AP Psychology Mod. 39 -42
Psychological Influences on Sexual Motivation
- Exposure to stimulating conditions - Sexual fantasies
External Stimuli
- More arousal on consumption of erotic material -More men than women - feelings of arousal mirror physical genital responses
Refractory Period
- resting period that occurs after orgasm, during which a person cannot achieve another orgasm
Social-cultural influences on Sexual Motivation
-Family and Society values -Religious and personal values - Cultural expectations -Media
Biological Influences on Sexual Motivation
-Sexual maturity -sex hormones, especially testosterone
Examples of Facial Feedback Effect
1. activating one smiling muscle while holding a pen in the teeth makes a situation less upsetting. 2. hearty smile enhances positive feelings even more when reacting to something pleasant or funny 3. When smiling when happy we become happier 4. Botox injections that froze frowning muscles caused depressed patients to feel better. Slows people's reading of sadness or anger related sentences, slows activity in emotion-related brain circuits.
Benefits of Belonging in childhood
1. after repeated disruption of budding attachments, may have difficulty forming deep relationships 2. Children without sense of belonging, severely neglected tend to become withdrawn, frightened, even speechless
findings on benefits of belonging
1. separated and divorced people have been half as likely as married people to say they are "very happy" 2. "the married are still more satisfied, suggesting a causal effect" of marriage 3. Divorce predicts earlier mortality. Separated/divorced people are at greater risk for early death
Social behavior aims to increase feelings of belonging
1. we conform to group standards 2. we wait in line and obey laws 3. we monitor our behavior, wanting a good impression, 4. spend money on clothes, cosmetics, and diet and fitness aids ^motivated by each for love/acceptance
Critique of Polygraph
1. we have similar bodily arousal in response to anxiety, irritation, and guilt. Guilt or Anxiousness? 2. Many innocent people do get tense when accused of a bad act 3. 1/3 of the time polygraph tests are wrong 4. No spy has ever been caught by a polygraph
Nonuniversal Emotional Expression
182 studies have shown slightly enhanced accuracy when people judged emotions from their own culture
Becker, 2007
3/4 of Arizona State University students imagined a male when asked to imagine an angry face Gender-neutral faces: when made to look angry, people perceive it as male. When smiling, people perceive it as female
Social Networking
94% of college students used it. Not to be excluded
Mobile Phones
95% of the world lived in an area covered by mobile-cellular network
Eye-Gazing study
A glance can communicate intimacy Unacquainted male-female pairs gazed intently at each other's hands or eyes for 2 minutes They reported feeling a tingle of attraction & affection
Evolutionary Benefits of Belonging
Adults who formed attachments are more likely to survive, reproduce and co-nurture offspinrfg. Caregivers motivated to keep children close and safe. Hunting together taught ancestors to cooperate and thrive
(Exposure to Explicit Material) Reducing Satisfaction with a Partner's Appearance or with a Relationship
After viewing images/films of attractive people, people judge others as less attractive
Suggestion to maintain balance: "Hide" from your incessantly posting online friends when necessary
Ask "is this something I'd care about if someone else posted it?"
Suggestion to maintain balance: monitor feelings
Ask yourself if you are emotionally distracted by online interests and how you feel when disconnecting
(4. SRC) Resolution
Body gradually returns to unaroused state, genital blood vessels release accumulated blood Faster if orgasm has occurred Refractory Period - men enter it, women have a much shorter one
Fear vs Anger vs Sexual Arousal vs Boredness
Boredness is easier to spot Fear, Anger, Sexual Arousal are harder to tell apart. Share common biological signatures
Imagined Stimuli
Brain is (said to be) most significant sex organ. Imagination can influence arousal and desire. Without genital sensation, people still feel sexual desire 95% of both men and women have sexual fantasies, few women can produce orgasms by themselves. Men have more frequent, more physical, less romantic fantasies. Prefer less personal and faster sexual content in media
(2. SRC) Plateau
Breathing, pulse, blood pressure increase. Men become fully engorged (average 5.6 inches). Some fluid may appear Coman's vaginal secretion continues to increase
Studies on Achievement Motivation
California kids with intelligence scores in top 1%. Forty years later, found a motivational difference between the most and least success professionally. Most successful were more ambitious, energetic, and persistent. More active hobbies as children and more groups/spots as adults "discipline outdoes talent" for school performance in predicting school performance, attendance, and graduation honors Discipline focuses and refines talent, but native talent matter too. People's practice-time differences account for a third less of their performance difference.
