text:
User:Matt.long

=About Me=

I am currently studying Psychology and Management at the University of Canberra. This e-portfolio is an assessment task for the Psychology Unit - Motivation and Emotion. I'll attempt to offer some insightful, relevant reflection on what I'm learning, how I'm learning it and probably the personal motivations and emotions that I'm going through as the semester progresses.

=Motivation and Emotion - Semester 2, 2010. E-Portfolio=

Introduction
Week one of Motivation and emotion, and not surprisingly (having just come back from 7 weeks in Europe) but slightly ironically, not feeling very motivated.

I hadn't ever thought about studying motivation this until this semester, but now that I am I'm intrigued to learn more. What gets me out of bed on a Canberra winter morning to go for a run? What motivated me to move house in the middle of this semester and start a new job and study full time?

Assessment
Interesting assessment schedule, it will good to be finally moving into more online driven tasks and stretching ourselves with respect to formats. The assessment tasks are a Textbook Chapter, a Multimedia Presentation and an e-journal, which takes the form of me doing this reflection. I’ll attempt to pursue some research into motivation and gambling with my textbook chapter, particularly electronic gaming and Electronic Gaming Machines (EGM’s).

Important Terms
Motivation is defined in the text (Understanding Motivation and Emotion by Johnmarshall Reeve) as the processes that give behaviour its energy and direction. More discussion of this definition in week 3.

Lecture
This week offered an information overload of historical perspectives and theories, based originally on philosophical teachings which have now largely been abandoned in the pursuit of a more scientific school of thought. The grand theories, which are the original theories of motivation are attractive because of their simplicity and basis in pure thought, especially true of Freud’s Drive Theory, based on the idea that there is a biological desire to achieve homeostasis – this is the basis for all motivations and all behaviour. These theories were fairly limited in their ability to explain behaviour, especially irrational behaviour it seems, so fell out of favour. Current theories are more focused on particular areas, aiming to offer detailed insight e.g. Self Efficacy Theory (Bandura, 1977) and Intrinsic Motivation (Deci, 1975). Interstingly, I had always thought of motivation as the driving force, never really focusing on the drivers of motivation. This lecture provided four areas that create emotion - Needs, Cognitions, Emotions and External Events.

Lecture
This weeks lecture focused on trying to give the Motivation and Emotion class a grasp of how to operate Wikiversity (sister project to Wikipedia). The lecture was quite simple until James (James Neill, Course Convenor) mentioned coding. Coding involves using words and symbols in a draft document that come out differently in a final document e.g. two square brackets at the beginning and end of a word turn it into a link. I, and judging by other comments, quite a few others aren’t particularly familiar with coding or publishing online, so I expect the process will involve some trial and error and learning. Hopefully the learning curve is not too steep.

Tutorials start next week for me, looking forward to having more discussions and interaction with the content.

Assessment
Having discussed text chapter subjects with James, I’ve tentatively settled on a focus on the Emotional Motivators of Gambling, probably with a feature section on Electronic Gaming. It differs a bit from my original direction, however, ill be covering more research material and content which I'm sure will be more interesting.

Key Terms
Limbic System

Hormones - cortisol,  testosterone and  oxytocin

Physiological Needs

Lecture
Hey point for this week is that the brain is key to motivation and emotion. Specific brain structures create specific motivational outcomes. Biolchemical agents stimulate these bain structures and day to day events create the need for the these bolchemical agents to interact. The interplay between these systems create and trigger emotion, motivation and behaviour.

A large part of the brain anatomy/biochemical triggers for motivation and emotion was information I was already familiar with. The interplay between the endocrine system and our behaviour is particulalrly fascinating to me despite this. What I found really interesting was James's comment about self regulation of needs. James said basically that individuals self regulate poorly because of underestimating strength of needs, failing to monitor what they're doing, or a lack of standards. This was interesting from a point of view of my gambling research. I can remember seeing gamblers who seemed unable to stop, one woman asked the staff not to let her gamble anymore after spending thousands, but didnt exclude herself so there was nothing the staff could do. She was failing to self regulate because her motivations were so distorted and so strong.

Tutorial
Tutorial 1, hooray!

Lots of introduction, clarification, etc. After some novel ways of getting to know each other better (by arranging ourselves based on length of thumb and length of stay at uni) we formed groups and defined the key terms of the unit in groups, coming up with fairly similar answers.

The key points in defining motivation seemed to be energy, direction and behaviour. As a tutorial group our definitions were - 1. The drive and energy that urges/pushes an individual towards a particular goal through behaviour. 2. Gives energy to direct behaviour. 3. Processes that give behaviour direction and energy. 4. Energy and direction to behave in a goal-directed way. 5. Energy to direct or focus on a task, eliciting a behaviour.

Defining emotion seemed to produce a mixed bag of ideas with feelings and behaviour being key elements in the definitions. The group definitions were - 1. The feelings an individual experiences in response to cognitions, thoughts, physiological influences and external stimuli. 2. Feelings that affect a person's behaviour; emotions are intense and short. 3. Cognitive thoughts and feelings that are descriptive in nature. 4. Psychological and physiological state that influences thoughts, feelings and behaviours. 5. The chemical reactions within our bodies that are reflected through our behaviours and feelings.

A reassuring feature of the tute was the review of our key questions for the unit with a focus on our textbook questions. Really helped to think about them, clarify and ask more questions, and the group/peer review was excellent too, very relevant for those future research psychologists. I'm still reviewing the questions and overall topic that I will focus on, doing some more research will help. I'm beginning to think that the Emotional Motivators of Gambling will be too narrow and that mentioning the emotional motivators as a section in an overarching topic of Motivation to Gamble may be a better option.

Key Terms
Self Determination Theory

Autonomy

Achievement

Personal Growth

Lecture
I think, in reading and listening this week that social and psychological needs are often passed over in terms of attention and importance by biological needs. A holistic understanding and holistic health approach would be beneficial in terms of psychopathology understanding and treatment.

Psychological needs are inherent sources of motivation. They include the desires to enhance personal growth, social development and psychological wellbeing. The major differences between psychological and biological is homeostatic motivation. I.e. biological motivations stem from the desire to achieve homeostasis whereas psychological needs are quite differetnt, as stated above. Major theory related to psychological needs is Self Determination Theory. The theory identifies three needs; those of autonomy,  competence and  relatedness. In thinking again about my chapter research into gambling you could apply all three of these needs to the motivations that exist. Individuals are motivated to socialise (relatedness), develop new skills and conquer a new game (competence) and sometimes to be alone and make their own decisions (autonomy).

Key Terms
Intrinsic

Extrinsic

Goals

Reinforcement

Lecture
Goals - Having never really thought about goals in a scientific sense before this semester surprised me. I was confronted with several occasions where lecturers made a point about the importance of goals and explained why we fail to achieve them and how to set personal goals. I was particularly interested in the nature of the goals people set and the liklihood that they will achieve them depending on a couple of key factors. After learning about hte importance of specificity and the level of difficuly we set ourselves I will definitely out some time into re-evaluating and thinking about personal and career goals.

Tutorial
Tutorial 2

Personal Control Beliefs and the Self
Thanks to James for not having a lecture this week. Wouldn't it be great if all the teaching staff at UC did the same so we could claim back the two week break!! Uni definitely loses a lot of its novelty and fun when you're tired and stressed with too much assessment. Having two weeks of holidays was a welcome break.

Key Terms
Expectancy

Locus of Control

Mastery

Learned Helplessness

Lecture
Individuals desire to control their environment as much as possible. The motivation behind this is to maximise the chance of positive outcomes and to reduce the possibility of negative outcomes. In a leadership unit which is part of my management degree, a related topic to this came up. It was related to leaders ability to influence their environment. In his book the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen R Covey stated that leaders should focus on influencing their circle of influence which represents those factors which they can have an impact on. Once an individual has control over these immeidate aspects of their life they can braoden their focus to their circle of concern, which is all the factors which they have an interest in.

I think only making an attempt at controlling an aspect of your environment once you have the abilities or resources available is a wise approach. As someone who identifies as very independent and having a strong desire for control at least over my own life, I can identify with Coveys approach and will try to implement some elements of this philosophy in my life.

Another aspect of this weeks content which I found interesting was Mastery/Helplessness. A mastery orientation occurs when an individual feels as if they have a high sense of control over outcomes. Conversely, indivduals who feel as I they have little or no control over outcomes is said to be helplessnes, or to have learned helplessness. I generally feel as though I have at least some sense of control over events, definitely not a mastery situation though. There is only one occasion where I can remember feeling helpless. Getting of a plane in Cairo, aged 18, with no idea what was going on. It was my first overeas holidays without family and I was travelling with someone who had even less of a clue than me. Having no common langauge, having not slept for days and having my bags taken from me from a bunch of men at the gate (it turned out they only wanted a tip, aka baksheesh), I felt fairly helpless! Not pleasant. It all turned out ok though.

Key Terms
Emotion

Biological

Biological

Evolutionary Perspective

Lecture
Emotion involves internal, cognitive and biological factors. Emotions can motivate, direct and energise behaviour. A current understanding of emotions is that they perform an evolutionary role, e.g. if we find a situation emotionally negative, it is probably somethign we should remove ourselves from. I think of all of the negative bodily feelings, pains and emotions as signals this way - you body giving you signals that something is wrong. Listening to the signals has really worked for me in the past, I recommend it, if it feels bad, it almost certainly is!

