AP Psychology Unit 8: Motivation and Emotions

Motivation

a need or desire that energizes and directs behavior

Instinct

a complex behavior that is rigidly patterned throughout a species and is unlearned

Drive-reduction theory

the idea that a psychological need creates an aroused tension state that motivates an organism to satisfy the need

Homeostasis

a tendency to maintain a balanced or constant internal state

Incentive

a positive or negative environmental stimulus that motivates behavior

Hierarchy of needs

Maslow's pyramid of needs, beginning at the base with physiological needs that must first be satisfied before higher-level safety needs and then psychological needs become active

Glucose

the form of sugar that circulates in the blood and provides the major source of energy for body tissues

Set point

the point at which an individual's "weight thermostat" is supposedly set. when the body falls below this weight, an increase in hunger and a lowered metabolic rate may act to restore the lost weight

Basal metabolic rate

the body's resting rate of energy expenditure

Anorexia nervosa

an eating disorder in which a person diets and becomes significantly underweight,yet, still feeling fat, continues to starve

Bulimia nervosa

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

Binge-eating disorder

significant binge-eating episodes, followed by distress, disgust, or guilt, but without the compensatory purging, fasting, or excessive exercise that marks bulimia nervosa

Sexual response cycle

the four stages of sexual responding described by Masters and Johnson- excitement, plateau, orgasm, and resolution

Refractory Period

a resting period after orgasm, during which a man cannot a achieve another orgasm

Estrogen

sex hormones, such as estradiol, secreted in greater amounts by females than by males and contributing to female sex characteristics

Testosterone

male sex hormones; stimulates the growth of the males sex organs in the fetus and the development of the male sex characteristics during puberty

Sexual orientation

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

Emotion

a response of the whole organism

James-Lange theory

the theory that our experience of emotion is our awareness of our physiological responses to emotion-arousing stimuli

Cannon-Bard theory

the theory that an emotion-arousing stimulus simultaneously triggers

1) physiological responses
2) the subjective experience of emotion

Two-factor theory

the Schachter-Singer theory that to experience emotion one must

1) physically aroused
2) cognitively label the arousal

Polygraph

a machine, commonly used in attempts to detect lies

Facial feedback

the effect of facial expressions on experienced emotions, as when a facial expression of anger or happiness intensifies feelings of anger or happiness

Catharsis

emotional releases; maintains that "releasing" aggressive energy relieves aggressive urges

Feel good, do good phenomenon

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

Well-being

self-perceived happiness or satisfaction with life

Adaption-level phenomenon

our tendency to form judgements relative to a neutral level defined by our prior experience

Relative deprivation

the perception that we are worse off relative to those with whom we compare ourselves

Behavioral medicine

an interdisciplinary field that integrates behavioral and medical knowledge and applies that knowledge to health and disease

Health psychology

a subfield of psychology that provides psychology's contribution to behavioral medicine

Stress

the process by which we perceive and respond to certain events, called stressors, that we appraise as threatening or challenging

General adaption syndrome

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

Coronary heart disease

the clogging of the vessels that nourish the heart muscle

Type A

Friedman and Rosenman's term for competitive, hard-driving, impatient, verbally aggressive, and anger-prone people

Type B

Friedman and Rosenman's term for easygoing, relaxed people

Psychophysiological illness

"mind-body" illness; any stress-related physical illness, such as hypertension and some headaches

Psychoneuroimmunology

the study of how psychological, neural, and endocrine processes together affect the immune system and resulting health

Lymphocytes

the two types of white blood cells that are part of the body's immune system: B lymphocytes form in the bone marrow and releases antibodies that fight bacterial infections; T lymphocytes form in the thymus and other lymphatic tissue and attack cancer cells, viruses, and foreign substances