Motivation and Emotion Class 11 Psychology Notes

NATURE OF MOTIVATION

The concept of motivation focuses on
explaining what “moves” behaviour. In fact,
the term motivation is derived from the Latin
word ‘movere’, referring to movement of
activity. Most of our everyday explanation of
behaviour is given in terms of motives. Why
do you come to the school or college? There
may be any number of reasons for this
behaviour, such as you want to learn or to
make friends, you need a diploma or degree
to get a good job, you want to make your
parents happy, and so on. Some combination
of these reasons and/or others would explain
why you choose to go in for higher education.
Motives also help in making predictions about
behaviour. A person will work hard in school,
in sports, in business, in music, and in many
other situations, if s/he has a very strong need
for achievement. Hence, motives are the
general states that enable us to make
predictions about behaviour in many different
situations. In other words, motivation is one
of the determinants of behaviour. Instincts,
drives, needs, goals, and incentives come
under the broad cluster of motivation.

The Motivational Cycle

Psychologists now use the concept of need to
describe the motivational properties of
behaviour. A need is lack or deficit of some
necessity. The condition of need leads to drive.

A drive is a state of tension or arousal
produced by a need. It energises random
activity. When one of the random activities
leads to a goal, it reduces the drive, and the
organism stops being active. The organism
returns to a balanced state. Thus, the cycle of
motivational events can be presented as shown
in Fig.9.1.
Are there different types of motives? Are
there any biological bases explaining different
kinds of motives? What happens if your motive
remains unfulfilled? These are some of the
questions we will discuss in the following
sections.

TYPES OF MOTIVES

Basically, there are two types of motives :
biological and psychosocial. Biological motives
are also known as physiological motives as
they are guided mostly by the physiological
mechanisms of the body. Psychosocial
motives, on the other hand, are primarily
learned from the individual’s interactions with
the various environmental factors.
However, both types of motives are
interdependent on each other. That is, in some
kind of situations the biological factors may
trigger a motive whereas in some other
situations, the psychosocial factors may
trigger the motive. Hence, you should keep in
mind that no motive is absolutely biological
or psychosocial per se, rather they are aroused
in the individual with varying combinations.
Biological Motives
The biological or physiological approach to
explain motivation is the earliest attempt to
understand causes of behaviour. Most of
the theories, which developed later, carry
traces of the influence of the biological
approach. The approach adhering to the
concept of adaptive act holds that organisms
have needs (internal physiological imbalances)
that produce drive, which stimulates
behaviour leading to certain actions towards
achieving certain goals, which reduce the
drive. The earliest explanations of motivation
relied on the concept of instinct. The term
instinct denotes inborn patterns of behaviour
that are biologically determined rather than
learned. Some common human instincts
include curiosity, flight, repulsion,
reproduction, parental care, etc. Instincts are
innate tendencies found in all members of a
species that direct behaviour in predictable
ways. The term instinct most approximately
refers to an urge to do something. Instinct has
an “impetus” which drives the organism to do
something to reduce that impetus. Some of
the basic biological needs explained by this
approach are hunger, thirst, and sex, which
are essential for the sustenance of the
individual.