The two major approaches to classifying emotions both have aspects whic appeal to me. The biological approach is similar to the evolutionary role outlined above, they're universal, limited sets of reactions that serve a purpose. I like the simple nature of it, a small set of emotions that is applicable to everyone, not sure about the validity of it though. The cognitive approach, alternatively, doesnt dictate any number of emotions. It frames emotions as existing on a spectrum, so they aer an almost unlimited number, with combinations, offshoots, culturally specific emotions. In contrast to the biological approach I like the individuality of this approach, it appeals to me and vindicates all the miunderstandings people have based on emotional outbursts and individual intepretations.

Lecture
The lecture this week focused on Biological, Cognitive and Socio-Cultural causes of Emotion. These are the core aspects of emotion. An interesting Biological Theory of Emotion is James-Lange Theory. It questions whether each emotion has a unique bodily reaction and to what extent do bodily changes induce emotions. The overarching question is whether emotions cause physical reactions or do physical reactions precede and therefore cause emotions.

Cognitively, emotion is seen as the result of Appraisal and Attribution. Appraisal occurs before an emotional reaction and involves questions of whether it is relevant.

Social interaction helps to shape our understanding and reactions to emotion and cultural backgrounds do the same with respect to cultural understanding.

Tutorial
Tutorial 4

The tute this week was great. It involved getting into groups and sorting through a list of words related to emotions. The task was to develop our own model of emotions. Being able to visualise our own view/understanding of emotion really helped to gather an overview of the categories. Lots of words were discarded. Most of them weren't emotions but represented moods, obscure words based in Theatre or in German (see - Verklemt and Schadenfreude).

Next everyone performed a PANAS (Positive and Negative Affect Schedule). This measure of prevailing mood involved rating ourselves from 1 (very slightly or not at all) to 5 (extremely) on how a list of emotive words applied to us in general. There was a general trend towards positive affect, in accordance with research. My own scores were below the mean for both positive and negative affect.

Finally we worked through some questions about formatting and referencing in Wiki. James explained how to put in a quiz and embed and change the size of images. Which i will try at some point!

Assessment
Have totally reformatted my text chapter this week. In the process of writing it in Word and slowly adding it all onto Wiki. Ive changed from a total focus on Emotional Motivators to a broader focus on motivators of Gambling. Emotion will still hopefully play a large part in the Body.

Key Terms
Personality

Personality Traits

Lecture
Key question for this week - Why do different people have different emotional and motivational states, even in the same situation?

There are a lot of questions about what impact personality has on motivation and motivation. I can think of heaps of situations where individuals were raised int eh same situations, same schools etc are completely different in their motivations. I suppose its possible that personality differences could be responsible for the motivational differences. Personality has never been an area that interested me personally and I dont have a lot of knowledge in the area so my reflections were minimal. I almost always go back to the Big 5 and relate personality questions to its becuase of its simplicity. With relation to this unit I think of motivation as being an offshoot of Conscientiousness, the task focused end of the spectrum. Emotionality, i see as a product of Openness and Neuroticism, a combination of that freedom that comes with openness and the varying degrees of prevailing positivity or negativity that come with hig or low neuroticism.

Key Terms
Psychoanalytic versus Psychodynamic

Drive

Unconscious

Lecture
I viewed the unconscious motvation week with scepticism. Have never really been a fan of unseen, untested theories based on a group of rich Viennese women. So, its no surprise the idea of the Freudian uconscious doesnt appeal very much. I view Freud as a stepping stone in Psychology, not the be all and end all that the general populace seem to. The annoying part for me is that the theories of the unconscious seem to make so much sense. Primal urges are explained by the Id, the Ego makes sense of the world and aims to satiate the Id's drives and the Super-Ego contradicts the Id and acts as a conscience ( Id, ego, and super-ego).

Tutorial
Tutorial 5

Key Terms
Holism

Positive Psychology

Self Actualisation

Eudaimonic

Lecture
The lecture this week centered on growth and positive psychology. The motivation to personally grow and develop our own talents, reach our own potential etc is not something that I think Psychology is traditionally associated with, mroe with interaction, behaviour and solving personal issues. It was surprising to note the number of perspectives and theories in the lecture. The standard Self Actualisation ones were there but in addition there was also information on relationships, validation seeking and growth seeking individuals and evil. Evil is not something i had expected in a positive/growth psychology lecture. It is considered a couple of ways by humanistic psychology. Firstly, it can be framed as non-integral to human nature and alternatively as part of human nature that can be 'awoken' by a negative situations.

Key Terms
Finished

Done

Complete

Lecture
Quick review lecture today, summary of the summary chapter of Reeve. The chapter focuses on understanding and applying motivation, motivating self and others and designing motivational interventions. The chapter concludes with the wisdom the author has gained though the research and writing of the textbook. Reeve identifies 16 points, one for each chapter. I doubt I can think of 16 pieces of wisdom. I think that the major benefit of me studying motivation and emotion has been to get a broader grasp of the impact that both motivation and emotion can have on individuals. It has helped me to reflect on my own motivations and how to achieve my goals. As I think I mentioned above, I'll definitely write out a set of career goals and be proactive about achieving them.

Matt.Long 21:22, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Tutorial
Tutorial 6

title: User:Matt.long


text:
User talk:Matt.long

 Hello Matt.long, and welcome to Wikiversity! If you need help, feel free to visit my talk page, or contact us and ask questions. After you leave a comment on a talk page, remember to sign and date; it helps everyone follow the threads of the discussion. The signature icon in the edit window makes it simple. To get started, you may

 * Take a guided tour and learn to edit.
 * Visit a (kind of) random project.
 * Browse Wikiversity, or visit a portal corresponding to your educational level: pre-school, primary, secondary, tertiary, non-formal education.
 * Find out about research activities on Wikiversity.

 * Read an introduction for teachers and find out how to write an educational resource for Wikiversity.
 * Give feedback about your initial observations
 * Discuss Wikiversity issues or ask questions at the colloquium.
 * Chat with other Wikiversitans on #wikiversity-en.

And don't forget to explore Wikiversity with the links to your left. Be bold to contribute and to experiment with the sandbox or your userpage, and see you around Wikiversity! If you're a twitter user, please follow http://twitter.com/Wikiversity. Jtneill - Talk - c 01:36, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

 Hi! My name is WikiversityJack. I am a pumpkin and a Wikiversity mascot. My aunt told me that fun + learning = Wikiversity. Let me know if I can help you out.

Motivation and emotion
Hi. Welcome to the unit and to Wikiversity! I look forward to learning with you and I hope you find the topic and the unit rewarding. Please feel free to let me know if you have any suggestions or would like help at any point along the way. Sincerely, James Neill, -- Jtneill - Talk - c 01:36, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Hi Matt, I like the way you are adding wiki links - even if they're red, that's OK, it means info is still needed about that topic. I added a couple of links to your user page. -- Jtneill - Talk - c 06:15, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Gambling textbook chapter
FYI, I dropped a quick note here: Talk:Motivation and emotion/Textbook/Motivation/Gambling. -- Jtneill - Talk - c 00:03, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

-- Jtneill - Talk - c 07:27, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: User talk:Matt.long


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The sport workplace/Jobs and careers in the sport and fitness industry

The following list offers samples of jobs, careers, employment and career positions in sport, recreation, health activity and exercise science. For specific sports that could be approached by a prospective employee see the ‘Sports List’. Please feel free to add to this list, provide further job titles or sub-categories under any career job listed and, especially, consider the industrial relations and sport workplace implications for particular jobs. Where possible, provide a link to an actual job description.

