9: motivation and emotion

motives

the needs, wants, interests, and desires that propel people in certain direction, involves goal-directed behavior

a drive

hypothetical, internal state of tension that motivates an organism to engage in activities that should reduce this tension

homeostasis

a state go physiological equilibrium or stability

incentive

external goal that has capacity to motivate behaviou

affiliation motive

need for belonging

brain regulation in hunger

arcuate nucleus, and paraventricular nucleus play a large role

hormones that appear to contribute to the regulation of hunger

Ghrelin → secreted by the stomach and causes stomach contractions, promoting hunger

CCK → released after consumption of food, delivers satiety signals to the brain, reducing hunger

Leptin → provides the hypothalamus with information about the body’s fat stores (higher leptin levels = decreased propensity to feel hungry)

environmental variables that influence food consumption

1. palatability → better the food tastes, the more food people consume

2. quantity available → more food served, more food consumed

3. variety → greater variety available, more food consumed

4. presence of others → more people, more food consumed

5. stress → more stress, more (unhealthy) food choices

6. exposure to food cues (e.g. ads) → incite hunger and increase food intake

obesity

the condition of being overweight, assessed in terms of BMI (30)

concept of set point

everyone may have a natural point of stability for weight, which means most people tend to regain lost weight easily

parental investment

what each sex has to invest in terms of time, energy, survival risk, and forgone opportunities (forgoing other goals to produce and nurture offspring)

males’ parental involvement

invest little in the production of offspring beyond copulation, → show more desire for variety of sexual partners, more willing to engage in uncommitted sex

women’s parental involvement

invest at least 9 months in pregnancy and more to nourish the offspring → conservative, and highly selective in choosing partners

male’s preferences in mates

youthfulness and attractiveness, associated with health and fertility

female’s preferences in mates

emphasis on men’s intelligence, ambition, education, income, and social status (man needs to provide materialistic resources)

achievement motive

the need to master difficult challenges, to outperform others, and to meet high standards of excellence

what are people who score high in need for achievement like

they tend to work harder and more persistently on tasks, and are more likely to delay gratification to pursue long-term goals

procedure of the thematic apperception test

examiner shows a series of ambiguous pictures → tells participant to write a story that describes what’s happening → researchers use standard scoring system to determine amount of achievement imagery in people’s stories

tendency to pursue achievement in a particular situation depends on

• strength of one’s motivation to achieve success

• one’s estimate of the probability of success for the task at hand

• incentive value of success, depends on the tangible and intangible rewards for success on the specific task

(pursuit of achievement increases as the probability, and incentive value of success increases)

emotion involves

1. a subjective conscious experience (the cognitive component)

2. bodily arousal (physiological component)

3. characteristic over expression (behavioral component)

affective forecasting

efforts to predict one’s emotional reactions to future events

impact bias

leads them to overestimate the emotional impact of future events

galvanic skin response

an increase in the electrical conductivity of the skin that occurs when swear glands increase in activity (polygraph)

muscular feedback

muscular feedback from one’s own facial expressions contributes to one’s conscious experience of emotions

why does muscular feedback happen

facial muscles send signals to the brain, signals help the brain to recognize the emotion that one is experiencing

display rules

norms that regulate the appropriate expression of emotions (when, how and to whom, people can show various emotions)

James-Lange theory of emotion

the conscious experience of emotion result’s from one’s perception of autonomic arousal

(e.g. you assume you’re fearful because your pulse is racing)

stimulus → autonomic arousal → brain interprets visceral changes

Cannon-Bard theory of emotion

physiological arousal can happen without the experience of emotion, and visceral changes are too slow to precede the conscious experience of emotion

stimulus → amygdala → conscious feeling and autonomic arousal

Schater’s two-factor theory of emotion

you experience physiological arousal, then you search for an explanation

stimulus → autonomic arousal → appraisal (cerebrum) → labelling of arousal

evolutionary theory

emotions developed because of their adaptive value

ANS responsible for

fight or flight response — largely controlled by the release of adrenal hormones

neural circuits in fear regulation

amygdala (limbic system) plays a particularly central role in the acquisition of conditioned fears