Tim Tebow - A Look at Motivation

Timothy Richard Tebow, a Quarterback for the Florida Gators, led the Gators to the National Title last year, with the help of his teammates. He is perceived as one of the best college football quarterbacks of all time, and is the first college sophomore to win the Heisman Trophy. As a sophomore in the 2007 season, he broke the Southeastern conference records for both rushing touchdowns, and total touchdowns in a single season. His performance in 2007 earned him the Maxwell Award for the nations best football player, the Davey O'Brien award for the nation's best quarterback, and the James E. Sullivan Award as the nation's most outstanding amateur athlete in any sport. In the 2008 season, Tebow was looking to lead the Gator's to an undefeated season, but was sidetracked by Ole Miss, who gave the Gators an unexpected loss. In a press conference shortly after the Ole Miss Game, Tebow swore to his teammates, his coach Urban Meyer, and all of the United States that he would not allow the Gator's to lose another game. He took the blame for the loss, and pledged that he would lead the Gator's to the National Title, which he did. The Gator's won the championships in January, giving them their second national title in 3 years.


Timothy Tebow is overcome with motivation. A motive is defined as a reason or purpose that provides a single explanation for several behavior. Tim Tebow's motivation for working as hard as he did was to lead the Gator's to victory, and show that they would not be overcome by this loss. Motivation helps explain why behavior changes over time. For example, many people are unable to lose weight, or quit smoking until they have serious health symptoms or something else of a serious nature, and that gives them the motivation to stop those negative behaviors. Tim Tebow wanted the national championship title so badly that he would not stop at nothing to get it, and he did. The power of motivation is absolutely amazing.

Jeffrey Dahmer - Antisocial Personality Disorder

Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer (May 21, 1960 - November 28, 1994) was a serial killer, as well as a sex offender. He was charged with murdering 17 men and boys, in particularly gruesome ways. Some of his methods included rape, necrophilia, cannibalism, an dismemberment. As a young child, Dahmer did not display any characteristics of being different, but that began to change when he was about ten years old. Between the ages of ten and fifteen years old, he did not display any interest in social interactions, and became very withdrawn. He would bike around his neighborhood looking for dead animals, and would do very strange things with them, such as putting a dogs head on a snake. In 1982, Dahmer moved in with his grandmother in Wisconsin, where his behavior became increasingly strange. He was arrested twice for indecent exposure, once after he was caught masturbating in front of two young boys. Foul smells began protruding from his basement, and his grandmother kicked him out. His first murder was in 1978, where he picked up a young man named Steven Hicks, and then bludgeoned him to death with a barbell after sex, then burying the body in his backyard. Nine years would pass until his next victim, Steven Tuomi. After Tuomi, his murders began to increase more and more in number. He usually picked his victims up in gay bars, and then killed them after sex. Finally, after attempting to murder Tracy Edwards, Edwards fled from his apartment and flagged down two police officers, who came to investigate the apartment and found severed heads in the refrigerator, a decomposing body in the bedroom, an severed hands, penises, and heads. Dahmer was arrested and sentenced to 15 life terms, totalling 957 years. He was killed in prison by another inmate, who bludgeoned him to death with a barbell.

Jeffrey was suffering from what is known as Antisocial Personality Disorder. This is defined as a pervasive pattern of disregard for, and violation of others that begins in childhood, and continues on into adulthood. Deceit and manipulation are some basic components of this complex disorder. People diagnosed with Antisocial Personality Disorder are usually labeled psychopaths, or sociopaths as well. Most people with the disorder have no regard for other people whatsoever, and are very likely to use people for their own profit or pleasure. This is Dahmer's case exactly - he was going to bars and lying to men; manipulating them so that they would go home with them, where he would later murder them without a second thought. Antisocial Personality Disorder is found in 3% of males, and 1% of females. People with this disorder can function in society, and appear very normal in many cases, but they have a deep, dark mind that is not usually exposed to anyone else.

