Introduction to Motivation and Emotion

Motivation is a process of initiating, guiding, and maintaining actions to fulfill physiological or psychological needs or desires.

For example, feeling hungry while watching television may drive someone to get up, walk to the kitchen, and find food; here, hunger initiates and sustains the action toward finding food.

Motivation can be intrinsic, driven by personal satisfaction or a sense of achievement, like reading a book out of curiosity, or extrinsic, influenced by external rewards, such as earning monetary compensation for completing a task.

Conversely, emotion is a complex psychological state such as fear, joy, or anger involving subjective experiences, physiological responses, and behavioral expressions.

Subjective experience is the personal feeling of an emotion, such as happiness, when receiving a job offer.

Physiological responses are the body's physical reactions triggered by emotions. For instance, when someone is scared, their heart rate increases, muscles tense, and they might sweat.

Behavioral expressions are outward signs of emotions, such as facial expressions or body language. For example, anger may show through frowning, a raised voice, or clenched fists.