Flashcards

Heredity can influence the environment because individuals actively choose, modify, or shape their surroundings based on their genetic predispositions.

Sex differences in physical strength and reproductive capacity interact with society’s expectations about social roles, which result in gender differences.

Necessity of one individual being loyal and faithful to another for the survival benefit of one or both of them, e.g., mother commits to her infant.

Consonant is music that is acceptable, pleasant, and harmonious in contrast to dissonant music, which is unacceptable, and sounds unpleasant or harsh, and is inharmonious.

Behaviors that are learned with great difficulty and only after much experience.

Body movements that synchronize with an external auditory beat, as in keeping time with the beat of the music.

Individuals assess the characteristics of potential mates based on environmental conditions, selecting traits that offer the greatest adaptive advantage for themselves and their offspring in that specific environment.

A person’s genetic make-up or nature that resulted from evolution. It is responsible for human nature, psychological mechanisms, and universal motives.

Conditions that prevailed when psychological mechanisms evolved are no longer present today and motivate individuals to behave in a manner that is not the best for them.

Fears of stimuli such as snakes, spiders, and heights that evolved because detecting and avoiding them increased survival chances in our ancestral environment.

Parts of a person’s DNA that provide information for the construction of proteins, which form the building blocks of the brain and bodily structures.

A person’s genetic make-up determines the environment in which s/he chooses to live or spend time; this environment, in turn, affects the individual’s motivation and behavior (trait-environment correlation).

Behavioral, motivational, and emotional similarities among people as a result of their common evolutionary history.

A negative emotion that stems from a person’s partner forming a deep emotional attachment to another person or from engaging in and enjoying passionate sexual intercourse with another person (emotional and sexual infidelity).

Describes behavior that is strongly influenced by heredity; behavior that is not taught or not the result of experience.

Inherent impulse or motivation to action performed in response to specific external stimuli.

Human and animal motivations are based on inherent behaviors that are present from birth.

A negative emotion triggered by an actual or suspected loss of a mate’s sexual services or a mate’s affection.

Physical characteristics such as a large head, big eyes, and chubby cheeks that makes babies and young children appear cute.

Relationships that emphasize enduring commitment and the pursuit of shared goals.

Attempts to attract someone as a romantic or sexual partner when that someone is already in a romantic relationship.

Those characteristics of a person that are desired by the other sex, such as good looks, dependability, ambition, and industriousness.

Part of the parental care motivation which involves affection, attention, and support to offspring.

Biological and psychological system that evolved to ensure offspring survival by promoting caregiving and responsive behaviors, supporting children’s development to maturity.

Resources and care parents provide offspring to increase their survival and reproduction, at the cost of other offspring.

Each person’s unique experiences that have accumulated over his or her lifetime.

The idea that individuals in a population are inherently different, with variation in traits, behaviors, and motivations.

The ease with which a behavior is learned. It ranges from being prepared (easy) to being contraprepared (difficult) to learn a behavior.

The ease by which information is recognized, categorized, evaluated, and stored in memory. Easily processed music is enjoyed more.

Part of the parental care motivation system which drives individuals to safeguard their offspring from threats and harm.

A set of behavioral tendencies that evolved through natural selection in order to solve recurring problems of adaptation to the environment.

As a relationship progresses, it is the amount of satisfaction that a person derives from being in a relationship with that individual.

An emotion that involves a strong attachment between individuals, strong sexual desire, and promotes long-term commitment.

A universal motive that motivates sexual behavior in a couple for the production of offspring.

Darwin’s term for one sex choosing a mate with certain traits that lead to successful reproduction and increases survival.

Relationships that focus on immediate gratification and involve limited consideration of long-term goals.

Humans evolved acute eyesight to detect snakes and hence avoid them; earlier detection of camouflaged snakes permit individuals to make rapid avoidance responses.

Individuals are attracted to and form relationships with others who share similar socio-cultural backgrounds, such as age, race or ethnicity, values, socioeconomic status, religion, physical traits, and political beliefs.

Explains variability in human mating behavior, suggesting that individuals do not follow a fixed strategy but instead exhibit conditional mating strategies, adapting their behavior flexibly toward short-term or long-term mating goals.

All species are related and have descended from earlier forms of life.

Human and animal motivations are based on inherited behavioral impulses, consisting of perceptual, behavioral, and emotional components, that are automatically triggered by specific stimuli with little to no role for experience or learning.

A person’s personality traits influence the environment s/he selects, alters, or manipulates. Traits and environment correlate because the traits select environments that motivate the individual (see gene-environment correlation).

A state of preparedness, felt as an urge or impulse, to execute a particular behavior in the service of achieving the aim of an emotion.

The subjective feeling part of an emotion and is one of the channels of emotion.

The brain’s primary focus is to ensure that our bodies have the necessary resources to function efficiently, survive, and reproduce.

A site located in the interior part of the brain that rapidly evaluates incoming information for novelty, valence, or danger for a person’s well-being.

This is the cognitive process of interpreting and evaluating a situation, determining its significance, and how it relates to one’s goals and well-being.

The tendency to fixate on specific, often emotionally charged or personally relevant stimuli while ignoring other information.

The system is responsible for changes in blood pressure, breathing, heart rate, muscle activity, skin temperature, and electrodermal responses (change in the electrical properties of the skin).

Uses information obtained by the amygdala during the pre-aware appraisal process, general arousal information, and context-specific information gathered from past experiences to inform their behavior.

" Fingerprints," for each emotion.

Physiological arousal is an indication that the organism is ready or prepared for an emergency response, e.g., fight or flight.

Psychological, physiological, and behavioral channels that operate in tandem to cope with and adapt to various events or stimuli in our daily lives, often resulting in overt behaviors or external signs of emotion.