Hunger
When someone is hungry, the need for food
dominates everything else. It motivates people
to obtain and consume food. Of course we
must eat to live. But, what makes you feel
hungry? Studies have indicated that many
events inside and outside the body may trigger
hunger or inhibit it. The stimuli for hunger
include stomach contractions, which signify
that the stomach is empty, a low concentration
of glucose in the blood, a low level of protein
and the amount of fats stored in the body.
The liver also responds to the lack of bodily
fuel by sending nerve impulses to the brain.
The aroma, taste or appearance of food may
also result in a desire to eat. It may be noted
that none of these alone gives you the feeling
that you are hungry. All in combination act
with external factors (such as taste, colour,
by observing others eating, and the smell of
food, etc.) to help you understand that you
are hungry. Thus, it can be said that our food
intake is regulated by a complex feedingsatiety
system located in the hypothalamus,
liver, and other parts of the body as well as
the external cues available in the environment.
Some physiologists hold that changes in
the metabolic functions of the liver result in a
feeling of hunger. The liver sends a signal to a
part of the brain called hypothalamus. The
two regions of hypothalamus involved in
hunger are – the lateral hypothalamus (LH)
and the ventro-medial hypothalamus (VMH).
LH is considered to be the excitatory area.
Animals eat when this area is stimulated.
When it is damaged, animals stop eating and
die of starvation. The VMH is located in the
middle of the hypothalamus, which is
otherwise known as hunger-controlling area
which inhibits the hunger drive. Now can you
guess about people who overeat and become
obese, and people who eat very little or who
are on a diet?
Thirst
What would happen to you, if you were
deprived of water for a long time? What makes
you feel thirsty? When we are deprived of water
for a period of several hours, the mouth and
throat become dry, which leads to dehydration
of body tissues. Drinking water is necessary
to wet a dry mouth. But a dry mouth does not
always result in water drinking behaviour. In
fact processes within the body itself control
thirst and drinking of water. Water must get
into the tissues sufficiently to remove the
dryness of mouth and throat.
Motivation to drink water is mainly
triggered by the conditions of the body: loss
of water from cells and reduction of blood
volume. When water is lost by bodily fluids,
water leaves the interior of the cells. The
anterior hypothalamus contains nerve cells
called ‘osmoreceptors’, which generate nerve
impulses in case of cell dehydration. These
nerve impulses act as a signal for thirst and
drinking; when thirst is regulated by loss of
water from the osmoreceptors, it is called
cellular-dehydration thirst. But what
mechanisms stop the drinking of water? Some
researchers assume that the mechanism
which explains the intake of water is also
responsible for stopping the intake of water.
Others have pointed out that the role of stimuli
resulting from the intake of water in the
stomach must have something to do with
stopping of drinking water. However, the
precise physiological mechanisms underlying
the thirst drive are yet to be understood.
Sex
One of the most powerful drives in both
animals and human beings is the sex drive.
Motivation to engage in sexual activity is a very
strong factor influencing human behaviour.
However, sex is far more than a biological
motive. It is different from other primary
motives (hunger, thirst) in many ways like,
(a) sexual activity is not necessary for an
individual’s survival; (b) homeostasis (the
tendency of the organism as a whole to
maintain constancy or to attempt to restore
equilibrium if constancy is disturbed) is not
the goal of sexual activity; and (c) sex drive
develops with age, etc. In case of lower
animals, it depends on many physiological

conditions; in case of human beings, the sex
drive is very closely regulated biologically,
sometimes it is very difficult to classify sex
purely as a biological drive.
Physiologists suggest that intensity of the
sexual urge is dependent upon chemical
substances circulating in the blood, known
as sex hormones. Studies on animals as well
as human beings have mentioned that sex
hormones secreted by gonads, i.e. testes in
males and the ovaries in females are
responsible for sexual motivation. Sexual
motivation is also influenced by other
endocrine glands, such as adrenal and
pituitary glands. Sexual drive in human
beings is primarily stimulated by external
stimuli and its expression depends upon
cultural learning.

Psychosocial Motives

Social motives are mostly learned or acquired.
Social groups such as family, neighbourhood,
friends, and relatives do contribute a lot in
acquiring social motives. These are complex
forms of motives mainly resulting from the
individual’s interaction with her/his social
environment.
Need for Affiliation
Most of us need company or friend or want to
maintain some form of relationship with
others. Nobody likes to remain alone all the
time. As soon as people see some kinds of
similarities among themselves or they like each
other, they form a group. Formation of group
or collectivity is an important feature of human
life. Often people try desperately to get close
to other people, to seek their help, and to
become members of their group. Seeking other
human beings and wanting to be close to them
both physically and psychologically is called
affiliation. It involves motivation for social
contact. Need for affiliation is aroused when
individuals feel threatened or helpless and also
when they are happy. People high on this need
are motivated to seek the company of others
and to maintain friendly relationships with
other people.
Need for Power
Need for power is an ability of a person to
produce intended effects on the behaviour and
emotions of another person. The various goals
of power motivation are to influence, control,
persuade, lead, and charm others and most
importantly to enhance one’s own reputation
in the eyes of other people.
David McClelland (1975) described four
general ways of expression of the power
motive. First, people do things to gain feeling
of power and strength from sources outside
themselves by reading stories about sports
stars or attaching themselves to a popular
figure. Second, power can also be felt from
sources within us and may be expressed by
building up the body and mastering urges and
impulses. Third, people do things as
individuals to have an impact on others. For
example, a person argues, or competes with
another individual in order to have an impact
or influence on that person. Fourth, people
do things as members of organisations to have
an impact on others as in the case of the leader
of a political party; the individual may use the
party apparatus to influence others. However,
for any individual, one of these ways of
expressing power motivation may dominate,
but with age and life experiences, it varies.
Need for Achievement
You might have observed some students work
very hard and compete with others for good
marks/grades in the examination, as good
marks/grades will create opportunities for
higher studies and better job prospects. It is
the achievement motivation, which refers to
the desire of a person to meet standards of
excellence. Need for achievement, also known
as n-Ach, energises and directs behaviour as
well as influences the perception of situations.
During the formative years of social
development, children acquire achievement
motivation. The sources from which they learn
it, include parents, other role models, and
socio-cultural influences. Persons high in
achievement motivation tend to prefer tasks
that are moderately difficult and challenging.

