actually thought about this topic I found it really amazing that no matter how different cultures may be in the world, we all really do have the same reasons for doing what we do. Everybody wants to survive, people need to eat, people need to reproduce, and people get scared; no matter how far people may be from each other, we all share these innate traits as human beings.

Of course many of the topics we have discussed can relate to everyday life. Take procrastination for example, what better environment to relate to than a college campus? Mate selection, once again another topic that is very prevalent in a college setting. Like I previously stated, motivation is a constant factor that people deal with each and every day, and there are biological factors and psychological factors that each person possesses and this is why people handle various situations in different ways. My last thought is this, some things never change; no matter what day in age, people will always be different.

Final Post

At first I was a little hesitant on taking this course. “Motivation” sounded really broad and I have never taken Dr. Berg. “Motivation” did not sound too appealing either. On top of that, people always say “never take a course with one word as the course name.” I decided to go against my gut feeling and those nay sayers, and I’m glad I did.

During this semester I have learned a great deal of information dealing with psychology and motivation especially. Some of the course topics were: evolution & motivation, addictions, needs & drives, stress & coping and final personality. These topics were interesting and Dr. Berg did a great job explaining it. When it comes to evolution and motivation we learned about what motivates people to act the way they do, incentives, and emotions. In the needs and drives section, we discussed homeostasis, certain psychological and physiological needs. Hunger and thirst are two of the main needs for humans to survive. Stress and coping was also intriguing because the fact is everyone has stress in their lives. People need to know how to handle stress such as: assess the situation, recognize these stressors, and stay calm, and it could be very beneficial. Last but not least, in the personality chapter we discussed introverts, extroverts, and the different genetic make-up. Genetics and the combination of nature and nurture play a role in our personality.

My favorite section hands down would be the addictions section. By no means am I a drug addict, but narcotics are fun to learn bout. It gives you knowledge to better yourself and to understand what drugs do to people and their bodies. I especially liked how we classified them and learned what part of the brain it affects. It really hits home for the fact that we all know friends or family members who have these problems.