Affective experience results from the interpretation a person gives her physiological arousal pattern based on information from the emotion situation.

Informative representations of social norms and conventions that we refer to to know how we should display our emotions across contexts, such as when alone, with family, with strangers, or at work.

Physiological feelings that stem from arousal of the autonomic nervous system. The feelings reach awareness and are experienced as positive or negative.

The outer layer of the cerebrum, composed of folded gray matter and playing an important role in consciousness.

A process that occurs when multiple spatiotemporal patterns and neural mechanisms converge to produce a particular outcome.

Humans prioritise the processing of cues related to threat over those related to rewards due to their differential value for survival.

The reappearance or strengthening of a response diminished by repeated exposure.

Unspoken social conventions that dictate how emotions are expressed.

An emotional response that occurs during an urgent situation or emergency, such as fighting or fleeing.

An evolved coordinated effort among physiological, psychological, and behavioral dimensions to cope with an environmental demand or problem.

Dimensions along which emotions are expressed, e.g., affect, facial expressions, physiological arousal, action readiness, and behaviour.

How emotions change and fluctuate over time.

Label given to an emotion category, which suggests the average meaning that all emotion words in that category have in common.

Process by which people learn to label their own emotional feelings with emotion words.

Physiological arousal induced from one source influences emotional experience and behaviour induced from another source.

Facial expressions and affective experiences that occur in response to an emotional stimulus.

A part of the motor system that controls involuntary movements, posture, and balance by influencing skeletal muscles.

Nonverbal, often involuntary, movements of facial muscles (eyes, eyebrows, mouth) that communicate emotions and intentions.

An evolved survival mechanism that triggers rapid hormonal and physiological changes in our autonomic nervous system, specifically our sympathetic nervous system, enabling humans to respond to threats by fighting, fleeing, or freezing.

Being accustomed to or used to something through frequent, repeated, or prolonged exposure.

Decline in the frequency of sexual intercourse from early in the marriage or relationship compared to later in the relationship.

The theory that each specific emotional feeling is accompanied by a unique physiological response pattern associated with that feeling.

The greater the change of the emotion stimulus, the stronger the subsequent emotion.

An emotion stimulus can repeatedly elicit the same emotion provided that an individual has not habituated to the stimulus.

To be moved into action.

The combination of an underlying reason (motive) and the resulting behaviour (action) to achieve a goal, forming the basis of motivation.

Environmental or internal cues that influence an organism’s development and behaviour during its specific lifespan (ontogeny), often prompting temporary, adaptive responses like infantile reflexes (e.g., rooting) or shaping neural/cognitive growth.

A consistent, individual-specific tendency to direct attention towards one side of space (left or right hemispace).

A research strategy by which researchers detect patterns of physiological responses to determine if they coincide with a person’s current affect.

The autonomic nervous system’s activation—driven by adrenaline, cortisol, and noradrenaline—that prepares the body for action, stress, or excitement.

This phase occurs without a person being aware of or attending to the appraisal process.

The channels or dimensions that underlie emotions are associated and respond together uniformly; they do not act independently.

Laughing at the misfortune of others.

Emotions like shame, guilt, embarrassment, and pride that result from the evaluation that people think others are making about them.

Repeated exposure to a stimulus reduces the intensity of the emotion response.

Brain creates an emotion based on the pattern of general arousal, the current situation, plus memory of similar situations; brain’s interpretation of arousal.

A subcortical structure responsible for relaying and modulating sensory and emotional information–is responsible for the simultaneous and independent activation of arousal and our feelings.

One of the channels of emotion. It refers to a psychological feeling varying in valence (negative or positive) and intensity

Neural networks that determine valence are not constant, but change with the physiological state of the body as in alliesthesia

Neural networks in the nucleus accumbens and amygdala determine the valence of a situation

Changes in a person’s milieu interieur or body determines whether a stimulus is experienced as pleasant or unpleasant

Anterior: toward front of brain—Posterior: toward back of brain

Activation or energization of energy in a person that occurs in preparation to or during actual behavior or a feature of emotion

A physiological reaction to a music passage characterized by goose bumps, shivers, or tingles

Region sitting above corpus callosum involved decision, emotion regulation, and regulates autonomic nervous system

Governs voluntary behavior, no eliciting stimulus, that enables decision making, goal planning, and inhibits impulsive behavior

Represents the brain’s wiring pattern or neural networks that connect different brain regions for communication

From the verb to finish or complete as in finishing the motivation sequence when the person interacts with the goal, e.g., eating.

Tract of nerve fibers that connect two hemispheres of the brain

Neurotransmitter in ventral tegmental area and substantia nigra to motivate learning to reduce response prediction errors

Subjective value of an incentive or goal is decreased or devalued based on the amount of effort necessary to achieve them

How events are evaluated for their positive (pleasure) or negative (pain) valence plus the intensity of the valence

Philosophy that thought, feelings, and behavior emanate or arise from the brain, the mind emerges from the brain

A group of internal neurotransmitters that operate in the reward circuits of the brain

Global network housed in the PFC that is externally oriented and cognitively controls motivated behavior

Motivation to pursue and enjoy pleasure and motivation to avoid and not experience pain

Occurs when an individual tends to decide or act immediately without thinking of any consequences, immediate or delayed

Region that relies on interoception for individuals to become consciously aware of their internal feelings

The perception of internal sensations or stimuli coming from inside one’s body, such as hunger or anxiety

The positive hedonic feeling that is experienced during the end-state consisting of consummatory behavior

A population of nodes densely organized into regions specializing in functions like memory, planning goals, or determining effort

Neural connections among nodes within a module and connections among modules. It resembles a map of towns connected by roads

A population of neurons within a brain region that clump together and are integrated into a network

Region in midbrain that learns association between behavior and subsequent rewards, selects responses that best predict rewards

Front part of cortex consisting of several regions that are involved with the cognitive control of motivation

Psychoactive drugs make individuals feel better, then feel worse (withdrawal), take the drug again to feel better, becoming addicted.

