Chapter 8 - Emotion and Motivation

THEMES:

• Intro to Motivation

• Instinct Theory and Evolutionary Psychology

• Homeostasis and Drive Theory

• Incentives and Expectancy Theories

• Psychodynamic and Humanistic Theories

Intro to Motivation

• Motivation → Process that influences goal-directed behaviour, it influences direction, persistence, and vigour as well

Instinct Theory and Evolutionary Psychology

• Based on Darwin’s Theory of Evolution → Instinct motivates behaviour

• Instinct → Inherited predisposition to behave a certain way in response to certain stimuli (predictable)

  • Genetic

  • Found among all members of a species

  • Independent of learning

  • Based on survival of the organism

• Proposed numerous (thousands) instincts in humans

• Not widely accepted

  • Circular reasoning (Why are people greedy → Greed is a instinct → How do we know greed is an instinct → People are greedy)

• Instinct Theory 2.0 → Modern Evolutionary Psychology view

  • Psychological motives based on evolution

  • Genes related to behaviours that increase chances of survival and reproduction

  • Adaptive significance

Homeostasis and Drive Theory

• Homeostasis → Internal physiological equilibrium that the body strives to maintain

  • Delicate balance ensures survival

  • Applied to thirst, hunger, body temp, weight, sleep, etc.

DRIVE THEORY

• Drive Theory → Physiological disruptions to homeostasis produce drives

  • States of internal tension

  • Motivate behaviour to reduce the tension

  • Drive pushes organisms into action eg. when you’re thirsty, you get a drink

  • Less influential - people behave contrary to its predictions (diets, horror movies, etc.)

Incentives and Expectancy

INCENTIVE THEORY

• Incentive → Something that motivates or encourages an organism to do something (want not need)

  • Unlike the “push” of Drive Theory, incentives provide a “pull” towards a goals eg. getting a good grade, winning a trophy

• Incentive Theories Today → Focus on the “pull” of external stimuli, even in the absence of biological need eg. full but still want dessert

  • Stimuli have an incentive value → higher value of stimuli = want it more

  • Applied to understanding drug abuse

    • People with drug abuse problems continue to use it because of the incentive of what the drug will do for them

      • Incentive theory → using heroin to get high again (addiction)

    • Drive theory (withdrawal) → using heroin again during withdrawal, reduces withdrawal, to maintain homeostasis of that high)

• People often respond differently to the same incentive

  • Leads to different incentive theories that are akin to classical conditioning

  • Expectancy theories employ the cognitive perspective

EXPECTANCY THEORY

• Expectancy Theory → (motivation = expectancy x incentive value)

  • Adds expectancy to incentive value for motivation

  • Employs the cognitive perspective

  • Goal-directed behaviours driven by:

    • Strength of expectation that behaviour will lead to a goal

    • Value that person places on goal (incentive value)

    • Different people have different strengths of expectation and different values that they place on goals)

TYPES OF MOTIVATION

• Intrinsic Motivation → Performing an activity for its own sake

  • Motivated to perform an activity for its own sake and personal rewards

  • Eg. Playing piano just for fun

• Extrinsic Motivation → Performing an activity to obtain external reward or to avoid punishment

  • Motivated to perform an activity to earn a reward or avoid punishment

  • Eg. Playing piano for money

Psychodynamic and Humanistic Theories

PSYCHODYNAMIC THEORY

• Freud proposed that most behaviour came from unconscious impulses and psychological defences

  • Impulses naturally want to be expressed

  • Defences want to keep impulses ‘at bay’

• Conflict produces energy that needs to be released, instead it’s funnelled into socially acceptable outputs

• Strongest drives = sex and aggression

  • eg. Someone with strong aggressive impulses would have a career they could funnel the aggression into, like a lawyer or athlete

• Freud’s “dual-instinct” model was not supported but led to other theories

  • Modern theories emphasize the role of unconscious motive and tensions, in addition to conscious processes

    • Stress motives for self-esteem and social belonging

HUMANISTIC THEORY

• Humanistic Theory → People are motivated to perform actions by the desire to meet certain needs

Abraham Maslow

• Other perspectives ignored the motivation of striving for personal growth

  • Remember the humanistic perspective says “hey guys why are we looking at other places, why can’t we just want something for ourselves, why can’t we just want to be our best self, that’s us"

• He helped describe 2 categories of needs:

  • Deficiency Needs → Things concerned with physical and social survival

  • Growth Needs → Unique to humans; push us to develop our potential

• Deficiency and growth needs were arranged on a need hierarchy

  • Deficiency needs → Bottom

  • Growth needs → Top

  • Basically once you satisfy your basic physiological needs, you can work on the next ‘tier’ of needs

    • End goal = Self-Actualization (reaching full potential)

  • Physiological needs → Safety needs → Belongingness/Love needs → Esteem needs -? Cognitive needs → Aesthetic needs → Self-Actualization

• Questioning the hierarchy → Society changes what we need and how we prioritize things

  • Self-Actualization is a vague goal (never enough??)

