What Drives Us: A Simple Guide to Motivation and Emotion

Why do we do the things we do? It’s a question we ask ourselves and others all the time. Why did I stay up late to finish that book? Why did I choose a salad over pizza? Why do some people thrive on challenge while others prefer comfort?

The answer is anything but simple. Describing what someone is doing is easy; explaining why they're doing it is another universe entirely. This first unit was all about mapping that universe.

Motivation

Motivation isn't a single switch you can flip on or off. It's the process that gives our behavior three key things: energy, direction, and persistence. It’s the force that gets you off the couch (energy), points you toward the fridge (direction), and keeps you looking for a snack even when the first thing you see isn't quite right (persistence).

This driving force comes from two places: internal motives and external events.

Internal Motives are the things happening inside us, and we can break them down into three categories:

• Needs: These are the essentials. They range from the obvious biological ones like hunger and thirst to the deeply psychological, like our need for autonomy (to feel in control), competence (to feel effective), and relatedness (to feel connected). There are also social needs we learn, like the drive for achievement or power.

• Cognitions: This is all about our mental processes -our goals, beliefs, and expectations. The thought, "I want to pass this class," is a powerful motivator.

• Emotions: And here is a key connection -emotions themselves are one type of motive.

This brings us to the other half of the coin: emotion.

Emotion

Emotions aren't just simple feelings. They’re complex, short-lived episodes that synchronize a bunch of different responses inside of us. When you experience an emotion, it’s a package deal involving a subjective feeling, bodily arousal (like a racing heart), a goal-directed impulse, and an outward expression. They are our body and mind's rapid-response system to important events happening around us.

The Functional View of Emotion

Every emotion, even the ones that feel unpleasant, has a job to do. They are essentially adaptive tools that help us cope with fundamental life tasks.

For example, these are the functions of some basic emotions:

• Fear: protection. It acts as an alarm when we perceive a threat.

• Anger: help overcome an obstacle.

• Sadness: often, encourage reunion after a loss.

It’s interesting to see emotions this way, as having a practical purpose. So it's less about whether an emotion is "good" or "bad" and more about what it's trying to do for us.

Emotions are also intensely social. They communicate our feelings to others and are fundamental in creating, maintaining, and even dissolving our relationships. A simple shared smile can build a bridge, while a look of contempt can burn it down.

How are Motivation and Emotion Related?

They're in a constant dance. Emotions are a type of motive, but they also act as a "readout" system, a dashboard for our motivational state. Positive emotions signal that our motives are being satisfied ("all is well"), while negative emotions signal that they're being frustrated ("all is not well").

And all of this is happening inside the brain, which the course presents as a kind of dual system:

• The subcortical brain: An ancient, primal area associated with basic urges and emotion-rich motivations (desire, pleasure, fear, anger).

• The cortical brain: The wrinkled surface we all picture, associated with conscious, deliberate thought, goals, and self-control.

These two systems are in constant, bi-directional communication. This perfectly explains that internal tug-of-war between what we want in the moment (an impulse from the subcortical regions) and what we know is best for us long-term (a plan from our cortical brain). Maturity, in a neurological sense, is largely about the cortical brain getting better at regulating those powerful subcortical urges.

These concepts can give us a new lens through which to see ourselves and others. Our behavior isn't random. It's a dynamic stream influenced by a complex web of needs, thoughts, and feelings, all working to help us navigate the world.

"You are not your feelings. You just experience them. Like weather, they will pass." — Matt Haig, Reasons to Stay Alive

Sources:

Psychology of Motivation and Emotion, Unit 1. University of Valencia

• Chapter 1: Introduction. Understanding motivation and emotion (7ª Ed). Reeve, J. (2018). Wiley.

• Chapter 3: The motivated and emotional brain. Understanding motivation and emotion (7ª Ed). Reeve, J. (2018). Wiley.

• Chapter 12: Nature of emotion: six perennial questions. Understanding motivation and emotion (7ª Ed). Reeve, J. (2018). Wiley