What is the relationship between arousal and behavior? Which sources of arousal do you believe have the greatest effect on arousal level? Explain.

     Arousal is the mobilization or activation of energy, which occurs in preparation or during actual behavior (Deckers, 2010). Arousal is energy that is produced by the interaction of internal and external stimuli. Three types of arousal are physiological, brain, and psychological arousal. Physiological arousal is how an individual's body changes during arousal. Physiological arousal entails changes, such as sweaty palms, increased muscle tension, breathing, and heart rate. Brain arousal is the stages of sleep, awake, and alertness within the brain (Deckers, 2010). Deckers (2010), "psychological arousal refers to how subjectively aroused an individual feels" (p. 3). Feelings of psychological arousal includes anxiety, fearfulness, and tension.

     Behavior is the actions or reactions of an human or nonhuman animal in response to internal or external stimuli. The relationship between arousal and behavior is that arousal is the energy that develops in preparation of or during behavior. This relationship between arousal and behavior can impacts an individual's body in several ways, such as an individual developing anxiety and tension. The relationship between arousal and behavior depends on the nature of the task that is being performed (Deckers, 2010). Therefore, arousal and behavior can impact an individual's performance based on the task that is performed, and diminished or enhance performance. 

     Three sources of arousal are stimuli, collative variables, and tasks. Stimuli is anything in the environment that causes behavior to occur, collative variables refers to collectively to stimulus characteristics that include novelty, complexity, and incongruity, and tasks are activities that stimulates arousal (Deckers, 2010). I believe that all three sources of arousal have an effect on arousal level, and one source can affect an individual's arousal level greater than another source could affect a different individual's arousal level because this depend on that particular individual's situation or circumstance. Therefore, stimuli could have the greatest effect on one individual's arousal level, while tasks could have the greatest on another individual's arousal level, and yet collative variables could have the greatest effect on a different individual's arousal level.

 Reference

Deckers, L. (2010). Motivation: Biological, psychological, and environmental (3rd ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.