UNIT 8A

Motivation

Motivation

 The need or desire to that energizes behavior and directs it towards a goal  There are 4 major theories/perspectives to motivation

1. Instinct Theory

 Evolutionary perspective  Theory has actually evolved over time too  There had been over 5500 instincts named  No explanation, just names  Instincts must have a fixed pattern throughout a species and be unlearned  Innate reflexes in infants  Fails to explain motive

2. Drives and Incentives

 Drive reduction theory   Psychological need creates an aroused state that drives the organism to reduce the need  Eating and drinking Desire to reach homeostasis  PUSH US  Incentives  + or – stimuli that lure or repel us  When there is a need and an incentive, there is a strong drive  PULL US

3. Arousal theory

 Curiosity  Not necessarily to reduce certain feelings, but to be in a state of high arousal  Not enough = bored  Too much = stress and anxiety (overwhelmed)

4. Hierarchy of motives

 Abraham Maslow – 1970  Some needs take priority over others  Hierarchy of needs  Only when the most basic needs are met are we willing to satisfy the next

Loneliness

HUNGER

 The effects of hunger have been measured many times in experiments over time   1950 36 male volunteers – 6 months  Cut food level in half  Dropped 25% of their body weight  All they could think about was food  Everything else lost its importance  Grocery shopping on an empty stomach?

COGNITIVE EXPLANATION

 Comes from our thoughts  Intrinsic vs extrinsic  Intrinsic - behavior is fun, you enjoy it - so you do it  More satisfying  Extrinsic - promise of a reward or a threat of punishment (A vs F)  MONEY FOR GRADES?

Hunger

 What makes you hungry?

  Stomach contractions?

Glucose levels – homeostasis  Signals from the body can trigger hunger in the brain  Liver, stomach and intestines  Hypothalamus  Lateral hypothalamus – stimulation will cause well fed animals to continue to eat  Destroy it and the animal will not eat  Orexin

Hunger

 Stimulating the lower mid-hypothalamus  Stop eating  Destroy it and animal will continue eating  Time?

Hunger hormones

 Orexin  Ghrelin – empty stomach – Stomach stapling/gastric bypass  Obestatin – sends out fullness signal  PYY – digestive tract – reduces appetite  Leptin – protein secreted by fat cells to diminish the rewarding pleasure of food

Weight regulation

 Set point – we get to a point where we level off with our weight  Influenced by heredity  Basal Metabolic Rate  body’s resting rate of energy expenditure

Psychology of Hunger

 Taste preference  Our mood can influence what we hunger for     Stress and depression can cause you to seek carbohydrates  Influences serotonin production Genetically predetermined to like sweet and salty  Evolution and obesity?

Culture – Cheek meat? Eyeballs?

 Neophobia Pregnancy – 10 weeks – food aversions  Horse/dog/rat/pigeon?

Embryo is most vulnerable to toxins

Ecology of eating

 Social settings impact how much we eat  We eat more around others  Unit bias – when helping yourself to portion sizes, size of plates will matter  Bigger plates, bigger portions  Offer smaller plates, people will take less  *New study at Cornell* Serve here, eat there

Eating Disorders

 Anorexia Nervosa  15% below normal body weight  75% girls  Body image issues  Come from competitive, high achieving, and protective families  Low self evaluations  Perfectionist standards

Bulimia Nervosa

 Often triggered by a weight loss diet  Binge and purge eaters  Purging  Through vomiting or laxatives  Excessive exercise or fasting afterwards  Often suffer depression and anxiety  Because weight fluctuates near normal body weight, it can be harder to tell

Binge eating disorder

 Periods of binge eating and remorse, but no purging, fasting or excessive exercise

Body Dysmorphia

 Bigorexia

Eating disorders

 Families of anorexia patients tend to be competitive, high achieving and protective  Families of bulimia patients have a higher than average incidence of childhood obesity and negative self evaluation  Mothers with eating disorders tend to focus on their own weight and their daughters  Sufferers have low self evaluations, set unattainable standards and are intensely concerned with how others view them

 Identical twins are more likely than fraternal to share disorder  Culprit genes?

