14/10/2020

Motivation & Emotion Unconscious Reading: Reeve (2018) Unconscious motivation motivation Ch 16 (pp. 397-422)

Image source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Why_books_are_always_better_than_movies.jpg James Neill Centre for Applied Psychology University of Canberra

2020 1 Image source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alma-Tadema_Unconscious_Rivals_1893.jpg 2 1 2

Outline – Unconscious motivation Ways of studying unconscious motivation ■ Psychodynamic ■ Psychodynamics perspective ■ Repression ■ Psychoanalytic → ■ Suppression psychodynamic ■ Terror management ■ Dual-instinct theory theory ■ Do the Id and Ego exist? ■ Ego psychology ■ Contemporary views ■ Ego development ■ The unconscious ■ Ego defense ■ Adaptive unconscious ■ Ego effectance ■ Implicit motivation ■ Object relations ■ Priming theory ■ Criticisms

Based on Reeve (2018, p. 397) Image source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Autoroute_icone.svg 3 Based on Reeve (2018, Figure 16.1 p. 399) 4 3 4

Psychoanalytic becomes psychodynamic ■ Psychoanalytic: Freudian approach to psychology, psychotherapy, and the unconscious mind ■ Psychodynamic: study of dynamic Psychodynamic unconscious mental processes. ■ Dynamic unconscious mental processes can be perspective studied without being Freudian. ■ This lecture focuses on psychodynamic approaches to unconscious motivation, but starts with a historical perspective.

5 Based on Reeve (2018, pp. 399-400) 6 5 6

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Freud's dual-instinct theory Freudian structural model of the psyche: Id, ego, & superego Psychoanalysis c. 1930

Eros Thanatos Instinct for life Instincts for death

Instincts for: Instincts for:

● sex ● aggression toward self

● nurturance (self-criticism, depression)

● affiliation ● aggression toward others

● etc. (anger, prejudice) etc.

Based on Reeve (2018, pp. 400-401) 7 Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Structural-Iceberg.svg 8 7 8

Do the Id and the Ego exist? Contemporary psychodynamic perspective ■ Limbic system makes for a pretty fair Id: ■ The unconscious ■ Hypothalamus, thalamus, amygdala, medial ■ Much of mental life is unconscious forebrain bundle, etc. ■ Psychodynamics ■ Pleasure & unpleasure brain centers. ■ Mental processes operate in parallel and conflict ■ Neocortex makes for a pretty fair Ego: ■ Ego development ■ Healthy development moves from an immature, ■ Learning, memory, decision-making, intellectual socially dependent personality to one that is problem-solving. more mature and interdependent with others ■ Executive control center that perceives the world ■ Object relations theory and learns to adapt to it. ■ Mental representations of “self” and “other” form ■ Interrelated neural pathways and structures in childhood that guide the person’s later social of the neocortex and limbic systems: motivations and relationships. ■ One structure affects another Based on Reeve (2018, p. 401) 9 Based on Reeve (2018, p. 402) 10 9 10

Contemporary views on the unconscious

■ Freudian unconscious ■ Automatically appraises the environment ■ Adaptive unconscious ■ Sets goals, makes judgements, and initiates The action ■ Implicit motivation unconscious ■ Automatically attends to emotionally-linked environmental events

Based on Reeve (2018, p. 402) 11 12 11 12

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Adaptive unconscious: Adaptive unconscious Examples ■ Automatic pilot that carries out ■ Riding a bike computations and adjustments. ■ Appraises environment, sets goals, makes ■ Driving a car judgments, and initiates action all while the ■ Tying shoelaces person is thinking about something else. ■ Playing a musical instrument ■ Judgments are experienced as intuition and ■ ? “gut felt” rather than as conscious and deliberative. ■ Overall: Adapt effectively, even while on “automatic pilot”.