They have stronger-than-average desire for
feedback on their performance, that is to know
how they are doing, so that they can adjust
their goals to meet the challenge.
Curiosity and Exploration
Often people engage in activities without a
clear goal or purpose but they derive some
kind of pleasure out of it. It is a motivational
tendency to act without any specific
identifiable goal. The tendency to seek for a
novel experience, gain pleasure by obtaining
information, etc. are signs of curiosity. Hence,
curiosity describes behaviour whose primary
motive appears to remain in the activities
themselves.
What will happen if the sky falls on us?
Questions of this kind (What will happen if…)
stimulate intellectuals to find answers.
Studies show that this curiosity behaviour is
not only limited to human beings, animals too
show the same kind of behaviour. We are
driven to explore the environment by our
curiosity and our need for sensory stimulation.
The need for varied types of sensory
stimulations is closely related to curiosity. It
is the basic motive, and exploration and
curiosity are the expressions of it.
Our ignorance about a number of things
around us becomes a powerful motivator to
explore the world. We get easily bored with
repetitive experiences. So we look for
something new.
In the case of infants and small children,
this motive is very dominant. They get
satisfaction from being allowed to explore,
which is reflected in their smiling and
babbling. Children become easily distressed,
when the motive to explore is discouraged, as
you have read in Chapter 4.

MASLOW’S HIERARCHY OF NEEDS

There are various views on human motivation,
the most popular among these is given by
Abraham H. Maslow (1968; 1970). He
attempted to portray a picture of human
behaviour by arranging the various needs in
a hierarchy. His viewpoint about motivation
is very popular because of its theoretical and
applied value which is popularly known as the
“Theory of Self-actualisation” (see Fig.9.3).
Fig.9.3 : Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Selfactualisation
needs
Esteem needs
Belongingness needs
Safety needs
Physiological needs
Maslow’s model can be conceptualised as
a pyramid in which the bottom of this
hierarchy represents basic physiological or
biological needs which are basic to survival
such as hunger, thirst, etc. Only when these
needs are met, the need to be free from
threatened danger arises. This refers to the
safety needs of physical and psychological
nature. Next comes the need to seek out other
people, to love and to be loved. After these
needs are fulfilled, the individual strives for
esteem, i.e. the need to develop a sense of selfworth.
The next higher need in the hierarchy
reflects an individual’s motive towards the
fullest development of potential, i.e. selfactualisation.
A self-actualised person is selfaware,
socially responsive, creative,
spontaneous, open to novelty, and challenge.
S/he also has a sense of humour and capacity
for deep interpersonal relationships.
Lower level needs (physiological) in the
hierarchy dominate as long as they are
unsatisfied. Once they are adequately
satisfied, the higher needs occupy the
individual’s attention and effort. However, it

must be noted that very few people reach the
highest level because most people are
concerned more with the lower level needs.

Frustration and Conflict

So far we have taken a look at the various
theoretical perspectives on motivation. They
explain the process of motivation and what
leads to motivated action and what are the
reasons for different motives. Now we will try
to understand what happens when motivated
action is blocked or it fails due to certain
reasons. We will also try to understand what
happens when one is faced with more than
one motive or need at the same time. These
two concerns can be explained in the form of
two important concepts related to motivation,
namely frustration and conflict.
Frustration
We come across many occasions when things
go in an unexpected direction and we fail to

