Chapter 10: Motivation and Emotion

MOTIVATION AND EMOTION

  • Emotions can change rapidly, especially in response to unexpected events.
    • Example: Instant emotional reactions to the April 15, 2013 Boston Marathon bombing include surprise, fear, anger, and sadness.
  • Questions to consider:
    • What are emotions?
    • What causes them?
    • Why did some bystanders help during the incident while others fled for safety?

MOTIVATION

INTRINSIC VS EXTRINSIC MOTIVATION

  • Intrinsic Motivation:
    • Arises from internal factors.
    • Behaviors performed for personal satisfaction.
  • Extrinsic Motivation:
    • Arises from external factors.
    • Behaviors performed to receive a reward from others.
  • Definition of Motivation: The wants or needs that direct behavior toward a goal.

OVERJUSTIFICATION EFFECT

  • Defined as the decrease in intrinsic motivation when extrinsic rewards are given.
    • Research indicates that engaging in activities we love (e.g., icing cakes) can lead to a shift in motivation if it becomes a job with extrinsic rewards (like being paid).
  • Effects of Reinforcement on Motivation:
    1. Type of reinforcement matters:
    • Tangible rewards often decrease intrinsic motivation.
    • Intangible rewards (like praise) can enhance motivation.
    1. Expectation of extrinsic rewards:
    • Intrinsic motivation is likely to decrease if an extrinsic reward is expected.

INSTINCT THEORY OF MOTIVATION

  • Proposed by William James, this theory asserts that behavior is driven by instincts aiding survival.
    • Examples of proposed instincts:
    • A mother’s protection of her child.
    • The urge to lick sugar.
    • The instinct to hunt prey.
  • Critiques: This theory has been criticized for disregarding the role of learning in human behavior.
  • In humans, instincts can manifest in behaviors like an infant’s rooting and sucking reflexes.

DRIVE THEORY OF MOTIVATION

  • Proposes that the maintenance of homeostasis is crucial for directing behavior.
    • Deviations from homeostasis create physiological needs, leading to psychological drive states to correct the imbalance.
  • Emphasizes habits (patterns of behavior) in behavioral responses.
    • Successful behaviors that reduce drives are more likely to be repeated.
  • Example: Hunger leading to eating supported by complex physiological processes maintaining homeostasis.

AROUSAL THEORY OF MOTIVATION

  • Suggests that there is an optimal level of arousal for performance.
    • Performance peaks at moderate arousal levels, while both underarousal (leading to boredom) and overarousal (leading to engagement in behaviors to reduce arousal) can impair performance.
  • Yerkes-Dodson Law (1908):
    • States that optimal arousal levels are task-dependent:
    • Difficult tasks are performed better at lower arousal levels.
    • Simple tasks are performed better at higher arousal levels.

SELF-EFFICACY & SOCIAL MOTIVATION

  • Self-Efficacy:
    • Defined as an individual's belief in their own capabilities to complete a task.
    • Albert Bandura theorized that self-efficacy influences motivation by shaping expectations about behavioral consequences.
  • Social Motives:
    • Need for achievement: drives accomplishment and performance.
    • Need for affiliation: encourages positive social interaction.
    • Need for intimacy: causes the pursuit of deep, meaningful relationships.

MASLOW’S HIERARCHY OF NEEDS

  • Proposed by Abraham Maslow in 1943 as a motivation theory encompassing biological, individual, and social needs.
    • Emphasizes that lower-level needs must be satisfied before dealing with higher-level needs.
    • Example: A person lacking food, water, and shelter is unlikely to prioritize relationships or societal opinions.

HUNGER & EATING

PHYSIOLOGICAL MECHANISMS

  • Hunger and eating are regulated by a complex interplay of signals that convey hunger and satiety within the brain.
Before Eating
  1. Empty Stomach:
    • Contracts, causing hunger pangs, and releases chemical messengers to signal the brain to initiate eating behavior.
  2. Low Blood Glucose Levels:
    • Pancreas and liver generate signals indicating hunger to initiate feeding.
After Eating
  • Satiation: The feeling of fullness prompting the cessation of eating behavior.
  1. Increases in blood glucose cause the pancreas and liver to signal an end to hunger.
  2. As food processes through the gastrointestinal tract, satiety signals are communicated to the brain.
  3. Fat cells release leptin, known as the satiety hormone.

METABOLISM & BODY WEIGHT

  • Factors Affecting Body Weight:
    • Gene-environment interactions.
    • Daily caloric intake vs. calories burned.
    • Metabolic Rate: The energy expended over time, varies by individual.
    • Individuals with higher metabolic rates burn calories more readily than those with lower rates.
  • Set-Point Theory:
    • Suggests that each individual has an ideal body weight set point, resistant to change.
    • This set point is genetically determined.
    • Weight deviation efforts face resistance due to compensatory energy intake/expenditure changes.
    • Observationally, people’s weights fluctuate within narrow margins.
    • This theory neglects the impact of social and environmental factors.

