Chapter 7: Motivation and Emotion

Why do people usually get hungry at mealtime?

The psychological state of hunger is not the same as the biological need for food. Thirst is also stimulated by both internal and external cues. Internally, thirst is controlled by two regulators that monitor the level of fluids in and outside the cells. Even what we thirst for can be influenced by what we see.

Zuckerman's Sensation-Seeking

There are cases when neither the drive-reduction theory and the arousal theory account for some kinds of behavior. Many people participate in stimulating activities that do not need to be drive-reducing and do not seem to be done in pursuit of an optimal level of arousal. Zuckerman suggests that sensation-seeking is itself a basic motivation (some aspects inherited and neurologically based).

Freud's View of Aggression

an innate drive, similar to hunger and thirst, that builds up until it is released. One important function of society is to channel the aggressive drive into constructive and socially acceptable avenues.

Aggression and Culture

collectivist societies that emphasize good of the group over the desires of the individuals. Individualist societies are more likely to follow the adage "stand up for yourself." Quakers, Amish, Mennonites, and Hutterites value nonviolence and peaceful coexistence.

Ekman

concludes there are 6 universal emotions: happiness, sadness, anger, surprise, fear, disgust.

Display Rules

culture-specific rules that govern how, when, and why expressions of emotion are appropriate. When students were by themselves, both Japanese and American students continued to show expressions of disgust on their face. But when they watched the films with the experimenter, they displayed different reactions/responses (American students continued to show disgust, but the Japanese students changed to a more neutral facial expression).

Initiating Hunger

decreases in blood glucose levels are detected by liver sensors, which convert stored nutrients back into glucose. Drop-rise pattern may be a signal of "hunger" to the brain.

Harlow's Experiment

demonstrated the importance of the need for contact. Newborn baby monkeys were separated from their mothers and given two "surrogate mothers." One was cuddly, the other was made of wire-mesh; both warmed by means of an electric light inside of them. The wire mesh mother was the only one equipped with a nursing bottle. The wire-mesh mother fulfilled two physiological needs for the infant: food and warmth. Baby monkeys gravitated toward the terry-cloth mother but it did not provide food. Conclusion: the need for closeness goes deeper than the need for warmth.

Incentive

external stimulus that prompts goal-directed behavior. The mere sight, smell, or thought of food causes an increase in insulin production, which lowers glucose levels in the body's cells, mirroring the body's response to a physical need for food.

Manipulation

focuses on a specific object that must be touched, handled and before we are satisfied; a motive limited to primates, who have agile fingers and toes. An active process.

Lorenz's View of Aggression

frustration-aggression hypothesis: blocked goals cause aggression. Natural reaction to the frustration of a blocked goal. Inevitability of aggression.

Two-Factor Analysis

when we see a bear, there are indeed bodily changes; but we then use information about the situation to tell us how to respond to those changes. Only when we cognitively recognize we are in danger do we experience those bodily changes as fear.

Sex lives of most Americans

⅓ have sex once a week, a few times a month, and the remaining third a few times a year, or not at all. 90% vaginal intercourse, married couples have sex more often than unmarried people. Average duration of sexual intercourse is 15 minutes. The median number of partners over the lifetime of males was 6 and for females 2. 25% men and 15% women had committed adultery.

Why did the instinct theory begin to fall out of favor as an explanation for human behavior by the 1920s?

1. Human behavior is learned 2 Human behavior is rarely rigid, inflexible, unchanging, and found throughout the species (as in the case with instincts) 3. Ascribing every conceivable human behavior to a corresponding instinct explains nothing.

How the Brain Reads the Face

Amygdala and insula are critical for the release of emotions; they also play an important role in our ability to correctly interpret facial expressions. Adolphs and his colleagues reported the remarkable case of a 30-year-old woman (S.M.) with a rare disease that caused near destruction of the amygdala. S.M. had difficulty recognizing and discriminating between different emotions, such as happiness and surprise. Abnormalities in the brain circuits associated with the amygdala can make it difficult for people to perceive threat accurately and that can lead to unprovoked violence and aggression.