Hormonal shifts with surgery or drugs
Castration - In adult men, sex drive typically fell (testosterone decline sharply) Sex offenders, male - drug reduced their testosterone level to level of prepubertal boy lost much of their sexual urge
"What is necessary for your happiness?" "What is it that makes your life meaningful?"
Close, satisfying relationships with family, friends, or romantic partners
Evolutionary Psychology on Facial Expressions
Darwin argues that facial expressions, communicating threats, greetings, and submission before verbal language
(Exposure to Explicit Material) Believing Rape is Acceptable
Depictions of women being sexually coerced and enjoying it increase viewer's false idea that women want to be overpowered. Increase male viewers' expressed willingness to hurt women and commit rape
Achievement Motivation
Desire for significant accomplishment, for mastery of skills or ideas, for control, and for attaining a high standard
Emotional Response (neurology)
Emotional responses follow two different pathways: Complex emotions like hatred and love travel a "high road": travel through the thalamus to the brain's cortex. It is analyzed, labeled before response command is sent out, through the amygdala. Simple emotions (dislikes, fears) take the more direct "low road", bypasses the cortex. Stimulus in the low road travel from eye or ear through the thalamus directly to the amygdala. Enables emotional responses before intellect intervenes.
Detecting subtle expression
Especially smiles People can often tell whether one person is attracted to another after just 10 sends Universally, people perceive someone with arms raised, chest expand, and slight smile as experiencing pride and high status Glimpsing a face fo 1/10th of a second, people can judge attractiveness or trustworthiness, or rate politicians' competence and predict voter support. First impressions are quick Sense words with negative connotations Easily single out one angry face in a crowd Experiences sensitize us to certain emotions. Abused children can faster spot signals of anger. More likely to perceive fear than anger Subtle facial emotions: lifting inner eyebrow reveals distress or worry, eyebrow raised together reveal fear.
Balance and Focus
Excessive online socializing and gaming correlate with lower grades (C grades or lower) or increased anxiety and depression
(Exposure to Explicit Material) Desensitization
Extensive porn exposure desensitizes young men to sexuality Can contribute to erectile problems, lower sexual desire, diminished brain activation in response to sexual images Men who frequently watch porn had smaller-size brain regions that aid sexual pleasure
emotions Feel vs Look different
Fear & Joy have similar heart rate increase, but different facial muscle (brow tenses in fear, cheeks and eyes tense with joy) Emotions activate different areas of the brain's cortex. With disgust, right prefrontal cortex is more active than the left Depression-prone people show more right frontal lobe activity
(1. SRC) Excitement
Genital areas become engorged with blood, swell. Women's vagina expands, secretes lubricant. Breasts and nipples may enlarge
Achievement
Intelligence is distributed like a bell curve, achievements are not. more than raw ability is involved
Male vs Female Intuition
Judith Hall, after 125 studies, women generally surpass mean at reading people's emotional cues when given thin slices of behavior. Men tend to describe simpler emotional reactions. Women are more open to feelings than men. Girls express stronger emotions, 100% of Americans 18-29 perceive this .
Suggestion to maintain balance: monitor your time
Keep a log of time, reflect on how you used that time
Written Communication
Lacks gestures, facial expressions, voice tones People who heard recording of someone describing divorce were able to predict the person's current and future adjustment better than those who read the script.
