Chapter 17: Teaching Motivation and Emotion

Motivation and Emotion is one of the required courses in many psychology undergraduate programs because it covers a wide range of cognitive, emotional, physiological, and contextual variables helpful in explaining human behaviors (Hughes, 2011). Students learn about why people do what they do and what gives energy and direction to behavior (Reeve, 2015). So, students can get answers to some questions pertaining to daily life events such as: Why do I come to class? Why am I not succeeding in exercising? Can I stop smoking? We all talk about motivation and we frequently hear phrases like: “If I would be more motivated, I would run every day.” People often think that motivation is just a matter of quantity but actually there are different types of motivation that lead to completely different consequences.