Body Language, Personal Space, and Gestures -- Non-Verbal Communication:

Body language is another way that we communicate non-verbally. The personal space is the distance we maintain between ourselves and others; it varies depending on emotion as well as culture. Explicit acts can serve as nonverbal clues to emotions. However, although nonverbal behavior may offer a clue to a person's feelings, it is not an infallible clue: laughing and crying sound alike but they have different meanings. We "say" things nonverbally that we do not mean -- actions are interpreted as an emotion that we are not feeling. Sometimes we use mimicry to help us understand what others are feeling. People often mimic each other's accents, gestures, postures, and facial expressions. Research has shown that mimicry may reduce our accuracy to judge another person's emotions if the person expressing the emotion is trying to be deceptive.

How can external cues influence our desire to eat?

Early research identified two regions in the hypothalamus that served as a kind of "switch" that turned eating on or off. When one of these centers was stimulated, animals began to eat, and when one was destroyed, they stopped eating to the point of starvation. When the second region was stimulated, animals stopped eating; when it was destroyed, animals ate to the point of extreme obesity. Recent studies have challenged this "on-off" explanation for the control of eating by showing that a number of other areas of the brain are also involved in regulating food intake including regions of the cerebrum, amygdala, the insula, and the spinal cord.

Gender and Emotion

In a study when men and women saw depictions of people in distress, men showed little emotion, but the women expressed feelings of concern. Physiological measures of human arousal showed that men in the study were just as affected as the women were. They inhibited the expression of their emotions whereas the women were more open about their feelings. Boys are trained from an early age to suppress those emotions in public. They also react with very different emotions to the same situation. When men get angry, they turn their anger outward against other people. Women are more likely to see themselves as the source of the problem and turn their anger inward. Differ in their ability to interpret nonverbal cues of emotion. A possible reason is that because women tend to be the primary caregivers for preverbal infants, they need to become more attuned than men to the subtleties of emotional expressions. Another explanation is based on the relative power of women and men.

Carroll Izard

James-Lange Theory was correct in suggesting that emotional experience arises from bodily reactions. Also, stresses facial expression and body posture as crucial to experiencing emotion.

Voice Quality and Expression

Much of the emotional information that we convey is not contained in the words we use, but in the way those words are expressed. Hand gestures or posture can communicate general emotional state. Many facial expressions are innate and are not learned. Animals share a common pattern of muscular facial movements. Psychologists who take an evolutionary approach believe that facial expressions serve as an adaptive function, enabling our ancestors to compete successfully for status, to win mates, and to defend for themselves.

Nature vs. Nurture Sexual Orientation

Nature side - sexual orientation is rooted in biology and is influenced by genetic (concordance higher among twins), know before puberty they are "different," anatomical and physiological differences between the brains of homosexual and heterosexual men, homosexuality in animal kingdom (altering prenatal hormones can influence sexual orientation). Nurture side: children raised by gay or lesbian parents should be more likely to become homosexual, not the case, learned behavior under voluntary control.

Initial Attraction -- Theory of Attraction:

Proximity - mere exposure effect (repeated exposure to a stimulus increases our liking for it). Similarity - attraction relationship (we tend to be attracted to people who are similar to us). Physical attraction is important.

How does culture influence sexual behavior?

Sight of a lover and scent can stimulate sexual excitement. Soft lights and music have aphrodisiac effects. Ideas about what is moral, appropriate, and pleasurable influence sexual behavior as well. A survey revealed that the frequency of sexual activity varies by age, with the 35- to 44- year-olds reporting to have sex an average of 112 times a year, 25- to 34-year olds having sex 108 times annually, 16-20 90 times a year. Heterosexual couples living in countries where women and men hold equal status are emotionally and physically satisfying. Conversely, both men and women in countries where men traditional are more dominant report the least satisfying sex lives.