Social isolation
Lonely older adults make more doctor visits and are at greater risk for dementia With feelings of acceptance increase self-esteem, positive feelings, and physical health
Calum's Road
Malcolm MacLeod transformed an existing footpath into a 1.75 mile road when the government refused to do it themselves.
Sexual Response Cycle
Masters and Johnson (1960s), recording physiological responses of volunteers who masturbated and had intercourse Sexual Response Cycle: four stages of sexual responding described by Masters and Johnson
(3 SRC) Orgasm
Muscle contractions appear all over the body, increases in breathing, pulse, and blood pressure rates. Sexual release emits similar feelings in both sexes. Almost indistinguishable. The same subcortical brain regions were active in men and women during orgasm
Sex Hormones/Car Fuel
No fuel, car not go. With minimum fuel, car still runs. Will not change how it runs with more fuel. Hormonal fuel is essential, psychological stimulation that turn on the engine keep it running, and shift it into high gear
Social Facial Expressions
Olympic gold-medal winners smile when interacting with audience, but not when waiting for award ceremony looking at competitors' spontaneous expressions after competitions gives clues to who one Blind athletes smile in social situations, even without observing a smile.
Sex and Human relationships
Participants age 30 - later first sex predicted greater satisfaction in marriage/partnership. Relationships developed through deep commitment reported higher satisfaction, stability, and better sex Especially for women, sex is more satisfying in a committed relationship Commitment enhances contentment.
Suggestion to maintain balance: take a nature walk
People learn better after a peaceful walk in a park. Connecting with nature boosts our spirits and sharpens our minds
influence of Sex Hormones
Prenatal period - direct development as males or females puberty - hormone surge ushers us into adolescence post-puberty - hormones facilitate sexual behavior
Large Hormonal Surge/Decline affect sexual desire in puberty
Pubertal surge in sex hormones triggers the development of sex characteristics and sexual interest Characteristics and desire do not develop if puberty's hormonal surge is precluded
Concealed Information Test
Questions focus on specific crime-scene details known only to the police and the guilty person. Innocent people are seldom wrongly judged to be lying, more effective than polygraph test
Duchenne Smile
Raised cheeks and activated muscles under the eyes Genuine smile tend to be brief and fade less abruptly
Electronic Communication Stimulation
Self-Disclosure - sharing ourselves with others in electronic communication, we are less focused on others' reactions. Less self-conscious and thus less inhibited. Increased self-disclosure serves to deepen friendships
Large Hormonal Surge/Decline in later life
Sex hormone levels fall. Menopause - experienced by women when their estrogen levels decrease Males experience a more gradual change Sex remains part of life, but sexual fantasies and intercourse decline with hormones
Emotion Expression between cultures
Shared facial language, differences in how emotion is expressed. Cultures that encourage individuality (west Europe, Australia, New Zealand, North America) display invisible emotions. Cultures that encourage people to adjust to others (Japan, China) have less visible emotional displays. Japan, people survey more emotion from context. The mouth, expressive more in North America, conveys less emotion than eyes Emotion is best understand not only as a biological, cognitive phenomenon, but also as a social-cultural phenomenon.
Universal Emotional Expression
Smiles, sadness have similar expressions worldwide. Children cry when distressed, shakes head when children blind from birth exhibit the common facial expression
Zajonc; LeDoux
Some embodied responses happen instantly, without conscious appraisal
"Smile Therapy"
Students subtly asked to express common angry expressions reported feeling angry. Similar to people who squinted at the sun. People reported feeling fear over anger, disgust, sadness
Criticisms of Cannon-Bard
Survey of 25 WWII soldiers: those with lower-spine injuries, who had lost sensation only in their legs, reported little change in their emotions' intensity. With high spinal cord injury, who could feel nothing below the neck, did report changes "[Anger] just doesn't have the heat to it that it used to. It's a mental kind of anger" Emotions expressed above the neck (weeping, lumps in the throat, and getting choked up, were felt more intensely Feelings are "mostly shadows" of bodily responses. Brain activity underlies out emotions and emotion fed actions.