realise our goal. The blocking of a desired goal
is painful, but all of us experience it in life in
different degrees. Frustration occurs when an
anticipated desirable goal is not attained and
the motive is blocked. It is an aversive state
and no one likes it. Frustration results in a
variety of behavioural and emotional reactions.
They include aggressive behaviour, fixation,
escape, avoidance, and crying. In fact
frustration-aggression is a very famous
hypothesis proposed by Dollard and Miller.
It states that frustration produces aggression.
Aggressive acts are often directed towards the
self or blocking agent, or a substitute. Direct
aggressive acts may be inhibited by the threat
of punishment. The main sources or causes
of frustration are found in: (i) environmental
forces, which could be physical objects,
constraining situations or even other people
who prevent a person from reaching a
particular goal, (ii) personal factors like
inadequacies or lack of resources that make
it difficult or impossible to reach goals, and
(iii) conflicts between different motives.
Conflict
Conflict occurs whenever a person must
choose between contradictory needs, desires,
motives, or demands. There are three basic
forms of conflicts, for example, approachapproach
conflict, avoidance-avoidance
conflict, and approach-avoidance conflict.
Approach-approach conflict comes from
having to choose between two positives and

desirable alternatives. Avoidance-avoidance
conflict comes from choosing between two
negatives, or mutually undesirable
alternatives. In real life, these double
avoidance conflicts involve dilemmas such as
choosing between the dentist and tooth decay,
roadside food and starvation, etc. Approachavoidance
conflict comes from being attracted
to and repelled by the same goal or activity.
These types of conflicts are also difficult to
resolve, as they are more troublesome than
avoidance conflicts. A central characteristic of
approach-avoidance conflict is ambivalence —
a mix of positive and negative conflicts. Some
examples of approach-avoidance conflicts are:
a person wanting to buy a new motorbike but
not wanting to make monthly payments,
wanting to eat when one is overweight, and
planning to marry someone her/his parents
strongly disapprove of. Many of life’s important
decisions have approach-avoidance
dimensions.
A major source of frustration lies in
motivational conflict. In life, we are often
influenced by a number of competing forces
that propel us in different directions. Such
situations demonstrate the condition of
conflict. Hence, the simultaneous existence of
multiple wishes and needs characterise
conflict.
In all the cases of conflicts, the selection
of one option against the other depends on
the relative strength/importance of one over
the other, and environmental factors.
Conflicting situations should be resolved after
due consideration of the pros and cons of each
of the choices. A point to note here is that
conflicts cause frustration, which in turn, can
lead to aggression. For instance, a young man
who wants to be a musician but is pursuing
a course in management due to parental
pressure and is not able to perform as per
the expectations of his parents may turn
aggressive upon being questioned on his poor
performance in the course

NATURE OF EMOTIONS

‘Swati is very happy. Her examination result
has been declared today and she has topped
the class. She is feeling euphoric. However, her
friend Pranoy is feeling sad, as he has not done
well. Among her friends some are feeling
jealous of Swati’s achievement. Jeevan who
has not performed up to his expectation is
angry with himself; he feels unhappy that his
parents would be very disappointed’.
Joy, sorrow, hope, love, excitement, anger,
hate, and many such feelings are experienced
in the course of the day by all of us. The term
emotion is often considered synonymous with
the terms ‘feeling’ and ‘mood’. Feeling denotes
the pleasure or pain dimension of emotion,
which usually involves bodily functions. Mood
is an affective state of long duration but of
lesser intensity than emotion. Both these
terms are narrower than the concept of
emotion. Emotions are a complex pattern of
arousal, subjective feeling, and cognitive
interpretation. Emotions, as we experience
them, move us internally, and this process
involves physiological as well as psychological
reactions.
Emotion is a subjective feeling and the
experience of emotions varies from person to
person. In psychology, attempts have been
made to identify basic emotions. It has been
noted that at least six emotions are
experienced and recognised everywhere.
These are: anger, disgust, fear, happiness,
sadness, and surprise. Izard has proposed a
set of ten basic emotions, i.e. joy, surprise,
anger, disgust, contempt, fear, shame, guilt,
interest, and excitement with combinations of
them resulting in other emotional blends.
According to Plutchik, there are eight basic or
primary emotions. All other emotions result
from various mixtures of these basic emotions.
He arranged these emotions in four pairs of
opposites, i.e. joy-sadness, acceptancedisgust,
fear-anger, and surprise-anticipation.
Emotions vary in their intensity (high, low)
and quality (happiness, sadness, fear).
Subjective factors and situational contexts

influence the experience of emotions. These
factors are gender, personality, and
psychopathology of certain kinds. Evidence
indicates that women experience all the
emotions except anger more intensely than
men. Men are prone to experience high
intensity and frequency of anger. This gender
difference has been attributed to the social
roles attached to men (competitiveness) and
women (affiliation and caring).

