Untitled Flashcards Set

EMOTION AND MOTIVATION, PART 1

Intelligence wrap up

intelligence might predict... 

• Academic success 

• Economic success

 • Occupational success 

• Some older data suggest that wages are directly proportional to intelligence scores…

Does intelligence equal wealth?

In a recent U.S. sample, each additional point in IQ is equal to roughly $202 in additional wages each year, but this effect is not statistically significant 

 • Instead, education appears to matter more

Where does intelligence come from?

Genetics 

• IQ scores are more similar between identical than between fraternal twins 

• IQ scores of adopted children are more similar to their biological parents’ than to their adoptive parents’ scores

Protective Factors: IQ scores are positively correlated with factors such as high parental involvement, stimulating physical environments, and positive family dynamics.

Risk Factors: IQ scores are negatively correlated with risk factors like low socioeconomic status (SES), low maternal education, and unstable family environments.

Education and IQ:

• Schooling: Education has a positive impact on children’s intelligence.

• Seasonal Differences: IQ scores tend to be higher during the school year than in the summer, particularly for some children.

IQ Tests Limitation: IQ tests may underestimate intelligence in certain domains.

Multiple Intelligences: Howard Gardner proposed that people possess 8 types of intelligence, each necessary for functioning and survival.

Self-Report & Observation: Gardner’s theory is based on self-report measures and behavioral observation, not just traditional aptitude tests.

Gardner proposed that humans have multiple intelligences based on self-report measures and behavioural observation 

1. Linguistic Intelligence: Ability to use language effectively for communication, storytelling, and writing.

2. Logical-Mathematical Intelligence: Capacity for problem-solving, logic, and understanding numerical patterns.

3. Spatial Intelligence: Ability to think in three-dimensional terms, including visualization and mental manipulation of objects.

4. Musical Intelligence

5. Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence

6. Interpersonal Intelligence

7. Intrapersonal Intelligence

8. Naturalistic Intelligence

• Damage to a specific brain area may impact only one type of intelligence and not others

•  Emotional intelligence is not tested by traditional IQ tests

Individuals with high emotional intelligence (EI) show less brain activation when solving emotional problems.

EMOTION AND MOTIVATION PART 2

What is emotion? - A positive or negative experience in response to a stimulus and associated with a particular pattern of physiological activity

Two-dimensional:

• Valence: Whether the emotion is positive or negative.

• Psychological arousal: The level of intensity or severity of the emotion

Two major neural structures related to emotion 

• The amygdala - The amygdala is a relatively primitive part of the limbic system that quickly processes biologically relevant information

• The prefrontal cortex - The prefrontal cortex is a relatively advanced part of the brain that slowly processes information rationally

Thalamus - detects movement in the environment 

Facial Expressions

Charles Darwin (of evolutionary fame) proposed that facial expressions are evolved and therefore may be somewhat universal in the human population 

The universality hypothesis - He believed that facial gestures were evolved in order to aid in survival

Support for the Universality Hypothesis:

• Visual impairments: Individuals who have never seen facial expressions (e.g., blind individuals) smile in similar ways to those who can see.

• Infants: 2-day-old infants show disgusted facial expressions similar to adults.

• Isolated cultures: People from isolated cultures evaluate facial expressions in a similar manner as those from non-isolated cultures.

Arguments Against the Universality Hypothesis:

• Cultural differences: Eye expressions may be used differently across cultures.

• Confirmation bias: Many studies supporting the hypothesis may have suffered from bias, meaning they sought evidence that confirmed their existing beliefs.

Facial Feedback Hypothesis: 

• Emotional facial expressions can cause or change an individual's emotional experience.

• Essentially, the act of making a facial expression (like smiling or frowning) can influence the emotional state a person feels.

Emotional Regulation:

• Instinctive & learned strategies.

• First 6 months:

  • Regulation mainly comes from parents.

  • Some basic gaze aversion (looking away to avoid distress).

• After 6 months:

  • Increased self-regulation emerges:

    • Self-soothing (calming oneself).

    • More gaze aversion.

    • Locomotion (moving away from negative stimuli).

Emotion regulation in adulthood? 

• Distraction 

• Suppression

• Affect labelling 

• Re-appraisal - changing the way one thinks about the emotion-inducing stimulus

next three classes will be tested on the midterm

PERSONALITY PART 1

Motivation - The psychological reason for producing an action

• Primarily driven by emotion

Ancient Philosophers:

• Plato and Aristotle believed human motivation is centered on the hedonic principle.