Culture and Emotion

Some researchers have argued that across cultures, peoples, and societies, the face looks the same whenever certain emotions are expressed → universalist position. In contrast, other researchers support the culture-learning position that holds that members of a culture learn the appropriate facial expressions for emotions. Caroll Izard conducted studies that showed that regardless of culture, people tended to agree on which emotions others were expressing facially; this supports the universalist position. However, because the participants were all members of developed countries that likely had been exposed to one another through movies, magazines, and tourism, they might simply have become familiar with the facial expressions seen in other cultures; culture-learning position.

Sexual Response Cycle

William Masters/Virginia Johnson; the typical sequence of events, including excitement, plateau, orgasm, and resolution, characterizing sexual response in males and females. Excitement: genitals become engorged with blood (male → erection, women → erection of clitoris and nipples) Plateau: sexual tension levels off, breathing becomes more rapid, genital secretions and muscle tension increase Orgasm: male ejaculates, woman's uterus contracts rhythmically, experiences some loss of muscle control. Males experience a refractory period which can last from a few minutes to several hours (cannot have another orgasm), women do not have this period and can experience another orgasm if it is reinitiated Resolution phase: one of relaxation in which muscle tension decreases and the engorged genitals return to normal, heart rate, breathing, blood pressure return to normal.

Intrinsic Motivation

a desire to perform a behavior that stems from the enjoyment derived from the behavior itself.

Extrinsic Motivation

a desire to perform a behavior to obtain an external reward or avoid punishment.

Muscle Dysmorphia

a disorder generally seen in young men involving an obsessive concern with muscle size. Associated with low self-esteem, having been bullied as a child.

Emotion

a feeling, such as fear, joy, or surprise, that underlies behavior. Emotions are essential to survival. Emotions are essential to personal enrichment. Emotions are linked to immune function. Emotions are linked to success.

Ghrelin

a hormone produced in the stomach and small intestines that increases appetite. Brain monitors the amount of food eaten. Specialized cells in the stomach and the upper part of the small intestine sense the volume of the food in the digestive system.

Leptin

a hormone released by fat cells that reduces appetite. Sensed by the hypothalamus. High levels of leptin signal to the brain to reduce appetite or to increase the rate at which fat is burned.

Motivation

a process that influences the direction, persistence, and the vigor of a goal-directed behavior.

Anorexia Nervosa

a serious eating disorder that is associated with an intense fear of weight gain and a distorted body image. Over 10% of young women with anorexia nervosa die as a result of the disorder → one of highest fatality rates from psychiatric disorders among young females. Symptoms: intense fear of becoming obese which does not diminish as weight loss progresses, disturbance of body image, refusal to maintain body weight at or above a minimal normal weight for age and height. 1% if all adolescents suffer from this; 90% are white upper- or middle-class females.

Glucose

a simple sugar used by the body for energy. Brain monitors levels of glucose, fats, carbohydrates, and hormone insulin. Change in the levels of these substances signal the need for food.

Motive

a specific need or desire, such as hunger, thirst, or achievement, that prompts goal-directed behavior.

Drive

a state of tension or arousal that motivates behavior.

Curiosity

a strong desire to know or learn something. William James viewed it as an emotion; Freud considered it to be a socially acceptable expression of the sex drive, others have seen it as a response to the unexpected and as evidence of a human need to find meaning in life. Linked to creativity.

Hierarchy of Needs

a theory of motivation advanced by Maslow holding that higher order motives involving social and personal growth only emerge after lower level motives related to survival have been satisfied. (physiological needs, safety needs, belongingness needs, esteem/love needs, self-actualization needs).

Bullimia Nervosa

an eating disorder characterized by binges of eating followed by self-induced vomiting. Symptoms: recurrent episodes of binge eating accompanied by a lack of control while eating during the episode, recurrent inappropriate behaviors to try and prevent weight gain such as self-induced vomiting or misuse of laxatives, binge eating and compensatory behaviors occurring at least once a week for three months, body shape and weight excessively influencing the person's self-image. Occurrence of the just-mentioned behaviors at least sometimes in the absence of anorexia. 1-2% of adolescent females suffer from bulimia nervosa; upper-middle- and upper-class women.