PHYSIOLOGICAL BASES OF EMOTIONS

‘Divya is desperate to get a job. She has
prepared well for the interview and feels
confident. As she enters the room and the
interview begins, she becomes extremely tense.
Her feet go cold, her heart starts pounding, and
she is unable to answer appropriately’.
Why did this happen? Try thinking about
a similar situation that you have faced
sometime in your life. Can you describe
probable reasons for this? As we will see, a
great deal of physiological changes happen
when we experience emotion. When we are
excited, afraid or angry, these bodily changes
might be relatively easy to note. All of you must
have noted the increase in heart rate,
throbbing temples, increased perspiration,
and trembling in your limbs when you are
angry or excited about something.
Sophisticated equipment has made it possible
to measure the exact physiological changes
that accompany emotions. Both autonomic as
well as somatic nervous system play important
roles in the emotional process. The experience
of emotions is a result of a series of
neurophysiological activations in which
thalamus, hypothalamus, limbic system, and
the cerebral cortex are involved significantly.
Individuals with extensive injury in these brain
areas have been known to demonstrate
impaired emotional abilities. Selective
activation of different brain areas has been
experimentally shown to arouse different
emotions in infants and adults.
One of the earliest physiological theories
of emotion was given by James (1884) and

supported by Lange, hence, it has been named
the James-Lange theory of emotion (see
Fig.9.5). The theory suggests that
environmental stimuli elicit physiological
responses from viscera (the internal organs
like heart and lungs), which in turn, are
associated with muscle movement. For
example, startling at an unexpected intense
noise triggers activation in visceral and
muscular organs followed by an emotional
arousal. Put in other words, James-Lange
theory argues that your perception about your
bodily changes, like rapid breathing, a
pounding heart, and running legs, following
an event, brings forth emotional arousal. The
main implication made by this theory is that
particular events or stimuli provoke particular
physiological changes and the individual’s
perception of these changes results in the
emotion being experienced.
However, this theory faced a lot of criticism
and fell in disuse. Another theory was
proposed by Cannon (1927) and Bard (1934).
The Cannon-Bard theory claims that the
entire process of emotion is mediated by
thalamus which after perception of the
emotion-provoking stimulus, conveys this
information simultaneously to the cerebral
cortex and to the skeletal muscles and
sympathetic nervous system. The cerebral
cortex then determines the nature of the
perceived stimulus by referring to past
experiences. This determines the subjective
experience of the emotion. At the same time
the sympathetic nervous system and the
muscles provide physiological arousal and
prepare the individual to take action (see
Fig.9.6).
The ANS is divided into two systems,
sympathetic and parasympathetic. These two

systems function together in a reciprocal
manner. In a stressful situation the
sympathetic system prepares the body to face
the situation. It strengthens the internal
environment of the individual by controlling
the fall in heart rate, blood pressure, blood
sugar, etc. It induces a state of physiological
arousal that prepares the individual for fight
or flight response in order to face the stressful
situation. As the threat is removed the
parasympathetic system gets active and
restores the balance by calming the body. It
restores and conserves energy and brings the
individual back to a normal state.
Though acting in an antagonistic manner,
the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems
are complementary to each other in completing
the process of experience and expression of
emotion.

COGNITIVE BASES OF EMOTIONS

Most psychologists today believe that our
cognitions, i.e. our perceptions, memories,
interpretations are essential ingredients of
emotions. Stanley Schachter and Jerome
Singer have proposed a two-factor theory in
which emotions have two ingredients:
physical arousal and a cognitive label. They
presumed that our experience of emotion
grows from our awareness of our present
arousal. They also believed that emotions are
physiologically similar. For example, your

heart beats faster when you are excited or
scared or angry. You are physiologically
aroused and look to the external world for
explanation. Thus, in their view an emotional
experience requires a conscious interpretation
of the arousal.
If you are aroused after physical exercise
and someone teases you, the arousal already
caused by the exercise may lead to
provocation. To test this theory, Schachter and
Singer (1962) injected subjects with
epinephrine, a drug that produces high
arousal. Then these subjects were made to
observe the behaviour of others, either in an
euphoric manner (i.e. shooting papers at a
waste basket) or in an angry manner (i.e.
stomping out of the room). As predicted, the
euphoric and angry behaviour of others
influenced the cognitive interpretation of the
subjects’ own arousal.

