AP Psychology Motivation, emotion, and stress

Motivation - A need or desire that energizes and directs behavior.

Instinct - A complex behavior that is rigidly patterned throughout a species and is unlearned.

Instinct Theory - A view that explains human behavior as motivated by automatic, involuntary, and unlearned responses.

Drive Reduction Theory - The idea that a physiological need creates an aroused tension state (a drive) that motivates an organism to satisfy the need.
NEED → DRIVE → DRIVE REDUCING BEHAVIOR

Homeostasis - A tendency to maintain a balanced or constant internal state.

Incentives - A positive or negative environmental stimulus that motivates behavior.

Optimal Arousal Theory - A theory of motivation stating that people are motivated to behave in ways that maintain what is, for them, an optimal level of arousal.

Hierarchy of Needs - Maslow's pyramid of human needs.
- physiological needs
- safety needs
- belongingness and love needs
- esteem needs
- self-actualization needs
- self-transcendence needs

Glucose - A sugar that is the major source of energy for the body's cells.

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.

Lateral Hypothalamus - You'll eat even if you aren't hungry.

Ventromedial Hypothalamus - You won't eat even if you are hungry.

Sexual Response Cycle - The four stages of sexual responding described by Masters and Johnson.
- excitement (genital areas fill with blood)
- plateau (excitement peaks)
- orgasm (muscles contract all over; climax)
- resolution (back to unaroused state)

Refractory Period - A resting period after orgasm, during which a man cannot achieve another orgasm.

Sexual Dysfunctions - Problems that consistently impair sexual arousal or functioning.

Paraphilia - A sexual disorder in which the person's preferred method of sexual arousal and fulfillment is through sexual behavior that is unusual or socially unacceptable.

Estrogens - Sex hormones, such as estradiol, secreted in greater amounts by females than by males and contributing to female sex characteristics. In nonhuman female mammals, estrogen levels peak during ovulation, promoting sexual receptivity.

Emotion - A response of the whole organism, involving (1) physiological arousal, (2) expressive behaviors, and (3) conscious experience.

James Lange Theory - The theory that our experience of emotion is our awareness of our physiological responses to emotion arousing stimuli.
Trembling → Fear

The Yerkes-Dodson Theory - suggests that performance increases with mental arousal (stress) but only up to a point: when an individuals' level of stress is too low or too high, their performance deteriorates.

Cannon Bard Theory - The theory that an emotion-arousing stimulus simultaneously triggers (1) physiological responses and (2) the subjective experience of emotion.
Trembling + Fear

Two Factor Theory - Schachter-Singer's theory that to experience emotion one must (1) be physically aroused and (2) cognitively label the arousal.

Spillover Effect - Arousal response to one event spills over into our response to the next event.

Cognitive Appraisal - The interpretation of an event that helps determine its stress impact. "Is it dangerous or not?"

Polygraph - A machine, commonly used in attempts to detect lies, that measures several of the physiological responses accompanying emotion (such as perspiration and cardiovascular and breathing changes).

Facial Feedback Effect - The tendency of facial muscle states to trigger corresponding feelings such as fear, anger, or happiness.

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 Adaptation Syndrome (GAS) - Seyle's concept that the body responds to stress in 3 phases.
- alarm (sympathetic nervous system is activated)
- resistance (fully engaged for challenge)
- exhaustion (vulnerability to illness)

Tend and Befriend Response - Under stress, people (especially women) often provide support to others (tend) and bond with and seek support from others (befriend).

Psychophysiological Illness - Literally, "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 release antibodies that fight bacterial infections.
- T lymphocytes form in the thymus and other lymphatic tissue and attack cancer cells, viruses, and foreign substances.

Macrophage - Identify, pursue, and ingest harmful invaders and worn out cells.

Natural Killer Cells (NK cells) - Purse diseased cells.

Carcinogens - Substances that cause cancer.

Coronary Heart Disease - The clogging of the vessels that nourish the heart muscle; the leading cause of death in many developed countries.

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.