Unit 7 part 1 test review

motivation

a need or desire that energizes and directs behavior

instinct/evolutionary theory

A. Instinct: a complex behavior that is rigidly patterned throughout a species and is unlearned.
Ex. nest building behaviors of species of birds.
Ex. rooting and sucking in human infants.
B. Early instinct theorists, influenced by Darwin’s Theory of Natural Selection, tried to classify human behaviors as instinctive.
-when it was clear that they were naming, not explaining behaviors, this approach fell in disfavor.
C. The idea that genes predispose species-typical behaviors is still influential in evolutionary psychology, which studies behaviors in search of their adaptive functions.

drive reduction theory of motivation

The idea that a physiological need (ex. hunger, thirst) creates an aroused state (a drive) that motivates an organism to satisfy the need (ex. by eating, drinking). [*we try to reduce tension]

A. The physiological aim of drive reduction is homeostasis - a tendency to maintain a balanced or constant internal state; the regulation of any aspect of body chemistry, such as blood glucose, around a particular level.
B. Not only are we pushed by our “need” to reduce drives, we are also pulled by incentives - positive or negative stimuli that motivates behavior.

optimal arousal theory

A. Some motivated behaviors actually increase arousal instead of decrease it.
-curiosity driven behaviors, like driving fast or climbing Mt.Everest, suggest that too little as well as too much stimulation can motivate people to seek an optimum level of arousal.

B. The Yerkes-Dodson Law

The Yerkes-Dodson Law

the principle that performance increases w/ arousal only up to a point, beyong which performance decreases

1. Although we usually perform best when we feel moderately aroused, the level of arousal for optimal performance varies for different tasks.
A. With easy or well-learned tasks, peak performance comes with relatively high
arousal.

B. With more difficult or unrehearsed tasks, optimal arousal is somewhat lower.

Ex. Runners, who are performing a well-learned task, usually achieve their peak performances when highly aroused by competition.

Ex. Basketball players shooing free throws, a less automatic skill, may not perform quite as well if a packed gym make them hyperaroused.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Maslow’s pyramid of human needs, beginning at the base w/ physiological needs that must be satisfied before higher-level safety needs and then psychilogical needs become active.
1) self actualization - to fufill our potential
2) esteem - the need for self-esteem, achievement, independence, recognition, respect.
3) love and belonging - need to love and be loved, to belong and be accepted, to avoid loneliness & alienation.
4) Safety - the need to feel safe, secure, stable. That the world is predictable.

5) Physiological - need to satisfy hunger and thirst

the lateral hypothalamus

brings on hunger. When electrically stimulated, well-fed animals would begin to eat; when they are destroyed, even starving animals had no interest in food.
-it releases the hunger-triggering hormone orexin.

the ventromedial hypothalamus

depresses hunger. stimulate this area and an animal will stop eating; destroy it and the animal’s stomach and intestine will process food more rapidly, causing it to become extremely fat

anorexia nervosa

an eating disorder in which a normal weight person (usually an adolescent female) diets and become significantly (15% or more) underweight, yet, still feeling fat, continues to starve.
-9 out 10 are adolescent females

Bulimia nervosa

an ED characterized by episodes of overeating, usually of high-calorie foods, followed by vomiting, laxative use, fasting or excessive exercise

The Sexual Response Cycle

The 4 stages of sexual responding described by William Masters and Virginia Johnson – excitement, plateau, orgasm and resolution.

Sexual orientation

an enduring sexual attraction toward members of either one’s own sex (homosexual orientation) or the other sex (heterosexual orientation).

flow

a completely involved, focused state of consciousness, with diminished awareness of self and time, resulting from optimal engagement of one’s skills.

Industrial-Organization (I/O) Psychology

the application of psychological concepts and methods to optimizing human behavior in workplaces.

3 subfields of I/O Psychology: 1

1) Human factors psychology - How machines and enviroments can be optimally designed to fit human abilities

3 subfields of I/O Psychology: 2

2) personnel psychology - focuses on recruitment, selection, placement, training, appraisal and development of workers (employees).
-personnel psychologists match people with jobs by identifying and placing well-suited candidates

3 subfields of I/O Psychology: 3

3) organization psychology - examines organizational influences or worker satisfaction and productivity and facilitates organizational change

interviewer illusion

a feeling of overconfidence in one’s intuitive ability to predict employee success

structure interviews

interview process that asks the same job-relevant questions of all applicants, each of whom is rated on established scales
A. an unstructured interview might ask “how organized are you” or “how do you handle stress?” and a structured interview might ask “tell me about a time when you were caught between conflicting demands, without time to accomplish both. How did you handle that?”
B. Structured interviews have 2x the predictive accuracy of unstructured seat-of-the-pants interviwes b/c they reduce memory disortion and bias.

unstructured vs structured interviews

A structured interview uses a set of pre-determined questions asked to every candidate, allowing for easy comparison between answers, while an unstructured interview is more flexible, with questions adapting to the conversation flow, providing a deeper look into a candidate's personality and thought process, but making direct comparisons more difficult

emotions

a response involving a mix of 1)physiological arousal (heart pounding), 2) expressive behaviors (quickened pace), & 3) conscious experience [including thoughts, for example, has my child just been kidnapped? & feelings, for example, a sense of fear, and later joy

