|
Education
 |
A.B.,
Illinois, 1953 |
|
Ph.D.,
Illinois, 1958 |
Major
Area:
Motivation and Emotion
Research
interests:
I am interested in how motivation, emotion, and learning relate to each other as influences on thought and behavior. For example, people often make impulsive choices of smaller immediate rewards over larger delayed rewards, an effect called delay discounting. Such choices involve the resolution of conflicts between a “hot” emotional system which places more value on immediate rewards and a “cool” reflective system which places more value on future rewards. We are currently studying how individual differences in personality characteristics are related to such choices and how such choices might be experimentally modified. The processes involved in delay discounting appear to be important to our understanding of such addictive behaviors as drug abuse, excessive eating and drinking, and gambling.
Scholarly Interests:
|
Emotional
Conditioning |
|
Moods |
|
Cognition |
|
Interactions
of the above and behavior |
Representative
Publications:
|
Beck,
R.C. (2004). Motivation: Theories and Principles, 5th
Ed. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, Inc. |
|
Beck,
R.C., & McBee, W. (1995). Mood dependent memory for generated
and repeated words: Replication and extension. Cognition and
Emotion, 9(4), 289-307. |
Courses
taught:
|
Honors
Seminar |
|
Learning
and Motivation |
|
Motivation |
|