Based on Reeve (2018, pp. 404-406) 13 Based on Reeve (2018, p. 402) 14 13 14

Two mental systems Implicit motivation

■ System 1: Automatic unconscious ■ Motives, emotions, attitudes, and ■ Fast, involuntary, effortless, emotional judgments that operate outside conscious ■ System 2: Conscious awareness ■ Slow, voluntary, effortful, rational ■ Well-studied implicit motives: achievement, power, affiliation, intimacy, autonomy, prejudice

Based on Reeve (2018, Table 16.1, p. 405) 15 Based on Reeve (2018, pp. 406-407) 16 15 16

Psychological priming – Priming Bang goes the theory ■ Exposure to one stimulus affects response to another stimulus without conscious awareness. e.g., when primed by handling money, people: ○ eat more chocolate ○ are less likely to help others ○ tolerate more pain ■ Activates mental representation outside of awareness, preparing a person to behave consistent with that mental representation. Video: (6:17 mins) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRAKt0GakJM Based on Reeve (2018, pp. 407-408) 17 18 17 18

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How your unconscious mind rules your behaviour

Psycho- dynamics

Leonard Mlodinow at TEDxReset 2013 Video: (12:51 mins) https://www.youtube.com/embed/vcJm-y7UnLY?start=316&end=108719 20 19 20

Psychodynamics Psychodynamics = clashing of psychological forces = clashing of psychological forces “The mind is an arena, Conscious volition Unconscious (Will) counter-will a sort of tumbling- Idea Counter-idea ground for the struggle Desire Repression of antagonistic Excitation Inhibition Cathexis Anti-cathexis impulses.” (sexual desire) (guilt)

Freud (1917) Ego Id

Based on Reeve (2018, p. 408) 21 Based on Reeve (2018, p. 408) 22 21 22

Illustration of psychodynamics: Illustration of psychodynamics: Repression Suppression ■ Central concept of psychodynamics. ■ Thought can't be stopped per se, but it can be ■ Unconscious is overcrowded with motivations suppressed. that want to come into the public world. ■ Suppression is the conscious, intentional ■ Repression is the security guard (or gate- attempt to remove a thought from attention. keeper) turning down most motivations' requests to enter the public world. Tends to backfire, leading to even greater occurrence of the unwanted thought because ■ Repression is the process of forgetting by ways unconscious processes tend to push the thought that are unconscious, unintentional, and back into consciousness. automatic. ■ Therefore, it makes more sense, as a ■ Repression is Ego’s counterforce to the Id’s suppression strategy, to accept the thought into demanding desires. consciousness. Based on Reeve (2018, p. 409) 23 Based on Reeve (2018, pp. 409 - 411) 24 23 24

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Illustration of psychodynamics: Thought suppression examples Suppression ■ Food when on a diet ■ Therefore, it makes more sense, as a ■ Memories of lost lover suppression strategy, to accept the ■ Trying to keep a secret thought into consciousness. ■ Not thinking about pink elephant ■ e.g., Acceptance and Commitment ■ ? Therapy

Based on Reeve (2018, p. 409) 25 Based on Reeve (2018, pp. 409 - 411) 26 25 26

Terror management theory ■ Mortality salience: Awareness that one’s death is inevitable ■ Death anxiety: Mortality salience can lead to paralysing anxiety. ■ This “terror” needs to be managed to Ego keep the paralysis at bay. ■ To cope, people use defenses to think psychology and behave in ways that enhance perceived immortality, such as through: ■ belief in afterlife ■ commitment to a protective cultural worldview Based on Reeve (2018, pp. 409 - 411) 27 28 27 28

Ego psychology Ego development

■ Id provides instinctual psychic Healthy ego development energy. At birth, all energy is Id. involves moving from ■ Ego (personality) develops over heteronomy time through experimentation and (immature, social dependence on others) learning about what actually works to in the real world. autonomy (mature, independent).