Study on identifying primary emotions

argue for the existence of 6 primary emotions -- happiness, surprise, sadness, fear, disgust, and anger. Many psychologists hold love as a primary emotion. (outward expression → stereotypes).

Aggression

behavior aimed at doing harm to others; also, the motive to behave aggressively. Intent is a key element of aggression. Aggression is common in this country → 1.4 violent crimes reported: 16,000 murders, 90,000 forcible rapes, 422,000 robberies, 906,000 aggravated assaults.

High-Sensation Seekers vs. Low-Sensation Seekers

high-sensation seekers prefer dangerous sports, choose vacations that involve an element of risk and excitement, smoke, drink heavily, gamble, use illicit drugs, have more sexual partners and engage in more varied and dangerous sexual activities, and can be classified in school as delinquent or hyperactive.

Charles Darwin

in his classic book, The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals, he argued that emotional expression in man evolved by natural selection to serve an adaptive and communicative function. Many early psychologists viewed emotions as a "base instinct" -- a vestige of our evolutionary heritage that needed to be repressed.

Criticisms of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

in many societies, people live on the very edge of survival, yet they form strong and meaningful social ties and possess a firm sense of self-esteem. It still is a convenient way to think of the wide range of human motives.

Instinct

inborn, inflexible, goal-directed behaviors that are characteristic of an entire species.

Secondary Drives

learned drives, such as ambition, that are not based on a physiological state (no one is born with a drive to acquire great wealth, yet many people are motivated by money).

Gender and Aggression

males are more likely than females to behave aggressively. Greater in natural settings than controlled laboratory settings.

Differences in sexuality between men and women

men are more interested in sex than are women, women are more likely than men to link sex to a close committed relationship, aggression, power, dominance are more closely linked to sex among men than women, and women's sexuality is more open to change over time (males: visual cues, tend to favor viewing close-ups of sexual acts, experiences, females: touch, women are more to style, setting, and mood, experiences).

Contact

more universal than the need for manipulation. It is not limited to touching with the fingers -- it may involve the whole body. It can be passive.

Obesity and Weight Control

most pressing problem in America. Obesity refers to an excess of body fat in relation to lean body mass, while overweight refers to weighing more than a desirable standard, whether from high amounts of fat or being very muscular. Obesity has increased by more than 50% last decade. Prominent among Black women than White women. Among young people, it has more than tripled since 1980 -- 9 million adolescents who are overweight in America.

Set Point Theory

our bodies are genetically "set" to maintain a certain weight by means of neural networks that monitor and control homeostasis. If you consume more calories than you need for that weight, your metabolic rate will increase → increase in energy, burning more calories. If you eat fewer calories than that are needed to maintain weight, your metabolic rate will decrease → you will feel tired and be less active, burn fewer calories.

Aggression Theories

part of our evolutionary past → defensive behaviors. Hard-wired into human brain. Frustration plays a key role in aggression. Frustration does not always produce aggression. We learn aggression by observing aggressive models, especially those who get what they want and avoid punishment when they behave aggressively. Exposure to cinematic violence increases aggressive behavior among children and adolescents.

Robert Plutchik's Theory

proposed that there are eight basic emotions: fear, surprise, sadness, disgust, anger, anticipation, joy, and acceptance. Help us to adjust to the demands of the environment: fear underlies flights which helps protect animals from their enemies; anger propels animals to attack or destroy. According to his model, different emotions may combine to produce an even wider and richer spectrum of experience -- anticipation and joy yield optimism; joy and acceptance fuse into love; surprise and sadness make for disappointment.

Sexual Orientation

refers to the direction of one's sexual interest toward members of the same sex, the other sex, or both sexes.

Insulin

secreted by the pancreas and keeps glucose levels balanced.

ventromedial hypothalamus

section of the brain stimulated when ceasing eating, but is not a "hunger off" center.

lateral hypothalamus

section of the brain stimulated while eating, but is not the "hunger on" center.

Psychology of Sex

smell, sexual fantasy, expectations, stress, fatigue, anger, performance anxiety, cultural norms, arousing stimuli.

