Emotion Philip Zimbardo Stanford University BF121 D57.2001 00:17:00 - 25:40

Motivation and emotion are intertwined. The motivational person moves physical toward or away from something. The emotional person is moved internally by psychologically significant situations. The result is a complex pattern of changes involving feelings, thoughts, behavior, and physiological arousal. A pattern we know as emotion.

We tend to experience motivation and emotion together. Moreover they are subject to the same influences. Why we do things (motivation) and how we feel about them (emotion) are both effected by our degree of optimism and pessimism or in psychological terms our explanatory style, how we explain our successes and failures to ourselves.

Martin Seligman has studied why some people succeed and some people fail because of their explanatory style. There are three dimensions his research team focused on: (a) external or internal [is the cause of this bad event something about me or something about other people and circumstances], (b) stable or unstable [is this bad event something that stays around? Am I stupid? Or I had a hangover], and (c) specific or global [is the cause of my failure something just about this one situation or something that is going to undermine everything I do? Being rejected by someone you love one could say I'm worthless. I'm unlovable. Being worthless is global. It hurts everything you do. Or the other hand you might say he was in a bad mood. It just him. It won't affect you in many situations.] These three dimensions add up to optimism and pessimism in the following way. Those of you who habitually say it is me, it is going to last forever, and its going to undermine everything I do are pessimists. Those of you believe you did it to me, its going away quickly, and it its just this one situation are optimists. Seligman's lab has shown the substantial influence of optimism and pessimissim in depression, achievement, and health.