Based on Reeve (2018, p. 412) 29 Based on Reeve (2018, pp. 412 - 413) 30 29 30

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Ego development stages Motivational importance of ego development Ego as a developmental process that moves through stages: ■ Ego defence: Ego develops to ■ Symbiotic: Infantile, other provides defend against anxiety ■ Impulsive: Selfish, weak ego ■ Ego offence: Ego develops to ■ Self-protective: Rule-based constraint empower the person to interact ■ Conformist: Identification with group more effectively and more ■ Conscientious: Internalisation of rules proactively with its surroundings. ■ Autonomous: Copes with inner conflicts

Based on Reeve (2018, pp. 412-413, which is based on Loevinger, 1976) 31 Based on Reeve (2018, pp. 413-416) 32 31 32

Defense mechanisms buffer the ego Defense mechanism levels of from anxiety-generating agents maturity (Vaillant) Environmental ■ I – Pathological demands Id Superego (psychotic denial, delusional projection) ■ II – Immature demands Reality demands anxiety (fantasy, projection, passive aggression, acting Neurotic Moral out) anxiety anxiety ■ III – Neurotic Ego (intellectualisation, reaction formation, Defenses dissociation, displacement, repression) Ego ■ IV – Mature Extent of anxiety (humour, sublimation, suppression, altruism, Extent of ego development anticipation) Based on Reeve (2018, pp. 413-415) Based on Figure 16.2, Reeve (2018, p. 413) 33 34 33 34

More adaptive defense mechanisms Mature defense mechanisms → better life adjustment → less depression as a result of life stress

high life stress + immature defense mechanisms = vulnerability to depression

Based on Reeve (2015, Figure 16.3, p. 487). Source: From Adaptation to Life (p. 87, by Vaillant, 1977: Little, Brown & Company. Copyright 1977 by George E. Vaillant. Based on Figure 16.3, Reeve (2018, p. 415) 35 36

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Ego effectance Individual's competence in dealing with environmental challenges, demands, and opportunities.

Effectanc Object e When successful, sense motivation of competence increases relations

Inevitable Voluntary attempts theory Willingness to effects on or to produce exercise changes in intentional, emerging and existing the goal-directed skills and capabilities environment changes in the environment White’s model of effectance motivation Based on Reeve (2018, p. 415) 37 38 37 38

Object relations theory Object relations theory ■ How people develop their psyche in relation ■ People relate to objects (others) to to others (objects). satisfy their emotional and ■ Early experiences with caregivers become psychological need for relatedness. internally represented; shape future relations. ■ Early representations of relations ■ Characterised by: with caregivers influence ■ Unconscious tone: subsequent relations with others. Benevolent vs malevolent ■ Capacity for emotional involvement: Mutual concern vs. selfishness/narcissism ■ Mutuality of autonomy with others: Objects perceived as autonomous present no risk to the integrity of perceiver Based on Reeve (2018, pp. 416-417) 39 Based on Reeve (2018, pp. 416-417) 40 39 40

Criticisms of the psychodynamic perspective

■ Freudian concepts arose from case studies of disturbed individuals. ■ Many Freudian concepts are not scientifically testable. Criticisms ■ Many aspects of Freudian theory were wrong (e.g., theory of superego formation). ■ Psychoanalytic theory is poor at prediction.

41 Based on Reeve (2018, pp. 419-420) 42 41 42

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Summary Upcoming lectures ■ Ways of studying the unconscious: ■ Freudian unconscious ■ Adaptive unconscious ■ 11a: How to make a multimedia ■ Implicit motives recording and publish it online ■ Priming ■ 11b: Growth psychology (Ch 15) ■ Postulates: ■ Much of mental life is unconscious ■ Summary & conclusion (Ch 17) ■ Mental processes operate in parallel ■ Ego development → ego maturity ■ Mental representations in childhood → guide adult social motivations Based on Reeve (2018, pp. 420-421) 43 44 43 44

References

■ Freud, S. (1917). [Original work published 1905]. Wit and its relation to the unconscious. http://www.bartleby.com/279/ ■ Reeve, J. (2015). Understanding motivation and emotion (6th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. ■ Reeve, J. (2018). Understanding motivation and emotion (7th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

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