  • Doesn’t explain behaviours that go against the ranking of needs (hungry but dieting, POW enduring torture to protect comrades)

SELF-DETERMINATION THEORY

• Self-determination theory focuses on internal sources of motivation, including a need for personal growth and fulfillment

• Combination of psychodynamic and humanistic views

• Three components:

  • Competence → Reflects human need to master challenges and perfect skills, exploratory growth-inducing behaviour

  • Autonomy → Self-determination, people want to experience their actions as a result of free choice without outside interference

  • Relatedness → The want to form meaningful bonds with others

  • They all influence each other and happen all at once.

• If your family supports (relatedness) who you are as a person (autonomy), than you are likely to have a better relationship with your family (competence)

• This theory fits better with human behaviour than hierarchy of need

Hunger as a Motive

• Hunger is a basic biological drive

• Drive Theory → Biology provides a “push”

• Incentive Theory → Anticipation and expectation of flavour provide a “pull”

SIGNALS THAT START A MEAL

• Hunger “pangs” (muscular contractions) correlate with feelings of hunger but is not the cause

• We experience hunger and fullness even if nerves from stomach to brain are severed

• Pattern of increase and decrease in blood glucose levels

  • Decline in blood glucose levels over time

  • Liver converts stored nutrients into glucose

  • Causes blood glucose levels to rise

  • This cycle generates feelings of hunger

• Ghrelin → Peptide that signals hunger and is secreted by stomach and small intestine

SIGNALS THAT END A MEAL

• Leptin → Hormone secreted by fat cells

  • More fat cells = more leptin

  • Signals brain to decrease appetite and increase energy expenditure

  • Genetically obese mice do not use Leptin

    • Obese because there’s no signal to decrease appetite and energy expenditure

    • Leptin injections help

PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS

• Eating is positively reinforced by good tastes

• Eating is negatively reinforced by hunger reduction

• Expectations that eating will be pleasurable and will reduce hunger, stimulate eating

• Beliefs, memories, and attitudes about food can also direct eating

• Pressures for thinness

  • Cultural standards of beauty

  • Overestimation of thinness for attractiveness

  • Throughout much of Western history a full-bodied woman’s figure was esteemed

  • Leads to eating restrictions and disorders

  • Women overestimate how thin they need to be, men overestimate how bulky they need to be → People negatively view themselves which lead to a. negative view of food which can be dangerous

• Objectification Theory → Viewing body as object

  • Western society teaches this mostly regarding women, increases body shame and anxiety

OBESITY

• Genetic Influences

  • Genes influence basal metabolism

  • Tendency to store energy as fat or lean tissue is genetic

  • 40-70% of body mass is related to genetics

  • Genes haven’t changed and haven’t caused the increase of obesity

• Environmental Influences

  • Inexpensive, tasty foods high in fat and/or carbohydrates

  • “Supersizing” due to cultural value of getting best value

  • Decreased daily activity due to technological advances

Sexual Motivation

• Another kind of motivation that is studied

• Why do people have sex? (Motivations)

  • Reproduction

  • Pleasure (obtain and give)

  • Express love and intimacy

  • Duty

  • Conforming to peer pressure

• Culture and environment affect the way sex and sexuality is viewed

PORNOGRAPHY

• Pornography, sexual violence and attitudes

  • Statistics Canada has reported that 39% of adult Canadian women have had at least one experience of some form of sexual assault

    • Only 18% of perpetrators are strangers

    • Authority figures is only 6% but is theorized to be very underreported

• Theories (aren’t supported by research)

  • Social Learning Theory predictions:

    • Learning through observation → coercion and dominance are acceptable, viewers should become sexually aggressive

  • Catharsis Theory predictions:

    • Freudian concepts of inborn aggression

    • Viewing pornography provides ‘safe’ outlet

  • Pornography doesn’t have a causal relationship to aggression

SEXUAL ORIENTATION

• Sexual Orientation → Emotional and erotic preference for partners of particular sex

• Uni-dimensional View → ‘Exclusively Heterosexual’ to ‘Exclusively Homosexual’

  • Not accurate because there are so many more sexual orientations

• Current view → Three dimensions

  • Self-identity

  • Sexual attraction

  • Actual sexual behaviour

• More men and women report same-sex activity than view themselves as homosexual or bisexual

  • Some people view themselves as heterosexual even though they experience same-sex attraction and have had sex with the same-sex → Things don’t always have to match up

• Determinants:

  • Early theories (no longer valid)

    • Differences in sex hormones

    • Ineffectual father, domineering mother

    • Seduction by adult homosexual

  • Current theories

    • Hereditary predisposition (doesn’t make sense biologically)