Any chemical substance that alters a person’s mood and behavior because of the drug’s effect

Concept that mind (psycho) and brain (physical) are parallel systems. Whatever happens in one, happens as a parallel in other

Psychological experiences and behavior are reducible to more basic elements that make up the physical brain

When brain’s predicted response for a reward does not match the actual reward or outcome

Behaviors are selected or more likely to occur by the consequences of those behaviors

Individuals with similar personality trait profiles will have similar brain connectivity patterns (connectomes) in the brain

Brain region that determines effort needed to attain a reward, evaluates reward value, and selects the best behavior for reward

Conversion of the stimulation of the senses and internal organs into electrical neural impulses carried by the neurons

It transmits information about physiological (viscera) arousal of the body region of the cortex including the insula

Dimension of a stimulus or experience along a negative (unpleasant) to positive (pleasant) dimension

A region located in the midbrain that is a source of dopamine.

The internal physiology of the body like the heart, intestines, liver, lungs, and stomach

Another term for motivation that refers to the desire, drive, motive, need, or wish to reach a particular end-state

Fat cells in the body where fat from food is stored.

Changes in a person’s milieu interieur or body that determines whether a stimulus is experienced as pleasant or unpleasant.

Allo means variable. It is a way of maintaining internal stability by making changes in set points to cope with anticipated environmental demands that can disrupt homeostasis.

Diagnosis of a person unwilling to maintain at least 85% of normal body weight; strong fear of becoming fat, gaining weight even when emaciated.

The body’s survival mechanism during prolonged food deprivation in which cellular components are broken down to provide energy while appetite is suppressed.

A measure of a person’s size based on her or his weight divided by height. BMI = weight (kilograms)/ height (meters)².

A dimension that shows when eating begins (hunger) and when eating stops (satiety).

The amount of energy that is required to carry one’s weight; heavier people have greater carrying costs.

A physiological reaction to the smell and taste of food. It consists of secreting saliva, gastric juices, and insulin from the pancreas.

A hormone released in the upper part of the small intestine after food intake and is related to the inhibition of further eating.

Associating a sweetener (unconditioned stimulus) with a vegetable (conditioned stimulus) to enhance the preference for the vegetable from its association with sweetener.

Judgments and beliefs about a person’s characteristics based on the type or amount of food they eat, which can drive eating cessation behaviour.

The result of a procedure that is designed to make a person lose water, such as exercise, being in a hot place, or eating salted nuts.

The size of an outer circle influences the perceived size of a solid inner circle. When the outer circle is small, compared to large, the solid inner circle is perceived as larger.

Cognitively imposed boundaries of when to eat and when to stop eating; cognitive boundaries associated with greater hunger and stop short of satiety.

The idea that dieters use cognitive control to override their physiological hunger and satiety cues to regulate their food intake.

Body weight settles between a lower and upper boundary. The lower boundary represents one’s minimum weight. The upper represents one’s maximum weight for agile movement.

The attempt to maintain a balance between energy intake from food and various forms of energy expenditure (rest to exercise).

A hormone released by the stomach that stimulates hunger, eating, and mental images of food.

Eating driven by pleasure or to cope with negative emotions rather than by a physiological need for energy.

Constant stable internal environment that the body tries to maintain with various negative feedback systems.

An abnormally high blood glucose level that can make a person feel very sick and is a significant risk factor for diabetes.

An extreme and incessant sensation of hunger that does not subside, leading to excessive eating and obesity.

When actual body temperature is above the body’s set point temperature; the person feels warm.

A small section of the brain that monitors the body’s energy levels from signals received from various hormones: cholecystokinin (CCK), leptin, and ghrelin.

When actual body temperature is below the body’s set point temperature; the person feels cold.

The process of being aware, making sense of, and interpreting the various feelings that originate within the body, such as hunger and satiety.

A hormone released from adipose tissue that is involved in the long-term regulation of food energy located in fat cells.

Being repeatedly exposed to a stimulus leads to increased preferences for that stimulus; repeatedly eating a food increases one’s liking of it.

The reduction in resting metabolism that occurs in response to prolonged dieting and weight loss, as the body attempts to conserve energy and restore homeostasis.

The interior of the body responsible for the metabolism, growth, repair, and reproduction of the body’s cells.

The body’s self-correcting process that reduces the discrepancy between a desired state (set point) and an actual state of the body.

Hedonic value of food as determined by variety, texture, temperature, aroma, and flavour.

A discrepancy between a bodily or physiological set point and an actual physiological state, e.g., a low amount of glucose.

Aversive reaction to eating following anorexia nervosa because body lost its ability to absorb and digest food; intestines intolerant of food.

Energy use (while a person is at rest) for body maintenance, pumping of blood, oxygen utilisation, work of the cells, and neural activity of the brain.

A feeling that refers to having gratified hunger, feeling content, and having replenished energy stores.

Habituation or decline in preference for the sensory characteristics of a particular food, such as flavour, texture, and appearance.

A desired state of the body that is crucial for life, comfort, and safety, e.g., a set point body temperature.

A strong dislike (nausea reaction) for a food because of a prior association of that food with nausea or upset stomach.

It is the energy cost for digesting, storing, and absorbing food.

When a person predicts his or her subjective feelings (affect) much like the weather reporter forecasts the weather.

Whether a feeling (affect) is negative (unpleasant) or positive (pleasant); its valence.

Characterized by apprehension and somatic symptoms of tension in which an individual anticipates impending danger, catastrophe, or misfortune.

The mobilization or activation of energy that occurs in preparation for or during actual behavior.