Bandura's View of Aggression

social learning theory and aggression: aggression is learned by observing others benefit from aggression. Learned and not inevitable, tv violence.

Homeostasis

state of balance and stability in which the organism functions effectively.

Cognitive Theory

states that emotional experience depends on one's perception or judgment of a situation. Challenges of theory: emotions can be experienced without the intervention of cognition (situation such as pain provokes a unique pattern of unlearned facial movements and body postures that may be independent of conscious thought.

Drive-Reduction Theory

states that motivated behavior is aimed at reducing a state of bodily tension or arousal and returning the organism to homeostasis.

James-Lange Theory

states that stimuli cause physiological changes in our bodies, and emotions result from those physiological changes. Fear would be the almost instantaneous and automatic awareness of physiological changes. Major flaw: sensory information about bodily changes flows to the brain through the spinal cord; if bodily changes are the source of emotions, then people with spinal cord injuries should experience fewer and less intense emotions, but this is not true. Bodily changes do not cause emotions.

Cannon Bard Theory

states that the experience of emotion occurs simultaneously with biological changes (not one after the other). When you see a dog, you feel afraid and your heart races at the same time.

Yerkes-Dodson Law

states that there is an optimal level of arousal for the best performance of any task; the more complex the task, the lower the level of arousal that can be tolerated before performance deteriorates (simple task: increase level of arousal, complex task: decrease level of arousal).

Stopping Eating

stomach and intestinal distension. Peptides are sent into the bloodstream as food arrives in the intestines from the stomach.

Pheromones

substances that promote sexual readiness in potential partners.

Universalist vs. Culture-Learning Debate

test on Fore and Dani cultures of New Guinea and had their first contact with anthropologists a few years before Ekman's research took place. If they gave the same interpretation of facial expressions and produced the same expressions as Western cultures that is strong evidence for universalist debate. Ekman and his colleagues presented members with three photographs of people from outside their culture and asked them to point to the picture that represented how they would feel in a certain situation. The results indicated very high rates of agreement on facial expressions of emotions. When photographs of Fore and Dani posing the primary emotions were shown to college students in the United States, the same high agreement was found -- suggests at least some emotional expressions are inborn and universal.

Exploration

the action of traveling in or through an unfamiliar area in order to learn about it.

Power Motive

the desire to have impact on other people, to affect their behavior or emotions. This broad and general definition includes a whole family of overlapping concepts such as influence, inspiration, nurturance, authority, leadership, control, dominance, coercion, and aggression.

Esprit de corps

the feeling of being a part of a sympathetic group -- make people feel like they are working for a common cause or against a common foe.

Affiliation Motive

the need to be with others. Being in the presence of someone who is less threatened or fearful can reduce fear and anxiety. Some argued an evolutionary basis: forming and maintaining social bonds provided our ancestors with both survival and reproductive benefits. Oxytocin and dopamine are released during times of stress prompting us to build social bonds → same hormones that play a role in romantic attachments and the formation of parental bonds to children.

Achievement Motive

the need to excel, to overcome obstacles.

Testosterone

the primary male sex hormone. Baseline levels of testosterone are associated with the frequency of sexual behavior and satisfaction. Testosterone supplements can increase the sex drive in women.

Arousal Theory

theory of motivation that proposed that organisms seek an optimal level of arousal (we each have an optimum level of arousal that varies over the course of the day and across situations). Behavior is motivated by the desire to maintain the optimum level of arousal for a given moment -- reducing arousal or increasing arousal (when you are bored, you may watch television, take a walk, or check texts).

Primary Emotions

those that are evident in all cultures, contribute to survival, and are associated with distinct facial expression, and evident in non-human primates.

Secondary Emotions

those that are not found in all cultures. They are subtle combinations of the primary emotions.

Primary Drives

unlearned drive, such as hunger, that are based on a physiological state (hunger, thirst, sex). (Biological needs that trigger a corresponding state of psychological arousal or tension.)

Stimulus Motives

unlearned motives, such as curiosity or contact, that prompts us to explore or change the world around us. (exploration, curiosity, manipulation, and contact)