    • Other causal factors— biological, psychological, and environmental— are still debated

    • Lady Gaga’s theory → You’re born that way

    • We don’t understand why

  • Evidence for genetics:

    • Concordance rates higher among MZ than DZ twins or adoptive brothers

    • Alternating exposure to prenatal hormones can influence sexual orientation

    • Limitation → Findings are correlational (not causal)

  • Other factors: Personality style and socialization, may be multiple paths that differ

Achievement Motivation

• Need for achievement → Desire for accomplishment and excellence, stable personality characteristic, individual differences

• People are motivated to succeed because of → Motive for success, fear of failure

ACHIEVEMENT GOAL THEORY

• Focuses on the manner in which success is defined both by the individual and within the achievement situation itself

  • Achievement is available to everyone, but motivation and value of achievement is subjective

• Mastery Orientation → being the best

  • Intrinsic motivation

  • Desire to master tasks, learn knowledge, and obtain skills

• Performance orientation → being seen as the best

  • Desire to be judged favourably compared to others with as little effort as possible

  • External motivation

• People with a high fear of failure

  • Have Performance-Approach goals → Desire to be judged favourably compared to others

  • Have Performance-Avoidance goals → Desire to avoid negative judgements, over-prepare/overthink to the point where it impairs performance

• People may have either an approach or avoidance focus to master and performance goals

  • Approach

    • Mastery → Master the task, learn, understand, improve

    • Performance → Win, be the best, be noticed

  • Avoidance

    • Avoid mistakes, misunderstanding, poor quality

    • Avoid losing looking bad, being last

• High-need achievers → Need to be the best, never feel like the reach the top

  • Ambitious

  • Persist longer at difficult task, they won’t give up

  • Perform best when conditions are challenging, if things are too easy they don’t get motivated (anyone can do it, there’s no point)

• Some people will strive harder for success when they perceive:

  • That they are responsible for the outcome

  • There is a risk of not succeeding

  • There will be potential feedback

  • The situation has an intermediate chance of success, rather than a very high/low chance of success

MOTIVATIONAL CONFLICT

• Approach-approach Conflict

  • “I want this AND I want that!”

  • Conflict where you have to decide between two desirable of attractive goals, as one goal is approached, desirability increases and dominates

• Avoidance-avoidance Conflict

  • “I don’t want this AND I don’t want that”

  • Two goals, both of which are negative eg. wash the dishes or clean the yard

• Approach-avoidance Conflict

  • “I want this BUT I don’t want what this entails” eg. I don’t want to clean the litter-box, but I want a cat

  • Being repelled and attracted by the same goal

  • Most difficult to resolve!

• Delay Discounting

  • Consequences are in the future

  • Have decrease in value of incentive

  • Further away in time = greater decrease in value

  • People will choose what has consequences in the future

Emotions

• Mental states or feelings associated with our evaluation of our experiences

  • Positive or negative feelings (affect) states

  • Pattern of cognitive, physiological, and behavioural reactions

• Link between motivation and emotion

  • React when goals are gratified, threatened, or frustrated

  • Strong reaction to important goals

• Emotions direct attention

  • Negative emotions → Narrow attention, increase physiological activation

  • Positive emotions → Broaden thinking, exploration, and skill learning

• Social communication

  • Information about internal state

  • Influence others’ behaviour towards us

• Emotions are responses to eliciting stimuli

  • Emotions result from cognitive appraisal of the stimuli

  • Bodies respond physiologically to stimuli

  • Emotions include behavioural tendencies, including expressive behaviours and instrumental behaviours

• Eliciting Stimuli → A stimuli that precedes a certain behaviour and causes a response

  • Can be internal (thought, physical condition) or external (reward, punishment, event)

  • Influence of innate biological factor (come naturally)

    • Newborn infants can respond emotionally

    • Adults primed to respond to evolutionary significant stimuli

  • Learning → Previous experiences can affect current emotional experience, eg. negative experience → phobias

• Cognitive Appraisal → Subjective interpretation/evaluation of eliciting stimuli

  • Involved in all aspects

  • Allows for interpretation and evaluation of sensory stimuli

    • Influences expressions and actions

    • Different reactions to same event

  • Is there an effect of culture on how we analyze these external and internal eliciting stimuli and how we respond to them?