 * 1) Academic roles in university teaching
 * 2) After-school sport and physical activity club
 * 3) Apparel design
 * 4) Athlete welfare officer
 * 5) Australian Formula One Grand Prix
 * 6) Australian Institute of Sport (AIS)
 * 7) Australian Sports Commission (ASC)
 * 8) Biomechanist
 * 9) Camp America
 * 10) Camp Australia
 * 11) Coach development manager
 * 12) Coaching employment
 * 13) Collectibles (autographs etc)
 * 14) Commercial/business fitness manager
 * 15) Community Centre Assistant
 * 16) Community health officer
 * 17) Community recreation officer
 * 18) Community sport organiser
 * 19) Corporate health adviser
 * 20) Country clubs
 * 21) Customer Relations
 * 22) Department of Education
 * 23) Distributorships of sports goods
 * 24) Editing and producing a sport newsletter
 * 25) Education worker-instructor (e.g. swimming)
 * 26) Elite coaching
 * 27) Entrepreneurial ventures
 * 28) Ethnic sport
 * 29) Event management
 * 30) Events coordinator
 * 31) Events manager
 * 32) Exercise physiologist
 * 33) Facilitating outdoor programs
 * 34) Facilities management (e.g. facility maintenance, booking officer, pools, community clubs, tennis, fitness gyms, bowling green, golf club)
 * 35) Fantasy leagues and games developer
 * 36) Federal/state/regional/local/community sport engagement
 * 37) Fitness/gym instructor
 * 38) Fundraiser for sport and recreation organizations
 * 39) Government department/corporate/community fitness
 * 40) Greenkeeper, curator, caretaker
 * 41) Gymnastics club
 * 42) Health and activity promotion
 * 43) Health and Fitness in Institutions
 * 44) Health promotion coordinator
 * 45) High Performance manager
 * 46) Horse racing position – stable person, trainer, office worker
 * 47) Indigenous sport or working with indigenous people
 * 48) International sport body employment or internships
 * 49) International sport body internship
 * 50) Junior sport organizer
 * 51) Licensing manager
 * 52) Lifesaving
 * 53) Manager of community sport and recreation facilities
 * 54) Managing extreme sport
 * 55) Managing outdoor education
 * 56) Market researcher
 * 57) Marketing manager
 * 58) Marketing sports equipment
 * 59) Masseuse
 * 60) Media liaison
 * 61) Media release ‘journalist’
 * 62) Ministry for Sport employment
 * 63) National coaching schemes tutor
 * 64) National organizations as part of international body e.g. Australian Olympics
 * 65) National sport organizations e.g. Cricket Australia
 * 66) Non-profit organization employment  e.g. charitable trusts, fundraising
 * 67) Nursing home or elderly village physical activity officer
 * 68) Officiating role as umpire, judge or referee
 * 69) Outdoor education teacher
 * 70) Overseas national/provincial/regional organizations e.g. New Zealand Badminton
 * 71) Paralympics employment
 * 72) Performance analyst
 * 73) Personal trainer
 * 74) Physical activity manager
 * 75) Physical Education teacher
 * 76) Physiologist
 * 77) Physiotherapist
 * 78) Player development and career adviser
 * 79) Player manager/agent
 * 80) Professional athlete
 * 81) Professional Player Association officer
 * 82) Project Officer
 * 83) Promotions manager
 * 84) Public/private/primary/ secondary schools teacher or resource person
 * 85) Public relations officer
 * 86) Recreation and sport facilities manager
 * 87) Recreation development officer
 * 88) Recreation liaison officer
 * 89) Recreation manager
 * 90) Recreation programs officer
 * 91) Recreation/health promotion officer
 * 92) Recruitment manager
 * 93) Rehab for athletes and community persons
 * 94) Results Officer
 * 95) School sport officer
 * 96) Special Olympics employment
 * 97) Special Population Health Group
 * 98) Sponsorship manager.
 * 99) Sponsorship selling
 * 100) Sponsorship liaison
 * 101) Sport academy roles
 * 102) Sport administration
 * 103) Sport Advertising
 * 104) Sport and physical activity coordinator.
 * 105) Sport architecture
 * 106) Sport author
 * 107) Sport betting
 * 108) Sport coach
 * 109) Sport consultancy
 * 110) Sport development officer.
 * 111) Sport director
 * 112) Sport event manager
 * 113) Sport in specialised facilities e.g. elderly, rehab, jail
 * 114) Sport journalism
 * 115) Sport Lawyer
 * 116) Sport manager
 * 117) Sport marketer
 * 118) Sport marketing consultant
 * 119) Sport marketing officer/manager
 * 120) Sport memorabilia
 * 121) Sport merchandise sales
 * 122) Sport museums
 * 123) Sport nutritionist
 * 124) Sport psychologist
 * 125) Sport public relations and promotion
 * 126) Sport reporter
 * 127) Sport researcher
 * 128) Sport scientist.
 * 129) Sport shops (retail)
 * 130) Sport social clubs e.g. (a) adults (b) youth clubs
 * 131) Sport team Manager
 * 132) Sport team support staff
 * 133) Sport technology development
 * 134) Sport trust employment
 * 135) Sport/event ticketing
 * 136) Sport: medicine practitioner
 * 137) Sports goods merchandising
 * 138) Sportswear
 * 139) Stadium management
 * 140) State Institute of Sport employment
 * 141) State sporting organizations e.g. ACT Cricket
 * 142) Strength and conditioning manager or trainer
 * 143) Tourist resort activity officer
 * 144) Tournament director
 * 145) Town Council Recreation Centre manager
 * 146) University, TAFE tertiary institutions sports club or gym positions
 * 147) Venue Manager
 * 148) Voluntary agency officer
 * 149) Worker on a moderating body e.g. tribunal, drugs agency ASADA


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User:Herostratus

I am Herostratus on many Wikimedia projects, but I am mainly found on the English Wikipedia.

title: User:Herostratus


text: File:Snowman wiki.jpg

title: File:Snowman wiki.jpg


text: User:MichelleK/Image Gallery

title: User:MichelleK/Image Gallery


text:
User:Lisa Watson

About Me
Hi my name is Lisa and I am in my final semester of full time study completing a Bachelor of Psychology. I am majoring in Forensic Studies (Law) and hope to have a career in forensic psychology.

Week 1
Initially I was apprehensive about how difficult this unit would be so I didn’t know what to expect going into the first lecture. From the unit outline, I was interested in the topics covered so was keen to start, however the assessment items such as the e-portfolio were new to me so I didn’t know what to expect. Having said that, I can see the benefits of this type of learning so am keen to give it a go.

The first lecture was a good introduction to the unit and looked at the study of motivation and its history. The main concept from this lecture was the equation

Motivation = Energy + Direction

Broken down this equation means:

Motivation- Defined as “to move” in Latin.

Energy- is created through strong, intense and persistent behaviours.

Direction- Behaviour aimed toward achieving a particular purpose or goal.

That is, motivation is a combination of energy and direction. The four motivational sources that give behaviour its energy and direction (i.e its strength and purpose) are Needs, Cognitions, Emotions and External Events. Needs refers to physiological, psychological and social needs. These needs force us to seek out satisfaction in these areas, that is, motivation. Cognitions include such things as religious beliefs and are needs/drivers of behaviour. Emotions are the last of the internal motives and can drive motivation. Lastly, the fourth motivational source is External Events.

The study of motivation comes back to two questions, what causes behaviour (why do people do what they are doing?). And why does behaviour vary in its intensity? (why do people behave one way in a situation but behave differently at another time?). These questions are of particular interest to me as I have always been interested in understanding why people behave the way they do and how that can vary so much person to person.

Week 2
From reading about the assessment items in the unit outline, I was nervous about my ability to complete them as I have never done any form of blogging before and although i feel i am computer savey, I didnt have any idea where to start with my e-portfolio. This lecture helped immensly with the ins and outs of wikiversity! In terms of the textbook chapter, the lecture eased my fears a little bit, knowing there was a table of contents that we could work from gave me peace of mind there was a place to start and plenty of help along the way! It was also good to know we could develop our own ideas from this and focus on a particular area of interest to us. This made me excited about this assessment and was keen to get started. By the end of the lecture, although I was still feeling nervous about the e-portfolio, I was feeling much better about the unit in general and my ability to complete it! The topics we are covering seem very interesting and am looking forward to a few in particular.

Week 3
This first part of this weeks lecture focused on the brain in terms of motivation and emotion. I found this information particularly interesting as it breaks down thinking about the brain into 3 parts; the thinking brain, the motivated brain and the emotional brain. Thinking Brain: refers to cognitive and intellectual functions. Motivated Brain: Whether you want to do a task. Emotional Brain: What your mood is while doing that task.

Although each of these operates individually, I believe each part is interrelated and operates together. In terms of the neurotransmitter pathways in the brain, there are four motivationally relevant pathways which allow parts of the brain to communicate; dopamine, serotonin, norepinephrine and endorphins.

Essential hormones that underlie motivation, emotion and behaviour are Cortisol, Testosterone and Oxytocin.

Cortisol is known as the “stress hormone” as it is released in response to stress and is associated with poor intellectual functioning, negative affect and poor health outcomes. Testosterone is associated with high sexual motivation and also underlies the mating effect. Oxytocin is the bonding hormone, also known as the “tend and befriend stress response”, as it motivates seeking the counsel, support and nurturance of others during times of stress.

The second part of the lecture covered Physiological Needs. A Need is defined as “any condition within an organism that is essential and necessary for life, growth, and well-being.” Needs are an essential part of an individuals well-being. That is, when needs are satisfied, well-being is maintained and enhanced and when they are neglected, biological or psychological well-being is disrupted. It is for this reason that motivation states allow us to satisfy our needs to ensure no damage or disruption occurs. This part of the lecture goes into detail about 3 basic human needs; thirst, hunger and sex.

Abraham Maslow (1970) created a hierarchy of human needs as can be seen in the picture below.

Physiological needs being the primary human need and includes such things as breathing, food, water, sex, sleep, homeostasis and excretion. I found it particularly interesting that sex was considered a primary need. I guess it comes down to the evolutionary perspective of procreation. The second most essential of human needs in the hierarchy is safety. Safety includes security of body, employment, resources, morality, the family, health and property. Third on the hierarchy is love/belonging and includes friendship, family and sexual intimacy. Again sex is a human need but in I guess in a different perspective. In this instance sex is in an intimacy and connection sense, as opposed to an evolutionary perspective. Fourth in the hierarchy is esteem and includes self-esteem, confidence, achievement, respect of others and respect by others. Lastly on the hierarchy is self-actualisation. Self-actualisation includes morality, creativity, spontaneity, problem solving, lack of prejudice and acceptance of facts as human needs.

I am in two minds about whether I agree with this hierarchy. I am not sure if it centres around the definitiveness of the hierarchy itself or the order the needs are listed. On one hand I agree that the physiological needs are primary needs, mainly because they are essential to survive but as the hierarchy progresses I feel it is more of an individual thing so I don’t particularly like that it seems so definitive. To rank these needs so matter of fact even when they appear to be on a personal level and can vary from person to person.

Week 4
Quasi-needs

Refers to the ephemeral, situationally induced wants that create tense energy to engage in behaviour capable of reducing the built-up tension. Such examples of this include needing money at the store, an umbrella in the rain, etc.

Social Needs

Refers to an acquired psychological process that grows out of one's socialisation history and activates emotional responses to a particular need-relevant incentives.

Achievement

Need for achievement:

Desire to do well relative to a standard of excellence.

Standard of excellence:

Any change to a person’s sense of competence that ends with an objective outcome of success vs. failure, win vs. lose, or right vs. wrong.