CULTURAL BASES OF EMOTIONS

Till now we have been discussing the
physiological and the cognitive bases of
emotions. This section will examine the role
of culture in emotions. Studies have revealed
that the most basic emotions are inborn and
do not have to be learned. Psychologists largely
have a notion that emotions, especially facial
expressions, have strong biological ties. For
example, children who are visually impaired
from birth and have never observed the smile
or seen another person’s face, still smile or
frown in the same way that children with
normal vision do.
But on comparing different cultures we see
that learning plays an important role in
emotions. This happens in two ways. First,
cultural learning influences the expression of
emotions more than what is experienced, for
example, some cultures encourage free
emotional expression, whereas other cultures
teach people, through modeling and
reinforcement, to reveal little of their emotions
in public.
Second, learning has a great deal to do
with the stimuli that produce emotional
reactions. It has been shown that individuals
with excessive fears (phobia) of elevators,
automobiles, and the like learnt these fears
through modeling, classical conditioning or
avoidance conditioning

EXPRESSION OF EMOTIONS

Do you get to know that your friend is happy
or sad or indifferent? Does s/he understand
your feelings? Emotion is an internal
experience not directly observable by others.
Emotions are inferred from verbal and nonverbal
expressions. These verbal and nonverbal
expressions act as the channels of
communication and enable an individual to
express one’s emotions and to understand the
feelings of others.

Culture and Emotional Expression
The verbal channel of communication is
composed of spoken words as well as other
vocal features of speech like pitch and
loudness of the voice. These non-verbal
aspects of the voice and temporal
characteristics of speech are called
‘paralanguage’. Other non-verbal channels
include facial expression, kinetic (gesture,
posture, movement of the body) and proximal
(physical distance during face-to-face
interaction) behaviours. Facial expression is
the most common channel of emotional
communication. The amount and kind of
information conveyed by the face is easy to
comprehend as the face is exposed to the full
view of others (see Fig.9.8). Facial expressions
can convey the intensity as well as the
pleasantness or unpleasantness of the
individual’s emotional state. Facial
expressions play an important role in our
everyday lives. There has been some research
evidence supporting Darwin’s view that facial
expressions for basic emotions (joy, fear,
anger, disgust, sadness, and surprise) are
inborn and universal.
Bodily movements further facilitate the
communication of emotions. Can you feel the
difference between your body movements
when you feel angry and movements when you
feel shy? Theatre and drama provide an
excellent opportunity to understand the
impact of body movements in communicating
emotions. The roles of gestures and proximal
behaviours are also significant. You must have
seen how in Indian classical dances like
Bharatanatyam, Odissi, Kuchipudi, Kathak
and others, emotions are expressed with the
help of movements of eyes, legs, and fingers.
The dancers are trained rigorously in the
grammar of body movement and non-verbal
communication to express joy, sorrow, love,
anger, and various other forms of emotional
states.
The processes involved in emotions have
been known to be influenced by culture.
Current research has dealt more specifically
with the issue of universality or culture
specificity of emotions. Most of this research
has been carried out on the facial expression
of emotions as the face is open to easy
observation, is relatively free from complexity
and provides a link between subjective
experience and overt expression of an emotion.
Still it must be emphasised that emotions are
conveyed not only via face. A felt emotion may
be communicated through other non-verbal
channels as well, for example, gaze behaviour,
gestures, paralanguage, and proximal
behaviour. The emotional meaning conveyed
via gestures (body language) varies from
culture to culture. For example, in China, a
handclap is an expression of worry or
disappointment, and anger is expressed with
laughter. Silence has also been found to
convey different meanings for different
cultures. For example, in India, deep emotions
are sometimes communicated via silence. This

may convey embarrassment during
communication in Western countries.
Cultural differences have also been found in
the gaze behaviour. It has been observed that
the Latin Americans and the Southern
Europeans direct their gaze to the eyes of the
interactant. Asians, in particular, Indians and
Pakistanis, prefer a peripheral gaze (looking
away from the conversational partner) during
an interaction. The physical space (proximity)
also divulges different kinds of emotional
meaning during emotional exchanges. The
Americans, for example, do not prefer an
interaction too close; the Oriental Indians
consider a close space comfortable for an
interaction. In fact, the touching behaviour in
physical proximity is considered reflective of
emotional warmth. For example, it was
observed that the Arabs experience alienation
during an interaction with the North
Americans who prefer to be interacted from
outside the olfactory (too close) zone

