Chapter 11: Emotion and Motivation

Chapter 11 deals with human emotions and motivation, in other words "what moves us?" The first section "Emotion" examines multitudes of definitions and theories surrounding emotions, all of which seem very interesting! As an animal lover, a section I found particularly interesting was titled "Support for an evolutionary basis of emotions" which goes into the similarities between the emotions expressed by both humans and many animals. One such example was the human sneer compared to a dog baring its teeth, both expressed in anger. The emotion section goes on to explain things like influences on emotion, body language, and lie detection.
The second section "Motivation" is where the question of "what moves us?" comes in. Starting off with happiness and self-esteem the authors give us common misconceptions as to what makes us happy (finally establishing that money does in fact NOT make us happy though it can affect our happiness). Later on in the chapter we get into our wants and needs then go through sexuality and sexual orientation to finally rest on the epitome of what people think is their main problem in life: love.