Achievement Goals

Mastery Goals:

 * Develop one’s competence
 * Make progress
 * Improve the self
 * Overcome difficulties with effort and persistence.

Performance Goals:

 * Prove one’s competence
 * Display high ability
 * Outperform others
 * Succeed with little apparent effort.

Week 5
Psychological Needs:

An inherent source of motivation that generates the desire to interact with the environment so as to advance personal growth, social development, and psychological well-being.

Self-determination Theory
Assumptions:

 * People are inherently active
 * Person-environment dialectic

Three Psychological Needs:

Autonomy: self determination, independence.

Competence: sufficient skills to be confident/able in the environment you are in.

Relatedness: need to bond with other people.

 * All 3 of these need to be interconnected, i.e to be psychologically sound, all 3 needs to combined rather then satisfy only one or two.

Week 6
People’s motivation to exercise personal control over such things as their environment is based on their desire to make positive outcomes within that environment more likely to occur than negative outcomes. The motivation to exercise this personal control comes from the individual’s belief as to the power they have to influence outcomes.

Expectancy refers to a subjective prediction of how likely it is that an event will occur. There are 2 types of expectancy:

Efficacy Expectancy: Expectancy of being able to behave in a way to cope effectively with a situation. Outcome Expectancy: Expectations that ones behaviour will produce positive outcomes or prevent negative ones.

Empowerment: Possessing the knowledge, skills & beliefs that allow people to exert control over their lives.

Mastery Beliefs: Extent of perceived control one has over attaining desirable outcomes & preventing aversive ones.

Learned helplessness: Physiological state that results when an individual expects that life's outcomes are uncontrollable. In terms of the experiment used to show learned helplessness with the dogs, I found this a little unsettling. I see this experiment as quite cruel and the ethics behind it are questionable as I am not sure I agree that the knowledge gained from the experiment outweighs the psychological damage done to the dogs.

There are 3 components of learned helplessness; Contingency, Cognition, and Behaviour.

Contingency: objective relationship between a person’s behaviour and the environments outcomes. Cognition: Subjective personal control beliefs, Biases, Attributions, and Expectancies. Behaviour: listless, demoralised coping behaviour.

Week 7
No Lecture

Week 8
Class free period

Week 9
1. What is emotion?

Emotion is:

Feelings
 * Subjective experience
 * Phenomenological awareness
 * Cognition

Bodily Arousal
 * Physiological activation
 * Bodily preparation for action
 * Motor responses

Sense of Purpose
 * Goal-directed motivational state
 * Functional aspect

Social-Expressive
 * Social communication
 * Facial expression
 * Vocal expression

Emotions are one type of motive which energises and directs behaviour.

2. What causes an emotion?

A significant situational event leads to cognitive and biological processes such as Feelings, Sense of purpose, Bodily arousal, and Social-expressive.

The Biology Perspective of emotion has the view that biology lies at the causal core of emotion. While the Cognitive Perspective suggests cognitive activity is a necessary prerequisite to emotion.

3. How many emotions are there?

The Biological Perspective emphasises primary emotions. These basic emotions are anger, fear, disgust, sadness, joy, and interest. The Cognitive Perspective acknowledges the importance of the primary emotions, but stresses the complex (secondary, acquired) emotions.

4. What good are the emotions?

Emotions are used for Coping and Social Functions.

Coping Functions include such things as emotion used for protection, affiliation, rejection, exploration, etc.

Social Functions of emotion:

 * 1) Communicate our feelings to others.
 * 2) Influence how others interact with us.
 * 3) Invite & facilitate social interaction.
 * 4) Create, maintain, & dissolve relationships.

'5. What is the diff. between emotion & mood?'

Emotions:

 * Emerge from significant life situations and appraisals of their significance to our well-being.
 * Influence behaviour and direct specific courses of action.
 * Emanate from short-lived events.

Moods:
 * Emerge from ill-defined processes.
 * Influence cognition and direct what the personal thinks about.
 * Emanate from long-lived mental events.

Week 10
Three central aspects of emotion:

1.	Biological:

 * Autonomic nervous system
 * Endocrine system
 * Neural brain circuits
 * Rate of neural firing
 * Facial feedback

James-Lange theory of emotion suggests 2 hypotheses:

1. The body reacts uniquely to different emotion-stimulating events,

2. The body does not react to nonemotion- stimulating events.

Emotional experience is a way of making sense of bodily changes (e.g., a sudden cold shower → increased heart-rate/arousal → emotion e.g., surprise/shock/fear)

2.	Cognitive:

 * Appraisals
 * Knowledge
 * Attributions
 * Socialisation history
 * Cultural identities

An appraisal is an estimate of the personal significance of an event. It is this appraisal that causes emotion, rather than the event itself.

Primary attribution – good or bad

Secondary attribution – cause

Primary + secondary attributions → emotion

3.	Socio-cultural:

 * Socialisation history
 * Cultural identities

Emotion knowledge: Other people and cultures in general instruct us about the causes of our emotions.

Expression Management: How we should express our emotions.

Emotion Management: When to control our emotions.

The big 5 personality traits
The Big 5 according to the “NEO”:

 * Neuroticism
 * Extraversion
 * Openness to Experience
 * Agreeableness
 * Conscientiousness

Each measured by 6 facets (traits)

Happiness

Extraversion = Happiness, Happiness set point

Neuroticism = Unhappiness, Unhappiness set point

Performance and Emotion

Sensory deprivation:

An individual’s sensory and emotional experience in a rigidly unchanging environment.

Overstimulating, stressful environments:

Emotional disruption

 * Anxiety
 * Irritability
 * Anger
 * Cognitive disruption
 * Confusion
 * Forgetfulness
 * Impaired Concentration
 * Physiological disruption
 * Sympathetic
 * Nervous system
 * Hyperactivity

Human beings harbor motives for counteracting insufficient stimulation and underarousal, as well as for excessive stimulation and overarousal.

Control:

Perceived Control

Differences in people’s preperformance expectancies of possessing the needed capacity to produce positive outcomes.

In order to perceive that one has control over a situation:

 * 1) The self must be capable of obtaining the available desired outcome.
 * 2) The situation in which one attempts to exercise control needs to be at least somewhat predictable and responsive.

Desire for Control

The extent to which individuals are motivated to establish control over the events in their lives.

Week 12
Contemporary psychodynamic perspective

1. The Unconscious Much of mental life is unconscious.

2. Psychodynamics Mental processes operate in parallel with one another.

3. Ego Development Healthy development involves moving from an immature socially dependent personality to one that is more mature and interdependent with others.

4. Object Relations Theory Mental representations of self and other form in childhood that guide the person’s later social motivations and relationships.

ID and the Ego

Regression:

 * The process of forgetting information and an experience by ways that are unconscious, unintentional, and automatic.
 * Repression is the ego’s counterforce to the id’s demanding desires.

Suppression:

The process of removing a thought from attention by ways that are conscious, intentional, and deliberate.

Freud’s Drive Theory:

Source of Drive: Bodily deficit Impetus of Drive: Intensity of the psychological discomfort (anxiety) Object of Drive: Environmental object capable of satisfying bodily deficit Aim of Drive: Satisfaction by removing the bodily deficit.

Development of mental representations

Object Relations Theory

 * Unconscious tone
 * Capacity for emotional involvement
 * Mutuality of autonomy with others

Holism & Positive psychology
Holism:

and its strivings toward fulfillment. encouraging its development.
 * Stresses “top-down” master motives such as the self
 * Focuses on discovering human potential and

Positive Psychology:

strengths and competencies. and to actualize the human potential in all of us.
 * Devotes attention to the proactive building of personal
 * Seeks to make people stronger and more productive,

Self-actualization
Two fundamental directions

Autonomy = Greater mindfulness,Courage to create, Realistic Appraisals. Openness = Selfrealization

Actualizing tendency
individual toward genetically determined potentials. challenging experiences.
 * Innate, a continual presence that quietly guides the
 * Motivates the individual to want to undertake new and

Causality orientations
Autonomy Causality Orientation

 * Relies on internal guides (e.g., needs, interests)
 * Pays closer attention to one’ s own needs and feelings
 * Relates to intrinsic motivation and identified regulation
 * Correlates with positive functioning (e.g., self-actualization, ego development, openness to experience etc.)

Control Causality Orientation

 * Relies on external guides (e.g., social cues)
 * Pays closer attention to behavioral incentives & social expectations
 * Relates to extrinsic regulation and introjected regulation

The problem of evil
others?
 * How much of human nature is inherently evil?
 * Why do some people enjoy inflicting suffering on

Humanistic Theorists’ Views

when experience injures and damages the person. everyone. Human nature needs to internalize a benevolent value system before it can avoid evil.
 * Evil is not inherent in human nature. Evil arises only
 * Both benevolence and malevolence are inherent in

Positive psych & growth

 * Positive psychology looks at people’s mental health and the quality of their lives to ask, “What could be?”
 * Seeks to build people’s strengths and competencies.