OBESITY

  • Classification:
    • 25 - 29.9 = Overweight
    • Over 30 = Obese
    • Over 40 = Morbidly Obese
  • Statistics indicate that approximately 2/3 of U.S. adults face weight-related issues.
  • BMI Calculation:
    • Adults can determine their BMI using a graph where height corresponds to the y-axis and weight to the x-axis.
  • Environmental Factors:
    • In addition to genetics and energy balance, influences include:
    • Socioeconomic status impacting access to healthy foods.
    • Comfort level for physical activity affected by local safety conditions.

WEIGHT REDUCTION

  • Recommended combining diet with exercise for effective weight management.
  • Bariatric Surgery:
    • Example: Gastric banding reduces stomach size for digestion.
  • Health Risks Associated with Obesity:
    • Includes conditions such as cardiovascular disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, liver disease, sleep apnea, colon cancer, breast cancer, infertility, and arthritis.

EATING DISORDERS

BULIMIA NERVOSA

  • Characterized by binge eating followed by compensatory behaviors:
    • Compensation methods include vomiting, laxatives, or excessive exercise.
  • Health Consequences:
    • Can lead to kidney failure, heart failure, and tooth decay.
  • Psychological Problems:
    • Often associated with depression, anxiety, and substance abuse risk.

ANOREXIA NERVOSA

  • Involves maintaining body weight below average through starvation and/or excessive exercise.
  • Accompanied by a distorted body image where individuals perceive themselves as overweight.
  • Health Consequences:
    • Potential outcomes include bone loss, heart failure, kidney failure, amenorrhea, and in extreme cases, death.
  • Psychological Problems:
    • Commonly linked with anxiety disorders, mood disorders, and substance abuse.

CONTRIBUTING FACTORS TO EATING DISORDERS

  • Young women exposed to images of thin models are at increased risk, especially Caucasian females ages 15-19 in Western societies.
  • Factors include:
    • Media messaging promoting a thin ideal.
    • Genetic predisposition.
    • Low self-esteem and mental illnesses.
    • Life transitions and stressful experiences (e.g., abuse, bullying).
    • Personality traits such as perfectionism.
    • Family dynamics.

EMOTION

EMOTION VS MOOD

  • Mood:
    • A prolonged, less intense affective state that does not necessarily result from a specific experience; often unconscious and unintentional.
  • Emotion:
    • A subjective state with intensity that occurs in response to experiences; consciously experienced and intentional.
  • Components of Emotion:
    • Physiological arousal, psychological appraisal, and subjective experiences informed by personal history and culture.

THEORIES OF EMOTION

JAMES-LANGE THEORY
  • Proposes that emotions arise from physiological arousal:
    • For example, encountering a snake increases heart rate and respiration, resulting in fear.
CANNON-BARD THEORY
  • Argues that physiological arousal and emotional experience occur simultaneously but independently:
    • Seeing a snake triggers heart rate increase and the feeling of fear at the same time.
  • Empirical Findings:
    • Individuals with spinal cord injuries reporting less intense emotions indicate that physiological feedback may not be required for emotion but can enhance its intensity.
    • Suppressing facial expressions of emotion diminishes emotional intensity.
SCHACHTER-SINGER TWO-FACTOR THEORY
  • Suggests emotions consist of physiological and cognitive components:
    • A physiological response (e.g., heart racing) is interpreted contextually to yield an emotional experience (e.g., fear).
  • Assumes physiological responses are similar across emotions, making cognitive assessment crucial.
    • E.g., increased physiological signs could indicate either fear or nervousness.
LAZARUS’ COGNITIVE-MEDIATIONAL THEORY
  • Proposes that emotions are determined by the appraisal of stimuli:
    • Appraisal occurs prior to the emotional label, is immediate, and largely unconscious.

THE BIOLOGY OF EMOTIONS

LIMBIC SYSTEM
  • Key area mediating emotional responses and memories:
    • Hypothalamus: Activates the sympathetic nervous system regarding emotional reactions.
    • Thalamus: Serves as a sensory relay center, connecting to the amygdala for emotional processing.
    • Amygdala: Central to processing emotional information and linking it to cognitive functions.
    • Hippocampus: Integrates emotional experiences with cognitive processes.
AMYGDALA
  • A focal point for research concerning fear and anxiety:
    • Basolateral Complex: Dense connections with sensory brain areas, crucial for classical conditioning and emotional memory.
    • Central Nucleus: Manages attention and connects with the hypothalamus to regulate autonomic and endocrine responses.

FACIAL EXPRESSION AND RECOGNITION OF EMOTIONS

  • Cultural Display Rules:
    • Standards dictating acceptable emotional expressions vary across cultures:
    • In the U.S., individuals express negative emotions both in solitude and communal settings.
    • In Japan, these emotions are reserved for private settings.
  • Universal recognition of facial expressions, despite cultural variations.
SEVEN UNIVERSAL FACIAL EXPRESSIONS OF EMOTION
  1. Happiness
  2. Surprise
  3. Sadness
  4. Fright
  5. Disgust
  6. Contempt
  7. Anger

FACIAL FEEDBACK HYPOTHESIS

  • Proposes that facial expressions can influence emotions,
    • Example: Research shows that depressed individuals display reduced depression levels after receiving Botox injections that paralysed frowning muscles.
  • Flow of Emotion: Emotional stimulus leads to facial expression, resulting in physiological arousal and subsequent emotional experience.