Motivation and Emotion

Drive-reduction theory- Approach to motivation that assumes behavior arises from physiological needs that cause internal drives to push the organism to satisfy the need and reduce tension and arousal.

Arousal theory- theory of motivation in which people are said to have an optimal (best or ideal) level of tension that they seek to maintain by increasing or decreasing stimulation.

Incentive approaches- Theories of motivation in which behavior is explained as a response to the external stimulus and its rewarding properties.

Expectancy-value theories- incentive theories that assume the actions of humans cannot be predicted or fully understood without understanding the beliefs, values and the importance that a person attaches to those beliefs and values at any given moment in time.

Self-determination theory (S.D.T.) - Theory of human motivation in which the social context of an action has an effect on the type of motivation existing for the action.

The five main emotions are anger, fear, happiness, sadness, and shame.

The positive emotion related to being a student is happiness. Getting rewarded with an A after working hard on an assignment brings a student the emotion of happiness.

The negative emotion related to being a student is fear. Fear of failure can cause a student to fail because they are afraid of failing.

For example; a student take an exam and knows that they passed the exam and later find out that they received an F on the test. The affect that the F may cause on that student is bring the emotion of sadness, which can cause the student to fail the class and it may also cause the student to drop out the class and even worse drop out of school.

Self-determination theory is the approach that can help over come the challenges of fear. At the time a student starts feeling fear if they are determined or put their self-determination to work they will overcome the fear of failure and succeed. For example, I always had the fear of...