Week 14
Conclusion and Review

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Motivation and emotion
Hi. Welcome to the unit and to Wikiversity! I look forward to learning with you and I hope you find the topic and the unit rewarding. Please feel free to let me know if you have any suggestions or would like help at any point along the way. Sincerely, James Neill, -- Jtneill - Talk - c 05:02, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

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title: User talk:Lisa Watson


text:
Motivation and emotion/Book/2010/Ekman's basic emotions

Do we experience emotions as happening to us, or are they chosen by us? (Ekman, 1992)

Introduction
Darwin's 1872 book The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals created a foundation upon which many scientific theorists have debated the origin, characteristics and evolution of human emotions. Darwin believed that emotions were universally innate in all human beings, lending weight to his theory of evolution whereby humans and primates shared similar emotional expression (Darwin & Ekman, 1998). Consistent with Darwin's view on the universality of emotional expression, philosopher and psychologist Silvan Tomkins was instrumental in promoting facial expressions as having a key role in emotion (Tomkins, 1962), and influenced other psychologists, including Paul Ekman, to pursue empirical evidence supporting Darwin's views. Conversely, well known anthropologists, such as Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson, unequivocally dismissed Darwin’s theories. Mead and Bateson argued that all social behaviour, including emotional expression, was a result of cultural experience and influence, and had little or no biological basis (Darwin & Ekman, 1998). Whilst there is still some contention on the innate nature of emotions, it is widely regarded and scientifically supported by an increasing body of evidence that emotions have a strong biological basis, universal to humans regardless of culture, yet subject to influence by social norms.
 * Are Emotions Universal or Culturally Determined?

Biography: Paul Ekman
Paul Ekman is regarded as a pioneer in the research of nonverbal communication, the physiology and expression of emotion, and the study of deception (Lifeboat Foundation, 2010). He studied at the University of Chicago and New York University as an undergraduate, where he developed an interest in the work of Freud, and decided to pursue a specialisation in psychotherapy (UC Berkeley, 2004). In 1958 Ekman completed his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology at the Adelphi University, New York, focussing on the role that a person's face and body played in communication, inspired by his participation in psychotherapy sessions where he observed more than just the expression of verbal cues. On completion of his Ph.D. he was drafted into the U.S. Army, where he took up position as Chief Psychologist at Fort Dix, New Jersey. Ekman also completed a three-year postdoctoral at the Langley Porter Neuropsychiatric Institute, within the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) (UC Berkeley). UCSF served as his place of work from 1960 till his retirement in 2004, where he is currently professor emeritus of psychology (Lifeboat Foundation).

Early in his studies of emotional expression, Ekman was influenced by three scientific mentors; Charles Darwin, Silvan Tomkins, and Duchenne de Boulogne (UC Berkeley, 2004). Darwin and Tomkins both believed in the universality of emotion and the innate nature of facial expressions. Tomkins was supportive of Ekman to conduct cross-cultural studies of facial expressions to support Tomkins' theories of universality, and assisted Ekman with his initial experiment (Darwin & Ekman, 1998).

Duchenne de Boulogne was a French neurologist whose legacy was his work on muscle contractions, particularly facial muscles (Hueston & Cuthbertson, 1978). Duchenne utilised early photography techniques to record facial expressions that he induced in subjects through the use of pinpointing electrical currents. The use of photographs of facial expressions was a technique that Ekman adopted to conduct his first experiment on the universal versus cultural origin of emotional expression debate.

Throughout his career, Dr Ekman has been awarded numerous grants from the National Institute of Mental Health and the Advanced Research Projects Agency of the Department of Defense, to continue his research programs (F.A.C.E. Training, 2010). Ekman's contributions to psychology was formally recognised by the American Psychological Association in 2001 by being named as one of the most influential psychologists of the 20th century.

Dr Ekman is now the Director of the Paul Ekman Group, LLC (PEG), creating interactive training tools based on his life's research, and consulting to various organisations, such as law enforcement agencies, educational institutions and the scientific community.

Basic Emotions
"If all emotions are basic, what then is the value of using that term?" (Ekman, 1999)

Theoretical Framework
The term basic, in the context of emotions, has been used in a theoretical context to describe three different perspectives (Ekman, 1999):
 * Each emotion is uniquely different from each other. Regardless of the nature of the emotion being positive, for example, satisfaction, relief, contentment; or negative, as in the case of anger, fear or disgust; each emotion will show unique characteristics such as physiological and behavioural responses (Ekman, 1999).
 * Emotions are a learned response to deal with fundamental life tasks. These life tasks may be experiences such as achievement, frustration, danger, and so forth to which an individual attaches a specific emotion to adapt to the life task presented (Johnson-Laird & Oatley, 1992; Lazarus, 1991).  In this perspective, emotions evolve from cumulative experiences of the past, not only one's own past, but also the past of our ancestors (Ekman, 1999).
 * The third point of view is that basic emotions are elemental, and combine together to form complex emotions, for example, contempt and happiness may occur simultaneously to express smugness (Ekman, 1999).Explosions.jpg

Ekman subscribed to the evolutionary approach that emotions are innate in characteristic and exist with some biological origin, yet are also adaptive to prepare and protect the individual engaged in specific inter- or intrapersonal activities. This concept has provided valuable direction into the research of the universality of antecedent events of emotion, emotional expression, physiology, and phylogenetic validity (Ekman, 1992a; Ortony & Turner, 1990). He describes emotions as being both an automatic response and an extended deliberate response (Ekman, 1994). An appraisal system forms part of any emotional response to stimuli. In an automatic response, the emotional expression is a near immediate response to an antecedent event and may appear involuntary in nature. For example, an individual may show instant surprise or fear at the sound of an explosion. Conversely, some emotion-relevant situations allow for deliberate cognitive processes to occur, such as in the case of being told of an event that one is not sure of how they are expected to react, perhaps subject to social norms (Ekman).

Ekman (1992) still maintains the importance of cultural and social influences to shape our emotions to enable coping mechanisms in emotion-relevant situations.

Characteristics that distinguish Basic Emotions
To qualify as a basic emotion within the basic emotion framework, the emotive response must adhere to a set of specific characteristics, and according to Ekman (1999) there are eleven criteria for an emotion to be considered basic and distinguishable from one another. These characteristics are summarised in Table 1.

Table 1 Characteristics that Distinguish Basic Emotions from Each Other Emotion

Core Emotions
As mentioned earlier, the deliberation of prominent anthropologists that emotions were culture-specific contrasted against Darwin's belief that emotional expression was universal across all human beings. Although initially skeptical that emotions could be universally innate, Ekman was awarded a grant from the Advance Research Project Agency in 1966 to support him in his quest to obtain the evidence needed to solve the argument of emotional origin (UC Berkeley, 2004).

Early Research: The Six Core Emotions
Tomkins assisted Ekman with his first experiment, providing him with photographs of facial expressions, and together they created a list of terms to describe the emotions expressed within those photographs. Facial expressions were used as these features of emotion were easier and more reliable to measure than internal expression, such as those common to psychotherapy. Ekman travelled around the USA, Chile, Argentina, Brazil and Japan, asking different participants to describe the emotion being expressed, by selection from a given list of words. Although each culture was uniquely different, the results of the experiment revealed a remarkable similarity in the relationship between facial expressions and emotions. After several years of similar studies, Ekman and psychologists Izard and Freisen had visited a total of 21 countries, and received overwhelming evidence to support the universality of emotions through facial expression (Darwin & Ekman, 1998).

Ekman was strongly criticised for his results by Mead's protégé, anthropologist Ray Birdwhistell, claiming that any of these cultures that participated may have been previously influenced by Western media, such as American television broadcasts, adding weight to the cultural argument for emotion. Around that time, neurologist Carleton Gajdusek had been studying two tribes in an isolated region of (Papua) New Guinea and recorded over 200 000 feet of film of the people (Berkeley, 2004). Ekman and Freisen spent over a year studying their faces, coming to the conclusion that there were no culturally unique expressions to be seen. With the help of Tomkins, Ekman and Freisen collated photographs from the films of the tribesmen, maintaining the focus on the relationship between facial expression and certain emotions (Ekman & Freisen, 1971). They hypothesised that if this race of people, isolated from any influence of Western civilisation, could recognise a similarity of emotion in the faces of these photographs consistent with the results of previous studies, then emotional expression would prove to be biological in basis and undeniably universal.

The collection of photographs totalled 40, representing a cross-section of male and female New Guineans of varying ages. The facial expressions were indicative of six emotions that previous studies revealed as the most commonly associated emotion to that facial reaction (Ekman & Freisen, 1971). These six core emotions were; fear, anger, disgust, sadness, happiness and surprise. The chapter on Emotion and Facial Expressions discusses the nature of each of these emotions, and the mechanics behind each corresponding facial expression.

Although the tribe had some difficulty in differentiating between fear and surprise, possibly because these two emotions may be commonly expressed together in their circumstance, the remaining results proved the hypothesis. Upon their return, Ekman and Freisen (1971) reversed the experiment and showed a group of San Francisco students the photographs of the New Guineans, and once again, evidence supported that the Westernised group could accurately judge the emotion in the photograph by facial representation.

Additional Research: New Emotions
Since the attribution of the original six core emotions, much research has continued by Ekman and others to isolated further basic emotions. The 1980s saw new evidence for contempt, which is now commonly grouped with the original six, however no pan-cultural studies have been able to take place, as in the original experiments with the New Guineans (Ekman, 1992b).

Further studies throughout the 1990s posed a new group of emotions fitting the criteria for basic emotion status; guilt, shame, interest, embarrassment, awe and excitement, although empirical evidence for these still require building upon (Ekman, 1992b). The expansion of the core emotion list also rendered new groupings of these emotions into positive and negative emotions. Ekman (2003) suggested that there were possibly sixteen positive, or enjoyable, emotions, which included the sensory emotions, relief, wonder, ecstasy and bliss, though he proposed them purely for future investigation.

Applications of Research
Ekman's contribution to uncovering emotions has lead to new directions in research and practical applications in society.