Hedonic principle - our primary motivator for everything we do is ultimately pleasure

• All motivation stems from the attraction to pleasure and the avoidance of pain.

The hedonic principle explains human motivation at a basic level

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

– must satisfy the lowest level of the hierarchy first before others so physiological needs would be at the bottom

1. Physiological Needs:

• Basic needs for survival: food, water, shelter, sleep, and air.

2. Safety Needs:

• Security, stability, protection from harm, and safety in one's environment.

3. Love and Belonging Needs:

• Social needs for relationships, love, friendship, family, and community.

4. Esteem Needs:

• Need for self-esteem, respect, recognition, and a sense of accomplishment.

5. Self-Actualization:

• Realizing personal potential, growth, creativity, and achieving one’s fullest potential.

Biological Needs

Drives and Incentives:

• Drives: Basic biological needs such as hunger and reproduction that motivate behavior.

  • Example: Hunger is a drive, the need for food motivates eating.

• Incentives: External stimuli that pull us toward satisfying a drive.

  • Example: Food is an incentive, which satisfies the drive for hunger.

Other human motivations

Approach and Avoidance

• Approach: Involves positive, desirable outcomes.

• Avoidance: Involves negative, undesirable outcomes. To not experience a negative outcome. 

Intrinsic vs Extrinsic 

• Intrinsic: doing something for yourself

• Extrinsic: doing something for a separate reward - often social or monetary 

Unconscious vs conscious

PERSONALITY PART 2

Personality is an individual’s characteristic style of:

– Behaviour – Thought  – Feeling 

• The study of personality is the study of both individuals (idiographic approach) 

• common trends in the population (nomothetic approach)

Personality

The study of personality has two main components:

1. Measuring personality

   • What are the characteristics of an individual’s personality?
     Methods to measure personality include:

     • Personality inventories: Standardized questionnaires (e.g., MBTI, Big Five Inventory).

     • Projective techniques: Ambiguous stimuli used to reveal personality traits (e.g., Rorschach test, TAT).

2. Explaining personality

   • Why does an individual have their personality?
     This looks at factors like genetics and life experiences that shape personality.

   • How does personality affect behaviour?
     Focuses on how personality influences actions and responses in different situations.

   • Personality theories: Frameworks explaining personality development, such as Freud’s psychoanalytic theory or humanistic theories by Rogers and Maslow.

Personality Inventories

• Personality inventories (or tests/scales) are one of the simplest ways to assess personality.

• These inventories rely on self-report:

  • Subjective answers about one’s own behaviours, thoughts, and feelings.

  • Typically administered through an interview or written questionnaire.

• There are thousands of personality inventories available online.

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) is a widely reliable, clinically valid personality test 

■ True/false/can’t answer questions

 – Why? 

■ A lot of questions 

– Many versions of the same question

Ex. – I wish I could be as happy as others seem to be

Personality Theories

A number of theories have emerged to help us with this task. 

These include: 

– Trait approach (Big Five) 

– Social-cognitive approach 

– Psychodynamic approach 

– Humanist approach

The list of traits is practically infinite, so researchers use factor analysis to reduce it to the lowest possible set of traits:

1. Individuals rate themselves on hundreds of traits.

2. Highly correlated traits are combined into factors.

3. Traits with no correlation are considered separate factors.

Researchers use factor analysis to reduce the list of traits to the lowest possible set by identifying core traits that are highly correlated.

The big five (trait approach) 

Today, most researchers agree on a five-factor model of personality.

• These Big Five personality traits are not correlated with each other.

Big Five personality traits:

1. Openness: Willingness to experience new things, curiosity, creativity, and open-mindedness.

2. Conscientiousness: Degree of self-discipline, organization, dependability, and goal-oriented behavior.

3. Extraversion: Energy, sociability, enthusiasm, and assertiveness.

4. Agreeableness: Compassion, trust, cooperativeness, and kindness towards others.

5. Neuroticism: Tendency to experience negative emotions such as anxiety, depression, and irritability.

Trait approach

Personality traits are relatively stable, and this stability increases across the lifespan.

• What does it mean for stability to increase across the lifespan?

  • Rank-order stability: Our rank-order in personality traits stays mostly the same over time.

  • This is especially true as we get older.

• There can be intraindividual change: Significant changes in a person’s personality over time.

• This is rare and typically occurs after life-changing experiences, such as trauma.

