Moral feelings (e.g., guilt, pity) and values (e.g., honesty, generosity) motivate humans to act on other people’s needs. Research over the last two decades has suggested that these complex constructs can be decomposed into specific cognitive-affective and neuroanatomical components. This chapter gives operational definitions of what distinguishes moral from other forms of social and emotional functions. The cognitive components that distinguish different moral feelings (e.g., guilt being related to self-agency and indignation to another person being the agent) are elucidated. An overview of evidence from brain lesion and functional imaging studies on moral judgement and feeling in general is presented, with a focus more specifically on recent evidence that links particular brain networks to specific moral feelings (in particular, guilt and sympathy). The implications of this evidence for understanding psychopathology are addressed. The chapter also discusses the implications of opposing models of frontal cortical function for the understanding of moral cognition. Suggestions for future avenues of research in this area are provided. The cognitive neuroscience of moral emotions and motivations may provide novel and powerful ways to gauge complex aspects of adaptive and maladaptive human social behaviour.

Emotionally or motivationally significant stimuli tend to attract, divert, or hold attention more readily than neutral stimuli. These effects arise during numerous tasks, varying as a function of stimulus type or emotional cue. Their neural substrates involve enhanced activity of sensory cortices under direct influence of emotional or reward processing systems, including the amygdala, in combination with other top-down or bottom-up biases that together serve to prioritize behaviorally relevant information for access to conscious awareness. Other indirect influences act through interactions of emotional and motivational systems, with cortical or subcortical networks controlling attention, including executive functions and neuromodulatory pathways. These data reveal that attentional processes encompass multiple biasing signals that can modulate stimulus processing, based not only on space or object representations, as traditionally considered, but also value-based representations. Such mechanisms of emotional attention or affect-driven biases may operate preattentively, involuntarily, or non-consciously, yet nonetheless be regulated by current goals or context.

In this chapter we extend that discussion by considering classroom management in relation to creating engaging and motivating learning environments. Engagement and motivation are essential to young people’s success in various educational contexts, including early years, primary and secondary settings, and they can only occur in positive teaching and learning environments. Establishing and fostering such environments through effective classroom management is a source of concern for many preservice teachers, and this will continue to be the case as teachers progress throughout their career. This chapter provides an overview of various proactive strategies that serve to promote positive teaching and learning environments along with strategies for responding to student disengagement or off-task behaviour. Positive student–teacher relationships will also be described as an essential component for engaging and motivating students’ learning.

The life history approach to individual differences has become a major influence in evolutionary psychology, not least thanks to the contributions made by Jay Belsky and his collaborators over the last three decades. Today the approach is at a turning point, with a lively dialectic between proponents and critics and a menu of theoretical and empirical challenges to address. In this chapter, I follow up on previous work and continue to critically examine the concepts and assumptions of the “fast-slow paradigm” in evolutionary psychology. Specifically, I try to clarify some aspects of the interplay between the demographic and psychological levels of analysis, make an updated case for the centrality of the mating–parenting tradeoff in the organization of life history-related traits, describe the constellations formed by those traits, introduce the notion of multiple fast/slow profiles, and (re)consider the role of puberty timing in relation to human life history strategies. Preserving the value of the life history approach demands that we work to keep the foundations healthy – constantly revising our concepts and assumptions, in the spirit of Jay’s remarkable scientific career.

The details of the example of the ‘murderer at the door’ – as it is commonly, if inaccurately called – are more complicated than most interpreters assume. This chapter is dedicated to the details of the case, many of which surface only in the light of other eighteenth-century versions of the story. Does the would-be murderer know that the person hiding his intended victim knows about his murderous intentions? Why are the options of the person asked about the victim’s hiding place restricted to yes or no, and how would this restriction work in practice? What are the reasons or motives of someone who intends to lie to a would-be murderer? And what are Constant’s ‘intermediate principles’, which he introduces to defuse the problem case? The chapter also explores Johann Gottlieb Fichte’s discussion of the case in his 1798 System of Ethics. Fichte and Kant agree that lying is not a legitimate option; but Fichte is by far the more radical moralist of the two.

In this introduction, we describe the purpose for this book by addressing the question of why we should care about stories. We discuss how stories form "sticky" narratives that readers might more readily remember as they engage in a wide array of resources regarding career searching. We also discuss how the inspiration for this book – Studs Terkel’s Working (1974) – leads us to offer another perspective of work: specifically, the modern experience of starting a new job. We end with an overview of what to expect in the book and how to read it.

Chapter 8 draws on sociological literature in debating whether law – however drafted – is capable of solving the complex problem of discrimination against people who look different. It argues that, although we should not expect too much of law in tackling the complex social problem of appearance bias, strategically targeted laws can sometimes play a part in changing attitudes, norms and behaviours. While prohibitions on discrimination are important for remedial purposes, other types of legal and social reform may be better placed to create the conditions for greater inclusion of people with visible differences.

