Transcript Motivation and Emotion

Motivation and Emotion
PRIMES (primary motivational and emotional systems)
• Ross Buck, 1999: A hierarchy of special purpose
processing systems that interact with and guide
more general purpose processes like learning
and cognition
–
–
–
–
–
Reflexes
Fixed Action Patterns
Drives like hunger, thirst, lust
Primary Emotions (Fear, Rage, Curiosity…)
Social Emotions (Panic-attachment, Love)
Defining Motivation, and a Model
• Internal processes that initiate, sustain and direct
activities
• Model of how motivated activities work:
– Need: Internal deficiency; causes
– Drive: Energized motivational state; e.g. hunger,
thirst. Activates a response
– Response: Action or series of actions designed to
attain a goal
– Goal: Target of motivated behavior
– Arousal: Activation of the body and nervous system
Arousal Theory: Assumes that people prefer to
maintain ideal levels of arousal
(a) The general relationship between arousal and efficiency can be described by an inverted U
curve. The optimal level of arousal or motivation is higher for a simple task (b) than for a
complex task (c).
Other motivation concepts
• Intrinsic Motivation: Motivation coming
from within, not from external rewards;
based on personal enjoyment of a task
• Extrinsic Motivation: Based on obvious
external rewards, obligations or similar
factors
• Biological needs
• Social needs (are these really not
biological?)
Hunger
• Homeostasis: Body equilibrium; balance
• Hypoglycemia: Low blood sugar; stimulates
feelings of hunger
• Hypothalamus: Brain structure; regulates many
aspects of motivation and emotion including
hunger, thirst, and sexual behavior
• Feeding System: Areas in the hypothalamus
that initiate eating when stimulated
• Satiety System: Areas in the hypothalamus that
terminate eating
This is a cross section through the middle of the brain (viewed from the front of the brain).
Indicated areas of the hypothalamus are associated with hunger and the regulation of body
weight.
More on Eating Behavior
• Neuropeptide Y: Substance in the brain that
initiates eating
• Glucagon-like Peptide 1: Substance in brain that
terminates eating
• Set Point: Proportion of body fat that is
maintained by changes in hunger and eating; point
where weight stays same when you make no effort
to gain or lose weight
• Leptin: Substance released by fat cells that inhibits
eating; presently being studied for possible
importance in controlling and losing weight
In Cannon’s early study of hunger, a simple apparatus was used to simultaneously record
hunger pangs and stomach contractions. (After Cannon, 1934.) There are some things I just
wouldn’t do for science and this is one of them.
Figure 10.5
Dietary intake in modern versus paleolithic times. Eaton, Shostak, and Konner (1988)
estimated the makeup of our paleolithic ancestors’ typical diet and compared it to that of the
average person in modern society. They maintain that there have been some striking shifts in
dietary intake, and that modern humans ignore nutritional requirements that are the product of
millions of years of evolution.
Taste
• Taste Aversion: Active dislike for a
particular food.
– VERY difficult to overcome
• Bait Shyness: Unwillingness or hesitation of
animals to eat a particular, tainted food.
– One reason why it is so hard to kill vermin and
pests
Eating Disorders: Anorexia Nervosa
• Anorexia Nervosa: Active self-starvation or
sustained loss of appetite that seems to have
psychological origins
– Control issues seem to be involved
– Very difficult to effectively treat
– Overwhelmingly affects females
Eating Disorders: Bulimia Nervosa
• Bulimia Nervosa (Binge-Purge Syndrome):
Excessive eating usually followed by selfinduced vomiting and/or taking laxatives
– Also difficult to treat
– Prozac approved by FDA to treat bulimia
nervosa
– Overwhelmingly affects females
Women with abnormal eating habits were asked to rate their body shape on a scale similar to
the one you see here. As a group, they chose ideal figures much thinner than what they
thought their current weights were. (Most women say they want to be thinner than they
currently are, but to a lesser degree than women with eating problems.) Notice that the women
with eating problems chose an ideal weight that was even thinner than what they thought men
prefer. This is not typical of most women. In this study, only women with eating problems
wanted to be thinner than what they thought men find attractive (Zellner, Harner, & Adler,
1989).
