9.2 Behaviour, Motivation & Emotions

9.2 Behaviour, Motivation & Emotions

Items 3.7 and 3.8 sit together: "Definition and nature of Behavior, kinds of Behavior, Motivation" and "Emotions: definition, nature and physiological changes during Emotion."

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Behaviour

Definition

Behaviour is any activity of an organism that can be observed, recorded or measured — including internal activity, once it can be measured. The behaviourists restricted the term to the externally observable; contemporary usage includes covert activity accessible through physiological measurement.

Nature of behaviour

• Caused, not random: every behaviour has antecedents, whether biological, environmental or cognitive.
• Variable: it differs across individuals and within one individual across time and situation.
• Adaptive: it ordinarily serves some function for the organism, even when maladaptive in the long run.
• Modifiable: it can be learned, unlearned and reshaped — the assumption on which both therapy and yoga sadhana rest.
• Integrated: the whole organism behaves, not an isolated part.

Kinds of behaviour

The four Ds of abnormality — deviance, distress, dysfunction, danger — are the standard criteria and are worth being able to name.

The yogic account

Yoga adds a causal layer Western psychology mostly lacks: behaviour arises from Samskaras (impressions), which aggregate into Vasanas (tendencies), which express as habitual behaviour. Because Samskaras are laid down by repetition, they are also undone by repetition — which is the theoretical justification for Abhyasa. The mechanism is stated at PYS 2.3–2.9: the Kleshas generate Raga and Dvesha, and those two drive approach and avoidance behaviour respectively.

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Motivation

Definition

Motivation (Latin movere, to move) is the internal process that initiates, directs, sustains and terminates goal-directed behaviour. It answers the question why an organism does something, and why it persists.

The motivational cycle

Need (a deficit) → Drive (an aroused tension state) → Goal-directed behaviour → Goal attainment → Reduction of drive → equilibrium restored, until the next need arises.

Kinds of motive

The intrinsic/extrinsic distinction is directly useful in teaching: extrinsic motivation produces attendance, intrinsic motivation produces practice.

Maslow's hierarchy of needs

Lower needs ordinarily dominate until reasonably satisfied. In his later work Maslow added self-transcendence above self-actualisation — motivation directed beyond the self altogether — which is the point at which the hierarchy makes contact with the yogic account of Moksha as the Parama Purushartha.

A practical caution for teachers. A student in physiological or safety deprivation will not respond to appeals framed at the level of self-actualisation. Meeting people where their needs actually sit is a competence, not a compromise.

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Emotions

Definition

An emotion is a complex reaction pattern involving subjective experience, physiological arousal and behavioural expression, ordinarily elicited by a personally significant event. The word comes from Latin emovere, to move out — emotion moves the organism.

The three components

Nature of emotion

Emotions are universal in their basic set — Ekman's cross-cultural work identifies happiness, sadness, anger, fear, surprise and disgust as recognisable everywhere — while their display rules are cultural. They are transient, distinguishing them from moods (longer, more diffuse) and from temperament (stable and dispositional). And they are motivational: each carries an action tendency — fear toward escape, anger toward attack, disgust toward rejection.

Physiological changes during emotion

This is exactly what item 3.8 names, so learn the list. Intense emotion activates the sympatho-adrenomedullary axis, and the changes are stereotyped:

The yogic entry point. Of these changes, only respiration is under voluntary control. Heart rate, pupil size and sweating cannot be directly commanded — but breathing can, and because respiration is coupled to the autonomic state, deliberately changing it changes the rest. That is the whole physiological rationale of Pranayama in emotional regulation, and it is the single most useful thing a Level 3 teacher can explain to a student.

The three classical theories

The Schachter–Singer model is the one with the clearest yogic parallel: the arousal is not the problem; the identification with the label is. Cultivating Sakshi Bhava — witnessing arousal without appropriating it as "my fear" — is precisely an intervention at the labelling step. Compare Asmita (PYS 2.6), the identification of the seer with the instrument of seeing.

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Summary of Exam-Key Points

• Behaviour: observable/measurable activity; overt vs covert, voluntary vs involuntary, innate vs learned. Four Ds of abnormality: deviance, distress, dysfunction, danger.
• Motivational cycle: need → drive → goal-directed behaviour → goal attainment → drive reduction.
• Maslow: physiological → safety → love/belonging → esteem → self-actualisation (+ self-transcendence later).
• Emotion's three components: subjective, physiological, behavioural.
• Physiological changes: HR↑, BP↑, respiration↑ and irregular, muscle tone↑, sweating↑, salivation↓, pupils dilate, adrenaline then cortisol, blood glucose↑.
• Only respiration is voluntarily controllable — the rationale for Pranayama.
• James–Lange (arousal → emotion), Cannon–Bard (simultaneous), Schachter–Singer (arousal + label).