Culture and Emotional Labeling
Basic emotions also vary in the extent of
elaboration and categorical labels. The
Tahitian language includes 46 labels for the
English word anger. When asked to label

freely, the North American subjects produced
40 different responses for the facial expression
of anger and 81 different responses for the
facial expression of contempt. The Japanese
produced varied emotional labels for facial
expressions of happiness (10 labels), anger (8
labels), and disgust (6 labels). Ancient Chinese
literature cites seven emotions, namely, joy,
anger, sadness, fear, love, dislike, and liking.
Ancient Indian literature identifies eight such
emotions, namely, love, mirth, energy, wonder,
anger, grief, disgust, and fear. In Western
literature, certain emotions like happiness,
sadness, fear, anger, and disgust are uniformly
treated as basic to human beings. Emotions
like surprise, contempt, shame, and guilt are
not accepted as basic to all.
In brief, it might be said that there are
certain basic emotions that are expressed and
understood by all despite their cultural and
ethnic differences, and there are certain others
that are specific to a particular culture. Again,
it is important to remember that culture plays
a significant role in all processes of emotion.
Both expression and experience of emotions
are mediated and modified by culture specific
‘display rules’ that delimit the conditions
under which an emotion may be expressed
and the intensity with which it is displayed

MANAGING NEGATIVE EMOTIONS

Try living a day in which you do not feel any
emotion. You would realise that it is difficult
even to imagine a life without emotions.
Emotions are a part of our daily life and
existence. They form the very fabric of our life
and interpersonal relations.
Emotions exist on a continuum. There are
various intensities of an emotion that can be
experienced by us. You can experience extreme
elation or slight happiness, severe grief or just
pensiveness. However, most of us usually
maintain a balance of emotions.
When faced with a conflicting situation,
individuals attempt to adjust and derive a
coping mechanism either with task or defenseoriented
reactions. These coping patterns help
them prevent abnormal emotional reactions

such as anxiety, depression etc. Anxiety is a
condition that an individual develops in case
of failure to adopt an appropriate ego defense.
For example, if the individual fails to adhere
to a defense of rationalisation for his immoral
act (like cheating or stealing), he may develop
intense apprehension about the outcomes of
such an act. Anxious individuals find it
difficult to concentrate or to make decisions
even for trivial matters.
The state of depression affects an
individual’s ability to think rationally, feel
realistically, and work effectively. The condition
overwhelms the mood state of the individual.
Because of its enduring nature, the individual
who suffers from depression develops a variety
of symptoms like difficulty in falling asleep,
increased level of psychomotor agitation or
retardation, decreased ability to think or
concentrate, and loss of interest in personal or
social activities, etc.
In daily life, we are often faced with
conflicting situations. Under demanding and
stressful conditions, a lot of negative emotions
like fear, anxiety, disgust, etc. develop in an
individual to a considerable extent. Such
negative emotions, if allowed to prevail for a
long time, are likely to affect adversely the
person’s psychological and physical health.
This is the reason why most of the stress
management programmes emphasise emotion
management as an integral part of stress
management. The major focus of emotion
management techniques is the reduction of
negative emotions and enhancing positive
emotions.
Though most researchers focus their
attention only on negative emotions like anger,
fear, anxiety, etc., recently the field of ‘Positive
Psychology’ has gained much prominence. As
the name suggests, positive psychology
concerns itself with the study of features that
enrich life like, hope, happiness, creativity,
courage, optimism, cheerfulness, etc.
Effective emotion management is the key
to effective social functioning in modern times.
The following tips might prove useful to
you for achieving the desired balance of
emotions :
• Enhance self-awareness : Be aware of
your own emotions and feelings. Try to
gain insight into the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of your
feelings.
• Appraise the situation objectively : It
has been proposed that emotion is
preceded by evaluation of the event. If the
event is experienced as disturbing, your
sympathetic nervous system is activated
and you feel stressed. If you do not
experience the event as disturbing, then
there is no stress. Hence, it is you who
decides whether to feel sad and anxious
or happy and relaxed.
• Do some self-monitoring : This involves
constant or periodic evaluation of your past
accomplishments, emotional and physical
states, real and vicarious experiences. A
positive appraisal would enhance your

faith in yourself and lead to enhanced
feeling of wellness and contentment.
• Engage in self-modeling : Be the ideal for
yourself. Repeatedly observe the best parts
of your past performance and use them
as an inspiration and motivation to
perform better in the future.
• Perceptual reorganisation and cognitive
restructuring : Try viewing the events
differently and visualise the other side of
the coin. Restructure your thoughts to
enhance positive and reassuring feelings
and eliminate negative thoughts.
• Be creative : Find and develop an interest
or a hobby. Engage in an activity that
interests and amuses you.
• Develop and nurture good relationships
: Choose your friends carefully. In
the company of happy and cheerful friends
you will feel happy in general.
• Have empathy : Try understanding other’s
feelings too. Make your relationships
meaningful and valuable. Seek as well as
provide support mutually.
• Participate in community service : Help
yourself by helping others. By doing

community service (for example, helping
an intellectually challenged child learn an
adaptive skill), you will gain important
insights about your own difficulties.

