Motivation Notes

Motivation

  • Motivation energizes behavior and gives it direction.
  • It's influenced by:
    • Physiological events.
    • Culture.
    • Social interactions.

Drives and Homeostasis

  • Homeostasis: Maintaining a constant internal state.
  • Homeostatic control processes:
    • Psychological
    • Physiological
    • Mechanical
  • Set point: Goal value the system tries to maintain.

Body Temperature and Homeostasis

  • Homeostatic control systems maintain a narrow brain temperature range.
  • Physiological responses: Sweating and shivering.
  • Psychological reactions: Seeking shade or warmth.
  • Neurons in the hypothalamus act as neural thermostats.

Thirst as a Homeostatic Process

  • Thirst: Psychological manifestation of the need for water.
  • Two types of fluid reservoirs:
    • Intracellular: Water within cells.
    • Extracellular: Water outside cells (e.g., blood).
  • Extracellular thirst: Loss of water reduces blood volume and pressure.
    • Kidneys detect pressure drop and release renin.
    • Renin leads to angiotensin, causing a desire to drink.
    • Antidiuretic hormone (ADH) is released to retain water.
  • Intracellular thirst: Caused by osmosis due to increased salt concentrations in the bloodstream, which pulls water out of cells.

Incentive Motivation and Reward

  • Incentive motivation: Motivational role of external events or objects of desire.
  • Incentives are objects of motivation that pull us in a certain direction. Incentives can be rewards if they produce pleasure and reinforce behavior.
  • Primary reinforcers: Act as rewards independently of prior learning.
  • Secondary reinforcers: Gain status as rewards through learning.
  • Drive and incentive theories offer different perspectives.
  • Hunger enhances the motivational effect of incentives.

Wanting vs. Liking

  • 'Wanting': Anticipation of pleasure.
  • 'Liking': Pleasure experienced in the moment.
  • Dopamine system: Associated with 'wanting' (incentive motivation).
  • Opiate system: Underlies 'liking'.

Drug Addiction and Reward

  • Addiction: Compulsive drug-taking behavior despite negative consequences.
  • Addictive drugs:
    • Overactivate incentive systems.
    • Produce unpleasant withdrawal syndromes.
    • Cause permanent changes in brain incentive systems that cause craving.

Hunger, Eating, and Eating Disorders

  • Flavor is a significant factor in food preferences.
  • Humans are born with taste preferences (e.g., sweet) and aversions (e.g., bitter).
  • Learning mechanisms:
    • Conditioned aversion.
    • Social learning mechanisms.

Interactions Between Homeostasis and Incentives

  • Energy homeostasis: Maintaining energy balance.
  • Homeostasis and incentives both influence hunger; we eat because we need to and want to eat.
  • Taste and incentive stimuli of food interact with homeostatic drive reduction.
  • Conditioned satiety: Fullness after a meal is partly learned.
  • Alliesthesia: Foods taste better when hungry.

Physiological Hunger Cues

  • Stomach contractions are not the direct cause of hunger.
  • Receptors in the stomach are primarily chemical in nature. These receptors are more related to satiety than hunger.
  • Physiological signal: Glucose levels in the brain.
  • Peripheral signals: Stomach, intestine, and liver send satiety signals to the brain.
  • Cholecystokinin (CCK): Hormone released by the duodenum that promotes digestion and satiety.

Integration of Hunger Signals

  • Hunger and satiety signals processed in two stages.
  • Lateral hypothalamus: Damage leads to undereating the animal may simply ignore food.
  • Ventromedial hypothalamus: Damage leads to overeating.
  • Hypothalamic lesions may alter the homeostatic set point for body weight, essentially changing the body's thermostat.

Obesity

  • Obesity: 30% or more above appropriate body weight.
  • Genetic factors: Twin studies suggest genetic influence on weight gain and metabolism.
  • Fat cells: Number and size of fat cells influenced by genetics and calorie intake.