A stimulus has the ability to activate or arouse behavior or determine the intensity of behavior.

Cognitive process by which an incongruous event is resolved or understood when it fits into a person’s schema.

Anxiety and worry weaken a person’s ability to inhibit paying attention to extraneous stimuli and responses that are irrelevant to the goal at hand.

It controls physiological arousal via the sympathetic nervous system to arouse the body and parasympathetic nervous system to conserve energy during quiet periods.

Enjoying initially negative experiences that the body (brain) falsely interprets as threatening. The negative experience stops short of being harmful.

Negative expectations and mental concerns or worries about performance in a competitive situation.

Stimulus characteristics of novelty, complexity, and incongruity, which can affect arousal.

A stimulus can evoke a specific response.

Model from sports psychology indicating that performance depends jointly on cognitive arousal and on physiological arousal (somatic anxiety).

Psychological arousal that ranges from tired, sleepy at the low end to alert and awake at the high end; positively felt arousal.

Person is aroused or activated to behave depending on a person’s need, value of an available incentive, and likelihood of attaining the incentive.

The disparity or discrepancy between a single element in a stimulus array and other accompanying elements or previous elements.

Changes in behavioral efficiency depend on degree of arousal; as arousal increases, performance increases, levels off, and then decreases.

A temporary state of mind or feeling usually lasting longer than an emotion.

A primitive mechanism that can anticipate and resolve or incorporate the next musical note, which results in enjoyment. It has no memory for music.

Similar to stage fright, it refers to physiological and psychological distress while playing music in front of an audience.

A stimulus that is new or different from stimuli to which a person has become accustomed or has habituated to.

Theory that states positive valence is an inverted-U function of arousal: as arousal increases, valence increases, levels off, and then decreases.

A discrepancy between what a person expects to occur and what actually occurs.

Performance on a cognitive task depends on working memory. Efficiency declines when worry takes up the working memory space that is needed to perform the task.

The ease with which a person can recognize, identify, and respond to novel stimuli. Enjoyment of stimuli, like music, increases with ease of processing of the stimuli.

Person’s subjective feeling of being aroused, which can vary from feeling excited or feeling anxious.

The subjective impression of the nearness or farness of an event, such as time, physical distance, or social distance as in friend versus stranger.

Person’s aim on the target immediately prior to executing the response, such as aim prior to basketball shot. The quiet eye indicates the focus of attention.

Mental representations of environmental regularities from the abstract to the specific, such as plans, scripts, recipes, maps, or concepts.

Self-perception of physiological arousal that is associated with nervousness and tension.

The presence of others during a task can either enhance performance on simple tasks (social facilitation) or hinder it on complex tasks (social inhibition).

Actual feelings of apprehension, worry, and sympathetic nervous system arousal that is evoked by a threatening situation.

Psychological arousal that ranges from calm, still at the low end to tension, anxiety at the high end; negatively felt arousal.

Behavioral paralysis in times of extreme stress or danger; characterized by frozen posture and unresponsiveness to pain; feigning death.

The contradiction (paradox) of enjoying sad feelings evoked by music, which implies that people enjoy pain.

An individual difference variable of the disposition or tendency to perceive events as threatening and to respond anxiously.

Behavioral efficiency depends on arousal and task complexity; low arousal is best for complex tasks but high arousal works best for easy tasks.

The presence of others unconsciously increases our arousal, thereby heightening our automatic or typical reaction.

A theory stating that while some psychological needs are innate, others such as achievement, power, and affiliation are shaped by one’s culture and life experiences.

A state characterized by a total lack of motivation and intention to engage in a behaviour.

Motive for people to form long-lasting, positive, meaningful interpersonal relationships with others.

The tendency to underestimate your deficiencies to protect your self-esteem and to overestimate your strengths to enhance your self-esteem.

Specific domains in people’s lives that they consider important for their self-esteem.

Thought process in which a person considers alternatives to the current situation; what is your life like if some other event had occurred?

Drive emerges from a physiological (bodily) need as a result of being deprived of a required substance. Drive pushes or motivates behaviour to reduce the drive.

It resembles the value a person places on a stimulus or activity.

A theory stating that mentally imagined alternative outcomes to past events serves to regulate behaviour and improve future performance by connecting imagined alternatives to goal-directed action.

Maslow’s theory regarding differences in the potency of motives from most to least: physiological, safety, belongingness, esteem, and self-actualization.

The capacity of a person to experience pleasure when the individual interacts with a need-relevant incentive.

The disposition to initiate an activity because it is inherently interesting or satisfying, arising from within the individual rather than from external pressures or rewards.

Internally motivated behaviour; motivation is inherent in the behaviour itself, not motivated from outside.

Theory that postulates a hierarchical order of needs from physiology, safety, belongingness, esteem, to self-actualization. Needs are satisfied in that order.

Hypothesis that people are motivated to restore meaning or to make sense of events following personal tragedies or catastrophic events.

Identical to need to achieve. It is the disposition to engage in task-oriented behaviour or achievement behaviour to surpass a high standard of excellence.

Opposite of the need to achieve, it is the disposition to experience fear or anxiety about failing an achievement task.

Failure to address or fulfil a psychological need, leading to negative affect and psychological distress.

Condition in which a psychological need is fulfilled, resulting in enhanced well-being, positive affect, and optimal functioning.

Active undermining of a psychological need by an external social environment through controlling behaviour, discrimination, or lack of support.

To seek others who care about you in order to experience feelings of affiliation, belonging, and intimacy.

Motive to freely choose your own goals and means to accomplish them; need to feel that people are the cause of their own actions.

Motive to desire a firm answer to a question or puzzle and a dislike of ambiguity.

Motive or desire to understand one’s experiences and things in the world through thinking.