In the scientific community, research is being refined on the role of the central nervous system in expressing emotion (Keltner & Ekman, 2003), and also the relationship between the autonomic nervous system and emotion-specific activity throughout the lifespan (Levenson, Carstensen, Ekman & Freisen, 1991).

With the aid of the Facial Action Coding System (Ekman & Friesen, 1978), the use of computer imagery analysis to automatically identify facial movements as a research tool in behavioural science is currently being developed (Bartlett, Hager, Ekman & Seinowski, 1999). Ekman's research tools on facial expressions have also aided research to establish the impairment stages of emotion recognition in Parkinson's disease patients (Ibarretxe-Bilbao et al., 2009).

In the wider community, Department of Defense, law enforcement agencies, and various other government agencies have been able to utilise the results of Ekman's research to enhance national security.

In the general public, Ekman's work on non-verbal cues is relevant to anyone who strives for a greater understanding of interpersonal communication.

Key Points
Emotions have a strong biological basis, universal to humans regardless of culture, yet subject to influence by social norms.

There are three predominant theories to define basic emotions:
 * Each emotion is uniquely different from each other.
 * Emotions are a learned response, evolved from ancestral past, to deal with fundamental life tasks.
 * Basic emotions are elemental and combine together to form complex emotions.

Emotions are both an automatic response and an extended deliberate response.

There are eleven criteria to meet for an emotion to be considered basic and distinguishable from one another.

Each basic emotion is unique in physiology, signal and antecedent event, yet shares characteristics such as onset and duration, unbidden occurance and automatic appraisal, with other emotions.

Ekman and his team showed photographs of facial expressions depicting varying emotions to participants across 21 countries, and isolated tribesmen in (Papua) New Guinea, before he could conclude with supporting evidence that emotional expression through facial features was universal.

Based on this evidence, six core emotions were isolated; fear, anger, disgust, sadness, happiness and surprise.

Further emotions have been identified as having core attributes, such as contempt, excitement,guilt, shame, however more empirical evidence is needed. {{Hide in print|

Books by Ekman
Dr Paul Ekman has authored and co-authored many books and journal publications. For a comprehensive list, visit the Publications page on his website.

Other Interesting Resources
Dr Paul Ekman was included in Time magazine's Top 100 Most Influential People in 2009.

See Unmasking the Truth, an interview on Channel Nine's 60 Minutes featuring Liz Hayes and Dr Ekman (Friday, August 7, 2009).

LIE TO ME is a drama series featured on the FOX network. The main character is a lie detection expert by the name of Dr Cal Lightman (Tim Roth), whose skills are based on that of Ekman.

Dr Ekman also publishes a blog explaining the scientific basis of each LIE TO ME episode. }}


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Motivation and emotion/Definitions

These definitions of motivation and emotion were developed by students.

Motivation
Feel free to add your own definition of motivation:
 * 1) Motivation is a process towards a goal; it provides an individual with energy and direction.
 * 2) Motivation is internal or external drive to achieve something.
 * 3) A force that drives behaviour and gives it direction towards satisfying a need or desire.
 * 4) Process that drive behaviour.
 * 5) Energy or drive that results in behaviour.
 * 6) The reason as to why you do or don't engage in a particular behaviour, taking energy and directing it towards a goal.
 * 7) An energy that drives someone towards or away from something, conscious or unconscious, to return the body to a state of homeostasis (equilibrium).
 * 8) The psychological and/or physiological impulses which provide a desire/cause to behave and think; drive to do something.
 * 9) The urge to act with purposeful intent.
 * 10) The internal drive to achieve a goal.
 * 11) Inclinations towards or away from specific behaviours.
 * 12) An internal force that directs an organism to a particular internal or external behaviour and the intensity of application to that end.
 * 13) A need or a want that drives a behaviour towards an internal or external goal.
 * 14) An innate tendency towards a certain behaviour provoked by an internal or external stimuli.
 * 15) Internal or external drives that energises an individual's behaviour.
 * 16) The drive to do something.
 * 17) A desire or willingness to do something.
 * 18) Internal or external reasons for doing something or not doing something.
 * 19) A directed energy to do something that can vary in strengths and priority - something you want, need, or desire and it can be internal or external.
 * 20) A need, cognition, function or emotion that drives organisms to engage and continue with and terminate behaviour.
 * 21) An internal or external driving force behind a person's actions and behaviour.
 * 22) A drive which can be internal or external which compels us to perform certain behaviours which includes energy and direction.
 * 23) The driving force behind any behaviour.
 * 24) The drive for energy and direction utilised in setting a goal or goal-setting behaviour.
 * 25) The drive and energy that urges/pushes an individual towards a particular goal through behaviour.
 * 26) Gives energy to direct behaviour.
 * 27) Processes that give behaviour direction and energy.
 * 28) Energy and direction to behave in a goal-directed way.
 * 29) Energy to direct or focus on a task, eliciting a behaviour.
 * 30) Our internal individual drive that influences our behaviour, needs and desire to set goals.
 * 31) An internal drive which directs action.
 * 32) Internal drive or knowledge that pushes an individual to perform an action.

Emotion
Feel free to add your own definition of emotion:
 * 1) Internal state influencing the way we feel at any given moment.
 * 2) A feeling that affects the overall mood of an individual both physically and mentally.
 * 3) The expression of a feeling or state of mind.
 * 4) A chemical reaction we experience in a physiological and psychological way.
 * 5) Internal voice that can influence motivation and behaviour.
 * 6) A temporary internal state or reaction to an event.
 * 7) A physiological state of being.
 * 8) The psychological state.
 * 9) Something that follows our thoughts and guides our moods and behaviour.
 * 10) Internal sensation or state of mind.
 * 11) Temporary feeling-based responses to ongoing events.
 * 12) A strong feeling or sensation based on internal or external forces.
 * 13) A rational or irrational feeling that manifests from thoughts and cognitions and fluctuates throughout the day in intensity.
 * 14) An internal combination of physiological and cognitive states in response to a thought or an event.
 * 15) An individual's response to internal or external stimuli that maybe temporary or subjective and can influence our physiological state or behaviour.
 * 16) How you feel about a situation or event.
 * 17) The state of mind drawing upon circumstances, experiences etc.
 * 18) Passing sense of affect in response to an internal or external circumstance or state.
 * 19) A state of mind, thoughts affecting feelings, extrinsic forces in varying strengths and physiological reactions.
 * 20) A short-term, subjective-physiological-functional-expressive phenomenon.
 * 21) A concept to describe a physiological state at any given point in time.
 * 22) A psychological state of mind.
 * 23) A state of mind which is determined by thoughts and feelings.
 * 24) A fuzzy construct that its difficult to pin down, subjective in nature, can be a physiological state and psychological moment.
 * 25) The feelings an individual experiences in response to cognitions, thoughts, physiological influences and external stimuli.
 * 26) Feelings that affect a person's behaviour; emotions are intense and short.
 * 27) Cognitive thoughts and feelings that are descriptive in nature.
 * 28) Psychological and physiological state that influences thoughts, feelings and behaviours.
 * 29) The chemical reactions within our bodies that are reflected through our behaviours and feelings.
 * 30) A personal disposition towards, and subjective interpretation of past, present and future life events.
 * 31) A short-lived psychological state and expression of internal feelings.
 * 32) Feelings, energy, unconscious reactions to internal and external stimuli.
 * 33) A chain reaction of events, precipitated by stimuli or lack of stimuli, that take place within the body, that produces strong physiologic changes in concert throughout the body, resulting in a symphony of both mind and body manifestations. 	These shape the way we not only will feel, perceive, and think at that moment, but also reflects how those moments are experienced, stored, and recalled.

title: Motivation and emotion/Definitions


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Motivation and emotion/Book/2010/Stress and health

What is stress?
Imagine yourself in the following situation: It is the morning of an important exam, and you are feeling worried because you think that you aren’t quite prepared. You get into your car, but have trouble starting the engine. You crank the motor again and again without any luck. Finally, the motor roars into life and you are on your way to university. You are already running a little late, but think that you can still make it to your exam on time if you drive a little faster than you probably should – until you turn onto the main road to the university to find that traffic is at a standstill. Now, think of the different physical sensations and emotions you would be feeling in the aforementioned situation. You would probably feeling anxious and worried, your heart would be racing, you would be sweating, your stomach would be turning and you would suddenly feel highly alert. These are all symptoms of the stress response. Life is inherently stressful and almost every person experiences stress at some stage in their life.

Stress is a non-specific emotional and physiological response to demands in the environment, both positive and negative (Baum & Posluszny, 1999). In an evolutionary context, stress is an extremely important defensive reaction, activating the ‘fight or flight’ response – a process by which the body prepares to either face or run away from danger. The stress response is a multifaceted process that occurs when individuals are faced with stressors (stimuli that elicit stress) and involves both psychological and physiological elements.

The stress response
The stress response is an automatic physical and emotional response to stimuli that is perceived to be a threat to safety. Unconsciously, the cerebral cortex alerts the hypothalamus and the pituitary gland,which send signals to the adrenal cortex via the peripheral nervous system to release epinephrine and norepinephrine into the blood stream. Simultaneously, the pituitary gland sends signals to the adrenal cortex via adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) that is released into the blood. ACTH stimulates the adrenal glands to secrete mineralocorticoids and glucocorticoids (Marieb & Hoehn, 2007; Myers, 2007). These hormones affect a number of organs and systems in the body to produce the following symptoms: (Myers; Marieb & Hoehn)
 * Increased heart rate
 * Increased blood pressure
 * Increase blood-sugar concentration
 * Widening of the arteries
 * Diversion of blood away from stomach
 * Increased blood flow to skeletal muscles
 * Increased muscle tension and strength

The stress response also induces an emotional and cognitive reaction from the individual. Many emotions are elicited during the stress response such as anger, fear, anxiety or depressed mood (Baum & Posluszny, 1999). Cognitive function is also enhanced during the stress response, as mental alertness is heightened (Myers, 2007). All of these elements prepare the organism to either confront or run from the perceived danger.