Dieting and Set Points

  • Set Point:
    • The point at which body weight is set.
    • The weight that the body strives to maintain.
  • Set point hypothesis: The body has a natural or optimal weight that it defends through complex regulatory processes.
  • Dieting can lower metabolic rate.

Overeating

  • Breakdown of conscious restraints.
  • Emotional arousal.

Dieting and Weight Control

  • Extreme diets can lead to subsequent overeating & lowered metabolic rates.
  • Weight control programs require permanent change of eating habits and exercise.

Anorexia and Bulimia

  • Anorexia nervosa: Extreme self-imposed weight loss.
  • Bulimia: Binge eating followed by purging.
  • Causes include:
    • Sociocultural factors: Emphasis on thinness, objectification theory.
    • Biological factors: Malfunctions of the hypothalamus or serotonin deficiencies.
    • Familial causes: Families with demand for perfection and extreme self-control but do not allow expressions of warmth or conflict.

Gender and Sexuality

  • Sex is a social motive.
  • Distinctions:
    • Early sexual development vs. adult sexuality.
    • Biological vs. environmental determinants.

Early Sexual Development

  • Gender identity: Thinking of oneself as male or female.
  • Androgen: Critical hormone for genital development; absence leads to female development.
  • Androgenization extends beyond anatomy, it effects brain cells.
  • Hormonal abnormalities can feminize males.

Hormones versus Environment

  • Social environment is crucial to sexual or gender development.
  • In cases of conflict between prenatal hormones and social rearing, environment typically dominates, as in cases of diethylstilbestrol exposure.
  • Cases of androgen insensitivity suggest that there are limitations to the power of the early rearing environment. This can result in a subsequent transition to male despite being raised as a female.

Adult Sexuality

  • Puberty occurs between ages 11 & 14.
  • In women:
    • Gonadotropin-releasing factors are secreted on a monthly cycle.
    • Follicle-stimulating hormone/Luteinizing hormone activates the ovaries.
    • Estrogen & Progesterone are released.
  • In men:
    • Interstitial cell stimulating hormone/testosterone are released.
    • Testosterone & other Androgens stimulate the physical development of male characteristics & desire.

Effects of Hormones on Desire and Arousal

  • Hormones play a larger role across species besides humans.
  • However, it has been indicated that there is minimal contribution of hormones to sexual desire/Arousal in men and even less dependent on hormones in women.

Neural Control

  • The brain is crucial for initiating sexual thoughts, desires, and behavior.
  • There is an influence by sexual hormones over neural functions.
  • The Nervous system has an effect on it's sexual hormones over many levels.

Early Experiences

  • Early experience has heavy influence on later aspects of social experiences.
  • Affectional bonds are influenced by interactions with trust and others interactions.

Cultural Influences

  • There is large emphasis on the cultural behaviors of society.
  • Many cultural differences are obvious through each country however cultural changes do exist within countries as well.
  • Today, the fear is the sexually transmited diseases in this world.

Sex Differences

  • Attitudes about sex differ; women are more likely to view love in a loving relationship.
  • Male/Female:
    • emotional infidelity/sexual infidelity.

Sexual Orientation

  • Sexual orientation is the degree to which the person is sexually attracted to others of the same/different gender.
  • There are different types:
    • Erotic attraction.
    • Romantic Behavior.
    • Self identification.
  • Frequency:
    • 10% of adults have reported some amount of attraction to those of the same sex.
    • ~3% of men and 1.4% of women typically self identify as gay or bisexual.

Causes and Behaviors across differences

  • Childhood gender nonconformity is a large indicator for orientation for both women/men.
  • Identifications with the other sex parent have no impact on homosexuality or heterosexuality.
  • Genetics vs Environment.
  • Exotic, and Erotic (EBE) theory: genetics/hormones cause a series of behaviors into certain activities/interests and can develop into behaviors based on gender.
  • Instincts on learning from experiences/interactions and can be applied in many environments.