    • Cultural similarities in appraisals for basic emotions

    • Cultural differences in appraisals of other emotions

PHYSIOLOGICAL RESPONSES

• Physiological Responses → Interactions between cortical and subcortical structures

• Hypothalamus, amygdala, hippocampus

  • Destruction or stimulation of these areas can produce aggression

• Cerebral cortex → Prefrontal cortex = ability to regulate emotion

• Sensory input → Thalamus → Cerebral cortex then Amygdala or to Amygdala first

• Dual Pathway of Emotion

  • Thalamus sends sensory input along two independent neural pathways:

    • One directly to amygdala → Emotional & behavioural reaction

    • One to cerebral cortex → Conscious interpretation

• Amygdala → can process input before interpretation by cortex

  • Removal of visual cortex in rats did not impair classically conditioned fear response → Meaning you don’t need to see stuff to be scared of it because of the amygdala

  • People with hippocampal damage (unable to learn a connection between CS and UCS) still acquire a fear response → even though they don’t go through classical conditioning, which is the typical way people acquire fear, because sometimes things bypass the cortex, which is where CC happen, instead it just happens in the amygdala

• Hemispheric Activation

  • Some evidence for left hemisphere being more active with positive emotions

  • Some evidence for right hemisphere being more active with negative emotions

• Autonomic Responses

  • The idea behind polygraphs, shows the responses of autonomic nervous system

EXPRESSIVE BEHAVIOURS

• Observable displays of emotions → Facial expressions

  • Allows us to infer the emotions of others

  • Expressive behaviours that we can read and react accordingly to

  • Predate language → probably a product of evolution, recognize how someone else is feeling helps increase survival

  • Can be used to evoke sympathy

• Fundamental Emotional Patterns

  • Expression of certain emotions - similar across variety of cultures

  • Children blind from birth can express basic emotions as sighted children do, eg. smiling when happy, crying when sad

  • Evolutionary view

    • Certain emotions are innate

    • Emotions can be modified by learning

• Hierarchy of Emotions

  • Universal → Positive and negative affect, first to appear

  • Basic → Appear later, learned early on and developed from universal emotions

  • Subtle → Learn as we age, highly influenced by culture, derived from basic emotions

• Facial Expressions

  • Judging emotion is best with context

  • General agreement across cultures

  • Woman generally more accurate

  • Introverts more accurate → they observe more

  • Emotions are universal, expressions are subjective

• Effect of culture

  • Cultural display rules

    • Dictate when and how particular emotions are to be expressed

    • Innate biological factors and culture shape emotional expression

• Instrumental behaviours

  • Behaviours to achieve a specific goal

  • Our emotions function as a call to action for these behaviours okay they help to optimize the arousal

    • Help enforce and enhance performance for simple tasks

    • Interfere with complex tasks eg. too excited to focus on the details need for higher performance

    • Task complexity increases → Arousal for maximum performance decreases

• In the Brain

  • Prefrontal asymmetry in activation

    • Greater left prefrontal activity with positive affect

    • Greater right prefrontal activity with negative affect, lower immune system → Immune system decreases with negative emotions (longer periods of sadness, anger, depression)

THEORIES OF EMOTION

• Evolutionary Theories of Emotion → Assume that emotions precede thought; these theories posit that emotions are innate, universal, and serve adaptive functions.

• Discrete Emotions Theory → Assumes that humans experience only a small number of biologically-rooted and evolutionarily-useful “primary” emotions that are combined in complex ways to produce the full range of human emotion; assumes that emotional reactions precede thoughts.

  • Primary Emotions → Innate, biologically-rooted, universal emotions: Happiness, Sadness, Surprise, Anger, Disgust, Fear

  • Evolutionary basis of emotion

  • Cultural basis of emotion

  • Two types of emotion that play into how we express them

  • Humans experience a small number of distinct emotions, even if they combine in complex ways → Complex emotions

    • Newborn infants smile during REM sleep (innate)

    • Adaptive significance of motor reactions to emotions such as disgust, fear, anger, eg. Fear: Open our eyes wide to get a lot of information in

  • People recognize and can generate the same facial and emotional expressions across culture

• Cognitive Theories of Emotion → Assume that thoughts produce emotions; these theories posit that emotions arise out of the interpretation of bodily arousal or the external context.

  • Emotions are products of thinking rather than the other way around

  • No discrete emotions (as many emotions as there are kinds of thoughts)

  • James-Lange Theory → Emotions result from our interpretations of our bodily reactions to stimuli

  • Cannon-Bard Theory → An emotion-provoking event leads simultaneously to an emotional and bodily reaction

  • Somatic Marker Theory → We use our “gut reactions” to gauge how we should act

  • Two-Factor Theory → Emotions are produced by an undifferentiated arousal (alertness, physiological), with an attribution of that arousal (label)

• Unconscious Influences on Emotion

  • Automatic generation and facial feedback

  • Many emotional reactions may be generated automatically

    • Subliminal exposure to positive or negative cues influence mood

    • Mere exposure effect and liking more familiar stimuli

  • Facial Feedback Hypothesis → You are more likely to feel emotions that correspond to your facial features

    • Muscular feedback to the brain plays a key role in emotional experience

  • Has supporting research, but could be due to classical conditioning