Where do traits come from? (Biological explanation)

• Genetics is the largest single factor in personality.

• The Big Five traits have a heritability factor between 0.35 and 0.49:

  • 0.00: Genetics plays no role in a trait.

  • 1.00: Genetics is completely responsible for a trait (e.g., eye color).

• A heritability factor between 0.35 and 0.49 is considered high.

• However, about 50% of variability in personality is still influenced by life experiences.

Temperament is an infant’s characteristic:

• Activity level

• Mood

• Attention span

• Distractibility

• Infants’ temperaments are predictive of their adult personalities!

PERSONALITY PART 3

Sigmund freud is an austrian physician that practiced neurology, the study of the nervous system 

• Developed psychoanalysis based on patients dreams, fantasies

Psychodynamic theory - is the theory that extends from Freud's psychoanalytic approach

• Personality is formed by needs, strivings, and desires

Freud divided the dynamic unconscious into three parts:

• Id: Unconscious, animal desires.

• Ego: Helps us deal with life’s practical demands.

• Superego: Internalization of cultural and social rules.

• The dynamic unconscious develops during childhood through a series of psychosexual stages.

Freud believed that our personality is determined by interactions between parts of our unconscious.

Psycho-sexual stages

• Conflicts between the three parts (Id, Ego, Superego) cause anxiety.

• To resolve this anxiety, we may rely on defence mechanisms.

• Study definitions and examples of these mechanisms.

• Oral Stage (0-1 years):
  Focus on pleasure from the mouth (e.g., sucking, biting). Fixation may lead to issues like smoking or overeating.

• Anal Stage (1-3 years):
  Focus on control over bladder and bowel movements. Fixation may result in an overly organized (anal-retentive) or messy (anal-expulsive) personality.

• Phallic Stage (3-6 years):
  Focus on the genitals. Children develop feelings of desire for the opposite-sex parent (Oedipus/Electra complex). Fixation may lead to difficulties in relationships.

• Latency Stage (6-puberty):
  Sexual impulses are dormant. Focus shifts to peer relationships, learning, and developing skills.

• Genital Stage (puberty-adult):
  Sexual maturity is reached. Focus on mature, intimate relationships and sexual fulfillment.

Psycho-dynamic Approach

Within the psychodynamic approach, projective techniques are used to measure personality.

• These tests aim to reveal inner aspects of an individual’s personality by analyzing responses to ambiguous stimuli (e.g., pictures of people, objects, events, or abstract shapes).

• The two most famous projective techniques are:

  • Rorschach inkblot test ("roar-shack")

  • Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)

• These techniques are controversial due to subjective interpretation.

Rorschach inkblots

• A projective technique where respondents' inner thoughts and feelings are revealed by analyzing their responses to a set of unstructured inkblots.

Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)

• The TAT uses a similar technique to Rorschach.

• Patients are shown a card with an ambiguous scene and asked to make up a story about it.

  • Common themes emerge from many respondents.

  • Details in the story are thought to reveal aspects of the respondent’s personality.

• A clinician scores the results.

Projective Techniques
Problems with projective techniques:

• Results are difficult to interpret: Common results may come from individuals with specific psychopathologies, so a response might indicate a certain disorder.

• Interpretations are too subjective: Since the results require a clinician’s interpretation, the clinician may unintentionally project their own personality traits onto the patient’s responses.

Social-Cognitive Approach

• Emerges from a behaviorist approach: Behaviors with positive outcomes are reinforced.

• A person may display different personality traits in different situations, based on past experiences in those situations.

• According to this approach, personality is how a person deals with daily life situations:

  • How we construct situations in our minds.

  • How we respond to those situations.

Social-Cognitive Theorists argue that we base our behavior on personal constructs, which are mental frameworks we use to make sense of the world around us.

Outcome expectancies - are how we expect certain behaviors to bring us closer to or further from our goals.

Humanistic Approach

• The humanistic approach is radically different from the trait and psychodynamic approaches.

• Humanistic theories have a positive, optimistic view of human nature and believe that humans have free will.

The humanist approach argues that humans seek to realize their inner potential (self-actualization), which includes:

• Pursuit of knowledge

• Expression of creativity

• Spiritual enlightenment

• Desire to give back to society

Maslow (1943) proposed a needs hierarchy.

• Self-actualization is achieved only when all other needs are met.

• Humanists argue that personality differences arise from environmental constraints that prevent individuals from reaching their full potential.