Managing your Anger
Anger is a negative emotion. It carries the mind
away or in other words, the person looses
control on behavioural functions during the
state of anger. The major source of anger is
the frustration of motives. However, anger is
not a reflex, rather it is a result of our thinking.
Neither is it automatic nor uncontrollable and
caused by others but it is a self-induced choice
that the individual makes. Anger is a result of
your thinking and hence is controllable by
your own thoughts only. Certain key points
in anger management are as follows:
• Recognise the power of your thoughts.
• Realise you alone can control it.
• Do not engage in ‘self-talk that burns’. Do
not magnify negative feelings.

Do not ascribe intentions and ulterior
motives to others.
• Resist having irrational beliefs about
people and events.
• Try to find constructive ways of expressing
your anger. Have control on the degree and
duration of anger that you choose to
express.
• Look inward not outward for anger control.
• Give yourself time to change. It takes time
and effort to change a habit.

ENHANCING POSITIVE EMOTIONS

Our emotions have a purpose. They help us
adapt to the ever-changing environment and
are important for our survival and well-being.
Negative emotions like fear, anger or disgust
prepare us mentally and physically for taking
immediate action towards the stimulus that
is threatening. For example, if there was no
fear we would have caught a poisonous snake
in our hand. Though negative emotions protect
us in such situations but excessive or
inappropriate use of these emotions can
become life threatening to us, as it can harm
our immune system and have serious
consequences for our health.
Positive emotions such as hope, joy,
optimism, contentment, and gratitude
energise us and enhance our sense of

emotional well-being. When we experience
positive affect, we display a greater preference
for a large variety of actions and ideas. We
can think of more possibilities and options to
solve whatever problems we face and thus,
we become proactive.
Psychologists have found that people, who
were shown films depicting joy and
contentment, came up with more ideas
regarding things they would like to do as
compared to those who were shown films
evoking anger and fear. Positive emotions give
us a greater ability to cope with adverse
circumstances and quickly return to a normal
state. They help us set up long-term plans
and goals, and form new relationships. Various
ways of enhancing positive emotions are given
below:
• Personality traits of optimism,
hopefulness, happiness and a positive selfregard.
• Finding positive meaning in dire
circumstances.
Summary
• The process of persistent behaviour directed towards a specific goal, which results from
certain driving forces, is called motivation.
• There are two types of motivation, namely, biological, and psychosocial motivation.
• Biological motivation focuses on the innate, biological causes of motivation like hormones,
neurotransmitters, brain structures (hypothalamus, limbic system), etc. Examples of biological
motivation are hunger, thirst, and sex.
• Psychosocial motivation explains motives resulting mainly from the interaction of the
individual with his social environment. Examples of psychosocial motives are need for
affiliation, need for achievement, curiosity and exploration, and the need for power.
• Maslow arranged various human needs in an ascending hierarchical order, beginning with
the most basic physiological needs, and then safety needs, love and belongingness needs,
esteem needs, and finally on the top of the hierarchy is the need for self-actualisation.
• Other concepts related to motivation are frustration and conflicts.
• Emotion is a complex pattern of arousal that involves physiological activation, conscious
awareness of feeling, and a specific cognitive label that describes the process.
• Certain emotions are basic like joy, anger, sorrow, surprise, fear, etc. Other emotions are
experienced as a result of combination of these emotions.
• Central and autonomic nervous system play a major role in regulating emotions.
• Culture strongly influences the expression and interpretation of emotions.
• Emotion is expressed through verbal and non-verbal channels.
• It is important to manage emotions effectively in order to ensure physical and psychological
well-being.
• Having quality connections with others,
and supportive network of close
relationships.
• Being engaged in work and gaining
mastery.
• A faith that embodies social support,
purpose and hope, leading a life of
purpose.
• Positive interpretations of most daily
events.