Sexual Motivation and Behavior: Determining Desire
• The alchemy of desire
– Endorphins, the body’s opiates
– Phenethylamine (PEA)- the body’s natural
amphetamine, it makes us feel giddy and lose
our appetites
• Hormonal regulation
– Estrogens
– Androgens
• Testosterone
• Pheromones
– Synchronized menstrual cycles
– Aphrodisiacs
Parental investment theory and mating preferences. Parental investment theory suggests that
basic differences between males and females in parental investment have great adaptive
significance and lead to gender differences in mating propensities and preferences, as outlined
here.
Gender and potential mates’ financial prospects. Consistent with evolutionary theory, Buss
(1989) found that females place more emphasis on potential partners’ financial prospects than
males do. Moreover, he found that this trend transcended culture. The specific results for 6 of
the 37 cultures studied by Buss are shown here.
Gender and potential mates’ physical attractiveness. Consistent with evolutionary theory, Buss
(1989) found that all over the world, males place more emphasis on potential partners’ good
looks than do females. The specific results for 6 of the 37 cultures studied by Buss are shown
here.
Evolutionary hypotheses about gender differences in relationship jealousy. Evolutionary theory
suggests that the issue of paternity uncertainty creates basic differences between males and
females in the types of infidelity that will elicit the strongest feelings of jealousy, as outlined here.
The gender gap in jealousy. Buss et al. (1992) asked subjects to vividly imagine scenarios
involving either sexual or emotional infidelity by their partner. Subjects’ distress while imagining
these scenarios was assessed by monitoring various indexes of emotional and physiological
arousal. As these results show, sexual infidelity generated the most distress in males, whereas
emotional infidelity elicited the most arousal in females.
Abraham Maslow and Needs
• Hierarchy of Human Needs: Maslow’s ordering
of needs based on presumed strength or potency;
some needs are more powerful than others and
thus will influence your behavior to a greater
degree
• Basic Needs: First four levels of needs in
Maslow’s hierarchy.
– Lower needs tend to be more potent than
higher needs
• Growth Needs: Higher level needs associated
with self-actualization
• Meta-Needs: Needs associated with impulses for
self-actualization
Maslow believed that lower needs in the hierarchy are dominant. Basic needs must be
satisfied before growth motives are fully expressed. Desires for self-actualization are reflected
in various meta-needs (see text).
Emotions
• Physiological Changes: Include heartrate,
blood pressure, perspiration and other
involuntary responses
– Adrenaline: Hormone produced by adrenal
glands that arouses the body
• Emotional Feelings: Private subjective
experience of having an emotion
• Emotional Expression: Outward signs that
an emotion is occurring
Brain and Emotion
• Amygdala: Part of limbic system in the
brain that produces fear responses
• Autonomic Nervous System (ANS): Neural
system that connects brain with internal
organs and glands
• Sympathetic branch: Part of ANS that
activates body for emergency action
• Parasympathetic Branch: Part of ANS that
quiets body and conserves energy
– Parasympathetic Rebound: Excess activity
following a period of intense emotion
An amygdala can be found buried within the temporal lobes on each side of the brain (see
Chapter 3). The amygdala appears to provide “quick and dirty” processing of emotional stimuli
that allows us to react involuntarily to danger.
Emotion and the polygraph. A lie detector measures the autonomic arousal that most people
experience when they tell a lie. After using nonthreatening questions to establish a baseline, a
polygraph examiner looks for signs of arousal (such as the sharp change in GSR shown here)
on incriminating questions. Unfortunately, the polygraph is not a very dependable index of
whether people are lying.
Theories of Emotion
• James-Lange Theory: Emotional feelings follow
bodily arousal and come from awareness of such
arousal
• Cannon-Bard Theory: The thalamus (in brain)
causes emotional feelings and bodily arousal at the
same time
• Schachter’s Cognitive Theory: Emotions occur
when a label is applied to general physical arousal
• Facial Feedback Hypothesis: Sensations from
facial expressions and becoming aware of them is
what leads to the emotion someone feels
Primary emotions. Evolutionary theories of emotion attempt to identify primary emotions. Three
leading theorists—Silvan Tomkins, Carroll Izard, and Robert Plutchik—have compiled different
lists of primary emotions, but this chart shows great overlap among the basic emotions
identified by these theorists. (Based on Mandler, 1984)
Emotional intensity in Plutchik’s model. According to Plutchik, diversity in human emotion is a
product of variations in emotional intensity, as well as a blending of primary emotions. Each
vertical slice in the diagram is a primary emotion that can be subdivided into emotional
expressions of varied intensity, ranging from most intense (top) to least intense (bottom).