Motive to feel capable and successful in dealing with one’s social and physical environment.

Motive to understand how the self relates to one’s geographical, cultural, and social environment.

Power motive is the wish to influence the lives of other individuals, to be in command, to have high status, and to be noticed.

Also known as the motive for success; a disposition to engage in task-oriented behaviour or achievement behaviour to surpass a high standard of excellence.

The procedure used to measure or create the existence of a psychological construct, e.g., Need for Cognition Scale measures (defines) need for cognition.

Overstate one’s accuracy and knowledge of things that are important to an individual’s self-esteem thus enhancing it.

It refers to a specifiable deviation from a set point of homeostatic conditions that are detrimental to the person’s physical well-being, e.g., need for iron or glucose.

The wish to influence the lives of others, to be in command, to have high status, and to be noticed.

An unstructured stimulus (inkblot) that a person describes in terms of personal meaning that is consistent with any activated motives or needs.

An internal motive defined as the discrepancy between a person’s set point and some incentive or activity. It motivates a person to reduce this discrepancy.

How long a person sleeps following sleep deprivation.

Process whereby an environmental stimulus activates a psychological need.

Motivation to realise one’s full potential through creative expression, intellectual growth, and deepening relationships, emerging only after lower-order needs are sufficiently met.

Motivation stems from within individuals; they are the source, cause, or origin of their own freely chosen behaviour; motivation is not external.

Emotional outcome of a self-evaluation as in I evaluate me, which is based on the number of your successes in domains that are important to you.

Motivation to move beyond personal fulfilment toward serving others and committing to goals and purposes outside the self.

Refers to how soon a person falls asleep.

It refers to acting in a manner that is personally satisfying and thus verifying a person’s good reputation.

As a state, need refers to a temporary deficit or discrepancy between the current versus the desired level of some incentive, activity, or experience.

Pictures of people in ambiguous settings linked to psychological needs. In telling a story about the picture, people reveal their dominant psychological needs.

As a trait, psychological needs refer to long-term, consistent requirements for an incentive or activity for a person to function best.

Motivates behaviour because the behaviour (1) satisfies the need. But also, because the behaviour also (2) provides pleasant psychological experiences.

Oriented toward events in the environment (e.g., optimal challenges, informational feedback) that support autonomy.

Interprets the cause of behaviour as stemming from the self, others, or external events and suggests a general pattern from three different causality orientations: (1) autonomy orientation, (2) control orientation, and (3) impersonal orientation.

Extrinsic rewards undermine intrinsic interests.

Occurs when a person is satiated.

A shared dimension on which decisions are based.

Require that incentives be given only for successful task completion.

Oriented toward being controlled by external events (e.g., rewards, deadlines, punishments).

When incentives are introduced, they can take over and crowd out self-driven behaviour if they are perceived as controlling.

The exploration and acquisition of information for pleasure, the resolve to fill information gaps, and the seeking of answers to avoid unpleasant feelings of not knowing.

A future incentive is represented in the present at a marked-down value. The degree of discounting increases with the length of the delay interval.

Predisposition to seek out repeated interaction with the object of interest.

When incentives are provided regardless of the quantity of performance.

The likelihood that the incentive will occur.

Behaviour that originates from external sources.

Equal increases in stimulus intensity result in progressively smaller increases in sensation.

Occurs when individuals incorporate intrinsic motivation into their choices and when people add or attend to the immediate benefits their actions produce.

Failing to recognise the temporary nature of hot and cold states when making decisions.

Occurs when a person is deprived.

A cognitive bias where people disproportionately value products they partially or wholly created themselves.

Interpret actions as beyond their intentional control.

Things that pull us towards what make us feel good and away from what make us feel bad.

How large or small an incentive is.

A change in the psychological value of an incentive based on the value of prior similar incentives.

The time between the current behaviour and the availability of the future incentive.

The perception that a particular behaviour or action will lead to a desired outcome.

When genuinely interested in something, no external incentives or rewards are needed to motivate behaviour because the behaviour is already associated with positive affect, knowledge, and high value.

Behaviour freely chosen by the individual due to genuine interest not outside gain.

A psychological principle stating that the pleasure or displeasure derived from an experience is intensified or diminished by comparison with a previous or surrounding reference point.

An individual learns to associate repeated effort with eventual rewards; the process of exertion itself can become a reinforcer.

Avoiding the unpleasantness of a loss because a gain is much more preferred.

The greater psychological intensity of an incentive loss than a gain.

A deeper, more committed form of situational interest whereby individuals cultivate meaningful self-connections.

The degree of our intrinsic motivation depends on how closely the behaviour and its outcome co-occur.

Directed toward either an environmental extrinsic or intrinsic source of motivation.

Extrinsic rewards can initiate a positive feedback loop of internally rewarding processes, thereby increasing one’s intrinsic motivation and supporting the concept of the functional autonomy of motives.

A downward shift in the quantity or quality of incentives. This downward shift results in behaviour that is below its prior level.

The attractiveness of an incentive, based on actual properties, such as the number or amount of the incentive.

A person’s intrinsic motivation for a task depends on what is perceived to be the reason for the behaviour.

An upward shift in the quantity or quality of incentives. The upward shift increases behaviour to a level above its previous intensity or frequency.

A change from preferring a delayed, large reward to preferring an immediate, small reward.

Voluntarily deciding to delay an intended course of action despite knowing they will be worse off for doing so.

The theory views positive and negative incentives as gains and losses from a neutral reference point and it recognises that losses are felt more intensely than gains.

Things we don’t like or want to avoid.

A shopper compares or contrasts the sale price with a former higher price, prices at other stores or suggested retail price.

An individual’s appraisal of the objective’s value.

An economic principle stating that an increase in the price of one good increases demand for another.