Theories of emotion: The James-Lange Theory - by William James & Carl Lange

we feel emotion after we notice our physiological response. Ex. cross the street, see a truck coming at you, get out of the way first, then feel scared

Theories of emotion: The Cannon-Bard Theory - By Walter Cannon & Philip Bard

we feel emotion at the same time that our bodues respond. Ex. your heart pounds as you feel fear; one doesn’t cause the other

Theories of emotion: Two-Factor Theory - By Stanley Schachter & Jerome Singer

To experience emotions one must 1) be physically aroused and 2) cognitively label the arousal.
-emotional experience requires a conscious interpretation of the arousal.
-embodied emotion: emotions involve the body

the spillover effect

Occurs when our arousal from one event influences our response to other events

Ex. Arousal from a sporting event can fuel anger which can lead to rioting or other violent confrontations

A. You may “catch” the emotion of the person you are with

Ex. You may become happy if the other person is acting excited or you may become testy if the other person is acting irritated

Two ways we learn fears

1. Fears can be conditioned - associating emotions with specific situations

Ex. A child fears an object that is associated with a loud noise.

2. fear can also be learned by observation - watching others display fear in response to certain events or surroundings. Ex. Susan Mineka's experiment with monkeys - after repeatedly observing their parents or peers refusing to reach for food in the presence of a snake, the younger monkeys developed a similar strong fear of snakes.

   -When retested three months later, the fear persisted. This suggested fears don't only reflect our past traumas but also what we learn from our parents and friends.

The catharsis hypothesis

Maintains that “releasing” aggressive energy (through action or fantasy) relieves aggressive urges.

-Research does not support this hypothesis:

Venting rage may calm us temporarily, but in the long run it does not reduce anger and may actually amplify it.

Emotions and the Autonomic Nervous system

As your Autonomic Nervous System gets ready for action, your body also responds for action in less noticeable ways - to provide energy, your liver pours extra sugar into the bloodstream. To help burn the sugar, your respiration increases to supply needed oxygen.

Your digestion slows, diverting blood from internal organs to your muscles, making running easier. Pupils dilate letting in more light. To cool your body, you perspire.

- Your body prepares you for fight or flight.

1. It's sympathetic division mobilizes us for action by directing adrenal glands to release stress hormones (adrenaline and noradrenaline) which increases heart rate, blood pressure and blood sugar levels.

2. It's parasympathetic division calms us after the crisis has passed, though arousal diminishes gradually.

The two alternative pathways that sensory stimuli may travel when triggering an emotional response

1. Like speedy reflexes that operate apart form the brain's thinking cortex, some emotions take the "low road" via neural pathways that bypass the cortex (which offers the alternative "high road" pathway).

1. Emotional responses are immediate when sensory input goes directly to the amygdala via the thalamus, bypassing the cortex, triggering a rapid reaction that is often outside our conscious awareness.

2. Responses to complex emotions (like guilt, happiness and love) require interpretation and are routed along the slower route to the cortex for analysis.
   Ex. Subliminally presented fearful eyes or happy eyes; the fearful eyes triggered increased amygdala activity.

The feel-good,do-good phenomenon

people’s tendency to be helpful when already in a good mood.

The adaptation-level phenomenon

our tendency to form judgments (of sounds, of lights, of income) relative to a neutral level defined by our experience.

Relative Deprivation

the perception that one is worse off relative to those with whom one compares oneself.
Ex. Gerrit Cole’s 9 year $324 million contract ($36 million per year) with the Yankees made him temporarily happy, but it also diminished other star players’ satisfaction with their lesser, multi-million-dollar contracts.

emotional display rules

standards as to how individuals display feelings within their given societies. They involve a given culture’s etiquette, rules, and conventions of societal acceptance
ex. watching a gruesome scene, americans grimace and japanese hid their emotions

the facial feedback effect

facial expressions amplify our emotions by activating muscles associated with specific states and the muscles signal the body to respond as though we were experiencing those states.
Ex. When we simulate the facial expressions normally associated with happiness, we may feel happier.

Ex. People reported feeling more fear than anger, disgust or sadness when made to construct a fearful expression.

The behavior feedback effect

if we move our body as we would when experiencing some condition (ex. shuffling along with downcast eyes, as when sad), we are likely to feel that emotion to some degree

Hans Selye’s General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS)

Selye’s concept of the body’s adaptive response to stress in the three phases—alarm, resistance, exhaustion

Nonverbal Communication

1. Most of us are good enough at reading nonverbal cues to decipher the emotions in an old silent film.

   A. We are especially good at detecting nonverbal threats.
   Ex. In a crowd of faces, a single angry face will "pop out" faster than a single happy one.

2. By exposing different parts of emotion- laden faces, Robert Kestenbaum discovered that we read fear and anger mostly from the eyes and happiness from the mouth.

3. Changes in expression also help us read a face.

   A. Some are more sensitive that others to such cues.

   Ex. After a two-second scene revealing only the face of an upset woman, the researchers would ask whether the woman was criticizing someone for being late or talking about her divorce.

   - Given such small cues, some people were better than others at detecting emotion.

   - Introverts tend to be better at reading others' emotions, although extroverts are easier to read.