Autonomic Nervous System
Sympathetic Division Directs adrenal glands to release stress hormones (epinephrine/adrenaline and norepinephrine/noradrenaline) respiration, heart rate, blood pressure increase. Digestion slows, pupils dilate, perspiration occurs, and blood in wounds clot quicker Parasympathetic Division stress hormones leave bloodstream
Sex Hormones
Testosterone - most important male sex hormone, present in both male & females, but additional test. in males stimulate growth of the male sex organs during fetal period & the development of the male sex characteristics during puberty Estrogen - hormones (like estradiol) contribute to female sex characteristics and secreted more by females than men. Levels peak during ovulation. Promotes sexual receptivity in nonhuman mammals
Facial Feedback Effect
The tendency of facial muscles states to trigger corresponding feelings such as fear, anger, or happiness
Experiments on Ostracism
Those who were excluded were much more likely to engage in self-defeating behaviors, act in disparaging/aggressive ways against those who excluded them
Controlling Sexual Arousal
Those who wish to control it limit their exposure to tempting food cues With repeated exposure, emotional response lessens (habituation)
Acetaminophen
Tylenol, pain reliever that lessens social as well as physical pain People in many cultures use the same word for social and physical pain
Texts
U.S. teen sends 30 texts a day
Brain Reward and safety systems
University students in love felt less pain when looking at their beloved's picture. Pictures of loved ones activate the prefrontal cortex that dampens feelings of physical pain
William James
We can control emotions by going through the outward movements of any emotion we want to experience. Expressions amplify and regulate emotion
Suggestion to maintain balance: check phone and e-mail less often
When multitasking, neither tasks are done well. Disable alerts, vibrations, and pop-ups. Experiment: people who checked email less frequently enjoyed a significant reduction in stress
Influence of Hormones on behavior
Women are responsive to testosterone levels, Lower natural testosterone - sexual interest may drop. Testosterone-replacement therapy can restore diminished sexual activity, arousal, and desire In males with low testosterone level, replacement therapy can increase sexual desire, energy, and vitality. Normal fluctuations have little effect on sexual drive. Male hormones respond to sexual stimulation (surge in testosterone when attractive females were present. Sexual arousal is both cause and consequence of increased testosterone levels
Automatic Emotional Radar
acutely sensitive automatic radar for emotionally significant information, even a subliminally flashed stimulus can prime us to feel better or worse about a follow-up stimulus
Joseph LeDoux
amygdala sends more neural projections than it receives, easier for feelings to hijack thinking. Jump at the sound of rustling buses before deciding what made the noise. Supports Zajonc's belief that some emotional reactions do not involve deliberate thinking
Basic Human Emotions
anger, fear, disgust, sadness, happiness
spillover effect
arousal response to one event spills over into our response to the next event A stirred-up state can be experience as one emotion or another, depending on how we interpret and label it. Arousal fuels emotion; cognition channels it
strategies for achieving goals: monitor and record progress
better when progress is displayed publicly rather than kept secret
Emotions are a mix of
bodily arousal (heart pounding, expressive behaviors (quickened pace), conscious experience (kidnapping?)/feelings
Richard Lazarus
brain processes vast amount of information without conscious awareness, some emotional responses do not require conscious thinking Emotions arise when we appraise an event as harmless or dangerous Cognitive appraisal, sometimes without our awareness, defines emotion
strategies for achieving goals: make that resolution
challenging goals motivate achievement. Concrete goals direct attention and motivate persistence
Reappraisal
changing one's emotional experience by changing the way one thinks about the emotion-eliciting stimulus reduces stress, helps students achieve higher test scores
Anxiety
constantly craving acceptance but remaining vigilant to signs of possible rejection
Ostracism
deliberate social exclusion of individuals or groups exile, imprisonment, solitary confinement used to punish, control social behavior 4/5 times, people will describe broken or painful relationships when asked about demeaning personal episodes