Posits that incentives are perceived as future-oriented.

Interest is sparked by environmental factors or features of the object or task.

The usefulness of a positive incentive in motivating approach behaviour and a negative incentive in motivating avoidance behaviour.

A measure of utility.

An S-shaped, asymmetrical graph representing how people perceive gains and losses relative to a reference point. The curve declines steeply for losses and rises moderately for gains.

When a person experiences conflict between doubts about continuing toward the goal versus setbacks, procrastinating, and pondering disengaging from the goal.

Positive, forward-looking goals aimed at achieving a desired outcome.

Posits that negative emotions promote avoidance motivation because they signal potential threat, while positive emotions prepare us to approach, engage with, and explore our environment.

Goals that guide us to stay clear of things or situations that elicit feelings of embarrassment or negative judgment.

Activities are listed in reverse chronological order, starting with the activity to be done last before the exam.

Goals imposed by external pressure or obligation.

The subjective value of an incentive or goal is decreased or devalued based on the amount of effort necessary to obtain or achieve them.

The selection of a goal based on its value combined with the effort required to achieve it.

The utility of a goal is multiplied by its subjective probability of being achieved.

A model of motivation in which cost interacts with both expectancy and value to determine when someone is optimally motivated.

Expectancy is an individual’s belief that they can achieve a specific goal, while value is the worth or attractiveness of that goal.

The cognitive representation of an end-state that a person selects, commits to, and attempts to achieve.

The process by which a person becomes set to achieve a goal; a volitional psychological bond that arises when one assumes responsibility and dedicates oneself to a goal.

The number of steps, components, and degree of coordination required to manage all the interconnected elements involved in pursuing and attaining goals.

The adoption of goals for ourselves that we see others around us pursuing.

Behaviors enacted to achieve a goal.

Characteristic of the level of a goal and refers to how hard that goal is to achieve.

The likelihood of goal achievement and success.

The rank of a goal in a hierarchy of potential goals.

How relevant and essential a goal is to an individual’s well-being.

Is determined by the value or utility of a goal, the probability of achievement, and their combination.

To prevent other goals or behaviors from interfering with the pursuit of one’s current goal.

How precise the goal is in contrast to how vague or unspecified it is.

A general disposition to remain open and receptive to modifying goal-directive behaviors, or actual goals.

Proposes that positive emotions associated with goal attainment spill over to goal-directed behavior.

A key condition for possible selves to have motivational power is that they are perceived as connected and relevant to students’ current identities, contexts, and actions.

If-then plans that consist of a cognitive link between a specific situation (if) and goal achievement behavior (then).

Self-regulatory strategies that focus on interpretation and directly managing behavioral responses.

A phenomenon in which an individual, after repeatedly experiencing negative emotions and situations such as failure, simply stops trying.

A person’s desires to achieve a goal that exceeds their current standing and represents the standard one is striving to achieve.

Provides a multi-phase answer with each phase requiring a particular mindset or thought process for goal selection and achievement.

Our current mood can hijack our judgment and memory, making related thoughts feel more certain and increasing the recollection of past experiences that match our mood.

Suggests that individuals put in the necessary effort to meet the demands of goal-related tasks, but effort levels start to plateau when tasks become too challenging.

A descriptive model that accounts for psychological factors, showing that people are loss-averse and their decisions are based on gains and losses relative to a reference point.

An emotion regulation strategy involving reframing one’s thinking about an emotional situation.

When an individual formulates alternate means to achieve their goals, sets an entirely new goal, or scales back the original goal’s level and difficulty.

People’s reluctance to take risks or gambles regarding gains; prefer a likely positive event compared to an unlikely positive event.

People willingly take risks regarding losses; prefer an unlikely negative event compared to a likely negative event.

Goals motivated because they represent autonomy, personal values, interests, and pleasure.

Delineates the difference between self-concordance goals and controlled goals.

A person’s belief in their ability to succeed in specific situations or accomplish a task, acting as a key driver of motivation, behaviour, and goal achievement.

The ability to push forward in the face of barriers, challenges, and temptations, thereby facilitating perseverance and goal achievement.

Suggests that individuals crave knowledge and advancing their understanding of the world around them, and one way to accomplish this is by disclosing inner states about the self or the environment.

Self-regulatory strategies that aim to modify circumstances to facilitate self-controlled behaviour.

An individual’s goal level is determined by their standing relative to members of a group.

Suggests that the presence of others influences people’s performance on a task.

Intermediate goals that must be achieved on the way toward achieving the final goal; provide immediate motivation.

A person’s belief that a particular event will occur and is expressed as a number between 0.00 and 1.00.

The amount of time separating the present moment from a past or future event.

How much individuals have accomplished on the way toward achieving their goal.

Pursuing achievement, competence, success, and mastery for its own sake. (Part of PERMA model)

Part of trait-environment correlation: individuals seek and create environments that match their personality traits.

One of the five-factor model personality dimensions that ranges from cold, hard, rude to kind, sympathetic, and warm.

The fear of anxiety-related sensations that stem from an unrealistic belief that these sensations will lead to detrimental physical, cognitive, and social outcomes.

A system that facilitates our focus on and approach to reward or positive consequences.

Science of the genetic inheritance of biological traits relevant to behaviour and personality traits.

A system responsible for avoiding actual or perceived negative consequences or aversive stimuli.

Component of sensation seeking that is an aversion to boredom resulting from repetitive experiences and the absence of stimulation.

One of the five-factor model personality dimensions that ranges from careless, disorganised to practical, systematic, and efficient.

An individual is not distracted by other interests and can remain focused and concentrated.

The acknowledgment and appreciation of the values, norms, and beliefs characteristic of a cultural, ethnic, racial, or other group.