Mary Kate Olsen - A Look At Anorexia Nervosa

Mary Kate Olsen, one of the two famous Olsen twins, was diagnosed with Anorexia Nervosa shortly after her 18th birthday. A lot of finger pointing and gossiping had been going on about her sudden and dramatic weight loss. She was rumoured to be weighing a mere 80 pounds in this photograph. In 2004, after a barrage of tabloids all across the nation were screaming that Mary Kate Olsen had an eating disorder, she checked herself into a rehab in Utah, and immediately gained seven lbs upon her release. Mary Kate is rumoured to be doing well now, but magazines and tabloids are beginning to publish photos of her very small frame once again, claiming that she may be having a relapse.

Anorexia Nervosa is a psychiatric illness that describes an eating disorder characterized by extremely low body weight and body image distortion with an obsessive fear of gaining weight. People diagnosed with Anorexia control their body weight by starving themselves, purging, diet pills, laxatives, and diuretics. It is a very complex condition that can lead to death in many cases. It is an illness that affects thousands every year; anyone from full grown men to young teenage girls have been known to suffer from this illness. If Anorexia is developed before puberty, puberty can be delayed. It is a very serious illness that requires a lot of rehabilitation to overcome. Most people that develop Anorexia Nervosa will struggle with it for most of their lives unless rehabilitated.

Half Ton Mom - The Morbidly Obese in the U.S

Renee Williams, a 29 year old mother of two daughters, was classified as super morbidly obese, reaching a shocking weight of 1,050 lbs. Being one of the heaviest women in the world, she decided to seek help. Renee had always been overweight, but a car accident left her bed-ridden, causing her to gain even more weight; so much weight, in fact, that she could not even get out of bed anymore. Renee finally decided that it was time to get help after she was told she had less then a year to live, and began seeking a hospital that would perform a gastric bypass upon her. This was no easy feat, since Renee was so large. Finally, Renaissance Hospital in Texas decided to perform the bypass on Renee. She began losing weight at an astounding rate after the surgery, but died of a heart attack a mere 12 days after the operation, leaving behind her two daughters. Renee's fight has become a beacon of hope for the obese everywhere.

Obesity is defined as a condition in which a person's body mass index (BMI) is greater than 30. Applying the BMI criterion, about 32% of adults in the United States are obese, as well as 17 percent of children. Obesity is associated with health problems such as Diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, and many more. Obese people tend to eat above-average amounts of high-calories, tasty foods, but below average amounts of less tasty foods. Furthermore, they are usually less active than lean people, which also contributes to obesity. It has been proven that some people have a pre-disposition to obesity, which can be passed down through families. Obesity is a serious problem in the United States, causing 30,000 deaths per year.

Sybil - Dissociative Identity Disorder

Sybil Dorsett, a teacher at a public school, doesn't know what is happening to her. For years she has been experiencing blackouts, some for months at a time and cannot recall what she was doing at the time. She begins to go to therapy sessions with Dr. Cornelia Wilbur, who decides to take on Sybil's strange case. At first, Sybil seems fine during her therapy sessions, but as time progresses, her behavior becomes more and more erratic. Sometimes she is extremely shy, other times extremely belligerent, and sometimes even speaks with different accents. She seems to have many different personalities; Dr. Wilbur counted at least 16 different personalities that Sybil displayed through various sessions of Hypnosis. Only after months of therapy does Dr. Wilbur discover the source of Sybil's strange multiple personality disorder. She had suffered vicious abuse at the hands of her fanatically religious mother as a child, most of which involved sexual abuse. Dr. Wilbur realizes that Sybil has developed so many personalities because they are pieces of Sybil that protect her through times of stress.

This relates to psychology because Sybil is suffering from Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). is a psychiatric diagnosis that describes a condition in which a single person displays multiple distinct identities or personalities (known as alter egos or alters), each with its own pattern of perceiving and interacting with the environment. This diagnosis requires that people have two or more personalities that take over frequently that is associated with memory loss, which goes beyond normal forgetfulness. It is widely believed that this disorder develops as a way to suppress bad memories, or undesirable impulses. Most people suffering from DID suffered abuse as a child.