General Adaptation Syndrome (Selye)
In 1950, Hans Selye published his theory explaining the mechanisms of stress – General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS) - in the British Medical Journal. This theory is still highly influential today in medical research. According to GAS, the response that every organism shows to stress is the same, regardless of the organism or the stressor that induces the reaction (Selye, 1950). In the GAS model, there are three stages to the stress response: the alarm reaction, resistance and exhaustion (see Figure 1).
 * 1) The Alarm Reaction – In this stage, the stressor is identified by the organism and the stress response rapidly occurs. Initially, the ability to resist the stressor is diminished, due to the physiological effects caused by the activation of the sympathetic nervous system (such as increased heart rate and diversion of blood away from organs such as the stomach to the skeletal muscles) (Myers, 2007). However, the body quickly adjusts and moves into stage two, resistance (Selye, 1950).
 * 2) Resistance – During this stage, the body deals with the stressor by increasing heart rate and blood pressure, increasing energy available to the skeletal muscles and heightening alertness temporarily (Marieb & Hoehn, 2007).  This response is only designed to be sustained for a short period of time, after which stage 3 occurs (Selye, 1950).
 * 3) Exhaustion – In stage 3 of GAS, if the presence of the stressor is sustained, the body’s resources become depleted and the body can no longer sustain an appropriate level of resistance to the stressor. The ability of the body to deal with the stressor becomes lower than it was prior to the stress response, which can leave the organism vulnerable to injury or disease (Myers, 2007; Selye, 1950).

Whilst this model is widely accepted by the medical community as an appropriate conceptualisation of the stress response, Selye did not make any firm distinction between the different type of stressors and did not take into account individual differences in the way people perceive stressors (Lazarus, 1993). In this model, both psychological and physiological stressors are treated in the same way; that is, a stressor is defined as anything that is potentially damaging to tissue (Lazarus, 1993). However, in reality, individual perceptions on what is a threat and what is harmful vary largely between different people (McCraty & Tomasino, 2006). In reaction to this, research moved in the direction of explaining the psychological (particularly, the emotional and cognitive) component of the stress response.

Cognitive Appraisal Theory (Lazarus)
The cognitive appraisal theory looks to address some of the deficits of the GAS theory and centres around the concept that it is the organism's perception and appraisal of the stressor that is the most important factor in the intensity of the stress response. This theory suggests that the stress response can be mediated by the individuals appraisal of the stressor as either a threat or a challenge (Larazus, 1990). Depending on whether the stressor is considered a threat to safety or positive challenge, the body’s reaction will differ. If the stressor is appraised to be a challenge, the stress response will be diminished and the experience will be more positive than if the stressor is perceived as a threat (which would induce the ‘typical’ stress response, defined by GAS) (Lazarus, 1993). Lazarus (1990) argues that the stress response is just one part of a larger process that is driven by cognition. This theory has been received favourably given that it takes into account the large psychological component of stress and how individual experience plays a role in the perception of stressors (Ursin & Eriksen, 2001). This theory also have implications for the management of stress, which is discussed later in this chapter.

Relationship between Stress and Health
Stress is one of the most important factors that mediates the relationship between health and behaviour (Baum & Posluszny, 1999). It is widely regarded as one of the most important factors in illness (Hanson & Chen, 2010) and is fast becoming a major public health problem (Gehling, Aubert, Padlina, Martin-Diener & Somaini, 2001). Acute stress can be beneficial for an organism, triggering the ‘fight or flight’ response and thereby increasing strength, stamina and attention for a short period of time (Ekman & Arnetz, 2006). However, chronic stress is disruptive to a multitude of psychological and physiological processes.

Over time, if the stress response system is activated continuously, the allostatic load caused by this can put strain on the body (Hanson & Chen, 2010). The ‘exhaustion’ stage of Selye’s GAS theory states that prolonging and sustaining the physiological and psychological reactions of stress long-term has the potential to weaken the body’s immune responses through exhaustion, thereby predisposing the body to disease (Baum & Posluszny, 1999; Selye, 1950). In the long-term, the constant presence of stress hormones within the body results in a range of effects on the organs that create homeostatic imbalance. Mineralocorticoids cause the retention of water and sodium in the body by the kidneys, which increases blood volume and blood pressure. Glucocorticoids increase the amount of glucose in the blood by suppressing insulin and increasing the conversion of fat to glucose (Marieb & Hoehn, 2007). Both of these processes put strain on the cardiovascular and immune systems, as both of these systems use the blood to transport oxygen, antibodies, immune cells and nutrients to cells as well as transporting waste and infection away from cells.

The psychological impacts of stress also play a role in health outcomes. Research has shown that individuals who are under chronic stress are more likely to engage in unhealthy behaviours such as excessive drinking, drug misuse, smoking, overeating and sedentary behaviour in order to manage and relieve the psychological discomfort of stress (Krueger & Chang, 2008). Increased alcohol and drug misuse has been strongly linked to stress in the research literature. The affect regulation model suggests that when stress increases, individuals 'self-medicate' with alcohol and drugs in order to reduce the feelings of distress and discomfort that come with stress (Grzywacz & Almeida, 2008). In their study into alcohol use, negative mood and stress, Grzywacz and Almeida found that the probability that a person would engage in binge drinking behaviours was largely increased on days when individuals experienced stress. Smokers also tend to report increasing their number of cigarettes they smoke during periods of high stress (Söderpalm & Söderpalm, 2006). Engaging in unhealthy behaviours long-term can result in a number of poor health outcomes such as cancer, obesity, health complications related to drug dependence or misuse and death (Krueger & Chang, 2008).

Chronic stress also leads to more instances of self-reported poor health and has been shown to be a large contributor to psychosomatic illness or pain (Ursin & Eriksen, 2007). Numerous studies have found that individuals who suffer from chronic stress report significantly poorer health than individuals who do not suffer chronic stress (Holmgren, Dahlin-Ivanoff, Björnlund & Hensing, 2009; Yu, Chiu, Lin, Wang & Chen, 2007). A study of Swiss participants found that not only did those who reported suffering chronic stress report more health complaints, the severity of the symptoms that they reported was significantly more likely to fall within a clinical range (Gehling, Aubert, Padlina, Martin-Diener & Somaini, 2001). Stress also appears to play a large role in the onset of psychosomatic illness, pain and medically unexplained health conditions. Sufferers of medically unexplained syndromes (such as chronic fatigue syndrome) often report that a stressful event preceded the onset of their condition (Rubin & Wessely, 2006).

Cardiovascular
According to figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, cardiovascular disease was the number one cause of death for both males and females in Australia during 2008 (ABS, 2010). Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is a blanket term used to describe a range of disorders that affect different components of the cardiovascular system including conditions such as myocardial infarction (heart attack), stroke, hypertension (high blood pressure), arrhythmia, aneurysm, thrombosis and oedema (Marieb & Hoehn, 2007). The associations between emotional states (such as stress) and cardiovascular disease have been well established over the last 20 years and have been shown to influence the development of cardiovascular pathology independent of other risk factors like smoking, weight and diet (Grippo & Johnson, 2009). So unsurprisingly, understanding the effects of stress on cardiovascular disease is becoming an important priority for medical science.

The relationship between stress (both acute and chronic) and CVD is well established, particularly in relation to myocardial infarction. Schnenck-Gustatsson (2009) found that stress was one of the most important risk factors in the development of CVD in women. In fact, stress is the primary cause of one type of myocardial infarction, called takotsubo cardiomyopathy, which only affects post-menopausal women (Ueyama, Kasamatsu, Hano, Tsuruo & Ishikura, 2008). This particular type of myocardial infarction was identified after an earthquake occurred in Japan, and the number of women suffering heart attacks increases dramatically (Ueyama, Kasamatsu, Hano, Tsuruo & Ishikura, 2008). As well as major life events, such natural disasters or periods of change and uncertainty, personality can influence stress, and it has been investigated in relation to CVD. During the 1980’s, type A personality was linked with CVD. Individuals with type A personalities tend to experience more stress due their propensity to be hostile and aggressive (Friedman & Booth-Kewley, 1987). However, research into type A personality and CVD was mixed and inconclusive, and the focus in recent years has shifted to other personality types that may be related to stress, such as type D 'depressive' personality (Pozuelo, Zhang, Franco, Tesar, Penn & Jiang, 2009; Denollot, 1998).

Given that a large portion of the changes that occur during the stress response are targeted at the components of the cardiovascular system such as the veins and arteries, it is unsurprising that over time, damage can also occur to these components of the cardiovascular system. High blood pressure (which is one of the primary symptoms of stress) when experienced over the long term, can weaken the walls of blood vessels and cause aneurysms to develop and rupture (Torii, Oshima, Kobayashi, Takagi & Tezduyar, 2007). Links have also been found between the presence of severe, acute stressors and the development of heart arrhythmias (Grippo & Johnson, 2009).

One theme that appears from the research literature into CVD and stress is that stress is an independent risk factor (given the pressure that the stress response directly puts on the cardiovascular system), but it also exacerbates other risk factors such as diet, smoking, levels of physical activity and weight. As mentioned previously, stress impacts the likelihood of a person engaging in unhealthy behaviours (Krueger & Chang, 2008). Learning to manage stress is one of the treatment strategies taught to CVD patients to help them manage their condition and reduce the likelihood of future illness (Grippo & Johnson, 2009).

