4.07: Motivation and Emotion

• Introduction
• Learn
• Try It
• Task

Introduction

Why do you study for hours to pass an exam while your best friend could care less? Why do you strive to be the best member of your football team and your best friend strives to be the best baseball player? Why do some people want to be highly successful and others seems to be afraid of success? And how do you feel when you pass that exam with flying colors, or when you make the winning touchdown or score the winning run? Where does the energy or drive come from? What are the emotions associated with each of these examples?

Motivation is an area of psychology that has gotten a great deal of attention, especially in the recent years.  The reason is because we all want to be successful, and we all want to be seen as motivated.

It is difficult to draw a clear line between motivation and emotion but in this lesson we will look at different theories of motivation and emotion and see if we can at least make the line less blurry.