In his Republic, Plato claims that we always do whatever we do in pursuit of the good. But in Book IV of the Republic, Plato shows that people can have attractions and aversive reactions at the same time toward the same objects or actions. In this essay, I argue that Plato’s recognition and use of aversion as a motivating response cannot be squared with what I call his ‘motivational monism’, that is, with the view that the pursuit of the good is the only thing that motivates us. Rather, as Plato’s own arguments show clearly, sometimes we don’t pursue what is good; instead, we act so as to avoid what is bad. I contend that this negative motivation cannot be wholly understood in terms of our positive interest in what is good.

As soon as Italy entered the war, mobilisation orders were issued, from which emigrants were not exempted. From May–December 1915, two-thirds of the 300,000 emigrant soldiers would depart from their adopted homelands. Their passage was paid by the Italian government, but transporting thousands of reservists across the Atlantic was a formidable logistical challenge. This chapter examines the initial mobilisation of the reservists, their motivations for enlisting and their journeys to Italy in 1915. Their decisions to depart rested on many factors, including country of emigration, family situation, economic considerations, the length of time a man had spent abroad, degree of adherence to a sense of Italian national identity and political beliefs. Youthful naivety and a desire for adventure were also common motivators and the dangers of submarine attack when crossing the Atlantic a significant deterrent. Despite the mobilisation orders to emigrants, the Italian government had limited power to compel them to return from abroad to serve. The main incentive was a negative one: if reservists did not respond to the draft, they would be subject to severe penalties at a later date if they were to return to Italy.

Becoming a proficient reader in a new or second language (L2) is a complex process because it requires combining reading resources of both L1 and L2 into a dual-language processing system. Thus, L2 learners need support to overcome linguistic and processing practice limitations to read in a language in which they have yet to become proficient. As new technologies flourish, tools for learners and educators also increase. This chapter describes the background and historical perspectives of applying computer technologies to teaching and learning reading in L2. It then presents a survey of major CALL journals for current research and practices using technologies for L2 reading. Based on the survey findings, the chapter provides suggestions for effective integration of technologies into L2 reading teaching and learning vocabulary and reading comprehension, strategic reading, reading fluency and extensive reading, and motivation. Finally, future directions for applying technologies to teaching and learning L2 reading are discussed.

The issue of whether technology is inherently motivating for learners and teachers has often been discussed in the literature around computers and language learning. Yet, there is more to this relationship than initially meets the eye. This chapter outlines the ways in which symbolic power plays a part in both personal and institutional motivations for the adoption of technology. The chapter also looks at the way motivation is often credited as a key to success, though rarely with much empirical evidence. Finally, the article takes on a practitioner’s viewpoint to share several motivational techniques that can assist with practice and research.

Four themes regarding the nature of meaning making are proposed: (1) That humans are inherently motivated to seek and find meaning, from cradle to grave; (2) Meaning making is an active process, always involving an interaction between person and event; (3) There is a dynamic, transactional relationship between meaning and experience, with past meanings impacting what is experienced and new experiences altering meaning systems; and (4) The developmental process underlying meaning making is inextricably social.

TOT states have a subjective phenomenology to them that is worthy of investigation in and of itself. Although examining the mechanisms of word-retrieval failure is an important part of fully understanding TOT experiences, the mechanisms of word-retrieval failure are not the complete picture. For one thing, not all instances of word-retrieval failure result in a TOT state. For another, TOT states are an inherently subjective phenomenon with a potentially unique set of phenomenological qualities that distinguish them from other metacognitive states of awareness and experiences. Understanding the subjective phenomenology of TOTs could help to elucidate important facets of metacognition as well as human consciousness more broadly.

This chapter takes a look at the intricate relationship between music and our emotions, focusing on how music modulates activity within the four major emotion systems in the brain: the vitalization system, the pleasure, pain, and craving system, the happiness system, and the subconscious. It explores how music can stimulate our ’courage centre’, a core component of the vitalization system, motivating us during physical exercise and promoting relaxation. It also examines the profound impact of music on the pleasure, pain, and craving system, discussing how music can evoke pleasure, alleviate pain, and even address cravings. Furthermore, the chapter investigates the happiness system, highlighting how music can foster social bonding, tap into our ’soul’ (hippocampus), and promote both hedonic and eudaimonic well-being. It also examines the subconscious, revealing how music can influence our thoughts, beliefs, and emotional responses, offering strategies to counteract negative thought patterns and foster inner peace. By understanding how music interacts with these four emotion systems, readers can harness its power to regulate emotions, promote positive moods, and enhance personal growth.

In this chapter we touch on the idea of inter-learner variability in outcome (i.e., how far learners get) as well as rate of acquisition among different learners. We then link these issues to the idea of individual differences as explanatory factors. We focus on the most studied: motivation, aptitude, and working memory.

Chapter 8 focuses on the timescale in which the short-term timescale of activity and experience is embedded, namely, the creative artist’s life course. It discusses artistic talent, art school and training, the artist’s personality, including the relationship between psychopathology and art, the outsider phenomenon, motivation, inspiration, and drives for artistic creation, artistic identities, intersectionality, and the artistic persona, all of which are complex phenomena. The chapter also discusses the complexity of the relationship between personality and artistic creation, based on a complex dynamic systems approach to personality itself.