This theory proposes that the big five personality traits determine what type of goal an individual chooses and commits to.

Three distinct but overlapping personality traits: narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy.

Component of sensation seeking that reflects the desire for variety attained by drinking, partying, gambling, and sexual activity; letting yourself go.

A temperamental regulatory construct that manages temperamental reactivity.

The driving force behind motivations to help those in distress, even when it is costly.

Witnessing another person’s distress produces empathic concern, which in turn creates an altruistic motivation to reduce that person’s welfare, rather than to gain self-benefits.

Being fully absorbed and immersed in activities, often experiencing "flow" states where time seems to disappear, and self-consciousness fades. (Part of PERMA model)

Trait-environment correlation wherein an individual’s personality trait determines the type of reaction she or he evokes from others.

Includes an unwillingness to experience distressing emotions, thoughts, and memories.

Component of sensation seeking characterised by the desire for mental and sensory stimulation from art, travel, drugs, and music.

A personality trait (dimension) that ranges from quiet, reserved, shy to active, assertive, dominant.

People at the upper end of the extraversion dimension and characterised as bold, energetic, and talkative.

Those with high disinhibition that seek others in negative activities as a source of stimulation.

Theory that postulates five major personality traits (OCEAN): openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism.

A phenomenon that refers to the desirable subjective state a person experiences when completely involved in some challenging activity.

The percentage of the trait attributable to an individual’s genetics.

Similarities/differences among people in their personality traits stem from similarities/differences in the variation of their genes for those traits.

This trait is composed of a consistency of interest and perseverance of effort. Consistency means not being distracted and perseverance means to keep at it.

Tendency to give into impulses, urges, compulsions; choose immediate outcomes even if less beneficial than delayed alternatives; opposite of self-control.

Individual people vary or differ along personality dimensions, such as the big-five personality traits, or sensation seeking, or impulsiveness versus self-control.

A tendency to become distressed in unclear and ambiguous situations.

Lower end of the extraversion dimension and characterised as bashful, quiet, shy, and withdrawn.

A personality trait characterised by manipulativeness, deceit, cynicism, and a focus on self-interest, where individuals use others as tools to achieve their own goals, believing "the end justifies the means."

Goals focused on personal improvement.

Having a sense of purpose and belonging to something larger than oneself. (Part of PERMA model)

Feeling tired, exhausted, and being reluctant to continue a course of action; difficulty planning, focusing attention, and altering behaviour.

A self-centred personality style characterised by an excessive preoccupation with oneself, an inflated sense of self-importance, a need for deep admiration, and a lack of empathy for others.

Tendency to experience negative emotions (fear, anger, sadness, discomfort); heightened distress when goals are blocked, sensory discomfort.

One of the five-factor model personality dimensions that ranges from relaxed, unenvious to moody, temperamental, and touchy.

Personality trait (dimension) that ranges from shallow, simple, unintelligent to artistic, clever, curious.

Personality traits are defined by the procedures used to measure them, such as using valid psychological paper-and-pencil scales.

Sensitivity to subtle internal and external stimuli; noticing associations, low-intensity cues, images, and thoughts.

Trait-environment correlation wherein the biological parents create their children’s environment.

Goal focused on demonstrating competence.

Goals where the primary concern is not to appear incompetent.

Divides well-being into five intrinsically motivating components: positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishment.

An individual overcomes setbacks, is diligent, works hard, and persists.

Behavioural manifestation of a trait. State consists of temporary behaviours that are representative of the personality trait.

Consistency in a specific set of behaviours across time and across relevant situations from one time to the next.

Experiencing pleasant feelings beyond momentary pleasure to include cultivating positive affect across time. (Part of PERMA model)

The wish to influence the lives of other individuals, to be in command, to have high status, and to be noticed.

Initiative, taking charge of situations, actively anticipating and solving problems, etc.

Individual differences in our behavioural reactivity and regulation.

A personality trait characterised by a lack of empathy, shallow emotions, impulsivity, and antisocial behaviour, often masked by superficial charm.

A psychological trait determining how strongly an individual detects, reacts to, and avoids negative consequences.

Arousability and responsiveness of physiological systems.

Neural and behavioural processes that modulate reactivity.

Positive connections with others (e.g., feeling loved, supported, and valued, giving and receiving care). Experiencing authentic social bonds that provide meaning and security.

A person reacts with greater energetic arousal in response to rewards or the pursuit of rewards. (Part of PERMA model)

An important link between individual differences in reactivity and self-regulation and the biological mechanisms that guide and motivate human behaviour.

A cognitive process used to reach a quick decision or judgment, especially under pressure or when dealing with complex, ambiguous information.

Ability to inhibit desires, emotions, or impulses that disrupt goal-achievement behaviour; opposite of impulsiveness.

Personality trait characterised by seeking intense sensations and experiences and the willingness to take risks and incur costs for the sake of such experiences.

Consists of three traits; anxiety sensitivity, intolerance of uncertainty, and experiential avoidance.

Internal drivers that make people act in ways that align with the majority group.

A term for happiness that indicates a person has control over her life, is satisfied with life overall; low incidence of negative moods.

Tendency toward high activity, positive emotionality, approach behaviour, enjoyment of high-intensity stimulation.

Humans’ earliest consistent behavioural responses across different environmental contexts.

Component of sensation seeking characterised by the desire for sensations from participating in risky activities, e.g., sky diving and fast driving.

Personality traits and environments are associated in their effects on behaviour because traits determine the situations a person chooses or alters.

A person’s reaction to the environment depends on the amount of a personality trait s/he possesses.

Also known as substance use disorder, it is characterized by the craving, compulsive use, loss of control, tolerance of psychoactive drugs and withdrawal symptoms due to drug abstinence.