 Body image across cultures  Africa and AIDS vs Western  Body image and performance  Math test  9/10 women would rather have a perfect body than a mate with one  6/10 men preferred the opposite

Obesity and Weight Control

 Body stores fat  Ideal fuel – high calorie  Obesity signals affluence?

 US adult obesity rate has doubled in the last 40 years  BMI of 30 or more  Child/teen obesity has 4x

Obesity

 Risks go up for  Diabetes  Hypertension  Heart disease  Gall stones  Arthritis  Certain types of cancer  More for apple shaped than pear shaped  Pot-bellies vs big hips

Social toxicity?

 Obese people are treated differently and viewed differently  Make less money?

 Marriage  Greater than race and gender discrimination  Leads to more depression

Physiology of Obesity

 Weight gain  Consuming more calories than expended  Size and number of fat cells  Typical adult has 30-40 Billion  They can be divided and trigger others to divide – creating 2x as many  They may shrink, but never go away

Set Point and Metabolism

 Fat cells need less energy to maintain their size  Cutting calories is not enough to lose weight  Metabolic rate adjusts  Large weight loss may be followed by a plateau

Obesity and Genes

 Adopted siblings who share meals, weight reflects biological parents  Identical twins have similar weights even when reared apart  Given an obese parent   Boy 3x, girl 6x more likely compared to normal weight parents FTO gene – doubles risk of becoming obese  Our genes determine our jeans?

Sexual Motivation

 Hormones  Estrogen  Testosterone  Why do American teens have higher rates of pregnancy than Europeans?

  Ignorance Minimal communication about birth control   Alcohol use Media projections of promiscuity

Sexual Orientation

 3-4% of men  1-2% of women  According to a survey done in the 1990’s in the US and Europe  Not associated with mental health

Sexual Orientation

 Fraternal birth order effect  Correlation between number of older brothers and being homosexual  Each older brother increases the likelihood by 1/3  Many animal species exhibit homosexual behaviors

Motivation – Need to belong

 Aides survival  Want to belong  When we feel accepted by those we care about, we have higher self esteem  Sustaining relationships  We grow attached with time, and look to hold onto those we grow close to  Pain of Ostracism  Being shunned, ignored, or rejected can have serious consequences on us psychologically and socially

Unit 8B - Emotion

 Whole organism responses including  1. Physiological Arousal –  Increased/Decreased Heart Rate  2. Expressive Behaviors  Smiling, Frowning  3. Conscious Experience  Interpretation of events

 Emotion comes from a stimulus  So what happens first?

 Consciously seeing the stimulus causing physiological response?

 Feeling your heart race causes you to be afraid (in some situations)

 Stimuli will elicit a response  Shaking, accelerated heart rate  You become aware of this and start to feel a sense of fear

 These stimuli will cause a simultaneous response  Both Emotion and Arousal happen at the same time  Sense of fear and accelerated heart beat  One doesn’t cause the other

 Must have both  Physiological Arousal AND  Cognitive Label – you have to determine which emotion you want to feel  If you think you should be afraid, you will be  If you think you should be angry, happy, sad, etc  We have to label the experience

before

can react to them we

 We know how we are going to react to something before we see it  Before we “know” what we think about a situation, we know how we feel about it  Emotion happens faster than cognition  Amygdala – fear center in the brain  Automatic reactions

 Sometimes our unconscious can interpret information for us  How else would we know what we are feeling?

 Sometimes we think about it

  What happens when you are afraid?

   Heart Races Mouth gets dry Stomach reacts Other things you cant feel happen too  Blood moves away from your non essential organs    Digestion slows Pupils Dilate More sugar into your blood stream

 What happens when you are afraid?

 Heart Races  Mouth gets dry  Stomach reacts  Other things you cant feel happen too  Blood moves away from your non essential organs  Digestion slows  Pupils Dilate  More sugar into your blood stream

 Autonomic Nervous System  2 parts – one excites, one calms  1. Sympathetic Nervous System  Excites  2. Parasympathetic Nervous System  Calms  Measuring these systems is how lie detectors work

 Nonverbal Communication  Body language  Facial Expressions  Tone of Voice  Hand Gestures  Your mouth to detect happiness  Eyes will show anger and fear

 Women  Both men and women have an easier time reading the body language of their own gender  American women show more emotion when communicating than men

 The only emotion men show more than women  ANGER  2 Reasons women are better (possibly)  1. Power – one person always has more power than another in any conversation  Followers are more sensitive to reading nonverbal cues  2. Environment – if you were raised in a culture that expresses themselves, more likely to do so

 Society’s rules governing how you should communicate  Baker vs Aziz 1991   “If you don’t leave, we will attack you” didn’t seem like a legit threat because it was said calmly  When is it ok to smile?

