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Psychology 5/e Book Cover
Psychology, 5/e
Lester M. Sdorow, Arcadia University
Cheryl A. Rickabaugh, University of Redlands

Motivation


achievement motive  The desire for mastery, excellence, and accomplishment.
anorexia nervosa  An eating disorder marked by self-starvation.
arousal motive  The motive to maintain an optimal level of physiological activation.
basal metabolic rate  The rate at which the body burns calories just to keep itself alive.
bulimia nervosa  An eating disorder marked by binging and purging.
cognitive-evaluation theory  The theory that a person's intrinsic motivation will increase when a reward is perceived as a source of information but will decrease when a reward is perceived as an attempt to exert control.
drive  A state of psychological tension induced by a need.
drive-reduction theory  The theory that behavior is motivated by the need to reduce drives such as sex or hunger.
extrinsic motivation  The desire to perform a behavior in order to obtain an external reward, such as praise, grades, or money.
gonads  The male and female sex glands.
hierarchy of needs  Abraham Maslow's arrangement of needs in the order of their motivational priority, ranging from physiological needs to the needs for self-actualization and transcendence.
homeostasis  A steady state of physiological equilibrium.
incentive  An external stimulus that pulls an individual toward a goal.
instinct  A complex, inherited behavior pattern characteristic of a species.
intrinsic motivation  The desire to perform a behavior for its own sake.
motivation  The psychological process that arouses, directs, and maintains behavior toward a goal.
need  A motivated state caused by physiological deprivation, such as a lack of food or water.
obesity  A body weight more than 20 percent above the norm for one's height and build.
overjustification theory  The theory that an extrinsic reward will decrease intrinsic motivation when a person attributes her or his performance to that reward.
sensation seeking  The extent to which an individual seeks sensory stimulation.
set point  A specific body weight that the brain tries to maintain through the regulation of diet, activity, and metabolism.
sexual orientation  A person's pattern of erotic attraction to persons of the same sex, opposite sex, or both sexes.
sexual response cycle  During sexual activity, the phases of excitement, plateau, orgasm, and resolution.
sociobiology  The study of the hereditary basis of human and animal social behavior.
Yerkes-Dodson law  The principle that the relationship between arousal and performance is best represented by an inverted U-shaped curve.