Narcissism
excessive self-love and self-absorption
avoidance
feeling such discomfort over getting close to others that avoidant strategies are used to maintain distance
strategies for achieving goals: transform hard behaviors into habits
habits form when behaviors are repeated in a given context. increase self-control - connect resolutions with positive outcomes
Social Networking & narcissism
high narcissism, more active on social networking sites Collect more superficial friends
strategies for achieving goals: short term rewards, long term goals
immediate rewards better predict persistence
Car.roll Izard
isolated 10 basic emotions: joy, interest-excitement, surprise, sadness, anger, disgust, contempt, fear, shame, and guilt Other emotions are combinations of these 10
Polygraphs
measure emotion-linked autonomic arousal, s reflected in changed breathing, heart rate, and perspiration. Control questions receiving little white lies prompt elevated arousal readings that give a baseline for comparing responses Greater arousal in response to critical questioning may infer lying
Peak Moments
moments that satisfied self-esteem and relatedness-belonging needs Balanced with autonomy and competence, we experience a deep sense off eel-being, performance improvement, and self-esteem rides high
strategies for achieving goals: announce goals to friends and family
more likely to follow through after making a public commitment
Insula
neural center deep in the brain activated when we feel negative social emotions (lust, pride, disgust) Brain scans, it becomes active with disgusting tasting or smelling food, think about disgusting food.
Grit
passionate dedication to an ambitious, long-term goal. Combined with set-fontrol, gritty goal-striving can produce great achievements.
Discerning deceit
people were 54% accurate in discerning truth from lies. People are much better emotion detectors when given quick scenes of a face
strategies for achieving goals: develop an implementation plan
people who flesh out goals with detailed plans become more focus and likely to succeed
Prisoner William Blake
spent a quarter-century in solitary confinement "I cannot fathom how dying any death could be harder and more terribly than living though all that I have been forced to endure"
Kipling Williams & the Anterior Cingulate Cortex
studies of exclusion on social media Elicits increased activity in brain areas like the anterior cingulate cortex that respond to physical pain
Empathy
the ability to identify with others and appraise a situation s they do. Fiction readers report higher empathy levels, women read more fiction. Females more likely to express empathy. Study of male and female students show sad, happy, and frightening films, women expressed more emotions
Affiliation Need
the need to build relationships and to feel part of a group
Chain Migration
the second Syrian refugee family setting in a town generally has an easier adjustment than the first
Behavior Feedback effect
the tendency of behavior to influence our own and others' thoughts, feelings, and actions Acting as another helps us feel what another feels. Without ability to mimic, we struggle to make emotional connections.
Cannon-Bard Theory
the theory that an emotion-arousing stimulus simultaneously triggers (1) physiological responses and (2) the subjective experience of emotion Our bodily responses and experienced emotions occur separately but simultaneously Emotion-arousing stimuli trigger our bodily responses and simultaneous subjective experience
James-Lange Theory
the theory that our experience of emotion is our awareness of our physiological responses to an emotion-arousing stimulus: Stimulus S Arousal S emotion "felt my heart racing and the, felt the whoosh of emotion" Feeling of fear followed my body's response Emotions arise from our awareness of ou bodily responses to emotion-arousing stimuli. Stimuli -> arousal -> emotion . We observe our heart racing after a threat and then feel afraid
Schacter-Singer Two-Factor Theory
to experience emotion one must (1) be physically aroused and (2) cognitively label the arousal Emotional experience requires a conscious interpretation of arousal
Robert Zajonc
we actually have many emotional reactions apart from our conscious interpretation of a situation Recall liking something immediately without knowing why When people repeatedly view stimuli flashed too briefly for them to interpret, they come to prefer those stimuli.
The Internet
worldwide in 2015, 68% of adults used it