Infectious Diseases
The situation experienced by the young woman in the case study, Jayne, is not uncommon for people who suffer chronic stress. Stress has a clear impact on the immune system and the wear-and-tear caused by stress can leave the body unable to mount a defense against incoming pathogens (Godbout & Glaser, 2006; Baum & Posluszny, 1999). Infectious diseases such as upper-respiratory infections, the 'flu, strains of herpes virus and hepatitis C have all been shown to spread faster in individuals experiencing chronic stress (Cohen, Janicki-Deverts & Miller, 2007).

The presence of chronic stress can increase the duration and severity of infectious diseases (Cohen, Janicki-Deverts & Miller, 2007). It has also been shown to help provide an environment within the body that promotes the activation and duplication of viruses and bacteria and is also being investigated as a potential cofactor in tumour growth and development (Godbout & Glaser, 2006). One of the hormones that is released during the stress response, glucocorticoid, has been implicated as the potential primary cause of immuno-suppression (Godbout & Glaser,). Once the immune system has been suppressed, viruses and bacteria that cause infectious diseases are more easily able to multiple and create infection within the body (Baum & Posluszny, 1999).

The emotional state that stress induces is also implicated in the increased propensity for those suffering chronic stress to also develop infectious diseases more rapidly (Clougherty & Kubzansky, 2009). The emotions associated with stress, such as depression and anxiety, has been shown to reduce the activity of key immune system cells such as natural killer cells and T- and B-cells (Godbout & Glaser, 2006).

The suppressed state of the immune system that chronic stress induces has large implications for the management and prevention of infectious diseases. Wound healing and surgical recovery has been shown to be greatly impacted if patients are in stressful environments. Godbout and Glaser (2006) found that wound healing was far slower under stressful conditions and the potential for the wound becoming infected was largely increased. The prevention of infectious diseases can be impaired by presence of chronic stress. When reading the case study, you may have asked yourself 'how it is that Jayne could have caught the flu and whooping cough, given that she had received vaccinations against those two viruses?'. Research shows that if Jayne received these inoculations whilst she was suffering chronic stress, they may not have worked. The antibody development process that occurs after being vaccinated can be impaired if the vaccine is administered whilst the recipient is under stress (Godbout & Glaser, 2006). B-cells play an essential role in the development of antibodies, and when the body is under psychological stress, the function of these cells is greatly reduced (Clougherty & Kubzansky, 2009).

Depression
The stress response elicits a wide range of emotions, however, it is mainly responsible for producing a state of negative affect (Krueger & Chang, 2008). Stress is considered to be one of the primary risk factors for the ontset of major depressive disorder and episodes of sub-clinical depression (Husky, Mazure, Maciejewski & Swendsen, 2008). Husky et al. found that stress has a large influence on the development of an initial episode of depression, however tends to play a lesser role in every subsequent episode of depression. This finding is consistent with much of the research literature on the role of stress in depression. One study found that in the three to six months preceding the onset of depressive symptoms, 50 to 80% of depressed individuals reported experiencing at least one stressful life event (Cohen, Janicki-Deverts & Miller, 2007). The genetic predisposition to develop depression also appears to play a role in how individuals react to stressors. A recent study found that those with a family history of depression tended to report heightened negative affect in reaction to life stressors (Wichers et al., 2007). There appears to be an interplay between genetics, cognitive and environmental factors in the relationship between stress and depression.

No one type of stressor appears to have a greater influence on the development of depression than any other. In a study into the effects of work-place stress on mental health, Siegrist (2008) found that work-related stress was associated with a significantly increased risk of developing depression. Childbirth is also a highly stressful life event, and post-natal depression can develop during this period of high stress and rapid change. Interestingly, the stress of having a new baby appears to influence the development of depressive symptoms equally in both mothers and fathers (Gao, Chan & Mao, 2009).

However, Gao et al. (2009) found that mothers tended to be able to cope with the stress better, due to greater social support. The ability to cope with the stress appeared to mediate the level of depression that the mothers in Gao’s study suffered. Research, like the Gao et al. study, suggest that one of the factors that may contribute to the high prevalence of depressive disorders amongst adolescents and young adults may be their inability to cope with stress effectively. Sun, Tao, Hao and Wan (2010) found in a study of Chinese adolescents that the ability to cope with stressful life events reduced the likelihood of developing depression.

Post-traumatic Stress Disorder
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is arguably the one of the worst health outcomes that comes from exposure to stress. PTSD is a debilitating psychiatric condition that is triggered by a period of highly traumatic and stressful experiences that involved actual or threatened serious injury or death or the actual or threatened danger to personal integrity, either of the individual or others (Bisson, 2007). PTSD is most prevalent among males, and there is a high prevalence amongst veterans of war (Bisson, 2007; Stein, 2002). Following the stressful event, sufferers of PTSD experience severe and debilitating stress reactions whether or not they are in the presence of a stimuli that may remind them of the traumatic event (Yule, 1999). The stress reactions that sufferers experience when they experience flashbacks are linked with the development of depression and suicide attempts are common amongst those with PTSD who are of adolescent age and over (Yule, 1999). The neurological damage that is associated with long-term chronic stress (such as decreased hippocampus size, due to neuron atrophy) can be found in sufferers of PTSD (Stein, 2002).

Even though greater than 50% of adults have experienced at least one traumatic event during their life time, only approximately 10% of these individuals suffer from PTSD (Bisson, 2007). Exactly what makes one individual more susceptible to PTSD than another is still an area of debate in psychology. One model suggests that suffering a psychological disorder earlier in life increases the chance of developing PTSD after being exposed to a traumatising stressor (Cohen, Matar, Richter-Levin & Zohar, 2006). Debate about what biological mechanisms drive PTSD is also still up for debate, although dysfunction of the same hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis that is activated in the normal stress response is returning promising results in an animal model (Cohen et al., 2006).

Preventative measures
Given the wide variety of health problems that are associated with stress, understanding how to manage stress in order to improve health is a high priority, particularly in developed nations (Gehring, Aubert, Padlina, Martin-Diener & Somaini, 2001). Thankfully, research is beginning to reveal that the effect of stress on health can be mediated by an individual's ability to cope with the stressor (Wang, Keown, Patten, Williams, Currie, Beck, Maxwell and El-Guebaly, 2009). According to the cognitive appraisal theory, it is the perception of the stressor that has the greatest impact on the level of stress produced (Lazarus, 1990), so learning strategies to help change the way an individual perceives everyday stressors (like the traffic jam from the start of the chapter) has a large impact on the levels of stress an individual experiences (Yu, Chiu, Lin, Wang & Chen, 2007). Like Jayne, many individuals use physical exercise as an effective method of reducing stress, although it can be difficult to get people who are stressed to engage in physical activity as sedentary behaviour can be highly rewarding over the short-term (Siegrist, 2008; Baum & Posluszny, 1999). Mediation has also been shown to be another effective method of stress reduction. In their study into CVD in an African-American population, Schneider and his colleagues found the use of transcendental mediation not only reduced stress, but in doing so, it significantly reduced the risk of CVD (Schneider, Alexander, Salerno, Rainforth & Nidich, 2005). Reducing stress can help improve self-reported health, as in the case of Jayne. Given the fact that the body is not designed to deal with chronic stress (Grippo & Johnson, 2009), making sure stress levels are managed is fast become an accepted method of controlling one of today's the largest public health issues.

Summary
Stress is an often unwelcome but common part of our lives and is widely recognised as one of the primary risk factors in health and illness (Hanson & Chen, 2010). This chapter has discussed the relationship between stress and health, looked in depth at four health conditions in which stress is a primary risk factor and discussed some of the preventative methods that can be used to reduce stress and thereby improve health. The two most prominent theories of stress - GAS and the Cognitive Appraisal theory - focus on different aspects of the stress response (the physiological and the psychological), but have both been shown to be quite useful in understanding the multifaceted nature of stress. The physiological features of the stress response impact heavily on the cardiovascular and immune systems, and the links between diseases of these systems and stress have been well established. Stress also has an impact of psychological well-being, with depression and post-traumatic stress disorder being the two psychiatric conditions which stress seems to exacerbate the worst. Thankfully, research has shown that the impact of stress on health can be moderated, in some cases, reversed, by learning coping strategies to effectively deal with stressors. {{Hide in print|

Quiz
{According to Cognitive Appraisal Theory, a stressor can be perceived as either: + A threat or a challenge. - A challenge or a hazard. - A hazard or a risk. - None of the above.
 * type=""}

{Approximately what percentage of adults that have suffered a traumatic life event go on to develop post-traumatic stress disorder? -20% +10% - greater than 50% -75%
 * type=""}

{Can emotions such as depression and anxiety affect the function of immune system cells? +Yes, emotional states such as depression and anxiety can have an impact on immune system function. -No, only hormones can affect the cells of the immune system.
 * type=""}

{Which of the psychological and physiological effects below is elicited during the stress reaction? (Clue: more than one answer is correct) +Emotions such as anger, fear, depression and anxiety -Hunger +Increased heart rate and blood pressure -The desire to sleep
 * type="[]"}

{Is stress detrimental to health? +Yes, both chronic and acute stress have a range of impacts on health. -No, stress plays no role in health. -Yes, but only long-term exposure to chronic stress affects health. -Yes, but only work-related stress is damaging to health. }}
 * type=""}