Compulsive activities often involving drugs that produce short-term pleasure at the expense of later negative consequences like tolerance and withdrawal.

Repeated drug use makes an addict sensitive to the unpleasant symptoms that predict drug withdrawal and thus takes drugs to avoid anticipated withdrawal.

A psychoactive drug in the form of ethanol and served as beer, wine, or distilled spirits, such as vodka, rum, gin.

A drug that blocks the euphoric effects of psychoactive drugs and thus can curb people’s cravings for drugs like cocaine and alcohol.

Addicted individuals pay more attention and remember drug stimuli better; more drawn to drug stimuli.

A field of study that attempts to attribute behaviour differences to genetic similarities/differences among people as in the case of drug addiction.

A psychoactive drug obtained from the coca plant. It produces a positive euphoric effect sometimes termed as a full body orgasm.

When two negative states are associated together as when a person engages in more than one addictive behaviour like smoking and gambling.

A classically conditioned response that is opposite to the response produced by the unconditioned stimulus. The conditioned responses prepare the individual for the actual drug experience.

A classically conditioned response that mimics the actual response to the drug stimulus (drug unconditioned stimulus).

An overpowering, uncontrollable urge for the drug a person uses in order to experience the euphoric effect or to reduce withdrawal effects that result from abstinence.

The inability to function normally without a psychoactive drug due to prolonged use, characterized by tolerance, withdrawal symptoms, and compulsive drug-seeking behaviour.

A neurotransmitter that activates neurons in the brain’s reward circuitry to produce feelings of pleasure and euphoria.

General term used to describe the body’s overall process of adjusting to the absence of a chemical substance marked by the drug’s opposite effects.

Internal morphine located along pain pathways in the brain and is responsible for producing exercise high.

A positive euphoric or pleasant feeling brought on by strenuous exercise, such as running producing a runner’s high.

Component of sensation seeking characterized by the desire for mental and sensory stimulation from drugs and addictive behaviours.

A psychoactive drug that enhances perception and mental stimulation and causes people to experience delusions, reality distortion, and hallucinations.

The idea that as the genetic similarity among people increases, their behaviour similarity increases, such as the likelihood of drug experimentation and use.

Constant stable internal environment that the body tries to maintain. Drugs disrupt homeostasis.

Their use is prohibited by the federal government. It is illegal (illicit) to use them.

A characteristic of a person with a heightened sensitivity to drug rewards and lack of foresight about the negative consequences that drugs produce.

The theory that repeated drug use becomes motivated more by a drug’s incentive value (anticipated pleasure) than by its hedonic value (actual pleasure).

Internet use characterized by excessive use, withdrawal symptoms from not using, tolerance of use, and negative repercussions from too much use.

Playing games via the Internet. Playing behaviour exhibits impaired control, since people find it difficult to stop and continue gaming compulsively.

A psychoactive drug derived from amphetamine that acts like a strong stimulant to produce increasing alertness and wakefulness.

A motivational factor for quitting drugs that ranges from willfully contemplating change, preparing for it, acting on it, and maintaining it.

A neurotransmitter antagonist that reduces the reinforcing effects of a variety of psychoactive drugs. It is used to treat addiction by curbing drug craving and pleasure.

An addiction in reference to psychoactive drugs because their use leads to long-term negative consequences.

The removal of an unpleasant feeling by a response. For example, drugs remove the unpleasantness or agony of drug withdrawal symptoms.

The consequences of excessive or addictive Internet use characterized by social isolation, lying, arguing, low achievement, and fatigue.

A chemical substance whose action in the gap between two neurons allows for the sending neuron to stimulate the next or receiving neuron.

A characteristic similar to experience seeking but in this case seeking new or different experiences.

A reward site of densely packed neurons located deep inside the brain along the brain’s pleasure circuit. Psychoactive drugs produce their effects at this site; similar to the ventral tegmental area.

A psychoactive drug (morphine, codeine, heroin) derived from the opium poppy that produces euphoria and reduces anxiety.

According to this theory, the initial pleasurable reaction to a drug is countered by an opponent process or drug-opposite effect that results in dysphoria and withdrawal when the drug wears off.

This occurs in classical conditioning when the conditioned response occurs in the opposite direction of the unconditioned response.

An addiction, in reference to exercise (running), that leads to positive health consequences in contrast to negative health consequences that result from drugs.

A positive experience that results from a response. For example, drugs produce pleasure and euphoria.

The reinstatement or increase in drug craving by a small dose of the drug or by stimuli associated with the drug.

Any chemical substance that alters a person’s mood and behaviour as a result of the drug’s effect on the brain that can lead to dependence on the drug.

Properties of a drug or drug-associated stimuli that draw an addicted individual’s attention and craving as a result of his/her experiences with the drug; noticeability of drug stimuli.

It is the ability to override cravings and impulses that disrupt goal-achievement. Drugs cause people to lose self-control. They use drugs compulsively with lowered foresight of the consequences.

A personality trait associated with seeking varied, intense, and novel sensations and the willingness to take risks to experience the sensations that drugs provide.

Constraints that limit addictive behaviours, such as being illegal, limiting places of use, social disapproval, and advertising ill-health effects.

Social norms that promote using drugs, such as advertising, portrayed as cool in movies, prevalent in social groups, and legal restraints are relaxed.

The medical term for drug addiction, which is characterized by compulsive drug use, drug tolerance, and negative withdrawal symptoms when not using.

When a person habituates to the stimulus effects of a psychoactive drug.

A coil is placed near a person’s head to send a small electric current into the adjacent region of the brain. The current reduces the activity of the brain’s neurons in the stimulated area.

A model describing motivational change in addiction recovery as a series of stages: precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, and maintenance, each representing increasing readiness to change addictive behaviour.

Consistent demonstrations of drug-specific withdrawal symptoms.