 Germans think we are hiding true emotion – smile too much  Japanese culture dictates that it is rude to not smile and to show disappointment – smile all the time

8B - Emotions

 Anger  Being angry, staying angry can have negative health impacts (increased risks of heart disease)  Releasing anger can allow us to achieve an emotional release (catharsis)  It can also allow us to get more angry in the future and increase the level of anger we feel

Anger

 Best way to handle anger?

 1. Wait  2. Deal with it in a way that allows you to move on  Don’t let little things fester and grow  Don’t stew on old things either, move on

Happiness

 Positive emotions fuel upward spirals  People who smile naturally generally live happier lives   Facial Feedback research  pen test/walking test False smiles – MIXED RESEARCH  Feel good, do good phenomenon  People are more helpful when they are in a good mood

Happiness

 Ups and downs of the day  Happiness usually rises through the middle part of the day  Problems from one day will fade in the next  Being really excited and happy also will fade over time  Our emotions balance out

Happiness

 Does money buy happiness?

 73% of Americans say YES  How important is it to you?

 What are your goals?

 Money does correlate with happiness  Diminishing returns or diminished marginal utility  But not always

Adaptation Level Phenomenon

 Harry Helson  We adjust to what we have at the moment  When we get an increase in pay, academics, or social prestige we experience an increase in pleasure  It will level off eventually, until we get our next increase

Happiness and others

 Relative deprivation  we are worse off to those we compare ourselves with  Comparing ourselves to some who have more creates envy  Comparing ourselves to those with less, creates contentment  Country music?

Predictors of Happiness

 Lykken and Tellegen  50% of your happiness is in our genes  Self esteem heritable?

 Relationships matter too  Married people tend to be happier (Germany)  Some of it is under our control, some may not be

Stress and Health

 Stress can manifest physiologically  Rashes, Asthma, Hypertension  Health Psychology  uses behavioral medicine (behavior and medical knowledge) to determine what behaviors will enable you to live the longest healthiest life  What attitudes increase likelihood of certain diseases?

Stress Response System

 Fight or Flight – adrenaline  Withdrawal – freeze/paralyzed with fear  Seeking and giving support More common in women

Tend and befriend

 Men turn more to alcohol / withdrawal / aggression

Stress Response System

 Hans Selye  General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS)  The body only really has one response to stress, no matter what type of stress it is experiencing  3 Phases  Alarm (initial physiological reaction)  Resistance (hormones released to cope with stress)  Exhaustion

Stress and Life Events

 Catastrophes  Stress levels recorded worldwide rise during these times (war, natural disasters)  Significant life changes  Losing a Job/Relative, Marriage, Divorce  Daily Hassles  Grocery shopping, waiting in traffic  Little things can add up over time

Stress and your

 Stress causes elevated blood pressure  Increases your risk if heart disease  Smoking, high fat diet, physical inactivity also  Type A – competitive, reactive, verbally aggressive, easily angered  Type B – calmer, easy going, relaxed

Stress and your heart

 Type A personalities more prone to heart attacks  Negative emotions evoke more “fight”  More time with blood rushed to muscles away from organs  Less time to have blood filtered  More time smoking or drinking to relax  Pessimistic and depression

Stress and Disease

 Psychophysiological illness  Illness caused by stress  Hypertension and headaches  Psychoneuroimmunology (PNI)  The body’s response to stress can lead to our immune system not working correctly

PNI

 Immune system can make 2 big mistakes  Attack your own body  Underattacking  Stress levels can prevent lymphocytes from being produced or produced too much  AIDS

Stress and Cancer

 Stress can cause cancer more rapidly  Blame?

 I shouldn’t have let that get to me  I should have expressed my feelings more  Stress does not cause cancer, it can allow it to grow faster by weakening the body